Body and Soul by Susan Krinard

Author:Susan Krinard [Krinard, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-57234-9
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2012-03-08T00:00:00+00:00

They made a perfect pair.

David didn’t need to see them together for more than a few minutes to know the miracle had happened. It was almost flawless. As nearly flawless as one short year in a troubled marriage, when a tiny girl had bound two people together as nothing else could have done.

The pattern played out—joyfully now, as it was meant to. David watched them both sleeping, Megan in her bed and Jesse in her chair, and knew a sharp bayonet-thrust of loneliness. Hadn’t this been intended from the beginning? He’d sensed more pitfalls ahead, but instead he’d been given the opportunity to do a good deed to be weighed to his account.

Sophie and Elizabeth had been reunited.

And Jesse must know by now that Gary had left town, his immediate threat erased. Megan would surely be enough to distract her from that dangerous pursuit.

Every piece was falling into place. Then why did David feel so little triumph? Why did he want to be there with the woman and the child, a happy family that existed only in a fool’s dreams?

He knew he should keep his distance. But he moved closer, crouched beside the child who had once been his daughter.

Elizabeth wouldn’t have looked like this if she’d lived to Megan’s age. She would have been fairy-bright and feminine in frills and lace. Sophie would have seen to that.

But Elizabeth hadn’t lived. Fragile happiness had shattered. David had run from Sophie’s grief—from his own. But the method of escape was the same as with any other unbearable situation. The strategy of forgetting was highly effective when one fought for one’s life in war.

But losing one’s life wasn’t the solution he’d thought it would be. Now, at last, the scales were coming back into balance. The odds stacked higher and higher in David’s favor. First Avery, and now this. Surely Jesse would find it easy to pardon him his sins.

He looked at Jesse’s face, the lines of tension and care eased from her eyes and mouth in sleep. He’d seen that face suffused with love for the daughter she didn’t remember. And he wondered what it would be like to feel that love directed toward him. Unjudging, unconditional, strong and true.

Fool, he told himself. Jesse’s forgiveness would be more than sufficient. And as for Megan …

The girl need never know she’d had anything but a strange dream at a time of crisis. She wouldn’t see him again, by accident or design. No child needed a ghost for a father. His absurd desire to embrace her, hold her like the babe she’d once been, would pass soon enough.

He was preparing to leave when Jesse stirred in her chair and opened her eyes.

“David?” she murmured sleepily. She blinked and sat up. “David!”

Her voice was low, pitched so as not to wake the sleeping child, but she looked at him with an open gladness that caught him like a rabbit in a snare. She rose swiftly and moved toward him, arms outstretched.

He wasn’t quick enough to avoid her approach.

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