by Lucy Monroe
Isabel had slept so much yesterday that she couldn't possibly even doze, and she said as much to Alex. He didn't argue with her but popped a CD of Vivaldi in the Aston Martin's stereo.
She was asleep by the second track.
* * *
It was still early enough for a late lunch when Alex woke Isabel with the news that they had reached their destination, and her empty stomach let her know that lunch was indeed late. She stepped out of the car, letting her gaze travel around her new surroundings. The small, rustic building they'd parked in front of looked exactly like a mountain cabin should. Its cedar-shake exterior had weathered to a silver gray, and the small front porch boasted a swing big enough for two.
She wasn't surprised that the cabin's shakes had been left in their natural state. The color would suit Alex to a T, she thought. Someday, she was going to buy him a pink shirt or two. The color would go nicely with his multitude of both dark gray and black pants.
A forest of trees surrounded the cabin but did not completely obliterate the view of the small lake. Peering through the trees, she could also make out other buildings surrounding the lake, but their muted presence did not diminish the sense of solitude surrounding the structure standing in front of her.
She was vaguely aware that Alex had carried the picnic basket inside along with two small suitcases. He hadn't come back out after the last trip, and she assumed he was waiting for her. Taking a deep breath, she followed him into the cabin.
From what she could tell, standing in the main living area, there were only four rooms. She could see a small kitchen through an open archway, a bedroom off to her left, and a bathroom off to her right. A large fireplace took up most of one wall in the main living area, and from the sounds coming from behind the cabin, Alex was chopping kindling to start a fire.
A few minutes later, her suspicions were confirmed when Alex came through the kitchen archway carrying a stack of logs and kindling.
She watched as he made a fire with expert efficiency, grateful for that efficiency when the blaze sent a wave of warmth into the room. She'd left her coat in the car and realized she was shivering. "You do that very well."
He looked up at her from his kneeling position by the fire. "I've had a lot of practice. I come up here three or four times a year."
Wrapping her arms around herself to hold in the heat, she nodded. He spread a red-and-white checked tablecloth over a large braided rug near the hearth with the obvious intention of setting the food out immediately.
She was hungry and the nap had helped to relax her, but she still felt as if her nerves had been pulled taut over a stretching frame and left in the sun to dry. She definitely didn't want to wait to have their discussion until after they ate.
"Let's talk first and then have our picnic," she suggested.
Alex's gaze met hers, his brown eyes dark and serious. "You're pregnant. You need to eat."
She frowned. She didn't want him acting solicitous right now. She wanted to stay mad at him. "I'm not hungry. I want to talk." Her stomach growled almost immediately, giving lie to her words. She felt her cheeks heat, but Alex didn't tease her.
"Please, honey, just eat a little something for the baby, and then we'll talk."
She nodded silently, not having much choice. Her body had already shown her up for a liar. She'd look like an idiot if she kept insisting she wanted to talk first.
He smiled with obvious relief, and she got the distinct impression that he was putting off the discussion. Which was really weird. Alex didn't put things off. He was too focused and confident. Yet the jerky way he pulled out containers from the basket and his relief at putting off their discussion implied a nervousness that surprised her. She couldn't see what he had to be anxious about.
She lost her train of thought as the smells of roasted chicken and garlic mashed potatoes reached her nostrils, and she ruefully acknowledged to herself that she was starving.
Alex's eyes were intent and curiously cautious when he asked, "Would you like to serve up while I nuke the hot cider?"
"Sure."
In a few minutes, everything was ready. The room had warmed enough, so she was no longer shivering. She let her gaze settle on Alex's profile. His charcoal gray turtleneck clung to his muscular torso, and she remembered how solid and comforting those muscles felt when she was held against them. It wasn't a sensation she would willingly give up.
She took a bite of her chicken and stared into the flames of the fire. Shifting her gaze back to Alex, she asked, "Are you ready to tell me what those more important issues are now?"
Brown eyes drilled into her with an intensity that was almost scary. "The biggest is figuring out how to earn your forgiveness and get my marriage back on track."
She concentrated on her food while she digested Alex's words. In the end, she chose not to respond to them because she didn't know what to say. She needed his love, not his apologies, but if he hadn't figured that out yet, then she'd wait until he did.
