For them.
She knew saying ‘I love you’ didn’t mean ‘I want to spend the rest of my life with you’. But it was one step forward. A step she could work with.
And work with it she would. This was one love, one man, she wasn’t going to give up for anything.
She took another step closer to him, about to speak up and announce her presence softly, gently, so as not to startle him, but he swung around, dropped his crutch and took her in his arms. Before she could take her next breath, their lips meshed, moulded, taking, giving. His hands pushed into her hair and hers into his. Her fingers tangled in the damp silken curls then ran over his shoulders and down to his waist, over his tight bum and then back up again. She pressed closer, needing to feel all of him with all of her. His strength, the scent of him—hay and dust and horse and man and the lemon soap he used—filled her with warmth and longing and need just as much as his touch and kisses did. She loved him. She loved him so much, it was like a tightness in her chest she couldn’t breathe past.
‘Me too,’ he whispered against her lips. ‘I love you too.’
She smiled against his lips. She’d done it again. Spoken her thoughts out loud. It had always been something that had embarrassed her, a sign of lack of mental control, but now, she saw it as a strength, a positive, a way of always telling the truth that was in the heart of her. There were no secrets inside of her that couldn’t be told to him. Her Flynn. She leaned back and looked up into his beautiful eyes. ‘I’m sorry about the cottage.’
He nuzzled his nose against hers. ‘That isn’t something you have to apologise for. They have the man responsible for that in custody.’
She angled back further. ‘They caught him?’ Diarmuid hadn’t mentioned that.
‘Yes. It’s why I wanted you to come down here and not tell you back at the house. I didn’t think you’d want Carter to chance overhearing this.’
‘No. Of course. What happened?’
‘They only found him a little while ago. A tree had fallen on his car as he was driving out of the gully. It was one of the trees that had been marked as needing to be cut down because it had been damaged in the fire he set yesterday.’
‘Is he dead?’
‘No. But from what Bryce told me when we spoke just now, he won’t be walking any time soon. And even if he does walk again, he won’t have far to walk in jail.’
She smothered a smile, but he saw it, his brows raising. ‘I know I shouldn’t be happy about that, but after all the grief and damage he’s caused, the lives he’s taken and almost took, I can’t say I’m unhappy.’
He broke into a grin. ‘Me neither.’
He pulled her back into him and she went willingly, snuggling into his warm, strong chest, giving him support too so he didn’t have to put too much weight on his sore knee.
She revelled in the feel of him, knowing how close she’d come to never having this. Never feeling such a sense of peace. To sink into it and not talk or think but just feel. But there was more to say. They’d promised each other that. To always talk. To share, no matter how bad it was. So she shared with him now how frightened she’d been and how, in the darkest moments, all she’d been able to think about was him and Carter and never seeing them again. ‘He thought he was so much cleverer than all of us. Was so certain he’d get away with it.’
‘He was never a criminal mastermind. There was no way he wasn’t going to be caught for this. Too many people had seen him in Wilson’s Bend and could testify to that fact, no matter what name he used.’
They had been lucky. So lucky. And now the bastard was caught and she and Carter were safe and nobody could take him from her.
She didn’t have a home—again. Or a business. Both were gone. But she would build again, because that’s what she wanted. That’s what she needed. Carter and her clinic and this man who was holding her, his touch saying that she was his breath. His heart. And when she looked up at him, his gaze said the same thing. She didn’t need words from him, but she was so glad she had them. ‘We’re going to work this out.’
‘Yes, we are.’
‘I’m going to talk to Chandra today. I won’t out him and will do everything I can to help him keep his sexuality from his family if that’s what he needs—I’m not turning my back on him.’
‘I would never expect you to.’
‘But I will start talks about a divorce.’
‘I’ll take you any way I can get you.’
She smiled up at him. ‘You don’t want to marry me?’ she teased.
‘More than anything.’
‘Is that a proposal?’
‘Yes.’ He kissed her forehead, her nose, her lips, but before she could sink into another kiss, he drew back a little and smiled. ‘We are meant to be together. One way or another, it will happen. I have faith in that.’
‘Me too.’
They kissed again, softly, slowly and then he pulled away to look into her eyes. ‘I love you, Prita Brennan.’
‘Ditto.’
He laughed. ‘Did you just Ghost me?’ She laughed and he kissed her breathless, then pulled away enough to murmur against her lips, ‘You are the best person I know, Doctor Brennan.
