Naked, he joined her. They drank the wine as he held her against him. She was soon drowsy, and though the pain of a friend’s betrayal and death did not disappear, it was banished to a corner of her mind.
After some time he picked her up, and he laid her out on the bed. He dried her naked flesh. Then he made love to her more tenderly than he had ever done before. She slept in his arms.
In the morning, she awoke and found him fully dressed, standing by the window. He seemed to sense that her eyes were on him because he turned to her, and she could see all the anguish in his face. He walked to the bed and sat beside her.
“I was…I was going to leave while you were sleeping,” he told her. “But then I felt I had to say goodbye.”
She didn’t say anything. The tears were welling in her eyes. He kissed her, a light kiss. But it became a deeper kiss, long and lingering.
“Don’t go,” she breathed to him.
“Kathy, I have to. If I ever hurt you again—” He tore away from her. He was on his feet and heading out the door.
She paused, her heart hammering. Then she was up, slipping on a terry robe and running after him.
He was already out the front door, heading down the walk.
“You idiot!” she called after him, and he paused, his back stiff. “You dumb idiot! Brent, I swear it, the only way for you to hurt me is to leave me! I could stand anything, anything at all, if you’re with me. Don’t you understand that? Brent, I love you. For the love of God, don’t walk away from me again. Brent, I need you.” She paused, then added softly, “Forever, my love.”
She waited, and it seemed that the earth spun full around the sun, and still he stood there.
Then he turned, and he was running to her. When he reached her, he was suddenly on his knees, and he was holding her against him, his face against her belly.
Her fingers lingered over his hair. Then she held his face up to her and she whispered, “Please, don’t leave me again, please.”
“Do you really think we can make it?”
“I know we can.”
“My temper is horrible.”
“So is mine. But that’s okay, Brent, don’t you see? Oh, Brent you were never out of control, never, never. It was just that with what happened, you thought…you lived with the belief— Brent, it just wasn’t true! Oh, Brent…”
He was on his feet, lifting her into his arms. He stared into her eyes and said, “Kathy, I love you. Forever.”
She smiled and touched his face. “Good. You can marry me again. And quickly. Okay? Enough of this living in sin. I’ll even invite Marla to the wedding.”
“And I’ll let Axel come. Maybe we can introduce them to each other.”
“Maybe,” Kathy said.
He closed his eyes, then opened them. “Kathy, I’m scared.”
Her eyes widened. He was never scared. She loved him for his honesty, for so many things. “I’m scared, too,” she whispered. “But don’t you see? It doesn’t matter if we’re together.”
He walked with her slowly toward the house. “I hate that other place. It was always new and empty. We’ll live here.”
“Wonderful.”
“We’ll have to help Keith get back on his feet.”
“Great. I’ll love to take care of his baby.”
“Baby! Shanna! We’ve got to reach her quickly.”
“Soon,” Kathy said, smiling. “It’s just that right now, well, you know, it’s not that you haven’t been just wonderful already, but, Brent, you’re going to stay. We’re engaged, right? We’re going to be married. We—”
“We can go for a license right now. And head straight for a justice of the peace. The hell with the wedding. We’ll invite Marla and Axel to a reception later.”
Kathy smiled. “I love it. But first…”
“First?”
She grinned and whispered, “You know that awful temper of yours?”
“Mmm?”
“Well, please, ravish me, will you? Just this one last time in sin. Then we’ll pick up the license and head to the justice of the peace.”
“Ms. O’Hara, that’s a last request I’m more than willing to fulfill,” he promised her.
And proceeded to do just that.
Epilogue
They sat in the doctor’s office. Kathy’s hand was in Brent’s, and he was listening intently to every word Doctor Langley was saying.
“Honestly, Mr. McQueen, miscarriage is a terrible thing because people blame themselves. Women always think they did something to injure the baby. And the truth of the matter is that women lose babies because something is wrong. But there is absolutely no reason to fear that anything will go wrong with this pregnancy.”
