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And then the woman smiled, and Rosie knew where Cameron’s natural warmth had come from. She couldn’t help but smile right back.
She held out a hand. ‘Rosie Harper. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs Kelly.’
‘Rosie. Please, call me Mary.’ Mary clasped Rosie’s hand between both of hers. ‘And the pleasure is all mine, I assure you. You’re the girl who finally brought my Cameron home.’
Rosie realised how hard she was shaking her head when a lock of hair fell from her up-do and stuck to her lip gloss. She peeled it out as she said, ‘Really, you’ve all got to stop saying that. I promise, it was all Cameron’s idea, his attachment to you guys, that made him come. I was just the lucky girl who got a party invite.’
She could tell by the steely resolution in the older woman’s eyes that she was having none of it. But before Rosie could press her case home—to somehow explain what they were, or maybe more easily what they weren’t—Mary turned to glance out over the crowd, every inch a queen surveying her land and peoples.
‘My Cam’s always been a stubborn boy. He’d never accept help with his homework. Never come in from playing outside until he’d achieved whatever sporting milestone he’d set out to accomplish. He can want a lot from others, but is much harder on himself. Much like his father.’
Don’t tell him that, Rosie thought.
‘I’d never tell him that,’ the woman said with an eloquent smile. ‘Though it’s why the two of them could never see eye to eye. They are both bull-headed. Determined. Competitive. Ambitious. And sadly unforgiving of human limitations.’
Rosie stopped nodding along when she hit the final word. Her skin broke out in a splatter of goose bumps as the whole truth dawned: her husband’s infidelity, his current illness, Mary Kelly knew it all.
What she didn’t know was that her youngest son knew it all too. If she had, Rosie had no doubt she would have done everything not to let him suffer being an outcast to protect them all.
The fiercely independent side of her nudged her towards feeling sorry for the woman. But really Rosie just thought her immensely brave.
Mary Kelly’s valiant choices had shaped four formidable children. Rosie had witnessed how naturally close they were in the ante room downstairs. If she’d still believed in wishing on a star, her wish would have been to be a part of that. To be able to tap into Meg’s humour, Dylan’s confidence, Brendan’s strength, to be cushioned by that much unconditional devotion.
But she especially wanted to hug Mary Kelly for creating Cameron—a man who might well be bull-headed, but then so was she. While he was also gentle. Gentlemanly. Incredibly strong. Generous. Funny. Attentive. He had a huge heart and the soul of a dreamer.
Her cheeks began to warm. She’d never let herself list his good points in one go before, as though deep down she’d known that all together they would be overwhelming.
When she realised Mary Kelly was awaiting her response, she casually fanned her cheeks with her clutch bag as she said, ‘Thank goodness for the renowned Kelly charm, then. I’d bet it gets them both out of a lot of trouble their mulishness gets them into.’
Mary smiled. ‘Thank goodness for that. And for the fact that they are both men who have always known who they are. And what they want. That’s a rare thing indeed.’
Rosie smiled back. All the while her mind spun and spun.
Cameron Kelly was a rare man. A man who worked hard and played hard, but above all wanted to be a good man. He was a good man. The best man. That such a man had pursued her, looked out for her, desired her, needed her…
And right there, standing next to Cameron’s mother, it dawned on Rosie with the gently rising glow and warmth of a winter sunrise that it had taken a rare man to give her—a woman who had been certain that she would go a lifetime without knowing love—all the room she’d needed in order to know one thing with all her heart.
Rosie loved him. She was in love with Cameron Kelly. She loved him with a mad, aching, tumbling, soaring, absorbing, textured, lovely love.
Her lungs filled so deeply that the resultant burst of oxygen made her feel lightheaded, weak-kneed and tingly all over. Trying to find some kind of centre, she repeated the words over and over again in her head.
She loved him. She was in love with him. Rosie Harper loved Cameron Kelly.
After a while the words stopped making sense.
How could they? How could she have let herself love this man of all men? Cameron might have come here to broker a peace, but the cuts from his father’s betrayals ran deep. They had screwed with his sense of gallantry so much that, even if a miracle occurred and he ever came close to loving her back, his critical fear of hurting those he loved would be one great reason for him to let her go.
