The Thrill of It All (21 page)

He fell to the ground, taking her with him, and then held on tight.

Eyes wide open, he stared into the startling blue overhead. His heart had been restored to its original spot in his chest and was thumping like a drum, powerful enough to be the pulse of every living thing in the world. On his next breath, he inhaled clean air and the delicate scent of Felicity’s shampoo.

“Louder, brighter, sweeter,” he murmured. “I didn’t understand.”

She lifted her head, her blue eyes darker than the sky, and deeper. “I know.”

The moment, that moment,
this
moment, seemed to shimmer with magic. “On Denali eighteen months ago, there came a point where I thought the remainder of my life had been pared to a handful of minutes. But then I was given a gift. Instead of those few minutes left, I had millions of them, but I didn’t want them if the cost was Simon’s death.”

“You know it wasn’t.”

“Not until today.” He traced her mouth with his forefinger, because he wanted to, and because he could. “My mother accused me a few months back of having a bad case of survivor’s guilt. I think maybe she was right, and that I’ve had it for a long, long time. Why Simon and not me? Why was my father alive and well when my brother’s had been murdered?”

“And you have the answers now?”

He sat up, taking her with him. She was such a little thing that he easily lifted her onto his lap and held her there, his chin on the top of her head as he gazed out over the vast desert surrounding them. “No, just more questions.”

Had Felicity truly seen angels? Was that voice he’d been hearing Simon’s, or just a figment of his imagination—or his common sense?

He turned his face to caress the top of her head with his cheek. “The questions might be the best gift of all, though. Because now I’ll have to ask myself, every day, have I done the best I could? Have I made the most of my time?”

A breeze gusted, tossing her feathery hair into his face. He stroked it back down, combing it with his fingers. “But now I have a question for you.”

“What’s that?” She half-turned to him.

“Are you really in love with me?”

She stiffened, and tried turning away.

He caught her chin in his hand. “Are you in love with me, Lissie?”

“Opposites attract, but…”

He winced, remembering how he’d thrown her declaration back in her face. He hadn’t been doing the best he could, then. He hadn’t made the most of
that
moment. “I’m sorry, dollface. I shouldn’t have said that. I should have said instead…”

“What?” she whispered.

And in that instant it was her vulnerability that Charmed him. Other times it had been her confidence, her incredible passion, her ability to smooth-talk the world at large, her intention to leave her family behind that had materialized into her fierce protection of them instead. But Magee’s heart flipped over this glimpse of the uncertain, unsure Felicity who had once been an orphaned little girl creating a fiction for herself in order to feel loved.

She’d made herself into a hell of a woman.

His heartbeat speeded up and his mouth dried, overcome with gratitude. “Thank you,” he croaked out. She’d careened into the darkness he’d considered “living” and awakened him to beauty, passion, and…

But he hadn’t said that word yet, had he?

“I’m in love with you, too,” he said. “I love you so much.”

And then she threw herself against him and he fell over, Felicity landing on top of him. He laughed, and with the earth at his back and the sun on his face, Michael Magee held on tight, preparing for the biggest thrill of his life.

F
rom the GetTV web site:

From the back of an oversized postcard tacked to the bulletin board at the Bivy, in Half Palm, California: