Golden Vows

by Karen Toller Whittenburg

  “It’s going to rain,” she said with quiet panic.

  The lazy arch of his brow said he wasn’t asleep.

  “Did you hear me?” The memory was coming stronger and she willed him to say something, anything, to deflect it. “It might storm.”

  He opened one eye, squinted upward for a second, then closed it again. “It might.”

  Frowning, she put a hand to her cheek, felt herself tremble and let the hand fall to her lap. “Maybe we should get back. I’ll just gather up the remnants of our picnic and the…the tablecloth and the....” She struggled to think as her fingers groped for the cloth. It bunched in her grasp, spilling a can of cola. A dark stain pooled and she watched it spread, seeing instead a glimpse of hospital white and the gleaming metal of the incubator. She could hear the muffled blip of the monitor and the hushed whispers of strangers.

  Dane, oh, Dane.

  Her voice called his name in the distant realm of memory. Oh, God. She was going to remember. It was too late to stop the images that were already grating against her composure like sandpaper to glass. But Dane mustn’t know; she couldn’t let him see.

  “I’ll just take this below.” How calm she sounded, how untroubled. She reached again for the cloth.

  “Amanda?”

  Her hand hovered, her throat closed. She shut her eyes and then forced them open to meet his. Richly brown and shatteringly perceptive, his gaze held her,

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, his tone probing, seeking to understand. He sat upright slowly and Amanda thought he moved as carefully as if he were skirting quicksand.

  In self-defense she smiled ... and knew that Dane wasn’t fooled. Unable to utter even the smallest reassurance, she shook her head and kept her lips pasted in place. Inside she was crumbling, wanting to reach out to him, wanting to believe he could understand.

  “Tell me, Amanda.” It was softly commanding, almost a plea. His eyes wouldn’t let her look away. “Tell me.”

  She couldn’t. It had been a year. How could she tell him now what she hadn’t been able to tell him then? How could she expose a grief that no one else could share?

  I love you. The silent words filled her, mocked her with the incongruity of her emotions. She had been wrong to think that the loving would ever stop. Wrong, not to have made him understand the depth of her pain a year ago. Was it too late? Could he ever understand that sometimes loving just wasn’t enough?

  Tell me, Amanda. Tell me. Tell me.

  Like some strange litany, the words kept pace with his heartbeat and Dane concentrated all his will power on her. She was so still that he had to curl his hands into fists to keep from grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking some life into her. He saw the resistance in the sapphire smoke of her eyes but on the sheer strength of his love for her, he compelled her to speak. Talk to me, Amanda. Tell me you hate me. Tell me you’ll never forgive me. No matter what you feel, tell me. Give me a chance to reach you.

  She moistened her lips and he felt the tension flooding his lungs. It was like standing on a precipice, knowing he was going to fall, but daring still to hope for rescue.

  Tell me, Amanda.

  She had to tell him.

  The knowledge swept through her suddenly as if it had been waiting for an opportunity. He might not understand, but she had to try. Slowly, painfully, she forced the memory to become words and somehow she found the ability to voice them.

  “I always thought you’d ... I wanted you to be with me when our—our son was born.” A shadow darkened his eyes and Amanda’s stomach twisted with the reluctance to say anything else. Only the force of his gaze made her continue. “I don’t blame you, Dane. I ... really, I don’t. I know how important the Reichmann account was to you. I know you had to go overseas. You couldn’t have known the labor would start so soon. No one knew he would come so early. It’s just....” She faltered, not knowing how to explain that she had needed Dane so badly then and how, in the frightening, expectant moments before birth, she had hated him for not being there.

  It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair.

  Amanda swallowed hard and closed her eyes against the swell of emotion. “He—he was so tiny, Dane. So helpless and I—I never even held him in my arms.”

  The agony of that denial slipped from her to weigh heavy on the evening air. Water lapped against the boat, whispering the regret over and over again.

  “I know,” Dane said in a raw, thick voice she didn’t recognize. “I know, Amanda. Neither did I.”

