Page 105 of Never Leave Me
Her shoulders fell. Though everything within her urged her to get up and join the search for holy water, she grasped Harrison’s hand more firmly. She didn’t know how long he had left, perhaps only hours, and she wanted to be by his side.
Was this a time to accept the situation, or did she need to have the courage to change what she could?Give me wisdom to know the difference, she silently prayed.
She combed a strand of his hair back, taking in the familiar lines of his handsome face. She bent down and pressed a kiss against his forehead, letting her lips linger there.
She loved him.
There it was. The truth. She loved Harrison.
She’d tried to deny it, tried to run away from it. But even when she’d gone far into the past, she hadn’t been able to escape her feelings for him. In fact, the truth had only become more visible when everything else had been stripped away.
She pulled back slightly only to have his hand slip up around her neck and draw her down. His eyes were open, and he was focused on her mouth.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to wake you—”
He lifted enough to silence her by capturing her lips in a kiss. It was a drowning kiss, one where she could easily sink into oblivion and never come up. But she forced herself to break away, to think about him and how fragile he was right now.
His hand at the back of her neck was surprisingly strong and didn’t let her get too far. She wanted him to know she wasn’t going anywhere. Not now. In fact, she had to tell him how she felt before it was too late. “Harrison, I love you.”
He stilled, his breathing coming in short bursts.
“You’ve always been the one for me, Harrison. Always. And I should have told you so the day you brought me here to Chesterfield Park to die.”
He studied her face as though testing the sincerity of her words. Didn’t he believe her?
“I shouldn’t have let my illness interfere, but I did. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry for pushing you away. If I could go to Saint Lucia again, I’d do it differently.”
She fought back the tears at the memory of how much pain she’d caused him, but several squeezed loose anyway. She regretted she’d wasted so much time, time she could have spent loving this man. And now they had so little left.
“Don’t cry, love.” His voice was weak, and he used his thumb to dry her trail of tears.
“Oh Harrison. Please tell me you can forgive me.”
“I can. And I do.”
“That easily?”
“I’d do anything for you. Don’t you know that by now?”
She nodded, more tears spilling over. He tried to brush them away and then struggled to sit.
“Rest, Harrison. Please.” She pressed his shoulders, trying to force him back down.
He pushed up again and this time swung his legs over the edge of the bed. “I don’t want to spend my last hours hooked up to machines.” Before she could protest, he pulled out his oxygen tube.
“Harrison, you can’t—” But even as she lifted the tube to reposition it, her dad’s words rushed back:“In spite of the pain of losing your mother, I wouldn’t give up a single second of what we had together.”
Harrison lowered himself to one knee in front of her, reached for her hand, and peered up at her, love radiating from his eyes. “When I spoke my marriage vows to you, I meant them with all my heart. Whether in the past or present, you’re my wife, Ellen.”
“Oh Harrison.” Her heart welled with both joy and sorrow,so much that the tears kept falling. She laid her hand against his cheek. “I meant my vows too.”
“Even so, I want to do this right, since I didn’t have the chance to do it before.”
“Do what right?”
He reached for her hand and smiled. “Will you marry me? Today? Now?”
“In my heart, we’re already married.”
