“Now go back to her and tell her what is in your heart.” He tapped his son’s chest with his index finger. “She will listen.”
His father was preaching to the choir, but because the man had gotten up such a large head of steam, Cruz let him say his piece. Then he played devil’s advocate. “She didn’t listen before.”
Ruben shook his head. “That’s because you didn’t tell her before.” He looked pointedly at Cruz. “Tell her now. Open up your heart to her and let her see for herself.”
It was a scary proposition, but his father was right. If he didn’t risk, he wouldn’t win. And he wanted to win.
Cruz didn’t even bother holding back the smile. “Maybe I will.”
Peering into Savannah’s room, the young nurse looked around. Seeing only Savannah, she seemed a little disappointed. “Did he come in?”
Savannah looked at the nurse blankly. “Did who come in?”
There had been a procession of visitors to see her this morning. Dallas had stayed for a little while, as had Vanessa, Claudia and Matthew, and Ryan along with Lily. Vanessa had insisted on paying all the hospital bills, using the excuse that Savannah worked for the Double Crown Ranch. Backed up by her father, Vanessa had refused to take no for an answer, so Savannah gave up trying, silently grateful and vowing to pay Vanessa back the first chance she had.
Savannah pushed aside the swivel table with her lunch tray. The doctor had told her early this morning that if everything continued as it had, he’d discharge her at three. Though she wasn’t really hungry, she knew she needed her strength. Besides, she had a feeling that the blustery physician was not above having her tray checked to see if she was eating. She was taking no chances; she wanted to get home. Get on with her life. She needed to put a few things in perspective.
The look on the young nurse’s face indicated that as far as she was concerned, there could be no mistaking who she was referring to.
“That good-looking cowboy.” A hint of a sigh escaped her lips as she adjusted the blood pressure cuff around Savannah’s arm and took a reading. “The other nurses told me he spent the night stretched out on a chair in the hallway.” Her eyes sparkled, and for a second she lost the thread of what she was doing. “Long, straight hair the color of midnight. Warm eyes like a puppy’s.” Aware that she’d drifted, she glanced at the numbers and noted them before deflating the cuff. “Someone tried to get him to go home and come back later, but he said he wasn’t leaving until he was sure you were all right.”
Finished, she returned the gray cuff to its place and took Savannah’s pulse—which jumped just as she touched it. A knowing smile slipped over the nurse’s lips.
Cruz. No one else fit that description, Savannah thought. So he had come to the hospital. But if he’d been here, why hadn’t he come into her room?
The nurse had to be mistaken. Cruz wouldn’t have spent the night in the hall. He didn’t care enough to put himself out like that.
Savannah shook her head. “No, he’s not in here. He hasn’t even been to see me.”
Incredulous, the nurse took out a thermometer attached to a gauge and slipped a plastic covering over it before inserting it under Savannah’s tongue. She kept her eyes on the gauge.
“Men, go figure ’em. I know I can’t.” She withdrew the thermometer and threw out the see-through covering before she wrote down the reading.
Savannah sighed, laying back against her pillows. “You’re not alone.”
The nurse was about to make another observation when the door behind her opened. She turned around in time to see Cruz walking in.
Her wide mouth split into an even wider grin of satisfaction. Her eyes darted toward Savannah. “Speak of the devil.” Cheerfully, she made a last notation, then closed the clipboard and picked up the tray from the table. “I’ll just leave the two of you alone.”
She winked at Savannah as she backed out the door.
Puzzled, Cruz shoved his hands into his pockets. He’d thought of bringing flowers, but knew that such an offering couldn’t begin to convey the things he wanted Savannah to know. He’d bide his time. The way he figured it, if he was lucky, he’d have the rest of their lives together to give her flowers. All kinds of flowers.
He nodded toward the closed door. “What was that all about?”
