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  With a gentle sigh, she drew his head down and kissed the scars.

  “God!” he exclaimed, torn with emotion. He caught her mouth under his and kissed her so hungrily that she gasped. It went on for a long time, as he tried to express an emotion so powerful that even words were inadequate to describe it.

  He hugged her close, his mouth sliding down to her neck, to press there hungrily. “I’ve never let anyone look at it. Not even K.C.”

  “But you’ll let me, my darling,” she whispered against his temple, smoothing her lips over the tanned skin.

  “I’d let you do anything to me,” he said, his voice husky.

  “That goes double for me.”

  He enveloped her against him, holding her, comforting her, feeling safe as he’d never felt safe in his life before. It was like coming home. His eye closed as he buried his face in her soft throat, rocked her against him, her bare breasts pressing hard into the warm muscle and thick hair of his broad chest.

  “I love you so much,” she whispered, almost in anguish. “If I lost you now...!”

  “You won’t lose me,” he said gruffly. “I’ll never let you go now, Tat. You belong to me.”

  “Yes. And you belong to me,” she whispered back.

  He tilted her face up to his, studying the rapt expression on it with pure wonder. He smiled tenderly as he traced the exquisite lines of her beautiful face, looked into her deep, china-blue eyes.

  He looked strange, suddenly, as if he’d landed in an unfamiliar place and couldn’t get his bearings. After a minute, he smiled a little remotely, and buttoned up the shirt, hiding her pretty breasts again.

  “Let’s go and visit the museum. You game?”

  She laughed softly. His mood seemed to lighten. “Okay.” She got off his lap. “I won’t be a minute.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  He watched her go with a terrible sense of foreboding. He didn’t really have psychic abilities, but he was sensitive to mood and place and situation. It was a gift that had saved his life more than once. He didn’t know exactly what he was feeling, but it frightened him. Something was going to happen, something perhaps life-threatening. He couldn’t blurt that out in front of Tat, but he was going to be more watchful, at least for a while.

  On the other hand, he was happier than he’d ever been in his life. Tat was going to marry him. He’d get to keep her forever. They’d have children; they’d make a home together. Odd, he thought, that freedom had been almost a religion to him until he’d known for sure that Tat wasn’t related to him in any way. Once he was sure of that, he couldn’t wait to put his ring on her finger. Maybe it was too soon for children, but he wanted those, too. So did she.

  He smiled warmly, thinking about a little boy or a little girl in his arms, in Tat’s arms. His parents had died brutally, when he was very young. He’d never known a settled family even so, because the man he thought was his father had been away with K.C. very often on missions overseas. His mother had loved him; she’d been kind to him. But after her death, and her husband’s, Rourke had been left alone in the world at the age of ten. His children, he thought, were going to have both parents and a settled life.

  That would mean making some changes in his own life. No more dangerous missions. He’d have to go administrative, like K.C. But he could make that sacrifice, just as he was certain that Tat wouldn’t take the risk of going into combat zones as a reporter anymore.

  It would be worth it, he thought, it would be worth anything to have Tat permanently in his life, in his arms. He was, he considered, the luckiest man on earth right now.

  6

  Manaus was an international city, with people of just about every ethnic group represented in its sophisticated interior.

  Rourke had found an expensive European boutique online. He took Tat there in the rental car and smiled at her exuberance while she looked at a small selection of wedding gowns in her size.

  She paused at one, fingering it delicately. Her eyes lit up. It was trimmed in exquisite Belgian lace, and there was just a hint of pastel embroidery in the skirt and the long train. The veil was a fingertip one, sheer and delicate, like the dress itself. It was white. She hesitated, her eyes troubled.

  Rourke knew why. His fingers slid into hers. “We’re engaged, my darling,” he whispered at her ear. “Handfasting was one of the oldest customs in Scotland, where K.C.’s people came from. It permitted all sorts of delicious, forbidden intimacies, because the intent to marry was there.” He turned her toward him. His face was solemn. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t wait. I was honestly dying for you.”

  His headlong hunger for her was the one real thing in her life right now. He wasn’t exaggerating. He had been starving for her.

  She reached up and touched his cheek with just her fingertips. “It’s all right,” she said huskily.

  He turned her hand and kissed the palm with muted ferocity. “I did try, you know,” he whispered. His eye was tormented. “I really did.”

  “It’s all right,” she repeated. Her eyes adored him. “Honest.”

  He drew in a long breath. He searched her eyes and smiled. “You’ll be the most beautiful bride who ever walked down the aisle. We’ll have to talk to one of the local priests and see if he’ll agree to marry us.”

  “I’d like Father Pete to do it,” she said. “He was our family parish priest for years and years. He knew my mother.”

  His face closed up just briefly, but he averted his head so she wouldn’t see it. He hated her mother. He was never going to be able to forgive her for the torment she’d put him, and Tat, through because of that one lie.

  “If...if you’d rather have a civil ceremony,” she began, disconcerted by his sudden coolness.

  “No,” he said at once, turning his gaze back to her. “I want something more permanent than that. I want you in church, Tat, with the priest, the candles, the whole works.”

  She smiled slowly. “You don’t go to church.”

