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BOOK 5 PART TWO
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Being Yours BOOK 5 PART TWO
“Where’s Lynne?’ Cliff asked, having followed the aroma of freshly brewed coffee to the kitchen where he found Louisa alone, up to the elbows in flour as she kneaded bread dough. ‘Gone to the park,’ she said, taking the tray from him and glancing at the two empty glasses and the lemon-smeared plates. ‘Had a little midnight picnic, did you?’ Louisa set the dough into a bowl, covered it with a towel and rubbed the floury dough off her hands and arms. ‘Not me,’ said Cliff with a grin, as Louisa washed under the tap. ‘Lynne. She ate both pieces. Good . thing, too, because she needed her strength. Did she tell you that the kids were sick all night?’ ‘She told me,’ Louisa said with a dry smile as she set a cup of coffee in front of him and then tested the waffle iron with a bead of water. It danced high and she poured batter. Cliff sat back and listened to the sizzle, his mouth watering. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had homemade waffles. ‘She also told me you were up most of t
Being Yours BOOK 5 PART TWO
After a week and a half spending his mornings in the park and his afternoons oiling hinges, weeding vegetable gardens and other make-work projects he found for himself, Cliff was ready for a change. Change? He was ready to climb out of his skin! Dammit, he was bored! He glanced over at Lynne. Boredom was no problem for her. She sat on a blanket with Michael, trying to keeping him from wandering too far, getting up and chasing him when he did, both of them giggling and enjoying themselves. Cliff had a book with him, but he wanted something, anything, different from this. He wanted to go back to work. He wanted to talk to some men. He wanted to wish both Michael and Amanda on to another planet and take Lynne out to Galiano Island and make love to her for six days straight until neither of them could walk or talk or think. He did not want to be a friendly stranger who lived in rooms in her house, ate at her table, conversed in the evenings with three old ladies in the lounge, or Louisa
Being Yours BOOK 5 PART TWO
Cliff laughed, an easy, rolling, relaxed laugh that filled her heart with its goodness, making tears well up in her eyes again and run down into her ears as she flopped on to her back. ‘You’re such a pagan,’ he said, sitting up. ‘Hey, would you quit that?’ He caught a tear as it escaped from the corner of her eye. ‘I love you so much,’ she said with a watery smile. ‘And I thought for such a long time that I would never hear you laugh again.’ ‘Come back to me, Lynne,’ he said, pulling her up to cradle her against his body. ‘Be my wife again, in every way. I need you, too, your laughter, your love, your presence in my life to help me make sense of it all.’ Slowly, she nodded. ‘Yes. I was wrong, Cliff, in trying to keep us apart while you and Michael get used to each other. I know you won’t deliberately hurt any of us. And I know that if you’re given a chance you’ll learn to love him, and he you.’ ‘Thank you.’ Their kiss was one of solemn reaffirmation, a restatement of vows made nea
Being Yours BOOK 5 PART TWO
Cliff was far up the Coquihalla Highway before he realized it, driving with no destination in mind, just . . . driving. When he knew he could go no farther because fatigue blurred his vision, he pulled over and sat, head on the wheel, thinking, wondering where it had all gone wrong, what he’d done to screw things up again. If only he could tell Lynne the lie she so longed to hear. If only he could make himself believe that somehow, some kind of miracle had occurred and what she insisted was true was true. But... he could not. Presently, he turned his car and headed back toward the city of Vancouver. Hours later, as dawn broke, he was surprised to find himself parked outside the house where he had spent his first sixteen years. The drapes were drawn, the lawn neatly mowed, and a pickup truck was parked in the car-port with a ten-speed bike chained to a bolt in the wall beside the front steps. A basketball hoop hung high on the garage. A kid on a bike, broad strap of newspaper bag ac
Being Yours BOOK 5 PART TWO
The man was staring simply because he appreciated the sight of a beautiful woman, and was maybe permitting himself to indulge in a little harmless fantasy. “I could use a good long walk,’ Lynne said as they stepped out into the now cool night air. ‘After a huge meal like that, I couldn’t stand sitting in the car.’ She’d consumed an almost indecent amount of fresh, steamed clarns, followed by a main course of rock cod on a bed of spinach nested on a plateful of rice, served with a wonderful teriyaki sauce. “The car is three blocks from here, remember?’ Cliff said, his voice tight, and she smiled, taking his hand. She knew he wanted to get home as quickly as possible, and knew why, but ever since he’d watched her slide her dress on over her nude body, she’d been bent on teasing him. ‘We have to walk to get there,’ he added. “Oh, but that’s not nearly far enough,’ she said. “You think not?’ He halted under a streetlamp and stared down at her. ‘If I were to do to you now what I want t
Being Yours BOOK 5 PART TWO
Vincent Salazar’s eyes — and suddenly Cliff had no doubt that this was who the man was — darted to Lynne’s face as she stepped forward, her fingers clinging tightly to Cliff's. ‘What did you say, girl?’ he demanded in a rasping voice. Tension emanated from him; it was in his hunched stance, in his tght face, in his dark eyes under his thick brows. It paled his brown face, making his eyes seem even blacker. ‘What did you say?’ he asked again in a voice hardly more than a rough whisper. Lynne didn’t reply. She knew perfectly well the man had heard what she said. ‘How can you know that?’ Salazar barked abruptly, not moving an inch except to straighten, squaring his big shoulders, but suddenly seeming to fill the room with a menacing presence. Cliff stepped protectively in front of Lynne again, staring the man down. Lynne, refusing to let Cliff face this alone, slipped around him and lifted her chin as she said, ‘I know because, in seeing you, I see what my husband will be in another t
Being Yours BOOK 5 PART TWO
“Miss Salazar, are you all right?’ Dr Baker put her hand on Lynne’s shoulder. ‘What?’ Lynne pulled herself back from wherever it was her whirling mind had taken her and said, ‘Oh, oh, yes. I’m... fine.’ She was still having difficulty answering to the name Mrs Salazar, but this .. . Lord, this was even more difficult. The doctor settled back in her chair, frowning slightly. “That’s good.’ She looked down at Lynne’s chart, fiddled with a pen and said, ‘I see here that you have two very young children. You know, don’t you, that the medical profession recognizes that there are times in a woman’s life when a pregnancy is all wrong, and that arrangements can be made? It’s safe and effective and quite simple at an early stage like this.’ ‘No!’ Lynne’s voice was sharp and one hand curved protectively around her lower abdomen. ‘Oh, no. Thank you, but no.’ As Lynne got behind the wheel of the car, she wondered dimly if she should even be driving, the condition her mind was in, but she got
Being Yours BOOK 5 PART TWO EPILOGUE
EPILOGUE 'Cliff, you’d better go wake your dad up and tell him we’re leaving.’ ‘Huh? What? Leaving? Where are we going?’ Cliff came instantly awake, if not instantly intelligent. ‘To the hospital, silly. Dr Baker said, when the contractions were five minutes apart, to call her and then to come in. I’ve called her and she’ll be there. waiting for us.’ He sat up in bed staring at her, stark terror on his face. ‘Lynne, now wait a minute. I don’t think! . can... I don’t know if I... Oh, my God! Now? Right now?’ Lynne nodded and sat on the edge of the bed, rocking back and forth for several long seconds while Cliff held her shoulders and prayed. Hard. ‘Go and wake up your dad,’ she said when she could breathe evenly again. ‘So he knows he has to listen for the kids and make them breakfast and stuff.” Vincent had insisted on spending the last three weeks of Lynne’s pregnancy with them for just that reason. When Cliff came back with a tall, straight and immediately alert Vincent in to
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