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  Gingerly he took her into his arms. God, but she felt good. Even above the pain his body was only now becoming aware of. “I’ll work on my uptake.”

  She smiled up at him. It hurt her lip, but that didn’t matter. “You do that.”

  The ambulance driver came up behind them. “You two want to ride along in the ambulance?” Flannery looked from one to the other. “You both look as if the doctor should give you the once-over.” He saw Lance’s leg for the first time. “Hey, that’s gotta sting like hell.”

  His arm around Melanie’s shoulders, Lance looked at her and shook his head. “Naw, actually, she’s rather painless once you get used to her.”

  “He’s delirious,” she told the driver. “Smoke inhalation you know.”

  The older man didn’t bother trying to hide his amusement as he looked at Melanie. “Oh, I dunno about that.” His eyes shifted to Lance. “Even bedraggled and sooty, she is one mighty-fine-looking woman, Reed.” He sighed. “I should be so lucky.”

  “Well you’re not.” The remark even surprised Lance, though he was the one who said it. Covering, he asked Flannery, “How’s my family?”

  The smile was genuine and full of promise. “They’re going to be fine.”

  Flannery gave Melanie a hand up into the back of the ambulance after the stretchers were loaded on. He waited for Lance to climb on, then slammed the door shut before hurrying around to the front.

  Lance winced as he got in. His body was beginning to come out of shock. It wasn’t happy about the condition it found itself in. But the discomfort was a small enough price to pay for what he had in return.

  The space within the ambulance was limited, so they were all crammed together. Though he was facing Melanie, Lance found himself sitting up against his father’s stretcher.

  Bruce was alert enough to be able to take in the situation. “So, what do we do with the rest of the evening, son?” he asked weakly.

  Lance turned to look at him. Until he’d been faced with his father’s imminent death, he hadn’t realized how strong his feelings for the man still were. How unwilling. he was to let his father leave him behind permanently.

  Bess and Melanie were right. It was time to end it.

  “I don’t know about you, Dad, but I’m too tired to do anything except be grateful that everything turned out all right.”

  “Yeah, me, too.” He wrapped his fingers around the hand Lance silently offered him.

  The truce was over, Melanie thought. Peace had broken out. Giving them a moment longer, she waited before leaning over toward Lance and cocking her head. “Say, do you hear that?”

  Puzzled, he listened. But he didn’t hear anything. “What?”

  “That sound,” she insisted, her head still cocked as if she was trying to figure out what it was.

  Lance listened more intently, but there was still nothing out of the ordinary. “What sound? I don’t hear anything.”

  “I do.” A grin glimmered, then moved in. “It’s the sound of hell freezing over.” She looked at Lance pointedly.

  He laughed then, recalling what he’d said to her about the day that he would make up with his father. “Yeah, I guess it is at that.”

  The laughter faded into something far more comforting, far more appealing. He looked at her, seeing beyond the dark streaks on her face, amazed at the woman who’d happened into his life through no action on his part. A woman who refused to leave no matter how hard he pushed her away or how much cause he gave her to go. A woman who would remain when he needed her.

  “Want to skate on it together?” he asked quietly.

  This time she cocked her head in earnest, trying to understand what he was saying. Curtailing her impulse to leap to the wrong conclusion. She’d leaped enough for one night.

  “Just what did you have in mind?”

  He wanted to take both her hands in his, but refrained. “Marry me, Melanie.”

  She stared at him, saying nothing. Since she was never quiet, it made him uneasy. Finally, just as he was going to ask if she’d heard him, Melanie said, “Just how much of that smoke did you swallow?”

  Was she going to turn him down? Or was she just as surprised as he was that he was capable of loving someone?

  “Not enough to cloud my mind, if that’s what you mean. Maybe just enough to clear it.” Lowering his voice, he blocked everything out but her. “I need you, Melanie.”

  She’d done most of the work. That entitled her to make him twist in the wind a little now. “To fight fires with?”

  He didn’t take the bait. “No, to keep me from forgetting that there is a bright side to life. And that you’re it.”

  The look in his eyes filled her heart. She’d reached him, she thought. Finally.

  She still hadn’t answered him. “I love you, Melanie, don’t make me beg.”

  “No, I won’t make you beg. But I will make you do something.” She wanted to savor his proposal, to make it a memory she could press between the pages of time.

  “What?”

  He had absolutely no idea what to expect. It was going to be that way every day of their married life, he suspected. And he was looking forward to it. But she had to say yes first.

  “Ask me again when I’m cleaned up.” She looked down at herself. Her blouse was blackened and torn, and she’d probably never get the smell of smoke out of her jeans. Even her hair smelled of smoke. And she could just imagine what her face must look like. “I don’t want to remember that I was proposed to looking like a Smoky the Bear ad for preventing forest fires. And I don’t want you to remember it that way, either.”

  “You’ve watched too many movies,” he told her affectionately. “This is exactly the way I want to remember it. I want to remember every single moment of tonight.” His eyes grew serious. “Especially the way I felt when I thought you were in danger. Because that was when I realized just how much you mean to me.”

  If she threw her arms around him right now, she knew she’d embarrass him. Melanie struggled to curb the impulse. “Does that mean I’ll have to start a fire every time you begin taking me for granted?”

  “No.” With his good hand, he cupped her cheek. “Just light one under me.”

  She wasn’t going to cry, she told herself. She wasn’t. Lance wouldn’t understand happy tears. “I think I can manage that.”

  “Say yes, already.” They turned to look at Bess. She was clutching the photograph Melanie had managed to save for her. The woman had absorbed every word as if it were life-sustaining medicine. “I’m going to need to buy a lot of furniture for my new place. I’d like it to be from your shop, Melanie, and it would be nice if I was entitled to a family discount.”

  “You got it, Bess,” Melanie told her with feeling. She turned to look at Lance again. “Right after we get back from the honeymoon.”

  Lance leaned in to kiss her. As soon as their lips touched, she winced involuntarily. Her lower lip was tender. She realized she must have bitten it while anxiously watching Lance perform CPR on his father.

  He backed away, immediately apologetic. “Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize—”

  Melanie slipped her good hand along his neck and drew him back to her.

  “It’s all right. I don’t mind a little pain if it’s for a worthy cause. Like I keep telling you, I’m stronger than I look.”

  Yes, she was, and he would be eternally grateful for that.

  “C’mere,” she whispered. “You’re not getting off that easy.”

  “No,” he laughed softly against her mouth, “I sure hope not.”

  Watch the sparks fly

  between Melanie’s mother and

  Lance’s father in

  NEVER TOO LATE FOR LOVE,

  coming only to Silhouette Romance

  in February 1999.

  ISBN : 978-1-4592-6646-9

  ONE PLUS ONE MAKES MARRIAGE

  Copyright © 1998 by Marie Rydzynski-Ferranella

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any re
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