The Real Father (Twins) (Harlequin Superromance No. 927) (19 page)

He glanced up, caught her eye, and shook his head softly, accepting that he had been outmaneuvered. She had known all along that he would do it.

He turned to his audience. He waited until they were all listening politely, and then he switched on his microphone.

“My brother Beaumont died when he was only twenty-two,” he said. “On his way to becoming a man.”

The faces were quiet. Interested. Sympathetic, even. He took a steadying breath.

“Beau wasn't perfect. Not even close. But he was trying. He was learning a little more every day. A little more about life, about truth, about responsibility and about love.”

He saw Molly, standing apart from the rest. Liza was at her side, leaning into her mother with a slightly lost look in her eye. Jackson had always intended to keep his speech short—but the expression on Liza's face made him more determined than ever.

“And so,” he finished, “we dedicate this pavilion to my brother, not because he was a gifted athlete, or a charming young man, or a beloved brother, nephew and son, though he was without question all of those things. We dedicate it to him because he was human. Because his struggle to be better is the same struggle we all take on every day.”

He felt the spring breeze touching his face like understanding fingers. He gave one quick glance to
ward the memorial plaque that had been attached to the pavilion wall.

“The Beaumont Forrest pavilion doesn't stand for perfection, or for sainthood. It stands instead for hope.” His voice was giving out on him. He could hear the thickness that threatened to break into an emotion he couldn't hide. “It stands for the hope that we'll all cherish every day of life that we're given. The hope that we'll use each day to love ourselves, and to love one another, just a little more than we did the day before.”

He stopped. Only Lavinia seemed to realize that he was finished. That was all he was going to say. As he gripped the podium, trying to control his face, she began to clap. Her lone applause was like a small, rhythmic cracking in the air.

And then slowly, catching on, the others joined her, swelling to a crescendo that he had never expected. It moved him, and yet, even as he stood there, washed by the surprising outpouring of emotion, he scanned the crowd for Molly.

But she had moved away. He could no longer see her. He smiled automatically at well-wishers, shook hands and answered questions, struggling through the voices and the commotion, until somehow he was able to make his way down from the dais and into the park.

It wasn't a very big park, really. So he found her quickly, over by the fountain, where a Girl Scout troop was selling cotton candy. She and Liza were standing at the front of the line, paying for their treat.

He held back briefly, just looking at them—his own kind of treat. Molly wore a long, loose yellow jumper that somehow was the essence of spring. Liza was in blue, the color of her eyes. Even from the back, with their blond hair streaming loose down their long, slim backs, anyone would have known they belonged together.

Liza saw him first. She turned, looking at him over a big pink cloud of cotton candy. “Hi, Jackson,” she said quietly, watching him with somber eyes.

Molly turned, then, too. And her cheeks were suddenly as pink as her daughter's candy.

“Hi.” She slipped her change into her pocket awkwardly, then looked up at him again. “It was a beautiful speech,” she said. “I was surprised to see you up there. I had thought Lavinia was going to—”

“No,” Liza interrupted. “Aunt Lavinia said that Jackson would do it. She told me that this morning.”

“Liza—” Molly looked chagrined.

“She's right,” Lavinia said, coming up from behind them with a smile. “That's exactly what I told her, and that's exactly what happened, wasn't it, honey?” She reached down and gave Liza a big hug. Then she straightened and looked at her nephew.

“Well done, Jackson,” she said matter-of-factly. “I knew you had something to say. And you kept it short, that was the best part. No point forcing these folks to listen to a lot of claptrap when all they really
want to do is eat hot dogs and candy till they get sick or pop.”

Liza giggled, her mouth already pink with cotton candy.

“Which reminds me,” Lavinia continued, looking down at the little girl. “You and I had a date with a couple of funnel cakes, didn't we, young lady? Maybe we should leave your mom and Jackson alone while we explore the food situation around here.”