  She felt the desolation of his words soak into her like a drop of water on a piece of cotton, and something within her rose to meet it. With a cautious, half-formed hope, her lashes slid upward and she studied him as he stared fixedly across the bay. Had he wanted to hold their son? Had he felt the same impotent rage that she had felt during the hours of silent vigil outside the nursery door?

  “Did you...?” Amanda lifted a shaky hand to push back her hair from her forehead. She exhaled with difficulty. “Did you love him?”

  Dane stiffened instantly, as if she’d struck him, and his gaze shifted to bore into her heart. For interminable seconds he sat immobile. Then one large and graceful hand spanned his jaw and rubbed downward to his chin. The fathomless darkness of his eyes centered on her and then turned away.

  “How can you even ask me that?” His fingers moved to his forehead and pressed deep furrows there. “Yes, Amanda. Of course, I loved him.”

  A faint shadow of the approaching storm passed between them. She bent her head, seeking comfort in the words, but finding none. It wasn’t what she’d meant to ask. She’d never doubted that Dane cared about their child, loved him in the tradition of all new fathers. What she had wanted to know was harder to put into words— things like how he had felt when he stood staring at his son through layers of windows and sterile air. Had he screamed inside, as she had? Had he felt a part of himself draining away with each beep of the monitor? Had he made himself take long, steady breaths, believing that somehow it would help the baby to breathe?

  Amanda traced a fingertip along the lifeline that curved across her palm. “Paul Christopher,” she murmured the name, feeling now a sense of release mingled with the sadness. “He was very much like you, Dane.”

  Lifting her gaze, she saw his fingers curl slowly into a fist, sending a ripple of tension through his muscled arms. In her mind’s eye she saw a miniature hand that even in infancy bore the graceful imprint of Dane’s paternity. She didn’t want to think of this; she didn’t want to see her son in the mature features of his father. What she wanted to see—what she would never see, not even for a single moment—was a look of pride and wonder on Dane’s face as he held their baby, the symbol of their love, the fruition of their promise.

  Amanda sighed with the distant rumble of thunder. She wanted the impossible; she wanted to change what had already been; she wanted Dane again, as if nothing had ever happened.

  With a short, barely audible sound, he turned toward her and caught her in the desperate look deep in his eyes. Holding her breath, she wished with all her heart that he could magically change the impossible into the possible.

  “Amanda, I....” His mouth struggled with the words just as his need to comfort her struggled to penetrate the stone walls of her calm. “We don’t have to have a baby to be happy. Many couples choose not to have children at all. I don’t need a child in order to have a satisfying life. I only need you.”

  Her reaction was sluggish and chillingly final. As the fragile trace of emotion in her eyes faded behind a cool facade, he knew she had misinterpreted his attempt at reassurance. In the space of a dozen heartbeats he watched her delicate features harden and he felt the distance that settled between them like an uninvited guest. The curve of her lips was a shield against emotion, against him, against anything that might hurt her.

  “You need me to clean up this mess,” she said in a falsely bright tone. Levering to her feet, she gathered the corners of the red checked cloth and pulled everyt
hing into a tidy bundle. His hand automatically reached for her and closed around her wrist, stopping her movements.

  “Listen to me,” he commanded hoarsely. “What did I say to make you withdraw again?” The question clogged together in his throat and he clamped a hold on his voice. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “I know, Dane. It’s all right.” The words were as meaningless as her hollow smile, and emptiness coiled inside him.

  For several long seconds Amanda stayed quite still, held by the agonizing questions in his eyes. But when he released her wrist, she straightened and carried the picnic cloth below decks.

  In the galley she braced her arms on the tiny cooking counter. A shudder escaped her control and jolted its way down her spine. Anger, guilt, grief, and regret whirled inseparably through her frenzied thoughts, accompanied by the staccato rhythm of his words. I don’t need a child. How could he be so insensitive? How could she have allowed him the opportunity to hurt her again? To remind her that he hadn’t wanted the baby in the first place?

