A Scandalous Melody (13 page)

Kate's head whipped up and she glared at him. “I can't believe you would ask me such a thing.”

She was right. He knew better. Knew her better.

He dropped his hands. “Then where is the child? My child. Did you give it away?”

Kate stood and turned her back to him for a moment. She seemed to be composing herself. When she turned around, she looked stricken and sick. He wanted to help her. Hold her. But he couldn't. He couldn't even help himself.

“When you left town, I cried for days. I was so lonely and scared. Then the morning sickness came and I panicked.

“I had to find you,” she continued sadly. “To tell you.
To…make you help us. I borrowed some money from Robert Guidry and got on a bus.”

“Guidry loaned you money?”

Kate nodded. “Five hundred dollars. It took me nearly eight years to repay him. But he was the only one I trusted. I knew he wouldn't ask me to explain why I needed to find you.”

Something inside Chase was cracking. He felt as if he was breaking in two and both halves were rolling toward the edge of a dangerous cliff.

He didn't want to the hear the rest. Couldn't stand to hear it. But he was frozen in place. He could see the edge of that abyss coming up fast.

“I searched for you everywhere I could think of,” Kate told him. “For almost three months. I…I was desperate. So desperate, I forgot to eat, sometimes for days at a time. And when I did eat, it was junk. I didn't have much money.

“Then there were the nights I slept curled up in an alleyway. But I couldn't find you anywhere.”

No. He couldn't bear it. The image of his Kate scared and so alone out there in the dark bore a hole into his soul. Chase stood and paced away from her.

“What happened to the baby, Kate?” He had to get her to finish the story so he could breathe again.

“Oh, Chase. I'm so sorry. Our baby…our little girl died. It was all my fault. I should've taken better care. The emergency room in that hospital in New Orleans tried to save her. But it was too soon.” Kate covered her face with her hands and sobbed. “It was all my fault. Everything was all my fault.”

The back of Chase's head exploded in a flash of
truth. His whole body throbbed with the searing pain, it doubled him over and blinded him.

“Oh my God.” His chest was constricting. He couldn't accept what she'd said. But he knew she would never lie.

Someone please stop the pain,
he begged silently. No, he thought crazily, instead, make it hurt much worse. Make it so bad that he could forget everything else.

In a fit of agony, Chase went to the closed window and put his fist right through the glass. He had been such an ass. An arrogant, self-righteous bastard. He deserved to burn in hell and much worse for this.

“Chase! What..?” Kate came over, reaching for his bleeding hand. “You're cut. Let me help you.”

Ignoring her, Chase collapsed to his knees. He grabbed her around the waist and buried his face in her belly. “I left you behind,” he gasped through the pain. “And just walked away. I was so hurt that I didn't stop to think. I can't believe I just didn't think.”

Chase wished he could roll up in a ball and disappear. “I should've been with you. I left you to face your father and the pain all alone. Forgive me.”

“It's… I…” Her voice was tight with emotion.

All of a sudden something even more horrible occurred to him. “After…afterward you came back here. Why, Kate?” Chase dreaded hearing her answer. He tilted his head to look up at her and held his breath.

“It was pretty stupid of me, I guess,” she told him with chagrin. “But I thought you might come back for me. And I wanted to be where you could easily find me.”

His mouth dropped open but no words came out.

“Took me two years to finally get it in my head that
you weren't coming right back,” she continued. “By then it was also clear that the town needed me as the one sane Beltrane, acting as a buffer between them and my father.”

Ten long years she had suffered alone with that bastard Beltrane. His darling had lived a miserable existence, while he basked gleefully in his anger and self-pity.

The hurt and sorrow in his heart grew so bad now Chase thought dying would be a better option. But he refused to die. Dying meant he would have to leave her all alone, and that was never going to happen again. Never again.

He stood so he could see her face. “I don't deserve you, my love. But I beg you not to leave me.” He swiped the back of his uncut hand across his eyes to clear the tears, trying to see her better. “If you can't love me…or marry me…I understand. But give me a chance to make it right.”

She'd been staring at his bleeding hand, but she raised her chin to gaze up at him. “I do love you, Chase. I always have. I said we couldn't get married because I'm scared. Afraid for our baby. Afraid of the curse.”

She loved him.
It took him a minute to process the rest of her statement. When he did, he pulled her close.

