A Perilous Eden (24 page)

“Amber, I … I don't know. Maybe I had a few things to figure out myself. Maybe I wanted to give you a chance to forget me, in case it wasn't real, in case it was just circumstances. Maybe … maybe I was afraid. I don't know. But I …” His voice trailed away.

Amber pushed against his shoulder, sitting up straighter and staring into his eyes. The frost was completely gone from them. She had never seen them more open, more vulnerable. He touched her cheek gently. “I was thinking about a house in the Blue Ridge. Something on a mountain, or maybe in a valley. A small valley. I want a place with land, lots of land. With horses and dogs and some good mouse-catching cats. I was thinking about—about children. A tribe maybe, six or seven. Well, I'd be satisfied with one or two, I guess. That's all negotiable. I—” He paused, meeting her eyes for the longest time, and then he smiled. He picked up her hand, turned it over and tenderly kissed the palm.

Then he met her eyes again. “Amber, you gave me more than life. You gave me peace. And, most important of all, you gave me the gift I had never thought could be mine again. Love. Amber, will you marry me?”

Outside, the first of many explosions took place.

Maybe it hadn't been outside. Maybe it had happened right there, inside her heart.

She leaned forward and kissed him. “Yes.”

His heart quickened beneath her hand. “I'm probably not easy to live with,” he warned her. “I've given it a lot of thought, and I plan to change my citizenship again. It shouldn't be difficult. Your father owes me. I'll never turn my back on Israel, but the United States gave me a real home when no other country would. What else? I swear like a truck driver in Russian, but maybe that won't be so bad.”

“Unless the children learn to speak Russian,” Amber corrected. “Then you'll have to tone it down.”

“Yes.”

She leaned over and kissed him again. Fireworks were exploding across the city. It was the Fourth of July.

Ali Abdul had meant to start his executions that day. Instead, he had passed on to the afterlife himself, and Khazar was in a high-security prison. The captives were all safe, and today was truly a celebration of freedom.

His lips broke away from hers. “Amber, truly, I love you,” he whispered. She smiled, loving the intensity in his eyes, the timbre of his voice, the slight quiver in it.

The future might well be stormy, she knew. But she knew, too, that he would always love her with passion, with loyalty, with all his heart and his being. To be loved so deeply was worth any tempest in the world.

“The fireworks are starting already,” she whispered.

He nodded, his eyes never leaving hers. “Would you like to go see them?”

She shook her head. “No. I … well … I much prefer the variety that you—that you create.”

He rose, lifting her high in his arms. “Which way?”

She smiled, directing him to her room. He paused in the hallway. “Amber, your father …?”

“He won't be back until late. And if he did come home, Adam, I really don't think he would mind.”

Adam smiled. Maybe Larkspur wouldn't mind after all. It had seemed all right that night he had seen him in St. Thomas. He was just happy to have Amber alive. The man had been almost humble.

Then she reached her arms around his neck, pulled his head down to her and kissed his lips, her tongue slipping between his teeth and sensually sliding into his mouth. His breath was quickening, his heart was thundering.…

Alive. Yes, she made him feel very much alive.

The door was ahead of them. Her robe was falling open, and the fullness of her breast was there before his eyes. He had to touch her, had to make love with her, had to find life in the never-ending warmth of her arms.

He nudged open the bedroom door with his foot, closed it with his back and held her close with one hand while he slid the bolt with the other.

“Just in case,” he whispered.

“We'll make sure he knows your intentions are honorable,” Amber drawled lazily.

“You're an awful minx,” he told her, but when he laid her down on the bed and spread open her robe, his breath caught, and then he stretched out beside her and held her close. “No,” he murmured. “A heroine. A beautiful, beautiful heroine.”

She opened her arms to him with a smile that was both wistful and provocative. “Heroines need their heroes,” she whispered. Her voice was a caress. It touched his flesh with warmth, with passion. It seared his heart and his loins, and he wondered how he had ever managed to stay away from her for so long.

He kissed her. He listened to the fireworks exploding all around them, and his lips fell to her breast. She was sweet and beautiful, and the clean, perfumed scent of her flesh aroused him even further.

But he made love to her slowly. He savored every taste and scent and touch. He felt her lips upon him, and the caress of her hands, felt the bounty of her body beneath him.

She met his eyes. “Fireworks!” she whispered.

He curled her tight into his arms. “And every day the Fourth of July,” he returned.

She smiled and rolled above him, her hair falling across his chest. “
Shalom
, my love,” she whispered. “Welcome. Welcome home.”

Epilogue

Alexandria, Virginia

August 15

I
t was a quiet wedding. At least, it had been intended to be quiet.

But as with many such things, the guest list had gotten a bit out of hand, and there were reporters, and the curious, and somehow all of them managed to attend. The bride was dressed in a beautiful white gown with a long, flowing train and incredible work done in beads and sequins. She was tall and majestic and blond, and she had the appearance of a true princess.

The groom was striking in his tux. Tall, straight, handsome and, really, all the wonderful things that the prince who wed such a princess should be.

