A Love Surrendered (21 page)

He crawled in beside her and she giggled, slapping his hands away. “Collin McGuire, will you please show some restraint? I need to get ready for bed.”

She started to get up and he rolled her back, kissing her soundly. “Sorry, Little Bit, but I used all my restraint when we were engaged.”

Batting his hands away, she shimmied free and popped to her feet, tossing an impish smile over her shoulder. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder, my love, so hold that thought.”

He lumbered to his feet, his tone a near growl. “Any fonder, Little Bit, and you’re going to see a grown man cry.” Following her into the bathroom, he snatched his toothbrush and squeezed a curl of toothpaste to brush behind her in the mirror. “You’re definitely the civilized one in this family, Faith, just shy of prim and proper.” Lips sloped in a wry smile, he lifted a lock of her hair to plant a foamy kiss scented with peppermint, and she gave a little squeal.

“I’ll show you civilized,” she said with a mock glare. She pinched a glob of toothpaste on her hand and lunged, slashing him with a clump of cream that oozed down his neck.

Eyes circled in shock, he stared, toothbrush limp in his mouth. Slamming it in the sink, he grinned, capturing her from behind. “So you want to play dirty, do you?” he whispered. And with a playful flick of his tongue, he murmured hot words in her ear, their intent disarming as much as his actions. Hands skilled at lovemaking traveled her body with a gentle caress, and her eyes drifted closed while heat shimmered her skin.
Oh, Collin . . .

All tease faded away at the warmth of his touch. “I love you, Faith,” he said quietly, his voice husky and low, “and I’ve been craving you since you walked out that door.” Sweeping her hair aside, he grazed the curve of her neck with his lips, unleashing a soft moan from her throat. Renegade hands roamed to her waist where gentle fingers tugged her blouse from her skirt. The warmth of his palm slid to her stomach and stopped . . . His eyes met hers in the mirror, and she swallowed hard as the truth dawned in their depths. “Your stomach is usually flat, Little Bit . . . ,” he whispered, a muscle shifting in his throat. “Are you . . . is it possible . . . could you be pregnant?”

Tears welled in her eyes and she nodded.

“Oh, Faith . . .” Swallowing her in his arms, he began to laugh, the sound tender and reverent and mixed with his tears. With trembling hand, he gently palmed her stomach again, his silent heaves shuddering against her back. “Oh, God, thank you, thank you,” he said softly, the intensity of his emotion vibrating against her hair. “We’ll gladly take whatever you send, but oh, Lord, my soul longs for a son . . .”

Turning her to face him, he cupped her cheeks in his hands, nuzzling her lips with such tenderness that tears spilled from her eyes. “I love you, Faith, more than anything in this world.” He clutched her close, his breath warm in her ear. “When?” he whispered.

Her heart stalled. “I . . . haven’t been to the doctor yet, so I’m not certain.”

He pulled back, his face that of a little boy at Christmas. “Your best guess, then. February? March? Come on, Faith, I’m gonna be a father again—give me something to go on.”

She worried her lip, heart thudding against her ribs. With a hard gulp, she slowly raised her eyes to his. “After Thanksgiving,” she said quietly.

Silence. The drip of the faucet sounded deafening as Collin stared, mouth open and jaw slack. The joy that glimmered in his eyes before glinted into a hard veneer beneath dark brows dipped thunderously low. “Thanksgiving?” he repeated, the shock of his tone embedding her guilt even deeper. He stepped back, eyes scanning her body as he was often prone to do, but this time, his desire seemed as cold as the porcelain sink digging into her back. “You’ve been pregnant for three months or more . . . and you didn’t tell me?”

Her body chilled to ice, except for the heat in her face. “Collin, I didn’t want to get your hopes up if something happened,” she said quickly, circling his waist. “I wanted to make sure.”

His gray eyes narrowed to slits of pewter, and a muscle cramped in her stomach when he moved farther away. “You
mean ‘make sure’ you can teach your all-important class, don’t you?”

Her breath caught. The truth of his statement hit dead on, her words to Annie sealing her guilt.
“It’s the rule of love God is so partial to—let no one seek his own but that of the other.”

