“Tell me.” The words came out husky.
“Because I know the second I touch drugs, I lose you and I lose the right to be a parent to our child. You wouldn’t even have to throw me out. I do not want an active drug user raising our child—so the second I do drugs or take a drink, I give up the woman I love and I give up our child. That’s not going to happen.”
It wasn’t a pretty speech. It was hard and rough and raw, but it was exactly what Sarah needed to hear. Tears rolling down her face, she struggled to turn, laughed midway. “Help me, dammit.”
Abe kissed her instead. Her shoulder, her neck, every part of her he could reach. When she finally managed to get onto her back, he leaned over her to turn on the bedside lamp. “No tears,” he said in a gruff tone as the light washed across her face, but the kisses he dropped on her cheeks were tender, his hand as tender where he cradled her face.
Half smiling, half crying, she stroked his jaw. Her heart ached. “I loved you before,” she whispered, then shook her head when the light in his eyes began to dim. “I thought then that I could never love you more… but I do.”
Fighting the fear that clawed at her, trying to hold her back, she said, “The man you are now, he’s the man I dreamed of all my life.”
Shuddering, Abe buried his face in her neck.
He didn’t speak for several long minutes, his breath jagged.
“Abe?” She put her hand on the back of his head… and she realized he was trying not to cry. This big, strong man was struggling not to cry because she’d told him she loved him. She’d never been that important to anyone.
Her own tears began to fall again.
He kissed her when he raised his head, his thumb stroking over her cheek. And he kissed her and he kissed her. She felt her bones liquefying under his touch, and when he lowered his hand to between her thighs, she shuddered and held on to him as he played her body like a fine instrument. Pleasure rose in a heavy wave.
She surrendered, gave in.
TWO DAYS LATER, SARAH SCOWLED at Abe when he said, “Let’s go out.”
“I’m in my pj’s and I want to stay that way.” It was only six p.m., but Sarah had decided eight months of pregnancy gave a woman a certain latitude—especially after she’d spent an hour on the phone with a particularly demanding client.
Pressing his hands on the sofa on either side of her, Abe smiled that heartbreaker smile. “Please.”
She gave a huge sigh, though butterflies danced in her stomach—damn but the man was sexy. “You’ll owe me big-time.”
“Done.”
Getting up and dressing in a pretty jersey dress in a vibrant shade of orange that Diane had insisted on buying her the last time they went shopping together, she called down to where Abe waited in the downstairs hallway, Flossie by his side. “Shall I put on proper makeup?” She’d brushed on enough to feel ready, but it was just the lightest touch.
“No, but take some.”
Huh? She went to open her mouth, then thought to hell with it and put some makeup in a little carry bag. As she zipped it up, she paused. Was Abe planning to take her somewhere? Bubbles of excitement skittered under her skin. Maybe—she bit her lower lip—he’d ask her to marry him again.
She knew she was the one who should ask since she was the one who’d effectively turned him down by never giving him an answer, but the romantic girl in her clung to the dream of being asked by the man she loved. “Should I take some clothes?”
“No, I already packed for you.”
Her mouth fell open. “Did you pack purses to match the clothes?”
“Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?”
Laughing at his insulted tone, she padded down the stairs with the makeup kit and her current everyday purse. “Here, put this with the other stuff.” She handed the makeup bag to him. “Are you going to tell me where we’re going?”
“Nope.”
Sarah decided to go with it. “One last adventure before the peanut arrives?”
“Something like that.” Abe helped her into the passenger seat of the SUV, then went around and tucked her makeup kit into the luggage he had in back.
Flossie was already in the backseat. When Sarah asked if Flossie was going with them, Abe told her their pet would be jumping off at her favorite doggie hotel. “Don’t stay up too late,” Sarah told Flossie as Abe locked up the house.
It was as they were pulling out of the gate that she frowned. “Hey, where are all the photographers and reporters?” They’d been on her like white on rice for months, would hardly disappear when she was only weeks away from giving birth.