Twice Kissed - Lisa Jackson [171]
He forced his eye open again and her face, a blurry image, came into his line of vision. She was smiling and crying, her tears raining down on him. “You scared me to death,” she said, sniffing and laughing and sobbing. “I thought I’d lost you. Again. I couldn’t bear it.”
He felt her hand, warm as opposed to the cold steel of the hospital bed rail. He tried to speak and his voice failed him. “Maggie—” he croaked out.
“Yes, love.”
“Would…would you…”
“Would I what?”
“Stop…crying…”
“I can’t.”
“Long…long enough to tell…tell me you’ll…marry me.”
“What?” She gasped, then started crying harder. “Marry you? Are you nuts? I’m not leaving this hospital until I do.” She let out a half-laugh and a sniff. “The way I figure it, you can’t very well run away from me.”
“Wouldn’t do it. Love you,” he said, and as he drifted off again, he heard her swearing her undying love for him as well.
“I love you too, cowboy, so don’t you do anything as stupid as dying on me, y’hear. I love you!”
Epilogue
Christmas Eve
Settler’s Ridge, Idaho
“…let it snow, let it snow, let it snow…”
The radio played softly while Maggie tucked a special present under the tree. She smiled as she saw the reflection of Christmas lights on her wedding band. Who would have thought? She’d never expected to marry again, never thought she and Thane would become a family, but she’d been wrong.
She walked to the window and spied Becca and Thane trudging through the snow. They’d fed the horses and were returning, with Barkley yapping and bounding behind them.
Mary Theresa was dead; Eve had made sure of that. Now Eve Lawrence was behind bars, awaiting trial for not only Marquise’s death, but Renee Warner Nielsen’s as well. Maggie’s publisher was screaming for her to write the book of Marquise’s life and death, but Maggie couldn’t bring herself to do it. It was sad, she thought, how her sister had found in death the fame that had eluded her in life. Now her picture was flung across the tabloids; speculation as to her private life ran high. The American public and press couldn’t get enough of her.
As for her, Maggie was happy to be back in Idaho, away from Dean’s family. Jim and Connie had given up their quest to become Becca’s guardians and Becca was finally settling into school here. She even had her first boyfriend, a cute quiet boy named Austin Peters.
The door opened and Barkley flew into the room, only to shake the snow from his coat and dampen the presents that were piled beneath the boughs of the little pine tree.
“We could be celebrating in Cheyenne,” Thane had teased.
“Or Rio Verde,” Maggie had reminded him.
But they decided to live here while Thane, still recovering from the shot that had cracked two ribs and destroyed his spleen, healed. In the spring, they would decide whether or not they would move.
A lot depended on his son. Ryan, whom he’d met once. The boy’s adoptive parents, Vera and Bill Brown, realizing that Thane had no intention of stealing him away from them, had allowed their son to meet his biological father. There were plans for the summer. Fishing trips and back packing.
Yes, life had settled down. Even Becca and Thane were getting used to each other, though they still clashed. “Both bullheaded,” Maggie had informed them on many an occasion.
Becca headed off to her room to call Austin, and Thane, seeing they were alone, dragged Maggie into his willing arms. “What say we do it tonight under the tree?” he suggested in her ear.
“You—the cripple? On the floor?” she teased, looking into the eyes of the man she loved and feeling just a moment’s sadness, for she missed Mary Theresa, would never feel that special bond between herself and her sister again.
“Try me?”
“Should I?”
“Definitely.” He kissed her long and hard, stealing her breath, heating her blood, and she wondered if she’d ever grow tired of this man—or even just satisfied and content.
Not a chance. He was and always would be too exciting. From the bedroom she heard Becca’s happy laughter. Obviously she’d connected with