THE HONOR BOUND GROOM Page 16

  She grabbed Annie and clutched; Mac came up right beside her and clutched the two of them the same way. His eyes welled with tears no different than her own.

  * * *

  By midnight, the excitement was over, the house quiet again, yet Mac couldn't seem to settle down. Neither could she. Both were stress-tired beyond any capacity to think, yet they found themselves standing in front of the crib, watching Annie sleep.

  "We have to go to bed, Mac. This is silly. She's fine. We're both exhausted."

  "I know. But…"

  But neither of them could seem to stop looking at the baby. Kelly couldn't stop thinking how lucky they'd been, how different this day could have ended. Yet Annie really seemed none the worse for wear. She wasn't bruised or hurt, just initially furiously hungry. She'd splashed through her bath just like any other day. Squawked when she and Mac tried to grab a bite. Accepted in true-princess fashion that her parents were going to hold her ceaselessly until night had long fallen, but eventually she'd dropped off so solidly that it was crazy not to put her in her crib.

  Kelly knew her vision was blurring from tiredness, yet still couldn't stop looking. Savoring the baby's rosebud mouth that was stuffed with a thumb. Her diapered bottom in the air. Her eyelashes like pale feathers on her pink cheeks.

  Mac was quiet. He'd barely said anything since the cops had left and they had Annie alone. But now he touched her shoulder. "Come on, you," he said gently. "You really do need to get off your feet. Those blisters and cuts aren't going to heal with you walking around."

  She knew he was right. They both stumbled into his bedroom, peeled off their clothes and then sank into Mac's bed with a matched pair of exhausted sighs. Instinctively she rolled into his arms. "We're all right, Mac."

  "Yes."

  "She's safe."

  "Yes."

  "We're safe. It's over. It was horrible, but it's over."

  She snuggled closer. Making love was the last thought in her head; she couldn't remember being more exhausted, and knew Mac was, too. But what they'd been through was still pounding in her head. She snuggled a leg between his, her arms wrapping around his back. She felt his body becoming aroused, but she just needed to touch him. To be with him. To affirm life, what their family of three had survived this day, what they'd shared. When she tipped her head, his mouth was there, waiting to offer a kiss that was both soft and fierce and echoed all the emotions pulsing through her.

  But then Mac shifted. He kissed her brow, smoothed back her hair and turned on his back.

  She didn't think anything of his turning away. Not that night, nor the next. They'd been through an agonizing ordeal. Recovering just couldn't be an instantaneous thing.

  But when another week passed, Kelly slowly realized that Mac had turned ultraquiet from the minute the baby had been returned to them. He answered questions. He handled family and business and media questions following the incident. And he handled the baby no differently than he always did. But he wasn't the same with her. They'd slept side by side all these nights without making love, and he hadn't volunteered a word of conversation that wasn't required. The shadows under his eyes told tales about his restless nights.

  The obvious finally occurred to her. Mac could be blaming her for the kidnapping. God knew, she could understand that, because she'd been blaming herself.

  * * *

  The following Tuesday was a balmy-warm spring day, and when Annie woke from her afternoon nap, Kelly told Benz and Martha that she was going to take the baby for a short outing. They had a fit and a half about her going anywhere alone, but Kelly explained that was exactly the reason. She hadn't left the place in a week; it was time to take the plunge. It was too beautiful a day not to enjoy it with Annie, and all she planned to do was drive to her old apartment and pick up her summer clothes. They'd be within reach of a phone and she didn't expect to be gone more than an hour.

  Those things were true. But she also hoped that a little escape away from home might help her think more clearly. Within minutes, she was parked in the quiet neighborhood, had Annie secured in a front pack and was climbing the stairs to her old apartment. The place smelled stuffy and closed-up when she first walked in. She threw open some windows and then just wandered around.

  She remembered how much she'd first loved the apartment, but now it only felt alien and unfamiliar. Somehow Mac's things had become hers, and hers part of his. The place had once been a joyful symbol of her independence and pride in being able to cope on her own … but it seemed as if she'd been a girl when she lived here, those joys minor compared to the richness of a relationship she'd been building with Mac. Or thought she'd been building.

  Kelly sighed, and automatically stroked Annie's soft head. "This isn't working too well, lovebug. We might as well pick up those summer clothes and get out of here."

  She'd just started emptying out the bedroom closet when she heard a rap on the door, immediately followed by Mac's voice. "Kelly, don't be scared—it's just me."

  Mac had a key, of course, but she'd just never expected to hear his voice. His speaking up swiftly was so typically considerate—he knew she'd be fearful of strangers right now—and she hustled toward the door, her first response simply a delighted surprised smile that he was here. Mac met her halfway in the hall, dressed still for work in a gray striped suit and formal white shirt. Her smile quickly faded when she saw his grave expression.

