Still she waited. And waited some more.
Until finally Sebastian gave her hand one last squeeze before letting go. "I can't tell you that." He turned and carefully placed the candlestick on a wheel hub of the tractor.
Lauren clenched her jaw and glanced at the rich soil at her feet. Slowly, she raised her head. "And I can't tell you how sorry I am to hear you say that." She moved to step away.
But he caught her by the hand and pulled her back. "I can't say that because I've already fallen in love with you, bella—with your strength, your intelligence, your wit, your beauty. And you're right—I was protecting myself. The thing of it is, I've been doing a lot of thinking about that."
He shook his head. "Guys and their mothers, right? I know it's a cliché, but in this case it really is true. You see, my mother didn't just walk out on my father and me, she walked into the arms of another man—the coach of the rival high school football team. It's silly I know, but at the time, to a lonely boy just beginning to fit in, it was the ultimate humiliation. And ever since, I made a point of not putting myself in a position to be betrayed—yet again. And the best way to do that was to cut myself off from caring for a woman, from wanting to get close." He breathed in deeply. "But with you, that was impossible."
Lauren swallowed. Hard. "So what are you saying? That we should work on seeing each other on weekends? See what grows from there?" She reached back into her bag again. "Which reminds me, my father gave me these tomato seeds from his garden for you to plant."
Sebastian pulled her close and circled his arms around her, resting his hands on the small of her back. "I'm saying that weekends aren't enough. Not for the tomatoes, not for us. Not nearly enough, not now and not in the future. Lauren—" he brought his lips close to hers and grinned mischievously "—I think we really need to follow the words of a wise man."
"What wise man?"
"You have to ask what wise man in matters of the heart?" he asked in mock horror. "Why Engelbert Humperdinck."
"And what words by the maestro were you thinking of in particular?" Lauren asked, knowing already but wanting to hear them out loud, anyway.
"That I want the last waltz with you."
She beamed. "And like the song goes, 'The last waltz lasts forever.'"
And for now, their kiss did, too.
* * *
Epilogue
« ^
Six months later, the following appeared in the Lifestyle section of the Philadelphia Sentinel:
Lauren Jeffries
Sebastian Alberti
Lauren Jeffries, the daughter of Alice and George Jeffries of Philadelphia, was married yesterday to Sebastian Alberti, the son of Giovanni Alberti of Hunstville, Ala. and Isabella Reed of Athens, Ala. The Rev. Clyde O'Phelan officiated at the Hanover, Pennsylvania farm of the bridegroom.
The bride, 27, formerly Metropolitan reporter for the Philadelphia Sentinel, is a staff reporter for the Washington Post. She is also under contract for a book on international organizations involved in locating stolen art. She graduated from Villanova. Her father owns Jeffries French Dry Cleaning in Philadelphia. Her mother works in the family business and is a wallpaper expert.
The bridegroom, 31, is an art theft investigator for the World Organization for Retrieving Stolen Art. A magna cum laude graduate of University of Alabama, he served in the Marines in Desert Storm, and later obtained a master's degree in art history from Yale. His father is an engineer for the NASA research facility in Huntsville. His mother is a homemaker and president of the Garden Club of Athens, Ala.
After a honeymoon in Italy, the couple plans to reside in Washington, D.C., and Hanover.
The bride and bridegroom wish to assure friends and family that this announcement is the genuine article and not a hoax.
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THE TRUTH ABOUT HARRY Page 17
