Gift of Fire (39 page)

Jonas chuckled. “So what else is new?” He gazed at his future father-in-law over the top of Verity’s red curls. “Don’t sweat it, Emerson. You won’t need the shotgun.”

“Glad to hear it. Figured you two had just gotten your wires crossed. All you needed was a little push to get ‘em straightened out.”

“Knock it off, Ames. No one’s going to give you any credit for straightening this out. Verity and I took care of it all by ourselves. Go have another drink. You’ve had a long trip.

“Where are you going?” Emerson demanded.

“Home.” Jonas caught hold of Verity’s arm and led her toward the path that wound through the trees to the cottage.

Behind them Emerson grinned in satisfaction. Then he swung around and started for the bar. “Clement, my man,” he called to the bartender. “The announcement is official. My daughter says she’s actually going to marry him. Break out your best vodka. The Russian stuff.”

“Why bother?” Clement said with a slow grin. “All vodka tastes the same.”

“In a pig’s eye.” Emerson sat down on a stool. “Let’s get the Griswalds in here, and you’d better call the rest of the resort staff. It’s pay-off time.”

“If Jonas ever finds out you’ve been running a pool to guess the day he and Verity announced they were engaged, he’ll skin you alive, Ames.”

Emerson looked offended. “Just a friendly little game of chance, that’s all it was.”

“I suppose now we’ll all get suckered into a ‘guess the date the baby arrives’ pool,” Rick Griswald said from the doorway.

Emerson smiled broadly. “Hell of an idea. Now why didn’t I think of that?”

“Jonas?”

“What is it, love?” Jonas sucked one of Verity’s nipples between his teeth and bit down very gently. He felt the little tremor go through her and was satisfied. He was taking his time making love to her tonight. It had been a long week. True, he’d taken her to bed often enough during the past few days, but he hadn’t been able to relax and enjoy it.

For the past week he’d been driven, desperate, obsessed with the idea that he might be able to make her stay with him if he kept reinforcing the sexual bond. Tonight he wanted to indulge himself in the luxury of making love to his future bride without worrying about when she would kick him out.

“We should have talked more about it right after it happened.” Verity’s fingers curled in his hair as he dropped a warm kiss in the hollow between her breasts.

“After what happened?”

“After the experience you went through in the hidden chamber. Our mistake was in not discussing it. I know it bothered you a lot to find out you didn’t have the talent any longer, but I didn’t want to raise the issue until you were ready. I kept waiting for you to open up and tell me how you felt.”

“I was afraid to bring up the subject because I couldn’t tell how you would react.” He slid a hand down to the curve of her thigh. “I’ve explained that. I was terrified of giving you an excuse to talk about our relationship.”

“What’s wrong with that? We should discuss our relationship more. We need to talk about it.”

Jonas raised his head, his eyes glinting in the darkness. “Relationship discussions make me nervous. I’d rather go to bed with you than talk about our relationship.”

“Well, you can see where that attitude has gotten us this past week,” she admonished roundly, “We had plenty of sex, but our relationship was falling apart because you wouldn’t open up and tell me how you really felt.”

Jonas decided to see if a quick, abject assumption of all the blame would close her luscious mouth. “It was all my fault. I should have talked to you about the whole thing. I really screwed up, honey. I’m sorry.” He tangled his fingers in the soft nest of hair above her thighs and inhaled the unique fragrance of her.

“Oh, Jonas, it wasn’t really your fault,” Verity said graciously. She smiled gently in the shadows, her eyes full of love. “I understand how traumatic it must have been. You had so much to adjust to it’s a wonder you didn’t sink into a deep depression or something.”

“Or something,” he repeated absently, his attention on how soft and warm she felt. Right now he wanted nothing more than to sink into Verity’s welcoming warmth. He wanted the reassurance of her physical response and the peace of mind that always came afterward.

“But now that it’s all out in the open we can really talk about it.”

“Yeah. We’ll have to do that sometime.” He lowered his head and kissed the tight red curls that concealed her feminine secrets.

“Why don’t we do it now, Jonas?”

“Now? I don’t think that’s such a good idea, honey.” He slipped his fingers between her thighs and drew in his breath as his already aroused manhood grew harder and heavier.

