She hoped nobody had seen them moving her back in here. She wasn’t ready for the questions she knew family and friends would have, at least not today. Tomorrow she’d talk to Bailey and they’d figure out exactly what they wanted to tell everyone.
She finished unpacking near dusk, then made herself some soup and sat at her kitchen table to eat. The silence of her apartment pressed around her with suffocating closeness.
The meals at Bailey’s had always been accompanied by laughter and discussion and barking exclamations from Squirt. Tomato soup eaten alone and in utter silence couldn’t compete.
She’d only eaten about half of the soup when the tears began. She’d gotten exactly what she’d wished for, but somehow in the space of the two months with Bailey, her wishes had changed.
She didn’t just want Bailey’s baby…she wanted Bailey. She wanted to see his beautiful face first thing in the mornings, fall asleep in his strong arms. She wanted to make love to him and raise babies with him and grow old with him. She wanted…
She shoved her bowl aside, a sob rising in her throat. The tears she’d held inside since that morning fell in a torrent. She stumbled from the table and into her bedroom, where she fell across the bed and buried her face in her pillow.
“Stop it,” she said between sobs in an attempt to get control of herself. It wasn’t as if she would never see Bailey again. He would forever be a part of her life as the father of her child. He would forever be a part of her life as her friend.
This thought only made her sob harder, for she knew the truth of things in her heart. She loved Bailey, but she’d made the horrifying mistake of falling in love with him. And she knew in her heart, knew in her soul, she could never go back to loving him just as a friend.
She’d not only lost the man that she loved, she’d lost her best friend.
Bailey awakened the next morning with Mellie’s pillow wrapped tightly in his arms, the lingering scent of her perfume filling his head.
He threw the pillow aside and sat up, irritation winging through him. He needed to change the sheets. Mellie had become a habit in his life, and surely that’s why it seemed so strange to awaken without her in his arms.
He rolled over on his back and stared up at the ceiling where the morning sun was sending fingers of light across the surface. He’d barely had time to assess all that had happened in the past twenty-four hours.
Mellie’s pronouncement that she was pregnant and going back to her own place had stunned him, and things had moved far too quickly after that. After moving her things, he’d barely returned home when he’d received a phone call from Tanner Rothman with a foaling mare that was having difficulty.
It had been after midnight when he’d finally returned from the Rothman ranch, and he’d been vaguely surprised at his disappointment that Mellie wasn’t there. He’d been revved up by the birth of the new foal, had wanted to share the excitement and joy with Mellie.
You can still do that, he told himself. She would call and he’d tell her all about it. Maybe he’d ask her if she wanted to meet him at the café for a burger this evening.
With this thought in mind, he bounded out of bed, pulled on a pair of jeans and padded into the kitchen to make coffee.
Although Squirt greeted him enthusiastically, the kitchen itself offered no warmth.
Without Mellie’s pretty yellow place mats, towels and knickknacks, the kitchen looked sterile and impersonal.
“Just the way I like it,” he muttered firmly. His house was his own again—a bachelor pad with no frilly, feminine items to distract him.
Still, minutes later as he ate his breakfast, he turned on the radio to fill the silence he’d never noticed in the house while Mellie was present.
“Just you and me, Squirt,” he said, and forced a grin as Squirt’s entire backside wiggled with pleasure. “A man and his dog, that’s exactly the way I was intended to live.”
A habit. Throughout the afternoon Bailey told himself again that Mellie had just become a habit in his daily life, and that it sometimes took a little time to adjust when the habit was gone.
He worked with his animals and had appointments until noon, then went inside for lunch and checked his answering machine. No message from her.
He was halfway through his sandwich when Sam Johnson, a neighbor and friend, brought in his hunting dog. The dog had been hit by a car and needed immediate surgery to save his life.
Twilight was falling when Bailey finally made his way from the barn to the house. The dog, Neptune, had come through surgery fine and would be okay.
Bailey was exhausted, but it was the best kind of exhaustion, the kind that came with saving an animal’s life. It was what Stephanie had never understood, and what Mellie had always understood.
Funny, he thought as he showered, how different the marriage experience had been with Mellie and Stephanie. With Stephanie he’d always felt lacking, inadequate and as if he would never measure up to the kind of man she wanted him to be. With Mellie he’d always been at peace with himself, had known he had her respect and approval.
After his shower, he checked his answering machine once again, surprised that there was still no call from Mellie. Sitting on the sofa with Squirt in his lap, he picked up his phone and called her place.
Her phone rang three times, then her answering machine picked up. He waited for the recording beep, then spoke. “Mellie…it’s me. I guess you’re out. Call me when you get in, okay?” He hung up, oddly unsettled by the fact that she hadn’t called him all day long.
The next day he came in from his office to find a message from her. “Bailey,” her voice said, “I just wanted to tell you that I think it best if we not mention my being pregnant right now. We can just tell our friends and our families that being good friends isn’t enough to make a marriage and so we called it quits.” There was a long pause, then she murmured a soft goodbye and the machine clicked off.
