He couldn’t close his eyes at night without thinking about her…without seeing her. When he awoke in the morning, he wondered what she was doing and couldn’t wait until he’d finished rounds or had seen all his patients so he could call her or stop by. She filled his thoughts, stirred his imagination, aroused his desire until he felt like a powerful man, ten feet tall, able to do anything. He didn’t see her and the twins as a package deal. He saw Leah for who she was, and he—
He loved her.
Good Lord, how had he missed it? How had he not seen it? How could he have denied it?
It was simple, really. He’d been blind to his growing feelings for her because he hadn’t wanted to take the risk of loving and possibly losing again. He hadn’t wanted to admit he could love again. He’d told himself he was going to convince her to stay for the sake of the twins. But he wanted Leah to stay for his sake.
He loved her!
Because he hadn’t been able to admit it to himself or to her, she thought she was simply convenient. She’d even told him on New Year’s Eve that she didn’t want a marriage of convenience. But it hadn’t sunk in because he’d been too angry and hurt to hear it.
When he’d lashed out at her that night, he’d probably destroyed any trust that had built between them. How could she trust him when she didn’t know how he felt, when he’d never told her she’d become the sun in his life, his reason for looking forward to each new day?
When she had accused him of thinking of her as a replacement, maybe it had hit a little too close to home. He had seen her and the twins as something that could fill his life with everything he’d lost. But she wouldn’t be a substitute for Gwen; she wouldn’t be a wife for the sake of his needing a wife.
She was Leah—special, courageous…
She’d had the courage to turn down his offer of marriage because it had been made for convenience’s sake rather than out of love. And if he told her he loved her now…
That was a risk he’d have to take—if he wanted to be fully alive again, if he wanted to have a future with Leah. Somehow, he’d make her believe him.
It was almost eight o’clock when Jeremy finally finished his rounds at the hospital. This afternoon he’d wanted to rush to Leah right away. But he’d needed time to think about what to say to her. He’d needed time to finish his work for the day, so if she accepted his proposal, he could stay with her tonight. All afternoon he’d concentrated on patients, but in between he’d worried about Leah’s reaction—if she would believe what he had to say.
When he pulled up in front of her house, he switched off the ignition and took a deep breath, knowing this was the most important moment of his life.
As he went to the porch, he could see a lamp glowing in the living room. He knocked and waited.
When Leah opened the door, she looked surprised, and then guarded.
“Can I come in?” he asked.
Stepping back, she let him inside. “Adam and Brooke are sleeping,” she said.
“I came to see you.”
Her eyes widened, and he wished he could wipe the wariness from them and take her in his arms. Instead, he un-snapped his jacket, took it off and tossed it over the chair as he’d done so many times in the past few weeks. Leah stood there watching him, looking as if she were ready to grab the twins and run at a moment’s notice. He’d done this to her…to them.
“I don’t know where to start,” he said honestly.
“What are you going to do about Brooke and Adam?”
She looked like a lioness ready to fight for her cubs, and he admired that about her, along with everything else. “I don’t want to talk about Brooke and Adam. I want to talk about you and me.”
Her expression didn’t change, and he realized she’d put her defenses firmly in place. There was only one way to break through them. He had to lay everything on the line. “I love you, Leah, and I want to marry you.” He rushed on. “I’m sorry if I gave you the impression that you and the twins would be replacements. Yes, you’d fill a gaping hole in my life, but you and Adam and Brooke are so much more important than that. I want to marry you because I love you. I want to spend my life with you because there’s no one else I can imagine spending it with. And I want to be more than a father. I want to be your husband. I want you to walk with me through snow and sunshine. I want you to be my partner.”
Taking her hands in his, he went on. “If you have any doubts, if you think I’m only doing this because of Brooke and Adam, I promise you that isn’t true. I will spend the rest of my life proving to you that I love you. Can you forgive what I said on New Year’s Eve? Can you believe me?”
Tears welled up in Leah’s eyes, and one rolled down her cheek. He was afraid she was crying because he’d destroyed her feelings for him. He was afraid…
“Oh, Jeremy. I love you, too. I—”
Realizing she wasn’t crying from sadness, but possibly from joy, he didn’t wait for her to finish, but gathered her into his arms and kissed her with the passion that always caught fire so easily between them. When she wrapped her arms around his neck, she kissed him back as fervently as he kissed her. And he knew she wanted him in her life as much as he wanted her in his.
Reluctantly, he pulled away, but held her tightly. “Will you marry me?”
Her smile was sweet and tender and loving. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”
But he still had a worry to lay to rest. “What about the interview? What about your dream of working in New York or Washington? If that’s what you really want…”
Resting a slender hand on each of his shoulders, she leaned back to gaze into his eyes. “I love you, Jeremy, and I want to be your wife. My roots are here. Brooke’s and Adam’s roots are here. Maybe I can start working again at the Museum in Whitehorn—when Brooke and Adam don’t need me quite as much.”
“But will that be enough?” he asked.
