Page 116 of The Singing Trees
“Yes. And you? What about the girl at the market?”
“No. Well, we were dating for a little while, but she and I were over the minute I saw you. I have never loved anyone else. Never in my life. All I’ve ever wanted is us.”
Annalisa put her forehead to his chest and then looked up at him. “I’m all yours, Thomas. Everything that I am is yours. For always.”
She thought he might kiss her, but he let go of her hands and pulled her in with his strong arms, hugging her like never before. As if there were no further to fall, she fell in love with him all over again. No woman on earth had ever been so lucky or been so loved.
When he let go, he said, “I don’t even know how, but can we pick up where we left off? I can’t go another day without you or our daughter.”
She wiped her eyes and nodded over and over. He put his hands on her waist, and they inched toward each other just like that time at the drive-in when they’d first kissed. The hole that had been cavernous in her heart filled with each second. It was all too much, but it was everything she wanted, and when their lips met, it was the missing piece to her world, an explosion of colors that she’d never seen.
She wrapped her hand around his neck and pulled him in, their passionate kiss swallowing up the time since Hawaii that they’d lost to lies, fanning an ember that had never really burned out.
He touched his lips where hers had been, the happiness on his face enough for a lifetime. “If you only knew...”
“I do know,” she said, immeasurably happy herself. She knew how badly he’d missed her, missed kissing her, missed being with her, because she felt the exact same way...
After a long embrace, they separated and he said, “I don’t know what to do about my sister.”
A part of Annalisa didn’t want to blame Emma. “She was young and didn’t want to lose you. And she was...” Annalisa saw Emma back when they’d first met. “She was troubled, Thomas. More than I ever was.”
“Well, she’s happier now, and why wouldn’t she be?” He’d come out of his fog and sounded stronger. “She got what she wanted, and I refuse to look past it. She nearly ruined our lives; she did, actually. She took me away from the love of my life and our daughter.”
“She didn’t know I was pregnant.” Even as Annalisa said that, she thought it might not be true. Even if Emma had seen the stroller, though, she couldn’t have known it was Thomas’s baby.
“You being pregnant has nothing to do with it,” he insisted. “She’s looked me in the eyes a thousand times. She could have made this right.”
Annalisa didn’t want him to lose sight of the good in today, and she didn’t want to allow herself—or Thomas—to turn against Emma. Had she not been smothered in love herself, Annalisa might have turned out the same way. “Maybe there’s an explanation, like you said.”
“No,” he disagreed, clearly coming to his own conclusion. “I know my sister. This is a strategy game that she thought out many moves in advance. All to push you out of the way so she could keep me in town. She got lucky, really. To make it this long without being found out. Did she really think I’d never run into you again?”
“I was starting to think that.”
“I guess I was too,” he admitted. “But you know what? Nothing can get in the way of you and me. We’ve proved that time and time again. The only thing that matters is that I’ve found you.” He looked back down to the beach. Celia was dragging her stick in the sand, drawing a picture. “And that I’ve found her. My daughter.”
His knowing the truth now was an everlasting peace. Annalisa might have screwed up, and she’d have to forgive herself for that, but for now, he’d forgiven her. And more important, he and Celia would soon reunite.
She slipped her hands onto his waist. “You’re going to be such a good father. The best there ever was.”
He glided his fingers across her cheek and the side of her head, petting her lovingly. “Does she know about me?”
A shake of the head, trying to throw off the guilt of keeping Celia from her father. “She’s too young to understand. I told her you went away; that’s all.”
“But now I’m here.”
“Yes, you are.” She hoped in that moment that there would be no more obstacles, that now they could truly be together. “So what do we do now?”
Thomas put his finger to her chin, lifting her lips to his. “Whatever it is, we do it together...if you two will have me.”
Shivers rose up and down her body, the kind most girls would surely never know. With an iron will, she said, “Together, yes. Absolutely.”
Then she couldn’t help but say with a watery smile, “If we get married, though, I’m not changing my name. An Annalisa Barnes signature just isn’t going to cut it on my canvases. It would feel like I was burning the Italian flag.”
Thomas wiped his face on his shirt again and said laughingly, “Fine, then. Maybe I’ll even take your name.”
“I’ll consider allowing it. And I might even let you put up a blue picket fence out front.”
He grinned as their faces dried to pure joy. “Wouldn’t that be something?”
