The Season Of Love: Beloved

He wondered why she didn’t marry the damned man. They seemed to live in each other’s pockets. He remembered that Charles had always been her champion, bolstering her up, protecting her. Charles had been her friend when Simon had turned his back on her, so how could he blame her for preferring the younger man?

He put his glass down and got to his feet. He felt every year of his age. He was almost forty and he had nothing to show for his own life. The child he might have had was gone, along with Melia, who’d never loved him. He’d lived on illusions of love for a long time, when the reality of love had ached for him and he’d turned his back.

If he’d let Tira love him…

He groaned aloud. He might as well put that hope to rest right now. She’d hate him forever and he had only himself to blame. Perhaps he deserved her hatred. God knew, he’d hurt her enough.

He went to bed, to lie awake all night with the memory of Tira’s wounded eyes and drawn face to haunt him.

Chapter Five (#u8b1915eb-ffc9-5a5a-bc51-76b583047e90)

Simon was not in a good mood the next morning when he went into work. Mrs. Mackey, his middle-aged secretary, stopped him at the door of his office with an urgent message to call the governor’s office as soon as he came in. He knew what it was about and he groaned inwardly. He didn’t want to be attorney general, but he knew for a fact that Wally was going to offer it to him. Wallace Bingley was a hard man to refuse, and he was a very popular governor as well as a friend. Both Simon and Tira had been actively involved in his gubernatorial campaign.

“All right, Mrs. Mack,” he murmured, smiling as he used her nickname, “get him for me.”

She grinned, because she knew, too, what was going on.

Minutes later, the call was put through to his office.

“Hi, Wally,” Simon said. “What can I do for you?”

“You know the answer to that already,” came the wry response. “Will you or won’t you?”

“I’d like a week or so to think about it,” Simon said seriously. “It’s a part of my life I hadn’t planned to take up again. I don’t like living in a goldfish bowl and I hear it’s open season on attorneys general in Texas.”

Wallace chuckled. “You don’t have as many political enemies as he does, and you’re craftier, too. All right, think about it. Take the rest of the month. But two weeks is all you’ve got. After the holidays, his resignation takes effect, and I have to appoint someone.”

“I promise to let you know by then,” Simon assured him.

“Now, to better things. Are you coming to the Starks’s Christmas party?”

“I’d have liked to, but my brothers are throwing a party down in Jacobsville and I more or less promised to show up.”

“Speaking of the ‘fearsome four,’ how are they?”

“Desperate.” Simon chuckled. “Corrigan phoned day before yesterday and announced that Dorie thinks she’s pregnant. If she is, the boys are going to have to find a new victim to make biscuits for them.”

“Why don’t they hire a cook?”

“They can’t keep one. You know why,” Simon replied dryly.

“I guess I do. He hasn’t changed.”

“He never will,” Simon agreed, referring to his brother Leopold, who was mischievous and sometimes outrageous in his treatment of housekeepers. Unlike the other two of the three remaining Hart bachelor brothers, Callaghan and Reynard, Leopold was a live wire.

“How’s Tira?” Wallace asked unexpectedly. “I hear her showing was a huge success.”

The mention of it was uncomfortable. It reminded him all too vividly of the mistakes he’d made with Tira. “I suppose she’s fine,” Simon said through his teeth.

“Er, well, sorry, I forgot. The publicity must have been hard on both of you. Not that anybody takes it seriously. It certainly won’t hurt your political chances, if that’s why you’re hesitating to accept the position.”

“It wasn’t. I’ll talk to you soon, Wally, and thanks for the offer.”

“I hope you’ll accept. I could use you.”

“I’ll let you know.”

He said goodbye and hung up, glaring out the window as he recalled what he’d learned about Tira so unexpectedly. It hurt him to talk about her now. It would take a long time for her to forgive him, if she ever did.

If only there was some way that he could talk to her, persuade her to listen to him. He’d tried phoning from home early this very morning. As soon as she’d heard his voice, she’d hung up, and the answering machine had been turned on when he tried again. There was no point in leaving a message. She was determined to wipe him right out of her life, apparently. He felt so disheartened he didn’t know what to try next.

And then he remembered Sherry Walker, a mutual friend of his and Tira’s in the past who loved opera and had season tickets in the aisle right next to his, in the dress circle. He knew that Sherry had broken a leg skiing just recently and had said that she wasn’t leaving the house until it healed completely. Perhaps, he told himself, there was a way to get Tira to talk to him after all.

The letdown after the showing made Tira miserable. She had nothing to do just now, with the holiday season in full swing, and she had no one to buy a present for except Mrs. Lester and Charles. She went from store to colorfully decorated store and watched mothers and fathers with their children and choked on her own pain. She wouldn’t have children or the big family she’d always craved. She’d live and die alone.

As she stood at a toy store window, watching the electric train sets flashing around a display of papier mâché mountains and small buildings, she wondered what it would be like to have children to buy those trains for.

A lone, salty tear ran down her cold-flushed cheek and even as she caught it on her knuckles, she felt a sudden pervasive warmth at her back.

Her heart jumped even before she looked up. She always knew when Simon was anywhere nearby. It was a sort of unwanted radar and just lately it was more painful than ever.

“Nice, aren’t they?” he asked quietly. “When I was a boy, my father bought my brothers and me a set of ‘O’ scale Lionel trains. We used to sit and run them by the hour in the dark, with all the little buildings lighted, and imagine little people living there.” He turned, resplendant in a charcoal-gray cashmere overcoat over his navy blue suit. His white shirt was spotless, like the patterned navy-and-white tie he wore with it. He looked devastating. And he was still wearing the hated prosthesis.

“Isn’t this a little out of your way?” she asked tautly.

“I like toy stores. Apparently so do you.” He searched what he could see of her averted face. Her glorious hair was in a long braid today and she was wearing a green silk pantsuit several shades darker than her eyes under her long black leather coat.

“Toys are for children,” she said coldly.

He frowned slightly. “Don’t you like children?”

She clenched her teeth and stared at the train. “What would be the point?” she asked. “I won’t have any. If you’ll excuse me…”

He moved in front of her, blocking the way. “Doesn’t Charles want a family?”

It was a pointed question, and probably taunting. Charles’s brother was still in the hospital and no better, and from what Charles had been told, he might not get better. There was a lot of damage to Gene’s heart. Charles would be taking care of Nessa, whom he loved, but Simon knew nothing about that.

“I’ve never asked Charles how he feels about children,” she said carelessly.

“Shouldn’t you? It’s an issue that needs to be resolved before two people make a firm commitment to each other.”

Was he deliberately trying to lacerate her feelings? She wouldn’t put it past him now. “Simon, none of this is any of your business,” she said in a choked tone. “Now will you please let me go?” she asked on a nervous laugh. “I have shopping to do.”

His good hand reached out to lightly touch her shoulder, but she jerked back from him as if he had a communicable disease.

“Don’t!” she said sharply. “Don’t ever do that!”

He withdrew his hand, scowling down at her. She was white in the face and barely able to breathe from the look of her.