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"Sunday? Oh, no!" Damien. She should have told Collin at the beginning. Perhaps he wouldn't have left the cottage immediately. And now he would hate her.
"What is it, pet?"
"Oh, I. . . Surely he. . . Collin. . . Surely he needs to return home."
"I gather that he had planned to visit your cottage for several days at least."
"Um. Yes, I guess he did." She plucked at the bedspread, mind buzzing, unable to think of anything more to say.
"Well, I'll send him up then. I don't doubt he will propose, but I did not ask him to, mind you. I would not force either of you to marriage, you understand?"
She nodded.
"You are free to do what you will. Do not marry him unless you think you will be happy. It is your decision."
"Yes, Hart." "I mean it."
She nodded, then twitched in surprise when he swooped in to hug her.
"I love you like no other, Alexandra. And I understand you. We are too much alike, you and I."
"Ha!" She forced a laugh past her tight throat, pressing her face to his familiar shoulder. "Do not insult me."
"Watch yourself. I still owe you a thrashing."
His arms slipped away, leaving her laughing, but her laughter faded as he stalked from the room. Was Collin waiting outside the door? Did she have only a moment to prepare herself or half an hour? The answer arrived immediately.
"Alex."
She could read nothing in him but tension, but she remembered the words he'd whispered over her that morning and forced a smile. Perhaps he would not hate her. Perhaps she could make this right.
"Collin." Just saying his name gave her a happy jolt, or maybe it was his body, large and male and in her bedroom. She felt a real smile bloom.
Something lightened in him too, as he drew closer, as he watched her smile, and Alex was shocked to realize he was nervous. He stopped a few feet from her bed.
"How do you feel, Alex?"
"Well."
"You look well. Impossibly so."
"Thank you. Won't you come sit with me?" He blinked, looked at her bed, and she realized that he was about to say no and rushed on to stop him. "No one would be shocked to find you here."
Ah, there was that hard jaw she knew so well. "No, I don't suppose they would be."
"I'm sorry, Collin. I'm sorry to have gotten you into this mess." She noticed the green cast on one side of his chin and cringed. Still, a bruised jaw was better than a broken nose.
He stepped closer then, bringing the scent of rain. When he sat beside her, she could not resist the urge to wrap her fingers into his hand. Collin watched this, staring as he stroked his thumb over her knuckles, a warm rasp of skin on skin. His eyes finally revealed something, a hot, fierce pain that startled her, even as she saw him leaning in to kiss her.
"Alex." Her name whispered over her lips as he pressed his mouth to hers. When his palm came up to cradle her cheek, she felt her heart break open and shine, so that she almost cried out yes! before he'd even asked for her hand.
His mouth slid from her lips to press kisses over her cheeks, her eyelids, her nose. "You scared me to death, ye wee brat."
"You sound just like my brother."
Grunting, he pulled back to sweep her face with his eyes, taking her in until she touched fingers to his jaw.
"I'm sorry he hit you."
