Authors: Melissa James
Who Do You Trust? (25 page)
She held out her arms to him. “So why aren’t you kissing me already, Skydancer?”
“Hmm. No idea, Countrygirl.” He moved into her arms. Their lips met in a kiss saturated in love, a love with foundations in the past, strengthened by the love of the present, painted in bright colors with anticipation of the future. A lifetime of loving together.
Then he crawled beside her on the bed, caressing her face. “Do you have any idea how much
“Tim made me aware of it today, when he told me off.” Her eyes crinkled with her cheeky grin. “And he made me aware of what I was throwing away if I didn’t take the chance now.”
“Best friends have their uses,” he growled, nuzzling her lips. “It’s about time he threw something positive our way.”
She flushed. “Um, actually, he’s been trying for years. He told me to call you the day he left. He told me you loved me then. He said you’d bolt back home to me. He’s been nagging me to tell you I was free every time he’s seen me since then.”
His brows lifted. “And your reason for not doing this was…?”
“Um, you want another recital of all your supposed sins, or the one about my imaginary fears?”
He groaned. “I think I know them all off by heart by now, my prove-it-to-me woman.”
“What happened to Darren and Will?” she asked suddenly.
“Darren got away somewhere on the island. We think he might have joined the rebel army. Oh, by the way, the UN has decided to get involved. They’re sending in a peacekeeping force from the South Pacific region. With the lack of resources and numbers, the rebels won’t last longer than a month.”
“Good,” she muttered viciously. “And Tumah-ra can get back to normal. I hate to think of such a beautiful place destroyed.”
“We let Will go back to his teaching hospital in Sydney to finish his internship. Along with that plant, which apparently stopped any infection setting in, he saved your life, Liss. He got you breathing again and kept you alive until we got here.”
“We should invite him home one day, to see the boys. He’s their uncle.”
He kissed her. “I adore you, you know that?”
“Oh, I know.” Her eyes twinkled. “An appropriate emotion for my husband to express on regular occasions.”
“Um, I’m happy to volunteer for wedding-dress collection and organizing a wedding here—provided I’m best man, of course,” Tim said, standing in the doorway with Ron and the kids.
Grinning, Mitch cradled Liss in his arms. “This is a really weird sort of déjà vu, don’t you think?”
Tim laughed. “I was sort of heading in the direction of poetic irony or delayed justice, but hey, I’m easy.”
“Mummy!” Jenny tiptoed over to them, her eyes bright. “Are you all better now?”
“Much better, darling.” Lissa cuddled into Mitch, and held out a hand to her daughter. “You want to be my bridesmaid?”
Jenny turned to Tim, but when his smiling face reassured her, she nodded. “Can I wear my pretty dress?”
“That’s what your daddy bought it for.”
“What about you guys?” Mitch grinned at his sons, hovering uncertainly in the doorway. “I’m looking for a couple of guys to make sure Uncle Tim doesn’t botch it for me. He hasn’t got a great track record with weddings.”
Tim choked on laughter, and patted Mitch’s shoulder. “Only when I’m the groom, mate. Best man I can handle…and I promise I won’t get drunk this time.”
“Don’t I get a hug, boys?” Lissa asked. “I’ve missed you so much.” She held out her other hand to them, but still they hovered, identical in their terror-filled memories.
Lissa’s face gentled. “I’m fine, guys. I’ll be out of here in a few days, and we’ll head to a resort for our honeymoon. After all, we’re all getting married here. Becoming a family. Always together.” She turned to Mitch, her eyes glowing with love, with tender understanding of his sons’ fears. “Isn’t that right, Dad?”
“Dead right. We’re a family, guys.” He gestured to the boys, and smiling in identical joy, they bolted into their parents’ waiting arms. “And that includes your aunty Alice and uncle Brad, your cousins and Nanna and Pop. They’ll all be here to see us get married, and Nanna and Pop will be staying with you guys in a resort next door to ours, while Mum and I do a few, um, honeymoon things. The nights will be ours,” he added softly, for Lissa alone to hear.
“Good,” she whispered back, her eyes shining.
Tim choked again. “Uh, Ron, I think this is our cue to fly back to Breckerville and get Lissa’s dress and the paperwork.” Smiling, the two men headed for the door, while Lissa and Mitch kissed their children again, then each other.
Love had finally proven to be its own miracle.
T
en days later Mitch heard the words he’d been dreaming of for seventeen long years. “Squadron Leader McCluskey, you may kiss your bride.” The local RAAF chaplain smiled and winked.
Mitch, standing proudly in his RAAF uniform, bent to kiss his new wife, dainty and unspeakably lovely in her soft ivory lace, wearing her star sapphire, her wedding band and a certain old, slightly faded and rusted, still-cherished pink locket she’d made Tim bring up from her jewelry case back home.
Lissa. Lissa McCluskey. Finally his
bride. His woman, his brave, beautiful Nighthawk woman, to stand beside him and share his life forever.
As he’d share hers.
“My husband,” she whispered, her eyes filled with love.
He kissed her again, then wheeled her in the hospital-issued wheelchair to sign their marriage papers. Then he’d sign his wife out of the hospital to start their life together.
After a quiet champagne dinner at a local seafood restaurant, Lissa linked her hand in his and gave him that look—the look of yearning and love he would cherish for the rest of his life. He smiled and kissed her softly, in loving prelude; then he cleared his throat. “I think everyone will forgive us if w disappear now.” He grinned and ruffled his sons’ heads and blew a kiss at Jenny. “We’ll see you guys tomorrow.”
Lissa, glowing incandescent, kissed their children, her joyful parents and sister, Tim and Ron, hugged them all, then put her hand in his. “Let’s go.”
About to walk out the door, Lissa turned back, and the three kids ran into her arms, hugging her with tender care for her recently healed wound. But she called softly, “Tim.”
Her ex-husband looked at her, brows raised.
“Thank you, fairy godmother.” She smiled, wrinkling her nose in gentle teasing. “Best friend. Father of my daughter. Family forever.” Her arms full of Mitch and the children, overflowing with love, she beckoned.
Mitch grinned and nodded. “Get over here, you geek. You, too, Ron and Will and Marie and Stan,” he added to his new parents-in-law. “Everybody, in fact. Can’t you tell the appropriate moment for group hugs?”
Tim came to them, followed by his smiling partner, Lissa’s joyous parents and sister, Alice, with her family, and finally Kerin’s hesitant brother, unable to believe he’d been so forgiven. “Now
this
is the weird déjà vu, if you ask me,” Tim remarked, laughing. “The two best friends I have in the world, finally together. The universe getting appropriate revenge on my selfish, immature and indeed dastardly manipulation of events—”
Mitch met his wife’s gaze over the heads and bodies snuggling into them, saw Lissa as brimful of joy and laughter as he was. “Shut
up,
Tim,” they chorused together, as they’d done so often as kids. Then their lips met again, holding all the people they loved best in the world—her family, now his family, too. His own family at last.
Finally all he’d ever dreamed of was his…because of Lissa. Always Lissa. Forever Lissa.
Nighthawk’s woman.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-8258-6
WHO DO YOU TRUST?
Copyright © 2003 by Lisa Chaplin
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