Father For Keeps

Sean didn’t know if his sudden rage came from effrontery of the gossipy woman or from the thought of his daughter in tatters. He clapped his hat back on his head. “How much material does it take to make a dress for a baby?”

“For just a tiny one? Oh, two yards should do.”

He gestured to the table of cloth. “I want two yards of each one of these sent to the Sheridan house.”

Mrs. Billingsley’s jaw dropped. “Each one?” she asked. “There must be two dozen different—”

“Each one. I’ll be in to settle the account later this afternoon.” Then he nodded and left the store, letting the flimsy door bang shut behind him.

Uncharacteristically, Sean felt his heart speeding up as he opened the gate and headed up the walk toward the Sheridan house. He hadn’t realized that he would be so affected by seeing Kate again. These months back in his own world in San Francisco society, he’d managed to convince himself that his lightning love affair with a simple girl from the mountains had been nothing more than a springtime idyll. But yesterday, looking into those clear blue eyes, he’d felt a stirring somewhere deep inside, somewhere that hadn’t often been touched in his comfortable life.

It was Jennie, not Kate, who opened the door. She seemed to be expecting him, but she didn’t step back to allow him to enter.

“Hello, Jennie,” he said. “It’s good to see you again. You’re looking well. Married life must agree with you.”

She didn’t return his smile. “She doesn’t want to see you, Sean. I’m sorry. I thought.”

“Thank you for writing. It was the right thing to do.”

Jennie looked quickly back over her shoulder as if to assure herself that the hall was empty. She spoke quietly. “I’m not so sure of that anymore. If she knew I’d written you about the baby, she’d be furious with me.”

“Well, I won’t tell her. I would rather she thought I came back for her all on my own.” He shifted the huge bouquet. “May I come in?”

Jennie ignored the request and continued talking almost to herself, justifying her action. “She’s fully recovered her health from the difficult birth, but she just seemed to be getting more…listless. And then there was Lyle coming around all the time trying to talk her into marrying him for the baby’s sake. I didn’t know what to do.”

“Lyle Wentworth? The banker’s son who used to lord it over you girls about growing up poor in the mountains?”

Jennie nodded and rolled her eyes. “He’s been sweet on Kate since we were children.”

“You’d never know it the way he treats her. I can’t believe she even suffers him in your home.”

Jennie bit her lip and looked at him with a pained expression. “Well, Lyle was a help during Kate’s pregnancy when we had to take her to a special hospital. We were all by ourselves, you know, after Mama and Papa died…” Her voice trailed off.

Sean finished for her, “And with the father of her baby gone.” His face grew tight. “Why didn’t she contact me, Jennie? She knew my family was prominent in San Francisco. It wouldn’t have been hard to find me.” He stopped speaking as Kate appeared in the back of the hall at the door that led into the kitchen.

“You don’t know me very well, Sean Flaherty, if you think I would go crawling to a man who left me with nothing but a terse note,” she said.

Jennie turned around, startled. “He knows about the baby, Kate,” she told her sister in a rush.

Kate walked toward them, grim faced. “I know. I’m afraid it was impossible for me to keep some of the more embarrassing aspects of motherhood from revealing the secret last night.”

Sean stepped around Jennie and held the flowers out to Kate. “I’ve come to try to start over, Kate. I know you’ve been through a lot and there’s no reason for you to forgive me, but I’m asking you to let me try and make it up to you.”

Her face was as calm and hard as a statue. “Caroline’s my baby, Sean. You forfeited any right—”

“I can help you, Kate. I want to help our child.” He looked around the hall, his eyes resting on the faded parlor curtain. “I have money, as you know.”

Jennie stepped back to allow him to move closer to Kate, who stood with her hands on her hips, bristling, making no attempt to take the flowers he was offering. “I don’t want your money, Sean, or your flowers. Caroline and I don’t want any part of you. I haven’t changed my mind since last night. You can just pack up your bags and head back to your papa’s business and your fancy big-city friends.”

Sean sighed and turned to hand the flowers to Jennie. “Would you mind finding somewhere for these?” he asked with a touch of exasperation. “And give me five minutes alone with this stubborn, beautiful sister of yours.”

Kate’s face had colored at the compliment, in spite of herself, and Jennie’s worried expression lightened slightly. She took the flowers in both arms and headed back toward the kitchen, saying over her shoulder, “You two might as well go sit in the parlor instead of standing in the hall shouting at each other like fishwives.”

