The Long Way Back

by JoAnn Ross

  “I’m sorry. But I can’t marry you, Caine.”

  “Can’t? Or won’t?” Nora thought she detected a note of vulnerability in his tired tone.

  “You have to understand.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to do.” Although Caine’s voice remained calm, his eyes were not. “But you have to remember that I’m just a dumb jock. So perhaps you’d better try speaking slowly. And stick to words with no more than two syllables.”

  Caine’s passion had always simmered just below the surface. Such intensity had always been exciting to Nora. At this moment, she was discovering that it could also be frightening.

  Her nerves in a tangle, she pulled the rumpled sheet up to cover her breasts. “What we shared was wonderful, Caine. It always was. But it’s not enough.”

  How could such an intelligent woman not see that after such intense lovemaking, she belonged to him? The same way he belonged to her.

  “It’s not enough because you won’t let it be,” he argued. “We both finally came home tonight, Nora. Where we belong. I want to spend all the rest of my nights with you, for fifty—hell, if we’re lucky—even sixty or seventy-five years.

  “I want to go to sleep every night with my arms wrapped around you and I want to wake up every morning knowing that you’re beside me. I want to grow old with you, Nora.”

  Dear Lord, that’s what she wanted, too. But there was something else. Something she knew he was leaving out.

  “What about children?”

  Don’t let me mess this up, he begged whatever unforeseen fates had taken control of their lives.

  Caine took a deep breath and chose his words very carefully.

  “I know you’ve always considered me selfish. And perhaps I am. Because since coming back to Tribulation, I’ve discovered I want it all, sweetheart.

  “I want to marry you and live in a house with a white picket fence. I want a stupid, friendly mutt who’ll track mud in on the freshly washed floors, steal the steaks off the backyard barbecue and dig up the tulip bulbs every spring.

  “And yes, I want children.”

  This was probably one of the longest speeches he’d ever made in his life. Reminding himself that it was also the most important, Caine took a deep breath.

  “The best thing we ever did, in spite of ourselves, was create Dylan,” he said, his voice gruff with emotion. “I love you, Nora. I want to have a family with you. Kids, Mom, Pop, a dog, the works.”

  Nora went ice-cold. Hands, feet, heart. “And where is this dream house going to be located? Detroit? And for how long?”

  He flinched, knowing she had a point. There had been a time when he’d been so caught up in chasing his own dream, he would have thought nothing of dragging his family across the country, from town to town, wherever there was a baseball stadium.

  “I didn’t realize that the word had already gotten out.”

  “What word?”

  “That I’d been offered the coaching job in Detroit.”

  “Oh.” Amazingly, she hadn’t known. Maggie’s death had definitely put a crimp in Tribulation’s rapid-fire gossip line. “Congratulations.”

  Caine shrugged. “I turned it down.”

  It was one more surprise in a night of surprises. “Why?”

  Caine stared down at her in disbelief. Hadn’t she been listening to a single word he’d said? “So I could stay in Tribulation. With you.”

  “I can’t let you turn down an opportunity to stay in baseball for me.”

  “I’m not turning it down entirely because of you, Nora. I’d already decided to take over Maggie’s charter business. It was what Gram wanted and the more I thought about it, the more I found myself liking the idea.”

  The decision had proven surprisingly easy. In the beginning, before Maggie’s death, he’d suspected that the odds of Nora being willing to leave Tribulation and follow him to Detroit were slim to none. But, dammit, he’d told himself over and over again, he wasn’t asking her to give up medicine; she could practice in Detroit. Perhaps, he’d considered, if he couched things carefully, he could make her understand that baseball had always been, aside from her and Dylan, the most important thing in his life.

  But by the time he’d finished polishing the cabin windows he’d realized that he didn’t really want to return to living out of a suitcase, never having any sense of belonging.

  What he wanted was for him and Nora to sink their own family roots into the forest soil of a town that had been home to so many generations of Andersons and O’Hallorans.

