Дебби Макомбер - Starry Night

She led him to the sofa and then sat on his lap. His eyes were eating her up as if he’d been without water for far too long and she was a freshwater spring. “What have you done to me, Carrie Slayton?”

“Loved you,” she returned.

“I gave you the career opportunity of a lifetime, and you turned it down.” He shook his head as if even now he couldn’t believe that she’d refused. Carrie found it hard to believe herself, only it had been necessary.

“My career isn’t nearly as important as you are.”

“This is crazy, Carrie. We have everything going against us. You live in Chicago, and I’m in Alaska …”

“I’ll move,” she said, cutting him off, and then pulled his mouth to hers and kissed him in a way that left them both weak and breathless. “We’ll make it work,” she insisted, her eyes still closed. She reveled in the taste and feel of him holding her. It’d been far too long since she’d been in his arms. She hadn’t realized how badly she’d missed his touch.

“When you kiss me like that you make me believe.”

“Good.” She couldn’t keep from touching him. Her hands roamed over his neck and shoulders, savoring the feel of him. “You’ve reconciled with your mother?”

He rubbed his hand over his eyes. “I’d pushed you out of my life. I’d been alone before, but not like this, and then I remembered something you’d said.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you.” He leaned down and kissed the tip of her nose. “I asked if my mother needed anything, and you said the only thing she really needed was her son.”

“I was with her yesterday morning.” Carrie couldn’t believe Joan would hold back the news that she’d heard from Finn.

“I didn’t call her before I came. I wasn’t sure I had the courage to go through with it until I pulled up to her house late last night. I told myself I was coming to Seattle to make amends with her, but the real reason was I couldn’t stay away from you. Not for another minute.”

“Oh, Finn, this is the best Christmas of my life.”

He couldn’t seem to stop staring at her. “You gave my mother the oosik,” he commented.

Carrie lowered her gaze. “I couldn’t keep anything that valuable, Finn. It was more important that she have it than me.”

“But what you said to her,” he returned, frowning.

Carrie couldn’t remember anything specific. “What do you mean?”

“That if the two of us were to get back together, she should save it for one of her grandchildren.”

Carrie relaxed and smiled. The warm, happy feeling that had come over her that morning intensified. Had her heart known Finn was close? she wondered. She hardly knew how else to explain this sensation.

“You want it all, don’t you? Marriage, children, a career.”

“Of course. It’s what you want, too, Finn.”

He closed his eyes and nodded. “Yes,” he whispered, “more than I ever knew, although I didn’t realize it until I met you.”

Carrie braced her forehead against his. “It doesn’t matter to me where we settle—Alaska, Washington, Illinois—because my home is wherever you are.”

He hugged her even closer. “I thought I could walk away from you, but I couldn’t. I’ve never needed anyone the way I need you. I felt alone, truly alone, for the first time. Then you sent me that text, reminding me about the night we viewed the stars. You asked me to remember you. Did you honestly believe forgetting you was even possible? I fell in love with you that starry night.”

“That was the night when I realized I was falling in love with you, too,” she confessed. It had been that special moment, gazing up at the heavens, when she’d felt that connection with Finn, unaware that from that moment forward their futures would be forever linked. It seemed as though the heavens had smiled down on them both and offered them a blessing.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” Carrie whispered, worshipping him with her eyes, loving him so much it felt as though her heart were about to crack wide open.

“Oh, yes, I’m here and I’m not going away. I doubt Sawyer is talking to me any longer, and even Hennessey looks at me with disgust.” He studied her, his gaze delving into hers. “I hardly know myself any longer.”

“Oh, Finn, I love you so much.”

He brushed the hair from her forehead. “Answer me truthfully, Carrie. Would you seriously consider resigning from your job with the newspaper?”

This wasn’t a difficult question. Carrie nodded. Her ultimate goal had always been to eventually return to Seattle. “I don’t have to work for a newspaper to be a writer. I’d even be happy freelancing from home.”

He hugged her close. “My home is wherever you are. I think to be fair to us both, we can divide our time between Seattle and Alaska.”

“You’d be willing to do that?”

Finn smiled down on her and kissed her again. “I want the opportunity to get to know my mother, and this will give you a chance to be close to your own family. We’ll make it work, Carrie.”

“My home is with you and with Hennessey, and then later, of course, we’ll be adding to the family.”

His head came back up. “You want another dog?”

Carrie slapped his chest. “No, silly. Children.”

“Oh, yes,” he said with a chuckle.

Carrie nestled her head beneath his chin. “Things are right between you and your mother?” Although she hadn’t been able to take her eyes off Finn, Carrie had noticed the happiness that seemed to radiate off Joan. It seemed both Carrie and Joan were having the best Christmases of their lives.

“You were right about her. She’s never stopped loving me.”

“You seem to have that effect on women.”

He brought her mouth close to his. “Certain women, at any rate.”

“This woman.”

Finn spread nibbling kisses down the side of her neck. “This man loves this woman.”

“Good, because this is just the beginning for us. And this time it’s for keeps.”

“For keeps,” Finn repeated. He was willing to admit he’d been a fool. He’d assumed he’d be able to walk away from Carrie and not look back. At the time, it’d seemed the prudent choice. He knew when he found the article on her laptop that Carrie had never intended to submit it. Finding it gave him all the excuse he needed to break it off. Only she’d called his bluff. She’d forced him to lie. He wasn’t proud of the things he’d said to Carrie. At the time, it had seemed necessary. Finn had believed that it would be tough the first couple of days but within a short amount of time he’d be over her.

Wrong.

Miserable didn’t even begin to describe his feelings. He felt lost, cast adrift with nothing to anchor him. Before Carrie had entered his life, everything seemed perfectly fine. He’d been content. Happy, even—and perhaps he was.

Then she was dumped into his well-ordered existence—no thanks to Sawyer O’Halloran—and everything changed. All at once he became aware of the dark shadows in what had once been light, the isolation he’d accepted rather than deal with the past and his parents’ divorce. At first he assumed he could let her go, and he later realized he was making the same mistake as his father with his unwillingness to compromise. His father had been determined to stand his ground. If Joan loved him, she would accept his terms, and as a result he’d ended up lonely and bitter. Finn refused to repeat history. He loved Carrie, and if loving her meant spending part of the year in Seattle, then that was a small sacrifice in order to make her his wife. In order to make her happy.

His thoughts returned to his ridiculous efforts to sever the relationship. Carrie knew him far too well, had refused to believe he didn’t love her. How easily she saw through his ploy. She’d read him perfectly. If that wasn’t bad enough, she’d been unwilling to settle for his token apology by giving her the opportunity to write the article about him that everyone seemed to want.