Blind Promises (17 page)

“Why don’t you walk down to the beach and find him?” Lorraine suggested, her eyes kind. “I think you’ll be able to tell one way or another the minute he sees you. What he feels will be in his face, because he isn’t expecting you and he won’t be prepared.”

Dana’s heart leaped. “He’s on the beach?”

Lorraine nodded. “About halfway down, sitting on a log, glowering at the ocean. Go on. Be daring. What have you got to lose?”

There was the question. She had nothing to lose, because without Gannon there was nothing she minded losing. She pulled her shoulders back and laid her purse down on the hall table.

“Wish me luck, will you?” she asked the older woman. “I think I may need it”

“All the luck in the world, my dear.” Lorraine gave her a push. “Go on. You’ll never know until you face him.”

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“I may see you again very soon.”

“If you don’t, I won’t wait lunch,” came the dry reply.

Dana walked through the house and down the back steps with her heart hammering wildly at her throat. She paused at the top of the staircase that led down to the beach, and looked down until her eyes found Gannon.

His back was to her. He was wearing white slacks and a blue and white patterned tropical shirt, and his head was bowed in the sunlight. He looked so alone, so bitterly alone, that she felt like crying. That gave her the courage she needed to go down the steps and walk along the beach toward him. Her heart was hammering wildly at her throat like a trapped bird trying to be free, while the waves crashed onto the beach and the sun burned down on the white sand.

Dana’s footsteps were muffled by the sound of the surf as she approached the big blond man sitting on the log. Her breath seemed to catch in her throat. Would he be glad to see her? Or would he just be shocked and annoyed?

She paused just behind him. Her hand lifted and then fell. “Gannon?” she called softly.

His head jerked up. When he saw her, he seemed to go rigid all over. His eyes took her in from head to toe and back again, noting the emerald-green dress, her face in its frame of pale, loosened hair, her wide, searching eyes.

“Dana?” he whispered, standing.

“Yes,” she said simply. Her own eyes were busy reconciling the man she saw with her memory of him. He looked thinner somehow, worn, but the sight of him fed her poor, starved eyes.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“I, uh, I came to see Lorraine,” she hedged, words failing her.

His chest rose and fell heavily. “Was that the only reason?”

Her lower lip trembled and she caught it between her teeth. “No,” she replied with a shaky smile. “I…came to see you too.”

“You look very thin,” he said in a tight voice, studying her slenderness again. “Is that new?”

“The dress? No, it’s an old one.”

“The thinness, not the dress,” he said harshly. “Why should I care about what you wear?”

“Why should you care about me, period?” she burst out, anger coming to her rescue. “Not a single phone call, not a card…I could have died and you wouldn’t have known or cared!”

“That’s a lie,” he shot back, his face pale. “I kept up with you through Mrs. Pibbs. I knew how you were, at least. You couldn’t even be bothered to write to Lorraine, could you?”

“Why should I, when you sent me away?” she tossed back, hurting all the way to her bones. “You sent me away!”

“I had to,” he ground out, his face contorting as he saw the hurt on her eyes. “You don’t understand.”

“Yes, I do,” she cried angrily. “You sent me away because of the shrapnel!”

He looked every year of his age. His powerful frame seemed to shudder. “Who told you?” he asked in a deadly quiet tone.

“I won’t tell you,” she returned. “But it’s true, isn’t it? You could go blind again.”

His eyes closed on a weary sigh. “Yes,” he said heavily. “I could go blind again.”

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She moved closer, looking up at him with soft, probing eyes. “I have to know,” she said quietly. “I haven’t much pride left-or much sense. I have to be told. Was it because of Layn that you wanted me to break the engagement, Gannon? Was it because of my scar…?”

He whispered something rough under his breath and his hands shot out. With an expression of pure anguish he dragged her against his big body and bent to her mouth.

“Don’t talk,” he said unsteadily, brushing his lips slowly, tremblingly, over hers. “Don’t talk. Kiss me. Let me show you how it’s been without you, Dana!”

