A Child Of His Own, page 20
Her feelings for Ben, on the other hand, were different. There were the cozy, warm feelings that came after they made love, when he was holding her in his arms and their breathing came in unison, as if they were one entity. There were the uncertain feelings, the ones that sprang from fear of the unknown, from loving blindly and not knowing where it would lead. There was the feeling of joy that came from being loved in return. The incredible physical pleasure of being with a man whose body fit so perfectly with hers. The feeling of unfamiliarity, of not knowing very much about him, and the resulting sense of excitement that came from being with a stranger. There were the tender feelings that ultimately arose when his past was revealed and she understood at last the cause of the pain she’d always seen in his eyes.
But most of all, there was the feeling of being caught in a wildfire out of control.
There was no denying the desire that raged between them, but that was just it. Men were creatures of the flesh, and maybe all they ever felt for women was really just animal desire. Was that why Ben was able to walk away? All right then, even though she would never understand it, apparently he could walk away from her and everything she had to offer in favor of...what had he called it? The next turn in the road. But that left one glaring question unanswered. How could he walk away from Jason? How many turns in the road would he have to come to before realizing that he would never find his son? That his search was worse than looking for a needle in a haystack?
She had lied to him tonight when she told him that Jason would be just fine. She had done that for his sake. He seemed to be genuinely concerned for Jason’s welfare, and she hadn’t wanted to make things worse by telling him the truth.
He wouldn’t be around to see Jason’s tears. He wouldn’t have to suffer through the pitiful questions of a four-year-old who was too young to understand. But she would. She could just hear him asking between sobs, “But why, Mommy? Why did Ben leave? Isn’t he ever coming back?”
She thought he had come to love Jason. Could she have been mistaken? Could it have been just kindly tolerance that he had exhibited toward her son? Or had it been her imagination playing tricks on her, knowing how much she had wanted it to be so?
She tossed and turned, plagued by questions to which she had no answers. Just when she had learned to put her fears aside, when the risk of not getting involved had become greater than the risk of romantic involvement, he was leaving. He was wrong when he told her once that in the face of every misfortune there was always hope. Where was her hope now?
She must have dozed off, exhausted by her misery, only to awaken sometime later to the sound of the rusty hinges on the screen door. She knew that he would not wait until morning, that she had cooked him his last breakfast, had seen his handsome face for the last time. She flung herself onto her stomach and wept inconsolably into her pillow, knowing that he was gone, taking with him not only her heart, but her hope.
Dawn was breaking over the treetops when she opened her eyes. Despite her exhaustion from a night tortured with thoughts and dreams of Ben, Dory pulled herself out of bed. Dressed in the T-shirt in which she had slept, she left her room.
At the end of the hallway, she paused in front of the door to Ben’s room. Shoring up her defenses, she grasped the knob with trembling fingers and opened it. The room was empty, the bed neatly made. The only hint of him was the faint masculine aroma in the air.
A rush of emotion hit her like a strong winter wind. She closed the door quickly and hurried toward the stairs. Jason would be up soon with a million questions that she would be unable to avoid. And she wasn’t certain she could take the look in her grandfather’s eyes just yet. For now, feeling the profound and sudden loss of Ben, she was grateful for the solitude of early morning in which to regroup.
But the smell of bacon frying in the pan as she descended the stairs erased any hope of time to herself before beginning this difficult day. Martin was up, she thought with a groan. She rolled her eyes at the thought of having to explain it all to him. Oh well, it was now or never. Gearing herself up for his reaction and the look of disappointment that was bound to appear in his eyes, she took a deep breath and walked into the kitchen.
“Hey, sleepyhead. I was beginning to think it would take a dousing with cold water to rouse you.”
Dory froze in the doorway. That wasn’t her grandfather’s thin voice that greeted her, as she had expected, but a deep, melodious timbre that sent chills down her spine. It wasn’t Martin standing with his back to her at the stove, but a tall, muscular form that made her throat go dry. It wasn’t her grandfather’s kindly, seamed face that turned to look at her, but the handsome face she had carried with her into her dreams last night, the one she thought she would never see again.
Was she dreaming? Was it really him? She thought she’d heard him leave in the dead of night. Her voice was part whisper, part plea.
“Ben?” The sight of him brought a sense of profound relief, yet she questioned, “Wh-what are you doing?”
From over a broad shoulder he flashed her a dazzling smile that threatened the remaining threads of her self-control. “You said you were going to make me breakfast, remember? But when you weren’t up, I figured I’d do it myself.”
“Oh.” The air went out of her like a burst balloon. “Yes, I remember. I’m sorry. I didn’t think... That is, I thought... Here, let me do that.” She came hesitantly forward.
