He scrambled for an excuse. “Don’t you think it would look better coming from you?”
She shook her head. “I’m cooking dinner, Patrick. She knows who baked that cake, but I think you should take it over.”
He sighed. His mother was matchmaking and he didn’t like it, but he’d look like a coward if he wormed out of it. Besides, he probably needed to settle things with Gwen. The last time he’d seen her had been during the disastrous party on the yacht when he fished her cousin out of the water. He owed her the respect of a proper farewell, even though it wasn’t going to be easy on either of them. He loved her, but nothing could ever come of it.
He put the glass cover over the cake and set off for the streetcar stop. It took forty minutes to get to Blackstone College, all the while awkwardly holding a cake on his lap, but soon he was walking down the tree-shaded avenue to her house. The leaves were just beginning to turn, the sun was setting, and it looked as pretty as a postcard as he headed up the walk to her front door.
Gwen’s artistic flair could be seen everywhere. Chrysanthemums bloomed in the garden, and lovely ironwork scrolls framed the door. He swallowed hard and rapped the iron knocker, feeling a little foolish holding a cake in front of him.
After a moment, a beautiful blond woman answered the door. “Can I help you?” she asked.
He was taken aback. “I’m looking for Gwen Kellerman.”
“She doesn’t live here anymore,” the blond woman said, her voice cool.
He couldn’t believe it. He angled his head to look past the woman and down the hallway of Gwen’s house. The furniture was different, and a little girl with braces on her legs read a book in the front parlor.
“Are you Vivian?” he asked, and his stomach sank when she replied in the affirmative. Unbelievable! How many times had he nagged Gwen to get moving on that unenforceable will her scoundrel of a husband had scrawled? She obviously hadn’t, and now she’d lost her house because of it. “Where has she gone?”
Vivian crossed her arms. “Who are you? Are you from the college?”
He shook his head. “I’m her lawyer. Where has she gone?”
“She’s gone to live on some sort of boat. I have no idea where it is.”
The Black Rose. It had to be. It wasn’t right that Gwen should be ousted from her home because she couldn’t stand up to her faithless husband’s mistress. She deserved better than that.
“Here,” he said, thrusting the cake into Vivian’s hands. He couldn’t be saddled with a cake when he had work to do.
Each evening Gwen read from botany journals in the privacy of her cabin on the Black Rose, and it was her favorite part of the day. Her mind had been parched for knowledge, and now she was being drenched with a flood of insight and discovery. Why had she waited so long to do this? Her fingers literally trembled as she turned the pages, because soon she wouldn’t just be listening to other scientists talk about their work, she was going to have a chance to actually do it.
She had just started another article on the hardiness of wheat seeds exposed to frigid temperatures when a deckhand knocked on her door, announcing a visitor.
“Who is it?” she asked in confusion.
“I don’t know, but he’s down on the pier, shouting up to see you. Shall I tell him to go away?”
She shook her head. It could be someone from the college, and it might be important. She pulled on a robe to cover her nightgown and headed up to the deck.
It was dark outside, but Patrick’s tall form was easy to spot on the pier below. He was illuminated by the harbor lights that glinted on the water and lit the angry planes of his face.
“Why did you let that woman take your house?” he yelled up at her.
Seeing him again hurt. She’d been doing her best to move on from the anguish of their split, and until thirty seconds ago she had been succeeding admirably. Now he was back and wanted to talk about Vivian, of all things.
“I gave it to her,” she called down.
Patrick let out a stream of curse words that echoed over the marina. “Why?” he finally roared. “You love that house. It’s yours. Let me get it back for you.”
She stifled a laugh. “I don’t need you to get it back for me. I gave it away.”
He held up both arms in frustration. “This can’t be what you want. I’ll call down the stars and blast through every legal roadblock to get that house back for you. I’ll build a case like no one’s ever seen before. Woman, I will go to war for you. I’ll fight to the ends of the earth for you. Just tell me what you need.”
Oh, Patrick, always trying to be a savior. But that wasn’t what she needed.
“I need a man who is strong enough to stand beside a Blackstone woman without wilting,” she yelled down, and Patrick flinched. His chest caved in, and his shoulders sagged.
When he finally spoke, all the swagger was drained from his voice. “Now you’re hitting where it hurts,” he said.
“You asked; I answered.”
His shoulders straightened again. “It’s not that I’m afraid of your family. And it’s not that I don’t love you, because I do.”
She looked heavenward in exasperation. Down in her stateroom she had a stack of botanical literature she was itching to get back to, and ripping the bandage off this wound seemed needlessly painful if all Patrick wanted to do was count the reasons he was too proud to be a part of her world.
“What good does that do if you’re too stubborn to believe we can be together?”
He glowered at her. “Yes, I’m stubborn, and I want to use that to help you. Gwen, don’t you know that I want to give you the world? I don’t have much to offer. The only thing I’ve got is my strength and my brain and my ability to clear obstacles out of the way. Let me fight this battle for you. I’ll get your house back.”
She sighed. She didn’t want her house back, she only wanted his heart. They needed to talk, but hollering this conversation so that everyone in the marina could hear was too embarrassing, even for her.
“Stay right there,” she said. “I’m coming down.”
It took a while for a crew member to lower the gangway. She didn’t realize until she picked her way down the steeply angled ramp that she was still barefoot and wore only a robe over her nightgown. The planks were rough beneath her bare feet, but she scurried across them until she stood before Patrick.
He looked tired and sick at heart. “Why did you give away your house?” he asked. “You can’t tell me that you wanted to, because I won’t believe it.”
She touched the side of his face. “There is a little girl I love very much. I want her to have a happy childhood, and she will have one there. I was glad to give her the house. That house isn’t what I need. It never was.”
He clasped her hand to his cheek. “You once said that I was letting my pride stand in the way of doing what’s right.”
“I remember.” She took her hand back and withdrew a few steps. She would have made any sacrifice for him, and the fact that he wasn’t willing to bend even a little for her would probably always hurt.
“I don’t feel very proud right now,” he said on a ragged breath. “I feel humbled by the fact that you had the strength to walk into a new world. Unafraid. Fearless.”