Raintree Read online

  It was after dark when they reached Gideon’s house. There’d been no word from Charlie on Tabby’s car, but since all they had was a make and a first name that might or might not be real, it was going to take a while. Gideon pulled into the garage and killed the engine as the garage door slowly closed behind them. He didn’t immediately leave the Mustang but sat there with his gaze straight ahead and his hand resting on the steering wheel.

  Hope stayed in place, too. “Do you want me to pack my stuff and leave? I know it’s not a good idea for me to move back into Mom’s apartment just yet, but I could—”

  Gideon reached past the stick shift, grabbed the back of her head and pulled her in for a kiss. He didn’t kiss her like a man who wanted her to leave. In fact, she was quite sure he had never kissed her quite this way, as if he wanted to consume her gently but entirely. When he pulled his mouth away, he did not drop his hand. “Marcia Cordell told me every vile thing that bastard did to her. At first she didn’t want to talk about how she’d died, but once she got started, it seemed to do her good to get it out. She told me everything, every sick detail, and then I walk outside and the sheriff says, ‘Oh, Detective Malory’s down there over yonder, talking to Dennis Floyd.’”

  Gideon called upon a deep and not entirely inaccurate drawl when impersonating the sheriff, and Hope laughed lightly. But she didn’t laugh long.

  “And I couldn’t run fast enough,” he said, his voice deep and soft.

  “I’m not hurt.” A few bruises, a lot of scary, but she wasn’t really hurt.

  “Not this time,” he said. His thumb brushed her cheek. “But there’s going to be a next time. There’s going to be another Dennis, another struggle, another gunshot that makes my heart fly out of my chest. The protection charms will help, they give you an edge, and I can make sure you always have a fresh one to wear around your pretty neck. But they’re not bulletproof shields, and they don’t make bad guys like Dennis Floyd disappear. Dammit, Hope, I wish you’d be content to stay home and make cookies and lie on the deck under the sun and have babies and—”

  “Babies?” she interrupted. “As in more than one?”

  “If we’re going to get married we might as well—”

  “What happened to the world being too nasty to bring a child into?” she asked, only slightly panicked by the picture Gideon was painting.

  “We can’t go back and undo what’s already done. Might as well give Emma brothers and sisters.”

  “Wait just a minute…”

  “I didn’t ask you to marry me yet, did I?” His thumb continued to caress her cheek.

  “No, you didn’t,” she whispered.

  “Marry me.”

  Hope licked her lips. “That’s not exactly a question. It sounds more like an order.”

  A frustrated little moan escaped from deep in Gideon’s throat. She knew this wasn’t easy for him, but it wasn’t easy for her, either. He was talking about marriage and children and forever. And she hadn’t known him a week.

  “Fine,” he said. “We’ll do this your way. Will you marry me?”

  “Can I have a little time to think it over?” she asked, terrified and excited and stunned. “This is just too fast for me.”

  “No. You might as well learn now that I can be very impatient. I want an answer now.”

  It would be too easy to get caught up in this, in the way Gideon made her feel, inside and out. In the kissing and the touching and the promise of more to come. In the idea of him and Emma and babies—plural. “I never really planned to, you know, settle down and have kids and do the whole mommy thing.”

  “So make new plans.”

  If what he said about her becoming Raintree was true—and she had no reason to think it wasn’t—she was definitely going to need a new plan.

  He didn’t move away but stayed close. Too close. That hand at the back of her neck was warm and strong and comforting, but she couldn’t help but remember that just a few hours ago he’d been horrified at the idea of the life he was now presenting as a done deal. “If I actually said yes, you’d probably have a panic attack.”

  “If you say yes, I’m going to make love to you right here and now.”

  “In the car.”

  “Yep.”

  “With bucket seats.”

  He murmured in the affirmative.

  Hope wrapped her arms around Gideon’s neck and barely touched her lips to his. “This I gotta see.”

  “I think I broke something,” Gideon said as he nuzzled Hope’s neck. She laughed at him. He loved it when she laughed at him.

  “Sex among the bucket seats was your idea, not mine.”

  “This is better.” This was his bed, his woman and no clothes. It was softness and passion, boldness and demure exploration. It was a quiver and a gasp. It was the way Hope swayed and moaned when he touched her. It was the way she touched him, the way she wanted him.

  He spread Hope’s thighs and filled her gently. But not too gently.

  “Nothing seems to be broken,” she said dreamily, eyes closed and back arched.

  Since he was convinced Hope was already pregnant, they hadn’t bothered with a condom. Not in the car, not now. They were bare, heart and soul and body, and they were connected in a way he had never expected. Hope wanted to be his partner, and she was. In more ways than one. In all ways. In ways he had never dreamed to know.

  Emma had said she was always his, in every lifetime. Maybe the same could be said of Hope. Was that why he’d felt such an undeniable and immediate pull toward her? Was that why she did not feel at all new or unknown to him?

  They came together, and Hope pulled him deeper. The contractions of her body pumped him, squeezed him, and as everything slowed, she continued to sway her hips against his and hold him close.

  “I love you,” she said, her voice displaying exhaustion and confusion, as well as the affection she had not expected.

  The words were on his lips, but he held back. He could love her this way; he could protect her as best he could and give her babies and make sure she never wanted for anything. Yes, she was undeniably his, but that didn’t mean he was ready to lay it all on the line. He wasn’t even sure he knew what love was anymore, but he did know that this was right. That was enough. For now.

  While he was still searching for something semi-appropriate to say, he heard a trill of childish ethereal laughter. A girlish giggle, followed by a sigh and a very soft, “Told you so, Daddy.” If Hope heard it, she didn’t react.

  He should be outraged, or at the very least surprised. But he wasn’t.

  “I think we’ve been tricked by our daughter,” he said, raking a strand of black hair out of Hope’s face.

  Her eyes drifted open. “Tricked how?”

  “You didn’t get pregnant last night,” he said, feeling oddly forgiving of Emma at the moment. Maybe because he was still inside Hope, satisfied and grateful and happy.

  “I didn’t?”

  “No. You got pregnant now. Right now. Well, soon. Conception doesn’t happen right away….”

  Hope threaded her fingers through his hair and pulled him down for a deep, long kiss. Apparently she was feeling forgiving at the moment, too. “I know how it works, Raintree.”

  “Still wanna marry me?”

  Without hesitation, she answered, “Yeah, I do.”

  Still love me? He didn’t ask that question aloud. He should probably tell her that he loved her, too, or at least toss out a casual “ditto.” But he didn’t. The time would come when the words felt right.

  Hope stroked his hair and wrapped one long leg around his, twining their limbs much as they had been earlier. She ran her foot up and down his leg.

  He rose up to look down at her. “I don’t want us to screw this up.”

  She closed her eyes and held him close. “Than let’s not. Please.”

  There wasn’t a lot to say, so they lay there, connected and touching and content. He was so rarely content.

  “What you sa