Page 100 of Silver Lining
Oh Max. You're the only person in the whole world who thinks I'm beautiful!" Moisture jumped into her damp eyes. "And I love you for it. I love you so much, more than you could possibly know!"
Lunging forward, she threw her arms around his neck and knocked him flat on his back. Lying on top of him, she smiled down into his face. "I guess I'm not going to leave you after all."
"Good." If anyone rode up on them and saw them carrying on like this, there would be a scandal to end all scandals. He didn't care. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her until she was breathless.
"All my life I dreamed of having someone think I was beautiful," she whispered.
Had he ever thought she wasn't? If so, he didn't remember it. Tenderly, he kissed her again and again.
"Nothing in my life would mean anything if you weren't here to share it. There'd be no reason to get up in the morning without you to light the sun with your smile."
"Oh Max! Oh my. You have such beautiful words inside you." She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her nose against his neck so she could smell him. "Will you write me a letter someday and say all those pretty things?"
"I'll write you a hundred letters."
They kissed and whispered love talk and made a shocking spectacle of themselves if there had been anyone to see. When Max's breath was ragged and he thought he'd go crazy with wanting her, he drew her to her feet and into his arms.
"I've been thinking. I want you to give me your silver spoon," he said gruffly. "I'm going to frame it in a shadow box along with the green marble." He kissed her deeply and deliberately, knowing there was still more to talk about, knowing they would never run out of things to say to each other. Most important, he knew this splendid woman was his. "Someday our grandchildren will ask why we framed an old silver spoon and a scratched marble, and why we display them in a place of honor on our mantel." He caught her face between his hands. "And I will tell them the spoon and the marble are the most valuable and precious items that you and I ever owned."
She gazed at him with luminescent eyes, radiant as if she were lit from within. "I have something to tell you."
"Will it keep until we get home? Right now, all I can think about is taking you to bed and showing you how much I love you."
"My news will keep," she whispered, her gaze loving him.
He swung into the saddle, then pulled her up behind him. Louise wrapped her arms around his waist and held him close, her eyes turned toward the distant mountain peaks.
A light breeze swept down from the snowcaps, across the foothills and onto the plains, bringing the scent of spring and a promise of new beginnings. Louise smiled through a shine of joyful tears. She'd been wrong about so many things. Most of all, she had been wrong about herself.
She wasn't Low Down anymore. She would never be Low Down again. Eyes focused on the mountains, she whispered good-bye to the sad, scruffy, rootless, and lonely woman she had left in Piney Creek.
Then she snuggled close to her husband's back, thought of the precious child she carried, and turned her face toward family and home.
