“You don’t think he’s going to figure out eventually that we were divorced seven years before he came along?”
Susan looked across at him, so close to her. She loved him so much. She’d never realized quite how much. “Can’t I just tell the truth?”
“I don’t know.” He grabbed a pen from his pocket and started doodling on his napkin. “I suppose.”
“Michael?” He glanced up. “That napkin’s cloth.”
Going back to his drawing, he said, “I’ll pay them for it.” And then, “Don’t you think he’s still going to wonder why I’m never around?”
Her heart stopping, Susan promised herself she wouldn’t cry. “You aren’t planning to be around after the birth? Ever?”
It was what she’d been afraid of since the night she’d conceived. The night she’d known he was telling her goodbye.
“How can I possibly come and visit the mother while remaining nothing to the child?” he asked. His eyes narrowed as he watched her. “How can I see him and not be his father?”
Susan stared at him, frightened, without any answers at all.
CHAPTER NINE
ALMOST AS THOUGH they both realized their time was running out, Michael and Susan spent the rest of the evening sharing everything they could about the things going on in their lives. With one exception. Neither mentioned the pregnancy.
Susan knew she should tell him she was carrying twins. She’d promised Seth she would, but she just couldn’t do it. Michael was hardly able to handle the thought of one child.
Michael talked a lot about his insulation project. The Miller family had shown interest and were meeting with their father in Florida that week.
And he talked about a project he was working on in Denver.
“We’re buying into the landscaping business,” he told her over fettucine alfredo. “Starting in the Denver area, we’re buying out individual landscapers and combining the smaller businesses into one stronger business with many locations. There’s a common cost structure, a common service agreement, one place to call for customer service.” His warm green eyes glowing, Michael was in his element. “And once we’ve finished in the Denver area, we’ll move on to other areas around the country, doing the same thing until, eventually, Coppel owns an entire market. But the best part is, the consumer benefits.”
“Sounds to me like you’re creating a monopoly,” Susan said, challenging him. She remembered many weekend mornings when they were both home, sitting at their kitchen table with the newspaper, having conversations just like this one. She’d never realized how much she’d missed them.
“Not really.” He shook his head. “Say there are one hundred landscapers in the area. We buy out thirty of the best. Of the remaining seventy, some—hopefully the worst—go under, but the most reputable stay in business with loyal customers and referrals.”
He reached for the salt, brushing her hand, lingering, as he did so. “The major benefit here is that when the consumer calls a Coppel landscaper, he’s not at the mercy of one particular person. There’s a regulated price structure, a fair price structure and an accepted standard of business he can count on.”
Susan smiled at him. “Still set on making the world a better place, eh?” she teased him.
Shrugging, Michael grinned back at her.
As they ate apple cobbler, Susan filled him in on the latest with the McArthur case. If she couldn’t find a way to stall, it was going to court in the next couple of weeks.
“So what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” Susan murmured. “Ethically, I’m bound to protect Halliday’s, but my heart tells me it’s wrong to see the ruin of a young boy’s life.”
“Business life versus personal life.” Michael nodded as though he knew exactly what she was saying.
“I don’t think so,” Susan said. “When I walk out my door in the morning, I don’t suddenly become less personal because I’m going to work, and I don’t become more of a person when I get home. I’m a businessperson, Michael, wherever I am.”
Fork in mid-air, he stared at her. “And you take who you are to every decision you make.” He sounded surprised, as though the thought had just occurred to him.
“Right.” She knew he’d understand.
“Have you stopped to look for other possibilities in the McArthur case?”
“I’ve been over it so many times I can quote the defense in my sleep,” she told him. “I just don’t see any way for Joe to win without the evidence I can’t give him.”
“So, maybe winning or losing isn’t the only solution.”
“What else is there?”
“I don’t know. Maybe nothing. I’m just suggesting that if you take off your lawyer’s hat and look at the situation again, from another perspective, something might occur to you.”
It was worth a try. One thing was for sure. It couldn’t hurt.
“I CAN’T BELIEVE you finished that second desert.” Michael was laughing at her as they drove through the dark Cincinnati streets half an hour later.
Laughing too, Susan said, “I seem to eat with the same intensity that I get sick.”
“You do everything with intensity, Susan.” All traces of laughter were gone. “It’s one of the things I always loved about you.”
The words took her breath away. “Thank you.”
They drove the rest of the way in a silence weighted with the desire that had been present all night. Parking the Pathfinder in her driveway, Michael gave her a tender, lingering kiss.
“I’d like to stay with you tonight, Susan.”
Her heart was pounding so hard she could feel it.
“I’d like that, too.”
“You’re sure?” His eyes met hers in the intimate darkness of the Pathfinder.
Reaching across the console, Susan slid her hand along his leg. “Absolutely sure.”
Forgive me, my babies, if this is wrong, but I love your daddy so much....
