Sweet Everlasting

  “Extremely. Dashing, too. I wanted to send you a photograph of it.”

  “Why …” She stopped.

  “Why didn’t I? Because eventually I got the message that you weren’t interested.” She dropped her eyes. “Why didn’t you write to me, Carrie?” he asked softly.

  “I wanted to,” she said in a small voice. “When you lost your friend, Dr. Lazear, I wanted so much to tell you I was sorry. But I couldn’t. It wouldn’t have been right.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I was trying to let you go.”

  The truth of that washed over him in a hot wave of regret. It was because of him they were standing apart in this cold, ridiculous room, speaking in stilted half thoughts like strangers. To save herself, Carrie had let him go, and it was his own ignoble doing that she didn’t have a clue her abandonment had hurt him.

  “Well,” she said, head up, eyes level again. “You have a new job in Washington, D.C., I heard. Are you excited? When does it start?”

  “I’m to report to the surgeon general in two days. I expect the job will start as soon after that as I can get settled.”

  “That’ll be wonderful. I’m so proud of you and everything you did, Ty, all the—”

  “I did very little.”

  “That’s not true,” she said, without a second’s hesitation.

  He smiled wryly. “You’re not much better than my mother in this particular area, you know.”

  “What area?”

  “The foolish pride area.”

  She tried to smile back. But she was too distracted for small talk. “Why did you come here?” she asked straight out, brave as always.

  “Don’t you really know?”

  “I think you must tell me.”

  Despite the gravity of the circumstances, her formal manner tickled him. “Can I kiss you first?” he teased.

  Her luminous eyes went wide. “No.”

  “Can I hold you while I tell you?”

  “No!”

  He heaved an exaggerated sigh. “All right, then, but you make it hard on a man.” His jesting smile faded slowly. So much for lightening the mood. “I didn’t hear until this afternoon about the lady who came to see me two days ago. Abbey said a Miss Hamilton was passing through, and she wanted to express the gratitude of the people of Wayne’s Crossing for all I’d done for them. I was mystified; I thought it must be a joke. I asked Abbey what she looked like. She had on a handsome blue merino wool, and a hat with a feather. She was very stunning.”

  He paused, charmed by Carrie’s robust blush and the unmistakable look of gratification that unclouded her eyes for a second. It was consoling to know that a small shred of vanity dwelled in her feminine heart. “I admit that I should’ve known, but the ‘handsome blue merino wool’ threw me off.”

  “Eppy picked it out,” she said faintly. “We went all the way to Chambersburg.”

  He couldn’t help himself; he reached out and took her hand, which she’d been clenching at her side. He opened it, forcing her fingers to relax. “Your pulse is racing,” he murmured, his middle finger monitoring the little vein in her wrist.

  “Ty, I’m so happy to see you,” she said in a rush.

  He kissed her knuckles. “Oh, Carrie—”

  “But you shouldn’t have come because it’s too late—and you shouldn’t be here with me because it’s wrong—and you shouldn’t hold my hand—because—” That reason eluded her.

  He held on when she tried to yank away. “No, it’s not too late. Sweet Carrie, I love you. I’ve come to ask you to marry me.”

  Her eyes went liquid with emotion. “Thank you, Ty,” she got out in a tight-throated whisper.

  “Don’t thank me. Just say yes.” He moved his hand to the back of her neck and tugged gently until he had her temple resting against his jaw. “I’ve missed you so much. I never stopped thinking about you, not for a minute. Lord, Carrie, I was an idiot to leave you.” Her airy sigh tickled his ear. He touched his lips to hers, and rejoiced when he felt her soften, first her mouth and then her strong hands on his shoulders. “Marry me, Carrie,” he murmured against her lips. “Marry me and let’s be a family.”

  Her posture changed, but so subtly he might not have noticed if he hadn’t been watching her eyes. In time with the slow stiffening of her body, they went from dreamy to stormy. When she drew away this time, he knew there would be no coaxing her back.

  “What is it?”

  She didn’t answer; she crossed the room to the stove, and hunched over it as if she were freezing.

