“Of course not,” she said, her eyes alight and her smile huge. “That’s a little personal, don’t you think? Plus, you said you still had to be sure it was for real.”
“Oh God.”
“Paul,” she said, “what did you do?”
“I thought you’d told him. What did you tell him?”
She looped her arms around his neck, but she was laughing too hard to speak for a while. “I told him we shouldn’t be surprised to learn you’d actually had women in your life before you came to Virgin River. That there was a woman…” And she dissolved into laughter again.
He leaned against her once more, pressing her back to the tree. “It isn’t that funny.”
“Are you kidding? It’s hilarious!” She laughed a little more and finally said, “Paul, he’s a trained interrogator. You walked right into it!”
“I don’t see the humor…”
“Well, if you don’t have a sense of humor, I don’t know if I can—”
She was cut off by his mouth finding hers. In fact, he kept her from laughing for a long time, covering her with his body. They kissed and held on to each other. Finally he released her lips and asked, “You done laughing?”
“I am. I think you worked it out of me.”
He touched her swollen lips with tender fingers. “Do you think your father will shoot me?”
“Probably not,” she said, smiling. “But if you hear a rifle cock, you might want to duck.”
“Funny,” he said, kissing her again.
“I think I have whisker burn,” she told him.
“Yeah.” He grinned. “Looks good on you, too.”
“We have to go back. I have a baby to take care of.”
“I don’t want to go back… He’s going to be waiting for me…”
“You might as well just face it,” she said, and laughed again. “We’ve been out here a long time.”
“Not quite long enough,” he said, and kept her just a few more minutes, afraid to let her go.
She wiggled her hips against his. “Paul, it’s pretty obvious, pinning me against a big old tree turns you on.”
“I know,” he said. “We need to get alone.”
“Uh-huh. I need that, too. Probably more than you do. And the sooner the better.”
Vanni left Paul to tend to the horses while she rushed back to the house to check on the baby. It took him the better part of an hour to get them brushed down and stabled, the tack put away. He might’ve been dragging his feet a little when he went back to the house. By the time he got there, Walt was standing at the dining-room buffet fixing himself a short drink. Paul had lived with the man for months; even given the untimely death of his son-in-law, he hadn’t been a daytime drinker. If tragedy or depression didn’t drive him to the bottle, this had to be celebratory.
Walt turned, regarded Paul and lifted one bushy black eyebrow. “Fix you a little something to take the edge off, son?” he asked.
“Thank you, sir.” And mentally he added, “You dog.”
“Bourbon? Scotch? Canadian?”
“Crown?” Paul answered in question.
“My pleasure,” Walt said, selecting the bottle from the cabinet and pouring a short shot on ice. He passed it to Paul and said, “You didn’t do much undercover work in the Marine Corps, I guess.”
“No, sir.”
“Obviously.” He raised his glass. “Here’s to me winning the game I didn’t even know I was playing.”
“To you,” Paul said grudgingly.
After having a sip, Walt said, “I know you pretty well, Paul. Before today, I never had a doubt about you. So, I’ll only ask once—you plan to treat my daughter well?”
“Like solid gold, sir. Despite everything.”
“If you’re her choice, that’s good enough for me.” And he raised the glass again.
“Thank you, sir.”
“But really,” he said, chuckling. “You walked right into it.”
Vanni and her father were so alike it was scary. In addition, she had a fiery temper. And he asked himself, Do I want a general for a wife? The answer came quickly. Oh, yes. Oh my God, yes.
Eight
The general, knowing things had been resolved and were now heating up between Vanni and Paul, made himself scarce after dinner, leaving the reconciled lovebirds to the kitchen cleanup alone. But Tom didn’t have the facts and caught them in a serious lip-lock while they were supposed to be washing and drying dishes. Paul had Vanni pressed up against the sink, devouring her with yet another passionate kiss.