Читать книгу Father For Keeps - Ana Seymour - Страница 10

“Do you think I did the right thing?” Jennie asked, snuggling against Carter in their soft bed.

“To go against your sister’s express wishes and write to Flaherty, putting her at risk of losing her child to his powerful family?”

Jennie winced and buried her face in his shoulder. “You don’t really think he’d try to take Caroline, do you?”

“I don’t even know the guy, honey. I think you were playing with fire, but I’ve learned my lesson about trying to make you change your mind when you get one of your notions.”

His voice held laughter and a lazy, post-lovemaking indulgence. “I find that hard to believe, counselor,” Jennie said dryly. “But, seriously, maybe this time I’ve made a terrible mistake. Kate and I have always tried to take care of each other.”

“And you’re still trying to take care of her, Jennie. That’s your problem. Your baby sister’s all grown-up now. It’s up to her to decide what she wants to do about Flaherty. You’ll just have to trust her to make the right decision.”

“I don’t want her hurt again, Carter. She deserves to be happy.”

Carter sighed. “Perhaps you should have thought about that before you wrote the letter, honey. But it’s too late now. He’s here, and, personally, I think Kate is perfectly capable of dealing with him.”

“Do you think she’s still in love with him?”

“She hasn’t said a single kind word, and her eyes flash daggers when she looks at him, so I would say…yes.”

Jennie pulled her head up to look at him. “That doesn’t make sense.”

He pulled her on top of him and gave her soft bottom a loving pat. “It makes perfect sense. How many verbal daggers did you throw at me before I could get you to admit that you were crazy about me?”

She smiled at him in the darkness. “I threw plenty. But that was before I fell in love with you.”

Carter shook his head. “Nope. It was because you fell in love with me. The opposite of love is indifference, not hostility.”

“So your theory is that if Kate is hostile, it means she still cares about him?”

Carter pulled her a couple inches along the top of him, enough for her to feel evidence of his renewed arousal. “We can have a heck of a tiff, baby,” he said in a low voice, “and you still do this to me. The one thing I can’t be when I’m around you is indifferent. If Kate were calm and nonchalant, I’d say Flaherty should start packing, but as it is. I don’t know. She just might weaken.”

Jennie shifted her legs to fit her body more closely around him, eliciting a low growl from her partner. “If he hurts her again, I’ll personally take Papa’s shotgun and run him out of town. I swear.”

Carter reached his hand up to pull her head down toward him. “I don’t want to talk about Flaherty anymore,” he said tersely. Then he proceeded to close her mouth with his own.

By the end of the week it was obvious that Carter had been right. Kate was anything but indifferent to her former lover. She tried to pretend that her interest was casual, but Jennie could recognize the signs in her sister—the extra primping before he was due to call, the starry gazes out the window when she thought no one was around, the flushed cheeks at the sound of his knock on the front door.

She hadn’t agreed to go off alone with him yet, so Jennie assumed she was keeping some degree of control on the relationship, but she suspected that would change. Sean could be very charming.and very persuasive. Even though she’d been responsible for bringing Sean back to Vermillion, Jennie’s misgivings grew. As the older sister, she felt as if she should at least warn Kate about giving in too far, too fast. But since the couple in question already had produced a child, the advice seemed a bit silly.

So when Kate asked shyly if Jennie would mind Caroline while she had supper at the hotel with Sean, Jennie merely agreed and held her tongue.

Kate sensed her sister’s apprehension and was grateful for her forbearance. She had enough doubts herself without adding Jennie’s. Sean had wanted to be alone with her all week, and she had continued to resist, though every day she felt more comfortable in his company, more tender watching his obvious delight in his daughter, and more reluctant to see him leave in the evening. He’d kept his word and had not tried to kiss her, but the tension between them as they parted each night made it obvious that at the barest nod from her, she would once again be in his arms.

The first chill of fall was in the air as they crossed the street toward the Continental Hotel. She was glad she’d worn the old silk shawl that had been her mother’s. She and Jennie had divided their mother’s clothes between them after her death. They were too short of money not to use them, though for weeks it had been a pang to see them on each other.

“I should have hired a rig,” Sean said, looking at the glowing western sky. “I remember how you liked sunsets.”

