She shook her head dumbly, feeling delight and wonder begin to bubble inside her.
"That night in that little Mayan village church. I looked at you standing there in front of the altar, and it was like a bolt of lightning striking me—and I knew."
She had felt something that night, too—but she had assumed it was only in her own mind. "Oh, Derek," she whispered in a choked voice as his arms came around her and she weeped as a bright happiness swept through her. "Why didn't you tell me before?"
He pulled her against him, fitting the lines of her body to his own. "I guess I was afraid it would scare you off if you realized how I really felt. Also, I've never said that to a woman before. Until I met you I had about reached the point where I no longer even believed in love. I thought it was just a word people used to excuse irrational behavior." He laughed shakily. "I've certainly behaved irrationally at times in the past few weeks."
"We both have," she sighed happily.
His fierce hold on her body eased as his mouth searched for and found hers, and Terri gave in to the clamoring emotions that could not be stayed as she wound her arms around his neck and responded with an urgency equal to his own.
"Terri," he said at length, "will you marry me and go to Guatemala as my wife?"
She stared at him in bewilderment, her emotions threatening to careen completely out of control. "Derek, are you sure… ?"
"I have never," he interrupted earnestly, "been more sure of anything in my life. If I can't have you now—as my wife, permanently—I don't know how I can ever find any meaning in my life again."
Terri's heart lifted with joy, curving the corners of her mouth and flooding her gray-blue eyes with tenderness. "Yes… oh, yes, my darling!"
Her heart constricted at the sudden fire flaming in his eyes. His mouth claimed hers again, warm and demanding against the answering surrender of her lips, his arms pressing her against the hardness of his body.
"I adore you, Terri," he murmured urgently against her lips. "I need you desperately, and I always shall. Don't ever run away from me again."
It occurred to her fleetingly, as she heard the deep yearning in his voice, that they were behaving with as much abandon as the Mexican couples around them in the park.
Then she answered him in the only way she knew, by cradling his face in her hands and sealing his lips with her own, promising, in a communication that went far deeper than words, all her love for the rest of her life.
Mexican Nights Page 17
