Once in a Blue Moon (13 page)

He shook his head and squeezed her to him tightly, laying his cheek against her hair. “We all screw up. Believe me, I ought to know. I did it ten years ago with you. I understand why you didn’t tell me. I was hurt and angry, but when I calmed down and thought about it, it made sense. I mean, I had let you down terribly before. I told myself all these years that I had left you for your own good, but, you know, maybe I was just running scared. Loving you threatened the life I had planned for myself. It was too big, too much responsibility, and I was too young and scared and stupid to handle it. I should have thought about the possibility of your being pregnant. I should have asked you. I should have stayed there and talked to you face-to-face. But I took the coward’s way out. I ran back to New York, and I didn’t even let myself think about the fact that you might have gotten pregnant. You were right to be angry with me. And I’d given up my right to be told about Jenny, taking off like that.”

“No.” Isabelle shook her head firmly. “No, you didn’t. No matter what happened, you were her father then, and you still are, and you don’t have to deserve it. It’s just there, a fact, and you should have been told about it.”

He smiled. “Now are we going to argue about this?”

Isabelle smiled and shook her head. “I don’t plan to argue with you at all tonight. I’m too happy to have you back.”

“Me, too. Anyway, I thought it all out, and I realized, sure, maybe you should have told me earlier that Jenny was mine. But I could understand why you hadn’t and why it had been harder and harder to tell me after that. And you were right to protect Jenny from the possibility of my hurting her. How were you to know I wouldn’t take off again? Most important, I realized that if I stayed mad, if I pouted and stayed away from you, I’d only be hurting myself. I love you. I want to be with you. I want to be Jenny’s father. To hell with being upset because I didn’t know four months ago. I know
now,
and I want to enjoy it.”

Isabelle gazed lovingly into his eyes. “Has anyone ever told you what a really great, wonderful, stupendous man you are?”

He grinned. “Not today.”

“Well, you are.”

“Good. Then I can assume that when I ask you to marry me, you’ll say yes?”

“What!” Isabelle stared at him, stunned. “Marry you!”

“Well, yes. How else am I going to live with you and be a father to Jenny and have the rest of the family I want? I want to marry you. I want you to be my wife. Will you?”

“Yes. Oh, yes!” Isabelle didn’t hesitate. She flung herself into his arms again. He lifted her and spun her around, both of them laughing with excitement and joy.

Finally, when he set her down again and they kissed each other enough times to seal their engagement, Michael pulled away and said, “Come on. Get out of those clothes, and let’s pick up Jenny and tell her the news. Then we’re going to celebrate.”

Isabelle couldn’t stop grinning as she quickly skimmed out of her costume and into her own shorts and top. She slathered on cream to remove her makeup and playfully smeared some of it on Michael’s face. “Here, you’d better use it, too. I’ve gotten lipstick and makeup all over you.”

Grumbling a little, Michael wiped it off while Isabelle completed her larger task of taking off the heavy makeup she wore for filming.

“But, you know, Michael,” she said, her voice turning serious, “we better not spend too long tonight celebrating. Your audition’s tomorrow morning, isn’t it?”

He shook his head. “No. I’m not auditioning.”

“What?” Isabelle turned and stared at him. “Why not?”

“When I got the script from my agent, he told me that it’s going to be filmed primarily in New Orleans. That’s where it takes place, and the producer wants the gritty realism of Bourbon Street, et cetera.”

“Oh.”

“So I told him to forget it. Why audition? I’m not moving to New Orleans and leaving you and Jenny here. And you two couldn’t go with me. I mean, there’s your job, and Jenny needs to stay with her school.”

“But, Michael—”

“No. No ‘buts.’ That job is not what I want. I’m not leaving you again for any role.”

Tears welled in Isabelle’s eyes and threatened to spill over. Her heart felt as if it were about to burst with love. Still, she made one last attempt. “But your career....”

Michael made a brief, inelegant remark concerning his career, and Isabelle chuckled.

“There will be other roles,” he assured her. “But this is the only life I’ve got, and I want it to be right here and right now with you and my daughter.”

Isabelle smiled radiantly and stretched up to kiss him. “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go tell Jenny that she has a father.”

* * * * *

ISBN: 978-1-4592-8692-4

Once in a Blue Moon

Copyright © 1995 by Candace Camp

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

www.Harlequin.com