“I love you,” he said, raising her face to his. He touched his lips to hers, lightly, tenderly. “I love you,” he said again, then kissed her harder.
She caught her breath and clung to him, relief making her light-headed. Only now did she see how much she’d risked throwing away with her fears and doubts. “Seth,” she whispered, holding him tightly, inhaling that wonderful, clean-male scent, savoring the strength of his arms around her. Knowing without doubt that he loved her.
She gasped when he suddenly swung her into his arms, then laughed when he began to move across the room with quick, determined steps. “I take it you’re about to give me a tour of your house?”
His grin was wicked and utterly male. “No. Only the bedroom.”
She kissed his scratched jaw. “Good.”
* * *
An hour later, Rachel still couldn’t have described Seth’s bedroom. He hadn’t bothered to turn on a light when he’d carried her in. They’d undressed by touch, made love with only the dim illumination spilling in through the open bedroom door. And then they’d made love again.
As far as Rachel knew at that moment, this was the most beautiful bedroom in the whole world.
She kissed his cheek, his jaw, soothing the raw scratches he’d suffered during his search for her son. And then she kissed his lips, lingering to explore every centimeter of his mouth before moving on to nuzzle his throat. Her fingers slid slowly, luxuriatingly down his body, tactilely approving every firm, warm inch of him.
Seth groaned softly and tangled his fingers in her wildly disheveled hair. “Oh, man, Rachel. You’re going to cripple me.”
“You want me to stop?” she asked, delicately touching the tip of her tongue to his left nipple.
“No,” he said on a choked laugh. “Oh, no. Don’t stop.”
She kissed his chest, then snuggled her cheek against his flat stomach. She smiled against his skin. What a beautiful, beautiful man he was. She was no longer surprised by her responses to him, no longer questioned the unfamiliar passion he elicited from her. She’d been extraordinarily blessed to find love for a second time. She intended to treasure this very special gift. This very special man.
“I love you,” he said, smiling down at her.
“I love you,” she repeated.
“Will you marry me?”
He asked so casually, so confidently. Had it not been for the unsteadiness in his fingers as they rested against her face, the wild pounding of his heart beneath her cheek, she might not have known how much her answer meant to him.
“Yes,” she said, her voice clear, firm, certain. “I’ll marry you.”
Drawing her into his arms, he rolled onto his side, looming over her as he kissed her deeply, with a renewed enthusiasm. “Thank you,” he said when he finally gave her a chance to breathe again. “I won’t ever let you down, Rachel. You or the kids. I promise you that.”
“I know you won’t.” She reached up to rest her hand against his uninjured cheek. “Don’t you know how much I admire you, Seth? For having the courage to be yourself, to go after what you want and what you need.”
“I probably won’t ever get rich running a one-man law office in Percy,” he warned her, only half-teasingly. “I expect to make a comfortable living, but nothing like the big bucks my father’s always pulled in through his operation.”
“I don’t care about that. I never have. I love living here. I wouldn’t ever want you to go back to your father’s firm where you’d have to work all the time and be miserable.”
“And I won’t interfere with your work, either,” he assured her. “I shouldn’t have pushed you to take off this afternoon. You do what you have to do, Rachel. I’ll understand.”
“I’ve had an offer from a very large organization that wants to buy my business,” she said, watching his face as she spoke. “It’s a good offer, a very nice profit.”
“But I thought you were thinking of expanding the business.”
She shrugged, the movement brushing her bare shoulder against his arm. “Taking on more business will only mean more hours I’d have to spend away from you and the children,” she said. “I don’t know if I want that.”
“It’s your decision,” Seth said firmly. “I’ll back you up in whatever you decide. We’ll get by just fine, whatever you want to do. But please don’t feel that you have to sell the business to please me. I really don’t resent you working. I just need to know that I’m as important to you as the job,” he explained, with a trace of his former uncertainty.
“I’ll never give you reason to doubt that again,” Rachel promised. “We’ll talk about the business later. We’ll decide together what course to take. After all, it affects both our futures now.”
Resting on one elbow, Seth twirled a strand of her hair around his fingertip. “Would it be very difficult for you—selling Ray’s business, I mean?” he asked quietly.
“Ray started that business to take care of his family,” she answered. “It has done that very well for the past few years. If I sell it, the money will go a long way toward providing for the children’s future. That was all he ever wanted—for them to be secure, and happy. He and I had always planned for me to quit working and spend more time with them while they were small. I’ve always regretted that I haven’t been able to do that.”
“You can do that now,” Seth observed. “And if you ever want another child...well, I’d like that,” he said. “Not that I’d ever favor another child over Paige and Aaron,” he added quickly. “They’re great kids, Rachel. I already love them.”
“I know. I saw your love for them on your face this afternoon when you brought Aaron out of those woods,” she whispered, her eyes stinging with happy tears.
Seth took a deep breath. “I know you loved Ray,” he said, not quite meeting her eyes. “I know you were happy with him.”
“Yes, I was.”