“There is no curse,
chère,
” he whispered. “I swear it. And this time I won't let anything happen to either one of you. We will have this baby…and many more. It won't make up for the one we lost, but our family will be together and strong in our love.”

Kate touched his face tentatively and gazed into his eyes. “But I saw the gypsy ghost.”

“No,” he said as he pulled the scarf from his pocket. “This is a
real
scarf. Feel it. You saw a live person, not a ghost. If there ever was a curse, it's over.”

She took the scarf from him, ran it slowly through her fingers, then broke down. Sobbing, she clung to him.

Chase held her close and fought his own tears of joy. It was a miracle. It was magic. It was his heart's desire.

The gypsy.
He didn't know why, but the old woman had saved his life. He vowed to someday find the real reason.

“Tell me again,
chère,
” he whispered against her hair.

Kate pulled back with a wet twinkle in her eyes, knowing exactly what he wanted to hear. “I love you, Chase Severin. I always have. And I always will.”

P
assionata Chagari stood in the shadows of Blackwater Bayou and watched as the lost heir to the gypsy inheritance married his heart's desire.

At last, she thought. Chase Severin had finally received his bequest. He'd become worthy of love.

She knew there was one more thing this particular heir would need to make her task complete, though. So when the wedding party congregated on the terrace for the reception, Passionata turned her thoughts toward making him aware of her presence. He deserved his answers.

Chase caught a glimpse of wild colors, flashing like a neon banner through the swamp brush. He made sure Kate was okay and occupied, then stole away and headed out.

He didn't have to search for long. The old gypsy that had given him the egg stood waiting for him under a willow.

“Tell me why you're here,” he demanded. This was just plain creepy, and he hoped Kate wouldn't catch sight of her.

Passionata lifted her lips in a toothless grin. “You want one more story, Severin. I'm here to tell the tale.”

He folded his arms across his chest. “Go ahead. But I don't believe in gypsy curses.”

“You believe in the magic now, though, don't you?”

Chase had admitted to himself that his egg was truly magical, but he'd be damned if he would tell her that. “Just tell your story, old woman. What did my grandmother do that deserved such a legacy?”

She wasted no time in the telling. “In days gone by, gypsy troops were looked upon with distrust and distaste…perhaps we still are,” she admitted. “When I was a young woman and round with my first child, something went terribly wrong. This was in the time before my father had found the magic. He wisely decided that my child and I needed a medical doctor since nothing else had worked.

“But none would attend me,” the gypsy continued with a sad shake of her head. “My unborn child and I were mere hours away from leaving this earth when Lucille, herself a young girl at the time, found me, sneaked me into her father's mansion and begged her own doctor to come to my aide.”

Chase was fascinated. But her tale seemed a little too close to his and Kate's story of a lost child. He rubbed his arms to stem an unusual and sudden chill.

“Without Lucille's kindness, my child and I would not have survived.” The gypsy scowled at her memories. “For many years my father searched for a way of repay
ment. But Lucille seemed to need nothing we could give. Shortly before my father's death, he finally captured the magic…”

“Wait a sec,” Chase interrupted. “How do you do that, exactly?”

Passionata waved his question away. “It is for gypsy ears alone, Severin. Ask not.

“The one thing Lucille wanted,” she continued, “was a reunion with her only daughter, but that was beyond my father's power to grant by then. Her daughter, your mother, had died years earlier.”

The gypsy's eyes grew watery with unshed tears. “My father was on his deathbed when he learned Lucille was nearing the end of her own time. So he fashioned his legacy and made me swear to fulfill it.

“I took his charge gladly as I too owed the debt,” she continued. “The young Steele descendants were to receive a magical gift designed just for them. The bequests had been made to bring them love. The one thing each lacked but desired above all else.”

She leaned back on her heels and folded her own arms over her chest in a mimicry of his. “And so it has been done.”

It was an odd story, but Chase believed every word. He'd seen the magic work with his own eyes.

“I didn't search you out to hear your story, old woman. But I'm glad you told it.”

Passionata tilted her head to question his motives.

Chase smiled at her. His life was filled with such love and happiness that he felt he would forever keep smiling.

“I came to give my thanks,” he told her with a chuc
kle. “You saved my life with your magic, gypsy woman. Consider your obligation paid in full.”

He turned away then, eager to return to his new wife. But he would always be grateful to a grandmother he had never known. And to a gypsy king that had captured the magic.

Life was good at last. And as long as Chase kept the love in his heart, it would always be magical.