SETH WAS NOT in a good mood when he stopped by Susan’s on Sunday. Neither his mood nor his task was improved by the fact that Michael had spent Friday night right there at Susan’s house. Or that he hadn’t spent Saturday night there, as well.
One thing Seth knew. He didn’t want to be there now. Didn’t really want to be anywhere in particular, if the truth be known, but most especially not there.
Still, he’d promised Michael he’d cover for him. As much as he disagreed with what Michael and Susan were doing, he felt for the guy.
Susan’s disappointed look when she opened the door to see him standing there almost made Seth forget that he felt anything for Michael but a very real need to punch his lights out.
“Michael got called away. He sent me instead.”
His message grew even more distasteful when his sister calmly accepted Michael’s desertion. Nodding, she motioned silently for him to come inside. No questions asked.
“He had to fly to Denver—some business he’d left unfinished that can’t wait as long as he’d hoped,” he explained anyway. At least that was what Michael had said when his call had awakened Seth from a sound sleep that morning. Seth wanted to believe him.
“The landscapers,” Susan said, padding back to the kitchen in her stocking feet. She was wearing sweats again, and a blue flowered T-shirt. “I was just making a coffee cake. You want some?”
“Sure.” He wasn’t really hungry, but what the hell. “I promised Michael I’d help you with the nursery.”
“You don’t have to do that, I can han—”
“You can handle it, I know, sis,” Seth said, taking her by the shoulders. “But I want to help, okay?”
Susan nodded.
“I think I made a big mistake,” she confessed later, as they sat in the empty bedroom, looking at the paint swatches and wallpaper books he was holding up.
“I could’ve told you that.”
“No.” She shook her head, glanced up at him. “I mean, I really made a mistake.”
Seth�
�s heart gave a jolt. “You mean you don’t want the babies?”
“No!” She caressed her slight belly possessively. “I want them more than I even knew.” She looked away, then said softly, “But I think I also want Michael to be their father.”
“Thank God.” Seth couldn’t help himself. “You’ve finally come to your senses.”
“You don’t understand, Seth.” Her expression was guilty as hell. And horrified, too. “I think I always wanted him to be a father to my baby—babies, I think I lied to him, Seth. That I lied to me. And I’m scared to death that I tried to trap him with all that talk about no responsibility.”
“You don’t know if you meant to trap him or not?”
Susan just shook her head again, those damn tears back in her eyes. He’d seen his sister cry more in the past three months than in her entire life.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the definition of entrapment to knowingly plan to trick someone into doing something he wouldn’t ordinarily do?”
He was trying to understand. Trying not to get defensive on Michael’s behalf. Trying not to give in to the temptation to lie to his sister and tell her that everything was going to be all right.
“Yes, of course, which I guess means I didn’t set out to trap him, but...” She walked into the middle of the room, wrapping her arms around herself.
“Michael asked me the other night what I planned to tell the baby about him, and I didn’t have an answer.”
Seth was out of his element. Had no idea what to say. Had no idea what you told a kid who was made by arrangement.
“I’m so confused, Seth.” The pain in her eyes tore at him. “I know that logically, in my mind, I was fully prepared to have this baby on my own, to raise him—her—alone. I’m just afraid I was so busy forging ahead, I didn’t stop to listen to my heart.”
Seth leaned against the wall behind him, the big book of wallpaper samples still in his hands. He wished he could help her.
“Or maybe I really did want to raise the baby alone back then. Maybe I’ve changed over the past few months and I’ve recently begun to wish Michael could be a father to his babies.”
“You didn’t tell him about the twins yet, did you?”
“No.” She looked helplessly around. “I... couldn’t.”
“He has a right to know.”
Her eyes were filled with fear as her gaze flew to his. “Promise me you won’t tell him.”
Raising both hands, Seth muttered, “Hey, I’m staying out of this. It’s between you and him.”
Susan’s face was anguished, distorted by uncertainty.
He’d never seen her like this. It scared the hell out of him.
“I never meant to hurt him, Seth,” she said softly, shaking her head.
“I know that.”
“The thing is—” she turned her back to him “—I want it all. I want Michael in my life, however he needs to be there, and I want his babies, too. I guess I should’ve realized you can’t have everything before it was too late to do anything about it.”
He couldn’t stand to hear her so bitter, so hopeless. “It’s never too late, sis.” Seth tossed the book to the floor and gave his sister a hug. “It’s never too late.”
But even as he said the words he was afraid that sometimes it was.
“YOU ASLEEP?”
“Yeah, but that’s okay.” Susan rolled onto her back in the dark, the bedside phone at her ear, happy he’d called. “How’s your week going?”
Michael was in California meeting with the finance directors of one of Coppel’s diversified interests. It had been a little over two weeks since she’d seen him, but he’d been calling. A lot.
“Fine,” he said, his voice tired. “Business is good.” Another sigh. “You know how old it gets having to walk through a lobby of strangers every night just to go to bed?”
“Yeah, well, there are other options to those fancy high-rises you stay in, Michael,” she told him. “You know there are these things called motels where you drive right up to your own front door.”
