Suddenly the little detail that he’d kept from her—his daughter—reared up and smacked him full in the face. Panic clutched at his chest.
He had to tell her tonight. He had to. He never should have kept it from her for so long, never should have let things get so serious between them until she knew. Now there could be no easy way to introduce the topic. He could hear himself now.
Oh, by the way, did I mention I have a daughter?…This boat? Oh, I thought I told you. It’s named after my daughter, Amalie.
…Celia, I don’t know how to tell you this, but I have a daughter. What? The reason I didn’t tell you before? Well, I was sure you’d drop me like a hot potato.
And she just might. There was no excuse for not telling her that he had a child to raise—except that he was a complete and total coward. And he’d been terrified he might lose her. It had seemed smart to get their new relationship off to a solid start before springing the notion of a child on her.
It had seemed smart because he’d been too chicken to let himself think about what might happen and he’d been doing his damnedest to portray an ostrich, hoping that if he stuck his head in the sand, the problem would go away.
Well, no more delays. No more procrastinating.
He had to tell her tonight. Because he’d made up his mind to ask her to marry him. He knew how she felt about having children; she’d made no secret of it. And he’d seen her pain with his own eyes. Was it fair to ask her to consider another child?
No. He’d cut off his arm before he’d put her in a position to have her life shattered as it had been once. But it wasn’t as if he was asking her to have another baby. A small, sharp pain pinched his heart but he forced himself to ignore it. In an ideal world he would love nothing more than to make Celia his wife and to spend the next few years making babies of their own.
But he’d seen what losing her son had done to her. And he’d rather have Celia with no children than live without her ever again. Raising Amalie was different, he told himself stoutly. Ammie wasn’t her biological child.
Oh, he knew that taking on a ready-made family wouldn’t be easy for Celia. But once she got used to the idea, they would be happy. She could move to Florida, or he and Am could move up here if she didn’t want to leave the Cape.
He took a deep breath. His hands were clammy as he set the small galley table and put a bottle of Riesling on ice. There was a knot, an unpleasant burning sensation lodged dead center in his chest, and he wondered briefly if he’d given himself an ulcer worrying about her reaction to his announcement.
“Knock, knock.”
It was her voice, calling from the pier, and he jolted, almost dropping the wineglasses he’d gotten out. “I’m below,” he called.
He heard her footsteps as she crossed the deck and a moment later she was descending the stairs to the interior of the boat.
“Welcome,” he said, leaning in to kiss her, lingering over the greeting until she tore her mouth away and laughed.
“I need to breathe!”
She was even more beautiful tonight than usual, her tanned skin glowing against the warmth of a pale aqua twinset that made her eyes look enormous and mysterious.
He took the basket she carried, sniffing appreciatively as the mouth-watering scent of apple cobbler permeated the air. “Wow. Can we eat this first?”
“No way.” She eyed the wineglasses as he set the basket on the counter behind him. “We’re going to do things in order.”
Could there be a better opening? He hadn’t really considered when he was going to tell her about Amalie, but sooner was definitely better, especially where his rolling stomach was concerned.
“Uh, Celia, why don’t we sit down over here?” He heard the strain in his tone and imagined she could, too.
Her eyebrows rose. “This sound serious. Shall we have some of that wine first?”
“Sure.” He slipped out his pocketknife and slit the foil, then deftly used the attached corkscrew to pull out the stopper. She held up two glasses and he filled them about halfway, then set the bottle back in the ice bucket. Taking her hand, he led her over to the couch in the entertainment area and seated her, then lowered himself beside her.
“Now what?” she asked, and he realized he’d been sitting there silently. Duh.
“I, uh, want to talk to you about something important.”
“So I gather.” Her eyes sparkled. “Feel free to start anytime.”
He took a deep breath. Held it. Exhaled explosively. “This isn’t easy to say.”
Her eyes grew wary. “You’re leaving.” Before he could react to the assumption, she stood abruptly, setting her wineglass down with a sharp clink on the coffee table. She walked rapidly around the table and turned to face him, her mouth a determined line. Then she took a deep breath of her own. “I knew you’d go sooner or later. It’s just that…” She tried to smile but her lips quivered and she pressed them tightly together for a moment. “I was getting kind of used to having you around.”
His heart felt as though someone had slammed into it with a bulldozer and ground it into the dirt. He stood, walking around the table to her side and taking her elbows in his palms. “That wasn’t what I wanted to say. I don’t want to leave you.” He swallowed. “I want to marry you.”
Her mouth fell open and her eyes widened as she lifted her head and found his gaze. “You…what?”
She sounded so completely dumbfounded that he found himself feeling defensive. “I want to marry you,” he repeated. “I wanted to marry you thirteen years ago and now that we’ve finally found each other again, I want that more than ever.”
She didn’t speak, only ducked her head as she stood there twisting her fingers together.
“Celia,” he said to the top of her head, feeling desperate. “What are you thinking?” He lightly ran his hands up and down her arms from shoulder to elbow, as if that small contact could divine her mental state.
