“I didn’t want to remember you,” he admitted. “I couldn’t bear to remember your face and the pity in your eyes.”
“Oh, my darling Burke. It wasn’t pity. It was sympathy and love you saw.”
“Love?”
“I think I must have fallen in love with you that night, but later, I convinced myself that I’d been wrong. Because silly me, I thought you’d fallen in love with me, too.”
Burke swallowed his tears, then wiped his face with his fingers. When he rose to his feet, he held Callie’s hands and brought her up with him. “You weren’t silly. I did fall in love with you, but I wouldn’t admit that, either. You’ve haunted me for two years.”
“Then our little Seamus…he—he really, truly was born from our love, wasn’t he?”
Burke surrounded her with his embrace, holding her close, longing to ease her pain. “We’re going to find him. He’s all right. He isn’t… He isn’t dead, Callie. We must believe that.”
“Where is he, Burke? Where is he!”
A group of children—five boys and three girls—walked up the road that led to Oakwood Farm, two galloping Irish setters on their heels. Burke saw them from the window in the parlor where he’d been standing for the past few minutes, pondering what action to take next. Callie sat across the room, and he knew she’d been praying continuously. Their son had been missing nearly two hours, and the search of the grounds had turned up nothing. Who were those children and what were they doing with Romulus and Remus? Burke wondered. If the children had found the dogs, was it possible that they had found Seamus, too? As they drew nearer, he noted that the eldest was probably ten and the youngest was only a toddler whose hands were held by two of the girls. A black-haired toddler. Burke rubbed his eyes. Seamus. The toddler was his son.
“Seamus!”
“What?” Callie shot to her feet.
“Outside,” Burke said. “There’s a group of children coming up the drive and Seamus is with them.”
“Oh, God!” Callie gulped in a deep, calming breath.
Together she and Burke raced out of the parlor and into the foyer. He jerked open the door and they ran outside, down the steps and up the drive.
“Seamus!” Calling her son’s name, Callie broke into a run.
Burke kept pace with her, but allowed her to reach down and swoop their child into her arms. She held him so tightly that he began to squirm.
“Mama, me play,” Seamus said and pointed to the children who surrounded Callie.
“Where did you find him?” Burke asked the eldest, the ten-year-old boy with a freckled face and sandy-brown hair.
“We didn’t exactly find him anywhere,” the boy replied. “Seamus has been playing with us. We’ve taken good care of him. He’s even had milk and biscuits”
“I don’t understand,” Callie said, clinging to a wriggling Seamus.
“I’m Dennis Lloyd and these are my cousins,” the boy said. “We were playing in the woods that connects your property to our grandfather’s and we saw Seamus near the stream. He told us his name, but we couldn’t understand much more of what he said.”
“So we took him with us,” one of the golden-haired little girls said. “We didn’t know he belonged here at Oakwood Farm. There’s never been a little boy here before when we’ve visited our grandparents.”
“Are you telling us that Seamus has been over at Windwood all this time?” Burke asked.
“Yes, sir,” the eldest boy said. “Even Grandfather was at a loss as to whose little boy he might be. He said he knew the man who owned Oakwood Farm wasn’t married and had no children.”
“I’ve never had the privilege of meeting Sir Michael,” Burke said. “So how is it that you knew to bring Seamus back here?”
“Oh, Grandmother insisted that the authorities be notified,” one of the other boys said. “But just as Grandfather started to ring the—”
“The gardener had been part of the search party.” The eldest girl broke in to finish the tale. “When he saw Seamus on the lawn playing ball with us, he informed Grandfather immediately and so—here we are.”
“Mrs. Lonigan and I can’t thank you enough for taking such good care of Seamus,” Burke said, smiling warmly at the group of children, not a one of them aware of the hell Seamus’s parents had recently endured.
“Yes, thank you.” Callie placed Seamus on her hip and he waved to his newfound friends. “All of you must come over soon to see Seamus.”
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you. We will,” the eldest boy replied, then turned to his cousins and said, “it will be dark soon. Grandmother told us that we mustn’t tarry.”
After waving goodbye to the children, Burke draped his arm around Callie and together they carried their son into the house. For hours neither of them could stop looking at Seamus, couldn’t stop kissing him and hugging him. They had just lived through a parent’s worst nightmare—a missing child.
After giving him his bath, Burke and Callie both read Seamus a story and together tucked him into bed. They stood for quite some time and watched him while he slept. Then Burke led Callie into the sitting area of his bedroom.
