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“But he’s come back.”
Kate looked out the still-open door where Sean had disappeared into the night. “Yes.” Her voice was weary. “He’s come back.”
“You’re not telling me what it felt like to see him again.” Jennie Sheridan looked nothing like her sister. Shorter, darker, her eyes were brown instead of Kate’s crystal blue.
“Ouch! You don’t have to go clear through to the nail.” Kate watched with an intent frown as Jennie dug at the splinter in her finger.
“I declare, sis, you’re a bigger baby than Caroline. He was as handsome as ever, I suppose. Aha, got it!”
Kate let out a relieved breath and put her finger up to her mouth to suck the place where Jennie had poked. They were sitting on the bed in Kate’s room. Caroline was sleeping peacefully in her crib in the corner after taking her fill of her mother’s milk. “You were the one who always said he was a scoundrel and a scalawag and I don’t know what else.”
Jennie bounced back against the headboard and made herself comfortable among her sister’s pillows. It didn’t appear that she would leave until Kate answered her questions to her satisfaction. “He is a scoundrel,” she said. “But I never said he wasn’t handsome. He’s a black-haired, blue-eyed devil full of Irish blarney, but a mighty pretty one. Of course—” Jennie’s eyes sparkled “—I’m partial to blondes, myself.”
“Gray-eyed blondes. One in particular,” Kate added. She climbed over her sister’s legs to sit comfortably next to her at the head of the bed. “Yes, Sean’s as handsome as ever. But that has nothing to do with me anymore.”
“There’s no feeling left at all?”
Kate glanced sideways at her sister. Only sixteen months apart in age, the two had always been as close as twins. She’d never even bothered to try to lie to Jennie—it wouldn’t have done any good. “My heart was pounding like the steam pump at the mine. But it could have just been the surprise of it.”
“So when are you going to tell him?”
“Jennie, I’m not. My life is no longer any of his business.”
“But Caroline is his daughter.”
“Caroline’s my daughter.”
Jennie grabbed a pillow and hugged it to her middle. She was quiet for a moment, then said softly, “Don’t you think Caroline has a right to a father?”
Kate’s face was grim. “She has you and me. And she already has five men in her life—Carter, Barnaby and the silverheels.”
From the day their three silver-mining boarders had come to rent rooms, tracking silver dust into the parlor, Jennie and Kate had dubbed the men their “silverheels.” Jennie reached for her sister’s hand and squeezed it. “The silverheels love your little girl, Kate, but one of these days when the silver plays out, they’ll be moving on. Barnaby’s just a boy, and Carter’s her uncle, not her father.”
“So you think I should let Caroline learn to love Sean so that one day he can take off and leave her without warning the way he did me? I don’t think so.”
“He may regret leaving. After all, he came back, didn’t he?”
Kate knocked the back of her head against the headboard in frustration. “I can’t believe you’re arguing for him, Jen. After he left, you spent months trying to convince me that I was better off forgetting about any man who would be such a cad as to leave a woman pregnant and alone.”
“But he didn’t know you were pregnant.”
“He certainly knew we’d made love, didn’t he?” Kate’s voice rose in anger. “I can’t understand why you’re suddenly acting as if I should forget how he left without a goodbye, leaving me to face the consequences.”
Jennie sighed. “I’m not trying to take his part, Kate. Or suggest that you forgive him. It’s just that-in all this time, you haven’t seemed to be interested in any other man. It’s as if Sean took over your heart so completely there’s no room for anyone else.”
“Well, that’s silly to say. Lyle’s here almost every day.”
“Oh, pooh. Lyle Wentworth is an arrogant, spoiled boy who’s never done an honest day’s work in his life. He’s not even worth considering.”
“He’s a year older than you, sis, and he is working now.”
“A token job in his pa’s bank. No one else would have him.”
Kate sighed and slid down until she was lying flat on the bed. “I’m bushed, Jennie. If I have to face Sean again in the morning, I’m going to have to get some sleep.”
Jennie’s face twisted with sympathy. She ran a hand over her sister’s forehead. “You’re working too hard for a nursing mother.”