  “So you’re staying?” She’d be seeing him almost every day. On the street, in the market, perhaps even here at the clinic. The idea was as terrifying as it was wonderful.

  “For good.”

  “Well…if it’s what you really want to do…”

  “It is.” Sighing, he linked their fingers together and brought them to his lips. “I told you, downstairs, that I was going to leave before I stooped to begging, but dammit, if that’s what it takes—”

  “No.” She pressed the fingers of her free hand against his mouth, silencing him. “There’s nothing you can say that’ll change my mind, Caine.”

  “Nothing? Are you sure about that?”

  “Positive.”

  Instead of moving away, as she had expected him to, Caine drew her close. He pressed his lips against her temple. “You’re far too passionate a woman to give up what we have together.” He kissed her eyelids. Her cheek. Her chin.

  “You said I could always make you fly,” he murmured, his lips gently brushing against her mouth. “But I only ever felt that way with you. Let’s fly together, Nora. You and me. Forever.”

  His words and his kisses caused a renewed flare of warmth. Against all common sense, Nora tilted her head back, giving his mouth access to her throat.

  A soft silvery mist was fogging her senses, her body began to yearn. “I want to,” she told him in a shuddering whisper.

  “I know.” His mouth skimmed down her throat, along her collarbone. Caine tugged the sheet free. “So why not marry me?”

  When his tongue stroked wetly along the aching slope of her breasts, Nora realized that she was teetering once again on the very edge of seduction.

  “Because,” she managed, “you want a family.”

  Caine was already imagining her hot and hungry beneath him. He was already remembering the soft little sounds she made when he made her rise, the look of astonished pleasure in her eyes when he took her over the edge. But Nora’s unexpected words sliced through his erotic fantasy like a sharp knife.

  “Are you telling me that you don’t?” That idea had never occurred to him.

  “No.” Her skin, which had been warm and prettily flushed from their lovemaking, had turned as cold as ice and as pale as sleet. “I don’t.”

  Moisture pooled in her distressed brown eyes.

  Comprehension, when it dawned, was staggering.

  “It’s because of Dylan, isn’t it?” A single tear escaped; Caine reached out and brushed it away. “Nora, sweetheart, what happened to Dylan was an accident. It could never happen again.”

  Didn’t he think she knew that? She was an intelligent woman. She had a wall downstairs covered with degrees to prove it. But that didn’t expunge the absolute fear she felt whenever she thought about having another baby.

  Loving a child was the greatest treasure any woman could ever know. And the greatest peril. And although she’d never considered herself a coward, Nora didn’t think she had the strength to ever face such risk again.

  “I don’t want to talk about Dylan.” Her hands pushed ineffectually at his chest.

  Caine tightened his hold. “Dammit, Nora. I can understand what you’re feeling. I can understand why you’re afraid. But although life doesn’t come with guarantees, I love you and you love me and that should be enough to get us through any storms that might come along.”

  “I can’t handle it, Caine,” Nora insisted, her voice rising unnaturally high.
“Losing Dylan almost destroyed me. I won’t risk that pain again. Not even for you.”

  “Not even for us?”

  “No.” The tears were flowing freely now. Nora dashed at them with the backs of her hands. “Not even for us.”

  “All right.”

  Caine dropped his hands to his sides although he wanted to go on holding her. Nearly as quickly as he’d dispensed with them in the first place, he located his scattered clothes and dressed while Nora watched silently, not trusting his sudden acquiescence.

  “I’m going to leave now,” he said, after he’d finished buttoning his shirt. “But there’s something you need to know.”

  “What now?”

  “Loving someone doesn’t necessarily mean losing them.”

  He bent down, captured her chin in his fingers and held her wary gaze to his. “This time, I’m not going to get in my car and drive away, just because things have gotten a little rough.”

  A little rough? Her heart was lying in tatters all over the floor and he was calling things a little rough?

  “I love you, Nora Anderson O’Halloran,” he said, feeling an ache deep inside when his words and his use of her married name made her flinch. “Fully, totally, irrevocably. With every fiber of my being.

