Chapter Nineteen
Wyatt came after her.
Of course, he did. He knew she was driving into a snowstorm. She wouldn’t answer her phone, so he followed her. That was the type of man Wyatt was. She shouldn’t read any deeper meaning into it.
Except she did.
He knocked and she opened the door, then stood there drinking in the sight of him. Which was silly, admittedly. He hadn’t changed since she saw him yesterday. Except yesterday he’d been stunned. Tonight he looked annoyed.
“Can I come in?”
“Oh, sorry.” She stepped aside.
He entered, dropped his coat on the floor, walked to her, snatched her up into his arms and hugged the stuffing out of her. “Damn it, Mia, you scared me to death.”
Oh, God, it felt so good to be in his arms again. “I’m sorry.” Trying not to cry, she buried her face in his shoulder. And sniffed. Good God. What—
“What’s that smell? What happened to you?” It wasn’t skunk odor, but it was almost as bad.
He put her down and glanced at his shoulder where a big wet spot was apparent. “Jasper, the Newfoundland.” He walked to the small couch and sat down.
“A Newfoundland dog?” Wyatt nodded. “I don’t understand. Did you get a new dog at the ranch?”
“Mind if I take off my boots?” She shook her head and he did so before continuing. “No new dog for us. At least, there wasn’t when I left. Of course, for all I know, Dylan could have taken in twelve more today. This”—he gestured to the wet spot—“is courtesy of my new best friend. He came with the stranded family I picked up along the way.”
“You picked up a family?”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes, and I’ll think twice before I do it again.” He went on to tell her about the family he’d rescued, their dog and the interminable remainder of the trip to the motel.
Soon they were laughing as if... as if there was no black cloud hanging over them. Like old times, before he knew the truth.
“It’s no wonder the shirt smells,” he said. “Jasper’s breath could have knocked over a Clydesdale.”
Mia laughed. “Surely not that bad.”
“You tell me. You couldn’t get away quick enough when I hugged you.” He looked at her a minute. “Or were you pushing me away for another reason?”
“No. Wyatt—”
“Then they offered to share their room with me,” he said, finishing up. “I’m pretty sure there is no worse fate than sharing a small hotel room with a family of strangers. Mom, Dad, three wild kids and a large, smelly dog. Although, come to think of it, the dog was better behaved than the kids.”
“It sounds challenging.”
“Too much for me to attempt. Speaking of smelly, can I use your shower?”
“Of course.”
“When I get out we need to talk,” he said, and closed the bathroom door.
A short time later he came out, shirtless, barefoot and wearing only a pair of jeans. “I washed out the shirt.”
“You didn’t bring anything? A change of clothes?”
“There wasn’t time. Once I knew you were driving and heard about the storm, I took off after you, hell-bent for leather.”
“I didn’t mean for you to go to all this trouble. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m not.” He sat beside her on the bed and took one of her hands in his.
“You-you-you’re not?” she stuttered.
His thumb rubbed slow circles in her palm as he smiled at her.
“No. Because now that we’re stuck here”—he kissed her cheek—“in a blizzard”—kissed her jaw—“for no telling how long”—kissed the corner of her mouth—“we can talk this out.” His lips claimed hers.
“I can’t think when you do that,” she said when he finally drew back.
“Funny. Neither can I.”
“Liar—” Just like that, it all came rushing back.
She was the liar here, not Wyatt. She yanked her hand from his and jumped up, turning her back to him and wrapping her arms around herself. What was there to say?
His hand fell on her shoulder and he turned her around to face him. “We need to get this out of the way.”
“Get what out of the way? How I lied to you for months? How can we?”
“Come sit down.” He led her to the couch and sat beside her. “Why did you lie to me, Mia?”
“You know why.”
“Tell me again.”
“I was going to tell you. But you told me you were moving only days after I found out I was pregnant. Did you really expect me to tell you then? What would I have said? ‘Oh, by the way, Wyatt, I’m pregnant. You’d better rethink that move.’”
“I would have,” he protested. “If I’d known.”
“Don’t you get it? I didn’t want to trap you, and I knew what you’d do. You’d marry me and then we’d be miserable since you had only married me because of the baby.”
“Mia—”
“Let me finish. If you had believed me, which at that point I wasn’t sure of, you’d have insisted on marriage. You know you would have.”
