Bride in Barbados (26 page)

"I want to know exactly how you felt about me on our
wedding day, Travis."

He sat back on the couch and looked directly at her. "I'm
trying to be as honest as I know how to be. Looking back, I think the
realization of how deep ray feelings for you went came to me gradually.
If the will hadn't been a fact, I would have given you more time to get
used to the idea before I asked you to marry me—and myself
time to sort out my feelings. But knowing what I did about my
inheritance, I panicked. I lost whatever self-confidence I might have
had and steam-rolled you into marrying me immediately. I know now that
I felt more than sexual attraction for you from the beginning. If I
hadn't been in such a panic, I would have known it then. By the time we
stood before the judge, I was already deeply in love with you,
Susan—you have to believe that."

She was still, thoughtful, staring at her hands, which lay
quietly in her lap. "I think perhaps I can believe that now because of
something that happened—at least, I think it
happened—while I was in labor." She looked up and pushed back
her hair with one hand. "I thought I heard you tell Dr. Elliott that if
it came to a choice between my life and the baby's, you wanted him to
save me. Did you really say that?"

"Yes, and I meant every word of it! I stood in that room
and watched you suffer, hour after hour, and all because of me, and
everything that I thought I wanted was suddenly of no importance. I
realized how unfair to you I'd been since the day we met and I knew
that, without you, all the land and money in the world would mean
nothing." His expression was so agonized that she didn't doubt him for
a moment.

"I remembered your words the next day," she said, "but I
wouldn't believe right away that I had really heard them. It was the
same as when you told me that Kay wasn't your mistress. At some level,
I knew you were telling the truth, but I wouldn't accept it. When Kay
told me that she would have married you at any time if you had asked, I
realized that you had chosen to marry
me
instead
of Kay or any other woman, but I still felt used. I suppose I wanted to
nurse my disillusionment and resentment a little longer."

There was a tired twist to his mouth. "I can understand
that. You said that you've done a lot of thinking while I've been gone.
Well, so have I, and last night I finally decided I had to give you
whatever you want. You can leave Barbados if that's your choice. I'll
agree to a divorce."

She spoke softly. "What about the baby?"

"You can have custody for at least half the time. If you
choose to go, you can take Warren with you." The words were ragged,
each one a piece of himself torn out forcibly against his will. He
seemed to brace himself to receive a killing wound. "Just tell me what
you want, Susan."

"I've had my own dark night of the soul while you were
gone," she told him huskily, "and I've made a decision, too." She
looked at him, and her love was naked and unabashed in her eyes. "I
want to stay here. I want to be a wife to you and a mother to Warren. I
want us to be a family. I want to forget the hurt we've inflicted on
each other. I love you, my darling—and I want to make you
love me so desperately that you'll never regret this marriage for a
single moment."

An inarticulate sound escaped Travis, a sound of
tremendous release and triumphant joy. His arms came out, reaching for
her, pushing her down on the couch beneath him.

A shuddering sigh ran through both of them, though where
it started and where it ended they could not have said. With reverent,
trembling hands, he began to trace the outlines of her face, as if he
were a blind man who had to assure himself that the one he loved was
really with him. His fingers caressed the line of her jaw and throat,
moving down to part the soft fabric of her robe and linger on her
swollen breasts, stroking and delighting in their weight and silky
smoothness.

"My love—my wife," he whispered with such
unsteadiness that sympathetic tears rose in Susan's throat.

She closed her eyes, savoring the wonders of his touch, a
touch that she had denied herself for so long. She had been empty and
starved without him, and she knew now that she needed his touch, his
nearness, his love, to be complete.

Savored pleasure quickly turned to leaping fire, and she
gave herself to her husband, holding nothing back, just as he opened
the deepest recesses of himself to her, offering her all that he was
and had. They murmured all the words that lovers everywhere say to each
other in such rapturous moments, but on their lips the words seemed
infused with special meanings understood by themselves alone.

They made love with an intensity that touched every cell
and nerve, every hidden aspect of their beings. They achieved a oneness
that was magical and mysterious and unspeakably wonderful.

Much later, they turned out the lights and climbed the
stairs, arms about each other, to begin their true marriage and to
build a dynasty.