Night Moves: Dream Man/After the Night (91 page)

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Authors: Linda Howard

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“What’s settled?” she challenged.

“That I love you and you love me.”

“So what do we do? Call a truce?”

He shook his head and picked up her hand again. “What we do is get married.” He pressed a kiss to her fingertips. “We aren’t going to wait six months, either, like some people I know. It’ll probably be this weekend. No longer than a week.”

Marlie’s breath caught, and a luminous smile broke over her face like sunrise. “I’m sure we can manage it by this weekend,” she said.

He wanted to fold her in his arms, but he was too afraid of hurting her. He looked at her, and was amazed at how calm she was. She had been stalked by a killer, had emptied a pistol into him, and she seemed so . . . peaceful. Not even getting engaged had shaken that serenity.

He began shaking, as he had several times that night. “I’m sorry,” he blurted, for the fifteenth time, his expression
telling her where his thoughts had gone. “God, baby, I messed up bad. I never intended for you to be in danger. I don’t know how he found you.”

Her blue eyes were even more bottomless than usual. “Maybe it was meant. Maybe it was my fault that he found me. I should have gone to a safe house. Maybe, at the end, he could sense me the way I could sense him. Maybe I was the only one who had a chance against him, because I could tell where he was, what he was doing. There are too many maybes; we’ll never know for certain. But I’m
okay
, Dane, in every way.”

“I love you. When I thought he had you—” His voice cracked. Suddenly he couldn’t stand it. With exquisite care he gathered her up in his arms and lifted her from the bed, then sat down and cradled her on his lap, his face buried in her hair.

“I know. I love you too.” She didn’t protest that the action jarred her shoulder, or that he was holding her too tightly for comfort. She needed that contact, the security and warmth of his embrace. She nestled against him. “Dane?”

“Hmmm?”

“There is one thing.”

He raised his head. “What?”

“Are you certain you want to marry me?”

“Damn right I am. What brought this on?”

“I know how uncomfortable it makes you that I am what I am. And I can’t marry you without telling you everything. I’ve pretty much recovered all my abilities. In fact, I’m better at it than I was before, because now I can control it.”

He didn’t hesitate. The only way to have Marlie was to take her as she was, psychic abilities and all. “But you can’t read
me
at all, right?”

“Nope. You’re the most thickheaded man I’ve ever seen. It’s
such
a relief.”

He grinned, and brushed a kiss across her temple. “It
wouldn’t make any difference anyway. I’m going to marry you, no matter what.”

“But I
can
check up on you,” she admitted. “If you have a bad day, you won’t be able to hide it from me, the way cops usually do with their wives. There won’t be any tucking it away in a corner of your mind, because I’ll already know what happened.”

“I can live with that.” Easily, he realized. At this point he could probably live with her even if she were a card-carrying swami and rode a magic carpet. “If you can handle being a cop’s wife, I can be a psychic’s husband. What the hell; how rough can it be?”

Epilogue

D
ANE ROLLED OUT OF BED,
looked at Marlie, turned green, and dashed for the bathroom. She propped herself up on her elbow, considering the situation with mild disbelief. “I’m the one who’s pregnant,” she called. “Why are you having morning sickness?”

He came out of the bathroom several minutes later, still rather pale. “One of us has to,” he said. He groaned and collapsed on the bed. “I don’t think I can make it in to work today.”

She nudged him with her foot. “Sure you can. Just eat some dry toast and you’ll feel better. You know Trammell will tease you if you don’t show up.”

“He already does.” Dane’s voice was muffled in the pillow. “The only thing that keeps him from telling everyone else is that I know something just as bad about him. We have each other in a Mexican standoff.”

She threw back the covers and got out of bed. She felt wonderful. She had been queasy a little at first, but never quite to the point of throwing up, and that had soon passed.
For her, that is. Dane was still throwing up regularly, every morning, though it was just past New Year’s and she was now six months along. He was paying the price for getting her pregnant immediately after their wedding.

“I wonder how you’re going to handle labor and delivery,” she mused aloud, giving him a wicked look.

He groaned. “I don’t want to think about it.”

• • •

He didn’t handle it at all well. As a labor coach, he was a complete washout. From the time her pains started, he was in agony. The nurses loved him. They installed him on a cot next to her, so he could hold her hand; it seemed to give him comfort. He was pale and sweating, and every time she had a contraction, he had one too.

“This is wonderful,” one older nurse said, watching him with joy. “If only all the fathers could do this. There may be justice in this world, after all.”

Marlie patted his hand. She was ready for this to be over, even if the price was these steadily increasing pains that were now threatening to become very serious indeed. She felt heavy and exhausted, and the pressure in her pelvis threatened to tear her apart, but a part of her was still able to marvel at her husband. And
she
was supposed to be empathic! Dane had suffered through every month, every pain, with her; she wondered just how labor pains felt in a man.

“Oh, God, here comes another one,” he groaned, gripping her hand, and sure enough, her belly began to tighten. She fell back, gasping, trying to find the crest of the pain and ride it.

“This is going to be an only child,” he panted. “There won’t be another one, I swear. God, when is he going to get here?”

“Soon,” she answered. She could feel the deep, heavy tightening within. Their son would arrive soon.

He did, within half an hour. Dane wasn’t able to be there during delivery; the doctor had been forced to give him a
sedative to ease his pain. But when Marlie woke up from an exhausted doze, he was sitting in the chair beside her bed, looking pale and exhausted himself, and he was holding the baby.

His rough face broke into a grin. “It was rough,” he said, “but we did it. He’s great. He’s perfect. But he’s still going to be an only child.”

A
BOUT THE
A
UTHOR

LINDA HOWARD
is the
New York Times
bestselling author of
Kill and Tell, Son of the Morning, Shades of Twilight, After the Night, Dream Man, Heart of Fire, The Touch of Fire, Angel Creek,
and
A Lady of the West
Her newest novel,
Now You See Her,
is currently available in hardcover from Pocket Books. Her many awards include the Silver Pen from
Affaire de Coeur
and the
Romantic Times
Reviewer’s Choice Award for Best Sensual Romance.

LOOK FOR
NEW YORK TIMES
BESTSELLING AUTHOR

L
INDA
H
OWARD’S

ELECTRIFYING NEW

PAGE-TURNER

NOW YOU SEE HER

Available in hardcover from Pocket Books

AND READ ALL OF HER

SPELLBINDING NOVELS

Kill and Tell

Son of the Morning

Shades of Twilight

After the Night

Dream Man

Heart of Fire

The Touch of Fire

Angel Creek

A Lady of the West

Don’t miss her story “Lake of Dreams” in the
New York Times
bestselling anthology
EVERLASTING LOVE

And look for her thrilling tale, “White Out,” in the holiday collection
UPON A MIDNIGHT CLEAR

ALL AVAILABLE FROM POCKET BOOKS

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This book consists of works of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.