by Mallory Kane
“So I just wanted to say goodbye, and thank you,” she said, smiling brightly again, although he thought he could see a suspicious mistiness in her eyes.
“Holly…”
“When will Special Agent Decker be here?”
She was making this so hard. He assessed her. Was she trying to let him down easily, give him the ability to say goodbye without any embarrassing revelations? He’d heard her whisper “I love you” in his ear while he was intubated and too weak to open his eyes. Was that just the grateful emotion of a victim whose life he’d saved?
It was too late to worry about that. He had some things to say and he was determined to say them.
“Holly, I’m so sorry.”
“What?” She stared at him in surprise. “Sorry for what? You saved me. You could have died, and yet you found me and you fought him and you saved me. There’s nothing in this world for you to be sorry for.”
He shook his head and took a ragged breath. “I didn’t mean to—”
She put her fingers against his mouth. “Please don’t, Jack. Not yet.”
He took her hand in his. “Holly. I need to tell you something. It’s important.” And he had no idea how he was going to do it. How did a man who had never allowed himself to love anyone say “I love you”? How did a man who had lived his life alone ask a woman to live the rest of her life with him?
And how would he live if she didn’t feel the same way?
“I’ve never had much of a family. Always liked living alone. Liked doing my job, then stepping away.” He stopped.
Holly listened to Jack’s halting words and had the urge to put her hands over her ears. She wanted to reach out and take hold of his heart and force him to love her as much as she loved him. She wanted to beg him not to walk away this time, but she didn’t have the courage. He walked away. That’s who he was.
“I made mistakes. Mistakes that almost got you killed. I didn’t mean to get involved.”
His words pierced her wounded heart. “Oh, don’t, Jack.” Don’t go back behind that icy barrier. Tears spilled down her cheeks.
“I didn’t mean to fall in love with you.”
She couldn’t move.
“You…what?” Had she heard him right? Hope swelled inside her like the sun rising to brighten a new day. It crept into the dark corners of her heart and pushed out the fear, banished the loneliness.
He tugged on her hand and lay it against his chest, against his heart. “Feel that?”
She nodded, unable to speak. She spread her hand over his chest and felt the steady, strong beat.
“That’s my heart. Unfrozen. Because of you.”
Her own heart soared. Shock and happiness stole her breath. All she could do, it seemed, was cry.
“You made me want to open up.” His gray eyes glittered like silver as he watched her warily. “You slipped inside me, where no one had ever bothered to go. You healed me.”
He reached up, caught a tear on his thumb and looked at it.
“I’ve wanted to do that ever since I met you,” he whispered.
“Do what?”
“Stop your tears.”
She cradled his beautiful face in her hands and kissed him. “Oh, Jack. When did you get to be such a romantic?”
He laughed and pressed kisses along the line of her jaw. “Will you run away with me and love me forever?” he murmured.
“I can’t,” she said, laughing. “I’m a married woman.”
“That’s okay. I’m a married man.”
Holly kissed the rough stubble on his cheek. “I love you, Jack O’Hara.”
He smiled down at her. “I know you do. I heard you the first time.”
ISBN: 978-1-4592-3738-4
BODYGUARD/HUSBAND
Copyright © 2003 by Rickey R. Mallory.
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