She returned to the discussion they'd been having earlier in the car. "You're a smart man, Alex. I'm sure you'll come up with a new plan for revenge against my dad." Now she knew she was really goading him and this time she felt a little guilty.
"I can't."
She looked up upon hearing the raw passion in his voice.
His gaze burned through her.
She ignored the feelings swirling through her and said, "Of course you can. You're an expert at revenge."
He shook his head and pulled her almost-empty plate out of her hand, moving it and his own to the side. "I've finally accepted something that I refused to believe before."
"What?" The word came out breathless and wispy, but she couldn't help it. She felt breathless and wispy.
Her body was reacting to the heat in Alex's gaze. It was all she could do not to touch him, not to offer him her lips. She figured it would be like this for the next fifty or sixty years and part of her was fiercely glad.
Another part of her, the part that needed Alex's love, felt incredibly vulnerable because of her instant physical response to him.
He leaned forward and cupped the nape of her neck with his hand, gently but inexorably tugging her toward him. "Hurting your dad would mean hurting you, and I can't do that."
His mouth was only inches from her own, their bodies almost as close.
As usual, his proximity had an unsettling affect on her equilibrium, but she managed to get one more word out. "Why?"
There were so many reasons he could give, but only one would heal the wounds in her heart. And she was afraid that reason was the one he would not offer.
He kissed the corner of her mouth, then shifted his head and kissed each of her eyelids. "I can't hurt you because I love you. I love you more than I believed it was possible to love, and I will never again put anything, not even well-deserved vengeance, ahead of you."
She would have frowned at the well-deserved crack, but she was too busy kissing the man she loved. She ate his lips like a starving woman. He loved her. Places in her heart that had been lonely and empty for so long filled up at the knowledge.
She couldn't help pulling away just long enough to ask, "Are you sure?"
His eyes held a wealth of love and certainty. "Yes. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get it, sweetheart. But I do. I love you so much it scares me because I almost lost you."
He'd never been in any risk of doing that, but she thought telling him would only inflate his ego. A woman had to have her secrets.
If her smile was a little wobbly, she could be excused.
"Well, you have me and you're keeping me, Mr. Trahern. Through sickness and health."
"Until death do us part." His voice turned incredibly husky and his eyes filled with moisture when he repeated their wedding vows.
She started pushing him backward, toward the floor. "I love you, Alex. So much."
He let himself be maneuvered into lying beneath her on the red-checked tablecloth. "Even after all the mistakes
I've made with you?"
She ran her hands over the hard wall of his chest and felt his immediate reaction. "Yes. I don't love you because you're perfect, Alex."
"Why do you love me?" The question came out stilted because his breathing stuttered as she pressed her lower body against his.
"I love you because you fit the requirements on my list, of course."
She was laughing when he growled and rolled her over until she found herself under him.
Later, she snuggled against him in the big bed he'd carried her to. "It's true, you know."
"What's true?"
"You did fit my requirements."
"Schizophrenic courtesy and all?"
She smiled against his side as she remembered the label she'd applied to him on their first date. "Yes."
"I'm glad no one else fit them first."
"Impossible."
"How so?"
"They were written for you, I just didn't know it at the time." It was true.
She'd never met a man who had all the traits she'd listed and hadn't expected to, either. She'd thought she would end up settling. Instead, she was so happy, she was bursting with it, married to a man who embodied her every ideal.
"No other man could have fit them the way you do."
That kind of thing wasn't coincidence; it was one of life's greatest gifts. The gift of love.
She traced a small circular pattern on his bare chest and remembered something he had said the day before that had gotten lost in the heat of the moment. "Did you say yesterday that you'd already come up with a White Knight scenario for Mr. St. Clair?"
"Yes. That's what makes my reaction even more stupid than it was. I'd already decided to try to save Hypertron from my machinations and St. Clair's plans."
"That must have been a hard decision."
"Not really. Not when I love you so much." He sighed. "Besides, I've been thinking a lot about some things both my mom and your dad said. As hard as it is for me to accept, I have to come to terms with the fact that my dad chose his own path and it wasn't always the best one. He chose to put his work above our family and he hurt us all in the process. Losing his right to patent his designs might have been the catalyst for Dad's heart attack, but like Mom pointed out, his all-consuming passion for his work didn't leave room for eating right and exercise."
