“Mom told him that?” She couldn’t imagine the kind of strength that must have taken. Unlike Hannah’s eagerness to be rid of her own husband after she’d tired of his on-again, off-again commitment to their marriage, she’d always believed that her mother had remained wildly in love with her father. Had that been true? Now, she couldn’t be sure.
Grandma Jenny nodded. “She loved him, but she’d had enough, you see. This hadn’t been his first affair and it wasn’t likely to be his last. I was never more proud of her than I was that day, when she sat right here in this kitchen and told him that once he walked out the door, it was over for good. There would be no turning back, no forgiveness.”
“I had no idea,” Hannah murmured.
“Of course not. She didn’t want you to know. Just because she was through with him, she didn’t want you to hate him. She didn’t even hate him herself. She simply loved her self-respect more. And she wanted you to be able to hold on to the good memories. I suppose in a way, by cutting him out of your life at that point, she thought she was protecting you from ever finding out about his flaws.”
“So, knowing all this now, what should I do?” Hannah asked.
Gran gave her a sympathetic look. “Your decision. You’re an adult now. You can meet your father on your own terms, establish whatever kind of relationship you want with him.” She hesitated, then added, “And you do have a half brother. If it were me, I think I’d want to meet him, at least.”
“I do,” Hannah said. “Almost as much as I want to see my father again. After all, my half brother is as much of a victim of all this as I am. From what Luke said, the story was kept from him, too.”
“Then you’ll go to see them? Or invite them here?”
Hannah considered both scenarios, but neither seemed entirely right. There was her father’s wife—her stepmother, technically—to be considered if they met in his home. Hannah wasn’t anxious to cross paths with her. Here on Seaview, where she’d feel comfortable, there would be plenty of baggage for her father to face. “Neutral turf, I think,” she said at last. “Maybe a restaurant on the mainland.”
Gran looked dismayed. “In public?”
Hannah shrugged. “It’s not as if this is going to be some tearful, dramatic reunion or an out-of-control shouting match.”
“You sure about that?”
She shook her head. The truth was, she wasn’t sure about anything at all when it came to her father, even whether he’d earned the respect that came along with that title.
Luke called Doc first thing in the morning after his return to Seaview. “When you have some time, I’m ready to sit down and talk about joining the clinic,” he told him.
“Lunch at The Fish Tale,” Doc said eagerly. “I’m buying.”
“Does noon work for you?”
“Make it half past. I never get the last of the morning patients out the door on time.”
“Then I’ll see you at twelve-thirty,” Luke said. “Thanks, Doc.”
He hung up his cell phone just as Hannah came outside. She studied him quizzically. “Why were you talking to Doc?”
“I was setting up a meeting. We’re going to finalize our plans for me to join him at the clinic.”
“Really?”
“That can’t be a surprise to you. I’ve been talking about it for a while now.”
She shrugged. “I suppose I thought you’d come to your senses. After living in Atlanta, how can you be happy here?”
“The more relevant question is how did I ever manage to be happy in Atlanta?”
She frowned. “Come on, Luke. You were married, you had two great kids and you had a thriving medical practice in a major metropolitan area. What’s not to like about that?”
“I think it’s pretty evident that my marriage wasn’t all that solid and satisfying for either one of us. I was successful in my medical practice, but I wasn’t really happy with it. And I was so busy I hardly had any time at all with my kids. I finally feel as if I’ll be able to enjoy them now, even if we are separated some of the time.”
“A lot of the time,” Hannah corrected.
“Not compared to the separations that happened even when we were living under the same roof,” he insisted. “This is a fresh start for me, Hannah. I’ll finally have a real balance in my life. The slower pace will allow that. I’ll be able to have real quality time with my kids, when I visit Atlanta or when they come here. I’ll be able to practice the kind of medicine that can really make a difference.” He regarded her speculatively and threw out a thought that had been coming to mind more and more frequently. “I’d have time to devote to a marriage now, too.”
“Have you mentioned that to Lisa?” she asked irritably.
“She’s not the one I’m interested in marrying.”
She gave him a wary look. “What are you suggesting?”
“Nothing right this second,” he said, backing down at the scared tone in her voice. Maybe he was rushing ahead too fast for her. “I’m just putting that out there, planting the seed, so to speak. Maybe it’s something we could start considering.”
“We?”
He chuckled at her stunned expression. “Yes, as in you and me.”
“Luke, I can’t live here,” she protested.
“Can’t or won’t?”
“I don’t want to,” she said emphatically. “There’s nothing for me here, except years of resentment and bitterness. A few weeks can’t wipe away all the bad memories.”
“Come on, Hannah! What about your grandmother? She’s here. Kelsey and Jeff seem determined to settle here. Your grandchild is on the way. And, of course, there’s me. I ought to sweeten the pot just a little, or have I gotten that all wrong?”
The question seemed to fluster her. “No, of course, you matter. A lot.”
“I sense a but in there,” he said. “Are you saying I’m not important enough for you to even consider moving back here?”
