Surrender at Orchard Rest Read Online Free PDF Page B

between them by extending her hands.
    “Sawyer! How glad I am you’re here!”
    “You look radiant,” he said through the knot in his throat.
    Her answering smile was full of joy.
    “Fine feathers,” she replied, dismissing his compliment, and led him to a low stone bench behind one of many wide columns that lined the portico. “I want to talk to you while I have you all to myself before supper.”
    “Won’t someone notice you’re missing?”
    “No one knows you’re here but Ivy, and she won’t tell.”
    “Then I’m a lucky man.”
    Somerset took his hand in her warm grasp. Intuition told her the rhythm of their interactions was off again. She looked up into the pensive face she loved.
    “Something is wrong,” she reflected.
    “There isn’t time to discuss it before supper tonight.”
    She smoothed a crest of his golden brown hair away from his brow.
    “It doesn’t matter, Sawyer. Any problem we face together is trifling.”
    “In this age, no problems are trifling. I’d welcome simple problems.”
    “Tell them to me. I’ll help you fix them.”
    Sawyer cast her hand away, bounded from his seat, and began pacing in the enclosure.
    “Not everything is fixable.”
    “I can’t believe you’d think such a thing.”
    “Will you stop?”
    Somerset sprang up, bewildered and hurt by his rejection. He had never once behaved in a rash or unfeeling manner to her. Her spirit shuddered at the emotional assault of their first true confrontation, but she cast aside the unpleasantness and tried to stay true to the conversational course.
    “I don’t believe that. I don’t believe that ever,” she retorted, going to him. “Talk to me.”
    “I can’t now with a houseful of people arriving. We’ll discuss it later,” he said.
    She thought she saw tenderness mixed with pity on his tanned face.
    An understanding smile crept across her face. He was practically running a pork plantation by himself. The weather had been unforgiving, he was short Joseph’s help, and he didn’t have enough working animals to keep the place going. The lines around his eyes had deepened since the accident. He was sunburned, in need of sleep, and short of cash. He didn’t want to burden her with financial woes.
    “We’ll talk about something else then,” she said. “Have you thought any more about making our announcement tonight?”
    “I’ve thought about nothing else,” he breathed, his eyes never moving from his boots.
    “Well then.” She put her hands on his shoulders and backed him slowly into a stone alcove. “The timing is perfect. Everyone will be delighted for us. I know I am.”
    She stood on tiptoe and raised her arms so that her fingers laced behind his neck. She pulled his lips onto hers and felt his heavy arms encompass her. One folded across her bare shoulders and the other wrapped her waist, pulling her into him with force she hadn’t experienced since the fateful day outside the Atlanta hospital when she lost her wits and threw herself headlong at him in the street. Somerset forgot herself again. The only things that mattered were how close he held her against him, the heat the rock wall emitted, and the possibility that anyone might stroll down the portico at any moment. His arms were around her, but his hands were inching up her ribcage, fingers winding in the beading swinging against her chest. No matter what she did in return, she felt the frustration of not being able to get close enough to him. As they grappled together under the trumpet creeper, her back hit the wall and his eyes shot open. Then he released her. The sudden parting left her skin cold under the sheen of sweat on it. He was breathing hard. She leaned against him, panting also, with a self-satisfied smile at her own prowess.
    “I love you,” she murmured.
    “I love you.”
    “So we’ll announce our engagement tonight?”
    “No.”
    “No?”
    She couldn’t believe her ears. He’d never said the word to her before, and the