Andi shifted her weight from one hip to the other. “And he didn’t ask again when he came home?”
“He never came home.”
“Oh, Tess,” Andi said, hugging her aunt against her. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Tess said when they parted. “I confess I regret that I didn’t say yes, but I regret more that the should-have-beens have kept me from living my life all these years. I don’t want that to happen to you.”
Andi sighed and pushed back the tears. “It’s going to be so hard, letting him go.” Harder than the first time. Harder than anything Andi had ever done before.
Tess braced Andi’s shoulders and gave her a little shake. “But you have to let him go. You have to for your sake and for your son’s. You take tonight and you show him that you love him. Tell him that you love him, because I know you do. If he walks away after that, then it was never meant to be in the first place.”
The “give them wings” theory that Andi was coming to despise. But she saw the logic in her aunt’s advice, and she made the decision to have one last night with Sam, her lover, the love of her life.
Chance came bounding out of the barn door shouting, “I’m hungry!” interrupting the emotional moment.
Tess caught him on the fly and whirled him around. “You eat as much as a moose these days.”
“I am a moose,” Chance proclaimed, followed by a high-pitched giggle.
Tess set him on his feet and grinned. “Tell you what, Mr. Moose. Why don’t you come spend the night in the bunkhouse with me? Riley’s coming over and we can play some checkers.”
Chance’s expression brightened. “Can Riley teach me how to play poker?”
Both Andi and Tess laughed then. “I guess we can do that, Little Bit,” Tess said. “As long as your mama doesn’t mind.”
Andi pretended to think long and hard before saying, “As long as you don’t bet away the house and the horses.”
“We’ll stick to pennies,” Tess said. She turned her attention back to Chance. “Then it’s settled. Right after dinner, we’ll play some poker.”
“Can Sam play, too?” Chance asked.
Tess sent Andi a meaningful glance. “I think Sam has a few things to tend to tonight with your mama.”
Sam had longed to tell Chance the truth, yet he hadn’t. He had longed to declare that he was the father Chance had wished for, yet he couldn’t. If he had made that admission knowing he would leave the next day, never to return, it would have been selfish on his part and totally unfair to his son. And he couldn’t return, not after knowing what it would be like to remain a part of this blessed family. Knowing each time it would be more difficult to leave. He could only hope that one day Andrea would find a suitable father for Chance. That consideration made him wince with a pain so deep that it threatened to consume him.
“It is for the best,” he kept repeating to himself as he had during dinner, quite possibly the last meal he would ever share with his son or Andrea.
The finality sat heavily on his heart as he began to pack the rest of his belongings. He’d saved the most significant for last—the baseball, Paul’s graduation gift to him, even the pair of tattered jeans he had left behind before. All mementos from the past that he would cherish throughout his future. Yet when he opened his suitcase once more, he found lying atop his clothing a souvenir that captured the present.
The photograph was much the same as the one of him, Andi and Paul except Chance had replaced his uncle. Tess had taken it earlier in the week, but he had no idea when she’d had it developed or how it had ended up among his things. Perhaps she had placed it there when he had returned to the stable for one last look after the evening meal. Perhaps it wasn’t Tess’s doing at all. If his instincts served him correctly, Andrea had left the keepsake, another precious gift she had given him.
Andrea.
He wanted desperately to go to her, to take her in his arms one final time, to spend a few more moments in her presence, to make love to her as he had desired to do the past week. He would deny himself that pleasure for he did not deserve her attention. And more than likely she would refuse if he dared make the offer tonight.
He picked up the photo and studied it a moment longer, admiring the faces of the woman he had always loved, of the child he had grown to love. Tomorrow he would say goodbye to them both and wish them well, then return to his homeland and pretend that nothing had changed. Yet everything had changed, especially Sheikh Samir Yaman.
“It’s a nice picture, isn’t it?”
His hands froze on the framed photo at the soothing sound of Andrea’s voice coming from behind him. After carefully tucking the photo beneath a few garments to protect it, he closed the suitcase and closed the chapter on what could never be.
Slowly he turned to face the woman who had so easily secured his heart years ago. “I will cherish it always,” he said. “Thank you.”
She took a tentative step forward and stopped at the end of the four-poster bed. “It’s the least I could do.”
“It is very much appreciated.”
As a heavy silence hung between them, she pushed her red-gold hair away from her face but failed to look directly at him. Finally she walked forward and stood face-to-face with him, so close that he could see that her heartache had settled in her beautiful blue eyes. He opened his arms to her, and she moved into his embrace.
Andi settled her cheek against Sam’s chest, not certain whose heart was beating more rapidly, his or hers. But her heart was in the process of totally splintering.
On that thought she kissed his whisker-rough jaw and gathered all her courage to tell him the one thing she had avoided until now. “I love you, Sam.”
He touched her face with tenderness and gently kissed her brow. “As I love you.”
She experienced an overwhelming joy that raced to her soul and settled on her wounded heart. “Then stay with me. Be a part of our lives.”
“You know that I cannot do that.”
She stared at him in frustration. “Then you don’t really love me.”
His rough sigh echoed in the silent room. “Yes, I do, more than you will ever know. But that does not change my situation.”
“It could if you wanted it to.”
“If only that were true.” He guided her to the edge of the bed and seated her next to his side, then took her hands into his. “I also love our son, which is why I have decided that he need never know I am his father.”
Exactly what she’d feared. “But what about when you come back?”
He glanced away but not before revealing an abiding sadness in his stoic expression. “I will not be coming back.”
Andi’s heart started another descent. “But you have to come back. Chance needs you. I need you.”
“You need to resume your life without me. You need to find someone who will care for you and our son. Someone who is deserving of your love.”
“I don’t want anyone but you,” she said, warm tears now raining down her cheeks in a stream of sorrow.
“You say that now, but you will change your mind once I am gone.”
He pulled her tightly into his strong arms. If only Andi could absorb some of that strength. If only she could have foreseen where this would lead. In reality she’d known all along what would happen,