Their Only Child

by Carla Cassidy

  He gave her a moment alone, allowing her time to check Eric’s arms, his legs, a mother hen seeing to her chick’s well-being. She hugged him again and again, laughing and crying at the same time.

  Finally, Sully’s tears eased, the pressure in his chest receded, and he got out of the car. Theresa released Eric, and the little boy grinned at his father. “Hi, Dad.” He lifted a hand in greeting. “I knew you’d come. I knew you’d find me.”

  In three long strides. Sully reached his son and grabbed him up in his arms. Closing his eyes, he squeezed Eric tight, breathing in the scent of him, reveling in the feel of Eric’s sturdy body in his arms. “We missed you, son.”

  “I missed you, too, Dad.” Eric placed a palm against Sully’s cheek. “I wasn’t scared…at least not so much. I knew you’d find me, Dad, ‘cause you’re a hero and that’s what heroes do.”

  A sob caught in Sully’s throat. Oh, how this child awed and amazed him. With his utter belief in heroes and his utter belief in Sully.

  “Can we go home now? I’m starving,” Eric said.

  Sully laughed, his laughter ringing with Theresa’s. The resilience of children. “Yes, we can go home now.” Together, the three of them headed for the car.

  THERESA SAT ON THE SOFA, her eyes shining as she looked at the Christmas tree, now complete, the heavenly angel smiling down from the highest point. They’d decided to have their Christmas celebration the next morning, after Eric got a good night’s sleep.

  The afternoon had passed in a flurry of activity. While Eric had bathed, Theresa had fixed them all soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. As they ate, he’d told them about his time in that little cell, the picture he’d painted in his mind to keep fear away. He told them about running through the woods, Donny following. He’d hidden, the blowing wind helping his escape by instantly covering his tracks.

  And now her son was tucked in bed, his new dog at his side and his father sitting in the chair next to him.

  She smiled as she remembered Eric’s joy when Montana had greeted them at the door. “He’s mine? He’s really, really mine?” Eric had asked, his eyes shining with excitement. It had been a case of instant mutual love between boy and dog.

  She looked up and smiled as Sully came out of Eric’s room and into the living room. She patted the sofa next to her. “Is he asleep?”

  Sully nodded and sank down on the sofa. “Do you have any idea how lucky we are?”

  She smiled. “I’ve just been sitting here counting my blessings.” Her smile fell as a shiver walked up her spine. “I thought we’d lost him, Sully.”

  Sully’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “That’s exactly what Donny wanted us to think.” He looked at Theresa, his gray eyes still holding the shadows of the experience. Theresa knew it would be some time before they healed, before they could put this all behind them.

  He leaned back against the sofa and raked a hand through his hair. “Imagine, orchestrating a kidnapping for ambition, to get your name in the paper.”

  “He’s sick. Sully. Donny is sick.”

  He shook his head thoughtfully. “I know, but I keep thinking somehow I should have seen some sign, I should have known something was going on inside him. We worked together for long hours, ate together and talked. Why didn’t I see it?”

  “Sully, give yourself a break. Donny was good. He had two faces, one a normal, rational one that he showed to the world, and a dark, twisted one that nobody saw.”

  “I could kill him,” Sully said, his voice tense with emotion.

  “I killed his car.”

  Sully looked at her, a slow smile curving his lips. “You creamed it,” he agreed.

  Suddenly, they were laughing. Gales of laughter bubbled from them as they fell together, clinging to one another. In some distant space in her mind, Theresa knew it wasn’t funny. And yet she surrendered to it, feeling the healing magic the shared laughter contained.

  As she fell against Sully’s chest, slid her arms around his neck, the rumble of his laughter filled her heart and she knew she’d never love another man the way she loved this man.

  Her laughter faded, as did his, as she placed her head on his chest, heard the comforting sound of his heartbeat.

  “If I had my way, I’d never let you or Eric out of my sight again,” she said softly.