  "You're leaving me."

  She thought she'd heard him wrong. He'd blurted out the comment so suddenly, out of nowhere. "What?"

  Faster than he could clench his jaw, he side-roaded down a different conversational path. "I just happened to call home and got Martha. She said you'd come over here…"

  "Yeah. When it hit seventy this afternoon, I realized I didn't have anything cooler to wear than jeans. My summer clothes were still here. I just figured it was a good time to pick them up." She hesitated. "More to the truth, I just needed to get out."

  "Yeah, I can understand that."

  Maybe he could. But she'd seen something stark and sharp flash in his eyes, as if she'd said something to hurt him. So she tried to explain further. "I was doing the princess in the tower routine, Mac. Yesterday, I even asked Martha to hit a quick stop when we ran out of milk, rather than going myself. I just thought, enough was enough. I knew I was scared. But I could see myself falling into this pattern, just stay home, stay safe." She shook her head. "It's not that I needed to go anywhere. I just wanted to prove to myself that I could."

  "It's twice you've had to deal with that kind of fear in the last few months."

  She nodded. "I admit, it'll probably be a while before I stop feeling skittery near crowds—unless I'm with you. But coming here was easy, just a short drive, no danger, no strangers…" Her voice trailed off. All these lubbering explanations were a waste of time, when there was only one thing on her mind. "Mac, I have no idea what you meant. You thought I was coming back to my old apartment … to stay? Without you?"

  His mouth opened to answer her, but then he just seemed to swallow and dam up. Naturally Annie chose that moment to start fussing—probably because it was close to her late-afternoon nursing time. Kelly said quietly, firmly, "I don't really need to do anything here today. Let's just all go home. But after we put the baby to bed—Mac, we're going to talk about this."

  "I think we'd better," he agreed.

  A thousand things roiled in her mind over the next few hours. She'd been blaming herself nonstop for the kidnapping attempt—for not being careful enough, for not unlocking the car doors before Annie was in her arms, for not getting the guard before she'd stepped out of the car. But if Mac were blaming her, he'd never said a critical word … nor would there seem any logical connection to his suddenly thinking she was leaving him.

  So something else had to be wrong, and the same old fear sprang into her mind like weeds. Maybe the kidnapping had brought some festering feelings to the surface, made Mac believe this marriage just wasn't working out. He'd ne
ver really wanted her, never chosen her. They'd been through things that brought them close, but that wasn't the same as being crazy in love. Mac had been trapped into this marriage because of his sense of honor. His feeling responsible.

  Almost as soon as they were home, Annie picked up on her anxiety and started a whining cry. She nursed her, and then she and Mac rocked the baby in rotating turns. They ate dinner in shifts. She showered and changed into a fresh sweatshirt and jeans while Mac paced with Annie in the Great room. He showered and shed his suit for an old pair of black sweats while she paced with Annie in the library. But when it was finally baby-bedtime, Annie promptly settled into a deep snooze like an angel … possibly because she sensed her mom had had a total change of mood.

  Kelly wasn't precisely calm, but she'd had hours to think—and specifically she'd been thinking about her husband's unique and unquenchable sense of honor. It was always a key to the man she loved. She'd made a mistake, forgetting that, and the minute the baby fell asleep, she went searching for Mac. The open French doors clued her in that he was outside on the patio overlooking the woods. She grabbed his jacket to pull over her shoulders and stepped out.

  The sun had just set, a blush of color still staining the cheeks of the horizon, but the sky was fast turning a midnight blue and the air turning crisp. She heard a hoot owl's mournful cry in the woods, saw a graceful doe and her yearling grazing on the far knoll. But all she really noticed was Mac, standing still and silent, his shoulders as stiff as if he were bracing for a blow.

  The last thing she wanted was to deliver a blow, but she did want to make him think. So she took a breath for courage, and then spoke up loud and clear. "If you want a divorce, Mac, you can forget it. I don't care about all those silly papers we signed. I'm not leaving you."

  He spun around. Even in the gathering shadows, she saw his bleak dark eyes. In the beginning she hadn't understood that his most austere look of control masked a heart-deep vulnerability. But she did now. His loneliness had always come from a need to do the right thing, even when that cost him. She just wished she'd remembered that through this long week, when he'd been withdrawing from her.

  "You think I want a divorce?"

