Unexpected Bride (26 page)

"But I'm not letting you go," he said. He pulled her into his arms, holding her tight against his heart. He was a man, despite the damage her knee had almost done to him in the alley a few days earlier, and so he fought the tears. But they fell, slipping silently down his face as he finally let go of his grief. Instead of feeling the pain he'd feared, his heart lifted, filled with joy, with love.

"It's a good cry." Abby murmured as she dried his face with her hands and her lips. "It's a good cry."

Clayton pulled away from her, and Abby feared she'd pushed him too far, too hard. He couldn't deal with everything she'd thrown at him. Reeling from his past, he couldn't contemplate a future.

She sucked in a shaky breath, bracing herself to offer him time. She wasn't leaving. She could wait.

But wood creaked beneath his feet as he walked across the floor, then at the desk as he pulled open a drawer. "You made yourself at home, huh?" he murmured, gesturing toward her in/out box and the shelves she'd put up behind the desk.

She nodded, regretting how she'd intruded on what, to Clayton, must have felt like a sacred place. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. Don't ever be sorry," he said as he pulled something from the drawer. His big hand swallowed the little box, hiding it from her view until he walked back to her and dropped to one knee. Then he showed the velvet case to her, opened to reveal the contents—a gold ring with a single oval diamond winking up at her.

"My father left me this," he said. "I think he hoped that someday I'd give it to you."

"Clayton..." Emotion overwhelmed her. and more tears poured from her eyes.

Was he proposing?

"It's old and the diamond was all he could afford at the time, when he was just starting up the business. So he replaced it years later, on their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, with a bigger stone. I could get you another one if you'd prefer."

Abby shook her head. She knew exactly what that ring symbolized—the all-encompassing love his parents had felt for each other. The love she felt for Clayton.

"No, you don't want another, or no, you don't want this ring, either?"

She blinked to clear her eyes, and then she rested her hands on his shoulders, squeezing in frustration. "What the hell are you asking me?"

He laughed. "I'm asking you to marry me."

"Why?" For so long she'd made a policy of asking no one for anything. Maybe that was why she was greedy now. She wanted it all.

"Because I love you," he said. "And I love Lara." He sighed, as if his heart had swelled so much that he couldn't contain the emotion. "I didn't want to, but she's so damn adorable. So special. I won't let you or her down, Abby. I'll be a good father to her. A good husband to you. I promise."

"Oh, Clayton, you're better than good." she assured him, wrapping her arms tight around his neck. "You're perfect!"

"Is that a yes?" he asked, his voice muffled as his head was buried in her chest.

"Oh, yes"

He rose to his feet then, clasping her to him with one arm while he spun her around. "Yes!" he shouted. "Yes!"

"Spin me!" a soft voice demanded as Lara rushed into the room with them. "Spin me!"

When he set her down, dizziness washed over Abby, lightening her head while her heart filled. Tears streaked her face again as she watched Clayton pick up her daughter and hold her close. Like her mother, Lara's wish had been fulfilled, too. She had her daddy.

"See," Mrs. Mick said, her arm sliding around Abby's shoulders and squeezing. "You all belong together."

Abby nodded in heartfelt agreement. "Yes, we do."

The bridesmaids wore strapless red dresses; the bride wore white, despite having one child already and another on the way, a barely perceptible bump beneath the empire waistline of the lacy dress.
Let 'em talk.
Abby Hamilton was used to the Cloverville busybodies gossiping about her; she wouldn't have it any other way. Better to be known by everyone in town than be invisible, the way she'd been in the big cities where she'd spent the past eight years.

Molly, wearing Abby's old bridesmaid gown, walked over to the window of the dressing room and lifted the sash. "Want to make a break for it?"

The breeze ruffled Abby's veil, brushing the lace against her cheek as she joined her matron of honor at the window. Her hands over Molly's, she closed the sash. "No way."

When she'd come back to Cloverville a few months ago, she hadn't imagined that the wedding she'd returned for would be her own. To Clayton McClintock, of all people.

"Do you have everything?" Brenna, who always mothered everyone, had to ask.

Abby laughed as she patted the soft swell of her belly. Birth control had failed her once more. But she couldn't be happier. She reminded her friend, "I'm not exactly your traditional bride."

But she'd borrowed her wedding dress from Molly. She wore something blue—a garter that she couldn't wait for Clayton to remove. The something old actually had been a gift, another slip of paper but not a lease—it was the deed to the McClintock house. Mrs. Mick, Mom, had given them the house as a wedding present, since she and Rory were moving in with her new husband, Mr. Schipper.

Abby would raise her daughter and the children she and Clayton would have together in the house in which she'd always wished she'd grown up. In which she actually
had
grown up, the day she'd stopped running.

The something new wasn't her love for Clayton, because she suspected she'd already loved him a long time but their commitment to each other was new.

"Mommy! Hurry up," Lara demanded as she stood at the door, clad again in her miniature wedding dress. Such a careful, thoughtful child, there was not one speck of dust or cake on the pristine white dress despite the number of times she'd worn it.

How had Abby produced such an angel? She already had a streak of red lipstick on the bodice of her gown, from when she'd fumbled with her makeup before Colleen had taken over the task of making her beautiful.

She needn't have bothered. As Rory led her down the aisle to her groom, she realized she'd feel beautiful in Clayton's eyes no matter what. He waited for her at the altar, his expression bright with love as he watched her walk toward him.

She slipped her arm free of Rory's, then passed him the bouquet. The teenager fumbled with the white and red flowers. "Abby, what..."

Then she dug her hands into the satin and lace, gathering up the folds of the long white gown so she wouldn't trip, and ran toward her groom. A murmur rose above the notes of the wedding march Mrs. Hild played. Then laughter swelled above the music.

Lara, standing on the side of the altar next to the bridesmaids, shook her head. "Mama, you're not s'pose to run in church."

Mr. Carpenter, sitting loward the front of the church, had discarded his tool apron for an ill-filting green suit. Slicked back, his gray hair didn't move when he turned toward his wife and shook his head. "That's Abby Hamilton for you," his big voice boomed, his hearing aid screeching in accompaniment to the piano. "Always in a hurry!"

She was in a hurry—to become Abby
McClintock.
She slipped her hand into Clayton's, who squeezed her fingers. "I love you. I'll love you forever."

"I love you," he said, a smile of pure joy illuminating his handsome face. "I'll love you forever."

While they said the rest, those were the vows that mattered, the vows that would bind them together forever as husband and wife.

ISBN: 978-1-4268-1288-0

UNEXPECTED BRIDE

Copyright © 2008 by Lisa Childs-Theeuwos.

All rights reserved. Except tor use in any review, the reproduction or utilization ot this work in whole or in part in any torm by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher. Harlequin Enterprises Limited. 225 Duncan Mill Road. Don Mills, Ontario M3B 3K9, Canada.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books SA

® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks Indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

www.eHarlequin.com

Scanned by Coral