Taut muscles in his face eased almost imperceptibly when the dark slash of brows sloped into hurt.
Oh, Collin, forgive me!
She struggled to talk, but her tongue was as thick as the paste on her hand. “You’re right,” she whispered. “I was being selfish and putting myself before you.” She looked up, tears burning her eyes over what she had done. “Will you forgive me, please?”

The lines of his face softened a degree, but the damage she’d caused still darkened his eyes. “You deceived me, Faith. That’s my baby as well as yours, and I had a right to know.”

She stepped forward, fingers shaking when she twined them with his, his hand cold and still. With a heavy heart, she moved in close, arms to his waist and head to his chest. Eyes shut, she breathed in his scent—musk and soap and the sweet hint of talcum powder he used on the girls. She heard the beat of his heart, steady and strong, a heart that beat fiercely for her, his family, and the God they all served. Fingers clenched, she dug into the rigid muscles of his back, her voice a grieved whisper. “Will you forgive me?”

He exhaled and she realized she’d been holding her breath. “I forgive you, Faith, but I’m hurt. We promised to tell each other everything.”

“I know.” She stood on tiptoe to brush her lips to his, well aware his arms remained slack for a man with a one-track mind when it came to his wife.

He held her away, his cool look chilling her skin. “Forgiven, Faith, but not forgotten. You knew how much this baby would mean to me, yet you withheld it. It’s going to take some time for my anger to cool.” He released her abruptly, the absence of his touch leaving her bereft. Reaching for his toothbrush, he rinsed it off and put it back before shoving past her.

Her heart tripped. Clutching his sleeve, she begged with her eyes. “Collin, please, don’t do this! Our love has produced a child—can’t we embrace that?” Desperate for reconciliation, she clutched him close, resorting to Charity’s tactics with a hand grazing his thigh. “Collin, please—make love to me,” she whispered.

With an unnatural calm, he quietly removed her hand from his leg, his look as icy as his touch. “I’m sorry, Faith, but I’m just not ready.” He turned to go, taking her heart with him.

Sagging against the sink, she put a hand to her eyes and wept. A man of unbridled passion, Collin had seldom turned her away in over thirteen years of marriage, and Faith mourned the loss of his touch. With a swipe of tears, she plucked a tissue from the box on the commode and blew her nose before brushing her teeth and washing her face. She slipped out of her clothes, donned her silk nightgown, and turned out the light, silent in the dark as she slid into bed. Collin lay on his side, his bare back a muscled wall. More tears pricked and she curled into a ball on her edge of the bed, silent prayers soft on her tongue.
Lord, this isn’t how I’d hoped to celebrate the news of our child.
But if Collin needed time to heal, then she’d give it, no matter the hurt in her heart. Long moments of heavy silence passed and she drew in a deep breath, finally willing to risk his rejection with a stroke of his shoulder. “I love you, Collin—”

She froze when he gripped her hand, the intensity in his tone stealing her air. “Don’t ever,
ever
do this again, Faith,” he whispered, turning to face her. “Keeping something from me that I have a right to know. Do you understand?”

Chest heaving, she nodded, his face a mere blur through a curtain of tears.

“That’s my son or daughter in there,” he whispered in pain, his voice and hands softening with a skim of her stomach, cradling it before his arms cradled her. The clock ticked away the precious moments as he held her, her gratitude filling the silence until he finally pressed a kiss to her hair. Easing her
back on the bed, his eyes fused to hers while his hand caressed her belly as if it were the very child in her womb. In slow and deliberate motion, he leaned in, fondling her mouth with a kiss so exquisitely tender, she quivered beneath his touch. “We’re one flesh, Faith,” he breathed. “My seed, your womb, God’s blessing.” He kissed her again, slowly, reverently, fingers tucked to her chin while his thumb trailed her jaw. “We need to talk tomorrow about the prospect of you teaching, but for now—tonight—” He swept her hair back from her face with a solemn gaze and a gentle hand. “Tonight,” he said quietly, eyes moist and his whisper brimming with awe, “I’d like to celebrate the hope of a son.”

“Last one to the tree is it!” Gabe tore out of Faith’s mother’s back door, a blur of freckles and curls flying in the breeze, coaxing a smile to Annie’s face. Faith’s foster sister reminded her a lot of a grown-up Glory—smart, tough, and a bit of the dickens.

