Just Kate: His Only Wife (Bestselling Author Collection) Read online

  “There must have been a reason.”

  Kate sighed, remembering the kidnapping attempt against Gil, the one Sean had blamed on the senator. She had to admit, to herself at least, that he had more cause to worry than the average parent. “Maybe,” she said grudgingly.

  Maddie gathered up her purse and handed the TV control back to Kate. “Here. Watch reruns till your eyes cross,” she told her friend. “See if I care.”

  Kate looked up at Maddie. “You do care,” she said. “Thank you for that.”

  Maddie smiled sadly, touched Kate’s shoulder, then left. Kate switched off the TV, crawled into bed and cried.

  The next morning, a Saturday, her father returned from Washington and summoned her to his study in the fancy house on the hill. Because she had no classes that day, Kate put on her roomiest pair of jeans and a loose T-shirt and drove up there.

  Her mother met her at the front door, elbowing aside a uniformed maid to do so. “Look at you,” she said, running her eyes over Kate with an expression of horror. “You’re a wreck!”

  “You don’t know the half of it, Mother,” Kate replied, stepping past Irene to enter the house. “What does Daddy want?”

  Irene made a face as she closed the door. “You needn’t sound so cynical, Katherine. Your father is merely trying to bridge the gap between you, and it’s more of an effort than you’ve made, I dare say.”

  Kate followed her mother down the hallway and into the familiar study.

  “I want you to go back to Australia and fetch my grandson,” the senator said, the moment he and his daughter were alone in that room full of books and expensive leather furniture.

  Kate bit her lower lip, then answered, “I can’t do that.”

  “Nonsense,” John Blake retorted. “You simply pick the boy up when his father’s not home, then the two of you get on a plane and come home.”

  Kate groped for a chair and fell into it. She felt dizzy and just a bit sick to her stomach. “You’re serious, aren’t you?” she whispered, her eyes round.

  “Of course I’m serious,” the senator replied.

  “Why do you want Gil so badly?”

  “He’s my flesh and blood, that’s why. He’s all I have left of my firstborn child.”

  Kate closed her eyes for a moment. The room seemed to be spinning around her. “It’s really true,” she marveled. “You were behind the kidnapping attempt.”

  “Harris forced me into that by denying me my grandchild…” the senator began.

  Kate held up one hand in a plea for silence and eased herself out of her chair. “Please,” she whispered. “I don’t want to hear any more.”

  “Katherine!”

  Kate stumbled out of the room, closed the door and leaned against it, as though to hold back something ugly.

  After leaving her parents’ house, she drove straight to the cemetery where Abby was buried, parked her car and made her way awkwardly over the slippery green grass to the family plot.

  Abby’s headstone was a giant angel, with a trumpet pressed to its lips. Fitting, Kate thought, kneeling nearby. “I thought you were so wonderful,” she said sadly. “Know what, Abby? It hurts to find out you were only human.”

  A light breeze blew through the sunny graveyard, ruffling Kate’s hair. She ran her hand gently over the place where her only sister lay. “I’m going to have Sean’s baby,” she went on. “I don’t expect you or anyone else in the family to understand, but I had to tell someone.”

  Kate paused, looking up at the blue, blue sky with its lacy white clouds. “I’ll never understand why you didn’t want Sean, Abby. He’s so wonderful—”

  It seemed that Abby challenged her then, although Kate knew the exchange was happening only inside her own head. If he’s so wonderful, why did you leave him?

  Kate bit down on her lower lip, her eyes on the ground. “I know now that I shouldn’t have,” she answered softly. “It was all a misunderstanding—we could have talked it out.”

  Give it up. You’re Daddy’s little girl and you always were. You wouldn’t have been happy anywhere but right here in Seattle.

  “That’s not true,” Kate argued. “I was happy in Australia. Happier than I’ve ever been.”

  Then go back. You have my blessing.

  Kate shook her head. “I haven’t the courage,” she said.

  Why not?

  “I’ve been so wrong about everybody in my life—you, Brad, Daddy. The one time when I was right, I didn’t stay and fight—I ran away like a coward. I’m afraid of doing that again.”