“I don’t get much time for a drive in the country these days,” Kate answered a bit wistfully. “I almost envy Jennie her job up at the mine. It gets her out into the mountains every day. Of course, I’d probably be intimidated cooking for all those men.”

Sean took her arm to help her up the stairs to the wooden sidewalk in front of the hotel. “You cook for the three miners boarding with you.”

“That’s different. Dennis, Brad and Smitty are almost like family nowadays. And they’re easy to please. They say anything I make tastes like heaven.”

“Sweetheart, we had some of the finest cooks in San Francisco at home when I was growing up, and not a one of them could produce a brisket like the one we had last night.”

“Ah, Sean Flaherty, you and your Irish blarney again,” she protested. But she was pleased in spite of herself. Sean’s descriptions of his wealthy childhood had always intimidated her. The luxuries of Nob Hill sounded much farther than a mountain range away from her simple Vermillion life. Meeting Sean had opened a whole new world to her, a world beyond the mountains, where men and ladies wore fine clothes, dined on exotic foods and delighted each other with their witty sallies. There had been a time when she’d dreamed of marrying Sean and being swept off to that enchanted world. But those days were over. She was happy at Sheridan House with her daughter and the rest of her family around her. Nevertheless, remembering Sean’s tales of lavish San Francisco banquets, she’d worked all yesterday afternoon to be sure the supper was perfect.

“I can tell you one thing,” Sean was saying with his crooked grin. “We won’t be dining as finely tonight. The Continental must have recruited the hotel chef from one of the neighboring mines. His steaks are hard as ore and twice as gritty.”

Kate chuckled. One of the things that had made her fall so fatally for Sean had been his humor. Though there’d always been plenty of lively talk around their table, Kate had to admit that her own family had been a serious bunch.

He did his best to keep her fascinated throughout the meal. The laughter felt good. She hadn’t laughed so hard or felt so carefree since a year ago spring, before Sean had left her, before the death of her parents in the flu epidemic, before she’d learned that she would have to face the town unwed with a baby growing inside her.

“Ah, Katie Marie, you need to laugh more often,” he said as the waiter cleared away their plates including the rum cake which Kate had scarcely touched. “It makes your face glow like a freshly opened rose.”

She nodded and swirled the coffee in her cup. “Yes. There was too much sadness in our household after Mama and Papa died…and then I was so sick with the baby. And Jennie had a terrible battle with Carter when the town was trying to close down the boardinghouse.” She straightened up in the chair and smiled. “But that’s all past now. Carter and Jennie are happy as two June bugs on a screen, Caroline is healthy…;”

“And her father’s come back,” Sean added softly.

Kate lowered her eyes. “Yes. He’s come back. And I’ve discovered that he still can make me laugh like no one else I’ve ever met.”

Sean reached across the table and grasped the hand that held the cup, stopping the swirling. “He can still make you feel, too, Katie. He can make you laugh and then cry from the intensity of it. Remember?”

He spoke softly, but the words drummed into her ears. She did remember. The intensity. The tears of release after Sean had brought her to incredible heights of passion. But she remembered other tears later, the ones she’d shed after he had left her. Oceans of them. She pulled her hand away and put down the cup.

“I think I’d better get back, Sean. Caroline will be wanting her mama before going down for the night.”

“I thought Jennie was going to feed her a bottle.”

“Well, it’s always better if I feed her myself.” She spoke the words in a rush and stood up abruptly, trying to tamp down the sudden panicky feeling.

Sean stood, as well, reached into his pocket and carelessly tossed three silver dollars onto the table. “Katie, it’s after ten. Caroline’s undoubtedly been asleep for over an hour.”

“Have you become such an expert on her schedule, suddenly, with less than a week’s practice?” Her voice was sharper than she had intended, but Sean didn’t seem to be offended. He walked around the table and took her arm.

“We’ve had such a lovely evening. I’m not ready to give you back yet.” He put an arm behind her waist and steered her toward the Continental’s narrow staircase. “We’ll have some Queen Charlotte in my room.”

“What’s Queen Charlotte?”

“It’s a raspberry claret—very much the rage in San Francisco. I brought some with me just for you.”

