The Saint (22 page)
Authors: Kathleen O'Brien
Tags: #Man-woman relationships, #Contemporary, #General, #Romance, #Fiction, #Love stories, #Virginia, #Health & Fitness, #Brothers, #Pregnancy & Childbirth, #Pregnancy, #Forgiveness
She held back just an instant. Her gaze searched every inch of his face.
“I love you, too,” she whispered, finally.
She came to him easily, as if she belonged there, as if all the terrors of the past two weeks had been no more than a long, absurd nightmare. She rested her head on his shoulder, as if she didn't even notice that he was soaking wet. He tightened his arms, and kissed his wife's soft hair.
His wife.
His one and only wife.
He smiled, and, ducking his head, found the delicate shell of her ear, and he kissed that, too. She nestled closer, murmuring with a sound that made him think of naked skin and hungry bodies threaded together in beams of sunlight.
“Take me home, Claire,” he said. “Take me home and make love to me again.”
She lifted her face, laughing. “Soon,” she said. “Don't you want the present I brought you?”
She held up the little football and shook it. A small, sweet chime inside it rang. It sounded like wedding bells.
“What is it?”
“It's for the baby,” she said, still smiling. “If you're going to raise a star quarterback, I hear you have to plant the love of football early.”
“A starâ” He inhaled sharply. “Does this mean
you've had the ultrasound? Does this mean you knowâ”
She slid the football down between them, slipping it into the palm of his hand. It was so small, he thought numbly. So tiny, for a tiny baby.
“The testâ” He was suddenly too overcome to talk intelligently. “You've found out? It's going to be a boy?”
She shook her head with a tolerant affection.
“Good heavens, Coach McClintock. When did you get to be such a chauvinist?” She took hold of his other hand and brought it in to rest against the almost imperceptible swell of her stomach. “I'd like you to meet the next star McClintock quarterback, who is very much a girl.”
ISBN: 978-1-4268-8354-5
THE SAINT
Copyright © 2004 by Kathleen O'Brien.
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All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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