In the Best Man's Bed

by Catherine Spencer

  “Here,” Ethan said, pouring liquid over ice cubes in a glass. “Drink some of this. It’s lemonade. It’ll soothe your throat.”

  She took a few sips, then glanced at him again. “You wouldn’t lie to me, Ethan, would you? Adrian really is safe?”

  “Do you think I’d be sitting here with you, if he wasn’t? Yes, he’s safe. He’s downstairs with my aunt and uncle, stuffing himself with cream cakes. If you’re up to it, though, he’d probably like to pay you a visit.”

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “Please!”

  He picked up the house phone and punched in a number. “She’s awake and ready to receive company,” he said.

  He’d barely had time to hang up before the door opened to admit Adrian, Josephine and Louis. Only then, when she could see with her own eyes that things were just as Ethan had said, did Anne-Marie truly believe him.

  “Well,” Josephine said to him, when the excitement had simmered down some. “Did you ask her?”

  “Not yet,” he replied.

  “Ask me what?” Anne-Marie said.

  “Nothing that can’t wait,” he said, and lifted Adrian onto the bed.

  “Tell her how you escaped, Papa,” Adrian begged. “Tell her how your radio didn’t work and how you had to land on a deserted island and eat raw fish for three whole days.”

  Ethan looked at her, and she went hot all over. Whatever else had changed in the last few days, his effect on her was still the same. “He thinks I’m the reincarnation of Robinson Crusoe,” he said. “Actually, I had enough supplies on board to last me a week.”

  “Is that why you took your sweet time coming home?” she said, basking in the warmth of his smile.

  “No,” he said. “Even if I hadn’t managed to damage the helicopter when I brought it down, the weather didn’t let up enough for me to leave.”

  “So how did you get away again?”

  “I finally figured out how to fix the radio, and called for help.”

  “And they came and got him,” Adrian said gleefully, bouncing on the mattress. “Now, tell her how you rescued me, Papa!”

  “We’ll talk about that some other time,” Josephine intervened, her sharp gaze missing nothing. “I think Anne-Marie’s had all the excitement she can take for now. Come along, Adrian. Let’s leave her to get some rest.”

  “You should go with them,” Anne-Marie said, when Ethan made no move to follow them. “Adrian was devastated when he heard you’d gone missing. I imagine it’s going to take him a while to get over being afraid.”

  He paid not the slightest attention. “And what about you, Anne-Marie?” he said instead. “Were you so devastated that you turned to Roberto Santos for comfort?”

  “Oh, I was pretty devastated at the time,” she admitted, all her nice, warm fuzzy feeling evaporating. “But you’re being so horrible now that I have to wonder why I even cared.”

  “I find myself wondering why you weren’t already headed back to Vancouver when the news came through that I’d turned up missing.”

  “I stayed here to be with your son. He really needed you, of course, but you decided business was more important.”

  “I don’t need you to tell me how to be a father.”

  “Well, someone has to!”

  “And you think you’re qualified to do that, do you? You, who’ve never had a child?”

  “I might never have given birth, but this much I do know. You might be a prince in the eyes of your lowly island subjects, Ethan Beaumont, but to me you’re just an arrogant, uncaring jerk who takes pleasure in trampling all over other people’s feelings, and I hate you!”

  “Oh, good,” he purred, joining her on the bed and sweeping her into his arms. “You really are going to make a full recovery, mon amour. You had me worried there, for a while.”

  And then he kissed her. It was a very long, very satisfying kiss.

  “I beg your pardon?” she said, when at last he lifted his mouth from hers and she got back her breath. “What did you call me?”

  “You heard.” He played with her fingers and she realized with astonishment that he was having a very hard time keeping his voice steady. “I called you ‘my love.’”

  “Oh,” she said. Then, nervously, “Am I hallucinating?”

