She nuzzled against him as they took seats in the richly upholstered chairs.
"I'm not afraid anymore," she assured him. "Not when I'm with you."
"Then I'll always be with you," he said softly.
She kissed him,then drew away with a crooked smile. They stared out at the mountains as the Lear cleared the runway and climbed into a crystal blue sky.
"Want to be married in theBlack Hills?" Lee asked her.
She leaned against him and idly caught his hand, admiring the darkly tanned long fingers, the powerful width of his palm.
"Yes. I'd like that very much. And I think the kids would love it, too. And, oh, Lee, I know I've said this a hundred times now, but are you sure?Really sure? Three children..."
He laughed. "I told you. I like little children. I'd like to have a few of my own."
"When?"Bryn asked with a laugh.
He pondered the thought for a minute. "Umm...how old are you?"
"Twenty-seven."
"Let's make you a mother before your thirtieth birthday." He was teasing her, but then he grew serious.
"I think we should wait a year and then go for it. I want to give the boys time to know me.Time to feel secure with both of us.How about it?"
Bryn smiled slowly, closing her eyes as she sighed contentedly and burrowed comfortably against his chest.
"I love you so very much..." she whispered.
His arms tightened around her. And her whisper became an echo that wrapped around them both with warmth and tender beauty.
Epilogue
Lee was as one with the night.
His tread upon the damp earth was as silent as the soft breeze that cooled the night, and as he moved carefully through the pine carpeted forest, he was no more than shadow.
A distant heritage had given him these gifts, and that same distant heritage had taught him to move with the grace of the wild deer, to hunt with the acute and cunning stalk of the panther, and to stand firm in his determination with the tenacity of the golden eagle.
And it was that distant heritage that he thought of now in his secretive stalk of this dark evening.Because things had never really changed. Years ago his ancestors had trodden the same path.For all the same reasons.
He paused before he reached the stream; he could see her. She was a lithe silhouette against the moon.
Her arms were lifted to the heavens, and then she reached out to him, and he smiled, because she knew that he was there. She did not have to hear or see him; she knew his heart and his soul, and she had known that he would come.
He walked toward her slowly, appreciating the silken glow of naked flesh, and the beauty of her feminine curves. They had made love at all different times of the day and night, but this time, when the moon cast seductive beams down upon them, would always be special.
He stopped a foot away from her. The cool breeze drifted over them both in a sweet promise of sensation.
Wide, thick-lashed, cat-green eyes stared into his. He would never tire of studying her face.High, delicate cheekbones.Copper brows.Straight, aquiline nose.Well-defined mouth with a lower lip that hinted at an innate sensuality. All framed by wild and lustrous copper hair that caught the glow of silver beams and tumbled over her shoulders and breasts like a silken fantasy.
She was his wife. She had given him tenderness and love, and she had given him back his own soul. She had seen through the man to the dark corners of the heart; she had touched upon his weaknesses, and from that healing touch he had learned new strength.
He touched a lock of copper hair, felt the beat of her heart as his palms caressed her breasts. He drew her into his arms, and together they sank to the welcoming bed of earth by the shore of the stream.
Theirs was a ritual as fresh as the coming of spring, and as old as the ancient hills that surrounded them.
It wasmidnight, and there was moonlight.
And it was a time for...
Night moves.