by Ruth Owen
“Congratulations,” Noel murmured, too shocked to say anything else.
“Thank you, but that’s not what I want to hear.” He enclosed her hands in his meticulously manicured ones. “Marry me, Noel. I know I could make you happy.”
I know you’d try, Noel thought as she stared in stunned surprise at the engagement ring. For so long she’d dreamed of marrying someone like Hayward, someone solid and dependable who could offer her the security she’d never had as a child. And the love, she added as she looked into his handsome, earnest face. He was a good friend and she cared about him deeply. She didn’t doubt that he would be a kind, caring husband, and that he would do his best to give her a stable, happy life.
She’d be a fool to throw that kind of future away on a whispered promise, spoken by a man she’d known for only a week, who’d never said he loved her, who hadn’t even bothered to contact her since she’d been wounded saving his life. She’d be a fool to hang her heart on a dream. She might as well start believing in Papa Guinea’s voodoo prayers.…
The squawk of a parrot startled her out of her musings. Looking up, she saw a huge imperial sisserou perched on her windowsill, its green and purple feathers gleaming in the tropical sun. It cocked its head to one side and blinked at her with its wise yellow eyes. Then it bent down and began systematically shredding the rose bouquet into minuscule pieces.
“Hey, shoo!” Hayward leaped up from his chair. “Stop that, you stupid … Noel, why are you laughing? Those flowers were almost impossible to get in this city, and that stupid bird just ruined them.”
“You don’t understand,” she said between fits of laughter. “It’s not a parrot. It’s a sign. From Papa Guinea.”
“A sign from Papa—Noel, are you on some sort of medication?”
“No,” she assured him, her laughter dying. She looked up at Hayward, grateful for his friendship, but knowing she could never feel anything more for him. “I know you’d make me happy, but I don’t think I’d be able to do the same for you. I’m a different woman from the one who left Miami. I’ve changed.”
“Don’t be silly, Noel. It’s only been a week.”
“Sometimes that’s all it takes.” She gently slid the ring off her finger and laid it in his palm. “I’ve fallen in love with St. Michelle and its people … and with one very special man.”
Slowly, reluctantly, Hayward closed his hand around the ring. She saw a quick flicker of pain dart across his face before his impeccably unemotional mask settled back in place. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” he said stiffly as he rose and left the room.
“He wasn’t da man?”
Noel looked up, and saw that the nurse was standing in her doorway. “No, he wasn’t.” She fell back onto the pillows. “You don’t know where a girl could get a stiff drink around here, do you?”
“Ha, I sure do,” the nurse replied, crossing her arms in a look of reproach. “But you shouldn’t be asking that in your condition, should you now?”
“Oh, come on. It’s not going to hurt my shoulder.”
“It’s not your shoulder I be thinking of. It’s your babe.”
“My …?” Noel bolted straight up to a sitting position. “Are … are you telling me I’m pregnant?”
“We tested ya for the medication when you came in,” the nurse replied, looking almost as surprised as Noel felt. “Are you saying you didn’t know?”
“Not until now.” She wrapped her arms around her middle, her heart swelling with more joy than she’d ever thought possible. I’m going to have a baby, Sam. Your baby. Made from our love. “Lord, I need to call him.”
Automatically she reached for a phone, but her hand came down on a flat, empty tabletop. Apparently phones weren’t a common item in the capital’s spartan hospital. “Please, nurse, you’ve got to find a phone and call St. Michelle island. I need to get a message to a man named Sam Donovan—”
“Jolly-mon?”
“Yes,” Noel cried happily. “You know him?”
“My sister, she lives on that island,” the nurse answered, her smile fading. “Spoke with her last night. She tells me about da Jolly-mon, and what’s happened to him.”