  He stroked a hand through her hair. “But you know that’s not only impossible, it’s unhealthy. It’s important that you don’t smother Eric, overcompensate by taking away his independence.”

  “I know.” Theresa knew she should sit up, pull herself away from the comfort of Sully’s arms, but she didn’t want to. It didn’t seem fair that when she had Eric, she hadn’t had Sully, and now that she had Eric home safe once again, she knew it was just a matter of time before Sully was gone again.

  For a long moment, they remained there, with the light from the tree splashing merry colors all around them. Sully’s hand was gentle as he stroked through her hair, and his heartbeat remained strong and vital in her ear.

  It wasn’t until Theresa began to caress the breadth of his chest that his heartbeat quickened and he stirred from their position.

  “I need to be getting home,” he said.

  Theresa sighed as he said the words she’d been dreading. She sat up and looked at him, loving the gray eyes, with their dark framing lashes and solemn light. In the space of three terror-filled days, he’d reentered her heart so completely, filled the empty spaces she hadn’t realized existed inside her.

  A year ago, when he walked away from their marriage, she’d let him go without a whimper, because she believed him so unhappy with her. This time, she said the words she hadn’t been able to say before. “Sully…don’t go.”

  “I’ll be back in the morning for the Christmas celebration,” he said as he averted his gaze from her. She had a feeling he was deliberately misunderstanding what she wanted. He stood and looked at the angel on top of the tree. “Eric’s home safe, the angel is where she belongs, and it’s time for me to go home.”

  In the past three days, Theresa had faced the worst that life could offer, and she’d had to realize how brief, how fragile, life and happiness could be. As she looked up at Sully, the man she loved, the man she would always love, she realized that this time she wasn’t going to let him go without a fight. Pride be damned, life was too short for her to watch her happiness walk out her front door.

  If he could convince her that he no longer loved her, that he’d left her before because he was unhappy with her, then she’d have to let him go. But as she thought back over the past three days, remembered the way Sully had touched her, the way his eyes had sparked with desire, she simply couldn’t believe he no longer loved her.

  She stood and walked toward him. “Sully, I don’t want you to go, not tonight. Not ever.”

  His face twisted, as if her words pained him. It was a pain she couldn’t understand. “Theresa, you’re allowing the emotions and what we’ve been through to—”

  “Dammit, Sully, stop it right now,” she said, her voice low with anger. “Stop telling me what I think and what I feel. This has nothing to do with Eric’s abduction, this has nothing to do with the past three days. I love you. I never stopped loving you, and I want us to be a family again…the three of us.”

  “I can’t do that You just don’t understand.”

  “Then make me understand.” She grabbed his hands in hers, held them tight when he tried to pull away. “You still love me, Sully. You can’t deny it And I love you. So tell me what I don’t understand. Talk to me, Sully,” she begged. “You didn’t talk to me after you got shot. Dear God, please talk to me now.”

  His gaze held hers for a long, unguarded moment and in his eyes she saw his love for her, knew she’d been right He loved her. Sully loved her. Her heart sang with the knowledge.

  The joy was short-lived. Almost gently, he eased his hands away from hers and stepped back, deep shadows obscuring the love she’d seen moments before, shining in his
eyes. “You’re right. I owe you some answers.”

  He swiped a hand through his dark hair, then turned away from her, as if unable to speak and look at her at the same time. “You’ve always been the strongest woman I know, Theresa. It was one of the things I admired about you. When I’d go off to do my job as a cop, you never clung to me, never demanded of me.” He turned and looked at her once again. “I watched you prosecute the worst kind of criminals, saw you look them in the face without fear. I watched you bury your mother and saw the strength you used to help your sisters with their grief.”

  “What does any of this have to do with us?” she asked impatiently.

  “Because I can’t live up to being the man you deserve.” His voice was so filled with bitterness, with regret, her heart ached. “Because for the last eighteen months I’ve been afraid.” His eyes darkened to the deep shadows of night. “Afraid, Theresa…like a child. I tried booze to quiet the fear, but that didn’t work. I needed to leave you before you grew to hate me, before you realized what a scared, weak fool I was.”

