A Valentine Wish (Gates-Cameron 1)

“I don’t know if I can stay here without you,” he said roughly. “Everywhere I look, every room I enter, I’ll think of you. I’ll watch for you. And I’ll miss you. God, how I’ll miss you!”

Her fingers flexed convulsively in his grasp. She looked up at him, her lovely face distressed. “You have to stay! You have to take care of our home. You promised me.”

“Don’t you understand, Anna? I don’t care about any of that now. Only you.”

He lifted her hand to his lips. “If only I could go with you,” he muttered against her palm.

She stroked his hair with her free hand. It felt as though a playful breeze had ruffled the heavy strands. “No, Dean,” she said softly. “Don’t say that. You have your whole life ahead of you. Your family, the inn. You should fall in love, have children—”

“No,” he groaned, interrupting her. The images she evoked with her words—things he hadn’t even known he wanted until then—were too painful to even contemplate. There would be no other woman. No children. Not for him.

Not without Anna.

He looked at her, making no effort to hide his raw emotions. “I love you. I’ll always love you.”

“Dean,” she said brokenly. “Don’t. I—Ican’t—”

He kissed her palm, her fingertips. Her lips.

“I love you,” he said again. “God, how I wish—” He couldn’t finish.

She seemed to understand. “So do I,” she said, her icy cheek pressed to his. “Oh, Dean, I would give anything to stay here with you. But not like this. Not—not existing in different worlds. It isn’t fair to you. To either of us.”

He lifted his head, wondering if she was saying what it sounded like. “You would stay, if you could? Here, with me? Even—” He took a quick, deep breath, groping for a way to define the depth of her sincerity. “Even if it meant leaving your brother?”

Her eyes glittered brightly, as though filled with unseen tears. She didn’t look at that space beside her, didn’t take her gaze from Dean.

“Yes, God help me,” she whispered. “Even if that was the choice I had to make. As much as I love Ian, I would stay with you. But—”

“Tell me,” he ordered her, desperately needing to hear the words, if only just this once. “Tell me what you feel.”

“I love you,” she said, her voice clear, certain. “I love you more than I’ve ever loved before. I never knew love could be like this. It’s just the way my mother told me it would be.”

Swallowing hard, Dean rested his forehead against hers. “You

r mother got her wish, after all. You found true love.”

“Yes,” she said, her voice breaking. “Yes. If only—I wish—”

He drew her closer, ignoring the twinge of protest from his injured arm.

Her cheek pressed hard against his. Her fingers entwined tightly with his own. Their heartache was an almost palpable force surrounding them, binding them together.

Dean had never understood that love could be this glorious. Or that it could hurt so very badly.

12

Over the mountains and over the waves,

Under the fountains and under the graves...

Love will find out the way.

—Anonymous

IT HAPPENED so quietly, so subtly that at first Dean didn’t realize that anything had changed. And then he felt it. A strange, pulsing warmth. It seemed to begin in Anna’s fingertips. Slowly—so very slowly, it spread.

Still holding her hand, he lifted his head to look at her. Wide-eyed, she stared up at him, his own questions reflected in her stunned expression.