by Cara Colter
Caleb.
He went and sat beside her on the bench. “There was a baby,” he said, and it was a statement not a question. His mouth had the taste of dust in it.
“They said not to name him,” she choked. “They said he wasn’t even a baby yet. A fetus. They wouldn’t let me bury him. He was disposed of as medical waste.”
She was sobbing, and he felt a grief as deep as anything he had ever felt.
“He was mine, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, Mac, he was yours.”
So many questions, and all of them poured out, one on top of the other. “Why didn’t you tell me? Were you planning on telling me? Would you have told me if he lived?”
“Mac, I was at the scared-out-of-my-mind stage. I knew Mama would know where you were. I’d decide to tell you. I’d even cross the lawn to Mama’s house. And then I’d talk myself out of it. I felt that you would come back—not for love, but because I’d trapped you into it.”
“I had a right to know.”
“Yes,” she said softly, ever so softly, “Yes, you did. And I think, eventually, I would have finished that million-mile journey across her lawn. But then the baby was gone, and the pain was so bad that the last person I was thinking of was you.”
Mac was silent. He could feel that pain unfurling in him. His baby. His and hers. It made life as he had lived it so far seem unreal. How would he have been different if he had known?
“When were you going to tell me?” he finally asked.
“Soon,” she whispered. “I hoped to get through Mother’s Day. If you hadn’t come back I was going to call you. I knew it was time. To trust you with it.”
He looked at her, and knew it was true. And he knew something else. That he had to rise to the fragile trust she was handing him. This had been her secret, her intensely personal grief, but it was no longer. This pain would be an unbreakable bond between them.
Something that they, and they alone, would know the full depth of.
In this instant he sat beside her and felt her grief, and he felt his own. He felt a momentary hurt that he had been excluded from one of the biggest events of his own life.
And yet looking into her eyes, he felt his hurt dissolve and he was taken by the bravery he saw in her. Her hands were clutched around something, and he unfolded them from around it.
It was a small box.
“I bring it with me when I come here.”
“May I look?” His voice sounded gruff, hoarse with unshed emotion.
Lucy nodded through her tears, her eyes on his face, begging him.
Inside was a tiny pair of sneakers. A blue onesie with a striped bear embossed on it. And an ultrasound picture.
Begging him to what? To love her anyway, when everyone else had stopped? That was a given.
He touched the little sneakers to his lips. He had not wept since his father died. But he wept now, on Mother’s Day, for the baby who would have been his son.
And that’s when he saw what she was really begging him for. Someone to share this love with him. The love she had carried alone for too long.
He vowed to himself she would not be alone with it anymore. Not ever.
He saw so clearly what was being given to them both. A chance at redemption. A chance to make good come from bad.
A chance for love to grow from this garden where there had been sorrow.
A long time later they sat in silence, their hands intertwined. The sounds from the party below them grew more boisterous.
The sounds of “I Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” floated up through the air.
“You know we would have never made it if I’d asked you to come with me all those years ago.”
“I know.”
“But I think we could make it now.”
She turned to him, her eyes wide with love and hope.
Mac felt now what he could never have felt back then, as a callow youth. The complexity of loving someone.
“I’m asking you to marry me, Lucy Lin, I’m half crazy all for the love of you.”
“Yes,” she whispered, and then stronger, “Yes.”
“You know, Lucy,” he said, softly, his voice still gruff with emotion, “it won’t all be a bicycle built for two. There are going to be hurts. And misunderstandings. I have places in me that are so tender they will bruise if you try to touch them. It’s going to be a lifelong exercise in building trust.”
She leaned her head on his shoulder. “I know what I’m getting into.”
He watched the moonlight in her eyes and saw that the light coming from them was radiant.
“I do believe you do, Lucy Lin.”
Mac took Lucy in his arms, and her soft warmth melted into him and he thanked God for second chances.
EPILOGUE
MACINTYRE HUDSON SIGHED AS a rush of girlish laughter filled the air. Mother’s Day was still a whole week away, but Caleb’s House, next door to this one, was filled to capacity. There were two trucks with campers on them parked up on the road. No doubt Claudia would be by shortly to complain about that.
There was no official Mother’s Day celebration at Caleb’s House, but they always came back, those girls, turned into young women, who had stayed there.
They came back whether they had kept their babies or given them up for adoption.
They were drawn back there as if by a spell. Every year, at the same time, they came.
Some came with families—mothers and fathers they had reconciled with, or young husbands who had accepted their history and stepped up to the plate for their future. They came with new young babies and toddlers.
They joined whoever was in residence now, and pretty soon the giggling started and carried across the lawns of that beautiful lavender house to this one.