Barely reaching his shoulder in her bare feet, she felt small and fragile beside him. She reached for the fork he was holding, and the brush of his fingers against hers sent a volt of electricity through her as if she had put her finger in a socket.
She pulled her hand away quickly, the color rising to her cheeks, and with the fork she poked at the strips of bacon in the pan. The fat sputtered and hissed. Without warning a burst of hot fat splattered against the back of her hand. With a cry of pain, she dropped the fork.
“Let me see that.” Without waiting for her approval, he grasped her small white hand in his big one to examine it. “That looks nasty,” he concluded.
“It’s n-nothing,” she managed.
“Nonsense. It’s blistering already. Come over here.”
He led her to the sink where he gave the tap a quick twist and held her hand beneath a numbing stream of cold water. “Do you have anything in the medicine chest for this?”
His touch was more lethal to her than any burn from bacon grease. Unnerved by the sensations it caused, she replied, “I keep some aloe vera gel in the refrigerator .”
With rapid strides across the hardwood floor, he went to the refrigerator and returned with a jar of clear gel that he scooped up onto the tips of his fingers and applied ever so gently to her burned skin.
The cold gel worked quickly to relieve the sting. Now, if there was only some way to ease the terrible burning inside.
“Thank you,” she said. “It feels much better.” Withdrawing her hand from his, she bent to retrieve the fork from the floor and then reached for a sponge to wipe up the grease that had splattered over the stove.
He watched her as she cleaned up the grease and then busied herself with fixing the rest of his breakfast. With her unbrushed hair strewn wildly about her face and shoulders, dressed only in a T-shirt that reached to just above her knees, smelling sweet and warm with sleep, she was the sexiest thing Ben had ever seen. His desire for her was as great and as quick as it ever was.
She knew he was watching her. Trying to remain calm, she said, “I didn’t expect to see you here this morning.”
“To tell you the truth, neither did I.”
“Then why are you here?”
Smiling at her directness, he said mischievously, “The breakfast excuse won’t do?”
She tossed him a sour look.
“I didn’t think so.”
He came to stand beside her, dangerously close but not touching. “I spent all night thinking about how I would say this. But seeing you this morning doesn’t make it any easier.”
“Look, Ben, there’s no need to explain. I understand.”
“Really? Then maybe you can explain it to me, Dory, because I don’t.”
“It’s easy enough to understand. You care for Jason, but since he’s not the son you wanted, you might as well be moving on.”
“If only that were true,” he said. “It would make walking away so much easier.”
“What do you want from me?” she asked. Her eyes searched his hard for understanding. “Do you want me to help you make it easier to leave?”
“No, Dory. I want you to make it harder. I want you to make it impossible.”
“How can I do that when you already know how I feel?”
She turned away, but he reached for her unexpectedly, his hand clamping down hard over her forearm to force her back around. Despite the panicky look on her face, he said, “Right. You love me. But you’ll excuse me if I have a hard time accepting that when it was spoken in anger. That was how you said it, wasn’t it?”
She thought back to the argument they’d had last night while the coq au vin had sat there getting cold. “I...yes, I was angry. But I meant what I said. You’re the one who seems to have a hard time with the truth.”
He released her from his grip. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“I asked you last night what you would do if Jason was not your son. You still haven’t answered the question.”
Still expecting that he planned to leave, she was surprised by the response she received.
He began to laugh. It wasn’t the kind of laughter that comes from having heard something genuinely funny, but rather from the relief of finally understanding what this was all about.
He reached for her this time with both hands, grasping her by the shoulders, fingers biting into her tender flesh as he pulled her toward him.
“Don’t you know that I love you?”
There, it was out, and the release that came with the simple utterance brought with it a freedom he hadn’t even felt the day he walked out of prison. It suddenly seemed like the most natural thing in the world to tell her how much she meant to him. and yet his heart hammered like a schoolboy’s in his chest.
“I love you so much that at times I feel like I’m going to explode. I love the aching vulnerability that I see in your eyes. I love the passion that bums naked and raw inside of you. I love you, Dory. I would love you anytime, anywhere. Do I love you knowing that I’m not Jason’s father? Even more, if such a thing is possible. Don’t you see? That news last night freed me to love you with no strings attached.”
“But you’re leaving,” she blurted out, pushing him away to arm’s length.
“Only if you want me to.”
“What about your son? He’s out there, somewhere. Don’t you want to find him?”
“I realized something else last night, Dory. This is where I belong. Right here at the Dutch Mill with you and Jason and Martin. Not wandering some aimless path in search of a dream that doesn’t exist. And what if I ever do find my son? Do you think I could take him away from the people who love him? Besides, I could never love him more than I love Jason.”
