“We love them, Mitch,” she blurted, staring hard at the creamy-tiled wall with hand-painted diamond tiles interspersing the plain squares. “They’ve become my sons, Jenny’s big brothers. They had their troubles when they came. I expected it after the way Kerin died. But it’s settling down. They’re happy here…they have a home and family. They need family stability, Mitch, and they love us, Jenny and me—” She turned to him, pleading in the depths of her pretty eyes. “Please don’t take them away from me.”
Quick as a flash, he made up his mind. “I knew they’d love you, Lissa, and I knew you’d love them. I counted on it. Which is why I came back here to live.”
She kept her gaze on him, eyes wide, pupils dilated. Filled with half-scared questions only he had answers to.
“Matt and Luke need a mother,” he said quietly, formulating his plans with the lightning speed of a man trained to think on his feet, or in the cockpit. “One who’ll be more loving, more stable than Kerin could ever have been. And no woman could be more loving, more stable than you. I know that from experience.” He watched the soft rose flush fill her cheeks, and ached with the need her fresh, countrygirl beauty always set off in him. The need to hold her, run his hands through that shining honey-gold waterfall of hair, touch her silky, golden-brown skin. Shed her clothes and kiss every secret part of her until she was glowing in her earthy sensuality and crying out in pleasure for him—
Oh, how he ached to make her his. But the only emotion she’d shown at all so far was for his kids.
When he spoke again, his voice was harsh with the strain of his never-ending craving for her. “I’ve had constant nightmares since Kerin took off with the kids from school—horrifying visions they’d end up in places I’ve been. But when you said you’d take them, the fear died. I knew you’d love my kids as your own. I trusted you to keep them safe. I can’t take them away from here, from the only real family and mother they’ve known.”
Lissa sagged, gripping the counter for support, white-faced and shaking. Her knuckles were transparent to the bone. “I’ve been so scared you’d take them from me,” she whispered. “I think I’d want to die if I lost them now.”
Oh, bloody hell. He should have seen this coming, should have known his girl wouldn’t just care for Matt and Luke, or love them simply—simple just wasn’t in her nature. She’d taken his sons right into her heart, and she’d hold on to the love with all the tenacious, desperate strength her delicate frame belied. Just as she’d once done with him. And while he’d half-counted on that, it made telling her his plans a whole hell of a lot harder.
But then, nothing was ever simple between him and Lissa. Ever. Not even the unspoken burning in his gut for her.
Especially not that.
He drew in a breath. “But I can’t just leave them behind. They’re my sons, and I love them.” He touched her arm to keep contact with her warmth; he felt so cold with fear, his teeth almost chattered. “You know me, Lissa. You know how I’ve always wanted to be part of a family. I’ve come home to find my family.”
Her eyes fixed on his face, filled with trepidation. Anguish. And, though he hunted as deeply as he dared, he couldn’t see a trace of the longing that filled him for her, body, heart and soul. “What are you saying?”
He dragged in a breath. “I’m saying I’m home to stay. I want a family—and that includes you and Jenny. If you’ll have me.” He took her hands in his, feeling like a drowning man holding on to a lifeline—and he finally said the words he’d been holding in since the girl he loved started dating his best friend fifteen years before. “Marry me, Lissa.”
Chapter 2
“Wh-what?”
It wasn’t exactly the answer Mitch hoped for. Nor was the look on her face. Surprised, yes. Stunned, maybe. Joyful, beyond his dreams. But the one look he hadn’t expected from her was that of a fawn he’d just shot.
Stricken. Bewildered. Betrayed.
So much for dreams and half-hidden hopes. He’d done it again. What a fool. What a heel. The world’s biggest jerk. Come home after twelve years, make conversation for five minutes and what did he do? Propose to her! He shouldn’t have blurted it out like that. He should have taken it slow, courted her with care; but no, he’d gone at her like a bull at a gate, let the dam break—and all he’d accomplished was to shock and confuse her.
He had no option but to go on with it now. He had to try to repair the damage he’d caused. “Think about it, Lissa. It’s the perfect solution for us all.”
She whitened and her eyes went dark like a lamp shattered by stones, bloodless and cold and broken. “No.” She tugged until he released her hands; she stumbled away from him, her breaths harsh and heaving, like she was trying not to throw up. “Don’t say it again,” she finally muttered. “Not ever!”
“Lissa—”
“I said no.” She flung up a hand between them. It was small and delicate, like Lissa herself—yet because it shook so hard, it was as effective a barrier as bricks and mortar, halting his advance. She turned her back on him, picking up her mug, sloshing coffee on the counter as she took unsteady swigs. “The kids will be home from school soon.” She spoke as if nothing had happened. “Matt and Luke will be so happy to see you—but expect hostility from Jenny. She loves her brothers. We’re a family.” The implication was clear: And we don’t need you.
Mitch dragged in a breath, seeing his life’s dream besides flying planes crumbling before his eyes. To him Lissa always had, always would, represent everything good and right and decent in the world. All that was beautiful and precious in his eyes lived and breathed here in Breckerville, on a sleepy verdant farm and in a pair of gentle gray eyes, a mouth made to love his body and a heart that had never known what boundaries were.
Except in this, obviously.
God, oh, God, he’d lost her. She didn’t love him. Didn’t want him. Not even to keep his kids—kids she obviously did love. “Won’t you even think about it?”
“I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want a ‘perfect solution’ to a problem I didn’t know I had!” Spitting the words out like epithets, she swiveled around to face him, her face filled with burning wrath. “You’ve been gone over twelve years, and in all that time, I never get a thing. No word, no call, no letter. I didn’t know if you were alive or dead until you needed my help with Matt and Luke. Now you waltz home after almost half a lifetime away and tell me you want to get married, just like that.” She snapped her fingers, her eyes flashing. “I’m not a dog you can call to heel, Mitch McCluskey.”
He bit the inside of his mouth. Somewhere along the line, his gentle Lissa had grown feisty. She’d squared up to him like Mike Tyson in a prematch slanging bout. What the hell had he said to make her quiver with fury like that? “I’m sorry.” He stumbled over the long-unused word, jerking a hand through his hair, and cursed when it caught in his tangled curls. “I hated leaving you. I’ve missed you like crazy the whole time I’ve been gone. Not a day’s passed when I didn’t think about you, want to see you, call or write—but Tim made his feelings pretty final.”
“But I didn’t,” she snarled, startling him with the vivid passion in her face. “You just left me—left us both behind. You knew how much Tim cared about you. Surely you knew he’d regret what he’d done when he was sober? And he did, Mitch—but we both thought you’d come back. And how do you think I felt, waiting day after day for a call or letter to know you were safe? I had to call the Air Force a year later to make sure you were alive!” She whirled on him again, a delicate china tigress, even her sheathed and painted claws ripping his heart to shreds. “I loved you, damn it. You knew I’d worry myself sick about you, and you never once bothered to let me know you were alive and all right!”
“I knew. You and Tim were the only two people on God’s earth I was sure cared about me.”