by Marta Perry
“Miranda?” He was smiling, confident.
“I’m sorry, Tyler.” How much it cost to pull her hands away from his, knowing she might never feel his touch again. “I don’t think that would work.”
His expression was stunned, disbelieving. “Not work? Why wouldn’t it work? You can’t deny it would be best for Sammy.”
She took a deep breath, willing herself not to cry in front of him. “I don’t agree with you. Sammy won’t benefit from seeing his parents in a marriage that isn’t real.”
Anger flared in his eyes and declared itself in the taut lines of his face. “I’m offering you a marriage that’s real in every way I can make it. I’m not suggesting we pretend anything.”
“You’re asking that we pretend the most important thing of all.” Couldn’t he see that? Her head throbbed. “Tyler, you’re asking me to take vows before God to love and cherish—vows that you don’t mean. I can’t do that.”
“Grow up, Miranda. Half the marriages that are based on romantic love end up in the divorce court. We’re the living proof of that, aren’t we?” He gripped her hands tighter, as if he could pressure the answer he wanted from her. “We’d have caring and respect between us. And the attraction is still there. We both know that. Isn’t that enough?”
Again she felt the insidious temptation to say yes—to have as much of Tyler as he was willing to offer. But she couldn’t.
“No.” Her voice trembled on the verge of tears, and she held them back with a fierce effort. “I’m sorry, Tyler. It’s not enough.”
She could almost imagine she saw something die in his eyes.
“Fine.” He flung her hands away from him, then snatched his bag. “If that’s what you want, that’s how it will be.”
He was walking away. She wanted to stop him, whatever the cost. She couldn’t. She could only watch him disappear out the door.
She sank onto the edge of the bed, letting the hot, salty tears spill once he wasn’t there to see. She’d had everything she wanted there in her hands, and she’d let it go.
No. She wiped the tears away with an impatient hand, but they persisted. Tyler hadn’t offered what she really wanted and needed. He hadn’t proposed a marriage based on love and blessed by God.
Ironic that, once she’d finally seen she could cope with his world, he’d made her the one offer she couldn’t accept. If God’s love made her fit for any society, it also made her deserving of a real love.
Tyler couldn’t see she offered what he needed so desperately to fill that aching void inside him left by his loveless childhood. He needed her love, but he couldn’t admit it. He was trying to cheat. He wanted to fake a solution that didn’t require risking his heart.
She couldn’t help him do that. Even if it meant a lifetime of grieving for what they might have had, she couldn’t.
She’d have to trust that God could see a way out of this, because she couldn’t.
Chapter Fifteen
Could this day get any worse? Tyler sat in the corporate jet that was supposed to rush him anywhere he needed to be. He stared at sullen clouds and rain spattering against the window.
Sat was the operative word here. Even the best transport money could buy didn’t argue with the weather.
First this day had brought the stunning news about Henry. Then had come the utter fiasco with Miranda. Then a series of storms had come up seemingly from nowhere, grounding flights and throwing his plans into disarray.
He picked up the phone. He’d better let Josh know what was happening. He didn’t want his brother getting nervous and blowing everything.
“I thought you’d be on your way by now.” Josh sounded as jittery as he’d feared.
“That’s because you haven’t checked the weather in Savannah. I can’t go anywhere until they let us take off. What’s happening there?”
“Henry’s been closeted in his office all day, making calls. Do you want me to try and find out who he’s calling?”
“I don’t want you to do anything!”
His brother’s silence told him that his reaction had come out a lot more explosively than he’d intended.
“Sorry.” It wasn’t fair to take his frustrations out on the one person who was trying to help him. “I didn’t mean to blow up at you.”
“Is something wrong? Besides the obvious, I mean.” Josh sounded as if he really wanted to know.
Tyler realized in a moment of surprise that he wanted to confide in his brother. He had to talk to someone, and there wasn’t anyone else. He looked at that fact bleakly. It was a sad comment on his life.
“Things aren’t going well here right now, and the timing of this situation didn’t help any.”
“Things aren’t going well with Sammy or with Miranda?”
Josh’s perception startled him.
“How did you get so smart about relationships all of a sudden?”
“Lots of observation,” Josh said. He chuckled. “Not personal experience, I assure you.”
“I guess not.” Maybe that was the point of his brother’s habit of never appearing with the same woman twice. Josh was as wary of relationships as Tyler was. “Our family life didn’t prepare us for anything most people would call normal, did it?”
“Hardly.” Josh hesitated a moment, and Tyler listened to the spatter of the rain and the static on the phone. “You know, our family to the contrary, plenty of people manage to create real marriages for themselves. Maybe even a Winchester could do that.”
“Maybe.” There didn’t seem much else to say. “Hold the fort. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
He put the phone away, but Josh’s words seemed to hang in the air. Some people manage to create real marriages for themselves.
Real? The word lodged in his mind, resisting his effort to ignore it.
Real wasn’t what he’d offered Miranda. She’d been wise enough to see that.
If he’d really proposed, if he’d told her he didn’t know if he had it in him to love someone but he wanted to try, what would she have said then?
You’ll never know, because you don’t have guts enough to risk it.
