Taboo (A Classic Romance) (21 page)

He beat her there, which wasn't surprising, considering Aunt Mabel's fondness for discussing her health. And it was fine, since he could use a few minutes alone, away from the crowd of friends and relatives. He knew what he wanted to say, and in case she put up a valiant last stand, his counterargument was ready.

Still, his palms were sweating; his heart was beating as though he'd just run a marathon. This would be one of the most important moments of his life, a moment that would change their future forever.

The front door opened. The noise of revelry spilled out before it shut again, leaving her footsteps on the wood and his erratic breathing the only sounds.

Stepping out of the shadows, he said, "Cammie. Here."

She crossed the narrow porch to where he stood near the side. They were alone, though New Year's toasts and blowing horns intruded faintly from inside.

Wordlessly, she walked into his arms and kissed him full upon the mouth.

"I've missed you tonight," she murmured, loving the feel of his hands on her waist. "All those people, when I only want to be with you."

Reluctantly, she moved back to lean against a porch post, just in case someone decided he or she, too, needed a breath of fresh air. Grant stepped closer and braced his elbow above her head.

"Do you?" he asked. "Want to be only with me?"

She touched his cheek, his jaw, all of him so wonderfully male. He moved his lips into her palm, pressing a moist, lingering kiss there.

"You're the only man I could ever want, Grant." She smiled with a sensual longing. "Let's make our excuses and go home, as soon as we see the New Year in. I'll follow you in my car and we can have our own private celebration." With a conspiratorial wink she added, "I even left my keys in the ignition for a quick getaway, in case we decided to neck in the backseat."

Grant didn't return her smile. His eyes were somber, his expression serious.

"I'd like to celebrate more than New Year's, Cammie. I want to start the rest of our lives together." He reached into his pocket and held a ring up in the moonlight. The simple diamond-and-gold band glinted a sparkling promise.

She had known it was coming, yet she wasn't prepared. She wasn't ready for this, not yet, not here.

"That's Grandmother's wedding ring," she whispered, her voice catching, her heart racing, dread and excitement blending uneasily.

"She gave it to me just before she died. She made me promise to choose carefully and to love whoever wore it as much as she loved Grandpa. 'Make sure it's for life,' she said. I gave her my word. And I plan to keep it."

"But, Grant, that's Mom's mother. What if she can't accept this? How can I wear her mother's ring if she's against us?" Cammie was grasping at straws and finding none. There was only the unwavering strength of his love opposing the glaring realities she had dodged, and that were now staring her straight in the face.

"Then that's her problem. Grandmother gave it to me, nobody else. It's my decision—our decision. I'm asking you to marry me, Cammie. I want you to wear this ring, to be my wife. I want to have children, and teach them that real love has no boundaries. Then one day when we're gone, one of them will have this ring and know that what matters most in life sometimes comes with a price. From us they'll learn the meaning of loyalty, devotion, and, yes, even sacrifice." He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her ring finger. "Marry me. Love me enough to risk it."

Her heart swelled with love for him, yet she was torn.

"I
do
love you, Grant. I love you more than life, more than any woman should have the right to love a man. But, please, Grant. I beg you, just a little more time. Three months, you promised. And in my mind, I know I'm guilty of holding out, of waiting to be as strong about this as you. Give me just a few more weeks, and I swear I'll reconcile what's tearing me up right now. Give us that long to talk to our parents. Just a few more weeks before we take the final step."

Her eyes beseeched him. She pressed the ring between their palms. It felt warm from the heat of his body, charged with electric emotion. "Please," she whispered.

"No." He pushed away from the post, then drew her insistently against him. "If you love me the way you say you do, there's only one decision you can make, no matter what happens as a result."

In the background a loud chorus chanted:
TEN... NINE... EIGHT...

"Time's out, Cammie. I want your answer. And I want it now."

He locked her against him, one hand tangled in her hair, the ring pressed into the small of her back from the pressure of his other palm.

"Kiss me," he whispered, his voice husky with need and demand. "Kiss me at midnight, and face our fate."

... FOUR... THREE...

His mouth fit over hers, seeking and hot. Knowing only that she loved him, that she couldn't live without him, she responded from the deepest depths of emotion and physical yearning. She craved his mouth, she came home within the hollow of his heart. Her body arched into his as she sought to bond the cradle of her feminine warmth to the hard, uncompromising strength of his maleness.

"HAPPY NEW YEAR! 'Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind
...
'"

Wrapped in the haven of ecstasy, she wasn't aware of the door opening, the revelers spilling out.

"'Should auld acquaintance be—"'

The words died to a whisper; gasps of shock rippled through the crowd. Grant and Cammie broke apart as their family swelled onto the porch. It was all unreal and too very real. Cammie couldn't think. Her mind was jerking in all directions, taking it in, rejecting what was happening, only to be quickly throttled with the reality of the nightmare.

"Just what the hell is going on!" Edward bellowed. "Grant! Cammie! For the love of heaven—"

"Oh my God," Dorothy gasped, staggering back against her husband as though dealt a bodily blow.

Cammie looked from one stricken face to another, the scene unfolding with a slow, inevitable horror. No, it couldn't be like this
.
They were going to talk, make everything miraculously all right so she could keep the only man she'd ever love and the only family she'd ever belong to.

"No," she cried, her fist against her mouth. "No!"

And then she was running from it, turning her back on the horrible menagerie of gawking faces, the obscene spectacle of their shock and disbelief.

She didn't feel the ground beneath her flying feet. Her eyes were unseeing as she grappled with numb fingers to turn the key in the ignition.

