by Janice Lynn
“Forgive me, Ross. Forgive me for not telling you I was pregnant,” she sobbed, needing to tell him everything. “I wanted you to want me for me, not because I was pregnant.”
“I did want you.”
“I mean for ever, Ross.” She pulled back, stared at him and buried her pride. “Call me silly or old-fashioned or a hopeless romantic, but I wanted you to sweep me off my feet because you loved me and wanted to spend the rest of your life with me. What I didn’t want was for you to feel obligated to marry me because I was pregnant and the kid sister of your best friend.”
“I was an idiot, Brielle. I should have known that something was going on when you started acting so different.” He put his hands on her shoulders, gripped her tight. “I didn’t understand and rather than fight for you, for us, I panicked and ran.”
“You didn’t run. Boston was a great opportunity. You’d have been a fool to turn it down.”
“Leaving you made me a bigger fool.”
“No, you didn’t want the same things I did so you staying would have been worse.”
“Tell me, Brielle, when did you start wanting to get married? Before or after you found out you were pregnant?”
She thought back. “From the moment I first kissed you I knew I wanted to marry you.”
“But there wasn’t a rush until you found out you were pregnant, right?”
“I always figured we’d wait until you were finished with your residency program and were in practice. Honestly, I was so happy being with you I never put a time frame on when we’d take that next step.”
“Until nature forced you to put a time frame on it.”
“I was wrong to not tell you outright. I just...” Her voice trailed off.
“You just wanted me to do the right thing and give you your happily-ever-after. Only I didn’t have all the facts, Brielle. Not like you did, and I didn’t understand the sudden rush and the personality changes and you shutting me out when we’d always been so close and of the same mind.”
“I should have told you.”
He nodded. “Yes, you should have.” He took a deep breath. “But having spent several hours earlier this week talking to your brother, I can understand why you didn’t, why you wanted more from me.”
“You talked to Vann?”
“Yesterday, when my flight landed, I went straight to him. We had dinner, talked.”
“I always regretted that your friendship with him ended because of me.”
“I regretted that our friendship ended, but that wasn’t your fault, Brielle. It was mine, because I let it end without fighting to save it, just as I let my relationship with you end without fighting for it. I can only blame ignorance and youth and stupidity.”
“You’re not ignorant or stupid, Ross.”
“Letting our relationship go wasn’t wise, Brielle. Not when it meant losing the only woman I’ve ever loved.”
She swallowed, waited for him to say more, desperate to hear his next words.
“I did date, Brielle. I went through a lot of women, fast, out of sheer desperation. None of them could hold my attention. None of them were you.”
The thought of him with other women pained her, but she only bit her lip, keeping silent, knowing he had more to say.
“I met a woman, a doctor I worked with. Theoretically, she was ideal, the perfect mate, and I considered asking her to marry me.”
Brielle’s heart squeezed. There had been someone special in his life? Thinking of him with other women who were meaningless was one thing. Thinking of him with a woman he’d loved quite another.
“But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. You were on my mind more often than not and I kept wondering what you were doing, if you’d ever married, if there was any chance the sparks would still fly between us. I’d wake up from dreaming of you, reach over to hold you, and you wouldn’t be there. I’d convince myself that we’d had our chance and only a fool looked back.”
He gave a low laugh. “Then I went to this conference in Philadelphia, saw Vann, and instantly knew that I couldn’t move on to whatever my future was supposed to be until I saw you again.”
He’d thought of her? Dreamed of her? Possibly in the same moments she’d been thinking and dreaming of him?
“Quite casually Vann mentioned that the hospital where you worked was going to have a temporary opening in the emergency room when one of the doctors went on maternity leave. I jumped on it, knowing that just seeing you wasn’t going to be enough. The anticipation of seeing you again was eating me alive. You want to talk about silly, hopeless romantic?” He gave an ironic smirk. “When I saw you all I wanted was for you to drop everything and run across the ER, meet me halfway, and throw yourself into my arms.”
She swallowed the lump forming in her throat, couldn’t quite believe her ears. “You wanted that?”
“I wanted you. I’ve always wanted you. And before you launch into a tirade about sex, I don’t just mean physically, Brielle. I mean you. When I lost you five years ago, I lost a part of myself, and I want that part back.”
Her heartbeat thudded in her ears, making hearing difficult, making thinking difficult. “What are you saying?”
“That my heart is yours.”
“And you want it back?”
“Asking for it back isn’t really what I’m trying to say.” He paused, sighed. “When I said we should get married the other night, I wasn’t thinking of Justice, or even you.”
“What were you thinking of?”
“Me,” he answered simply. “I was thinking of me.”
“You?”
“I wanted you always, Brielle. I wanted you to be mine for all time. Not because of our son but because I don’t want to be without you ever again. I need you.” He put his hands on her cheeks, stared straight into her eyes. “I love you, Brielle Winton. I always have. I always will.”
* * *
Ross waited for Brielle to speak, for her to say anything in response to the outpouring of his heart. Her lips parted then she seemed to lose strength and leaned on him, resting against his chest.
“Oh, Ross.”
He held her, kissing the top of her head, wondering what “Oh, Ross” meant.
“You don’t have to marry me, you know. I’m yours anyway. I always have been.”
“I know I don’t have to marry you, Brielle. But you’re not listening to what I’m saying. I want to marry you.”
“You’re just saying that because of Justice, because we got so emotional over his disappearance. We can just date. You can live here. We don’t have to marry to be a family.”
He took her hand, squeezed it. “My wanting to marry you has nothing to do with the stunt our son pulled today. I asked Vann for your hand in marriage yesterday, Brielle.”
