Emerald Ecstasy (54 page)

Daniel helped her up, but she bent down again and said, “I'll take care of our son. I promise.” Then Daniel whisked her from the mine just as a large trembling shook the earth.

They barely made it up the long flight of stairs leading outside, but inside the mine Raoul knew when the ceiling collapsed. After that, he knew nothing.

Some small buildings on the hacienda were damaged, but the main house was left intact with only minor breakage of objects inside.

Lianne ran into the house and held Désirée in an iron-tight grasp, unable to believe that they were free to leave with Daniel. Felix joined them in the house, Carmen at his side. When Lianne told Carmen what Raoul had said before he died, Carmen wept.

“My father was a strange man, a hard man to care for. Sometimes he was very evil,” Carmen said.

Lianne agreed but resisted telling her that she thought Raoul had ordered Elena's death. She felt it better the girl remember him with some affection. “I believe he wanted to die, Carmen.”

“What will you do now?” Carmen asked Lianne.

“I'll return to Louisiana,” Lianne said, but wondered if Daniel still wanted her. He stood apart from her and Carmen. He wore the ragged pants and seemed quite ominous and strangely silent.

She stood up and walked over to him. “Do you still want me?” she asked, unaware that Carmen and Felix had discreetly left the room. “I intend to have Raoul's baby.”

“I know.”

“You didn't answer my question. Do you still want me?”

She trembled so hard, he couldn't help but notice. Daniel enfolded her in his arms and kissed her lips with such warmth and tenderness that she started to cry.

“What's wrong now?” he asked in the gruff voice she didn't mind any longer.

“You do want me, Daniel!” She threw her arms around him.

“Never doubt that, my sweet.”

Daniel and Lianne married in Mexico City a few days later. Then they started for Green Meadows with Maria and Désirée. Josephine had been sent packing without references, and Lianne didn't care what happened to her. Felix and Carmen remained on the hacienda, because Lianne had turned all her inheritance as Raoul's widow over to Carmen. She knew that with Felix, as Carmen's husband and new owner of the mine, the people would be content.

When they arrived at Green Meadows, Dera's happiness to see her son alive overwhelmed them. “I knew from the moment you arrived here,” Dera told Lianne, “that you and Daniel were destined to be together. I'm so very happy.”

Lianne was happy for Dera, also, because no sooner had they settled in, than Paul and Allison with the twins and their little girl showed up on the doorstep. But that wasn't the last surprise. Doctor Markham put in an appearance, and he and Dera announced they would soon be married and move to Williamsburg.

“Seems like you'll be the mistress here,” Daniel said to Lianne when they stood on the porch that evening and listened to the gentle lapping of the river.

“And you'll be the official master,” she said and smiled at him. “Aren't you happy your mother is marrying again?”

“Yes, I am, but my father was part of her life for so long. He still seems to be in this house. I imagine I even hear his voice at times.” He grinned. “I used to sound a little like him once.”

“I like how you sound now, how you look, how you feel.”

Daniel pulled Lianne into his arms. “I love you, Lianne Flannery.”

“Flannery? That's a surprise.”

“It's time I buried my animosity toward my father. I don't feel the need to bury my troubles in a bottle any longer either, not since finding you again. Daniel Flannery is a happy man.”

At that second, the child growing within Lianne kicked, and Daniel felt it as he held her in his arms. “The baby's a feisty little boy,” she said.

“Yes,” he agreed and tilted her chin. Daniel loved her and would love this child. Though it wasn't his own, he had told her that the child was part of her, and now part of him. “But how can you be certain it's a boy?” he asked her.

“Because Raoul de Lovis always gets what he wants.”

“No,” Daniel said. “He doesn't.”

When his lips sought hers and claimed them, binding her to him in loving ecstasy, she knew he was right.

Lynette Vinet is a native of New Orleans, Louisiana, and a member of Romance Writers of America and Creative Minds Writers. She has always been intrigued by the history of her native city and the South, as well as colonial America and the British Isles. An avid genealogist, she is also a member of the Genealogical Research Society of New Orleans. Over the last two decades, Vinet has published eleven historical romances in addition to a number of genealogical articles. She is a wife, mother, and doting grandmother.

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