The thought came out of nowhere, shaking him. Was that it? Was he really too afraid?
He took a hard look at the possibilities. The alternative seemed to be living his father’s life over again, relying on no one, substituting business success for personal success, having no decent relationships with any of the people he loved.
Love. The word terrified him, and that was the truth of it. He’d been determined to love no one. Then Sammy came along.
He hadn’t had a choice about being Sammy’s father. Loving him had been inevitable and irrevocable. Miranda was another story.
He’d played it safe. Disgust at himself welled up suddenly. He’d made a halfhearted offer of a half-baked marriage, and he’d expected Miranda to jump at the chance. Was it any wonder she’d been revolted? He hadn’t even taken the time to do it right, trying to sandwich in asking her to be his wife between business calls and rushing off to Baltimore.
He saw what he had to do, and it scared him. If he wanted to make things work with Miranda and Sammy, he had to be honest with them. He had to show them that he would put them first. There was a way to do that, if he could.
For a long moment he stared at the phone in his hand. Then he punched in his brother’s number.
“Josh Winchester speaking.”
“I want you to handle this situation with Henry,” Tyler said, not bothering with the pleasantries.
“What?” Josh’s voice sounded far away, as if he’d removed the phone from his ear to stare at it, incredulous. “Are you sure about that?”
“I’m sure.” Suddenly he was smiling. “You’re not any less prepared to take over than I was when Dad died. You can do it.”
“But what if Warren doesn’t want to go through with the deal? You know the competition has probably lowballed us, based on whatever info Henry sold them.”
He could s
ee only one way to handle this, and Josh could do it as well as he could.
“Go in there prepared to sell them all over again. The bottom line is, we can give them the best product at the best price, regardless of what Henry’s done.” He hoped Josh could hear the conviction in his voice. “You can do this. And when the meeting’s over, either way, you can have the pleasure of firing Henry, with my compliments.”
“If you say so.”
Through the doubt, Tyler heard a new sense of responsibility in his brother’s voice. For some reason it made him think of Miranda’s father talking about how he’d let his brother down by not forgiving him for his mistakes and trusting him again.
“I say so,” he said firmly.
“What are you going to be doing while I’m playing chief?”
“Trying to put my family back together again, if I can.”
“You can.” Josh sounded confident. “Good luck.”
If. He hung up, trying not to think how iffy this really was. Whatever the chance, he was doing the right thing.
He ran through the drizzle to the rental car. Josh deserved the chance to see what he could do. And Tyler—well, deserve it or not, he wanted a chance to convince Miranda that they could build a life together.
Eager to hear her voice, he called the inn as he drove toward the island. It was her father, not Miranda, who answered.
“Thought you were on your way north.” Clayton sounded wary.
“I made a mistake,” he said. “I’m on my way back now. Where is Miranda?”
“Well, Sammy was right disappointed about not going to Angel Isle today, so Miranda decided to take him.”
“In this weather?” Fear gripped him.
Clayton must have heard it. “Now, there’s no cause to be upset. They left in plenty of time to be there before these storms come up. Miranda will have them snug in the cottage until the weather clears, count on it.”
“You’re sure they’d have gotten there?”
“Certain sure. You just come on back home. These storms will blow off before you know it.”
Relieved, he put the phone down and put both hands on the wheel. Fierce wind buffeted the car, and the drainage ditches on either side of the road showed an alarming tendency to spill over onto the surface. Clayton said the storms would blow over soon, and he certainly knew the weather on the islands as well as anyone. They’d be okay.
That assurance was growing thin by the time he battled his way across the bridge. Each line of thunderstorms was succeeded by another, equally bad. Impelled by fear for Miranda and Sammy that grew with each rumble of thunder and crack of lightning, he pulled to a stop at the dock in front of Adam’s boatyard. He spotted Adam tying up a small motor-boat.
He stepped into a downpour that soaked him through in seconds and ran toward the dock. The fear that rode him quadrupled. He had to get to them. He couldn’t explain it logically, but he knew in his bones he had to get to them.
“Now we’ll be warm in no time at all.” Shivering, Miranda touched a match to the paper she’d crumpled under the kindling in the fireplace. She smiled at Sammy, hoping she sounded calm and confident.
A blast of wind rattled the windows in spite of the storm shutters they’d closed, and apprehension widened Sammy’s eyes. “D’you think it’s going to last a long time, Momma?”
“Oh, I don’t think so.” Flames licked around the pine knots, catching quickly. She held out her hands to the welcome warmth. “Even if it does, we’re okay, aren’t we? We’ve got a fire to keep us warm, a roof to keep us dry, and we can probably find something to eat in the kitchen if we need it. It’s an adventure.”
He grinned at her with his father’s smile, shattering her heart yet again. “I’ll bet none of the cousins got stuck here in such a bad storm.”
“You can tell them all about it, can’t you?” She put her arm around his shoulder.
He leaned against her, relaxing. “I hope the storm lasts till suppertime, so we can cook hot dogs over the fire. And marshmallows.”
Apparently her words had calmed his fears. Now if only she could calm her own, she’d be all right.
