Everywhere she looked, she saw him. Angry and demanding that she go. Sweaty and gorgeous, hacking at vines. Wet and muddy, wrestling with Rufus. Pain-racked and haunted as he waited while she went inside.
And caught in the spell as he painted a masterpiece of the woman who was his life.
When she stopped the car and emerged, he was nowhere to be found after all. She walked to the front door on unsteady legs, with each step attempting to imagine living here with her child.
His child.
On the front porch, she stalled, overwhelmed by longing. Trying not to wish for a miracle. Unable to succeed.
Finally, she opened the screen door, slipped the key into the lock and turned. Entered a house that would, she feared, forever be Charlotte’s and never hers.
But love dwelled here, and she would add to its account. Swell its coffers every day so that the baby inside her would never experience what it felt like to be abandoned or alone.
She glanced automatically toward the mantel, where his magnificent painting of the cottage last hung—
And halted in shock.
For there, against the stone, was a new painting.
Of her. The sketch she still treasured, of her in the filmy gown, rendered in paints this time. Exploding with life and color, rich bronze and burgundy background, her hair raven black, her gown the green of her eyes.
“You made me beautiful,” she murmured, and stepped close.
“I only painted what I saw.”
She gasped. Whirled.
And there he stood, the man who owned her heart.
For endless moments, they studied each other in silence.
Then spoke at the same time.
“You’re beautiful—”
“I know you’re leaving—”
He frowned. “You do?”
Her spirits sank to her toes, but she squared her shoulders and refused to let that show. “Of course. Your life is in New York. You have a bright future ahead. You’re too talented to bury yourself here in East Texas.”
Micah was still feeling the jolt of her presence, so he was slow to argue. However much he thought he’d done her justice in the portrait, even without oils, he now understood he had failed completely. Life burst from her, glowed from every pore. Inside her dwelled an endless well of goodness, a soul so vibrant and rich with compassion and strength that his own dead heart had stirred and stretched toward her as a seedling seeks the light.
The nerves that had plagued him as he waited for her were still on edge about her reaction to all he’d done—
But deep within him, impatience demanded that he stop sitting on the sidelines of life and leap back into the fray.
“What about you, Jezebel? What’s your future?” He walked closer. “Where will it play out?”
“Me?” Her eyes darted to the side. “Oh, well, I…”
He’d never seen her flustered. Hope rose in him. She didn’t have everything figured out. “Surely the woman who bosses everyone else around has some idea what she wants for herself.”
He moved in on her. She took a nervous step to the side.
He captured her, unable to stand not touching her for one more second. But as he pulled her near, she resisted. “Jezebel?”
Her head was down. He tipped up her chin. “Honey, what’s wrong?”
The eyes that beheld him were huge and green…and swimming with tears. “You know what I want,” she whispered. “Don’t tease me with what can’t happen. I realize that you and Charlotte had something special. I understand that you’ll never get over her. I just wish—” She pressed her lips together to stem the words.
“What?” he asked softly, sensing that he needed to tread carefully.
Only silence greeted him, at once intimate and immense, as if the slightest step wrong would destroy what was so fragile between them.
Micah was not a man to discuss his emotions. No guy liked it, and he preferred not to even think about them, much less voice them.
But for the sake of this beautiful soul, he would try.
He released her while he gathered his thoughts. Jezebel visibly shrank into herself, and he sought to explain. “It’s not—” He cleared his throat. “Oh, hell. I told you I’m lousy with words.”
He could divine nothing from her brief nod, and she had resumed staring at the floor.
“I love Charlotte,” he began. She flinched, but he made himself forge on. “I always will. She and I were bound from the time I was ten and she was eight. I felt responsible for her. She was always frail.” Every sentence seemed to make Jezebel feel worse, but he wouldn’t lie to her.
“I was angry about her being pregnant, but I don’t have anything against babies. My reaction was more about how scared I was of losing her. I wanted to be a father. I still do.”
