Marriage Is Just The Beginning

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“Why not?” She balled her hands.

“Because you should be marrying some guy you love and having children of your own-—that’s why. You’ve always wanted a large family.” Grant bit out the words. “I have nothing to offer you—”

“Except Cassie, a little girl I already love as if she were my own.” Sharon took a deep breath to calm her racing emotions. “I’m not asking you for more than that Grant. She paused, then added quietly, “I’m not asking for your love, only your friendship.”

Grant just stared at her. She swallowed hard, then continued. “After Charley left me, I swore I would never marry again.”

“You’ll change your mind in time,” he said in a low voice.

“No, I won’t, and you have no right assuming you know my mind better than I do. I haven’t accepted a date since the divorce, and that’s been a few years. As hard as it may be to believe, it’s not as though I haven’t been asked, as if I haven’t been offered opportunities.”

“Of course you have,” he said quietly.

She leaned toward Grant as if leaning against the tide, not certain it would make a difference but hoping to shorten the distance between them. “My only regret with my decision is that I don’t have a family.”

She almost told him more, but stopped. The last thing she wanted was Grant agreeing to marry her out of pity. Poor Sharon, who can’t have children. She couldn’t bear that.

Grant remained silent, frowning slightly.

“This is my opportunity to have that family,” she added quietly.

He shook his head.

“Please think about it,” she urged. “I know you don’t want any emotional involvement, so why can’t you believe that I would feel the same way? Grant, can you truly say that Cassie would be better off if you married a total stranger rather than someone she already knows and loves? Someone who loves her as much as I do?”

His dark eyes probed her as if trying to see into her mind. Her heart. She prayed he would give the idea a chance.

“It’s no great secret that I care for you very much, but only as a friend. I’m not carrying a torch of unrequited love, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Sharon added, quickly trying to second-guess any argument he might have. Honesty prompted her to add, “I know you were thinking about a full-time mother, but I would want to continue to work. Cassie could go to day care during the day. She needs to be with kids her own age, and she enjoys the other children, when she isn’t fighting with them.”

Grant half smiled. Hope blossomed in Sharon’s heart.

She pressed on, willing him to listen, to understand and to concede. “I think if you give this some thought, you will see that it makes perfect sense. We have been friends forever and we still get along, something lots of married folks can’t say. Neither of us wants to be married, but both of us wants the best for Cassie. You want a mother and I want a daughter.” She paused, then said softly, “It sounds like the perfect solution to me.”

Grant sat alone in the family room. A log cracked in the fireplace—a loud, popping noise—as flames licked along its side, fueled by bright orange coals beneath. The house settled a bit with a groan, not unlike an old man whose bones protested as he burrowed a little deeper beneath the covers. Except the house settled under a blanket of snow that had fallen steadily throughout the day and was only now starting to slacken.

All around him was darkness, except for the dancing, flickering light from the fire, which cast an orange-yellow glow that didn’t quite penetrate the shadows. The clock on the mantel chimed twelve times with a solid certainty that Grant suddenly envied. Cassie had long since been tucked into bed, lost to the land of sleep and dreams. A land Grant wouldn’t mind visiting himself…if only he could.

It sounds like the perfect solution to me.

Sharon’s words haunted him, as they had since she’d uttered them, before she’d calmly walked from his kitchen to allow him to think about her offer.

He shouldn’t need to think, should be able to dismiss the proposal as if it had never been spoken. But he couldn’t. Arguments piled in his mind like the snow outside, and remained there because he could not refute the truth. If he viewed the situation coldly and objectively, her proposal did sound like the perfect solution.

If Sharon truly meant that she didn’t want to marry for love, did not want any emotional involvement. And he had no reason to think she was lying. She had always been honest with him in the past.

Why, then, would she want to marry him? She was far too young and attractive, warmhearted and giving, to tie herself to a man who would never offer her children of her own, never offer her a true marriage. A man who was not capable of loving again.