Gypsy

by Carole Mortimer

  She had seen that herself when Marilyn held Richard in the hospital.

  ‘I watched her grow from a beautiful butterfly to an embittered woman intent on using my name to further her career if she couldn’t get anything else from the marriage. I felt I owed her that much at least, that if she wanted to keep the marriage it was the least I could do for her. I certainly never intended marrying again,’ he recalled flatly. ‘When I met you you were like a bright shining star I was afraid to touch in case you disappeared, a vivacious gypsy who danced her way into my heart. But I couldn’t marry you and watch you become like Marilyn. I had no idea my million to one chance of ever having a child had come—and that I lost it.’

  ‘Or that I kept the truth from you even when I found out that you believed yourself incapable of fathering a child,’ Shay groaned. ‘I wanted to hurt you as I had been hurt, even though it was a silent retribution.’

  ‘It was the least I deserved for what I did to—’

  ‘No,’ she disagreed heatedly. ‘It was a warped part of the sickness of believing I hated you. But when I thought that Derrick was going to kill you today—!’ She shuddered at the memory. ‘I wanted to die too.’

  ‘Shay!’ he moaned.

  ‘Lyon, I know you did what you thought was best six years ago, but you had no right to make that decision for me, even if there had never been a baby,’ she told him urgently. ‘It was my decision to make, not yours. Not having children wasn’t what changed Marilyn, it was your reaction to it that did that.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right, I don’t know.’ He shook his head wearily. ‘I just knew I couldn’t put you through that, see the love turn to contempt, and finally to hate.’

  ‘But you made me hate you anyway,’ she groaned. ‘After that I would have done anything to make you pay for what I suffered, and keeping the truth to myself didn’t seem such a difficult thing to do. After all, you had believed for years that you were sterile, why shouldn’t you go on believing it!’ She shook her head in self-disgust. ‘I think I must have been slightly insane.’

  ‘You couldn’t really think I wanted you for any other reason than because I wanted Richard when you only knew half the facts,’ he sighed. ‘God, I broke down and cried after Matthew told you about my sterility that day!’

  ‘I already knew what you believed,’ she admitted huskily. ‘Marilyn told me before I had Richard.’

  ‘I knew something was different about you after her visit to you,’ he gasped. ‘You changed, and it certainly wasn’t for the better. I’ve always been able to deal with your fiery temper, but your coldness had always left me defeated. You became alternately pliant and cold after that day, not my fiery Shay at all. On my way over to Derrick’s today I decided a lot of things, sort of like my life flashing before me,’ he said wryly. ‘Shay, I was only joking!’ he assured her as she paled to a sickly white. ‘I was going to come back tonight and tell you everything, to throw myself on your mercy. I’ve done so many things wrong in my life, staying married to Marilyn being one of them. I should have made her divorce me years ago, make a new life for herself. She always insisted it wasn’t what she wanted, that she was happy the way things were, but I should have made her make the break.’

  ‘I don’t think any other man has ever mattered as much to her as you have,’ she told him.

  ‘I care about her too,’ Lyon grated. ‘I always will,’ he added hesitantly, watching her closely.

  Shay smiled at him reassuringly. ‘I know that; I’m not asking you ever to forget that affection you have for Marilyn. Just as I don’t think you’ll ever begrudge what Ricky meant to me.’

  ‘I owe him so much!’ Lyon trembled as he once again realised how close he had come to losing Shay for ever.

  She squeezed his hand. ‘We both do.’

  ‘If you had died—’

  ‘But I didn’t, Lyon,’ she told him firmly. ‘I lived. And it’s all over now.’

  ‘Not for us,’ he told her fiercely. ‘Please marry me, Shay. Complete me!’

  ‘Yes,’ she answered simply, knowing she had only been half alive without him.

  ‘But?’ He sensed the hesitation in her. She shook her head. ‘I—Now that you know you can have children of your own, how are you going to feel about Richard?’ she asked anxiously.

  ‘I love him,’ he told her instantly.

  ‘Enough?’ She couldn’t take her own happiness at the expense of her son’s, wanted him to grow up loved and loving.

  ‘More than enough,’ Lyon assured her gently. ‘Didn’t I help you bring him into the world? Shay, I don’t want to take anything away from Ricky, I’ll tell Richard all about him when the time is right, but I want to bring him up as my own son.’

  ‘Lyon!’ She moved into his arms. ‘Make love to me!’ she pleaded, needing the closeness with him now. ‘Let’s share our love as we never have before.’

  ‘Shay, there may never be any more babies,’ he frowned. ‘We’ve had our one million to one chance.’

  She looked up at him unblinkingly. ‘We will have another child, Lyon.’

  ‘Shay—’

  ‘Trust me, Lyon,’ she said softly.

  ‘I don’t care about a child of my own any more, all I want is you and Richard,’ he grated fiercely.

  ‘You have us,’ she assured him huskily. ‘You’ll always have us.’

  ‘Always is a long time.’ He looked at her intently.

  ‘Not long enough.’ She took his hand and led him into the bedroom.

  Their lovemaking was beautiful, each touch a caress, each glance a promise of their love, burning for each other, needing, wanting, reaching the very pinnacle of their desire at the same moment, only to have that desire instantly renewed, making love again and again, unable to get enough of each other.

  * * *

  LYON DIDN’T SLEEP as Shay dozed beside him, her head on his shoulder. Today he had begun to live again after feeling as if he were alone in his living hell, and now he just wanted to hold Shay, to look at her, to take in the knowledge that she was really his, at last loving him again as he loved her. What they had been through had only strengthened the love they had for each other.

  ‘Lyon?’ She stirred sleepily, worn out from their lovemaking.