She winked broadly at Liza, who had begun to smile. “If we're going to get to the popping stage by fireworks time, we'd better get started.”

Liza looked over at her mother eagerly. Molly nodded, avoiding Jackson's gaze. “You might want to consider stopping just short of popping, though, sweetheart,” she said, giving her daughter a warm goodbye kiss that probably smelled of pink sugar.

“Okay,” Liza said agreeably. She turned to Jackson, her expression sobering again. Something, some subtle yearning in her face, made him want to take her in his arms and kiss that expression away. “Will I see you later, do you think?”

“You can count on it,” he said firmly, touching his knuckle to her cheek. He turned to his aunt. “Take good care of her, Vinnie.”

Lavinia wagged a finger in his face. “Ditto, my boy. If you know what I mean.”

And then he was alone with Molly. As if by mutual, unspoken decision, they began to walk slowly, following the wide brick path that had been laid here only last week, weaving among the bright-fuchsia
azaleas she had planted with her own hands only yesterday.

He didn't speak. It was up to her to begin. Last night, when he had left her, she had said she needed time to think. How much time, only she could say. He might be pressuring her by doing even this much, by being this close. But he knew that his good intentions would take him only so far. He couldn't wait forever. He'd done too much waiting already.

“She loves you,” Molly said suddenly, reaching out to pinch off a fading bloom from one of the azaleas. “You know that, don't you?”

“Of course.” He smiled. “I am King Willowsong. All my subjects love me.”

Molly found another blossom that needed to be removed. She was so focused on her task that he might have believed it was the only thing on her mind, except that he could see the flush on her cheeks, the tension in her shoulders.

“But Liza isn't your subject.” Molly looked at him, finally, her palm full of wilted flowers. “You know that, too, don't you? She's…”

Her voice faltered, so Jackson finished for her.

“She's my daughter,” he said softly.

Molly just stared at him helplessly. “How long have you known?”

“From the first moment I saw her, in the maze at Everspring.” He felt again the stunning shock of that moment, when she had barreled into him, and he had for the first time understood that he had a child, a beautiful, breathless being of sunshine and laughter. “I knew you had a daughter, of course.
Lavinia told me. But I was quite sure she couldn't be mine. Until I saw her.”

Molly looked at him curiously. “Why were you so sure? You knew we had made love….”

“Because I went to see you,” he said. “As soon as I was able to get around on my own, about eight months after the accident, I went to Atlanta to see you. I wanted to be sure that there had been no…consequences from that night.”

“Oh.” She looked pensive, as if she were remembering that time in her life. As if it had been far from easy. “Eight months. Liza had been born by then. She was six weeks premature. But you probably already know that, don't you?”

“I do now,” he said. “She told me about it that day when we were out fishing. It explained, she said, why you were so protective of her. But I didn't know about that back then. So when I saw you—” He paused, seeing her once again in his mind, slim, beautiful, dressed in winter black, like a widow.

Mourning Beau, he had understood. Still mourning Beau after eight long months.

He shook away the picture. “You were coming out of the local technical college, where you'd been taking landscape design classes. You were with another man. You were most definitely not pregnant with my child. And you looked happy, happy enough, anyhow. I knew I had no right to step in and risk destroying that first step toward happiness. I had no claim on you—I never had. So I decided to do what I should have done all along—to leave you alone and let you get on with your life. To leave
your memories of Beau intact. I never tried to contact you again.”

She was studying his face. “Even though you still cared for me? Why? Was that part of your punishment? Your punishment for being alive when Beau was dead?”

“No,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “It had nothing to do with his death. It was my punishment for betraying him while he was still alive. For stealing something beautiful and rare that should have been his, something that was never meant to be mine.”

She looked indescribably sad, but she didn't turn away. She met his gaze with eyes of such gentle liquid blue that he almost had to look away himself. No one should be that beautiful, he thought. No wonder they both had loved her.

