Right Here Waiting-Book 2 Of The Mad Mad World Series

Part 4

"So.I guess we have some plans to make, Lilly-love?"

I was curled up in Richard's arms, head against his sturdy shoulder as we lay in the quiet, dim warmth of our shared hotel room. I was still jittery with nerves from earlier that evening but they were slowly fading away the longer my beloved cuddled me. I raised my head up from his shoulder, saying, "Yeah, I guess we do. Where do we start?"

"Well,"Richard sighed, pulling a thick hank of my hair from the braid I'd left in and began to carefully pick it apart, hair by hair. "You've never told me how you feel about marriage, living together, any of that stuff. Do you want to keep your house or get rid of it and move into mine here in the States, or do you want to live in Germany full time? Whatever you want to do, I'm okay with."

"Well,for the marriage versus living together part, I really don't care either way. As long as we love each other and there's some way for us to take care of the other if something bad happens, a piece of paper doesn't matter to me at all," I said. "As for the residence thing, yeah, I think I'll give up my place. It'll sell quickly because the housing market is good right now and I did a ton of renovations to the kitchen and master bath last year. And living in Germany...wow. I've never been out of the country in my life. I thought about moving to Canada when I was younger but...wow, Reesh. That's...you mean living with you?"

"No,I thought you'd live out with Till on his farm," Richard said,poking me in the ribs. "Of course I meant with me! You've seen pictures of my place and you liked them but if you don't we can always find something else."

"Oh,I like where you live in Berlin. I'm not tied to city living or country living, just as long as it's a decent, safe neighborhood,"I said, going back to playing with Richard's hair. "I've just...I don't know how well I'll adjust to things in a whole new country.Moving 500 miles away from my adoptive parents wasn't easy because save for knowing a couple people at the hospital I worked at through college, I knew nothing and no one in the town I moved to. It was lonely, and I was very depressed for some time."

"Well,we all live within an hour or so of each other," Richard murmured."So there's that. Paul's family will be coming over to see him within the month or so, and Khira Li is coming to visit next week,so there's at least four people you'll know."

"Yeah,but I don't want to force anyone to liking me just because I'm with you."

"Shush.You'll like Paul's wife, Arielle. She's a sweetheart, and so's their daughter. Who is also named Lily. I'm not sure if Paul's son will make it over, though, he's up to his eyeballs at work."

I didn't have any answer to his argument, so I closed my eyes and let my mind wander. The overworld was quiet, everyone that I needed to be concerned with were deeply asleep, and I was starting to get sleepy myself. Richard was heading that way too, although I could tell he was fighting it. Pulling the blankets around us, I said in a tiny voice, "Do you think your daughter will like me?"

"Don't see why not," Richard sighed, snuggling down into the blankets with me. "You're nothing like any of the women I've been with that she's met, you're smart and you're independent. Don't worry,baby. You'll give yourself an ulcer."

"God,I hope so," I sighed. If there was one thing I'd always dreaded,it was the idea of being with someone who had kids, grown up or not.I wasn't about to pretend to be someone I wasn't just to make a good impression on Richard's daughter, which would be a recipe for disaster. With that in mind, I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep, hoping I wasn't jumping into a bad situation with both feet.

::

"Guten Abend. Are you Lilly Bailey?"

I had my hands full of various sizes of gauze bandages and was deep in concentration trying to figure out what needed replaced and what I didn't need any longer when a woman's voice, strong with a Berliner accent, broke my concentration. I looked up and saw two young women standing in the green room doorway, both tall and elegant, one with gorgeous dark hair and the other with a mane of glistening, curly, wheat-gold hair. "Yeah, that's me," I said,putting the packages I held back into the cardboard box they'd been stored in and got up from my seat on the lone couch. "What can I do for you?"