San Francisco. That mysterious, glamorous world he’d painted for her in tantalizing glimpses in between their magical moments of lovemaking. Yes, she wanted to go upstairs with him to drink Queen Charlotte and get heady on the elixir of faraway places and close-up passion. Her body was strumming with the wanting of it. But her mind told her that once she climbed those stairs with him, she’d be lost. She’d have unlocked her mended heart and left it vulnerable, out in the open, just waiting for him to rend it apart again.

She stopped his forward movement by holding on to the end of the banister. “I can’t, Sean.”

She was up on the first step so their eyes were level, just inches apart, hers anguished, his pleading. “Let me help you remember how good we were, Katie,” he said, low and husky.

Kate looked around for some sign of life to help break the spell of those intent blue eyes, but the hotel lobby was empty. Even the desk clerk had abandoned his post. She turned back to him and took a deep breath. “That spring I let you make love to me, Sean, because I was young and foolish and desperately in love. But it was a mistake.” He tried to protest, but she held up a hand and continued, “Mama always said the wisest people were the ones who make plenty of mistakes, because they learn so much from them.”

The image of her sensible, down-to-earth mother, the woman who had wanted to raise her daughters in the simplicity and beauty of the mountains, helped Kate grow calmer.

Sean seemed to sense that he had lost the battle. He dropped his arm from behind her. “I promised that you’d do the asking next time, Katie,” he said with a sad smile.

She nodded. “Thank you.”

He put his hands at her waist and boosted her off the step, then left them there for a long moment. “Having a baby didn’t thicken that waspish waist of yours any, sweetheart,” he said, his voice a little shaky.

She slipped out of his grasp. “There are plenty of pleasingly plump girls in town if you’re on the lookout, Sean,” she snapped.

“Katie! That wasn’t a complaint. You’re.perfect. Just the way you are.” He stepped back and took a quick glance at her graceful, slender form. “You’re perfect,” he said again softly, almost to himself.

Kate suddenly felt tired. She’d been up feeding Caroline before dawn. “Will you take me home now, Sean?” she asked.

He stood looking at her one more long moment, then seemed to come to some kind of resolution. His face became animated once again. “Yes, I’ll take you home. But tomorrow night we’re going for that sunset drive.” When she started to demur, he added, “We’ll take Caroline along with us. That way we won’t have to trouble Jennie again. C’mon, sweetheart. I want to have a picnic with my daughter.”

Once again, Kate knew the more she let this go on, the more at risk she was, but a sunset picnic with Sean and their daughter sounded wonderful. She smiled her agreement. “I’ll pack us a supper.”

Barnaby was the only member of the household to put it to her directly. They spoke in the kitchen as he helped her make the meat pies Kate had planned for supper. She would pack several to be eaten cold on the picnic. In his matter-of-fact voice that was just beginning to show signs of slipping into manhood, he said, “I thought Mr. Flaherty was a bad man, Kate, ‘cause he left you, and you had to have Caroline all by yourself and almost died. So I don’t understand why you’re going on a picnic with him.”

Kate smiled slightly at the unanswerable logic. “Sometimes adults do things that don’t make much sense, don’t we?”

Barnaby nodded. He needed a haircut and his body had sprouted out of his clothes, as it seemed to do regularly these days. He resembled a miniature scarecrow. “So how come you’re going?” he persisted.

Kate gave a little shriek as her finger slipped off the towel and touched one of the hot pie tins. She set the pie on the counter and dipped the tip of the burned finger into the pan of dishwater. “Well, for one thing, Sean is Caroline’s father. I think it’s only fair for me to let him get to know her and give her the chance to have a father, if things could work out that way.”

“You mean, like you marrying him after all?”

Even Kate hadn’t wanted to confront the question after roundly rejecting Sean’s initial proposal, but now that the issue was raised, she realized that marrying Sean was exactly what had been on her mind these past three days. It was hard to believe after all she’d been through, but suddenly it seemed the only course that would make her life perfect. She had her health back, she had Caroline. Now all she needed was Sean.

She pulled her finger out of the water and frowned at it. “Well, I told him no once, and he may not ask me again.” Barnaby was methodically pulling off the pieces of crust that had overlapped the edges of one of the tins and popping the bits of dough in his mouth. “Don’t burn yourself,” she cautioned.

“Oh, he’ll ask you again all right.”

Kate blushed. “How do you know that?”

“The way he looks at you…you know, all dopey eyed. And I heard Carter and Jennie talking about it. I guess it’s all right. It would be good for Caroline to have a pa.”