She nodded, then stood on tiptoe to kiss him again. After his lips caressed hers, after his tongue mated with hers, after his heart raced with desire and all the possibilities for the future, he ended the kiss to say, “Maybe we’ll both want to explore New York or Washington someday. Maybe we’ll both want to show Brooke and Adam more than Whitehorn. We can do that, too.”
“We’ll decide together,” she said softly.
“Together,” he agreed, then enfolded her in his arms again, filled with thanks and gratitude that he’d found her and she’d found him. And together they’d found their future.
Leah awakened in the dark, smiling. Jeremy’s strong arms were wrapped around her, his broad chest warmed her back, his jaw rested on the top of her head. When he’d asked to come in earlier, she’d prepared herself for the worst. She’d been miserable thinking about a life apart from him. But after he’d gazed at her with such sincerity in his green eyes and told her he loved her, told her he wanted to spend his life with her, she’d known deep in her soul he was telling the truth. Jeremy had always told her the truth.
“Are you awake?” he whispered.
She turned under the covers to face him. Although they couldn’t consummate their love in the physical sense, they had touched and kissed and talked and held each other, creating bonds that could never be broken.
“I like having you hold me while I sleep,” she said.
Taking her hand, he brought it to his cheek and kissed her palm. “I love holding you. I love being here with you.”
Moonlight glowed through the window, and she could see a question in his eyes. “What?” she asked.
“When can we get married?”
“When would you like to get married?”
He tucked her hand against his chest. “As soon as we can arrange it. Saturday, maybe? Or is that too soon? Do you need more time?”
She slid a little closer to him until their noses almost brushed. “I don’t need more time. But I would like to get married here on the res—in the church we visited on Christmas.”
“I’d like that, too.” After a pause, h
e asked, “Are you ready to leave the res? Do you want to come live with me? We could find a new house somewhere else.”
“I like your house, Jeremy. It doesn’t matter where we live. I’ve discovered something over the past few weeks. Home isn’t necessarily a place. For me now, home is you, and with you is where I belong. We can rent this house to someone who needs it, someone who can take care of it, the way my grandmother and my mother did.”
Wrapping his arms around her, he rubbed her nose with his. “Do you know how special you are?”
“I know how special we are.”
Jeremy kissed Leah’s cheek and then her temple and then her lips, sealing their love, sealing their commitment, sealing their happily ever after.
* * * * *
CHRISTMAS IN
WHITEHORN
Susan Mallery
One
“Western omelette, side of bacon, coffee,” Mark Kincaid said without looking up from his morning paper. He hadn’t slept the night before and he felt like roadkill. Of course he hadn’t been sleeping since the shooting, so he should stop being surprised by the fact. Maybe one day he would get used to staring up at the ceiling for hours on end, trying not to relive the events that had nearly killed him.
“I don’t think so.”
At first he thought he’d imagined the soft voice, that the words were an editorial on his belief he might get used to not sleeping. Then he realized they’d come from the petite blonde standing next to his table.
He looked up at the waitress smiling at him. He didn’t smile in return. “Excuse me?”
“I said no. You can’t order that for breakfast. You get the same thing every day and it’s not healthy. Four eggs, ham, cheese and bacon? It’s enough cholesterol to choke a horse.”
“Fortunately, I’m not a horse.”
Her smile widened. Humor danced in her eyes. “Good point, Detective. Okay, it’s enough cholesterol to clog the arteries of a living human. How about some oatmeal? Studies have proven that regular consumption of oatmeal can actually lower cholesterol levels, sometimes significantly.”
Mark folded his paper and gave the waitress his full attention. She wore a white apron over a pale pink dress. Two butterfly clips held her short blond hair away from her face. She was pretty enough, he supposed, assuming a man was interested in that sort of thing. He was not.
He pushed his coffee cup closer to the edge of the table. She took the hint and filled it. He sipped the black liquid, nearly sighing when he felt it burn its way down his throat. Coffee improved his world view.
“Western omelette,” he said firmly. “Side of bacon.”
Her full lips pressed together. “How about a side of fruit, instead? It’s fresh.”
He stared at her, giving her the same look he’d used on the scum of the earth he’d encountered while he’d been a detective in New York. The waitress—Darcy her name tag read—should have run for cover. Instead she muttered something about some people being too stubborn for their own good and wrote on her pad.
“I have to tell you, I’m giving in against my better judgment,” she told him.
“What happened to ‘the customer is always right’?”
“Being right won’t help you if you’re dead.”
She sounded too damn cheerful by half.
“It’s a little early for such a philosophical discussion,” he said. “Why don’t you save it for the lunch crowd?”
She smiled. “Let me guess—you won’t be in for lunch today, right?”
He shrugged. He did have plans elsewhere.
“I’ll put this right in,” she said, waving her pad, then turning on her heel and heading for the kitchen.
Mark returned his attention to his paper, but the words didn’t make sense. Instead he found himself trying to remember what, if anything, he knew about Darcy the waitress. She was new in town. She’d shown up in the eight years he’d been gone. She was young, early twenties, attractive—not that he cared about that—and a born fusser. She bullied all her customers equally, touting the benefits of orange juice with its vitamin C, warning kids about cavities from sticky desserts and pushing salads instead of burgers. Everyone seemed to love the attention. Everyone but him.
