What a Woman Wants. Tori Carrington

her in a way she was helpless to explore just then. He was so earnest, so determined that she couldn’t help but be drawn to him, long to kiss him, if not for the panic swirling through her bloodstream, along with a thousand other jumbled emotions. Panic caused not by the thought of marrying him, of becoming Mrs. John Sparks, but fear that he was serious. That he intended to take this ridiculous idea of his and run with it.

      “John…I think you and I need some time to adjust before either of us says anything we don’t mean.”

      His jaw flexed, making her itch to inch her palm along the strong length of it. To press her mouth there, against his freshly shaved skin and drink in the tangy taste of him at her leisure. “I don’t need time, Darby. I know how I feel. I know what I need to do. And nothing you can say is going to change that.”

      Something tickled her chest from the inside. “We’re not teenagers, John. When something like this happens, you don’t have to get married. There are alternatives now.”

      His eyes narrowed.

      “No, no, I didn’t mean that alternative. I’m going to go through with this.”

      The relief on his face was so complete even she felt it rush through her body and warm her all over.

      “Time,” he said pensively. “If it’s time you want, Darby, then it’s time I’m going to give you. But I promise you, no matter how long it takes, you are going to marry me.”

      “No!”

      Darby stared at him as if he had made the vehement announcement. Because if there was one thing she was sure of, she hadn’t said the word. Her heart was too busy doing a silly little dance for her to have responded in any manner.

      Reality sank in and every one of her muscles went on alert. If the word hadn’t come from her or John, who had said it? She wasn’t sure she wanted to find out.

      She pried her gaze from John’s sincere face to find Erin standing in the kitchen doorway. Her tiny frame was tense and battle-ready, her angelic face drawn and tight. Both hands were curled into fists at her sides and she shook as she repeated the word, as if the entire farm outside hadn’t heard her the first time. The passion behind her exclamation made the hair on Darby’s arm stand on end, made her stomach squeeze ominously. Extricating her hands from John’s, she somehow managed to stumble to her feet, and then wondered why the floor suddenly seemed to be swaying. Then she realized that the floor wasn’t, she was.

      Not a good sign.

      “Erin!” she said, her tone one of reprimand. Her gaze darted from her daughter’s flushed face to John, who stared at the tablecloth as if afraid it had come alive and was about to smother him.

      The six-year-old’s entire stance seemed to crackle with electricity as she pointed a stiff finger in John’s direction. “You are not going to marry him. You’re not!”

      Of course that had been Darby’s own response only minutes ago. But hearing it come from her daughter’s young mouth was completely different. Erin’s aberrant behavior all day left her drained and confused and just a tad angry.

      “Why not?”

      As John asked the question, Darby stared at him as if he’d grown another head. He’d lifted his gaze from the table and now stood next to her, looking at Erin with infinite patience.

      “Because my daddy’s coming back, that’s why.”

      A strangled sound erupted from Darby’s throat as every moment of the past year swept through her mind. From that terrible phone call in the middle of the night telling her Erick was dead, to the funeral where she’d clutched the twins to her so tightly she’d been afraid she’d break them, to the here and now and everything that had happened in between. She wouldn’t exactly classify the past year as easy. It had been everything but. But she never, ever, would have thought that either one of her daughters would have a doubt about the permanent absence of their father.

      “He is coming back. He is,” Erin whispered again, moisture sparkling in her wide brown eyes, her crushed expression making Darby feel as if she’d just run over the family dog with her truck. “And that means you can’t marry anyone.”

      Looking much like a rag doll in need of cuddling, Erin turned on her heel and trudged from the room and all the way back up the stairs. Movement nearby drew Darby’s attention. She watched as an eerily silent Lindy stepped from the shadows of the living room, her gaze confused and vulnerable as she turned and followed her sister up the stairs.

      Darby’s stomach roiled ominously. Unlike when she was pregnant with the twins, the first three months of this pregnancy had been so far uneventful.

      She had the awful sensation that was about to change.

      “Excuse me,” she said softly. “I think I’m going to be sick….”