Cole stepped into the apartment and shut the door behind him. Faith's heart leaped. This was her worst nightmare come true. He'd found her. He'd found Peter. How could she have been so careless? Opening the door like that, without putting her eye to the peephole? Without at least asking, "Who's there?" Hadn't she warned Peter about those very things? Hadn't she lectured him? Hadn't she set out a whole procedure and just violated it?
"Hello, Faith," Cole said.
She swallowed dryly. "How-how did you find us?"
"You left a trail like an elephant in a crockery shop." He looked around the room, his face expressionless, but she knew what he saw, the cracked plaster, the time-stained walls, the sagging furniture. "Nice place you and the boy have here."
"Get out," she said shakily. "Get out, or I'll call the police."
Cole arched one eyebrow. "Go ahead. Call them. What will you tell them when they get here? That you're not in the mood for a civilized talk with your husband?"
Peter, she thought, Peter, sweetheart, stay where you are. Don't come back here. Don't come back!
"What do you want, Cole?"
You, he wanted to say, but he had- the feeling she wasn't ready to hear that yet. She might not ever be ready to hear it. His heart ached as he looked at her. She was wearing the suit she'd worn that day she'd come to Jergen's office but it hung loosely on her now. She'd lost weight, she looked tired, and it was his fault. Everything was his fault. He'd taken the one good thing in his life and destroyed it, not once but twice.
"Well?" Faith dug her hands into her pockets and lifted her chin. "What do you want?"
"Where's Peter?"
"He's not here. And you won't find him. I've-I've sent him away, where he'll be safe."
"Yeah." Cole heaved out a breath. "That's just as well. We need to talk."
"I have nothing to say to you."
He nodded. "I know. But I have things to say to you." "There's nothing you could tell me that I'd be interested in hearing."
"Faith-"
"No. No, for the first time since you came into my life again, I'm not going to listen to you. You could sing `Dixie' while standing on your head. You could do Shakespeare while balancing on one foot, and I still wouldn't give a damn!"
"I deserve all that."
"Oh, please. Don't try and be humble. It doesn't become you. And it won't work. I am not going to listen to a thing you-"
"How about if I told you I paid a visit on Jessie?" Faith's mouth dropped open. She looked at him in disbelief. "Ted's Jessie?"
"I found a letter addressed to-to Jessie in Ted's papers. So I decided..." Cole cleared his throat. Dammit, he'd been walking around with this for almost a week and he still couldn't just come straight out and say it. "Faith? Jessie is Jessie isn't a woman."
There was anguish in his voice, so much that Faith could feel her anger slipping away. "Yes," she said gently. "I know.
"You know?"
"I've always known. Ted never lied to me."
"My brother-" She could see him searching for the strength to say the words. "My brother was gay."
Faith nodded. "Yes," she said softly.
"He never said anything. I mean, I never knew. I mean..." Cole took a rasping breath. "Why didn't he tell me? Did he think I'd have stopped loving him? Hell, he was my brother!"
"You were his hero," she said softly. "He was afraid he'd disappoint you." She lifted her hand, wanting to touch him, to ease the pain she saw in his hunched shoulders and dark eyes, but too many secrets still separated them, always would separate them, and she let her hand fall to her side. "He tried to be like everyone else, he said. Tried to-to like women but he just... He couldn't. He told me everything, Cole. And he made me promise that I'd never tell you."
"And you kept that promise, even after the terrible things I said about you."
"I gave Ted my word," she said simply. "I loved him. He was-he was the brother I never had, the best friend I'd always wanted. I'd never have done anything to hurt him."
"There were letters," Cole said. "Notes from-from Jessie to Ted. And from Ted to Jessie. I read them. They sounded like love letters..." He gave a choked laugh. "Hell, they were love letters. How could I possibly have known they'd been written by...? Faith, I was wrong. I don't expect you to forgive me but-but..." He hesitated. Was it too late? She was listening but she wasn't looking at him the way she once had, as if he were her world just as she was his. "Faith. Baby, I want you to know that I understand about Peter."