  “Oh, Sully.” She reached for him, but he drew away from her.

  “I watched my mother grow to hate my father. I never wanted that to happen to us. I figured it was better you hate me for leaving than hate me for being weak.”

  Theresa sank down onto the sofa, realizing there was a lot of baggage between them. “Tell me, Sully. Tell me about that night Tell me all the ugly, horrid things you didn’t want to tell me before.” Somehow, she felt the answer was there…in the events of that night. The answer to why Sully had started hating himself so much he couldn’t accept that she loved him, didn’t feel worthy of that love.

  “You really want to hear about it?” His dark eyes held a hint of anger…anger Theresa knew wasn’t directed at her, but rather was directed inward.

  “As I walked toward the alley, I saw Donny’s car, but somehow it didn’t register in my head that it shouldn’t be there, was out of place.” Sully began to pace back and forth in front of her. His voice low and steady, as if he were reciting something that had happened not to him, but to somebody else. “But I knew something wasn’t right, had a bad feeling in my gut. Still, that didn’t stop me. I got to Louie at the end of the alley, and we said a few things. Then I heard it…the metallic click of a gun being cocked, and I froze.”

  He stopped pacing and stared at her, his eyes dead and empty. “I froze,” he repeated. “Then Louie was dead, and I thought I was, too.” He drew in a deep, shuddering breath. “I might have been able to save Louie if I hadn’t frozen with fear. Didn’t you see, his death is as much my fault as it is Donny’s. If I hadn’t been such a coward, if fear hadn’t frozen me to the spot, Louie wouldn’t be dead.”

  Theresa sucked in air, realized that this was what had taken Sully away from her. A death he felt responsible for, a life he thought was gone because he hadn’t reacted appropriately. Tears glittered on his eyelashes, attesting to the weight of this burden, a burden that had stolen his self-esteem, imbued him with a self-hatred that was destroying him.

  “How long do you suppose it takes between the cocking of a gun and the pulling of the trigger?” she asked.

  “What?” He stared at her blankly, as if she’d suddenly spoken a foreign language.

  “Oh, Sullivan, we’ve got to do something about this penchant you have for carrying the weight of the world on your back.” She stood and walked toward him. “I said, how long does it take between cocking a gun and the bullet being discharged?”

  “I don’t know…. A second.” He continued to stare at her, comprehension lightening the shadows of his eyes. “A second at the most.”

  “You froze for a second, Sully. What could you have done in that space of time to save Louie? Save yourself?”

  “Nothing.” The word seeped from him hoarsely. “In my nightmares, that moment always seems so agonizingly long. I just stand there for what seems like minutes, and then Louie is dead.”

  “But it couldn’t have been minutes.” Theresa placed her palm on the side of his face. “Sully, you’re no more responsible for Louie’s death than you are Eric’s kidnapping.” She placed her other hand on his cheek, capturing the face she loved between her hands. “And if you hadn’t been afraid, then you wouldn’t have been human.”

  “I didn’t want you to know my weaknesses,” he admitted “You never showed me any of yours.”

  She frowned. “I got used to hiding mine from my family. After Dad walked out on us, I knew I had to hold the family together, and if they saw me upset or afraid, then they would be upset or afraid. But, Sully, I was wrong to hide from you. We spent all our married life hiding our warts from each other. Can’t we try it again, only this time share it all…the good and the bad?”

  “Oh, Theresa, I love you so much. I just wanted to always be your hero.”

  His words renewed the joy in her heart as his lips captured hers in a kiss of such love, of simmering desire and the promise of dreams yet to be fulfilled. She wound her arms around his neck, feeling as if fate had truly blessed her.

  “Sully, you are my hero. It’s because you were with me, beside me, that I could be strong. You, Sully, you were and are my strength,” she said as his lips left hers.

  He tightened his arms around her, pulling her so close she couldn’t tell where she left off and he began. “I love you, Theresa. You and Eric, you’re all that’s good in my life.”