She smiled a little then and her eyes shone with the beginnings of tears as she met his gaze again. “We’ve been apart longer than we were together. Are you sure this is what you want?”
“I came looking for you, didn’t I?” He took her in his arms, tenderness sweeping through him. “I love you. We were both too young the first time, or we never would have let anything separate us. But it did, and much as I regret it, I can’t change that, can’t get back all those wasted years. All I can do now is look forward.”
“Oh, Reese,” she said, “I love you, too.” She laid her head on his shoulder. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”
Euphoria, relief, exultation swept through him like a flash flood and he suddenly felt like a superhero. He tilted her face up to his and covered her lips, kissing her with hot, deep possession and need, telling her without words what her acceptance meant to him.
But as he reluctantly ended the kiss and lifted his head, he realized what he’d just done. And more importantly, what he hadn’t done. Cold dread slipped in, erasing the high of a moment before. But she’d just told him she still loved him. She loved him! Suddenly the prospect of explaining his child to her didn’t seem nearly as daunting as it had a few moments before.
“Come sit down.” He tugged her back to the couch, cuddling her against his chest. “I’m getting ahead of myself.”
“Where do you want to live?” she asked. “Here or Florida? Or somewhere else altogether? I wouldn’t mind moving.”
He cleared his throat. “I still have something to tell you before we start discussing that.” When she stopped and looked at him expectantly, he marshaled his courage and cradled both her hands again, running his thumbs gently over her knuckles. “It won’t just be the two of us,” he told her. “I have a daughter.”
Her eyes were wide, trusting, happiness shining from them with a love so strong he felt humbled. Then, as his words penetrated, the light went out.
In the merest instant, in the tiny space between one second and the next, something in her closed down so completely he co
uld practically hear a metal door clanging shut. Her smile faded slowly until all that was left of it was a wounded expression that would haunt him until the day he died.
“You…have a child?” It was a whisper.
He nodded, holding on to her hands when she would have pulled them free. “Her name is Amalie and she’s six years old. She’s adopted,” he said, the words falling all over each other as he tried to make her see. “I was her guardian. Her parents were the friends I told you died in the hurricane, remember? I didn’t have a choice, Celia. I—”
She yanked her hands from his grip and stood, bolting around the table again. Her face was white and her eyes burned with pain. She tried to speak, choked on it and shook her head fiercely, then spoke again in a tone that was barely audible. “I told you how I felt. Right from the beginning, you knew I didn’t want more children…. I told you,” she repeated, her voice breaking. “I can’t—”
“Can’t or won’t?” he demanded, fear making his voice harsh as he saw refusal on her face. “I’d like to have a child of our own someday, but I was prepared to forget about that. Amalie is—”
“I can’t go through that again,” she broke in. “Do you know how much it’s taken for me to deal with loving you and knowing I could lose you, too?”
“You can’t spend the rest of your life in a cave just because something bad might happen. What about all the wonderful times you’re missing?”
“Something bad might happen.” Tears began to roll down her cheeks and there was a torment in her eyes that made him feel as if someone were striking him with a whip, so sharp was the pain that radiated from her. “You don’t know what it’s like to lose someone you love.”
“Yes. I do.” He was pleading now, begging for his life. For their lives. “Not a child, and not in the same way you’ve experienced loss, but I lost thirteen years with all the people I loved most in the world.”
But he might as well not have spoken.
“No,” she said, backing away from him.
“Celia—” He read her intentions in her eyes and stood, and that motion was enough.
“I can’t!” she said brokenly as she wheeled and bolted for the hatch. “It’s not fair of you to ask me to do that.”
As the sound of her ragged breathing faded, it was briefly echoed by her footfalls as she ran across the deck and up the pier.
“Celia, wait!”
But in a moment the sound of her footfalls disappeared altogether, leaving a dark, empty void into which he could feel the rest of his life sliding mercilessly. Alone…alone…alone…
“Dammit!” In a fit of rage he snatched up one of the half-full wineglasses and heaved it at the cabin wall, where it smashed with a shocking sound, spraying glass and golden liquid everywhere.
He was suddenly furious. Not only with her, but with himself. What had made him think that biology would play any role in how much Celia loved a child? She had one of the biggest hearts of anyone he’d ever met, and he realized that if she let Amalie behind those walls she’d worked so hard to erect, she would love her with every fiber of her being, as much as she would any child born of her body.
He slumped into one of the captain’s chairs, his head in his hands. Despair spread steadily, invading every cell.
Oh, God, he hurt. He physically ached. He’d lost her once and forevermore had felt as if something inside him had died. And it wasn’t until he’d returned and found her that his world had once again made sense.
Without her, it would never be right again. Without her… How could he start again without her?
Defeat weighed him down, sucked him under. There was no point in being here one more second, he realized. His life was what it was, and he couldn’t change the way Celia felt simply because it was what he wanted.
He might as well go back to Florida. Tonight. Regardless of the emptiness that threatened to swallow him, he had a child to raise.
