“I’m fine. Almost done.”
Leaving Nicholas wrapped up in a faux-fur blanket, Tracy came over to join Blake in the kitchen. “You don’t have to do all that, you know.”
“Sure I do.” Blake smiled. “You sure as hell ain’t going to.”
“True. But Linda’ll be in tomorrow.”
“Never put off till tomorrow what you could do today,” said Blake. “Close that door, would you?”
He dried the last of the dishes. Tracy closed the door to the family room and opened a box of chocolates.
“Want one?”
“No thanks. Tracy, listen. There’s been somethin’ I’ve been meaning to say for a while now.”
Tracy noticed that Blake’s hands were shaking. He was always so calm. She began to feel nervous herself.
“You’re not sick, are you?”
“Sick?” Blake frowned. “No. I’m not sick. I’m . . . well, fact of the matter is . . . I’m in love with you.”
Tracy stared back at him with naked astonishment.
“I’d like you to consider becoming my wife.”
For a long time, Tracy said nothing. Once she’d had time to think about it, she came back with the impressively articulate: “I . . . wow.”
“No
w, I know I’m older. Too old for you, really,” Blake continued in his quiet, comforting, gentle manner. “But I reckon we get along pretty well up here. And I love the boy like he’s my own.”
“I know you do,” Tracy said. “Nicky loves you too. And so do I.”
Blake’s heart soared.
“But I can’t be your wife, Blake.”
The old cowboy took two deep breaths. “Is there someone else, Tracy?”
She hesitated. “Not in the way you mean. But in my heart, yes. There is.”
“Is it Nick’s father?”
Tracy felt utterly miserable in that moment. Because the answer to Blake Carter’s question, the answer she could never admit to, was yes.
She’d told Jean Rizzo that she needed to leave New York to get back to her son, and that was true as far as it went. But there was another need, equally strong, another force propelling her to take the first plane out of the city and never look back. Being in New York, talking to Elizabeth, reading about the theft of the Byzantine coins, Tracy was forced to face the truth. She was still in love with Jeff Stevens. She’d never stopped loving Jeff, and never would stop. She hated herself for it, and she cried and screamed and railed at the heavens. But the feelings were still there, as deep and true as they had been the day she married him in that tiny Brazilian chapel, years ago.
Blake saw the torment in her eyes. His compassion trumped his disappointment. He took Tracy’s hand.
“Nick’s father isn’t dead, is he?”
“No.”
“You can talk to me, you know. I know you aren’t who you claim to be. I know you’ve got some kind of past. I’m not stupid, Tracy.”
“I never thought you were,” Tracy said vehemently.
“It’s that Rizzo character, isn’t it?” There was a bitterness to Blake’s voice that Tracy had never heard before. “He’s the one that’s sucked you back in. To whatever it was you came here to forget.”