A slight shadow crossed his face. Like Caroline, Barnaby had been born illegitimately. Shortly after the baby’s birth he’d been so concerned about protecting her from the stigma he’d carried throughout his own short life that he’d tried to run away with her into the mountains. It had taken Carter, who also had been born to an unwed mother, to convince the boy that the love of a close-knit family like the Shendans could make up for the lack of a name.

Kate sensed the direction of the boy’s thoughts and leaned over to ruffle a hand through his reddish hair. “Caroline would do just fine without a pa, Barnaby. But I guess it would be nice for her to have one just the same.”

“Yeah. Caroline’d like that, I think. But you’d still be living here, wouldn’t you?”

Kate’s thinking hadn’t taken her that far. “I don’t know,” she said slowly.

Barnaby looked worried. “You can’t take Caroline away. We all love her.”

“I know, Barnaby. She loves you, too. But anyway, no one’s even talked about my getting married yet, so we won’t worry about it, all right? Now how about you take some of these pies into the dining room? Be sure to set them on a plate so they don’t scorch the table.”

He nodded and began to do as she asked, but his face was glum.

Barnaby’s dismal expression stayed with Kate as she and Sean drove up the gently sloping road that led west out of town to Pritchard’s Hill. She was less enthusiastic than she’d been earlier in the day anticipating the excursion. There was no doubt that the feeling she had had for Sean was returning. She recognized the symptoms—sweaty palms, a giddy sensation in her head, fullness in her chest. But things were more complicated than they had been eighteen months ago when she’d been a carefree girl discovering the beauty of young love.

“You’re quiet tonight, Katie,” Sean said, turning his head from the horses to study her.

“I’m sorry. Caroline awoke three times last night. I’m probably tired.”

Sean reached into her lap and seized one of her hands. “That wasn’t a reproach, sweetheart. No need to apologize.” He looked into the back of the buggy where Caroline was lying awake and wide-eyed, but peaceful. “I thought you told me she usually sleeps all through the night now. She’s not sick, is she?”

Kate shook her head. “No, but I think those new teeth coming in are bothering her a little. I rubbed some of Carter’s whiskey on them before we left tonight.”

“Whiskey!” Sean looked horrified.

Kate laughed. “Not to drink. Just rubbed on the gums. It won’t hurt her any.”

Sean was viewing his daughter with a critical eye as if trying to identify signs of drunkenness. “I don’t know anything about babies, Kate,” he said finally with a sigh.

“Most people don’t until they get one. Then you learn fast.”

They’d reached the grove of old cedars where they had been accustomed to stopping during their visits here that first spring. “Shall we make it here, for old times’ sake?” Sean asked.

Kate’s heart sped up a little, but she nodded. “It’ll be too dark if we try to go farther.”

Sean sprang out of the carriage and was around to Kate’s side before she could climb out on her own. His arms came up around her waist and swung her down. When her feet touched the ground, she tried to take a step away, but he held her firmly against him, looking down at her. His eyes were slightly hooded, the nostrils flared. When he spoke, his voice was husky. “I won’t break my promise about waiting until you ask, but a kiss for old times’ sake would be nice, too.”

Their faces were only inches apart, and Kate could feel an actual tingling in her suddenly dry lips. She licked them. “I think we’d better eat,” she said. “Caroline will be fussing for her own supper before long.”

He released her instantly, his face impassive. “I’ll hand her down to you,” he said, boosting himself up on the side rails to reach for Caroline’s basket.

Kate felt the tension drain out of her as she busied herself preparing for the meal. They set out two blankets and let Caroline sit up in the middle of one, entertaining herself with the wooden blocks Dennis Kelly had whittled for her. On the other, they set out the food Kate had packed. Sean had brought along a bottle of wine and two glasses. “This is for you, now, not the baby,” he joked as he handed her a glass.

Kate smiled. “In a manner of speaking, Caroline drinks whatever I do.”

Sean looked a little embarrassed by the reference. His eyes went to Kate’s full breasts, then slid away. “I don’t know much about that, either,” he mumbled, and began digging into one of the meat pies.

Dinner went quickly and with much laughter over Caroline’s antics as she crawled around trying to explore each item on the menu. Finally when they’d finished the last of the maple cakes for dessert, Kate took Caroline in her arms and said a little shyly. “I’m afraid I’ll have to feed her before we head back. She’ll be hollering up a fit before long if she doesn’t get her supper.”

