She nodded. "Yes."
"That's exactly what I thought," Cale whispered.
Tears as clear as glass and big as pearls welled in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.
"Quinn, I never stopped loving you. Never. Not for a day" He gathered her into his arms, and her sobs broke his heart. "I thought that maybe you had gotten cold feet about leaving with me… that you were afraid to take that chance."
"Never, Cale. I was never afraid to love you."
"Even now?"
"Especially now."
He lifted her off her feet, and with one hand, grabbed a comforter from the sofa and spread it on the floor in front of the fireplace. Gently resting her on the blanket, he lay down beside her and wordlessly began to kiss the tears from her face. Soon there were no tears left to be kissed away, and his lips began a descent the length of her throat to the place where her collarbone met the buttons of the old thermal shirt, which one by one, she opened to lay bare the skin beneath, inviting him to feast on her flesh the way she had dreamed he might have done. Moaning through slightly parted lips, she offered more, and then more of herself to the heat of his mouth, crying out softly as his hands and seeking lips found those places that had so ached for his touch for so very long.
Reality being ever so much more wonderful than fantasy, she pulled the shirt over her head, and removed his own, needing desperately to feel his skin against hers. She felt her bones begin to melt away, the resultant liquid, thick and hot and bright, seeming to spread through her like lava. Wordlessly they moved together, caught up in the rhythms of an ancient dance, until he filled her as completely as she needed him to, and the sweet power of their dreams engulfed them both and dragged them down into the magical heart of the night.
* * *
Chapter Ten
For the first time in years, Cale slept like a baby. Waking to find Quinn curled up next to him had brought him to tears, proving that the wonders of the night had not been a dream after all. He kissed her shoulders to awaken her just as the sun rose through the trees to spread the first early arms of light into the cabin, and she rolled into his open arms, urging him to love her into the new day. He had needed no encouragement.
"Cale." She spoke into his chest, where her head had fallen, her neck being too languid, refusing to hold up its weight.
"What, sweetheart?" he whispered into the cloud of auburn curls that rested just below his chin.
"I think we should get up." She tried to stir, as if to be the one to make the first move, but found she could not. Her bones, it would appear, had been stolen while she slept, making it difficult for her to rise.
"Why?"
"Because your sons will be up soon," she said. "We should not be lying here, wrapped in little more than each other."
"Ummm," Cale replied.
"I take it that means you agree."
Forcing her body into action, she sat up and searched for her shirt and sweatpants amidst the rumpled blankets, which at some point had made their way from the sofa onto the floor. Finding her shirt, she pulled it over her head, then realizing he was watching her, asked, "What?"
"I can't believe you're here with me. After all these years of loving you, of missing you, I can't believe you're really here."
"Twelve years too late…" she said wryly.
"Better late than never," he told her. "It's a miracle."
"A Christmas miracle." She smiled.
"Not many people get the second chance that we've been given, Quinn," he said softly.
"Do you really think it could be the same?" Her fingertips played with the dark hairs on his chest.
"No," he told her. "Better. It will be much better."
"What do we do now?" she asked.
"What we should have done before"—he drew her down to kiss her mouth—"only this time, we don't need your parents' permission."
"'You want to elope?"