by BJ James
“The day of the storm.” Devlin recalled the unmanned gate, and Kate’s concern. “You’d left the gatehouse to fulfill the first promise to Mary. Jericho didn’t know her ashes had been claimed, or by whom, because the storm had taken out communications. They were still out when you returned to the gatehouse.”
“Yes, sir. I suppose so. Though I didn’t really claim them, not officially. I told some flustered young fellow what I was there for. He showed me to a room, said the urns were labeled and to help myself, then hurried off. I didn’t give my name to anyone. Didn’t seem right, but it didn’t occur to me Sheriff Rivers needed or wanted to know. Not even about Tessa.”
“You had Tessa all along.” This from Kate. “She was so close, and we never knew.”
“She saw you, Miss Kate. I think she was coming to find you when she slipped away today.” The fire faded from Hobie’s eyes. “I didn’t dream she would try. In my craziest thoughts, I never would have believed a little thing like Tessa could make the walk over the bridge, then to the far end of the island. When I think of what almost happened…”
“But it didn’t.” Kate leaned forward to clasp his hand. “Tessa’s fine. She was shaken up a bit. But within an hour she was serving a tea party for Devlin and me. And laughing with him while she colored.”
“Tessa laughed?” Nearly colorless eyes sparkled with surprised pleasure.
“Tessa laughed.” And so had Devlin. A laugh such as Kate had never heard. Quiet, comfortable, filled with love. She hadn’t seen his eyes, but she knew the smile was there, for Tessa.
“I wish I could hear that, Miss Kate.”
“You will, Hobie. I’m sure of it.”
“I don’t think so, ma’am. After today, I can see I have to get on with the last part of my promise to Mary.”
“To find a home for Tessa, quickly.” Jericho supplied the logical time frame. It didn’t require a physician to see what Mary had undoubtedly seen. Hobie’s arthritis was the least of his problems. Heart failure was surely a strong trait among the Vereys. The trek along the riverbank hadn’t been the best thing for him. But, what else could he do? What would anyone have done?
“The promise that will break what Mary called the Delacroix curse. Women loving men who belonged to other women. Having families that could never bear their rightful name. Until her granddaughter found her, Mary didn’t know that for her lost family the path of the Delacroix made them victims of the street, and led to destruction.
“That mustn’t be Tessa. Tessa must have an education. Maybe a career. Mary didn’t see the girl’s hearing as a detriment to anything she wanted to do. If,” nearly breathless now, Hobie emphasized the word, “ if she has the right parents.”
“Which you must find.” Jericho doubted Hobie had the strength to find his way to bed. What did that leave for Tessa?
“Yes, sir.” The breaths were quicker, more shallow. “But I think I have already. For now, though, I should go back to the gate.”
“What you need is bedrest.” Kate wanted to help him.
“Thank you, Miss Kate, but I’m just as well off in the gatehouse. Better, really. I have a lounge chair there that eases me more than lying down.”
“Have you seen a doctor, Hobie?” Jericho questioned, the look on his somber face giving way to more than concern.
“Yes, sir, Sheriff Rivers. But there’s not much that can be done for a heart that’s just plain give up the ghost.”
“This has been too much for you. You should rest,” Kate insisted, but with a note of pleading.
“I will.” He patted the hand she’d laid on his shoulder. “Just as soon as I get Tessa back to the gatehouse.”
When Hobie struggled out of the chair, Kate wanted to help, but turned away, giving him a moment to keep his pride intact.
Then it was the old man who was comforting her. “It will all work out. Don’t worry, missy. Most things happen for a reason.”
Kate’s thoughts were of the child sleeping peacefully in her bed. “Would you mind if Tessa stayed here? Just until she wakes up,” she explained quickly. “I could bring her to you then. In the meantime, you could have a while to rest.”
“We’ll both bring her.” Devlin added his assurance.
Hobie’s smile blossomed. “I was hoping you would suggest that. Not for me, but so the little one could sleep longer, and wake up in happier surroundings.” Going to the door for his hat, with Jericho’s hand at his thin arm lending support, Hobie observed quietly, “What could be happier than waking in the house of the lady she came to Summer Island to find?”
