Beauty and the Wolf / Their Miracle Twins (43 page)

Flynn stared at her, wide-eyed. Still cautious. Still protecting himself. ‘You believe that?’

‘I do.’

Bad choice of words, it only brought their wedding back into crashing focus. But, as she said the words, something shifted in him visibly. He filled his lungs with frigid mountain air and squeezed her hand. ‘As far as I’m concerned, Golden Boy stuffed up at least once, big-time.’

‘When?’

His warmth rained down on her from eyes so like the twins’, bored right down into her soul. ‘He picked the wrong sister.’

Bel gasped, the sudden hope doing laps in her system immediately warring with her instinctive need to protect herself. Her heart.

His eyes grew soft. ‘I should thank him,’ Flynn murmured. ‘For keeping you safe for all those years. For making you feel valued. Until I could find you.’

Her eyes swam with tears again. ‘I didn’t think you felt—’

‘I saw it happening, Bel. I was right there with you, experiencing the
thing
between us taking shape. Growing out of control. I fought it, every single day.’ He tucked her freezing hands into his woollen shirt. ‘Yet still I talked you into my bed and convinced myself I could have my cake and eat it: have you in my bed but not in my heart.’

He blew on her hands, then lifted his eyes to hers. ‘I was wrong. Your image is engraved on my heart. Your smile is what keeps it beating and your kisses stop it cold.’

Love swelled up and threatened to choke the air right out of her. ‘Then why …?’

‘I couldn’t conceive of a woman like you picking a man like me to love. An ex-felon. A man who drove his family apart with resentment. I was so certain you’d wake up one morning and realise the inexplicable attraction between us had run its course, that you’d tire of second best.’

‘Never.’

‘I believe that. Now.’

‘And the attraction hasn’t waned.’ She glanced down his body where it pressed so close to hers. One particularly firm place. She smiled. ‘For either of us, it seems.’

His eyes never left hers. ‘Really? I have no idea. I’ve been numb from the chest down for the past ten minutes …’

Bel had never imagined in her wildest dreams that she would laugh today. But one burbled out of her and spilled into the air, melting the frost in its path. Flynn took the opportunity
to capture her smiling lips in a searing kiss which went some way to heating her icy body. She slid her hands up behind his neck, his head, and kissed him back on a half-sob.

Another thing she’d thought she’d never get to do again.

‘I love you, Flynn,’ she risked. ‘But I don’t know if I have the stamina to keep proving it to you.’

His eyes met hers seriously. ‘You don’t need to prove anything, you just need to be you.’

She wept, deep down inside. How long had she secretly wished for someone to love her just the way she was? Not who they wanted her to be, not who they thought she should be with time and attention. Her—Bel Rochester. The woman she already was.

‘Besides, it’s me who has something to prove. So that you’ll believe how much I love you back.’

Love—present tense.

Relief and joy and passion and laughter all scrambled for pole position, racing through her bloodstream, exciting her senses as Flynn lowered his mouth to hers again. They kissed as though it was the first time, as though they weren’t both half-frozen from exposure. As though their world hadn’t imploded just minutes before.

That thought slowly dragged Bel from the drugged heaven of his lips.

‘What about your family? They don’t want me here,’ she whispered close to his mouth.

‘It’s been a day of shocks all round; they didn’t handle themselves the best. But then neither did I.’

He dragged his icy nose back and forth across hers.

‘What are you doing?’

‘The Bunyip’s Reach mating ritual. I’m marking you as mine.’

Her lips cracked in a chilly approximation of a smile at the ridiculous act. ‘Mmm … sexy.’

His eyes grew serious. ‘You are the wife of their son and the
mother of their grandchildren. We will work through whatever issues my parents have with how this whole thing has evolved.’

‘And if we don’t?’

‘If we don’t, we’ll leave. Start our own place.’

‘I don’t want to rip your family apart, Flynn.’

‘You wouldn’t be, they would be. Besides, we have our own family to start worrying about. Twin boys are not going to be a piece of cake to raise. Not with Bradley genes thrown in.’

An iridescent heat spread through her. ‘They’ll be fantastic boys. And they’ll love and protect their younger brothers and sisters.’

‘More children—already?’

‘Just planning ahead. Someone has to help us run the property.’ She kissed his frosty lips. ‘Or it could just be an excuse to get you into bed. I assumed you’d be dead keen on that part.’

‘Gaggingly keen, believe me. After eighty-seven nights of chivalry, I’m ready for a little debauchery.’

‘You counted?’

His eyes grew sombre. ‘To the minute.’

‘Well, do you think we should get out of this snow before anything we’ll need gets frostbite?’

‘God, yes. I think there are some sleeping boys who’ll be happy to have their mum back, too.’

He shuffled inelegantly backwards and pushed himself onto numb haunches, before pulling Bel carefully onto her feet. Behind them the door to the homestead opened, warm orange light pouring out, and Alice emerged onto the porch holding Bel’s favourite alpaca quilt open in wide arms.

Welcoming arms.

Forgiving arms.

And in that moment Bel knew that there was nothing she couldn’t face with this man at her side, those babies in her arms, and the fiercest nan she’d ever known at her back.