Running From Fate (62 page)

They leaned into each other, whispering confidences now like the schoolgirls they had once been together
.

“What do you plan to do now?” Sarah asked.

“I’m not sure exactly,” she murmured.
“Since I have some money now
,
I thought that I’
d take a little break.
M
aybe go t
o Ireland and explore my roots and
I haven’t done a lot of it, but I think I’d really enjoy painting.
Who knows, I might even
make some money at it.
  It’s time that I move
d
on with my life.
”

“I’d quite like to say that
I know someone rich and famous,” Sarah interjected cheerfully, obviously trying to lighten the atmosphere.
“
I could
shove
it in the faces of all the rich snobbish women whose husbands hang around the racing world.”

“
Are you having a problem,
”
Mira asked in concern, pulled from her own troubles by the tone of her friend
’
s comment.  If someone was messing with Sarah, she vowed, they would have to deal with her.

“Nothing I can’t handle.”

Pete knocked softly on the door and poked his head in.
“There’s someone here to see you,” he told Mira.

Her heart gave a funny little lurch as she stood up and walked out of the living room.
It couldn’t be James, she cautioned herself.
If he had planned on seeing her he would have come weeks ago.
It was more likely to be Lily or even the gentleman who had bought her drawings.

She reached the door and took a deep, cleansing breath before pulling it open.
Her mouth didn’t fall open, but it was a close thing.
There stood James Kelly
,
looking somewhat thin and very agitated, but so beautiful to her starved sense
s
that it made her eyes hurt.
She fought the
urge to hurl herself into his arms and, instead, walked calmly onto the porch, pulling the door shut behind her
. 
“James,” she murmured.
“What are you doing here?”

He held up a badly wrinkled letter and waved it in her face.
“This,” he said curtly,
“i
s why I’m here.
I don’t hear
from you for almost two months and when I do, it’s a damn resignation.”
Too agitated to stand still, he started walking, pacing the width of the porch, from the rail to the door and back again.
“Couldn’t you have at least had the courtesy to tell me in person?”

Her skin was ting
ling and she ached to touch him,
but
couldn’t.  He hadn’t come because he missed her,
he was
here because she was quitting.  T
he nerve
of the man
.
“You talk about courtesy,” she retorted.
“I’ve been waiting to he
ar
something from you for two months.
If you wanted to break up with me, couldn’t you have had the nerve to do it in person?”

“What are you talking about?”
James stopped his pacing and stood in front of her.
He notice
d
t
wo
little face
s
pressed against the front window,
watching
them in fascination.  He reached over and grabbed Mira’s arm, pulling her off the front porch
and crossing the yard at a fast clip.  When he reached the end of a pasture where two beautiful, elegant Chestnuts dozed in the sun, he stopped and faced her. 
“You were the o
ne who said you needed time,
”
he said, daring her to deny it.  He could still feel the pain of those words, cutting him in two.

Mira closed her eyes and tried to think where he could have come up with that idea.
She had a sneaky suspicion that Lily h
ad something to do with it.
“I never said I needed time,” she said carefully
, watching his eyes as they turned from angry to cautious
.
“For God’s sake, I told you that I was in love with you.
You were the one who backed off.”

“But the note said…”

“I didn’t write it.
Lily did.
”  She was beginning to see that they had both been played and she swore to choke her friend when they next met.  James, however, was not completely off the
hook.  “Since when,” she demanded as she poked him in the chest.
“
Have
you ever done what I told you to
anyway
?
And even if I had asked for time, what the hell took you so long?”

His despondency fled as a desperate hope took its place.  He stepped forward,
trapping her against the fence
. 
“I didn’t know where you were,” he whispered fiercely.  “
If I had
,
you wouldn’t have eve
n made it two days before I
caught up with you.”

“What are you saying
?”
  Her heart beat frantically,
yearning to be free.

It was time to stop running.  “You once told me that you loved me,” James said.

She remembered the occasion
,
painfully. 
“
And y
ou told me
that yo
u cared about me like I was just some kind of pet or your kid sister
.”

“Say it again,” he pleaded,
ignoring her ire and leaning down to caress her ear with his breath.  “
I promise that you’ll get
a different reply
.”

She
shivered in pleasure and stopped running, allowing fate to have
her way
.
“I love you,” she whispered as she raised her hands to clasp his face.

“
I love you too
,” he replied softly.
“
Come
home
with me,” he begged.
“
Marry me. 
Say you’ll make a life with me
.”

“Are you sure James?
”  She didn’t want to agree only to have him hate her later.
 
“
You said you would never marry.  P
eople weren’t capable of making such a deep commitment.
”

He smiled. 
“A
Ghrà
, my love,
you’ve been mine since the very first time you looked at me, dirt on your hem and
longing in your
beautiful, green
eyes
.”  He lifted his hand and ran his thumb gently along her cheek, catching a single tear.  “Say
yes.
”

“Yes.”  She laughed joyously when he lifted her up and swung her around.  “Absolutely yes.”