He dropped his arms from her shoulders and took a step back. Softly, he admitted, “I was all set to leave. Packed and everything. But something stopped me. One word brought me back. One word that describes the way it was meant to be. Together, Dory. We were meant to be together.”
With a cry of joy she melted against him. “I was so afraid you didn’t want us.”
“Not want you?” he echoed incredulously, as if the sheer impossibility of the words rendered them meaningless to him. “God, Dory, you and Jason are all I want.”
This time the tears that wet his shirt were tears of happiness. “When I thought I had lost you, I didn’t know what to do,” she said.
With the tip of his finger beneath her chin, he lifted her face to his and kissed her lightly on the lips. “Do you want me to stay?”
“Oh, yes,” she breathed against his mouth. “More than anything.”
He broke away slightly to look at her and venture, “How long did you have in mind?”
Dory’s lashes swooped down to hide her eyes. Shyly, she answered, “I was thinking of forever.”
In a warm rush of breath at her ear, he said, “You realize what forever means, don’t you? It means you’ll have to marry me.”
Dory leaned pliantly against him, her heart racing in time with his. She felt secure in his arms, protected by his strength. But most of all she felt the overwhelming power of his love.
“Yes,” she whispered, “I’ll marry you. On one condition.”
He hugged her tighter, promising. “Anything.”
“I would like you to formally adopt Jason.”
Ben’s joy was now complete. It was the fulfillment of the thing he had dreamed of all his life. Her love covered him like a pair of angel wings, drawing him snugly into the fold of her family. At last he was a part of something.
He could scarcely contain the emotion that welled up inside of him as he took her hand in his and said, his eyes shining with love, “Come on. Let’s go wake up Jason and tell him the news.”
Epilogue
Memorial Day broke bright and sunny. From miles around crowds flocked to the Dutch Mill. The cotton candy machine merrily spun its sugary confection. The games of chance lured the foolhardy to try their luck. The petting zoo brought squeals of delight from the little ones.
The lilting calliope music of the carousel drifted on currents of warm spring air all up and down the Delaware Valley. With the horses restored to their original ornate condition, and the gilded roof fixed as good as new, no one would ever have guessed how close it had all come to ruin.
Happily spinning cotton candy, Dory couldn’t remember a time when the place had been so alive with fun and excitement, but most of all so filled with love.
Her eyes scanned the surroundings. Amid the happy, smiling faces of her neighbors, she saw Martin, pitching the brightly painted games like a carnival pro.
Jason sat astride the big black stallion with the red martingale, reaching frantically with his little arm in an attempt to claim the brass ring.
“Daddy, look how far I can reach!”
From where he stood at the controls to the carousel, Ben waved his hand.
It was hard to believe that Jason was almost six years old now, and that a whole year had gone by since that morning they had awakened him to tell him that they were getting married.
He had rubbed the sleep from his eyes and looked up at them with the most precious expression on his face and asked shyly, “Does that mean that Ben will be my daddy?”
The word that had thrilled Ben when he heard it for the first time that morning one year ago, reverberated throughout his entire being with the same excitement and pride at hearing it now.
Surrounded by the rhythmic prance of the painted ponies, Ben’s heart was filled with contentment and joy. He had found peace at last. But more than that he had found a love so strong he shuddered from its impact.
He felt like old Rip van Winkle himself, having awakened from a long, deathlike sleep among the dark cloves of the mountaintop and come to this peaceful green valley surrounded by the softly rolling Catskills. Dory had told him once that from here you could see all creation, and she’d been right. All he had to do was look around him now to see all the creation that mattered.
His eyes searched eagerly between the passing horses for a sign of his wife. He spotted her chatting with one of the women from the nearby town while she spun a cotton candy cone for one of the children. She looked so radiantly happy running her precious Dutch Mill, surrounded by all the warm and familiar things she loved so much.
Their eyes met across the distance and held each other’s gaze for many long moments when there was no need for words, only the love that raced back and forth between them.
The sadness was gone from her beautiful green eyes, replaced by a sparkle so bright that it rivaled the sunshine of this perfect spring day. The melancholy was absent from her soft-toned voice, chased away by the warm, throaty laughter that came so easily these days.
With a smile that never failed to thrill him, she turned back to her work. He saw the neighbor point to her belly, and watched as Dory acknowledged the gesture by placing both hands lovingly against her softly swelling flesh.
A feeling of unbounding joy and pride overwhelmed him at the sight of her swollen profile. Deep within her was the child they had made together out of love. A little sister or brother for Jason. Another grandchild for Martin. And, at long last, a child of his own.
ISBN : 978-1-4592-7216-3
A CHILD OF HIS OWN
Copyright © 1997 by Nancy Morse
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents
“I have reason to think that Jason is my son.”