  After a long time, she rose, touched the face of the trumpeting angel and whispered, “Goodbye, Abby.”

  *

  Sean nodded and left the cockpit. The passengers were still trailing out, and he had to struggle to keep himself from hurrying them along.

  At last he was able to escape. His suitcase in one hand, Sean strode along the walkway and left the terminal. It was a chilly September day—down under it would be spring. Here it was the fall of the year, and the leaves were beginning to turn.

  Sean shook his head. This part of the world was a strange place, whether the Yanks liked to admit it or not.

  He got a cab right away, but he had to repeat the address twice before the driver understood. Sean grinned to himself. Everybody here had an accent—it was no wonder they didn’t comprehend plain English.

  *

  Kate’s glasses were riding on the tip of her nose as she read from her algebra textbook and got her prenatal vitamins down from the shelf at the same time. Without looking away from the book, she dumped a capsule onto the counter, lifted it to her mouth and swallowed it. She nearly choked and was gulping down water when the doorbell rang.

  Muttering, she meandered into the living room. It was probably the Henderson kids selling candy or calendars so some team they were on could buy new uniforms.

  When she opened the door, however, Sean was standing there, looking like an ad for flight school in his spiffy blue uniform. He took off his hat in a shy gesture and said, “Hello, Kate.”

  Kate’s throat constricted around the prenatal vitamin capsule. “Hello,” she managed, taking off her glasses.

  Sean grinned slightly, bringing on a poignant pain in the region of Kate’s heart. “May I come in?”

  She stepped back, her glasses in one hand and her algebra book in the other. “Sure,” she said, long after the fact.

  Sean set his hat on a table. He had a bag, too, and he put that on the floor at his feet. “I was wrong,” he said, just like that.

  Kate stared at him. Even if she could have spoken, she wouldn’t have known what to say.

  He looked at Kate for a moment with his heart in his eyes, and then he went to the windows and stood with his back to her, gazing out at the city. “I’m living in San Francisco now,” he told her.

  At last Kate found her voice. “You’re still with Austra-Air?”

  Without turning around, Sean nodded. “Yes. So Gil and I are giving the States a chance to win us over.”

  Kate’s heart was beating faster than it had since she’d returned from Australia. “Take him to Disneyland,” she suggested softly. “That’ll cinch it for you.”

  Now Sean turned. “I’m sorry, Kate,” he said, meeting her eyes. “I should have trusted you.”

  “You’re right,” Kate said. “You should have.”

  “Will you give me a second chance?”

  Kate had prayed to hear those words, but she hadn’t really expected an answer. For that reason, she hadn’t rehearsed a reply, and she just stood there, stricken.

  Sean came closer, laying his hands gently on her shoulders. “Kate?” His voice was low and hoarse. “I’m ready to make some compromises, to prove I love you enough to make this thing work.”

  Kate swallowed. “Like what?” she managed.

  “Like living in San Francisco. Like letting you adopt Gil if you want.”

  Kate was so moved that her voice came out sounding strangled a
nd squeaky. “You’d do that? You’d make him legally my child?”

  Sean nodded. “I would,” he affirmed.

  Tears welled in Kate’s eyes—happy tears. Her arms went automatically around his neck. “What’s my part of this bargain?” she asked with a half smile.

  He chuckled. “Ah, sheila, I’m glad you asked that,” he answered, slipping his arms around her thickening waist. “Come closer and I’ll show you.”

  “I want a proposal first,” Kate protested primly.

  Sean laughed. “All right, then,” he agreed. “Will you marry me, Kate Blake? Will you share my life and my bed? Will you be a mother to my son?”

  “I will,” Kate vowed, raising one hand to prove the oath.

  That was when Sean kissed her. At first it was a gentle, tentative kiss, but then she felt his body harden into a familiar readiness. His tongue plundered the depths of her mouth, and Kate’s knees turned to mashed potatoes.

  When he lifted her into his arms without breaking the kiss, she didn’t demur. She wanted whatever he had to give her.

