Ana Seymour - Father For Keeps

“Just take some more time to think about it, Kate. The guy’s been back less than a month. And you were together only a couple months in the first place. You don’t really know him that well.”

She could have told Lyle that she knew enough to realize that Sean’s kisses made her heart soar, whereas the few times Lyle had kissed her, she’d felt nothing. But such an admission would be too cruel to an old friend. “The heart is a funny thing, Lyle. Sean and I haven’t spent that much time together, but I love him. It’s as simple as that, really.”

They were still standing in front of the swing. Lyle grabbed the chain and moved it back and forth in frustration. “I think you’re wrong, Kate. Sometimes it’s not that simple at all. When you go into his world in San Francisco, you may find that love isn’t enough. And by then it’ll be too late. All the people who love you will be too far away to help.”

Jennie had offered similar sentiments, but Kate was ignoring them all. Of course, Sean needed to be back in his world. He was expected to take his place in his father’s business and, as his wife, it was her duty to live where he needed to be. She stopped the motion of the swing with her knee and laid her hand on Lyle’s. “It’s where I belong,” she said, her eyes sad. “I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me, Lyle. But you’ve got to let me go and give me a chance to build a life with my child’s father.”

Lyle pulled his hand out from hers. “I won’t wish you luck, Kate,” he said tightly. Then he turned around, crossed the porch and ran down the path to the street.

Kate insisted on keeping the wedding preparations to a minimum. Though everyone in the household offered best wishes, she knew that Lyle’s skepticism and Jennie’s concern were shared by the others. No one else in town had been invited. Some of their friends had been staunch supporters during Kate’s unwed pregnancy, but she thought it was unseemly to advertise the nature of Caroline’s birth with a regular wedding.

So it was just the family and the three silverheels who lined up in the parlor to listen to Kate and Sean exchange vows in front of Reverend O’Connor. An Irishman himself, the blustery minister seemed willing to overlook Sean’s tardy arrival on the scene months after his daughter’s birth.

“May the Lord bless you both on this holy occasion,” he said in closing, and shook the groom’s hand warmly before accepting just a “wee” glass of the celebratory champagne Sean had insisted on having brought from Virginia City.

Kate was kissed by each of the silverheels in turn, then Carter, and finally by a teary-eyed Jennie. “Be happy, Kate,” she whispered. “That’s all I want.”

All in all it was a subdued evening, and by the time she and Sean left to go back and spend their wedding night at his hotel, Kate’s stomach was jumping with nerves.

“Would you like me to have some food sent up, sweetheart?” Sean asked as he took off his blue suit coat and hung it on the clothes tree. “I noticed that you didn’t eat anything back at your house.”

“I wasn’t hungry,” she said, and walked toward the bed, feeling odd and lonely, as if she had already said goodbye to her family and home.

Sean came up behind her and put his arms around her. “You’re tired. You’ve worn yourself out packing the last two days. I’m sorry I couldn’t have waited longer, but I know my father is anxious for me to get back to San Francisco.”

The warmth of his arms dispelled some of her gloom. “It’s going to be hard to leave tomorrow,” she agreed. “But as you say, we’ll see them often. And I’ll have the two most important people in my life with me.”

Sean turned her to face him and looked down at her with a serious expression. “I heard what your sister said, Kate, and I saw the misgivings in the faces of the others. But I do want to make you happy. You and our daughter.”

She smiled up at him. “Caroline’s quite taken with her papa already. And, of course, her mother’s been hopeless about him since the day we met.”

“On the steps in front of the Wentworth Bank.”

She nodded.

“You were wearing a blue dress, just the shade of your eyes, and I thought you were the prettiest sight I’d ever laid eyes on.”

Kate moved more fully into his arms. “You said, ‘Miss, I hope you’re planning to lock some of that beauty up in the bank here, because it’s not safe to have it out in the open.’“

“Did I now?” Sean grinned.

“Yes, and I thought it was the most outrageous nonsense I’d ever heard.”

“But look where it led us.”

“Yes.”

She turned her face up for his kiss, and all the misgivings of the brief wedding ceremony faded as once again her body responded to his caresses with increasingly strident yearnings.

“Ah, Kate, you turn me to fire every time I hold you,” Sean murmured in her ear, and the hardening of his body against her was ample proof of his words.

They were too impatient to pull back the coverlet on the bed, tumbling right on top of it and shedding clothes as they fell. “Jennie gave me a lovely nightdress to wear.” Kate began, but trailed off the words as Sean met her mouth with searching, skillful kisses that made her head spin. Her eyes closed and she lay back and let him stroke her into passion, her thighs, her stomach, her breasts.

“We’ll put it on you later,” he whispered. “For now I want just you…naked and soft and warm.” The words accented his deliberate caresses. Eventually his hand slipped between her legs where she was moist and ready to receive him. He pulled himself over her and asked softly, “Now?”

She opened her eyes to look up into his, glittering blue fire above her. “Please. .now,” she whispered, and guided his entry.

Their union was slow perfection. The speed they had felt at the beginning was through, replaced by a delicious sense of timelessness. All their feelings were centered on their joined flesh. Kate reached the edge first, and she whimpered at the back of her throat and hugged him more closely to her, prompting him to hasten his movements into a quickened shared rhythm that sent them both crashing into completion.

His body rested on top of hers, their damp skin sticking together wherever they touched. Kate’s fingers played idly through his tangled hair.

“You were magnificent, Mrs. Flaherty,” he said finally.

Kate gave a slow smile. Mrs. Flaherty. It had a lovely sound. “You were pretty magnificent yourself, Mr. Flaherty,” she said happily.

He rolled off her and pulled himself up to lie next to her on top of the coverlet. “To all appearances, Katie Mane, one of us was in a bit of a hurry. We didn’t even undo the bed.”

She loved the teasing note to his voice. “I believe we both were impatient, my love.”

Sean smiled. “My love…I like the sound of that.”

Actually, the endearment had slipped out unintended. Sean had still never told her in so many words that he loved her, and she had thought that she should not push the matter. But he was her love, and after what they’d just shared, it only seemed right to tell him so.

“Then I shall call you that every morning when I wake you up in our new home in San Francisco,” she said, tapping a finger lightly on his nose.

His smile dimmed, and for a moment his thoughts seemed to wander away from her. “I may change my bedroom,” he said after a moment.

She frowned in confusion. He’d already explained that for the time being they would be living at his family’s mansion, which was plenty big enough to house them and Caroline. “Change it?” she asked.

“We’re right down the hall from Mother, and I have a feeling if we don’t do something about it, the first sound either of us hears each morning will be her knock.”