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  “I…I’m sorry to have bothered you.” She drew on the little that remained of her pride and dignity to carry her across the room.

  “No bother,” Evan said tonelessly.

  It was at that precise moment that Mary Jo knew. She couldn’t have explained exactly how, but she knew. Relief washed over her like the warm blast of a shower after a miserable day in the cold. He loved her. He’d always loved her.

  Confident now, she turned around to face him.

  He was busily writing on a legal pad and didn’t look up.

  “Evan.” She whispered his name.

  He ignored her.

  “You love me.”

  His hand trembled slightly, but that was all the emotion he revealed.

  “It isn’t going to work,” she said, stepping toward him.

  “I beg your pardon?” He sighed heavily.

  “This little charade. I don’t know what you’re trying to prove, but it isn’t working. It never will. You couldn’t have sat by my hospital bed all those hours and felt nothing for me. You couldn’t have given my parents that money and not cared for me.”

  “I didn’t say I didn’t care. But as you said yourself, sometimes love isn’t enough.”

  “Then I was wrong,” she muttered. “Now listen. My mother and yours are chomping at the bit to start planning our wedding. What do you want me to tell them? That the whole thing’s off and you don’t love me anymore? You don’t honestly expect anyone to believe that, do you? I don’t.”

  “Believe what you want.”

  Briefly, she closed her eyes. “You’re trying my patience, Evan, but you have a long way to go if you think you can get me to change my mind.” She moved closer. There was more than one way of proving her point. More than one way to kick the argument out from under him. And she wasn’t going to let this opportunity pass.

  She stepped over to his desk and planted both hands on it, leaning over the top so that only a few inches separated their faces. “All right, Dryden, you asked for this.”

  His eyes narrowed, as she edged her way around the desk. His head followed her movements. He turned in his chair, eyeing her speculatively.

  At that moment, she threw herself on his lap, wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. She felt his surprise and his resistance, but the latter vanished almost the instant her mouth settled over his.

  It’d been so long since they’d kissed. So long since she’d experienced the warm comfort of his embrace.

  Groaning, Evan kissed her back. His mouth was tentative at first, then hard and intense. His hold tightened and a frightening kind of excitement began to grow inside her. As she clung to him, she could feel his heart beating as fast as hers, his breathing as labored.

  Cradling his face with her hands, she spread eager, loving kisses over his mouth, his jaw, his forehead. “I love you, Evan Dryden.”

  “This isn’t just gratitude?”

  She paused and lifted her head. “For what?”

  “The money I gave your family.”

  “No,” she said, teasing a corner of his mouth with the tip of her tongue. “But that is something we need to discuss.”

  “No, we don’t.” He tilted her so that she was practically lying across his lap. “I have a proposition to make.”

  “Decent or indecent?” she asked with a pretended leer.

  “That’s for you to decide.”

  She looped her arms around his neck, hoisted herself upright and pressed her head against his shoulder.

  “You’ll marry me?” he asked.

  “Oh, yes—” she sighed with happiness “—and soon. Evan, let’s make this the shortest engagement on record.”

  “On one condition. You never mention that money again.”

  “But—”

  “Those are my terms.” He punctuated his statement with a kiss so heated it seared her senses.

  When it ended, Mary Jo had difficulty breathing normally. “Your terms?” she repeated in a husky whisper.

  “Do you agree, or don’t you?”

  Before she could answer, he swept away her defenses and any chance of argument with another kiss. By the time he’d finished, Mary Jo discovered she would have concurred with just about anything. She nodded numbly.

  Evan held her against him and exhaled deeply. “We’ll make our own wedding plans, understood?”

  Mary Jo stared at him blankly.

  “This is our wedding and not my mother’s—or your mother’s.”

  She smiled softly and lowered her head to his shoulder. “Understood.”

  They were silent for several minutes, each savoring the closeness.

  “Mom was right, wasn’t she?” Mary Jo asked softly. “About how I needed to prove that my love was more than words.”

