Page 59 of The Heart’s Charge

“You won’t.” Any falling would be his fault, not hers. “Now, go.”

As she shifted, he tightened his hold, giving everything he had to keep his grip a few moments longer. Her foot found his gun belt and used it as a toehold. He clenched his teeth as she pushed herself up. His knees gave out and slid down the stone. Kate gasped.

“It’s all right,” he ground out. “Keep going.”

Her arms released his neck, and she reached for the ledge. Her second foot braced against his hip, then a knee pressed down on his shoulder. He felt her hands brush against his on the ledge before they reached higher.

“I’ve got the rail!”

“Good girl! Now stand on my shoulders and pull yourself up.”

With her holding the rail, the weight on him lessened, providing a tiny surge of energy.

Her feet found their way to his shoulders, then the ledge. She accidentally trod on the fingers of his left hand, and his grip failed.

“Mark!”

He hung by one hand, too exhausted to pull himself up. Then, all at once, she was there. Her belly flat against the ledge, her hips tucked against the rail. She grabbed his flailing arm and pulled his hand back to the ledge.

He tipped his head back, his gaze melding with hers.

“Don’t you even think about leaving me again, Mark Wallace,” she ordered. “I won’t have it.”

He smiled. “No, ma’am.”

“Good.” She fisted her hands in the fold of his coat collar behind his neck and pulled. “Now . . . get . . . up . . . here.”

Her grunts mixed with his growls as they poured all they had into getting him off that pier. His feet scratched at the pillar until the edge of one boot sole finally caught on a minuscule lip between stone blocks. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to propel him upward since his arms were too depleted to do the job. He got an elbow on the ledge, then his chest. Finally, he secured a knee and allowed Kate to drag him the rest of the way onto the bridge.

Mark lay on his belly for a moment, too thankful to do anything more than breathe. Then reality bombarded him with hailstones of panic.

He could have lost her! If he’d been a few seconds slower or the train a few seconds faster . . . He rolled over onto his side and reached for her. Needing to reassure himself that she was safe. But touching her hand wasn’t enough.

Tucking his knees beneath him, he took hold of her arms and helped her rise to a sitting position. “Kate. Tell me you’re all right.” He scanned her face. Rubbed her arms. Then slid his hands up to cradle her cheeks.

Her deep blue eyes met his, misty but brimming with emotion. “I’m all right. We’re both all right. Thank God.”

Yes. Thank you, God.

He couldn’t lose her. Ever. The clarity of that single thought obscured everything else and drove him to action. He pulled her face up to meet his and kissed her with the desperation of a man who’d nearly lost everything he valued. His fingers tangled in the hair at her nape as he drew her closer, needing to feel her pressed against him, to prove she was alive and still within his grasp.

Her hands clutched at his shoulders, and she rose up to meet his kiss. To return it. Mark’s pulse throbbed, her passionate reaction lighting a fire inside him. They belonged together. Always.

She tasted so sweet, so . . . right. He tore his lips from hers, his breath ragged and loud in his ears. But he couldn’t stop from dropping tiny kisses on her cheeks, her closed eyes, her forehead.

“Marry me, Kate.” The proposal slipped out before he’d even fully formed the thought, but he didn’t regret the impulse. In fact, as soon as the words left his tongue, they solidified in his brain. She was what he wanted. More than anything. More than everything. “Marry me.”

He pulled away just enough to see her face clearly. Her lashes fluttered open to reveal dazed blue eyes.

“I love you, Kate. I always have.”

Her face softened, her beautiful eyes misted. “I love you too. With all my heart. But . . .” She bit her lip.

But? The euphoria that erupted in his chest like a geyser gushing toward the sky at her declaration of love froze mid-surge.

“Miss Katherine?” A tiny voice, wobbly and timid, brought Mark’s head up.

Kate swiveled. “Alice! Oh, thank goodness.” She opened her arms to the little girl standing so despondently on the bridge six feet away.