“I think I would have liked Tommy.”
He sighed. “I know you would have.”
“I wish I’d had the chance to meet him. I wish you’d never had to lose your best friend that way. I wish you’d had a happier experience with your parents so you would have learned to be more trusting, and to be more confident that you deserved to be happy. But this is the hand we’ve been dealt, Kyle. Are you going to fold— or are you going to stay in the game and take a chance at finally coming out a winner?”
She met his eyes without flinching as he stared at her. “And if I do ask you to stay—and then you change your mind?”
“I love this area. It looks like a wonderful place to live, to raise a family. I like your friends, the McDooleys, and I would enjoy getting to know them as well as you do. I’m sure I can find a teaching job within a reasonable commute. Any time I need to see my family, all I would have to do is get into a car or hop on a plane, the way I did this morning. In the meantime, there are telephones and e-mail to let me stay in touch with them. I’m already aware of all those facts, Kyle. So now I want to hear the final argument about whether I should stay or go. Give me a good reason to stay, and I’ll tell you if it’s enough to convince me.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “I’ve already admitted that I love you.”
Her heart jumped in response to hearing the words again, but she continued to look at him steadily. “I know, and I can’t tell you how pleased I am.”
He planted his hands on his slender hips. “Still not enough?”
She shook her head, thinking that if she stayed the first thing she was going to do was to make him start eating more. He seemed to have lost weight again since he’d left Texas.
“How about if I ask you to marry me? To make a home with me here in the mountains?”
Her smile felt radiant, but still she held back. “You’re getting a lot closer.”
He reached out to place his hands on her shoulders, and his own expression was entirely serious when he said, “Would it be enough for me to tell you that I need you the way I never thought I would need anyone? That I can
’t imagine spending the rest of my life here without you? And that I’m willing to get down on my knees and beg, if that’s what it would take to convince you?”
“That’s what I wanted to hear,” she whispered, gazing up at him through a sudden film of tears. “I needed to know that I wasn’t the only one willing to risk everything—my heart, my pride, my dignity—anything necessary to give us a chance to be together.”
“You aren’t the only one,” he assured her, tugging her into his arms. “I’m done being noble, Molly. Stay here with me. I promise I’ll do everything I can to make you happy.”
“We’ll make each other happy,” she promised against his lips. “Whatever might come, however long we might have together, we’ll make the most of it, because we’ll know how lucky we are to have found each other.”
As Kyle’s lips settled firmly over hers, sealing the promises they had made to each other, Molly had the oddest feeling that the house itself was watching them with an approval that bordered on intense satisfaction. Very strange, she thought, losing herself in Kyle’s kiss. Apparently, just kissing him made her half-delirious.
They were going to have a most interesting—and most amazingly happy—life together, she thought in eager anticipation, snuggling more closely against him.
They both deserved nothing less.