“You seemed pretty angry when you were in the study,” she reminded him.
His nose nudged her ear before he whispered, “You’ll have to forgive me, poppet, I just found out the woman I love had been married before not to mention beaten viciously by her first husband. I was a little out of sorts.”
Belle’s tears stopped as did her breathing.
Jack said, “The woman I love”.
The woman he loved.
She was the woman he loved.
“You love me?” she breathed.
His head came up and his beautiful green eyes captured hers.
And he didn’t have to answer.
Because she saw it, stark, right there in his beautiful green eyes.
For a second.
Then he pulled away from the wall, grabbed her hand and started stalking down the hall, dragging her behind him.
He looked over his shoulder and ordered, “Call Dirk. Tell him Belle isn’t coming in today.” Belle looked over her shoulder too as she ran to keep up with his ground eating strides and she saw her mother, Olive, Joy, Rachel and Cassandra all gazing after them. Joy and Rachel were crying. Olive and Cassandra were smiling.
Jack continued, “Olive, you’re on your own for the next few hours.”
Then they were at the stairs, climbing up and before Belle could wrap her mind around what was happening, he had her in their room.
“Jack –” she started but he stalked to the bed, turned, sat, pulled her right along with him and laid back.
She fell on top of him, he rolled, pinning to her to the bed.
She blinked up at him.
“All right, Belle, starting with your first living memory, I want it,” Jack demanded.
Belle blinked again then asked tentatively, “Want what?”
“All of it.”
She blinked yet again and then asked incredulously, “Are you… um, are you talking about my life’s history?”
“Every minute you can remember.”
Belle put her hand to his neck in an effort to check his temperature and not appear like she was checking his temperature (just in case he was, say, delirious) and breathed, “Seriously?”
“Every minute.”
“That’s going to take a while,” she whispered. “I have a pretty good memory.”
“We’ll call up for lunch.”
“But –”
“And dinner.”
“Jack –”