At Close Range (18 page)

T
he sun had set in a spectacular splash of red. The children had gone to their beds sated after a home-coming feast that outdid all Rita's previous lavish meals. Jeannie and Leeza had fussed over Corrie until she couldn't stand it anymore and had come looking for Mack.

She felt as if she'd been searching for him all her life.
Seek and ye shall find.
She rapped on his door.
Knock and it shall be opened unto you.

Mack stood in the doorway, his eyes warm with welcome, his hands reaching for her. “Finally,” he said.

“Impatience is not a virtue,” she said.

“Patience is a curse when it comes to having to wait to hold you in my arms.”

“Easily cured,” she said, stepping into his broad embrace.

When he ran his hands down her arms, he felt the sheaf of papers she carried. “What's this?”

“The project I did for you.”

“For me? I thought—”

“It's for you. And for you to decide what you want to do with it.”

Mack took the pages from her hands, waved her into his quarters, and offered her a glass of wine. She shook her head and sat down on the sofa.

He started reading and after a few lines raised his head to give her an inscrutable look.

It took him just twenty minutes to read the pages through and every rustle of paper seemed a death knell in Corrie's heart. She couldn't read his expression and found herself wishing she hadn't tackled the project. What if she'd been wrong? Would she have been wiser to have left the past alone, however badly that past affected them both?

He set the pages down and ran a hand over his face. Without turning to look at her, he said in a choked voice, “Thank you, Corrie. I didn't know.”

“You didn't know how much these people loved you?”

“That. And you. I didn't dare let myself believe that anyone could love me this much.”

“I do, you know,” she said. Her words sounded like the vow she meant them to be.

He turned then, his eyes luminous with scarcely checked tears. But he smiled that sunshine-bright smile of his. “I do know. And I want you to know something, too.”

“What's that?”

“That before we checked you out of that hospital, your doctor said you're all better now.”

“And that means what, Mack Dorsey?” She smiled and reveled in the shaft of hunger that shot through her.

“That means I'm going to spend the next twelve hours showing you just how much I love you in return.”

“And exactly how are you going to do that?”

“I'm a man of action,” he said, drawing her up from the sofa and pulling her into his arms. “You said so yourself.”

“I'm liking this a lot,” she murmured.

He chuckled. “You don't know the half of it.”

“Show me,” she said.

And he did.

Very, very well.