by Cindy Gerard
Her head was down. She appeared to be trying to hold herself together by banding one arm around her waist; the other covered her mouth. Twin tears trickled down her cheeks.
“It could have been so good.” He looked at the face he loved one last time then turned and walked away from her—and from the life he’d lost for a second time in as many years.
Eleven
“In the upper plateau country, the people have a saying,” Maria said in her carefully spoken English as she walked to Michael’s side.
He sat on the veranda, sprawled in a patio chair. He’d just come in from the forest after another twelve-hour day in a string of twelve-hour days.
He loved Maria, but all he wanted to do was nurse his beer and the sour mood that had settled and held since he’d returned from Chicago two weeks ago. If he couldn’t erase Tara from his mind, then his plan was to work himself to exhaustion so he wouldn’t have the strength to even think about her.
So far, it was a lousy plan, except for the fact that he didn’t have those infernal headaches anymore. Evidently when he gave up on Tara, it was the equivalent of ceasing to bash his head up against a brick wall.
He wiped the back of his wrist across his forehead, catching the stream of sweat that trickled toward his jaw.
“The people in the upper plateau always have a saying,” he said with weary affection, feeling guilty for the concern darkening her eyes.
“They say,” she continued, undaunted, “that a man can experience all four seasons in only one day in Ecuador.”
Michael lifted the bottle to his lips, set it down and resumed his vacant stare across Maria’s gardens, where the setting sun set her tropical plants shimmering with color and life.
Four seasons in a day. Hell. He felt like he’d lived four lifetimes, let alone four seasons since he’d left Chicago and Tara two weeks ago. Four long, empty lifetimes.
“Mornings are warm, like summer,” Maria continued in her soft, lilting accent that was rich with her Central American heritage. “Noon is like springtime, because the sky becomes overcast. Afternoon is fall, cool with rain. And night is like winter, cold and luminous.”
She sat down beside him and ran her hand in a maternal caress along his cheek. “I fear that your days have all turned into but one season, Miguel. Your heart is cold, always cold like winter.”
Since he’d returned to the Santiagos, he’d gotten past listening for the phone to ring, for a little boy’s laughter, a light footstep, an indication that Tara had found that part of herself she was missing and had come to him.
It wasn’t going to happen.
In the meantime, his life would go on. Somehow.
“I’ll be all right.” He forced a smile for the dark eyes that had been pinched with concern and sorrow ever since he’d returned.
“You would be better, no, if summer comes into your life again?”
Summer meaning Tara.
“Yeah, well, I don’t think that’s something I’m going to hold out a whole lot of hope for.”
“Not even if I ask you to give me another chance?”
His heart slammed him hard, once, then several times in succession.
He glared at the nearly empty bottle of beer. Told himself that maybe he’d been hitting it a little too hard.
“We’re worth another chance, don’t you think?”
Tara.
He closed his eyes, swallowed, too full of wanting to believe he’d actually heard her voice. Too drained of hope to accept that it could be true.
But when he opened his eyes, it was to Maria’s encouraging smile—and then to the sight of Tara’s face as she walked into his field of vision, looking more beautiful than he’d remembered, more fragile, and yet, somehow filled with resolve.
Maria squeezed his hand then rose. “Summer, Miguel. I think it has arrived.” Then she left them.
He didn’t know where to look, in the end, he settled on her face—her beautiful cherished face that held a world of uncertainty and a smile so tentative and sweet, something in his chest tightened, knotted.
“You were right,” she said, taking a hesitant step toward him. “It is very beautiful here.”
She wore a soft, willowy sundress in muted colors of the rain forest, subtle greens, pale lavender, iridescent peach. A breeze molded the filmy fabric to her gentle curves.
“You look like a flower,” he said gruffly and rose as she extended her hand.
He took it, resisted the urge to pull her into his arms and hold her.
“I didn’t know how to handle it,” she said without preamble. She stared at their linked hands, then met his eyes. “I didn’t know how to handle all of the feelings. There were so many, Michael. There are so many.”
She touched a hand to his face, then withdrew it, looking suddenly vulnerable again.
“That woman? The one I’d become? The one you didn’t like? I didn’t like her, either. But it took you leaving to make me see her for what she was. She was a coward. Too much of a coward to let herself believe in her feelings. Too much of a coward to believe in you.”
“What happened to her?” he asked gently as his heart tripped over itself with love.
“I gave her the boot,” she said with some of her old fire. “Someone that pathetic—well, she wasn’t someone I wanted to associate with any longer.”
For the first time since he’d seen her standing there, he let out a breath that didn’t feel like it was choking him.
“What finally made you see her for what she was?”
Her beautiful violet eyes searched his face as if she were memorizing it. She lifted her hand, traced his jaw with her fingertips.