Mark shook his head to clear it, then studied the paper in front of him. Gradually the room faded as he reviewed the scores from the previous day’s football games. Maybe this year the Dallas Cowboys were going to go all the way. Maybe—
A small plate appeared in front of him. Three slices of something strange lay nestled against each other.
He glanced at Darcy.
“Don’t bite my head off. It’s compliments of the house,” she said casually. ”We’re considering switching suppliers for our baked goods. This is a sample of one of the new products. What do you think?”
The slices had come from a loaf of some kind. But the color was faintly…orange? “What is it?”
“Pumpkin bread.”
He pushed the plate away. “I don’t eat vegetables before noon.”
Darcy glared at him as if he’d just won first prize in a stupid contest. “There are green peppers in your omelette. Besides, pumpkins aren’t vegetables.”
“Want to bet?”
“Okay, technically they are because of the seeds and everything, but we eat them in pie. That makes them an honorary fruit. Try it. It’s really good.”
He had his doubts. “Why pumpkin bread?”
“Because of Thanksgiving. It’s this Thursday. Remember?”
He didn’t remember, mostly because he didn’t do holidays. Not anymore. When it had been only him and Maddie, he’d worked hard to make the holidays special. His sister had just been a kid when they’d lost their folks. But lately…what was the point?
“So the restaurant will be closed,” he said, not asking a question. He’d have to fix his own breakfast. Actually, he’d probably not bother with food. Cooking was too much trouble.
Darcy’s gaze narrowed. “Tell me, Detective, what exactly are your plans for the holiday?”
“Is my order ready yet?”
She nodded her head. “I knew it. You’re the solitary type, aren’t you? You’ll spend the day by yourself, moping.”
He glared at her. “I don’t mope.”
“But you will be alone.”
He waved at the half-full Hip Hop Café. ”Don’t you have other customers?”
She glanced around. “Not really, but thanks for asking. My point is, no one should spend the holidays alone. You need to get out.”
He was saved by the bell—literally. The sharp ring cut through the diner and sent Darcy back toward the kitchen. Less than a minute later she appeared with his breakfast.
“I mean it,” she said. “Solitude makes the holidays more difficult than they have to be. Don’t you have any family in town?”
He thought about his sister, who would spend the long weekend traveling. “No.”
“Then come to my place. I’m fixing a turkey with all the trimmings. Everything is homemade. There will be lots of people there. You’ll love it. You won’t even have to talk if you don’t want to. Although it wouldn’t hurt you to be a tad more chatty, if you ask me.”
He groaned. The last thing he needed was to fall into the clutches of some health-nut do-gooder. She’d probably use tofu in her stuffing and want to talk about the importance of giving back to the community.
He opened his mouth to refuse her invitation, but she was gone. Seconds later, she reappeared with coffee, pouring quickly, then leaving.
For the next ten minutes, she took care of her other customers, argued about what they were ordering and avoided Mark’s table. He had plenty of time to think up fifteen reasons he would refuse her invitation. Yet when she brought him his bill, he found himself unable to say anything to bring sadness to her bright, expectant smile.
“What time?” he asked, trying to sound gracious and failing miserably.
Her expression turned startled. ”You’re acceptin
g?”
“Change your mind already?”
“No. Not at all. Say four? We’ll eat at five.” She hesitated. “Do you know where I live?” Instantly she blushed. “Dumb question.”
For the first time that day, possibly for the first time in several days, Mark smiled. “Yeah, Darcy. I know where you live.”
Darcy Montague leaned her head against the front of her locker and groaned. The good news was she could now nominate herself for idiot of the month. What on earth had she been thinking?
“Please don’t tell me that you’re banging your head against the wall,” Janie Carson Austin, who managed the Hip Hop, said as she stepped into the small storeroom. ”You’re one of my most dependable staff members and if I think you’re going off the deep end, it’s going to put a crimp in my holiday spirit.”
Darcy straightened and forced herself to smile at her boss. “No head banging. I promise. Just a reflection on the state of my life.”
“Which is?” Janie asked.
“Great.”
Darcy ignored the voice in her head—even though it was telling her she was incredibly dumb for inviting Mark Kincaid to her house. Mark Kincaid—Whitehorn’s answer to Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise all rolled into one. Argh! Had she actually told him he didn’t have to talk to anyone while he was at her house, only to turn around and complain that he wasn’t chatty enough? She’d babbled. It had been humiliating.
Janie leaned against the door frame. “Your pumpkin bread was a big hit. Maybe we should try something else next week.”
Instantly Darcy’s spirits lifted. “Thanks, Janie. I’ll come up with something special. I really appreciate you giving me this opportunity.”
Janie, a pretty, blond thirty-year-old, shrugged. “I try to be loyal to our longtime vendors, but I also owe our customers the best. If your next offering is as good as this one, and if the price is reasonable, I’m going to recommend we buy our baked goods from you.”
Montana Mavericks Christmas Page 18