Mama’s house was long since gone. He’d torn it down, and he and Lucy had built a new one. It had what was called a mother-in-law suite, but they moved back and forth between the two living spaces seamlessly. Mama particularly liked their kitchen with all its shiny stainless-steel appliances, even though she didn’t make apfelstrudel very often anymore.
But it was still her house, and ever since the gala, so many of those children Mama had fostered came back on Mother’s Day weekend. Came back to the place where they had learned the meaning of home.
Right now, this part of Lakeshore Drive looked like a carnival.
“Did you see this?” Lucy came up behind him.
The funeral-planning kit was out on the table, where they could not miss it.
“Do you know what it’s about?” she asked, that cute little worry line puckering her forehead.
“She was staring out the window the other day, lamenting the fact she might not see our children before she dies.”
“I guess we should tell her, hmm?” Lucy said.
“No! I don’t want her thinking every time she produces that brochure we’re going to have a baby for her. Aren’t there enough of them next door?”
“Ach,” Lucy said, imitating Mama, “a baby is always a blessing.”
Those words were a motto, and hung on a smaller sign right below the one that read Caleb’s House.
Lucy wrapped her arms around him from behind, nestled into him for a moment and sighed with utter contentment. Then she went to the fridge and took out a jar of Rolliepops.
She popped one in her mouth.
“Those things can’t be good for the baby.”
“Who are you kidding? You hate kissing me after I’ve had one. Can’t help it. Cravings.” She removed a large stainless-steel bowl of potato salad.
“Potluck at Caleb’s tonight,” Lucy said. “Between Mama’s kids and my kids, I think there must be a hundred people out there. Have you seen my mom?”
“She wen
t through here with Donald on her hip a while ago, muttering about diapers.” Donald was the baby she had brought back from Africa.
Next year there would be one more added to this amazingly diverse, huge and loving family Mac found himself a part of.
“Are you coming?” Lucy asked. “They’ll be starting in a few minutes.”
“Give me a minute.”
Funny how even after all this time, the sound of his son’s name, the son whom had never been born and who he had never known, still squeezed at his heart.
Mac went back to the table. Beside the funeral-planning kit, Mama had set out a card.
He picked it up. On the front it said, “Happy Mother’s Day.” Inside was completely blank. He set it back down, then went and stood at the window and looked over the familiar sparkling waters of Sunshine Lake.
His own child would be coming into this world soon.
It would require more of him.
Love required more of him. He had thought it would be a lifetime exercise to build trust, but he had never been so wrong.
He trusted Lucy implicitly. He trusted himself to be the man she and Mama believed he was. He trusted in life. Hadn’t it become joyous and sweet beyond his wildest dreams?
Mac fished through the junk drawer until he found a pen, and then he went and sat down at the old kitchen table that they could never replace. It was the apfelstrudel table. He stared at the card for a long time, and then opened it.
How to start?
And so he started like this.
Dear Mom,
Not too much. A few lines. That she would be a grandmother soon. That she had not met his wife yet. That maybe they could get together the next time he was down east.
He signed it, licked the envelope, addressed it and put a stamp on. Maybe, just maybe, they would have a chance to redeem themselves.
Mama waddled in and went right to the fridge. “Where’s the potato salad? My German one. Not like the stuff they call potato salad here.”
“Lucy took it already.”
“Are you coming, my galoot-head? Listen. They’re singing grace.”
All those voices raised in a joyous song of thanks. His Lucy would be at the very center of it, where she belonged.
“I’ll be along in minute. I’m going to run up to the mailbox first.”
Mama’s eyes shot to the table, where the card had been.
Mac thought you could live for moments like this: a heart filled with love, the sound of gratitude drifting in the window and a smile like the one Mama gave him.
* * * * *
Her Royal Wedding Wish
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
EXCERPT
CHAPTER ONE
JAKE RONAN TOOK a deep, steadying breath, the same kind he would take and hold right before the shot or the assault or the jump.
No relief. His heart was beating like a deer three steps ahead of a wolf pack. His palms were slick with sweat.
He was a man notorious for keeping his cool. And in the past three years that notoriety had served him well. He’d taken a hijacked plane back from the bad guys, jumped from ten thousand feet in the dead of night into territory controlled by hostiles, rescued fourteen schoolchildren from a hostage taking.
But in the danger-zone department nothing did him in like a wedding. He shrugged, rolled his shoulders, took another deep breath.
His old friend, Colonel Gray Peterson, recently retired, the reason Ronan was here on the tiny tropical-island paradise of B’Ranasha, shifted uneasily beside him. Under his breath he said a word that probably had never been said in a church before. “You don’t have your sideways feeling, do you?” Gray asked.
Ronan was famous among this tough group of men, his comrades-in-arms, for the feeling, a sixth sense that warned him things were about to go wrong, in a big way.
“I just don’t like weddings,” he said, keeping his voice deliberately hushed. “They make me feel uptight.”
