Homeplace (30 page)

“As perfect a moment as this is, unfortunately you’ve still got a little bit of work left to do,” the doctor told Gwen.

Assured that the new mother was in good hands, and more than a little overwhelmed by the emotional impact of what she’d witnessed, Raine escaped to the waiting room in order to regain her composure.

Jack stood up as she entered, took one look at her face, and nodded in understanding. “Nothing like it, is there? Since we had an open adoption, we were able to be there when Amy was born. I decided at the time that short of having a bush suddenly start burning in front of us, it’s probably as close as any of us mortals will come to witnessing a miracle.”

“That’s pretty much what I was thinking.”

He drew her into his arms, brushed away an errant tear that had escaped, and lowered his forehead to hers. “I love you, Raine.”

“I know.” Shouldn’t a woman be thrilled when a man like this professed his love? Especially after she’d spent a good part of the day fantasizing about having his children? “I love you, too, Jack.” She drew in a deep, shuddering breath. “So much.”

He drew back, put a finger beneath her chin, and tipped her face up to his. Rather than the irritation she feared, or the frustration she knew he had a right to feel, his expression was one of infinite patience. The kind of patience a man who’d stand in the rain for hours to protect three teenage girls would need to have. “You don’t sound all that happy about it.”

“I think what I am is scared.”

“Don’t feel like the Lone Ranger.” His hands were stroking her back in a soothing way that caused smoldering embers to flare.

Raine told herself that she should feel better knowing that she wasn’t the only one of them who felt as if she were on the verge of leaping out of a plane without a parachute. She should. But she didn’t.

“I don’t know if I can give you what you want. What you need.” She drew in a deep, painful breath. What you deserve, she thought but did not say.

“Now there you go, underestimating yourself again.” He brushed a finger across her downturned lips. “You’re everything I want, Harvard. Everything I need.”

“You don’t understand.” Instead of backing away, she clung tighter, hating herself for giving him such mixed messages, but needing his strength. “The woman you think you love.” Another breath, more painful than the first. “She isn’t really me.”

She felt his deep, rumbling chuckle as he rested his chin atop her head. “I’ve always admired your intelligence, Harvard. But that statement just flew right by me.”

“I don’t do things like this.” Because she feared that if she didn’t let go now, she never would, she forced herself to back away. In a vain attempt to work off the nerves that were tangling inside her, she began to pace.

“Like what? Kiss in hospital waiting rooms? Because if that’s the only problem, I promise we’ll just stay out of hospital. How do you feel about home births?”

She’d reached the window, spun around, fisted her hands on her hips, and gave him a frustrated look. “You’re not taking this seriously.”

“I told you. I take everything about you seriously, Raine. Now, I understand that under normal conditions, you probably wouldn’t have made love with a guy you only knew a few days—”

“Of course I wouldn’t.” She cut him off as she began to pace again. “Never in a million years. Unless…” She stopped in midstride and shut her eyes.

He was standing in front of her. She felt him. Wanted him. Oh, God, so much.

“Unless you loved him,” Jack finished her statement up for her, “and were sure, not in your head, which can perform all sorts of fancy mental gymnastics, but deep down in your heart where it really counts, that he loved you, too.”

She pressed her hand against his chest, unable to decide whether she wanted to push him away or pull him to her. Raine figured she’d probably suffered more episodes of indecision in the past two weeks than during her entire six years practicing law.

“Oh, dear. I’m sorry to interrupt.” At the familiar voice, Raine spun toward the waiting-room doorway, never so glad to see her mother as she was at this minute. “That’s all right. We were just wrapping up anyway.” She ignored Jack’s faint chuckle behind her. “How’s Gwen doing?”

“Physically, she’s fine. The baby’s all cleaned up and looking like a little blue-eyed doll. The Stevensons are on their way.”

“How’s she doing emotionally?”

“As well as can be expected. According to Savannah, the Stevensons are floating on air.”

“I can imagine.” Raine sighed. “It’s so wonderful. And so sad.”

“It’s also for the best,” Lilith reminded her.

“I suppose so…. I’ll be right there.”

Lilith’s gaze went from Raine to Jack and back to Raine again. “Take your time.”

“Speaking of time, I need some,” Raine told Jack when they were alone again. “To think.”

“I suppose, under the circumstances, that’s reasonable.”

Before she could thank him for being so understanding, he ducked his head and kissed her—a quick, hard kiss that ended too soon and left her head spinning. “Think fast.”

