be there and she would be home with Simon.
‘And I can’t wait …’
‘Okay.’ Her lips were taut with smiling. ‘I’m thrilled for you.’
She reached for her glass as she did not want to argue; she took a sip of champagne and swallowed down a row, but it was fizzing. Yes, she was happy for him, yes, she was thrilled, but … ‘Do you have to keep rubbing it in?’
She didn’t get why he was smiling.
‘Sorry?’
‘Do you have to keep telling me how thrilled you are to be leaving, how fantastic it is to be moving away?’
‘Come on, Jasmine.’ He grinned. ‘Don’t spoil tonight with a row.’
‘I want one!’ She did. For the first time in her life she wanted her row and stuff it if it was an expensive one. So what if she was spoiling a wonderful night? Did he have to be quite so insensitive?
‘Go for it.’
‘I will,’ Jasmine said. ‘I’m thrilled for you. I really am, but do you have to keep going on about it?’ She just said it. ‘Do you have to keep telling me how delighted you are to be going away and all the parties …’
‘I never said anything about parties.’
‘Oh, but there will be.’
And he just grinned.
‘And I’ll be home with Simon and you’ll be an hour away and, yes, I am happy for you and, no, I didn’t expect you to take Simon and me into consideration, but I can’t keep grinning like an idiot when the fact is you’re moving away.’ She started to cry. ‘And I don’t understand why you’re laughing.’
‘Because I love how you row.’
And he pulled her into him. ‘I’ve been goading you.’
‘Why?’
‘Because.’
‘Because what?’
‘I want just a smidge of obsession.’
‘Well, you’ve got it.’ And he kissed her and it was lovely. She’d said what she thought, had had a good row and no one was any the worse for it. Then he stopped kissing her and looked at her for a very long time.
‘I am pleased for you. I honestly am. I know you’ll love it there.’ And she realised then what Hannah had meant when she’d said that she’d see her around. If she was going out with Jed she’d be with him at times. ‘I’m just sad you’re leaving, that’s all.’
‘I have to,’ Jed said. ‘Because I’m not working alongside a woman who turned down my proposal.’ And he took out a box containing a ring but she didn’t even look at it properly, just looked straight back at him. ‘And if she doesn’t turn it down then I’m working in the same department as my wife and sister-in-law. That would be way too complicated and I already have trouble enough concentrating on work when you’re around. So which one is it?’
‘The complicated one,’ Jasmine said, and watched as he put a ring on her finger.
‘It won’t be complicated for long,’ he assured her. ‘I’m taking time off before I start my new job and for the next few weeks I’m going to take some time to get to know that son of yours and you’re going to get to know me properly. We’ll go to Sydney and meet my family. We’ll just take some time. I don’t want you to feel you’re being rushed into anything again. We’ll wait as long as it takes for you to feel okay with it.’
‘I already am.’ She had never been more sure of anything in her life. ‘And I don’t feel as if I’m rushing into things this time. I know.’
‘I know too,’ Jed said. ‘And you’re coming to look for somewhere to live with me. Midway, maybe? Or we can just carry on as we are and I’ll sort out the travel, but I promise you that you and Simon will always be my first consideration.’
She believed him, she really did, and her heart filled not just for her own happiness but because her son was going to have such an amazing man to help raise him, for all the happy times to come.
‘Mum’s going to have another heart attack when she finds out.’
‘She already knows,’ Jed said. ‘What, do you think I’d ask you to marry me without asking for her permission?’
‘You asked her?’ So that was what her mum had been banging on about not dropping her hours or losing her career—she already knew.
‘Of course I asked her.’
‘You’re an old-fashioned thing, aren’t you?’
‘Yep,’ Jed said. ‘But I’m filthy-minded too. I want to do you in your wedding dress.’
She blinked.
‘I’m sure you will.’
‘I mean this one.’
She just about died of embarrassment, right there on the spot. ‘You knew?’
‘Your mum told me.’ He smiled, and then pulled her back into his arms. ‘And now, seeing as I’m almost family, you can tell me what’s going on with Penny.’ She started to, but he stopped her.
‘Not yet.’ He was kissing her face, kissing her mouth, and making her feel wanted and beautiful in her wedding dress for the very first time, as he told her just how much the future was theirs. ‘We’ve got ages.’
Ever since LISA CHILDS read her first romance novel (a Mills & Boon story, of course) at age eleven, all she wanted was to be a romance writer. With over forty novels published, Lisa is living her dream. She is an award-winning, bestselling romance author. Lisa loves to hear from readers, who can contact her on Facebook, through her website, lisachilds.com, or her snail-mail address, PO Box 139, Marne, MI 49435, USA.
To Philip Tyson for proving to me that heroes really do exist! Thank you for being my white knight!
Goose bumps of dread rising on her arms, Josie Jessup slipped into a pew in the back of church. She hated funerals, hated saying goodbye to anyone but most especially to someone who had died too soon. And so senselessly and violently—shot down just as his adult life was beginning.
The small church, with its brilliantly colored stained-glass windows, was filled with her former student’s family and friends. Some of them nodded in polite acknowledgment; others glared at
