Runaway Bridesmaid (25 page)

They were both panting when they came up for air.

“That…that was very nice,” she managed to say, letting herself float in those bottomless green eyes.

“There's more,” Dean said, sending her eyebrows skyward.

“As in…?”

Her heart jittering underneath her ribs, she let him guide her to the master bedroom. He pushed open the door, his smile sufficiently wicked to require licensing in several states.

This room was much more simple. Another four-poster, this time a double, covered with a lovely old quilt that was clearly an heirloom. Lace curtains. A large chest of drawers. Couple of lamps.

A collection of foil packets on the nightstand.

And hope settled right in to stay for good. “When did you…?”

“Drove a moving van down this morning. Franklin and Wilma and Ethel and your mother helped me get everything in place.”

She whipped around to him. “Franklin and Wilma? My mother?
Ethel?
” Her eyebrows felt as though they were going to fly off her head. “I was set up?”

“You were set up.” Another smile.

Sarah raised her fingers to Dean's face, sighed when he grasped her hand and kissed the palm. She thought she might faint from happiness.

“And…what does this mean, exactly?” she finally said through a throat that didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

“Exactly?”

“Point for point,” she said, calmly noting he was unbuttoning her shirt.

“Point one—” he nuzzled the space between her breasts as he unbuttoned a second button, then a third “—I'm home to stay.”

She moaned, swallowed, wondering if you could get burned from someone's kisses. “And?”

“Point two—” He pulled her shirttail out of her jeans, worked it off her shoulders, began nibbling her neck. “If I put myself in your position, I can understand why you didn't tell me about Katey.”

She took his face in her hands and riveted her eyes to his. “Really?”

His expression turned her knees to chocolate sauce. “Really.”

Tears pricked her eyes. “Anything else?”

“Oh, baby,” he said, unzipping her pants, working them down her legs. “I'm just getting started.”

She stepped out of the pants and kicked them to one side, then tugged at the hem of his T-shirt and peeled it over his head. “I believe,” she murmured, kissing his chest, feeling him unhook her bra. “You were on point three?”

“Point three…” He snagged her jaw in his palm and met her eyes again. “I love you more than I can possibly explain with words.”

The rest of their clothes tumbled to the floor. Then he picked her up and carried her to the bed, laying her on top of the soft, cool quilt. A warm breeze stirred the curtains, giving her goose bumps; she felt her nipples snap to. Dean noticed, tenderly kissed each one in turn. She smiled, stroking his cheek, glowing with expectation. “Is there a point four?”

He laughed, tracing a warm, lazy finger over her shoulder, down her arm, deliberately avoiding her breasts. “What makes you think there's a point four?”

She drew her mouth down. “There isn't?”

Chuckling, he kissed her again; she lifted his hand to her breast, no longer hesitant about letting him know exactly what she wanted. His mouth traveled from hers, down her neck, his lips teasing her nipple just long enough for her to wonder how she thought she could live without him. How she thought she could live without magic and fairy tales and happily-ever-afters.

Then he stopped. And grinned. And placed a small velvet box right on her navel.

She glanced down. “Point four?”

“Yep.”

Sarah opened the box, which contained—

“Three rings?”

Dean removed the small, perfect diamond solitaire from its slot and slipped it on her finger. “This is for now.” She arched up, grabbed another easily stolen kiss. “Unfortunately, the other two will have to wait. It takes three days for the blood tests, I believe.”

Her laugh echoed in the uncarpeted room. “You want to get married in three days?”

That smile. That smile she had loved since she was three years old. “I want to get married
now.
We've wasted far too much time as it is, I think. Besides, I don't want my daughter to be without her daddy any longer than necessary—”

“Oh, my God! Katey!” Sarah tried to sit up. “We have to tell her—”

Gently, Dean pushed her back onto the bed. “I've already seen Katey, honey. We had a long talk, during which she told me a thing or two.”

Sarah rasped her knuckles down his cheek. “I just bet she did.”

But he smiled. “It's okay. I still have all my appendages, and we agreed to help each other work this out. But right now…is
our
time.” He skimmed her jaw with a fingertip, then gave her a long, sweet kiss that sent liquid fire trickling through her veins. Dean—the Dean she fell in love with when she was a little girl—laughed and gathered her into his arms. “I believe there's this Guinness record we need to be working on…?”

S
omebody's laryngitic rooster ground out a sorry excuse for a crow, forcing open Dean's eyelids. He slipped down farther underneath the old quilt, feeling Sarah shift on the other side of the bed. Yawning, he let his thoughts shake themselves and settle like a feather pillow as his eyes gradually became accustomed to the slate light in the room. It was cold. And quiet, except for that dad-blasted rooster.

And the baby's snuffling two feet away.

Dean leaned over the side of the bed, peering through the predawn dimness into the cradle. But Eliott Dean Parrish was still sound asleep, his tiny thumb firmly planted in his perfect mouth. It was everything Dean could do not to pull him into bed with them, to cuddle his infant son and drink in his baby sweetness. Instead, he reached out and unnecessarily rearranged his blankets.

“You just leave him be,” Sarah murmured, snuggling close, her breath soft on his bare back. “He wakes up,
you
nurse him.”

With a chuckle, Dean rolled over, pulling his warm, naked
wife into his arms. He tucked her head under his chin and gently cupped her breast, glossy smooth and firm with his son's milk, a drop of which smeared on his finger when he touched the already erect nipple. “Can't,” he whispered into her hair, still smelling of wood smoke from a romantic encounter in front of the fire last night. “You're the only one in the room with these.”

