Cara Colter (18 page)
Authors: A Bride Worth Waiting For
But it might not
She wished she at least looked good. She reached up and touched the head of a snapdragon that grew out of the nearest planter. She studied it intensely.
He did not speak, push her or rush her. He was not going to make this any easier for her.
“Forever,” she croaked. “From the day I first met you.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw he was not surprised, as she had thought he would be. He nodded slightly.
“You knew,” she said softly.
“I guessed. Last night.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. It just came to me. And then I knew what Mark had always known. Why I stayed away.
“I loved you. Every time I looked at you, it would have been there in my eyes. That I loved you and that I couldn’t stop. I would never have been able to pretend that it wasn’t true. And so I left, and Mark knew I left so that you would never hurt over your choice, never ever wish you had made it differently. He knew I couldn’t hurt you. Or him. Bless his soul, he saw that as my gift to him.”
“It was your gift to him,” she said quietly. “And to me. You knew, sooner or later, I would turn from him and look at you and the whole world would have been able to see what was in my eyes. And when he was sick, and I felt so alone sometimes, I wanted you to come. And was so glad when you didn’t.”
“You would have never betrayed him, Tory.”
“You saw to that.”
“It’s not in you.”
“I hope not. I’m glad you didn’t put me to the test.”
“Why did you marry Mark?” he asked.
She looked at the flowers and the deck Mark had built, and she remembered his quiet smile and his quiet way, and the way she had felt with him. Safe. Cherished.
“Because I loved him,” she said softly.
Adam nodded. “It was not a mistake for you to marry him.”
The tears were running down her cheeks. “I know.”
“It was exactly what was meant to be. You didn’t marry the wrong man. If you ever tell any member of the bar I said this, I will deny it, but I think there is an order to the universe. And I believe when you married Mark, you obeyed it. You were given a sacred trust, sent to you from a different plane. From heaven, if you will. A love that had its place and time and would not and could not be denied.”
She nodded through the tears that were pouring down her eyes. Adam came to her, and just like that first morning, he lifted her onto his lap and caught her tears against his chest, and ran his fingers through her hair.
And talked to her. About love and how good it was. The only force really capable of changing the world for the better at all. How he didn’t believe real love ever hurt, only healed.
About how strong her love for Mark had made her.
Better even than she had been before.
“And now it’s our turn,” Adam said, “to be together. To make the world a better place simply by loving one another.
She looked up at him. His face swam through the tears. “Are you asking me to marry you?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, Adam, how can one woman be so honored? How can one woman have two men love her like this?”
“She would have to be a very special woman.”
“But I’m not. I’m just ordinary.”
“Ah, Tory.”
“I don’t know what
Ah, Tory
means!”
Ah, Tory
means!”
“It means you don’t see about yourself what the rest of the world sees.”
“Such as?”
“The love. That shines out of your eyes and your heart and touches everyone you touch. That love that you send out in these bundles of flowers, and that you have poured into your garden and your house. All around you is what you are, Tory. Beautiful.”
“Don’t say that when my hair looks like this.”
“Beautiful,” he repeated firmly.
“I don’t want to live in Toronto,” she said.
“Funny thing, neither do L”
“Where do you want to live?”
“Where do you?”
“You know that night when we went to Banff, and you talked about going around the world with just a few earthly possessions and a motorcycle?”
He laughed softly.
“That’s what I want to do.”
“You?”
“Adam, I have played it safe my whole life. I’ve repressed that side of me that wants to climb mountains and learn to surf. I want to ride wild horses, and learn to speak Spanish in Spain.”
He was looking down at her, laughing.
“Are you shocked?” she asked him.
“No. I always knew that you wished it was you riding that bicycle over the cliff instead of me.”
“And why wasn’t it?”
“You needed a push.”
“Are you going to push me?” she asked.
“No,” he said.
“You aren’t?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because Mark already did.”
It was true. In the strangest of ironies it was quiet and stable Mark who had taught her that life was short. To live it to the fullest would involve taking risks. There were no guarantees. There was no safe way.
Except to follow the path of one’s own heart.
The doorbell rang, and when they ignored it, it rang again.
“It’s probably Daniel,” Adam said. “He probably wants a tip.”
“Tell him to get an education,” she suggested.