“She was just sharing a philosophy with me.” His face was drawn, she thought. The look in his eyes when he saw her yesterday outside Dallas’s room came back to her. Savannah took a deep breath. She had to get this misunderstanding cleared up. “Listen, Cruz, I have to explain.”
But he waved away her words. “You don’t have to explain anything.”
He was telling her that he didn’t care enough to waste time listening. Determination galvanized her. “But I want to.”
A fresh wave of guilt washed over him. He wasn’t accustomed to feeling guilty, and he hated it. “Dallas told me what you were doing in his room.”
Maybe she should just let it drop right here, but suddenly, she felt a sharp stab of pain that any of this had even been necessary. Savannah raised her chin. “He shouldn’t have to tell you anything. You should have known you could trust me.”
Cruz shrugged, feeling oddly helpless. Just as helpless as he had when he had gathered her, unconscious and bleeding, in his arms. He could only offer her the truth. “Trusting women isn’t something that comes easy to me.”
It was a blanket statement, and she didn’t like being herded in with other women who had meant nothing to him. After all she’d been through, she’d made up her mind to mean something to him.
“Sorry to hear that. Does that apply to your mother and sisters?”
The question irritated him. “You know that’s different.”
“No, apparently I don’t know anything.” Like what her place was with him. She didn’t want to be at arm’s length and if that was the way it was going to be, then maybe she had better rethink everything—and put some distance between them as soon as she was able.
Primly, she smoothed out the blanket that lay across her hips. “Well, if you talked to Dallas, then you know you can go ahead with those plans for your ranch now.” Dallas had promised her to have everything in place for the loan by Monday. “It’s what you need—”
Cruz laughed shortly at the choice of words, not knowing whether to be amused or annoyed. “You, too?”
She looked at him sharply. “Me, too, what?”
“Everyone keeps telling me what I need.” And he’d just about had his fill of all these well-meaning Samaritans. Cruz’s voice rose as he spoke. “My father tells me what I need. My mother tells me what I need.” He thought of Maggie’s talk with him over a month ago. No wonder it had taken him this long to pull his thoughts together. Who could think with everyone coming at him like B-52 bombers? “My sister tells me what I need. You tell me what I need.” He found himself standing right beside her. “What I need is for everyone to stop telling me what I need.”
Hurt, but determined not to show it, Savannah drew herself up. “Did you come here to yell at me?”
“No!” He was going about this all wrong. Cruz blew out a breath. Women rarely said yes when they were being shouted at. With effort, he lowered his voice. “No, I came here to tell you what I really need.”
“Oh?” She couldn’t help being leery, even though part of her felt the prick of anticipation.
He took her hands in his, feeling unnaturally awkward. How the hell did someone propose? Maybe just this once, he should have asked his father for pointers. “I need you.”
Stunned, her lips formed a perfectly round circle. “Oh.”
A warmth spread inside him. Maybe he hadn’t made a complete mess of it, after all. “Yes, ‘oh.’ I want you to marry me.”
Because she wanted it so badly, she refused to believe that Cruz meant the proposal the way she wanted him to. That was hoping for too much. And any less was unacceptable.
She tried to draw her hands from his. “Look, if this is some ki
nd of payback in gratitude for Dallas’s backing your ranch—”
His hands tightened around hers, refusing to release her. Damn it, when would she get it through her head that wanting her was not tied to his having a horse ranch?
“Dallas and I agreed to an interest rate. Nobody said anything about handouts.”
The comment would have made her laugh if her heart hadn’t been so sorely involved. “All right, then if it’s because you feel responsible for the baby—”
“I am responsible for the baby,” Cruz pointed out. “At least in part. Half the genes in that baby are mine.”
Suddenly weary, she closed her eyes. “Fine, nobody’s disputing that. But you don’t have to marry me. I already told you that.”
How many times, she thought, did he want her to say no to something she desperately wanted to say yes to? But she wasn’t her mother. She couldn’t wield guilt like a scalpel, cutting into his sense of decency and leaving a wound that would never heal.
