Ginny Aiken (39 page)

Letty knew just what to do. She stood and reached up to stroke his golden hair. His pacing stopped.

“Eric,” she said. “Let’s not quibble. We have a lifetime of happiness to plan.”

She watched the thrilling transformation. The chocolate brown of his irises gave way to the deepest darkness.

“Is the waiting finally over?”

“Yes, it’s over.”

“Why?”

She stood on tiptoe and placed a featherlight kiss on his lips.
“Because, my darling man, when you stripped yourself of all pride and wrote that article for my sake, I realized that nothing mattered so much but that God had brought us together, and nothing else should keep us apart. Not the town’s opinions, not a scandal, nothing. He will be faithful to help us overcome all those. I was wrong to place such significance on those matters.”

“I’m hardly that noble,” he said. “My selfishness inspired that editorial. I’m ready to do whatever it takes to have you as my wife.”

As he spoke, Eric remembered saying similar words earlier—to Douglas. He’d best tell Letty she was about to become the mother of five wild urchins, before she imagined their married life a paradise for two. “Ah . . . Letty?”

“Yes?”

“There’s one other thing you should know.”

“And that is . . . ?”

“Well, I just couldn’t let anything happen to them, and since I know how much you care for them, and because I love them myself . . .” Eric ran his hand through his hair, thinking over what he’d said. “Blast, but I sound like Ford!”

“I noticed.”

“Well, they’re ours. All of them. And you’d better like it, because I refuse to quibble about it.”

She reached a finger to his mustache, then feathered her touch onto his lips. “I know,” she said.

“You know? How could you? They promised not to tell.”

Letty’s finger followed the angle of his cheekbone. “I don’t know who promised what, but I’ve known all along that the man I love would never let anything harm those children. You love our five rapscallions too much to leave them unprotected in this fallen world. I presume you’ve spoken to Douglas about the adoption.”

Her trust stole his ability to speak, to think. He could only feel, and he felt humbled. Letty loved him. She trusted him to be the man he wanted to be, the man she needed. With her at
his side, her faith behind him, he could be just that—a family man, a man of God.

For a moment he treasured the emotion in his heart. Then he saw the lamp in the corner of the room. Its flame glowed, steady and clear, illuminating their surroundings. For the first time ever, he recognized the corresponding glow within his heart. Tears of joy welled in his eyes, tears of love.

“I’m yours,” he whispered into Letty’s violet-scented hair. “You led me back to God, and He gave me life again. Now I’m His . . . and yours.”

“As am I, my love.”

“That you are, light of my heart.”

Ginny Aiken,
a former newspaper reporter, lives in Pennsylvania with her engineer husband and their four sons. Born in Havana, Cuba, and raised in Valencia and Caracas, Venezuela, she discovered books at an early age. She wrote her first novel at age fifteen during downtime from the Ballets de Caracas, later to become the Venezuelan National Ballet. She is now the author of fifteen published works.