Leaping Hearts(101)

“Losing you, and knowing I was responsible for it, has been the hardest thing I’ve ever faced in my life.” She laughed ruefully. “I don’t know. Maybe I got what I needed out of the Qualifier after all. Even though it didn’t turn out as I expected or wanted, I feel like I’ve grown up. It isn’t enough just to separate myself from my family or go into the ring on a flashy horse. If I want to be taken seriously, I’ve got to be more serious. Stop being so impulsive and reckless. Does that make any sense?”

“It does.”

She warmed under the respect and love that shone in his eyes.

He said, “And I’m ready to train you in the ring, if you want. I think we make a great team.”

“So do I,” she replied as she pressed her lips to his.

They were married two weeks later in a small church deep in the Virginia hills. Chester, Devlin’s best man, wore a tuxedo for the first time in his life. He liked it so much he declared he was going to throw out his overalls. Margaret said she loved him with or without the cummerbund. Carter Wessex, A.J.’s cousin, took tranquilizers to get on an airplane for the first time in ten years and flew in from her latest archaeological dig. The occasion was, she’d said, well worth the anxiety. And while Garrett walked his daughter down the aisle, his eyes were light even though his heart was heavy because he’d never missed her mother more.

Peter was a big surprise. After the accident, he’d quit his job, moved out of the mansion and taken up residence in a penthouse in New York City. He’d done it all in a matter of three days and, sooner than he had a working telephone, he’d signed on with an agent to represent him as an actor. Both the move and the agent had turned out to be good choices. He relished life in the big city and had just learned he’d been signed by a major soap opera to play a villain people would love to hate. When he shared the news with A.J., he said that playing Brock O’Rourke on Wings of Fate was going to be hard but, considering all he and A.J. had been through together, he had the character in the bag.

During the wedding, Peter sat in the front row of the church, and for the first time in anyone’s memory, there was someone sitting by his side other than his mother. The woman he’d brought with him was a brunette, with a flashing smile and smart eyes. An investment banker who was also a socialite; he’d met her at an art exhibition. Regina had hated the woman on sight.

It was going to be, Peter told A.J., a fair fight.

After the festivities and a reception at the Borealis Club, A.J. and Devlin returned to the farmhouse. As he carried her over the threshold, he stepped around the boxes of her things, which had been delivered the day before, and then took her upstairs to their bedroom. There, he removed her veil and released, one by one, the hundred or so pearl buttons down the back of her mother’s wedding dress. When he was finished, he slipped the acres of thick satin from her body and stripped his own clothes off so they were standing naked together.

“You’re so beautiful,” he told her softly, his lips caressing her collarbone. She felt his hands slip around her waist and pull her against him. His skin was soft, his body hard. “Now that you’re my wife, I only need one more thing to be complete.”

“What’s that?” she asked breathlessly.

He pulled back, and began plucking pins from her hair, releasing the waves from the chignon. “What the hell does A.J. stand for?”

Laughter filled the room.

“Didn’t you look at the marriage license?”

“I was too blinded by love. So?”

“You aren’t going to believe it.”

“Try me,” he said, as the last pin fell to the floor. He buried his hands in her hair, shaking it out around her shoulders.

“The first is Arlington.”

“Not bad. Better than a lot of other words that start with A.” His smile was warm.

She cast him a dry look. “It was the city I was born in.”

“Makes it easy to remember.”

“The other is Juniper.”

He froze in disbelief. “You’re named after a bush?”

“It’s a damn nice planting, a hearty shrub.”

Devlin was laughing as he said, “And the connection is…”

“I think I might have been conceived under one.”

“That’s adventurous.”

“I haven’t asked a lot of questions.”

“I can see why.”

Devlin’s eyes scanned her features with a hunger and a love she relished. When she felt his hand on the base of her neck, urging her forward to his lips, she went eagerly into his kiss. Passion flared as their bodies melted and their hearts hammered and their blood rushed.

When they were too breathless to continue, Devlin pulled back and murmured against her mouth, “Whatever the origins, I think A.J. suits you. It’s a strong name, for a strong woman.”

“I’m stronger with you,” she said tenderly. His tongue slid into her mouth and she moaned, gripping onto his shoulders, scoring his skin with her nails. When he left her lips and began to lick his way down her neck, her head fell back and she mumbled, “To think this all happened because of a baseball cap.”

Devlin shot her a puzzled look as he bent down and kissed the tip of her breast.

“If you hadn’t picked up my hat at the auction, who knows….” Her words were lost as he suckled a proud nipple.