Home at Rose Cottage (17 page)

Today she had watched from the cottage’s kitchen window and imagined his work-roughened hands on her skin, remembered the tenderness with which he’d coaxed responses from her body.

Maybe it was need or yearning, but suddenly, with a flash of insight, she knew exactly what love was. It was a man who didn’t believe in it risking his heart by asking her to marry him. It was a man who couldn’t find the words showing her over and over again with his steadfastness and tenderness that he loved her. It was a man who hadn’t gone away because she’d said no, but instead had stayed, proving his love with his presence and commitment. It was a man who trusted her enough to ask her to become the mother of the daughter he adored.

Hands shaking and heart pounding, she walked outside and knelt in the dirt beside him. He glanced at her, his eyes filled with desire and shadowed by questions.

“Yes,” she said quietly, praying that single word would be enough. Like him, she wasn’t sure she knew what else to say to make things right, to grab forever.

He gave her a puzzled look. “Yes?”

Her lips curved. “Have you forgotten the question?”

After an eternity, hope suddenly shone in his eyes. “How could I?” he asked simply. “It’s the most important one I’ve ever asked.” He searched her face. “Are you sure?”

“That I love you? Yes. Without question.”

“Enough to stay here?”

“Yes.”

“What about the rest?” he asked. “Do you know how I feel?”

Even now he was leaving it to her to figure things
out, but she no longer minded. The truth was in his eyes. “About you loving me? I know that, too. Someday you’ll see the feelings for what they are, and then you’ll say the words. I can wait. I just can’t wait alone.”

He nodded slowly. “I was thinking a summer wedding,” he said, reaching into his pocket.

His tone was nonchalant, but Melanie could see the vulnerability in his eyes. He still wasn’t sure of her, wasn’t sure of any of this, but he was taking a gigantic leap of faith for her, for both of them.

“The garden should be in shape by then,” he continued as he withdrew a velvet jeweler’s box and held it out. “What do you think?”

Melanie took the box with shaking hands and opened it. The diamond inside sparkled like the sun. She grinned. “Is that why you’ve been working so hard out here?”

He gave her a chagrined look. “I guess subconsciously I was hoping you’d change your mind.”

“And if I hadn’t?”

“Then I would have found the words,” he said confidently. “They’re in my heart, Melanie.” He pressed her hand to his chest. “Can you feel them with each beat?”

She smiled at him. “Steady and enduring,” she said at once. “They’re good words, Mike.”

“And love?” he asked quietly. “You didn’t feel that?”

She lifted her gaze to his. “It’s in your eyes,” she told him. “In your touch. In everything you do.”

He sighed. “As long as you know,” he said.

He took the ring and slipped it on her finger. It was a perfect fit.
They
were a perfect fit.

“I’m sorry I ever doubted it,” she said.

“Maybe we both have to learn to have more faith,” he said quietly. “We’ve been given a gift. We simply have to nurture it.”

Her eyes stinging with tears, Melanie glanced around at the profusion of flowers that had come from this man’s nurturing touch. Love was blooming everywhere. “I think you’re just the man to show me the way.”

C
olleen D’Angelo stood at the back door of Rose Cottage, staring out at the garden, tears in her eyes. Melanie regarded her mother worriedly.

“Mom, are you okay?”

“I’m speechless,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “It’s beautiful, just the way it was when your grandmother was alive. How on earth did you remember it so clearly? I’d forgotten.”

“I didn’t,” Melanie admitted. “I showed Mike a picture, and he knew exactly what to do. It’s almost as if he felt some sort of connection with Grandmother. He fussed and badgered until I agreed to let him put the garden back the way it had been.”

“He’s a wonderful man, this Mike of yours,” her mother said, smiling at her. “He’s making you happy?”

“Of course,” Melanie said, laughing. “We’re getting married in an hour.”

“That’s more than enough time to change your mind,” her mother informed her. “I can’t believe you want to move here. You’ve always been such a city girl.”

“Mike’s here,” Melanie said simply. “And when we get back from our honeymoon, I’m going to open my own marketing firm. Mike will be my first client. Not that I
want him working any harder than he already does, but he won’t be nearly as demanding as other clients might be. He’ll forgive my mistakes while I’m learning the ropes. And Jeff and Pam want me to put together a marketing proposal for the nursery. Starting out with two clients isn’t bad.”

Her mother gave her a fierce hug. “I’m so happy for you. Your father’s fit to be tied that you’re not coming home. Don’t be surprised if he punches Mike in the nose for taking you away from us, instead of giving the bride away the way he’s supposed to.”

Melanie stared at her with alarm. “Dad wouldn’t really do that, would he?” She asked because it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility. He was a very protective dad, and he’d been regarding Mike with suspicion ever since they’d arrived for the wedding.

“Not as long as Mike keeps you smiling,” her mother assured her.

“That won’t be a problem,” Melanie said, just as her sisters burst into the kitchen.

“Hey, why are you two standing down here in your robes crying? We have a wedding in less than an hour,” Ashley announced.

