Unbreak My Heart (40 page)

"Controlling?" she suggested. "Arrogant? The actions of a man who's sure he always knows what's best?"

"I did stop," he pointed out. "And just because I thought of it doesn't mean it's a bad idea. I know it isn't exactly what you wanted, but we can bring your house here. I've been all over it with an engineer, and it can be done."

"You've been there with an engineer?"

"Megan let us in," he said.

"Of course."

"Look at this neighborhood, Allie. It's mostly businesses now. I don't think anyone would fight you on the zoning. It's close to the hospital, so there are lots of health professionals. I bet you could round up a lot of volunteer medical professionals from the neighborhood. My mother and Renee honestly want to do this. I can find somebody to move the house. As for the renovations that would be necessary, the architect's a friend of mine. He owes me a favor. So you don't have to worry about his fee. I can twist a few arms, and get a good bit of the renovation work donated or done at cost. It could work."

She folded her arms across her chest and stared up at him, fighting the urge to grin. Or to cry. "You have it all figured out, don't you?"

"Why don't you give me a clue here." He looked a bit worried. "I'm not sure if I'm being manipulative or helpful."

"Both, I'd say." It was so like him to just push forward like this. "Why did you do this, Stephen?"

"I thought about what I had to offer you." He frowned, looking quite serious and sincere. "What I wanted to
give
you. I thought it was fitting that it come from my family, because of all that we took from yours."

"So this is guilt?"

"It's me trying to give you something you want, something I thought was important to you, and... Oh, hell, I can't change the man that I am. I still want you," he confessed. "I want to give-you this because I know it's important to you. I want you to have everything you want, Allie. Everything you need. But I also want to give you a reason to stay."

Through great force of will, Allie managed to say nothing. Not yet. And she couldn't quite bring herself to look at him anymore. She didn't think she could hide what was in her eyes, and she liked too much what she saw in his.

"So... what does that make me?" he asked. "Someone who hasn't learned a thing by losing you? Someone you don't want anything to do with? Someone you could never live with? Never trust? Never forgive?"

She knew exactly who he was. She knew. He was a man who got things done, one who seemed incredibly adept at bending the world to his will—just as his father and brother did. Except he wasn't like them in so many of the ways that counted. He wasn't evil He wasn't selfish. He didn't see himself as a man entitled to exactly what he wanted, either by virtue of his birth or the fortune that came with the Whittaker name. He earned it through hard work and perseverance, and she thought at the core, he was a genuinely kind, caring man, that the vast majority of the time, he put his time and talents and incredible drive to work for good.

"I think all of that makes you the man that you are," she said simply. "Determined, hardworking, someone capable of making things happen, someone who likes to take charge, someone who thinks he can handle anything."

"I don't think I could handle losing you," he said. "I don't know how to handle the idea that you might walk away from me right now and I might never see you again."

"I have a feeling you'd come find me," she said.

"I hadn't planned on giving up anytime soon. If that was a question of my intentions."

"So..." She looked back down at the plans. "This is an apology?"

"I was thinking more along the lines of a gift," he said, coming close enough to touch her, to take the hand hanging by her side in his and look down at her with glittering, dark eyes that had always seen too much.

She had tears on her cheeks, tears he gently wiped away.

"I wanted you to understand that the things which are important to you are important to me, too, and that if you were mine, Allie, I would do anything in this world to see that you're happy."

He framed her face with his hands, brought his lips down to hers for a long, slow, sweet, hungry kiss.

"I love you," he said. "And I'm so sorry. For everything. I wanted to protect you from every bad thing in this world, from everything that ever hurt you, and I ended up hurting you even more myself. Do you think you might be able to forgive me for that someday?"

"I think it's a distinct possibility."

"I will never lie to you again. I will never keep anything from you." He kissed her again, deeper, harder, with more hunger this time. "I've never wanted anything as much as I want you. And I want forever, Allie. I want you to marry me, and live here with me, and make a family with me. Forever."

She closed her eyes, buried her face against his neck, and breathed in the scent of him, absorbed the incredible feel of his arms securely around her once again, his heart beating solidly against her palm.

