by Dani Wade
Willow stood up, seriously wishing she had on decent clothes for this confrontation rather than just her comfy shirt and shorts. “Actually, that date is very important. It’s the day the McLemore ship was burned, with their male heir inside.”
That gave Tate pause. He flipped back a few pages and read them. Then he flipped forward a few more. His jaw went tight. “So, this is a ledger of my ancestor’s misdeeds? Why would anyone care about that in this day and age?”
Good question. “Well, that’s a little complicated.”
He braced himself, arms crossed over his chest. “Try me.”
“My sister is pregnant with Paxton McLemore’s child. The matriarch of the family was a little girl when her uncle was killed aboard that ship.”
Tate frowned at that news.
“The people accused of perpetrating the crime were run out of town by the McLemores, who harassed them endlessly with sabotage of their business and personal threats. That family line is now continued in the Hardens. My Hardens.”
She’d expected more questions, but Tate simply stared down at the open book before him.
Willow hurried to fill the silence. “I just didn’t want my family, my sister, to be falsely accused. To be held accountable for something our family didn’t do.”
“But it’s okay to implicate mine?”
Willow threw her hands up. “There’s no good way to answer that, Tate. I’ve been struggling with the right choice since I found the ledger. I simply can’t figure out what it is.”
How could she explain this better? “At first, I only wanted to see if there was any information from that time out of curiosity. So we as a family could confirm what I found in my great-grandmother’s journals. Some things Murdoch told me led me to believe...”
Willow could swear Tate paled five shades lighter. His expression went cold, just as his lips pressed tightly together. “You came here just to find this book?”
“Not that book specifically...”
“You came here to spy on me?” he clarified.
Knowing what he must be thinking made her ache inside. “Technically I had a job, but—”
Tate slammed the book shut, causing her to jump. In comparison, his voice was deadly quiet. “But you came here for this.”
“I told you, I was simply curious, at first,” she defended herself. “Then I found out my sister was pregnant, and things got complicated.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Tate—”
She bristled at the way he held up his hand for silence. Even though she knew he had a right to be angry, his refusal to listen was totally ticking her off.
“My family lived off deceit,” he said. “I told you from the beginning how they were, what they did. They didn’t have very nice reputations, and the word murderer might have actually applied a time or two in the earlier generations.
“I told you I didn’t want to live like that. Refused to live like they had. And yet deceit is exactly what you brought here.”
She refused to let him brand her that way. “Tate, I did not know what would happen here. How life would change from the first moment I walked through the doors of Sabatini House. I love my family. I was trying to help them. But...I love you.”
He picked up the oversize book with a white-knuckled grip. “Then what is this doing here? If you loved me, why would you do exactly what I asked you not to?”
“Because I had decisions to make, Tate. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to hold on to the book until I could figure out what was best.”
“Well, I’ll make the decision for you, then,” he said, dropping the book back onto the bed with a thump. The look he sent her had the hardest edge she’d seen from him. “Get out.”
* * *
Tate sank into his office chair, dropping the stack of mail onto his desk next to the ledger. The stack was huge. He was used to having it brought to him every day and he’d forgotten that he now needed to go check the mailbox. It had been only a week, but it was long enough for him to see that both Murdoch and Willow had been culling the mail before bringing it to him.
Why in the world would anyone need so many advertisements?
He stared, feeling every bit of his irritation focused on the mail, even though logic told him that wasn’t what was influencing his mood. Finally, he turned his gaze to the old, leather-bound ledger next to it. He’d found it on Willow’s neatly made bed after she left.
He’d managed to stay away from the room for two days, but eventually couldn’t keep himself from it any longer. He simply had to see if she’d left anything behind. And she had.
He just hadn’t been able to accept her explanation. She knew how he’d felt about his family’s actions. He felt so strongly that he’d cut himself off from relationships to eliminate the possibility of that behavior continuing through an heir.
To know that she came there for the express purpose of finding dirt on his family was just something he couldn’t reconcile. At least, he didn’t know how.
Since she’d been gone he’d been trapped in a kind of inertia, unable to motivate himself to work, or do much more than stare out that window...thinking. He knew he needed to hire a new housekeeper, and had even looked up a temp agency’s phone number online, but he hadn’t been able to make himself dial the phone.
The house was quiet, too quiet. He could feel the emptiness, but he had no idea what to do about it. Bringing in a new housekeeper wasn’t going to change that.
And then there was the baby—the very last thing he wanted to think about. Did he want to have anything to do with the child if he couldn’t have his mother? Did he need to just get over himself? Could he handle being nothing more than the person who sent a check once a month?
Hoping to shake off the endless rounds of questions he seemed to be stuck in with no answers, Tate sorted through the mail. His contract should be in soon. As he glanced through the various envelopes, one with familiar handwriting caught his eye.
Sure enough, in the upper right-hand corner was Murdoch’s name. For just a moment, that feeling of emptiness lifted. Tate slit the envelope open and pulled out a card from inside.
