The Promise (19 page)

“Thank you,” Sharon murmured. “I appreciate everyone turning out to greet us, but I wonder if we might go on up to our rooms. The trip and all . . .” She trailed off vaguely.

“But of course. Immediately. Peter, William, Jennifer.”

Three young people sprang into action, and minutes later she was in the suite she and Conall had occupied before, her bags In the room In which she had spent exactly one night, his bags in the other. She assumed the instructions as to where to put the bags had come from Conall, as had the order for the waist-high cradle heavily Inlaid with mother-of-pearl.

“Are you okay?” Conall asked sometime later as he strolled Into the sitting room and found her on the couch. Everyone else had left and she had put Jacob down to continue his nap.

“I’m fine.”

"Listen, if their slightly proprietary attitude—” 

“Slightly?”

“—bothers you,” he finished, grinning, ‘I’ll put an end to it.”

“No, no. They mean well. And if they get on my nerves, I have an ace up my sleeve.”

To her delight, he gasped in alarm. “You don’t mean—”

She nodded solemnly. “Yes, I do mean. I’ll order a bowl of chocolate chip ice cream without the chocolate chips.”

His laughter rang through the room and made her heart beat faster than was good for her emotional well-being. But she seized and hung on to this uncomplicated time with him because she knew it would soon be coming to an end.

As the days turned into a week and then another week, her body healed and her reason and resolve regarding her relationship with Conall began to unravel. Suddenly she couldn’t seem to make her plans come Into as sharp a focus as she had before. A lethargy had invaded her system that kept her delaying the time when she would take Jacob and move back to her little house in San Diego. She blamed it all on the fact that her hormones were still skewed from Jacob’s birth.

But to further muddy the waters of her thought processes, a new element had entered their relationship. On the surface Conall did nothing differently. He took care of her as no one had ever done before, making sure she and the baby had everything they needed. And he had a way of being there beside her before she had a chance to get lonely or depressed.

But she sensed an inner tension in him. Every once in a while she would glance up to find him watching her. It was as if he were waiting for something to happen, and she couldn’t help but wonder if he was waiting for her to leave.

Then one day she happened to walk into her room and see him leaning over the cradle, gazing at his sleeping son. The hunger and yearning she saw on his face brought her up short and made her realize she had been walking around blind.

She had been selfishly stretching her time with Conall, not understanding that the longer she stayed, the more time he had to become attached to his son.

His air of detachment had fooled her into thinking that he didn’t care for the baby, wouldn’t want him. Now she realized just how wrong she had been. His act of detachment had been a defense mechanism to protect him from being hurt.

She felt as if she were being tom in two. Her love for him had grown deeper with Jacob’s birth, and there was no doubt in her mind that Conall would make a wonderful father. But it would mess up all three of them if she stayed with the man because he wanted the child. No, she had to leave. And soon.

She backed out of the room before he saw her and went for a long walk along the cliffs. She understood now what she had to do. All that was left was to decide how best to broach the subject of her leaving to Conall, and then the hardest part, how to find the courage to make herself carry through.

She stood on the cliff top and looked out at the rolling sea. She considered herself strong, but leaving Conall was going to call for a strength she wasn’t sure she possessed, she wasn’t even sure existed.

All at once a movement down on the beach caught her attention.

A tall, lean man with sandy-colored hair rode a palomino along the water’s edge, a man who once seen could never be mistaken for anyone else. Amarillo Smith.

Sharon mentioned seeing him to Conall that night while they were having dinner in their suite.

“Really? I didn’t know Rill was here, but I’m not surprised. Like me, he keeps horses here, and whenever possible he comes up for a day or two. He’ll be staying here on the fourth floor with us. I’ll have to look him up and say hello.”

“Do you think he’s here alone?”

“I’ve never known him to bring anyone with him. He and Nico are as close as brothers and I consider him my friend, but basically he’s very much a loner. Occasionally he'll bring a woman to one function or another, but only when it’s convenient or he’s In the mood.”

“Oh.” She pushed a pea around her plate with her fork.

