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“What’s not yours?” their mother asked.
“The baby,” Sheilagh informed the rest. “It’s Colin’s.”
As one, everyone slowly turned to face Colin. He at least had the decency to not deny it.
Their mother uttered a long drown out, “Ohhhh.” She looked to Sam, and Kelly almost laughed. His mother was clearly embarrassed for the girl. She looked down at her plate and gently said, “Oh, my poor girl, I know all my sons are handsome, but you’ve gone ahead and had yer fill now. How will we know who the father is? And—”
“Maureen, quiet,” his father interrupted. That was a first. He looked to Colin and asked, “Is this true, son?”
Colin nodded and their father looked to Braydon. “And you, Braydon? What is your part in all this?”
Blushing, Bray admitted, “The baby isn’t mine. I never thought it was. It would be impossible. I just didn’t correct all of you when you made the assumption.”
Everyone turned to Sam who kept her gaze glued to her lap. Colin finally stepped beside her and said, “All of you can just clam up and mind your own business for a spell. I need to talk to Sammy alone and she doesn’t need the rest of you passing judgment on her. If you want to judge anyone, judge me. I’m the only one who pretended to be something I wasn’t. She was never disloyal to me or to Braydon. If you don’t believe me, ask Bray, but we’re going up to my room and I don’t want anyone to interrupt us until we decide to come down.”
He took Samantha’s hand and helped her from the table. She looked at him a bit insecurely, but followed him nonetheless. As soon as they cleared the threshold everyone began talking at once.
CHAPTER21
Sam stepped into Colin’s room and went right to the window. She had missed the view. The mountains were beautiful covered in snow. The trees looked like little confections sprinkled with powdered sugar.
The sound of the door shutting and the snick of the lock scattered all of her thoughts away. She turned and faced Colin.
“Colin, I’m so sor—”
He held up his hand. “Stop. I’ve had time to think, and I don’t want your apology.”
She swallowed hard and blinked back tears. “Okay,” she rasped.
“Do you want to sit?”
She didn’t want to feel more vulnerable, but she was starting to get Braxton Hicks, and the last thing she wanted to do was go into early labor before she made it home to her parents. So she nodded and sat down on the bed. He waited patiently as she arranged the pillows against the headboard and tried to get comfortable. There really wasn’t any comfort left at this stage of the pregnancy, but she fiddled with the pillows and tried for it anyway.
Colin let out an exasperated sigh and walked over to her.
“Here, let me.” He held her forward by the arm as he fluffed and placed the pillows so they wouldn’t slip behind the mattress.
“There,” he said softly and eased her back.
Sam sighed in pleasure and he watched her for a moment making her feel terribly exposed. When he looked at her like that she never knew how to look back. She had forgotten how quickly he could disarm her with a glance.
“God, you’re beautiful, Sammy. I tried to convince myself I was embellishing my memories of you, but really I wasn’t giving you enough credit.”
That was the first kind thing Colin had said to her since she arrived earlier. It was the first thing that even remotely reminded her of the man she thought he was, the man she fell in love with.
She couldn’t stop her tears. Her emotions were out of control, and she was too exhausted to combat them at the moment.
He pulled her into his arms and the sensation of him finally holding her again was too much. She cried long and hard for all the times she told herself he’d never touch her like this again.
“I am so sorry for the way I treated you earlier, Samantha. You didn’t deserve my anger or the cruel things I said. I’m sorry for acting like a complete arse.”
“I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t know,” she babbled as she cried into his shoulder. “I didn’t even realize I was pregnant until October. Like an idiot I thought I was depressed and getting fat. I replaced you with two guys named Ben and Jerry. My mom was the one who brought it to my attention. By then I thought you were already ordained. I did try to look you up, I swear, but I wasn’t sure where to call. I found Saint Peter’s online and came across their bulletin and on the bottom I saw your ordainment. Why did they put it on the bulletin if you never went through with it?”
“They must have published it beforehand and never removed it. I planned on going through with it, but when the bishop asked me to swear to always love God above all others, I couldn’t. I knew it would be a lie. Remember how I told you I realized I wanted to become a priest when I discovered a certain passage in the bible?”
She nodded against his shoulder.
“It’s from the Old Testament. It says,‘It becomes like a fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones: I grow weary of holding it in.’That no longer represents my passion to serve God. It is my love for you that burns in my heart, hotter and stronger than any love I have ever known. You’re written into my bones and I realized in the past few months I would never be able to erase your presence inside of me. You have become a part of me and I love you so fiercely sometimes I fear it’ll swallow me whole and I’ll no longer recognize myself.”