“And so you missed ten years of your daughter's life,” she said. “And she missed ten years of you. What a waste.”

“Yes,” he said. Almost unendurable to think of it.

“And now is that enough, Jackson?” She shook her head sadly. “Do you finally believe you have been punished enough?”

He set his shoulders. “That's a decision you'll have to make, Molly. What do you think? You know all my sins now. Can you ever forgive me?”

She smiled, just slightly. “For what? For making love to me that night? Or for letting me spend so many years mourning the wrong lover?”

“For all of it.” He watched her eyes. They were
soft now, glowing with something he thought he recognized, though he was almost afraid to hope.

“Can I forgive you? Well, it depends,” she said, thoughtfully. “Can you forgive me for being such a fool? For not realizing that the memory I cherished from the past and the love that I was discovering in the present were one and the same? For not realizing that only your hands, only your lips, could have introduced me to love in such a tender, unselfish way?” She touched his arm. “Well, Jackson? Can you forgive me for being so blind?”

“Yes,” he said, his voice husky with relief, deep with the love he'd always felt but had spent so many years denying. “For all of that and more.”

She smiled and held out her hand. He took it, feeling his whole life come to a complete, safe circle in the joining of their fingers.

“Good,” she said, a small tremor shaking the borders of her words. “And now let's see… Do you vow to always be my most devoted King Willowsong, and live with us happily on the Planet Cuspian forever?”

He grinned, and he took her in his arms, where she belonged. “I do.”

She held back a little, her lips quirked into a teasing smile that did hot and wonderful things to his blood temperature. “And do you swear that you will never, ever make wild, passionate love to me without my being fully aware of it?”

Now that was an easy one.

“My lady. By the three golden moons of Cuspian,” he whispered, lowering his lips to hers. “I do.”

T
HE FIREWORKS
were spectacular. They shot like exotic flowers across the clear spring sky, red and green and gold and blue and beautiful.

But Liza wasn't enjoying them quite as much as she had expected to. She and Aunt Lavinia were sitting on the best, most comfortable park bench together, trying to decide whether to get sick or pop.

Liza decided it might be better just to go to sleep. It was late, and it had been a long day. She was up to her eyes in candy apples, funnel cakes, cotton candy, popcorn and pretzels. Aunt Lavinia wasn't very good at saying no, Liza thought sleepily. She should take some lessons from her mom.

But in spite of the queasy, overstuffed ending, it had been a good day.

The very best day.

This morning, less than an hour after they had gone off together, her mother and Jackson had come back to them, hand in hand.

Liza had known immediately that everything was going to be all right. Her mother's lipstick was all fuzzy, and Jackson even had a little of it on his own lips.

Like bad children acting up, Liza and Lavinia had
begun to laugh. It was just that they were both so relieved, Liza knew. That was what had made it seem so wonderful and funny.

They had spent the whole day together. Though Liza and Aunt Lavinia had wandered off occasionally to indulge in some sugary or deep-fried snack, the four of them had never been far apart.

Even now, as Liza lay there, with her head in Aunt Lavinia's lap, they could see Molly and Jackson, standing shoulder to shoulder in the distance, looking up at the sky, which was full of streaming, glittering, exploding colors.

“Well, would you look at that,” Aunt Lavinia said softly. “Three golden fireworks at once, Liza. Just like the Cuspian moons.”

Liza peeked up sleepily.

And it was true. Her mom and Jackson were kissing, kissing with such a sweet, clinging happiness that Liza knew she would never forget the sight as long as she lived. And in the sky above their heads three golden fireworks hung like Cuspian moons, magical, shimmering balls of electric glitter.

She shut her eyes again.

“Aw, darn, you missed them,” Aunt Lavinia said, disappointed. “They're already gone.”

Liza smiled into Aunt Lavinia's skirt as she felt herself drifting off into a warm and peaceful sleep.

“That's okay,” she murmured. “I don't really need them anymore.”