Male Order Bride (27 page)

She'd better get used to remembering he was human
sometimes.

She sniffed and coughed and tried to keep her mascara from
running down her cheeks. "I was so afraid I was going to be left all
alone in Denver for the weekend, and if you'd had an accident or
something, you wouldn't know how to find me."

"Hey," he said, trying to wipe the tears from her eyes
with his kisses, but she was crying too hard for that to work, "you're
an independent lady, you can take care of yourself. That would just be
a minor setback to you. You know you could survive it."

"But not happily."

He laughed and hugged her. "Your problem is, you need
someone to take care of you every once in a while."

She nodded against his shirtfront, sniffing. "I can't be
expected to be Hercules all the time."

"I don't want you to be," he said, cradling her head and
stroking her hair. "I just want you to be you, to the fullest extent of
your ability. I want you to go where you want to go and do the things
you have to do and always know that when you get home I'm waiting for
you."

"Rafe, don't you see, you're like home to me."

He chuckled, hugging her tighter. "That's why I've decided
you need someone to take care of you, like me."

She nodded against him again, sighing as she started to
control her crying. Damn the tears; he probably hated her crying like
this.

"The same way I need someone to take care of me every once
in a while."

"You don't need anyone."

"True," he answered, "as long as I have you by my side."

Lacey looked at him, blinking. What was he trying to tell
her?

"You don't need anyone," she told him. "You have Angela,
so you don't need any woman to help you fulfill the fathering urge. You
have a housekeeper who cleans the silver better than I clean my drawing
pens every day. And you even cook better than I do."

Rafe laughed, but just hugged her tighter as she continued
talking.

"And you already know I love you, and it hasn't taken much
more than a raised eyebrow to get me in your bed anytime you want me
there. You don't need anyone, Rafe. Not a housekeeper, not a mother,
not a woman—"

"I'm not looking for a housekeeper. Clean houses belong to
dull women. You've already told me you don't do floors, walls or
windows."

Lacey nodded, wondering what she could ever bring to this
man who had everything and who didn't need anyone.

"And Angela has a mother. If you're anything to her, all
you need to be is a friend."

Lacey nodded. She hadn't even met Angela yet, but she
could picture her looking just like Rafe.

"And I have all the woman I want in you—that's
why I don't want to share you with anyone, why I want to keep you with
me as often as you want to be there, as often as your business allows
it, but more often than we've been together lately. That's why I need
you to marry me."

"What?" Lacey looked at Rafe and then around the room at
the baggage handler, who had been more interested in their conversation
than the portable TV playing near his desk.

Rafe laughed and pulled Lacey back against his chest. "I
didn't plan on proposing to you in the Denver airport."

"Where did you plan on proposing to me?" she asked,
knowing she was going to say yes, but making him wait for his answer
the same way she had waited for him to show up to meet her flight
thirty minutes ago.

"On the flight between here and Las Vegas, where we're
going to get married. I was especially getting worried because we don't
have much longer to meet that flight, and I still have to check your
baggage through."

"Las Vegas! But I've never been to Nevada!"

"Sorry," he said, "that's the way it has to be. We can
have another wedding when we get back with all your friends and all
mine if you want, a church wedding or something on the beach. Just as
long as you are married to me when we get back. I'm tired of all these
separations, tired of worrying about who you're out with when I'm gone,
tired of worrying if I'm going to lose you by being away from you for
so long."

Lacey shook her head. "I'm like flypaper. Once you run
into me, you're stuck, unless you dump me in some godforsaken state and
leave me helpless without my credit cards."

"All I need, in all my life, is all your love," Rafe said,
and added, "I stole that from a greeting card."

Lacey laughed and tightened her arms around his neck. "You
have
that—haven't you known that all
along?"

He nodded. "I thought so, but when you're away from a
person, you start imagining all sorts of things."

"The same way you do when you never hear from the other
person what you mean to him. I didn't realize you cared so much about
me to want to marry me. I didn't think there was anything I could give
you."

"Just yourself," Rafe said, kissing her and hugging her
even tighter. "Can I take that to mean you're saying yes?"

"I thought you'd never ask," Lacey said. "And didn't I say
yes a long time ago? Yes, and yes, and yes."

He laughed at her and held her a little bit away from him.
"We don't have to change things too much if you don't want to. You can
still keep your boutique and your career, you know. I'll be
disappointed if you don't. Your creativity really excites me. And when
I travel, I'd like you to come with me, but only if you can spare the
time away from your business. And I know you haven't met Angela yet,
but she's going to love you just the way I do."

"I'm sure I'll love her too," Lacey managed to say in the
middle of Rafe's monologue.

"And if you don't like Las Vegas, we can fly somewhere
else for the honeymoon. I thought at least a week, away from phones.
Can you take that much time away from your boutique?"

Lacey nodded, because Rafe was speaking again and she
couldn't get in two words.

"If you don't want to live at my house, we'll sell it and
buy something else, or I could move in with you. No?" he said in
response to her shaking head. "It is kind of small for the three of us,
and you might want to have more than just Angela later. We'll discuss that another time, or work on that tonight,
depending on how you feel about children, but before you commit
yourself to a baby, you might want to test-drive Angela for a few
months. You might find motherhood is a lot more involved than the
Ozzie-and-Harriet image we all grew up with."

"Rafe…" Lacey said, smiling, kissing him,
hoping that would slow his speech a little.

"The house, the kids, the who, the where, are all
secondary," he was saying. "All I want is to marry you, to know you're
mine and to let you know in the best way I can how much you mean to me."

"Rafe," Lacey said, smiling even wider, holding her hand
over his mouth, "I've already bought the watch. All I want to do now is
wear it."