Authors: Sherryl Woods
Never Let Go (15 page)
“I didn’t leave you.”
“Then why are you in Phoenix?”
“I’m thinking.”
“That’s not the same as leaving?”
“Not when you’re still in love with a man who seemed to be too damn stubborn to realize what he was giving up.”
“That reminds me, you haven’t answered me yet,” he said. “Will you marry me?”
Her arms were tight around his waist, but the look in her eyes was suddenly hesitant. “Are you absolutely, positively sure this is what you want? I’m not sure I can go through another one of these on-again, off-again things.”
“More than anything.”
“You couldn’t say that a week or so ago. What changed your mind?”
“A week or so ago, I hadn’t chased away the last of the demons. Linda helped me to do that.”
“You saw her?”
“Funny thing. She turned up at Fairview, working in the OR. We had a long talk about what had happened, and she made me see it in a different light. She broke the last of my ties to the past. I’m ready to move forward now…with you, if you’ll have me.”
“No more fears and doubts?”
“I suppose I’ll always have fears, but I know now you and I can work through just about anything. How many men are lucky enough to have their own personal psychologist around when the going gets rough?”
“Then you’re reconciled to my profession, too?”
“Actually, it seems I’m a rather staunch defender. I gave Dr. Marshall a piece of my mind for sending you away.”
She frowned at him,
then chuckled in spite of herself. He could see the laughter coming into her eyes. “Oh, Justin, you didn’t? What did he say?”
“Actually, it seems he’s one of your biggest fans, but I think he was impressed with the persuasiveness of my argument.”
“I’ll just bet he was.”
“Don’t you care that I stood up for you?”
“Of course. But after everything you’ve said in the past, I have to wonder why you did it.”
“You didn’t deserve to be reprimanded for being good at your job.”
“And?”
“And I finally admitted to myself it wasn’t what you did at the hospital that made me so angry. It was my own fears.”
“Explain.”
“Do you really have to ask?”
She grinned. “No. But you need to answer.”
“That’s exactly what I was afraid of. You know me too well.”
“Don’t you see, though, that’s not just because I’m a psychologist. It’s because I love you. Do you understand everything about me?”
“Now that you mention it, no.”
“Really? What don’t you understand?”
“Why it’s taking you so long to answer my question. Will you marry me?”
“I think you already know the answer.”
This time it was Justin whose eyes were filled with humor. “But I want to hear you say it.”
“Then, yes, my love. Yes.”
When Mallory’s mother came
sneaking through the front door in her slippers an hour later, Justin and Mallory were necking on the sofa.
“Mallory Marie!” she said indignantly, but there was a decided sparkle in her eyes.
“Go away, Mother,” Mallory murmured, still dropping kisses along Justin’s jaw and at the tender spot just beneath his right ear.
“Aren’t you going to introduce me?”
“Not right this minute.”
“You’ll be sorry,” her mother responded, and Mallory’s head snapped up. She looked toward the doorway, just in time to see her mother vanishing toward the kitchen.
“Why will we be sorry?” Justin asked nervously. “Has she gone after a shotgun?”
“My guess is she’s headed for the phone.”
“Why?”
“I would say that within the next fifteen minutes we’ll be surrounded by curious relatives.”
“It’s an interesting technique for keeping you out of a man’s arms. Did she do that back in high school or did she use the more traditional method of flashing the porch lights?”
“She waited on the porch and, for your information, she is not one bit interested in keeping me out of your arms. She wants my relatives here, just in case we’re interested in getting married.”
“We are interested in getting married.”
“Were you prepared to do it today?”
“You mean…”
“I mean that right after she calls my father, brothers and sister and assorted cousins,
she’ll be on the phone to the family minister.”
Justin chuckled. “She’s definitely a woman who doesn’t leave anything to chance. What if we weren’t planning to get married?”
“Then we’d all have a lovely dinner and an assortment of testimonials on the advantages of wedded bliss.”
“As opposed to necking in the living room?”
“Exactly.”
“How do you feel about giving her what she wants?”
“You mean a wedding? Here? Now?”
“Why not?”
Mallory saw the love—and commitment—shining in Justin’s eyes and felt as though her heart might very well explode with sheer joy. “Why not, indeed.”
“Just make me one promise.”
“What’s that?”
“That we’ll never stop necking in the living room.”
“You’ve got it, doctor,” she said, linking her arms behind his neck and drawing him down for a kiss that left them both breathless.
When the doorbell began ringing a few minutes later, they looked at each other and
chuckled.
“I guess you’d better go find something to wear to your wedding, Dr. Blake.”
ISBN: 978-1-4592-5602-6
NEVER LET GO
Copyright © 1998 by Sherryl Woods
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