Surprised by Love

by Julie Lessman

  The old man tsked, smile crooking while his enlarged blue eyes blinked behind glasses nearly a half inch thick. “Now, don’t get in a huff about Henry, he’s still part of the mix, just not the key investor anymore.”

  Bram dipped his head toward Logan. “You are, sir?” His gaze flicked to the first page of the contract, then back, confusion muddling the usually clear blue of his eyes. “Fifty-one percent? Majority shareholder?”

  Logan gave a slight shrug of his shoulders, struggling to keep his grin in check. “I figure if you’re going to invest in something, you may as well do it the right way.”

  “But, I don’t understand—why?” Bram tossed the papers back on the desk and lowered into his chair. “No offense, sir, but you know almost nothing about the shipping business.”

  A chuckle broke through Logan’s professional demeanor as he idly scratched the back of his neck. “No, but then I knew even less about city government when I was elected to the Board of Supervisors, but let’s not spread that around.” Propping elbows on the arms of his chair, he tented fingers to his chin, his manner suddenly sober. “The truth is, Bram, with the clean sweep the city is hoping to make in the Barbary Coast, the handwriting is on the wall for establishments I’ve invested in before. So . . . I decided to move my holdings to something far more reliable.” He paused, his gaze piercing Bram’s with deep affection and respect. “And far, far closer to home.”

  A muscle flickered in Bram’s cheek. He nodded, gaze falling to the papers on the desk while a sheen of moisture reflected in his eyes. “Thank you, sir,” he whispered.

  “Which means, son,” Jeremiah leaned forward, his voice low and fairly quivering with excitement, “you can take your life off the altar, Abraham Hughes—you’re free to live as you choose.” He paused, gripping his wife’s hand when she slipped hers into his. “And more importantly, you’re free to love whomever you choose.”

  ———

  Bram stared, unable to move or blink or breathe. His father’s words circled slowly in his brain, as if trudging through quicksand, sinking in until he felt himself drowning in a sea of guilt.

  Free. As if one could ever be free anchored to shame and regret. He swallowed hard, his gaze fixed to the papers on Logan’s desk. “What about Amelia?” he asked quietly, unwilling to wound the young woman with whom he’d become good friends.

  “Quite frankly, she was as relieved as we’d hoped you’d be,” his father said, a thread of disappointment in his tone. “Her mother tells us she plans to return to Europe. Seems the young man she met over there is not the fraud her father led her to believe.” He exhaled with a shake of his head. “Turns out Henry forged a letter supposedly from the boy so he could whisk Amelia home. So, once we explained your situation, Amelia was most gracious and understanding, wanting only the best for you.”

  He turned, mind in a fog over the sudden shift of plans. “My situation? What situation?”

  His mother placed a gentle hand to his arm. “Why, the fact you’ve fallen in love with Meg, dear, and that she’s in love with you.”

  Meg? His heart seized. As if I deserve a miracle like her. He forced a smile, squeezing his mother’s hand. “Mother, I don’t know where you’ve gotten a silly notion like that—”

  “From Meg,” Logan interrupted with a polite smile. “Or Cait heard it from Meg, rather, although we both know I heard it directly from you.”

  Bram bit back a frown, somewhat annoyed by the superior smirk on his superior’s face. “That’s all fine and good, sir, but you forget your niece is being courted by somebody else.”

  “Ah-ah-ah . . .” Logan wagged a finger. “Not anymore.”

  “Pardon me?” Bram tipped his head, his pulse taking a tumble.

  Logan’s smile twisted into a scowl. “I mean she gave Caldwell the boot when she discovered him last night in the arms of another woman.”

  Bram blinked, outrage playing tug-of-war with relief. Relief won—he grinned. “Good girl,” he said with pride in his tone. “Wish I could boot the moron myself.” His smile dissolved. “How is she, sir?”

  “Miserable.” Logan peered at him through narrow eyes, arms folded as if preparing for battle. “Heartbroken, depressed, thinks her life is over because she’s lost the man she loves.”

  Logan’s words stung, but not as much as Bram’s fury at Caldwell for breaking Meg’s heart. He bit back a few choice words. “So help me, I’d like to give that no-good—”

  “I was talking about you, Bram,” Logan said, his voice deadly calm. “And I’d like to know what you’re going to do about it, because you have a choice here—you can marry my niece, or you can find a new job.”