  Amanda shut her ears to the sound of his footsteps pacing the deck and she shut her eyes against his image. But he was there, in her mind. His face blurred with memory and then sharpened to crystal clarity. She pressed her hands harder against the galley shelf, willing herself not to see, not to remember. Dane had looked old that night and she recalled thinking that she should make him sit down. But she hadn’t. His coat had been spotted with raindrops and she had thought that he should take it off and let it dry. But he hadn’t.

  Frowning, Amanda forced her lashes up and wondered why she recalled thinking such an odd thing. It hadn’t rained that day. Her baby had died on a clear October afternoon. She wouldn’t have left the hospital if it had been cloudy outside. Dane could never have persuaded her to go home and rest if the sun hadn’t been shining with life-sustaining warmth. But the sun had fooled her and Dane had cheated her of the last few hours of her son’s fragile life.

  Her legs trembled as she walked across the cabin. She slumped onto the built-in berth and cradled her head in her hands. It hadn’t been fair to blame Dane. He had only been concerned for her health. She knew that now. Three weeks of waiting, of fluctuating hopes and desperate fears had taken whatever strength she had left after the pregnancy. He hadn’t even wanted her to be released from the hospital, but she’d rationally insisted that there was no point in paying for a room she no longer needed.

  She remembered being very rational during those long days and nights in the hospital waiting room. Everything had been simple for her because nothing existed beyond the incubator that held her son. Dane hadn’t understood that being close to the baby wasn’t a matter of choice for her—it was necessary to her own existence, her ability to breathe.

  There had been so many things he hadn’t understood and therefore couldn’t share with her. How did he remember the day their baby died? she wondered. Did he remember insisting that she let Meg take her home—just for a few hours? Did he remember the things she’d said? Did he remember that it hadn’t rained? Amanda sighed in surrender and the memory seared through her mind with blinding detail.

  Once home, she had fallen into a deep, exhausted sleep on the couch and, by rights, nothing should have disturbed her, but she’d heard the soft click of a key in the lock. The startled pounding of her heart had jerked her awake and for a few seconds she hadn’t been aware of anything else. But like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon, the truth had stirred inside her. Dane was home and that could mean only one thing....

  Slowly she had swung her feet to the floor, stood, and turned to see him. His face was pale and drawn, his well-defined features shadowed, his shoulders held straight by some invisible thread of control. Silent, they faced each other across the width of a room that seemed to tilt and spin crazily in another dimension.

  “Amanda.” Dane said her name as if it were the only word he knew.

  No! The denial tore through her with the force of a thousand screams, but left her lips in an agonized whisper. “No.”

  Her body sagged with the weight of loss and then her mind simply clicked off the unbearable emotion, separated her from the pain and focused on releasing the tension. “You shouldn’t have left him, Dane. He’ll be all alone.”

  Deeply etched lines made curious shadows in his face as he lifted his hand to her. “Don’t, Amanda. It’s over. He’s gone.”

  “No,” she stated. “He needs me. I should never have left him. You shouldn’t have made me leave him. If you hadn’t made me leave him—”

  “Don’t!” Dark eyes flashed with futile anger and then instantly softened with regret. “Oh, God, Amanda, please, don’t.”

  She had glanced sightlessly around the room, thinking that she must get to the hospital, but she couldn’t go barefoot. A panicky laugh rose in her chest and strangled in her throat. No, she couldn’t go without her shoes. “I can’t find them,” she said, searching the carpet at her feet. “Hospitals have rules and I have to have my shoes. Help me find them, Dane. I’ve got to hurry.”

  He took a step toward her and stopped. “You don’t need shoes. You’re not going to the hospital.”

  Bewildered, she focused on him. “I have to, Dane. My baby needs me. He—”

  “He died, Amanda. Our baby died.” Dane moved to her side, his gaze never once leaving hers. When he raised his hand as if to stroke her cheek, she shrank from his touch and leveled a burning stare on him.