Kate reached up to squeeze her sister’s hand. “You’re one to talk about working hard. How about when I was in the hospital and you were running the boardinghouse all by yourself, and cooking for the men up at the Wesley mine?”
Jennie grinned. “You’ll pay me back. When I get in a family way, I intend to let you wait on me hand and foot.”
Kate smiled. “It’s a deal. And the way you and Carter disappear upstairs regularly, I suspect that time will come any day.” She ducked as Jennie swatted her with the pillow, then gave her sister a gentle push off the bed. “Now get out of here and let me get some sleep.”
It was getting late in the season for flowers, but a two-dollar gold piece had spurred ambition in the usually indifferent hotel clerk. Within an hour after breakfast, the lad had rounded up a bouquet large enough to stir the heads of even the snobbiest Nob Hill debutantes back in San Francisco. Here in Vermillion, the offering should take Kate Sheridan’s breath away. For good measure, Sean stopped at the dry goods store, balancing the flowers precariously in one arm. What did one buy for a baby? Not just a baby—his own daughter. The concept still made him weak in the knees.
The front table was stacked with bolts of heavy muslin, winter weight for the approaching cold. Did babies need winter clothes? he wondered.
“May I help you, sir?”
Sean gave an inward groan and wondered if it would be too impossibly rude to turn tail and run out of the store. Weaving her way through the colorful displays of cloth was Henrietta Billingsley, wife of the store owner and self-appointed guardian of Vermillion morality.
“It’s Mr. Flaherty, isn’t it?” Mrs. Billingsley continued. She had a proprietor’s smile on her face, but her eyes could kill a duelist at thirty paces.
“How do you do, Mrs. Billingsley?” Sean said, fumbling to remove his hat without dropping the armload of flowers. Lord, what had possessed him to come into this particular store?
“We all thought you’d left Vermillion for good. Over a year ago, wasn’t it?”
Sean had the feeling that Mrs. Billingsley knew to the day how long he’d been absent from town and also knew every detail of his transgression. Well, to hell with it. He didn’t expect to be in town long enough to care what she or anyone else thought of him. He’d come to collect Kate and his daughter, and as far as he was concerned, that would be the last he’d see of Vermillion.
“Unfortunately, the family businesses required my attention,” Sean answered in his most imperious tone. He’d discovered that self-righteous people were often best handled with a superior air.
“The family businesses…?”
“Shipping, banking…Flaherty Enterprises,” he ended as if to say that anyone important would recognize the name.
“Urn, of course.” Henrietta’s voice was a httle less certain. “What can I help you with today, Mr. Flaherty?” She cast a curious glance at the flowers.
“I need something for a baby. Something warm,” he ended uncertainly.
There was a gleam in Mrs. Billingsley’s eyes. “And how old is the child?”
Once again, Sean was certain that she knew precisely how old his daughter was. She probably knew more exactly than he. He frowned. Hell, a man ought to know how old his own daughter was. “Around a year. No, less.”
“Around the age of little Caroline Sheridan? Nine months?”
Sean felt the heat rising around his stiff collar. The annoying woman had the ability to make you feel as if she were a schoolmarm about to switch you for putting wet rags in the potbellied furnace. “Perhaps I’ll come back later,” he said. “After I find out what the baby needs.” He backed toward the door.
Henrietta began to straighten the perfectly arranged bolts of cloth next to where Sean had been standing, as if his presence had somehow disturbed their harmony. “We’ll be happy to take care of you when you’re ready, Mr. Flaherty. Just let us know. If it’s the Sheridan baby you’re interested in, I imagine the child could use a number of items. Those girls have been plumb broke since their parents died leaving nothing but debts. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve been dressing the little tyke in rags.”
Sean didn’t know if his sudden rage came from effrontery of the gossipy woman or from the thought of his daughter in tatters. He clapped his hat back on his head. “How much material does it take to make a dress for a baby?”
“For just a tiny one? Oh, two yards should do.”
He gestured to the table of cloth. “I want two yards of each one of these sent to the Sheridan house.”
Mrs. Billingsley’s jaw dropped. “Each one?” she asked. “There must be two dozen different—”
“Each one. I’ll be in to settle the account later this afternoon.” Then he nodded and left the store, letting the flimsy door bang shut behind him.
