Heart of a Hero. Anne Marie Winston

until they were almost nose to nose. He reached for her wrists and captured them with his hands, then very slowly leaned forward until their bodies were pressed together from neck to knee. And just like the first time on the dance floor, he felt that little frisson of awareness, that feeling that this was right, click into place. “If you want to get married, that’s fine. But the only man who’s going to be putting a ring on your finger is me.”

      She gaped at him. Literally stood there with her mouth hanging open. “Marry…you?” Her voice was faint.

      “Yeah.” Dammit, she didn’t have to act so repelled by the idea.

      “No way.”

      Her instant refusal rattled him, but he wasn’t about to let it show. “Why not? We share a child.”

      “That’s not a reason to get married!”

      “It is in my book,” he said, struggling to keep his voice even. “You and I grew up in the same community, we have a lot of memories in common. We owe it to Bridget to give her a solid foundation.” His eyes narrowed. “Don’t you ever wish your childhood had been a little different?”

      “I—no.” She shook her head, avoiding his gaze, and he wished he knew what was going on behind those blue eyes.

      “Why not?” he asked again. “Give me three good reasons why you won’t marry me.”

      She was silent, looking aside with her head tilted down.

      “You can’t, can you?” He still held her hands and he slowly raised them, pulling them around his neck. She didn’t embrace him but she didn’t drop them when he released her hands and slid his arms around her, settling her more tightly against him. “We are good together, Phoeber,” he said in a lower tone, “and you know it as well as I do. We know each other so well. We could make this work.”

      He put one hand beneath her chin and lifted her face to his, slowly setting his lips on hers. Her mouth was warm, her lips pliant as he kissed her, but slowly she began to respond, kissing him back with an ever-growing fervor that he remembered from the single time he’d made love to her. The response awakened the need for her that always lurked just beneath the surface, and he growled deep in his throat as he gathered her even more closely against him, pressing her head back against his shoulder as he sought the depths of her mouth.

      She clung to him, giving him everything he demanded. Sliding one hand up her hip, he slipped it beneath the bottom of her sweater. The skin above the waistband of her skirt was warm and silky, and an even stronger surge of desire shook him.

      “Marry me,” he muttered against her mouth.

      “This isn’t fair,” she said, pulling her mouth back far enough to get the words out.

      He kissed the line of her jaw. “I don’t care about fair. All I care about is making us a family.”

      Was it his imagination or did her body tense the slightest bit?

      It was definitely not his imagination that she withdrew from the kiss slowly but surely, stepping back and straightening her sweater. “Give me time to think about it. This is the rest of my life we’re talking about here.” Her voice was quiet but he recognized that tone. When Phoebe dug in her heels about something, there was no budging her short of using dynamite. And he had the sneaking suspicion that might not even do it.

      “It’s the rest of all of our lives,” he reminded her.

      “I know.” She sounded weary. “Let me think about it.”

      “When can I expect an answer?”

      She spread her hands. “I don’t know. We can talk again…when we come back from California. All right?”

      He nodded grudgingly, not happy about it but unwilling to push further in case he really annoyed her and she decided she couldn’t stand him for the rest of her life. “All right.”

      The following weekend, Wade made the travel arrangements for their California trip. The weekend after that, they left right after Phoebe took leave from school at lunch on Friday.

      Bridget fussed for a bit early in the flight but, after a bottle and some cuddling, she settled down and went to sleep for a while. As Phoebe looked down at the beautiful baby girl in her arms, she was amused again by the determined little chin…oh, that was Wade all over.

      Wade. Amusement faded as she thought of his marriage proposal, if it could even have been called that, and the fist squeezing her heart tightened painfully. He wanted to marry her to make a home for their child, and because they knew each other well enough to make it work. But he hadn’t said anything about love.

      Could she marry him, knowing that he didn’t love her the way she wanted? Oh, he cared for her, she didn’t doubt that. And he clearly desired her. But he’d loved and desired Melanie once, and she knew that her sister would always hold his heart. She, Phoebe, had never expected that she’d have any part of him, much less marry him and bear his children, so how could she complain?

      As the jet began its landing descent, Phoebe hungrily gazed out the window. There was Mission Bay, the water sparkling in the sunlight, and the golf course of La Jolla. The university, the naval base, the zoo. The lighthouse, high atop a cliff.

      The freeway heading north was packed with traffic all rushing to exit the city, all driving at typical breakneck speed California-style. She could hardly wait to be in the middle of it.

      And before she knew it, they were. Wade had rented a car for the long weekend since he didn’t have a car of his own. He’d never seen the need before, he’d told her. When he’d come home, he’d just driven one of his parents’ vehicles.

      As they entered the outskirts of their old neighborhood, Phoebe realized she was holding her breath.

      It still looked much the same. Small yards shaded by flowering trees; tricycles, bikes and skateboards littering yards and driveways; brilliantly colored flowers fronting many of the carefully kept small homes.

      You could see the ocean from the end of their block, she knew. And as Wade drove to the end of the dead-end street and turned around so that he could stop the car along the curb in front of his father’s house, she craned her neck to look out over the steep cliff just beyond the barrier the city had placed there.

      She couldn’t see the beach, which had to be reached by going down a steep, winding road from the top of the hill, but the vast expanse of the ocean lay before her. Today it was a deep, dark blue, with bouncing whitecaps tossing spray into the air in all directions. A wave of nostalgia hit her like a rough breaker, smashing over her, swamping her.

      She’d missed that view so much. Who was she kidding? She wasn’t an East Coast girl. She loved the wild, untamed Pacific. She wanted Bridget to grow up with memories of smooth, rounded cobblestones littering the beach, of water so cold it made your teeth chatter. She wanted to take her daughter to the pretty beach in Laguna Niguel where they had spent a day each year on a sort of family mini-vacation, to tell her stories about her grandmother and her Aunt Melanie….

      But it was harder here, Phoebe thought, swallowing. Here where all the memories of her sister and her mother lurked, it was harder to ignore her grief and go on. That had been one of the main attractions about the job in New York. But now the past she’d run from had caught up with her, and because of her own stupidity, she owed it to Wade to stop running and let him get to know his daughter.

      Phoebe turned her gaze to her old home, four doors down the street, wondering about the family who lived there now. Did they have a pet? Her mother’s poodle, Boo-Boo, had dug holes all over their backyard until he’d gotten too old to do more than lie on the porch and yap at the neighborhood kids on their bikes.

      Were there children? She couldn’t tell from the outside. The garage door was down and there were no bikes or kid equipment littering the yard. And a tall hedge made it impossible to see into the backyard. Was the lemon tree her mother had planted still there?

      “Hey.”