Sean put his hat on the hall table and gestured toward the curtained doorway. “Shall we?” he asked.

Kate gave a reluctant nod and led the way into the parlor, where she sat on one of the high-backed chairs. Sean took the seat nearest to her on one end of the settee. He sank into the cushions, which left his head lower than hers, making him feel at an immediate disadvantage.

“Why didn’t you let me know, Kate?” he asked, his voice gentle. “I would have come. You could have had the finest doctors in San Francisco.”

Kate sat stiffly, her hands clasped in her lap. “It seems to me that I’m the one who has the right to ask the questions, Sean. You’re the one owing the explanations. Why did you leave? Why didn’t you come and tell me you were going? What happened to you?” Her voice trembled a little at the end.

Sean had a sudden urge to draw her into his arms as he had so many times during the passionate three months they’d been together. Instead he cleared his throat and said, “I’m not making excuses, Kate. It was wrong of me to leave without seeing you. But it’s just that I’ve never been too good at goodbyes. I thought it might be easier on both of us…”

“To leave me to have our baby alone?”

“I had no idea about the baby. Surely you believe that much anyway. I thought we’d tried to be careful. I’ve never had anything like this happen…ah. before.” He stammered a little as he realized the import of his words. Kate did not hesitate to call him on them.

“You mean none of your other women has ever had the effrontery to present you with a child? You’ve led a charmed life, Sean Flaherty. I’m sorry to have been the one to spoil your record. But, as I’ve been trying to tell you since last night, you don’t need to worry. Caroline and I are making no claim on you whatsoever.”

Sean blew out an exasperated breath. “Damn it, you’re a stubborn woman, Katie Marie Sheridan. Yes, I left. It was wrong, and I’m sorry. But now I’m back. I’ve come back for you and for our daughter.” His voice softened. “The truth is, sweetheart, I’ve never stopped thinking about you in all these eighteen months.” As he said the words, he realized that they were the absolute truth. Even before he’d received Jennie’s letter about the baby, Kate had been in his mind night and day. He’d had other women, but they’d been pale in comparison to the spirited, lithesome blond beauty he’d left in the mountains.

Kate was silent for a long moment. He couldn’t tell if she’d been moved by the obvious sincerity of his declaration or if she was thinking of yet another way to send him packing. But before she could speak, there was a rustling of the parlor curtain. Sean looked up to see Jennie standing in the archway. In her arms was a moppet with black curly hair and blue eyes that mirrored his own.

Chapter Two (#ulink_043e5a5c-b348-5372-b97b-5aed22368fff)

Kate jumped to her feet and crossed the room to take the baby from her sister.

“I’m sorry,” Jennie said with worried eyes. “She was fussing, and I have to head up to the mine.” Although the financial situation had eased when Jennie had married Carter, she still went up to the mine each day to prepare the noon meal for the silver miners, the job she had obtained when they’d needed money to keep Kate in the hospital in Virginia City before the birth.

“That’s fine. You run along,” Kate told her, clasping Caroline tight against her.

Jennie looked doubtfully from her sister to Sean. “Will you be all right?”

Sean stood and took a step toward them. “I’m not a monster, Jennie. Your sister is perfectly safe with me.”

“I didn’t mean to be insulting, Sean. It’s just that…” She glanced at her sister, then back to Sean. “Well, good, then. I’ll leave you to get acquainted with your daughter.” She leaned over to give Kate a quick peck on the cheek, then darted out the curtain into the hall.

Sean walked over to Kate and the baby, a look of wonder on his face. “She has black hair,” he said, his voice choked.

Kate looked up at him, her eyes glazed. Her voice came out in a whisper. “Yes.”

He reached out a hand and ran his finger over Caroline’s silky hair. Safe in her mother’s arms, the baby watched him, eyes wide. “Does she…ah…is she healthy?” he asked. “Does she have everything she needs?”

Kate looked down at the baby tenderly. It was the first time he’d seen her smile since he’d been back. She was smiling at Caroline, not at him, but the expression slid straight into his midsection.

“She’s healthy and happy. Aren’t you, precious?”

Kate’s voice went up in pitch, her eyes lit with a special glow that was answered by a gleam in the baby’s own eyes. Sean watched the mother-daughter communication with awe. His own mother and father had always been too busy with their high-society world to pay much attention to the parent-child bond. Sean was totally unprepared for the wave of love that swept through him at this first sight of his daughter. Tears welled at the base of his throat.