“I missed you.”
Kate stood at the windows, her back to Devlin, but his words washed over her, sweet and wonderful. Almost as wonderful as his arms circling her, drawing her back to him.
“I missed you.” Covering his hands with hers, she murmured, “I missed this. But you were right, we both needed to sort it out, to understand what’s between us.”
“You said you loved me.”
She heard in his voice what he had to hear. Spinning slowly within his embrace, she lifted her hands to his face. “I do love you. I have for a long time. But now, I know that it’s right.”
“Why did you ever doubt?” Devlin’s voice was rough, a little unsteady. “Was it because of Joy?”
“Never Joy.” Kate took his hands from her waist. Lifting them to her cheek, then her mouth, tracing the scars on each palm with her lips. Scars that would forever remind her of the battle he waged with Denali for the life of Joy Bohannon and her dream of a child. Closing his fingers over her kiss, she lifted her face to his. “For months I shut myself away from the world, punishing myself with grief and guilt for a man who died at the hand of an assassin whose bullet was meant for me.
“I grieved for Paul Bryce, my partner and my friend. A wonderful man, who told me once, and never again, that he loved me. I wanted to love him. God help me, I tried, but I couldn’t. When he stepped in front of me, shielding me from the gunman, I thought I must be some sort of monster. That at least I could have pretended. I could have given him…”
Breaking off, bringing his palms back to her kiss, she whispered, “Then there was Devlin O’Hara, with his crooked, teasing smile. With gifts of morning coffee, a rose and dolphins. Then I finally understood that Paul would have known. The kindest thing I ever did was not to pretend, not to give him half a heart.
“He was too good for half-measures, and deserved more, better. Maybe it would have helped if he’d blamed me, or pressured me. But he didn’t. He was just Paul, always there, always kind, always smiling. I know now that he died for his partner, not for the woman he loved.”
Devlin wanted to comfort her, but this had to be said. This was the catharsis of strength. Though she didn’t understand yet, it was strength that cut her off from the world as she dealt with pain that might destroy her. In time, it was strength that lifted her from the unfeeling limbo. Now it was strength that would lead her to the final healing.
“But when I held him, with his blood spilling over me, I saw love, not forgiveness, in his eyes.” Kate had looked away from Devlin, now she met his gaze steadily. “I realize now that Paul never felt there was anything to forgive.”
“Do you know why, Kate?”
Kate smiled, softly, sadly. “Perhaps because he understood better than I that there is no rule that says we must love those who love us, simply because they do. In some strange way, I think he knew better than I that his love was a burden. And I think he hated that.”
Her lips tilted as, in recalled tragedy, she found peace. “The last word Paul said to me was partner.”
Partner. A single word that spoke volumes to Devlin. In it lay the forgiveness Kate needed months to believe she’d been granted. “He was telling you why he did what he did, that it was about partnership, not love. Paul was absolving you of any blame, sweetheart, because he knew you would have done the same for him.”
“I know that now. But I couldn’t hear, or understand, t
he gift he’d given me, until there was you.”
“And Tessa,” Devlin said quietly.
“Yes.” Then Kate’s smile was the stunning smile he’d seen that first day in Ravenel’s. The smile he had to see again and again. A smile that linked him irrevocably to a beautiful, lost woman, and a special child.
Tessa, who with a simple act of kindness had brought Kate Gallagher and Devlin O’Hara one important step back into the world of caring. Tessa, an innocent child, the sweet-hearted catalyst that led two hurting people to understand the degrees of guilt and love.
Reaching up to him, Kate framed his face with her hands. A face etched with lines that measured his life in smiles. With wondrous eyes just relearning the art. A face she would love all the rest of her life. Rising on tiptoe, she kissed him, her lips saying all that was in her heart.
When she stepped away, Devlin reached for her, his hands spanning her waist. He wanted to make love to her, but now was not the time. Instead he smiled, saying, “You want to go to Tessa, don’t you?”
