“Harm, get down!” she said, trying to tug the dog back.
But Sebastian just said, “It’s all right. I’ve missed him.” And then his grin faded and their eyes met and Neely thought she might drown in the depths of them before he said, “I’ve missed you.”
There was a ragged edge to his voice she hadn’t heard before. This wasn’t The Iceman, then. She wet her lips. Her fingers gripped the handle of the door.
“Can I come in?”
She nodded and stepped back, waiting until he came in, and she shut the door to ask, “Issomething wrong? AreMaxandLara—?”
“They’re fine. Together, apparently.” He sounded a little dazed at that.
“Yes,” Neely said. “They might make it this time. They have a ways to go, though.”
“But they’re taking a chance.”
She nodded again. He was so close. She could see the pulse beat in his throat and wanted to reach out a finger and touch it. She could see whiskers on his jaw and wanted to rub her cheek against them, feeling them rough one way and smooth the other. She wanted—
“Will you take a chance on me?”
Sometimes in the forest all sound stopped. The birds hushed. The wind dropped. Nothing sounded. No one moved. It was like that now.
“Your father—”
“This is not about my father,” Seb said firmly just as she had said it to him. But as he spoke there was a ghost of a smile on his lips. “But if you must know, he says you have to make up your own mind.”
“He—” Neely stared. “You talked to him?”
Sebastian shrugged. “How do you think I found you?”
Abruptly Neely sat down. Her mind spun. He had come after her? He had talked to his father?
“He says you do wonderful warm and cozy,” Sebastian told her, “but that you’re struggling a bit with the light and space.”
“He said that?” She didn’t know whether to be delighted or outraged. “You’ve discussed this, have you?”
“I got to Chelan last night,” Seb said. “I couldn’t get a boat and come up the lake until this morning. We had a lot of time to talk.”
Neely opened her mouth and closed it again. “I don’t know what to say,” she murmured.
A corner of Seb’s mouth lifted. “How about yes?”
“What would I be saying yes to, exactly?” She held her breath, daring to hope, but wondering if she was actually dreaming. Perhaps she’d been in the woods alone far too long.
“Yes to taking a chance on me for starters,” Sebastian said. He dropped down on one knee next to the chair where she sat and took her hands in his. “Yes to letting me contribute a little light and space to those hotel plans you’re working on—”
She caught her breath and blinked in surprise.
“—but mostly yes that you’ll marry me because you are the woman I love, the one who gives light to my life and joy to my heart and—” he swallowed and went on, his voice ragged “—because wherever you are is home.”
She leaned toward him, his arms came around her and as their lips touched she answered him. “Yes and yes and yes.”
When Philip came later that afternoon, Seb told him to go away.
“Don’t be rude,” Neely protested.
Seb shrugged. “It shouldn’t be any hardship. He goes away all the time.”
Father’s and son’s eyes met in challenge, acknowledgment and acceptance. Philip nodded. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said to them. “It’s a workday.”
“We’ll be there,” Neely promised, even as Sebastian scooped her up in his arms and carried her back to bed.
They’d already been there once. And now once again they shared their bodies as well as their hopes and their dreams and their hearts. Only after, when they were lying wrapped in each other’s arms, did Sebastian sit up and say, “I brought you something.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, a few things, actually,” he confessed. “I’ll be right back.”
He yanked on his jeans and disappeared out the door. Bemused and baffled, Neely waited while he went down to the boat—twice—and then came back.
“This is for you,” he said, holding out a package that had a shape she recognized at once.
With reverent hands, Neely took it and unwrapped it. “Your grandfather’s violin?”
Seb nodded. “Yours now.” And she knew the depth of his love from the gift of the one thing of enduring love he’d carried with him all his life.
“Play for me?”
“Here? Now? Naked on the bed?”
He nodded. “Please.”
And so she sat up straight and tuned the strings and, after a moment, she began to play. She played a minuet. She played an étude. She played a favorite from her commune childhood, the simple folk hymn, “Morning Has Broken,” because in fact, it had.
And when she was done, she handed him the violin and he set it on the dresser, then came down on the bed beside her and loved her again, with a tenderness and a warmth that showed her once again that Sebastian Savas wasn’t an iceman at all.
And after she kissed him, then asked, “What else did you bring? You said you had two things.”
He smiled. “Fish.”
She sat up. “What? For dinner?”
He folded his arms behind his head, grinning now. “No. For the menagerie. They’re what got me here. You gave my sisters the cats.”
“Well, yes. But I didn’t think you’d want them.”
“And my stepmother the guinea pig,” he went on. “And I was alone. And I remembered about the fish. You started with fish. So I did, too. But I don’t have a clue about fish. So I thought you might be able to help me raise them.”
Neely laughed. “I might be able to do that.”
“And kids?” Sebastian said.
“As many as you want,” she promised, her heart full to overflowing.
He rolled her beneath him and began to love her again. “What’d you do with the rabbits?”
She grinned. “I gave them to Max and Lara.”
“Maybe I just don’t like you,”
she said, hoping he didn’t hear the quiver in her voice, or feel her hands trembling.
He shook his head. “Nah, that can’t be it. I mean, look at me. I’m handsome, and rich.”
“And modest.”
He grinned. “Exactly. What’s not to like.”
She had the feeling he wasn’t nearly as arrogant and shallow as he wanted her to believe, that maybe it was some sort of … defence mechanism. And boy did she know about those.
“Admit it,” he said. “You like me.”
“You’re my boss,” she said, but it came out all soft and breathy.
His