That day Anna fell in love.
“You have to meet this man,” Rebekah told her friend one day over coffee in a wonderful little cafe in France after a shopping spree paid for by Rebekah’s Greek tycoon husband.
Anna, sipping a glass of lemonade, smiled at Rebekah and asked, “What is his name?”
Rebekah frowned and thought for a moment before replying, “I don’t remember. But my husband knows him and therefore he has to be handsome and very steely.”
Anna beamed. “You’re absolutely right. I would love to meet him.”
The next day a strange man who happened to be tall, dark and handsome came to the docks where Anna and Rebekah were going to sail on Rebekah’s Greek tycoon husband’s yacht named, appropriately, Fair Rebekah.
Anna shaded her eyes from the bright Mediterranean sun and looked at the man, who was watching her intently as well. “Rebekah,” she called over her shoulder. “Who is that man?”
Rebekah, who was six months pregnant with her fourth child, looked in the direction Anna pointed to. Her beautiful face lit in a s mile only enhanced by the glow pregnancy gave her. “That’s the man my Greek tycoon husband wants you to meet!”
“He looks mysterious!”
“And he’s steely,” her friend pointed out.
Anna smiled and waited for the dark stranger to walk down to the boat. She had her hands on the teak railing, looking down at the man as he stopped beside the boat and looked up at her.
“Are you Anna?” he asked in a low, rough voice.
Her heart began to flutter. “Yes.”
“Come here.”
She wasted no time in throwing her leg over the railing and climbing down the ladder to the dock. Before her foot touched the last rung, strong hands, tanned and callused from hard work, grabbed her around the waist and she was settled safely on the rough wooden pier.
“Thank y—“ She didn’t even get a chance to say thank you before his mouth was swooping down on hers. She returned the kiss like the wanton she was, although she had never felt this way before. It was fate that he was the fifth man she had kissed – the exact number she had vowed to stop at. His arms wrapped around her like bands of steel.
“Anna,” he whispered against her mouth.
“Yes?” She held her breath.
“You’re so beautiful. Come away with me. We’ll live from day to day, traveling all over the world. Just say yes and I’ll give you anything your heart desires.”
She frowned, although the offer was tempting. “I need love,” she told him, for it was true.
A gleam came into his blue eyes that were exactly the color of the sky reflected in a raindrop. She had barely recovered from the first hungry, passionate kiss before his lips were against hers again. They moved over her cheek and then he whispered into her ear, “You’re my woman now.”
Anna sighed as she melted into his arms. Everything was going to be perfect now. Rebekah laughed from where she stood at the railing, watching the whole scene.
“Good luck!” Rebekah called out as the dark stranger took Anna by the hand and they began to run toward the rest of their lives together, sharing in each other’s hopes, dreams, and most of all: Love.
She laughed with wild abandon as she ran beside her steely man, her small, pale hand enveloped in his large, dark one.
And they really did live happily ever after.
