Merlyn's Magic (33 page)

'Who is it?' she called through the closed door, still
slightly shaken from the vividness of that dream.

'Special delivery for Miss Summers,' came back the muffled
reply.

She gave an irritated frown; surely by some miracle of
organisation the shop hadn't managed to deliver the furniture on the
same day? Her mother! She could organise anything she chose to, was
taking great delight in preparing for the advent of her third
grandchild.

'Just a minute,' she called out as she unlocked the door,
frowning as, instead of meeting someone's gaze on eye-level she stared
at fresh air. A small squeaking noise at her feet made her look down,
giving a small gasp of pleasure at the sight of the two kittens in the
box that looked back at her, a pure black one, and a long-haired
tortoiseshell.

'Where did you come from?' She looked up and down the
corridor but there was no one in sight. Someone must have just dumped
them on her doorstep and run. 'You poor little things,' she crooned as
she picked them both up out of the box. 'Doesn't anybody
want—' Her stunned gaze was fixed on the label attached to
the red ribbon about the tiny black neck, 'MISSY not Ms' it read. She turned quickly to the tortoiseshell, the small brown
body squirming as she tried to read the label on the green ribbon,
'BISCUIT'. Rand!

Her heart began to beat faster than ever.
'Rand…?' she called uncertainly. Suzie had said he was
coming… And who else could know the significance of the
kittens' names? 'Rand!' she called again, more desperately this time.

He stepped out from the corridor that adjoined hers,
thinner, but with none of the bitterness in his face that she had
always associated with him. 'I thought we could have two kittens to
start with, and as they are a male and female I'm sure they will soon
solve the problem of the "houseful", although one of them might have to
change his name! The rain seems to be something we can't stop falling
this year, and Mrs Sutton has baked enough burnt biscuits
to—My God.' His stunned gaze lowered to the swell of her
body, his throat moving convulsively. 'No one told me you were
pregnant!'

'
We're
pregnant,' she corrected, her
throat full with emotion, putting the kittens back in their box as they
drooped against her tiredly. 'We've been waiting for you.'

He didn't touch her, just came to stand in front of her.
'I love you, Merlyn Summers. I began to love you that first night you
came to me, but I felt guilty for allowing myself to feel again.' His
silver gaze held hers. 'I felt responsible for Suzie killing herself,
and that I didn't deserve to be happy again. Finding out that she was
killed doesn't change the fact that I made her unhappy, and now that
you're carrying my child I don't know how you feel about what I
did—'

She put silencing fingertips over his lips. 'The same way I
always have; that you made the right decision.'

'A part of me will always love and remember Suzie, but
she's my past, and if you'll have me, you're my future!' His beautiful
eyes looked down at her anxiously.

'You have to be sure, Rand,' she told him earnestly. 'You
said you couldn't bear to be anywhere with me that you went with
her—'

'Because being with you blocked out the memories I had
with her.' His hands clasped her hands. 'And at the time I didn't want
to forget—'

'Are you sure you do now?' She was still wary, couldn't
take anything less than total commitment this time. 'It's been six
months.'

'I can see that.' He looked indulgently at the swell of
her body that was his child. 'But I wouldn't have come to you now if I
wasn't sure the past is behind me, that I'm not offering you less that
you deserve.'

'And you?' she looked at him anxiously. 'What do you
deserve?'

'You,' he answered simply. 'As my wife. As the mother of
my children.'

'As far as I'm aware there's only one in there!' she
teased him, a slight catch in her throat.

'I'm hoping there will be others,' he said huskily. 'That
other child—'

'Rand, I knew before reading Suzie's notebook that you and
she had lost a child,' she told him gently. 'Anne told me accidentally
one day. And at the time I was glad she had; it explained your
uncharacteristic aggression that first afternoon you came to my hotel
room—before you made such exquisite love to me.'

Rand shook his head. 'I couldn't believe the things I said
to you that day!'

She understood him well enough to know aggression with a
woman was totally alien to him. And in the end it had been the gentler
side of him that made love to her. 'I knew you didn't really mean
them,' she assured him. 'And really there was no need for force; I was
only too willing!' She looked down at the tangible evidence of that
willingness she had had to belong to him from the very first moment she
saw him.

Rand's expression was agonised. 'Don't you hate me for
what I did to Suzie?'