Noel’s joy froze to icy terror. “He’s all right, isn’t he? When the paramedics brought me here they told me he’d been left behind because he wasn’t hurt—”
“It’s not hurt he is, ma’am.” She walked over to the bed and sat on the covers, gripping Noel’s still-weak hand in her strong, brown one. “My sister say that Jolly-mon packed up and left the island night before last. Blew away like the wind. And he didn’t tell no one where he was going.…”
The PC perched on Noel’s coffee table gave a jaunty whistle. “The party was better than the quinella I just won at Hialeah. I like baby rains.”
“That’s showers, PINK,” Noel corrected with a smile. She stood on tiptoe on the stepladder, unfastening the edge of the pink and blue banner with her and PINK’s names on it that was stretched across her living room. “Anyway, I thought you’d promised Einstein you’d given up gambling until the baby arrived. Too much excitement isn’t good for your microprocessors.”
“Did give up. Mostly. Ah, he worries like old lady,” the little PC grumbled. “ ’Sides, I’m fine. Upgraded to Pentium-Pro last week. When do you upgrade?”
“Soon, I imagine,” Noel replied as she stepped down off the ladder and pressed her hand against her slightly rounded belly. Four months had gone by, and she was just beginning to show. Outwardly she had hardly changed at all, but inwardly she’d grown a lifetime. Two lifetimes, she thought as she spread her fingers over the precious new life inside her. If only Sam could see this—
Her mind clamped down on the thought. She’d purposely made no attempt to find or contact him since she’d returned to Miami. He’d never made her any promises, and she couldn’t stand the thought of trying to rope him into a relationship because of their baby. Still, there were times at night when she buried her face in her pillow and cried her heart out, imagining the future they’d never have, and the family they’d never be—
A sharp knock sounded on her front door.
Lord, not another gift! She glanced around at the crib-and-toy-cluttered living room, wondering where on earth she was going to put the new item. Though grateful for the shower her friends had organized for PINK and herself, she doubted she could stuff another thing into the limited space of her condo.
“Just pray it’s a gift certificate,” she muttered as she opened the door … and gasped as her gaze collided with a pair of fierce, ocean-blue eyes.
For a long moment she just stood there, frozen in place, as if she were still surrounded by the wall that had once circled her heart. He looked the same. Oh, his shaggy hair was cut shorter and he wore a conservative gray business suit instead of his muscle shirt and worn jeans, but he radiated the same intangible strength, the same invisible, radiant energy that had burned through her frosty defenses.
“Can I come in?”
Not “I’m sorry I left without a word,” or “forgive me for deserting you while you were in the hospital.” Just “Can I come in?” as if he hadn’t disappeared for four months. “What do you want, Donovan?”
He raised an amused brow. “Donovan? What happened to ‘Sam’?”
“That’s what I’ve been asking for the past four—ow,” she said as she raised her arm for emphasis and caught it on the edge of a high chair.
“Here, let me see that.”
He reached for her bruised hand, but she yanked it back. Having him save her from cave-ins and waterfalls was one thing, but from high chairs …? She turned away, overwhelmed by the memories she’d worked so hard to forget.
“What do you want?” she asked again.
He followed her into the gift-littered apartment, looking like a bull circumnavigating a china shop. His gaze settled on the PC sitting on the coffee table. “Hey, is that you, PINK?”
“Hi, Sam. You missed a great baby downpour.”
> “She means shower. We had a party for the babies. Her babies.”
“Not just mine,” PINK corrected. “Was also for—”
Noel snapped the PC lid down, cutting off PINK’s audio. “So why are you here?”
He glanced at her, his eyes gleaming with a passion that filled her mind with indigo nights and sun-drenched days. “You’re the Ph.D. Do the math.”
She did. In fact, she’d been doing nothing else for the past four months. Any way she sliced it, the numbers still came up that she loved him, and Would until the day she died. But she was also painfully aware that love on her part didn’t equal commitment on his.
He’d waltzed into her life after four months of silence. She had no guarantee that he wouldn’t waltz out again tomorrow for another four months, or four years. She couldn’t live with that kind of uncertainty. And she damn well wasn’t going to subject her baby to it. She knew all too well what it felt like when a child was deserted by a beloved father.
