Weddings Collection. Кэрол Мортимер
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understand, did he? Didn’t understand just how very special he was. “That wouldn’t have made it special. That would have made it the norm.” She slid back down against the bed, the fire of confrontation having gone out of her. “If I’d wanted the norm, I would have given in to Haggerty, or Haley, or any one of a number of guys who raised and lowered their brows and said they could take me on a fast trip to paradise.”
He couldn’t help the laugh that came to his lips. “They really said that?”
Her bare shoulder moved against the mattress in a half shrug. “More or less. Most men aren’t exactly romantics up here.” She raised herself up on one elbow. “The point is, I knew that I’d know when that person I wanted to be ‘the first’ came along.” She looked at him significantly. “And I did.”
She gave him far too much credit. He was certain that the fact that she’d had no father when she’d been growing up had a great deal to do with this image she had of him.
“June—”
She placed a finger to his lips to silence any protest. Protests only ruined things. She was quick to throw a blanket over them.
“Don’t worry, Kevin, there aren’t any strings. I don’t expect or want any. I know you’re going back to Seattle after the wedding. And I’m going back to my life—” she grinned broadly “—a little more educated than before you came.”
She’d opened up a whole new world to him. He wasn’t a monk, but he knew a miracle when he’d experienced it. “I’m probably the one who’s gotten the education.”
Her eyes shone as she looked up at him. She knew he was being kind, but she loved the thought that she’d rocked his world a little just the same.
“Really?”
The tempest was gone, the calm returned. And temptation rose on the winds again. Kevin tucked her close against him. “Really. But you still should have told me.”
June looked very solemn as she nodded her head. “Kevin?”
He kissed the top of her head, wondering whether she knew just how much she’d affected him. “Yes?”
“I’m a virgin.” And then she grinned. “Or was.”
It still wasn’t a joke to him. He knew that there were men who reveled in being someone’s first, but he didn’t. At least, not for the sake of merely being the first. Still, it meant a great deal to him. “June—”
“Well, now that you’ve done the damage—” her eyes teased him as she turned her body toward his in a blatant invitation “—don’t you want to do it again?”
Heaven help him, but he did.
He let his hand trail along the soft curve of her frame. “Yes.”
She tilted her head up to his. “Well, then? What are you waiting for?”
Certainly not an excuse to get in the way.
With a possessiveness that was completely foreign to him, Kevin brought his mouth down to hers.
“Not a thing.”
Behind schedule, Ursula Hatcher moved about the small enclosure that represented both the first floor of her home and the official U.S. post office for the region encompassing Hades and a hundred-mile radius. This had been the only post office for the area ever since the mail had found its way to Hades more than a hundred years ago.
Her grandfather had been the first postmaster. He’d passed the mantle to his son, her father. Since all three of his sons had left the area before their eighteenth birthday, he allowed his youngest to assume the duties of postmaster, transferring the position to his only daughter. She’d served well these past fifty years. And hoped to make it through another twenty, if not more.
When she passed on, she assumed, hoped really, that the job would be taken over by one of her own, even though they now had different occupations to keep them busy.
She frowned over a letter as she tried to decipher the addressee. She liked to think that, eventually, April or Max or June would hear the calling in their blood and do their duty.
But that day was far away. Just as was her demise.
Making up her mind as to who the letter should go to, Ursula pitched it in its pigeonhole and smiled. She intended, quite frankly, to live forever. Or as close to forever as God saw fit. Finished with the smaller of the two bags, she dragged the other over closer to the bench to continue sorting.
The mail had arrived later than usual. Sydney Kerrigan hadn’t been able to get to Anchorage for it until just a little while ago. Her youngest daughter was ill and she’d had to wait until one of her other children was home from school to watch her before she could make the mail run.
The task would be a lot simpler if deliveries came every day instead of every other day or every third as they did in the dead of winter, Ursula thought. She bent down and picked up a handful of letters, beginning the long task of sorting through the new arrivals.
What they needed was a regular transport service. And more planes. They were a growing town now and growing towns had needs beyond restaurants and movie theaters and hotels, all of which had gone up or were going up lately.
They needed a reliable mode of travel and since the roads were impassable for months at a time, that meant airplanes. Something like an air taxi service.
It was something she planned to take up with Kevin Quintano. He’d just sold his old business and had money to burn, according to Jimmy.
She thought of Kevin and smiled. Now there was a man in search of a reason to exist if she ever saw one. A transport service and her granddaughter should be more than reason enough.
Ursula laughed to herself, the sound approximating the cackle of a hen just after she’d laid an egg.
The cackle faded when the front door opened and then closed quietly.
“If you’re here for the mail, I haven’t finished sorting it yet so you might as well go on home and come back later. These things can’t be rushed,” she announced without turning around.
“I’m not here for the mail.”
Her hands froze mid-shuffle. The male voice had every muscle in her body stiffening.
There was nothing wrong with her memory. Even if there’d been more than a handful of years since she’d heard that voice.
Setting down some envelopes on the counter, Ursula turned slowly around. And looked into the face of her son-in-law.
The years hadn’t been kind to him, she noted. Good. His once-handsome features were dulled and etched with the lines of hardship. There was no joy about him, nor excitement or lust for the open road. She hadn’t recognized him.
There’d been a thousand different things she’d planned to say to him if she ever saw him again. But all she could do was sigh. It spoke volumes.
“What are you doing here?”
He met her gaze head-on, though he looked as if he wanted to look away. “I’ve come to apologize.” He took a step forward, then stopped. “I know I can’t make amends, but I want to try.”
Painful memories assaulted her in waves. She did her best to ignore them, to beat them back. Ursula laced her hands together in front of her. “Rose is dead.”
The words seemed to cut into him. He closed his eyes. “I know. I was at her grave today.” When he opened them again, tears shimmered there. “Was it painful?”
Crocodile tears, Ursula told herself. “Broken hearts usually are.”
It vaguely occurred to her that men who were irretrievably lost at sea probably wore the same desperate look. “Ursula, I—”
She didn’t want to hear words that would do no good. The