"I know you. I know what you want," he said. "You want a refuge, a sanctuary. One place in this whole, big, scary world where you feel absolutely safe and wanted and needed and loved, and that place is with me. I know what it means to you to have that. I know what it cost you all those years you did without it, all the time you were alone. But you don't ever have to be alone again, because I'm here, and I love you. I can't imagine that you need me half as much as I need you."

"I've never quite understood why you would need me."

"You want a list? A dozen reasons, maybe?" he suggested, then started rattling them off, punctuating each one with a kiss. "Maybe because you made me realize how lonely I was, how empty my life had become. Because you filled up all those empty spots. Because I'm much too cynical, and you reminded me what optimism and what hope is all about. Because you reminded me of what's important in life. That I love this place, and that it's my home, and that I want to share it with a woman who loves completely, with her whole heart, and forever. Someone who hangs on tight to the people she loves."

Allie stood there in his arms, unable to say anything at all. The sun was streaming through the tops of the trees. The sky was a surreal blue with big, puffy clouds ambling along within it. Birds were singing, she realized. There was a slight breeze blowing, and she could smell the river that flowed through town. She could almost hear it.

There were times, between all the worry and all the little revelations, that this place called to her, when a part of her recognized it and felt like it was right to be here, yet never more so than in this moment with him.

There was vibrant color spreading through the tall trees, and she had to admit it was beautiful here, that she'd found the sense of belonging she'd always craved. Somehow, deep inside, she recognized this place. This was her home, the one she'd always wanted, and it was here with him.

"Is that enough?" he whispered. "I have a half a dozen more reasons—"

"It's enough," she said as he kissed her through her tears.

The End

Page forward for excerpts from Teresa Hill's

Award-winning

McRae Series

Excerpt from

Twelve Days

The McRae's Series

Book 1

by

Teresa Hill

USA Today Bestselling Author

On the first day of Christmas, eleven-year-old Emma sat in the backseat of the social worker's car, her little brother Zack on one side of her, baby Grace sleeping in a car seat on the other side.

The light was fading fast, street lights coming on, and the entire neighborhood glowed with a light of thousands of tiny Christmas bulbs strung on just about everything she could see. Snow was falling, big, fat flakes, and everything was so pretty.

For a moment, Emma thought she might have stepped inside the pages of one of the Christmas books she read to Zach or that maybe she'd shrunk until she was an inch high and was living inside one of her most prized possessions—a snow globe.

It was so beautiful there, inside the big, old, magical-looking house, so warm, so welcoming. Emma could make it snow anytime she wanted with just a turn of her wrist, a bit of magic that never fail to delight Zach and the baby. She thought nothing bad could happen in a place like that and often wished she could find a way to live inside that little ball of glass.

Blinking through the fading light in the gently falling snow, she thought for a moment the neighborhood they were driving through looked oddly familiar though she was sure she'd never been here before. She would have remembered the big, old houses reaching toward the sky, with all those odd angles and shapes, the fancy trim and silly frills that seem to belong to another place and time.

Rich people's houses, she thought, the knot in her stomach growing a bit tighter. What would anybody with a house like that want with her and Zach and the baby?

Zack leaned closer to the window, his nose pressed flat against it, flogging a little circle of glass. "It's almost Chris'mas. Everybody has their tree 'n' stuff up."

"I know, Zach." There were wreaths on the doors and on the old-fashioned black lamppost topped with fancy metal curls, the lights perched delicately on top. There were stars made of bright Christmas lights, even Christmas trees in people's yards.

Emma had never seen people go to so much trouble for Christmas. They must've spent hours. And the money... it must take a lot of money to decorate a house like this just for Christmas. She couldn't imagine what the insides of those houses must be like. She and Zach and the baby didn't need anything fancy. Just a place where they could stay together. She couldn't bear it if they were separated. Emma had to make sure that didn't happen.

The social worker pulled the car into a long driveway and at first Emma thought they were going to the house on the right, all castle-like and fairy-talish.

Aunt Miriam—that's what she told them to call her—turned off the car and pocketed the keys. She twisted around in her seat and said, "Let me make sure someone's here before we take the baby out in the cold, okay?"