A birth announcement.
Tate stared at the photo of the softly rounded baby face for a long time. It was the main picture on the front cover of the card; there were two other pictures to the side. One was of a man and woman holding the baby. The other showed the baby and the woman with Murdoch standing beside her, his arm around her shoulders.
It was hard for Tate to picture his friend in such a happy familial setting. Neither of them had a lot of experience with it. But Murdoch seemed to be learning the ropes fairly quickly.
Finally, Tate opened the card and scanned the details of the birth announcement inside, but he kept returning back to that first large picture. A baby. So vulnerable, yet so indistinct. An unclear bundle of potential, containing the makings of the adult he would be some day.
How amazing.
To think back to that single little blip of light on Willow’s ultrasound and know that it would one day be a baby like this one, a teenager like his brother had been, an adult like he was now, or a grandfather like Murdoch. Just the thought unlocked the inertia that had kept Tate cocooned from his pain.
To his dismay, a mixture of emotions started to seep through the cracks. Bad ones he hadn’t wanted to recognize. Good ones he hadn’t wanted to remember.
As he went to return the card to its envelope, Tate noticed a little piece of paper. He pulled it out and read Murdoch’s scrawled note.
I was a fool to leave her for so long. Don’t make my same mistakes. The past is what it is. But the future is all up to us.
Tate dropped the note on the desk. Restless energy forced him to his feet, got him moving. He crossed over to the arched windows and found himself staring down at the beach. He’d opened the s
hutters right after the storm and never closed them. As much as he wanted to say that overcoming his fear and aversion to the water had nothing to do with Willow, he knew he was lying to himself. Any thoughts of his brother still hurt, but simply looking at the water didn’t anymore. And that was a miracle.
But as much as he wanted to believe Murdoch, to believe that the potential of the future was worth letting go of the past, Tate wasn’t sure that he could.
Frustrated, he stalked back to the ledger. Why did she leave it? Didn’t she need it anymore? It would just be her word against his if she took the information public. Did he even care about that?
He didn’t know. Because he hadn’t bothered to find out any answers past the accusations. Which was his typical MO with Willow. He’d pushed, but hadn’t asked much. Heck, he hadn’t even known her parents were dead for how long?
Idly he flipped through the book until he reached the page she had marked. He immediately noticed the sticky note was no longer blank. The brief message, in Willow’s elegant handwriting, contained an address with the words: If you ever need me, please let me know.
For the first time, Tate looked at the long years ahead of him and wondered about the things that he could change, that he and his brother had always wanted to be different but couldn’t do anything about. Deep down he knew it was time for action rather than hiding behind excuses.
It took Tate only a few minutes to change his clothes, and then he rushed down the stairs and grabbed his keys. He didn’t want to give himself too much time to think, because that could lead to no action at all.
He fired up the Jeep, checked all the levels and backed out of the garage.
It wasn’t until he reached the fork in the road that he acknowledged he had a choice to make. Left, and he would drive across the island to the hangar and stay safe and secure in his own little world. He could write his stories with their touch of danger while staying safely tucked away in Sabatini House for the rest of his life.
The path he always took.
Or right, and he could head down the hill to the bridge that led to the mainland. He hadn’t crossed it since he was eighteen years old. He didn’t even fly out that way. But he could today. He could find Willow and tell her he’d been a fool.
There was a big risk involved, especially for a man like him. One who didn’t do risk. One who lived out all his adventures in the written word alone. But if he didn’t take it, he would never again touch her silky skin or smell that soothing vanilla scent. Never bury himself in the heat of her body and forget the pain of the past.
Tate also thought about that soft baby face, and the picture of the mom and dad holding their child close. That’s what he wanted for his child, and he hoped to God he was the type of man to give it to him. So he turned the Jeep right, took a deep breath and put it in Drive.
Seventeen
Willow finished up the beans and potato salad, while Royce took the last of the barbecue chicken off the grill. Cooking in the kitchen of the house where’d she’d spent most of her life made her foray to the island seem almost like a dream...though she was experiencing enough pregnancy symptoms to make it very real.
Auntie and Jasmine entertained the baby over at the table, while Ivy lay down after her long day searching for work. With two pregnant ladies in the house, Jasmine and Royce had been nice enough to come over a couple of times this week with dinner, instead of just the usual Sundays.
Plus, it gave everyone a chance to play with little Rosie.
At least these family dinners helped Willow not to feel so alone. A week had passed since she’d left Sabatini House. So many times throughout each day her mind was haunted by that moment of holding Tate’s hand as they watched their baby’s heartbeat. Even though they’d both had their own doubts and fears, in that one moment they had been united.
Instead she’d now be going it alone.
Royce came through the door from the back porch and set the platter of meat on the counter next to the stove. Then he walked over to the table and swept Rosie up into the air. Her high-pitched squeal echoed through the room. Just the reaction her daddy was going for.