“Well, I took a good long look in the mirror one day and realized I could no longer tell her from me.”
He caught her hand and pressed it against his mouth. “And now you can?”
“Now I can. In her defense,” she said, melting into the arms he opened for her, “she was dealing with some pretty heavy fears.”
He tucked her head under his chin, pressed his lips to her hair. “Tell me about them.”
“To begin with, she was afraid to believe you’d really changed, so afraid that she didn’t recognize the changes you showed her every day, in so many ways.
“And then there was her fear of being exposed as a hypocrite.”
“Hypocrite?”
“She was afraid you’d figure out she was the one who was afraid to communicate even as she told herself it was you who never opened up.
“And she was afraid of the strength of the feelings she had for you,” she added against his chest. “Two years, Michael. For two years she’d blocked and dodged and denied the grief. It hurt too much to let herself feel.”
“Even love,” he finished for her.
“Even love,” she echoed and pulled away far enough to look into his eyes.
“Losing you hurt so much, Michael. And I—she—she’d lost you twice, don’t you see? Once when she thought that divorce was the only option, and again when she thought you were dead.”
“And then I came back from the dead,” he concluded, as understanding dawned.
She nodded. “And when you did, she was so…I can’t even explain how it made her feel. She wanted so badly to love you, but she couldn’t. She simply couldn’t work up the courage to risk it—”
“Because she was afraid she’d lose me yet again,” he interrupted.
Tears welled in her eyes. She bit her lower lip, nodded. “She wasn’t very brave, was she?”
He gathered both of her hands in his, pressed his lips to her knuckles, lingered there. “Maybe she was just confused.”
“That, too,” she said on a quick burst of sound that was more a release of tension than laughter.
“I guess it’s not so hard to understand why she was afraid, is it?” he said, bringing her hands to his shoulders, letting her know he did understand.
“No. I guess it’s not so hard to understand. I’m finding it a little h
ard to forgive her, though. She almost let her fear get a hold of me. She almost made me let you walk away.”
“Almost.” He lowered his head and kissed her then, because he just couldn’t not kiss her. “Almost—that’s a word I can deal with so much better than never. As in never seeing you again.”
Her eyes glittered with unshed tears. “Never’s not such a bad word when it’s put in proper context.”
“For instance…” He scattered kisses to her face, her jaw, returned to her mouth and started all over again.
“For instance, I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you. I’ve never believed there was anyone on this earth who could love me the way you do.
“I’m never going to stop loving you, Michael. I’m never going to let you leave me again. And I’m never letting that woman back in our life. I can survive anything as long as it’s with you.”
Moonlight washed over the rumpled sheets and the man who lay on his back across them—golden tan, muscled and lean.
Tara knelt over him, straddling his lap, loving the way he looked at her, shivering with banked pleasure as he lazily lifted his hand and traced his finger lovingly around her areola.
“Look at you,” he whispered when her nipple crowned.
Her back arched toward him, an involuntary response to his merest touch.
“Look at how pretty you are. Come here to me.”
He raised up on his elbows as she rose to her knees, leaned toward him, offering her breast. And then his mouth was there, laving, licking, tugging with gentle suction then ravenous greed.
She pulled away and his mouth followed. She laughed, low and sensual, as he fell back, a smile so utterly male, so erotically pleased that she caught her breath.
“Feeling frisky, are you, Mrs. Paige?”
“Feeling strong, Mr. Paige,” she countered huskily as she wove her fingers with his, stretched his arms up and over his head, brushing her breasts provocatively against his chest—for the pleasure of it, for the triumph of it, for the thrill of seeing his eyes darken to smoky cobalt.
“You’re playing with fire here,” he warned as he turned his head, caught the tender flesh of her shoulder in his teeth. “And you’re gonna feel the burn.”
“I’m already burning,” she murmured, releasing his hands and running her fingers in a slow, sensual caress along his arms until she reached his chest. There she lingered, tracing the contour of sculpted muscle with her fingertips, then with her tongue.
“Tara,” he uttered on a groan as she worked her way slowly down his body, the brush of her lips, the flick of her tongue, the nip of her teeth.
“I love you, Michael,” she whispered as she moved lower, took him in her hands, caressed, adored, then took him in her mouth. “Love you, love you, love you…”
And when it was over, and they lay gasping for breath and tangled in each other’s arms, she looked into his eyes and told him the way it would be. “I’m never going to stop loving you. I’m never going to leave you. I’m never going to let you go away from me again. Never.”
And he smiled, because there, under the light of the Ecuador moon, in this exotic place where he’d once been lost, he found himself. He found his wife. And because he knew that never was a long, long time.