Uncharacteristically, Sean felt his heart speeding up as he opened the gate and headed up the walk toward the Sheridan house. He hadn’t realized that he would be so affected by seeing Kate again. These months back in his own world in San Francisco society, he’d managed to convince himself that his lightning love affair with a simple girl from the mountains had been nothing more than a springtime idyll. But yesterday, looking into those clear blue eyes, he’d felt a stirring somewhere deep inside, somewhere that hadn’t often been touched in his comfortable life.
It was Jennie, not Kate, who opened the door. She seemed to be expecting him, but she didn’t step back to allow him to enter.
“Hello, Jennie,” he said. “It’s good to see you again. You’re looking well. Married life must agree with you.”
She didn’t return his smile. “She doesn’t want to see you, Sean. I’m sorry. I thought.”
“Thank you for writing. It was the right thing to do.”
Jennie looked quickly back over her shoulder as if to assure herself that the hall was empty. She spoke quietly. “I’m not so sure of that anymore. If she knew I’d written you about the baby, she’d be furious with me.”
“Well, I won’t tell her. I would rather she thought I came back for her all on my own.” He shifted the huge bouquet. “May I come in?”
Jennie ignored the request and continued talking almost to herself, justifying her action. “She’s fully recovered her health from the difficult birth, but she just seemed to be getting more…listless. And then there was Lyle coming around all the time trying to talk her into marrying him for the baby’s sake. I didn’t know what to do.”
“Lyle Wentworth? The banker’s son who used to lord it over you girls about growing up poor in the mountains?”
Jennie nodded and rolled her eyes. “He’s been sweet on Kate since we were children.”
“You’d never know it the way he treats her. I can’t believe she even suffers him in your home.”
Jennie bit her lip and looked at him with a pained expression. “Well, Lyle was a help during Kate’s pregnancy when we had to take her to a special hospital. We were all by ourselves, you know, after Mama and Papa died…” Her voice trailed off.
Sean finished for her, “And with the father of her baby gone.” His face grew tight. “Why didn’t she contact me, Jennie? She knew my family was prominent in San Francisco. It wouldn’t have been hard to find me.” He stopped speaking as Kate appeared in the back of the hall at the door that led into the kitchen.
“You don’t know me very well, Sean Flaherty, if you think I would go crawling to a man who left me with nothing but a terse note,” she said.
Jennie turned around, startled. “He knows about the baby, Kate,” she told her sister in a rush.
Kate walked toward them, grim faced. “I know. I’m afraid it was impossible for me to keep some of the more embarrassing aspects of motherhood from revealing the secret last night.”
Sean stepped around Jennie and held the flowers out to Kate. “I’ve come to try to start over, Kate. I know you’ve been through a lot and there’s no reason for you to forgive me, but I’m asking you to let me try and make it up to you.”
Her face was as calm and hard as a statue. “Caroline’s my baby, Sean. You forfeited any right—”
“I can help you, Kate. I want to help our child.” He looked around the hall, his eyes resting on the faded parlor curtain. “I have money, as you know.”
Jennie stepped back to allow him to move closer to Kate, who stood with her hands on her hips, bristling, making no attempt to take the flowers he was offering. “I don’t want your money, Sean, or your flowers. Caroline and I don’t want any part of you. I haven’t changed my mind since last night. You can just pack up your bags and head back to your papa’s business and your fancy big-city friends.”
Sean sighed and turned to hand the flowers to Jennie. “Would you mind finding somewhere for these?” he asked with a touch of exasperation. “And give me five minutes alone with this stubborn, beautiful sister of yours.”
Kate’s face had colored at the compliment, in spite of herself, and Jennie’s worried expression lightened slightly. She took the flowers in both arms and headed back toward the kitchen, saying over her shoulder, “You two might as well go sit in the parlor instead of standing in the hall shouting at each other like fishwives.”
Sean put his hat on the hall table and gestured toward the curtained doorway. “Shall we?” he asked.
Kate gave a reluctant nod and led the way into the parlor, where she sat on one of the high-backed chairs. Sean took the seat nearest to her on one end of the settee. He sank into the cushions, which left his head lower than hers, making him feel at an immediate disadvantage.
