Megan Chance (37 page)

Always she had loved him.

Sari closed her eyes, wishing.

It was then she heard the tap on the door. It was soft, muted in the sound of the snow. Sari opened her eyes, staring out the window. There were no shadows outside, nothing but the snow and the falling darkness, and she wondered if she was imagining it, if maybe she wanted so badly to hear a knock that she'd made it happen.

Then she heard it again.

Her hands were trembling. Sari swallowed and got to her feet. She grabbed the rifle leaning by the door and put it to her shoulder, and then she opened the door, yanking it so that it wobbled on its torn hinges, facing down whatever enemy was out there in the snow.

"Conor. Not another gun," he said.

She lowered the rifle. Conor, leaning against the doorjamb, looking exhausted and hurting. But alive. Alive and back. Just as he'd promised. She wanted to laugh with the intensity of her relief.

He inclined his head toward the field. "Devlin and Roberts are in the barn. I told them they could sleep there. I hope you don't mind."

She shook her head. "I don't mind."

"They found me at Kiowa Creek. Your brother..." He took a deep breath. "He's dead,

Sari." When she opened her mouth to speak, he quieted her with a shake of his head. "I didn't shoot him," he said. "I—you were right. You were right about everything. I'm no judge. I'm no executioner. Michael can make his excuses to God—when he gets there. But I wasn't the one to send him. He was ... he was going to kill me. Devlin rode up...."

She closed her eyes briefly. "It was just a matter of time," she whispered.

"I don't want him to come between us," he said. "Not anymore."

"No."

"I don't want any more secrets."

She smiled. "No more secrets."

"I want..." He took a deep breath. "I want to love you, Sari. If that means I have to stay on these plains and learn to be a farmer, then I'll do it. I'll do whatever it takes. Just tell me you love me. Tell me that and I'll walk through hell to be with you."

She held out her arms. "I love you," she said.

He stumbled to her. She felt the warm stickiness of blood at his shoulder, the heat of his body. But mostly she felt the way his arms tightened around her as if she were his anchor, his lifeline. The way he squeezed her with all the strength he had and then groaned with the pain of it.

"I love you," he said quietly in her ear.

They stood there while the snow came down around them, and Sari tasted it on her lips, felt it on her cheeks and her eyelashes, saw it melting in his hair, and she looked up at all that whiteness and closed her eyes because of the pain of it. The pain of so much joy.

"Do you know," she said, "that no two snowflakes are the same?"

The loneliness was gone.
Forever
, she thought, and smiled into the snow.

About the Author

Megan Chance is the critically acclaimed author of several novels. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and two daughters.
A Heart Divided
was a Romance Writers of America Golden Heart finalist (for unpublished authors) in 1991, and was first published in 1996.

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