The church was decked out with a multitude of flowers, and there was beautiful music. It was rumored that even the president was in attendance, and, of course, that meant security and even more confusion.

The bride's father's eyes seemed a little damp as he handed her over to the groom. And yet, when his eyes met the groom's, he seemed confident that he couldn't have found a better man to whom to give his daughter.

Actually, Ted Larkspur thought, listening to the vows being exchanged between his daughter and Adam Tchartoff, he
had
found Adam Tchartoff. He'd gone to great lengths to find the man.

And now … this.

The justice of the peace told Adam that he could kiss his bride. To cheers, Adam did so. Ted exhaled. It was done. His daughter was married.

The newlyweds turned and walked down the aisle.

The reception was held at Ted's home in Alexandria. The catering bill had been exorbitant, but he had only one daughter, and he had wanted her to cherish this day forever. Of course, she would have done so even if she had been married in the house with no witnesses but himself and Toni. Still, this had been important to him.

They danced in the garden under the stars. He held her close to him, and he felt his eyes fill with tears again. He wasn't losing a daughter, he was gaining a son, he reminded himself. If anyone deserved Amber for a lifetime, it was Tchartoff. He had saved her life.

And still …

“There's a rumor going around that the groom is going to take a post in Washington,” he whispered to Amber.

She arched a brow and smiled. He'd never seen a more beautiful bride. Ever. Even if she was his daughter.

“Yes, he's going to take the job, Dad.” She sighed. “It would be a waste to keep him away. He's so knowledgeable, and with all his languages …” She shrugged. “But the house is only an hour's commute. I want him home nights.”

Ted smiled. “Amber, if you think I'm going to have any control over your husband …”

She laughed. “Okay, then, I'll warn you. I'm going to make sure he has no wish to work nights.”

“Ouch. Careful, my ears are tender!” Ted moaned. “I can still remember when you were in diapers, you know.”

“Diapers. Yes, that's the idea.”

“What?”

“Don't you want to be a grandfather?” Those sea-green eyes were on him, beautiful, mischievous.

He would have answered her, except the groom cut in just then. “Excuse me, sir!”

The two of them waltzed away. It was just as it should be; Ted knew that.

The president came up and slapped Ted on the back. “Congratulations. It seemed we were in the midst of disaster, and now it's turned to triumph.”

Ted nodded. “Yes.” He was silent for a moment. “Grandchildren! They're talking about grandchildren.”

The president laughed. “Mm. Just think, they will be part Russian. Your grandchildren will be part Russian.”

“And Austrian. And American—”

“Yes, all-American,” the president agreed, laughing.

Ted glanced at him, then smiled slowly and looked across the lawn, where the two were still dancing, beautiful, graceful, raptured by one another. “Grandchildren. Actually I think I rather like the idea. Yes, I like it very much. She could have a little girl, just like herself. A beautiful little girl.”

Washington, D.C.

May 24

The call reached Ted Larkspur at 4:00 a.m.

“It's a boy, sir. Michael Theodore Tchartoff. He was nine pounds, one ounce, and he has a head full of blond hair. Blue eyes, at the moment. Oh, and he can kick like a linebacker.”

Ted allowed the phone to drop for a moment, a smile as broad as the Atlantic stretching across his features.

A boy …

He couldn't wait to see his grandson. They could play ball in the park.

No, the grandchildren idea wasn't bad at all.

“Adam, congratulations!” he said quickly. “And Amber?”

“Amber is just fine. We're still in the delivery room. She's right next to me. Want to talk to her?”

“No,” Ted said. He laughed. “Tell her I'm on my way!”

A boy. Michael Theodore Tchartoff.

He liked it! It was an all-American name if he'd ever heard one, and it was just right for his grandson.

A Biography of Heather Graham

Heather Graham (b. 1953) is one of the country's most prominent authors of romance, suspense, and historical fiction. She has been writing bestselling books for nearly three decades, publishing more than 150 novels and selling more than seventy-five million copies worldwide.

Born in Florida to an Irish mother and a Scottish father, Graham attended college at the University of South Florida, where she majored in theater arts. She spent a few years making a living onstage as a back-up vocalist and dinner theater actor, but after the birth of her third child decided to seek work that would allow her to spend more time with her family.

After early efforts writing romance and horror stories, Graham sold her first novel,
When Next We Love
(1982). She went on to write nearly two dozen contemporary romance novels.

In 1989 Graham published
Sweet Savage Eden
, which initiated the Cameron family saga, an epic six-book series that sets romantic drama amid turbulent periods of American history, such as the Civil War. She revisited the nineteenth century in
Runaway
(1994), a story of passion, deception, and murder in Florida, which spawned five sequels of its own.

In the past decade, Graham has written romantic suspense novels such as
Tall, Dark, and Deadly
(1999),
Long, Lean, and Lethal
(2000), and
Dying to Have Her
(2001), as well as supernatural fiction. In 2003's
Haunted
she created the Harrison Investigation service, a paranormal detective organization that she spun off into four Krewe of Hunters novels in 2011.

Graham lives in Florida, where she writes, scuba dives, and spends time with her husband and five children.

Graham (left) with her sister.