Aidan followed quietly at her side. She walked up the row of front steps and into the little house. She took the only chair in the front room, forcing Aidan to sit at the kitchen table. She waited for his lies, and she steeled her heart against the pain she knew was coming.
“Maura, I’m not going to lie to you. When Tommy first approached me with the idea of putting another clause into the contract, I was all for it.”
And there it was. The painful truth finally out in the open. “So, you admit it? You were going to cheat my family of what was rightfully ours? You are despicable—”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying.” Aidan stood and paced the tiny quarters. “I said I agreed to the clause, but I never intended to cheat anyone. I just didn’t…want to be married to you.”
Maura closed her eyes against the stabbing pain of his words. She had fallen hopelessly in love with Aidan Langley. She had agreed to this arrangement and was in lock, stock, and barrel. And he sat in front of her, admitting he wanted to be free. She felt a single tear glide down her cheek. She stood to leave. She would come back tomorrow to get her things.
“Maura, honey. Wait. Don’t go. You said you’d listen to me.”
She could take no more. “Why? So, you can humiliate me even more? I’ve heard enough, Aidan.”
He blocked her path to the door. “You said you’d listen. Please, Maura. Give me a chance to explain everything.”
She should have kept going. She should have punched him in the face and just kept going. But something in his voice held her. And then she made the fatal mistake of looking into his eyes. She saw his pain, and she was lost.
Without a word, she returned to her seat. He took that as the sign to continue.
“Maura, I admit I agreed to the clause Tommy offered to put into the contract. I admit when we first married, I wanted out. I thought…I could do better.”
“Like Beth Chaplin?” Maura couldn’t keep from jabbing at him. She wanted him to hurt as much as she did.
“You know about Beth?” Aidan’s shocked surprise made her almost laugh at him. Men thought they were so clever.
“Of course, I know about Beth. I knew about you two weeks ago. And, I saw you two tonight. On the dance floor. Wrapped in each other’s arms like old lovers.”
“You saw us?” He had the good sense to look ashamed. “It wasn’t what you think, Maura. I swear to you.”
“Aidan, I might be a little slow in wanting to believe…but, I’m not stupid. She had her hands all over you like she knew you belonged to her.”
“Tommy arranged for Beth to be there tonight. I had no idea she was in town. Hell, I haven’t seen her in almost a year. That was the last time she came to town. I admit I was caught off guard when she walked into Gino’s Bar. And, I’ll even admit that I let things get out of hand.” His voice trailed off, and the silence of the night closed in on them.
“Is that it? Have you said everything you have to say? I want to make certain I can tell your mom I listened to you with a clear conscience before I walk out.” Maura’s resolve wasn’t as solid as she would have liked, but she was going to give Aidan every indication she was done with his nonsense.
“Maura, I don’t love Beth anymore. Tommy did me a favor by bringing Beth back to town. All these years I imagined what my life would be like married to her. But when I saw her again, I felt—nothing. All I could think about was getting back home. To you.
“And I knew about a clause Tommy was putting in the contract, but I didn’t know what it said. All Tommy told me was it was there to help me if I wanted out of the marriage. That’s all I knew. I swear.”
Maura looked into her husband’s handsome face. His beautiful blue eyes were racked with pain. She knew that kind of pain because she felt it deep in her own heart.
“And do you?” She asked the one question she had to know the answer to.
“Do I? What, want out of this marriage? No, Maura. I don’t. I want to make a future and a family—with you.”
She wanted to believe every word he said. She wanted to fall into bed with his body wrapped around her making her feel safe and secure. She wanted to have this baby and watch it thrive under the Langley’s Legacy brand. But could she trust him?
“Aidan, if you had torn up the escape clause before I learned about it, I could have moved forward with you. If you had rejected Beth before I saw you two dancing together, locked in each other’s arms, I could have forgiven you. If you had come to me and declared your love before Tommy forced your hand, I could have made a life with you and our child. But you did none of those things, so your words are hollow and meaningless.”
Maura turned and opened the front door. She stopped before she walked out, but she didn’t turn around to look at Aidan. She was afraid she wouldn’t have the guts to go if she did. “Goodbye, Aidan.”
“Wait, Maura. What if I can prove everything I just said was true? Would you believe me then? Would you stay?”
She turned to see if he was serious. The determination etched in every line of his face indicated her husband was dead serious. She thought about what he was offering—proof he was telling the truth.
“I’m asking you, Maura. If I give you indisputable proof that what I’m saying is one hundred percent true, will you stay?” he pleaded.
She didn’t have to think twice. “I would.”
“Get in the truck, we are going back to town.”