  He drew in a breath. “I suppose I’ll have to work that out, won’t I?” he teased. “A family man should encourage his kids to go to church.”

  She laughed. “Yes, he should.”

  “My mother was Methodist,” he said. “My best friend in Jacobsville is a minster who preaches in a Methodist Church.”

  “Would you rather that he performed the ceremony?” she asked.

  “Let’s do it your way,” he replied. “We can work out all the differences down the road,” he added with a smile. “I just want to marry you, love. As soon as I possibly can.”

  “Are we in a rush?” she teased.

  One lean hand went to her flat stomach and he looked her right in the eye. “Yes,” he said. “I don’t want people looking at your waistline. Because I have a feeling that if we wait a couple of months, they’ll have a reason to look at it.”

  Her breath caught at the emotion she saw in his one brown eye.

  “It might have already happened, last night,” he whispered, and ruddy color filled in his high cheekbones. “You could be carrying my baby right now.” He shivered. “God, that excites me, to think of that!”

  She leaned against him, overcome with joy. She’d never in her wildest imaginings seen him as a man who’d want babies.

  His arm tightened around her. He kissed the top of her head.

  A saleslady, watching them with hidden amusement, approached from the counter. “May I help you with something?” she asked.

  Rourke lifted his head and grinned at her. “Can you let her try on this gown?” he asked, indicating the one she’d paid such attention to. “We’re getting married in a few days.”

  “Congratulations! And of course, you may try it on, my dear,” she told Tat, who was beaming.

  She took the dress from the rack. “Come with me, please
.”

  Tat gave Rourke a long, soft look and a smile, and followed the saleslady to the back of the shop.

  * * *

  It was bad luck, to let the groom see the dress before the wedding. She felt it in her very bones. But she couldn’t resist showing Rourke how elegant the couture garment was on her slender, pretty figure.

  She walked out into the shop, with the veil down over her eyes, and Rourke looked at her and couldn’t stop looking.

  She went to him, fascinated by the expression on his face.

  He swallowed, hard. “I don’t care if I have to mortgage the farm to pay for it, you’re having that,” he said huskily.

  She laughed. “It’s not that expensive,” she mused. “I asked. I can pay for it...”

  He put a long forefinger over her lips. “I was teasing and you know it,” he laughed. “Money will never be a problem. Both of us are rich beyond the dreams of avarice. But I’m paying for the dress.”

  “Okay.”

  “And the flowers,” he added gently. “White roses, Tat?” he asked huskily.

  She nodded slowly. “White roses.”

  He lifted the veil and looked into her wide, soft eyes. “Myne vrou,” he whispered in Afrikaans. “Ek is lief vir jou.”

  She flushed, because what he said was “My woman—my wife—I love you.”

  He bent and nuzzled her nose. “We’ll have to find a mutual language for intimate whisperings,” he chuckled.

  “Afrikaans is beautiful,” she whispered.

  He smiled against her lips. “Then we’ll make love in Afrikaans,” he whispered. He laughed softly at her soft flush. He kissed her tenderly. “Buy the dress, my darling.”

  “Okay.” She walked away from him, elegant and poised, and so beautiful that she took his breath away.

  * * *

  They shopped for rings as well, but Tat only wanted a simple gold band to accompany the beautiful engagement ring he’d given her.

  “I don’t want a flashy diamond to show up this lovely ring,” she explained as they stood together at the jewelry counter in an exclusive shop. “I want a band that will be like my dress,” she explained. “An heirloom, to hand down to our daughter, if we have one.”

  He traced her eyebrows with a fingertip. “A daughter would be a long shot, honey,” he said softly. “There hasn’t been a female child born in my lineage in at least the past five decades.”

  Her heart jumped. She searched his eyes. “I wouldn’t mind a son, as long as he looked like you. You’re so handsome, Stanton.”

  He cleared his throat and looked vaguely embarrassed. “Gimpy eye and all?”

  “You’re the only person who has an issue with that eye patch. It makes you look very sexy,” she murmured and peered up at him through her lashes with a secret little smile.

  “Well!” he exclaimed.

  Her fingers tangled with his. “I like this ring,” she said. It was a simple circle with white and yellow gold, not too wide, but with a vine-like pattern. “It’s quite lovely.”

  He noticed that a man’s ring was available in the same pattern. “I’ll have the matching band,” he said quietly.

  Her eyes sought his. “You’d really wear it?” she faltered.

  His hand contracted around hers. “After all these years,” he told her. “Do you think I’ll wander off with some flighty girl the minute your back is turned?” He leaned down to her ear. “Eight years of abstinence, Tat,” he whispered. “Does that sound flighty to you?”

  “Oh, no,” she agreed breathlessly. “No, it doesn’t.”

  He bent and brushed his mouth tenderly over her eyelids. “We’ll buy the set. Then we’ll go and talk to Father Pete. Okay?”

  She smiled. “Okay, Stanton.”

  * * *

  Father Pete was surprised and delighted at the news.

  “Your father was quite fond of Rourke,” he told Tat with a smile. “He admired and respected him. He would have been happy for you.”

  “My mother would have been, too,” she faltered.

