The Tie That Binds

by LAURA GALE

  She laughed softly. “I know.”

  Serious again, he said, “I guess, for me, it’s time to talk about where we go from here.”

  “I don’t know what to say, Lucas.” Her eyes were sad.

  “Okay. I told you I love you. And I do, Rachel. More than I can tell you.” He turned toward her, reaching out and tracing the curve of her cheek with his hand. “I want to be with you again. In every way, all the time. I want us to share a life, not just look like we’re sharing a life.”

  He couldn’t know that he was echoing Rachel’s own fears, fears that had kept her up at night even when Michaela was still in the hospital.

  Lucas stood up and began pacing the length of the veranda. “I want you to know, Rachel, for me you are the only woman who fits. All cats are not gray in the dark for me. As for you, you are no gray cat, my dear, in the dark or otherwise.” He smiled, this time his eyes reflected it, too. “You are the most vibrant, alive, colorful person I’ve ever known. And I need you.”

  He blew out another long stream of air, his hands stacked on his head. “You are the only one who makes me whole.” He broke off, trying to find the right words. “Loving you and wanting you are the same thing for me, Rachel. When I’m with you, my soul joins with you. You always said that’s what it was, Rachel, and you were right. That’s what it is with us. I know I can’t undo the things I’ve done, Rachel. God, I wish I could, because I know it causes you pain. And that hurts me, too.”

  He walked back toward her, squatting down in front of her, forcing her to look at him. “I love you, Rachel. I am yours in every way, if you’ll have me. I know you may not be able to forget what happened. I can’t, either. Maybe we shouldn’t forget it. But can we move forward?”

  She was silent a long time. “How can I know things will be different?”

  “Because they already are different, Rachel. We are different.” He stood up again, leaning back against the railing that bordered the patio. “I’m different, Rachel.”

  She looked at him, her eyebrows raised.

  “I am, Rachel. Tell me—would I have ever talked about my spirit before? Honestly?”

  “No,” she said with a laugh. “I guess I have to grant you that much.”

  He waved his hand toward the house. “I brought you here to look at it before I signed any papers. I know that you understand why.” She nodded. “I wanted to do it right. And I want your opinion.”

  “Well, actually, Lucas—” Rachel paused “—I love it.”

  “Yes!” Lucas yelled, looking heavenward, his fists clenched in triumph. “Yes! Yes! Yes! I just knew you’d like it. I felt it the minute I parked in the driveway, before I even went inside. I just knew. But—” he paused, sincerity shining from him “—I wasn’t going to decide for you. I wanted you to decide for yourself. I wanted us to agree on a place.”

  “Lucas, I didn’t say I’d live here. I just said I liked it.”

  She stood up and began wandering through the house again, unconsciously looking at the place with a different eye. This time she saw the raw material, she saw what it could become. With the right family living there.

  Deep inside, she knew. She wanted to live here with Lucas and Michaela. Together they were the right family to live here.

  Certain things still hurt her. Perhaps they always would, perhaps that would ease in time.

  But she knew.

  And what she knew was more important, was stronger, than what she feared.

  “Lucas?” She called out to him loudly enough that he heard her. He arrived in the doorway almost immediately. Maybe he’d not been trailing too far behind.

  She held up her left hand for him to see: that morning, she’d finally replaced her own rings. One was the engagement ring—a half-carat diamond that had carried with it such promise and such hope. The other was a plain gold band, a smaller version of the one Lucas had been wearing for weeks.

  “I know.” His smile was gentle. “I noticed the minute I got to your place today. Even with watermelon juice running all over them. I noticed right away.” He caught her hand, kissed her fingers.

  “A symbol of love, right, Lucas? Endless. Maybe a little bit wounded in some places, then healed there, too. Deeper as a result. You think?”

  “Yes, I do think. Back to where we started, only better.”

  She was looking out the window, imagining a young girl’s voice filling the quiet air.

  “Rachel,” Lucas’s breath was in her hair. He was behind her, his arms stealing around her waist. “I know you’re scared. I don’t blame you. I’ve tried to back off, but I wanted to help you believe.” He nuzzled her neck. “I know you’ve started over once before, without me. Can we make a fresh start, together, Rachel? Here?”

