Officer, Surgeon...Gentleman!

“I’ll go with you.”

He frowned. Being frowned at by her father was like being told you’d never eat ice cream again. A very bad thing.

“Or I could stay out here, sir,” she amended, barely able to breathe. What was going on? Why had her father just maneuvered her into forced time alone with Cole?

“Good idea, Lieutenant.” He nodded, motioning toward where Cole sat in the swing, observing their conversation. “For the record, I said yes.”

Yes to what? she wanted to ask, but her father had already disappeared into the house, closing the sliding glass door, and if she didn’t know better she’d swear she heard the sound of the lock clicking.

No way would her father, the great Admiral John Stockton, have just locked his middle daughter out of the house with a man her family despised. Or, at least, they had. Apparently things had changed.

“Are you going to say hello?”

Her gaze cut to where Cole had risen from the swing. “Oh, you mean the way you said goodbye?”

Oops. She hadn’t meant to say that. She’d meant to be calm, cool and collected. Had meant to act as if it didn’t matter that she loved him, had believed he loved her, and he’d walked away from her.

“There was something I needed to do first.”

“Something you needed to do before saying goodbye to me? Gee, I see a pattern here.”

He nodded, walked toward her. “There were a lot of things that needed to be settled prior to us saying goodbye, Amelia. Surely you realize that.”

“Okay, now that we’ve established that ground-breaking news…” she rolled her eyes, turned away from him because she couldn’t bear looking at him a moment longer “…maybe you can tell me something I don’t know.”

“I love you.”

>

Sure she’d heard wrong, Amelia spun toward him. “What did you say?”

Inhaling a deep breath, he raked his fingers through his hair, and held her gaze. “I love you, Amelia. That’s something I’m not sure you know, although you should.”

Every cell in her body turned into jumping beans on speed, threatening to burst free and causing complete chaos throughout her nervous system.

“I don’t understand.” Probably because her brain had turned to short-circuited mush. For a short while she’d believed he cared for her, but even then she hadn’t dared to believe he really loved her. She’d hoped, but she’d never quite let herself believe his feelings ran that deep.

“I’ve been in love with you for years. I’m not sure the exact moment the way I felt about you changed, just that it did.” Cole held his breath, watching every play of emotion cross Amelia’s beautiful face. She didn’t believe him.

Not that he blamed her. Why should she trust a man who she believed had abandoned her twice?

“You’re saying you’re in love with me?” She sounded ready to burst into laughter.

“I am. I do.” He glanced around the backyard, hated it that they had no real privacy, knowing he had to tell her everything, that it was now or never. “Not quite seven months ago, I went to your father and asked for his permission to date you.”

Her mouth dropped, her eyes staring at him incredulously. “You did what?”

“I told him that I deeply regretted what happened between Clara and me, but that I couldn’t marry your sister. Not when it was you who took my breath away.”

Had her eyes grown even wider? “You told him that?”

“And much more,” he admitted. “Your father didn’t trust me. But he’s a fair man, and he did trust you. He arranged for me to be assigned to the USS Benjamin Franklin. What happened from there was up to us.”

“My father helped you get assigned to my ship?” She picked up the metal spatula, waved it at him.

Hoping she wasn’t planning to swat him, Cole nodded. When the Admiral had offered, he’d been floored, but he hadn’t had to be asked twice. He’d jumped at the opportunity to spend six months with Amelia, to have six months to work through the feelings they’d once had for each other, that he’d still had for her.

“Let me get this straight. My father helped you sleep with me?”