Jezebel’s gaze shot to his, and he saw an instant of wild hope before she quickly shuttered it. “So—” Her voice was hoarse. “You…might be willing to acknowledge this child, even if—” She bit her lip. “I mean, you’ll leave, and I can raise this baby fine by myself, but—”
“So you didn’t—” He halted. Closed his eyes. “The baby’s safe.”
“Of course. I never considered not keeping it.”
“I’m glad.”
“You are?”
She was so stunned that anger got the better of him. “Of course I am, damn it.”
She opened her mouth automatically. “That’s a—”
“Dollar,” he finished for her. And fell the rest of the way into love. “I’ll put the money in your bleeping jar.”
“I’m sorry. You don’t have to.”
He couldn’t stay away from her anymore. Had to touch her again. “Jezebel, why is it you’ll fight for everyone else but yourself? Would you honestly just let me waltz back to New York so easily? Demand so little of me?”
Her pupils nearly swallowed the green. “You love Charlotte, not me. I’m a realist. That sort of devotion doesn’t happen twice in a lifetime. I don’t expect it to.”
“Then you’re selling yourself too short, and it makes me so—” He inhaled, then abandoned caution. “Damn mad. Go ahead. Fine me again.”
A small smile played around her lips, but her eyes were an aching tangle of longing and resignation.
“I can’t forget Charlotte, no.” When Jezebel averted her face, he brought it right back. “She’s a part of me. My life with her made me who I am. But she’s my past. That won’t grow or change, yet I will. I have, already, because of you.”
He felt his words vibrate through her, and that beautiful, too-honest face let her yearning show through, speckled as it was with caution he understood was squarely his fault.
So he redoubled his efforts. “I love you, Jezebel Hart. I want a chance with you. A life with you.”
She blinked. “But what about your career and New York and—”
He smiled. Shook her gently. “Don’t you get it? I’m not going back there. I can paint anywhere. I’ll have to visit for shows, but you can go with me, you and—”
He glanced down. Extended his hand toward her belly, then paused. “I—is it all right?”
She bit her lower lip and nodded.
He touched her. Felt the warmth of her still-flat belly. Cupped his fingers as if to cradle the new life.
When she tenderly placed her own hand over his, he could truly breathe for the first time in days. Months.
Years, really.
“You’re so strong,” he marveled. “For years, I’ve had to be so…careful.” He refrained from bringing up Charlotte’s name. “But I need you to believe you can lean on me. You’re not alone now.”
A jumble of emotions swept over her face, among them wonder and more than a little reluctance. She opened her mouth, then hesitated.
“What?”
“You said that you can’t live here.”
“I didn’t believe I could.” He decided that it was time to face the last hurdle. Prove to her that he was committed. �
�Come with me.”
“Where?”
He didn’t answer; instead, he led her down the hall, clutching her hand.
Doubts rushed in. He wheeled in front of a door. “Never mind. Maybe I shouldn’t have—”
Her brow wrinkled. “What’s in there?”
He ranged himself before the opening, all faith in his bright idea vanished. “I have no idea what I was thinking,” he muttered.
She reached for the knob.
“No, don’t—You—”
Too late. She’d opened the door.
Jezebel gasped at the sight.
“I meant well, I swear it.” He tugged at her arm. “Stand back, and I’ll get rid of it.”
Jezebel barely breathed as she absorbed the sight of walls covered with stunning paintings of nursery rhymes, executed not in pastels but in bold, glowing colors, obviously the work of the man at her side.
She was speechless at the beauty of it.
“Oh, Micah…”
Then she realized that the room was empty of furniture, except—
A crib. So sturdy and graceful…from the tension in the man beside her, she was sure it was the one he’d made for Charlotte. She covered her mouth with her free hand.
“I knew it. Wrong thing to do. I’m an idiot. Of course you wouldn’t be comfortable with anything that had to do with Charlotte or—”
All she could do was shake her head at first, as the room and the crib blurred in her vision.