With that he left. But as she leaned against the wall and closed her eyes, she could hear the tap of his boots on the tile floor of the hallway. And the unmistakably cheery sound of him whistling
My Girl
.

T
he Stevensons returned to the hospital the following day, arriving at the same time the family arrived to take Gwen home. The couple’s mood was appropriately subdued, but their joy radiated so brightly, Raine almost understood her mother’s alleged ability to read auras.

They were exchanging slightly stilted greetings when a hospital volunteer showed up in the room with the camera. “Would you like a picture taken with your baby?” she asked with a perkiness ill-suited to the occasion. The sudden silence her question created was thick enough to be cut with a knife.

“I don’t know.” The desperately needy look on Gwen’s face nearly broke Raine’s heart. The girl was sitting on the edge of the bed, the suitcase Lilith had brought to the hospital last night at her feet.

“I think you should.” Taking charge of the uncomfortable situation, Terri placed the infant girl in Gwen’s arms. She was wearing a pink knitted cap that was a gift from the hospital and a pink drawstring nightgown covered with white hearts. “In fact, we should take two. One for you and one for your baby, so she’ll always have a picture of the mommy whose tummy she grew in for her first nine months.”

Gwen looked more than a little nervous as she held the wobbly little pink-capped head steady and managed a faint, equally wobbly smile for the camera. There was another strained silence as they all waited for the image to appear on the Polaroid film.

“Whatever you ultimately decide about keeping in touch, I’ll make certain Lily gets this when we tell her about how she was adopted,” Terri promised.

“Thank you.” Gwen’s voice was soft, but, Raine was relieved to see, surprisingly steady. “I wrote her a letter last night. So she’ll know how much I loved her.” She took the envelope from the pocket of her oversize denim top and, since Terri’s arms were filled with the baby again, handed it to Bill.

After tearfully thanking Gwen again, Terri left with her new daughter and husband.

“Well.” Gwen exhaled a long shuddering breath. “I guess that’s that.” Her eyes were swimming, but Raine thought she seemed at peace with her decision. “They’re going to make good parents.”

“Absolutely,” Savannah promised.

Although the mood was not exactly festive as they drove home to Coldwater Cove, Raine could sense the burden that had been lifted from Gwen’s shoulders. And when she began discussing medical schools with Ida, Raine knew that the teenager had begun to move on with her life.

Raine spent the next three days taking a long, hard look at her life. Her options. If she didn’t have her career to think of, she’d stay here in Coldwater Cove with her family. With Jack.

But the problem was, while she might honestly wish differently, Raine knew she needed more of a challenge than small-town law could offer. However, whenever she thought about returning to New York, which, compared to Coldwater Cove, was as user-friendly as a convertible submarine, she’d experience the twinges of a headache and was forced to stop by the market and buy a new bottle of Maalox.

In a perfect world, she wouldn’t be forced to make these choices. Unfortunately, Raine had discovered at a very young age that there was no such thing as a perfect world. There had to be a solution, she kept assuring herself as she walked in the lush spring garden Gwen had planted and continued to tend in Ida’s backyard, rocked endless miles in the porch swing, and paced the kitchen, as she went over and over the options with Savannah, always ending back at the same place. Jack and a family she’d never dared dream she could have, or her career. Coldwater Cove or New York. She was an intelligent woman, she kept reminding herself. There had to be a solution. Finally, early one morning, just when she thought she’d go crazy from wandering through her mental maze all day and most of the nights, a possible solution occurred to her. She leaped out of bed and made two calls. One to Oliver Choate. The second to the man who held the final piece of her life’s puzzle.

After dropping Amy off at her best friend Sarah Young’s house, where the two girls were going to spend the day playing Barbies, Jack drove to Port Angeles. He arrived home just as a new fire engine red Ford Expedition pulled into his driveway. He climbed out of the Suburban, folded his arms, and enjoyed the view of those long, slender legs climbing out of the driver’s seat.

“Nice truck.”

“Thank you. It’s new.”

“I figured that from the temporary tags. So, who does it belong to?”

“Me.”

“Isn’t four-wheel drive overkill for the city?”

“I have no idea. Since I don’t intend to drive it in the city.”

“I see.” He was beginning to. Or at least he hoped he was.

Raine closed the distance between them. “I’m not going to be driving it in New York because I’m not going back. As it turns out, Dan has quite a few deals pending between old friends from the Silicon Valley and Seattle-area computer companies. In fact, thanks to referrals, he’s got more business than he can handle alone. Which is why he jumped at the idea of taking on a partner.”

“That partner being you.”

“None other.”

“What about your job back east? Are you saying you walked away from that?”