  “Carrie, what’s wrong?”

  She finally raised her head. “Who told you?” she asked in a dead monotone.

  “Who told me what?”

  “Eppy. I should’ve known she’d tell.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “I thought you were asking me just because you wanted me.”She put the flat of her hand on her chest. “I thought it was just me. And even though I was still going to say no, it made me so glad, Ty, another memory I could keep forever. And now …” She couldn’t go on because she was crying.

  He couldn’t stay away from her. But when he got close, she sidestepped nimbly and put the clanking, hissing stove between them. Holding onto his patience, he said calmly, “Explain that. I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

  She fumbled a handkerchief out of her jacket pocket and wiped her eyes. “I believe that you care for me. I couldn’t have given myself to you if I hadn’t thought you liked me. You’re an—”

  “Liked you?”

  “You’re an honorable man, and I understand why you’ve come. Oh, if only you hadn’t known about the baby, Ty, maybe then—but, no, I still couldn’t have said yes, but it would’ve been even harder.”

  “You’ve got this completely wrong.”

  She took a deep breath, gathering herself. “I know that you think it’s your duty to offer for me now because of the baby. But I free you of your obligation to me, with all my heart. I want you to be happy, and to be everything you can be. Your mother’s right—there’s greatness in you, and you’ll do good for the benefit of mankind. Your great-grandfather was the last representative of the Enlightenment.”

  “He was what? Damnation, Carrie, don’t spout that nonsense to me! She told you all about the great Eustice Morrell, didn’t she? She’s—”

  “Don’t make fun of your family, Ty,” she said severely. “You’ve been blessed.”

  He scowled, chastened. “All right, I’ve been blessed.”

  “But not if you’re stuck with a backward country girl for a wife, and a baby that comes five months after the wedding.”

  “Sweetheart, that’s something for me to decide, don’t you think?”

  “I don’t even know what you’re thinking of,” she went on, gathering steam. “For one thing, and it’s not even the main thing, your mother would never forgive you.”

  “What’s my mother got to do with it? Besides, she’ll love you.”

  She spread her arms wide; her expression said that for once she’d caught him in a lie. “Ty—I’ve met her.”

  “Poor Carrie,” he sympathized, imagining what that must have been like. “Was it awful?”

  “No, oh no, she was very kind, and your sister was wonderful. I’m not talking—”

  “Isn’t she? She’ll love you, too.”

  She made a very impatient gesture with her hand. “Listen. It doesn’t matter here about me, I didn’t have any friends to lose anyway, or any reputation. I know you don’t like him, but Eugene’s been—”

  “I don’t want to hear about Eugene,” he snapped.

  “Ty, please, I have to say this!”

  He shoved his hands in his pockets and glared.

  “Eugene’s been good to me from the beginning,” she started again, speaking quietly so as not to antagonize him. “Even when he found out about the baby, he didn’t stay mad, not for long. He knows how it’ll be, what some people will think of me and the child for t
he rest of our lives, and he’s willing to take us anyway. I’ve given him my promise, and I can’t go back on my word.”

  He was nonplussed. He’d foreseen the need for some gentle persuasion to override Carrie’s too-nice scruples, but he’d never seriously considered the possibility that she would refuse him.

  “Are you in love with Starkey?” he asked after a pause. He didn’t expect an answer, and she didn’t give one; she just blinked at him. “Tell me you’re in love with him, Carrie. Say that to my face, and I’ll walk out. You can keep the baby and I won’t interfere again in your life, if you can honestly say you love Eugene and you don’t love me.”

  She folded her arms and frowned at him. “There’s something you don’t know, Ty, for all your smartness and your education.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Sometimes we can’t have what we want just because we want it. I learned that lesson early, but you were lucky and you never had to. That’s a good thing, and I don’t hold it against you; I’m just saying it so you’ll understand why I have to marry Eugene.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t follow that. But you’re avoiding the question. Answer me straight out—do you love Eugene?”

  Her eyes flashed; she smacked the bottom of one fist against the top of the other. “And I tell you the answer doesn’t make any difference.”