  Bram’s heart stopped. “Pardon me?”

  “You heard me.” Logan aimed a blunt finger. “Don’t make me fire you, son, there’s precious few men whose counsel I trust.”

  Throat tight with emotion, Bram gave him a quick nod, lips compressed in a tight smile to deflect the glaze of moisture in his eyes. “Thank you, sir, that means the world to me.”

  “And my niece means the world to me, Bram, as do you, so here’s the plan. After you enjoy Thanksgiving dinner with your parents at the Darlingtons’ tonight, you will duck out early and show up at Cait’s for dessert at eight to close the deal—understood?”

  Bram’s heart and brain blinked before a slow smile eased across his lips that worked its way into a grin, euphoria traveling like adrenaline through his veins. “Yes, sir.”

  “Good.” Logan rose and adjusted the sleeves of his jacket, piercing Bram with a firm look. “Then if you’ll excuse me, I’ll give you privacy while you disclose to your parents the true reason you were willing to marry Amelia Darlington despite being in love with my niece.”

  Bram stared, paralysis claiming his body.

  “What’s he talking about, son?” his father asked, brows beetled over blinking eyes.

  Logan kneaded Bram’s shoulder on his way to the door, his voice low with empathy. “It’s time, son. I’ll not have you bring burdensome regrets into a marriage with my niece.”

  Bram’s eyes lumbered closed at the click of the door, remembering full well the exact moment he’d made the mistake of tipping his hand to Logan.

  “You see, I owe my father a heavy debt, sir, one of which he’s not even aware and one that I can certainly never repay.”

  His mother stroked his arm. “Bram . . . ?”

  Moisture smarted beneath his eyelids, and he knew he had no choice. The moment he’d dreaded for over a third of his life had finally come. The moment when his parents would learn just what kind of son they had.

  Angling to face them both, he hunched over the edge of his chair, head bowed as he knotted his hands. “I . . . have something I need to tell you. Something I’ve needed to confess for a long time now, but I was too afraid.”

  “Afraid?” his father bellowed. “What could you possibly fear from us, son, the two people who love you more than life itself?”

  He squeezed his eyes shut, desperate to retain the hot tears that threatened to swell. “The . . . very loss of that love, I’m afraid,” he whispered, his voice no more than a croak.

  “Bram,” his mother said softly, sweeping her hand the length of his bent back. “There is nothing you could say or do that could ever damage our love.”

  He shook his head, a heave jerking in his throat. “You don’t know that, Mother. You haven’t heard what I have to say.”

  Her hand stilled on his back. “Then tell us, son, so you can be free from this awful guilt.”

  Gaze fused to the floor, the maple hardwood swam before him in a watery blur of russet and golds while his voice sank to a drone, the painful words all but dragging across his parched tongue. “I was . . . responsible for . . . the robbery that night.”

  He waited for his mother’s gasp, his father’s growl, but neither came. The tick-tick-tick of Logan’s clock might have been a death knell for all the raucous pounding that it made in a room as still as death.
r />   “We know, son,” his father said quietly.

  Bram’s gaze lashed up, shock expunging all air from his lungs. “You knew? All this time? B-but . . . how?”

  “I found the crumpled paper,” his mother whispered, the palm of her hand still warm against his back. “With the combination to Father’s safe, the one hidden in the secret compartment of his drawer.”

  A low groan rose in his throat like bile, and slumping over in the chair, he put his head in his hands and wept, shoulders shuddering beneath his mother’s tender touch.

  “Bram,” his father whispered, his gnarled hand stroking his head, “you were so young and angry, and those boys duped you. Let it go, son—it’s in the past, over and done.”

  He slammed a fist to the arm of the chair. “No, it’s not!” he shouted, his mind crazed. “I rebelled against you, Pop, and that very rebellion cost you your sight and your health. I stupidly gave them what they wanted, too drunk to even know what I’d done.” Cheeks wet with grief, he gripped his father’s hand, head bowed. “I never meant for that to happen, Pop, I swear.”

  “I know, son . . .” His father’s gentle touch wracked more heaves from his chest. “But you were an angry boy still grieving the death of his sister, and I was an angry father who wrongly cast blame on that boy.”

