No, she wouldn’t even entertain that possibility. She was going to be strong and brave and optimistic. She was going to find him, and when she did she would tell him she loved him. She’d tell him the sight of him drowning his problems in whiskey had terrified her, and the possibility that he might do such a thing again terrified her even more. But she would brave that terror to find him, to see if she could forgive him, to see if she could ever trust him with her heart.
As she approached her house, she saw his car in her driveway and Aaron himself sitting on her front-porch steps. He wore jeans, a T-shirt and sandals. In his hand he clutched a bouquet of wildflowers, blue and red and yellow blossoms on thin green stalks.
She pulled into the driveway behind him and got out of the car. He watched her, the multitude of colors in his eyes glinting like sparks.
At the steps to the porch she halted. He rose to his feet. His mouth was set in a grim line and a muscle ticked in his jaw. “I’m late for dinner,” he said.
She drew in a deep breath. Standing next to him ignited a throbbing heat inside her. She remembered the romantic dinner she’d prepared, the hopes she’d had for Friday night, before everything had gone wrong.
His eyes looked surprisingly clear, considering. His body looked surprisingly pain-free. If he was hung over, she saw no sign of it. “How do you feel?” she asked.
“Like hell.”
“Aspirin helps.”
A smile seemed to threaten his mouth, but he resisted it. “I feel like hell here,” he said, poking his thumb into his chest. “I blew it, Lily. I did the one thing you could never accept. And I feel like hell.” He glanced down at the flowers, then pressed the small bouquet into her hands. “I was going to bring you roses Friday night. This was the best I could do on a Sunday morning. Anyway…I’m sorry.” He held her gaze for less than a second, then lowered his eyes and moved past her, as if he intended to leave.
She grabbed his wrist to keep him from going. The feel of his skin sent a fresh surge of yearning through her. She did her best to ignore it. She couldn’t think about what sleeping with him had been like, and waking up with him, and loving him through the night. Aaron was about to walk out of her life. She had to stop him.
“I just came from your house,” she told him. “I went there to apologize.”
Surprise flickered across his face. “What do you have to apologize for?”
“Judging you. Leaving you. Hating you for what you were doing to yourself.”
“Of course you hated me. Why wouldn’t you?”
“But it wasn’t up to me to approve or disapprove of you. You went through a horrible experience, Aaron, and there I was, deciding you should have reacted differently. I had no right to do that.”
“I was drinking to get drunk, Lily.”
“I know.”
“Not just because of Steele and my mother. Because…” He swallowed. “Because of who I am. You need to know this about me, Lily. I’m a punk. An outsider. The town bastard. That’s who I am. I drank in front of you deliberately, so you’d see that.” Gazing past her, he let out a long breath. “I’m not the kind of man you deserve. You’re a princess. I’m no prince.”
The spicy scent of the wildflowers drifted up between them. It made her want to cry. Aaron’s determination to make her reject him made her want to cry even more.
“I don’t want a prince,” she said. “I want a man. I don’t care if you make mistakes—God knows, I make more than my share. You’re not a drunk, Aaron. You were trying really hard to get drunk Friday night, but that doesn’t make you a drunk.”
“Friday night you wouldn’t have said that.”
“Friday night I was too selfish to realize what kind of pain you were in.” Her fingers softened against his wrist but didn’t let go. “I hated it that you were drinking, Aaron, but I wasn’t even thinking about you. I was thinking about what I’d been through with Tyler. That wasn’t fair to you.” She stroked the skin of his wrist with her thumb, searching his face for a sign that she was getting through to him, that he believed her, that he knew how much she loved him. “You’re not a punk, Aaron. You’re a strong, brave man. I don’t ever want to hear you say such things about yourself again.”
At last he turned back to her. His gaze met hers, testing, measuring. “What would you do if you saw me drinking like that again?”
“I’d shake you till your teeth rattled. I’d scream at you. I’d wail. I’d beg. I’d tell you I loved you and wanted you to stop. I don’t know.” She offered a hesitant smile. “Would any of that work?”
“The last strategy might.” He remained solemn, even as her smile expanded. “Lily, I mean it. I’m not just the town bastard. I’m Abraham Steele’s bastard.” He shook his head. “My whole past is so screwed up—”
“That’s not important. I mean, of course it’s important, but it’s not as important as your present. And your future. You’re a teacher. A counselor. A coach. A role model. And a pretty decent art critic, too.”
Another smile, faint but promising, flickered across his lips at that last description.
“You know, I don’t even like hard liquor that much.”
“Good.” She skimmed her hand up his arm to his shoulder and pulled herself up to kiss his cheek. “Do you forgive me?”
“There’s nothing to forgive.”
“There’s plenty. I want your forgiveness, Aaron.”
He studied her upturned face. His eyes were so intense, so full of need, so desperately hopeful. “Anything you want, Lily. If I can give it to you, I will.”
“I want you,” she murmured.
“I’m yours,” he said. Plain, blunt, lacking eloquence, but they were the two most beautiful words she’d ever heard.
She closed her arms around him as he lowered his mouth to hers. They kissed, with forgiveness and love, all the love they had to give, all the love they would ever need. Later they would talk about what Aaron had been through, how he was going to deal with it. They would figure out how a man who had grown up believing he was an outsider could accommodate the knowledge that he was, in fact, the son of the ultimate insider. They would work it out.
But for now, they had already worked out the most important truth. She and Aaron loved each other. He was hers and she was his. And there was more than enough forgiveness to share.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-4912-1
BIRTHRIGHT
Copyright © 2000 by Barbara Keiler.
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