by Margot Early
“Five million dollars.”
Bronwyn sank down on the bed, unable to speak.
Ari had provided for her and Wesley, provided in a very substantial way.
Ari, she thought, oh, Ari, thank you.
No longer would she need to take Louisa’s charity. No longer would she have to fear Patrick Stafford’s power.
You’ve already stopped doing that, Bronwyn.
Almost. She still must have some doubt, or she would simply let Wesley change his name as he wanted.
Perhaps Louisa was right about what constituted courage.
And maybe Bronwyn herself should think hard about what constituted freedom.
Louisa, Bronwyn reasoned, was the first who deserved to know of the change in Bronwyn’s financial status. Inheriting money could not mean turning her back on Fairchild Acres. She was too involved in the fitness center there. One of the grooms had recently been diagnosed with functional scoliosis. The woman knew she needed to stop riding, but Louisa was willing to keep her on in the capacity of assistant trainer. Bronwyn’s job would involve working with the groom on a yoga program designed especially for people with scoliosis. It had been part of her training in her recent seminar in Sydney, and now she hoped to learn more from the teacher she’d studied with that week.
No, her job at Fairchild Acres had begun to feel like a career, and Bronwyn only hoped Louisa would be willing for her to remain now that she’d come into an inheritance. Somehow, she didn’t think that would be a problem.
She went up to her room that night to hear Wesley calling for her.
Bronwyn tapped on his door before walking in. “What is it, sweetie?”
“Mum, Patrick said you guys decided I couldn’t change my name.”
“We decided that we don’t want you to change it now,” Bronwyn said, “which is a different thing.”
“Because you’re not married to each other,” Wesley said.
Bronwyn hadn’t known that Patrick planned to discuss the matter with Wesley so soon. She also immediately felt suspicious that Patrick had chosen to emphasize 191 the fact that they weren’t married. She reminded herself of the conversation with Louisa on the subject of trust.
“How do you feel about that?” Bronwyn decided to ask.
“I wish we were more like a normal family.”
“Normal how?”
“Oh—that you and Patrick were married to each other and I was your kid.”
“You are our son.”
“But it doesn’t really seem like it, does it?” he said.
“What do you mean?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Long experience with her son had taught Bronwyn that sometimes answers demanded patience. She needed to be available, to listen until Wesley finally revealed what he wanted to say.
So she waited.
“Is he always going to be around?” Wesley finally asked.
“I think that’s his plan,” Bronwyn said, biting down a smile.
“So…what is…Ari?”
Bronwyn blinked in the dark, trying to read the meaning behind Wesley’s words as she studied his anxious face. “I don’t understand.”
“I mean, he used to be my father.”
“I think you can still consider him your father. Now you have another father, as well.”
“What if I don’t want to think of him as my father?” Wesley said with a trace of bitterness in his voice.
“Wesley…” Bronwyn hesitated, unsure how to express what she wanted Wesley to know—that Ari had cared, that he’d provided for them, that despite his criminal behavior he hadn’t been a complete monster. She settled on saying, “Ari loved you. He loved you and he loved me. The fact that he was a criminal doesn’t have to change the fact of that love for either of us.”
“If he’d loved us, he wouldn’t have done it.”
Bronwyn gave a rueful laugh.
“What?” Wesley said crossly.
“Nothing is that simple, Wes. It’s just not. When someone has a weakness—and Ari obviously had more than one—love for someone else isn’t necessarily enough to make him overcome temptation. The decision to do the right thing comes from within a person. It’s actually not very nice to expect someone to be good because he loves you. That takes away his freedom to act. Also, it makes his love less of a gift. It says that love isn’t love unless it is accompanied by certain agreements.”
Wesley seemed to think about this. “But what about when people are married?”
“Commitments between people often have rules attached. But the rules are attached to the commitment, not so much to the love. Love is bigger than all of that.”
Wesley was quiet for a time.
“Think you can sleep?” Bronwyn asked.
