Sweet Promise (26 page)

The baby choked, then squalled lustily.

"One with a healthy set of lungs," Sean quipped, and everyone chuckled in relief. But a few seconds later, when Joanna had dealt with the cord and laid the infant on her mother's stomach they were all blinking back tears.

"Oh, Matt, look," Claire exclaimed. "Isn't he perfect."

Before he could answer, her features contorted as another pain hit her. Matt jerked in alarm. "What? What is it?"

"It's okay," Joanna assured him. "This is the last of it. There. That's it." She looked up at her mother and smiled. "Feel better now?"

"Yes, darling. Thank you." A look of deep understanding and love passed silently between mother, and daughter, and Claire added softly, "For everything."

Sean talked quietly to the doctor while Joanna made her mother comfortable and removed the soiled linen. Claire, her face glowing, counted tiny fingers and toes, touched the rosebud mouth and quivering chin, the delicate soft spot in the top of the baby's head. Matt watched her with open adoration, tears running unashamedly down his face.

"Oh, Matt, we have a son," Claire said in wonder. She looked at him with eyes brimming with inexpressible happiness and love. "Isn't it wonderful?"

"Yes, love, it's wonderful. You're wonderful."

"Wouldn't it be perfect if next time we had a girl?"

"No!" Matt almost shouted the word. He shook his head, his expression growing bleak. "No, darling, I'll
never
put you through that again," he declared vehemently, in a voice gone rough with emotion.

"Matt—"

"No, I mean it." He bent and pressed his face against her breast. "Oh, God, Claire, it was awful. I was so scared. So scared..."

"It's over now, darling. Don't think about it." Claire stroked her fingers lovingly through his hair, and over the top of his head her eyes sought the other two with a silent plea.

Understanding, Joanna lifted the crying infant and carried him into the bathroom as Sean slipped quietly out the door.

As Joanna cleaned and dressed her protesting baby brother, her heart was filled with emotions so intense they formed an aching knot in her chest. The experience they had all just shared had been the most profoundly beautiful, exciting and frightening of her life. That she had had a part, no matter how small, in bringing this perfect little human into the world both touched and thrilled her beyond words.

When the baby was tucked into a warm knit gown and swaddled in a receiving blanket, he quieted. For a moment, Joanna cuddled him close, rubbing her cheek against his downy head and breathing in the delicious scent of baby.

Matt and Claire were holding hands and talking quietly when she returned to the bedroom. Joanna laid the baby in her mother's arms, murmured a few appropriate words, which she doubted either of them heard, gathered up the soiled linen and slipped out the door, leaving them engrossed in each other and their child.

In the hall, Joanna leaned weakly against the wall and closed her eyes as the enormity of it all hit her.

"Come on," Sean said beside her, and her eyes popped open in surprise as he slipped a supporting arm around her waist. "What you need is a good stiff drink. At the very least a cup of very sweet tea." Taking the bundle of linen from her, he led her down the hall toward the stairs.

Joanna leaned on him heavily, grateful for his assistance. "I feel so weak and shaky," she complained in a bewildered voice.

"I think it's called delayed shock. And after the evening you've had, I'm not at all surprised."

He guided her into the den and sat her down in a chair. "Take it easy for a minute. I'll be right back," he said, and disappeared through the door. When he returned he went to the bar and poured a glass of brandy. Squatting down on his haunches, Sean pressed the glass into her hand. "Drink this, sweetheart. It'll make you feel better."

The endearment brought Joanna's head up, and she looked at him sharply. At his urging, she took a tentative sip of the brandy and felt it burn its way down her throat. When she would have put the glass down Sean shook his head. She took several more sips, watching him cautiously over the top of the glass.

When at last she had finished he took the glass and placed it on the table beside her chair, but he didn't move. His dark eyes bore into her. "Joanna, we have to talk."

"About what?" she asked warily.

"About us."

"Sean, please. Not now. Not tonight."

"Yes, now. I came here with Matt to talk to you, and I'm not leaving until I do."

Joanna slumped back against the chair. "All right. Since I seem to have no choice, go ahead."

"First of all, I want to apologize." He smiled crookedly when her eyes widened with surprise. "I called you a lot of uncomplimentary things, and said that you were spoiled and immature, but I was wrong. Anyone who can do what you did tonight is certainly not a child."

"Just because I did what had to be done?" She gave him a sad smile and shook her head dejectedly. "No, you were right before."

Sean frowned. "By that, do you mean I was right about you looking for a father substitute?"

Fatigue and emotional turmoil had taken its toll and Joanna's laugh bordered on hysteria. "Hardly. If that was what I wanted, why on earth would I pick you? You're nothing at all like my father. Nor do you even remotely resemble the type of man I've always envisioned myself loving, but that doesn't seem to be something we can control."

A look of hope flickered across Sean's face. "You do love me then? Even now? After all that's happened?"

Tears she could not control welled in Joanna's eyes, and she looked at him reproachfully. Why was he doing this to her?

When she didn't reply, Sean took hold of her hands and stood up, pulling her to her feet. He looked at her intently and smiled. "Do you, Joanna?"

"Yes. Yes I do. Does that make you happy?" she said peevishly as the tears spilled over her lower lashes.

"Yes, it makes me very happy. Because I love you too." Sean's expression was filled with tenderness, but when he went to pull her into his arms Joanna pushed his hands away.

"That doesn't change anything, Sean," she insisted tearfully. "I'm still headstrong and impulsive. I've been indulged and petted all of my life, and to some degree I will probably always be spoiled. Maybe... maybe someday—" She stopped and drew a shuddering breath, fighting against the urge to fling herself in his arms and bawl. "I'm trying very hard to be the kind of woman you want, the kind of woman my mother is—mature and giving and... and unselfish. But I'm not there yet," she admitted in a shaky, dispirited voice, her eyes swimming with sadness and longing.

