“Sweetheart.” Ryan let go of Devon’s hand and put his arm around her shoulders. “Forgive me. I wasn’t trying to put you on the defensive. I just—I’m trying to imagine what it must have been like for you, shuttling from town to town, then being hustled off to a boarding school when Bettina married my brother.”
Devon sighed and leaned her head against Ryan’s shoulder.
“Actually,” she said softly, “the boarding school wasn’t so awful. Oh, it was stuffy. And silly. And the girls were horrible—they all knew each other, they came from the same backgrounds.” She gave a little laugh. “They had names like Buffy and Muffy.”
“And when they spoke, they sounded as if they had lockjaw,” Ryan said, smiling.
“Exactly. But for all of that, I was happy. I went to bed and woke up in the same place each day, and at night I never had to worry whether or not the door was locked or what time Bettina would be home.”
Or if she’d be home at all, Ryan thought grimly. His arm tightened around Devon. She’d never have to worry about anything again. Not ever. He would take care of her, he would cherish her and protect her.
“Whoever it was who said childhood was paradise,” he said, trying for a light tone, “was obviously never a child.”
Devon smiled. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “Those kids look pretty happy.” She nodded toward two little boys running toward them with a fat cocker spaniel puppy trundling along at the end of a red leash. “And just look at that puppy, Ryan! Isn’t he adorable?”
Suddenly the puppy broke free.
“Lady,” one of the boys yelled. “Hey, lady, get the dog, would ya?”
Laughing, Devon ducked away from Ryan’s encircling arm and set off toward the dog, which immediately decided this was a much better game than simply racing across the grass.
Ryan tucked his hands into his jeans, smiling as he watched Devon and the spaniel feinting right and left in their efforts to fool each other. It was a toss-up which was cuter, he thought, the girl or the dog.
His smile tilted. Hell, it wasn’t a toss-up at all.
Devon wasn’t just cuter. She was incredibly beautiful. Her face was devoid of any makeup, flushed with her exertions and bright with laughter. Her hair, loose at his request, floated over her shoulders like a silver halo as she danced around the puppy.
It was a joy to watch her, to see the graceful motion of her body, to know the lushness of it beneath the turned-up, baggy jeans she wore, jeans that were his, along with the equally oversize sweatshirt that drooped almost to her knees.
“What do you mean, you don’t own any jeans?” he’d said in mock horror as they’d dressed this morning.
Devon had blushed and explained that the boarding school she’d attended had frowned on such things and she’d never felt comfortable, even after graduation, buying anything so frivolous.
“Frivolous?” he’d said incredulously, and he’d yanked a sweatshirt and a pair of old jeans he’d hoped might fit her from his drawer, tossed them at her and demanded she put them on.
She had, after first asking him to turn his back.
“Don’t be silly,” Ryan had said, folding his arms and hoping he looked totally unruffled by a display of feminine modesty that had charmed him right down to his toes. “You won’t even know I’m here.”
And she hadn’t—not until the sight of her zipping up the jeans had been more than he could bear. With a soft groan, he’d decided breakfast could wait and he’d come up behind her, slipping one hand down into her panties and the other up under her shirt.
“Damn,” he muttered. What a thing to be remembering now, in the middle of Central Park, especially since the memory was doing impolite things to his hormones.
Ryan tried to concentrate on something else. He watched as Devon snagged the puppy’s leash and handed it to the two little boys. She turned and came toward him, and the sight of her, of that beautiful face and body, finished him off completely.
“Damn,” he said again, and he sat down on the grass.
“What?” Devon said breathlessly as she collapsed beside him.
“Nothing,” Ryan said with a grimace. He looked at her puzzled expression, laughed softly, and threw his arm around her shoulders. “I can’t believe the effect you have on me. Here I was, thinking how great you looked in those jeans, and then I started thinking about what happened when you were getting into them this morning—and now I’m not fit to be seen by small children and fat puppies.”
“You’re not fit to be...” Color flooded Devon’s cheeks and she giggled and buried her face in Ryan’s shoulder. “Are you serious?”
“Am I serious? she asks. Here I am, inches away from making a public spectacle of myself...” He laughed with her and then, unexpectedly, his laughter faded and died. “Devon? Did you ever have a moment when everything seemed to stand still? When you suddenly thought, I have never been happier than I am right now?”
Her breath caught as their eyes met. She wanted to tell him that she’d never felt anything like that until a little while ago, when she’d realized just how deeply she loved him.
“Yes,” she said with a little smile. “Yes, I have.”