  Something in her mind still whispered “No,” but Rachel’s heart had other ideas. This was Lucas the man, not the boy. He was different. She was different. It was right between them, more right than it had ever been, because both of them knew what it felt like to lose what they had. They’d both tried to live without it, and both had found their lives sadly lacking. Empty.

  Nothing was ever really guaranteed, but it was right between them. No question.

  Something inside Rachel lurched, and she realized it was that internal armor of hers, this time crumbling, not just cracking. Because she didn’t need to protect herself that way anymore.

  And she was melting, melting under the pressure of Lucas’s mouth, his hands—molding herself to fit him, instinctively, without thought, without effort. Just feeling, sensing. Letting her body and her soul hum in time with his. Letting her heart take her where it would. Because her heart knew what it was talking about.

  Yes, she loved this man. Holding him close, acknowledging it even as he led her toward the empty master bedroom. He fulfilled her in every way.

  Yes, she did love this man. No great newsflash there. But maybe, just maybe, it was worth the risk.

  “I love you, Lucas.” Her whispered words were soft, gentle. She wasn’t entirely sure he’d heard her. “Te quiero, Lucas, te amo.”

  He’d thought he would never hear the words again. The precious words that only Rachel could say. “Oh, God, Rachel, I love you, too.”

  Epilogue

  Rachel eyed herself in the mirror, carefully smoothing the red-and-white sundress down over her hips. Its bodice was fitted, but the skirt swung full and soft. She turned sideways, getting the profile angle. Would Lucas be able to tell? Maybe.

  She sighed, a contented sound reflecting a joyful spirit.

  Three years later, so much had happened. Best of all, they were a family now, a true family.

  They’d bought the house in Encanto. They’d been renovating ever since, but enjoying it. The serious things, like modern plumbing, had been dealt with prior to moving in. Since then, they’d just continued to work on it.

  Lucas was employed at Fuentes de la Juventud, ready to become a partner, definitely finding a niche there. Of course, his dream had always been designing, but he had discovered that renovating appealed to him on a deeper level. Reworking, redeveloping, a structure that had originally been designed with care, bringing it back to life without obliterating the original ideas, Lucas found that supremely satisfying. And he’d found, along the way, that he had a knack for recognizing worthy antique furniture pieces when he happened upon them.

  That’s what he was doing on this trip. Mario Gonzales, office director in San Antonio, had wanted Lucas’s opinion on “a large wood dresser that appeared to be old.” So Lucas had gone. His plane would be returning to Phoenix, landing in about an hour. Rachel was keeping an eye on the time. She would be there to pick him up.

  Next month he was going to Mexico City, unaccompanied, for the first time. Michaela and Rachel had been working with him diligently on his Spanish. The result was that his Spanish was passable, and he’d been to Mexico City before. But he’d never had to fend for himself before with Spanish as his primary means of communication. He was a little
nervous about it, but consoled himself with the knowledge that most of the people he’d see were not strangers. They were familia—truly his this time. They wouldn’t let him get into any real trouble, although they might let him scare himself a little.

  Michaela had continued to be healthy. Her health was still monitored, and Rachel still felt her insides give every time Michaela bruised herself or seemed to be too tired, but there had not been any real cause for alarm. She was as recovered as anyone could be when they had once battled leukemia.

  She was in second grade now, continuing to astound her parents with how quickly she caught on to everything. Her best friends at school were Ashley and Monica, but Vanessa was still her best best friend. She didn’t live too far away, and the four girls spent a lot of time together these days.

  “Mamá?” Rachel knew her mother was in the backyard with Michaela, planting flowers, which they hoped would survive the late-summer heat and bloom in fall. “I’m leaving now. Okay?”

  Her mother waved at her, spade in hand, encouraging her to get going.

  Rachel hesitated, watching the dark head of her daughter bent in fierce concentration as she transferred a tiny seedling into the hole she had made in the soil. Rachel watched the thick, wavy black hair that cascaded down Michaela’s back, somehow always managing to escape the ponytail meant to contain it. But Rachel didn’t mind. Not at all.

