Travis looked him up and down, dismissed him, and turned to Regan. “You have twenty-four hours to pack, and then we’re leaving. We’ll be remarried at my house.”
With a quick twist, Regan moved away from him. “And will Margo be at our wedding, or maybe you’d rather she spent our wedding night with you?”
“You can have all the jealous fits you want when we get home, but right now I am sick of walking ropes and trying to find all those goddamn roses you seem to need, and I am not going to put up with this anymore. If I have to I’ll chain you to my bed, but you might as well know that you and my daughter are going to live with me.”
He softened a bit. “Regan, I’ve done everything I know to prove to you that you love me. Haven’t you realized it yet?”
“Me?” she gasped. “That I love you? I’ve never had any doubts. You’re the one who’s been unsure of himself. You’ve never loved me. You had to marry me the first time. You had to—.” She stopped as she looked at Travis in amazement.
He staggered backward, his hands falling to his sides limply. Blindly, his face drained of color, he began to grope for some support. He seemed to age ten years in a few seconds as he fell heavily into a chair.
“Had to marry you?” he choked, his voice weak, hoarse. “Unsure of myself? Never loved you?”
For a moment he dropped his head in his hands, and when he looked back at her his eyes were red. “I’ve loved you since I first met you,” he said quietly. “Why else would I have cared what happened to you? You were so young and frightened, and I was so scared of losing you.”
His voice grew stronger. “Why the hell else would I have risked my life on board ship to save that puppy Wainwright you liked so much? Do you know how much I wanted to throw him overboard? But I didn’t because you wanted him. And you say I never loved you.”
He stood, his voice beginning to get angry. “And I’ll have you know you aren’t the first to have my baby. I did not have to marry you.”
“But you said you always marry the mother of your children. I thought—,” she said tearfully.
He tossed his hands in the air. “You were scared and angry, didn’t even know you were going to have a baby. What was I supposed to say, that I have an illegitimate child at home, that his mother tried to sue me because I wouldn’t marry her?”
“You…you could have said you loved me.”
He quietened. “I swore before witnesses to love you for the rest of my life. What more could I have done?”
She looked down at her hands. “You’ve never asked me to marry you, not personally.”
“Never asked you to marry me?” Travis bellowed. “Goddamn you, Regan, what more do you want from me? I’ve made a fool of myself in front of an entire state, and you say—.”
He broke off as he fell to his knees before her, his hands clasped. “Regan, will you marry me? Please. I love you more than I love my own life. Please marry me.”
She put her hand on his shoulder, their faces level. “What about Margo?” she whispered.
Travis gritted his teeth, but answered, “I could have married her years ago but never wanted to.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that?”
“Why didn’t you know without having to be told?” he shot back. “I love you,” he whispered. “Marry me?”
“Yes!” she cried, and threw her arms around his neck. “I’ll marry you forever.
”
Neither of them was aware of anyone or anything else on the earth, and they were shocked when the applause started.
Regan buried her face in Travis’s neck. “Are there a lot of people out there?” she asked fearfully.
“ ’Fraid so,” he said. “I guess they heard the noise when you locked the door against me.”
She didn’t even bother to correct him, that the noise came from his foot smashing the door and not from her locking of it. “Will you take me away from here?” she whispered. “I don’t think I can face them.”
Triumphantly, Travis stood with Regan in his arms and started for the door. The townspeople and even the guests at the inn, several of whom had prolonged their stay from the first rose Travis sent, felt involved in this courtship and came running at the first sound of splintering wood.
The women, in heavy robes, curling rags in their hair, sighed heavily as Travis carried Regan away. “I knew it’d end happily,” one woman said. “How could she have turned him down?”
“My wife’s never gonna believe this story,” a man said. “Maybe she’ll forgive me for coming back three days late.”