“It’s not that,” she protested. “You are important. The past few weeks have been amazing. I haven’t felt this way in years. To be honest, I’m not sure I’ve ever felt this way.”
“What way?”
“Loved. Cherished. Desired.”
“And you are all of those things,” he told her. “And I think you feel the same way about me.”
“I do,” she admitted. “But I can’t.”
“Can’t? Why the hell not?” he asked, just not getting it. She sounded so determined to throw ice on the whole idea of marriage, but so far she hadn’t said anything that made sense.
She gave him an impatient look. “I have cancer, Luke. I have to stay focused on that fight.”
“Which means you can’t have a relationship?” he asked incredulously. “Someone who can fight with you? You will beat this, Hannah. I believe that.”
“You don’t know that. I could die, Luke. There’s not a day of my life now that I don’t think about that.”
“I could die, too,” he said reasonably. “None of us have guarantees before we get married or get involved with someone.” He sought more impassioned words to convince her. “So what if we only have a few months or a few years together? Isn’t that better, having that time and living every second of it, than denying ourselves all of it, because fate might not let it last long enough? Come on, Hannah, if people worried about what fate might have in store, they’d never do anything, never love anyone.”
He could tell she wanted to believe him, wanted to take that leap of faith with him, but he could also see that she wasn’t quite ready to do it. He crossed to where she was sitting on the edge of her chair, looking as if she wanted to make a break for someplace safe, someplace where there were no hard choices to be made. He gathered her up and kissed her as if there truly were no tomorrow.
“I want that,” he said. “I want it today and tomorrow and for however many days there might be. Just think about that, okay? That’s all I’m asking.”
She returned his gaze, her expression vaguely dazed.
“Okay,” she said, touching a finger to her lips.
Luke winked. “I’ll see you later. I’m off to meet Doc.”
And maybe after he’d settled that part of his future, he’d stop at the island’s fancy new jewelry store and see if he could find just the right ring to seal that part of his future, too. Maybe if he had something concrete to show Hannah, proof that his intentions were serious—cancer or no cancer—she’d find a way to overcome her fears and give them a chance.
“Come with me,” Jeff said, dragging Kelsey away from her desk in the office where she was noting several new reservations.
“Hey, I’m in the middle of doing something,” she protested. “Do you realize we’re booked up through the end of April? Isn’t that amazing? And reservations are coming in for May and June, too.”
“That’s great,” Jeff said with enthusiasm. “But that’s not more important than what I have to show you. Stop fussing and just come. It’ll take five minutes, more if you decide to reward me.”
“Reward you?”
He grinned. “The surprise is that good,” he assured her as he led the way upstairs.
Kelsey followed him toward his room, but instead of going there, he stopped at the room next door. “Close your eyes,” he commanded. “And don’t argue with me about that, too.”
“Okay, okay.” She dutifully closed her eyes.
She heard him unlock the door, then he took her hand in his and led her into the room.
“You can open your eyes now,” he said, his voice laced with excitement.
Unsure what to expect and praying that she would react the way he so obviously wanted her to, she opened her eyes slowly, then blinked.
“Oh, my,” she whispered, stunned. “Oh, Jeff, this is amazing.” She spun around slowly, trying to take in everything. “It’s a nursery for our baby. When did you have time to do this?”
“During your naps and whenever you had to go to the mainland for supplies,” he said. “Do you really like it?”
She threw her arms around his neck. “Of course I do. How could I not love it?”
He’d painted the walls a pale shade of pink and added a border of ducks and flowers at the top. The crib was white and had a mobile of ducks above it. The comforter matched the border on the walls and the sheets were the same pink as the paint. There was a changing table and a dresser, as well as a lamp that coordinated with everything. There was even a toy box in the corner and half a dozen stuffed ducks in the crib. A rocking chair sat in another corner with a pin-striped pink-and-white blanket tossed over it.
“I hope I didn’t overdo it with the ducks,” he said worriedly. “You’d pointed out the border one day on the mainland and I kind of ran with it.”
“It’s absolutely perfect,” she assured him.
“You’re not disappointed that you didn’t get to choose everything yourself? You have so much to do around here. I wanted to take one thing off your mind.”
She gave him a resounding kiss. “This is exactly what I would have done, and the fact that you wanted to do it for us, for me and the baby, is the sweetest, most thoughtful thing anyone has ever done for me.”
“Luke had to help me assemble the furniture,” he admitted with a rueful expression. “He volunteered, but I think your mom was afraid it would all collapse if she left it to me. She was probably right. The instructions were incomprehensible.”
Kelsey laughed. She could imagine how frustrating that would have been for him. “Obviously the two of you made a great team. Has my mom seen it since you finished? Or Gran? I assume they at least knew what you were up to.”
“Of course they knew, but they haven’t been in here since it’s been finished. I wanted you to be the first one to see it,” he said. “There’s one more thing that goes with it.”
“Oh?”
“It’s in the toy chest.”