“Is something on your mind?” Conall asked. “You’ve seemed preoccupied all afternoon. Don’t you feel well?”

In spite of, or maybe because of the sadness inside her, she smiled. “Did anyone ever tell you that you are a bom nurturer?"

“A what?”

“Someone who nurtures others.”

He took a sip of wine. “You’re kidding, right?” 

“No, I’m not. You probably never had anyone to take care of before, because all the Deverells are so self-sufficient. But then I came along"—she grimaced—“a clinically perfect case of someone who needed to be taken care of."

“I told you I’d be there for you.”

“And you have been. It’s been a long time since I’ve had anyone I could lean on unconditionally. Maybe I
never
had anyone, I don’t know.” She paused, trying to gather her thoughts, her resolve. “But I’ve been able to lean on you these last few months, and you’ll never know how much I appreciate it.”

Realizing what was coming, Conall went still. He’d dreaded this moment, deliberately avoiding the confrontation because he hadn’t wanted to risk losing their tenuous peace before it was necessary. But now that the moment had come, he looked forward to it. Bringing everything out in the open would end this hellish limbo in which he’d been holding himself. “I don’t want your gratitude, Sharon.”

“Nevertheless you have it.”

He waited, just as he had been ever since Jacob had been bom.

"Conall, I think it’s time Jacob and I leave.” 

“Do you?”

She nodded. “We’ve disrupted your life enough. It’s time we left so that you can get on with your life and we can get on with ours.”

“That’s what you think, is it?”

She finally noticed the unusual control in his voice, the tension in his body. “Don’t you?”

"No.”

She stared at him uncertainly.

Conall rested his forearms on the table and leaned toward her. “Sharon, I want you to spend the rest of your life with me. I want you to marry me."

“M-marry you?” She felt so stupid, because for some reason a proposal was the last thing she had expected. But it made perfect sense. He wanted Jacob.

“I don’t expect you to believe me, but I love you.”

She swallowed against a dry throat, acutely aware how extremely painful it was to be offered what you wanted more than anything in the world when you were offered it for the wrong reasons. “You’re right. I find that hard to believe.”

“I don’t know how to convince you either.” “

Try to understand, Conall. You’ve been wonderful to me during these past months. But there was a time you weren’t so wonderful, a time when you turned your back. Consequently, it’s hard for me to forget that this new concern and care of yours has all been just since you found out I was pregnant. And now Jacob is here, and you’re a man who has everything but a son.”

“And you. I don’t have you, Sharon.”

She wanted more than anything to be able to trust what she was hearing, but she couldn’t. “You’re just saying that because you know that to get Jacob you’d have to take me.”

“That’s not true.”

“You can’t have Jacob alone.”

He grimaced. “That wasn’t what I meant. I promised you I wouldn’t take your baby away from you, and I won’t. What I meant was that I have only one reason for asking you to marry me, and that is because I love you. Actually I realized I loved you before I received the doctor’s medical report.”

Her skepticism was blatant. “Then why didn’t you tell me before now?”

“You were In no shape, emotionally, to hear this either when I found you or after Jacob was bom. He saw her draw a breath to speak, but he forestalled her by rushing on. “It’s true I would love to have the opportunity to be Jacob’s full-time father. It’s also true that I loved him the moment I saw him. But I wouldn’t ask you to marry me if first and foremost I didn’t love you. I simply wouldn’t do that to either of us.”

His logic was wearing her down, and she kept telling herself that she should know better than to weaken. She had to come up with some sort of defense. Slowly, she straightened. “But what if it’s
me
that wouldn’t do that to either of us.” 

“What do you mean?”

“What if I don’t love you?”

He thought he heard the sound of his heart breaking in two. He certainly felt the pain of it. Leaning back in his chair, he gazed steadily at her.
This
was the real reason he had put off asking her to marry him for as long as he had, he realized. He hadn’t wanted to hear her say she didn’t love him, hadn’t wanted to hear that final no.