“But this is the perfect time, Jonas.”

“No, sweetheart, it’s not the perfect time. I’ve got other things on my mind.”

“What other things?” she asked with wonderful innocence. Jonas stifled a groan as he let the pad of his thumb glide across the sensitive nub hidden in the curls. “Guess.” Verity flinched in reaction to the provocative caress. Her brows snapped together. “You mean sex.”

“Now you’re catching on.” He parted the soft petals between her legs and circled her gently with one finger. She was already damp. The spicy scent of her grew stronger in his nostrils, inflaming him.

“Jonas, sex is not a substitute for good communication.” She gasped softly as his caress became more intimate.

“Think of it as another form of communication—nonverbal communication.” He lowered his head and touched his tongue to her moist flesh. Then he eased a finger inside the softening sheath.

“I think we’ve already mastered this form of communication,” Verity whispered. “We really should talk. I’m serious, Jonas. Stop that. We need to get in the habit of talking things out when we run into problems.”

“Verity,” he began, trying to warn her gently that his patience was dissolving rapidly. “There’s a time for talk and a time for screwing. Trust me. This is not the time for talk.”

“Dammit, Jonas, if we’re going to get married, I insist we practice verbal communication.” Her fingers clenched on his shoulder.

Jonas sat up slowly and regarded the woman he was going to marry. “You want to use your mouth to communicate?”

“I think it’s for the best, Jonas,” she said very seriously. “At least at the moment. It’s not that I don’t want to make love with you, but I just feel we need to learn to relate better on a verbal level.”

Jonas nodded with sudden decision. “Right. You want to use your mouth, so go ahead and use your mouth.” He leaned back against the pillows and reached out to cup the nape of her neck in his palm. He pushed her head gently but firmly down to where his manhood throbbed heavily.

“Jonas, this is not what I meant, and you know it!”

“Open your mouth, honey, and show me how well you can communicate that way.”

“You rat! I’m trying to carry on an important, meaningful discussion here, in case you didn’t notice” Her breath fanned the full, rounded tip of his shaft, and Jonas thought he would explode then and there.

“I can’t wait to receive the pearls of feminine wisdom that roll off your sweet tongue, my love.” He thrust upward just as she parted her lips to tell him again about the importance of verbal discussion. “Ah, that’s better.” He sighed blissfully as her warm mouth closed around him. “Much better. You communicate beautifully with your mouth, honey.”

His last coherent thought was that he could live without the part of him that tuned him in to the past. But he would go out of his mind if he ever lost Verity.

She was his future.

“Verity?”

She stirred, drowsy and sated. “Yes, Jonas?”

“I was scared for a while. Really scared. It was like a part of me had vanished. Like I’d lost a leg or an arm.”

Verity came fully awake, listening to his stark confession of fear. “I know, Jonas. I knew it must be like that for you, but you didn’t say anything. I didn’t know how to get you to talk about it.”

“I couldn’t talk about it. In my
mind I linked losing my talent with the possibility of losing you. I couldn’t deal with both losses. But everything is okay now.”

She smiled with quiet relief and leaned over to kiss him gently. “Everything’s going to be fine now. Jonas, I would love you no matter what you were missing.”

“You know what my biggest fear was? Losing you to someone like Oliver Crump.”

“There was never any need to be afraid I’d run off with Oliver. I like him very much, but I don’t love him.”

He turned his head on the pillow and looked at her, his golden eyes sober and intent. “You found something with him. Something similar to what you found with me.”

“No,” she said firmly. “What I found with Oliver was nothing at all like what I’ve found with you. Oliver and I became friends. Nothing more.”

“What about your ability with the crystals?”

Verity smiled. “Whatever ability I had with the crystals didn’t lead me to feel anything more than friendship for Oliver. The link, or whatever it was we shared, wasn’t…
seductive
the way it is with you. It wasn’t personal. There was no sense of being emotionally linked to him. It’s hard to explain, Jonas. But it was different, trust me. Besides, that’s all gone now.”

“Gone?” Jonas repeated quizzically.