I can’t do it. I can’t do it. I can’t do it.
The sentence became a litany of self-justification.
I can’t do it. I can’t do it. I can’t do it.
“Well, I can’t!” she said aloud as she rushed up the rise toward her cozy little house. Her mind was frozen, the only coherent thought was the denial that played over and over. She’d survived once before, when her world had been shattered, and she couldn’t do it again.
He had a child. A child! How could he have kept a secret of that magnitude from her? Shock and fear began to recede, and anger slipped into the empty spaces. A child.
Granted, it wasn’t his. And in some ridiculous way it was important to her that he hadn’t fathered a child. Which, she conceded, was extremely hypocritical of her. She’d married and started a family of her own. She’d done her best to forget all about Reese Barone, and she’d been succeeding.
But he hadn’t forgotten her. He’d come looking.
She knew she never would have done the same. She might have thought of him with regretful longing from time to time for the rest of her life, but she never would have had the courage to go looking for him, in hopes that after thirteen years there might still be something between them.
And you’d have missed the chance for love. You don’t deserve him anyway.
That stung. Her heart thudded dully within her chest, and she put a hand over it. How much should one person be asked to handle in one lifetime? What if she married Reese and grew to love his daughter and then something happened to the child?
But you told Reese you’d marry him. What if something happened to him?
The thought was so awful she stopped walking altogether. Something could happen to Reese. No one knew it better than she. And yet, she’d said yes to his marriage proposal without giving her fears a single thought.
It was a shock to realize that sometime over the past week, the fear that had dogged her life since the day she’d gotten the news about her husband and son had receded. Yes, she still worried, but it wasn’t a crippling emotion anymore. She’d been fully prepared to say yes to a life with Reese, knowing full well that there were no guarantees.
So why would it be any different with a child?
It just was, though she had to think about why that was so. Leo had died so young. Her biggest source of sorrow and regret was for all that he’d missed. He’d never even really had a chance to experience life before his had been taken. And she hated that, hated thinking about all the things he should have had time to try and hadn’t, all because she’d let him go out on the boat with Milo that day.
And that led to the real crux of the matter. It had been her fault. Her fault. She was his mommy; he looked to her to protect him from anything bad, and she’d failed him.
The thought of being the anchor in another child’s life terrified her. She just wasn’t up to the task. She’d already failed once.
Confronting her deepest insecurity was a blinding source of light in the dark corner of her heart where she’d been nursing her fear and anger and sorrow.
I did my best, she reminded herself. I did my best. It was not my fault.
She repeated the words aloud—and suddenly, though she’d said the same things to herself before, this time she felt them sink into her consciousness, settle into the truths that defined her life. I had no way of knowing there could be any danger that day.
And she hadn’t. She’d had no mystical premonition, no uneasy feeling. No way to know.
It wasn’t my fault.
A ten-ton weight lifted from her shoulders. No, off her spirit. Her husband’s and son’s deaths had been a terrible accident, one for which she couldn’t have prepared, couldn’t have been responsible. And it was long past time to forgive herself, to absolve herself of blame and to let go.
Suddenly she knew without a doubt that if she hid herself away from love and life and a second chance, she’d regret it for the rest of her days. Second? Try third. She’d been so very lucky. Reese had been the first to teach her what love was. What she’d shared with M
ilo wasn’t the earth-shattering, heart-swelling emotion she’d known with Reese, but it had been love. Sweet, steady and utterly comfortable. But Milo was gone and Reese had come back.
After thirteen long years he’d come back. And she’d been incredibly fortunate that the bone-deep feelings they’d known in their youth had been far, far more than raging hormones. They’d been in love and still were. A true, solid love built on that early foundation.
And she would have to be an utter fool to throw that away.
Without another thought, she turned back to the marina.
It took her about ten minutes, undoubtedly the longest of her life, to walk back. As she walked, she worked out the wording of her apology to Reese.
But when she began to walk down the pier, she got the shock of her life. The Amalie wasn’t in her slip. Her chest grew tight, her throat felt as if someone had grabbed her and was squeezing her windpipe shut.
Where had he gone? He couldn’t have left so quickly, could he?
Of course he could have. He didn’t think there was anything here to stay for, remember?
She swallowed painfully, desolation sweeping through her. She was the one who’d rejected him. What if he never forgave her?
You’re doing it again. And it had to stop. She’d spent the last few terrible years beating herself over the head and she was not going to do it anymore.
This time she wasn’t going to give up. Reese loved her. He loved her enough to seek her out and to overcome her resistance. He’d made her see how extraordinary their feelings for each other were.
Now it was her turn. He’d come north to find her. She could go south and do the same thing. She had an apology to make and she intended to do it even if she had to catch a flight to Florida to deliver it. Whether or not he forgave her was beside the point. Well, okay, no it wasn’t. But she had no control over that. All she could do was attempt to soothe the hurt she’d inflicted with her self-centered attitude and pray that his heart really was as big as she thought it was.
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