Kathleen Creighton - Secret Agent Sam

She felt his fingers tighten around hers, though he didn’t reply right away, and in his silence she could feel him weighing her words, making sure he understood. Then he said softly, “You know it is.”

“Well then,” she said, “the answer is yes.”

He stopped walking and turned toward her, taking both of her hands in his. His shadowed eyes gazed at her solemnly over the baby’s bright, uncurious eyes and bobbing head, as he uttered one word: “When?”

Her breathing hitched, and she tried to smile. “As soon as possible, I think.”

He leaned carefully past the baby and kissed her. “I want that, too,” he said in a husky, breaking voice. “But there’s something I have to do first.”

She closed her eyes, leaned her forehead against his shoulder and said with a tremulous sigh, “I know.”

“I’m going to find them, Sam. My brothers and sisters. I have to find them.”

She felt warm moisture seep between her lashes. “Of course you do.” She lifted her head and took his face between her hands and smiled fiercely at him through her tears. “But not first-after. Marry me, and we’ll find them together.”

Wordless for once, he hooked his arm around her shoulders and buried his face in her hair.

Slipping her arm around his waist, she turned her face against his neck, breathing in his scent, his warmth, his goodness. “We’ll find them, Pearse,” she whispered. “I promise you we will.”

He married Samantha in the garden of her grandmother’s house on a hot July day, with grass underfoot and the scent of roses in the air. There were children running unauthorized between the folding chairs borrowed from the Baptist church down the road, and birds singing and babies crying and old ladies rocking and fanning on the front porch.

In spite of the short notice, everyone was there, all the aunts and uncles and cousins-Jimmy Joe and Mirabella, Al and Tracy, Troy and Charly, C.J. and Caitlyn, Joy and Scott, Roy and Celia-and their kith, kin and kids. It made quite a crowd, this new family of his. A lot to take in all at once.

Sam’s cousin Amy Jo was her maid of honor, and her dad, Tristan, walked her down the aisle, then came to stand with him as his best man. She wore a dress her mom, Jessie, had made for her in a hurry-a simple white sheath that showed her long, slender legs, and her Grandma Betty’s wedding veil. Her bridal bouquet was roses, picked from the bush that rambled over the front-porch roof.

Standing there under the big oak trees, he watched her come through the front door of the old family home and start down the porch steps. And then, at the bottom, just before she slipped her hand through Tristan’s arm, she paused…lifted her head and stuck out her chin and looked straight at him. And he saw her again, as he had on that first day in the White House rose garden…vulnerable and scared…fierce and proud and brave.

She came toward him, and he felt…

Cory sat for a long time, staring at the blinking cursor. Then he shook his head, moved it to the Save icon and with a sigh, hit the mouse button.

There were no words on earth powerful enough, it seemed, to describe the joy of loving Samantha.

She came to the door of the bedroom, and he felt her there, even before she spoke.

“Pearse? You ’bout ready? Everybody’s waitin’ for us, fixin’ to pelt us with rice and old shoes.”

He smiled at her over his shoulder. “Just about. Let me shut this down.”

She came toward him with her tomboy’s stride, wearing her honeymoon outfit, a short skirt and sleeveless top in the sunshine colors he loved. “What’s that you’re workin’ on, on this, your weddin’ day? Don’t tell me you’re on a deadline.”

He shook his head. “Just something I’ve been working on for a while. A book, actually.”

“Really? Cool.” She wrapped her slim, strong arms around his neck and leaned over his shoulder, trying to peek. “Can I read it? Is it finished?”

“Oh, no,” he said, laughing huskily as he closed the laptop and pulled his brand-new wife into his lap. “Just barely begun.”

has roots deep in the California soil but has relocated to South Carolina. As a child, she enjoyed listening to old-timers’ tales, and her fascination with the past only deepened as she grew older. Today she says she is interested in everything-art, music, gardening, zoology, anthropology and history, but people are at the top of her list. She also has a lifelong passion for writing, and now combines her two loves in romance novels.