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“Answer me.”
“I was afraid you might not come back.”
His jaw hardened. “You thought I was capable of doing that to you?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t know.”
“Our wedding is the day after tomorrow.”
“But I didn’t think there was going to be a wedding.”
“Because you just assumed that once I was back in Bismarck, I’d change my mind about you?”
Sydney rubbed her palms against her hips nervously. “I feared the bishop’s power over you.”
He grimaced. “There’s only one person who’s ever had that kind of power over me. It’s you, and you know it!”
“I guess I’m still having trouble believing it. When you got off the phone so fast this morning, I jumped to too many false conclusions.”
His hand carved a furrow through his black hair. “That’s why I sent the flowers. My visit with Tom put everything into perspective for me. I couldn’t wait to come home to you so we could talk about it. But it wasn’t something I wanted to discuss over the phone.”
She drank in gulps of air, but it didn’t help her breathless state. “I realize that now.”
“You know what hurts? To watch you take off for the Park, hoping I wouldn’t find you.”
“It wasn’t like that, Jarod. I was in so much pain, I decided to find Gilly and talk to her.”
“I’m the person you’re supposed to talk to.” There was a bluish tinge around his mouth. “I’m going to be your husband. You’re going to be my wife. We have no secrets. You have the right to call me anywhere, any time of the day or night, for whatever reason.”
She bowed her head. “I realize that, but since you’d been on Ch-church business I—”
“Correction,” he broke in. “I’m not a priest. I’m an ordinary man who was asked to come to the diocese by an old friend.”
Sydney lifted her chin a fraction. “That’s splitting hairs, Jarod. Please don’t pretend about something this important.”
His brows had become a black bar. “Who’s pretending?”
“All right then. You’re not pretending.”
“Thank you.”
He sounded so bitter.
“You honestly believed I went to see the bishop because I couldn’t help myself? That I felt the clarion call to return to the life I almost gave up for a woman?”
She studied the ground for a minute before throwing her head back. “Yes! When you didn’t have the time to really talk to me, th-that’s what I thought!”
His features hardened to steel. “Those roses I sent you meant that I was coming home to you permanently. They were my way of saying my love is for always and forever. For the rest of this life and the next.
“If you don’t know it by now, then we have nothing, Sydney. You want to know why the bishop sent for me
at the midnight hour? I’ll tell you the truth.
“You were right about his motives. He wants me back in the fold. He saw an opportunity to make me reconsider my decision and used it to full advantage.”
Sydney shot him an alarmed glance. “What opportunity?”
“The secretary who helped me search for you was hit by a car. They thought she was going to die. She asked for me. But when I got to the hospital, she’d taken a turn for the better.”
