by Nikki Logan
‘You’re giving me Tulloquay?’
‘There are a couple of conditions—two compulsory, one optional. I had them written into the deed contract.’
Kate scanned the pages of legalese but the words swam, meaningless, on the page. ‘What?’
‘You have to live here. Make it the country home you lost all those years ago. That’s the first compulsory one.’
Live here. On Tulloquay. With her seals. For ever. ‘OK.’ The reality hit her; her eyes glistened and a wobbly smile followed. ‘I think I can manage that.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Are you sure? You haven’t heard the other clause yet.’
She frowned, confused, overwhelmed. ‘Is it about the wind farm?’
‘No, that’s entirely up to you, Kate. It’s your title. You might want to build that environment centre instead. Or a museum. Or a school. I know you’ll do the right thing by Leo. By the land.’
‘Then what?’
‘Whatever you choose to do with the property, or your children choose, or their children choose, it stays in your family. I don’t want Tulloquay passing out of the McMurtrie name ever. No matter what it gets used for.’
The dream of having children, having a family and raising them here, on Tulloquay…Tears flooded her eyes. Wait… Kate lifted her watery gaze to Grant’s. ‘McMurtrie?’
He blazed, bright and true. ‘That was the optional clause. Again, your choice.’
Her breath ached and swelled in her chest like she was deep diving without scuba gear. Striving for something just out of reach underwater. ‘What are you asking?’
‘I was in town when you arrived, looking for something special.’ He pulled a small, ornate box made by one of Castleridge’s craftsmen from his pocket and placed it on the arm of the chair. ‘A message I was going to leave you amongst your lab equipment. A message I hoped would bring you back to me.’
He took a deep shuddery breath. ‘Except fate brought you back to me anyway.’ He dropped into a squat beside her. ‘I can’t promise not to make mistakes, Kate. I can’t promise that I won’t be an ass again in the future and hurt you without meaning to. I’m just not that good at this stuff.’ He appealed to her. ‘But I can promise you that I won’t ever walk away from the challenge. From something I’m not good at. From things I don’t understand. I’ll worship you, and honour you, and trust you as long as you’ll let me.’
He shifted more comfortably onto one knee. On bended knee. Kate’s heart stopped. ‘I’ll respect your opinion and only disagree with you sometimes, and I’ll believe in you when everyone else thinks you’re crazy. I’ll boil your eggs just how you like them and I’ll carry your heaviest equipment. I’ll even kiss you when you smell of seal poop. ‘I will make love to you long and late into the night, or morning, or afternoon, or whenever you can spare three-and-a-half minutes.’
Kate laughed through her tears.
‘And I will do all of this because I love you, Dr Kate Dickson. Desperately. Entirely. And I would love you even more if you would please, please say some thing sometime soon.’
Kate silenced him—and his uncertainty—with a kiss to his gorgeous lips. The lips she’d missed for so many weeks. The lips she’d expected never to see again except for the pained sneer of her memory.
Heat burbled through her. ‘You love me?’
Grant nodded. ‘Completely.’
‘You want to marry me?’
‘If you’ll have me. And I understand why you might not…’
‘But Tulloquay is mine regardless.’
A shaft of doubt shot across his eyes. ‘Regardless.’
She tipped her head and thought about her dreams that morning in Grant’s bedroom—the green-eyed little girl—before it all went so horribly wrong.
‘I’d like to be a McMurtrie,’ she said softly, finally, and saw Grant nearly sag against the chair. ‘I’d like to have your children. I’d like them to have a home here regardless of what they choose to be later in life. Farmers, fishermen, scientists, politicians…’
‘Contract lawyers?’
Kate smiled. ‘Just as long as they’re happy and always have somewhere safe to come home to. Somewhere like Tulloquay. Somewhere with a mother and a father who will always be there for them.’
‘Always?’
‘Until death rips us away when we’re old and grey.’ Her eyes widened on an afterthought. ‘And I want the fauna protected.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Are you negotiating acceptance terms, Kate?’
‘How badly do you want this merger?’
‘No price too high. The wildlife will have whatever protections we can write in.’
She fell into his arms. ‘Then, yes, Grant McMurtrie. I accept this deed of title. And I accept your proposal. Not that there actually has been one.’
He smiled. ‘Let me rectify that technicality.’ He lifted the lid off the tiny box and tipped a fine gold ring into his palm.
Kate’s breath caught. ‘Your mother’s ring.’
‘Yes.’
‘You were sending it to me?’
‘I can’t imagine anyone else ever wearing it.’
‘What if I’d said no?’
‘Then you would have sent it back. But it always would have been yours in my mind. I would have put it back around my neck and kept you close to my heart.’
She wanted to smile, so badly. But if she did more than carefully speak, she was going to burst into tears. ‘But you’ve worn that your whole life.’
He shrugged. ‘Now I’ll have you. And you’ll have the ring.’ His eyes grew serious. ‘Katherine Dickson—will you marry me and give me a lifetime to make up for what a clutz I’ve been about everything?’
Kate held her breath. Every moment of every day since they’d met showered before her eyes in a three-D action replay. His first smile. Their first kiss. Every squeeze of her heart. Was this what love was all about? Knowing you could lose everything at any moment but knowing with blazing certainty that it was worth the risk? Those moments of pure connection. For the chance to make something beautiful and keep it for ever.
Was that what her parents had for a few blissful years? No matter that it had been so agonisingly short, had it been totally worth it?
Only one way to find out.
A ball tightened her throat. ‘Yes. I will.’
Their kiss went on for ever, making up lost time, reacquainting their lips, promising a future. She clung to his strength and let the hurts and sorrows of the past few weeks dissolve away. She shivered as his hands trailed down over her hip, sliding under her tight T-shirt.
‘My bedroom’s all packed up,’ she whispered, a sultry kind of déjà vu.
‘That’s ok,’ he murmured. ‘We can use mine.’
And, as she led the way into the house, out of the corner of her eye she saw her future husband—father of her future green-eyed little girl—standing in the room where his own father had given up on life, with his right hand on his heart and his left hand pointing to the sky, as if acknowledging the man that had brought the two of them together. Thanking him.
Kate frowned at how familiar the image seemed. But then Grant turned and captured her eyes in jade, gave her the most heart-stoppingly, leg-crossingly radiant smile and reached for her hand.
And everything but the man she loved blew like fallen leaves from her mind.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-0940-4
A KISS TO SEAL THE DEAL
First North American Publication 2011
Copyright © 2011 by Nikki Logan
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
This is a work of fiction. Nam
es, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
For questions and comments about the quality of this book please contact us at [email protected].
® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
www.Harlequin.com