  Face slick and swollen with tears, Bram stared, wild-eyed. “But I killed her!” he shouted. “And I almost killed you . . .” He clenched his fists, guilt smothering any flame of forgiveness his parents might hope to give. “How can you ever forgive that?” Staggered by shame, he sagged forward, his head in his hands while he wept, his painful lament the only sound in the room.

  Until . . . another voice rose, halting and frail and yet so very strong. “How can I not, son, when my Father has forgiven me?” Bram felt his father’s frail touch, and shock stilled his torment at the broken whisper of familiar words from a song he knew his father loved. “Amazing g-grace, how sweet the s-sound, that saved a wretch like m-me. I once was lost . . . but now am found, was blind, but now I see . . .”

  Bram slowly raised his head, staring in awe at his father’s upturned face. Streaked with tears, it was glowing with a holy sheen in vacant eyes whose vision was far greater than his son’s. Falling to his knees before his father’s chair, Bram clung to him in a crushing embrace. “Oh, Pop, forgive me, please—I never meant to hurt you.”

  “Ack, I forgave you long ago, son,” his father whispered against his hair, “but I failed to ask you to forgive me.”

  Bram’s head shot up, his voice a rasp of denial. “No! You need no forgiveness from me.”

  “Ah, but I do, my boy, because you see, I have a debt too.” He cradled Bram’s face with a withered hand, staring at him with a gloss of pain in his eyes. “It was my bitterness and rejection that pushed you away, Bram, at a time when you were drowning in grief and guilt, a burden I’ve borne as long as you have yours.” Weathered lips curved in the faintest of smiles. “You were such a happy boy before your sister died, before my bitterness and blame turned you away.” He strained his eyes as if he could see clearly, his fingers caressing every inch of Bram’s face. “You know, I’d like to see that boy again, so I can love him and be there for him like I should’ve been then.”

  Bram clutched his father while joy coursed down both of their cheeks. “Oh, Pop—you don’t need my forgiveness, but I’ll gladly give it if it means we both can be free. God knows I love you more with every breath I take.” He clung to the man for whom he would give his very life if he had to. Wonder welled in his eyes.

  But he didn’t have to.

  Because of One who already did.

  35

  That was the best Thanksgiving dinner I ever had.” Logan gave Rosie a wink that quickly burnished her cheeks. “Cait—you need to give the woman a raise.”

  “Capital idea, Logan, as always,” Caitlyn said with a broad smile, almost giddy over the bombshell they were about to drop on the children. She bit back a grin at the swag of Rosie’s jaw, a wide gape that matched the whites of her eyes. “And Hadley too, of course,” she continued, her own cheeks growing warm when Logan sent her a half-lidded grin that tumbled her stomach. She upended her water goblet to douse the fire inside, pretty certain it would be out of control in two days’ time, once the vows were exchanged.

  “I’ll drink to that.” Blake raised a toast. “Rosie is one of the finest cooks in the city.” He grinned and filched an uneaten olive from Alli’s plate, shooting a glance at the closed kitchen door after their housekeeper left. “And I’ll even go out on a limb here and say Hadley’s one of the finest to put up with her.”

  Laughter ensued before Alli slid him a wide-eyed smile, complete with a flutter of lashes. “Out on a limb?” she repeated with an impish grin, tapping on his head several times. “Oh, so that’s what happened—you fell hard out of a tree onto your pointed and pretty little head?”

  “A number of times, I think it’s safe to say,” Jamie said with a chuckle.

  Blake flashed a dazzling smile, his confidence unscathed by his “fall from the tree” or from his family’s grace. “Yep, and I’ve been falling hard ever since, for every beautiful woman I see.”

  Cassie grinned and rolled her eyes, aiming a pea at Blake’s head.

  “And for your information, Pretty Boy,” Blake continued, tossing Jamie a smirk along with the nickname Cassie’d given him when they’d met. “The woman just called me ‘pretty.’ ”

  A dry chuckle rolled from Alli’s lips. “Oh, you bet—pretty annoying, pretty pathetic . . .” She squinted, armed with another pea.

  “What’s ‘pu-thet-ick’ mean?” Maddie asked, following suit with a tiny handful of corn.