“It was a mistake for you to come here.” She turned around to face him. “You’d better go.”
She saw the uncertainty in his eyes, and felt it strike to her heart. “I guess I was wrong to think that if I showed up in this monkey suit, you’d still—” He plowed his fingers through his hair, instantly transforming it back into a shaggy mane. “Ah hell, I guess it was just a dream. But I’m not leaving without giving you this. I worked too hard to get it.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a wadded up sheet of newsprint, handing it to her. “I contacted a couple of Uncle Gus’s old … um, business associates. The leads they gave me were shaky, but I was eventually able to track down this story in the Chicago Times archives. It’s not much, but …”
She unfolded the faded sheet. The yellowed page was torn from the middle of the paper, and bore a midwinter date of almost twenty-five years ago. At first Noel couldn’t understand why Sam had brought it to her. Then her gaze focused on a small article, buried next to the obituaries. HARRIS BANK ROBBERY THWARTED. DRIVER KILLED.
“My sources said this was a family job,” Sam continued, “and when all’s said and done, Chicago is still a family town. The police were encouraged not to follow up on the crime. The whole thing was deep-sixed as quickly as possible. But I talked to one of the survivors. He said no names were mentioned, but he remembered that the driver was a young Italian from back east, who kept talking about his wonderful little girl, and how he was going to use his cut of the robbery to give her everything his posh mother-in-law said he could never af—Noel!”
She hadn’t realized she was fainting until she saw the floor rushing up to meet her. She was briefly aware of a pair of strong arms circling her before she blacked out. The next thing she knew she was lying on the couch, with Sam sitting beside her, his face drawn in concern.
“Don’t you get tired of rescuing me?” she mumbled.
“It’s sort of become a hobby.” He traced her jaw with his finger.
Gingerly, she scooted up to a sitting position, the piece of newsprint still clutched in her fist. “Do you think the driver was really my father?”
“We’ll never know the whole story,” he said truthfully, “but this man died around the same time that your father disappeared. And if it was your father, it means he left you not because he didn’t love you enough, but because he loved you too much.”
She nodded and pressed the crumpled, precious piece of newsprint against her heart. Brave, stupid, foolhardy, loyal … She shook her head, remembering the foolish, loving young man who’d made the worst decision possible because he wanted to give her a better life. She swallowed, feeling a great peace, and a sorrow beyond tears. “Thank you,” she whispered. “But why did you do it? Why’d you go to all this trouble?”
“You’ve been asking a lot of questions.” He rested his arm along the back of the couch and yanked on a stray upholstery thread. “It’s time I got to ask one.” He turned back to her, his expression remote and distant. “If I asked you to come with me, would you?”
Noel froze. With a shaman’s sight she saw the two paths of her life stretching before her, one safe and secure, one as passionate and unpredictable as a tropical storm. The choice she made now would affect not only her life, but the lives of her children and her children’s children for generations to come. But there is only one choice, she thought as her hand covered the tiny rounded form of the child they’d made together. I had money and social position growing up, and it meant nothing. I want our child to be raised with love, even if the road is sometimes rocky and uncertain. Love is worth the price.
“I suppose,” she answered, her mouth pulling up in a shy smile, “you’ll just have to ask me and find out.”
“Your smile,” he breathed as he focused on her mouth, shaking his head in wonder. “I spent the last few months hitting the capitals of every one of the lower forty-eight, and all I could think about was your damn, cockeyed smile.”
“It’s not cockeyed, And what were you doing traveling the States?”
“My job. After the Deveraux incident the island government realized that they couldn’t isolate themselves from the industrial West, not unless they wanted the black market to grow exponentially. They needed a representative who believes in the old ways, but could understand the business language of the modern world. So you’re looking at the newly appointed Minister of Industrial Commerce. I’ve been touring the U.S. on a goodwill mission.”
“And you couldn’t call? Or write?” she accused.
