Authors: Anne Stuart
"I have enough to tide me over."
"Francey, he's not coming back."
She took a deep, shaky breath and smiled at Daniel. "I know. I'm just not ready to accept it."
The tiny island of St. Anne was just as she remembered it, the climate temperate, the trade winds blowing. The car she rented was a sedate American station wagon with excellent brakes and air conditioning, and she experienced only a moment of overwhelming grief when she glanced over at the tarmac where she'd first seen the man who called himself Michael Dowd.
She drove directly to Belle Reste, using the brakes sparingly. It wasn't until she faced the reality of the empty house that she knew she'd been fooling herself. Some small, crazy part of her had dreamed that Michael would be there, waiting for her. But when she walked through the empty, closed-up house and found no trace of him, she finally lost the iron-hard composure she'd held on to for so long.
The deed arrived in the mail, notarized, witnessed, signed and sealed. With his usual magnanimity, Daniel had given her ownership of Belle Reste and its twenty acres of beautiful waterfront, with a short note.
"Don't refuse—it's the only thing I can do to assuage my conscience. I should have warned you. For old time's sake I'm sending you another wounded bird. I'm counting on you to heal him. All my love, Daniel."
Francey accepted the gift with apathy. Accepted the upcoming intrusion with the same numbness. She had no interest in wounded birds or in taking care of others. She was too busy searching in vain for her own healing.
She was down at the beach when he arrived. She'd done her hostessly duties, making up a room at the opposite side of the house for him, arranging for a taxi to pick him up at the airport. She would cook for him and be unflaggingly polite until he finally left her in peace. But that was all.
She saw him from a distance, coming down the long set of wooden steps that led to the beach, and he couldn't have been more removed from Michael. The sunlight was blinding, but she could make out a tall, jeans-clad figure, with a rumpled khaki shirt and longish, curly blond hair and mirrored sunglasses. Just her luck, she thought. An aging hippie.
Her heart lurched to a sudden stop. There was something familiar about the way he held himself. Something heart-breakingly familiar about the set of his shoulders, the controlled grace of his walk. She didn't move as he approached her, too terrified to do anything but force herself to breathe.
He stopped in front of her, pushing his sunglasses up on his forehead, and he had the most beautiful green eyes she'd ever seen in her life. They were wary, watching her as if he wasn't quite sure of his reception.
"Who the hell are you?" she said.
"You aren't going to believe this," he said in a voice stripped of his faintly British accent and sounding more like Oklahoma, "but I was christened James Mackintosh Bond."
She shook her head. "And who are you today?"
"The same man I'm going to be for the rest of my life. Michael Cougar."
She considered it for a moment. "I like it. What do you do for a living?"
"I'm out of work, I'm afraid. I quit my last job, and my prospects aren't promising. I thought I'd take some time off, spend the next couple of years lying on a beach and finding out whether I really exist."
"That sounds like a good idea," she said carefully. "I happen to own a large section of beach."
"Convenient," he murmured. "What do you think of the name Francey Cougar?"
"Utterly ridiculous."
"I knew you'd like it."
She was in his arms, and he was solid and real and warm and there. She clung to him, fighting back the tears, and his arms were tight around her, holding her so fiercely that she had no more doubts. "I thought you didn't believe in happy endings?" she muttered against his warm chest.
He tipped her face up to his, and his beautiful green eyes were shining with love. "I'm counting on you to convince me."
"With babies and fights and old age?"
"With all those things," he said. "I love you, Francey. I always will."
And with his words, freely spoken, the last of her sorrow lifted and sunlight filled her soul. "Not happy endings," she said. "Happy beginnings. I just want to know one more thing."
"Are you certain you want the answer?"
"Positive." She cradled her head in his, pressing her nose against his. "What the hell color eyes are our children going to have?"
He grinned then, the first unshadowed smile she'd ever seen on his face. "Let's do our best to find out, shall we?" And scooping her up in his arms, he started up the winding wooden steps to the house.