by Natalie Fox
She stepped back from him, hesitant, still unsure. Trying so desperately to get it all straight in her mind.
‘I…I feel trapped,’ she admitted nervously. She stepped further back. ‘No, don’t touch me, Daniel,’ she implored. She lifted her chin and looked at him, her eyes swimming with tears. ‘How can I be sure, you see? I’m thinking now about that wonderful night on the beach, how you worked so hard to make it right for me. It was beautiful. The most wonderful night of my life. Everything we have done together—swimming, diving, the pirates’ island…Everything—everything was wonderful, but all for…for Josh.’
Daniel shook his dark head. ‘Karis, we didn’t make love for Josh,’ he reasoned softly.
Her mouth dropped open. No, Josh had never been in their minds then. Just him and her and the long, sensual, tropical nights.
‘I…I know,’ she breathed tremulously, ‘but…Oh, I don’t know. So many other things. Simone said—’
‘When have you spoken with Simone?’ he asked darkly.
Karis pushed her hair back from her face, a nervous reaction. She wasn’t a sneak, telling tales. She had said too much already.
‘Karis, tell me. It’s important to us. I want to know everything that is troubling you.’
She bit her lip, then forced the words out because she wanted to be rid of them.
‘She…she stopped me coming after you back at Fiesta’s,’ she whispered, eyes averted from his. ‘Said I wasn’t needed any more, that you had used me.’ Bravely she lifted her head to look at him. ‘I saw you with her, her holding your arm and you agreeing with her that she was right and you blamed yourself.’
‘I was blaming myself, Karis. If we hadn’t gone to the island at my insistence Josh might not have been sick. The rest I don’t remember because I was more concerned for Josh.’ He stepped towards her and held his hands out to prove he wouldn’t touch her, both knowing any physical contact might cloud their reasoning. ‘You didn’t take the word of a scorned woman, did you?’
‘She was scorned because of me, Daniel,’ she insisted, ‘and because she was so cruel she…she must love you and I don’t feel good about that.’
‘She doesn’t love me, Karis. It would have been a marriage of convenience; they do exist, you know, and they can work too, if there are no outside influences. If Simone was spiteful to you it wasn’t because she loves me and lost me to you; it’s more a loss of prestige for her. She couldn’t love Josh and he couldn’t love her and she’ll feel a failure for that. You’re the success with Josh and she the failure.’
Karis shook her head and tried to smile. ‘And because of that you want me more than you want her. No, don’t deny it, Daniel; let me finish. I loved Josh before I loved you and, you see, that is the difference between you and me.’ She drew a long breath. ‘You say you love me but I’ll never know the truth; I’ll never know if…if you love me because of Josh, be—because you want to make it right for him.’
He looked at her, his eyes unwavering; for a long, long time he looked at her. And then he spoke, words that chilled her to the very bone.
‘And you never will know, Karis.’
He moved then, went to the window and moved the blinds so he could look out into the dark night. Karis felt the chill of his words and the chill of the air-conditioning and knew it was all hopeless.
‘You see,’ he breathed, and Karis lifted her head to look at him but he wasn’t looking at her, he was gazing out into that secret world of his where she had never belonged, ‘Josh loves you and you accept it because it is unconditional love; love given by a child always is. You love him back because of his love for you. I wonder if you would be quite so fond of him if he was still rejecting you?’
Karis gasped with shock. ‘That’s unfair!’
‘But true, Karis. At the time you needed him as much as he needed you. You had a common bond. It worked for you both. Now you are willing to break that bond because of your love for me.’ He turned then and faced her confused expression. ‘I now know you love me very deeply. Karis; how deeply I’ve only just realised tonight. You don’t know it yourself but you love me more than Josh. You are willing to give him up, you see, and you will have to give him up if you refuse to accept my love. You are willing to give him up because you can’t believe that I can love you and want you for yourself.’
She shook her head. She didn’t understand.