Sean jumped to his feet and picked up the extra blanket. Folding it over three times he fashioned a little seat and propped it against the nearest cedar tree. “Will you be comfortable here or would you rather be in the buggy?”

Kate stood, still carrying the baby, who was beginning to squirm. “That will be fine.” She hesitated a moment, avoiding his eyes.

Sean walked over to her and took Caroline. “You make yourself comfortable there and do whatever you need to get yourself ready, and then I’ll hand her to you.”

Kate sank down onto the padded seat and arranged her skirts around her. “I should have her blanket from the basket,” she said.

Sean nodded but still held the baby, waiting. When she made no move to unbutton her dress, he said, “I’ll go take a walk or something if you want me to, Kate, but I’d prefer to stay and watch my daughter with her mother.”

Losing a little of her self-consciousness, Kate undid the top of her dress, then reached up for Caroline. Sean retrieved the blanket and tucked it tenderly around the baby, who was already finding her dinner.

It seemed, after all, natural and sweet to sit in the darkening evening with Sean while their baby tugged at her breast. Sean’s eyes were mostly on her face, but every now and then he’d reach out a hand to stroke the back of the baby’s head ever so gently.

When she was finished, she sat Caroline on her knee and patted her back. “Let me do that,” Sean said, reaching for the baby.

“Careful, she might spit up,” Kate warned, and helped him arrange the blanket over his trousers in case of any sudden eruptions. She fastened up her dress, then sat back against the tree to watch Sean minister to their baby. The sight made her throat fill.

After several minutes, she said, “She’ll sleep now if you want to put her down in the basket.”

He smiled and gave Caroline a final hug, which she returned by putting her chubby arms around his neck. She made no protest as he put her down and carefully arranged the blanket around her.

“She’s half-asleep already,” he said, his voice tender and a bit awed.

The evening was beginning to grow cool. Kate untangled part of the blanket she was sitting on to wrap it around her shoulders. “We should be heading back, I guess,” she said sleepily. “But it’s nice here.”

Sean took a final look into Caroline’s basket, then went back to drop beside Kate, dragging the other blanket beneath him. “We can stay awhile longer, if you like. Jennie said you weren’t to worry about cleaning up at Sheridan House tonight.”

“She and Barnaby will handle everything just fine,” Kate agreed. “I don’t know what I would have done without them this past year.”

Sean stretched out on the blanket, propping himself on one elbow and looking up at her. “This past year when you should have had a husband with you to help in the burdens of bearing and raising your child.”

Kate looked down at him, her face serious. “Perhaps I was wrong not to contact you, Sean.”

“No ‘perhaps’ about it, Kate. But there’s no way to relive the past. The question is, what are we going to do now?”

The meat pie she’d eaten seemed to be stuck at the base of her throat. She remembered the conversation earlier with Barnaby, so certain that Sean would want to marry her. And as much as the young orphan hated the thought of losing Caroline, he’d thought she’d be better off with a father. “Why did you suddenly decide to come back, Sean? You’ve never really explained what brought you back here.” She held in a breath. Somehow the answer was vitally important to her.

Sean looked at her a long moment, his eyes unreadable in the increasing dusk. “I’ve told you, Kate. I never stopped thinking about you in all these months.”

“Surely there have been others.”

He shook his head. “I’m not a saint, I guess you know that better than anyone. But none of them seemed to mean anything after you. Every time I was accosted by one of the society belles on Nob Hill hunting a socially acceptable husband, all I could think about was my sweetheart up in the mountains. And when I’d try to forget you by carousing in one of the gambling halls down by the waterfront, the painted ladies would turn my stomach and make me long for the fresh white skin and clear blue eyes of the beauty I’d left behind.”

She wanted to believe his sincerity. But she’d believed him once before when he’d talked of love everlasting. It hadn’t even lasted through the spring.

“I have more than my own heart to guard now, Sean. I have my daughter’s, as well.”

He was quiet for such a long time that Kate wondered if he was beginning to fall asleep. But suddenly he sat up, moved to her side and put his arms around her.

“I’m going to break my promise and kiss you,” he said. “I swear it’s the last promise to you I’ll ever break.”