Royce’s transformation from cold businessman to loving father was nothing short of miraculous. Sometimes Willow could hardly believe it. If she hadn’t really seen it in person, no one could have convinced her.
She and Ivy had discussed a couple of times how they were both a little envious of Jasmine, but they would figure out their relationship woes somehow. One thing was certain: the heirloom ring hadn’t worked for either of them the way it had for Jasmine.
But Jasmine and Royce’s path to happiness hadn’t been the typical straightforward one, so Willow and Ivy weren’t about to begrudge them the wonderful life they were now enjoying. It had taken a lot of effort to achieve.
To Willow, both the effort and the result were beautiful things.
As if she knew exactly what Willow was thinking, Jasmine met her gaze. “How are you doing?” she asked.
Good question. Some days she wasn’t really sure. “I’m managing,” she said, keeping it short and sweet.
What else could she say? She almost wished summer were over, so she’d have her teaching job to distract her. Instead she simply found whatever she could to keep herself busy, and she spent the evenings reading so she didn’t waste hours wondering how Tate was and if he hated her still.
“Have you heard from Tate?”
“No. And I don’t imagine I will.”
“Give him time,” Royce said. “He’ll come around.”
Willow wished she could believe that.
“Like you did?” Jasmine asked, grinning over at him.
“Yes, ma’am. We men might be slow, but we eventually recognize when we’re missing a good thing.” For good measure, Royce brushed a kiss over Rosie’s dark, curly hair, and then did the same for her mama.
Willow wasn’t so sure. Tate had barely been off that island in over twenty years. She had serious doubts about him coming for her now.
Jasmine headed down the hall to let Ivy know dinner was ready. They all gathered around the table as usual, bringing on that secure, comfortable feeling of having Willow’s loved ones around her. The split was probably for the best, she thought as she looked around. Tate wouldn’t ever want to be a true part of her family. He was too isolated. And her sisters and Auntie were something she simply couldn’t live without.
Suddenly, the doorbell rang.
“Who in heaven is that?” Auntie asked, craning to see out the curtain-draped windows.
“I’ll get it,” Ivy said. She stepped out of the room for a minute and they all heard the front door open.
“Must not have been a salesman,” Royce said with a secretive smile. “Last Saturday she about bit the head off one when he interrupted her nap with his persistent knocking.”
“Better keep that in mind when you go to have a brother or sister for little Rosie there,” Auntie said with a cackle.
Royce’s brows shot up straight to his hairline. “Not anytime soon, I hope.”
Jasmine just laughed.
Finally, Ivy came back into the room, her face flushed.
“You have a visitor, Willow.”
“Me?” Who would be here to see me?
Ivy just nodded. “I think you’d better come.”
Willow found herself reluctantly heading to the front parlor. Who in the world did she know who would bother them at dinnertime?
She gasped as she rounded the corner and saw Tate standing on the front porch. At first, seeing him was so out of context that her brain refused to register who it was. Then Ivy passed her with a glass of water. She stepped through the door, where she handed it over to Tate. He drew in a deep breath as if trying to steady himself before he tilted his dark head back and drank, giving Willow time to take in his olive skin and tall, familiar build.
As he finished, she could see he was deeply shaken but forcing himself to hold it together. She’d seen that expression a time or two before today. She’d be perfectly happy to never see him struggle this hard again.
The smile he gave her sister was really more of a stretching of his lips, but he murmured his thanks. Ivy stepped through the door and paused beside Willow. “He looked rough, so I thought he could use some water.”
“Thanks, Ivy,” Willow said, both for her thoughtfulness and for giving Willow a moment to gather her courage.
Then Ivy headed back to the kitchen, leaving Willow with no choice but to walk through the front door and stand face-to-face with a man she never thought would show up at her house.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice trembling and weaker than she would have liked.
He stood with the glass in his hands, absently rubbing it like he was summoning a genie to make a wish. “I came to see you,” he answered. His gaze, his voice, everything about him was direct. This was a man who knew what he was doing, even if he wasn’t entirely comfortable doing it.
“Why?” Willow crossed her arms over her chest. The ache caused by the slight pressure on her breasts only reminded her how much unfinished business they had. Was the baby his reason for being here? His only reason?
Tate stepped closer, his grip tightening. “I need you, Willow.”
“You what?” Of all the things she’d expected him to say, that wasn’t one of them.
“You said if I ever needed you, this was where you’d be. Well, I do.”
When she’d left that note, she’d been leaving open a door, but she’d never expected him to walk through it because of her. The baby, yes. Willow shook her head. “I guess this just isn’t matching up with the Tate that I know.”
“It’s not the Tate I know, either,” he said with a little grin. Then it faded as he swallowed hard. “But I can’t do it, Willow. I can’t live with the emptiness, the isolation anymore. Just me and the people who run around in my brain. I need you to make it all come alive, to make it worth doing. You and—” he gestured toward her stomach “—that little one that’s beaten all the odds just to make it here.”