She eased away and slid a hand to the curve of his cheek. “Yes, I love you, Sam. I loved you then, I love you now. I probably fell in love that very first night we spent together at the Lizard. I flirted and teased and joked but I think I was tumbling hard, even then.”
“Yet you wouldn’t even agree to see me again.”
“Because you scared me to death! You were so...well, you.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do much about that.”
Her hand curled into a fist and she trailed it down to his hard chest, where she could feel each pulse of his heart. “I don’t want you to change anything. I love you exactly as you are. Big, tough, scary. Wonderful. I love you more than I ever imagined possible. You’re everything I never knew I needed.”
He smiled with pure joy and wrapped his arms around her, then he kissed her there on his porch swing while the creek rippled past and his son slept peacefully inside and the lights of their town twinkled in the moonlight.
EPILOGUE
“ARE YOU COMPLETELY exhausted yet?”
“Who, me? You must be joking?” Alex grinned at her mother across the work island in Harry Lange’s gleaming, gorgeous kitchen, with its gourmet appliances and extravagant cookware. “I’m in heaven. Who wouldn’t be?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe somebody who’s been on her feet since 5:00 a.m.”
Actually, the clock beside her bed had read four-thirty when she tumbled out to take care of the turkey, but she wasn’t about to admit that to her mom. “Not me. I’m full of energy. Why wouldn’t I be? I’m surrounded by two of my favorite things, food and family.”
She was completely in her element, even if she did feel a little odd and off-kilter to be cooking somewhere besides her mother’s small kitchen, where she had helped prepare dozens of Thanksgiving dinners.
She had always believed traditions were meant to shift and morph to meet new circumstances, though, and this wasn’t such a bad change. Harry’s spacious kitchen was tricked out better than her own place at Brazen, with all the very best culinary toys.
Just now, the kitchen was lushly redolent of delicious things cooking: her garlic smashed potatoes, her grandmother McKnight’s famous stuffing recipe, with her own twist of using venison sausage instead of pork, and of course the huge tom turkey resting on the sideboard, ready to be carved in a few moments.
“Well, everything looks and smells divine,” Mary Ella said, leaning in to kiss her cheek and tuck a stray blond strand of hair behind her ear. “But of course, you already knew that.”
“I did quite outdo myself, didn’t I?” she preened.
“The modesty of my daughters is always so heartwarming.”
She grinned. “Okay, okay. We both know I can’t take all the credit. This is a team effort, as always. I’m just the traffic cop, telling everybody what to do. Anyway, I have a feeling the pies Claire and Rose made last night are going to steal all my poor turkey’s thunder.”
She gestured to a nearby counter where pumpkin, blackberry and pecan pies waited in all their glory, golden crusts and all.
“The crowd is growing restless out there. How much longer, do you think?”
She added one more shake of coarse ground sea salt to her potatoes. “That does it for my part. The only thing left is the gravy.”
“I guess that’s my cue.”
Alex made a mean turkey gravy, but she was also honest enough to admit it couldn’t compare to her mother’s.
“I’ve already transferred the drippings for you.” She pointed to the Wolf range.
“Perfect. You’d probably like a minute to freshen up while I finish up here and then we can let everyone know we’re ready.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
She took off her apron, hung it on a hook inside the pantry and headed for the powder room conveniently located just off the kitchen. Her dressy white blouse glimmered in the tasteful lighting of the bathroom, accented by a necklace she had made in one of Evie’s classes a few months earlier. It was made of semiprecious stones and Czech glass beads floating at intervals on a nearly invisible fragile silver wire.
Hidden beneath it, she pulled out another length of chain nestled between her breasts. Threaded along it was an exuberantly beautiful emerald ring, so lovely it stole her breath every time she saw it.
She couldn’t wait to wear the bling all the time— except when she was cooking, of course.
But not yet.
Three days from now, Harry and Mary Ella would be marrying in this very house. All her family was already in town for the big event, including Rose and her family and Lila from California.