Her mouth went dry. "You do?"
"Yes." He took a deep breath. "You were lonely. Ted was-he was fighting against what he knew he was, I guess, trying to prove he could have feelings for women."
Faith shook her head. "It wasn't like that," she whispered.
"No." Cole grasped her shoulders. "No, you don't have to explain. See, it was all my fault. I didn't leave town because I wanted to. I had to. Somebody accused me of something and... It's a long story. The bottom line is that I couldn't prove my innocence without dragging you into it." "Me?" she said in surprise.
He nodded. "That last night was every dream come true." He reached out, touched the back of his hand to her cheek. "Proving I'd hadn't done anything wrong meant telling my old man and the sheriff that you and I were together that night. And there wasn't a way I'd do that. I loved you too much."
"And now?" she asked softly, her eyes searching his for the truth. "Do you still love me, or was that only a dream, too?"
Cole slipped his arms around her. "I'll always love you. Don't you know that? I'll love, you forever, baby, if you'll just give me another chance."
Faith's eyes glittered with tears of happiness. "Oh, Cole. If you only knew how I missed you. All those years, alone, wondering why you'd left me..."
"I'll never leave you again," he said gruffly. He bent his head, brushed his mouth over hers. "And I'll love my brother's son as if he were my own."
Now, she thought, and she lay her hands, palms flat, against his chest. "Cole." She looked up into his eyes. "Peter is your own."
At first, she thought he hadn't understood. Then she felt his muscles tense beneath her touch.
"Peter is-is mine?"
"Yes, my darling. He's yours." Faith framed her husband's face with her hands. "Ted came to see me a few weeks after you'd left town. He asked if I was okay, did I need anything, and I-I blurted out that I was pregnant. He was wonderful, Cole. He said I owed our child your name. He asked me to marry him. I said-I said I would never really be his wife and that was when he told me the truth about himself..."
"Mine," Cole said, and let out a whoop. "The kid is mine! " His arms closed around her and he waltzed her around the tiny room. "I have a son."
Faith laughed as they whirled in circles. "I was going to tell you in New York, the morning after we made love, but-"
"But I was an idiot," Cole said gruffly, and kissed her.
Faith put her arms around his neck. When the kiss ended, he gathered her close against him. They stood that way for a few minutes, and then she leaned back in his arms.
"Peter doesn't know."
"Pete," Cole said, and grinned. "That's good. This way, we can tell him together."
"He misses you something awful. He hasn't stopped talking about you."
"Yeah." Cole cleared his throat. "Well, I haven't stopped talking about him, either."
Suddenly, the door flew open. "Mom? You know that car
I found in the cereal box..." Peter's eyes widened. "Cole?" "Yeah, champ." Cole squatted down and held out his arms.
"Did you miss me?"
Peter ran to his father and threw himself into his arms.
"Mom said you had to go away."
"I did. But I'm back. And I'm never going to leave you again." Cole stood up straight and put one arm around his wife. "Never," he said softly.
"Never," Faith said, and she wondered what she'd ever done to deserve such incredible happiness.
It was silly to have another wed
ding, Faith said. Yeah, Cole said, that was the truth. They were already married. They had a certificate to prove it.
But their son kept reminding them that he should have been there, when his mom and dad said `I do.' Cole kept looking at his beautiful wife and imagining how she'd have looked as a bride. Faith kept remembering how gorgeous her handsome husband had been in his tux.
And so, on a hot, perfect August afternoon, they invited some of Cole's friends-Faith's friends, too, now-to what they claimed would be a small party.
It was, instead, a wedding.
They were married in the evening, on the flower-bedecked terrace of Cole's penthouse high above the city. Faith was beautiful in a long white gown of pearl-studded lace. She had a pair of antique gold combs in her hair, a gift from her son who'd spent an entire day shopping with his father. Cole was breathtakingly handsome in his black tux.
It was, the guests all agreed, a wonderful wedding.
And, the groom said softly to his wife, as she lay in his arms later that night, it was just the beginning of a long and wonderful life.
Cole Cameron's Revenge Page 18