“Now that I know you’ll say yes, I’ll ask you for real. Will you marry me, Mara? I swear I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make you happy.” He was still smiling, but his eyes were predatory and filled with adoration. And love.
“Yes, of course I’ll marry you. I love you.” Mara’s heart was pounding as she gazed back at him, knowing her heart was in her eyes, too. “You’ve already made me happier than I ever dreamed I could be.” She reached up and smoothed back an errant lock of hair from his forehead lovingly. “You love me, and that alone gives me more joy than anything else in the world.”
She could feel his heated breath on her face as he started to lower his head. “Then prepare yourself to become completely elated, sweetheart, because I know damn well I’ll love you more and more every damn day, every time I touch you or see you smile at me.”
She smiled at him tremulously. “Lay it on me. I think I can take it.” She could more than take it; she’d be wallowing in it.
“I’m planning to start working on it right now,” he said huskily as his mouth covered hers with a tender passion that rocked her to the depths of her soul.
Mara was more than elated. She was completely ecstatic as Jared proceeded to show her how much he loved her, and she gave herself up to him completely, giving all the love he gave to her right back to him.
They both had a lot of catching up to do when it came to truly being loved, but Mara wasn’t worried as they spent the rest of the day and night together doing nothing but trying to make up for lost time. They had a lifetime now, and it would be filled with nothing but love.
EPILOGUE
Six Months Later
Mara sighed as she watched her husband hammering nails into a board in the new interior of what used to be her old home, ogling him openly as she watched the powerful muscles in his arms and back flex. He was sweating even though it was winter, shirtless because of the manual labor he was doing at the moment.
Unaware of her presence, he kept working, and Mara kept watching, still wanting to pinch herself to make her believe that the life she was living now was actually real and not a very lovely dream.
A whimsical smile passed over her face when the glitter of the enormous diamond wedding ring on her hand winked at her as she lifted her hand to pull the warm knit cap from her head. She’d just come from her new site, situated right outside of town, an enormous warehouse and shop that produced and sold the products for Mara’s Kitchen. The small business she and Jared had started had grown into a monster in a very short amount of time, and her products were now in demand all across the country, her consumer list growing larger every day.
She had more employees than she could count, and a huge storefront that was managed by a lovely woman who she worked with on a daily basis. Jared was already searching out more sites for the business because it was growing so fast, and the demand was already getting too high for just one large site. The products were currently being produced in a special kitchen with commercial equipment in the enormous warehouse that was separate from the shop. Even though she had plenty of employees, Mara still supervised the production kitchen and the shop every day, never wanting her product to lose its original taste or appeal because it was being produced in mass with commercial equipment.
The presence of a large, new business had brought incredible economic growth to Amesport, employing many people who needed jobs. For Mara, that was one of her greatest accomplishments.
As she eyed her husband hungrily, she knew Jared was her greatest asset and always would be, no matter how large her business grew in the future. She could live without the business; she couldn’t live without him.
Just like he’d promised, he did seem to love her more and more every single day. So much so that they’d both had a hard time parting in the morning since he’d started work on rebuilding the house, doing some of the manual labor himself.
Jared had needed to make a few short business trips for his commercial real estate business since they’d gotten married, and separation for even a few days had been excruciatingly painful for both of them. Maybe it was the newness of their love, or maybe it was just because they were addicted to each other and couldn’t bear to be apart. Now that she had so much competent staff, if he needed to go away, she tried to arrange to travel with him.
I love you even more today. I miss you.
That text appeared on her cell phone every day without fail while she was working at Mara’s Kitchen, and her heart never ceased to skitter every time she saw it, and she quickly texted back.
I love you. I miss you, too.
Today, his text had been different, throwing her off balance.
I love you even more today. I need you.
He’d never texted that he needed her, and the slight difference had put her senses on high alert. She handed everything over to her manager and left Mara’s Kitchen early, suddenly needing to see Jared, to assure herself that everything was okay.
Now that she was here, she could see that her husband looked fine in more ways than one, and she wondered if she’d just panicked for nothing.
She removed her jacket and gloves, dropping them onto a newly built countertop by a beautiful, large window. Jared had done a complete teardown on the old, burned-down structure and had started over again. He was building a replica of the old house, trying to duplicate everything to resemble the same model and period of the previous residence. The majority of the house was up, and there was heating and wiring installed, but many of the details on the inside still needed to be completed. Eventually, Jared wanted to make the old home a museum, displaying antique items to tell the history of Amesport. She’d cried like a baby on the day he’d shown her the plaque he planned on designing, dedicating the museum in memory of her mother and her gran because her family had spent so much time on this small plot of land.