She was reaching for the bell with her elbow when the door was opened from the other side by Nancy Warren. She’d met Richard and Steven’s mother briefly at the hospital the day that Jason was born, but even without a formal introduction, Samara would have known who she was. The familiar blue eyes were a dead giveaway.
“You look like you could use a hand,” Nancy said, and offered both of hers.
Samara accepted gladly, and they worked together throughout the afternoon, hanging streamers and blowing up balloons and chatting with an ease and familiarity that surprised Samara.
“I’m so glad we’ve had a chance to chat today—before the crowd descends tomorrow,” Nancy said. “I’ve heard so many wonderful things about you from Jenny.”
“She’s my best friend—she has to say wonderful things,” Samara said lightly.
“She also said that she’s still waiting to get payback for Sonny and Cher.”
Samara laughed. “I’d say she owes me for that.”
“She didn’t give me the details,” Nancy said, hinting that she wouldn’t mind if Samara did.
“It was a karaoke thing,” she said. “And the little nudge she needed to finally admit her feelings for Richard.”
“Then I’ll thank you for that. After his first marriage fell apart, well, I wasn’t sure he would ever know the kind of real happiness he’s found with Jenny.”
“I forgot he’d been married before,” Samara admitted.
“It didn’t last very long—just long enough to leave scars,” Nancy confided. “Not as deep as the ones Steven was left with after Liz died, but scars just the same.”
“My great-grandmother used to say that anyone who goes through life without picking up a few scars along the way hasn’t really lived.”
“I guess I can see that,” the other woman agreed. “It’s just hard, when someone you love is hurting, not to wish there was something you could have done to prevent it.”
“Or think there was something you should have done,” Samara noted. It was what had kept her awake through every long sleepless night since she’d walked away from Steven.
She pushed the thought aside and began folding napkins for the buffet table. Nancy took up the task alongside her, at least until Jenny brought the baby into the room. Then the misty-eyed grandmother readily abandoned the chore to sigh and coo over her newest grandbaby. Samara didn’t blame her.
“I can’t get over how much he looks like both Richard and Steven as babies.”
“If that’s your way of saying he’s the cutest baby who ever lived, I have to agree,” Jenny responded to her mother-in-law. “I only hope he grows up to be as wonderful as both your boys did.”
The tears that had filled Nancy’s eyes spilled over. “They did turn out to be pretty great. Not that I can take any of the credit for that.”
Samara heard the regret in the woman’s voice and understood the reasons. Jenny had told her all about Richard’s estrangement from his mother, and their reconciliation.
“I turned my back on a son still grieving for his father, and my selfish actions drove a wedge between two brothers.” She shook her head. “It’s a wonder they’ve both forgiven me.”
“Everyone makes mistakes,” Jenny said philosophically. “And though family ties are often strained, they’re not easily broken.”
Samara continued to contemplate her friend’s words for a long time after she’d returned home. If anyone knew family in all its permutations, it was Jenny, as the guest list for the shower attested.
At the top of the list were Helen Taka-Hanson and Dana Anderson—her biological and adoptive mothers, respectively. The two women had worked together to plan Jenny and Richard’s wedding and had remained, if not friends, at least friendly. The fact that Helen and her new husband, Mori Taka, had decided to venture into the hotel business might have strained that tentative relationship if Anderson Hotels wasn’t already firmly entrenched as a global success.
Then there was Nancy Warren, Jenny’s mother-in-law, and Caitlin, Jenny’s niece through her marriage to Richard. Michiko was married to Jenny’s older brother, John, who had also been adopted by Dana and Harold Anderson, and Suki and Keiko were Mich and John’s daughters. Samantha, Delia and Meredith were the wives of Helen’s stepsons from her first marriage. Kimiko was Helen’s stepdaughter from her second marriage, who wasn’t expected to attend because she was still at school in Tokyo. But Samara had overheard Helen telling Jenny that she’d got a call from Mori’s daughter who had not just dropped out of school but was in town, so it was possible she might make an appearance at the shower.
What struck Samara as she mentally tallied the members of Jenny’s family was that they were an eclectic group, and proof that family wasn’t a static concept. It wasn’t limited to a mother and a father and whatever children they might have together—it could be and was many different things.
But the one thing Samara knew it couldn’t be was a widowed father, his two children and a woman who loved them all but couldn’t break through the walls they’d built to keep her out.
If the mountain of gifts in the dining room was anything to go by, the shower in honor of Jason Richard Warren had been a huge success. The table was covered with an unbelievable array of items, including everything from miniature booties and diaper shirts to board books and toy trucks.
After most of the guests had gone home and Jenny had gone to the nursery to put the baby down for his nap, Samara took advantage of the lull to organize the assortment of gifts.
