Heir to Secret Memories
Page 20
Paige lay with her eyes closed, her face almost as pale as the white pillows behind her head. Her left arm was bandaged, and faint purple smudges were evident under her eyes.
She’d been through so much.
He looked around and didn’t see any place to put the flowers, so he laid them on the foot of the bed, then sat down beside her.
After a few minutes, she opened her eyes.
“Hi, Tiger,” he said softly, carefully touching her right hand, where an IV catheter protruded from her delicate, bandaged wrist.
“You came back,” she whispered, her eyes drifting shut. “After all this time.”
“Paige?” She still seemed heavily sedated. Was she dreaming?
She opened her eyes again. “Where’s Katie? Is she okay?” She licked her lips.
“The doctors pronounced her perfectly healthy, even after the dousing in the bayou. She and Brandon are with Miss Aileen. They’re fine. They’re playing with a new litter of puppies.”
“Brandon? Oh, Serena’s son. Your stepbrother.”
“I talked to Children’s Services and as his brother, I’ve got temporary custody. I couldn’t see leaving him in Serena’s ultramodern condo with nobody there but the housekeeper.”
She frowned and forced her eyes to focus on his face. “They’ve given me too much medication.”
“You need to just lie there and enjoy it. You’ve been through a lot.”
“What happened with Serena?” Paige asked, trying to sit up a little straighter in the bed. “They got her, didn’t they?”
Johnny nodded. “She’s locked up, as is her brother, but she’ll probably be out on bail soon. Her lawyer is trying to go for a plea of diminished capacity, but it’s beginning to look like her weasel of a brother may sell her out for a reduced sentence. Personally, I think she is insane. Leonard is hinting that she murdered my dad.”
“Oh, Johnny, I’m sorry.”
He nodded. “Me too.”
“What about you? Is your arm okay? You didn’t give me a chance to bandage it. You left me.” Paige’s voice thickened and tears shone in her eyes.
Johnny felt like a heel. “I didn’t want to put you in danger.”
“I was so mad at you, and so scared.”
“I know.” He reached up and caught a tear from her lashes on his fingertip. “I couldn’t risk your life too. I should have known better than to think you’d stay put.”
She closed her eyes, savoring the brief, featherlike touch of his finger against her skin.
“Paige,” he said, a new tone in his voice. “I need you to understand something.”
A shard of fear lodged in her breast. “What is it?” she asked softly, steeling herself. No matter what he said, she could handle it. She wasn’t like her mother, living in limbo, waiting for a man who would never return.
She’d lived through losing him before. It wouldn’t be easy, but she could live through it again.
The important thing was that her daughter had her father.
Johnny’s hand caught a strand of her hair and entwined it in his fingers. His gaze roamed over her face, her eyes, her mouth.
“I remember your spiky hair,” he whispered. “I remember making love with you for hours and hours, until we both were too tired to move.”
Paige’s heart twisted inside out. She remembered too. All of it. She’d never forgotten one moment of their time together and she never would.
He pushed the strand of hair behind her ear, then traced her jaw line with his finger. “I didn’t have the courage to go to my father with you by my side and say, Here, this is the girl I want to marry. He’d listened too long to Serena’s lies. And so had I.”
Her breath caught in her throat.
“So like a coward, I left you there alone. I was coming back the next day, but—” He stopped, and her heart stopped at the same time.
She blinked and another tear fell down her cheek. “We were young, Johnny. I know that. Too young. You had your whole career ahead of you.”
He put his fingers over her lips. “Could you just let me talk for a minute?”
He brushed the wetness off her cheek. “It took me a long time, but the memory of what happened that day finally came back to me. There was an accident. My car was totaled. When I woke up in the hospital they’d put a pin in my hip.”
“The scar,” she whispered.
“I tried to find you, but by the time I got out of the hospital, you had disappeared. Your landlord had no idea where you’d gone. I went down to the French Quarter every chance I got. I hired a private detective, but I didn’t tell him to look anywhere but around New Orleans. I should have searched every city in every state.”
His eyes reflected old sadness and pain. “I am so sorry. I should have never left you there that day.”
Paige heard his words, but it took her hazy brain a while to process them. He’d been in an accident. He hadn’t walked out deliberately. Not like her father had.
“After my mother died, I found my father’s name among her things,” she said, looking down at a frayed string on the blanket. “He was a locally famous trial lawyer. Carlson Page. She named me after him.”
She shook her head and smiled sadly. “I went to his office and asked to see him. I just wanted to meet him and tell him my mother had died. I told his secretary I was Maxine Reynolds’s daughter. When the secretary came back, she said Mr. Page was busy, but could one of the junior partners help me.”
She shrugged and looked up. “He didn’t want to see me.”
Johnny’s face was shadowed, his eyes haunted. “I’m not like your father—”
She stopped him with a look. “I went to the Yarbrough Building once, too. I asked for you, but the security guard wanted to know if you were expecting me.” She gave a sad little laugh. “I had to say no.”
“Oh God, Paige. I know I can never make up for not trying hard enough to find you, but—”
“Johnny, don’t. You’re right. You’re not my father. When you found out you had a daughter, you never hesitated. Not for an instant. You saved her.” She touched his hand. “You are no coward. You’re the bravest person I’ve ever known. You faced your darkest fear and conquered it to save our child.”
He shook his head. “You’re wrong on two counts. You are the brave one. And I’m facing my darkest fear right now, because I’m deathly afraid you’re going to say no.”
“Say no? To what?”
“Can you trust me enough to believe I will never walk away from you again? Can you trust me enough to marry me, Paige Reynolds?”
Paige’s heart fluttered like a hummingbird in her breast. “M-marry you?” she repeated.
An amused look lit his face. “M-m-marry me,” he said. “Be my wife. Help me make my little brother feel safe and loved. Make a home for you and Katie and Brandon and me. Love me forever.”
Paige felt the tears slipping from her eyes and flowing down her face. “Oh, Johnny.”
“Hey, why the tears? I love you.”
Paige heard the words she thought had died long ago, along with her dream. “Say that again,” she demanded.
Johnny leaned over and kissed her gently but thoroughly. “I love you, I love you, I love you,” he said against her lips.
“I love you too, John Andrew Yarbrough. Now call the nurse and get me out of here, because I’m not ever letting you out of my sight again.”
ISBN: 978-1-4592-4098-8
HEIR TO SECRET MEMORIES
Copyright © 2003 by Rickey R. Mallory
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