A Beautiful Stranger (A Family Forever Series, Book 1)

by Donna Fasano

  “The person you have become,” her exact words echoed through his mind, “is a direct result of what you have experienced in your past.’’

  As he worried over his current situation with Nicki, he couldn’t help but feel that what she’d said was an important key to unlocking, not only the mysteries of who he was and what he had endured, but her own plight as well.

  That fear that had overwhelmed her just a moment ago niggled at him. Her behavior puzzled him. It disturbed him, too. No one should have to suffer being so afraid. But what was it that had her so scared? What continued to trigger that deeply ingrained panic in her?

  He’d seen it before, he remembered. When he’d first kissed her in the upstairs hallway all those weeks ago. He’d kissed her, and she had run from him like a panic-stricken doe. And the next day she’d threatened to leave. Only his plea of needing her had changed her mind about abandoning him and Sona there and then.

  His thoughts raced. He’d come to the initial conclusion back then that she was afraid of intimacy… that her inexperience with men had her feeling skittish. But he’d soon learned that wasn’t so. After the bubble bath incident—Sean grinned at the memory, despite the chaos churning in him—they had begun flirting. It had been fun and frivolous… and Nicki had seemed to enjoy herself just as much as he had.

  Maybe she’d been able to relax because what had taken place between them had been fun and frivolous, with frivolous being the operative word. Light-hearted. Meaningless. As long as the flirtatiousness remained on the superficial level, she felt safe. Was that it? He frowned. Could it be that, as long as their attraction had been some sort of amusing sport, then she was willing to play?

  Their relationship would never turn serious… at least that’s what their trivial game had implied. It’s what they both had mistakenly thought. What they both had verbalized. Their attraction was physical, easily cast aside when it was time for her to go. That’s why she’d felt safe to participate.

  But why was she so intent on leaving?

  The lure they felt for one another—the powerful electricity—was mutual, anyone could have figured that out. And Nicki certainly wasn’t a shallow person. She was kind and caring and extremely concerned about those around her. This whole situation seemed like such a contradiction. It didn’t make sense.

  Frustration had him grinding his teeth. He felt as if he had lots of bits and scraps of information regarding who Nicki was, what she felt, and why, but the pieces just didn’t seem to fit into any kind of coherent picture.

  A person is molded by the past.

  The concept flitted through his mind again. Could this fear Nicki felt be provoked by something from her past?

  She’d been abandoned by a mother who hadn’t wanted her. Passed from foster home to foster home.

  She’d gone into teaching because the children needed her. She’d left the United States… Why? Sean wondered. She’d left the country after she’d graduated from college and she hadn’t returned, as far as he was aware, until she’d agreed to help with Sona.

  Did all of America represent a place where she wasn’t wanted?

  Two words seemed to keep popping up again and again: want and need.

  Nicki hadn’t felt wanted as a child. And every time he’d intimated, through physical acts or words, that he wanted her or desired her, she would panic.

  She taught English to foreign children who needed her. And he’d been able to talk her into helping him, persuade her to stay when she’d threatened to leave, time and again, by explaining how much he needed her.

  She needed to be needed. That was easy enough to work out.

  But she feared being wanted.

  The revelation had him worrying his chin between his index finger and thumb.

  Could she somehow have reasoned that being wanted left her vulnerable to the whims and emotions of others? Left her vulnerable to being hurt?

  He got up, paced to the doorway that led into the house. There he stood, listening to the quiet.

  At that moment Sean felt he understood Nicki a little better. The motives that drove her, that made her think the way she did. That made her care so deeply, that made her yearn to be needed. That made her afraid of the fact that he wanted her.

  Now he felt that the task of a lifetime was set before him. And that formidable undertaking would be to make Nicki understand herself, understand the awesome fear that plagued her… before she got on a airplane and flew out of his life forever.

  ***

  She was leaving.

