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'Only male they've been in contact with for months.' Travis grinned. 'I thought he was looking pleased with himself on occasion. I just hope Sheba is still chaste and virtuous. Hell." There was a real note of panic in his voice. 'I've just shut Harvey in with her.'
'I'll check her if you like before I go,' the vet offered.
A couple of minutes later she was back. 'Don't worry about shutting the dog in with her tonight,' she said cheerfully. 'The job was done some time ago. I think the events of tonight will be repeated in roughly three weeks.'
Travis shut his eyes for an infinitesimal moment.
Beth stood watching the puppies, who were now snuggled in the basket with mum and suckling, while Travis showed the vet out. When he walked back into the kitchen she said imme¬diately, ‘I m so sorry, Travis, about Harvey. All these puppies’
'Force of nature.' He took her in his arms, stroking her face and stopping more words with his lips. When he raised his mouth from hers a little while later she was trembling and aching. 'Say it again,' he whispered against her lips. 'Tell me you love me. I've been waiting a lifetime to hear it.'
'I love you,' she breathed, the puppies snuffling at their feet. 'I love you more than I had dreamed it was possible to love.'
'And trust?' His hand tilted her chin so she was looking directly into the deep pools of his eyes. 'What about trust?'
'That too. I promise you, that too.'
She had expected something of an interrogation but again he accepted what she said without hesitation. Because he trusted her, Beth thought humbly. Loved and trusted her. John Turner was right, Travis was a good man. A giant among men, a man she wanted to be beside for the rest of her life. Suddenly all the things she had thought were lost for ever— a home shared with the man she loved, children, together¬ness—were in front of her again and it was heady.
'You are the love of my life, Beth.' His voice was very quiet but there was a quality to it which brought tears to her eyes. 'If you'll let me, I want to spend the rest of my life proving it to you. Will you marry me?'
For a second, just the tiniest second, the enormity of what she was doing swept over her. Then she looked into his steady grey eyes, which were shining with such a love she felt like a queen before it. 'Yes,' she said, her eyes shining. 'Oh, yes, Travis. Yes, yes, yes!'
Beth didn't want a big wedding, just family and a few close friends like Mavis and Dave and their children. They agreed they would throw a huge party for everyone else when they came back from their honeymoon.
They were married in the little parish church in Shropshire two months after Travis proposed, on a mild sunny early October afternoon. Afterwards everyone piled back to the house where Travis had had a marquee erected in the garden. It was wonderfully informal, children running about laughing and playing and the adults sitting talking or dancing to the small band Travis had hired. The champagne flowed, folk ate when they felt like it from the delicious buffet and everyone congrat¬ulated Travis on having such an exquisitely lovely bride.
It didn't escape Bern's attention that all the women present— even the happily married ones—couldn't keep their eyes off Travis either. His rugged good looks lent a faintly brooding air to the formal wedding finery which was thrillingly romantic. But Beth didn't mind them looking. Travis was hers, always and for ever. She was completely sure about that now.
The puppies, all nine of them in various sizes—four from Sky and another five from Sheba—were the hit of the day with the children. Harvey strutted around as though he was a sultan with a harem, which she supposed he was in a way, Beth thought fondly. Even the two puppies she and Travis had chosen to keep were females. The other seven they'd found good homes for, Catherine and Michael having earmarked Sky's enormous firstborn whom Catherine declared was the very image of his handsome father.
'You're the most beautiful bride in the world; everyone's said so,' Travis whispered in Beth's ear later that evening as they danced to a slow romantic number the band was playing. It was true. Beth's Duchesse ivory silk dress was deceptively simple, but the way the close-fitting gown emphasised her tiny waist and perfect figure made it breathtaking. Instead of a veil, a profusion of tiny pink rosebuds were threaded through her upswept hair, the same flowers reflected in the posy she carried.
The look on Travis's face as he had turned to see her walk up the aisle had reduced all the women present in the church to tears even before the service had started.
Beth reached up and nuzzled her lips in the deliriously fragrant hollow under his ear, wanting him so badly she ached with it. As always he read her mind. 'When do you think they'll all go home?' he murmured, his body providing ample proof he was as aroused as she was. 'Soon? Very soon?'