‘And that problem is yours, Karis,’ he told her thickly. ‘You see, I don’t have your doubts about my love. I know I love you but no amount of reasoning on my part will convince you that I want you in my life for me and not Josh.’
‘Th—that’s what you meant when you said I never will know?’ she asked hopefully.
He shrugged. ‘Karis, I can say I love you and want you in my life till I’m blue in the face but if your heart isn’t open to me you will never know for sure.’
He took a deep breath and came towards her. She flinched, terrified he would touch her and she would fall into his arms and beg for some sort of salvation from what he had just given her to live with. A damning condemnation of her lack of faith and trust in him.
‘I’m going out for a walk,’ he told her, and she realised his tone was cold and bereft of any feeling, his way of blocking out the hurt she had inflicted on him.
She lay on the bed after he had gone, coiled in the foetal position, hugging herself for comfort. He was wrong; her heart was open, wide open and hurting so very badly. It was hurting for him and for herself. And why was she putting herself through such grief? Because of Aiden, because he had undermined her so? Daniel wasn’t Aiden. Daniel was the only man she had ever truly loved; this pain she was experiencing was testimony to that.
Aiden had hurt her that night, rejected her so cruelly because of her pregnancy, but it was nothing, nothing to this agony of loss and despair she felt as she let Daniel slip away from her. Aiden was gone, a sad memory, nothing more. Daniel could never be a memory. He was so deeply ingrained in her heart he was there for this life and the next. He was her life and he would be gone from it if she didn’t…open up her heart to him.
Later she sat up and took the little sapphire ring from the drawer of the cabinet next to the bed, her eyes soft and luminous as she gazed down at it with joy. It, like him, was beautiful, so very precious. She looked around the clinical room with its pale grey walls, blinds and metal-framed beds and smiled. It was a hell of a room to get engaged to be married in, she thought as she slipped the ring on the third finger of her left hand. It fitted perfectly, as if made for her.
She knew he would be next door with Josh. He wouldn’t have walked far from his son.
He was sitting holding Josh’s hand and looked up when she opened the door. Karis smiled and stood behind his chair and wafted her left hand in front of his face. She bent and whispered in his ear, ‘I went ahead and did it myself.’
With a deep sigh he let go of his son’s hand and took hers and pressed the ring to his warm mouth. Eventually he stood up and took her in his arms and kissed her waiting lips, a kiss so deep and passionate with promise she knew she was forgiven.
At last they drew apart and Daniel smiled adoringly at her.
‘It never was meant as an engagement ring,’ he murmured. ‘Just a promise of something better and more exotic to come.’
‘Oh,’ she breathed, holding him and smiling up at him. ‘Like what?’
‘A diamond as big as a star.’
‘This will do for me,’ she told him softly. ‘I’m too wild and unkempt for diamonds as big as stars. Anyway, I prefer the real thing. Stars in a velvety sky with a moon lighting them up.’
He kissed the tip of her nose. ‘As I said before, it was my mother’s ring. The only thing I have left of her. I’ve always carried it, since childhood. I’ve waited a lifetime to give it to the woman I love. No one else has ever worn it,’ he added meaningfully.
And Karis knew that he meant Josh’s mother but she didn’t want confirmation. She didn’t n
eed it. She knew he loved her.
‘You’re kissing,’ came a small voice from the bed.
Daniel and Karis, arms around each other, turned to the little boy and smiled down at him.
‘Yes, son,’ Daniel said tenderly. ‘And you had better get used to it because you are going to see plenty more in your lifetime.’
Josh went back to sleep with a happy smile on his face.
A week later Daniel drew Karis into his arms. It was dark and rain tipped over the cottage in Levos. No moon, no stars but their passion lightened the tropical night A passion they’d had to curtail in the hospital room in Castries till Josh was well and ready to leave.
Now, just as the rains flooded the island, they flooded themselves with their love. Passionate arousal, wanting and needing each other so much, moving together, loving each other till dawn.
‘And I’ll still be here in the morning when Josh and Tara come rushing in,’ Daniel told her finally, clasping her love-sated body to his.