She was shaking her head even as he voiced the question.
'I told you that nothing I read in that notebook changed my feelings
for you, and it still hasn't. You did what you had to do, and I'm sure
that if you had to make that choice again you would make the same one.'

'I would,' he acknowledged flatly. 'There really was no
choice.'

She looked up at him with all of her love in her eyes.
'I'm sure Suzie knew that—and accepted it. She was just hurt
and confused when she realised you had lied to her.'

'She would have insisted on putting the baby first if I
hadn't!'

'I know that.' Merlyn smoothed the lines from between his
eyes. 'And so did Suzie. More than anything else she knew she loved
you, and that's why she was coming back to you. Suzie will always be a
part of
our
lives, my darling, because she was
the one to bring us together.' She believed that now in a way she could
never tell Rand, knew that he
had
put his life
with Suzie behind him, and that today Suzie had relinquished her hold
on his heart.

'She would have liked you,' Rand said with certainty.
'When she was so ill she told me that she—that when she was
gone, she wanted me to find someone else to love, to be happy with
them. I told her that would never happen, and at the time I believed
it. But Suzie was so much wiser than me, and I began to realise how
right she had been the first time I made love to you.' He framed
Merlyn's face with loving hands. 'I do love you, so much, and you make
me so happy. I'd like to hold you, to love you, but I don't want to
hurt you or the baby.' Rand looked uncertain.

'You won't hurt me,' she assured him huskily. 'And I think
the baby would like it too!'

'Would you have told me if I hadn't come here tonight?' He
looked so vulnerable. 'I'd understand if you weren't going
to—'

'Of course I was going to tell you about our child,'
Merlyn admonished, knowing he still found it difficult to believe there
was
a child. 'My mother has strict
instructions to call you as soon as I go into labour!'

'What a shock that would have been,' he said ruefully.

'Not much more than it is now,' she derided. 'Pregnant
women aren't very glamorous—'

'You're talking about the woman I love, adore, worship,'
he punctuated each endearment with a kiss, each more lingering that the
last. 'Desire,' he added shakily. 'Do you think we might go into your
flat for our lovemaking?' he remarked candidly, the evidence of his
desire moving impatiently against her. 'I think we might be a little
conspicuous out here!' His teasing lightened the mood between them.
They smiled idiotically at each other as Rand carried the box with the
kittens into the flat and closed the door. But their smiles quickly
became sensual pleasure, their shared love deepening their love for
each other.

It was some time later, their love expressed in the most
fundamental way possible as Rand made love to her with a tenderness
bordering on reverence, that they returned to anything resembling
rational conversation, the kittens both fast asleep in the box beside
the bed.

'I've seen a preview of the film.' Rand caressed the hair
at her temples. 'You were absolutely beautiful in it.'

After much confusion and indecision the film company had
finally decided to go ahead and make the film under a totally new
director, and it had been completed several months ago, before Merlyn's
pregnancy was apparent to any but the most discerning eye. It was due
for general release very shortly, and while Merlyn knew it lacked
Christopher's obsessive genius, it was a more accurate account of
Suzie's story.

'Anne and James send their love, and of course Daniel
Brandon does too,' he added.

The Bentons' son had been born only a few months ago, and
while Merlyn hadn't seen him yet she had been assured by his parents
that he was the most beautiful baby in the world. As he had partly been
named after his uncle, she didn't doubt it for a moment!

'I think we should start thinking about arranging our
wedding before
our
son decides to put in an
appearance!' Rand still looked slightly in awe of the child he had felt
move beneath him, his hand even now resting possessively on the
squirming body.

'Daughter,' Merlyn corrected softly.

He raised dark brows at her certainty. 'You sound very
sure about that, have you had one of those tests done to establish the
sex?'

'No,' she smiled, loving each rugged inch of his face,
even the past that had put the lines there. 'But I do have it on good
authority,' she said huskily.

'Merlyn's magic?' he teased.

'Not exactly.' She caressed his beautiful face, knowing
that Suzie hadn't meant for her to tell Rand of their conversation.
Conversation? It still seemed slightly unreal, and yet Rand was here as
Suzie had said he would be. It had happened. Hadn't it…?
'It will be a daughter, you'll see,' she said with renewed certainty.

'If you say so.' The love in his eyes almost blinded her
as he bent his head and his mouth claimed hers.

Angela Suzanne Carmichael was born exactly six weeks later.