  “And being an admittedly greedy man, I intend to spend the rest of my life making love with you here in this bed, or in front of a roaring fire, or even in the lake behind my cabin.”

  “We’d drown,” Nora couldn’t resist saying.

  He smiled at that and she knew she was in major trouble when the sight warmed her to the core. “Not if we’re careful.” He ran his finger down the slope of her nose. “How long can you hold your breath?”

  Before she could respond, he gave her a quick, hard kiss. “What do you think about an August wedding? The weather should be warm and sunny and your grandmother’s flowers will be in full bloom, so we can hold the ceremony in her garden.”

  He was doing it again—refusing to listen to a word she said. Nora welcomed the burst of irritation; it overrode her pain.

  “Caine, we’re not going to get married.”

  “Wanna bet? Or are you afraid to put your money where that luscious mouth of yours is?”

  She’d never been able to resist that challenge in his eyes. “All right, dammit. Fifty dollars.”

  “That’s chicken feed. Five hundred says you’ll be Mrs. Nora O’Halloran before the summer’s over.”

  It was more than she could safely risk. But frustration at the way some things never changed made Nora rash. “You’re on.”

  “Terrific.” He brushed a hand down her hair and followed the corn-silk strands around her jaw. “Remind me to remind you of this conversation on our fiftieth anniversary. When we’re sitting on the porch in our rocking chairs, holding hands and watching our grandchildren splashing around in the lake behind the cabin.”

  “For the last time—”

  He bent his head and touched his mouth to hers. “See you around, sweetheart,” he said when the brief, possessive kiss ended. “Call me when you’ve changed your mind.”

  And then, to her astonishment, he was gone.

  Nora sat there in the middle of the rumpled sheets still redolent of their lovemaking, and listened to Caine take the stairs two at a time.

  Downstairs, the grandfather clock struck the hour with a flurry of Westminster chimes. She heard the front door open, then close. And then there was only silence.

  Dark, lonely silence.

  CHAPTER 13

  Although Caine spoke with Nora on the phone almost daily, filling her in on the progress of the trauma center, he managed, with Herculean effort, to keep his promise to stay away for four long and lonely weeks.

  Despite the fact that the charter business was booming, he made time to talk public-relations firms in New York, Washington, D.C., and Seattle into donating their services. In addition, he’d convinced the governor to agree to declare the first week in September Children’s Safety Week.

  And if that wasn’t enough to make his ex-wife sit up and take notice, an Academy Award-winning movie director Caine had once met at a New York premier was traveling around the country, filming a documentary about children in the emergency room. The Dylan Anderson O’Halloran Memorial Foundation was only paying the director’s expenses; when contacted by Caine, the woman had agreed to donate her time and equipment.

  Although Nora knew it took more than PR and governmental declarations and films to build a hospital, all the proclamations and public relations had already brought in a stunning amount of money.

  As she watched Caine’s unflagging devotion to this cause, which was so important not only to her, personally, but to all the children of the state, Nora was forced to admit how badly she’d misjudged him.

  And with that realization came a long hard look at her own life. It wasn’t that she’d purposely shied away from marriage since her divorce. In the beginning, work had required all her energy. Then, once she’d begun to date, she’d quickly discovered that although men might not be imbued with a woman’s biological clock, they all definitely seemed to possess a strong sense of dynasty.

  After Dylan’s death, Nora had vowed never to give birth to another child. The risk was too great, the pain of loss too overwhelming. Whenever the man she was dating realized that she had no intention of bearing his child, he would drift on in quest of some woman who would, leaving Nora alone. Again.

  The truth was, Nora was tired of being alone. The even greater truth was that there was only one man she wanted to share her life with. A month ago, Nora had been trying to convince herself that marrying Caine would be impossible. Now she knew that the impossibility would be not marrying him.

  More nervous than she’d ever been in her life, and more determined, Nora left the hospital at the end of her shift and headed for the airstrip. Toward her future.

