He had to say it, though what he really wanted to do was to take her in his arms and convince her once and for all that she never wanted to leave him.
“If you want to travel, I would love to travel with you. We’ll spend our vacations exploring together. But if you need to go without me—if you need to travel and be alone for a while to think about what you want—I’ll wait. And if you decide that I’m not what you want, what you need—well, I’ll survive.”
Somehow.
She searched his face with anxious eyes. “Wade, are you really sure? I mean, you really haven’t known me very long, and I haven’t been at my best most of the time...how can you know?”
Her suddenly urgent tone took him aback for a moment. He frowned, tilting his head to look at her more closely. “Are you asking if I’m sure that I love you?”
She nodded, biting her lower lip until he was concerned she was going to make it bleed.
He laid his hand over hers, feeling the tension in her tightly locked fingers. “I thought I’d already made myself clear on
this. I love you. I have from the start, I think. It has nothing to do with what you can do for me, and everything to do with who you are.”
He was suddenly struck by a realization that made him feel like smacking his forehead and saying, “Aha!” A significant piece of the puzzle that was Emily had just fallen into place in his mind.
“It’s very hard for you to believe that someone could love you just for yourself, isn’t it, sweetheart?” he asked gently, holding her hands in both of his. “Everyone you loved left you...your father emotionally, the others physically. And maybe their defection made you wonder if there was something lacking in you. Something you had to make up for by being more perfect, more helpful, more accommodating than anyone else.”
She frowned. “Since when are you a psychoanalyst?”
“No, I’m not a psychoanalyst. Just a man in love with a woman he wants very badly to understand.”
“And you think you understand me now?”
“I don’t know. Do I?”
She looked at him for a long time, her eyes shuttered. And then she smiled wryly. “Maybe.”
“I don’t want you to ever doubt that you’re worthy of love, Emily. Your family had problems, but they had nothing to do with you. Nothing you did sent them away. They left because they needed to, for reasons of their own. And if you leave...then it should be because you want to, not because you’re afraid to stay.”
This time she didn’t say anything as she continued to look at him.
Wade drew a deep breath, then took the final gamble. “I want you to be happy. I’d like to spend the rest of my life keeping you that way, if you’ll let me. If you want to see the world, I’ll go with you. If you want to see it alone, I’ll wait for you here. I love you. I won’t ever stop loving you.”
Her blue eyes were suddenly so bright, so vivid that it took his breath away. “All my life,” she whispered, “I’ve been working to make people love me. But whatever I did, it never seemed to be enough. You’re the first one to ask what would make me happy.”
“And do you know what that is?” he asked a bit hoarsely.
“I’m beginning to.” She smiled crookedly. “You were wrong about one thing, you know. I wasn’t leaving to run away from anything. I was leaving to find something.”
“And that was...?”
“Excitement. Adventure. Love. A purpose for my life. I never thought I could find those things here, in Honoria. I never expected that they would come to me.” She turned her hands over to clasp his. “I never expected you, Wade Davenport.”
He lifted her hands to his lips. “I love you, Emily.”
“I was so afraid to believe that. So afraid that I would mess it up, somehow. Afraid that I couldn’t work hard enough, or be perfect enough to make you keep loving me. But you know I’m not perfect, don’t you, Wade? You know my fears and my flaws and the baggage I carry. And you love me, anyway.”
“Yes. And you know I’m far from perfect. That I’ve got flaws and fears and baggage of my own.”
“And I love you, anyway,” she whispered.
It was the first time she’d said it. He closed his eyes in reaction, feeling the relief flood through him. His head was beginning to swim again, either from flu or emotion, or a combination of both.
“I’m too weak to drag this out much longer,” he murmured. “Are you trying to tell me that you’re going to stay?”
“I’m telling you that there’s no longer any reason for me to go. I’ve found everything I ever wanted right here with you,” she answered simply. Sincerely. “I love you, Wade. I love your son. I want to be a family with you, to give you both all the love I’ve been saving inside me for so long. I want to live in a house that’s so full of love and laughter and joy that it almost bursts at the seams.”