  “There is one little thing I should mention,” she said breathlessly when they reached the bedroom and Sean was lifting her sweatshirt off over her head.

  He bent and kissed the rounded tops of each of her breasts. “What?” he asked.

  Kate drew in a sharp breath as he unfastened her bra and quickly tossed it aside. “You’re probably going to be mad,” she warned.

  Sean lifted her, so that she was forced to wrap her legs around his waist. That put her breasts at mouth level, and he took immediate advantage of the situation. “I’ll get over it fast,” he assured her between suckles.

  Kate was moaning. “Maybe I should—oh, God—wait.”

  Sean turned to her other breast. “Tell me,” he said.

  “I’m pregnant,” Kate blurted out.

  He eased her slowly, gently to the bed, bending over her. “Damnedest thing,” he murmured, shaking his head. “I could have sworn you just said you were pregnant.”

  “I did, and I am. That is, we did and I am.”

  Sean laughed, and the tears glistening in his eyes were a touching contrast. “My God, sheila—that’s wonderful.”

  Kate drew him down toward her lips and her body. Both were his to claim. “I’m very glad you think so, Captain Harris,” she said, and then she kissed him, unbuttoning his shirt at the same time.

  The warm, hairy hardness of his chest felt good under her palms. She squirmed as he unfastened and unzipped her jeans.

  “I thought you had changed,” he remarked when the kiss had ended. His lips were against her bare belly then, and Kate was trembling in anticipation.

  “Thanks a lot,” she muttered.

  He laughed again. “As soon as you’ve gotten over having this one,” he said, moving lower. “We’ll start another.”

  Kate was already writhing slightly, for he was very near his destination. She felt the downy curtain part and she moaned. After that, all her words were incoherent.

  Once the first shattering pinnacle had been reached, Kate lay gasping on the bed, watching Sean as he removed the rest of his clothes. When he was naked, he stretched out over her on the bed.

  “I thought I’d die for missing you,” he said hoarsely, and his eyes glinted in the half-darkness of the bedroom.

  Kate ran her hands along his magnificent back. She didn’t speak, for her body told him everything.

  With a groan, Sean entered her, murmuring words of love and need as he completed that first long, delicious stroke.

  Kate welcomed him, thrusting her hips upward to draw him into her very depths.

  “You’ll make a madman of me yet,” he moaned, withdrawing slowly and then gliding into her again.

  Fire had been ignited inside Kate, and the flames were rising higher and higher. She whimpered as her temperature climbed, and hurled herself at Sean in a wanton search for what only he could give her.

  “That’s it,” he whispered, tucking his hands under her bottom to urge her on. “That’s it, Katie-did—I want everything.”

  She was soaring toward a molten sky, borne high on tongues of fire. “Sean—Sean—”

  He buried his face in her neck even as he buried his manhood in her depths. His strokes were the fierce lunges of a conqueror, and Kate’s surrender was complete.

  With a cry of jubilation, she exploded like a nova, and Sean was only moments behind her.

  When it was over, they lay still. For Kate, Sean’s rapid heartbeat and ragged breathing were music. She’d thought she’d never hold him like this again, never feel the unique planes and hollows of his body fitted to hers.

  “The least you can do,” she said when she was capable, “is buy me dinner.”

  Sean gave her a playful swat. “Buy you dinner, is it? I ought to turn you over my knee for not telling me about the baby sooner.”

  “I’ve only known about it for a few weeks myself,” Kate defended. “Shall we send out for Chinese or walk down to the corner for fish and chips?”

  “I’m not walking anywhere,” Sean said. He’d slid down to her breast and was rolling his tongue around her nipple. “Besides, chow mein isn’t what I’m hungry for.”

  Kate shifted slightly to give him better access. “We deliver,” she said.

  Later, when the loving was over, she told him about her estrangement with her father and her decision to become an elementary school teacher.

  Sean thought teaching was a grand idea, since Kate liked kids so much, but he surprised her where the rift with her father was concerned. He said she should try to make things right, or she might come to regret it someday.

