For the Sake of Warwick Mountain (Harlequin Heartwarming) (13 page)

She’d heard right, but she couldn’t believe it. “You’re kidding.”

“I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life.”

She reveled in his embrace, savored the security of his arms, treasured the beat of his heart against her face, but his proposal left her too stunned to think. “I don’t know what to say.”

She lifted her head from his chest and stared into the face of the man she’d come to love, wondering if she could take a chance, a risk. What if she did? What if she
didn’t?

Then she’d have the memories, Becca thought, memories of the only man she’d ever really loved. Grady had been a horrible mistake, an overgrown boy who’d used her and deserted her. Matt was a mature man...one who was ready to settle down.

With her.

With Emily.

In spite of his apprehensive expression, Becca couldn’t mistake the love shining in his eyes, the sincerity ringing in his voice.

He loved her.

“Will you marry me?” he asked again.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

M
ATT
WAITED
FOR
Becca’s answer. He wouldn’t pressure her. They’d known each other only a short while, and if she needed time to make up her mind, he’d give her all the time she wanted.

After all, it was only a few hours ago that he’d realized himself that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Becca. Waiting in the hospital for word on whether Lucy Ledbetter would live or die had completely and unexpectedly changed his perspective, had made him recognize what was truly important.

He’d had enough of mindless social events, vacuous women and single living. He wanted someone to share his life, and he knew without a doubt that someone was Becca Warwick. He didn’t mind that she came with a ready-made family. In fact, Emily was an asset, because Matt had come to love the little girl as well as her mother. He couldn’t wait to show them both California, to teach Emily how to swim, to walk on the beach at sunset with Becca, and to sleep every night and wake every morning with his wife snuggled in his arms, while the Pacific surf crashed against the shore outside their bedroom window.

He might even cut back on his hours at the office and hospital to have more family time.

Family.

The word offered comfort, happiness and promise.

Beside him, Becca sighed.

“You don’t have to give me an answer now,” he assured her. “Take time to think about it.”

“I can’t leave Warwick Mountain,” Becca said with an intractable set to her jaw.

“Sure you can. You’ll love California.”

Becca pulled away and gazed at him with worried eyes.

“I could never live in California,” she said bluntly.

He didn’t like the turn the conversation had taken. “It’s not a foreign country.”

“California may be a nice place to visit,” Becca said gently, “but I don’t want to live there.”

“How do you know?” He tried without success to keep the irritation from his voice. “You’ve never been.”

“California’s not the problem.”

His spirits plunged. “If you don’t love me—”

Her fingers against his lips stopped him from saying more. “I love you, Matt. But I have responsibilities I can’t fulfill in California.”

“If it’s Emily you’re worried about, I want to adopt her. Give her my name, too. We’ll all be Tylers. And she’ll have the daddy she wants.”

Becca shook her head sadly. “I don’t know if I can make you understand. Emily isn’t the problem, although I admit I’d rather she grew up in Warwick Mountain than Beverly Hills.”

His blood turned cold. “What is the problem?”

“It’s me. I can’t leave here.”

“Why not?”

“My roots are here. Warwicks have been on this mountain for almost three hundred years, long before the American Revolution. The place is in our blood.”

“You can keep this place. We can visit here on vacation.” He was determined to shoot down every objection, hurtle every obstacle.

“But I have a promise to keep, one I can’t honor in California.”

“Your clinic?”

She nodded. “I swore on Granny’s grave that I would see the clinic built and make certain it always served the people of Warwick Mountain.”

“You could make arrangements for the clinic long distance. Use phones, faxes, email.” He couldn’t understand her devotion to a place and its people. “If you need more time to set things up—”

“I need to be here,” she said solemnly, her tone unyielding. She appeared to think for a moment and her expression brightened. “You could live here with Emily and me.”

He shook his head. In all the plans he’d formulated yesterday, Becca and Emily had come home with him. He’d never contemplated moving. “Stay here? And do what? Not much call for cosmetic surgery here, even if folks were willing to let me treat them. Which they’re not.”

“But if they were—” Her gaze scoured his face. “Would you want to live here?”

Matt hesitated. As much as he loved Becca, could he renounce the familiar pleasures of California living? Was his discontent temporary or could he really do forever without the surf, sun and sea? Would he miss too much the cultural stimulation of art galleries, famous restaurants, film premieres and the rich and famous who frequented them?