  She crossed the veranda quickly, just to place a kiss on that head of gorgeous hair.

  “Hasta luego, mija,” she whispered, before dashing out of the house.

  Yes, so much had happened in three years. Including this little surprise she had for Lucas. He’d missed so much with Michaela. Rachel knew he regretted that. She wondered how he would be this time.

  Rachel had continued as head nurse at PCH, although she now worked days. PCH had moved from the Samaritan Health Center grounds a little while back, relocating to its own premises, and with that move had come some shuffling of personnel and schedules. Rachel found that working days suited her just fine. Lucas supported her work, just as she supported his. They had a balanced plan for getting Michaela to and from school, for getting meals and so on. They were indeed a family.

  Another change involved Neuman Industries. Once a proud group of hardworking builders, it had gone out of business within eighteen months of Lucas leaving it, although that had not been the cause of its downfall. It had been Arnold Neuman himself. He had been involved in more than one illegal bidding situation. Of all the things Lucas had suspected at Neuman Industries, his speculation hadn’t run in the financial direction. The news hadn’t surprised him, but he couldn’t have guessed it, either. He’d taken some comfort in realizing that he couldn’t be so much like his father if he hadn’t anticipated these illegal dealings. Anyway, Arnold Neuman was now doing time for what was really a white-collar crime—an ironic thing, really, given how concerned he’d always been with rising above his blue-collar origins.

  Sophie Neuman was making a new life for herself. She had become a doting grandmother. In Rachel’s mind, a real grandmother. She did very normal grandmotherly things with Michaela. While she had the money to bestow lavish and ostentatious gifts on Michaela, she didn’t. Rachel knew that Sophie had established a trust fund for the little girl, something every seven-year-old didn’t have, but Sophie also managed to bring reality into her relationship with her. Sophie was just as likely as Gloria, Rachel’s mother, to be digging in the backyard with Michaela.

  Maybe more likely, Rachel mused, given her love of gardening.

  That wasn’t to say that Sophie had given up the trappings of society life. She was a wealthy woman, not having been dependent on her husband for that. She still moved in the society circle. But she studied issues, paid attention to what was going on in the world. She developed her own views these days and wasn’t afraid to say so.

  Free of her husband, she faced the prejudicial beliefs she had cultivated. In fact, when she had tackled those viewpoints head-on, she had found it difficult to comprehend that she’d allowed herself to be on that side of the fence. She still struggled with that knowledge. One time, and one time only, she had apologized to Rachel. Rachel had accepted, knowing Sophie was sincere, and it had never been a concern between them again.

  Another bright spot in Sophie’s life was her regular, weekly tennis match with a certain Dr. Paul Graham, which neither of them ever missed. They were an eye-catching pair, both tall and blond and fit, although they weren’t actually calling themselves a couple. And nobody was suggesting anything like that. Not to their faces, anyway.

  Rachel pulled into the Terminal 3 parking garage at Sky Harbor International Airport. She still had twenty minutes until Lucas’s plane would land. Walking into the terminal, she passed a vendor selling flowers, and located just what she wanted—four long-stemmed, yellow roses.

  Yellow for Texas, the state Lucas was returning from. Four, well, because she needed four. Cradling the roses in the crook of her arm, she found a seat near the gate and began to wait. How could so few minutes seem to stretch so long?

  She stood as she saw him coming through the tunnel. Handing him the roses, she stepped into the circle of his embrace, accepting his kiss.

  “There are four?” He was puzzled.

  “There will be.”

  His charcoal eyes seared into black, smouldering. His smile was broad, extending to his eyes, as well. “There will be?”

  She nodded, slipping her arms around his waist, completing the circle they made together. A full circle, at last. “Yes.” Smiling at him, she turned her face upward, ready to meet him in a kiss. “Y todos vivieron muy felices.”

  Lucas didn’t need to ask what it meant. He knew. And they all lived happily ever after.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-8102-2

  THE TIE THAT BINDS

  Copyright © 2003 by Laura Gale Ruch

  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 editorial office, Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, New York, NY 10279 U.S.A.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

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