Father For Keeps. Ana Seymour. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: Ana Seymour
Издательство: HarperCollins
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Жанр произведения: Историческая литература
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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