His Chosen Wife. Anne McAllister

he nodded. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I will.”

      His grandmother nodded and padded off into the house.

      “What did she say?” Ally wanted to know.

      “She said I shouldn’t forget to kiss you.”

      Ally’s breath caught in her throat, knowing that PJ’s lips were a scant inch from her ear. But even as she held her breath, he made no move to kiss her.

      Instead he eased back away from her and stood up, then held out a hand and hauled her to her feet. “Time to go up,” he said.

      “Yes. It is late. Nearly midnight.” She felt stiff from having sat there so long, yet she was reluctant to leave. Lukas was still softly playing his guitar. And Connie, apparently oblivious to any machinations that would have directed her toward PJ, seemed enthralled with sitting at Lukas’s feet and listening to his music. Elias and Tallie had come back out and were sitting on the other side of the fire, their arms around each other as they stared into the magic of the fire.

      Ally understood. She didn’t want to leave the magic, either.

      But she could do exactly what she’d always done as a child after she’d read one of those books that made her dream impossible dreams. She could take her dreams to bed with her.

      But first, she reminded herself as she followed PJ up the stairs so he could show her to her room, she should call Jon.

      She hadn’t called him all day. But it wasn’t too late. With the time difference, he would probably just be getting home from the hospital. Maybe she could communicate a little of what she’d felt today to him—this feeling of family belonging, joy, connection. Maybe he would understand.

      Maybe, she dared hope, he would share her dream.

      PJ took hold of the handle on one of the doors in the hallway. “Here we are.” He pushed the door open and held it for her. “My old room,” he said with a grin.

      “Yours?” She looked around, intrigued. It had obviously been redecorated since PJ had lived in it. The walls were a freshly painted pale sage green. But the bookcase still had some books that the young PJ Antonides would have read, and the hardwood floors showed evidence of being used for more than walking.

      “Used to have bunkbeds, too,” he told her. There was a double-size bed in the room now, with a taupe-colored duvet and heaps of inviting pillows. “I had the top one. Always wanted to be on top. Luke was stuck with the bottom.”

      She could imagine him in here, her mind’s eye seeing the boy on the surfboard that Martha had painted. She wondered about the dreams he had dreamed as a child. He needn’t have dreamed ones like hers. They’d been his reality.

      Then she realized he was just standing there looking at her. “What?” she said.

      He shook his head, smiling, too. “Nothing.” But still he made no move to go.

      “Where are you going to be?” she asked him.

      He blinked. “What?”

      She shrugged. “I just wondered where you were sleeping? Which room?”

      “This one,” he said. “I’m sleeping in here. With you.”