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“Are you kidding me?” When he didn’t respond she knew he was serious. “Because...” She could tell him how wonderful she thought he was, how handsome, how sexy, how smart and funny. But none of that was what came out of her mouth. “Because I’ve never stopped wanting you and I don’t think I ever will.”
His gaze searched hers. “What are you saying?”
She gulped back the big bundle of nerves threatening to choke her. “I’m in love with you, Trace.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
Which wasn’t what she wanted to hear. Her heart fell.
“You don’t have to say anything.” She turned away from him, not willing to let him see the big fat tears welling up in her eyes. “I just needed to tell you how I felt, that I wanted you in my and Joss’s life. I was so angry at you for just leaving us. There’s so much I haven’t told you.” She turned to face him, scared to admit what she was about to say, words she really hadn’t spoken once social services and the police had finished questioning her all those years ago. “My father kidnapped me from my mother. I thought you were doing the same thing that day with Joss. That’s why I couldn’t hold in my emotions and hurt and fear. I’d wanted to trust you, Trace, and I’d been afraid to, and felt you’d confirmed my worst fears.”
His look of horror reflected all she already knew deep in her heart about the man standing in front of her.
“I just wanted to spend the day with him, just me and him. I wanted him to have fun with me, to enjoy being with me, to need me.”
He winced. “I shouldn’t have taken him. You were right to lash out at me.”
“You weren’t stealing him from me, Trace. You were trying to forge a relationship with him that my paranoia was interfering with.”
“He’s yours, Chrissie. Is that what you want to hear me say? You’re his mother and he needs you. I know that.”
“He’s yours, too, Trace. You’re his father and he needs you, too. I know that now,” she admitted, believing it with all her heart. “That’s why I called Agnes, because I wanted to come to Atlanta to tell you how sorry I am, to beg you to forgive me for not telling you about him, for not trusting you with him, for all the mistakes I’ve made.” She put her hands over her face, wiped at the wetness. “I’m sorry Agnes tricked you into coming here.”
Trace was nothing like her father. He was the best man she’d ever met. She’d created issues where there had been none, had let fear poison her judgment. How could Trace ever forgive her?
How could Joss ever forgive her when she explained to him that his daddy had left
because of her mistakes?
“I’m not.”
Chrissie lifted her gaze to Trace’s, waited for him to tell her how foolish she was, how he could never forgive how deceitful and mistrusting she’d been.
“I love you, Chrissie,” he said instead, almost dropping her to the floor. “Thinking of you, of being with you in Atlanta is what got me through the hell I went through overseas. When I saw you again a few weeks ago, you were as sweet as I remembered. I’m sorry for what your father did to you, Chrissie. I can’t even imagine the hell you and your mother must have gone through. I’d never do that to you or Joss. Never.”
Chrissie’s insides shook at the sincerity in his voice, at the sincerity shining in his eyes as he gazed down at her.
“He’s beautiful, Chrissie. I’d say the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, but I’d be lying.” He cupped her face. “I’m looking at the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. You.”
He kissed her again. This time slower, more passionately, and she kissed him back with her all, not quite believing the things he’d said.
“Am I dreaming?” she asked, wondering if she should pinch herself. “Are you really here?”
He brushed his thumb across her cheek. “If you’re dreaming, I’m having the same dream.”
“So what happens now?” she asked, not quite sure what everything they’d said up to that point meant.
“What do you want to happen?”
His question was a no-brainer. She didn’t have to think on it even a millisecond. She knew exactly what she wanted.
“I want you to stay here, Trace, with me and Joss forever.” She took a deep breath. “But I know you’re committed to leaving. Soon. If the need is within you to live in some war-torn, impoverished country, we’ll go with you.” She met his gaze. “That is, if you want us to.”
“You know I do.” When he kissed her again, she had to agree. She did know. It was there. In his kiss. In his touch. In the way he was looking at her.
“But maybe it’s time I rethink going back overseas.”
“A week before leaving? I don’t want you to give up something you love for me.”