“Do you think you’ll marry Patrick?”
Patrick had proposed marriage to her. Bronwyn hoped he’d at least kept that from Wesley. But Wesley hadn’t mentioned it, so perhaps Patrick had. Bravo, Patrick, she thought. A modicum of discretion.
“Suppose Patrick and I were to decide we want to marry. How would you feel about it?”
Wesley seemed to consider. “I’d like it. It would be more normal.” He frowned. “Why are you smiling?”
“When you’re older, I think you’ll put less value on what other people decide is ‘normal.’”
Wesley was quiet. “Maybe.”
Bronwyn kissed him, said good-night again and stepped out into the hall.
Patrick saw her emerge from Wesley’s room.
Walking quietly, he started toward her, and she met him halfway.
“Let’s go in the office,” he suggested. His office. Inside, he shut the door. “A nightcap?”
“Thank you.”
He poured them each a glass of cognac, handed Bronwyn’s to her. “Cheers.”
They drank.
Bronwyn resisted the urge to pick a fight with him by saying that he hadn’t needed to tell Wesley that the name change was somehow dependent on Patrick’s and Bronwyn’s marrying. What did it matter what he’d told Wesley? What mattered was that Wesley was now nurturing hopes that his mother and father might end up together.
We could, Bronwyn thought. For Wesley.
But she couldn’t bear to think of marrying for that reason. She felt as though bands were constricting her, trying to imprison her.
“Did I make things better?” he asked.
“Yes.” Wesley seemed to accept that his own wishes wouldn’t be the sole factor in whether or not he was allowed to change his name. “Thank you,” she added.
“I wanted to ask you,” Patrick said, “if you’d fly to London with me in February. Just the two of us. Wesley will be busy in school, and Megan has said she would watch him.”
“That’s a long way off,” Bronwyn said.
“Which is why I wanted to tell you as soon as possible—to give you time to consider.”
“Ah.” She sipped her drink. “Why just me?”
Patrick joined her beside the window where she stood. He removed her glass from her hands, set it next to his on the highboy. “Because I’m attracted to you. Because once you were my best friend. Because I’ve never found another woman who compares to you.”
“And because I’m the mother of your child,” she added.
He gave a rueful laugh. “That has less to do with it…if I’m honest with myself.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m glad that you and I have a child together. But that wouldn’t be enough to make me love you.”
To make me love you. Was he saying that he did love her? Bronwyn wondered.
“What I want to know,” he said, touching a lock of the long hair that now hung loose on each side of her face, “is if you love me, too.”
Bronwyn spoke quietly. “I do. But—”
He cocked an eyebrow.
“I need to be free, Patrick. It all seems so easy, to become your lover, your wife. But it’s too easy. I’m not sure I want…” The right words elud
ed her. “I’ve inherited money from Ari. His life insurance.”
Patrick half opened his mouth. Abruptly, he closed it. “What will you do?”
“Nothing different, at the moment.”
He nodded, thinking, then gazed at her from those hazel eyes, and she stared at his mouth, at the dent in his chin.
“Does being free,” he asked, “mean you can’t love me?”
She met his eyes. “Patrick, lately I can’t help loving you.”
He reached for her again, slowly, tentatively, as though determined to make no mistake.
She lifted her face to his.
Chapter Eleven
They spent the night in Patrick’s bedroom, and Bronwyn could not deny the comfort, the rightness of being so intimate with him. As she lay in his arms, her thoughts spun from a past almost forgotten to the present. The lover who embraced her now was both steadier and deeper than her boyfriend from university. And she was in love with him, joyful to be close to him.
Yes, Patrick had changed. And so had she. Ruefully, she thought of the early years of her marriage, of coming to terms with the fact that Patrick was Wesley’s biological father, of her decision to continue letting Ari believe Wesley was his son.
Yes, she’d grown. All the emotional growth in her life seemed so hard-won. It had always been that way. And now she seemed to have all she wanted. A career, money of her own, family, Patrick’s love.
