Ana Seymour - Father For Keeps

Sean blew out an exasperated breath. “Damn it, you’re a stubborn woman, Katie Marie Sheridan. Yes, I left. It was wrong, and I’m sorry. But now I’m back. I’ve come back for you and for our daughter.” His voice softened. “The truth is, sweetheart, I’ve never stopped thinking about you in all these eighteen months.” As he said the words, he realized that they were the absolute truth. Even before he’d received Jennie’s letter about the baby, Kate had been in his mind night and day. He’d had other women, but they’d been pale in comparison to the spirited, lithesome blond beauty he’d left in the mountains.

Kate was silent for a long moment. He couldn’t tell if she’d been moved by the obvious sincerity of his declaration or if she was thinking of yet another way to send him packing. But before she could speak, there was a rustling of the parlor curtain. Sean looked up to see Jennie standing in the archway. In her arms was a moppet with black curly hair and blue eyes that mirrored his own.

Kate jumped to her feet and crossed the room to take the baby from her sister.

“I’m sorry,” Jennie said with worried eyes. “She was fussing, and I have to head up to the mine.” Although the financial situation had eased when Jennie had married Carter, she still went up to the mine each day to prepare the noon meal for the silver miners, the job she had obtained when they’d needed money to keep Kate in the hospital in Virginia City before the birth.

“That’s fine. You run along,” Kate told her, clasping Caroline tight against her.

Jennie looked doubtfully from her sister to Sean. “Will you be all right?”

Sean stood and took a step toward them. “I’m not a monster, Jennie. Your sister is perfectly safe with me.”

“I didn’t mean to be insulting, Sean. It’s just that…” She glanced at her sister, then back to Sean. “Well, good, then. I’ll leave you to get acquainted with your daughter.” She leaned over to give Kate a quick peck on the cheek, then darted out the curtain into the hall.

Sean walked over to Kate and the baby, a look of wonder on his face. “She has black hair,” he said, his voice choked.

Kate looked up at him, her eyes glazed. Her voice came out in a whisper. “Yes.”

He reached out a hand and ran his finger over Caroline’s silky hair. Safe in her mother’s arms, the baby watched him, eyes wide. “Does she…ah…is she healthy?” he asked. “Does she have everything she needs?”

Kate looked down at the baby tenderly. It was the first time he’d seen her smile since he’d been back. She was smiling at Caroline, not at him, but the expression slid straight into his midsection.

“She’s healthy and happy. Aren’t you, precious?”

Kate’s voice went up in pitch, her eyes lit with a special glow that was answered by a gleam in the baby’s own eyes. Sean watched the mother-daughter communication with awe. His own mother and father had always been too busy with their high-society world to pay much attention to the parent-child bond. Sean was totally unprepared for the wave of love that swept through him at this first sight of his daughter. Tears welled at the base of his throat.

A minute fist came up toward his finger. He twisted his wrist to let the baby’s hand close around his thumb. The back of her hand was no bigger than a quarter and felt as smooth as a polished stone. “She’s…beautiful,” he said finally.

Kate looked up, and this time the smile was for him. “Yes, she is. We produced a beautiful child, Sean. And she’s smart, too,” she added eagerly. “She’s already talking.”

Some of Sean’s fascination with the baby was diverted by Kate’s sudden abandonment of her hostility toward him. It appeared that when she was talking about the baby, she was so intensely positive that there was no room left for old resentments. “Is she now?” he asked with the light brogue he sometimes adopted when he was flirting. “I didn’t think babies could talk this young.”

Kate was swaying back and forth in a natural, rocking motion to keep the baby content. She seemed to not even be aware of the movement. “Well, not exactly talking. But she makes sounds. And I think they mean something. She says a special goo goo that I think means ‘mama.’“

Kate shifted her gaze upward again, her eyes laughing. Sean stared at her, entranced. “Mama, eh?” he said softly. “Well, now we’ll have to get her to start working on ‘papa.’“

All at once, Kate seemed to realize how intently he was watching her, how close he was standing, and that the hand that had been stroking the baby now gripped Kate’s arm. She pulled away and walked past him toward the settee.

“If you want to visit her while you’re in town, I won’t prevent you, Sean,” she said, sitting on one edge of the couch and laying the baby along the rest of it so that there was no room for Sean to resume his seat. “But I’m going to ask you to come back and do so when Jennie’s here. I don’t intend to spend time with you.”

Sean’s eyes darkened. “I want to spend time with my daughter, Kate, but you’re the one I need to see. I didn’t come all this way to visit for a day or two.”

Kate looked up at him. All the glow from her interaction with the baby had left her face. She was pale again. “How long will you be here?”

Sean’s eyes went to the baby. “As long as it takes to convince you to marry me,” he answered tersely. The minute he said it, he knew it had been a mistake. He’d started out on the right path this morning with the flowers, the gifts for the baby, trying to get Jennie on his side. But meeting his daughter had rattled him. Suddenly it had become more important than he’d realized that he be able to stake his claim on her and on Kate.

Kate made no reply for a long moment. Finally she leaned over, gathered the baby into her arms and stood. “Be prepared for a long stay then, Sean, because I’ll never agree to marry you. I loved you, I won’t deny it. I was young, and a fool. I thought poetry and flowers and pretty speeches meant that a man had a heart. Now I’ve learned that the sign of a true heart is someone who’s willing to work hard for his family. Someone who’s there when they need them. You weren’t here when I needed you, Sean. And now I don’t need you anymore.”

The quiet dignity of her tone left Sean feeling for the second time that day like a chastised schoolboy. So far his visit had not gone as he’d anticipated when he left San Francisco. He’d expected that Kate would be somewhat resentful over his abrupt departure, but once she’d given him a chance to explain and turn his charm on her again, he’d figured that they would resume the relationship where they had left off a year and a half earlier. She’d been a sweet, sensitive girl and he’d been her first romance. She’d been desperately in love with him, which he’d found stimulating and intoxicating. But it appeared she’d changed in more ways than one. If she was still in love with him, she was hiding it well. And the rub of it was, the more time he spent witn her, the more he realized that he was as intoxicated as ever.

He looked down once again at his daughter. She was no longer interested in the stranger and had begun instead to squirm and pat at Kate’s full breasts. “I wasn’t around when you needed me, Kate,” he agreed. “But I’m here now, and I don’t intend to leave either you or my daughter to face the world alone again.”

Kate shook her head, juggled Caroline in her arms and looked as if the tears she’d been staving off would finally fall.

Sean brushed his hand briefly over the baby’s curly hair, then said softly, “Go ahead and feed our daughter, Katie Marie. I’ll see myself out.”