Currant Creek Valley - By RaeAnne Thayne Page 0,99
wasn’t....” Her voice trailed off and she sighed. “Okay. Yes, I was. Insanely jealous. But only because I thought she was so perfect for you. I love Charlotte but, right at that moment, I wanted her to choke on some of her own blackberry fudge. Which is fantastic, I must admit.”
He blinked. “Wow.”
“What? I would have done the Heimlich. Eventually.”
He laughed and she didn’t think she had ever heard a more beautiful sound. How could she have moved so abruptly from utter despair to this sweet, bubbling joy?
She thought of Caroline’s advice to her. This was what she meant. Take a chance. Embrace life.
Caroline had been afraid to risk being hurt again so she had spent most of her life alone. Alex was afraid, she would be lying if she didn’t admit that, but she also knew with all her soul that Sam was a man she could count on.
“So,” she said lightly. “Back to Charlotte and the gala.”
“You might have seen us embracing,” Sam said, a little cautiously.
She could be jealous here but she wasn’t. She had complete trust in him, which she found breathtaking.
“That was probably right around the time I told her that I happened to be in love with someone else. You, for the record.”
“You did not.”
“Ask her. She mentioned, by the way, that she thought you just might share those feelings. Something about you being entirely too quick to assure her how wonderful I was.”
She blushed, remembering that scene with Charlotte after they had decorated the ballroom together.
“There’s that ego again,” she teased.
“Was she right? About your feelings?”
She heard a thread of uncertainty in his voice and realized this big, tough soldier could be as vulnerable as she was when it came to laying his heart bare.
She was overwhelmed, consumed, with love for him. He was such a good man and she knew she didn’t deserve him, but in that moment, she didn’t care. She wanted him, whether she deserved him or not.
Maybe that was the very best part of loving someone. Wanting to do anything she could to become the kind of woman who could feel worthy of a man like him.
“Charlotte can be an amazingly astute person,” she finally said, her voice prim.
His laugh held joy and a trace of relief. He kissed her, his mouth warm against the cooling air.
“Say it,” he ordered against her skin. She wanted to respond in some light, teasing way but sensed he needed the words as much as she did.
She eased away and slid a hand to the curve of his cheek. “Yes, I love you, Sam. I loved you then, I love you now. I probably fell in love that very first night we spent together at the Lizard. I flirted and teased and joked but I think I was tumbling hard, even then.”
“Yet you wouldn’t even agree to see me again.”
“Because you scared me to death! You were so...well, you.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do much about that.”
Her hand curled into a fist and she trailed it down to his hard chest, where she could feel each pulse of his heart. “I don’t want you to change anything. I love you exactly as you are. Big, tough, scary. Wonderful. I love you more than I ever imagined possible. You’re everything I never knew I needed.”
He smiled with pure joy and wrapped his arms around her, then he kissed her there on his porch swing while the creek rippled past and his son slept peacefully inside and the lights of their town twinkled in the moonlight.
EPILOGUE
“ARE YOU COMPLETELY exhausted yet?”
“Who, me? You must be joking?” Alex grinned at her mother across the work island in Harry Lange’s gleaming, gorgeous kitchen, with its gourmet appliances and extravagant cookware. “I’m in heaven. Who wouldn’t be?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe somebody who’s been on her feet since 5:00 a.m.”
Actually, the clock beside her bed had read four-thirty when she tumbled out to take care of the turkey, but she wasn’t about to admit that to her mom. “Not me. I’m full of energy. Why wouldn’t I be? I’m surrounded by two of my favorite things, food and family.”
She was completely in her element, even if she did feel a little odd and off-kilter to be cooking somewhere besides her mother’s small kitchen, where she had helped prepare dozens of Thanksgiving dinners.
She had always believed traditions were meant to shift and morph to meet new circumstances, though, and this wasn’t such a bad change. Harry’s spacious kitchen was tricked out