He strode across the room and grabbed one end. “Go back in the living room. I’ll disassemble it and—”
She leaped toward him. Stilled his hand. Stroked the satiny wood. “No,” she finally managed. She gripped his fingers. “It’s the one, isn’t it? The crib you brought home that day?”
He nodded, his expression miserable. “You’d be worried. I should have seen that. Be afraid that something would—” His gaze shifted to her belly. “Go on outside.”
She cupped his face. “You fashioned this with your own hands. With love in your heart.” She gestured to the walls. “Painted these. Priceless, all of it.”
“You’re not superstitious?”
She shook her head. “Over the years, I’ve learned that you make your own luck. Bad things happen, but you just…deal with them.” She smiled. “It’s only between us, Micah, how to deal with your past. To honor Charlotte’s memory this way might be odd to some, but to me, it feels…right. We knit two parts of your life together.”
The tension in his frame eased. His voice was thick when he spoke. “I swear that heart of yours is as big as the world. I’m not a good man, Jezebel, but I want to be one for you. Will you let me give you a home? Make a family with me?”
They stood there, mere inches apart, the moment brimming with words and dreams and fears and hopes.
“I would love nothing more.” Jezebel’s voice brimmed with tears. “But you’re wrong. You are a good man, Micah Smith.”
He sagged as if with great exhaustion. She rose to her toes and wrapped him in her arms, while his slid around her waist. Slowly, they rocked together, gathering to themselves what had so nearly been lost.
Micah turned his face into her hair and whispered into her ear, “Babies and puppies and kittens, right?”
She laughed shakily. Gratefully. “Maybe even horses and chickens.”
His mouth curved in a grin. “And every last stray, animal or human, who crosses your path, I’m damn sure.”
She leaned back and drank in the sight of him. “That’s seven dollars for the jar.”
“What if I don’t have it on me?” His eyes took on a twinkle. “Will you take payment in kisses?”
“I think something can be arranged.” She was smiling as his head dipped, and his lips brushed hers.
“But don’t you dare tell Louie.”
~THE END~
Thank you for letting me share my stories with you!
If the powerful emotions of the Second Chances stories appealed to you, the Lone Star Lovers series might also be your cup of tea. It’s the story of the Sullivan/Sandoval family and friends, and it begins with TEXAS HEARTTHROB:
Hollywood’s hottest heartthrob Liam Sullivan has escaped the paparazzi and celebrity gossips after a sensational tragedy, reexamining his high-flying lifestyle and his priorities. In disguise, traveling through the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina, he encounters a rail-thin, starving woman who has lost everything but the dilapidated cabin where she once lived with her grandmother in happier days. Raina Donovan is determined to make her stand there, but winter is coming, and Liam cannot desert her until he can make her safe, however much she tries to make him leave.
Day by day, they draw closer, but Raina has secrets and so does Liam. Before they can trust enough to confide in each other, the world catches up with them. Can they overcome the stunning shock of their deceptions to find a way to be together, or will the price of their lies ruin any chance they might have for a future?
Get your copy of TEXAS HEARTTHROB today!
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Thanks!
Jean
Please enjoy this excerpt from TEXAS HEARTTHROB:
PROLOGUE
Manhattan
“Liam, is it true that you and Gisella had a secret wedding last weekend in Cancún?” the blond reporter from the Star shouted. The noise level rocketed as camera crews and microphones crowded the hotel ballroom at the press conference for Liam Sullivan’s latest film.
Liam resisted a groan. He’d known that the snapshot of him with the supermodel would be fresh meat for the tabloids. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Heather, but I just met the woman a week ago when we attended the same preview party.” He winked. “I’m sure a famous beauty like her can do better than some ole small-town Texas boy.”
