Her Gentle Giant: No Regrets Read Online Free PDF Page B

in her hands, looking so small and vulnerable. He whispered to her so he wouldn’t startle her as he knelt in front of her, slipping his arms around her waist so she could put her head on his shoulder and cry, which she did, for a few minutes.
    “Did you have a bad dream?”
    “M–my…m–my poor fish. My aquarium. It’s awful. They probably suffered.” She wept softly. “And my grandmother’s turkey platter and my antique china. My o–o–old teddy bear.” She whimpered and sobbed. “My hope chest that my grandpa made for me was in my bedroom. My orange roses! ” She sobbed loudly at last, letting it out.
    She held on to him and poured out her heart on his shoulder. The orange roses had certainly made an impression if she remembered them among all her other precious possessions. He lifted her in his arms, laid her on the bed, and climbed in beside her. He sternly reminded himself this was to comfort her and not to get his hopes up. He was going back to the couch after she returned to sleep. Dammit.

     
    * * * *
     
    The thought of her hope chest lying in ashes under the rubble of her apartment building broke her heart, not only because of what it contained, 30

    but because of who made it for her. Her grandpa was laid to rest in the Divine cemetery in town three years before. There was no way to replace it.
    Her link to him was the love in her heart, but that tangible link, something made especially for her, had been precious to her. Tucked away inside it, wrapped in tissue paper, was a hand-crocheted tablecloth that had been made by her grandmother as well as the christening dress both she and her mother had worn as babies.
    It hurt and on some level renewed the loss of her grandparents, who had passed away within six months of each other. She could remember as a little girl watching her grandparents interact with such love and affection for each other. It was not uncommon to see them kiss each other and hold hands. All her life, the deep and abiding love they felt had been a real and living testimony to her of how a marriage should be, a tradition her parents had continued.
    Sometimes her mom and dad were nauseating with their affection. After she moved out on her own, she’d learned the hard way not to use her key and walk right in. Her parents finally had the house to themselves after raising her and enjoyed making full use of every room, she’d discovered much to her embarrassment one day. She hoped she lived to have that kind of ageless, profound love with her future husband, the kind that embarrassed her kids and made them roll their eyes and laugh. The thought cheered her, and the tears stopped abruptly.
    What the hell is wrong with me? If she didn’t know better, she’d say love was staring her right in the face, and what was she doing? She was running from it, afraid to take a chance because of a little adversity. Her parents had not raised her to run from a challenge. Eli did not strike her as the type to shrug his shoulders at the obvious difficulty she had with her jealous nature. He’d been both sympathetic and unfailingly persistent. He had not dated anyone else she knew of since he’d begun pursuing her.
    For crying out loud, Mike and Rogelio had even given their thumbs-up to them dating, and the good Lord knew how protective the two of them were. Her father had even met Eli in the bar one night. He said nothing to her, but she’d heard from Mike that her father approved of Eli. She wouldn’t have been a bit surprised if Mike or Rogelio had told her father about Eli pursuing her and he’d come in to check Eli out for himself, to size him up ,
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    and see if he was good enough for his little girl. She knew he would have had plenty to say if Eli had not measured up.
    Rachel lay quietly, tucked into Eli’s side, and wiped her eyes with the sleeve of the T-shirt she wore. Her heart was still heavy with the loss and the stress of the fire, but she knew she had moved through a barrier of