Trading Christmas - Debbie Macomber [123]
“Not so fast?” he repeated incredulously. “Honey, I’ve been waiting eighteen years to discuss this. You’re not going to ruin everything now, are you?” He advanced a couple of steps toward her.
“I’m not agreeing to anything until you explain yourself.” For every step he took toward her, Cait retreated two.
“About what?” Joe was frowning, which wasn’t a good sign.
“Paul.”
His eyelids slammed shut, then slowly raised. “I don’t understand why that man’s name has to come into every conversation you and I have.”
Cait decided it was better to ignore that comment. “You haven’t even told me you love me.”
“I love you.” He actually sounded annoyed, as if she’d insisted on having the obvious reiterated.
“You might say it with a little more feeling,” Cait suggested.
“If you want feeling, come here and let me kiss you.”
“No.”
“Why not?” By now they’d completely circled her desk. “We’re talking serious things here. Trust me, sweetheart, a man doesn’t bring up marriage and babies with just any woman. I love you. I’ve loved you for years, only I didn’t know it.”
“Then why did you let Paul take me out to dinner?”
“You mean I could’ve stopped you?”
“Of course. I didn’t want to go out with him! I was sick about having to turn you down for dinner. Not only that, you didn’t even seem to care that I was going out with another man. And as far as you were concerned, he was your main competition.”
“I wasn’t worried.”
“That wasn’t the impression I got later.”
“All right, all right,” Joe said, drawing his fingers through his hair. “I didn’t think Paul was interested in you. I saw him and Lindy together one night at the office and the electricity between them was so thick it could’ve lit up Seattle.”
“You knew about Lindy and Paul?”
Joe shrugged. “Let me put it this way. I had a sneaking suspicion. But when you started talking about Paul as though you were in love with him, I got worried.”
“You should have been.” Which was a bold-faced lie.
Somehow, without her being quite sure how it happened, Joe maneuvered himself so only a few inches separated them.
“Are you ever going to kiss me?” he demanded.
Meekly Cait nodded and stepped into his arms like a child opening the gate and skipping up the walkway to home. This was the place she belonged. With Joe. This was home and she need never doubt his love again.
With a sigh that seemed to come from the deepest part of him, Joe swept her close. For a breathless moment they looked into each other’s eyes. He was about to kiss her when there was a knock at the door.
Harry, Joe’s foreman, walked in without waiting for a response. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen Joe—” He stopped abruptly. “Oh, sorry,” he said, flustered and eager to make his escape.
“No problem,” Cait assured him. “We’re married. We have been for years and years.”
Joe was chuckling as his mouth settled over hers, and in a single kiss he wiped out all the doubts and misgivings, replacing them with promises and thrills.
EPILOGUE
The robust sound of organ music surged through the Seattle church as Cait walked slowly down the center aisle, her feet moving in time to the traditional music. As the maid of honor, Lindy stood to one side of the altar while Joe and his brother, who was serving as best man, waited on the other. The church was decorated with poinsettias and Christmas greenery, accented by white roses.
Cait’s brother, Martin, stood directly ahead of her. He smiled at Cait as the assembly rose and she came down the aisle, her heart overflowing with happiness.
Cait and Joe had planned this day, their Christmas wedding, for months. If there’d been any lingering doubts that Joe really loved her, they were long gone. He wasn’t the type of man who expressed his love with flowery words and gifts. But Cait had known that from the first. He’d insisted on building their home before the wedding and they’d spent countless hours going over the architect’s plans. Cait was helping Joe with his accounting and would be taking over the task full-time when they started their family. Which would be soon. The way Cait figured