Experience, however, had made her distrustful of such situations, scenarios in which she had all she wanted. To have everything she wanted was to be vulnerable.
In her vulnerability, the person she most wanted to distrust was Patrick.
Trust equals courage, she thought, remembering all the things Louisa had said that evening. Patrick had shown himself to be a person who could listen to her, who could admit to weakness in himself. They could grow together.
“Do you think it will be all right with Louisa if I continue to live here and teach here?”
“I don’t think it would be all right if you left,” Patrick replied. “You’re family to her.”
Bronwyn propped herself up on her elbows. The moon was almost full, and its silvery light came through the window. She gazed at Patrick. “It’s hard for me to take in. The only family I’ve ever had was my mum. Then Ari and Wesley.”
“I want you to be part of my family, Bronwyn. I want you for my wife.”
“I can’t,” she said quickly. “I’ve told you why.”
Patrick only heard her rejection, an echo of earlier rejection. This woman had never said to him that he was someone she could marry, only that she wouldn’t marry him. And she had married someone else. He tried to remember the reason she’d given for not marrying him—for not marrying him now. “In the past,” he said, “you felt that I was immature and unready for marriage. Is that how you still feel?”
“Absolutely not. I admire you. I even love you. I’m glad you’re Wesley’s father. If I were to marry anyone now, I would want it to be you.”
“But,” he said.
“I’ve been widowed a very short time, Patrick. Can’t you understand my wanting to figure out who I am before linking my life to someone else’s?”
“Are you asking me to wait?”
“I would never ask any man to wait,” she said sharply. But his words troubled her. “Are you saying you’re simply looking for a wife and if I don’t want to marry you, then you need to find someone else?”
“I’m not saying that,” he told her, holding her more tightly. “I was trying to get a feeling—to find out if you think you could marry me in the future.”
“If I can marry anyone in the future,” Bronwyn said, “it would be you. Can’t you see that it’s much too soon for me?”
He thought about it, about the turmoil which had brought her to Fairchild Acres. He tried to believe her, to believe that this rejection was not like the last. But it was still rejection, and his whole body ached with it. He stroked her head and said, “I understand.”
Because he did. But he also understood that this Bronwyn, freed from her life with Ari Theodoros, might never want to marry again.
And Patrick could see that he might have become the right man for her.
But that it might be too late.
It was 5:30 a.m. Wesley was not yet awake. Patrick had followed Bronwyn into her room, where she was dressing to teach a six o’clock spinning class. Helena and Marie were her most faithful students for indoor cycling. Helena had lost fifteen pounds since Bronwyn had come to Fairchild Acres, and the weight loss was accompanied by an increase in muscle tone. Bronwyn couldn’t have been more pleased with her friend’s progress.
As she finished lacing her trainers, Patrick asked, “Do you mind if I drive Wesley to school?”
“Don’t you think it’s best for him to ride the bus?”
Patrick narrowed his eyes. “Why?”
Bronwyn shook her head. “I don’t want to spoil him.”
“It sounds as though Ari spoiled him a bit.”
“And it was a problem—for me, anyway. Sometimes I could see Wesley starting to become arrogant because of Ari’s wealth. That’s not how I want him to be.”
“Nor I,” Patrick agreed. “Though to be honest, I don’t think there’s much chance of that. You’ve done a very fine job with him, Bronwyn.”
His words touched her, and she looked at him and said, “And I think you’re wonderful for him. I’m so glad that he knows he’s your son. I think he’s already taking strength from it, from believing in you.”
He gave her a small, wry smile. “I’ll try to be worthy.” Then he suggested, “I’ll walk to the bus stop with him. How will that be?”
“Perfect.” Bronwyn kissed him.
He gazed into her green eyes, trying to read the truth there, trying to believe that she loved him more than she could any other man. And trying to accept that, once again, she didn’t want to marry him.
