Secret Honor (Honor Bound 3)

“I’m sorry.”

She walked to the side of the bed. “As a good Christian girl, it is my duty to forgive,” she said. “I forgive you!”

“Oh, thank you, thank you!”

She unfastened the dressing gown and let it slip off her shoulders onto the floor, revealing that the dressing gown had been all she had on.

“Jesus Christ, you’re beautiful!” Clete said.

She smiled, and put her fingers onto her stomach. “I think it’s getting bigger,” she said. “What do you think?”

“I think you have a very attractive belly.”

“Wait until later, when I’m swollen like a watermelon. You won’t want to look at me.”

“Yes, I will.”

“You’re saying that now,” she said.

“I just wish this goddamn wedding was over,” he said.

“Me, too.”

“Are you going to get in bed, or just stand there in your birthday suit?”

“If I lie down, you know what’s going to happen.”

“I was hoping that’s why you sneaked ov

er here.”

“I want to talk first.”

“About what?”

“For example, are you going to tell me why you didn’t want me to go to Uruguay?”

“Honey, I don’t want you involved in this sort of thing.”

“That’s what I want to talk about.”

“Huh?”

“I’m cold,” she said, and got in bed with him. “Don’t touch, me, Cletus. I’m not through.”

“How long is this going to take?”

“Until you understand how I feel,” she said. “And, of course, agree that I’m right.”

“How you feel and are right about what?”

“For better or worse, in sickness and in health, until death do us part,” she said. “This bloody war is worse, obviously. And we’re going to have serious trouble unless you understand we have to share the worse, too.”

“We’re not married yet.”

“Except for the little detail of the ceremony itself, we are,” she paused, and then looked at him. “Damn you, don’t you feel that way?”

“I really love you, Dorotéa. That’s why I don’t want you involved in…”