Susan Phillips - The Great Escape

“I didn’t exactly see it like that at the time, but I get your point.”

“Is that how this partnership is going to work? If there’s a partnership. You making the decisions for both of us?”

“No. And there’s definitely going to be a partnership.” He suddenly felt steadier than he could ever remember. If he needed proof of his new stability, all he had to do was remember the exhilaration he’d felt when Lucy had called to tell him she was pregnant. He’d experienced no fear, no doubts at all. Knowing she’d lied was a blow, but he’d fix that the first chance he got by making her well and truly pregnant.

“You took away my power, Panda. Instead of laying out all the pros and cons and asking for my opinion, you cut me out of the discussion. You treated me like a child.”

Even in pajamas with every button fastened, she didn’t look anything like a child, but he couldn’t start thinking about what was under that red flannel or he’d lose his focus. “I’ve learned a lot since then.”

“Is that so?” Real tears glistened in her eyes. “Then why didn’t you come to see me? Why did I have to be the one to call you?”

He wanted to take her in his arms and never let her go, but he couldn’t do that yet. Maybe never if he didn’t get this right.

He squeezed off the bench and crouched in front of her. “I was working up my nerve to see you. I told you the biggest lie of my life when I said I didn’t love you, but I was scared to death I’d hurt you. Things have changed since then. I’ve stopped being afraid of loving you. Now go ahead and yell at me.”

She sniffed at the offense. “I never yell.”

He was too smart to point out the fallacy of that statement. “I’m glad, because you’re not going to like this next part.” He tried and failed to find a more comfortable position. “Leaving you was hell, but as it turned out, it was the best thing I could have done for myself—for both of us—because I finally had something at stake that was bigger than worrying about all my symptoms coming back.” A branch tapped the roof of the motor home. “I figured out that, at some level, I believed I deserved to suffer. I lived, and a lot of my buddies didn’t. Once I understood that, other things became clear, and for the first time, I started to believe in possibilities instead of inevitability.”

He could see the last of her defenses beginning to melt, but she still had some struggle left. “I would never have put you through what you’ve put me through.”

She was kind of doing that now, but since she’d only begun torturing him yesterday and he’d been putting her through hell for months, he couldn’t complain. “I know, sweetheart.” He took her cold hands. “You can’t imagine how miserable I’ve been without you.”

That made her happier. “You have?”

He rubbed his thumbs into her palms. “I need you, Lucy. I love you, and I need you.”

She thought that over. “You do know, don’t you, that you’re on your knees.”

He smiled. “Yes, I do know that. And while I’m down here …” His smile faded as his collar started choking him again. “Luce, please marry me. I promise to love you and cherish you and respect you. I’ll laugh with you and make love with you and honor you with every breath I take. I know we’ll argue, but in the end it won’t matter because I’d give up my life for you.” Now he was sweating bullets. “Damn, I’ve never done this before …”

She cocked her head. “What about protecting me? That’s what you do best, so why aren’t you promising that, too?”

He couldn’t take it anymore, and he yanked off his necktie. “About that …” He loosened another collar button. “I … can’t figure out exactly how to say this.”

She waited, giving him time, her eyes so tender that the words came out more easily than he expected. “You’re my safe harbor. You don’t need protecting half as much as I do, so how about you take over that job for a while?”

She stroked his hair, her fingers like feathers, her eyes giving him the world. “I’ll do my best.”

“What about the rest?” he said, his voice unsteady as his life hung in the balance. “Are you tough enough to marry me?”

She brushed her fingertips along his cheek. “Tougher than you can imagine.”

His relief was so intense he felt dizzy, but he gradually steadied as she murmured her own love back to him. Then she got up from the couch, crossed to the door, and clicked the lock. As she turned back to face him, her fingers began opening the buttons on her pajamas.

He rose to his feet. A moment later his suit coat hit the floor.

Her pajama top fell open as she came toward him. She looped her arms around his neck, kissed him, the sweetest kiss of his life, full of passion and promise and the love he’d been looking for since he was born. But when their lips finally parted, she looked troubled again. “There’s more.”

“I sure as hell hope so,” he murmured, caressing the small of her back, just under her pajama top.

“No, not that.” She rested her hands on his shirtfront. “Once I stopped being furious with you long enough to realize that you really did love me, I had to figure out a way to get your attention.”