  The shock in his voice gave her courage another boost. She stomped closer. "Well, in your shoes, I sure would. And I've thought about that plenty. Your being trapped into marrying a stranger. A pregnant woman yet, who turned your whole life upside down. If I were an honorable woman, I'd admit you did the right thing, but now that part's over and you should be able to get out, if that's what you want. But I don't seem to have your sense of honor—"

  Mac was shaking his head in total confusion. "Kel, you have this all wrong. I never once—"

  But she wasn't about to let him get a word in until she'd gotten some critical things said. "Forget honor. From my shoes, I'd have to be crazy to let you go—and frankly, my attitude is entirely your fault. The problem is, you've loved me every way a man can love a woman. You've been there for me, over and over. Through my crazy pregnancy mood swings, through labor, through times I was scared. You made your house, my house. And God knows, you opened up my world in your bed. And all for a woman you were stuck with."

  "I never felt stuck with you, Tiny."

  That "Tiny" echoed in her heart like bells. His guard was going down if he were calling her Tiny. And she could see some of that tension easing out of his shoulders. But not all. "Sure you did. And you were. Stuck being responsible for me all the time—why, I'm guessing you even felt responsible for the kidnapping thing, didn't you?"

  The way his eyes flashed black in the shadows, she knew she'd hit bone. And suddenly, out came the pain, his voice rusty and hoarse with it. "You married me to keep you safe, Kelly. It was having a Fortune baby that put you at risk—twice now. And I promised to protect you. And I can't stop feeling like I failed you in the worst way."

  She felt his hurt as if someone had stabbed her instead of him. "Oh, Mac. That's why you thought I was leaving you? But you have this so wrong. You never failed me in anything." There was nothing she wanted more than to reach out and grab him. Hold him. Love him. Make that harsh expression disappear from his face. But she had to convince him that she meant that love, first.

  "I spent a week beating myself up over the kidnapping," she said quietly. "And I should have known—you were doing it to yourself even worse. But I've gone over and over how that happened, and the truth is … this wasn't about either of us not being careful enough. It wasn't about us. It was about an emotionally unstable man who happened to be walking through a parking lot at that moment in time. Now how could anyone be protected against something like that?"

  "Maybe not. But in the beginning, I seemed to have arrogantly assumed that the Fortune name would help solve problems for you. Instead all I can see is that it put you at further risk."

  "You and I do have risks that maybe most couples don't have." She wasn't going to pretend otherwise. "Your name comes with some special problems. You've got way too many people calling you Mr. Fortune. Way too many people counting on you night and day. And it doesn't help that you've got a sense of honor bigger than the sky. But you're the one who gave me the answer to that a long time ago."

  "I did?"

  She nodded. "You're the one who said it—that we had the freedom to make a relationship our own way. By our own rules. And I think that means that we protect each other, but that has to be a two-way street, Mac. I don't want to be another responsibility for you. When I'm scared, I want your arms around me. But when you're scared, I need to know that you can tell me. And that you know I'll be there for you."

  She waited. Unsure if he really heard her. Unsure if she had anything else she could try saying that might get through to him. But then his voice came through the velvet gray dusk like the stroke of a caress.

  "Kel?"

  "What?"

  He said quietly, "I was scared. Scared soulless. That you wanted to leave me."

  In two seconds flat she was in his arms. He took her mouth in a fierce, crushing kiss that laid bare the kind of vulnerability that only a strong man could have. Oh, she had work to do with him. Mac was never going to stop trying to do the right thing. She'd never believed she was a strong enough woman for him, but loving him had taught him that there was a man's kind of strength. And a woman's. She kissed him back, pouring her heart into warming him, loving him, being there for him. "I was never leaving you," she whispered. "I couldn't possibly love you more, Mac."

  "And I love you. You're the wonder in my heart, Kel." His finger touched her cheek, her hair. And then his lips dipped down for another kiss, this one softer, slower, as if he were tasting the future, and sharing promises about what he wanted for her, for them. "There are a couple of questions I've wanted to ask you for some time."

  "Now?" She could have sworn they were through talking.

  "Now. They won't take long." But he took a breath, and then said slowly, "Would you be my bride, Kelly Sinclair? Would you let me promise to love and honor and cherish you? To be the father of your children? To love you all the days of my life?"

  "Holy kamoly. Mac. You're going to make me cry." Her eyes were already blurring with silvery tears. "I could have sworn we already did that."

  "Yeah. But I'm thinking we should do it again. This time, just for us. And I was thinking we could do another ceremony on New Year's Eve, because that was a heck of a symbolic way to start last year. But then I thought…"

  She had no trouble finishing his sentence. "Why wait? You and I alone make the rules for us. And there's no reason on earth we can't start a brand-new year right now."

  He kissed her again. "I like that idea far more, love." So did she. She saw the smile glowing in his eyes—the one with the touch of wicked that always ignited her blood. But it was the love in his expression that fired her blood far more. The cool-spiced night seemed to have miraculously heated up. She noticed his sweatshirt pulled off with remarkable ease. And her sweatshirt disappeared even faster than
magic. But it wasn't magic that had made their marriage real, she thought, but the power of love and wonder they'd found in each other.

  * * * *