“Whatever ability I had with crystals seems to have been directly related to what I shared with you, not Oliver. I’ve felt nothing around crystals since you woke up without your psychic talent.”

“You and Oliver worked the crystal to bring me out of the unconscious state I was in after that scene in the chamber.”

Verity shook her head. “Oliver worked it. I concentrated on yelling at you until you finally woke up and paid attention.”

He smiled faintly. “I could hear you chewing me out and I knew it was time to come back. You’ve got a hell of a mouth on you, my love.”

“I’m glad you appreciate it,” she murmured sweetly.

“I appreciate it all right.” His grin turned wicked with remembered satisfaction. He touched her lips with his fingertips. “I consider your mouth a very valuable portion of your anatomy. I’m thinking of having it insured.”

Chapter Twenty

They’re going to call him Nicholas
Emerson
Quarrel!” The halls of the small maternity ward of Sequence Springs Community Hospital rang with Emerson’s announcement. If there was anyone left in the waiting room who did not yet know that Nicholas Emerson had arrived, he was now aware of it.

Inside her room Verity held the tiny bundle to her breast and smiled. She knew her father had been pacing the waiting room floor since she had gone into labor last night. When Jonas had finally gone out to tell him that he had a grandson, Emerson’s roar of approval had shaken the building.

Verity raised her head and looked up at her husband. Jonas was watching his son nurse. There was deep pride in those eyes of Florentine gold. There was also a fascination in them as Jonas studied little Nicholas.

“Look at those tiny little hands,” Jonas marveled.

“I think he’s going to have your eyes,” said Verity.

Jonas grinned. “You think so? The nurse said it was too soon to tell.”

“Trust me,” Verity said with smug certainty. “I’d know those eyes anywhere.”

Jonas’s grin widened. He had been grinning a lot for the past couple of hours. He had not been grinning last night, however, when, in the middle of serving dinner to a light crowd at the cafe, Verity had announced that her time had come.

Jonas had taken over instantly. He had chased out the last of the diners and ordered Emerson to get the Jeep. At the hospital he had issued a steady stream of instructions to Verity and her nurses, consulted with Verity’s doctor, and generally assumed command of a situation that was entirely outside his field of expertise. That had not stopped him for a moment. Jonas had prepared well for the big event.

He had studied every book on pregnancy and childbirth he had been able to find during the past few months. He had supervised Verity’s vitamin supplements and exercises. He had gone shopping for diapers and baby supplies. Together with Emerson he had planned an educational curriculum for the child that would have stunned the average public-school teacher. It was a lot like the one Emerson had once devised for his daughter.

Jonas had considered himself an expert on childbirth right up to the moment when Verity had gone into the delivery room and started swearing. She had gritted her teeth and shouted words Jonas had never heard her use before. At that point he had realized he was a little out of his depth. Jonas had compensated by giving more orders and holding Verity’s hand so tightly that he was afraid he might crack a few of the delicate bones.

But she had clung to him even more tightly. Her nails had left marks in his palm.

Somehow they had all come through the ordeal with flying colors. Nicholas Emerson Quarrel had arrived with an ear-splitting squall, prompting Jonas to remark proudly that his son obviously had inherited his mother’s verbal skills.

“Is Dad still causing a scene out there in the waiting room?” Verity inquired.

“You could say that. He bought a case of beer for the hospital staff.” Jonas leaned over to get a closer look at his son. Are you sure you feel all right, honey?”

“I’m fine. A little tired, but that’s all.”

“I can’t believe it. We’ve actually made ourselves a kid. A real live baby.”

Verity smiled, amused by Jonas’s wonder. “Yes,” she said, a little amazed herself. “We did.”

The past few months had been good, she thought with satisfaction. The time she and Jonas had had together before the baby arrived had assured them both that the bonds between them were strong enough to last a lifetime. Verity’s nagging, Jonas’s teasing, the laughter and the loving were all back to normal. Better than normal, Verity had decided. This time she could be sure that the emotional foundation was for real, not just a byproduct of the psychic link.

The hospital room door burst open just as Jonas leaned down to place his son back in the cradle. Emerson stood on the threshold, loaded down with flowers and packages.