  “Blake,” everyone shouted in unison, causing Logan to grin at Cait.

  “Madeline Marie McClare!” Cait said when corn flew over the table like confetti. “We do not throw food at the table!”

  “Alli did,” she said with an innocent scrunch of brows.

  Nick tucked an arm to Alli’s waist, reeling her in for a kiss to her cheek. “That’s because your big sister is younger than you, squirt, and more of a brat.”

  Alli elbowed him in the side. “Ryan Nicholas Burke!”

  Ping, ping, ping! Caitlyn quickly rose to tap her goblet with her spoon, capturing everyone’s attention with a radiant smile. “Before there is more Thanksgiving dinner on our clothes than in our stomachs, I’d like to make an announcement.” A lone vestige of silence and calm, Hadley removed Cait’s dirty dishes to his tray. “Thank you, Hadley,” she said, offering her dear butler an appreciative look. “And if you don’t mind, I’d like you to fetch Rosie for a family announcement I need to make.”

  Hadley bowed. “No bother at all, miss, I’ll be happy to feed the cake.”

  She clasped his arm before he could escape, pitching her volume. “We’ll wait on dessert just yet, Hadley, but I do need you and Rosie for a family announcement.”

  “Very good, miss.” With a short nod, he disappeared into the kitchen, and she shook her head and smiled, the noisy chatter of her children escalating all over again as Logan caught her eye. I love you, he mouthed, and her heart did a flip.

  With a breezy swoosh of the kitchen door, Rosie and Hadley reappeared, and Caitlyn clinked her spoon once more. “Before Rosie and Hadley serve dessert, I thought this would be a good time to . . .” The moisture in her mouth suddenly evaporated. “Uh, well, tell you something very important.”

  “Is it about Andrew, Mama?” Maddie asked with an innocence that plucked at Cait’s heart. “You know, being too sick for turkey?” Worry buckled her tiny little brows. “He doesn’t have a tummy ache, does he?”

  Caitlyn blinked. “Well . . . no, darling, not a tummy ache exactly, although it’s true he might be sick to his stomach, I suppose . . .” She chewed on her lip, avoiding what she suspected might be a telltale smirk on Logan’s face.

  “Goodness, Mother, he will be well by the wedding, won’t he?” Alli asked.


  “Let’s hope not,” Jamie muttered under his breath, earning a swat from Cassie.

  “Uh . . . well . . . about the wedding . . .” Throat parched, Caitlyn all but lunged for her water glass, alarmed to find it empty. Relief seeped from her lips when Meg quietly nudged her half-empty glass her way, the solemn look on her daughter’s face soft with understanding. “Thank you, darling,” Caitlyn whispered, gaze flicking to Logan before she inhaled Meg’s water.

  “Is Devin sick too?” Maddie wanted to know, now comfortably settled upon Blake’s lap.

  “Sweet thunderation, I hope so.” Cassie’s dry murmur brought a twitch of a smile to Meg’s face, easing Caitlyn’s nerves considerably.

  Energized by the fact that Meg’s heartbreak wasn’t due to Devin, Caitlyn drew in a deep breath, further strengthened by the tender affection she saw in Logan’s eyes. “As I was saying, about the wedding—there’s been a slight change.”

  “Oh please—tell me you’re not getting married, I hope?” Alli shrieked, her blatant joy prompting Nick to slide an arm over her shoulders, obviously reining her in.

  “No, no . . . I’m still getting married . . .”

  Cassie leaned in with elbows on the table. “So the wedding’s still on, then, same time, same place, and the honeymoon too?”

  Cait’s cheeks burned at the mere mention of the honeymoon with Logan all of ten feet away, his low chuckle doing nothing for her composure. “Yes, of course the wedding is still on and I suppose the honeymoon too, although I’m not sure we’ll be going abroad.”

  “Napa is lovely this time of year, Cait,” Logan volunteered, his smile that of a little boy aching to misbehave. “The tail end of the fall colors, you know, and crisp nights just perfect for snuggling. You’re certainly welcome to use my estate if you like.”

  “So, it’s the honeymoon that’s changed, not the wedding?” Blake asked.

  Caitlyn absently picked at her nails. “No, no, I’m afraid there’s a rather large change with the wedding too.”