A muffled giggle drifted out the open door and then a childish shriek; she smiled as she heard Martin’s laughter.
He was so good with the children, as he had promised he would be. Even with the child who was not his own, but another man’s son, the child that his real father had never seen, or even knew about. The only legacy of his parentage was in his middle name. He had been christened Matthew Morgan Burneson, at Martin’s insistence, for he said that the boy should inherit something of his real father, even if only a name.
“One day we’ll have to tell him the truth, Elizabeth. When he’s old enough, he’ll deserve to know about him.”
Steve Morgan. His face remained a vivid memory still, the blue eyes so intense in a hard face, his lean competence and drawling, husky voice…. She shivered. He came to her in dreams on occasion, and it was as frustrating as it was perplexing. Why? Why should she think of him at all? Martin made her happy. He was a good husband, a good provider, a good father to their three children. Emily was nearly two, and the baby less than a year old. Matthew was almost three now, a lively boy who possessed his father’s reckless streak.
Perhaps that was why she thought of Steve Morgan. Each time she looked into her child’s dark-blue eyes fringed with long black lashes, she saw Steve looking back at her—the man she had called Smith, the man she had fallen in love with and yet never really knew. Had never forgotten. Yet it was a bittersweet memory when she thought of him, for she knew that he could never have given her what she needed in life—stability.
No, Steve Morgan was too restless and reckless, too much of an adventurer. Had he ever remarried? Somehow, she thought not. His eyes, when he had told her of his wife’s death, had been too haunted.
And perhaps it was that, more than anything, that had convinced her she should not accept his request to go away with him, the knowledge that his heart did not truly belong to her and never would. Perhaps she could have borne the life he led as long as she could be with him, but never could she have endured knowing she did not have his entire heart.
It was far easier to lose him than to share him….
“Beth!” Martin was laughing, calling out to her. She turned away from her view of the hills and the past, smiling as she went back into the house, to her husband and her children, to the security she craved.
12
The Liberty sliced through the gulf waters easily, its prow cutting cleanly through choppy waves. A squall had blown up and threatened to blow them off course, rocking the vessel violently and keeping most passengers belowdecks.
Ginny lay on her bunk while the ship pitched and rolled from side to side. Despite the thud of feet above, she heard and recognized Steve’s step in the passageway outside their cabin. She sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bunk as the cabin door opened.
He stepped inside, bringing with him the fresh scent of rain and saltwater. He’d forsaken the garb of an English gentleman again, and was clad in dark corduroy pants, a blue shirt open at the neck and an oilskin that crackled as he shrugged out of it and hung it on a peg fastened to the back of the cabin door. Even with the oilskin, his shirt was damp, outlining smooth muscles in his arms and back. All he needed now was his hat and familiar gun belts to complete the familiar image of a gunslinger.
His mouth quirked in a smile. “Got your sea legs, I see. Does nothing ever faze you, green-eyes?”
“A few things.” She slid off the bunk and stood up, but the ship rose sharply, hung for an instant on the crest of a wave, then plunged into the trough like a bucking horse, knocking her off balance. Steve caught her easily, his arms hard around her waist, holding her against his chest. He laughed softly.
“If you want me, just say so, querida. You don’t have to throw yourself at me.”
With her hands against his chest, she looked up at him. His damp shirt smelled like wind and rain.
“If I wanted you, I know how to get you,” she replied with a teasing lift of her brow. “You’re easy enough.”
“Now you’ve hurt my masculine pride.” He released her and she curled one hand around the frame of the bunk to stay on her feet, watching as he crossed the small floor with an enviously easy grace.
“Steve—” She paused, suddenly feeling foolish as he turned to look at her. How did she say what was on her mind? How did she say to him that when they’d boarded this ship he had still been as much a stranger to her as he’d been the first time she met him?
Though she was as familiar with his body as she was her own, she knew nothing about Steve, who he was, what he wanted to be or perhaps had once intended to be. Nor had she ever told him about her own dreams….
Soon they would be in Mexico, and the time for talking, for the sharing of souls, would be lost in the inevitable duties and chaos of traveling. She may never have a better time to talk to him, to bare her own soul.
“Steve,” she said swiftly before she could change her mind. As he turned to look at her, she blurted, “I have some things I want to tell you, that I
