AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“And I should have had enough sense not to stand next to a man I suspected of attempted murder.”
“You shouldn’t have been there in the first place.” He started unbuttoning her dress. “As soon as I get this dress off you, we’re going to have a talk about your obedience.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I followed your orders perfectly.”
He paused and looked into her eyes. The smile he didn’t see on her face rested lightly in their green depths. “Uh-huh.”
He eased her up to slide the dress down her back. He broke into a sweat as he worked it off her right shoulder. To distract her from the pain he was likely causing, he asked, “How do you figure that?”
“You told me that, if I continued to deal with Aaron, I ought to pack protection against snake bite.” She shrugged her left shoulder. “I just transferred your advice to Jimmy, then Brent.”
“And that little pea-shooter was the best protection you could come up with?” He finally managed to get her right arm free.
She smiled and played with the hair at the nape of his neck. “It was the only one that fit in my reticule.” She tugged and he looked up. Straight into her love-soft smile. “You can breathe, Asa. You’re not hurting me.”
He shook his head and admitted wryly, “I don’t know if I’m ever going to breathe steady again after this afternoon.”
“You’d better.”
“How so?”
“Because I want you there when our babies are born.”
She wanted babies with him. The thought made him smile. Sure enough, their kids would be terrors. He pictured a toddler with his mother’s red hair playing at her feet as she sat on the porch. He pictured her belly round with another child. He imagined her face and saw it soft with contentment. He couldn’t wait. He put his hand on her belly, cupping it low where his child would someday rest. He looked up and realized he didn’t have to wait to see the contentment.
“I promise to do my best, darlin’,” he drawled.
“You’ll do fine, Asa.”
Guilt ate at him. There was something they had to get straight between them. “Sometimes I think you’re looking for a hero and, darlin’, I sure fall short of that mark.”
She cupped his cheek in her hand. “Who needs a hero?” She lifted her left shoulder in a dismissing shrug. “All they’re good for is swooping in sporadically and whaling on the bad guys.”
On the pretext of sliding her dress off, he avoided her eyes. God, he wanted to be a hero for her. He wanted to move mountains. He wanted to wrap her in cotton-wool. He wanted to stand between her and all comers. He wanted it so badly, it gnawed at his gut like poison. “I’m not ever going to be a hero, Elizabeth.”
She pulled his gaze to hers with a tug on the hair on the back of his neck. “I don’t need a hero, Asa. I can handle bad guys on my own.” Her good hand smoothed his eyebrows. “What I do need is someone who makes me laugh. Who likes me. Someone who’s gentle and loving. Someone who sets me free and laughs with delight when I fly.” She stroked her hand down his face until her thumb rested on his lips. With three fiercely spoken words, she made mincemeat of his uncertainty. “I need you.”
He kissed her then, wildly, trying to express without words how much she meant to him, because there simply weren’t any. She was everything—past, present, future, hope and promise—all rolled into one. She took his kiss and all the emotion he poured into it and gave it back tenfold.
It wasn’t enough. She gasped for breath and he let her go, raining kisses on her cheeks, eyes and nose. She slid her leg over his, turning half on her side. He helped her ease her injured arm into a comfortable position against his chest. As her head settled into the hollow of his shoulder, he whispered, “I love you.” He couldn’t seem to say it enough.
“I love you, too.”
She nuzzled her nose into his shoulder. Her eyelashes tickled his skin as she blinked. Her hand fumbled for his at his side. She squeezed it tightly and said, “Welcome home, Asa.”
He remembered his prayer that day he lay broken and bleeding in the alley. Just a hurt kid, aching for a home. He remembered his desperate prayer to belong. He remembered the promise he’d made and received. He bent and kissed the top of Elizabeth’s head. He squeezed her arm gently with his fingers, looked up at the ceiling and blinked rapidly.
It was funny how promises lingered. Now, not only did he belong, but he was loved, from the soles of his feet to the top of his head, by a woman who didn’t have an infant’s grasp of what it meant to do anything by half measures. He was home at last and there seemed to be only one thing to say.
“Thank you.”
