A Mother's Secret (18 page)
Authors: Janice Kay Johnson
Tags: #American Light Romantic Fiction, #Romance: Modern, #Contemporary, #General, #Romance, #Romance - Contemporary, #Fiction, #Fiction - Romance, #Man-woman relationships, #Love stories, #Single mothers, #Family secrets
He finally loosened his grip enough to look down at her. “A couple of months ago, I’d have said I didn’t cry.”
Rebecca rose on tiptoe and kissed his wet cheek. “You do love me, don’t you?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“You know, I had just about decided to call and accept your offer. To…gamble that you could learn. Or maybe to trade the chance to have a few years with you for the heartbreak I expected later. I’m not sure.”
“No heartbreak.” He kissed her forehead, nuzzled his nose against hers. “I couldn’t stand it if you ever left me. These last weeks…” He had to stop and clear his throat. “Without you…”
“Were the absolute worst of my life,” she finished for him. Her brown eyes were the color of melted chocolate dusted with gold. Tears sparkled like diamonds on her lashes. Tears that were a hell of a lot more precious to him than the supposed heart of the Carson family.
He thought again how beautiful that pendant would look against her smooth skin, and knew she would never wear it. There was apparently no denying that he was Robert Carson’s son; maybe he and these disparate relatives would all find a way to feel like family. But he’d never be wholeheartedly a Carson, and neither he nor Rebecca were the ones to guard the family’s heritage.
In that moment, looking down at the face of the woman he loved, he knew who that person was. Decided he’d happily hand it over.
He kissed Rebecca, not with passion, although he felt that, too. But this was about love. Their lips brushed, clung, tasted. He pulled back a couple of times just to see her face again.
She loved him. Incredible.
Believe it.
Finally he straightened and reached in his pocket. “Maybe I should wait, but I’m not a patient man.”
She laughed at him. Then she saw what lay in his palm, and gasped.
“Will you marry me?” he asked again, newly afraid he was assuming too much.
“Yes!” Fresh tears filled her eyes and spilled over. “Oh, yes!” She flung herself back in his arms, pressed her mouth to his.
This time, raw hunger roared through him. He needed her, in the most elemental way possible. Groaning, Daniel strained her against him and devoured her mouth.
At last he ripped away from her long enough to say, “I want you.”
“I want you, too.”
She glowed, the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. His. No
if
this time.
Seal the deal.
He barely had the self-restraint to reach for her left hand and slide the ring on it. When it fit perfectly, Daniel felt triumph. He’d studied the fingers of every woman who came in the jewelry store to come up with a size. They’d all smiled and indulged him. He didn’t like the idea of the symbolism if the damn thing had been too big and fallen off, or wouldn’t go on in the first place.
She looked down, too, at the fire refracting from the solitaire oval-cut diamond set in gold. “It’s exquisite.”
“We can get a different ring if you’d like.”
Rebecca lifted her head, her smile tremulous. “Daniel, this ring is every woman’s dream. You’re not getting it off my finger now.”
“Good.” The word was barely a growl. He lifted her in his arms and headed for her bedroom.
If she said yes today, he had meant to make love to her so slowly, so tenderly, she couldn’t help but feel cherished. But they hadn’t even reached the bedroom before she was shoving his shirt off and nipping his neck. He dropped her on the bed and went down on top of her, one knee braced between her thighs. They broke apart only long enough to shed clothes and toss them like confetti. She was wet and ready, and he had to be inside her.
But he groaned as he nudged her. “I meant to go slow.”
Her legs wrapped him, tightening, pulling him in. “Please, please, don’t. I want you
now
.”
He plunged. Heaven, wrapped in one woman. How had he ever doubted?
“I love you,” he said hoarsely, and gave himself over to her.
R
EBECCA LAY IN A STATE
of bliss. She couldn’t breathe, but who cared? It was Daniel’s weight bearing down on her, Daniel rubbing his cheek against her tangled hair, Daniel still whispering words of love in her ear.
What if she hadn’t run from him five years ago? Would he have been ready to recognize that he was in love? Or would he have grudgingly married her, and strained against the chains that bound him? He had changed in those years, she thought, but then so had she. So maybe, after all, this had been perfect timing.
He made a ragged sound and rolled to the side, his arms still tight around her. She laid her head on his shoulder and splayed her hand on his powerful chest. She found herself gazing at the ring he’d put on her finger.
It had to be the biggest diamond Rebecca had ever seen. She might have protested, except she suspected it mattered to him to be able to afford to give her something so extraordinary. She found it astonishing that, given his self-doubt, he had still become the man he was.
“I can hardly wait to tell Malcolm,” she murmured.
The large, calloused hand that had been kneading her hip paused. “How long until you have to pick him up?”
