Currant Creek Valley - By RaeAnne Thayne Page 0,98
I was so busy being a husband and father and a good soldier that I didn’t often pause to just savor each moment. When I touch you, when I see you, when I simply think about you, I’m happy.”
She wanted to block out his words, knowing they would only make this harder, but each one seemed to imprint itself on her heart.
“You treat my son with respect and affection and see beyond that brain of his to the reality that despite it, he’s still just a boy who loves brownies and dogs and having fun.”
“He’s a wonderful boy, Sam. How can anyone who meets him help but love him?”
“He doesn’t respond to everyone the way he has to you, believe me. He can be stiff, awkward, even downright rude. But when you talk to him, he knows your interest is genuine.”
He paused and his hand caressed her cheek with such sweetness she almost cried again. “You care about everyone like that. You tell me how prickly and difficult you are. I see a woman who gives her love freely and generously. Who prepares food for people who can’t take care of themselves, who helps a dying friend with her garden, who takes in a dirty, bedraggled stray dog because that’s just the kind of person she is.”
Leo, curled up at their feet, slapped his tail against the floor of the porch, almost as if he understood Sam was talking about him.
“I love you, Alexandra. Nothing you’ve told me tonight changes that. I love you in spite of all the reasons you think I shouldn’t. In part, maybe, because of those reasons. You’re the person you are today because of everything that has happened to you.”
She gazed at him in the slanted moonlight as his words and the tenderness in his eyes seemed to slide through her, shining the brilliant beacon of hope in all those dark corners.
He loved her. He knew the very worst about her but somehow he loved her anyway. This man, who understood all about pain and loss and regret, was offering her a miraculous chance to move beyond the hurt.
She had been stupid when she was twenty-five, yes. She wasn’t twenty-five anymore and she wanted to think she had learned a little something along the way.
If she walked away from this, from Sam and Ethan and the chance he was offering her to embrace a future with them, she deserved to spend the rest of her days miserable and alone.
Love, bright and joyful, bloomed in those once-dark corners like the most brilliant flower garden, like a perfect, crisp-on-the-outside, springy-and-light-on-the-inside soufflé.
It was so big, so sweet and lovely as it swelled and burst inside her, she couldn’t contain it. She did the only thing she could. She reached up and kissed the corner of his mouth, this man who had seen beneath her sharp, thorny edges to the woman she wanted to become.
She felt the sharp inhalation of his breath against her cheek but beyond that, he didn’t move for several long moments and then finally his mouth moved on hers and he returned the kiss with dazzling sweetness.
His familiar Sam-smell of laundry soup and cedar shavings filled her senses and she had to fight down a bubble of laughter, of pure happiness. She kissed him fiercely, arms tightly around his neck as if she feared the swing would topple them both to the floor.
When she finally broke the kiss and eased away long moments later, his dazed eyes reflected the starlight.
“Just so you know,” he said, his voice gruff, “I don’t think I will ever understand the way that mind of yours works.”
“You do understand me. Better than anyone ever has.”
He smiled that slow, sexy smile she loved so much and she had to kiss him all over again.
“Does this mean you’re not going to be taking a job in Park City?” he asked sometime later.
She thought of all she had been willing to give up—and, more importantly, what she would gain now if she stayed. But first, she needed to be completely clear.
“What about Charlotte?” she had to ask.
He stared. “Charlotte Caine? There’s a non sequitur for you. What does she have to do with any of this?”
“I saw the two of you. The night of the gala. You were at her house on the porch. She was in your arms.”
He looked shocked first, then his features lit up with as close to a grin as she had ever seen there. “You were jealous!”