“Not exactly. I called Oliver Choate this morning. He’s the founder of Choate, Plimpton, Wells & Sullivan. The firm has been wanting to get into Eastern Rim business, but it’s been difficult from the East Coast. We worked out a deal where I’ll work for them on a consulting basis. Dan thought it was a great idea.”

“I’m sure he did. Sounds as if you’ve got everything figured out.”

“Not quite.” He watched her take a deep breath. “So, were you serious about getting married?”

“I suppose that depends on whether you want me to be serious or not.” It was going to be okay, Jack thought. They were going to be okay.

“You’re ducking the question, Sheriff. If you refuse to answer, I may have to go track down Judge Wally and have him hold you in contempt.”

“Never happen. Wally’s wife just happens to be my second cousin on my daddy’s side.”

“And you O’Hallorans stick together.”

“Like glue…. You know what they say about a picture being worth a thousand words?”

“Yes, but you’re out of order. And you still haven’t answered my question.”

“I’m getting there. If you’re going to move home to Coldwater Cove, you’re going to have to learn patience, Harvard. Since we country boys tend to like to take things a little slow. Sorta heightens the anticipation.” He took a folder from his denim-jacket pocket and handed it to her. “Here’s exhibit one. I picked it up in Port Angeles this morning.”

The cover of the folder featured a lush, romantic palm-tree-fringed white beach. Adding a splash of brilliant color to the travel poster scene, a shimmering rainbow arced over an aquamarine lagoon.

“Tickets?”

“To Bora Bora. You said you’ve always wanted to go to some tropical island. I figured this one might not be such a bad spot for a honeymoon.”

“A honeymoon implies marriage.”

“Smart and sexy. That’s definitely an irresistible combination…. Next, I’d like the record to show that I, too, made a few calls to some old-friends-turned-small-town-police-chiefs who professed to be more than willing to hire me onto their police forces. All within commuting distance of Manhattan.”

“You were willing to do that? For me?”

“For us. However, since you seemed to have come up with an equally clever solution, we may as well move on so I can put my next exhibit into evidence. The one that goes to relevance.”

He dragged her up against him and kissed her so hard and so long that by the time they finally came up for air, Raine had nearly forgotten her plan to make him suffer.

“Well.” She had to fight to catch her breath. “That certainly rules out reasonable doubt.”

“God, I love it when you talk like a lawyer.” He nipped at her ear and turned her into a puddle of need.

“I am a lawyer,” she managed as he stroked his finger down her throat, lingering where her pulse was beating furiously.

“I know.” His caressing touch continued downward, slipping below the neckline of her blouse. “A cop and a lawyer. The gods must be having one helluva laugh over that one.” He tormented her with kisses as he unbuttoned her blouse. “So, Counselor, what would you say to playing a little stop and frisk?”

He’d pressed her against the side of her new truck, effectively trapping her as he slipped his knee between her legs and made her ache. “I’d say a change of venue is definitely in order.”

“Good idea.” Without taking his mouth from hers, he carried her into the house and up the stairs, where he dropped her onto the bed.

It was on her second bounce that she noticed the photograph was gone. She’d come to terms with Peg’s place in Jack’s life. In Amy’s life. Still, this proof that she wouldn’t have to live with the ghost of his wife between them caused a glorious sense of joy melded with relief.

“So,” he said, as he lay down beside her and slid her blouse down her arms. “What’s the verdict? Are you going to marry me?”

“Of course I am.” She pressed her hands against his chest, where his heart was beating as wildly as her own. “I’ll want us to have more children.” She pressed her mouth against his. “One would be a nice start. Two would be even better.”

He tangled his hands in her hair and tilted her head back. “Are you sure? What about your career?”

“Having a career doesn’t preclude having babies. In fact, impatient city girl that I am, I was hoping we might get started on that project today.”

He closed his eyes briefly. Then opened them and grinned, that cocky, masculine grin that Raine knew would still have the power to thrill her when she was ninety. “I’m sure as hell not going to argue with that.”

This time their lovemaking was different. As if committing to a future together had moved it to a higher plane. When Jack braced himself on his elbows and fixed his dark gaze on hers, Raine looked up into his ruggedly handsome face and knew she’d be forever grateful that fate, and three teenage girls, had brought her to this place in time with this passionate, patient, wonderful man.

As if reading her mind, he smiled as he linked their fingers together. “Welcome home.” Then he slipped into her, filling her, loving her.

Home
. Having finally discovered her heart’s own true place, Raine vowed to never, ever leave again.