A Woman's Heart (27 page)

But once started along the sea wall, her feet moved of their own volition. She walked faster and faster until she was almost running, a kind of panic gnawing her chest that she recognized as fear.

Terror, that no matter how fast she moved, or how far away she lived, it would never be fast or far enough, that she could never outrun her memories of all she'd shared with Peter and Alex.

She glanced across the water toward the marina, thinking that if she could only see her boat, could get to
Heart's Desire
swiftly, she might somehow be safe.

But she couldn't see a thing. Except for the light.

So much light.

Where was it coming from?

She stopped running, her legs trembling.

It was as if the sun—the warm and healing sun—had plunged from the sky and landed in the center of the marina. Prisms of radiance shone and sparkled, piercing the air with reflections off windows and metal, then scattering across the harbor in a multitude of rainbows.

It was magic.

Only she had thought the magic gone.

The light entranced and beguiled, reaching out and touching her, playing across her face and casting warmth into her soul.

It drew her towards home in the same way Peter had drawn her to Boston despite her fears. The closer she got, the brighter it became, as though all the light in the universe was concentrated on this special spot.

Walking through the marina gate, Jann started down the wharf. The light was coming from her dock.

Impossible!

From her boat.

Unbelievable!

Her feet froze. It was her boat, a fairyland of a boat. Crystal hearts hung from every stay, and they turned and swayed in the breeze, catching the sunlight then shooting it back to the sky in rays of joy.

In front of the light was a man, a dark-haired, tall, lean mountain of a man. The light shot behind him and around him, even through him it seemed, lifting him towards her like a present from God.

Her heart ceased its beating.

Peter was the man.

With a fierce longing in her heart and a cry wrenched from her lips, she leaped across the inches of water and landed in his arms. When they closed around her, she knew she was home.

Finally... and completely... home.

She breathed in the scent of him, drowned in his touch, and with a tremulous sigh, gazed into his eyes. They were darker than midnight against the light, but clearer than morning.

"Thank God you're back," he said fervently. "I was beginning to think I might be wrong."

"About what?" she whispered.

"That you'd come home at all."

"I told you I wasn't."

"I almost believed you."

"And now?"

"You're here."

"How long have you been here?" she managed to ask, terrified that if she spoke, the magic would somehow die.

"Two days," he replied, his eyes telling her it had seemed like two hundred. "I came when you left Willow House. I followed you to the airport, but the flight to Hawaii left before I could get there. I took the next one and have been waiting here ever since."

While she had been in San Francisco, her heart as mournful as the screams of gulls.

"Happy birthday, my darling." His arms tightened around her.

She couldn't think about him calling her darling, could scarcely believe he was here. She glanced instead at the crystal hearts, and to still her racing heart, began to count. One, two... twenty-six. She was twenty-six years old today. Had she forgotten or, like other years, had she simply not allowed herself to remember?

"How did you know?" she asked wonderingly.

"Capt'n and Ruby," he explained.

"I don't celebrate my birthday."

"You do now." He smiled.

How had she ever imagined his eyes were cold?

"Now, and for the rest of your life." He made the pronouncement as though it were a sure thing. Then he took her face in his hands. "With me," he added, "and with Alex..." Desire darkened his eyes. "...and with all the little Stricklands we can manage to produce." His expression softened. "If you'll have me, that is."

A cloud blew in front of the sun, blocking its brilliance, leaving only the light in Peter's eyes blazing down upon her.

"Do you love me?" Jann asked.

"Don't you know?"

"You said you never wanted to fall in love." She could still remember his eyes when he had informed her of that fact.

"I didn't. I changed my mind."

"What changed it?" she asked breathlessly.

"You did," he replied gruffly, "a thin slip of a woman with hair the color of a sunset."

She smiled. "You told me when we first met that I should cut my hair off."

"It attracted me," he explained, reaching out to touch a curl. "I didn't want to be attracted."

Which was how it had been with her.

"Never cut it," he ordered, smoothing the curl with his fingers. "It's beautiful." His eyes darkened. "You're beautiful."

Her heart reeled.

"You never seemed to like me much," she said, wondering if this was a dream.

"I liked you," he said firmly, stroking first her shoulder, then down her arm. "But I was afraid."

She'd thought it was only her that knew the face of fear. Not this man before her with the strong arms and fearless heart.

His jaw tightened. "You were too much like my mother."

"No woman wants to be compared to her lover's mother."

"No." He smiled ruefully. "But you were both beautiful women..."

Beautiful. He had said it again. She hadn't simply imagined it the first time.

"...who attracted people to them." He lifted one brow. "Even though you do your best to push them away again."

"I tried to push
you
away," she admitted.

"I was eager to be pushed."

"Because of your mother?"

He nodded.

"She left you and Claire."

"Yes."

She caught her breath. "Did you think I would leave too?"

"I was sure of it." His eyes darkened. "You lived on a sailboat, dressed like a hippie, took photographs."

"The evidence is damning."

"Don't laugh," he said sternly. "My mother liked to think that she was an artist too."

"Was she?"

"No. She painted a little, but was really no good at it. Not like you with your photos. She mostly used it as an excuse to live a freewheeling lifestyle, to attend parties—"

"I don't like parties," Jann said emphatically.

