by Sandra Field
“I don’t want to cancel the wedding.”
“Years ago you sacrificed your happiness for your mother’s sake. Now you’re about to do it for Daniel’s. You mustn’t. I want you to come willingly into my heart and my life—I can’t force you.”
She pushed herself up on the pillows, wincing from the soreness in her arms. “You’re not listening to me.”
“Homemade soup, that’s what you need,” Jake said.
Her green eyes sparking fire, she said, “Will you please shut up? I’m trying to tell you I’ve come to my senses and all you can do is blather on about homemade soup!”
“I’m the one who’s come to his senses.”
Temper tinged her cheeks with color. “I love you, Jake Reilly, and if you’d just get that fact through your thick head, I’ll eat a whole saucepan of soup.”
“You don’t love me,” he said blankly.
“I do so.”
“You don’t look as though you love me. You look as though you’d like to drop me off the cliff.”
“It was while I was clinging to that damned cliff that I realized I’d been lying to myself for years. I’d killed any love I’d ever felt for you, that’s what I believed. It was dead. Kaput. Over and done with.” Her face suddenly anguished, she took his hand in hers, her nails digging into his skin. “But I was wrong. I never stopped loving you. How could I? You were my life. You still are. If you want to marry me on Monday, I’d really like that.”
Scarcely believing his ears, Jake looked down at their intertwined fingers. “You love me?” he repeated. “You’re sure?”
“There’s nothing like being suspended over hurricane-force waves with your face in the mud to make you realize what’s important,” she said vigorously. “Are you going to make me get down on my knees and beg you to marry me? I might be able to get down—but I’m not so sure I could get back up again.”
“Shaine, dearest Shaine, you’re more than I deserve and yes, I’ll marry you on Monday.” Very gently, he eased her up from the pillows and put his arms around her, the heat of her body seeping through the thin cotton of her gown. “I love you,” he said unsteadily. “Dear heart, I love you so much.”
“That’s good,” she said contentedly, and kissed him full on the mouth.
It was by no means the kiss of a woman who considered herself an invalid. Jake pulled free, his pulses racing. “Keep that up and there’ll be two of us in this bed. I’m going downstairs to heat the soup.”
“You’ve got a fixation about that soup,” she said with a mischievous gleam in her eyes. “Don’t lean on my right hip, it’s sore, and don’t grab me by the shoulders—they’re more than sore. But the rest of me, I assure you, is in fine working order.” Her features radiant, she said, “Make love to me, Jake—now that we’re going to be happily married. What a fool I was to believe I didn’t love you anymore…underneath it all, I was so frightened that you’d leave me again.”
“Never,” Jake vowed, and knew this was the moment of real commitment, more so than any marriage vows. “Body and soul, I’m yours, Shaine.”
“And I, yours,” she said.
He traced the delicate bones of her wrist, where her pulse was fluttering beneath his thumb, and felt happiness course through his own veins. “I don’t know how we’re going to get that very modest nightgown over your head without you raising your arms.”
“Ouch,” said Shaine. “Let’s do it fast.”
“There’s no hurry,” Jake said, the wonderment in his face filling her with joy. “We’ve got a whole lifetime together.”
“And Daniel won’t be back until tomorrow morning.” She glanced at him through her lashes, her cheeks tinged with pink. “Daniel has let it be known that he wouldn’t mind having a brother or a sister. So he could teach him—or her, I must have done something right—to play hockey.”
Jake chuckled. “And would you like that?”
“Yes,” she said. “You by my side loving me as I need to be loved, and a baby on the way…that would make me extraordinarily happy.”
“Then we’ll work on it,” he said, and very gently lifted the nightgown over her head. His own clothes were soon thrown to the floor. In her bed, his arms around her naked body, her eager mouth lifted to his, Jake knew he truly had come home.
To the boy who wanted him to be his father. And to the woman who had never stopped loving him.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-6725-5
SURRENDER TO MARRIAGE
First North American Publication 2005.
Copyright © 2004 by Sandra Field.
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