Sensing his vulnerability, Rachel selected her next words with great care. “I was only twenty-one when I married Ray. Our relationship was very warm, very comfortable, based on mutual interests and shared goals. We were happy, and we shared a very special love. But I’ve changed in the past ten years, Seth. I’ve learned that there can be more to life, more to love, than I ever even dreamed when I was twenty-one. More intensity, more passion, more laughter. I want it all now. And I’ve found it all—with you. I love you in some ways more than I’ve ever loved before. I want to be your wife, your lover, your partner, the mother of your children. I want you, Seth Fletcher. Only you.”
He smiled, and his eyes were alight with pleasure at her words. “I love you, Rachel. I’ve never loved anyone before, and I’ll never love anyone again the way I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
It was an exchange of vows as binding, as sacred, as the formal ceremony that would soon follow. From this moment, Rachel thought in wonder, her life was joined with Seth’s.
“Be patient with me,” she whispered, “while I learn to dream again.”
His smile deepened. He caught her close, holding her tightly against his pounding heart, their flesh melded as tightly as their futures. “Trust me, Rachel,” he said, his voice gruff with emotion. “I have dreams enough to share.”
He kissed her lingeringly, then drew back with a laugh of pure joy. After a moment, Rachel’s tremulous laughter joined with his.
Epilogue
Lila Twining was sitting on Frances’s living room sofa, sipping tea, when Frances rejoined her after answering a telephone call. Lila looked up with a smile, then raised her eyebrows as she studied her friend’s face. “From the way you’re smiling, that call must have been good news,” she commented.
Frances laughed and walked over to her old upright piano, on which rested several framed photographs. Her late husband, her children, her grandchildren, her great-grandchildren. She felt very proud as she studied those much-loved faces, her gaze lingering for a moment on a recent photograph of Rachel and the children.
&n
bsp; “Yes, it was very good news,” she agreed. “Rachel just called to tell me that she’s getting married again.”
“To that nice young man you told me about? Seth?”
Frances nodded happily. “Yes. I can’t wait for you to meet him the next time they’re here, Lila. You’ll like him.”
“From what you told me, I’m sure I will. This is wonderful news, Frannie. Rachel and the children have needed another man in their lives.”
Frances chuckled and turned away from the photographs. “Not a very modern thing to say, my friend.”
“Ah, but I’m not a very modern woman,” seventy-something-year-old Lila acknowledged without regret.
“That’s true. And I happen to agree,” Frances admitted. “Rachel and the children did need someone. And I’m sure Seth will do quite nicely.”
Lila set her teacup down on a needlework coaster and smoothed her wool skirt over her bony knees. “Well, that takes care of one of your grandchildren, Frannie. Now you have only three more to marry off.”
Frances laughed softly. “You make it sound as though I had something to do with Rachel’s engagement. I didn’t, you know. I only nudged her along a bit when I had the opportunity.”
“Then you can just as easily nudge the others,” Lila said with a firm nod of her silvery head. “Especially Adam. Thirty-eight is more than old enough for him to be starting his own family.”
“Yes. And I’d love to see Cody settled down, as well,” Frances said.
“At least Celia has plenty of time. She’s still young.”
Frances turned her eyes back to that grouping of photographs, studying the beautiful dark-haired, blue-eyed face of her youngest granddaughter. She sighed. “Yes. Celia has time. But...” A note of worry had crept into her voice.
“Celia’s heading for trouble, isn’t she?” Lila asked sympathetically, knowing her friend’s concerns.
“I hope not,” Frances replied. “But I can’t help worrying. She’s so restless, so hungry for adventure. If only she could find the right person to share those adventures with.”
Lila patted Frances’s hand. “She’ll find someone, Frannie. Just as Rachel did.”
Frances smiled again. “Yes, just as Rachel did,” she agreed, and mentally added a photograph of that nice young Seth Fletcher to her cherished family grouping.
A Note from the Author
Family relationships have always intrigued me, maybe because of my own large and diverse extended family. I’ve examined family connections often in my writing—from my first Special Edition, Healing Sympathy, in which the orphaned heroine assembled her own “family” of equally lonely misfits (which eventually included the emotionally battered hero), to the more recent “Family Found” series, which involved a group of six siblings separated as small children and finding each other as adults. Close families, stepfamilies, dysfunctional families, foster families—they all fascinate me, and all provide unlimited inspiration for my work.
A Man for Mom is the first book of a new series, “The Family Way,” and Rachel Carson Evans is a very Special Woman to me—a widowed mother of two who has become so overwhelmed by her responsibilities to her children and her late husband’s business that she has almost forgotten she has needs of her own. Rachel is strongly influenced by another Special Woman—her grandmother, Frances, known to the family as “Granny Fran.” It is Frances who encourages Rachel to enjoy life to the fullest. Enter fun-loving young attorney, Seth Fletcher...and a new family is formed.
In the next three books of “The Family Way” series, Frances’s other grandchildren will find new families of their own, usually when they least expect to do so, and in ways they couldn’t have predicted! I’m having a wonderful time helping Granny Fran play matchmaker. I can’t wait to see what she has in store for Celia, Cody and Adam! I would love for you to join me in finding out.
* * * * *
ISBN: 978-1-4592-8805-8
A Man for Mom
Copyright © 1995 by Gina Wilkins
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