“I think they’re having the
S-E-X
talk,” Jo teased.

“Ah, that must be it,” Maggie chimed in. “See how flushed Melanie’s cheeks are.”

“Stop it, girls,” their mother ordered in the no-nonsense tone they’d learned early to obey.

“Yes, ma’am,” they chorused, then burst into giggles.

Melanie grinned at them. They’d laughed more in the past twenty-four hours than they had in years. She was going to miss them desperately.

Maybe she’d just have to figure out some way to lure
them to Virginia. Surely the magic of Rose Cottage hadn’t been used up on her and Mike.

“Daddy, stop wiggling,” Jessie said, her expression solemn as she surveyed him. “You look gorgeous.” She twirled around. “How do I look?”

“Like a fairy princess,” Mike said, his heart in his throat. Melanie’s insistence that Jessie give him away, rather than taking the more traditional flower-girl role, had been just right. Jessie was taking her responsibility very seriously. Jeff had hardly anything left to do in his capacity as best man.

“I’m feeling extraneous,” he grumbled, running a finger under the collar of his shirt. “Tell me again why I’m wearing a tux, when I could have been sitting in the crowd in a suit?”

“You’re the best man,” Jessie told him. “But I’m more important.”

Jeff laughed as Mike scooped Jessie into his arms. “You are indeed, short stuff. Now let’s get this show on the road.”

The three of them took their places in the garden as the organ music began. Mike’s gaze locked on the back door of the house, where first one D’Angelo sister emerged and then the next. They were all beautiful in their rose-colored gowns, but there was only one sister he was desperate to see.

Then Melanie emerged in a slim gown of white silk and lace, a bouquet of white roses and lily of the valley from the garden in her hands. Her gaze locked with his, and a radiant smile blossomed on her face. It was a stark contrast to the glower on her father’s features. Max D’Angelo didn’t scare Mike. He knew the man wanted only the best for his daughter, and Mike intended to exceed his
expectations. He had a hunch he’d be just as fiercely protective when Jessie found the man of her dreams—say, thirty years from now.

When Melanie reached Mike’s side, the minister asked, “Who gives this couple to be wed?”

Max D’Angelo glanced down at Jessie standing solemnly by his side and tucked her tiny hand in his. “We do,” they said together.

“My love for you will be eternal,” Mike said when the time came, clearly taking Melanie by surprise with vows he’d labored to write himself. “Like this garden, it will have cycles, but it will always bloom and thrive. It will weather every storm and reach for the sunlight. If we nurture it, our joy will be bountiful.”

“Oh, Mike,” she whispered, looking as if she might weep.

“Don’t you dare cry,” he said. “Or I’ll never say anything romantic again.”

She laughed at that, and the world righted itself. He sighed, gazing into her sparkling eyes. This was it, he thought. This was love—looking into Melanie’s eyes and finding that his world was complete.

“I thought I was the one who had all the words,” Melanie said slowly. “But you’ve left me speechless, Mike. ‘I love you’ doesn’t seem to be nearly enough, and yet it’s everything. I love you and your daughter. I love the family we will become, the children we will have somewhere along the way. I love that you’ve taken me into your heart, and I promise you will always be in mine.”

Mike grinned at her. “Not so speechless, after all.”

The minister cleared his throat. “My turn?” he inquired.

“Absolutely,” they both said.

“Then I now pronounce you husband and wife.” He
gazed out at the crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen, I present Mr. and Mrs. Mikelewski.”

Jessie tugged on the minister’s clerical robe. “What about me?” she asked, drawing laughter.

“And daughter,” the minister said.

Mike was about to reach for Jessie, but Melanie was there first, scooping her new daughter up in her arms, then reaching for Mike’s hand. Together the three of them walked down the aisle.

A family, he thought happily. The way it should be. The way it would
always
be.

S
he was apparently addicted to sex. That was the only conclusion Margaret D’Angelo could come up with to explain this ridiculous habit she had of convincing herself she was wildly in love with a man she barely knew. She’d made way too many bad choices in her twenty-seven years based on letting her hormones overrule her head. She was not about to make another one.

And when it came to photographer Rick Flannery, he all but had the phrase “bad choice” tattooed on his forehead. It didn’t take a genius to figure that one out. The man was a talented, world-renowned fashion photographer. That Maggie had even met him was such a fluke, she could still hardly believe it. Under normal circumstances, their paths would never cross. She set up photo shoots of
food,
for goodness’ sakes! The most glamorous things on her magazine’s pages wore decadent icing, not makeup.

Rick had merely stepped in at the last minute to do a favor for a friend. She figured that was about the most luck she could count on where he was concerned.

To add to her conviction that any relationship was doomed, she recognized that he was surrounded daily by some of the most gorgeous women in the world. The
tabloids carried a picture of him almost every week with yet another model on his arm. Society columns linked his name with women from around the globe. Rarely was it the same name twice. That did not bode well for her own relationship with him.