Kelsey crossed the room and lifted the padded top of the chest, which could also be used as a window seat. Inside the chest was a small box. Her heart began to beat a little faster and harder. “Jeff,” she asked, her voice breathless. “What is this? It’s clearly not a toy for the baby.”
“Well, the nursery is really for the baby, but I thought her mom ought to have something special, too, so that’s for you.” His gaze caught hers and held. “If you’re ready to accept it.”
She lifted the wrapped box gingerly and held it in a hand that shook. She hadn’t expected to be so nervous when this moment finally came again. “I’m not sure I can open this,” she said. “My hands are shaking.”
“Want help?” he asked.
She thought about it, then shook her head. She wanted to savor every moment of this. It took a long time to remove the bow with her fumbling fingers and then what seemed like an eternity to unseal the paper. Then she was holding the small velvet box in her hand. She knew that once she opened that box, her life would change forever. Even though she’d reached her decision a while ago, even though she’d been anticipating this moment, she had to struggle with one last bout of uncertainty.
Then she glanced around the nursery and into Jeff’s eyes, which were filled with hope, and she knew that this was right. Marrying him had been inevitable and the timing was irrelevant. She held the box out to him. “You open it,” she said.
He took it from her and flipped open the lid to reveal a large, princess-cut diamond solitaire. When she would have reached for it, he captured her hand and held it, then dropped to one knee.
“Will you marry me, Kelsey? There is nothing in this world that I want more than to spend my life with you and our daughter and any other children we might have. That life can be right here in Seaview or anywhere else, because for me, wherever I’m with you will always be home.”
The last flickering doubt was swept away by the sincerity of his words and the love shining in his eyes. She knelt down before him and captured his face in her hands.
“I hope you know how very much I love you, Jeff Hampton. It was never, ever about that. Me saying no was only because I didn’t know who I was or what I wanted, and I needed to be absolutely sure about that before I could be sure we could share a life together. I found myself here and I think I even found a whole other side to you. I know that I’m more certain than ever that we belong together.”
“Help me out here,” he pleaded. “Was that a yes?”
She leaned forward and kissed him. “That was definitely a yes,” she said when she pulled away.
Jeff took her hand and slid the ring on her finger. “It looks good there,” he said.
“And it will stay there forever,” she promised him. “Now let’s go tell Mom and Gran. They are going to be so relieved that there’s going to be a wedding before I give birth to this baby.”
“Do you think you can pull off the kind of wedding you’ve always dreamed of in just a few months?”
“With Mom and Gran on the case, no problem,” she said at once. “We are the Matthews women, after all.”
And after being in Seaview with her mother and grandmother for all these weeks, she understood just how amazing that really was.
There was nothing they couldn’t accomplish. She just prayed her mom would come to believe that, too.
Hannah was up to her eyeballs with wedding preparations. Kelsey had asked for the impossible, something with all the frills, and she wanted it to be at the beginning of June, now only a few weeks away.
“After that I’ll be big as a blimp,” she had told Hannah. “Do you think Dad will come to walk me down the aisle?”
Hannah hesitated, then forced a smile. “If you want him here, he’ll come.”
“Is it possible to do all this so quickly?”
“Of course,” Hannah had assured her.
“I knew you wouldn’t let me down. It means you’ll need to stay here longer, though. You can’t plan a wedding in Seaview from New York.”
“I could,” Hannah argued, though without much heat. She wanted to share every second of the excitemen
t with her daughter and with Gran, who was already enlisting the help of everyone she knew at the church to make sure it was filled with flowers and decorated according to a picture Kelsey had torn out of a magazine.
“Dave’s probably going to freak when you tell him,” Kelsey said. “When was the last time you spoke to him?”
“It’s been a while now,” Hannah said evasively. “We have a deal. He knows I’ll call whenever I’m ready to come back to work.”
“He was okay with that?” Kelsey asked incredulously.
“He wasn’t ecstatic, but I told him that was just the way things had to be.”
“He’s holding your job for you, though?”
“Yes,” Hannah said. “Probably.”
Kelsey had stared at her with dismay. “Probably? Does that mean he might fill it? Then what will you do? Mom, don’t stay here if you need to be in New York. We’ll manage here and between faxes and e-mails and phone calls, you’ll be right in the thick of things.”
“It won’t be the same,” Hannah had insisted. “My only daughter is only getting married once and I intend to share every second of it.”
So, here she was in Seaview, months longer than she’d ever imagined she would be when she’d arrived back in January. She kept telling herself that she didn’t hate it only because of Luke and the flurry of excitement over the wedding, but when she was being totally honest, she could almost admit that she was enjoying the relaxing rhythm of her days here, to say nothing of the passion Luke had instilled in her nights.
It had come as a jolt last week, though, when Luke announced that he was going to start looking for his own place. She’d come to count on him being at the inn. She’d even encouraged him to stay on there.
“I’m taking up a room that could be rented for a lot more,” he’d reminded her. “This place is a business. Besides, the kids will be coming for the summer and I can’t impose on Kelsey and your grandmother by having them stay here again.”
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