Corporate Affair (33 page)

“Wait!” Jordan blurted. “What are you talking about? What big event? I must be losing it. What event is that? Was it in the merger contract?”

Aiden laughed. “No, but it should have been.” He slipped his hand into his pocket and brought out the old velvet box. Taking her hand, he placed the box gently in her open palm, closing her fingers around it. “Will you marry me in September, Jordan? I can’t wait longer than that.”

Jordan stood as though turned to stone.

In slow motion, she opened the box. The diamonds flashed and glittered in the evening sunlight. She stared at it.

“Put it on,” urged Aiden. “I want to see if it fits.”

With trembling fingers, she took the ring out of the box and slipped it onto her finger. “Oh, Aiden,” she breathed, “it’s a perfect fit.” Tears of happiness blurred her vision as she gazed up at him. “I will marry you, Aiden. I will!”

He bent and kissed her tenderly on the eyelids, cheek, and lips. It was mutual, Aiden knew, this indescribable feeling of love, confidence, and security.

“Where did you get this ring? It’s so, so beautiful!”

“It was my great-grandmother’s,” he explained. “My mother gave it to me to give to you.”

“Oh, Aiden! I—I don’t know what to say. It’s fantastic! I love it! Oh, Aiden, I love you!” Jordan wrapped both arms around him and kissed him soundly. “Yes, I will marry you in September, even if we have to elope!”

“Let’s go tell your parents.”

They walked, hand in hand, to his car. As they drove slowly back to the house, Jordan said quietly, “I was thinking about something else too. Something hard for me to think about.”

“What is it?” asked Aiden. His heart was calm; he had what he wanted now. He felt very strong and confident. He would help her through anything. They were together now; that was what mattered.

“What you said about Grace needing to know her father’s family. Aiden, she might have died, and they would never have known she had been born. I don’t even know them, but I know that’s just not fair. It was kind of an odd relationship, Mark’s and mine. Sort of a friendship born out of loneliness and need, almost childish, now that I look back on it. But Grace came from that relationship, and I owe it to his memory to tell his mother and father that they have a granddaughter. Part of their son is a living, breathing, laughing little girl, and they need to know that. I don’t know them. I know they live in Montgomery, up in the Northeast Kingdom. I have no idea what kind of people they are, or what they’ll say. They might refuse to see or talk to me, but I have to try. Will you help me with this?”

Aiden cleared his throat, trying to conquer his sudden emotional response. He knew what to say, what to do. It was the honorable thing, the only thing, to do. His heart swelled with love for her, and he knew she saw it, too. The furtive, guarded, insecure Jordan was gone. In her place was a confident, self-assured woman who knew who she was.
Love will do that
, thought Aiden.

“Of course,” he answered. “Of course I’ll help you. We’ll do it together. It will be a shock to them, so we’ll have to plan it carefully for their sakes, but it needs to be done. They need to know. Grace needs to know.”

They drove the rest of the way to the house in silence, each caught in their own thoughts. Aiden felt fulfilled, as though his life had started in earnest at last. And Jordan seemed happily surprised to find not a shred of doubt that this was where she was supposed to be, what she was supposed to be doing. Everything else was incidental, and they would figure it out as they went along.

It was two weeks later, a warm and sunny June afternoon, when Aiden pulled the Jeep up to the front of a neat, white frame house on a quiet, modest street in the tiny town of Montgomery. Vermont was awash with the vibrant green of full summer.

Two large maple trees shaded the home, and a carefully cared-for colorful border of annuals lined the walkway from the front door to the sidewalk. Jordan looked at Aiden. “Here goes nothing,” Jordan said quietly as she got out of the car. Opening the back door, she lifted Grace out of her car seat. Cradling the baby on her hip, she started up the walk with Aiden following at a respectful distance.

The front door opened before Jordan could ring the bell. A gray-haired couple stood there, hand in hand. The woman was small and stocky with an open, pleasant face. The man was tall and thin with sad eyes.

As Jordan approached the couple, the man let go of his wife’s hand and put his arm around her shoulders in a protective gesture, but the woman slipped out from under her husband’s embrace and started down the walk to meet Jordan and Grace. She stopped just short of them, smiled and held out her arms toward the baby.

Grace giggled and buried her face in her mother’s neck. Then, she extended her chubby little hands out to the woman and smiled broadly.

With tears in her eyes, the grandmother stepped forward and reached out for something she had thought she had lost forever.

Acknowledgments

Thank you to my publisher, Elizabeth Harper—again! Also many thanks to Cindy Campbell who patiently hammered it out with me when our editing programs didn’t mesh! Also to Jennifer DeLucy for once again coming up with just the right music for my trailer. Thanks to the rest of the Omnific team, especially Coreen, Lisa, CJ and Kim and many, many hugs to Traci Olsen who has guided me through the confusion more than once, sometimes over tasty lunches!

About the Author

Linda Cunningham grew up a small town country girl and it is here where she’s still most comfortable. She has written steadily throughout the years, although usually other peoples’ speeches, articles, and grants, primarily for medical and agricultural trade journals. Now that her three children are grown, Linda is writing full time and writing the stuff she loves—Romance!

Linda lives in a romantic stone house in the Green Mountain State of Vermont, surrounded by her gardens and animals which include horses, dogs, cats, chickens, sheep, a parakeet, goldfish and the wild visitors who tiptoe through on a regular basis. When time permits, she also enjoys cooking, sketching, and painting.

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