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All at once, he knew he couldn’t do it. No power on earth could get him on the plane. His heart was here. His life was here. He . . . loved her.
His face mirrored his own misery. He looked at her for a long moment and then he opened his arms.
Oblivious to other passengers, to amused glances, to anything else, she ran right into those open arms and was lifted up and kissed and kissed and kissed until her mouth was sore, and then she was kissed some more.
“I love you,” she sobbed against his demanding lips.
“I know,” he ground out. “I love you, too.”
The tears flowed down around their locked mouths as he rocked her in his arms. After a few feverish minutes, he managed to let go enough to step back from her. The joy he saw in her face made the years go away, made the threat of his job go away, made everything right.
They gave the last call for Chicago. “You’ll miss your flight,” she said huskily and tried to smile.
“I’m not leaving,” he replied, and he wasn’t smiling. “I’m never leaving. I want Christmas around the fireplace, with our kids opening presents under it.”
“Kids?” she whispered.
He grinned. “Kids.”
“I love kids,” she confessed.
He drew in a long breath and smiled down at her with a light in his dark eyes that had never been there before. “How long does it take to get married in the wilds of Colorado?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Not long.”
“I’ll move back into the motel for the time being. Do you want to be married in church?”
She nodded. She hesitated. “I’m Methodist.”
His eyes widened and he laughed. “So am I.”
“Well!”
“Talk about being evenly matched,” he murmured.
She glanced toward the window. “There goes your plane,” she observed. “And your suitcase.”
“So I’ll buy new clothes. I need to, anyway. I need a spiffy suit to get married in. And you have to have something with a veil.”
“There won’t be time to organize something big . . .”
“A white suit and a hat with a veil. I’ll go shopping with you. We’ll find something.”
She beamed. “Okay.”
He rubbed his nose against hers. “What’s for lunch?” he asked.
“Cold cuts.” She grimaced at his expression. “Well, I thought you were leaving!”
“Well, I’m back now, and I’ll help you cook.”
She doubted that. The look in his eyes promised a lot of interruptions in the kitchen. But she didn’t mind at all. “That sounds nice,” she said.
“We can buy each other matching cane fishing poles for a Christmas present,” he suggested on the way out to the parking lot. “But we may have to wait for the spring thaw to use them.”
“By then, I might not be able to sit on a creek bank for long,” she said with demurely downcast eyes.
“Why not?”