  Caine had just landed a red-and-white six-seater aircraft and was taxiing to the hangar when he saw Nora’s car headed down the road toward the tarmac.

  “It’s about time.” He was on the ground, but his heart was suddenly back in the air.

  “Handles like a dream, doesn’t she?” the enthusiastic salesman beside him said, misunderstanding Caine’s murmured statement. “And the club seating in the back is perfect for your kind of recreational charter work.”

  “She’s a sweetheart, all right,” Caine agreed, trying to keep his mind on bringing the turbocharged plane to a gradual stop when what he wanted to do was jump out of the cockpit, run across the tarmac, sweep Nora into his arms like some crazed guy in a shampoo commercial and never let her go again. She was parking next to his new blue Jeep.

  “And the price is right,” the man added.

  “I said, I like the plane,” Caine interrupted impatiently. He cut the engine, unfastened his seat belt and opened the pilot’s door. “But something’s come up. I’ve got your card. Why don’t I call you tomorrow morning?”

  Nora was getting out of her car. Caine saw a flash of thigh. “Make that tomorrow afternoon,” he decided.

  Business taken care of, he began briskly striding across the tarmac as Nora walked toward him.

  They met halfway.

  “Hi,” she said softly.

  “Hi, yourself.”

  “Nice plane. Is it new?”

  “I’m thinking about buying it.”

  “Nice truck, too. Where’s the Ferrari?”

  He grinned. “I sold it. Figured it was time I bought a halfway grown-up car.”

  “It still suits you,” Nora decided. Caine saw the flash of blue as she combed her left hand nervously through her hair. He caught her hand on its way down.

  “I like your ring. It looks familiar.”

  “I like it, too.” Breathless, Nora smiled up at him. “In fact, I was thinking about keeping it.”

  It was going to be all right, Caine realized. They were going to be all right. “Oh? For how long?”

  “How does fifty or sixty yea
rs sound?”

  “Not bad. For starters.” He pulled her close and gave her a long, heartfelt kiss.

  Nora threw her arms around his neck and kissed him back, earning a rousing cheer from the ground crew.

  “Come on, sweetheart,” Caine murmured huskily. “Let’s get out of here. Before we have to start selling tickets.”

  “Which house?”

  “For now, yours, because it’s closer. But later, why don’t we live in the cabin and save your place for your clinic?” he suggested. “Until we get you pregnant. Then we can build that house with the picket fence.”

  The minute he heard himself say the words, Caine realized he was pushing again. He held his breath, waiting for Nora to stiffen in his arms.

  Surprisingly, the decision to have children, once Nora had accepted her feelings for Caine, hadn’t proved as difficult as she’d feared. She had no doubt that Caine loved her. And she loved him.

  And it was that love which made the risk worthwhile.

  “That sounds like a wonderful solution,” she agreed.

  Relief came in cooling waves. With his arm wrapped around her waist, Caine began walking with her back to her car.

  “By the way, Dr. Anderson, you owe me five hundred bucks.”

  She’d forgotten all about their ridiculous bet.

  Happier than she could ever remember being, Nora threw back her head and laughed. “Luckily for me, I’m going to have a rich husband to pay off my gambling debts.”

  * * *

  The room looked and smelled like an explosion at a Rose Bowl Parade. Flowers were everywhere; on the utilitarian pine dresser, the metal dining tray, the windowsill, the floor.

  “Wow! Look at this!”

  Eight-year-old Johnny O’Halloran, wearing a blue Little League uniform with O’Halloran Air Charters stenciled on the back in bright red letters, plucked a white card from an enormous white wicker basket overflowing with tiger lilies, creamy orchids, purple gladioli and trailing jasmine vines.

  “Miguel Cabrera,” he breathed with wonder.

  “How soon they forget,” Caine grumbled good-naturedly to Nora. “I can remember a time not all that long ago, when the kid had me up on that lofty pedestal.”