“Why didn’t you let me know, Kate?” he asked, his voice gentle. “I would have come. You could have had the finest doctors in San Francisco.”
Kate sat stiffly, her hands clasped in her lap. “It seems to me that I’m the one who has the right to ask the questions, Sean. You’re the one owing the explanations. Why did you leave? Why didn’t you come and tell me you were going? What happened to you?” Her voice trembled a little at the end.
Sean had a sudden urge to draw her into his arms as he had so many times during the passionate three months they’d been together. Instead he cleared his throat and said, “I’m not making excuses, Kate. It was wrong of me to leave without seeing you. But it’s just that I’ve never been too good at goodbyes. I thought it might be easier on both of us…”
“To leave me to have our baby alone?”
“I had no idea about the baby. Surely you believe that much anyway. I thought we’d tried to be careful. I’ve never had anything like this happen…ah. before.” He stammered a little as he realized the import of his words. Kate did not hesitate to call him on them.
“You mean none of your other women has ever had the effrontery to present you with a child? You’ve led a charmed life, Sean Flaherty. I’m sorry to have been the one to spoil your record. But, as I’ve been trying to tell you since last night, you don’t need to worry. Caroline and I are making no claim on you whatsoever.”
Sean blew out an exasperated breath. “Damn it, you’re a stubborn woman, Katie Marie Sheridan. Yes, I left. It was wrong, and I’m sorry. But now I’m back. I’ve come back for you and for our daughter.” His voice softened. “The truth is, sweetheart, I’ve never stopped thinking about you in all these eighteen months.” As he said the words, he realized that they were the absolute truth. Even before he’d received Jennie’s letter about the baby, Kate had been in his mind night and day. He’d had other women, but they’d been pale in comparison to the spirited, lithesome blond beauty he’d left in the mountains.
Kate was silent for a long moment. He couldn’t tell if she’d been moved by the obvious sincerity of his declaration or if she was thinking of yet another way to send him packing. But before she could speak, there was a rustling of the parlor curtain. Sean looked up to see Jennie standing in the archway. In her arms was a moppet with black curly hair and blue eyes that mirrored his own.
Chapter Two (#ulink_043e5a5c-b348-5372-b97b-5aed22368fff)
Kate jumped to her feet and crossed the room to take the baby from her sister.
“I’m sorry,” Jennie said with worried eyes. “She was fussing, and I have to head up to the mine.” Although the financial situation had eased when Jennie had married Carter, she still went up to the mine each day to prepare the noon meal for the silver miners, the job she had obtained when they’d needed money to keep Kate in the hospital in Virginia City before the birth.
“That’s fine. You run along,” Kate told her, clasping Caroline tight against her.
Jennie looked doubtfully from her sister to Sean. “Will you be all right?”
Sean stood and took a step toward them. “I’m not a monster, Jennie. Your sister is perfectly safe with me.”
“I didn’t mean to be insulting, Sean. It’s just that…” She glanced at her sister, then back to Sean. “Well, good, then. I’ll leave you to get acquainted with your daughter.” She leaned over to give Kate a quick peck on the cheek, then darted out the curtain into the hall.
Sean walked over to Kate and the baby, a look of wonder on his face. “She has black hair,” he said, his voice choked.
Kate looked up at him, her eyes glazed. Her voice came out in a whisper. “Yes.”
He reached out a hand and ran his finger over Caroline’s silky hair. Safe in her mother’s arms, the baby watched him, eyes wide. “Does she…ah…is she healthy?” he asked. “Does she have everything she needs?”
Kate looked down at the baby tenderly. It was the first time he’d seen her smile since he’d been back. She was smiling at Caroline, not at him, but the expression slid straight into his midsection.
“She’s healthy and happy. Aren’t you, precious?”
Kate’s voice went up in pitch, her eyes lit with a special glow that was answered by a gleam in the baby’s own eyes. Sean watched the mother-daughter communication with awe. His own mother and father had always been too busy with their high-society world to pay much attention to the parent-child bond. Sean was totally unprepared for the wave of love that swept through him at this first sight of his daughter. Tears welled at the base of his throat.
