She took one step down from the veranda, then heard Manton call to her. Turning around, she saw him standing behind her.
Did you like the new composition I played for you and Sam today? he asked telepathically.
It was lovely, but—
It made Sam very sad, didn't it?
Yes. It made him think of something he would like to forget.
I wrote the song for your child, Jeannie. For your and Sam Dundee's child.
Jeannie stared directly into Manton's piercing green eyes. Several days ago, she had made the first connection with the new life growing inside her. If she had not been so overwhelmed with all the new feelings she'd experienced the first time she and Sam made love, she would have known immediately that she had conceived his child.
"I knew I couldn't keep the child a secret from you," she said her lips moving silently.
You should not keep her a secret from her father, either.
Jeannie laid her hand tenderly over her flat stomach. Sam's child. The most precious gift God could have given her. She had been given so much. Dare she ask for Sam's salvation from guilt and grief? Dare she ask that he be freed from the past so that he could open his heart and love her? Perhaps she had been blessed with more than enough. Perhaps what she and Sam had already been given was all heaven would allow.
I can't tell Sam now. It's too soon. He has to deal with his old grief first.
Then go to him, Manton said. He will never be able to come to terms with what is destroying him without your help.
Jeannie embraced Manton, her heart filled with love for him. He was the dearest of men, his soul so pure that it was on its final journey to completion.
She walked down the steps and into the yard. She knew where Sam had gone. Back to the beach where he had washed ashore six years ago.
She found him looking out at the ocean, his body statue-hard, the wind whipping his hair into his eyes, his face etched with tense lines of agony.
When she approached him, she didn't touch him, but he sensed her presence. Turning around, he looked at her with dead eyes, eyes of pure gray steel. She took a tentative step forward; he didn't move. Another step. And another.
He watched her, his gaze fixed to hers. She stood directly in front of him, one hand holding her walking stick, the other clutching the side of her peach gauze skirt. A muscle in his neck throbbed. His lips parted. He sucked in a deep breath.
Tearstains marred her face. The hand with which she held the cane trembled, the movement barely discernible. She looked at him with eyes of love and understanding and compassion. His big shoulders slumped ever so slightly. His eyes softened from steel to blue-gray.
He was losing this battle, and he knew it. He might be twice Jeannie's size, his body far more powerful, but inside that fragile body, within that enormous heart of hers, lived a strength for which Sam was no match.
A fine glaze of moisture covered his eyes. He blinked away the evidence of emotion, but he could not turn away from Jeannie. He pulled her into his arms. She went willingly, gladly, dropping her cane onto the sandy beach. She wrapped him in the warmth of her embrace, petting his back with gentle up-and-down strokes. After six long years of running away from a truth that tormented him, Sam knew the time had come to exorcise the demon.
But, dear God, how could he endure watching her hurt for him? How could he, once again, be the recipient of her tender mercy?
"I knew better." He spoke softly, the words a mere whisper on the wind. "If I hadn't been so damned stupid!"
"You made a mistake, Sam. Everyone makes mistakes." She hugged him, absorbing his feelings.
"But not everyone's mistakes cost two people their lives." Clinging to her, he allowed her inside his mind and heart and body. He held back nothing.
Releasing her hold around his waist, she reached up and took his face in her hands. Every muscle in his body tensed. Jeannie held his face, forcing him to look directly into her eyes. "Say it. You blame yourself for Brock Holmes's death. He was a rookie agent, and you felt responsible for him. You blame yourself for the death of Connie Bell, the woman you were having an affair with, the woman who was a nightclub singer in Louie Herriot's employ. You knew better than to become personally involved with someone while you were on an assignment. If you hadn't been sleeping with her, she wouldn't have shown up at the wrong place and the wrong time and gotten shot.
"But it isn't Brock's death, or even Connie's, that you can never forgive yourself for causing. Tell me, Sam. Say it aloud. You've never done that, have you? You keep the truth hidden so deep inside you that it's festered into a rotting sore."
He glared at her, his big body shaking, his eyes dry, his face crumpling before her very eyes. "Dammit, she was pregnant!"
"I know." Jeannie slid her hands down Sam's neck and out to his shoulders, gripping them firmly. "Say it. Just this once, and you'll never have to say it again."
The pain inside him carried him to his knees, Jeannie with him. She could feel the guilt, the anguish, the gut-wrenching pain, as it began to leave him and make its way into her.
"Don't you see, the child could have been mine? I didn't have any idea she was pregnant. After I woke up in the Biloxi hospital, I found out about her being pregnant from another agent who'd been sent in to wrap up the case. Connie was two months pregnant. That baby—" he clutched Jeannie's hands, holding them between their bodies "—was probably mine."
"Say it!" Jeannie cried the tears Sam could not shed. The pain eased from him; she took it upon herself.
"It's my fault that child was never born. I'm responsible for the death of my own child!"
A heavy weight of guilt lifted from Sam. Pain and grief cleared from his heart and soul. He breathed deeply, drawing fresh air into his lungs, cleaning out the dark, dank recesses of his heart, allowing, his soul a brief hint of reprieve.
At sunset, Jeannie sat in Sam's lap on the beach, cocooned in the security of his strong arms. Sam held her, never wanting to let her go.
"The grief and the guilt will always be there," she said. "You know that, don't you? But now that you've faced them, you can learn to deal with them."
"I can't change the past."
"No, but you must learn to live with it."
"I wasn't in love with Connie, and she wasn't in love with me. She'd just broken off with another guy, and I knew he was still around."
"The child could have been his or yours, and you'll never know." Jeannie took Sam's hand and laid it on her stomach, covering his hand with hers. "But the guilt is the same, because there's a good chance the child was yours."
"If I hadn't let my… I knew better. I screwed up and it cost two … three people's lives."
"The only way to atone for that mistake is to make the most of your life. Give all that's good and strong within you to others. Forgive yourself, and find the love buried deep inside you."
"I don't know if there's any love in me," he said.
"You love Elizabeth and her child." Jeannie leaned back, letting her head rest on his shoulder. "I know there's more love inside you, if you'll only release it. But no one else can do that for you, Sam. Not even me."
No, not even Jeannie, sweet, angelic Jeannie, could save him. Hell, he wasn't sure he wanted to be saved. He had become accustomed to his guilt and remorse. To the pain. And the price of salvation was too high. If a man didn't care too much, he didn't put his emotions on the line. If caring for others to the extent Jeannie cared, and being willing to open himself up to his deepest emotions, was the only recourse, Sam knew he was damned. Jeannie Alverson was expecting too much from him. He could never be the man she wanted or needed.