  He cleared his throat. “Non, ma très chère Anne-Marie. It is a testament to my stupid male pride, I suppose, that only when I found myself staring death in the face did I realize how badly I wanted to live long enough to tell you that I love you. All the time I wrestled with that infernal radio, I thought of you. Remembered the smell of your hair, your skin—almond cream with a hint of tangerine. It’s what gave me the strength to persevere.”

  “But how much do you love me?” she said.

  He kissed her again. “More than you can begin to imagine,” he said against her lips.

  “Enough to marry me?”

  He drew back, his blue eyes wide with shock. “Aren’t you jumping the gun a little?”

  “No,” she said. “Because I love you, too, and I love Adrian. A lot. I didn’t know it was possible to feel like this—to be so full of wanting to give everything—everything, Ethan!—just to make someone else happy. But if that’s more than you can accept, then you might love me, but you don’t love me enough.”

  He regarded her solemnly for a long, thoughtful minute. “You stayed when you could have walked away,” he said at last. “You welcomed me into your arms, your bed, your heart. You continue to be the best thing that ever happened to me. How could I not love you enough? But when it comes to marriage—”

  “It’s out of the question because I’m not an island woman and you’re afraid I’ll turn out to be just like your ex-wife.” She turned away, her hopes falling around her like ashes.

  He caught her hands and forced her to look at him again. “No,” he said. “Not that, at all. What I was going to say is that before you decide you want to be my wife, you need to recognize the baggage I bring with me. Not just Adrian—”

  “Adrian is your son, Ethan. That alone is reason enough for me to love him.”

  “He’s also another woman’s child. Can you live with the fact that, if she were to come back and want to be part of his life, much though I’d hate it, I’d have to allow it because I don’t have the right to deny him his mother?”

  “Can you live with the fact that, if she doesn’t, I might never be able to fill her empty shoes? That Adrian will always know I’m not his birth mother?”

  “It’s not your job to try to replace Lisa, my love, because you’re nothing like her. You’re you—and you’re perfect just as you are.”

  “Nobody’s perfect, Ethan,” she said, “and it’s dangerous to believe otherwise. You just leave yourself open to disappointment.”

  “Then let me amend the statement and say that you’re perfect for me. You’re beautiful, and stubborn, and smart, and unafraid to stand your ground. You’re what I need. You temper my arrogance and remind me I’m as flawed as the next man. You keep me grounded. But then I look at it from your point of view, and see only the sacrifices you’d be making if you married me.”

  “Well, of course I would,” she said. “And so would you. Loving someone doesn’t come cheap. It demands sacrifice and compromise. It means caring about the other person’s needs more than caring about your own.” She stopped and drew in a painful breath. “And that’s how much I love you, Ethan. Enough to let you go, if that’s what you need.”

  “The hell you will!” he said softly, stroking her face. “I have no intention of letting you go. Ever.”

  A knock came at the door and Josephine popped her head into the room. “Forgive me for interrupting, Ethan, but we can’t wait a minute longer to find out. Have you proposed to her yet?”

  “No,” he said, pressing a kiss to Anne-Marie’s hair. “She asked me first. And I accepted.”

  “Excellent!” Josephine said. “I’ll tell Morton to break out the champagne. Shall we have it served in the salon?”


  “By all means,” Ethan said, “but don’t expect us to join you for a while. We have other business to conduct first and if it’s all the same to you, ma tante, I’d like to do it in private.”

  “Of course. Take all the time you need,” she said, and left them alone.

  “I need a lifetime,” Ethan said, his gaze scorching over Anne-Marie. “But I’ve learned in the last few days that we’re guaranteed nothing except this moment. Let’s make it one that lasts as long as we have the breath and strength to say ‘I love you.’ Let’s make it last forever, my lovely Anne-Marie.”

  “Oui, mon amour,” she said, touching his mouth with her fingertip. “Let’s do that.”

  And then they stopped talking, and got down to the other business.

  ISBN: 978-1-42688074-2

  IN THE BEST MAN’S BED

  First North American Publication 2003.

  Copyright © 2003 by Kathy Garner.

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