It was all or nothing. She couldn’t allow herself to accept anything short of that.
Exasperation colored his voice. “Can’t you get it through your thick head that I know I don’t have to marry you, that I want to marry you?” What did he have to do to make her understand? To make her agree?
For one brief, heady moment, the very breath was temporarily stolen from her. But when she found it again, Savannah managed to ask, “Why?”
He looked into her eyes. “Because I love you,” he said softly.
Her heart leaped, but she banked down the surge of emotion. He was still doing “the right thing.” He must have been talking to Maggie, who had probably told him what Savannah had been holding out to hear.
“Just like that?”
“Yes—and no,” he admitted. The only road to follow was the honest one—and hope for the best. “Maybe I started loving you the first time I saw you, I’m not sure. I’ve reacted to a lot of women over the years. Strongly to some.” But that was all physical passion, and there was so much more at play here.
“I thought you were no different.” He lifted her hands to his lips and pressed a kiss to each. “But you were. I kept thinking about you. Even before you came back to the ranch, I was thinking of heading on up to Dallas on business and maybe looking you up.” Cruz abruptly stopped himself. “No, no more half truths,” he said with determination. She would be won with honesty, or not at all. “I was going to look you up. The business trip was just an excuse.”
Savannah’s jaw slackened just a tad. This was far more than she’d ever hoped for. This time, there was no way she could rein in her hopes.
“You were really going to look me up?”
“Yes.” If he was going to tell her the truth, he had to tell her all of it. “Because I wanted to prove to myself that you didn’t have the sweetest lips, the softest skin, the bluest eyes I’d ever seen. That I’d just taken a good night of sex and built it up into something better, something wondrous.”
His eyes held hers as he bared his soul, and prayed she wouldn’t turn her back on him.
“But I hadn’t. If anything, I’d downplayed it. Loving you got better every time.”
Savannah caught her lower lip between her teeth, unable to resist teasing him just a little. “So this is about sex?”
“In part,” Cruz admitted. Then he quickly added, “In a very small part. Mostly it’s about having my gut ripped out.”
“What?”
He forced himself to relive yesterday morning.
“That’s how I felt when I saw you yesterday, lying so still at the bottom of the stairs, looking so damn pale.” Even talking about it wrenched his heart. He’d never been that scared before. “All I could think of was, what if you died? What if I never got to hold you again?” He threaded his fingers through her hair, cupping her cheek, grateful that he’d been given another chance. “Or to tell you that I wanted you? Not to give the baby a name but because I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life without you.” He ran his thumb slowly along her lower lip, exciting himself. “Now what do I have to say to make you say yes?”
She swallowed before she answered. She had to. The lump in her throat wouldn’t let her speak. “You already said it.”
She was better at words than he was. Cruz wanted to be absolutely sure there was no misunderstanding. He searched her face as he asked, “Does that mean you’ll marry me?”
Just then, she felt the baby kick. It was going to be all right. Everything was going to be all right from here on in.
She smiled up at him with a smile that came from the deepest part of her. “Can’t let all those beautiful words go to waste.” She threaded her arms round his neck, needing to hear them again. “Do you really love me?”
“Yes, I really love you.” Cruz kissed her lips softly, then gently took her arms from around his neck. He tugged the curtain around her bed, giving them more privacy. His eyes gleamed. “When’s the nurse coming back?”
In Cruz’s opinion, Savannah’s smile turned incredibly sexy. “She won’t be back until I’m ready to be discharged.”
“And when’s that?”
“At three.”
He glanced at his watch. “Four hours. That’ll be just enough time to show you.”
“Put your money where your mouth is,” Savannah challenged.
“I’d rather put my mouth where your mouth is.” Sitting down again, he gathered her to him.
Savannah began to laughed. “Cruz, you wouldn’t—”
But he would.
And they did.
