Deborah Camp (39 page)

“You thought I had given up on us, didn’t you?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Not so much on us as on this.” She looked around at the bed, the room, their home. “I’ve been in a stew all day.” Combing back his hair with her fingers, she kissed his wide forehead.

“I admit that accepting your money went against my grain.” He laid her on the bed and slowly peeled off his shirt. His chest and arms bulged with muscle and sent longing curling through her again. “You’re right. I’m a stubborn cuss, but I didn’t want to lose you, Elise, so I decided to put aside my pride for you.”

She smiled and trailed a fingertip down the center of his chest to his navel. “Then you were ready to do what my father did for my mother.”

His head jerked up in surprise. He narrowed his eyes, not liking the comparison she’d made. “I wasn’t going to let you make a living for me.”

“No, but you were willing to compromise, to do something that you’ve just admitted rubbed you the wrong way.” She unfastened his trousers and tugged on his waistband, trying to pull him into bed. He resisted.

“That’s true, but your father—”

“My father was used to working for a living. He was a cobbler, a tradesman, and he fell in love with a woman who was used to a life he could never provide for her. But he loved her … loved her so much that he agreed to quit his job and live off the allowance her parents gave her.” She raised herself up on one elbow, thrusting her face closer to his. “My father didn’t like the arrangement, but he didn’t want my mother to be without the things she’d become accustomed to, so he swallowed his pride. All for love.”

Blade smoothed her hair, his gaze following the path of his hand. “But you became accustomed to that life, and you will never find it with me. No servants. No big house.”

“Those things aren’t important to me, Blade. This farm is what I want more than anything, because
this farm is your home, your inheritance, your roots.”

“Were your parents happy?”

“Yes. They loved each other, which made everything else bearable.”

He smiled, then captured her hand and lifted it to his lips to kiss each knuckle. She shivered, watching his lips caress her fingers.

“I liked your letter.”

She swallowed hard, desire clogging her throat. “Did you? It was all true.”

“Remind me not to make you as mad again as you were today. You pack a punch, little lady.” He grinned; then his brows shot up. “Oh, I bought something for you today. Used what little money I’d managed to save.” He plunged a hand into his pant pocket.

“You didn’t have to buy—” The words melted away as Elise stared at the gold band he held before her eyes.

Without another word, he slipped the wedding ring onto her finger, then kissed it.

“I figured it was time,” he murmured.

Smiling through tears of joy, Elise knew she had never seen such a beautiful ring in her life. It was simple, gold, with no adornment, but it was hers, given to her by Blade, and it was priceless. She kissed him, her lips trembling.

“Blade, I’m going to make you happy. I’m going to make you a good wife.”

His arms created a safe harbor around her. “You already are a good wife to me, Elise. My beautiful, spirited wife. My destiny. My woman.”

Elise ran her fingertips over his high cheekbones, his lips, the fading bruises on his face. “You’re my heart’s secret wish, Blade.”

“Secret?” One of his brows jumped up.

“Yes. Secret, because I didn’t even know you were what my heart wanted until I saw you at the train station. I couldn’t take my eyes off you!” She laughed and rested her forehead against his chin, remembering how he’d looked to her then and how she’d responded. “That was a terrible day, but I couldn’t stop admiring you. So tall. So handsome. So different from everyone else. You were a peacock in a flock of prairie chickens.”

He laughed and pulled her even closer to him. “I like that description. I remember you wore that red dress and that saucy little hat. To me you were a lady from a manor, fit for a king. I could tell that you were sad, but you were also full of fire and life.”

“When our eyes met, I knew,” she whispered, lost in the memories.

“Knew what?”

She lifted her gaze to his. “That I hadn’t come to Crossroads just for Penny and Adam. I’d come for you, too, Blade. I’d come for you.”

His mouth swooped to hers and a sound of joy escaped him. Joining her on the bed, he plucked pins from her hair, tossing them this way and that until her hair shimmered around her shoulders and pooled in his hands. “Sometimes I can hardly believe it,” he whispered.

“I know,” she said, understanding how being together sometimes seemed like a dream. She pushed his trousers down his hips. He kicked them the rest of the way off, then kissed her with devoted intensity.

“Elise, I love you with all that is holy and good inside me.”

His words snapped her to trembling attention.
“Say that again, Blade! Oh, I’ve waited so long to hear you say that you love me!”

“Of course I love you.” He slanted his mouth over hers first one way, then the other, until her lips throbbed and her lungs cried for air. He broke the kiss to remove her clothing, his hands gentle, arousing. “I love you, Elise Lonewolf, and I always will.”

“Why didn’t you tell me before?” she asked, pressing her breasts against the solid wall of his chest. It felt wonderful to be skin to skin with him again. One night away from him seemed like a thousand.

“I didn’t want you to stay with me if you could have a better life somewhere else,” he admitted. “And I thought that if I told you how much I loved you, you’d feel beholden to remain with me.”

“Beholden?” she repeated in dismay. “Blessed, you mean. Any woman would be blessed to be loved by you.”

He cupped her breasts and kissed her throat.

“Blade, do you know what I want on my gravestone?”

Frowning, he shook his head. “Don’t talk of such things!”

“No, no. I want you to listen.” She held his face between her hands and made him look at her. “When I die, years and years and years from now when I’m a very old woman, I want
my
gravestone to read, ‘She loved Blade Lonewolf.’ ”

His eyes glimmered with emotion and she knew he’d made the connection with what was on Julia’s headstone. “That’s all?”

“That’s enough.”

“You want no children by me?”

“Of course, if it’s God’s will. But if not?” She
shrugged and kissed his full lips. “I have you and that’s everything to me.”

“Elise … Elise ….” He smiled, then pressed sweet, light kisses across her forehead, down the bridge of her nose. When he kissed her mouth, he became more insistent, drawing a response from her. She slipped her tongue between his lips and rubbed her tender breasts against his chest.

“I am so heavy and hard with need for you that I am miserable,” he confessed.

She smiled, moving a hand down to feel for herself. “My, my! Well, what are you waiting for, Blade Lonewolf? We have love to make …” She leaned upward to lightly nip his earlobe and to whisper, “And black-haired, brown-eyed babies to make!”

His grin broke on his face like a sunrise, bright and life-affirming. Wasting no time, he enfolded her in his embrace and warmed her with his love.