Solomon's Decision (29 page)

"Of course," she said. "Just as I still love my parents and grandparents." Her hand
crept up to lie lightly across his mouth. "But I said goodbye to Jesse a long time ago, Erik.
I can love you now, but I couldn't have, eight years ago."

Erik understood. He still regretted the lost years, but he understood he'd been no
more able to love her then than he was able to give her up now.

He hoped he was able to love her now. "I'm not very good at relationships." He
remembered more than one of the women he'd been involved with accusing him of being
frozen inside, unable to release his emotions.

"We'll just have to keep working on it, then, won't we?" Her tongue touched his
chest, just over his breastbone, and left a damp trail to the side, where it toyed with his
nipple.

Erik felt a renewal of desire. "Then you'll teach me?" he managed to gasp as her
hand found him, stroking and teasing.

She guided him to herself and, with a quick shift of position, took him within her.
"Erik, was there ever any doubt?"

"Not any more," he said, knowing he'd finally made the right decision.

"Are you still mad at us?"

Madeline looked into the rear view mirror, meeting her daughter's eyes. "I wasn't
ever mad at you, honey. But I wanted you to have time to think about what you did and
why it was wrong."

"I'm not ever, ever going anywhere with Jace again," Kyle said. He still, according
to Janine, woke with bad dreams. Mostly they were of losing Ginger and not being able to
find her.

"Well, I will, but I'll tell you first, Mama," Ginger said. No bad dreams for her.
She had insisted on helping Jace and Denny with the added chores they'd been given,
saying she'd been just as bad as them.

Madeline smiled a secret smile. Kyle might have inherited his father's genes for
appearance, but Ginger had received all his adventuresome ones. Kyle was more like her,
content to live a quiet life, with only moderate excitement once in a while.

"When will we know our surprise?" Ginger wanted to know. "As soon as we get
home?"

"It's not exactly a surprise," Madeline told her. She and Erik had decided to bring
the children back in from the Double J for a few days, giving them time to get to know
him. She'd kept them away from him before, wanting him to be pain and pain-killer free
for their first real encounter.

She hoped they would accept him. If they didn't... She refused to allow that
thought completion.

They crossed Garnet Creek, the bridge timbers rumbling beneath the wheels of her
minivan. Only a few more minutes.

Erik was sitting on her front steps. His bruises had faded to faint but colorful
greens and lavenders and his walking cast wasn't nearly as dramatic as the plaster one had
been. He held a bouquet of the fragrant pink roses that arched over her front gate.

Kyle was out of the front door almost before she stopped. Ginger was slower,
unable to open the sliding side door. Madeline waited for her daughter, while listening to
her son.

"Hi."

Erik grinned. "Hi yourself."

"Did you get all those bruises rescuing us?"

Madeline saw Erik's mouth twitch. "Nope. Only a few of them. The rest I got
when I had a fight with a log."

"Logs can't fight," Ginger said. She was eyeing him suspiciously. "What are you
doin' on our front steps?"

He looked at Madeline, his expression pleading. She smiled but refused to help
him. He had to learn to deal with the twins all by himself.

"I was waiting for you two" he said finally, laying the roses aside. "I wanted to ask
you a particular favor."

"What's that?" Ginger demanded.

"Yeah, what?" her brother said.

"I wanted to ask if I can marry your mother."

Kyle's mouth widened in a delighted grin. Ginger frowned suspiciously. "Why?"
she said.

"Because I love her."

The little girl didn't move. She just kept staring, her eyes moving over Erik's face
as if to memorize each feature. Finally she turned to look at Madeline. "Is he our
father?"

"If you want him to be." Madeline wondered what convoluted pathways her
daughter's mind followed.

Ginger nodded. "I pretended he was, ever since the Social. Kyle looks like him, a
little." She turned back to Erik. "Okay. You can be our father."

"Will you come to my soccer games?" Kyle wanted to know.

Erik said, "You couldn't keep me away." He held out a hand to each child. Kyle
immediately went to him, snuggling close as Erik awkwardly hugged him. Ginger moved
more slowly, as if she sensed his lingering uncertainty about relating to a girl child.

"I love you, too, Ginger," he said softly, "and I'll be the very best father I can
be."

Ginger let herself be drawn into his embrace. Once there she relaxed. Her eyes
closed and an expression of sublime happiness covered her face.

Kyle looked up at him with eyes full of hero worship.

Erik's eyes closed and his arms tightened around the children. When he finally
looked up at Madeline, she saw tears glistening on his cheeks. Three slow steps brought
her toe to toe with him.

Although his arms were full, she knew there would always be room for her within
them. Her love, her children, her family. All together at last.

~The End~

Judith B. Glad grew up reading pulp magazines, watching action hero serials, and
collecting comics--Wonder Woman, Superman, Batman, Captain Marvel. So is it any
wonder that she grew up wanting to create her own worlds in which the good guys--male
and female--always won, where right always prevailed, and where love was the most
important force in the universe?

Sidetracked by reality, she started a family, followed a couple of careers, and went
back to school. Eventually she ended up slogging through wetlands, running sampling
transects through sagebrush, counting rare plants, and writing technical reports. Now those
reports may be important documents, but they weren't too satisfying to someone whose
fantasy world always seemed more believable (and far more interesting) than the real one.
So one winter when business was slow, she sat down and wrote a romance.

What fun!
she thought.
Much more fun than technical reports.
A
lot harder too, but eventually she figured out how to do it right. Now she alternates
between writing sensual contemporary romances and exciting historical novels.

Judith lives in Oregon, where flowers bloom in her yard every month of the year.
Her children and grandchildren live not too far away.

Visit Judith's website at www.judithbglad.com, and while you're there, take a side
trip to her other webpages where you'll meet her family and find links to some unusual and
interesting places.

* * * *

Uncial Press brings you extraordinary fiction, non-fiction and poetry. Put a world
of reading in your pocket.

www.uncialpress.com