He loved this woman. He had loved her since the night he had fallen apart in her arms. Since the moment he had touched her, kissed her, made love to her. She had given him back his humanity, something he’d lost long ago. Something he’d begun losing the day Gene Harmon had chastised him for being a weakling because he’d dared to cry when his beloved dog, Skippy, had died. Year by year as he had grown into a man, raised by a stepfather who had been good to him but had been a stern taskmaster, Burke had become a hard, disciplined little soldier. Long before he had joined the ranks of the highly secretive SPEAR organization, he had taken on the persona of a tough guy.
When he sat beside Callie on the antique sofa, he caressed her face. “I realize that you’re tired and I could wait until tomorrow to have this conversation with you, but… I need to tell you everything.”
“What is it?” Callie asked, concern in her eyes.
“Nothing bad, my darling.” He couldn’t stop himself from kissing her, but he pulled back quickly and reached down to take her hands into his. “The reason I’ve been away for nearly a month is because I’ve been finishing up my last job for SPEAR. As of today, I’m officially retired.”
“Burke! Do you mean it? You’re no longer a secret agent?” She squeezed his hands.
“My only connection to SPEAR for the next few years will be as CEO of Lonigan’s Imports and Exports,” he explained. “Already SPEAR has installed a new agent as a VP in the company. He’ll take over and use his position at Lonigan’s as a cover for his supposedly real job as an arms dealer.”
“This is such wonderful news. You can be a real father to Seamus and—”
“And you and I can continue on as man and wife?” he asked.
“Do you want to stay married to me?”
“Callie, my darling—” he lifted her onto his lap and encompassed her within the cocoon of his arms “—there is nothing I want more than to be your husband until the day I die.”
“You do? You really do?”
“I do. I really do. Now the question is, do you want to be my wife for the rest of your life?”
Her chin trembled. Her bottom lip quivered ever so slightly. “You know that I do. I love you so much. I have ever since that night.”
“I remember how you held me when I wept for my father. How you gave me the courage to lose control and show my feelings.”
Tears gathered in the corners of Callie’s eyes. She wrapped her arms around his neck and gazed lovingly into his face.
“When I cried in your arms this afternoon,” Burke said, “I recalled everything about that night, including exactly what the woman I’d fallen in love with looked like. I love you, Callie Severin Lonigan. I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone.”
“Am I dreaming?” she asked. “Can this happiness be real?”
Burke stood, then swept her into his
arms and carried her into his bedroom. “I’m going to prove to you that you aren’t dreaming. By the time I finish with you, there won’t be a doubt in your mind that our love is very real.”
They undressed each other hurriedly, driven by the hurricane force of their desire and the long days and nights of celibacy they had both endured while they’d been apart. When they were naked, Burke took her with barely controlled passion, holding back just long enough to elicit an earth-shattering response from her hungry body. Afterward they lay in each other’s arms, unable to break the physical tie that bound them.
Hours later, when Callie awoke, she found Burke with his arm bracing his body in a half-sitting position, gazing at her. Her heartbeat went wild at the sight of him.
“What are you doing?” She sighed contentedly and smiled.
“Watching you, my darling.”
“Do you find me that fascinating?” she asked teasingly.
“I find you endlessly fascinating.”
“Oh, Burke.” She wrapped her arm around his neck and drew him down to her. “I love you so.”
He kissed her, then withdrew a few inches and said, “And I love you. You can’t imagine how much.”
“There’s something I meant to tell you earlier, but I fell asleep after we made love.” She gazed into his beautiful blue eyes and wondered if their second child, the one just beginning to grow inside her body, would look as much like Burke as Seamus did.
“Not another secret,” he said, a hint of a smile on his face.
“This time, I won’t keep your child a secret from you.”
Burke pulled free and sat up straight. “What do you mean, this time?”
“I’m pregnant,” she told him. “My guess is that it happened on our honeymoon. That one time when we didn’t use protection.”
“My God!”
“You aren’t upset, are you?”
Smiling broadly, he leaned over her. She saw plainly how he felt. The joy shone clearly in his eyes and in the expression on his face.
“A little sister for Seamus,” he said. “What could possibly be better? My life is perfect.”
“My life is perfect, too.” Callie sighed as Burke lowered his body over hers.
“And I intend to keep it that way, Mrs. Lonigan.”
He made love to her with the slow, practiced expertise that drove her mad with desire. And she returned the favor, exploring his body as he had hers, learning anew the wonders of his magnificent masculine form. And when fulfillment claimed them, they shared once again the incomparable pleasure of lovers whose hearts beat as one.
Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Beverly Barton for her contribution to the A Year of Loving Dangerously series.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-1745-4
HER SECRET WEAPON
Copyright © 2000 by Harlequin Books S.A.
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Her Secret Weapon Page 21