Annie sighed. Just one day with Faith’s family and already they’d become as big a blessing to Glory as Faith had become to her. The smell of fresh-mown grass drifted into the cheery kitchen, merging with the aroma of warm sugar cookies. A contented sigh parted from Annie’s lips as she tied Glory’s shoe, the feeling of family as sweet as the smudge of icing across her sister’s cheek.

“Annie, hurry—I’m gonna be last . . .” Glory’s tiny fist shook Annie’s shoulder while a horde of cousins darted behind Gabe, limbs and shrieks slashing the air.

“Oh no you won’t, sweetheart,” Charity said with a snag of Henry’s shirt.

“Thanks, Mrs. Dennehy, you’re the best!” Glory shouted, her angelic smile gliding into a smirk as she tore past Henry with a giggle.

“Hey, no fair!” Henry groaned, Charity’s ten-year-old twin
son clearly a master at melodrama. Face screwed in agony, he attempted to twist free. “You always make me go last.”

“That’s because you’re a handsome young man who has to learn ladies go first.” Charity wrestled an arm to his waist, managing a kiss to his cheek before he dashed out the door. Her lips slanted. “At least till a woman marries, and then heaven knows it’s all downhill from there.”

“Hush, Charity,” Faith teased. “You’ll give Annie the wrong idea about marriage.”

“Oops.” Charity winked. “I
meant
till a woman marries a stubborn Irishman.”

Annie giggled, the easy camaraderie between sisters a balm to her soul. She’d known from the moment she’d met Faith’s sisters at Bookends this morning, and then their mother upon arrival at the house, that this was the kind of family she’d always longed for. The kind she’d been destined for before Maggie left for college and her mother’d taken ill. A sliver of grief edged the corners of her mind and she pushed it away, unwilling to allow a shadow to fall on one of the best days she’d had in a long time. “So, you all married Irishmen, then?” She scanned the faces of Faith’s sisters as they sipped tea around their mother’s table.

“’Fraid so,” Charity said, teacup in hand and a leisurely smile on her face. Her elbows sank onto the table as perfectly manicured brows angled in tease. “Lady-killers, all—giving a whole new meaning to the word, because trust me, they’re as stubborn as they are good-looking.”

Katie chuckled. “Right down to the man who gave us life, right, Mother?”

Marcy turned at the counter with a smile, mixing ingredients for a final batch of cookies. “Oh mercy, yes,” she said with a shake of her head, the occasional silver strands in her blonde bob one of the few indicators she was Faith’s mother and not an older sister. “And his two sons? Goodness, it’s as if he spit them out of his mouth, although Sean isn’t too bad I suppose, is he, Emma?”

Faith’s sister-in-law smiled. “I’m afraid the jury’s still out on that one, Marcy.” Emma’s gray eyes twinkled. “Although I suspect he might be the least stubborn of the lot.”

“Humph,” Charity said, chomping a cookie, “he’s certainly not the most thickheaded, I can tell you that.” She swiped a dab of stray frosting with her tongue. “Mitch has a lock on that.”

“Well, don’t worry, Annie,” Marcy said with a crinkle of laugh lines around clear blue eyes, “just steer clear of men from the Southie neighborhood for Italians from the North End.”

“Oooo, I hear Italians are romantic.” Lizzie stirred cream into her tea with a dreamy sigh.

“Uh-oh, it’s not almost two-thirty, is it?” Katie jumped up with a final swig of tea. “I’m supposed to meet Meg at Harvard Law at two-thirty to study criminal justice, and I wanted to surprise Luke with some cookies at the office on my way.”

“To soften him up before you tell him about studying with Jack?” Charity licked the remains of frosting from her finger while giving Katie a devious smile.

Katie hiked her chin, a pretty shade of rose blooming on her cheeks. “Already told him, if you must know, and he took it rather well.”

“Oh, Katie, I’m so relieved.” Marcy delivered bowls of cookie dough to both sides of the table and plopped in a chair, commencing to fan herself with a well-worn recipe card. “I wasn’t sure how Luke would react.” Her lips tilted as she glanced at Annie. “Something else to consider with Irish men, I suppose—stubbornness compounded by temper.”