  She looked into his eyes, eyes no longer shadowed, no longer haunted. “Does this mean you’ll stay with me? Stay forever?”

  “Forever and a day,” he replied, his eyes shining with the force of his love for her.

  “Let’s go wake up Eric, tell him he’s getting his Christmas wish.”

  Sully tightened his arms around her. “Let’s wait until morning/’ he said, his eyes sparking with a light of passion that stole Theresa’s breath away.

  As he swept her into his arms and carried her toward the bedroom, Theresa looked back at the angel on the tree. The angelic smile appearing bigger, brighter, than ever before.

  Epilogue

  Spring imbued the air with sweet fragrance and welcome warmth. For Theresa, winter had ended the day they found Eric alive and well, the night Sully came back to her. In actuality, winter had continued for two more months, but Theresa had hardly noticed.

  She spread the blanket out on the ground, her diamond wedding ring catching the sun’s rays and reflecting back sparkles. She straightened up and waved to Sully and Eric, who were playing catch in the distance. Montana ran between the two, barking each time they threw the ball.

  Her gaze focused on Eric as his laughter rode the breeze. He’d suffered few residual effects from his traumatic experience. She guessed that much of his adjustment had come from Sully, who’d talked to his son about sick people and told the boy it was okay if he’d been afraid.

  Her gaze moved to Sully. Her husband. They’d married two weeks after Eric was found. Eric had served as best man, and Montana had spent trie entire ceremony trying to eat her bouquet.

  He had returned to the police department, was once again doing what he loved. And once again he walked with pride, the shadows of that distant night no longer haunting him.

  Marriage to him was different this time. Better. There were no secrets, no need to be perfect for one another. They shared a new bond, one forged in love and commitment and deepened by their faults and weaknesses.

  But today she did have a secret One that filled her heart with joy, one she couldn’t wait to share with her family.

  Hurriedly, eager to spill her news, she unpacked the picnic basket, then motioned her men to the blanket. “Oh, boy, I’m starving,” Eric said as he flopped down and eyed the spread Theresa had put out “Hmm, fried chicken/’ He grabbed a plate and began to fill it

  “Aren’t you eating?” Sully asked as he ladled a liberal helping of potato salad on his plate.

  “Oh, yes, I’m eating.” With a tiny smile, she pulled ajar of pickles from t
he basket. “Now, if only I had some ice cream.”

  Sully froze, his gaze holding hers intently. She nodded, and he dropped his plate and pulled her to him. “Really?”

  She laughed and nodded again.

  “What’s going on?” Eric asked, looking at his parents as if they’d lost their minds. Montana didn’t seem to care, as he ate the potato salad on the plate Sully had dropped.

  “You’re going to have a little baby brother or sister,” Theresa said to Eric.

  Eric’s eyes widened. “For real?”

  “For real.” Theresa smiled into Sully’s eyes, eyes that held the wonder, the joy, she’d expected.

  “That’s awesome!” Eric exclaimed.

  “Totally awesome,” Sully agreed.

  “I hope it’s a boy. And I’ll be a big brother.” Eric’s chest puffed out at the thought. “And I’ll take care of him and make sure he never gets in trouble. I’ll kind of be like you are to me, Dad.”

  Sully frowned. “What do you mean, son7“

  “You know, I’ll be his hero,” Eric announced proudly.

  Theresa saw the tears of joy that sparkled in Sully’s eyes as he busied himself getting another plate. In those simple, innocent words, Eric had given Sully more than Eric would ever know.

  Joe Montana had nothing on Sullivan Mathews. And Theresa had Sullivan Mathews for the rest of her life. And Eric. And a baby growing within her. And a dog who loved potato salad. She laughed with delight. She was one lucky woman.

  eISBN 978-14592-6863-0

  THEIR ONLY CHILD

  Copyright © 1997 by Carla Bracale

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher. Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontanio, Canada M3B 3K9