She hugged Alex close, wrapping her body around him like a protective blanket. "I'm so sorry."
He turned his head and kissed her. "Me, too. I remember how my dad used to thrive on the stress of his work, and in all fairness that stress probably contributed as much to his death as anything else. I know you don't think Hypertron is a good work environment, but for men like my dad, it's ideal."
"But not for men like you."
He smiled and hugged her close. "No. I've got more important things than work in my life."
She kissed his dimple and asked, "Like what?"
"Like a sexy little wife that I adore who just happens to be pregnant with my baby."
Isabel's happiness threatened to burst out of her. "I love you so much, Alex."
His brown eyes turned almost black with emotion. "And I love you, baby. You are so precious to me."
Her eyes burned with happy tears and she laid her head on his shoulder and snuggled, feeling so content that she never wanted to move from this spot.
"I'm really sorry, honey."
"For what?" she asked, not actually very curious.
She was too fascinated by the play of late afternoon light filtering through the window on Alex's chest to work up much interest in another conversation. She had other things on her mind. There were things she wanted to do to him, things she thought might just drive him crazy. She smiled against his chest in anticipation.
"For ever doubting you. You believed me when I told you that you weren't part of my revenge, but I didn't show the same level of trust in you."
"Actually, you did and that's what gave me hope."
Alex shifted until they lay facing each other. "What do you mean?"
She moved until she could see his face and reached out to brush his cheek. "I'll admit that at first, I thought your accusations meant you couldn't possibly love me."
He looked pained. "That wasn't a very bright assumption."
She almost laughed. "I know, because that's exactly what happened to me. When I read the files on the work you were doing for Mr. St. Clair, I jumped to the conclusion that you must have used me even though I loved you. It was a shock, but when you denied it, I believed you."
"I believed you, too."
She smiled, her happiness a palpable thing. "I know. Ultimately, you trusted me, which gave me a lot of hope that you could eventually come to love me."
"I've loved you for a long time. I think since the first moment I realized your picture hadn't lied. You really were the woman your eyes and smile promised."
He traced a circle on her breast right over her heart. "I trust you with my heart and my future."
She smiled, feeling the dampness in her eyes spill over into a single joyful tear. "Now that you love me, I can trust you with my future, too."
"It feels good, doesn't it?"
She arched into his gently caressing fingers. "Yes. And so does that."
"Good."
Then he went about proving just how good their future was going to be, going every bit as crazy as Isabel had anticipated.
Epilogue
« ^
Alex watched his wife as she slept. He would never know—looking at the serene contentment on her face now—that less than four hours ago, she had given birth after a very difficult labor to their daughter: Hope Priscilla Trahern.
His mother had been there for the delivery, but Lawrence had taken her home an hour ago, and the hospital room was silent for the first time. Isabel slept while Alex held his daughter and allowed a few very private, very necessary tears to roll down his cheeks. He had been given so much, and to think he had almost thrown it all away for a chance at revenge.
Isabel was right. Life had its own way of doling out the consequences and blessings. His mother had married Lawrence Redding and was ecstatically happy. It had been hard for Alex to admit, but he doubted she would have found that happiness if his father had lived.
John Harrison was making an effort to spend more time with Isabel. And he had recently revealed to Alex that Ray Trahern really had been his best friend. It wasn't a relationship that Ray had shared with his family, like so much of his life at Hypertron.
The destruction of that friendship and Ray's death had taken their toll on John Harrison, something he had admitted in a quiet moment alone with Alex. Alex had the feeling that the older man had admitted to his own pain in an effort to assuage Alex's disappointment at losing his vengeance. It was a strange idea, but Alex couldn't shake it. It was as if Harrison understood and even agreed that he deserved to lose his company but was grateful that he hadn't.
None of it mattered any longer. Isabel had convinced Alex that the past was just that. He'd even changed the combination to his safe in his office: it was now the date he'd first met Isabel. When he told her, she'd laughed and hugged him, making a much bigger deal out of it than he had thought necessary.
He might never fully understand his wife, but he would always love her. How could he not? She'd brought into his life something far more important than revenge. She'd brought him peace.
* * * * *
