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"Tell me."
"All right, all right. It's no big deal. Several years ago I dated one of his nurses. When I broke it off, she got upset and left town. He's still holding a grudge."
"How many women did you … romance?"
He became very still. His teasing manner ceased. His eyes probed into hers. "Does it matter, Jenny?"
Her eyes coasted down from his to stare at his throat. "Do you miss it? That carousing?"
"What do you think?" His body nudged apart her robe and she felt him virile and warm against her belly.
"I guess not."
"You guess right."
He kissed her with a passionate hunger that dispelled any lingering doubts. By the time he raised his lips from hers, her blood was pumping hotly through her veins. "I love you, Cage."
"I love you."
"Do you know what today is?"
He thought a moment. "The accident?"
"A year ago today."
"How did you remember that?"
She touched his lips. "Because that's the day I thought I'd lost you. I spent hours sitting in that hospital waiting room, wondering if you would live just long enough for me to tell you how much I love you and how important your life is to me. At first that was all I prayed for. Then, after you survived the surgery, I got gr
eedy and prayed that you'd live to a ripe old age."
One corner of his mouth slanted up into a smile. "I hope God answers your second prayer."
"So do I. But I don't take a single day for granted. I thank Him for every one we have together." They kissed again. This kiss was a reconfirmation of their love.
When they pulled apart, he sank his fingers into her hair and spread it out on the bedspread behind her. "When I regained consciousness in that ICU, the first thing I saw was your face. I wasn't about to die and leave you."
"How much of those first few days do you remember?"
She thought it was strange that they'd never talked much about this. She had scolded and cajoled him through months of convalescence. He wasn't accustomed to being confined and having his activities limited. His psychological adjustment had been as difficult as the physical recovery.
But Jenny's patient diligence had paid off. Much to the doctors' surprise, within months of the accident Cage was back to normal. Better, in fact, the doctors teased him, because he was no longer smoking and wasn't drinking as much.
Then Trent had been born and they had settled into the routine of family life. Cage's business had continued to flourish, as he had been able to conduct it by telephone during his confinement. He now had two people on the payroll, a secretary who had taken over Jenny's position when Trent was born, and a geologist who took the core samples and analyzed them. But it was still Cage who speculated, who talked investors out of their money, who put the deals together, who found the oil.
The past year had been so busy that Jenny had put the harrowing hours and bleak days following the accident out of her mind. She had never really asked Cage about his impressions while he was in the hospital.
"I don't remember much, just that you were always there. One incident stands out. The first time I saw Mother and Dad. I remember trying to smile so they would know how glad I was to see them. Mother took my hand, leaned down, and kissed my cheek. Dad did the same. That might not sound like much, but it meant the world to me."
Jenny sniffed back her tears. "You would have been proud to see me standing up to them, telling them the baby I carried was yours."
The kiss that followed was considerably more heated than the one before. "Mother and Dad have come around," Cage said when they pulled apart. "They're crazy about Trent and think he's the most wonderful baby in the world."
"Wonder where they got the idea?" Teasingly she tweaked a clump of his chest hair. "Between them and Roxy and Gary, he'll be spoiled rotten if we don't keep a lid on their indulgence." She laughed. "You know when I first knew that your folks would accept us?"
"When Dad married us in the hospital room?"
"No," she said, automatically smiling at the memory. "Before that, when Gary called from El Paso, wondering why we weren't at the airport to pick them up when they got home from their honeymoon. I was upset and embarrassed. I had forgotten all about them while you were in intensive care. Bob volunteered to drive to El Paso and bring them home. I knew that if he could accept Roxy, he could accept us."
