Until Proven Guilty - J. A. Jance [62]
“What?” I asked, thinking I couldn’t possibly have heard her right. I pushed her away and held her at arm’s length.
“Marry me,” she repeated. “Now. We can get the license tomorrow and get married on Sunday.”
I examined her face, trying to tell if she was kidding. No hint of merriment twinkled in her gray eyes.
“You mean it, don’t you!”
She nodded.
“So soon? We hardly know each other.”
“I’ve just now gotten up my courage. If I give myself any time to think about it, I might back out. Besides, I know all I need to know.”
I made the transition from being half drunk to being totally sober in the space of a few seconds. She moved away from me and settled on the couch. I stood for a long time in the doorway, thunderstruck. It was one thing to ask if someone believed in love at first sight, but proposing marriage was something else again.
I come from the old school where men make the first move, do the asking. Not that the thought hadn’t crossed my mind. Eventually. After a suitable interval.
“I take it that means no?” she asked softly, misinterpreting my silence for refusal.
Hurrying to her, I sat down next to her and put my arm around her shoulders. “It’s just that…”
“Please, Beau.” She looked up at me, her eyes dark and pleading. “I’ve never wanted anything more.”
We had known each other for barely three days, yet I couldn’t conceive of life without her, couldn’t imagine denying giving her anything she wanted, including me. I leaned down and kissed her. “Why not? What have I got to lose?”
A smile of gratitude flashed across her face, followed by an impish grin. “Your tie, for starters,” she responded airily, kissing me back and fumbling with the knot on my tie. “Your tie and your virtue.”
Chapter 17
When I woke up, Anne’s fingers were tracing a pattern through the hair on my chest. It was morning, and rare Seattle sun streamed in the bedroom window, glinting off the auburn flecks in her dark hair. She was sitting on the bed, fully dressed and smiling.
“It’s about time you woke up. Coffee’s almost done.”
I pulled her to me. “Did I dream it?” I asked, burying my face in a mass of fragrant hair.
“Dream what?” she countered.
“That you asked me to marry you.”
“And that you accepted. No, you didn’t dream it.” She pushed me away. “And now you’d better get up because we’re about to have company.”
“Company?” I protested, glancing at the clock. “It’s only a quarter to seven.”
“I told him to be here at seven so we could go to breakfast.”
“Told who?”
“Ralph Ames, my attorney. You talked to him on the phone, remember?”
She went to the kitchen, and I ducked into the bathroom, ashamed that she knew I’d been checking on her.
I was shaving when Anne tapped on the bathroom door and brought me a steaming mug of strong coffee. She set it on the counter, then perched on the closed toilet seat to visit in the custom of long married couples. She watched me scrape the stubborn stubble from my chin. “No second thoughts?” I asked, peering at her reflection in the mirror.
She shook her head. “None,” she replied. “How about you?”
“I’m not scared if you’re not.”
A pensive smile touched the corners of her mouth. “I was just like your mother, you know.”
I paused, holding the razor next to my jaw. “What do you mean?”
“I thought once was enough.”
The phone rang just then. She hurried to answer it, and I heard her direct Ralph Ames into the building. She came back to the bathroom as I was drying my face. She put her arms around my waist, resting her cheek on the back of my shoulder. “I love you, J. P. Beaumont,” she said.
Turning to face her, I took her chin in my hands and kissed her. “I love you, too.” It was the first time since Karen that I had uttered those words or experienced the feelings that go with them. It amazed me that they came out so easily and felt so right. I kissed her again. A thrill of desire caught me as her lips clung to mine. There was a knock on the door, and she pushed me away.
“Hurry,” she said.
When I walked into the living room a few minutes later, a man with a trench coat draped