  With an odd mixture of sadness, regret, and apprehension, Nicki tucked the plain cotton blouse into her suitcase, closed the lid and snapped shut the latch. Lifting the duffle bag up off the mattress, she set it on the floor and then automatically reached to smooth out the wrinkles in the bedspread.

  She had no idea what had happened to her over the past twenty-four hours. All she knew was that she had to leave. Immediately.

  Last night on the porch after Sean had told her he wanted her, Nicki had been consumed by a dread so dark and terrible that she felt it was a monster that threatened to swallow her whole, a monster from which there was no escape.

  She loved Sean. She knew that. And hearing him say that he wanted her should have made her deliriously happy. So why hadn’t it?

  Instead, she’d suddenly felt like a little girl. A defenseless child sitting in a pitch-black room, fearing the mean and ugly bogeyman, knowing he was coming for her at any moment.

  The feeling had been more than she could handle, so she had done the only thing she could: she’d run. She fled to save herself. It had been an instinctive act. A natural reflex she couldn’t have squelched, even if she’d wanted to.

  She’d burrowed under her covers all night, feeling sure that something awful was going to happen. And she awoke this morning with the same terrible dread weighing heavily in her stomach. So she decided she had to get out. She had to go. And her teaching assignment in Slovakia was the perfect escape.

  Sean had accepted the news this morning very well, considering the way she had left him so abruptly last night. He hadn’t asked any questions, only told her he would do what he could to get her a transatlantic flight for tomorrow. She’d successfully avoided him for the rest of the day. So she had her meager possessions packed in anticipation of the trip to the airport in the morning.

  She’d miss little Sona. Nicki’s lips curled at the corners when she imagined the child’s innocent little face, her blunt-cropped hair that was now shiny from the healthy diet her new daddy was providing, her dark eyes that grew so large with curiosity, her quick smile and bubbly laughter. Sona was a beautiful little girl, and Nicki knew the child would bloom like a lovely flower under Sean’s loving care.

  Sean… she’d miss him, too. He was a man who—

  Ice seemed to freeze in her veins. Apprehension so awful that she felt she couldn’t breathe. Her heart pounded. Perspiration prickled her brow.

  “Stop.” She pressed her palm flat against the base of her throat, inhaling with difficulty, slow and deep, as she tried to ease the panic that swept through her.

  She had to get thoughts of Sean out of her mind. Now. She moved toward the door and opened it. The glow of the moonlight filtering in through the bathroom window dimly lit the hallway. Nicki stopped outside Sona’s door. She heard the toddler playing inside. She’d spend some time with the child.

  Say goodbye. Nicki needed something to engage her thoughts, to help her overcome this terrible torment churning in the pit of her belly.

  Pushing open the door, Nicki had to grin at Sona and Sean at play on the carpet. The toddler was trying to balance a block on top of her daddy’s head. Sean sat on the floor, patiently holding himself still, and Sona giggled with glee each time the colorful block toppled to the floor.

  “Hi,” Nicki called to them softly.

  The little girl said, “Hi,” right back with no hesitation, and Nicki was once again reminded of the incredible learning ability of
children.

  Sean swooped Sona onto his lap. “Aren’t you just the smartest little girl in the universe?” he asked, then he nibbled his daughter’s ear as she bubbled with laughter. Then he looked at Nicki. “Come in.”

  Nicki entered, feeling tentative. “I just thought I’d spend a little time with Sona… before, you know.”

  His head bobbed, but he said nothing.

  Sona scrambled from her daddy’s embrace and toddled over to Nicki, taking her hand. Then the little girl led her to where Sean was sitting and pulled Nicki down to sit beside him. Handing Nicki a wooden block, Sona made it clear that she wanted Nicki to join in the game of balancing a block atop Sean’s head.

  Biting her bottom lip, Nicki stared at the block, focusing on its glossy, sky-blue color. The corner of the wood block bit into Nicki’s thumb as she bided her time, putting off the inevitable. She’d come in here to be with Sona, but there would be no interacting with the child without associating with Sean. In the back of her mind, she had to have known that.