“I already did.”
“He told me you were going to get him a scholarship.”
“Yeah, well, I’ll do what I can.”
“Adam, quit pretending you’re not a nice guy.”
“You’ll probably have to push me for me to stay that way.”
“No, I won’t,” she said with a smile. “Mark already did.”
The doorbell rang again.
“He’s persistent, anyway,” Adam said, “and a really bright kid. I had a look at some of his transcripts when I returned the motorbike yesterday. For a guy who goes to school one day out of five, he has about an 82 percent average.”
“Just like someone else we both knew and loved,” she said dryly.
The doorbell rang again.
“I can’t stand it,” she said, and got up and went through her kitchen. She paused for a moment and looked at it carefully. At all her “stuff.”
She wondered if she was going to miss it, and knew suddenly she would not. She could always replace it when the adventure was done.
As if, with Adam at her side, the adventure would ever be done.
The doorbell rang again, and she went to it and opened it.
It was not Daniel who stood there.
“I could barely get to your door for all the flowers,” the man said with annoyance. He wore a three-piece suit, and his face was pinched and without humor.
Tory could not bring herself to apologize for the flowers. Her front porch was jam-packed full of them. The smell was heavenly.
“Help yourself to some for your wife,” she suggested, opening the screen door and taking the envelope he offered her.
“No, thank you,” he said primly. “Sign here.”
She signed. The envelope was from a law firm she had never heard of. He turned and picked his way delicately through the flowers.
And suddenly, in him she saw what too much predictability could do. It could turn life sour. Wanting everything always to be safe and neat could drain the joy from life.
“Take some of the flowers,” she called. “It might change your whole life.”
He turned and looked at her, and seemed about to refuse again. And then it was as if he saw the blooms for the first time.
“These ones are kind of pretty,” he said reluctantly, picking up a particularly passionate bouquet of blood-red roses.
She smiled.
He smiled back, tentatively, and sniffed the roses.
Well, maybe his whole life would not be changed, but his face was already improved.
She went back to Adam. “It wasn’t Daniel. It’s something from a law office. Here. You read it. I probably won’t understand it anyway.”
He took the letter. He recognized the name of the law firm on the return address. He opened it and read:
“As per our client, deceased, Mr. Mark Mitchell’s request, the following document is being forwarded to you on this date.”
He looked at Tory. She looked back at him, wide-eyed.
“What is it?” she asked.
Behind the official looking letter typed on linen paper was a humble piece of blue-lined foolscap.
“It’s a letter,” he said, “from Mark.”
“Read it.”
“Dear Tory and Adam—”
“How did he know we’d be together?”
“I think he knew what was going to happen if he got us together.”
“Read it!”
“I will if you quit interrupting.”
“All right. All right.”
“Dear Tory and Adam:Congratulations.Love, Mark.”
“That’s it?” Tory asked.
Adam turned the paper over, and nodded.
“There is no way he could have known you just asked me to marry you,” Tory said.
“My legal mind says the very same thing. But my heart says he knew. He always knew. He’s glad for us, Tory. That’s what he wanted us to know.”
“He really is watching out for us,” she whispered in wonder. “Do you think he always will?”
“I think every single time we need a bicycle-drawn ricksha to show up or a motorcycle to break down, we’ll know he’s with us.”
She laughed, and Adam laughed, and for one suspended and dazzling moment he was right there. Mark was laughing with them.
Tory looked at Adam and at the pure love shining in his face as he reread that brief note and then looked up at her. She felt something in her opening like a blossom that had waited for the sun. Out of the rich and deep soil of her sadness and heartbreak she could feel joy pushing through. Love would not be refused.
And love was always the final victor in life. Always.
“Adam,” she said softly, “there is something I need from you.”
As he watched her, she slipped off her socks, lifted her feet onto the patio table and wiggled her toes luxuriously. And then, shouting with laughter, with him in hot pursuit, she ran barefoot for the bedroom.
ISBN : 978-1-45925967-6
A BRIDE WORTH WAITING FOR
Copyright © 1999 by Cara Colter
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or thereafter invented, including xerography. photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office. Silhouette Books, 300 East 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017 U.S.A.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and TM are trademarks of Harlequin Books S.A. used under license. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office. the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
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