She bent under the rough crush of his ardor, feeling the hurt and the heartache and the loneliness all wrapped up in his slow, fierce kisses. She clung to him with tears draining from her eyes, loving the touch of him, the feel and smell and taste of him, as the world seemed to turn to gold all around them, binding them together with skeins of pure love.

“I missed you,” he whispered brokenly, wrapping her up in his big arms to rock her slowly against him. “I’ve been half a man since the day I sent you away. But I couldn’t let you stay, knowing what I did. I only wanted what was best for you.”

She hit his broad chest with a small, furious fist. “You stupid man,” she whimpered, burying her face against him. “As if I cared about being protected. I’m a nurse, not an hysterical woman. And I love you quite desperately, in case you haven’t noticed. You wouldn’t even let me have a choice!”

“How could I, knowing what the choice would be?” he ground out, holding her even closer. “Dana, you’re so young, with your whole life ahead of you.”

“What kind of life am I expected to have, for

heaven’s sake, without you?” she asked in anguish, lifting her red eyes to his. “Don’t you even know that I only go through the motions of living without you? There’ll never be anyone else, not as long as I live. So please tell me how to look forward to a lifetime of loneliness and grief-because I’ll mourn you every day I live from now on!”

He tried to speak and made a helpless motion with his shoulders before he dragged her close again and bent his head over hers.

“I could die,” he whispered.

“Yes,” she managed on a sob. “So could I. A tree could fall on me while I was walking back to the house. Do you think life comes with a written guarantee?”

“I could be paralyzed.”

“Then I’d sit with you,” she whispered, lifting her head to study him with love pouring from her face. “I’d sit by your bedside and hold your hand and read to you. And I’d love you so much….”

The tears burst from his eyes and ran unashamedly down his cheeks as she spoke, and she reached up and tenderly touched each of them, brushing them back from his hard cheeks.

“I love you,” she repeated softly, blinking away her own tears. “If we got married, I could give you children. And then, even if something dreadful did happen, we’d have all those happy years behind us; we’d have the comfort of our family around us. We’d have each other and the memory of loving.”

He bent and kissed her eyes softly, slowly. “I love you,” he whispered, shaken. “So much that I’d willingly give up my life for you. But what am I offering you except the possibility of a living nightmare?”

“If you won’t marry me,” she said after a minute,

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“I’ll live with you anyway. I’ll move in and sleep in your arms and shame you for not making an honest woman of me.” She drew back and looked up into his darkening eyes. “I’ll follow you around like a puppy from now on, and you won’t be able to look behind you without seeing me. I’ll crawl on my knees if I have to, but I won’t leave you now. Not until I die.”

“Dana, for God’s sake…”

“It is for God’s sake,” she whispered softly, smiling. “For God’s sake and my own. Because all I know of love I learned from you.”

His eyes closed. “Don’t make it any harder for me,” he pleaded.

“But I will,” she replied, snuggling closer, feeling safe and secure for the first time in weeks. “You’ve given me back my family. Because I loved you, I was able to forgive them and love them again. I’m part of a family again, all because of you.”

“I don’t want you hurt,” he whispered.

“Then don’t send me away,” she whispered back. She drew his face down to hers. “Because I’ll never be hurt again if I can stay where you are.”

“It’s insane,” he ground out against her warm, soft mouth.

She smiled. “Yes,” she murmured. “Sweet insanity. Kiss me. Then I’ll propose to you again and go and ask your mother for your hand in marriage….”

He burst out laughing in spite of himself. “Dana, you crazy woman…!”

“Be crazy with me,” she tempted. She stood on tiptoe and kissed him again. And then she felt his arms contract, and he was kissing her. It was a long time before they could find words again.

“This isn’t solving anything,” he said finally, drag-

ging himself away from her. “Here, sit down and let’s try to talk reasonably.”

She joined him on the log, sitting close, companionably, while he took a deep breath and sat, just looking at her.

“You look so different,” he murmured.

“From my photograph, you mean?” she replied with an impish smile.

