He struggled up to one elbow, another groan escaping as he grabbed at the edge of the bed for support. He lifted his other hand and ran it over his tangled hair, gently, as if even that slight pressure hurt.
"It's a good thing you don't do this often," Shea said softly.
He went rigid, and snapped around on the bed in a movement so swift she knew it had to send arrows of pain through his throbbing head. But he didn't seem to notice, he just stared at her, lips parted in shock. For a long, frozen moment, neither of them moved. Then, with painful slowness, he reached out with an unsteady hand. She watched him, puzzled, until his fingers met her knee and he yanked his arm back as if she had burned him.
"You … you're real."
She understood then, and felt the tug at her heart again. She had haunted him as he had haunted her, there the instant she let her guard down. She swallowed tightly, unable to speak.
"What are you doing here?"
He looked so wary, his eyes so shuttered, that she couldn't get out what she wanted to say. She seized on a part of the truth.
"People have been worried about you."
"Where'd you get that idea?"
"Quisto."
His eyes went colder. "I told him to stay out of it."
"He was concerned."
"Then why isn't he here?"
"He didn't know where 'here' was."
He lowered his eyes, hiding them from her, but she saw the distorted twist of his mouth. "But I told you, didn't I?"
He sounded disgusted with himself. Shea's heart quailed; he didn't love her anymore. She'd waited too long, been too involved in her own tragedy when she should have been trusting him, trusting his love for her. And now she'd killed it. She could only watch as he sank back against the pillows.
"Okay. So now you know. You can tell them I'm fine." Shea gathered her splintering courage. "I wouldn't say sitting on the beach with a gun aimed at yourself and then drinking yourself into oblivion is exactly all right."
His eyes narrowed, his brows lowering ominously. "That's why you're here, isn't it? Quisto gave you some sob story, and you felt guilty, right? Well, you can shuffle your little butt right back out of here."
She winced. "That's not why I'm here. At least, not directly."
"It doesn't matter much anymore, does it? You made your feelings quite clear back in Marina del Mar. I don't see any reason to drag it all out again."
"Chance—"
"Excuse me," he said with exaggerated politeness as he reached for the covers, "I'm going to the bathroom."
The blanket was tossed halfway back when his arm froze in midmotion. He stared down at himself, his hung-over mind only now realizing that he was in his own bed, and naked beneath the covers. His gaze jerked to her face, and Shea saw with amazement that he was embarrassed. He tore the sheet free of the bed, wrapped it around himself and stalked off to the bathroom. At least, he tried to stalk; it was more of a stagger thanks to his muddled head.
Shea stared after him. She knew that body so intimately. She'd touched, kissed and admired virtually every inch of it. She'd seen it dressed, undressed, and at every stage in between. She'd seen it sprawled in relaxed sleep and tensed with a ready alertness. She'd seen it slick with water from the pool, with the dampness of her kisses, with sweat from their passion, and even slick from her own wet heat. And in the quiet darkness of one painful night, she'd seen him weep. Yet now he was acting as if they were total strangers.
Was that what he wanted? Did he truly want her to leave? Had she really destroyed what he'd once felt for her?
Her chin came up. She'd learned a lot in the past month about just how tough she was. She would go, if that's what he really wanted, but he was going to have to convince her of that first. And that, Mr. Buckner, she said to herself with quiet determination, is going to take some doing.
She heard the shower running, and knew he was trying to wait her out. Humming cheerfully, under the theory that if she tried hard enough to feel that way it might catch, she made the bed, then went to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee, sure he was going to need it. Then she went out to stand on the deck, breathing in the salt-tanged air.
She decided to go for a walk on the beach. Let him think she'd given up, gone away. Maybe she'd be able to surprise him into revealing his true feelings, into letting down that wary guard, when she suddenly reappeared again.
It was a crystal winter morning, with only traces of a lingering morning mist lying in the cooler spots. A good omen, she decided, working on building up the strength she knew she was going to need.
