She knew it was a smart decision, but smart hurt. In those hours of being with Michael, she’d realized how isolated she’d been in living her life, how afraid she’d been of giving up her heart to anyone. Clay had burrowed beneath her fear, sneaked beyond her boundaries; she loved him as she’d never loved another. She loved him enough to stay and let him go.
Although it was still early evening, she decided to take a nap. The nurse had given her a final dose of pain medication that morning and she was tired, drained both from the physical effort of leaving the hospital and the emotional disturbance of saying goodbye to Clay.
She closed and locked the bedroom door, then changed into her nightgown and crawled into bed. Dusk’s golden light flowed into the room and played on the wooden door. How many nights had she locked her bedroom door before sleeping? A lifetime’s worth. As she stared at the door, she realized the subtle whisper of fear that had always been with her was no longer there.
She got out of bed and opened the door, a curious peace sweeping through her as she got back beneath the covers. Her past no longer mattered. Those long-ago days and nights of childhood, those memories she’d buried no longer tormented her.
Instead, torment came in her aloneness. She imagined she could still feel Clay’s body warmth in the folds of the sheets. She closed her eyes and hoped she’d dream sweet dreams, dreams of Clay telling her he loved her, dreams in which he decided to stay.
Twilight joined her on the bed, curling up in the crook of her legs. “You and me, Twilight,” she murmured tiredly. “We’ll be all right. We always are.” She closed her eyes against the tears that began to fall.
“Ann.”
The voice came from somewhere in her dreams. Clay’s sweet, deep voice. She smiled, wanting the voice to keep talking.
“Ann. Sweetheart, wake up.”
A gentle touch on her cheek pulled her out of her dreams and into wakefulness. She opened her eyes to see Clay sitting on the edge of the bed. For a moment dreams battled with reality. Confusion swept through her as she sat up and shrugged off the last of her sleep.
“Clay...what are you doing here? Did you forget something? You’re going to miss your plane.”
“There will be other planes.” He reached out and pushed her hair away from her face. “You were sleeping with the bedroom door open.”
“Yes. I don’t need it locked anymore. My monsters are all gone.”
“I’m glad.” He turned on the bedside lamp, illuminating the room in a soft glow. “I have something I want you to look at.” He handed her a photo album. She looked at him curiously, wondering why he was here and not on the plane, what could have possibly made him change his plans. “Look at it, Ann. Tell me what you see.”
She opened the first page and gazed at the pictures inside. The first photo was of a young couple holding a newborn baby. “That’s your mother, isn’t it?” She recognized a much younger Rosemary, her face glowing with love.
“Yeah, my mom and dad and me.”
Ann studied the baby in their arms and smiled. “You were bald as a cue ball.”
He winced. “Please, no comments from the peanut gallery on the cuteness of the kid.” He gestured for her to keep turning the pages. “Go on. Look at all of it.”
Still confused, unsure what he wanted from her, Ann looked at each and every picture contained in the album. Clay as a little boy playing catch with his father in the yard. Clay and his dad sporting fishing rods at the edge of a lake. Clay’s dad and mom sitting at a picnic table, their faces lit with love. Clay’s growing older chronicled through pictures taken year by year.
She reached the last page then looked at him once again, searching his features, trying to discern what he wanted from her. “I’m not sure I understand, Clay.”
“Just tell me your overall impression of the people in the pictures.”
“A happy family. Love. Commitment.”
“But not sacrifice, or unhappiness,” he prompted. He swept a hand through his hair and took the album from her. “I’ve spent the last ten years of my life believing that somehow my dad sacrificed all his dreams for my mom and me. That he’d put aside his desire for adventure in order to work a nine-to-five job, get a mortgage, provide the necessities of life for his family.” He flipped the pages of the album once again. “But as I look at him in these pictures, I don’t see a bitter man, I see a man whose face radiates the kind of contentment I want. I see a man whose dreams all came true.”
A lump filled Ann’s throat as she saw the stark emotion on Clay’s face. Grief for the father he’d lost darkened his eyes as he stared down at the album. He cleared his throat and placed the picture collection aside.
When he looked at her once again, her heart thudded sharply. Gone was any residue of grief, and instead a new emotion shone from the depths of his brown eyes.
“I almost got on that plane,” he said softly. “But I don’t want Hawaii alone. Hell, I don’t want Hawaii at all anymore. Somehow over the past weeks, my dreams have changed. I didn’t realize it until I was sitting in the airport, waiting to board. I realized I didn’t want to be there, I wanted to be here with you. I want you, Ann. I love you.”
Ann’s heart felt as if it would pound right out of her chest. For a moment she held herself rigid, afraid to believe this wasn’t another cruel trick of fate, afraid that she would reach for him and discover this was all an incredible dream. Beautiful, but only a dream.
“Ann, before I left here this afternoon, you said you loved me more than anything else. Did you mean that?” He reached out and touched her cheek in the achingly familiar way that arrowed straight through to her heart.
She knew by his touch it wasn’t a dream, and fate wasn’t laughing. Fate was smiling at her through the warmth and love in Clay’s eyes. “Oh, Clay, I love you so much it almost scares me.”
She flew into his arms, tears blurring her vision as he held her close. She felt his heart beating against her own, the individual rhythms inseparable from each other. His lips sought hers, evoking fires of pleasure and the deeper, more lasting emotion of a forever kind of love.
“Marry me, Ann,” he said as he broke the kiss. He captured her face between his palms, his eyes gazing into hers. “Marry me and give me what my father had, what Raymond has, those things that are more important to me than any exotic beach.”
“You mean things like a thirty-year mortgage and bottles and diapers?” she said half-jokingly.
“Exactly,” he replied, his gaze making a connection deep inside her, right into her soul. “And things like love and family. And forever. Will you marry me, Ann?”
“Yes, oh, yes.”
Again they kissed, sealing a promise, a vow of the heart. As the kiss ended, he took her hand and pulled her up from the bed. “Why don’t you get dressed and we’ll go tell Mom that her harebrained son finally came to his senses.”
Ann’s nightgown strap slipped from her shoulder and she smiled shyly. “Are you sure you want to tell your mom right now?”
His eyes flamed as he gazed at her bare shoulder, the gentle curve of her breast. He grinned. “Being married to you is going to be the most exciting adventure of my life.” As he joined her on the bed, Ann saw her future in his eyes, a future filled with the greatest adventure of all... love.
ISBN : 978-1-4592-7220-0
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
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 editorial office, Silhouette Books, 300 East 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017 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 n
ot even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents
“Guess I’ll go back to bed,”
Letter to Reader
Books by Carla Cassidy
About the Author
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Copyright
Behind Closed Doors Page 22