Defending Raven (Mountain Mercenaries #7)(45)
She reached out and put her palm in his, and goose bumps sprang up on her arms as he closed his hand around hers and squeezed lightly.
Hours later, Mags was walking hand in hand with Dave through a park in Miraflores. The area was teeming with tourists and locals trying to hawk their wares. People begged, much as she’d done more times than she could count. But even though they were surrounded by people, she wasn’t nervous, as she usually was.
Her husband led her over to a bench in the shade, and they people-watched for a few minutes before he pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to her.
Confused, Mags asked, “What’s this?”
“Open it and see.”
Slowly, Mags unfolded the piece of paper and stared down at the words typed there in confusion. Then what she was looking at registered. “Oh my God,” she whispered.
“You know the other day I asked for more details about David’s birth,” Dave said. “I wasn’t just curious, although I’m hungry for any detail you can tell me about him. I needed to know so I could get that.” He nodded at the paper.
Mags was looking at her son’s birth certificate. One that Dave had obviously figured out a way to have made, because del Rio certainly hadn’t bothered to record the birth of her child. His name was there, along with his weight—which Mags had to guess at—and Daniela’s address in Peru was listed as hers. But that wasn’t what had her almost hyperventilating.
Dave had put himself down as the father.
“I know it was presumptuous of me,” he said as if he could read her mind. “But I didn’t want to leave it blank. We talked about having kids, and it’s something I always regretted that we never got around to making happen. I haven’t even met him yet, but I love him, simply because he’s a part of you. I worry about him just like you do on the days you don’t get to go see him, and I can’t stand the thought of anything happening to him. Knowing what del Rio has planned makes me want to kill anyone who’s dared to even look at him. Yes, having my name on the birth certificate makes it easier for my contact to get him a passport, but I don’t give a shit about that. If you’d prefer to leave my name off and have me officially adopt him when we get back to the States, I can do that too.”
“No!” Mags practically shouted. “I mean, this is fine. This is the most amazing thing anyone’s ever done for me.”
Dave brought his hand up and palmed the side of her face gently. “I love you, sweetheart. I’m so sorry it took me so long to find you.”
She shook her head. “The fact that you never gave up means more to me than you’ll ever know.”
“As if I’d ever stop looking,” Dave said with a little head shake. “No matter how much it cost or how long it took, I never would’ve stopped until I found you, or your body.”
Mags believed him. She stared at the man she never thought she’d see again, and all the reasons why she’d fallen in love with him in the first place filled her head. Time had been good to him. He had some gray woven through his dark-brown locks and his beard now, and more lines creased across his face, but he was still just as handsome as he’d been on their wedding day. She’d always loved how brawny he was, and his body size made her feel all the more safe sitting in a park in the middle of Miraflores.
As she studied him, he moved. He knelt on one knee at her feet and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a ring and held it up between them. “Margaret Crawford Justice, will you do me the honor of remarrying me? We’re both different people than we were fifteen years ago, when I first did this. Older and hopefully wiser. Definitely more cynical and cautious. I love you. Have always loved you and will always love you. I promise to take better care of you this time around, and I’ll always strive to be the kind of man you and our son can be proud of.”
Mags closed her eyes and put a hand over her heart, as if that could slow the frantic beating within her chest. She wanted to say yes. God, how she wanted to. But she had to make sure he knew what he was getting into.
When she opened her eyes and looked into his, she hated to see the insecurity there. “I have nightmares,” she admitted. “And I’ll probably be the most overprotective mother ever. I don’t like large crowds, and I have a hard time trusting people. I don’t need much; I’ve survived over the years with nothing but a few scraps of food to eat a day and a crappy metal roof over my head. I don’t care about money or prestige, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to be a real wife to you. I’ve got some real intimacy issues. Not only that, but I’ll probably say the wrong thing to the wrong person and embarrass you . . .”
Her voice trailed off. There were a million other things she couldn’t think of right now that might make him want to rethink his proposal, but if she was being honest with herself, she wanted that ring on her finger so badly. Her original wedding set had been missing from her finger when she’d woken up chained to a bed here in Peru, and she’d give just about anything to have it back. But having Dave put the twinkling diamond on her finger was a miracle she’d never dared dream would happen.
“If you have a nightmare, I’ll hold you until it dissipates. And you won’t be any more protective than I’ll be of our son. I don’t like crowds myself, and there won’t be one more day in your life where you’ll have to go without, whether that be food, shelter, or love. And believe me, I’ve said more than my share of embarrassing things to the wrong people. I once told the president of the United States that I didn’t give a shit about his agenda, that I was more concerned about finding some of the thousands of missing women and children that the government didn’t seem to care about.”