When she came back he was on the deck, a steaming cup in his hands as he stared out at the foam-delineated waves marching in to shore. He had the same ragged jeans on, and a different sweatshirt that was cut off at the arms and almost as worn as the pants. He'd washed his hair but hadn't shaved. Shea didn't care, she thought he was beautiful. She walked carefully, quietly, and he didn't look at her until she started up the steps.
Something startlingly alive leaped in his eyes before the wary look returned and he turned his eyes back to the sea. Shea knew her plan had worked. She knew that he wasn't as protected against her as he'd thought. There was still something there, although it was obvious he was fighting it.
Would he stop fighting, she wondered, if he knew that he was wrong? If he knew that she didn't hate him as he thought? That she never truly had, she'd only hated what he'd done? And she wasn't sure any longer that she even hated that, now that she knew why. And what it had done to him.
"If you thought I was going to give up and go away," she said as she sat in the chair next to him, "you were wrong."
"You will." He didn't look at her.
"You'll have a long wait."
His mouth quirked for a split second, then settled back into its impassive line. "I've got time."
"So have I. All the time in the world, now that the music's gone."
His eyes flickered to her, then away. He said nothing.
"I found it won't come, if there's nothing left inside."
He still said nothing.
"Will you at least listen to me?"
He gave no sign that he'd even beard.
"You know," she said with a touch of exasperation, "I'm not sure I don't like you better drunk."
Words came then, sharp and biting. "Stick around then. I plan to get very drunk again very soon."
"Fine. At least then you'll talk to me."
"I talk to … a dream. The reality hates me, remember?"
"No. No, I don't." She meant she didn't hate him, but he took her words as a literal answer.
"Well, I remember. When I came to see you after the funeral, you said, 'Go to hell, you bastard.' I think those were the exact words."
"Chance, I—"
"Look," he said wearily, his knuckles whitening as he gripped the cup he had yet to drink from, "I understand. You have every right to feel the way you do. I used you, and I don't blame you for believing it was all a lie."
"But I know now—"
"I'm sorry you came all the way here because Quisto laid some story on you that I'd come up here to blow my brains out. He should have known I'd chicken out. I won't try it again, okay? So you can leave now."
"That's not why I came."
"Oh, yeah?" He still wouldn't look at her.
"Yes. It was part of it, but only because … because when I thought that you might truly do it, when I thought of you … dead, I remembered the real reason why what happened in my dressing room happened."
She heard the coffee slosh in his cup as a tremor shook him. He didn't speak or look at her.
"I've had a lot of time to think, Chance. I know now that if there's anyone to blame for what happened, it was Paul. He was evil. Utterly, unsalvageably evil. He—" Her voice broke and she had to stop and swallow before she could go on. "He murdered my father. A man who only tried to help him, whose only crime was that be wasn't Paul's father. And he might as well have murdered my mother. He
lied, he cheated, he stole, murdered, dealt in drugs and death. And I never saw it. I even—" she shuddered "—profited from it. My God, I went to school on drug money."
"You didn't know."
Hope flared in her at the unexpected words. She wanted to go to him, go throw herself at him and beg him to love her again, but she knew it was too soon. She made herself go on.
"He would never have changed. He would have kept on living as he had, in ugliness and filth. He had to be stopped." She took a deep breath. "And I'm glad it was me."
That got through to him. His head came around sharply, his shadowed eyes startled as he looked at her at last.
"Why?" he whispered harshly.
"Because," she said, lifting her head to meet his gaze steadily, "if it had been you, I don't think you would ever believe that I would forgive you for killing my brother."
He stared at her.
"I made my choice that day, Chance, between good and evil. My true choice. And I paid the price for it in the days afterward. But it was the right choice then, and it is now."
"But you said—"
"It was the right choice," she repeated. "The only one I could make. But I had to come to terms with it. I'm just sorry that I hurt you so badly in the process."
"Why was it … the only choice?"