“It looks like an explosion in a baby store,” Caitlin said as she entered the room.
“That’s an apt description,” Samara agreed, as she began sorting and folding the dozens of tiny outfits.
She didn’t know why Caitlin had sought her out, unless it was to gloat now that she knew Samara and Steven had gone their separate ways. It was an uncharitable thought, but not an unreasonable one.
Or so she thought until Caitlin said, “I wanted to apologize.”
Samara started to wave off her apology, to say it wasn’t necessary, except she believed that it was. Regardless of the fact that Samara’s relationship with Steven was over, his daughter had treated her unfairly and she needed to take responsibility for her actions.
“I am sorry,” Caitlin said. “I’m not really a bad person—not usually.”
She looked away, but not before Samara saw the shimmer of tears in her eyes.
“I just didn’t like the idea of my dad being with anyone else, and I thought if I was mean enough to you, you wouldn’t want to be with him.
“And I got what I wanted,” she said, sounding desperately unhappy about that fact. “But I didn’t realize how miserable my dad would be when you were gone. So I also wanted to ask you to come back, to give him another chance. And if you do, I promise to give you a chance.”
“Maybe it was what you wanted,” Samara said gently. “But it’s not your fault that your dad and I aren’t together anymore.”
“I was mean and horrible and—” her voice cracked “—and I’m so sorry.”
When Samara had walked away from Steven’s house that last time, she hadn’t thought it was possible for her heart to break anymore. But listening to the anguish in his daughter’s voice, she knew she’d been wrong.
Her instincts urged her to take the girl in her arms and soothe her tears, but she knew—her apology notwithstanding—that Caitlin wasn’t ready to accept comfort from her. Samara was still an interloper, and it would take time for the girl to accept another woman in her life, and to believe that doing so wasn’t a betrayal of the mother she would always love.
So instead of hugging Steven’s daughter, she only said, “I appreciate your apology.”
Caitlin brushed the tears from her cheeks and looked up, wary hope in her eyes. “Does that mean you’ll give him another chance?”
She blew out a weary breath. “I understand what you’re trying to do,” she said. “But you aren’t the reason your d
ad and I broke up.”
“I’m not?”
Samara had to smile at the obvious skepticism. “You didn’t help the situation,” she said dryly. “But you weren’t the cause.”
“But if you love him and he loves you—”
“You’re making a lot of assumptions there,” Samara told her.
Caitlin frowned. “Are you saying that you don’t love him?”
“I’m saying the situation is a little more complicated than you realize.”
“Do you love him?” she persisted.
“Yes,” Samara finally said, and though it felt good to acknowledge her feelings, she knew they couldn’t change anything. Not unless Steven was willing to make some pretty big changes, too.
“I know he loves you, too,” Caitlin said. “He wouldn’t be so miserable if he didn’t.”
She smiled at that. “You think your dad’s miserable because he loves me?”
Caitlin shook her head. “No—because you’re not with him anymore.”
“Maybe you’d better let me try to explain it,” Steven commented from the doorway.
For a moment, Samara thought she’d been set up. But when she glanced from father to daughter, the flush of color in Caitlin’s cheeks convinced her the girl was just as surprised by Steven’s arrival as she was.
“I was trying to help,” Caitlin said, glancing from her father to Samara and back again. “But I just made a bigger mess of things, didn’t I?”
“I made the mess.” Though he spoke to his daughter, Steven’s gaze—so intense and blue—never wavered from Samara’s. “And I’ll clean it up, if Samara will let me.”
If she’d let him?
Samara had missed him so much it was like a physical ache. But no matter how much she wanted him back in her life, she wasn’t sure it would be easy to resolve the differences that were keeping them apart.
Caitlin glanced from her father to Samara, then back again. “Tell her that you love her, Dad. Women need to know things like that.”
“Do they?” he asked, amusement evident in his tone.
Samara didn’t let herself smile as Caitlin nodded solemnly.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Steven assured his daughter. “You can go now, Cait.”
She walked past her father and out the door.
He waited until he was sure his daughter was gone, then he said to Samara, “Do you really need me to say the words?”
“Only if they’re true,” she said.
“Isn’t my misery proof enough?”
Her heart pounded, hope blossomed, but she forced herself to respond casually. “I only have your word that you’ve been miserable.”
“And Caitlin’s,” he reminded her. “Tyler would tell you the same thing, too, if he was here.”
She forced herself to remain silent, to listen to what he was saying rather than jumping in with questions and demands of her own. Because as miserable as she had been without him, she did need to hear the words to know that he loved her even half as much as she loved him.
“I’ve missed you,” he said softly, and the hope blossomed bigger, filling her heart and soothing her soul. “But I needed the time we were apart to try to figure some things out, and I think I finally did.”
