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“Annie?”
There would never be another love in her life. Chase would stay in her heart, forever.
“Annie!”
Hands closed around her shoulders, hands that were familiar and dear.
“Chase?” Annie whispered, and she spun around and saw her husband.
They stared at each other wordlessly, and then Chase opened his arms and gathered her in. She threw her arms around his neck and they clung to each other, oblivious to the people watching and smiling, to the noise and the announcements.
A long minute later, Chase led Annie off into a corner.
“Annie, darling.” He took her face between his hands. She was so beautiful. So perfect His eyes blurred as he bent and brushed his lips against hers. “I’m sorry sweetheart,” he whispered. “I never meant to hurt you. I always loved you, Annie. Everything I did, babe—the long hours, the networking, the meetings—it was all for you. I wanted you to have everything. I wanted you to be proud of me, to be glad you were my wife.”
Annie put her hands over his and smiled through her tears.
“I was always proud of you. Don’t you know that? I wouldn’t care if you dug ditches, just as long as you loved me.”
Chase gathered her close and kissed her. “Annie Bennett Cooper,” he whispered against her mouth, “will you marry me?”
“oh, yes,” Annie said, “oh, yes, Chase, oh, yes.”
“Tonight, babe. We can get right on a plane, fly to the Caribbean and get married on Saint John Island.”
“That’s a wonderful idea,” she said, and kissed him.
Chase looped his arm around her shoulders. “Come on. Let’s find the ticket counter.”
Halfway to the escalator, he came to a stop.
“Wait here a minute,” he said. He brushed a kiss over her mouth, and hurried into one of the shops that dotted the terminal.
Annie looked in the window. A huge vase stood behind the glass, filled with red roses. As she watched, Chase pulled out his wallet and spoke to the clerk. Seconds later, he stood before Annie again, holding one perfect red rose in his hand.
“Do you remember that night, years ago?” he asked. “I’d gotten my first big break, and I brought you one rose...”
Did she remember? Annie’s smile trembled. “Yes.”
“I love you as much now as I did then, babe.” His voice turned husky. “If it’s possible, I love you even more.”
Annie took the rose from him.
“I’ll never stop loving you, Chase,” she whispered, and she went into her husband’s arms.
EPILOGUE
IT WAS THE DAY AFTER Christmas, and the Cooper clan was gathered in Annie and Chase’s living room.
“There’s no way your father and I can eat all these leftovers by ourselves,” Annie had said, when she’d phoned Dawn and asked if she and Nick would come by for dinner.
“You don’t have to convince me, Mom.” Dawn had replied, with a smile in her voice. “If there’s one thing I still don’t love about being a wife. it’s cooking.”
Now, as Annie sat on the sofa beside her husband, with his arm curled tightly around her shoulders, she looked around her at her family and knew that she had never been happier.
Dawn and Nick were sitting cross-legged beside the big spruce tree Chase had wrestled through the door last week.
“It’ll never fit,” he’d groaned, as he’d lugged the tree toward the living room.
“Of course it’ll fit,” Annie had insisted, and it had—after Chase had lopped off two feet with a saw.
Annie’s sister, Laurel, was there, too, standing under the sprig of mistletoe Chase had hung in the living room entryway. Annie smiled. Laurel and her gorgeous husband, Damian, were kissing each other as if nobody else existed. As Annie watched, Damian drew back a little, smiled at Laurel and lay his hand gently on her huge belly. He said something that brought a rosy flush to Laurel’s cheeks.
Annie smiled and looked away, toward her friend, Deb, who was sitting before the fireplace, deep in conversation with a man—a very nice man—whom she’d met a couple of months ago.
“In the supermarket?” Annie had asked teasingly.
Deb had blushed. “In the library, but if you tell that to anybody, I’ll deny everything.”
Annie sighed and put her head on Chase’s shoulder. What a difference a few months could make. She’d been so unhappy this past summer, and now—and now, her heart was almost unbearably filled with joy.
“Babe?”
She looked up. Chase smiled at her.
“You think it’s time to tell them our plans?”
Annie smiled back at her husband. They’d been married for months now, and every day still felt like part of their honeymoon.
