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The snow was still falling thickly outside the car, but inside, all the joy in the world was concentrated on that one tiny box. ‘Yes,’ she said, her eyes shining, and he slipped the ring on to her finger where it fitted perfectly. As they did.
It was some time before they left the car and went into the house to find Jennie sitting waiting on the stairs, biting her nails in an agony of impatience. Everyone squealed and cheered and clapped their hands, even the tiny tots who hadn’t a clue what was going on but recognised Christmas magic when they saw it. With Zac’s arm tightly round her and beaming faces everywhere, for the first time in her life Rachel felt part of a family. Loved, appreciated, wanted.
And later that night, once everyone had retired and they were sitting together in front of the dying fire, loath to part to go to bed, they loved and talked and loved again. ‘Our first Christmas together,’ Rachel murmured dreamily, glancing down at the glittering diamonds on her left hand, hardly able to believe that everything that had been so wrong was now so right.
‘And by next Christmas you’ll be an old married lady, perhaps even with a baby on the way,’ Zac said huskily.
A baby. Zac’s baby. She turned into him, her mouth seeking his, and when the kiss ended they were both breathing hard. She had already decided in her heart that she would move to Canada. There was nothing to hold her here and real friends like Jennie and Susan could come for holidays and she could visit them. Zac’s work and family were in Canada and she wouldn’t take him away from them.
‘Would you object to a winter wedding?’ Zac had pulled her onto his lap and she wound her arms around his neck. ‘I thought February would give you time to get a dress and I’ll find a venue and see to everything. I don’t want to wait a day longer than we have to. I want, I need to know you’re my wife.’
She gazed at him, misty-eyed. ‘You’re a man of extremes, Zac Lawson.’
‘You’d better believe it. I’m going to devote my life to extremely loving you,’ he promised softly. ‘Starting now.’
And no one could say Zac Lawson wasn’t a man of his word.
EPILOGUE
ZAC and Rachel had their winter wedding and everyone said it was the most beautiful day. All their friends and family attended, a huge contingent arriving from Canada. Rachel had been nervous about meeting Zac’s parents but she needn’t have worried—Zac’s father was just like Zac and his mother was the sweetest person and clearly thrilled her son was finally settling down at last.
Rachel had thought long and hard about inviting her mother and sisters: she didn’t want the most important day of her life ruined by her mother’s spitefulness, but she could hardly invite Lisa and
Claire and their families and leave her mother out. In the end, Zac took charge and went to deliver the invitation personally. Exactly what was said that day Rachel never knew and didn’t want to know, but on their wedding day her mother behaved impeccably, which was all Rachel wanted.
They honeymooned in the Caribbean for a month and then flew straight to Canada. Rachel fell in love with Zac’s house the moment she saw it. It was larger than he’d led her to believe but very private with its own woodland and extensive grounds. Inside, the old mellow oak floors, huge windows with panoramic views over magnificent countryside and massive window seats to curl up on thrilled her.
Zac had given her carte blanche for a complete refurbishment of furniture and fittings if she so wanted, but in the event she changed very little except for adding some feminine touches here and there and changing the colour scheme of the master bedroom from dark coffee and oatmeal to a softer gold and cream.
After a settling-in period when she met Zac’s friends and extended family properly and got to know his parents well—his mother was over the moon they were staying in Canada and opened her heart and her home to Rachel as the daughter she’d always wanted but had never had—she applied for, and got, a job as a marketing executive for a fast-food chain. She didn’t need to work but she wanted to, and Zac backed her all the way. As he did in everything.
For the first time in her life Rachel knew what it was to have someone who was absolutely hers, who put her first in every regard and who worshipped the ground she walked on. It was heady: it made her feel she could take on the world and win, although the only person she practised her new self-confidence on was her mother. Zac had made it clear to Anne Ellington that if she wanted to stay in contact with them she treat Rachel with the respect he commanded, and Anne complied as meekly as a lamb. In truth, she bathed in the reflected glow of what she saw as Rachel’s triumph in making such a wonderful match, boasting to all her friends and neighbours about her daughter’s ‘handsome millionaire husband’.
Happy months flew by, months of love and laughter and much healing—for both of them. And as Christmas approached, it was decided Jennie and all her family would come over for the holiday, along with Susan and Henry, who were getting married the following spring. Zac’s parents’ huge, sprawling, colonial-type house could accommodate most of the English guests, but Rachel wanted Jennie and Susan and Henry to stay with them.
And so it was on Christmas Eve, as the five of them sat toasting muffins and eating roast chestnuts in front of the roaring log fire and a red sunset bathed the scene outside the window in a scarlet glow, Rachel took Zac’s hand and tapped on her mug of hot chocolate for silence.
‘We’ve an announcement to make.’ She looked at Zac and his golden eyes were luminous with love. ‘Seven months from now you’d better keep the date clear to come over and see our baby.’
‘Rachel!’ Jennie and Susan squealed and flung their arms round her while Henry smiled and shook the proud father-to-be’s hand, and then it was champagne all round except for Rachel, who was on orange-juice.
Later that night, as Rachel lay curled in Zac’s arms in the warm afterglow of their love-making, she felt him stir in his sleep and murmur her name. He often did this, and as always she whispered, ‘I’m here,’ and watched his handsome, hard face relax and his breathing steady. That he loved her with such a consuming love that even in his sleep he needed reassurance was a miracle to her, but she knew now that to him she was everything.
And she? She was home, at last.
