Love Inspired Suspense April 2021--Box Set 2 of 2 Laura Scott (speed reading book .txt) 📖

promise,” Shelley said. “It’s the promise, knowing that you each want the other in your life.” She hugged Paige. “I’ll let you think on that.”

Shelley’s words remained with Paige long after her friend left. She mulled them over and was shamed by her cowardice in refusing to have the courage to share a life with Liam.

Love. Where she could lean and not lose part of herself, where he could do the same. That’s what it was all about.

The other—jobs, where they lived—that could be figured out.

But love...that was the key. She loved Liam. With all her heart. It didn’t make any difference whether she was married to him or not. It wouldn’t change her feelings, the love she carried in her heart for him. Why had it taken her so long to figure it out?

She’d been a fool. She could only pray he’d find it in him to forgive her.

After arranging with Shelley to take the rest of the day off, Paige headed to Liam’s house.

He opened the door and gazed at her quizzically.

“Hi.” She winced inwardly. The greeting was totally inadequate, but it had been all she’d been able to come up with.

She was aware of time moving very, very slowly. One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand... How many seconds—or was it minutes—had to pass before he said something?

Finally she broke the silence. “Are you going to invite me in?”

“Uh...sure.” Liam stood back. “Come on in.”

“Thanks.”

“I didn’t expect to see you.” There was longing in his eyes, and any worry that he might not have missed her as much as she missed him vanished.

“I didn’t expect to be here.” Okay, Walker, you can do better than that. “I came to apologize.” That, and a lot more.

“Apologize?”

“I had no right to tell you how to run your life.”

“You didn’t.”

“I came pretty close. I was out of line. Mostly, I was—”

The French doors opened, and Jonah and a puppy skidded inside. “Daddy, we...” His words skidded to a stop just as his feet had. “Hi, Miss Walker.”

“Hi, Jonah.”

“Do you want to meet my puppy? This is Ralph. Ralph, say hi to Miss Walker. She’s really nice.”

Ralph barked enthusiastically.

What did she say upon being introduced to a dog? “Uh...hi, Ralph.”

“We just got Ralph a couple of weeks ago. He’s my best friend.” Jonah’s freckled face bunched up in a thoughtful frown. “Well, Daddy’s my best friend. And Ralph’s my next best friend. You can be my friend, too. And Ralph’s.”

Absurdly touched, Paige smiled. “I’d like that.”

“Jonah,” Liam said, “why don’t you and Ralph go back outside? Ms. Walker and I need to talk.”

“Okay.”

Jonah and his new best friend ran outside in a rush of feet and paws and what could only be described as hoots and barks of pure happiness.

With no preamble, she plunged in. “I should have trusted you when you said that you can take care of yourself. I’ve seen you in action. I know that you’re good.” She sucked in a breath. “I came to ask you to forgive me.” There. It was out. She waited.

“There’s nothing to forgive. You’d suffered a terrible loss, and you were dealing with it in the only way you knew how.”

“I love you no matter what job you have, no matter how much I want you to be safe.”

“Same goes.”

Tears clogged her throat at his easy forgiveness, and Paige searched for something to say.

“Don’t postpone joy,” she murmured, thinking of her conversation with Shelley.

“That’s an interesting observation.”

“Something Shelley told me. She said we should choose joy whenever we can.”

“Smart lady.” He crossed the room and took her hands in his. As always, his touch sent tingles of awareness through her. “What were you going to say before that tornado blew in?”

She took a gulp of air and then forced out the words in a single breath. “I was scared. Scared of losing you.”

“Why?”

“Why do you think? I love you.”

A satisfied smile settled on his lips. “That’s all I need to know. The rest, we can figure out.”

“That’s what I’m trying to say. We don’t have to figure anything out. I’m okay with you joining the marshals. I’ll probably worry, but I trust you to take care of yourself.”

“You mean that?”

“With all my heart. The last time we talked, I forgot something very important. Or, I should say, Someone very important.”

“The Lord.”

Warmth filled her heart that Liam had invited the Lord into his life. Any remaining doubts she had about joining her life with Liam’s disappeared. “I forgot to include Him in our relationship. If we have Him on our side, we can’t lose.”

“You brought Him back into my life. I can never thank you enough for that.”

“He was never gone,” she said softly. “You just didn’t know where to look.”

“Because of you, I found my belief again.” His voice turned husky. “I want you in my home. In my heart. In my life. I want you and Jonah and Ralph and me to be a family, the forever kind.”

Her heart, the one she thought she’d closed off, opened to joy. “That’s funny. That’s exactly what I want. I want together forever with you.”

A frisson of excitement ruffled her senses as he gazed at her with eyes full of love.

“I’m not always easy to get along with,” she warned. “I like to have my own way. I tend to think I’m right no matter what the question is. I’m—”

“Are you trying to scare me away?”

“I’m trying to warn you that we’ll likely find ourselves on opposite sides of things at times.”

He smiled and circled her wrist with his fingers. “I’ll take the risk.” He drew her to him and kissed her with so much love that her heart felt like it would burst in that instant. The kiss held the soaring sense of a man who had just escaped captivity and discovered freedom. She returned it with the same depth of feeling.

Slow and soft, spinning out this one moment in time, the kiss promised everything. She laid her hand on