Surrender to Love (31 page)

He wanted her, instead, to remember the good times they’d had – the laughter, the dances across the kitchen floor…the way she told him he made her feel so secure and needed.

Shifting in the straight-backed chair, Michael turned to watch her as she stood over the dishpan, her hands busily scrubbing a plate as her feet tapped out the rhythm of a tune that played in her head.

He smiled sadly to himself.  He hoped she’d feel the same way after he broke the news to her.

Rising, his heart softened as he leaned casually in the doorjamb, and his gaze dropped to her slender waist, recalling Enrique’s words.  She might be carrying his child right now- harboring a tiny life that was a part of them both; something that could bind them together forever.

He would’ve like the idea a whole lot more if the timing had been a little more opportune.

Michael sidled behind her, slipping an arm around her as he rested his hand on the flatness of her stomach; and Sabine leaned into him, rubbing her cheek against the curve of his shoulder as his fingers gently massaged the area just below her navel.

I won’t ask you to stay away forever,
he told her silently, tightening his hold around her waist. 
I’ll bring you home as soon as I can.  I promise.

“Are you almost finished with those?” he asked as he lowered his lips to meet the base of her neck, and she snuggled closer to him.

“Michael,” she said, her laugh low and throaty as his mouth grazed the soft spot behind her ear and she attempted to squirm from his grasp.  “My hands are wet.”

“I need to talk to you,” he said, resting his chin on the top of her head.

“Can it wait?”

He wished i
t could.

“No,” Michael said instead as the sour churning in his stomach started again with fierce intensity.

He closed his eyes, imprinting the warmth of her body on his memory as he held her.  Damn.  How long would it be until he felt her like this again?  A month?  Two?

Forever?

“Michael, you’re crushing me.”

Startled, he released her immediately as her faint voice reached his ears, and he muttered and awkward apology under his breath.

“What was it that you needed to tell me?”

She faced him, her sweet smile melting the cold dread in his heart as she dried her hands on a towel, and suddenly he couldn’t confront her, couldn’t tell her she had to leave him and return to the States.

“Well?”

Michael recited a quick prayer and reached for her hand, squeezing it to reassure no one but himself.

“Sabine, how long would you say you’ve been here?”

“Where?  In this country, do you mean?”

“No, in this house.  With me.”

“A couple months, I suppose,” she said with a shrug.  “Why?”

“And in all that time, what do you know about me?”

“You’re American,” she said after a pause.  “You work for
Luís.  You were married once.  She’s dead.  You’re not.”  She counted off each point pertly on her fingers and looked to him.  “So, what is it exactly you’re trying to ask?”

Damn her for being so direct.
  Why couldn’t she just let him handle this his way?

“And that’s it?”

“Oh, no,” she told him, smiling again as she walked past him and into the sitting room.  “You also have had, in the past, a tendency to try to hard in gaining my trust. Also, to be very bullheaded, short-tempered, occasionally inconsistent, and – do you want me to continue?” came her query as she turned to face him.

Groaning inwardly, Michael stared at her, his hands jammed awkwardly in his pockets.  She wasn’t making this easy, her clipped and flippant replies to his questions.  But it wasn’t her fault, he supposed miserably as he rubbed at his eyes with a thumb and forefinger.  He might just as well come out with it.  Get to the point.  No more beating around the bush.

“Sabine, I’m sending you home.”

The look of blank confusion on her features was almost enough to make him wish he had never said a word to her, that he had never gotten himself messed up in this ridiculous fiasco in the first place.

“What?”

Her stunned words were laced with disbelief as her body visibly stiffened.

“Now, listen to me,” he said, taking a step closer to her.  “It won’t be for – “

“I’m not going back,” she stated, her voice raising an octave as she backed away, her eyes wild, searching the room in preparation for escape.

He knew that look.

“Maybe on for a month or two.”

“I don’t care.”  Her voice became more shrill as she wrapped her arms around herself, cautiously making her way to the door while she watched his every gesture, every move.  “I’m not going back.”

All Michael could do was stand and watch as she ran past him, her boot heels clattering loudly in his ears.

“Sabine – “

He reached out for her, but her terrified scream
caused him to pull back suddenly, burned by the panic in her voice.

“I’ll run, Michael,” she threatened as she backed against the door, her hand groping blindly for the handle so she might flee.  “I swear to God, if you try to send me back, I’ll run.”

His hand caught hers, and it was as though it were a stranger he held, her tiny form struggling in his grasp until she wrenched violently from him.

“Will you at least listen to the reason why?”

“Get your hands off me,” she shrieked, beating at him with tight fists.  “I won’t go back! I won’t!”

She flung open the door and disappeared into the darkness
, taking with her any semblance of hope Michael had, and leaving in its place a tangle of confusion and doubt that filled the emptiness that once was his heart.

There was a lot more going on here than he had ever
anticipated.  Whatever it was, she was terrified beyond reason to face it.  Something at that place she called home – wherever that was.

Well, he wasn’t going to just stand here like an idiot; and he wasn’t about to let her run out on him without some sort of explanation.  The time had come for them to lay their cards out on the table –
all
of them; not just the ones they carefully chose to offer.

It was something he should have done a long time ago.  Hopefully, now, it wasn’t too late

XXX

“I can’t go back to New Orleans,” Sabine sobbed uncontrollably as Marta draped a woolen lap robe across her shoulders.  “I can’t.”