The assembled reporters hooted. The blonde named Heather batted her eyelashes at him. Fresh off an Oscar nomination and just named “Sexiest Man Alive” by People magazine, Liam Sullivan was the hottest star in Hollywood at the moment. Life was sweet. He was enjoying the heck out of it, but the man who’d been a skinny, brainy runt of the litter was only too aware of what life could be like on the flip side of good looks and fame. And if he forgot, his older brothers, Rafael, Alejandro and Dane, would gladly bring him back to earth.
He missed them, missed his mother and father, his pesky younger sister, Jilly. Two more stops on this publicity tour for his new release, then he had six weeks off before his next film. He couldn’t wait to head home to Texas and hibernate for a while.
As the director fielded questions, Liam listened with half an ear, scanning the crowd without really seeing. He was so tired. His ex-girlfriend Kelly’s middle-of-the-night call had kept him tossing in his bed. They hadn’t been an item in months, not since he’d finally realized that she didn’t want to kick her cocaine habit, that no matter what help he offered, she wasn’t ready to accept. It frustrated the hell out of him. The waste of it sickened him. He’d seen too many people in his business dragged down by the fast life. Kelly was well on her way to being another casualty, no matter how hard Liam had fought to save her.
“Liam has no comment on that.”
The tension in his publicist Annie Schaefer’s voice alerted Liam that he’d missed a question.
That the room had fallen unnaturally silent.
“So she’s just another disposable girlfriend?” jeered a voice from the back.
“What?” Liam turned to Annie. “What’s he talking about?”
“Get up and leave—now,” she whispered, hand over Liam’s microphone. “I’ll handle this
.”
Liam almost obeyed—he’d had plenty of experience with the landmines the press could plant—but something in the gathering buzz of the audience, something about the shock in Annie’s eyes, kept him in place. “Tell me what’s going on,” he demanded.
A reporter spoke up first. “Her brother says it’s your fault, Liam. That Kelly Mason killed herself because you abandoned her when she told you she was pregnant. Not exactly what we’ve come to expect from All-American Liam Sullivan, is it?”
Dead? Liam couldn’t speak. Kelly…pregnant? His mind went white. How could—Last night she’d cried on the phone but refused to tell him why. She’d begged him to come back, but she’d been high and hysterical and—
He jerked the mike toward him. “When she called, she never mentioned—”
The buzz leaped to a roar.
“You mean she called you before she did it?”
“What did you say to make her kill herself?”
“You didn’t want the baby?”
How could it be his? They hadn’t made love in—
Annie grabbed the mike back. “This news comes as a terrible shock to all of us. Mr. Sullivan will have a statement later.” She flipped off the microphone, nudging him none too gently to his feet. “You know better than to hand them something like that. Let’s get out of here.”
“But—” Liam looked out at the crowd as though somewhere in it lay the answers.
“Forget them—” she snapped. “They’re piranhas, ready to feed.” Her tone gentled. “You’re rattled. I don’t blame you. I’ll phone some sources from the suite, see what I can find out.”
He turned blind eyes to her. “She never said—” He glanced away. “I didn’t let her finish. I thought it was just the same old—”
The crowd still clamored, shouting questions as he walked through the door in a daze.
He’d hung up on Kelly in disgust only hours ago. Given up on her, at last.
In so doing, had he driven her to give up on herself?
CHAPTER ONE
Two weeks later, a man who looked very little like Liam Sullivan drove down the deserted road he’d taken off the Blue Ridge Parkway on his way south to Asheville. Brushing an unfamiliar, newly-dark mustache with one finger, hair shaggy and no longer blond, he contemplated the dense thickets of rhododendron, the towering beeches and maples bearing hints of coming scarlet and gold. The Appalachians were ancient compared with the mountains he knew out West, and time had been a pumice stone, wearing steep peaks down to round, blue-shadowed waves extending as far as he could see. Near at hand, endless green slopes on either side of the road would break for a bald knob of charcoal rock.
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