“Um…” She turned her head to see the clock. “One hour. Well, I should go in fifty minutes.”
“We shouldn’t waste the time.”
Rebecca giggled. She hadn’t felt so young and carefree in what seemed a lifetime. “We’re cuddling. Is that wasting time?”
“No.” He shifted again, this time onto his side so he could kiss her. “No time with you is wasted,” he said against her lips. “I don’t want to be without you anymore, Rebecca.”
Caressing his hard cheek, she said, “I do have to finish out the school year.”
“I assumed so.” He studied her. “Will you want to keep teaching?”
“Yes, for now.” Rebecca hesitated, unsure for the first time. “You haven’t said…But if we decide…”
“To have another kid?”
She nodded.
“Oh, I want another one. Or two. I missed so much. This time I’ll be there every step of the way.”
Guilt assailed her. “I’m sorry.”
“No.” Daniel shook his head. “Who is to say we’d have made it five years ago. We go on from here with me thanking God every day that I found you again.”
“Yes.” Her eyes filled with tears, blurring that craggy face reshaped in lines of tenderness she didn’t remember. “It was the luckiest day of my life.”
With one thumb, he gently wiped away the tears as they fell. “Why don’t we commute for now between our houses? Part of the week in San Francisco, part down here. Make it fair.” He hesitated. “Or maybe you want to stay down here long-term.”
“No. Oh, no!” Rebecca pressed a kiss to his mouth. “I love your house! And Half Moon Bay…well, this is where I made a home, but not where I really wanted to be. That was always with you.”
“Malcolm will miss his friends.”
“He’ll make new ones,” she said firmly. “And personally…” She lowered her voice. “I can’t stand Chace.”
She’d surprised a rumble from him.
“He looked like a whiner.”
She wrinkled her nose. “He is a whiner.
Our
son can do better.”
He kissed her again, lingeringly, nipping at her bottom lip. “Malcolm is heading toward five.”
“Uh-huh.” Now her thoughts were blurring. She touched her tongue to his.
His voice got rougher. “Pregnancy takes nine months.”
“Hmm.”
“Unless we want a huge gap between children,” he kissed her deeply, pulled back to look down into her eyes, “we might want to get on with it.”
She felt a surge of desire.
“Pregnancy?” she said breathlessly. “Or getting married?”
He pulled back just enough to watch her for a reaction. “Both.”
He was still afraid, she realized. Maybe they both would be for a long time. But the idea of making love with the intention of creating a baby, of carrying his child, of seeing him holding his infant son or daughter, filled her with a rush of desire and joy all swirled together.
“Yes. I love you,” she said simply.
Growling something under his breath, he dragged her on top of him and kissed her with ravenous hunger. “I swear,” he said, before or after he’d buried himself in her, “someday we’ll take our time.”
But not today.
F
EELING IT WAS HIS DUTY
and obligation, Daniel made some effort to get to know Sam Carson. Part of him rebelled; Adam was his brother, not this stranger. The only brother he wanted.
But facts were facts. They shared a father, they shared blood.
Losing his wife seemed to have chastened Sam some.
“Isabelle told me,” he said, that first time Daniel phoned. After a minute, he added, “I suppose there’s no chance this blood test is wrong.”
Since his voice held resignation rather than real doubt or rage, Daniel was amused. “Men are convicted of murder based on those same blood tests. Police departments all over the country would be surprised to find out DNA testing is unreliable.”
“Then I suppose you are my brother,” Sam said grudgingly. “I keep thinking there can’t be any more surprises, and then there are.”
Daniel understood that thinking. “My guess is, we’re out of surprises. Unless…” He stopped himself.
But Sam read his mind. “Dad had yet another woman on the side?”
Made sense the thought had occurred to him of all people, given that Sam was known, during the course of his
marriage, to have had a number of women on the side himself.
But he went on, as if he were shaking his head even as he spoke, “I don’t think so. Years ago, he gave me hell…” He stopped himself, likely remembering that Daniel might not be privy to all the family dirty linen. “He was straitlaced in most ways. And he and Mom…No. I wouldn’t believe it.”
“And yet.”
“And yet,” he agreed, with a sigh.
Sam didn’t say,
Welcome to the family
, but he didn’t outright reject Daniel the way he had Adam, either. And Daniel kept remembering Billy Fraser’s war medal Sam had paid quite a bit of money to buy from Adam, then laid in Adam’s coffin. He must have softened, started thinking about family. What other explanation was there for him giving the medal back, letting Adam take it in death?
Sam called Daniel not two weeks after that first conversation and suggested lunch at his club. Daniel smiled and agreed.
They met the following day, shook hands, eyed each other warily and made small talk after glancing at menus and placing their orders. Finally Daniel said, “I like Belle. She has amazing confidence for her age.”
