Gaffney, Patricia (34 page)

He nodded. It was funny; he ought to laugh. But he found, to his
surprise, that he was too moved to speak.

Cady said, "You always hated that seagull. You never said,
but I know you did."

It was true. He leaned in and kissed her, whispering against her
lips that he loved her, he loved her so much. And then, oh, so gently, he
lifted her breasts and placed a soft, soft kiss on her brand-new tattoo. When
he looked up, he saw tears in her eyes.

"Jesse. Oh, Jess. This is your brand on me. Because I'm
yours."

He made a joke, because otherwise he'd have cried with her.
"Peg will be so proud."

She swiped at her eyes, laughing. "Well, I wasn't planning on
showing it to him."

"Dinner!"

Jesse called loudly, "We're coming," and a second later
the screen door slammed.

"Help me." Cady began to pull at her clothes, her
fingers clumsy and urgent. He tried to help, but four hands only made it worse.
They started giggling. Their tender moment was over, but he had one more thing
to say.

"God, Cady, I'm so in love with you. Do you think we're in
paradise?"

She frowned down at all the buttons they'd done up wrong, and
hurriedly redid them. "I don't know, Jess," she said distractedly,
"but I can tell you one thing."

"What?" He stepped sideways, letting her edge around the
swing ahead of him.

She reached back and took his hand. "It beats canning
salmon."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

I always wanted to be a writer. In fact, I wrote my first novel in
third grade—
Sugar and Me
—the story of a boy and his horse. Three pages
long, and it had the word "suddenly" in it. I was so impressed by this
big, long, grown-up word, I vowed then and there that writing was the career
for me.

It's taken a while, but now I write romance novels for a living.
Occasionally, someone will ask why, and I'm always tempted to answer, "Why
doesn't everybody?" Think about it. You get to work at home (no makeup, no
pantyhose), you're never far from the refrigerator, and—this is the best part—
somebody pays you to dream up love stories with happy endings. Now, really, is
this a great job or what?

Patricia Gaffney is a Golden Heart Award winner and four-time Rita
Award nominee. She lives in rural Pennsylvania with her husband and her dog.