Dangerous Disguise (16 page)
She looked at him skeptically. Knowing she was losing the battle but trying desperately to still win it. “But now you know.”
“Now I know,” he repeated.
Damn, he was good. She could feel her knees melting even though she kept telling herself he was lying. “And it came to you when? When you saw me holding a gun on Shepherd?”
“Actually, yes.”
Without all the information, she drew the only conclusion she could. “Are you into kinky things?”
“No,” he laughed. “Only into you.” And then he grew serious. “What came to me was the thought of spending the rest of my life without you if you pulled that trigger. What came to me was that I was willing to lie, to ignore what had happened, just to keep you safe. I’ve never been willing to do that before.”
She stared at him. He’d almost had her. But he’d blown it. The man lied by profession. “Yeah, sure.”
“I don’t mean when it came to setting up an undercover operation, I mean where it counts. On the right side of the law.” Without realizing it, he placed her hand over his heart. So she could feel it beating. For her. “I’ve never compromised what I pledged to uphold and defend.”
“But you were willing to do that for me.”
His eyes never left her face as he tried to find some sign that told him he was, if not home safe, at least close to it. “Yes.”
“Why?” she persisted.
“You really don’t have a very long attention span, do you?”
He took her into his arms. She was cold. So was he. But there were ways to fix that. And then he realized that she wasn’t struggling to get free. She was listening to him. It was going to be all right.
If he was careful.
“Because I love you,” he told her. Emotion threatened to choke him. He’d never felt like this before because nothing had ever mattered this much before. “Maren, I want you to be my wife.”
“For a sting operation.”
“No, damn it.” Didn’t she understand? Or was she just trying to torture him because she thought he deserved it. “Forever.”
She wanted to fling herself into his arms. Wanted to have him kiss her until she was senseless again. But she needed to find her way to trusting him again. It was a shaky, narrow path. “How do I know that this isn’t just another fabrication?”
“You can hook me up to a lie detector if you’d like.”
She cocked her head, as if honestly studying his face. “I hear there are ways to beat that.”
“I never lied to you where it counted, Maren.” He went over just a couple of things he’d told her. “I can cook. It was my uncle who taught me. He just happens to be the chief of police, that’s all.”
He’d never mentioned what his uncle had done for a living. She’d just assumed it was cooking because he’d let her. “So you’re guilty of the sin of omission, as well.”
He pressed a kiss to her forehead. God, but he wanted her. But he couldn’t hurry this. He’d lose her if he did. “I’ll be guilty of whatever you want me to be, as long as you realize that I’m guilty of loving you and that I want you to marry me.”
She looked at him for a long moment. “If I marry you, I want to hear all the details.”
His eyebrows pulled together in momentary confusions. “Details?”
“Details of the rest of your life.” She loved learning about people. And none so much as Jared. “What I have is very sketchy.”
“If you marry me, you’ll
be
the rest of my life.”
She looked up at him, threading her arms around his neck. She was a goner and she knew it. There was no use in pretending otherwise. “You still have all the answers, don’t you?”
He framed her face with his hands. “All but the most important one.”
She smiled then and it went straight to his gut. “You know, Papa Joe likes you.”
“Papa Joe has excellent taste.” The air left his lungs. He’d never proposed before, never wanted to propose before. Never wanted anything so much in his life. “So is it yes?”
“Of course it’s yes, you big dope. I love you. Or haven’t you noticed?”
Framing her face between his hands, he kissed her then, kissed her like a man who had finally found the path that would take his soul out of darkness and into the light. Kissed her like a man who intended to spend a great deal of time at this pastime and wanted to be sure he got it right each and every time.
Hoots and applause caused them to move apart. When he looked, Troy was peering out of the house and giving him the high sign. He moved her out of the way.
“How’s Joe doing?” He realized he hadn’t asked her.
Maren smiled. “Doctor says he’s going to pull through.”
“Great. Let’s go tell Joe you said yes.”
He couldn’t have said anything that would have warmed her heart more if he tried.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-6855-9
DANGEROUS DISGUISE
Copyright © 2005 by Marie Rydzynski-Ferrarella
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All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
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