A fleeting emotion crossed Sam’s face. Sadness, maybe? “That may be more due to her mother than me. Isabelle and I have always butted heads.”
Daniel raised his brows as though he was unaware of their troubles, and let Sam talk about his pride and his regrets. Good to hear he had some.
“Belle doesn’t want to hear anything I have to say,” he concluded. “But Emily keeps me updated.”
“Oh? Didn’t Belle say you were separated?”
“She doesn’t know everything she thinks she does,” he blustered. “Her mother and I have had a few problems, that’s all.” After a long pause, face flushed, he said, “We’re talking.”
“I’ve met Emily,” Daniel said noncommittally. “She’s a lovely woman who was very kind to Adam.”
“She’s my wife, and she’ll be staying my wife.” He glared at Daniel, as if he’d challenged Sam’s sense of himself.
In all fairness, Daniel reflected, he had. Unwittingly, but the discovery that Adam and Daniel existed at all and that his adopted sister, Jenny, was really his half sister had indeed jarred Sam Carson’s world from its axis. Maybe, in the end, that would be healthy for him, since he’d already been well on the path to alienating his wife and only child. But it was too soon to tell whether he’d be able to reconcile himself to these assaults on his status as the only legitimate Carson heir.
Daniel still didn’t like Sam. Suspected he never would. But if anyone could understand this older brother’s struggle, he could. In their own ways, they had both felt the same shaky sense of insecurity at their places in their families. Maybe it had come out in different ways, but they had this in common, as well as blood.
Daniel reached in his pocket and pulled out a jewelry box. “I have something that belongs to you,” he said, sliding it across the table.
“T
HANKS FOR COMING
.” Daniel shook hands with Matt Malone, then held out his arms when Belle flung herself at him for a hug. Beside him, receiving guests, Rebecca was smiling and talking to Jenny and her husband, Luke.
They’d decided to keep their wedding small, family and closest friends only, and to hold the reception at his house. Daniel was still dazed from the wedding.
Side by side, Malcolm and Kaitlin had come down the aisle first. Kaitlin was less solemn than she’d been at her father’s wedding, more pleased with herself. She found familiar faces in the pews and flashed smiles. Malcolm wore a suit and tie, his hair slicked flat. He sneaked glances at his cousin, the experienced flower girl, although where she scattered petals evenly he tended to release them in gobs. Reaching Daniel’s side, he said in a piercing whisper, “I did that real good, didn’t I, Dad?”
Amusement stirred the audience.
But except for placing a hand on his shoulder and squeezing, Dad ignored him. He couldn’t look away from Rebecca as she walked down the aisle in a cream-colored suit sewn with tiny pearls. She smiled at him the entire way, her eyes never leaving his. When she stopped in front of the minister and turned to Daniel, he saw the gold flecks dancing in those eyes.
Once, he’d thought he could look into her eyes forever. He couldn’t even remember why the idea had scared him.
“I do” hadn’t been hard to say at all. And the words
“I declare you husband and wife”
hadn’t scared him.
No, facing his fears had freed him of them. He only hoped Sam was as lucky.
Almost everyone was here at the house now, he thought.
“Mom and Dad were in the back at the church, weren’t they?” Belle asked. “Did they beat me here?”
He shook his head. “Haven’t seen them yet.”
He and Rebecca began circulating, accepting more hugs and congratulations. How the hell had he gone from
having two—count ’em,
two
—close relatives to having enough to pack his house? But, except for Sam and Emily, they were all here.
Jenny and Luke, warm and accepting beyond Daniel’s understanding.
A noticeably pregnant Sue with her husband, Rick, who didn’t seem to want to take his gaze and hands off her, as if she were a miracle he still couldn’t believe. She had no other babies right now, Daniel was told; she thought for once in her life she’d concentrate on only two. They had left Rick’s niece and now Sue’s adoptive daughter, Carrie, with her grandmother, figuring a wedding wasn’t the occasion for a one-year-old.
Joe, Kaitlin and Pip, whose gait was beginning to resemble a waddle and who hastily found the sofa and sank onto it with noticeable relief. Daniel was amused by Joe’s pride. He stood behind the sofa, his hand on her shoulder. While Daniel was watching, she lifted a slender hand and laid it over her husband’s much larger one.
Belle, springy gold curls escaping her attempts to confine them, looked only slightly worried about her missing parents. Matt Malone, the CEO of Diamonte Pizza and her fiancé, was sticking as close to Belle as Rick did to his wife.
His wasn’t the only family here. Rebecca, after much waffling, had invited both of her parents and their current, respective spouses, as well as her sister. Astonishingly, all of them had showed and were behaving very well. Lea looked less frail than Daniel remembered her, and he saw that she was currently talking to her mother with obvious restraint, but talking.
