Someone to Watch Over Me (21 page)

Petunia panted happily in Jax’s face and swished her tail.

“Friendly dog,” Jax said, holding her back just enough to keep her from giving him a puppy kiss.

“I thought all women reacted to you this way,” Gwen said.

He made a face at her, and she just laughed and finally called off her dog. Petunia pouted prettily and finally settled down, planting herself firmly between them, her chin resting on Jax’s knee. Romeo looked like he felt horribly betrayed and abandoned, but finally quieted.

It wasn’t exactly the quiet, private, maybe even romantic moment Jax had envisioned, but they’d just have to make do.

“I figured out what my mother was trying to teach me by leaving me to handle everything with her estate,” he began.

“What?”

“That all those things we leave behind, once we’re done with this world, don’t really matter at all. Except for the people we have loved and the memories we have left of them. The rest of it’s just stuff, and most of it doesn’t mean a thing. That’s what she wanted me to get. What was important. What really mattered.”

“I’m glad you got it.”

“Yeah. I can see it so clearly now, I can’t believe it took me so long to get it. She found a way to show me what I needed to know, even on her deathbed. Even after she was gone. But then, that’s the kind of woman she was.” Jax put his arm around Gwen and used his other hand to turn her face to his. “She really would have loved you.”

Gwen looked scared but hopeful.

“I love you, too. And not in the same way I love your blue sweater. I mean, the sweater’s nice. The way you look in it is very nice. But you’re not a blue sweater to me.”

“You’re not exactly a blue sweater to me, either,” she admitted. “I tried to make you just a blue sweater, but…it was too late, I couldn’t help myself.”

“Me, neither. It was way too late, almost from the very beginning. I love you, and that’s not something I’ve ever said to any woman before. I mean it, Gwen. Do you believe that?”

She took a breath and then closed her eyes, as she might have done if she was trying to convince herself to step off the edge of a cliff or go over the falls with him on a day when the water was roaring.

“I believe it,” she said.

Good.
That gave him the courage to keep going. “I need you.”

“I need you, too, Jax.”

“I think you’re my gift. Not the other way around.” He kissed her softly, to the tune of the dogs making confused, whining sounds. How was that for romance? He grinned down at her and said, “You know what happened here about thirty-three years ago?”

“No.”

“My father proposed to my mother. Under this same tree,” he said, gathering up his courage. “I think you’re going to have to marry me, Gwen. I don’t think anything else will do.”

She looked scared for a moment, then hopeful, then happy. “Mr. I’ll-Never-Get-Married, Never-Love-Someone? Mr. Nothing-Ever-Really-Lasts?”

“Yeah. Like I said, I was stupid. Or maybe I was just waiting for you. I can make that promise, Gwen. I wouldn’t
say the words to you if I didn’t believe them. I want you beside me forever, and I want it to be the way it was for my mother and father, and if anything ever happens to one of us…His name was the last thing my mother said. His face was the last thing she saw. She said he was waiting for her, wherever she was going. He was going to take her there, and she was going to be with him again. She died with a smile on her face and his name on her lips. I thought it was the morphine talking, but now…I believe it. I believe he was there, that he was waiting for her, that they’re together again. And it scares me to think of loving you that much and of what might happen. But when I try to weigh the fear against how much I need you, how much I want you beside me…The fear isn’t nearly as strong as the love, as how much I need you, how much I think we can have together.”

There. He’d gotten it all out. He stopped to take a breath and try to gauge her reaction. From the smile on her face, it seemed this was going well.

“So,” he dared to ask, “what do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“Well…” She grinned at him. “There’s a lot to living together. A lot of things to work out. Compatibility things.”

“That’s okay. You’ll be with me, and everything will be just fine. More than fine. I promise. What else?”

“Your sisters didn’t like me very much before,” she mentioned.

“Give ’em time to get to know you better. They will.”

“But—”

“They’d do anything for me. Most women would, remember?”

“Yeah. About that—”

“No. It’s okay. I’ll take care of it.”

“How? Do you honestly think you can give up being charming?”

“The thing about Cassidy men is that once they fall in love, that’s it. They’re done. Ask anyone. What else?”

“Well…”

“Gwen?”

“It’s just that—”

“What?”

“You know I have two dogs, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I noticed.”

“And you were really mean to Petunia yesterday.”

“I was.” He looked down at the fur ball with what he hoped was a let’s-make-peace smile and said, “Sorry, Petunia.”

She stuck her nose in the air and looked away, dismissing him completely. Romeo was sitting at her feet, a sickly hopeful look on his pathetic face, and she was ignoring him, too. Jax fought the urge to remind her,
You were living in a Dumpster yesterday, sweet thing. Remember?

“You get me, you get the dogs,” Gwen said. “And you have to be nice to them. Very nice to them.”

“Yeah, I kind of knew that.”

“It was such a great plan you had, dumping Romeo on me, thinking you could get rid of us both.”

“Yeah. Great plan. I was miserable.”

“Me, too,” Gwen admitted. “You deserve to live with two dogs instead of one for that little stunt.”

“I know.” Jax grinned even wider. “Is that a yes?”

“I think that’s a yes.”

He kissed her soundly, then grinned some more. “Hey, you know what my mother would be doing if she were here right now?”

“No, what?”

“Laughing. She’d have said she knew all along that all I needed was a little faith and someone like you.”