When Aidan first told her they were going to find Beth Chaplin, she refused. Hadn’t she suffered enough humiliation for one night without having the ‘other woman’ rubbed in her face? But Aidan said he was going to give her the proof she wanted, and that proof started with Beth’s side of the story.
Aidan pulled up in front of Beth’s parents’ house. He honked the horn twice, and Maura watched the woman who had been dancing in her husband’s arm not more than an hour ago, walk out on to the porch. “Hello, Aidan. Did you change your mind?” The woman’s sultry voice called out to her husband. Maura cut a look toward Aidan that said ‘if this is your proof, you are in big trouble’.
He grinned at her and opened his door. “Beth, can you come out here to the truck a minute? There’s someone I’d like you to meet.” Aidan’s cocky grin back at her made her weak at the knees.
Maura watched the dark haired beauty walk to Aidan’s side of the truck. It looked as if she were going to walk right into his arms again until she saw Maura in the passenger seat. A sad smile crossed her pretty features. She turned to Maura and extended her hand through the window. “So, you must be the new Mrs. Langley. I hear congratulations are in order.”
Maura took the woman’s slender hand, and it made her touch feel all the more real. She could see why Aidan had fallen in love with her. “Thank you.” Her words fell flat when she thought about why they were here.
Beth turned back to Aidan. “Why are you here, Aidan?”
“I thought you should know that Tommy’s matchmaking wasn’t to get you and me back together. He planned that little scene in the bar, and he made certain Maura was there to see it.”
Maura watched the meaning of Aidan’s words sink in. The woman at least had the decency to look embarrassed.
“Aidan, could I have a moment with your wife?” Beth looked at her and then back to Aidan.
“Of course. I’ll go in and say hello to your mom and dad.” Aidan helped Beth into behind the wheel of the truck and closed the door behind her. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.” Aidan sent her a silent message pleading with her to listen.
Maura and Beth watched Aidan walk up the sidewalk and step inside the house leaving them in awkward silence.
“What’s your name?” Beth asked her.
“Maura.” She didn’t offer anything else.
“Maura. That sounds Irish. Is it?” It seemed Beth wanted to make small talk first. Okay, she could play along.
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“It would be funny if it was, Irish. Aidan and his family
and pretty damned Irish.” Beth tried to joke, but her laugh faded into awkward silence.
“Look, Beth—I have no idea why Aidan brought me here. So, if this is as awkward for you as it is for me—”
“I know why he brought you here. He wants me to see how happy he is with you.”
Maura didn’t know what to say to the woman’s declaration, so she kept quiet.
“He tried to tell me in the bar that he was a happily married man. But, I wouldn’t listen. I didn’t want to listen. When I heard he had gotten married, I couldn’t believe it. He and I were always so…” The woman’s voice trailed off.
“In love.” Maura offered.
“Yeah, we were in love. I guess I thought I could count on Aidan to be waiting for me. He was always so patient. He let me explore other places. See new things. I wanted to experience other worlds, and I wanted to live in color, not the black and white existence of this small town. Do you know what I mean?”
Maura thought back to her time in California and the experiences she wouldn’t have had had it not been for her job as a nanny to the wealthy Vanderleafs. She knew what it felt like to be stuck in a place without the means to leave. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”
“I guess I just thought he would always be here waiting on me when I came home.” Beth turned to look at her. “And he always was—until this time. This time when I returned, I learned he had given his heart away to someone else while I wasn’t looking.”
Maura watched a tear slide down Beth’s cheek. She didn’t know what to say, so she handed her a handkerchief and kept quiet. She and Aidan’s first love sat in the front seat of The Legacy’s farm truck and resigned Beth’s past with Maura’s future.
After several minutes of quiet, Beth wiped her tears away and turned to her. “I still love him, Maura. And, if I could, I’d take him away from you in a heartbeat. Call me heartless. Call me a home-wrecker. I don’t really care. But, when I saw the way his face lit up when he talked about you, I knew I had stayed away too long.”
Beth opened the truck door and got out, closing it behind her. She folded her arms and leaned against the window. “He loves you, Maura. But know this, if you ever allow him to stray, if you ever stop loving him, I’ll be back, and you can count on that.”
Maura sat in the dark interior of the truck and watched the willowy and beautiful Beth walk up the walk and into the house. Two seconds later, Aidan was out of the house, off the porch and running down the walk toward her. He jumped in the truck beside and waited for her to tell him what to do. “Maura?”
“I want to go home, Aidan,” Maura whispered softly across the cab of the truck.
She saw the disappointment on his face. She realized his misunderstanding.
“I want to go home—to The Legacy.”