“Mmm…” He heard a snicker underneath his chin. “Last night was fun.”

He'd had to be in Atlanta for a week this time; they hadn't made love last night as much as they'd
fused.
He hugged her to him, combing his fingers through her silky shoulder-length hair—their compromise, Sarah called it: long enough for him to play with, short enough for her to easily manage. “Yeah,” he said, now skimming his hand over her bare bottom, feeling himself instantly respond to the prospect of a repeat performance. “Got plans for today?”

“It's Saturday, remember?” she said, stretching luxuriously against him, heightening his arousal. “I'm all yours. And Katey's and Eli's, of course.”

He looked into her eyes, still dewy with sleep. “You really don't miss the farm work?”

“I told you,” Sarah said, snaking her long fingers through the hair on his chest. “Regular clinic hours will do just fine as long as I'm nursing. There'll be plenty of time after I'm done having your babies to resume my intimate acquaintance with the cows in the neighborhood.”

“Babies?” he said with one eyebrow raised.

“Hey, Eli's about to outgrow the cradle. It deserves to be put to more than one use, don't you think? Besides, I'm sure you wouldn't dream of letting Lance get to number three before you did.”

Dean laughed. “You know me too well, lady.”

“I always have.”

He didn't miss the tinge of melancholy in her voice. It came less and less often now, but occasionally, it still surfaced. For him, too. Just the tiniest regret for the lost years they could
have been together, pricking at their happiness like the very end of a splinter you thought was completely gone.

He hugged her tightly, waiting for it to pass.

“I told Mama and Ethel you'd look at their plans for the remodel.”

Dean laughed softly. “Where'd that come from?”

Sarah kissed his chest. “I have no idea. Just popped into my head.”

“Mmm.” He chuckled. “Leave it to those two to decide that a simple bed-and-breakfast wouldn't be enough. Why on earth do they want to run a full-fledged inn?”

“Because they don't have us to look after anymore,” she said simply. And, again, a little sadly. He tucked his fingers under her chin and caught her gaze. “Hormones,” she said before he could question her. “I swear. In ten minutes I'll be fine.”

He shifted so she could feel his readiness. “If I have anything to say about it, it won't even take ten minutes.”

She burst into laughter, the shadow dispersed as quickly as it had come. With a demonic grin, she began to caress him with one finger. “You think we have time?”

“The radiators haven't even starting clanking yet. We have time.”

But Dean no sooner lowered his mouth to hers when he heard a voice.

“Mama?”

Sarah flipped around to face their daughter standing in the doorway, tugging the old quilt over her shoulders. Dean pulled her against him, threading his hand under her arm and reclaiming her breast; he wondered if Katey could hear the slight catch in her mother's voice. “What are you doing up, baby?”

“Mama Viv called, asked if I'd like to help do breakfast for the guests this morning. So I just wanted to tell you I'm taking my bike up there, if that's okay?”

“Sure, honey,” Sarah said, more quickly than she might have in other circumstances. As Dean listened to his daughter's footsteps tromp down the stairs, he buried his face in Sarah's
back and started to laugh. She smacked his hand underneath the covers. But she didn't remove it. “You're terrible.”

“That's not what you said last night.”

She humphed in response, then caught her breath as he began to nibble her earlobe. “So…” he said, in between tastes of her delectable neck. “Your mother will actually let Katey into her kitchen?”

“Uh…yes…she's…become…quite the cook…oh…” She made a sound that was giggle and groan and sigh all mixed together. “That was nice…”

“Mmm,” he replied, slipping his hand down over her ribs, over her belly, soft and puckered from childbirth, then down even lower. “Thank God for that. At least
somebody
will be able to cook around here…
ouch!
” He sat up, rubbing his arm where Sarah had plucked out a hair. “Guess I deserved that, huh?”

“Yes, you did.”

He looked back over his shoulder at his wife, his beautiful, sassy Sarah, lying on her back with one arm behind her head. The covers were down to her waist, exposing her full, ripe breasts. She reached up to him, smiling—

The baby wailed. Sarah sighed, then laughed.

“Guess that settles that,” Dean muttered with a rueful grin, then leaned over and scooped his infant son out of his cozy bed. “Hey, sport,” he said softly as he changed the baby's soggy diaper with the efficiency of an English nanny. “Couldn't give us ten more minutes, huh?” Then he laughed at Eli's enormous toothless grin as the baby flailed arms and legs as if trying to swim the Channel. “Here's breakfast,” he said, skootching down under the covers and handing the baby to Sarah, who was lying on her side, waiting.

After a couple of frantic seconds, Eli settled down into a bout of contented, noisy nursing, slurping and gulping as if he hadn't eaten in a couple of days. Dean watched in awe, as he did each time he witnessed this basic ritual, as Sarah alternately stroked the blond peach fuzz on the baby's head and kissed it.
Then he noticed the tear that had slipped out of the corner of her eye.

He reached over and wiped the drop away. “What?” he gently asked.

“I never got to do this with Katey, you know,” Sarah said. Then she looked up into Dean's eyes, a peaceful half smile tilting up her lips. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For not giving up on me. On
us.
”

“Shoot, baby…” Dean snuggled closer, draping his arm over Sarah's shoulder under the bedclothes. “Giving up wasn't even an option.”

The smile his wife gave him was brighter than the Alabama country sunshine just now skirting the windowsill, streaking across an old patchwork quilt.