Where was Tyler? She suppressed a shiver. He’d set off to fly to Baltimore. Would the plane be safely above the storms by now? Or was he stuck on the ground in Savannah, raging against the freak weather that kept him from being where he wanted to be?
Her heart ached so strongly she rubbed her hand against her chest, as if that would ease the burden. Sammy had taken the news that his father had to go away with disappointment but no doubts that he would be back. He’d probably talk Tyler into another trip to Angel Isle, based on the argument that this trip was supposed to involve all three of them.
All three of them. The image made her heartache worse. If she’d said yes to Tyler, they’d have looked forward to a lifetime of all three of them.
No, not a lifetime. Sammy would grow up, go off to college, have a life of his own. That was the way it should be. What would she and Tyler have done then, tied in a marriage that wasn’t real?
She’d dreamed, often enough, of growing old with Tyler, but not that way. Not living as two separate individuals trapped in the same house, existing politely in a vacuum.
As God’s dearly beloved children…
God had something better in mind for those He loved. She had to believe that.
Sammy stirred. “You think we could make some popcorn in the fireplace?”
“Hungry already?” she teased, ruffling his hair. “Sure, I guess so. You go pick out a game you’d like to play, and I’ll get the popcorn and popper out.”
He was up in an instant. Another boom of thunder sounded, very close, and she saw the flicker of fear in his eyes, quickly masked.
“I’ll get Monopoly, okay? Then it’ll be okay if the storm lasts a long time.”
She gave him a reassuring smile, and he ran through the kitchen toward the game room they’d added years ago to the cottage. She followed, hoping the popcorn jars in the kitchen were full. Sammy would be disappointed if his adventure didn’t include popcorn, and probably hot dogs, as well. Since the storm didn’t show any signs of letting up, he’d probably get his wish.
She pushed through the kitchen door, looking through the opposite door to the game room. They’d never bothered to put storm shutters on those windows, since the wind didn’t come from that direction. That seemed small comfort in a storm like this. Sheets of rain drove against the exposed panes, and the wind whipped the palmettos and live oaks into a frenzy of ripping leaves and torn Spanish moss.
She paused, hand reaching for the popcorn jar on the shelf above the stove. Sammy was safe enough in the walk-in closet where the games were stored, but the turmoil outside the windows still made her uneasy.
“Sammy, grab the game and hurry in here,” she called. “Let’s get back to the fireplace where it’s warm.”
“Okay, Momma, I’m coming.”
She heard the game hit the floor, then Sammy muttering something about dropping it. Lightning cracked again, illuminating the wild scene outside the windows in an eerie light. The clap of thunder followed so closely they were almost simultaneous. Apprehension skittered along her skin, and she put the jar down.
“Come on, sugar. I’ll get it.” She stepped into the game room, heading for the closet.
Lightning cracked again, so close the acrid scent filled the air. Another crack burst on her ears, even louder than the thunder. The hundred-year-old live oak outside the windows shuddered. Before she could move, it fell. The room collapsed around her in a kaleidoscope of shattering walls and flying debris.
She was on the floor, a chair lying across her legs. She struggled to her feet. Sammy. She had to get to her son.
“Sammy, where are you?” She looked around, completely disoriented. The room was a shambles of broken siding and shattered glass. “Sammy!”
“I’m okay, Momma.” His voice was reassuringly near. “But I can’t get up.”
“Hold on,
sugar. I’m coming.” She battled a few steps, shoving debris aside. A blast of wind drove a sheet of rain into her face, and the cold shock cleared her head.
Please, Lord. “Sammy, say something!”
“I’m here. In the closet.”
Thank You, Lord.
She stumbled across the room, dashing the water from her eyes so she could see. The door-frame was still there, the walls surrounding it still upright. She clambered over a fallen beam and made it through the door.
“I’m okay, Momma, but I can’t get out.” Sammy’s anxious face peered at her through a tangle of boards. The shelves had come down, boxing him into a small den behind them.
“I’ll get you out. Don’t you worry.” She forced her voice to remain steady while panic ripped along her nerves. She grabbed the nearest board, yanking it free.
Please, God, please, God, give me the strength to get him out.
“I’ll help,” Sammy said, but when he pushed on a board, the wall above him swayed ominously.
“Don’t, honey, don’t. We have to take them away carefully.” She fought for calm. “Like playing jack-straws. We don’t want them to topple over.”
Cautiously she lifted out one board, then another. She could reach through the hole and touch him, and she stroked his cheek.
“Just one more, then you can wiggle out.”
She grasped the heavy beam. It wouldn’t move. She braced her feet against a pile of rubble and pulled again. It remained stubbornly immovable. Another crack of lightning lit the room, showing her Sammy’s scared face.
She had to get him out. If another piece of the roof fell, they could both be buried. She tugged again, hands tearing against the rough wood, muscles screaming.
Help me, Lord, help me. I’m not strong enough. Help me!
“Miranda! Sammy!”
She recognized his voice even while her logical mind told her there was no way on earth Tyler could be there. He climbed into the closet beside her, running his hands down her arms, trying to pull her away from the beam.
“No, I have to—”
“I’ll get it, love.” His voice was deep, reassuring. “Just move back a little.”