It was here at last, the moment she'd been waiting for, wondering how she would handle it when it came. Now that it had arrived, the simple words came easily, without thinking.
"Because I love you."
Coffee sloshed out of his cup, and she wondered that it didn't shatter under the pressure of his grip. He jerked his head away, staring now not at the ocean, but at the coffee puddling on the boards of the deck beneath his feet.
"Shea," he choked out, "if you're just feeling sorry for me, forget it. I don't want your pity."
"Pity?" She left her chair to kneel beside his. "How could I feel pity for you? You're the strongest man I've ever known. You do a thankless job that everybody needs done but nobody wants to do. You deal with things that would make most people run and hide. You've been through hell and come out alive, and after all that, you still care, even though you try to hide it."
"You don't hate me?"
It sounded so wistful, so lost that she once again had to hold herself back when what she wanted most was to throw her arms around him and hang on for the rest of her life.
"I never really hated you," she said softly. "I hated what you did. But I see now that you had to do it. It was the only way. I even see that you did it partly for my sake."
"Mostly," he whispered. "I was afraid for you."
"I know. Quisto told me about that man."
His gaze went back to her face. "We might have saved your brother, taken him alive, if Eaton hadn't—"
"Hush. I know. It wasn't your fault. Paul … Paul started the wheels rolling a long time ago, and in the end they crushed him. I was just … the device."
"But—"
"I never hesitated, Chance. It wasn't really a dilemma, there wasn't time. My decision was made the moment I realized he truly meant to kill you." She reached up, risking a tentative touch on his arm. "I couldn't let him kill the man I'd waited all my life for. Especially when, deep down inside and despite it all, I knew that man loved me."
She saw the sudden light in his eyes. "You … believe that?"
"I know it," she said huskily, positively. "My God, Chance, he was about to send a bullet through your brain, and you were still thinking of me. That was the moment when I saw the real man my brother had become. He was the one who was supposed to love me, yet he wanted me to watch your execution. You were on the verge of death, yet you were trying to save me from the horror of it. How could I not see where the real love was?"
"But you wouldn't see me…"
"Oh, Chance, when it really sank in what I had done, I was so confused, I blamed you for everything." She took a deep breath, then plunged ahead. "Have I killed it, Chance? Did I take too long to realize the truth, that you only did what you had to do? That I should have trusted in your love, as you asked me to that morning, no matter what? That I should have known that whatever else you had to keep from me, you never held back your love once you'd given it?"
She saw the guarded look fall away, saw the joy rise in the blue eyes, chasing away the shadows, the exhaustion. His lips parted as he drew in a shaky breath, and he fumblingly set aside the coffee cup and took her hands.
"You're sure?" he choked out. "You forgive me for having to lie to you? For … using you?"
"You did what you had to do. And I know that you never lied after you told me you loved me. You just couldn't tell me the whole truth. There's nothing to forgive."
"Oh, God, Shea…"
"It took me a while to realize that Paul used me as much as you had. And for much more horrible reasons."
"But, what you did…"
"It wasn't my fault, any more than … what happened to Sarah was yours."
His eyes closed as he absorbed the fact that she knew what had happened. She tightened her fingers around his, and they opened again. She didn't know whose hands were shaking more, her own or his. It didn't matter.
"Chance? Will you give me back the music?" she asked softly, baring her heart, her very soul to his gaze.
"I'll give you all of the world I can, if you'll let me," he whispered.
"I'll settle for a love song."
At the instant when she was going to give in to the need she'd been fighting, he took the need away by pulling her up and onto his lap. It was a little fierce, more than a little rough; Shea never noticed. All she knew was that he was holding her tightly against him, that she was in his arms again at last.
"Oh, Shea," he murmured brokenly, "it was real, all of it, I swear. That's why it was such hell. I loved you so much I couldn't stand to lie to you, but I had to, to be able to keep you safe." He shivered, and she slid her arms around his neck, resting her cheek against his hair. "I didn't think you'd ever believe it, that I really love you."
