hearts united, their souls forever one.
Elizabeth lay in Reece's arms. He petted her hip. He nuzzled her neck with his nose. She sighed with happiness.
'Elizabeth.' Cupping her chin in his hand, he lifted her face. She smiled at him. 'I love you. I love everything about you. Your blue eyes, your sweet lips.' He kissed her quickly. 'I love your body. I love the way it feels when I make love to you. like nothing I've ever known. And I love your good heart, the way you care about everyone and everything.'
A teardrop fell from Elizabeth's eye, ran down her cheek and onto her jaw. One by one other tears followed. 'We're going to be so happy.'
'Are you looking into our future?' He kissed her on the shoulder.
'No, I... Aunt Margaret did, but she wouldn't tell me what she saw.' Elizabeth remembered her aunt telling her to take Reece down to her great-grandmother's cottage today, that she'd planned a surprise for them.
'Well, she'd better have seen a wedding and children and a long, long life for the two of us together.' Reece lifted Elizabeth up and over to lie on top of him. He traced a slow, seductive line down her spine.
'Before dark I want to take you to my great-grandmother's honeymoon cottage. I want us to spend our wedding night there.'
'We'll go. Before dark.' Reece rubbed himself up and down against Elizabeth. 'That leaves us all afternoon to make love.'
'Let's not waste a minute,' Elizabeth said, situating herself to take him into her body.
Elizabeth led Reece through the woods to the small Victorian A-frame cottage standing in the middle of a tiny clearing. A picket fence enclosed the yard where tulips and jonquils bloomed in profusion.
'My great-grandfather built this little cottage as a wedding present for my great-grandmother. They spent their wedding night here and every anniversary for the rest of their lives together.'
'I can see why you want us to start our married life here,' Reece said, lifting Elizabeth into his arms.
He carried her up the walk, up the steps and onto the porch, MacDatho following. The front door opened to Reece's touch. He carried her inside, then set her on her feet. Mac stretched out across the floor, guarding the door.
Elizabeth glanced around the living room, but saw nothing out of place, nothing unusual. What had Aunt Margaret meant about a surprise for Reece and her?
'What are you looking for?' he asked.
'Aunt Margaret told me to bring you down here today, that she'd prepared a surprise for us.' Elizabeth tugged on his hand. 'Come on, let's look in the bedrooms.'
She led him into the front bedroom, the one that opened out onto the porch. She gasped when she looked at the bed.
There lying on the antique, wrought-iron bed was a wedding dress-her great-grandmother's wedding dress, yellowed with age to a golden cream.
Reece watched Elizabeth as she touched the silk folds of the skirt, as she fingered the lace bodice. He came up behind her, wrapping his arms around her.
'I'd say Aunt Margaret sees a wedding in our future,' Reece said.
Elizabeth turned in his arms, burying her face against his chest, breathing in the heady aroma of masculinity that surrounded Reece.
She felt a sudden intrusion into her mind. Smiling, she returned a message to her great-aunt, who had wished her happiness, then told her to take Reece into the back bedroom.
'Come on, I think there's more to our surprise.' Elizabeth led him to the small bedroom at the back of the cottage. The last time she'd been in the room it had contained a cot, a cane-bottomed chair and a rickety table that sat by the window.
She opened the door, but stopped dead still when she realized what her aunt had done. The room was now a nursery. The baby bed that had belonged to both Aunt Margaret and her grandmother was the focal point of the room. A crocheted baby shawl lay in a cradle beneath the window. A padded rocking chair rested in the corner, and an open steamer trunk filled with antique toys had been placed against the right wall.
'It looks like a nursery.' Reece followed Elizabeth into the room. 'I'd say your aunt is trying to tell us that we're going to have children one of these days.' He whirled Elizabeth around in his arms. 'Would you like that, Lizzie? Would you like a houseful of children?'
'Would you, Reece?'
'Nothing would make me happier than for us to have a child. A little girl who looks just like you.'
'Would a little boy do the first time? He won't look just like me, but he'll have my blue eyes.'
'Are you saying you've looked into the future and seen our first child?'
'I didn't try to look into the future. It just happened.'
Reece lifted Elizabeth off her feet. She wrapped her arms around him when he sat in the rocking chair with her in his lap.
'Wouldn't it be wonderful if our son was conceived on our wedding night here in this cottage.'' Reece slid his hand up and under Elizabeth's skirt to caress her thigh.
'I'm afraid he couldn't wait,' Elizabeth said.
'What do you mean, he couldn't wait?'
'I'm already pregnant, Reece. Six weeks pregnant.'
'You're what?' He sat up straight in the rocking chair, almost toppling Elizabeth to the floor. He grabbed her just as she began to slide off his lap.
Tightening her hold around his neck, she looked into Reece’s amber eyes-warm, glowing eyes, filled with love. 'Come November, I'm going to give you a son.'
'When did you find out?' Reece laid his hand across her stomach.
'I've known since the night he was conceived, our last night together. I knew before we made love.'
'You wanted my child, even though I had nothing to offer you, even though I couldn't make a commitment?' He hugged her close, his lips covering hers in a tender kiss. 'How did I get so lucky?' he whispered against her mouth. 'Why me, out of all the men in the world?'
'Because we were meant for each other,' Elizabeth said. 'You came to me in my dreams, a stranger who entered my heart and never left it.'
Reece held her in his arms as they sat in her great-grandmother's rocking chair. Late afternoon turned to evening while they sat in the honeymoon cottage and talked about their future. MacDatho found his way to the bedroom, curling his big body into a ball of black fur beside the rocking chair, occasionally glancing up at his mistress and the alpha male in her life.
Love knows no boundaries and cannot be confined. It transcends time and space. Love is the greatest power on earth and in heaven. Elizabeth and Reece did not question destiny's hand in their happiness; rather, they accepted fate's assistance as a blessing.