“What is there so wrong with home,” Marta asked in soothing tones.  “Were you not taken from there forcibly?  Would you not like to return for just a little while at least? So your family is confident that you are well?  It is only right they should know.”

Sabine shook her head fervently as she frantically attempted to quell the tears that refused
to cease their flow.  Why?  Why did this all have to happen just when she thought she might finally have a place she belonged?

But this was no time to let foolhardy weaknesses and ridiculous dreams get in the way.  Shouldn’t she have known better?  Shouldn’t she have known that happily-ever-
afters were for other people, not for her?

Dashing away the tracks of her tears, she rocked back on her heels, looking to Marta as she drew an unsteady breath.

“He’ll be waiting for me,” she said as firmly as the wild pounding of her heart would allow, and she clambered to her feet to restlessly pace the floor.  “I know he will.”

Sabine stopped at the window, scanning the darkened landscape as she hugged herself, warming her body against the bitter chill of dread that crept through her.  She couldn’t possibly go back; not with the positive notion that she would have to reckon with Troy Markham’s claim on her.

“Who is this man awaiting you,
querida?
”

“Troy Markham.  After believing my entire life that I’m free, I find out I’m his property,” she said bitterly, a cynical laugh escaping her as she turned to face Marta.  “And he’s decided he wants me back, now that his father’s dead.”

“All this I do not understand,” Marta said, furrowing her brow.  “What does his father’s death have to do with his possession?”

Sabine released a heavy sigh
and smoothed her topskirts nervously as she approached Marta, looking to her for the support she would desperately need.  The time had finally come to tell the truth of the hurt she had buried so deep in her soul.  The truth of who she really was.

“I’d rather you didn’t tell anyone,” she prefaced as she sat down, “only because I don’t think I could bear their looks of pity.”

Sabine paused, examining her hands thoughtfully before squaring her shoulders and meeting Marta’s gaze unmovingly.

“It began, of all things, with the silly, romantic ideas of a young girl who lived in a fantasy world.  A world where things like the color of one’s skin or their position in society didn’t matter.  Unfortunately, this girl lived in New Orleans…”

XXX

“Where is she?”

Gruffly, Enrique dragged Michael into the library, his dark eyes  blazing with fury s he slammed the door behind him.

“After what I have seen this evening, I should have a mind to tell you I do not know.”

“God dammit, Enrique,” Michael swore as he jerked from his grasp.  “This is no time to piss me off.  Sabine ran off and I haven’t the faintest idea where she went.  I’ve looked just about everywhere I would think she’d go.”

Enrique snorted in disgust, and Michael felt the pressure in his veins increase as he fought back the urge to knock him senseless.

“This afternoon you assured me that you will break the news gently, and what is it I find on the roadway tonight?” Enrique bit out. “Sabine in near hysteria.  I am your friend, Michael, but I do question your tact in such a delicate matter as this.  Perhaps it would be better to let Mamá tell her.”

He’d done a lot of stupid things in his time, but the least Enrique could do was give him a little credit.

“You never told her about the incident in Kansas, did you?”

Michael combed his fingers through his hair and sighed irritably as
he sank into a chair.

“I never got the chance.  The minute I mentioned the States, she went crazy.” He rubbed his hands vigorously against his face.  “I don’t know.  Maybe it’s me.  Maybe
I’m
the one who drives her to this.  When it comes to her, it seems I can’t do anything right.”

“She refused to talk to me as well,” Enrique conceded, crossing over to him.  “But
Mamá is with her now.  Perhaps she will tell her what it is that troubles her.”

Michael shook his head.  “Don’t count on it.  She’s stubborn.”

“Much like somebody else I know,” Enrique mumbled under his breath.

Michael let the comment pass.

“I need to talk with her,” he said, rising abruptly.

“I think maybe it is best that the explanation come from someone else.”

“I didn’t ask for your opinion,” he snapped, opening the door.  “If anything’s going to be said, it’s going to come from me.  I’ve hedged on this long enough.  Where are they?”

“
Mamá’s drawing room,” Enrique sighed resignedly, and motioned vaguely down the hallway.

It was all he could do  not to
run down the hall and burst through the door, but Michael counted his steps carefully as he quickly rehearsed what it was he would tell her.  How delicately could you tell a woman that you were wanted by a pack of bloodthirsty vigilantes who thought of nothing but revenge?  And it was a killing in self-defense.  Hell, to this day he wasn’t even sure who had pulled the trigger.

Well, he thought as he tentatively at the door, there was no other way to do it but come right out and tell her what had happened…and hope for the best.

“We are busy,” Marta’s voice came, muffled by the heavy mahogany of the door.

“I need to talk to Sabine.”

“I don’t
want
to see you.”

Sabine’s bitter voice
cut through his gut like a knife, and he felt his fists tighten a frustration set in.  He wasn’t going to get angry.  He was going to approach this in a calm, rational manner.

“Will you please open the door,” Michael requested through gritted teeth,  his pulse throbbing mercilessly at his temples.

“No!”

He closed his eyes and slowly counted to ten.  She’s overwrought, he reminded himself.  Just give her a moment…

“Sabine – “

“Go
away!
”

“All right,
dammit, I’ve had enough,” he shouted as his fist pounded repeatedly at the door.  “Five minutes.  That’s all I’m asking for.  And you’re not going to walk out on me like you did tonight.”

Michael breathed a sigh of relief when the door cracked open, his anger waning as
hope pushed its way into his heart.  Marta slipped out into the hallway, her dark eyes blazing as she turned to him.