The light suddenly started to fade, and Luke realized that Roger was heading down the mountain. “Where are you going?” he called out.

“To unzip your sleeping bags,” the old hermit muttered. “’Cause in ten minutes, I intend to be sitting in my chair, watching an all-night Survivorman marathon.”

“I found it!” Camry cried, scrambling to her feet. She grabbed Luke’s hand and ran to Roger. “Okay, we’ve said ‘I do,’ so now what?”

“Well, now you slide the rings on each other’s fingers, and pledge your troths in your own words.”

“But we didn’t have time to write our own vows. Wait!” she yelped when Roger turned away again. She took hold of Luke’s hands and looked directly into his eyes. “I promise to love you forever, Lucian Pascal Renoir,” she whispered, slipping the smooth stone ring onto his finger, “uncompromisingly, unpretentiously, and unconditionally.” She shot him a crooked smile. “And I promise never to lie to you, or send you any more unladylike e-mails, or imagine ten different ways to make you beg for mercy, or—”

Luke covered her mouth with a laugh. “Let’s at least keep our vows in the realm of reality.” He lifted her hand and slid the smooth stone ring onto her finger. “And I promise you, Camry MacKeage, to love and honor you with every breath I take, forever. And I promise never to steal your work,” he added with his own crooked smile. “Or lecture you until your ears fall off. And if you decide to go on any more crime sprees, I will definitely have your back.”

Roger snorted. “Okay then. I guess you two do deserve each other—seeing as how you won’t find anyone else willing to put up with either of you.” He held his hands up, encompassing them both. “So I give my blessing to this union and pronounce you husband and wife—may God have mercy on all our souls,” he finished with a mutter, heading toward his cabin.

“Wait. Don’t I get to kiss my bride now?” Luke asked.

Roger turned and shot him a scowl. “Not until you get back to your tent.” He spun back around and headed to the cabin again, patting his leg to call the dogs to him. He opened the door to let them inside, then turned back. “I’ll be keeping Max and Tigger with me tonight, so the poor beasts aren’t scarred for life.” He pointed at the snowcat. “And you’ll be walking to your tent. That fancy snow machine is now mine.”

“But you can’t actually keep it,” Camry said. “We really only borrowed it from my father. We have to bring it back.”

“Oh no, you don’t. A deal’s a deal, Missy MacKeage.” He suddenly gave Luke an apologetic nod. “Excuse me, I meant Missus Renoir. Which means she’s your problem now.” He looked back at Camry. “For which your papa will be so grateful, I’m sure he would want me to have the machine for my role in getting you off his hands.”

When Camry started toward the old man, Luke spun her around and started down the mountain. “Come on, Missus Renoir,” he said with a laugh. “Before he turns you into a toad.”

Chapter Sixteen

With the rising, nearly full moon lighting their way and the crunch of the cold snow keeping rhythm with their breathing, their mile walk to the tent was made in silence. Cam assumed Luke was trying to assimilate all that had happened. And though she would have loved to explain Roger to him, and Fiona, and the seemingly unrelated chain of events that had brought them to be walking hand in hand tonight toward the rest of their lives together, she honestly didn’t know how to explain something she barely comprehended herself. The only thing she did know for sure was that she loved Luke more than she loved anything else in the world—even her beloved science.

She suddenly stopped walking.

“What is it?” Luke asked, stepping around to take hold of her shoulders. “Are you getting cold feet?” He chuckled softly. “Figuratively speaking, I mean?”

She looked up at him in wonder. “No. I suddenly just realized that the only thing more powerful than my mother’s love for her work is her love for Daddy. Because if I had to choose between you and my work, I’d choose you.”

“Ahh, sweetheart,” Luke said, hugging her to him, then squeezing her tightly. “Grace never had to choose between anything, because she knew she could have it all.” He leaned back to smile down at her. “I only spent a few days with your parents, but it was long enough for me to see that your father doesn’t have to be a scientist to understand your mother’s passion for her work. He appears to be her biggest fan, supporting her a hundred and ten percent. Didn’t he build her that beautiful lab?”

“Yes.”

“He didn’t steal anything from your mother, Camry, he empowered her. And I bet he also encouraged all you girls to go after your own dreams, didn’t he?”

“Sometimes to the point that we wanted to scream.”

“And hasn’t your mother always supported your father’s passion? TarStone Mountain Ski Resort couldn’t have become a world-class destination on its own.”

She smiled up at him. “I guess that’s another thing we can add to our definition of love: its ability to expand exponentially. It’s not at all constraining, it’s unlimiting.”

He kissed the tip of her nose with a delighted laugh. “And are you ready to add one more passion to your expanding list, Mrs. Renoir? Say . . . something that involves our getting naked together?”

She toyed with the zipper on his jacket. “I-I’ve heard that when a person gets on a Ferris wheel the first time, the ride can be somewhat scary.”

He kissed the top of her head, then took her hand and led her toward the tent. “Naw, it’s only scary for the faint of heart. With your highlander genes, it’s more likely the person you’re riding with who’ll be scared.”

Cam stopped just as she was about to unzip the tent flap and looked up.

Luke was scared?

Well, damn. She’d been so focused on her own worry about finally going all the way, she hadn’t even thought about what he must be feeling. Hell, what man wanted the responsibility of introducing a thirty-two-year-old virgin to lovemaking?

She unzipped the tent and crawled inside, then poked her head out to stop him from following. “Can you give me a few minutes?” she asked. “I’ll start the heater and warm up the tent.”

“Oh, sure. I’m sorry. Of course,” he said, jumping up and quickly stepping away. He shoved his hands in his pockets. “You take as long as you need.”

Luke stood in the middle of the tote road, staring up at the night sky, and fingered the perfectly sized stone ring on his left hand as he thought about all that had happened this afternoon.

Or had it really started long before today? Could finding himself on this mountain, married to the woman of his dreams, have actually begun over a year ago, when he’d tapped the key on his computer that had put him in contact with Podly? At the time, he had assumed the sheer magnitude of what he’d just done was what had caused that spark to run up his arm, jolting him to his very core. Only now he wasn’t so sure it had been guilt making his heart pound wildly, but rather the distinct feeling that some tiny, unseen hand had pushed his hovering finger down on that button.

Was it truly possible that an imp of a girl, with piercing blue eyes and a contagious smile, could already have been working her magic?

Luke looked over at the tent glowing in the cold dark night, the lantern inside casting the movements of a faint but decidedly feminine silhouette. After today, he had to believe that anything was possible, the undeniable proof being that he had just married the most remarkable, most outrageous, sexiest woman he’d ever met.