Sean grinned and folded her into his embrace. His dark gaze skimmed over her woebegone face like a loving touch. Then his lids dropped partway and his head began a slow, inexorable descent. "Maybe not. But you do have promise, my love," he whispered tenderly against her lips. "Pure, sweet promise."

The kiss was shattering.' Warm, tender, blatantly possessive, it set off explosions that shook Joanna to her very soul. The strain of the past three weeks and an evening fraught with emotional trauma had her drawn taut and fine, and at the first touch of his mouth her precarious control snapped.

She clung to him helplessly, quivering within his embrace. The sweet, searing kiss went on and on, throbbing with the aching need of three lonely weeks apart, of love too long denied. Lips rocked together hungrily. Tongues teased, tasted, entwined. Passion built quickly and the kiss became hotter, deeper, recklessly greedy, until their hearts raced and their pulses pounded.

When at last the kiss ended Sean's eyes burned hotly over Joanna's dazed face. "We've both made mistakes, Joanna, but the biggest one would be if we parted. I love you, darling, and I want you for my wife. I want to spend the rest of my life loving you."

"Oh, Sean, are you sure? I—"

"Hush. Hush." A finger over her lips stopped the anguished flow. "None of us is perfect, Joanna. I'm certainly not. But that doesn't matter." He touched the mole at the corner of her mouth and gave her a lopsided grin. "Because, I love you just as you are, faults and all."

"I love you, too," Joanna whispered shakily, gazing at him with dewy, emotion-filled eyes.

"So, will you marry me?"

Joanna blinked and strove for a stern expression. "On one condition."

"And that is?"

"That you give me that little black book of yours so that I can rip it to shreds."

Sean threw back his head and laughed, then kissed her hard. "You've got a deal. In fact, we'll make a ceremony of it, first thing tomorrow. But tonight—" the laughter in his eyes was replaced by a hot, hungry look, and his smile changed to sensuous anticipation "—tonight I have something else in mind."

He bent and scooped her up in his arms and started for the door.

"Sean! Where are you taking me?"

"To bed." He took the stairs with ease, grinning into her startled eyes. "You'll have to show me which bedroom is yours."

"Here! But Mother and Matt—"

"Are so wrapped up in each other and their son at the moment, I doubt they even remember we're here." He stopped at the top of the stairs and looked at her, his expression tender but unyielding. "In the morning I'll tell them that we're going to be married. I think they'll understand. But if there's any flack, I'll deal with it. Now which way is your room?"

Wordlessly, her heart pounding in her chest, Joanna showed him.

He set her gently on her feet beside the bed and, cupping her face between his hands, he kissed her. Then he stepped back and gripped the bottom edge of her sweater in both hands. Holding her gaze, he slowly pulled the coral sweater up over her head and tossed it aside. Her bra came next, baring the smooth fragrant skin that he had dreamed about for weeks.

Joanna quivered beneath his hungry look, and when he reached out, almost reverently, and cupped her breasts she caught her breath. His hands were warm and calloused and exquisitely tender. Their gazes met and held for a long heady moment.

"What are you thinking?" His voice was soft and velvety, his eyes caressing.

"That I love you," she whispered. "More than life."

"And when I do this?" His thumbs skimmed the silken peaks and they beaded with desire.

Joanna's head tipped back and her breathing became labored. "That I want you...so much." His thumbs swept again. "I...I...oh, Sean, I can't think when you do that."

"Good. Don't think. Just feel. Feel how much I love you. How much I want you." He lifted her breasts, pushed them together and buried his face in the tender mounds. With lips and tongue he worshiped her, dipping evocatively into the tight cleavage, stroking the pearly swells, suckling the rose velvet tips.

"Oh, Sean." Joanna bent over him and clutched his head, her silky brown hair spilling over his shoulders as she held him near.

His hands slid down her ribcage to the button on her slacks, and Sean dropped to his knees before her. When he had divested her of slacks, panties, stockings and shoes he worked his way back up, pausing to kiss her knee, her thigh, the silky nest of feminine curls, her belly, her breasts, the soft hollow at the base of her throat. Sliding his arms around her waist, he brought her close and kissed her trembling lips last.

His mouth was hot and demanding, the abrasive rub of his clothes against her bare skin oddly erotic. Joanna pressed close and clung, losing herself in sensation.

With his mouth still fastened to hers, Sean lifted her in Ms arms and placed her on the bed. His own clothes were dealt with swiftly, and then he was there beside her, pulling her into his arms again, his sigh echoing hers as warm flesh met warm flesh.

They held each other for a long, appreciative moment, savoring the closeness, the warmth, letting anticipation build. Joanna's breasts pressed achingly against his muscled chest, the nipples turgid buttons of desire. His masculine shaft throbbed against her soft belly, yearning, seeking.

Joanna's hands roamed over his back, then down his spine to cup his buttocks. Sean's knee lifted to separate her silken thighs, then pressed hard against her moist, pulsing flesh.

"I want you so much, Joanna. So very much," Sean rasped as her body arched in response to his touch.

"Oh, yes, Sean. Please!"

After the three lonely weeks apart their desire for each other had reached a fever pitch, and neither could wait any longer. Rolling her to her back, Sean rose above her. Gazing into her lambent eyes, he whispered tenderly, "I love you" as he made them one.

Epilogue

S
oft strains of organ music filled the small chapel. The pleasing scents of flowers and burning candles wafted in the air. The pews were filled with close friends and family, waiting with hushed anticipation. It all reminded Claire poignantly of her own wedding, almost four years ago. It was the same chapel, the same minister, the same witnesses. The only difference was that then it had been spring, and now it was winter, and snow covered the ground.