  “How could it not make any difference? Listen to yourself.”

  “You’ve set it up wrong,” she insisted, “you’re trying to get me to say something that you think makes you win the argument, but it doesn’t.”

  “How could it not matter if you love me? How?”

  “Eugene loves me, too.”

  “You’re not carrying Eugene’s child!”

  She covered her cheeks with her hands. “You can see it whenever you want,” she said hoarsely, fingers half-covering her mouth. “I’d never try to stop you. Eugene says he’ll treat it right—if I didn’t believe that, I would never have consented to marry him. I thought of giving it up—”

  “Giving it up?” He skirted the stove and closed the distance between them in one stride. She quailed; he had to force himself not to put his hands on her.

  “I meant—to your mother to raise!”

  He let his pent-up breath out. “Ah, Carrie.” He felt full of remorse for what he’d thought she meant.

  New tears were welling in her eyes. “Forgive me, Ty. I know it’s selfish of me because she’d give the baby a better home than I can, but I just can’t do it. Unless you want me to. I’d do it if you said I must. But I’m begging you,” she whispered, “don’t take the baby from me.”

  “I’d never take it from you.” A premonition of failure flared at the edges of his mind, but he beat it back. “My God, Carrie, how did we come to this?”

  “I’ll raise it right, I swear. It’ll have all the love there is in me, always. And it won’t want.” She looked at him beseechingly. “Eugene has a good job and—he’s a man on the rise. He’s the head of his whole department now, and he’s building a house. It’s got two floors, with a bathroom on the second floor just like yours, and the tub has a mixer faucet, which means one spigot for the hot and the cold. And a wringer washing machine—he’s buying me one, he’s putting it out on the porch …” She ran down. She looked exhausted.

  He stared at her, allowing the lengthening silence to embarrass her as much as he thought she deserved. “I can’t tell you how relieved I am to hear you’re going to have a wringer washing machine, Carrie. That really sets my mind at ease.” When she flinched at his sarcasm, he covered her cheek with his palm, feeling the coolness of her skin heat quickly.

  Her dark lashes fluttered, and her breath trembled across his hand. “Don’t touch me, Ty,” she begged. “I shouldn’t have let you before. You can’t anymore, you just can’t.”

  “No?” His fingers slid into her hair, sleek as cool water, the color of autumn sun on a maple leaf. He caressed the thin white ridge of her ear with one finger while the rose color in her cheeks warmed and deepened. “No?”

  “No, I belong to-”

  “Me.” His kiss made her close her mouth and open her eyes—the opposite of his intent. She pushed him away, but she was shaking.

  “That—won’t—do anything,” she got out in a rusty falsetto.

  “It’ll do something for me.” He pulled her back, wrapped her up in his arms, and kissed her again. He felt her press against him, but only for a second, and then she twisted away and turned her back on him. Immediately he seized her shoulders to hold her still. “Why are you being so stubborn?” he asked behind her ear. Strands of her hair, which smelled like lilacs tonight, tickled his nose.

  “Not stubborn,” she said, stubbornly. “I’m doing what’s right.”

  She wore a thin silver chain around her neck—a gift from her intended, no doubt. He fingered the fragile links, more to touch her throat than to examine them. “What’s this?” A silver pendant, heart-shaped. The cheap metal repelled and infuriated him. He wrapped his fist around it, pulling it taut.

  “Don’t!”

  “Did he give it to you?”

  “Yes!”

  “Take it off.”

  “Ty—”

  “Marry me, Carrie.”

  “No, no, no—”

  He made her stop shaking her head by putting his lips in the hot hollow behind her ear. He tasted her skin; she moaned and tried to strain away, but he’d pulled her little maroon jacket off her shoulders, and her efforts were hampered and uncoordinated. “Tell Eugene you made a mistake. I’ll tell him for you.” He moved his hands to her hips, holding her steady, then slowly up to circle her waist. She plucked at the air with her fingers, head tilted sideways because he had his mouth pressed to the underside of her jaw. “You have lovely costal cartilage,” he noticed, stroking her sides.

