The Durango Affair - Brenda Jackson [62]
He paused, as if searching for the right words. “I think it was when I arrived late at the rehearsal dinner and saw you standing there talking to Jessica. And when you looked up and met my gaze, something hit me. I assumed it was lust, but now I know it was love. Lust would not have driven me to have unprotected sex with any woman, tipsy or not, Savannah. But when we made love I was driven with an urgency I’d never felt before to be inside you and feel the full impact of exploding inside you.”
He grinned. “Pill or no Pill, no wonder you got pregnant. Now when I think about it, it would have really surprised the hell out of me if you hadn’t. I was hot that night and so were you. Mating the way we did was just a pregnancy waiting to happen. It wasn’t intentional, but it was meant to be. And regardless of how you feel about me, I love you.”
He shifted a little to get closer to her. “A few weeks ago, before we married, you asked why I had an aversion to city girls and I never gave you an answer. Maybe it’s time that I did.”
And then he spent the next twenty minutes or so telling her about Tricia, the one woman he’d actually thought he’d loved and how she had used him and tossed his love back in his face. “And I actually thought I could never love another woman for fear of getting hurt that way all over again, especially a female who was a city woman.”
He chuckled in spite of himself, remembering the first night he’d seen her. “The moment I saw you I knew you were a city girl and as much as I didn’t want to, I couldn’t help falling in love with you anyway, Savannah.”
He looked down at her, held her gaze. “And no matter what that document says, I do love you. I love you very much.”
Savannah felt her cheeks getting wet and tried furiously to wipe at them. But Durango took over, and leaned down and licked them dry. When he pulled back his dark eyebrows rose, clearly astonished. “I thought all tears were salty but yours are sweet. Is there anything that’s not perfect about you?”
Savannah let out a small cry and threw her arms around Durango’s neck and whispered, “I love you, too, and I fell in love the exact moment that you did.”
He chuckled softly and eased from the bed. “Then that leaves only one thing to do,” he said, reaching to retrieve the legal document off the nightstand.
Savannah watched as he stood and walked over to the fireplace and tossed it in, and watched with him as the flames engulfed it, burning it to ashes.
“Now that is taken care of,” he said.
Savannah kept her eyes on Durango as he slowly removed his shirt. Her heartbeat quickened when he then proceeded to take off his jeans. “I know you’re probably too exhausted to make love, but I need to hold you in my arms, Savannah. I need your warmth, I need your love and I need your promise that you won’t ever leave me.”
She swallowed thickly when he came back to the bed and slipped under the covers with her. She turned to him when he pulled her into his arms. “I won’t leave you, Durango. I want forever if you do…and I’m not tired.”
He smiled. “I want forever, too, and you are tired. You just don’t know it.”
He captured her lips with his, kissing her with all the intensity of a man who had found love by first having an affair—The Durango Affair. It was definitely his last.
“So, Mrs. Westmoreland, will you stay married to me? For better or for worse?”
She smiled through her tears. “Yes, I’ll stay married to you, but I have a feeling all my days will be for the better.”
He leaned over and kissed her after whispering, “I’ll make sure of that.”
Epilogue
S avannah glanced around the room. There were more Westmorelands than she remembered from Jessica’s wedding. She’d known Durango’s family was big but she had no idea it was this large.
The wedding reception given in their honor had turned out to be a beautiful affair. To Savannah’s surprise, even her grandparents from Philly had come to be a part of it.
“I know how you feel,” Dana Rollins Westmoreland eased up by her side to say. “The first time Jared took me to meet them I thought