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His eyebrows arched in surprise. "We'd never done the deed," he reminded her. "You couldn't have pinned it on me."
She managed a feeble smile. "I wouldn't have pinned anything on you. It was just...you were the one I wanted to share my pregnancy with. My first thought was, 'I've got to tell Bobby.'"
"Why?"
She struggled to remember that day, when the nurse at the community college clinic had given her the news and she'd immediately thought of Bobby. "Because you were my friend?" she said, testing the idea as she spoke it. "Because you were my soul mate? Because-" she let out a damp, bleary sigh "-because I trusted you in a way I never trusted anyone else. If that's not love, Bobby, I don't know what love is."
He twined his fingers into her hair, pus.h.i.+ng it back from her tear-soaked cheeks. Then he kissed her forehead, tucked his thumbs under her chin and angled her face so he could kiss her lips. A soft kiss, not steamy, not erotic, yet it was the most loving kiss he'd ever given her. "For all these years," he said, barely above a whisper, "you kept me going. You rescued me from that graveyard, from Holmdell, from 'Nam, from a million kinds of h.e.l.l. And I always told myself that was enough. I loved you, you saved my life, and that was enough. If Foster hadn't come through our door that day, I probably could have kept on going, believing it was enough. But he came through our door...and I realized it wasn't."
"Is it enough now?" she asked. "Knowing I love you with all my heart-is that enough?"
He kissed her again. "It'll have to be, because I can't go through this opening-up s.h.i.+t every day. It hurts, Jo."
"Not every day. Just now and then," she a.s.sured him. "When it's absolutely necessary." They kissed again, and she felt the dampness on his cheeks, too. Her tears or his? She didn't know and didn't care.
"We don't have to go to New York," he said. "Claudia'll be fine. Let her save some poor boy's life. Just like her mother." He kissed her again, one last, deep, lingering kiss. "Can we go home?"
She wanted to go home, too-home with Bobby, her husband, the man she loved. But she didn't want to leave the warmth and safety of his arms. She wanted to remain this way with him forever. Their lips touching, grazing. Their bodies pressed together. "Will you take me to bed?"
"Yeah," he said, then smiled gently. "I'll do that."
She returned his smile and blinked back a few fresh tears. Reluctantly she eased off his lap and back into the driver's seat. She turned on the engine, merged back onto the road and risked an illegal U-turn. Then she cruised north, away from New York City, away from the Fosters and her daughter and the boy whose life she would save.
Joelle and Bobby drove away from their past, away from the lies, away from the doubts, heading home. The sooner they got there, the sooner they would be in each other's arms, in their bed, expressing their love in the most honest way they knew.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-3103-4.
HOPE STREET.
Copyright 2009 by Harlequin Books S. A.
The publisher acknowledges the copyright holder of the individual works as follows:.
HOPE STREET.
Copyright 2009 by Barbara Keiler.
THE MARRIAGE BED.
Copyright 2007 by Barbara Keiler.
end.
