Page 84 of Confessions

“No, I—everything’s in there—”

“Not everything,” he said, his voice rough, tears glistening in his eyes. “You’ve got me. And the boys. Forever.”

She glanced up at him, hardly daring to believe him.

Sirens wailed closer. Firelight shone in his eyes. The stench of smoke filled the air. Trucks with firemen rolled into the yard. An ambulance slid to a stop and paramedics quickly took over, helping Sam. Within minutes they’d taken him to County Hospital after assuring Nadine that he would survive.

She watched for over an hour as the firemen doused the flames and her cabin was reduced to a dripping, blackened skeleton.

When the firemen finally left, tears drizzled from her eyes. “It’s gone,” she whispered. “It’s all gone.”

Hayden held her tighter. “I came here to ask you to be my wife, Nadine, and when I saw you in the fire, that there was a chance I could lose you, I...I knew I’d never live without you. Marry me.” He kissed her on the lips. “Please. Tell me you’ll be my wife.”

“I—”

“I love you,” he said, and his face was serious with emotions that burned deep in his

soul. “Make this Christmas our first as a family.”

She laughed and cried at the same time. Relief mingled with happiness as snow settled on the remains of a cottage where she’d brought her children into the world, suffered through her divorce and made love to Hayden.

Her gaze drifted over his shoulder, past the dark depths of Whitefire Lake to the lights glowing in the distance. Her new home. With Hayden.

Her throat so thick she could barely speak, she gathered her boys close. “I guess we get to start over,” she said, her eyes shining as she stared into Hayden’s eyes. “Of course I’ll marry you.”

EPILOGUE

FROM THE LANDING on the stairs of her new home, Nadine tossed her bridal bouquet to the crowd gathered in her foyer. A scream of delight went up when Carlie Surrett caught the flowers.

Half the town had been invited to the hastily planned wedding, including the Surretts, in an attempt to mend all the old rifts. A pianist was playing love songs on the baby grand in the living room and guests mingled and danced, talked and laughed and sipped champagne.

As she descended toward the crowd, Nadine spied Hayden, dressed in a black tuxedo, his eyes as blue as a summer morning. “It seems to be some pagan tradition that we dance,” he whispered into her ear.

Nadine smiled up at him. In the living room, they started the dance, with a crowd of onlookers watching. Tiny white lights were strewn in the potted plants and twelve-foot Christmas tree in the corner. Eventually, one by one, other couples followed their lead. Heather Brooks, draped in shimmery pale blue, danced with Turner, who, dressed in a Western-cut black suit, his blond-streaked hair unruly as ever, winked broadly at Nadine. “I get the next dance,” he said, and Hayden grinned. “Not on your life.”

Rachelle and her husband, Jackson Moore, took a turn about the floor and Rachelle’s hazel eyes were full of a secret only a few people knew. In the spring, she and Jackson would become parents. She laughed up at her husband and he held her with a possession that bordered upon fierce.

“Everyone’s happy,” Hayden said.

“Mmm.” Even her father, sitting in the corner chair, was talking and laughing with Ellen Little, Heather and Rachelle’s mother, and Nadine’s heart warmed.

Only Ben seemed out of place. Grudgingly, he’d accepted Hayden as his brother-in-law. Since Hayden had decided to stay in Gold Creek and run the sawmills he’d inherited, not as his father had from a distance, but here, as a citizen of the town, Ben had decided he might turn out all right.

The fact that Hayden approved of his new wife’s career and was willing to help her get started with her wearable art had convinced Ben that Hayden wasn’t all bad.

Even John and Bobby were having a good time, though John spent entirely too much time at the punch bowl with Katie Osgood.

The music changed, and Hayden drew his wife through the French doors to the back deck. “Hey... What?” she asked, as he led her, running through the snow and dark night, down a lighted path to the shores of the lake. “Are you crazy?” she cried, as he pulled her to the ground and her dress was suddenly wet from the snow.

With a devilish grin, he scooped up a handful of the icy water and held it to his bride’s lips. “Drink,” he ordered, “and let the God of the Sun or whatever bless us.”

“I think he already has.” She sipped the water from his hands and looked deep into his eyes. “You’re going to be a father.”

“I’m what—?”

“John and Bobby won’t be the only children,” she said, and watched as he blinked rapidly.

“Oh, God.”