He tried to call her back, but once again got her machine. Over the next two days he tried to contact her, but always got the machine instead of her lively, beautiful voice.
By the time Friday arrived and he hadn’t heard from her he began to worry. It wasn’t like them to go so long without talking, without sharing a meal or two or meeting simply to talk, over a quick cup of coffee.
He paced his living room floor. He’d come in for lunch and had hoped, as he had every day for the past week, that there would be a message from her about their usual movie night. But there had been nothing.
What was going on with her? Was she sick? Was she having problems with the pregnancy? He tried to tell himself that she was probably just busy reestablishing her life in her apartment. She’d had boxes to unload, clothes to hang and put away.
But surely she could have managed all that and still found time for a phone call to him. He halted his pacing as a thought occurred to him.
Surely the short-term marriage they’d shared hadn’t changed things between them. He absolutely, positively refused to consider that possibility.
They had made a deal, they’d both agreed that they could get married, get Mellie pregnant, then go back to the beautiful friendship that they both cherished.
He grabbed his truck keys and headed out the door. It was time—past time—he got over to her place and found out exactly what was going on.
Chapter Eleven
She knew the moment she heard the knock on her apartment door that it was Bailey. She didn’t have to look through her peephole and see his face to know it was him.
“Mellie?”
She remained on the sofa, where she had been for most of the week. Maybe if she didn’t answer he would go away. All week long she’d hoped she would get strong enough to talk to him on the phone, to see him in person, but she felt no stronger now than she had the first night here alone when she’d cried herself to sleep.
She hadn’t realized how tightly woven he was into the fabric of her life, didn’t realize the depth of depression that would set
tle over her when she contemplated life without his friendship, without his camaraderie, without his love.
He banged on the door again, this time louder. Her car was parked out front, so he obviously knew she was home. She stood, knowing she couldn’t put off the inevitable any longer. Sooner or later she was going to have to face him, and it might as well be now.
As she walked to the door, she attempted to smooth her hair, which she knew must be in riotous disarray. She opened the door to see his fist raised, apparently preparing to knock yet again.
“There you are,” he exclaimed. “I’ve been wondering if you’re trying to avoid me.”
“It’s been a really busy week,” she said as he stepped into the living room.
He walked across the room and flopped down on the sofa, as he’d done a million times before. Only this time Melanie didn’t see him as her best friend and confidant, she saw him as the man she loved and would never have, the man who had broken her heart.
As always he was clad in his jeans, the washed denim hugging his long legs and displaying his slender hips and waist. The navy T-shirt stretched taut across his broad chest, and there was nothing Melanie wanted more than to sit next to him and lean into his chest, smell the spicy scent of him, feel his strong arms holding her tight.
She took the chair opposite the sofa, needing to maintain physical distance from him, wondering how long she could pretend that there was nothing wrong, that there was no problem in returning to the relationship they’d had before their marriage.
“You said it’s been a busy week. What have you been doing?”
She couldn’t very well tell him she’d spent the past week drifting from room to room of her apartment like a robot and remembering every moment spent with him.
“This and that.” She shrugged, knowing she was being vague. “It took me a couple of days to get this place back in order. After having it shut up for two months, I did some deep cleaning.”
“Why didn’t you call me? I could have helped.”
For the first time in a week she felt the curve of a smile on her lips. “Bailey, no offense, but your idea of clean isn’t quite the same as mine.”
“I could have at least kept you company.” His blue gaze held hers intently. “Are you coming over tonight for popcorn and movies?”
“I don’t think so.” She broke eye contact with him. “I’m tired. I think I’ll stick around here and have an early night.” She looked at him again to find him studying her. “Maybe next week,” she added quickly.
He leaned forward and his eyes appeared to deepen in hue. “But next week the odds are good that you’ll be too tired, too. And you’ll probably be too busy to call or get together throughout the week. What’s going on, Mellie?”
Again she found it too painful to gaze at him, to hold eye contact. And she knew it wasn’t fair of her not to be completely truthful with him.
“I can’t, Bailey. I can’t do this.” The tremor in her voice horrified her.
“Do what?”
She heard the confusion in his voice, and she wanted to slap him for being obtuse. Couldn’t he tell that everything had changed? Couldn’t he feel her love for him filling this room at this very moment?
A flash of irritation mingled with the pain of her heartbreak. She stood, unable to sit still while she told him the final, most heart-wrenching secret of her life.
“Bailey, I can’t do Friday movie nights with you anymore. I can’t have coffee or go for walks or go swimming and hang out at your place.”
She refused to look at him, but instead focused on the painting that hung over her sofa, above his head. “I love you, Bailey.” The words, which when spoken should have brought her joy, instead sent a rivulet of grief flooding through her. Love was supposed to be the beginning of things, but in this case, Melanie knew it signified the end.
“I love you, too.” His reply came instantaneously…automatically.
Despite the fact that she had cried for most of the week and had thought her tears completely depleted, her vision blurred with tears as she looked at him once again.
