“Why didn’t I? How about, why didn’t you ask him?” He’d forgotten the exact look of Bett’s back, from spine to bottom to calves. He was usually obsessed with the front of her. He skimmed off her panty hose, a task he’d mastered over the years, this time made slightly easier by the fact that her legs were dangling over the side of the bed. The curve of her spine ended in a delightful raise of fanny; Bett had beautiful thighs.
“It was your project. Getting my mother married off.” She rolled to her back, regarding Zach in the semidarkness. He certainly seemed to be in a terrible hurry to remove his clothes.
“It appears she is married off,” he said flatly. His naked weight made a serious depression in the mattress.
“Yes.” Her hands reached for him. Her fingers gently touched his firm cheekbones, then slid into his hair. “Yes,” she echoed vaguely.
“That was never the point, you know,” he whispered. He slid up, his bare skin against her bare skin. His fingertips, too, found her cheekbones, then her hair. “Not marrying her off, two bits. Just you and me. Lost and found. I don’t think we’ll play tag with losing each other again. It wasn’t much fun.”
“No,” she agreed.
Without warning, his voice turned quiet. “I was there, Bett,” Zach said roughly. “We were never really lost.”
When he pulled her to him so very tightly, she held on. But that wasn’t entirely true, she thought. One could lose love, and she’d needed to learn that. It was precious knowledge, because they would have a child in time, and their priorities probably would get confused again…but never quite so confused. Love was so precious that one could never take it for granted. Love was that vulnerable. That strong. That worth holding on to.
About the Author
Jennifer sold her first book in 1980, and since then she has sold more than eighty books in the contemporary romance genre. Her first professional writing award came from RWA-a Silver Medallion in l984-followed by more than twenty nominations and awards, including being honored in RWA’s Hall of Fame and presented with the RWA Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award. Jennifer has been on numerous bestseller lists, has written for Harlequin Books, Avon, Berkley and Dell, and has sold over the world in more than twenty languages. She has written under a number of pseudonyms, most recognizably Jennifer Greene, but also Jeanne Grant and Jessica Massey.
She was born in Michigan, started writing in high school, and graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in English and psychology. The university honored her with their “Lantern Night Award,” a tradition developed to honor fifty outstanding women graduates each year. Exploring issues and concerns for women today is what first motivated her to write, and she has long been an enthusiastic and active supporter of women’s fiction, which she believes is an “unbeatable way to reach out and support other women.” Jennifer lives in the country around Benton Harbor, Michigan, with her husband, Lar.