"I know."
Her voice was soft, reassuring. She shifted to press a kiss on his still damp hair; it felt like heavy silk beneath her lips. It was her last sane thought, for he leaned back in the chair and dragged her mouth down to his. The blaze ignited as if it had been only moments since it had burned last, yet with all the force weeks apart had given it.
It was much later, as she lay atop him with his ebbing flesh still inside her, smiling as he shifted his hand to more fully cup her breast, that Shea took the opportunity she'd prayed for during ten hours of driving.
"Chance?"
"Hmm."
"Would you mind terribly getting up and dressed?" One blue eye popped open. "Now?"
She nodded. The other eye followed suit. After a moment of studying her face, he smiled.
"Okay."
She drew back a little, startled. "Just like that?" He nodded.
"What if I tell you to pack?"
"Okay."
"No questions?"
"Nope."
She got his point, and laughed in delight before she leaned down to nuzzle the hollow of his throat.
"I trust you, too," she whispered. "I just lost sight of it for a while."
"I know." He planted a kiss on her hair. "And I also know that if you don't stop that—" he shivered in response to her tongue's darting flicks over his collarbone "—we'll be in this bed all day. Not that I care, you understand, but I got the idea that you had something else in mind."
Her eyes were sparkling as she lifted her head. "I do."
Her smile was almost as dazzling as her eyes. "If we go right now, you can still have that white Christmas."
"Christmas?" Chance looked startled, then rueful. "It is, isn't it?" He let out a short, compressed breath and shook his head wonderingly. "I … forgot."
She didn't tell him that she knew just how much of a miracle that was.
"Will you come?" she asked softly.
There was the
briefest pause, as if he were turning the last page of a chapter full of both love and pain. The smile that lit his face then was one of release and anticipation.
"Yes," he said simply, and hugged her.
And when they arrived at last at the house she had so hopefully decorated before leaving, Shea couldn't help smiling as if she'd caused it herself when it began to snow.
* * *
Epilogue
«^
"Grandma! Es tio Chance's car!"
The fractured combination of Spanish and English, common in this house so frequently overflowing with young voices, was delivered with all the considerable power of six-year-old lungs. The chaos of childish voices rising above adult ones echoed as all the one-time occupants of the house, gathered again for this special occasion, poured outside into the front yard. At one sharp command from Celeste Romero, however, quiet reigned.
As he got out, Chance threw a crooked grin at the assembled crowd of Romeros. This Christmas was going to have to go some to surpass last year, the sweet white Christmas that had restored the beauty of the season to him, but as he looked at the crowd of smiling faces, he thought it might come in a very close second. He walked around to the passenger door of the sporty little coupe that had replaced—only temporarily, Shea insisted—the Jeep. He opened it and helped his wife out.
A chorus of greetings, subdued by the watchful eye of Mama Romero, met Shea, but all eyes were fastened on the tiny bundle she held. With all the deference and love she had come to feel for this woman who had taken her into her generous heart as if she were her own daughter, who had made space for her in her family as she had for Chance, Shea presented her to Chance's son.
"Tu abuela, mijo," she whispered. "Your grandmother. By love, which is sometimes even better than blood."
"He is so beautiful!" Celeste exclaimed, wiping at her eyes as she stroked a gentle finger over a tiny cheek. The baby recognized a loving, motherly touch and cooed at her.
"Beautiful?" Quisto teased, his eyes dancing with mischief. "Handsome, perhaps."
"Beautiful," Celeste insisted, ignoring her incorrigible youngest son.
Quisto grinned, unperturbed. Chance grinned back. Nothing much bothered him these days, now that Shea's pregnancy was over. It had been hell, he thought. More, she'd sometimes said, on him than her. She had known he was remembering other times, other tragedies, despite his efforts to convince himself that this would be different. She'd done her best to ease his fears, but knew they were only gone for good when he had looked at her with brimming eyes as she held their son out to him.
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