Chapter 46

Left alone with the man she had loved almost all of her life, Rebecca approached his bed and dared to take his hand. Devin turned his head and stared at her so very intently. She stood there caught in his gaze unsure if she should say something or if she should wait to see what he had to say.

Devin took the decision out of her hand by asking, "Becky, do you think anyone will ever love me if the surgery goes bad and I end up paralyzed?"

Without thinking she gave him the reassurance he needed, "Oh Dev I know there would be! You are handsome and sweet," at his snort over the last word, she insisted, "You are! You just don't let people see that side of you! You can also be kind and thoughtful when you put your mind to it."

"Even if all that were true, it still doesn't address the issue of loving someone who might be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life!"

Rebecca swallowed hard and tried to keep personal pronouns out of her reply, "Dev, that wouldn't matter at all to someone who loves you! A woman might be attracted to the outside package at first, but if she is honest it is what is on the inside that we really fall in love with."

"Yeah, but do they fall in love with a guy that may never be able to make love to them?!"

Rebecca stuttered and blushed to the roots of her hair, as Devin said this. When the reason for her reaction dawned on him, his eyes widened in amazement. "Good God Becky, you don't mean to tell me that you are a virgin at your age!?" he blurted out and then realized how that must have sounded even before the hurt look crossed her face. "What I mean to say was that I didn't think there were any virgins as old…ummm…I mean that even down here there had to be chances for you to…what about Pascal? Or Kanin? Or heck, even Fuzzy before Catherine came into his life?!"

"It was never an issue Dev. If I couldn't be with the man I wanted, then no substitute would do."

Not even dreaming of the answer he would get, Devin asked, "So who is it that you have been waiting all this time for?"

Mary's lessons in truthfulness not withstanding, Rebecca thought that it might be worth the chance to tell him how she felt. They really seemed to have made a connection in the last few days and she reasoned that if he did laugh at her she could hide out in her candle chamber the rest of her life. "You," she replied simply.

"Huh what?!" he exclaimed. "Me? You can't be serious!? I mean I know you said you had a crush on me as a kid, but I was gone for twenty years! You had no way of knowing if I would ever come back!"

"I always knew you would come home one day, Dev."

"But Becky that was a childish crush! Surely you weren't waiting all this time for me to come back here?!"

"Sometimes even a young heart knows what it wants," she told him.

"But me?! What could you possibly have seen in me that made you wait?!"

"The same things that I see in you now that you are here Dev. I have been in love with you since I was six years old."

"But Becky, if this surgery goes bad, I won't be any good to any woman!" he protested.

"Devin Wells! I have never had sex, so do you think my love for you is based on that?! It wouldn't matter to me if we could never 'make love' only if you thought you might ever be able to love me!"

To be continued…..