Gray contemplated that as an oddity. “Jake,” he finally said reassuringly, his use of Ronan’s first name an oddity in itself, “it’s not as if you’re the one getting married. You’re part of the security team. You don’t even know these people.”
Ronan had never been the one getting married, but his childhood had been littered with his mother’s latest attempt to land the perfect man. His own longing for a normal family, hidden under layers of adolescent belligerence, had usually ended in disillusionment long before the day of yet another elaborate wedding ceremony, his mother exchanging starry-eyed “I do’s” with yet another temporary stepfather.
Ronan had found a family he enjoyed very much when he’d followed in his deceased father’s footsteps, over his mother’s strenuous and tear-filled protests, and joined the Australian military right out of high school. Finally, there had been structure, predictability and genuine camaraderie in his life.
And then he’d been recruited for a multinational military unit that was a first-response team to world crises. The unit, headquartered in England, was comprised of men from the most elite special forces units around the world. They had members from the British Forces SAS, from the French Foreign Legion, from the U.S. SEALs and Delta Force.
His family became a tight-knit brotherhood of warriors. They went where angels feared to go; they did the work no one else wanted to do; they operated in the most dangerous and troubled places in the world. As well as protecting world figures at summits, conferences, peace talks, they dismantled bombs, gathered intelligence, took back planes, rescued hostages, blew up enemy weapons caches. They did the world’s most difficult work. They did it quickly, quietly and anonymously. There were few medals, little acknowledgment, no back-patting ceremonies.
But there was: brutal training, exhausting hours, months of deep cover and more danger than playing patty-cake with a rattlesnake.
When Ronan had been recruited, he had said a resounding yes. A man knew exactly when his natural-born talents intersected with opportunity, and from his first day in the unit, code-named Excalibur, he had known he had found what he was born to do.
A family, other than his brothers in arms, was out of the question. This kind of work was unfair to the women who were left at home. A man so committed to a dangerous lifestyle was not ready to make the responsibilities of a family and a wife his priority.
Which was a happy coincidence for a man who had the wedding thing anyway. Ronan’s most closely guarded secret was that he, fearless fighting man, pride of Excalibur, would probably faint from pure fright if he ever had to stand at an altar like the one at the front of this church as a groom. As a man waiting for his bride.
So far, no one was standing at it, though on this small island, traditions were slightly reversed. He’d been briefed to understand that the bride would come in first and wait for the groom.
Music, lilting and lovely, heralded her arrival, but above the notes Ronan heard the rustle of fabric and slid a look down the aisle of the church. A vision in ivory silk floated slowly toward them. The dress, the typical wedding costume of the Isle of B’Ranasha, covered the bride from head to toe. It was unfathomable how something so unrevealing could be so sensual.
But it was. The gown clung to the bride’s slight curves, accentuated the smooth sensuality of her movements. It was embroidered in gold thread that caught the light and thousands of little pearls that shimmered iridescently.
The reason Ronan was stationed so close to the altar was that this beautiful bride, Princess Shoshauna of B’Ranasha, might be in danger.
Since retiring from Excalibur, Gray had taken the position as head of security for the royal family of B’Ranasha. With the upcoming wedding, he’d asked Ronan if he wanted to take some leave and help provide extra security. At first Gray had presented the job as a bit of a lark—beautiful island, beautiful women, unbeatable climate, easy job, lots of off-time.
But by the time Ronan had gotten off the plane, the security team had intercepted a number of threats aimed directly at the princess, and Gray had been grim-faced and tense. The colonel was certain they were generating from within the palace itself, and that a serious security breach had developed within his own team.
“Look at the lady touching the flowers,” Gray said tersely.
Ronan spun around, amazed by how much discipline it took to take his eyes off the shimmering vision of that bride. A woman at the side of the church was fiddling with a bouquet of flowers. She kept glancing nervously over her shoulder, radiating tension.
There it was, without warning, that sudden downward dip in his stomach, comparable to a ten-story drop on a roller coaster.
Sideways.
Surreptitiously Ronan checked his weapon, a 9mm Glock, shoulder holstered. Gray noticed, cursed under his breath, tapped his own hidden weapon, a monstrosity that members of Excalibur liked to call the Cannon.
Ronan felt himself shift, from a guy who hated weddings to one hundred percent warrior. It was moments exactly like this that he trained for.
The bride’s gown whispered as she walked to the front.
Gray gave him a nudge with his shoulder. “You’re on her,” he said. “I’m on the flower lady.”
Ronan nodded, moved as close to the altar as he could without drawing too much attention to himself. Now he could smell the bride’s perfume, tantalizing, as exotic and beautiful as the abundant flowers that bloomed in profusion in every open space of this incredible tropical hideaway.
