The Wedding Rescue
Page 18
“Hey, I tried to trade Puck, but Billy said Puck was too ugly.”
“You traded your biplane. Billy always wanted it. Well, dammit, you can’t do it. That’s all there is to it. You’ve gone temporarily insane because you haven’t had enough sleep. I’m going to Billy and getting the plane back.”
She put down the pitchfork and made for the doorway as Tanner snagged her around the waist and hauled her back. “I can’t use the plane in Alaska. So what’s the point of me having it?”
Charity gazed into Tanner’s deep dark eyes knowing she loved him beyond anything else on earth. No one took care of her the way he did or watched out for her or made her laugh the way he did or drove her to distraction the way he did. And he was leaving again. How many agains could she live through?
Losing him over and over was too much. She felt so tired, and Mama had Puck, and Savannah had Nathan, and Patience had chlorophyll, and Charity was losing the only man she’d ever love. She sat on the concrete floor and cried.
“Oh no. Don’t do this, Charity.” Tanner sat beside her. “Don’t cry. I can’t stand it when you cry. I didn’t do this to make you cry. I did it because the land belongs to you. You worked so hard—harder than anyone I’ve ever known—and you made me find peace with my father and what happened between us and…Please don’t cry, Charity.”
“Don’t go.” She handed him back the paper. “Take it, it’s yours. I own a third of the farm, and I want to give you my part, this part. You can live here and live in Alaska and come and go as you want. No strings, no demands. Just don’t walk out of my life and never see me again except at Christmas.”
She swallowed and choked back more tears. “I love you. I want you in my life, but I don’t want you to give up your dreams to be with me. There’s no happiness in that.”
TANNER FELT DAMN GLAD he was sitting. For the second time today she’d surprised the hell out of him—first with Tanner’s Pride and now by giving him her land. “You can’t do this, Charity.” He held up the paper. “This is everything you’ve worked for.”
“It’s nothing without you. I’ll just die here a lonely old woman if you don’t come back once in a while.”
“You’re thirty-two. You’re not eligible for Social Security just yet.” He put the deed in her palm. “I left once because I couldn’t see what life was really about, and I’m not making that mistake again. I’m staying. I love you, Charity.”
She gasped in utter astonishment. “You…you do?”
“You accept me for who I am and you don’t try to change me.”
He kissed her gently, tenderly, tasting her tears, knowing he’d get to kiss her for the rest of his life and nothing—no adventure, no plane or flying—could make him happier. “Marry me.”
“I can’t. You’ll die of boredom.”
“Trust me, being with you is never boring. I can fly planes here. There’re always emergencies of one kind or another, and I can fly people to remote fishing lakes and to hiking spots and to the caves.”
He reached up and stroked the foal. “And I’ll help you with this new little guy and maybe others. I’ll sell the business in Alaska and we can build a house—”
“No, no. Don’t do that.” She kissed him to cut off his words. Then said, “Keep the business. It’s part of you, just as the horses are part of me.” She wiped away the tears and grinned. “I always wanted to see Alaska.”
“As Mrs. Charity MacKay-Davenport?”
She threw her arms around him, toppling both of them back into the pile of hay. She laughed and kissed the dimple in his chin, then gazed into his wonderful brown eyes. “I can’t imagine doing it any other way.”
ISBN: 978-1-4603-6895-4
THE WEDDING RESCUE
Copyright © 2004 by Dianne Kruetzkamp.
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