“You don’t understand. I’m in love with you, Bailey.” His eyes grew darker than she’d ever seen them and he opened his mouth to speak, but she hurriedly continued.
“I thought I could do this. I thought we could have a pretend marriage to get me pregnant, then we could go back to the friendship I cherished. But I was wrong.” Tears burned her cheeks. “I can’t go back to just being friends.”
He stood, his features taut, and a spark of anger lit his eyes. “What are you talking about? This wasn’t supposed to happen.” He took a step toward her. “Dammit, Mellie, you didn’t say anything about this happening.”
She stared at him, stunned by his reaction. She’d expected him to be upset. She hadn’t expected his obvious anger. “I didn’t know it was going to happen,” she exclaimed defensively. “I certainly didn’t plan it.”
“But you promised me nothing would change.” His voice rose in volume with each word he spoke. “You knew I didn’t want to be married ever again. You promised me we could do this and things would go back to the way they were—that was important to me.”
“Don’t yell at me,” she said with a rising anger of her own. “You’re acting like I did this on purpose, and I didn’t. Trust me,” she said bitterly, “the last thing I expected to happen was that I’d fall in love with you.”
His eyes still blazed. “Well, can’t you just get over it?”
For a moment she was left utterly speechless. She’d never before seen him so irrational. “This isn’t a case of the flu or the measles, Bailey. I don’t know if I can just ‘get over it’ or not.”
“I can’t believe you did this to me…to us.”
Melanie’s anger rose. “I told you I didn’t want this to happen. I can’t help the way I feel, so stop being such a jerk.”
“If I’m such a jerk, then stop being in love with me and go back to being my friend.”
She wanted to punch him for being stupid when it came to matters of the heart. She wanted to throw herself into his arms and make him hold her until her hurt went away.
Instead she drew a deep, weary breath and released it on a thick, heavy sigh. Again tears pressed at her eyes, the tears produced by the utter despair of her loss.
“Bailey, maybe time will make things better. I just don’t know. But no matter what happens, I’ll agree to joint custody of the baby.”
He was still angry. She could tell by the taut set of his shoulders and the brisk, heavy footsteps that carried him to the front door. “Then I guess all that’s left is for me to call you when I talk to a lawyer about the divorce.”
He yanked open the front door and started out, but before he could get completely out he turned back to her, his eyes still sparking like an angry electrical fire. “If I had known the price we’d pay for our little scheme, I would never have agreed to it in the first place.” He didn’t wait for her reply, but turned and left, slamming the door behind him.
Melanie stared at the closed door for long moments, tears oozing unchecked from her eyes. She hadn’t realized until this very moment that she’d still held on to a little bit of hope.
In the back of her mind she’d somehow believed that maybe if she confessed to Bailey that she was in love with him, he would suddenly recognize that he was in love with her. But that hadn’t happened. Instead he’d been angry with her for screwing things up, for destroying their friendship.
For the first time since she’d been a skinny, red-haired, freckle-faced second-grader, she was going to have to live without Bailey in her life. She didn’t even know how to begin.
Bailey couldn’t even begin to describe all the emotions that warred inside him as he drove away from Mellie’s apartment. He was angry with her for loving him, angry with himself for agreeing to the marriage in the first place.
His anger was tempered with deep regret and a bit of shame over how he had yelled at her moments b
efore. Those beautiful green eyes of hers had been awash with tears, and her Cupid lips had trembled with the depth of her emotional turmoil.
But there was something else there besides the anger, another emotion aside from the regret and shame. The idea that Mellie was lost to him and would no longer be an integral part of his everyday life filled him with grief…and fear.
The past week of not seeing her, of not talking to her, had been sheer torture, and now he realized it had merely been a prelude to the rest of their lives.
Oh, he would see her around town, interact with her about their child, but the sweet intimacy of their friendship, the utter trust and openness they’d always shared would be gone.
How was he going to survive without that? Nobody knew him the way she did. Nobody understood him the way she did. What was he going to do without her in his life?
He didn’t know how long he drove, trying to clear his head, telling himself that he would be fine, that she would be fine. Hell, they’d just been friends, nothing more.
It was a little after five when he pulled into the driveway of his parents’ house. He supposed it was time he break the news of his separation to them. He’d spoken with both his mother and his father through the week, but hadn’t mentioned that Mellie had returned to her apartment in town.
He would also need to get the wedding gifts that were stored in his spare room back to the people who had bought them. Mellie had left him a detailed list of what went back to whom.
He shut off his truck engine and rubbed his forehead where a headache was attempting to take hold. Mellie didn’t want to tell anyone yet that she was pregnant, so he couldn’t tell his mother that good news when he told her they were separated.
With a sigh he got out of his truck and headed for the house. He stepped through the front door and was surprised to be greeted by silence. Most evenings he’d find his parents here in the living room watching the early-evening news.
“Mom…Dad?” he called, then walked into the kitchen. It was obvious they’d had dinner not long before. The scent of his mother’s meat loaf hung in the air, and several dishes were in the drainer dripping dry.
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