  “Don’t, Ty. Stop.” He slipped his hands under her arms, lifting her gently against him. “Don’t shame me,” she pleaded.

  “There’s nothing shameful in loving you.” Her hair was coming down, falling out of the bun on top of her head, caressing his fingers as he pulled her jacket all the way off and let it fall on the floor at her feet. She was too riled up to notice.

  “But you don’t love me,” she protested, stuck between bitterness and giving in.

  “I do. I do love you.”

  “You don’t, I know it. You didn’t before—why would you now? You only offered for me before because we got caught, and now you’re asking because of the baby. Don’t touch me anymore, Ty. I told you, I’ve set you free.”

  “I don’t want to be free.” He had his hands on her stomach, and it was a moment before the truth sank in: that this was where he’d wanted them all along. “Carrie, my dearest, dearest love—no, listen, I figured it out on the train—our baby is seventeen weeks and either five or six days old.” He heard the wonder in his voice and smiled at himself. After a few more seconds, Carrie stopped straining away from him. “Last week you felt him move for the first time, didn’t you?” he whispered. “Just a fluttering sensation down here, deep inside you. That’s called quickening. You thought it was pleasant, but it’s probably going to drive you crazy in another month or two when he starts butting you at odd hours with his elbows and his knees.”

  Carrie’s eyes were closed; she stayed tense, but she was leaning back in his arms, resting her head on his collarbone.

  “He—or she, excuse me—is about this long now.” He widened the distance between his thumb and forefinger to three inches or so, bringing his hand up so she could see. “He’s got all his parts already, although the proportions are a little strange; he’s got a big head but his arms and legs are short, and his hands—he’s even got fingernails, Carrie, no bigger than the petals of a tiny flower. He hasn’t opened his eyes yet, but he can hear things. If you and I started yelling at each other, he’d hear that.”

  She sighed, and he bent his head to kiss her. When his cheek brushed hers, he discovered she was weeping. “Darling
,” he murmured, chasing a slow tear with his lips. “Say you love me. Marry me. You’re mine, Carrie, no one else’s.”

  Her throat worked; she could barely whisper. “Oh God, Ty. This isn’t fair, and it’s wrong.”

  Her energy and will were returning. He reached for her fidgeting hands and held them still between her breasts. “Nothing’s felt this right since I went away. I’ll never leave you again.”

  “You don’t under—”

  He turned her around and cut off whatever it was he didn’t understand with a long, passionate, ruthless kiss. She wilted, and he took the opportunity to back her up toward the couch. Her knees buckled when her calves struck the edge. He lowered her down, still kissing her, congratulating himself on the smoothness of the move.

  “Ty, you’re not—”

  “No, I just want to hold you.” He sat beside her quickly and put his arms around her. “Even if you win this argument, Carrie, you have to let me hold you.”

  “But—”

  “And kiss the bride.” This time her only protest was a pitiful catch in the back of her throat, and then a low, wailing noise with an utterly tragic quality that heartened him immensely. He expected resistance now, but when he pushed her back flat against the leather cushion, she went as easily as an anesthetized patient. Using the pads of his thumbs, he brushed the tears from the sides of her eyes into her hair. “Such letters I wrote to you in my head. I wanted to tell you everything. Why didn’t I? If I’d written them, you’d be mine now.” He put his lips on the worry line between her eyebrows, trying to press it away. “No, what I should’ve done was marry you in August. Should never have listened to you. Kiss me, Carrie, you know you want to. And I want to feel your lips move.”

  She got one hand free and used it to turn his marauding mouth away. “Stop it, I mean it.” But her voice was low and husky, and there was little force in the hand she had on his jaw. “How could I have married you? Where would we have lived, in Washington—Boston—New York?” She blinked her own tears away this time. “Can’t you just see me there?”

  “I see you everywhere.” He sucked a tear off her cheekbone and kissed her again.

  “No—you can’t marry me!” He let her twist her head from side to side, stealing kisses each time her lips flew past. “It’s Adele you have to marry. She had a new dress for you—her cream silk something or other—”