That afternoon, she and Patrick walked to the bus stop together to meet Wesley. They planned to go for a ride afterward.
Patrick and Wesley would use their riding horses. Bronwyn would be on Exclusive, an elderly and retired jumper whom she enjoyed riding. Exclusive was housed in the stable that Louisa’s most valuable racehorses occupied, while Patrick’s and Wesley’s were in a different building, so they separated and agreed to meet outside the racing stable.
On the way to the stable, Bronwyn met Crystal, the groom with scoliosis who was no longer participating in the morning gallops. Riding Thoroughbreds was not recommended for her spine.
“How are you, Crystal?” Bronwyn asked.
The twenty-two-year-old, who was black-haired,tiny enough to be a jockey and very pretty, replied with a slightly bitter smile. “At least I still get to be around the horses.”
“You miss riding,” Bronwyn said.
“It’s all I’ve ever cared about.”
Bronwyn racked her brain, trying to think of something, anything, that would fill the gap where riding Thoroughbreds had been in this young woman’s life. “You like dancing?” she asked halfheartedly. “Cycling?”
“Why is cycling okay and riding isn’t? No, don’t answer that, and I know I can ride now. It’s just not the smartest thing. I know I’m making the right choice.”
But tears had sprung to her eyes as she spoke.
“Shall we see how great you can get at yoga?” Bronwyn said.
“I do like to dance. But just clubbing, you know. I’ve never learned a dance discipline.”
“What type interests you?” Bronwyn asked.
“Probably modern—to watch. But you have to start with ballet when you’re young. I like your yoga classes—and Pilates.”
“I’m taking lots of extra training courses,” Bronwyn said. “Next time I have to go, why don’t you come with me? I think we could use another teacher. You’re already an athlete, and that eliminates a lot of hurdles.”
“I’d love that,” Crystal said. She gave an uneas
y glance toward the racing stables. “Well, you’re going riding, right?”
“Yes. Oh, and here come Patrick and Wesley.”
“Patrick fancies you, doesn’t he?”
Bronwyn gave a small grin. “A bit, I think.” She winked at the other girl. “But I thought it was a closely guarded secret.”
“I won’t give you away,” Crystal laughed. “He’s a handsome devil, isn’t he?”
“Oh, yes.”
Bronwyn waved to Patrick and Wesley. “Sorry, you guys. I’ll saddle up Exclusive. Give me a moment.”
Crystal, instead of waving goodbye, walked over to the other two to compliment Wesley on his riding and talk to him about Beckham, who had walked over to pee on a post by the stable.
Bronwyn spotted Marie walking around the side of the stable, looking as though she’d just come from the other end of the building. She was glancing back at her uncle, Reynard. Reynard worked at Lochlain and brought eggs to the kitchen regularly. Bronwyn had always found him charming, but now he and Marie appeared to be arguing, and then Marie stalked away.
She walked to the main stable door and opened it.
A horse’s thunderous snorting made her jump. A giant stallion reared before her, untethered, unaccompanied, and charged out of the stable. Bronwyn heard more snorting, hooves rising and falling, a high wail that pierced her brain. She spun to see Wesley fly through the air, thrown by his mount. He struck his head on the edge of a fence and hit the ground like a sack, unmoving.
Bronwyn ran toward him, a voiceless scream inside her.
Patrick yelled, “Don’t move him,” as he wheeled his horse to go after the stallion.
“No!” Crystal said. “I’ll get him, he knows me.”
Bronwyn knew the groom must be talking about the horse.
“Grab that horse!” yelled a voice from far away, a voice Bronwyn recognized as Louisa’s.
Bronwyn raced over to Wesley, but Marie was already at his side. She touched Wesley’s neck at the carotid artery. “He’s got a pulse.”
“He’s breathing,” Bronwyn said. “God, call an ambulance. Please, call someone.”
Marie ran off to find a phone.
Wesley’s eyes fluttered.