‘Emily!’ His voice was shocked, but filled with laughter. ‘Sacrilege.’ There was also something else in his voice, Em noticed.
Love?
And it was. He cupped her chin in his hands, and he looked deep into her eyes. ‘You know I want to marry you?’ he said tenderly. ‘You know that, don’t you, love?’
Her heart almost stopped, right there and then.
‘But you said that before,’ she whispered. ‘That you wanted to marry me.’
‘Yeah, but for all the wrong reasons.’
‘So you have some new ones?’
‘Let’s say I had ’em all along-I was just too stupid to see them. I wanted to marry you because I thought you and Robby needed me. And that was fine. What I was too stupid to realise was that I needed you far, far more.’
‘I…I see.’
‘Poor love, you’re still half-exhausted. It’s not fair to spring this on you now.’ But all the same, his hand went to the knot at the base of her braid. He slipped off the band holding it secure and then very, very slowly he started unbraiding.
The feeling was incredible. It was so sensual it made Em want to cry out with pleasure.
Or take him into her arms and…
‘You know Sam’s fine?’ he said, and she blinked.
‘What? Oh, Sam. Yes.’ She nodded. She’d made sure of that before she’d let anyone give her any pills. He was one tough little boy.
‘He has one badly broken arm, which Chris and I set last night. He also has massive bruising and a fair few abrasions, but as far as we can see the damage is external only. He’s also suffering from shock. He’s asleep at the moment. Anna is with him. She slept in the hospital beside him, and she’s still there now.’
‘Anna…’ That stirred her. She glanced at her watch. Anna had so much on her plate. For heaven’s sake, wasn’t this the day…? ‘Anna was supposed to start radiotherapy today,’ she managed. ‘Did someone remember to cancel for her?’
‘Ever the doctor.’ Jonas was laughing at her. His hand was halfway up the braid now, moving through her silky tresses with the tenderness of a lover. ‘Actually we’ve put radiotherapy off for a while. For three months, in fact. Quite a lot has happened while you’ve been sleeping, my love.’
My love. Em liked that. She definitely liked it. But she still had to concentrate on Anna. ‘Why?’ she managed, and it was all she could do not to shudder with pleasure as his hands reached her shoulders.
‘Because Anna has decided to have chemotherapy first.
That reached her. She pushed Jonas away and stared. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said, and he shook his head and smiled at her. And his smile was a caress all by itself.
‘I’m not sure I do either, completely,’ he told her. ‘I only know that Anna and Jim carried Sam into the hospital together, they’re still sitting side by side, hand in hand, there have been vows made that Anna never thought she’d make in her life, and she’s elected to change her mind about chemotherapy.’
‘But why?’
Jonas’s smile deepened in satisfaction. ‘Anna tells me she has a great chance of life now, and she wants to increase that chance to every last possibility she can get her hands on of living to a hundred. Even if it means depending on the whole town. Because…’
Jonas’s voice broke with emotion. His hands came out and caught hers, and he forced himself to continue. ‘Because, like me, she’s realised that dependence cuts both ways. She saw Jim’s face while he fought for her son’s life. She knows how much he cares for her kids as well as for her, and she wants that love very much.’
‘So much that she’ll give up her independence to have it?’
‘Independence isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,’ Jonas said carefully. ‘For me and Anna both. Like Anna, I’ve been working on it for a long time now, and suddenly I figure it’s not that great.’
‘Because?’ Em could scarcely breathe.
‘Because it doesn’t work,’ he said roughly, and the strain of the past hours told in his voice. ‘Oh, sure, I was happy for Anna to depend on me-for you and Robby and even Bernard the dog to depend on me-and then when you were down that damned shaft I realised that if you were lost…’
‘Hush,’ she said softly as his voice cracked, and her hand went up to rake those beloved curls. ‘Hush.’
‘No.’ He broke away and looked at her. ‘I need to say it. Em, nothing could be worse than losing you. Nothing. I’ve tried to keep my independence and I’ve failed. First I told myself it was just that I’d fallen for Robby-that it was one courageous baby I was working for. He needed me and Robby was the reason I offered marriage. But then there was you.’
‘Jonas-’
He was brooking no interruption. ‘And I could see that his mother needed me, too. Only then she dared to say she loved me, and that threatened my independence. It was all right to be needed, but not to be loved.’
‘I don’t-’
‘You don’t understand because you’ve never needed to.’ His hand went back to her hair and the final few twists were unbraided. In triumph he splayed it out over his fingers, the gorgeous dark curls slipping through his hands over and over again. ‘You’ve known all along what it is to love, and you do it. You give and you give. You love this town. Its people. You love Robby. You even love that misbegotten floormat you call Bernard who, by the way, is having a rollicking good time with Lori and Matt and Ruby. He’s not faithful in the least. Whereas I…’
‘Whereas you…?’ Joy was building in Em-a joy so great that her world felt it was exploding into a million multicoloured shards. Here, then, was the happy ending she’d never dreamed of finding.
Or the happy beginning.
‘Whereas I intend to be faithful-to you and to our Robby and to Bernard and whoever else just happens to come along-’ his eyes glinted down at her with dangerous laughter ‘-for a very long time.’ Then he pulled her into his arms and held her with such tenderness she wanted to weep.
But she couldn’t, because he was cupping her face, he was lifting her mouth to be kissed, and he was kissing her for ever.
Not quite for ever.
Jonas pulled away-at last-and his voice was a hoarse whisper of passion.
‘How about sixty years of marriage?’ he said at last. ‘Bare minimum. Sixty years of happy-ever-after. Let’s work on that, my love, and then, when we’ve achieved it, we’ll see if we can do better than even Anna and Jim intend to do.’
And it sounded OK to Emily.
In fact, it sounded just fine!
EPILOGUE
ROBBY became Robby Lunn ten months later, and the whole of Bay Beach turned out to celebrate. Well, why not? Robby was one special little boy. Jonas and Em, his adoptive parents, were also deemed very special people, and the residents of Bay Beach decided this adoption was worthy of their best celebratory efforts.
Even Robby’s aunt was smiling. As well she should. Everyone approved her actions here. To give her nephew a home with Jonas and Em was just fine. The town just had to look at them to know they’d make wonderful parents. They had love to spare, and there’d be no criticism at all of her decision to allow the adoption to go through.
So there was only approval here today-approval from everyone.
Tom Burrows was here-as head of the orphanage service, he was beaming as if he’d personally organised the whole thing.
The Bay Beach Orphanage service wasn’t just represented by Tom. The house mothers or ex-house mothers were out in force. Shanni and Nick were here surrounded by their tribe of children. Wendy and Luke had a happy little Gabbi tucked by their side, and there was an addition to the family on the way there, too.
Matt and Erin had their terrible twins in check. Just. And Lori was here, holding hands with Ray and surrounded by their five foster-kids.
Marriage to Lori meant that Ray was now a house parent himself, a role he’d taken on on the basis that if he couldn’t beat them he’d join them. He’d slimmed right down. Caring for five children was the best heart’s cure Emily could think of, and it had worked a treat.