Her jaw dropped. “You what?”
“You heard me.”
“What did he say?”
Ross gave a low laugh. “That it was about time and good luck with convincing you to say yes.”
A slow quivery smile curved her lips.
“So, tell me, Brielle, how does a man go about convincing the woman he loves that he wants to spend the rest of his life with her, that he wants her last name to be his last name, that he wants her children to be his children, to have his last name?”
Eyes wide and shining brightly, she shrugged. “I imagine he should just ask her and see what she says.”
“I suppose if he were smart he’d get down on one knee and do it right, wouldn’t he?”
“Or he could just ask.”
Putting his hand in his scrub pocket and placing his fingers around the box there, he dropped to one knee and took Brielle’s hand.
“Ross, you don’t have to do this,” she whispered, her voice cracking with emotion. “I’ll ma
rry you.”
“Shh, haven’t you read any fairy-tales? You’re not supposed to answer until after I ask.”
She bit her lower lip, but was smiling all the same as he continued.
“Brielle Winton, will you do me the honor of being my wife and the mother of my children?”
“I could point out that in all the fairy-tales I’ve read the hero didn’t ask for the heroine to be the mother of his children five years after the fact.”
He gave an exaggerated sigh. “Obviously you’ve been reading the wrong fairy-tales.” He squeezed her hand. “Woman, you are killing me here with your logic when I’m doing my best to be romantic.” Grinning, he pulled the box from his pocket, opened the velvet lid, watched her eyes grow huge and fill with tears. “Answer me, Brielle. Marry me and spend the rest of your life letting me love you.”
“Yes.” She put her hands on his cheeks, stooped and kissed him, his lips, his cheeks, his lips again. “Oh, yes, Ross. I will marry you. I want to marry you. If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure.” His heart swelling so full that he half expected it to burst, he kissed her back. “I love you, Brielle.”
“I love you, too. So much. I always have, you know.”
“I know.” He did know. Deep down he’d always known they belonged together, even when he’d been too stubborn and foolish to admit how much he needed her. “And you always will, Brielle, because I will spend the rest of my life giving you a million reasons to keep on loving me.”
“Am I dreaming?” she asked several minutes later when they came up for air, their bodies sated, Brielle’s finger sporting a huge diamond that marked her as Ross’s woman for all time.
He shook his head. “Nope, this is reality. Our reality.”
“Funny,” she mused, snuggling closer to him. “It feels like a dream.”
“Like I told you earlier, you’ve been reading the wrong fairy-tales.”
“Hmm?”
“Never mind, I don’t want you reading fairy-tales,” he corrected himself, lacing his fingers with hers. “I want you living a fairy tale, one of our very own with the most amazing, passionate, love story ever.”
She rolled over, stared down into his eyes. “I like the sound of that.”
“Me, too.” He kissed her, then grinned up at her. “I also like the sound of knocking at the front door because that means Vann is here with our son.”
Brielle sat up, scrambled to quickly put her clothes back on, then paused to smile at him with love shining brightly in her eyes. “Let’s go and tell him a very special fairy-tale, Ross. One where everyone lives happily ever after.”
EPILOGUE
JUSTICE LEANED FORWARD and blew out the candles on his birthday cake. Six candles altogether, five for his current age and one to grow on.
Around him, his parents, his Uncle Vann and Samantha, and several of his preschool friends with their parents watched as all six candles flickered.
Had someone asked him what he wanted for his birthday a few months before, he’d have said a daddy, but he had one of those now.
A good one who made his mommy smile a lot. Justice liked that. He also liked all the presents that his daddy was always bringing home for both him and his mommy. Sometimes he didn’t understand their giggles, but adults were like that sometimes. Kind of weird and not always as smart as they should be.
After all, he’d been the one to have to go to bring his daddy home. Something his parents had scolded him severely for. How was he supposed to have known that his daddy had already come home and wouldn’t be leaving ever again?
Despite the fact that he’d been grounded from the computer—and it wasn’t as if he was going to arrange for a taxi pickup at his school again anyway—and hadn’t been allowed to play video games for a whole week, Justice didn’t mind since he now had his daddy and mommy all the time.
Only they were so busy looking all googly-eyed at each other and kissing each other that sometimes a kid just needed someone his own size to commiserate with.
He blew a bit harder, pushing every last bit of air out of his lungs, watching the last candle go out and made his wish.
He grinned, rubbed his hands together, and looked up at his parents, and couldn’t wait for his wish to come true.
Wonder if he’d have a brother or a sister?
He hoped for a brother, but a sister would be okay, too. Maybe.
“What did you wish for, son?” his daddy asked, his arm around his mom’s waist as it usually was.
Justice rolled his eyes at his parents. Didn’t they know anything? “I can’t tell you or it won’t come true, but that’s okay, because you will find out anyway when the stork shows up.”
“The stork?” Ross and Brielle asked at the same time, eyes wide, then looked at each other and smiled as his hand slid around to cup her belly.
Justice wrinkled his nose at the goofy way they were looking at each other and smiling.
His Uncle Vann and Samantha’s gazes went to his mom’s belly, their mouths dropping open as his mom just smiled and nodded.
Adults. They were so weird.
Justice dipped his finger in his cake, came up with a big dollop of icing, and stuck it in his mouth.
“Mmmmm,” he said, grinning as a camera flash went off, then another. “Is it time for presents yet?”
Because he really couldn’t wait to find out if storks made same day deliveries.
* * * * *
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ISBN: 9781460314265
Copyright © 2013 by Janice Lynn
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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