A round of cheering followed this remark.
“Before we get started, there’s one thing I need to do.” She turned and looked straight at him. “Jase, will you come out here for a minute?”
What was she doing? This hadn’t been part of the numerous rehearsals he’d attended in the past few weeks. Willow gave him a little push in the back. “There’s no getting out of it.”
Jase felt his knees knocking together as he took the first step past the curtain. The distance between where he was and where he had to go seemed like a mile. He didn’t dare look anywhere except at Rosemary. She smiled and held out her hand to him. When he finally reached her, she pulled him close to her side and then looked out at the audience.
“I did something else while I was away. Can you guess what it was?” Everyone laughed. “In case you don’t know, this wonderful man is my husband of three months. He and I have been through a lot together, and I can tell you that I didn’t understand love at all until I met him. I know you came to hear my songs, but I hope you won’t mind if I do something a little different.” She turned to face Jase, the intimate smile he saw every morning when he woke up sitting on her lips. “I didn’t know about this song until I heard you singing it while you fixed my sink. Once I heard it, I couldn’t forget it. I wanted the love described in that song, and you gave it to me.”
He stared at her in confusion, unable to figure out what she was talking about. As the first chords of “A Groovy Kind of Love” rang out, his heart jumped into his throat. It got worse when she started singing to him. Her voice had lost none of its power to move him. Jase wasn’t sure he was even breathing anymore. His awareness of the countless members of humanity watching them faded. It was just him and Rosemary locked tightly together in a moment where nothing else could intrude.
As the last notes of the music died away, she stood on tiptoe and kissed him. The crowd that had gone respectfully silent burst into life. Jase barely made out the “I love you” she whispered in his ear before she released his hand and looked back at the audience.
“I think I’ve embarrassed Jase enough for one night. I’ll let him go backstage and think of a suitable way to get back at me.”
As Jase rejoined Willow in the safety of the wings, he asked, “Did you know?”
“Are you kidding? She’s been planning this for months.”
“You’re good at keeping secrets.”
Willow nodded as if she could hardly be anything else. “I might be wrong, but I think that’s the best I’ve ever heard her sing.”
“I agree.” He glanced back at the stage. “I can’t believe she did that.”
“I told you back in February that she’d found something more important than her music. And now she’s told the world.”
* * * * *
Rosemary knew the moment when Jase came through the door of her dressing room. Across the distance, their eyes met in the mirror.
“You were wonderful tonight,” he told her.
“You were, too.”
He stepped closer, his glance never wavering from hers, as he came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. “What did I do?”
She put her hands over his, loving the feel of his skin against hers. “What you always do. Inspire me. Challenge me. Make me a better person. But most of all, you love me.”
He knelt down beside her chair, bringing their faces close together. “I plan to keep doing all those things – as long as there’s breath in my body and beyond that if it’s possible.”
Rosemary ran her fingers through his hair. “I’m going to enjoy having you on tour with me. I like being able to look over and see you standing there.”
“Do me a favor and leave me there from now on.”
“You don’t want me to sing to you anymore?” she asked, trailing her fingers slowly down the side of his neck.
The gleam in his eyes became more pronounced. “I didn’t say that. I’d just prefer it to happen in private.”
“That’s too bad because I think the audience really liked it.” She put her lips where her fingers had been, smiling against his warm skin when she heard his swift intake of breath.
“Is this what you want Willow to find us doing?” he asked in a low voice that wasn’t quite steady.
“She won’t mind,” she said as she kissed his ear.
He laughed. “Just for general information purposes, are you going to be like this after every concert?”
She raised her head to answer him. “I think so.” Then she took his face in her hands and pressed her lips to his softly, letting them linger against his for a long moment. “You don’t mind, do you?”
The look in his eyes told her his answer. As he proceeded to make her forget everything else but him, Rosemary knew what her grandmother had said was true. There was nothing to compare with being in the arms of the man she loved.
The End
I hope you enjoyed reading Jase and Rosemary’s story. If you liked it, please consider telling a friend or leaving a review. Thank you!
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Coming Spring 2017: One Woman’s Heart (Finding Love, Book 7)
Also by Delaney Cameron:
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Love at Last (Finding Love Book 6) Page 18