"I should have guessed," he replied, laughing. Then his eyes again turned serious. "But when I first met you, you seemed to be living the epitome of a gypsy life, no home, no car, no secure means of support. I figured that any minute you'd up anchor and sail away."

"Leave like your mother left?"

"Yes," he said again. "And I didn't want to be like my father, trying to hold on to something impossible to resurrect."

"What do you mean?"

"My father knew how my mother's absences affected Claire."

And Peter, too, Jann knew, sympathy wrenching her heart.

"So when she wanted to take off to attend an art show in Paris, he decided to go with her. He even chartered a private jet, no doubt thinking he could win her back, believing that if he shared her interests, she might share his."

"Is that when their plane crashed?" Jann asked softly, appalled by the pain Peter must have endured.

"Yes." His skin paled beneath his tan. "For a long time I blamed my mother, both for her death and my father's." He gazed down at Jann. "Then I met you."

Meeting him, loving him, had also healed her in ways she was just discovering, making her want to laugh and cry and exult in the joy of living.

"The only thing that mattered after I learned Claire was dead was the knowledge she had a son. I was determined to give him the life Claire had missed out on."

"One you missed out on too."

He shrugged. "I wanted Alex to have security, a place where he'd be safe."

"He already had that with me."

"I didn't believe that at first." Peter gazed down at her, and smiled ruefully. "You looked like an exotic bird about to take off to God knows where, dragging my sister's child with you or worse yet, leaving him behind. I couldn't allow that to happen."

"And now?" She caught her breath.

"Alex is not the only person I love."

Her heart exulted at his words. She held them within, letting them heat her from the inside out.

"Since my parents' death," she said softly, "Alex has been the only thing in my life that has made any sense. Before he arrived all I did was work. I convinced myself I was happy even though it wasn't true." The warmth from his love curled through her. "Then you came along."

"You treated me as though I were the enemy."

"You were the enemy," she said simply. "You wanted my baby, my life. But I soon realized you'd taken the one thing I least expected." She gazed into his eyes and found deep in their darkness an inextinguishable light. "My heart," she whispered, "and that terrified me."

"Why?" he asked, stroking her cheek with his thumb.

"If you loved me, you were doomed. Like my parents, and Claire. Or even more horrible, you might not love me back." She looked at him reprovingly. "You never said you did, even after we'd just made love."

"I couldn't," he said.

"Why not?"

"I didn't want to acknowledge, even to myself, that it was you as much as Alex that kept me hanging around Hawaii. I didn't want to admit I'd fallen in love with a New Age, heart-loving, crystal-collecting woman, who could end up doing what my mother did to my father. I couldn't risk it." He captured her mouth, and for a long moment there was no sound to be heard but the thudding of both their hearts.

"But you did risk it," she finally said.

"I couldn't stop myself. When we made love..." His voice trailed away, and in his eyes Jann could see the passion she'd seen flaming at the Seven Pools.

"You fell in love," she finished for him. Just as she had. Heart-stoppingly, irrevocably, forever and ever.

"Yes," he agreed simply, pulling her to him again. "I kept thinking it wasn't real, even prayed that it wasn't. I thought if I got away from you, the feelings would disappear."

"Then Alex got sick."

"Yes."

"You were so strong." She swallowed hard. "You were the only thing that gave me hope Alex might be all right."

"It was your love that rallied him."

"Our love."

"Your crystal."

"So now you believe in crystals?" Jann looked up into his eyes, saw with joy his love and acceptance.

I'm just trying to share your interests," he answered back. Then the smile faded from his lips. "I believe in you," he said solemnly. "And if that includes crystals or heart-shaped kitchen tables..."

She chuckled, the laughter warming her.

"...then so be it." His expression darkened. "I wondered when I heard of Claire's death, if things would have been different if I'd been there when she finished high school. If she could have come to live with me she might not have gone off to New York."

For a long moment she said nothing, wanting to weigh her words carefully, wanting to help this man who had helped her so much. "Someone once told me," she finally said, "that you can't predict what's going to happen." She fondled the hair at the base of his neck, reveling in its softness, and the warmth and suppleness of his skin. "You couldn't know." She shivered. "Everyone makes mistakes. I made a mistake when I didn't get the pipes on my boat fixed and look what happened to Alex."

"You didn't know," he said back to her, looking at her long and lovingly. "Maybe we both have to forgive ourselves."

His words filled her with a lightness that sprang from relief.

"I'm beginning to think you're perfect," Peter whispered, catching her to his chest in a way that rendered her breathless. "I love you, Jann."

Her spirit soared at hearing the words she had so longed to hear, and she stared up at the twirling crystals. The shadows left in her heart cleared by the wellspring of light.

Peter loved her.

The twisting crystals told her so.

"Be my wife Jann." he added.

What if loving wasn't enough? What if loving couldn't stop her fears?

"You can't promise you'll be safe," she began, her voice near to breaking with emotion, hope, and fear intertwined, "or that Alex will either, or..." She couldn't say aloud what Peter had said before, that there would be more children than Alex to share their love. Their children.

His face was as strong as the frame of her boat. "Our love will keep us safe," he said firmly, staring down at her with eyes that never lied. "Together we'll make magic."