  ‘Yes, darling?’ He smiled down at her gently, knew she would never mistake him for any other man again.

  ‘I’m going to write a follow-up to Scarlet Lover,’ she murmured.

  ‘You are?’ he frowned.

  ‘Mm,’ she smiled, ‘and this time Leon will get Adelia. After all, it was because of that book that I was able to find you today.’

  He swallowed hard, his arms tightening about her. ‘I think—I think it’s only fair Leon should get his love too, don’t you?’ He knew what she was telling him, his emotions full.

  ‘Oh yes.’ She turned and nestled into his body.

  ‘I’ll always be here at your side now, Shay,’ he told her intently.

  ‘I know that.’ She purred like a contented kitten as she fell asleep in his arms.

  He hoped she purred like that for the rest of her life!

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  LYON stood in the driveway after parking the car, his sense of well-being increasing as he paused to look up at the house. But it was no longer just a house but a home. Shay had made it that the past five years, Falconer House now drawing people into its warmth instead of being an elegant shell.

  Shay.

  He still shook at the knowledge that she was his wife, knew he would never be complacent about the fact that she was his, that he cherished that knowledge every moment of his life.

  The years had been kind to them both, Shay more beautiful than ever, only the added grey at his temples to show that he was approaching his forty-fifth year. Not that he felt his age, Shay’s eternal youth enveloping him in her enjoyment of life, rarely a night passing when they didn’t share that exquisite lovemaking that still shook him to his very soul.

  Shay had continued to write
through the years, had written her follow-up to Scarlet Lover as she had promised to do, Purple Glory a fitting sequel. The two books continued to be reprinted each year, a powerful story of love lost and refound.

  ‘Darling?’

  His eyes glowed as he looked at the woman he loved more than life itself, her beauty framed in the doorway as she looked at him questioningly. His pulse quickened as it did every time he looked at the beautiful woman who was his wife.

  ‘I know birthday parties are something to be dreaded, especially for a five-year-old,’ she teased as she walked down the steps to meet him. ‘But that’s no reason to try and escape it by standing out here.’ She kissed him lingeringly on the mouth, and he couldn’t stop his arms from enveloping her convulsively as he buried his face in her scented hair. ‘Darling, what is it?’ She sounded concerned.

  ‘I love you.’ He choked with the emotion.

  ‘Oh, Lyon, I love you too.’ She cuddled into him, purring gently.

  ‘When you two have quite finished, perhaps you would like to come and see what your terrible child is doing now?’ Matthew derided from the doorway.

  With his arm still possessively about Shay’s waist, Lyon guided her up the steps to join his brother. ‘Wait until the twins are born.’ He mocked the fact that Matthew and Patty had just been told that the baby they were expecting in four months was plural. ‘You’ll be glad to snatch a few private moments when you can too!’

  The noise from the party in the dining-room could be heard out in the hallway, and Lyon looked down at Shay indulgently. Richard’s ‘fifteen or so’ guests seemed to be more like fifty!

  ‘It’s a little disorganised,’ Shay grimaced. ‘Marilyn had offered to help out but decided that number three couldn’t wait any longer, and Michael only had time to drop off Melissa and Mandy before rushing back to the hospital. So I’m afraid we have the two girls staying with us a few weeks earlier than expected.’

  Marilyn had married her policeman only three months after Lyon and Shay were married, and after coveting the Falconer name so long they had all realised how much Marilyn must love him when she changed her name to Marilyn O’Malley! The fact that she had instantly given up her career to present Michael with two girls, one after the other, had left no doubt in anyone’s mind of Marilyn’s love for him. After the two girls she and Michael were hoping for a boy this time.

  Neil and Patrick were the only ones missing from the family group today; Neil in the States with his American wife Robyn and their small son, Patrick due to come to them in a couple of weeks for Christmas, the elderly man still living in his beloved Ireland.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he answered Shay. ‘It will be company for—’ He broke off as they entered the dining-room to ‘see what their terrible child was doing now.’ Five-year-old Richard, with his mother’s purple eyes and the Falconer build, was standing protectively beside Beth as she precariously walked unaided.

  Despite Shay’s insistence that she would give him a child, he hadn’t really expected it to happen, his life already complete with Shay and Richard. But ten months ago Shay had presented him with this tiny miracle, her black curls and golden eyes making her impossible to resist. With Shay as his wife and Richard as his son Lyon hadn’t believed it was possible to be any happier, but Beth completed the family, Richard openly adoring of his small sister. As Shay had often complained, before she became pregnant with Beth, that Lyon was in danger of spoiling Richard, the little boy had adjusted very well to having a little sister. Beth was Lyon’s child, but Richard would always be special to him, his child through love if not through birth.

  ‘Isn’t she clever, Daddy?’ Richard looked up proudly, those purple eyes as heart-stoppingly lovely as his mother’s.

  ‘Yes, she is.’ But it was to Shay he turned, not Beth. ‘Very clever.’

  * * *

  SHAY UNDERSTOOD and echoed Lyon’s choked emotions. Life was good for them, so very very good.

  * * * * *

  Are you a big fan of 2015 RWA Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Carole Mortimer’s sensational romances and want more of them? Then be sure to check out these reader-favorite stories available for the first time in ebook:

  A Lost Love

  Devil Lover

  Pregnant by the Millionaire

  Gypsy

  Available Now!

  Also, be sure to collect:

  Velvet Promise

  Forgotten Lover

  Forbidden Surrender

  First Love, Last Love

  Available December 2015!

  www.Harlequin.com

  ISBN: 9781459291195

  Gypsy

  Copyright © 1985 by Carole Mortimer

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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