“Probably.”
She stared at him. “Probably my ass.”
“All right. Yes, I would have.”
“I wanted you to marry me because you wanted to. Not because you felt obligated to do it, but because you loved me. And you didn’t.” He started to speak but she held up her hand. “I told you yesterday, I’ve been in love with you for years. The absolute worst thing I could imagine was to marry you knowing you didn’t love me.”
Mia had been in love with him for years. She’d mentioned it the day before but with everything else she told him, he hadn’t paid attention. How could he have known her so well, yet not have known she loved him? How dense was he?
Pretty damn dense.
“I did love you, Mia.”
Her skepticism was evident in her expression. “Then why did you move without giving me a thought? If you’d loved me you wouldn’t have left so abruptly, and you damn sure wouldn’t have gone weeks without even talking to me.”
“When I left, I wasn’t sure what I felt for you. I cared about you. I loved you as a friend. But I didn’t know if what I was feeling was something more. All I knew was I couldn’t get you and our night together out of my mind.”
“So naturally, you dated other women—many of them, from what I heard—so you could be sure of your feelings for me. Your deep feelings,” she added sarcastically.
“I didn’t say it was smart. Or that it worked.” He shrugged. “Yeah, I dated. But I told you early on, I didn’t sleep with any of them.” He hadn’t even been tempted. Which was what finally made him realize he was in love with Mia.
“Sean’s wedding and Jack’s baby were mostly an excuse to ask you to come to Marietta. At that point I would have done anything to get you to come.”
“Oh, really?” she said in clear disbelief. “You forgot to let me in on that detail. Silly me, I thought you needed me because you knew the wedding and baby would remind you of Loretta and her lies.”
“I did need you. I thought they would. They did. But once you were here, none of that was important. I was just happy you were here, whatever the reason.”
“Until you found out I lied to you and brought it all back.”
Much as he wanted to, he couldn’t deny it. He’d been blown away. Not only because Mia had lied to him, but also because of what she’d lied about.
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier? Why did you wait until—” Until I knew I loved you? Until I asked you to marry me?
“Maya had the baby the first full day I was here. I sure wasn’t going to tell you that night, after we got home. And then the wedding was coming up. I didn’t want to ruin your brother’s wedding or make it harder for you. After that, Christmas was only two days away.”
Her eyes glistened with unshed tears. He felt like a jerk, and even more so with her next words.
“You know about my parents,” she said in a low voice. “It’s been twelve years since I had a family at Christmas. Even when I spent holidays with a boyfriend, I knew it wasn’t permanent. I never felt as if his family could be mine one day.
“Your family was different. They welcomed me. They made me feel a part of everything. My God, there I was, a stranger to them, but I was with the family when Maya gave birth. They took me in because they love you. I wanted to spend Christmas with you. With you and your family. Because I knew once I told you what had happened we’d be finished.”
“You rushed to judgment. Why were you so certain we were done? Didn’t you think the two of us were worth trying to work it out?”
“Of course I did. But I didn’t think it would be possible. I knew I’d done something unforgivable when I didn’t tell you about being pregnant. Or losing the baby. How can I expect forgiveness from you when I can’t forgive myself?”
He grasped her hands. She let them lie, unresisting, in his. “I wish you hadn’t lied. I wish you’d told me about the baby from the beginning. But the fact is, you didn’t. You didn’t feel you could trust me, and that’s on me.”
“No.” She shook her head. “It’s on me. All of it.”
“Not all of it,” he said with a smile. “I had a little something to do with the pregnancy.” She didn’t smile. He hadn’t expected her to. “Mia, you’re not the only one who needs forgiveness. I treated you badly after our night together. I’m sure you thought it was a onetime thing.”
“I did,” she said in a low voice. “The more time that passed the more certain I was that what we’d had was a one-night stand and you regretted it.”
“I never regretted that night. What I regret is making you feel you couldn’t talk to me. I regret that you felt you couldn’t come to me. I regret wasting so much time before I asked you to come here. I’m sorry you had to deal with the miscarriage alone. I should have been there for you, and the reason I wasn’t was both of our faults.”
“More mine than yours,” she said.