Her eyes sad, Becca stroked his cheek. “Maybe we should forget you ever proposed. We’re like oil and water, you and me. Not a good mix.”

Her observation wounded him, primarily because of the truth of it. They might as well have been born on different planets. He pulled her close and pressed his lips against her hair, not wanting to ever let her go. “Then what are we going to do?”

She released a deep sigh. “Accept the fact that we were never meant to be.”

He trailed his fingers over the exquisite smoothness of her skin, then tangled them in her hair, gazing into magnificent eyes that swam with tears.

“I won’t accept that.”

“Then what will we do?” she asked.

“We’ll kiss,” he answered gently. “At least one more time.”

* * *

L
EAVING
B
ECCA
WAS
the hardest thing Matt had ever had to do, especially when all he wanted was to wrap his arms around her and hold her close forever.

Assuming too much, not thinking things through, he’d bungled his proposal. Big time. Becca had been clear in her refusal, adamant about the impossibility of either of them belonging in the other’s world. Although he believed she loved him, he also believed she had accepted they’d never be together.

Matt couldn’t accept it. Wouldn’t. He’d find a way to bring them together somehow.

He stared at the darkness through the uncovered kitchen window, trying to think. A distinct flash of light in the distant woods caught his eye.

The midnight intruder had returned.

If he couldn’t convince Becca to marry him tonight, at least he could protect her. He turned to find her watching him in the darkness.

“Call 911,” he said.

Her eyes clouded in confusion. “Are you ill?”

“Someone’s in the woods. I’m going after him. Call the sheriff.”

He started to rise, and she grabbed his arm. “You’ve been hero enough for one day, Matt. Let it go.”

Bending low so their lips almost touched, Matt spoke with fierce conviction. “I have to satisfy myself that whoever’s out there isn’t a threat to you and Emily. If they are, I’ll need the sheriff’s help.”

He kissed her, hard and fast, then sprinted out of the house.

Stunned, Becca sat for a second, then moved into action, racing to the phone in the hallway.

She gave her name and location to the dispatcher and explained about the prowler.

“We have a deputy in the area,” the dispatcher said. “He should be there within fifteen minutes.”

Becca hung up and started to go after Matt. Then she remembered Emily asleep upstairs. With the prowler a potential threat, she couldn’t leave Emily alone in the house. Instead of following Matt, she locked the kitchen door, then hurriedly secured the other doors and windows on the first floor.

That action took only minutes. Becca stared through the kitchen window toward the woods, where the bobbing light still shone, wondering what was happening, fearful for Matt’s safety.

The intruder was probably harmless, she assured herself, but common sense demanded otherwise. If the person had legitimate business in her woods, why wait until midnight and sneak through the darkness?

Who would do such a thing? Her imagination fired into overdrive—a moonshiner brewing illegal white lightning; a poacher hunting animals on the endangered-species list; a serial killer hiding bodies—

Stop it!
she ordered herself before she descended completely into hysteria.

But she couldn’t help worrying about Matt, couldn’t help longing to hold him safely in her arms. She couldn’t marry him—they were oil and water as she’d told him—but she could wish with all her might that he’d be protected from harm.

As she watched, the light in the woods suddenly went out. Turning on her heel, Becca raced to the mantel in the living room, took down Grandpa’s shotgun, then scurried to the closet in the guest bedroom where she kept the shells in a combination-lock box. In her desperation, she at first forgot the series of numbers, then, once she remembered them, fumbled with clumsy fingers. At the sound of pounding on the back door, she dropped the box on her bare foot.

“Becca, it’s me!” Matt called. “Open up.”

She picked up the gun and box and hurried to the kitchen. Flipping on the porch light, she gasped at the sight of a strange face peering through the window with a grimace. Then she spotted Matt behind the stranger, wresting the man’s arm behind him in a grip he couldn’t escape.

Becca opened the door, and Matt shoved the stranger into the kitchen. Squinting in the sudden bright light, the scrawny stranger appeared to be between fifty and sixty years old with his long gray hair pulled back into a ponytail. In bell-bottom jeans and a tie-dyed shirt, he looked like a throwback to the sixties. His already anxious expression intensified when he glimpsed Becca’s shotgun.

“Please,” he begged. “Don’t shoot me. I wasn’t hurting anyone.”

“Sit down and don’t move.” Matt released the man, who sank immediately into the chair Matt had indicated and began rubbing the arm Matt had wrenched.