  He didn’t reply.

  She frowned. “Father Pete...?”

  “We’d like you to perform the ceremony, if you could, on Friday,” Rourke interrupted. He knew immediately that Tat’s mother had confided in Father Pete, had told him what she’d done. It unsettled him a bit.

  “I’ll make time,” he replied. He gave them both a searching look and raised an eyebrow.

  “Could I speak to you, in private?” Rourke asked him.

  “Of course.”

  “I’ll wait out here,” Tat said, smiling. She inferred from the look they’d exchanged that Stanton had something to get off his chest. Men did have to have a few secrets, she pondered.

  * * *

  Rourke’s face was hard as he faced the priest behind a closed door. “Clarisse’s mother told a lie to me that kept me away from Tat for eight long years,” he said coldly. “Ruined my life. Ruined Tat’s.”

  “She was sorry for it, if that helps,” Father Pete said gently. “She was afraid of your intentions. Clarisse was very young and, forgive me, you had a reputation as a rounder. Maria was concerned that you’d seduce her daughter and walk away.”

  “I loved Tat, even then,” Rourke said heavily. “I would happily have married her at seventeen. In fact, that was what I had in mind. If her mother had spoken to me, given me a chance to tell her what I really felt...” He swallowed and shoved his hands into the pockets of his slacks. “You can’t imagine what a burden she placed on me. Eight years of absolute hell. I couldn’t touch another woman, in all that time...!”

  Father Pete put a gentle hand on his shoulder. “I’m a priest, my son,” he said with a faint smile. “You might not believe it, but I understand abstinence. In my profession, it’s a requirement that brings its own burden.”

  Rourke relaxed, just a little. “I see.” He hesitated. “Thanks. For not judging. Tat doesn’t hide her emotions very well,” he added with a faint laugh. “Things...got out of hand.”

  “When two people love each other that can happen. The important thing is that you respect the tradition of marriage.”

  “I grew up in rural Africa,” Rourke replied, “where tradition also has a place. I wouldn’t dishonor Tat by offering her a relationship that didn’t include marriage.” He cleared his throat. “I love her very much.”

  “A mutual thing. She really doesn’t hide her emotions well,” Father Pete laughed.

  Rourke drew in a breath. “I’ve never spoken about my work to anyone,” he said. He hesitated. “Sometime, after the ceremony, I’d like to talk to you.”

  The priest’s eyes were wise and kind. “I’ll be happy to listen, to anything you want to say.”

  Rourke smiled. “Maybe it’s time I made a few changes in my life besides wearing a wedding band,” he replied. “Life is full of surprises.”

  “Yes.”

  * * *

  “What were you talking to Father Pete about?” Tat asked gently when they were outside again in the warm sun.

  “Private things,” he mused, smiling down at her. He linked his fingers with hers. “I’ll tell you them, one day.”

  “All right. I won’t pry.”

  He drew in a long breath. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy in my life, Tat,” he said. He pursed his lips. “That reminds me.” He pulled out his cell phone, drew her close and took a selfie of the two of them with their heads together, smiling. He glanced at it, took another and nodded.

  He put a legend under the photo: Guess who’s getting married?! And he sent it to K.C. in Africa, and to Jake Blair and Micah Steele in Jacobsville, Texas.

  * * *

  That night she was still a little uncomfortable. But he coaxed her out of her clothes, remov
ed his and installed them in her bed with the lights out.

  He shifted restlessly.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, her mouth against his shoulder. “If you...if you want to, it will be all right...”

  He laughed deep in his throat and rolled onto his side to kiss her worried eyes. “I’m sore, too,” he whispered back.

  She caught her breath. “Men get sore?”

  “You were a virgin, my darling,” he murmured against her soft lips. “There was a barrier...?”

  She cleared her throat. “Yes.”

  His whole body shivered. “I felt it tear. My God, in all my life, nothing was ever as exciting as that, as feeling your virginity, pushing past it...” He brought his mouth down, hard, on hers. “You waited for me,” he choked. “I could hardly believe it!”

  Her arms slid around his neck and she pressed close, loving the immediate reaction of his powerful body to her nudity. “I couldn’t bear to let another man touch me, not after you,” she confessed huskily. “Seventeen years old and committed for life to a man whom I thought hated me.”

  His arms contracted, bringing her closer. The embrace was almost painful. “I never hated you, baby,” he whispered. “It was the other way around. But when I thought there was blood between us...” He groaned, and kissed her hungrily. “I walked into firefights, took on the most dangerous assignments I could find, hoped to die.” His mouth slid onto her warm throat. “And I couldn’t. The torment went on, year after year after year.”

  “For me, too.” She drew in a shivery little breath. “I never understood why. It hurt, so much.”

  He smoothed her hair. One lean hand went down her back, savoring the silky skin, savoring its warm perfection. “Your body is absolutely perfect,” he whispered. “I’d see you on television, at embassy balls, or at fund-raisers. Once when you were hostess at a tribute at the Kennedy Center. I fed on just the sight of you and hated myself for what I felt. I thought there had to be something unnatural in me.”

  She burrowed her face into his neck. “If only you could have told me.”