“I don’t think we need to argue over who was the most at fault.” He squeezed her hands. “I love you, Mia. I don’t want to lose you. I sure as hell don’t want to lose you over something we should be able to talk through.”
“Can we talk it through?”
“Yes, if we both want to. So there’s only one question left. Do you love me?”
“You know I do.”
“Then we’ll work it out. Everything is out in the open now. We can move on.”
“No, we can’t. You’re forgetting one issue. One very important issue.”
“What’s that?”
She got up and walked away a few steps, then turned to face him. “I can’t have children.”
Wyatt frowned. “You aren’t certain you can’t have children. You haven’t even gotten a second opinion. We talked about this before, when you first told me.”
Impatiently, she waved a hand. “What if it’s true? What if my doctor is right and I can’t ever have children? I can’t ever get pregnant again?”
“And what if he’s wrong? I want to marry you because I love you. Whether you can have a baby or not is immaterial.”
“No, Wyatt, it isn’t. It matters to you. You want kids, you’ve told me so.”
“Yes, I do. So do you. If we can’t have kids together, we’ll adopt.”
“You want children of your own.”
“Any child we were lucky enough to adopt would be our own. Are you trying to tell me you wouldn’t love a child we adopted as much as you’d love our natural child?”
“No.”
“I see. You don’t believe I could love an adopted child.”
Now she’d hurt him, and she hadn’t meant to. “I didn’t say that, and it isn’t what I think. But you should have the opportunity to have your own. Your-your blood. And I can’t guarantee you’ll have that chance. With me,” she added, her voice cracking. Damn it, couldn’t he see she wanted what was best for him?
“Nobody can guarantee it, Mia.”
“I realize that. But it’s not right to tie you down to a woman who can’t have children.”
He studied her for a long, silent moment before he spoke. “Bullshit.”
“What do you mean, bullshit?”
“These are excuses, Mia. You don’t want to marry me. Own it.”
“Oh, Wyatt, that isn’t true. You have no idea how much I want to marry you.” She turned away, unable to look at him.
“If you want to be with me, none of these roadblocks you keep throwing up are insurmountable. None of them, Mia.”
She felt his hands on her shoulders. His warm breath in her ear. “We have a lot going for us. Not the least of which is, I love you.” He turned her to face him. “You say you love me.”
“I do love you.”
“Then stop concentrating on the problems. Everyone has problems, Mia. Ours are no worse than anyone else’s. We’ll deal with them.”
She searched his eyes. Love, forgiveness, hope. “You have to be sure. Sure that you want me. Sure that you want us.”
He smiled at that. “I’ve never been more certain of anything. Are you?”
“I know I want you. I know I want us to be together.” Hesitantly, she added, “And if I can’t have children...” She left it an open question.
“Whatever happens, we’ll work it out.” Cupping her face in his hands, he kissed her, long, slow and deep. “There’s just one other thing.”
“What’s that?”
He pulled something out of the front pocket of his jeans. “I’ve never actually asked you to marry me. Last time I tried to ask you, I only got as far as ‘Will you’.”
“I’m sorry. I should have—”
“Shh.” A smile lit his eyes as he put his fingers on her lips. “I’m not getting down on one knee this time.”
“I can’t blame you,” she said.
“Mia, I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Marry me.”
“I can’t think of anything I want more.”
“Is that a yes or a no?”
“It’s a definite yes.”
“Hold out your hand.” He slipped a beautiful diamond ring on her finger and kissed her.
The ring had an old-fashioned appearance to it. A single, round diamond, with smaller diamonds encircling it, in a platinum setting. Simple and elegant. “It’s beautiful, Wyatt.”
“So are you.” He kissed her hand. “It was my grandmother’s. I thought it would suit you.”
Mia twined her arms around his neck. “I am so lucky.”
“We both are.”
“I think we’re both about to get even luckier.”
His eyebrows rose. “Really? And how would that be?”
“First, I get rid of these.” She stripped off her T-shirt, pajama pants, and underwear. Then she hooked a hand in his waistband and pulled him close. “Now, we get rid of these.” She unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans, helping him shove them down and off. Both naked now, she pushed him back onto the bed, looking at him with satisfaction. He reached for her, tugged her down on top of him.
“What now?” he asked.
“Now we make mad passionate love.”
“Sounds like a plan.” He kissed her and added, “A very good plan.”