“I don’t have the answer to that question,” he said at last. “I can only see this from my point of view, how much I love you, how much I want you, how much I want you, me, and Jacob to be a family. ”

“But—”

He lifted his hand, about to try what would surely be almost Impossible for him—putting all the hope and love he felt into a dry, emotionless form. “Hear me out. It seems to me that we have all the ingredients for a good relationship. When we were here together before, the sex was explosive. Without the sex, we get along well and we have fun together. We both love and want the best for Jacob. Having said that, I guess it’s up to you to decide whether or not that’s enough for you to commit to a lifelong relationship. And please note, I said lifelong. Once we’re married, we’ll stay married.”

He made the Issues she needed to face sound so simple, but their relationship had always been tangled and involved. “I—I need time to think.”

“Of course. Just don’t take too much time.” He might fall apart completely if she kept him waiting too long.

SwanSea was brooding again. Sharon sat on the rise behind the great house and stared down at it. Either that or she was going crazy, and she had to admit that it was more than likely the latter.

It was early afternoon of the day after Conall had asked her to marry him. Her brain hurt, she had been thinking so much, and she had badly needed to get out of the suite. Conall had gone for a swim, so she had fed Jacob, gathered a few of his things plus a quilt into a bag, and strapped on a baby carrier that allowed her to carry him against her heart. Now he lay beside her, cooing and gurgling in the sun.

And SwanSea was brooding because she was thinking of taking him away again.

She sighed. Crazy, that’s what she was. But she’d just have to get over it because Jacob needed and deserved a sane mother.

But what about a father?
a small voice in her hurting head asked.

Good question.

It all came down to whether she believed Conall. He said he wanted her, but her fear was that it was really the baby he wanted. She just couldn’t be sure he would still want her if she didn’t have Jacob. She sighed.

Last night when he had asked her to marry him, she had flung his actions of ten years before in his face. But she knew she had grown and changed in the last ten years. Why was she so reluctant to think he had?

Right from the start he had been truthful with her. He had kept each of his promises, and he had treated her with a gentleness and a caring— more so in fact than she had had any right to expect under the circumstances.

And having covered that ground, she squarely faced several facts from which she could not escape. She loved him. She did trust him. She definitely wanted to spend the rest of her life with him.

After all the agonizing, all the doubting, all the hurting, could it really be that simple? It seemed it was.

She smiled down at Jacob, who was wildly swinging his arms. “Guess what? I’m going to marry your father. Want to give me away?”

Jacob looked up at her with his dark blue eyes, gurgled happily, then kicked.

“I guess that means I have your approval,” she said softly.

The sudden sound of horse hooves brought her head around and she saw Amarillo approaching. She had mixed emotions about him. There was a part of her that instinctively resented the fact that he had hunted her down, tracking her like some wild animal with a patience and diligence that was frightening. But then there was another part of her—a very large part of her—that was extremely glad he had found her.

He reined in his horse on the side of her opposite from Jacob and several yards away, but with a mother’s nervousness Sharon picked up her baby and held him.

He nodded to her. “Enjoying the sun?”

“Yes, thank you. And you?”

“Yes, but I’m heading back to Boston this afternoon, so I’m glad I got the opportunity to see you before I left.”

“Oh?"

“I’ve already told Conall, but I’d like you to know also that it’s been good to see you two together here.”

She started to inform him that they hadn’t been together, not exactly, at least not yet, but he went on.

“He was an absolute wreck when you disappeared. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man so in love with a woman.” He paused, and there was the faintest twinkle in his eye. “Well, maybe with the small exception of Nico. But at any rate, Conall was in pretty bad shape, and then when that medical report came—”

“You mean you thought he was in love with me before the medical report came?”

“There was no thinking about it. He
was.
But now you’re together and you have Jacob.” As if he had said it all with his last sentence, he lifted a hand in good-bye. “I’ll be seeing you.”

As he wheeled his horse and trotted away, Sharon looked after him. He had just validated the decision she had come to on her own. It was nice to have proof that she had been right. But she was extremely thankful she had arrived at her decision without Amarillo's proof.