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"How about if I told you I paid a visit on Jessie?" Faith's mouth dropped open. She looked at him in disbelief. "Ted's Jessie?"
"I found a letter addressed to-to Jessie in Ted's papers. So I decided..." Cole cleared his throat. Dammit, he'd been walking around with this for almost a week and he still couldn't just come straight out and say it. "Faith? Jessie is Jessie isn't a woman."
There was anguish in his voice, so much that Faith could feel her anger slipping away. "Yes," she said gently. "I know.
"You know?"
"I've always known. Ted never lied to me."
"My brother-" She could see him searching for the strength to say the words. "My brother was gay."
Faith nodded. "Yes," she said softly.
"He never said anything. I mean, I never knew. I mean..." Cole took a rasping breath. "Why didn't he tell me? Did he think I'd have stopped loving him? Hell, he was my brother!"
"You were his hero," she said softly. "He was afraid he'd disappoint you." She lifted her hand, wanting to touch him, to ease the pain she saw in his hunched shoulders and dark eyes, but too many secrets still separated them, always would separate them, and she let her hand fall to her side. "He tried to be like everyone else, he said. Tried to-to like women but he just... He couldn't. He told me everything, Cole. And he made me promise that I'd never tell you."
"And you kept that promise, even after the terrible things I said about you."
"I gave Ted my word," she said simply. "I loved him. He was-he was the brother I never had, the best friend I'd always wanted. I'd never have done anything to hurt him."
"There were letters," Cole said. "Notes from-from Jessie to Ted. And from Ted to Jessie. I read them. They sounded like love letters..." He gave a choked laugh. "Hell, they were love letters. How could I possibly have known they'd been written by...? Faith, I was wrong. I don't expect you to forgive me but-but..." He hesitated. Was it too late? She was listening but she wasn't looking at him the way she once had, as if he were her world just as she was his. "Faith. Baby, I want you to know that I understand about Peter."
Her mouth went dry. "You do?"
"Yes." He took a deep breath. "You were lonely. Ted was-he was fighting against what he knew he was, I guess, trying to prove he could have feelings for women."
Faith shook her head. "It wasn't like that," she whispered.
"No." Cole grasped her shoulders. "No, you don't have to explain. See, it was all my fault. I didn't leave town because I wanted to. I had to. Somebody accused me of something and... It's a long story. The bottom line is that I couldn't prove my innocence without dragging you into it." "Me?" she said in surprise.
He nodded. "That last night was every dream come true." He reached out, touched the back of his hand to her cheek. "Proving I'd hadn't done anything wrong meant telling my old man and the sheriff that you and I were together that night. And there wasn't a way I'd do that. I loved you too much."
"And now?" she asked softly, her eyes searching his for the truth. "Do you still love me, or was that only a dream, too?"
Cole slipped his arms around her. "I'll always love you. Don't you know that? I'll love, you forever, baby, if you'll just give me another chance."
Faith's eyes glittered with tears of happiness. "Oh, Cole. If you only knew how I missed you. All those years, alone, wondering why you'd left me..."
"I'll never leave you again," he said gruffly. He bent his head, brushed his mouth over hers. "And I'll love my brother's son as if he were my own."
Now, she thought, and she lay her hands, palms flat, against his chest. "Cole." She looked up into his eyes. "Peter is your own."
At first, she thought he hadn't understood. Then she felt his muscles tense beneath her touch.
"Peter is-is mine?"
"Yes, my darling. He's yours." Faith framed her husband's face with her hands. "Ted came to see me a few weeks after you'd left town. He asked if I was okay, did I need anything, and I-I blurted out that I was pregnant. He was wonderful, Cole. He said I owed our child your name. He asked me to marry him. I said-I said I would never really be his wife and that was when he told me the truth about himself..."
"Mine," Cole said, and let out a whoop. "The kid is mine! " His arms closed around her and he waltzed her around the tiny room. "I have a son."
Faith laughed as they whirled in circles. "I was going to tell you in New York, the morning after we made love, but-"