Brent didn’t even redden, Kathy thought with amazement. His eyes were gold and intense as he leaned forward and said, “Dr. Langley, I made love to my wife very passionately and—”
“Well, Mr. McQueen, most of us wouldn’t be here if that didn’t happen to our parents.”
“She nearly bled to death.”
“The placenta pulled away. It wasn’t your fault. But if it will make you feel better, abstain from sex until she’s finished with her first trimester. It’s never been proven that sex has anything to do with miscarriages, though. And we’ll see Mrs. McQueen every two weeks. At her age, I suggest an amniocentesis.”
They talked a while longer. Brent seemed relaxed, and Kathy was delighted that she had made him come.
They’d been married for seven weeks. But she must have gotten pregnant the night he broke into the house. Of course, the moment she told him, he’d panicked. He’d wanted to know why she hadn’t told him before, and she’d had to explain that she hadn’t known. Then she’d grinned and told him that she was awfully glad she hadn’t, because she definitely didn’t want to think he’d married her because he’d had to. He hadn’t laughed, so she had thought that taking him to Dr. Langley would be a great idea.
“Don’t you even wink at me for the next few months, young lady,” Brent warned her.
She laughed and promised him, “Okay, I won’t!”
She did worry that he would try to stay away from her, but he didn’t. Every night they slept closely together. Tightly, tenderly.
Then came the day for the amniocentesis. She was terrified at first, but it was all right. The echo sound showed them the baby’s tiny hands and feet and ribs. The nurse pointed out the four chambers of the heart, the kidneys and the brain, and she told them that the baby looked wonderful. When the doctor came, he was so pleasant and easy that he quickly had them both relaxed. He was a music lover, who teased with the nurse that they had best be good, lest Brent write them up as bad guys in a song.
Brent didn’t do so very well watching the needle going into her stomach, but he was fine after that. And as the days passed after the procedure and Kathy seemed fine, he began to be more at ease.
They’d agreed to find out the sex of the baby together. The lab called to tell them that the results were normal, that the baby looked fine. Brent asked them to send a letter with the sex of the baby.
He and Kathy were going to meet for an elegant dinner. She was in her fifth month, and they were going to celebrate with non-alcoholic champagne, a delicious meal, and…sex. After they learned that of their new offspring.
When the letter came, Kathy called him at Keith’s where he was working on a new album. She had a few things to do, but she’d meet him at the restaurant at eight. She’d made the reservations. She’d ordered the champagne. Everything was set.
She was stunning, he thought when he entered the restaurant and saw her. She had a glow about her. The soft silk maternity gown molded her breasts and fell softly over her growing stomach. She smiled, rose and kissed him.
“Got the letter?” he asked her.
She raised it.
“You didn’t steam it open, did you?”
“Of course not!” she protested.
He signaled the waiter, who came and poured their spe
cial champagne. When he disappeared, they both took a sip then smiled at each other. “Go ahead.”
Kathy shoved the letter over to him. “No, you.”
“All right” He slit the envelope, looking at her. “Would you rather it be a boy or a girl?”
“I don’t care, you know that. What would you rather it be?”
“A healthy baby.”
“We’ve got that.”
“I guess you’d like a son.”
“I don’t know. Shanna is wonderful.”
“Hmm. Okay, so neither of us cares. Let’s just open it and see.”
Brent pulled out the letter and scanned it quickly. Then he began to laugh.
“Brent!” Kathy said. He was still laughing. “Brent, which sex is so damned funny?”
He shook his head. He was still laughing.
“Brent—”
“All right, all right. I see the blue fire in those eyes! Kathy, it’s neither.”
“What do you mean, it’s neither? The baby has to be something!”
“That baby is, but Kathy, this isn’t the letter. This is the bill for services rendered.”
“Oh!” She snatched the letter and read it from top to bottom. Then she started to laugh, too. “Oh, Brent! The champagne, the dinner…”
“Well, they’re not wasted,” he said. “We’ll still have them. And I’m still on for the sex part, too,” he promised blithely.