She kept trying to run from the nightmare, her foot pressing urgently down on the gas pedal. If only she could block it all out, but she couldn't. Couldn't think past the terrible thing she had just witnessed. It kept zooming in for a close-up, the camera of her mind refusing to edit the grotesque image she had played the leading role in. Oh, how she had hurt them, brutally, insensitively shredded their trust.

Get away... get away. This can't be real,
her mind kept repeating, trying to salvage her tattered hope and love.

Somehow she made it home. Home to where Grant shared her bed.

Grant.
Oh, God, what had she done? She'd left him there alone to face them. Alone with his ring.

In that moment she hated herself. She hated her cowardice, her damnable fear of commitment. Grant had been right all along.

Her legs could barely support her, she was shaking so bad. Stumbling, she made her way to the tiny bar in her living room, knocking glasses over in her unsteady haste.

A drink. For the first time in her life she needed a drink. Something strong enough to clear her head, because she felt more drunk than sober. Only she wasn't seeing pink elephants. All she could see was what she'd left behind: Edward outraged. Dorothy looking as though she would faint. Grant... Oh dear Lord, she could still hear him calling her name, asking her to stop.

She hadn't. She'd run like a frightened child, or an idiot who didn't have the courage to fight for the right to love, to stand beside a man who would move heaven and earth to claim her.

Think. Yes, she had to think. She couldn't even negotiate the liquor into the tumbler, so she drank greedily from the bottle. She didn't notice how the brandy burned down her throat, or seeped from the sides of her mouth and trickled onto her dress. Why should she notice? Why should she care?

The bottle slid from her nerveless fingers, and she crumpled onto the floor, burying her face in her hands.

Why had she run?
Because she'd been running all her life. But if only she had quit when Grant had insisted—at the beginning, the day at the cottage—none of this would have happened. She'd created the mess and left him behind to clean it up.

He had every right never to forgive her for what she'd done. She had to find him, tell him she was wrong, so terribly wrong. But she was drunk now, she couldn't drive. She could hardly pick herself off the floor, so she crawled to the phone. Fumbling with the buttons, she somehow managed to get the number right.

His machine answered, his deep, vibrant voice sending memories on a rampage, the tears at last springing to life and rolling down her cheeks.

"Grant, please if you're there, answer me. Come home," she sobbed. "I'm sorry. So sorry. Come back and I'll make it up to you. I'll marry you—"

The beep cut her off.

Marriage.
Oh, Lord, what had she done? He had to think she'd refused him. Would he come after her? Would he come to berate her and demand she prove she still deserved his love? Surely he would, surely...

She dissolved into drunken, hysterical tears, the phone dangling limply in her hand as she curled into the fetal position and wept.

Finally darkness claimed her, and she knew only the old dreams of a highway massacre blending into the even bigger loss of her own making.

* * *

Was it the pounding in her head that woke her, or the light seeping through the window?

Cammie pried her swollen eyes open. The escape of sleep had deserted her, and now she had only the blaring reality of day.

She sat up, hung over, disoriented. Everything came back into focus with hideous clarity: Grant's proposal, the scene, her flight.

And now. Alone. Grant hadn't come after all. The phone receiver still lay on the floor, and she dropped it back into its cradle. Then she stared at it, snatched it back up frantically, and dialed his number once more.

His machine answered. He wasn't home. Or he was refusing to listen. She left another message.

Gathering herself off the floor, she moved on stiff legs, heedless of her stained and rumpled dress. She knew what she had to do. She had to find him. Beg his forgiveness, then vow her eternal commitment to him, and only to him. She would promise to face their parents. Alone, if that's what he wanted.

Anything. Everything. She would stop at nothing to prove she deserved what he had offered.

Cammie got into her car, shuddering at the memory of her urgent escape in it not ten hours before. It couldn't have been so short a time since her life had changed forever, since she had finally understood that her words weren't hollow, that she couldn't live without him, no matter what the price.

His car wasn't in his driveway, but she let herself into the house to look for any sign that he had been there, had gotten her message and had chosen to turn her away for once.

The signal light was on, and she depressed the "play" button. Her voice flailed her, raw, broken, sobbing, too vivid. After the playback, she shut her eyes. With resolution, she played it again... and again. Then left it.

If he came home, she wanted him to hear. That was her. Stripped of all dignity, emotionally naked, and pleading. It was her recompense, her entreaty.

Scribbling a quick note, her hands trembling, she wrote her destination, her intent, and a final proclamation of commitment.

Back in her car, she squared her shoulders, then set out to do what she should have done months before. The miles slid away beneath the tires and she was anxious but strangely calm as she neared the place where she had disgraced herself and betrayed something more than her parents' trust.

She'd betrayed Grant's love, his trust. As well as her own.

The Kennedys' driveway was deserted, except for the family sedan. Getting out of the car, she glanced down at herself and noticed her disheveled appearance for the first time—and didn't care. Determined to right her wrongs, she took a deep breath, said a silent prayer, and knocked twice on the door.

She might not be welcome. She might not be considered family anymore. And so she waited, like some stranger who couldn't enter without invitation.

The door suddenly opened, and she stood face-to-face with Dorothy.

"May I come in?" she asked quietly, meeting Dorothy's eyes without flinching, eyes that were as red and puffy as her own.

Dorothy swung the door all the way open. "Why did you knock, honey? The door was unlocked."

Honey? Not traitor, incestuous fornicator, the moral compromiser of her only son?

"I didn't think I'd be welcome," Cammie said uncertainly, trying hard not to hope for too much, not to cry out her relief that she wasn't shunned.