Epilogue
March 1934
Main House, The Legacy
Maura’s body tensed as she prepared for another gut-wrenching pain. How much more could she take? She tried to be stoic, but this time the pain was more than she could bear. She cried out when the wave of pain hit its apex.
“Mom! Nola! Something’s wrong!”
She heard Aidan’s call for help. She felt his hands roaming over her, rubbing her, trying to ease her pain. Reaching for her helpless husband’s hands to stop their irritating journey across her body, she looked into those beautiful blue eyes of his.
“Aidan, you need to calm down.” She saw the panicked look on his face. She squeezed his hand to reassure him. “I’m pretty sure this is all normal.”
Rachel and Nola breezed into the room. Maura welcomed the cool washcloth Nola placed on her perspiring forehead even though it was the middle of a late spring snowstorm.
“Son, all the pain Maura is experiencing is a normal part of childbirth. The closer the baby gets, the harder the contractions. Perhaps you should wait outside with your father. I think your agitation is stressing Maura more than helping calm her.”
“No, don’t go.” Maura clung tight to Aidan’s hand. “We can do this, Aidan. Stay with me.”
Her husband gazed into her face, his other hand pushing her sweat-soaked hair away from her face. “I’m not going anywhere, Maura.”
“Could someone send Levi to get Maura’s momma and papa? I don’t want them to miss out on this.”
***
Aidan stood by his wife’s side for the next eleven hours, helping as much as he could while she labored to deliver their child. Finally, on the twenty-fourth of March, in the middle of a late spring’s snow, his firstborn child made her appearance. And then the second one followed close on his sister’s heels. These two tiny babies united two families—sworn enemies for the past thirty-five years—now fighting each other—for a chance to hold the next generation. Even grumpy ol’ Grampa Harvey showed a momentary soft side when he looked in on the babies for the first time.
Aidan left Maura and his son and daughter sleeping in his room upstairs. They had moved out of the tiny original homestead cabin when Maura was in the last few months of her pregnancy. He was worried if she needed help while he was working, no one would hear her call.
He walked downstairs to share the news with Old Nessa resting in front of the great stone fireplace. She could no longer get around without falling so his dad bought her a wheelchair. He sat down next to her by the fire.
“Twins, huh? It’s just like when Sully and Donny were born. Your Grampa Patrick was busting his shirt at the seams just like you, Aidan, my boy.”
Aidan often wondered about the outlaw uncle named Donovan he had never known. When he asked his dad and mom, they always promised to tell him the story someday. So far, that day still hadn’t arrived.
His dad appeared in the doorway between the kitchen and the great room. “Son, I have something I’d like to give you, if you have a moment.” Aidan kissed Nessa on the cheek and followed his dad into the warm, inviting kitchen filled with Nola’s wonderful cooking.
“Have a seat, Aidan.” He pulled out one of the wooden chairs nestled under the kitchen table and sat.
“What’s up?” Aidan took the hot steaming cup of coffee his dad offered and cupped between his hands for warmth. His dad joined him at the table, and together they sat in companionable silence listening to the wind swirl around the great house keeping them safe and warm.
“Son, there’s a Langley family tradition I want to pass down to you.” He watched his dad pull out the silver pocket watch with a four leaf clover etched on the cover. He’d seen it many times growing up. It was a family heirloom brought by great-grandpa Finn when he came over from Ireland.
“This watch has been passed down from father to son for the last hundred and fifty years or more. My dad gave it to me when your sister was born, and now I’m giving it to you on the day your children were born.” His dad handed the watch over to him, and he reverently took it from his father’s hands.
“Dad, this is a beautiful watch, and I know what it means to the legacy of this family. I promise to take care of it, and when it’s time, I’ll pass it down to my son.”
Aidan watched the emotion on his dad’s face. “Son, there’s something your mom, and I have been meaning to talk to you about, and we think it’s time. Rachel?”
His mom came into the kitchen and closed the door behind her. She took her place beside his dad and together they turned toward him arm in arm in a unified front like they always did. “Son, we have something we want to tell you about your Uncle Donovan.”
The End
About the Author
Peggy has been in love with romance since the ripe old age of fourteen when she picked up her first "forbidden book". She continues to enjoy reading about happy endings and second chances. A recent move to the mountains of Colorado allows her to pen the novels she has always dreamed of writing while sharing a beautiful mountain cabin with her husband of thirty years and their four-legged children.
Website: https://www.peggymckenzie.com/
Twitter: @pegmckenzieb
ook
Facebook: peggymckenziebooks
Email: [email protected]
Aidan's Arrangement: (The Langley Legacy Book 4) Page 14