“Don’t get smart with me, woman,” he said, but she could hear the laughter in his voice. “Point taken. No more whining.” It sounded like he’d just torn a sheet of paper off a tablet. Susan could picture him, sitting at the desk in his posh hotel room, drawing pictures.
“The McArthur case starts tomorrow.”
“On Tuesday? I thought you were expecting later in the week.”
Susan bunched her pillows more comfortably behind her. “Wishful thinking, I guess.”
“You ready?”
“Of course.”
“You gonna win?”
“Unless a miracle happens between now and then.”
“Just remember what I said, Sus, that wouldn’t be the end of the world, nor does it have to be the end of the line for this boy. Something may come up.”
“I hope so.”
“Bobbie Jayne called me today.”
“She knows you’re in California?” Last she knew, he hadn’t even told his parents about his promotion.
“She left a message for me in Chicago. I pulled it off my machine.”
“How’s she doing?”
“Good...great.” He paused. “She was in a play this semester in school—a musical, actually, Oklahoma—and she had to tell me about every scene.”
Grinning, Susan gazed up at the ceiling, making mental shapes out of the shadows. “That must’ve been entertaining.”
“Yeah, well, it got even better when she started working me over.”
“What’s she want?”
“Drama camp this summer.”
A little uncomfortable, Susan turned onto her side. “She wants you to spring for it?”
“More, she wants me to convince Bob and her mom to let her go.” He was grumbling, but Susan knew he enjoyed Bobbie Jayne’s antics. And Bobbie Jayne’s faith in him.
“She talk you into it?”
“What do you think?”
“Good girl—oh!” She sat straight up in bed.
“What?” Michael asked, and then, more urgently, “Susan, what’s wrong?”
Stunned, she was afraid to move, to speak, afraid she’d miss a replay. “Nothing. I think I just got kicked.” she whispered, staring down at her belly.
“You...what?”
“There!” she said more loudly. “It happened again.”
Silence hung on the other end of the line and Susan suddenly remembered who she was talking to—not Michael, she knew that—but the reluctant father of her babies.
“What’s it feel like?” His question came softly.
“Um...” She took a deep breath. “Like a bubble popping, I guess.”
“Did it hurt?”
“No.” Then she added, “Not at all.”
“Well, I guess you better get some sleep.”
“Yeah.” Tears burned the backs of her eyes.
“Good night.”
“Good night...”
Susan lay on her side in the dark, holding the receiver in both hands. As if by doing that, she could hold Michael close. But the attempt was futile. He was no longer there.
DRESSED IN a conservative black suit, Susan sat at the defendant’s table the next morning, struggling to focus on the arguments she had to present, on the judge. And nothing else. Most especially not on the Tennesee woman, a few years younger than Susan, whose son was facing a tragic life. Identifying with the woman in ways she’d never imagined, she was finding it impossible to be impartial, objective.
How would she feel if they were discussing her child?
“Tell the court about your son’s mental state, Mrs. McArthur,” Joe Burniker said, gesturing toward the room. He was pulling out all the stops, dragging everyone’s emotions into play in the hopes of a sympathy call.
Susan sat alone and listened as the boy’s mother described the change in her son—from a fun-loving boy who laughed frequently and always had an extra hug to give, to an often sullen, q
uiet kid who sometimes wouldn’t let anyone near him. She tried not to hear the tears in the woman’s voice, the unbearable heartache that couldn’t be concealed.
Tricia Halliday hadn’t even bothered to show up. Not that she was required to come. She paid Susan to represent her. But Ed would’ve been there, sitting right beside Susan all the way.
“I don’t know what you expected me to do with this one, Susan.” Joe stopped her on the way back into the courtroom after a break for lunch. “Your case is airtight.”
Unable to say a thing, Susan stood her ground and held Joe’s gaze head-on.
“You know something I don’t?” he asked.
She turned and reentered the courtroom.
“How DID IT GO?”
“About like I expected.”
Michael’s heart sank when he heard the weariness in Susan’s voice. He’d barely made it through his business dinner in his haste to get upstairs and call her.
“Is it over?”
“No, we spent the afternoon going over design specifications. Then there’ll be at least another day of medical reports.”
“Remember what I told you,” he said, feeling helpless. “There are always options.”
“Yeah. We haven’t won yet.”
“So...” Michael picked up the pen on the desk in front of him. “Did it happen again?”
“Did what happen?”
“The bubbles.” He scribbled some lines here. Some there. “Getting kicked.”
“Oh.” She paused. “Yeah, once.”
“Well, I’d better let you get back to what you were doing.” He had some reports to go over.
“Okay.”
God, he missed her. More than he’d missed her since that first year after their divorce.
“Good night.” Looking down, he saw a pretty good replica of a toy train.
“Michael?” She sounded hesitant. Needy. Making Michael hard.
“year?”
“Good night.”
It was another half hour before Michael could concentrate on his reports.
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