Unfinished Business - Nora Roberts Page 0,60
arm. “If we stay in this room, my nurse is going to get a shock when she opens up tomorrow.”
“Okay.” She picked up his T-shirt. “Why don’t we take it back to my house?” She rubbed the soft cotton against her cheek before handing it to him. “And eat in bed.”
“Good thinking.”
An hour later, they were sprawled across Vanessa’s bed as Brady poured the last drop from a bottle of chardonnay. Vanessa had scoured the house for candles. Now they were set throughout the room, flickering while Chopin played quietly on the bedside radio.
“That was the best picnic I’ve had since I was thirteen and raided the Girl Scout overnight jamboree.”
She scrounged for the last potato chip, then broke it judiciously in half. “I heard about that.” There hadn’t been time for Girl Scouts with her training. “You were always rotten.”
“Hey, I got to see Betty Jean Baumartner naked. Well, almost naked,” he corrected. “She had on a training bra and panties, but at thirteen that’s pretty erotic stuff.”
“A rotten creep.”
“It was hormones.” He sipped his wine. “Lucky for you, I’ve still got plenty.” With a satisfied sigh, he leaned back against the pillow. “Even if they’re aging.”
Feeling foolish and romantic, she bent over to kiss his knee. “I’ve missed you, Brady.”
He opened his eyes again. “I’ve missed you, too. I’m sorry this week’s been so messed up.”
“I understand.”
He reached out to twine a lock of her hair around his finger. “I hope you do. Office hours alone doubled this week.”
“I know. Chicken pox. Two of my students are down with it. And I heard you delivered a baby—boy, seven pounds six ounces—took out a pair of tonsils … Is it pair or set?” she wondered. “Sewed up a gash in Jack’s arm, and splinted a broken finger. All that being above and beyond the day-to-day sniffles, sneezes, aches and exams.”
“How do you know?”
“I have my sources.” She touched his cheek. “You must be tired.”
“I was before I saw you. Anyway, it’ll ease off when Dad gets back. Did you get a postcard?”
“Yes, just today.” She settled back with her wine. “Palm trees and sand, mariachi players and sunsets. It sounds like they’re having a wonderful time.”
“I hope so, because I intend to switch places with them when they get back.”
“Switch places?”
“I want to go away with you somewhere, Van.” He took her hand, kissed it. “Anywhere you want.”
“Away?” Her nerves began to jump. “Why?”
“Because I want to be alone with you, completely alone, as we’ve never had the chance to be.”
She had to swallow. “We’re alone now.”
He set his wine aside, then hers. “Van, I want you to marry me.”
She couldn’t claim surprise. She had known, once he had used the word love, that marriage would follow. Neither did she feel fear, as she’d been certain she would. But she did feel confusion.
They had talked of marriage before, when they’d been so young and marriage had seemed like such a beautiful dream. She knew better now. She knew marriage was work and commitment and a shared vision.
“Brady, I—”
“This isn’t the way I planned it,” he interrupted. “I’d wanted it to be very traditional—to have the ring and a nicely poetic speech. I don’t have a ring, and all I can tell you is that I love you. I always have, I always will.”
“Brady.” She pressed his hand to her cheek. Nothing he could have said would have been more poetic. “I want to be able to say yes. I didn’t realize until just this moment how much I want that.”
“Then say it.”
Her eyes were wide and wet when they lifted to his. “I can’t. It’s too soon. No,” she said, before he could explode. “I know what you’re going to say. We’ve known each other almost our whole lives. It’s true. But in some ways it’s just as true that we only met a few weeks ago.”
“There was never anyone but you,” he said slowly. “Every other woman I got close to was only a substitute. You were a ghost who haunted me everywhere I went, who faded away every time I tried to reach out and touch.”
Nothing could have moved her or unnerved her more. “My life’s turned upside down since I came back here. I never thought I would see you again—and I thought that if I did it wouldn’t matter, that I wouldn’t feel. But it does matter, and I do feel, and that only makes it more difficult.”
She was saying almost what he wanted to