He understood. “It’s all right, sweetheart. I know you’re not pregnant.”

But that didn’t seem to satisfy her. “I came up with a plan. Temple and Max agreed to help me kidnap you, and—”

“Kidnap me?”

She looked suddenly smug. “We could have done it, too.”

When hell froze over. “If you say so.”

“The point is”—she tugged on one of his shirt buttons—“about me being pregnant …”

“I intend to take care of that real soon, but please don’t lie to me again.”

She opened one of his buttons and then another. “The thing is … I really wasn’t feeling well, so I started counting, and then I went to the doctor, and then …”

He stared at her.

Her mouth dissolved in a soft smile. She lifted her arms and cradled his face in her hands. “It’s true.”

LUCY RESTED HER HEAD AGAINST Ted Beaudine’s broad shoulder and gave a contented sigh. “Who’d have imagined after all we went through that we’d end up together like this?”

“Life works in mysterious ways,” he said.

It was late May, the three-year anniversary of their almost wedding, although that wasn’t why they’d all gathered at the lake house, which gleamed with a fresh coat of bright white paint and sparkling navy shutters. Instead they were celebrating Memorial Day weekend and the beginning of another summer.

Toby and two of his teenage friends dashed after Frisbees, with Martin loping at their heels. One of Bree’s nephews chatted awkwardly with Lucy’s youngest sister, while Tracy and Andre looked on in amusement. Lucy gazed at Ted’s clean-shaven jawline. “No offense, but I’m so glad I’m not married to you.”

“None taken,” he replied cheerfully.

In the distance, she could hear the faint sound of hammering. In another month, the roomy log buildings would be finished and ready for their first set of campers. “Frankly, I don’t know how Meg does it,” she said. “Living with your perfection has to be tough on someone like her.”

Ted nodded somberly. “It’s a burden, that’s for sure.”

She smiled and gazed across the yard toward the new barbecue pit, where her parents were chatting with a slightly awestruck Temple and Max. “Being married to Panda is a lot easier,” Lucy said.

“I’ll have to take your word for it,” Ted replied. “He kind of scares me.”

“He does no such thing, but I’m sure he’d take that as a compliment.”

Ted squeezed her shoulder. “It’s good we weren’t this comfortable with each other when we were engaged, or that wedding might really have happened.”

They both shuddered.

Meg and Panda came toward them. Who could have imagined that her surly bodyguard would have turned into such an exemplary husband?

Because Meg had been a terrible influence on Ted, he planted a kiss on top of Lucy’s head just to see if he could make trouble. That backfired, however, because Lucy liked to cause trouble, too. “Your husband is hitting on me,” she called out to her best friend. “By the way, how does it feel to be his second choice?”

Meg offered up her smart-aleck smirk. “I could totally have had Panda if you hadn’t pulled your disappearing act. He was definitely coming on to me the night of your so-called rehearsal dinner.”

“Well … You did look hot that night,” Lucy agreed while Panda and Ted swapped glances that declared them both the most fortunate and the most put-upon of spouses.

“It’s weird,” Meg said. “We should so be married to each other’s husbands.”

This time all four of them shuddered.

“I’ll tell you what’s weird.” Bree came up next to them, Mike at her side, a sleeping baby tucked in the Snugli he wore as proudly as an athletic jersey. “The four of you. I’ve never seen such strange relationships. Mike, aren’t they all a little weird.”

“Now, Bree … Some people might say that about us.”

“You’re too good to be true.” Bree gave him a private smile that locked out the rest of the world.

Toby peeled away from his friends. “He’s not that good. He got into my M&M’s stash last night.”

Mike grinned, grabbed Toby around the neck, and gave his head a gentle knuckle rub without disturbing Toby’s baby brother. “You need to find a better hiding place, son.”

In the past three years, Toby had shot up ten inches, and girls had started calling the house, which drove Bree crazy. But Toby had his head screwed on remarkably straight for a fifteen-year-old, and Lucy wasn’t worried.

Between babies and blossoming careers, they’d experienced so many wonderful changes in their lives. But there had been difficult times, too. Lucy still grieved the loss of her grandfather Litchfield, and Bree had miscarried early in her first pregnancy. Fortunately, the joyous birth of Jonathan David Moody a little over a year later had eased the pain.