“Sweetheart, except for finding out about that robbery, I haven’t had time to breathe,” he confessed as he wrapped her in his arms and pulled her against his chest. “Besides, I wanted to make sure I had something to offer you other than a seedy bungalow and a battered Jeep.”
“I like your bungalow,” she murmured, breathing in the warmth and strength of him. He might have been dressed in a business suit, but he still smelled like the fresh, wild Caribbean wind. She pushed aside his jacket and circled her arms around his waist, snuggling against him. “Think you could fit a marriage into your busy schedule?”
“Actually, we don’t have to get married.”
“Don’t have to …” Noel’s back stiffened with all her Yankee morality. “Sam Donovan, if you think I’m going to go traipsing around the world with you without a ring on my finger, you’ve got another—don’t you dare laugh!”
“Can’t help it,” he replied, grinning like a schoolboy. “You look so damn cute when you’re angry. I always thought so—even when you tried to deck me in my bedroom. But don’t worry. We don’t have to get married because we already are. While I was working with the government, I found out that Papa Guinea has more authority than I’d thought. Seems that ceremony was a hundred percent legal—pigs, sugar water, and all.”
“Then we’ve been married all along,” she mused.
“All along, and from now on,” he said huskily, bending down to her. “I’ve missed you, wife. I’ve needed you—”
A sharp squeak interrupted him. Reaching around, he yanked a small, brilliantly yellow rubber ducky from behind his back. He frowned, turning the toy over in his hand. “I know the AI prototypes are almost human, but what the heck are baby computers gonna do with—hey, what’s so funny?”
“You,” she replied, her shoulders shaking with barely restrained laughter. “I’ve never seen a renegade done in by a bath toy. But you’d better get used to it, Donovan.” She took the duck from him and brought his hand to her stomach. “The computers aren’t the only ones who figured out the solution to the Eden equation.”
“What do you me—oh, Lord.” He glanced down, his warm palm curving around the unusual plumpness in her belly. “Good Lord.”
She watched his eyes, but she couldn’t read anything in them beyond stunned shock. Suddenly, horribly, she realized she might have been wrong to think he’d share her happiness. He’d come for a wife, not a family. Maybe he’d feel a baby was too much of a responsibility for a man ju
st starting to get his life back together. Maybe he wouldn’t want their child, or her.
She stiffened, trying to keep her voice level. “I realize you weren’t expecting this when you asked me to marry you. I completely understand if you want to reconsider your offer.”
His head shot up. “Reconsider?”
“Yes. I mean, a child is a huge responsibility. And I don’t want to force you to—”
Her words ended abruptly as his mouth covered hers. His kiss consumed her, burning away the last of her icy doubt, promising her a lifetime of passion and happiness. She wrapped her arms around his neck, surrendering to the storm winds of their desire, feeling safe and whole in a way she’d never been before, not even during their lovemaking in Eden Valley.
Finally he lifted his head and gazed down at her with a cherishing wonder so intense that it made her weak. “I’ve said it before, sweetheart, and I’ll say it again. For a Ph.D. you can be pretty crazy sometimes. Don’t you know this is what I’ve dreamed about? I never had a family, and you can bet that I’m gonna be the best dad a kid ever had.”
She reached up and touched the edge of his smile, feeling a happiness blossom in her heart as brilliant and wild as a tropical flower. We’ve come full circle, she thought, remembering the stone-faced man and the emotionally frozen woman who’d met at the dilapidated airport. The lush, unpredictable, and sometimes violent magic of St. Michelle has remade us, burning away our pasts, letting us see the best in ourselves through each other’s eyes. “I was wrong,” she murmured. “Paradise is exactly what it’s cracked up to be.”
EPILOGUE
[Received via Sheffield Industries internal cable network, High Security Area, Computer Lab]
E-Text: What’s shakin’, babe? How’re you doing?
P-Text: Same as ten-point-three seconds ago, when you last asked me. I’m fine.