Yes, indeed, for once in her life Maggie actually got it
before
she made the kind of mistake she’d live to regret,
before
she confused passionate sex with eternal love. Just this once she was going to sever all ties with a man before he could break her heart. This sane, rational thought might not have come to her in time to keep her from sleeping with Rick, but it sure as hell was in time to keep her from falling for him.

Proud of herself for making such a calm, intelligent decision for once and backing it up with a plan of action, she marched into her big sister’s law office in a prestigious Boston skyscraper and held out her hand. “Give me the key,” she demanded grimly.

Ashley’s head snapped up from the stack of paperwork on her cluttered desk. She stared at Maggie blankly. Clearly her mind was still on whatever high-profile case she was preparing to take to court.

“What key?” Ashley asked, sounding surprisingly less quick-witted than she did when she was defending one of her clients against an aggressive prosecutor.

“To Rose Cottage, dammit!” Their grandmother’s cottage was far away from Boston. Rick knew absolutely nothing about it. Maggie figured she could hide out there until this attraction or addiction or whatever it was cooled down, until it became nothing more than a distant memory. Down there in the boonies, she might not even have to see his picture in some tabloid with whatever model du jour was taking her place. That was definitely an added bonus.

“Why?” Ashley asked.

“I’m taking a vacation, that’s why,” Maggie retorted.

Ashley looked even more surprised. Maggie was no more in the habit of taking time off than Ashley was. She might not maintain Ashley’s workaholic pace, but she didn’t like being too far from the office and the whirlwind that publishing a monthly magazine entailed.

“Sit,” Ashley commanded, waiting patiently until Maggie relented and complied. “What’s going on, Maggie?”

“Rick Flannery is going on,” Maggie responded, blurting out the words without thinking of the consequences. Ashley went into full protective big-sister mode. It was an awesome, sometimes intimidating transformation, especially for the person on the receiving end of her wrath.

“The photographer?” Ashley asked, getting a better grip on her pen and looking as if she might start taking notes and readying some sort of suit against the man at any second if she didn’t find Maggie’s answers satisfactory. “The one you’ve been raving about ever since he stepped in at the last minute to do the photo shoot for the July issue of your magazine? The one who could make the most ordinary mac and cheese look like gourmet fare, even though he normally takes pretty pictures of gorgeous women? The man who has eyes as crystal-blue as a lake and a tight little butt?
That
Rick Flannery?”

“Yes, that Rick Flannery,” Maggie snapped. As if there could possibly be another one, she thought irritably. Wasn’t it bad enough that there was one of them? And did her sister have to remember every blasted thing she’d ever said about the man?

To Maggie’s shock, Ashley leaned back and grinned. “The man’s got your hormones all stirred up, hasn’t he? Why didn’t I see that the first time you mentioned his
name? When you started waxing eloquent about his body, it should have been a dead giveaway.”

Maggie remained stubbornly silent.

“So?” Ashley prodded. “Does he make your heart pound and then some?”

“So what if he does? Nothing’s going to come of it.” Actually quite a lot had come of it, several glorious days and nights of unbridled passion, in fact. That was the problem, but Ashley didn’t need to know it. Nor was Maggie about to add that he’d failed to call for six endless days now, pretty much proving her impression of a hit-and-run kind of a guy.

“Why not? Is there some reason the two of you can’t be together?” Ashley persisted.

“Because he’s Rick Flannery, dammit! There are a hundred—no, maybe a thousand—absolutely gorgeous, willowy women who drool over him on a regular basis. I am not about to set myself up to compete with that.” What they had might be very hot right now, but it wouldn’t last, not with that kind of competition underfoot day in and day out. Maggie hadn’t been able to sustain a relationship yet, not once the sex cooled down. And Rick, according to all sorts of tabloid accounts, was not known for ignoring temptation.

“You’ve already slept with him, haven’t you?” Ashley inquired knowingly. “And it was fabulous. Otherwise you wouldn’t be this scared.”

Leave it to Ashley to see straight through her, Maggie thought with disgust. She’d hoped to get through this conversation with one tiny shred of dignity intact. Apparently that wasn’t to be.

“Will you just give me the stupid key?” she grumbled.

“So you can hide out in grandmother’s cottage until the attraction wears off?” Ashley surmised.

“Exactly.”

“You do recall what happened when Melanie went there a few months ago, don’t you? She was just as determined to avoid men as you are. One popped up anyway and she’s now married.” There was a gloating note in Ashley’s voice.

“A fluke. Lightning can’t possibly strike twice,” Maggie insisted. “That town is only so big. How many men can there possibly be like Melanie’s Mike?”

Ashley chuckled. “It only takes one, sweetie.” But even as she said it, she dug in her purse and retrieved the old-fashioned key that she kept there as some sort of bizarre talisman. She claimed it was a reminder to her that there was life outside the office. She held it out to Maggie. “Go. Enjoy.”

“Thank you,” Maggie said, grabbing the key and heading for the door.

“You’re welcome. But when temptation comes calling, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Maggie glared at her. “Bite your tongue.”

Wasn’t that the whole point of going into exile, after all? Temptation was going to be hundreds of miles away.