He shifted and looked uncomfortable for a minute. “Who told you? Lorraine?”

• “Don’t blame her,” she pleaded. “I was clutching at straws. I thought you’d forgotten all about me.”

He shook his head. “That was beyond me. I’ve sat here day after day, remembering the sound and smell of you.” His eyes searched her quiet face and he smiled. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve seen since I regained my sight.”

She blushed and lowered her eyes. “I’m very glad you think so.” She glanced up again, warily. “Gannon, the scar…”

He bent and brushed the soft hair away from her cheek and kissed the pale white line that ran alongside her ear. “We’ll think of it as a beauty mark,” he whispered. “We’ll tell the children that you got it fighting tigers in Malaya, just to make it sound better.”

Her eyes searched his. “You’re going to let me stay?” she asked softly.

He touched her mouth with his fingers. “How can I let you go now?” he asked quietly. “But we may both live to regret it, Dana.”

She shook her head. “Not ever.”

She said it with such conviction that he averted his eyes on a heavy, ragged sigh. He caught her hand in his and held it tightly.

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“I saw you on television,” she mentioned, grinning. “You looked so handsome-my roommate said you were a dish.”

He chuckled. “I didn’t feel like a dish. I was missing you and hurting in ways I hadn’t dreamed I could.”

“Me and not Layn?”

He looked haunted for an instant, and the big hand holding hers contracted roughly. “I needed something to drive you away when Dr. Shane told me the truth. I couldn’t bear the thought of subjecting you to what might happen.” He shrugged. “It seemed the thing to do at the time. I knew you’d never go if you knew the truth.” He glanced down at her. “You’re far too caring a person to desert a sinking ship.”

She nuzzled close to him, sighing. “You never really cared about her, then?”

“No. And she knew it-she knew exactly what I was doing. I’m still not sure why she went along with it, unless she thought she might have a chance with me again.” He lifted his hand and let it fall. “She found out pretty quickly that she didn’t. By that time I was so much in love with you that I couldn’t see her for dust.”

“There was something strange in your voice when you called me from Savannah,” she confessed. “I couldn’t help wondering at the time if you were really telling me the truth about being able to see again.”

“Oh, I could see all right. And not just in any visual sense,” he added on a hard sigh. “I could see you living with this time bomb in my head.”

“We all carry time bombs around with us, Gannon,” she said gently. “Of one kind or another. None of us knows the hour of our own death. It’s just as well too: We’d never accomplish anything. You might survive me.”

“Horrible thought,” he said curtly. He looked down at her with all his heart in his eyes. “I wouldn’t want to live without you.”

“But you were going to condemn me to it, weren’t you?” she accused. She reached up and touched his face as she’d longed to for so many empty weeks. “I want you to come home with me and meet my father and my stepmother and my aunt I think-I hope-you’ll like them.”

“You’ve made your peace, I see,” he observed.

She smiled. “I found that I quite like my stepmother. She’s just what my father needed. I kind of like him too. We cleared up a lot of misunderstandings; we’re closer now than ever before. And best of all, I’ve come to grips with my own guilt and my grief. I’ll always miss my mother, but I realize now that she’s better off.”

“God does know best,” he murmured, smiling at the look on her face. “Oh, yes, I’ve done my bit of changing. I’ve realized that there’s much more to life than the making and spending of money.”

She reached up and kissed him. “I’ve arrived at the same conclusion. When are you going to marry me?”

“You’ve only just proposed,” he reminded her. “A man can’t be rushed into these things, after all. I have to buy a suit and have my hair done….”

“Stop that,” she muttered, hitting him lovingly.

“Well, if you don’t mind an untidy bridegroom, I suppose we could get married Monday.”

“That’s only three days away!” she gasped.

He shrugged. “Well, we can do it sooner, I suppose; I just thought…”

“Monday is fine!” she said quickly, laughing. “Oh, Monday is just fine!”

“Then let’s go and call my minster and see about

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getting a license,” he said. He stood up, drawing her with him. “Lovely, lovely woman. I’m the luckiest man alive.”