Come Lie With Me - Linda Howard [92]
“I’ll be there.”
He was there, leaning on the doorbell at nine o’clock sharp that morning, while a spring snowstorm dumped its white load on his unprotected head. When Francine opened the door he grinned at her. “I’ve come for Dione,” Blake said. “Is she awake yet?”
Francine opened the door wider, smiling at the tall man with the slight limp who entered her house. There was a reckless air about him; he was the sort of man who didn’t let the woman he loved walk away from him.
“She’s trying to get everything packed, but the children are helping her and it could take a while,” Francine explained. “I imagine they’re both wrapped around her legs and crying.”
“I understand the feeling,” he muttered, and at Francine’s questioning look he grinned again. “I’m one of her ex-patients,” he explained.
“Take good care of her,” Francine pleaded. “She’s been so good to Kevin, keeping his spirits up, not letting him get bored. She’s special.”
“I know,” he said gently.
Dione came around the turn of the stairs with two tearful children in her arms. She stopped when she saw Blake, and her entire face lighted up. “You came,” she breathed, as if she hadn’t dared to let herself really believe it.
“With bells on,” he said, going up the steps in a graceful leap that made a mockery of the remaining limp. There was no way to get his arms around her without including the children, so he pulled all three of them to him and kissed her. Amy stuck her finger between their mouths and giggled.
Blake drew back and gave the little girl a rueful look, which she returned with wide-eyed innocence. “Are you the man who’s taking Dee away?” Kevin asked tearfully, lifting his wet face from Dione’s neck.
“Yes, I am,” Blake replied gravely, “but I promise to take good care of her if you’ll let me have her. I was her patient, too, and I need her a lot. My leg still hurts me at night, and she has to rub it.”
Kevin could understand that, and after a moment he nodded. “All right,” he sighed. “She’s real good at rubbing legs.”
“Kevin, let Dione put you down,” Francine directed. When both of the children were on the floor, Amy wrapped her plump little arms around Blake’s leg and looked up a long, long way to his face. He looked down at her, then lifted his eyes to Dione’s face. “At least two,” he said. “And maybe even three, if you don’t give me a daughter on your first two tries.”
“I’m thirty years old, remember,” she said cautiously. “Almost thirty-one.”
“So? You have the body of an eighteen-year-old, only in better shape. I should know,” he murmured, the hot light in his eyes making her cheeks turn pink. In a normal voice he said, “Are you packed?”
“Yes, I’ll bring my suitcases down. You wait right here,” she said hurriedly, turning and sprinting up the stairs. Her heart was galloping in her chest, and it wasn’t from the stairs. Just seeing him again had been like getting kicked, except that it didn’t hurt. She felt alive, truly alive; even her fingertips were tingling with joy. In eighteen days she would be getting married!
“Hurry it up!” he called, and she shivered with delight. Picking up her two suitcases she ran down the stairs.
When they were in the car he sat for a long moment just looking at her. Francine and the children had said their last good-byes in the house, not coming out into the snow, so they were all alone. The snow had already covered the windows of the car, encasing them in a white cocoon.
“I have something for you,” he murmured, reaching into his pocket. He withdrew the ruby heart and dangled it before her eyes. “You might as well keep it,” he said as he clasped it around her neck. “It never did work right after you tried to give it back, anyway.”
Tears burned her eyes as the ruby heart slid down to its resting place between her breasts. “I love you,” she said unsteadily.
“I know. I had some bad moments when you first gave the heart back to me, but after I thought about it, I realized how frightened you were. I had to let you go to convince you that I loved you. Lady, that was