  “If you’d walked out that door, I might always have wondered,” Evan confessed, then added, “You wouldn’t have gotten far. I would’ve come running after you, but I’m glad I didn’t have to.”

  “I’ve been such a fool.” Mary Jo lovingly traced the side of his neck with her tongue.

  “I’ll give you fifty or sixty years to make it up to me, with time off for good behavior.”

  The happiness on her face blossomed into a full-blown smile. She raised her head and waited until their eyes met before she lowered her mouth to his. The kiss was long, slow and thorough. Evan drew in a deep, stabilizing breath when they’d finished.

  “What was that for?”

  “To seal our bargain. From this day forward, Evan Dryden, we belong to each other. Nothing will ever get between us again.”

  “Nothing,” he agreed readily.

  The door opened and Mrs. Sterling poked her head in. “I just wanted to check and make sure everything had worked itself out,” she said, smiling broadly. “I can see that it has. I couldn’t be more pleased.”

  “Neither could I,” Mary Jo said.

  Evan drew her mouth back to his and Mary Jo heard the office door click softly shut in the background.

  EPILOGUE

  Three years later.

  “ANDREW, DON’T WAKE Bethanne!” Jessica called out to her four-year-old son.

  Mary Jo laughed as she watched the child bend over to kiss her newborn daughter’s forehead. “Look, they’re already kissing cousins.”

  “How are you feeling?” Jessica asked, carrying a tall glass of iced tea over to Mary Jo, who was sitting under the shade of the patio umbrella.

  “Wonderful.”

  “Evan is delighted with Bethanne, isn’t he?”

  “Oh, yes. He reminded me of Damian when you had Lori Jo. You’d think we were the only two women on earth to have ever given birth.”

  Jessica laughed and shook her head. “And then the grandparents…”

  “I don’t know about you,” Mary Jo teased, “but I could become accustomed to all this attention.”

  Jessica eyed her disbelievingly.

  “All right, all right. I’ll admit I was a bit flustered when the mayor paid me a visit in the hospital. And it was kind of nice to receive flowers from all those special-interest groups—the ones who think Evan is easily influenced. Clearly, they don’t know my husband.”

  Jessica sighed and relaxed in her lounge chair. “You’ve done amazingly well with all this. Evan’s told Damian and me at least a hundred times or more that you as much as won that council position for him.”

  Mary Jo laughed off the credit. “Don’t be silly.”

  “You were the one who walked up to the microphone at that rally and said if anyone believed Evan wasn’t there for the worker, they should talk to you or your family.”

  Mary Jo remembered the day well. She’d been furious to hear Evan’s opponent state that Evan didn’t understand the problems of the everyday working person. Evan had answered the accusation, but it was Mary Jo’s fervent response that had won the hearts of the audience. As it happened, television cameras had recorded the rally and her impassioned reply had been played on three different newscasts
. From that point on, Evan’s popularity had soared.

  Bethanne stirred, and Mary Jo reached for her daughter, cradling the infant in her arms.

  A sound in the distance told her that Evan and his brother were back from their golf game.

  “That didn’t take long,” Jessica said when Damian and Evan strolled onto the patio. Damian poured them each a glass of iced tea.

  Evan took the seat next to his wife. “How long has it been since I told you I loved you?” he asked in a low voice.

  Smiling, Mary Jo glanced at her watch. “About four hours.”

  “Much too long,” he said, kissing the side of her neck. “I love you.”

  “Look at that pair,” Damian said to his wife.

  “You’d think they were still on their honeymoon.”

  “So? What’s wrong with hat?” Jessica reached over and squeezed his hands.

  He smiled at her lovingly. “Not a thing, sweetheart. Not a damn thing.”

  ISBN:978-1-55254-729-8

  READY FOR MARRIAGE

  Copyright © 1994 by Debbie Macomber.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, MIRA Books, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  MIRA and the Star Colophon are trademarks used under license and registered in Australia, New Zealand, Philippines, United States Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries.

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