  “But I have to see him.” In some mysteriously maternal corner of her mind she had known that Paul Christopher wouldn’t live and yet she’d never actually thought he could die. Her chin rose to challenge the truth. “Can’t you understand, Dane? I have to see him.”

  “It’s too late.” His hand made another movement toward her and then abruptly dropped back to his side. “The arrangements are made, Amanda. You can’t go to the hospital tonight. There’s no point.”

  The harsh truth shocked her heart with reality and her gaze fell from his. Dane had made arrangements for her baby and had denied her a tangible part of acceptance. She didn’t think she could ever forgive him that.

  “It’s your fault.”

  The memory suddenly frayed into dozens of disjointed segments and Amanda lay back on the berth. Had she really made such an awful accusation? Distractedly, she rubbed her temples, then let her hand rest at the base of her throat. She couldn’t remember all that she’d said to Dane then, but she knew the ugly words had hurt as surely as she knew how helpless she’d been to stop their flow from her lips.

  Without even trying, though, she could remember him shaking her in anger. His hands, rough and bruising, had gripped her shoulders. His eyes, glazed with a hidden agony, had stared into her very soul.

  “Damn you, Amanda!” He’d almost yelled the curse at her. “Don’t say that to me. Don’t ever say that again.” He shook her as if he could somehow erase the guilt that hovered mercilessly in the air.

  When her body had stopped moving limply in his grasp, Amanda had let her head fall forward, shielding her grief behind the satin spill of her dusky hair. How could she have blamed him? It wasn’t his fault. It was hers.

  Lifting her head, Amanda had sought for words of apology, for words to make Dane understand, but came up empty. Her heart was too full of nameless pain. Thoughts, images, all had blurred before her eyes and she’d wanted only to lie down somewhere and sleep for a hundred years. “It should have been me, Dane.” The admission had come involuntarily as she looked up at him and wondered if he could ever forgive her. “I should have been there. He needed me, don’t you see? I should have died too.”

  The grip on her shoulders slackened and fell away. Dane walked to the fireplace and flattened his hands against the rock. Amanda had watched as if she were miles away, then she’d turned and left the room. Without really knowing how she got there, she’d opened the door of the guest bedroom and gone inside. She’d lowered her heavy body onto the bed and cradled one of the pillows in her arms. And there, in the un
familiar room, in the dark, hidden from Dane and the world, she had closed the grief inside her heart and, finally, slept.

  Chapter Eight

  Dane stopped his frenetic pacing and stared at the approaching storm. Gray clouds tumbled over one another like naughty children vying for attention. The patches of blue sky overhead were deepening to twilight and the scent of rain was heavy in the air.

  Clenching his hands in the pockets of his jacket, Dane faced the wind, feeling it toss his hair in the same way Amanda had tossed his emotions. He had come so close to reaching her—no, damn it! He had reached her. For a few minutes she had actually talked to him. She had wanted to tell him how she felt. And then he had said….

  What had he said to send her retreating behind that mask of composure? He’d meant only to reassure her, to let her know that his concern for her well-being went deeper than his desire to have a child. She surely couldn’t believe he would want her to go through that nightmare again. Hell, he didn’t know what she believed anymore. Maybe she still blamed him.

  The thought brought a wave of guilt and he clamped onto his self-control. He would not let her do that to him again. It hadn’t been his fault. It hadn’t been anyone’s fault. Amanda hadn’t meant to say those things to him that night. She hadn’t even realized what she was saying.

  Shifting his rigid stance, he stiffened his resistance to the increasingly chill wind and balanced himself against the movements of the boat. It hadn’t been words spoken that separated them—then or now. It was the unspoken feelings, the comfort of shared emotion that she had denied them both. How had he ever allowed her to drift so far from him?

  If only....

  The hollow wish resounded with emptiness and flooded his mind with memories. If only he’d been more understanding of Amanda’s longing to have a child. But he’d grown impatient with the endless frustration, the systematic lovemaking and her desperate yearning. When, at last, she became pregnant, he had breathed a sigh of relief that their life could get back to normal.