Daniel squeezed Rebecca’s arm and nodded their way.
She raised her brows and murmured, “You know, we may yet have a knock-down, drag-out scene today.”
“Over my dead body.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Daniel saw Malcolm march up to Kaitlin and say, “You want to come see my bedroom? I can show you the balcony, too. Except that’s not my room, and I can’t open the window. Dad says I have to be with him to go out on it.”
“Um, sure.”
Her dad nodded, and the two kids headed upstairs. They were too far apart in age to have much in common, but Kaitlin was mature for her age. She wouldn’t mind playing a game or two with Mal.
Daniel caught sight of Naomi Tuttle, who of course had been maid of honor, flirting with Eric Stannard, the contractor in charge of the Cabrillo Heights subdivision. They’d met a couple of times already.
“Are they dating?” he asked his wife in a low voice.
She flashed a grin at him. “Yep. Didn’t I tell you what she said Saturday morning?”
Daniel groaned. “I don’t think I want to know. Not if it has to do with his sexual prowess.”
Rebecca made that tiny, choked sound that told him she was suppressing a laugh. “Oh, well, then…”
He had to kiss her, a brush of the lips that ended up being more and resulted in a round of applause from their nearby family members. Rebecca was blushing when they surfaced, and he couldn’t swear he wasn’t, too.
The sound of the doorbell ringing didn’t come as any surprise. Rebecca beside him, he opened the door to find Sam and Emily Carson on the doorstep. Her hand was tucked in his arm, and she looked beautiful in a blue suit.
Touching the pendant at her throat, she said, “I feel overdressed. But Sam said…”
Daniel kissed her cheek. “I asked him to tell you to wear it. It seemed…fitting today.”
Her husband was congratulating Rebecca.
Emily gazed gravely at Daniel. “Giving it to him was an extraordinary gesture, Daniel. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.” She tried for a smile. “Not for myself…”
“I understand.” He gripped her hand and squeezed, glancing over his shoulder to see that Sam was occupied greeting his daughter and son-in-law. “Because he needed it, and none of the rest of us did.”
“Yes. I think…it made a difference.”
Belle had said that Sam was taking classes in anger management at Emily’s insistence.
“You know,” Belle had said bemusedly when telling Daniel about it, “if Santa squeezes his bulk and his bag of goodies down my skinny little chimney this year and twinkles at me, I won’t be more than slightly surprised. I now believe anything can happen.”
Laughter seemed to come more easily to Daniel these days. And why not, he thought now, turning his head to enjoy the sight of his wife exchanging pleasantries with his family. The reminder of the Christmas season past, and the ones to come, gave him a mellow feeling. A tree, sparkling with lights, would fit nicely in front of the bay window. He liked the idea of Malcolm excitedly bouncing on the bed Christmas morning to awaken his parents.
Family, he thought, made a difference.
Jenny knew Daniel had given the necklace to Sam. Despite what she’d told Daniel the day she foisted it on him, she’d always thought that was the right solution. She
moved swiftly to hug Emily when she saw her, and even to greet her brother, who hadn’t always been decent to her. But, changed or not, he was being genial today.
Neither Belle nor Sue had known the ultimate fate of the Carson diamond. Neither looked put out.
He’d made the right decision, Daniel thought, watching Sam escort his gracious wife the length of the narrow living room. Here were all the Carsons, together for the first time, and the extraordinary diamond that was the heart of the family was where it belonged. Sam cared; Sam would keep a flame burning that the others might forget to fan. And Sam, if Daniel was any judge, was at peace now.
As was Daniel.
“We’ve done our part,” he said in Rebecca’s ear. “Can we leave now?”
His wife just laughed at him. “Not a chance. We have family and friends to entertain first.” She tucked her hand into his. “Shall we?”
“We can do that,” he agreed, and looked at the mantel, where the portrait photograph of his mother was displayed in an inlaid oval frame. A beautiful young woman, she smiled gloriously at the camera, certain life would be magical. Regret that her life had instead been hard and that grief had ultimately tamped out her joy momentarily shadowed the day for Daniel, but then he saw that Jenny was looking toward the photograph, too, her face pensive.
We’re all together, Mom. All but Adam, and even he had a chance to meet his sister before he died. We’re all one family, the way you would have wanted it
.
The thanksgiving he cast silently was to Sarah Carson, a woman whose generosity had given them all this chance.
Perhaps, Daniel thought, Robert had made the only choice he could, given the mistakes that had come before.
One more look at his mother’s face, one more at his sister’s, and Daniel smiled down at his wife. “Did I mention that I love you?”
Her smile was soft and beautiful. “It so happens you did.”