She lowered her head and smiled. “Yeah, well, I’m rather into it myself.”
“Excuse me,” he told her. “I’ll be right back.”
She toyed with her glass. It was still going to be a great night. It was just that she had been so very set to know.…
Brent came back and slid into the seat. He leaned over and kissed her.
“Guess what?” he asked.
“What?”
“Blue.”
“What?”
“Start buying blue.” He smiled. “Kathy, it’s a boy.”
“How do you know?”
“I called Langley and got him out of bed. The results were sent to him right away. It’s a boy, Mrs. McQueen. Very definitely a healthy little boy. And we’ll keep him that way, Kath. I promise. I won’t be afraid, and I won’t let you be afraid.”
“A boy,” she murmured, grinning. She sipped from her glass and leaned against him, content.
“Brent.”
“What?”
“I really think we’re going to live happily ever after. I believe everything is going to be all right. And I love you so very much.”
He shushed her with a long, wet kiss and then his golden eyes looked into hers.
“Forever, my love,” he whispered.
She smiled and kissed him. Because she knew it was true.
A Biography of Heather Graham
Heather Graham (b. 1953) is one of the country’s most prominent authors of romance, suspense, and historical fiction. She has been writing bestselling books for nearly three decades, publishing more than 150 novels and selling more than seventy-five million copies worldwide.
Born in Florida to an Irish mother and a Scottish father, Graham attended college at the University of South Florida, where she majored in theater arts. She spent a few years making a living onstage as a back-up vocalist and dinner theater actor, but after the birth of her third child decided to seek work that would allow her to spend more time with her family.
After early efforts writing romance and horror stories, Graham sold her first novel, When Next We Love (1982). She went on to write nearly two dozen contemporary romance novels.
In 1989 Graham published Sweet Savage Eden, which initiated the Cameron family saga, an epic six-book series that sets romantic drama amid turbulent periods of American history, such as the Civil War. She revisited the nineteenth century in Runaway (1994), a story of passion, deception, and murder in Florida, which spawned five sequels of its own.
In the past decade, Graham has written romantic suspense novels such as Tall, Dark, and Deadly (1999), Long, Lean, and Lethal (2000), and Dying to Have Her (2001), as well as supernatural fiction. In 2003’s Haunted she created the Harrison Investigation service, a paranormal detective organization that she spun off into four Krewe of Hunters novels in 2011.
Graham lives in Florida, where she writes, scuba dives, and spends time with her husband and five children.
Graham (left) with her sister.
Graham with her family in New Orleans. Pictured left to right: Dennis Pozzessere; Zhenia Yeretskaya Pozzessere; Derek, Shayne, and Chynna Pozzessere; Heather Graham; Jason and Bryee-Annon Pozzessere; and Jeremy Gonzalez.
Graham at a photo shoot in Key West for the promotion of the Flynn Brothers trilogy.
Graham at the haunted Myrtles plantation, Francisville, Louisiana.
Graham and the Slushpile Band playing the Memnoch the Devil Ball at the Undead Con in New Orleans, 2010.
Graham with dear friend, actor Doug Jones.
Graham (third from left) with F. Paul Wilson, R. L. Stine, Jon Land, and other friends at the seventh annual ThrillerFest, held in New York City, 2011. The authors participated in the “Be Book Smart” campaign organized by Reading Is Fundamental, the nation’s oldest and largest children’s literacy organization.
Graham (seated center) with her local Romance Writers of America group in Broward County, Florida, 2011.
Graham (second from left) with fellow authors Stephen Jay Schwartz, F. Paul Wilson, and Barry Eisler participating in a panel at the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention, Los Angeles, 2011.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1990 by Heather Graham Pozzessere
Cover design by Michael Slavin
ISBN: 978-1-4976-7396-0
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com
EBOOKS BY HEATHER GRAHAM
FROM OPEN ROAD MEDIA
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