Kate’s lashes swept down over her tears for the miracle she saw in his eyes. The love he hadn’t spoken, the understanding. When she looked at him again, her gaze was calm and shining. “I’d like to sit with her. She should be waking soon, and I don’t want her to be alone and frightened.”
“I think Tessa would like waking up to find you by her bed.” He touched her cheek with a knuckle, drawing it down to the corner of her mouth before stepping back. The smile was in his eyes when he murmured, “I’ll be waiting. For both my girls.”
“Hobie seemed better. Stronger.” Kate sat on the bench that served as seats in the gazebo. Devlin sat on the floor in the doorway, his head nearly touching her knee, his bare feet resting on the sandy beach.
“Pain and worry can bring the strongest of us down.”
Kate watched Devlin sift sand through his hands. Like this, everything he’d said since leaving the gatehouse had been distracted, if not terse. Something was obviously weighing on his mind. Something a long, silent walk on the beach couldn’t resolve. Something she knew he would speak of when he was ready.
“Hobie isn’t strong in the best of times, Devlin. But, he was glad to see Tessa. When she laughed, I thought he would cry.”
Sand drifted through Devlin’s fingers and his hand closed into a fist. “Kate, we both know what he’s thinking.”
“That he’s found a home for Tessa with us.” Kate wanted to touch him, to stroke his hair, and make him look at her. Instead she folded her hands over her knee. “Except there is no ‘us,’ is there?”
His fist trembled with the force of his grip. “No.”
“Are you saying you don’t love me?”
Devlin turned to her. “Is that what you believe?”
Kate’s gaze ranged his face, seeing there the truth she’d known in her heart forever. Touching him at last, she stroked his brow as if she would take away his worry. “How could I not believe you love me? The man who gave me the most unforgettable and special gifts of all, honor and peace.”
Catching her hand in his, drawing it to his shoulder, he met her gaze steadily. “Now I have to give you the truth.”
“About the crash on Denali, and Joy.” Intuition, more than a guess.
Devlin didn’t speak for a moment. When he did, his voice was ragged. “Joy was already pregnant with the child the doctors said she could risk having.”
He hadn’t meant to lie. But he had, by omission. Before they could move on together and with Tessa, Kate had to know the death of another weighed on his conscience. She didn’t speak for so long, Devlin was afraid and puzzled. “Kate, did you hear me? Because of me a child is…”
“No!” Her palm closed over his mouth, stopping the ugly word. “What you did was what anyone would do. You agreed to take a friend to her husband. If you have to place blame, blame rheumatic fever. Blame Jock Bohannon for choosing to work in such danger. The weather station for not recognizing the storm.” Pausing only for a quickly drawn breath before he could interrupt, she said, “Blame Joy. Blame her for putting you in an untenable position. Blame her for not telling you she might not survive the altitude or the cold on Denali, if you should crash. Most of all, blame her for making an ill-advised choice in her excitement.”
“Joy wasn’t to blame. She couldn’t know…”
“Of course, she wasn’t to blame,” Kate agreed gently now that her point was made and, she hoped, branded in his mind. “And no, she couldn’t know. But, my kind and dearest Devlin, neither could you. That she survived as long as she did was a miracle. A miracle of your making. I’ve no doubt Jock Bohannon knows and is grateful that you made her last moments as comfortable as you could.”
“You believe that?” Devlin had watched and listened, seeing the flame of tigress gold in her eyes as she defended her own. As she defended him.
“With all my heart, as truly as I believe you love me.”
“As I love you, huh?” Devlin was grinning. A little wobbly, but still the wicked grin she’d first fallen in love with. “You’re sure of that?”
“Beyond a shadow of a doubt.”
“I suppose, my love, I should take that to mean you don’t need proof.”
“Ahh, my beloved knight, I didn’t say that.” As Kate drew him up to her, with the gleam of desire she knew he couldn’t resist, she murmured. “I would never say that.”
When his arms close tightly around her, as the fetters of his grief and guilt fell away, in the pounding of his heart against her breast she felt the lifeblood of love.
When he lifted her face to his kiss, in his smiling eyes she saw the joy of love.