The whole family turned out. Even Vincente and Maria made the trip from Ecuador to Chicago for this special day. Maria held a lace hankie to her trembling lips and dabbed at her tears—she was such a romantic.
The day was benevolent and warm, the breeze only slight. Mums in every color imaginable adorned the altar and the aisle as Tara and Michael renewed their vows in the garden at Lake Shore Manor.
And Brandon, in his knee britches, jacket and tie, kept everyone in stitches as he played peekaboo around his mother’s legs until his father, with a barely suppressed grin, lifted the little boy up and into his arms so they could finish the ceremony.
“This is a little different from the first time around,” Michael whispered in Tara’s ear as they stood in an informal receiving line and accepted the congratulations of Tara’s family after listening to Grant Connelly offer a moving and heartfelt toast to the bride and groom.
Tara slipped her arm around his waist. “The first time was still more fun,” she said with a teasing grin.
“I love you,” he whispered as he bent down to kiss her. “I will never not love you,” he added with a grin, taking advantage of the opportunity to use their new favorite word.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, reacting to her sudden frown.
“It’s Seth,” she confided. “I’m worried about him.”
Michael followed her gaze to the far corner of the garden where Seth stood alone.
“Go talk to him,” he said, understanding her concern. “It’s all right. I want to introduce Vincente and Maria to the rest of your family. You can catch up with us later.”
“I love you,” she said and kissed him tenderly.
“Hey,” she said as she joined Seth where he stood with an empty champagne glass in hand. “Looks like you could use a refill.”
She held up the bottle she’d lifted from the buffet table on the way over and handed it to him. “You pour.
“This is supposed to be a happy occasion,” she teased when he’d filled both of their glasses.
He lifted his brows, managed a smile. “And are you happy?”
“I love him, Seth. And he loves me. So yes, I’m very happy.”
He leaned forward, kissed her on the cheek. “Don’t let it get away from you this time.”
“I don’t intend to. But right now I’m more concerned about you.”
He lifted a shoulder, sipped champagne, stared at the garden without seeing.
“Am I going to have to bully it out of you?”
“Now there you go. Moving in on my territory. I’m the bully. You’re the brat.”
She smiled sadly and waited him out.
“I’m leaving town for a while,” he said finally.
“Leaving? Seth—”
“Shh. I don’t want the folks to know. If they get wind of it, they’ll try to talk me out of going.”
“Well, considering that I want to talk you out of go—”
“Tara, this is something I need to do, okay?”
Yes, she realized, it was something he needed to do. This business with his birth mother, Angie Donahue—the fact that she might have criminal ties as well as blood ties to the Kelley family—it had been eating him up inside.
“I wish there was something I could do to help,” she said, feeling herself tearing up. “I wish—”
“I know,” he said, cutting her off. “I know. And it helps. But this is something I have to do myself.”
“Where will you go? How long are you going to be gone?”
“I don’t know and I don’t know.”
“Well, that pins it down.”
“I’ll be okay,” he insisted with a tight smile. “I’ve already worked things out at the law firm to take an indefinite leave. Just tell the folks not to worry and that I’ll get in touch with them when I get settled.”
“Now? You’re leaving now?” she asked, reading the look in his eyes.
“Seems like as good a time as any.” He set his glass on a table and pulled her into a warm embrace. “Be happy, brat.”
“Call me? As soon as you—”
“I’ll call, all right?” He touched a hand to her cheek. “I always loved you best, Terror.”
She bit back tears for his sake. “I loved you better,” she insisted, knowing he expected the competition, even now. And then she watched him walk away.
“He’ll be okay, Tara,” Michael said from behind her.
She turned into the arms he held out to her.
“He’s a survivor.”
Yes, she thought filled with love for this man who had survived so much to come back to her. They were all survivors, and she and Michael were proof that time, like love, can heal even the deepest wounds.
�
�Come on,” he said gently. “We are suspiciously absent from our own party.”
“Well,” she said, shoring herself up on the love in his eyes, “what do you say, we remain suspiciously absent for, oh say, another thirty minutes or so?”
She took his hand, led him at a playful trot toward the maze beyond the garden.
“You’re kidding,” he said, even as she pulled him behind a carefully manicured hedge.
With a wicked smile, she reached up under her elegant ivory sheath and shimmied out of a pair of silk and lace panties.
She tossed them at him. He caught them on the fly.
“Would I kid about something like this?”
One side of his mouth kicked up in a totally male, totally intrigued grin. “Never,” he said and dragged her against him.
“There’s that word again.”
And then there weren’t any words—just two people hopelessly, helplessly in love, now, always, forever.
Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Cindy Gerard for her contribution to the DYNASTIES: THE CONNELLYS series.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-6871-9
THE SECRET BABY BOND
Copyright © 2002 by Harlequin Books S.A.
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