“Soon.” He kept walking. Hell, he knew these paths better than Calvin. This was home, and he felt as though the fairy lights in the trees and the garden itself were welcoming him back.
“Where are we going?” she demanded.
“To the fountain.” It was the most secluded spot on the grounds. Surrounded by trees and flowering bushes, the old fountain was so far back, so near the edge of the cliff overlooking the ocean that almost no one went out there anymore. Much of the cliff’s edge had been eroded over the years, so it wasn’t the safest place on the estate. Therefore, Hunter told himself, none of the guests would be wandering out there.
He and Margie could be alone, and for what he wanted to say, he needed them to be alone.
When he set her onto her feet, she staggered a little, tossed her hair back out of her face and took a wild swing at him. He caught her fist in one hand, then bent and kissed her knuckles.
“Don’t do that.” She pulled her hand free and looked around wildly.
Hunter did too, just to check the area. There was no one there, and the only sound besides the wind in the trees was the soft hush of the ocean below and the cheerful splash of the fountain.
“Margie, Gretchen doesn’t mean a thing to me,” he started.
She blew out a breath, shook her head and said, “If you think that makes me feel better, you’re wrong.”
“I’m not finished,” he snapped, watching as moonlight shimmered in her eyes. “There’s something I need to say to you, and you’re going to listen.”
“There’s nothing you can say, Hunter.” Her voice broke, and something inside him twisted in response. She looked so lost, so lovely there in the moonlight. The ocean breeze twisted itself in her curls, and her eyes were wide, glimmering with the reflection of the moonlight. “Nothing’s going to change my mind. I’m leaving.”
He looked at her fiercely brave expression and felt an explosion of knowledge open up inside him. Couldn’t figure out why he hadn’t seen it before, because right now the truth was so crystal clear it was as if he’d been born knowing it. He didn’t just want her. Didn’t just need her. It was so much more than that.
“I love you,” he said and smiled at the wonder of saying those words and meaning them with everything he had.
She gasped and looked up at him. Then she shook her head. “No, no, you don’t. You only want me to stay because I’m already your wife. I’m easy.”
Hunter laughed shortly, loudly. “Margie, you are many things, but you haven’t been easy since the day we met.”
She frowned at him.
“And I love you.”
“Stop saying that.”
“No,” he told her, coming closer. “I like saying it. I like feeling it.”
“No,” she argued, her voice hardly more than a murmur, “you don’t.”
“Yeah, I do. And I’m going to say it until you believe me. I’ll say it every damn day for the rest of our lives and find a way to say it after I’m dead, if that’s what it takes to convince you.”
“Hunter…” She bit down on her bottom lip, brushed a single tear from her cheek and turned away from him to stare out at the ocean and the moonlight striping its surface like a pathway to heaven.
“Why is that so hard to believe?”
She huffed out a breath, wrapped her arms around herself and whispered, “Because no one’s ever loved me.”
Her pain whipped through him with a hell of a lot more force than that bullet had. He felt her broken heart and wanted to kick his own ass for ever bringing her to tears. “What do you mean?”
She shook her head, and her hair moved with the wind sighing past them. “I didn’t grow up like you did, Hunter. I grew up in a series of foster homes that were never really mine.”
Moving softly, quietly, Hunter laid his hands on her shoulders and stroked his palms down her arms. “I’m sorry for that, Margie. I am. But you have to believe, I do love you.”
She sniffed, breathed fast and shook her head. “You have to stop saying it, Hunter. Please. Stop.”
He turned her in his arms, never taking his hands from her, needing to feel her, needing her to feel his touch. To somehow understand just what she was to him.
“Margie, why can’t you believe me? Why can’t you see that I want you to be with me? Forever.”
Crying now, in big gulping sobs, she turned her gaze up to his and said, “Because no one ever has. Never once, Hunter. In my whole life I’ve never been chosen. I’ve never been important to somebody. Until I came here. And Simon loved me. And I loved this place and convinced myself that I loved you.”
He took a harsh breath and held it, wanting to hear her out, wanting her to get it all said so they could start again. Start fresh.
“But Hunter, you didn’t choose me to be your wife.” She sniffed again and waved one hand at the mansion behind them. “You picked a Swedish goddess. You didn’t want me. You just got stuck with me. And now you’re trying to do the right thing. But you’re only making it harder-can’t you see that?”
Shaken to his soul, Hunter wondered how he’d ever gotten lucky enough to have this woman tossed into his life. What had he done that had merited this warm, loving, gentle heart? And how could he keep her?
“You’re wrong,” he said and smiled in spite of the fresh bout of tears his words started. “I’m choosing you now, Margie. I know you. I love you. And I’m choosing you.”
She still didn’t believe him, and her tears were falling fast and furiously. Cupping her face in his palms, Hunter tipped her face up to his. Then he bent, kissed her cheeks and tasted the salt of her tears.
“Listen to me, babe,” he said, using that word deliberately to make her roll her eyes and smile.
It worked, though that fragile curve of her lips was tremulous.
“You said no one ever wanted you to stay, Margie. Well, I do. I need you to stay here with me.”
“Oh, God…” She shook her head as if she were tempted to believe but still too afraid of losing everything to take the chance.
Hunter looked deeply into her eyes, willing her to see all that he was feeling. “Margie, I’ve been in combat. I’ve been in situations so dark and terrifying I never thought I’d survive. I’ve faced gunfire, bombs and explosions with more ease than I can face the thought of living a life without you.”