When he caressed her, gentle hands seeking, worshiping, pleasuring, his was the touch of love.
When he drew her down with him to a bed of newly discarded clothing, as his body joined hers, in his trembling laughter, she heard a lover’s unspoken promise.
And in fulfillment, in that moment of lover’s ecstasy, as her heart and body sang with love of its own, she heard him whisper softly, “I love you, Kate. And I always will.”
Epilogue
“Sunrise over the Chesapeake.”
Standing by the window, admiring the spectacle of dawn over water, Kate loved this moment all the more because it was one of Devlin’s favorite memories. Devlin, who laughed and smiled and no longer dreamed of Denali.
Devlin, who made love to her through the night and held her now. Leaning against him, she turned enough to kiss him, before returning to the view. “It’s lovely.”
“I woke up to this every morning we were here.” With his cheek resting against her hair, and his breath warming her skin, he fell silent, watching the fiery ball of the sun lift from the sea.
“It’s different all over the world, but no matter where it is, seeing the sun rise makes one believe in miracles,” Kate said.
“You’re thinking of Tessa, hoping she might hear again.”
In the year since the last O’Hara reunion, much had happened. Kate and Devlin had married, in a joyous ceremony surrounded by all the O’Haras. Through the adoption proceedings, with Simon’s help, they’d discovered Tessa truly had no other relatives. But the best discovery was that she hadn’t been born deaf, or so silent, and it was possible she might hear again. They’d been offered small hope. But any hope at all was a godsend.
“What will you do, sweetheart, if the doctors Simon and my father bring in say there’s no help for her?”
“I’ll be sorry. I’ll probably cry a little, but it won’t change my determination to give Tessa every opportunity. Her lack of hearing might be a nuisance, but never a handicap.”
Devlin chuckled. “He did a good job.”
Turning in his arms, Kate looked up into a face that had grown more handsome in peace and happiness. “He?”
“Hobie,” Devlin responded. “He did a good job when he chose you for Tessa’s new mother.”
“He didn’t do so badly when he picked you for her father.”
“You think so, Mrs. O’Hara?”
“I do indeed.”
“But you didn’t have anything to do with the choice?”
Kate had slid into a robe when she left the bed. Devlin was demonstrating how adept he’d become at untying silken knots. As he slipped his hands beneath the open lapels, Kate gasped at his touch, but managed to cling to one more minute of sanity. “What I truly think is that Tessa led us all to the right choices.”
“And I’m the right choice for Kate Gallagher.”
“Ahh, yes.”
“Show me.”
Much later, Kate rose over Devlin. Looking down at him, saying nothing, as a slow frown formed on her features.
Though tensions that once ruled her life were long in the past, as he brushed her hair from her face, Devlin asked in quiet concern, “Something wrong, love?”
“I was just thinking.”
“Sounds serious. Looks serious. Tell me.”
“I was wondering what would have happened to us if you hadn’t come to Summer Island. If we hadn’t met.”
“But we did meet. On one of the best days of my life.”
“We owe all this to Valentina.”
“My nosy, bossy, meddling sister?”
“Your wise and wonderful sister.”
Devlin laughed. “Don’t forget Simon’s fine hand in this. I’m beginning to think he’s a closet cupid.”
“He’s also a pushover for little girls. Have you noticed he’s fallen in love with Tessa? They look so funny together on the beach. Gruff, tough Simon, who never bends an inch, at Tessa’s beck and call as she dances around his feet.” Kate laughed at a memory. “Did you know he let her bury him in the sand yesterday? Patience’s boys helped, but it was Tessa who persuaded him.”
“Persuaded?” Devlin lifted a doubting brow, for he’d seen what a sucker Simon was for Tessa. “She had to persuade?”
“Okay,” Kate amended. “Tessa asked.”
“With no more signing on Tessa’s part than the batting of those great brown eyes, I’d bet.” Devlin had only chuckled before, now he laughed for real. “Wouldn’t the leaders of the world and his enemies in our own government love to see Simon, the fearless Scot, buried up to his neck in sand. With two dark-haired warriors and one tow-headed Indian maiden doing a war dance around him.”