  Stirring her resolve, she lifted her chin… and her gaze collided with the most intense stare she’d ever encountered in her life.

  There were messages being relayed in his deep mahogany eyes. Messages she simply wasn’t prepared to decipher. Not now. Not when she was already engaged in battling this fearful chaos inside her.

  Sona’s frustration became apparent.

  Letting her gaze slide from his, Nicki looked up and focused on placing the block gently on his silky, nut-brown hair.

  The toddler clapped and laughed. Nicki and Sean couldn’t help but smile at her unfettered glee. It took so little to delight her. Nicki felt a tremendous satisfaction in having a small hand in Sona’s secure and happy future.

  Movement out of the corner of her eye had Nicki starting out of her moment of reverie. Instinctively, she jerked to reach for the block as it fell.

  Sean reacted to the very same reflex.

  The block plopped in Nicki’s palm, Sean’s warm hand cupping hers.

  Their gazes met. And held. Although he didn’t move a muscle, Nicki felt as though she were being stroked… caressed. Her exhalation was shaky.

  Evidently bored with these tedious adults, Sona swiped the block from Nicki’s hand and toddled toward her toy box.

  Slowly, slowly, Nicki pulled her hand from where it rested in Sean’s. She averted her gaze to the floor.

  He captured her chin between his gentle fingers and applied just enough pressure to have her looking at his face.

  “Please, Nicki…”

  His voice was as soft as the wings of a lazy luna moth.

  “Talk to me,” He pleaded. His voice swelled with deep emotion as he added, “Trust me.

  Fear gripped her with icy claws. All the air seemed to rush from her lungs in a loud whoosh, but Nicki knew the sound, the feeling, were all in her imagination. Still, the fright pumping through her was intimidating and unrelenting.

  She had no idea why Sean triggered this feeling in her, she only knew she felt it. Fully. Completely. In every fiber of her being. It took every nuance of control to remain seated here beside him.

  “Nicki.”

  The entreaty she heard in his tone only seemed to increase the anxiety churning in her chest.

  He was so good, so kind. He’d become her friend over the past few weeks. Why did he provoke this awful feeling in her?

  She swallowed, her throat dry, rough, grating as desert sand. “I’m scared.”

  “I know, honey,” he said. “I know you are.” His tone died to a mere whisper. “I’d like you to tell me about it.”

  Again, she experienced that sense of being in a vacuum, of having no air to breathe.

  “I—I’m just,” she stammered, “scared.”

  Evidently, he realized she couldn’t expound further.

  “As long as our relationship remained breezy,” he said, “with that false kind of flirting fun, you were okay. But the moment things turned the least bit serious… the instant we seemed to connect, your eyes would fill with sheer terror.”

  She nodded slowly. “That’s true. It’s what I’m feeling now.”

  He empathized with her agony, it showed in his gorgeous, dark eyes.

  His compassion seemed to bolster her, and she found the strength to fight back the fear. Her tone trembled as she said, “I feel like a little kid. Waiting. And watching. It’s all so… strange. So… infantile. Yet, it’s more real than anything I’ve ever experienced. It’s like I know something is surely going to come and… and…” She felt so silly finally admitting, “Get me.”

  Disgust at her weakness filled her and she looked away.

  “Honey—”

  The gentleness in that one little word was enough to melt her heart right in her chest.

  “—could it be,” he continued, “that you’re not afraid that something is going to come, but that someone isn’t going to come?”

  She frowned, confused. What could he mean?

  “All those years you were in those foster homes,” he explained, taking her hand in his, “you waited for someone. Someone to adopt you. Someone to love you. Someone to want you.”

  The panic inside her flared red-hot. Sudden tears seared her eye sockets. She was bombarded by the overwhelming urge to escape him… no, not him… but the memories—the truth—he was speaking.

  His warm palm and fingers curled protectively around her hand and acted as a lanyard to sanity, to strength. His words stirred her fear, yes, but she desperately wanted to move beyond this dread, escape it, banish it forever. Somehow, she instinctively knew Sean meant to help her do just that.