“What do you think you figured out?”
“Why I screwed things up so badly,” he said. “It was because, from the very beginning, I was afraid of the feelings I had for you. I was afraid to let myself fall in love, to risk my heart. I thought if I held back—as you accused me of doing—I couldn’t ever be left as empty and alone as I was when Liz died.
“But somehow it was even worse when I lost you—because I knew that it was my own fault. I was responsible for driving you away.
“I could handle our relationship so long as it was the occasional dinner, Saturday-night movies, fabulous sex, but anything more terrified the hell out of me.
“Boundaries,” he said, nodding. “You were right about that, too. But for all your talk about wanting a family, it didn’t take too long for you to decide to hit the road when the going got tough.
“When you love somebody, you stick by them. You don’t bail when things get a little messy.” There was both hurt and accusation in his eyes when they pinned her this time. “And you bailed on me, Samara.”
“You’re right,” she said softly.
It wasn’t something she was proud to acknowledge, but it was true. She wasn’t sure she’d realized it herself until she’d looked around at the eclectic assortment of women in Jenny’s family and thought about what had brought each one of them to this point. She didn’t know all of the details of their lives, of course, but she knew they all had one thing in common—in one way or another, they’d all faced obstacles and overcome challenges to become part of that family.
“But maybe I was scared, too.”
Those words surprised Steven more than her admission that he was right, and he wondered how the possibility had never occurred to him. She’d always seemed so confident about what she wanted that he hadn’t considered she might have insecurities and fears of her own, but now that she’d admitted to some, he was determined to put those insecurities and fears to rest once and for all.
He took another step toward her and plucked from her hands the teddy bear she didn’t seem to realize she was still holding. He tossed the bear aside and linked their fingers together. “What were you afraid of?”
She sighed softly. “That you wouldn’t love me enough.”
And in those words, he heard a world of hurt and insecurity that he realized now went way back to her childhood, to when she’d been four years old, abandoned by her mother. Her father’s distance and disinterest had added another layer, as had her fiancé’s infidelity.
He drew her a little closer. “The thing is, enough isn’t a quantifiable amount, so I’m not going to tell you that I love you enough. But I will tell you that I love you, with my whole heart, for now and forever.”
Her eyes were misty with tears, but her lips curved a little. “I think that might be enough.”
“Only if you love me the same way,” he said.
“With my whole heart, for now and forever,” she repeated the words as if they were a vow, and in doing so, filled the emptiness inside of him.
“When I first took you home to meet my family, I thought we should take it slow, keep things simple. I don’t want simple anymore,” he told her.
“What do you want?”
“I want you beside me every night and every morning. I want to talk to you, laugh with you, dream with you. I want to share everything with you—my home, my family, my heart.”
“I want your children,” she said.
He chuckled and drew her closer into the circle of his arms. “Can we get married before we start talking about babies?”
Her eyes widened. “You want to marry me?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to say,” he told her. “I want everything tied up and legal so it will be a heck of a lot harder if you ever decide you want to walk out on me again.”
She tilted her head back. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Good to know.” He smiled and brushed his lips gently over hers. “And when my ring is firmly on your finger, we’ll work on those babies.”
“I wasn’t talking about babies,” she told him. “I was referring to Caitlin and Tyler.”
“You must really love me if you’re willing to take on my kids.”
“They have to be willing to take me, too,” she pointed out. “I don’t expect that to happen overnight, and I know it won’t be easy, but as long as you’re by my side, I know it will be worth it.
“I just want to be part of their lives, part of your family.”
“Our family,” he said.
She smiled. “I really like the sound of that.”
“Does that mean you’ll marry me?”
“Yes.” She threw her arms around his neck and brought his lips down to hers for a kiss that tol
d him more clearly than any words everything that was in her heart. “Very definitely yes.”
“Did she say yes?” his daughter asked from the doorway.
Samara started to draw away, but Steven kept his arm firmly around her.
“She said yes,” he confirmed.
Caitlin grinned and crossed the room to join their hug, and in that moment, everything was truly right with the world. Well, almost everything.
“What do you say we go pick Tyler up from hockey practice and grab some dinner?” Steven suggested. He knew his son would be thrilled to see Samara—and even more so to learn that she would soon be part of their family.
“How about pizza and video games?” Samara suggested.
“That sounds like a perfect family celebration,” Caitlin said.
Steven had to agree. And as he linked his fingers with Samara’s, he squeezed gently—a silent communication of appreciation that she was willing to forgive him, of gratitude for giving them a second chance to be a family, and mostly of love.
She squeezed back.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-2289-6
FAMILY IN PROGRESS
Copyright © 2008 by Harlequin Books S.A.
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