  Chapter 12

  The senator stepped uneasily through the front door of the gracious home overlooking San Francisco Bay. He held his hat in one hand and clutched the front of his overcoat closed as though he expected someone to snatch it away. Beside him, Irene slipped out of her snow-dusted mink coat and gave Kate a cautious kiss on the cheek.

  “You look wonderful, darling,” she said.

  “Are you my grandparents?” Gil asked forthrightly.

  Irene was crying, and the senator looked at the little boy with a helpless expression Kate had never seen on his face before.

  “Yes,” Sean said quietly when no one spoke. “These are your grandparents.” He stood behind Gil, one hand resting on the boy’s shoulder.

  The senator’s weary blue eyes moved from Kate’s face to Sean’s. “I apologize for everything,” he said.

  Sean nodded without speaking, took Kate’s hand and led her out of the room.

  “I wish I didn’t have to leave for Honolulu tonight,” he said, drawing her as close as he could, given her bulging stomach.

  She laughed and laid both her hands on his cheeks. “Oh, you poor man,” she teased.

  Sean’s hand rested on the rounded sides of Kate’s stomach. “You’ll take very good care of my daughter, won’t you?”

  “The best,” Kate assured him.

  He kissed her, and Kate was sorry he was going away. If they’d been alone, she might have taken him by the hand and led him up the stairs to their spacious bedroom.

  “Keep that up and I’ll have my way with you right here, Captain Harris,” she said in a conversely prim voice.

  He laughed and squeezed her bottom. “I’m shocked, Mrs. Harris,” he scolded. “What would the PTA think if they heard their vice president carrying on like this?”

  Kate shrugged. “Kiss me again,” she said.

  Sean obliged graciously.

  When he’d left for the airport, Kate went back to the living room. Her mother was sitting in a chair next to the fireplace, watching fondly as Gil and the senator plundered the brightly wrapped gifts under the Christmas tree.

  “No fair shaking,” Kate protested.

  The old man and the boy looked at her with similar smiles.

  “Can I give Grandpa his present now, Mom?” Gil asked.

  “No,” Kate answered, settling int
o her favorite chair and spreading the colorful afghan she was knitting over her knees. “Christmas is still three days away.”

  “Scrooge,” complained the senator.

  “Please?” Gil wheedled.

  Kate caved in. After all, it was Christmas and she was no disciplinarian, anyway. “All right, but just one,” she conceded.

  “Our gifts are arriving later,” the senator confided to his daughter as Gil ran up the stairs to fetch the special set of Australian stamps he’d set aside for his grandfather.

  “By boxcar,” confirmed Irene.

  Kate chuckled and tended to her knitting.

  *

  The snow had stopped in the early morning, two days later, when Sean crawled into bed beside her and drew her into his arms.

  “Hello, Mrs. Harris,” he said, his lips moving against her temple.

  “Exactly who are you?” Kate retorted, yawning. But she snuggled closer.

  He placed a warm hand on her stomach. “Very funny,” he said. “Did you lay down the law to the senator, by the way?”

  “Uh-huh,” Kate said. “He won’t be bothering me about coming back to work for him after this. I told him that being vice president of the PTA at Gil’s school is the closest I’m ever going to get to politics.”

  “How did he react?” Sean asked, stretching and making himself comfortable beside Kate.

  She giggled at the picture that came to her mind. “He blustered, but I wasn’t intimidated. After all, he was wearing Gil’s Mickey Mouse ears at the time.”

  Sean laughed and stretched again. “I’m going to sleep,” he announced.

  “No, you’re not,” Kate replied.

  *

  HIS ONLY WIFE

  Cathy McDavid

  Dear Reader,

  I was first inspired to write His Only Wife several years ago while staying at my weekend home in Young, Arizona. The town was hosting the Payson Hotshots, feeding them and giving them a place to sleep, while they battled a nearby wilderness fire—a fire I could see from the front porch of my house.

  As I watched, I wondered about the amazing individuals who chose to work in such a dangerous profession. I also wondered about the people who loved them and made up their families. Soon after, the idea for His Only Wife was born, a book that, I’m thrilled to say, went on to become my first Harlequin American and the start of a seven year and still going strong career!