  “And when they didn’t come,” he continued, “you shut yourself off. You decided to protect yourself. From pain and hurt. By refusing to be loved. By refusing to be wanted.”

  Her frown deepened. Could this terror she’d been experiencing really be traced back to something so simple? she wondered.

  He was right about their flirting. There had been times when she’d reveled in it. She guessed that was because she had expected the playfulness to be quite forgettable. Oh, but how quickly she’d realized that idea was nothing but dead wrong.

  She’d fallen in love with Sean. Fallen into a deep chasm of emotion from which there was no escape. And that’s when the panic and fear in her really rose to such unbearable heights.

  “I want you, Nicki,” he said. “I love you. And even if you run away from me, what I’m feeling for you isn’t going to change.”

  She was amazed that on the outside she seemed so calm, when on the inside she was a mass of chaotic hysteria. The monster is coming, a puerile voice in her mind kept chanting. It’s going to get you. Run. Run!

  But the love she felt for Sean was like a tiny beacon in the ebony blackness of her thoughts. It was almost as if he’d opened that imaginary door that the little girl in her feared, and the grisly and empty space behind it, the place that so terrified her wasn’t empty. Sean filled that doorway… with his hand outstretched to her.

  He squeezed her hand with gentle pressure. “You helped me understand that I was meant to learn from my past mistakes… not atone for them forever. Before you came into my life, I was half a person. I could be wrong, but I have a feeling that maybe you’ve felt the same way.” His voice softened as he suggested, “Maybe, just maybe, together, we can be whole.”

  Oh, Lord, how she wanted to feel complete. She wanted to be loved. To know love. To give love. Oh, how she wanted to be wanted!

  The lump in her throat made it nearly impossible to speak, but she was determined to tell him how she felt.

  “Sean—” his name came out sounding as scratchy as steel wool “—I love you.”

  He tugged her onto his lap and she snuggled her face into the crook of his neck. He smelled good. Like warm citrus. Like security. Like love.

  “I love you, too,” he whispered against her hair. “More than words can express.”

  Pushing against his chest, she looked at him
, wide-eyed. “But what about the plane ticket for tomorrow?”

  His face screwed into a sheepish expression.

  “There is no plane ticket for tomorrow.” He smoothed his index finger down the length of her jawbone. “I was determined to tell you how I felt. I was determined to make you decide to stay here with me and Sona. So determined… that I tore up the annulment papers.”

  Her jaw dropped; her lips parting.

  “You—you destroyed the papers?”

  He nodded.

  Nicki couldn’t believe it. She was still Sean’s wife.

  I was determined…. His words rang like joyous bells in her head.

  He’d shown that same kind of resolve in adopting Sona, even to the point of marrying Nicki on the spot to make his plans happen. Sean was a very determined man.

  Grinning up at him, she injected as much sultry sexiness into her voice as she could muster as she said, “Determination is one of your greatest assets.”

  She kissed him, full on the mouth. A kiss that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt how she felt.

  “I am determined,” he whispered huskily against her lips, “to give you a safe haven. A loving home. A happily-ever-after. I’m also determined to give you a real wedding. One you’ll never forget. You, of all people, sure deserve it.”

  Knowing Sona played contentedly behind them, Nicki relished Sean’s strong arms pulling her tightly against him. They kissed, and Nicki knew this was the beginning of a bright future for them all.

  Epilogue

  “I, Sean, take you, Nicole…”

  In total awe, Nicki studied the handsome face of the man she loved.

  ‘‘To be my wedded wife.”

  The white lace of her gown made her feel like a princess. The love shining in Sean’s eyes made her feel like a queen.

  “To have and to hold, from this day forward…” She thought to look down at little Sona, who she knew stood between the two of them, pretty as a priceless painting in her pink satin dress; however, Nicki was mesmerized by the intense darkness of Sean’s eyes. She felt lost in them—no, she felt found by them!