Love and Dreams: The Coltrane Saga, Book 6 by Patricia Hagan Page B

honesty. You want to leave as planned, and deep down, you don’t really think that’s being selfish. You and Colt are married now, and you feel your marriage should come before family. I agree.”
    She eyed him suspiciously.
    “If I thought you were wrong, I’d say so,” he went on. “If the family really needed Colt, and he could help out in some way, and you still resisted postponing things, then I’d say you were a selfish little brat. But we both know there’s nothing he can do. If and when the time comes, be the strong woman I know you are, and be true to yourself.”
    He reached for her hand and held it to his lips. Then he sat back, steepled his fingers, and stared beneath the cathedral he’d built at Kitty and Colt walking and talking in the distance. “I’m like any man reaching the sunset of his life, Jade,” he quietly said. “It’s hard to look over my shoulder and remember many rainbows. They seem to be obscured by the storm clouds of sad memories. But I am going to die one day, and I don’t want to have my son hovering around till my life ends to begin his. It might make me die quicker to get out of his way.”
    Jade thought how much she loved this man, as if he were the father she’d never really known. True, their relationship had been growing for only a short time, but Travis was the kind who either became a friend to someone or disregarded him, and when the decision was one of friendship, nothing was held back.
    She stood up, then leaned forward to place a gentle hand on each side of his handsome face. In a tremulous whisper, she declared, “I love you, Travis Coltrane.”
    For one fleeting second, like the whisper of a butterfly’s wing, his gray eyes veiled with emotion. Then the melancholy time passed. With a smile from his heart, he said, “Hearing that, princess, makes me see the rainbows.”
    Colt spent the remainder of the afternoon with his father, and Jade enjoyed a quiet time with Kitty. After dinner, when she and Colt retired to the privacy of their suite, he became moody once more. For a while she allowed him to be alone with his thoughts; then she decided it was time for everything to be brought into the open.
    She went to where he sat on the divan before a cold and empty fireplace. “Talk to me, Colt. Tell me how you think it best if we don’t leave just yet.”
    He turned to stare at her incredulously.
    She did not give him time to speak, but went on firmly. “I think it would be wrong. I want to go ahead with our plans, and your family doesn’t really need you. You think they do, but they don’t. They’ve got their own lives and their own future, good or bad, just as we do. I need you. Please, don’t think me selfish, Colt,” she implored him with beseeching eyes.
    Colt stared at her for long moments, and she tried in vain to guess his thoughts. She could not see anger or disappointment, only love.
    Finally, when she thought she could stand the torment no longer, he drew her into his arms. “I love you,” he said tersely, his lips melting against hers in a long, soul- scorching kiss that left both of them shaken. Then he gazed at her with so much adoration that she felt a shuddering deep within.
    “I love you,” he repeated, then added with a soft laugh and a gleam-in his eye, “but you aren’t as sharp as you think you are—Pa and I had a long talk this afternoon.”
    It was Jade’s turn to be astonished. “I don’t understand.”
    He kissed the tip of her nose, then informed her matter-of-factly, “I never thought about postponing our leaving.”
    “But you’ve been so preoccupied and worried,” she argued.
    Again he laughed. “But I wasn’t thinking about postponing the trip. I was wondering why I didn’t feel guilty when I thought I should. Then I realized my family doesn’t expect me to set aside my future for their problems, not when there’s nothing I can do other than give them moral support.”
    Jade was at last able to smile with relief.