“What were you doing in my woods?” Becca asked.

“Stealing,” Matt said before the man could answer. He held up a bulging gunnysack and tossed it to Becca.

Afraid of what she’d find, Becca peeked inside. The contents amazed her. She turned to the man. “Roots? You were digging up and stealing roots?”

With a crestfallen expression, he nodded.

“Why?” Becca insisted. “Were you hungry?” The man’s gaunt frame suggested hunger might be a possibility.

To her surprise, the man laughed. “Don’t you know what those are?”

Matt stood protectively between Becca and the stranger, obviously poised to put a hammerlock on the thief if he made a threatening move.

“They’re roots,” Becca said.

“Very valuable roots,” the man replied. “What’s in that sack is worth several hundred dollars.”

Becca snorted in disbelief. “What fool would pay that for roots?”

The man’s shoulders drooped. “No one, now that you’ve got them.”

“You’d better explain yourself, mister,” Matt said in a voice that made even Becca cringe.

“Yes, the sheriff’s on his way,” Becca added. “He’ll be here any minute.”

“You’re pressing charges?” the stranger asked.

“Depends,” Matt said, “on what you were doing on Ms. Warwick’s property.”

“Look,” the man said with a forced smile. “I’m not a criminal. I’m a businessman.”

“What kind of business has you trespassing in the wilderness in the middle of the night?” Matt demanded.

“Herbs.”

“Herbs?” Matt and Becca asked in unison.

“I own a shop in Asheville. We sell organic produce, herbs and New Age books.” He nodded toward the sack. “Those are ginseng roots. Highly valued. Very expensive. The woods back there are full of them.”

“Ever occur to you to ask permission to dig there?” Matt said with a heavy dose of sarcasm. “Or to offer to pay for the ginseng you took?”

The man had the decency to look ashamed. “I thought it was public land.”

“And that would make it all right?” Matt asked with obvious disgust.

“The national forest is farther west,” Becca said. “The land where you were digging is mine.”

“Look,” the man said pleadingly. “Maybe we can work out a deal.”

“A little late for that, don’t you think?” Matt said.

He looked so fierce, so protective of her that Becca again experienced what it would be like to have someone watch over her.

It felt good.

Too good.

She couldn’t afford to become accustomed to the feeling. When Matt returned to California, she and Emily would be looking out for themselves, totally on their own again.

A shadow on the back porch caught Becca’s eye, and a uniformed deputy stepped through the open door into the kitchen.

“You got a problem, Becca?” The deputy was Billy Thornburg. He’d been three years ahead of Becca in school, and she’d known him all her life.

“This is Dr. Tyler.” Becca introduced Matt. “He—”

“You’re the one!” Billy’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. “Man, the whole department’s talking about you. That was some amazing rescue, pulling Lucy Ledbetter out of the quarry.”

“The greater achievement was pulling me out,” Matt said. “If it hadn’t been for Jake Bennett and the others, Lucy and I would both be feeding the fishes.”

Billy eyed the stranger, cowering in the chair. “What’s the problem, Doc?”

Between them, Becca and Matt explained about the ginseng thief. Billy cuffed the stranger and prepared to lead him away. “We’ll run a background check. See if he’s got a record.”

“If he hasn’t,” Becca said, taking pity on the man’s obvious terror at being arrested, “I don’t want to press charges. Not if he’ll promise to stay off my land.”

Billy nodded. “It’s your call.”

Becca thanked the deputy and locked the door behind him.

She turned to Matt. “Thank you, too.”

He shook his head. “I didn’t do it for you. I did it for me. I couldn’t stand worrying about who might be out there, who might be threatening you and Emily.”

“Then thank you for caring about us.”

She didn’t have the will to resist when he pulled her into his arms and kissed her.

Nor did she have the will not to cry when he left.

* * *

B
ECCA
AWAKENED
early, disoriented at first after the events of the night before. Then she remembered her conversation with Matt, and was filled with incredible longing.

And regret.

Sudden anger suffused her. Had she lost her mind falling for another man she’d never marry? When she’d succumbed to Grady’s charms, she’d been young, foolish and inexperienced.

So what’s your excuse now?
Granny’s voice rang in her head.
Foolish is the only one that still fits.

Becca threw back the covers and pulled on her clothes from the night before. With any luck, she would have herself showered and dressed before Emily awoke.