A Valentine Wish (Gates-Cameron 1)
Page 71
They paused at the end of the path, near the old shack. Anna’s eyes were shuttered, her expression pensive as she looked around, lost in memories.
Dean wrapped his good arm around her waist. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. I was just thinking—”
“Of Ian?”
She nodded. “Yes. I only wish I knew if he were still here, or if he’s gone on to be with Mother. I can’t bear to think of him being alone in the grayness.”
“You’ll see him again, Anna. Someday.”
“I know,” she said confidently. “Just as I know he would have wanted this for me. He always wanted me to be happy.”
“And are you?”
She turned to him, her face lifted to his, glowing with a deep contentment Dean couldn’t have missed. “Yes,” she murmured. “I’m happy. I’m going to be your wife. The mother of your children. We’ll have a wonderful life together, I just know it.”
“You have a feeling,” Dean teased her, his throat tight with emotion.
Her smile was radiant now. “Yes. I have a feeling. And my feelings are always right.”
“I believe you. I’ve learned to believe in a great many things since you came into my life, Mary Anna Cameron.”
There in the garden of their home, he kissed her. And he knew the most precious discovery he’d made was love. He would never doubt it again.
Epilogue
IT WAS a clear, late-summer night in the garden. A billion stars glittered brightly overhead, and the scent of fresh-blooming flowers hung heavily in the air.
There were lights burning in the windows of the inn. Recently opened for business, it wasn’t quite full, but several of the rooms were occupied, and the increasingly popular dining room had just closed after a busy evening. Silhouetted against the curtains in one downstairs bedroom window, two shadows merged in what might have been a passionate kiss.
At the end of the garden path, a solitary figure stood looking at that window, his usually hard, firm mouth curved into a very faint smile. An owl hooted above him, undisturbed by his presence.
The light went out in the bedroom, leaving its occupants in the quiet intimacy of darkness.
Outside, the man nodded in what might have been satisfaction, turned and faded silently into the shadows.
Alone.