Karis laughed softly and pressed her warm lips to his neck. ‘You’d better be,’ she murmured happily. ‘And you’d better hurry up and make it legal because Saffron is already making me a wedding dress.’
‘Oh, no,’ groaned Daniel, and it was the last thing he said before slipping into a deep sleep of exhaustion.
And before she slipped away herself Karis gathered her thoughts together and dwelled happily on them. Fiesta was organising their wedding on the island. Just themselves and Josh and Tara and the staff—a quiet wedding, she had promised, but Karis knew better. She wondered how her parents would cope with a wild Caribbean wedding party. Daniel had insisted they fly out, saying that it was time they bit on their stiff upper lips and realised they had grand-parental responsibilities.
She knew it would be all right when they arrived. Daniel would make sure it was, just as he made sure everything was all right.
‘I love you, darling,’ she breathed against his warm skin. He moaned softly and tightened his hold on her and she knew he hadn’t heard but that he knew all the same.
EPILOGUE
‘THERE they are!’ Josh cried from the rail of the yacht as they approached the jetty at Levos. Tara pushed him aside to get a better look. Josh gripped her hand tightly to stop her trying to climb the rail. ‘Look, Tara, Grandpa and Grandma too. They come every year to join us. Mummy said they used to be ever so grumpy but they aren’t any more. And there’s Fiesta. Wave to her, Tara.’
‘We have a new brother,’ Josh shouted at Saffron who was waving a red bandanna from the beach.
‘They know that,’ Daniel laughed, standing behind him with his arm around Karis who was cradling six-month-old baby Jacob in her arms.
‘What they don’t know is there’s another following close behind,’ Karis muttered under her breath. She was two months pregnant again.
Daniel squeezed her shoulder. ‘I wish I knew what the devil was causing it,’ he teased, and then he turned to her. ‘Do you mind?’
She grinned up at him happily. ‘I want a football team.’
‘Baseball,’ he corrected her. ‘And I think we’ll soon have to think in terms of a nanny.’
‘Oh, yes, some wild, unkempt person for you to fall in love with? Not if I can help it.’ She laughed.
‘Christ, I love you,’ he breathed, and kissed her full on the lips.
‘Daddy,’ Josh wailed, turning to his father and frowning with disapproval. ‘Saffron will hear you swearing.’
‘Thank goodness we didn’t persuade her to come to Florida with us,’ Daniel whispered for Karis’s ears only.
‘She would never leave Levos, Daniel. And you compromising by us coming down here for three months of the year proves you love her as much as we do.’ Karis laughed.
Daniel breathed deeply. ‘It’s good to be back,’ he said happily, and Karis smiled and leaned her head on his shoulder.
And as Leroy hurried along the jetty to greet them and unload their mountain of luggage Karis reflected on that first time she had seen Daniel, standing at the same rail on this very boat. Stiff and unyielding, not wanting to be here, dreading meeting his son again, dreading yet more rejections. They were inseparable now. Father and son, bonded for evermore.
Karis went to clasp her wonderful husband’s hand in her own but unfortunately it was already occupied by two warm little hands—Josh’s and Tara’s. Karis sighed happily as Leroy’s brother enthusiastically started up the steel band to welcome them ashore. Soon Jacob’s little hand would be slipping into Daniel’s, then another’s, boy or girl, she didn’t mind, and nor did Daniel. And she didn’t mind one little bit that Daniel Kennedy’s hands were full now because later when the children were all asleep they would be full of her.
He did it every time they came here, always on the first night. He did what a man had to do. Her wonderful husband would sneak Fiesta’s best china and crystal and silver out of the plantation house for that amazingly romantic barbecue on the beach. And they would drink champagne and eat mouth-watering steaks and then he would roll her around in the surf and…well, do what a man had to do.
eISBN 978-14592-6274-4
A MARRIAGE IN THE MAKING
First North American Publication 1998.
Copyright © 1997 by Natalie Fox.
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterpnses Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
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