Valentine's Night

by Penny Jordan

  'A wedding?' Sorrel stared at him.

  'Of course. You've got to marry me now, you know,' he teased her smugly. 'After all, you've had your wicked way with me. Seduced me…'

  'I seduced you—' Sorrel began indignantly, but he bent his head and placed his lips to her ear, repeating some of the things she had said to him, making her face burn with embarrassed colour and her eyes widen in faint shock.

  'I didn't really say that, did I?' she gasped uncertainly.

  'That and more… much, much more,' Val assured her.

  'I thought it was just a dream.'

  'So you kept telling me.'

  'Oh, you… you knew I didn't think you were real!' she protested, pushing at his chest. 'And you let me…'

  'Let you? I couldn't stop you,' he told her virtuously, and then his eyes danced as he leaned over her and murmured softly, 'I don't suppose you could close your eyes and pretend to have another dream, could you?'

  'Another…' Sorrel glared at him indignantly, her face flushed. 'Oh!' She looked at him hesitantly, still not entirely convinced. 'You're not just saying all this because of Andrew… because you feel you've got to marry me… are you?'

  He had been laughing, but suddenly he sobered, cupping her face and looking down into her eyes. 'My darling girl, you're right about one thing. I have got to marry you, but not because we've made love, and certainly not because of anything to do with Andrew. I've got to marry you, because quite simply I can't live without you. Perhaps it's something in my genes, I don't know… but when you opened the kitchen door and I saw you standing there, I knew that my life would never be the same again. I knew that I'd met my destiny, following in the footsteps of my ancestor, come to claim the woman he loved.'

  A tiny shiver of sensation ran through her, a feeling of something so right that it almost seemed predestined.

  'Full circle,' she whispered under her breath. 'Life has turned full circle.' It was a magical, awesome moment charged with an emotion that made her eyes sting with tears as Val took her hand in his, linking their fingers tightly together.

  'I can't wait to marry you, Sorrel. To take you home with me.' Suddenly he looked hesitant, almost uncertain, the fierce pleasure dying from his eyes. 'Will you do that, Sorrel? Will you come back to Perth with me as my wife? It will mean leaving this… everything that's familiar to you.'

  Sorrel reached up and placed her fingers against his lips.

  'Not everything. You'll be there,' she told him quietly, and the way she said it made dark colour burn his skin as he reached for her, muttering her name as he took her in his arms.

  'I love you, Sorrel. Lord, how I love you,' he told her, the words muffled against her mouth as she whispered to him that she loved him, too.

  ^