“And the garden?”
“We’ll have the whole rain forest outside our door.”
“That’s for now. What about the next time I take a job? We could wind up in some Third World ghetto. Or we could be in the Middle East. There is a lot of sand in that part of the world.”
“I’ll turn it into an oasis,” she countered with her usual sunny optimism.
“Abby, you do not have a green thumb,” he reminded her, thinking of those frail plants he’d once crushed and their equally droopy successors.
“Okay, so I’ll hire a gardener,” she said, undaunted. “Go on. What else about our marriage will be so untraditional?”
“Kids,” he said, watching her closely for a reaction. “This is no life for children. And frankly, the whole idea of bringing a child into this world scares the living daylights out of me.”
Abby’s soft sigh worried him. Was she having regrets, after all? Damn, he knew they should have discussed this before they rushed into a hasty wedding the minute she was released from the hospital.
“Abby? How do you feel about having children?”
She kneeled on the bed beside him and stared straight into his eyes. “Contrary to what you think, I believe with all my heart that you would be an incredible father. You have so much to give to a child. You’re intelligent and caring and strong. You have this tremendous capacity for love that you’ve barely begun to tap. No one has more solid values or a more enduring commitment to the things they believe in.”
He heard her description with a sense of astonishment. Surely, he was not this paragon she was describing. One look in her glowing eyes told him otherwise. Abby believed what she was saying. Maybe, in time, he would come to see himself through her eyes. But for now, though...
“Abby—” Before he could conclude the protest, she placed a finger against his lips.
“Stop. I’m not through. Despite everything I’ve just said, despite what I believe with all my heart, I will never pressure you to change your mind about this. I’ve been more mother than sister to my brothers and sisters. In so many ways I’ve had the joy and the frustration of parenting. As much as it would mean to me to create a new life with you, that is not why I married you. I married you for who you are, right now, this minute.”
With a sense of awe, he realized she meant every word, and his heart filled to overflowing. “Abigail Dennison, I do love you.”
He reached for her then and drew her into his arms. Her breath was sweet as peppermint as it fanned across his cheek. Her skin felt like the softest silk, cool as a gentle breeze until his caresses spread a trail of heat. Her breasts, which she’d once bemoaned as far too slow in developing and too small, filled his hands and amazed him with their perfection and their quick responsiveness. He smiled at this last.
“What?” she demanded, sounding breathless as her gaze sought out his in the gathering twilight.
“I was just thinking about the night you complained to me about your breasts,” he admitted. “You were what? Twelve, maybe. I was sixteen and, believe me, it was not a discussion I was prepared to handle. At that age I was far more interested in groping breasts than I was in talking about them. I must have turned six shades of red.”
“I don’t recall,” she teased. “I was too stunned by the fact that you were very obviously aroused by the conversation.”
He hadn’t thought she’d noticed. “Hell, Abby, I was sixteen. I think I got aroused about twenty times a day.”
“So it was nothing personal,” she taunted.
“Oh, it was personal, all right. I think I remained fixated on your chest for the next year.” He regarded her slyly. “Was that your intention?”
“I was only twelve,” she reminded him with an air of innocence.
“A very precocious twelve. I worried for your virginity. If I’d had my way, your parents would have locked you away in a tower at least until you turned twenty-one.”
“You needn’t have worried,” she said quietly. “I was never in any danger of giving myself to anyone but you.”
He stared at her with open-mouthed astonishment. “Surely—”
She shrugged. “Nope. As pure as the day I was born, unless wicked thoughts count for anything.”
Riley sank back on the bed. His heart thundered in his chest as he realized that despite a very active social life, that even through her engagement Abby had remained true to him in body as well as in spirit.
She peered at him intently. “You haven’t fainted, have you?”
He snagged her around the waist and pulled her down on top of him. “Just catching my breath. You certainly do know how to take a man by surprise.”
“You should have figured that out when I walked away from camp a couple of weeks ago.”
“It’s hardly the same.”
“Character is character,” she said blithely. “I’ve always found it to be pretty consistent in a person.” She glanced at him pointedly. “You included. For example, right this minute you are reassessing certain aspects of our honeymoon.”
“Well, of course I am. You’re a virgin, for heaven’s sakes.”
“A situation I seem considerably more anxious to change than you do,” she noted dryly.
Riley’s expression softened. “Oh, no,” he protested. “Quite the opposite, in fact. I am so damned anxious to make love to my wife that I am suddenly terrified of hurting her.”
“You won’t,” she said confidently. “Nothing, nothing you could ever do would hurt me, with the possible exception of a decision on your part to live out our lives in a state of celibacy.”
Riley grinned. “Not likely.” She gave a little nod of feminine satisfaction that made his blood run wild. “It’s just that your first time should be special. It shouldn’t be in some fourth-rate hotel in the middle of nowhere.”
“This hotel has the only thing
