Stone Cold Surrender - Brenda Jackson [27]
“Yes. What sort of marriage did they have?”
She frowned, not sure why he was asking and whether or not she was willing to disclose any details of her parents’ relationship as she had seen it. But this was Stone. He had stopped being a stranger to her that first day on the plane and she figured there must be a reason that he wanted to know. “It was nothing like the Quinns’ marriage, that’s for sure,” she said in a rush.
The sound of his chuckle filled the night air. “It wasn’t?”
She leaned back and looked up at him as she thought of the two adults with four grown sons. Even with visitors sitting at the dinner table with their sons, they still exchanged smiles filled with over thirty years of intimacies. “No, it wasn’t. Is your parents’ marriage like theirs?”
Stone looked down at her and she could actually see the smile that touched both corners of his mouth. “Umm, pretty much. I’m proud of the fact that my parents have shared a long marriage, but even prouder that they are still very much in love after nearly forty years.”
He shifted his body to lean against the porch rail and took her with him, letting her hip rest along the strength of his. “They claim it was love at first sight after meeting one weekend at a church function. Within two weeks they were married.”
He decided not to tell her that his parents’ had predicted that their six children would also find love that way—at first sight. So far Delaney claimed that’s how it had been for her and Jamal, although realizing it had been the tough part for her, as well as for Jamal. And everyone knew the moment Dare had gotten zapped. Stone and Shelly were friends in high school and working on a project together when Dare had come home unexpectedly from college and walked into the living room. He had taken one look at the sixteen-year-old Shelly Brockman and fallen in love with her then and there.
Then there was Thorn. Tara had been his challenge, as well as the love of his life from the moment she had stormed out of their sister Delaney’s kitchen one night to give the unsuspecting Thorn hell about something. She had taken him aback and had also taken his heart in that same minute. Again, love at first sight.
He released a deep sigh. That may have been the way things had happened for his sister and two brothers but it wouldn’t happen that way for him. He wouldn’t let it.
“Your parents like touching, Stone?”
Madison’s question interrupted Stone’s thoughts and he couldn’t help but chuckle again when he thought of the many times he’d seen his father playfully pat his mother on her behind. “Yes, and they also occasionally kiss in front of us. Always have. We’re used to it. Nothing real passionate but enough to let anyone know that they still love each other. I’m sure they leave the heavy-duty hanky-panky stuff in the bedroom,” he said grinning, not at all bothered by the fact that his parents might still have an active sex life. He pulled Madison closer to him. “Didn’t your parents ever touch?”
After a brief moment she shrugged. “I’d never seen them touch. And I’d never thought anything about it until I went away for the weekend to spend some time at a friend’s house. Her parents were like the Quinns…and probably a lot like your parents. It was easy to see they loved and respected each other and it suddenly hit me what was missing at my house, between my parents. Then I started watching them closely and I began to realize that, although they liked and respected each other, they were two people who were not in love but locked in a marriage anyway.”
Stone lifted a brow. “Why would they stay married if they didn’t love each other?”
She sighed deeply. “I can think of several reasons. Me for one. They would have stayed together just for me. I know in my heart that my parents loved me. I was my daddy’s girl and my mother’s daughter. I had a great relationship with them both. My father’s death was hard on me.”
Silence stretched between them; then she said, “Another reason they would have possibly stayed together is for religious reasons. They were both devout