After Hours

“I love you.” His voice was raw, deep, utterly sincere. She knew his wedding vows would be pledged no more or no less solemnly than those three words.

“I love you, Rhys.”

Leaning over her, he gathered her tenderly into his arms, burying his face in her tangled hair. She snuggled willingly into the embrace, blinking back tears as she was touched again by the vulnerability of this very strong, very hard and once very much alone man. She vowed silently to herself and to him that he would never be alone again. Nor would she.

PERHAPS THERE’D BEEN a time when Angie had daydreamed of a huge church wedding. A white lace gown with a twenty-foot train, a bevy of attendants in organdy pastels, masses of roses and orchids, classical music played by an accomplished organist. She would have said then that she wanted that type of wedding. Now she knew that no wedding ceremony could ever be more beautiful than the one that made her Rhys’s wife. Her bridal clothes a lacy white nightgown provided by her friends from work, her chapel a hospital room decorated with get-well bouquets of mums and carnations, a hospital chaplain officiating. Rhys wore one of his neat dark suits and a look of fierce satisfaction. The only witnesses were June and Graham, as Angie hadn’t wanted to crowd the tiny room with guests.

Rhys slipped the heavy ring onto her finger with a long, intense look at her that made her throat tighten. And when he kissed her, his lips burned a brand on her that she knew would remain there for a lifetime. A possessive man, her husband, she thought in resignation. But one who’d willingly lay down his life for her. She had no complaints.

June tearfully congratulated them when the ceremony was over, hugging Angie and then tentatively offering a hug to her boss. He accepted it willingly.

And then Rhys turned to Graham, a touching smile softening his strong face. “I’d like to introduce you to my wife, Angelique,” he said, as if he’d been practicing the words and couldn’t wait to say them.

Smiling through a mist of tears, Angie watched in satisfaction as her husband’s exuberant friend swept him into a hearty hug. “About damned time,” Graham bellowed loudly enough to earn a shush from the hospital chaplain. “About damned time.”

Rhys fervently agreed.

Epilogue

MUTTERING IMPRECATIONS, Angie tossed the brass-topped cane into a corner as she entered the front door of the house she shared with her husband. She hated that cane.

Her bad mood dissipated immediately, as it almost always did, when she entered her living room, limping slightly as she walked. She’d turned Rhys’s sparsely furnished, severely plain house into a real home in the fourteen months they’d been married. The furniture was comfortable, colorful, invitingly arranged. The walls were hung with beautiful oil paintings she and Rhys had chosen one by one. The glossy tables held the beginnings of a lifetime collection of mementos from special times in their young, happy marriage. A silver-framed photo of her grandparents sat on a piecrust table, almost a duplicate of her grandmother’s. Rhys had found it for their first anniversary.

This was home, and she loved it. She loved everything in it. And yet she knew now that she could walk away from it all without a backward glance as long as Rhys walked at her side.

Flower entered the room with a welcoming meow, her mature black-and-white body sleek and graceful. Wincing in momentary envy of her pet’s slender lines, Angie bent awkwardly to pat the affectionate cat. “You can look smug,” she accused. “You won’t ever be in this condition.”

With a snort of complacent amusement, Flower turned and glided into another room. Angie straightened and rested a hand on her rounded stomach. She knew Rhys would be home soon. He’d been meeting all afternoon with a supplier in Montgomery. She knew he wouldn’t stop by the office on his way home. Though as dedicated to his business as ever, Rhys had his priorities in much better order these days. Work was for working hours. Evenings were for family.

She hadn’t been particularly surprised that he’d become fiercely protective in these first five months of her pregnancy—which explained her renewed use of the despised cane several months after she’d gleefully abandoned it. Because her ankle was still a bit unpredictable, Rhys was terrified that she’d fall and hurt herself or the baby. She’d given in to his urging to carry the cane only because she could tell he’d worry himself sick if she didn’t.

She’d never forget the look on his face when she’d told him she was pregnant. She’d been trying ever since to precisely define the emotions she’d read in his eyes. Joy, apprehension, pride, anticipation, concern for her welfare. Perhaps even a touch of sheer terror at the thought of being a father at forty-two, after years of believing it would never happen. Angie had no such concerns. She thought Rhys would make a fantastic father. She even believed she’d make a pretty great mother. Together, the two of them could do anything.

“Angelique?” As always, Rhys called her name even before he’d closed the front door behind him.

“In here, Rhys.” She turned with a smile to watch the doorway. Her smile deepened when he stepped through it, smiling back at her in that particularly sweet way he reserved only for her. The smile that always made her heart trip over itself.

He held up one paper-filled hand. “You forgot to get the mail. And you’ve thrown your cane in the corner again.”

“I promised I’d use it outside the house. I refuse to use it in my own home.”

He chuckled and crossed the room to kis

s her. “I’ve accepted that compromise. Just stay close to a chair at all times.”

“In case I feel like swooning when you smile at me?” she asked with mock innocence, her arms looping around his neck.

Grinning, he crossed his wrists behind her back. “Yeah, that’s it.”

“How was the meeting?”

“Dull. But productive. Did Henderson call?”

“Mmm-hmm. You really shook him up when you yelled at him last week. He was more organized and businesslike than he’s ever been. He didn’t even call me ‘babe’ this time.”

“Good. Maybe I won’t fire him after all.”

Angie tugged his head down to kiss him again. “I missed you today,” she murmured when she released his mouth.