Epilogue
“Just a little further. You’re doing great.”
Savannah felt Cruz’s hand at her elbow, guiding her. Her eyes covered with a silk bandanna, she kept her hands stretched out before her, anticipating contact. But all she felt was air. They’d left the confines of the Jeep where he’d originally covered her eyes before beginning this journey, and, from what she could gather, they were still outdoors. But where?
“Is there something about you I should know, Cruz? You’re not into anything kinky, are you?” She asked the question teasingly. “I mean, blindfolds, long winding car rides, mysterious behavior. Just what have I gotten myself into?”
“An endless supply of love, for openers.” His excitement had gone from a Kentucky two-step at the outset of this trip to a frantic jitterbug at its final destination. What if she was disappointed? Cruz tried not to think about that. Instead, he concentrated on positioning her in exactly the right place. He wanted her first view to be breathtaking. His face close to hers, his fingers on the ends of the bandanna, he asked, “Ready?”
Excitement swirled through her. What was all this about? She could feel the wind whistling softly around her as it passed rough fingers of winter along her face. “I was ready ten seconds after you put the blindfold on me—hours ago.”
He laughed. “You have no concept of time. It wasn’t hours ago.” He didn’t have to glance at his watch to know how long it took to get here. He knew the route by heart. He had clocked it and traveled it a great many times since he’d made his decision. “Twenty minutes to be exact.” With a flourish as pregnant as the woman he’d recently made his wife, Cruz undid the knot and pulled the bandanna away. He held his breath as he gestured around. “Well, what do you think?”
She blinked once, and then again, before staring, stunned by what was before her. Nature had laid itself out beneath her feet as neatly as a painted scene on a calendar. “I think you tied the blindfold too tight. I’m seeing things.”
“What is it you think you see?”
The valley below, even swaddled in autumn colors, was lush and vibrant. “The most beautiful view I’ve ever laid eyes on.” She turned toward Cruz, an unspoken question in her eyes. “It’s gorgeous.”
He let go of the breath that had stopped up his lungs. “It’s yours. Ours,” he amended, almost tripping over his tongue in relief and happiness. Taking Savannah’s hand in his, he spread his other hand out wide. �
��This is where the ranch house will be.” Every syllable was bursting with pride. He loved this land. Almost as much as he loved her. “I wanted to show it to you as soon as I had the deed in my pocket.” His eyes held hers. “So you wouldn’t regret marrying me.”
How could he even think that? “I don’t regret marrying you, and it had nothing to do with what you have in your pockets.” She was just going to have to convince him, she thought. The prospect was not without its appeal. “I didn’t marry you for what you could give me materially, Cruz. I married you because of what you did to my heart—” mischief curved her mouth “—and because you’re a hell of a kisser.”
He laughed, taking her into his arms. But he was serious in his intent. He never wanted her to regret becoming his wife. “No, really.” Cruz pressed a kiss to her forehead. God, but he loved this woman. “I know the wedding left a little something to be desired.” It had been a hurried affair, thrown together in the space of six days that were mostly a blur.
Her smile reached up and touched him. “No, it didn’t.”
He raised a dubious brow. “Yeah, right. Every woman dreams of being married in her best friend’s living room with just a few people present—most of them her new in-laws.”
Savannah pretended to sniff indignantly. “I don’t know about most women, but it suited me just fine. And don’t you go saying anything against my in-laws. I like them a lot.” Raising her left hand, she angled it so that the gold band caught the sun and gleamed. “Besides, this is what counts.” Her eyes shifted to Cruz. “This, and you.”
He covered her hand with his own. There was a matching band on the third finger. “You’re a rare woman, Savannah Clark.”
She raised her chin. “That’s Savannah Clark Perez—and don’t you forget it.”
His arms closed around her. “I don’t intend to. Ever.”
They were going to be happy here, she thought. Very happy. And very lucky. “Show me where the bedroom is going to be.”
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