Rhys's Redemption

by Anne McAllister

  But first he went up to see Mariah.

  She looked astonished when she opened the door and found him standing there.

  He was astonished, too—at how much she’d changed— grown!—since he’d been gone. She looked as if she had a beach ball shoved under her baggy T-shirt. The rest of her, though, was skin and bones.

  “My God, don’t you eat?” he demanded.

  “What? Of course I— Where do you think you’re going?” She grabbed his arm as he stalked straight into her apartment, right through the living room and into the kitchen. He jerked open the refrigerator. She had cheese, eggs, celery, green peppers, yogurt. Rabbit food, he thought, disgusted.

  “You’re not getting sick anymore, are you?”

  “No, but—”

  “Fine. I’ll go get us some steak and be right back.” He headed for the door.

  “Rhys!” She came after him. “It’s nine-thirty in the morning! What do you think you’re doing? You can’t barge in here and just… just…”

  He looked back over his shoulder. “I just did,” he told her mildly. “And I don’t give a damn what time it is. I’ll be back. Got any potatoes?”

  “No, I—”

  “I’ll bring some of them, too.”

  He went to the grocery on Broadway and got the steak and the potatoes. He bought beer, too. He was back within the hour. He didn’t bother to go to his place to shave and shower. She could take him the way he was.

  She was slow opening the door when he knocked, and he wondered if she wasn’t going to respond. He was just considering his alternatives, when she finally did.

  “This isn’t necessary,” she said as he brushed past her with the grocery bag and headed for the kitchen.

  “Looks to me like it is,” he said. He knew his way around her kitchen. He got out a frying pan and a pot to boil the potatoes in. “Set the table,” he said over his shoulder.

  “I had breakfast.”

  “And I haven’t. Humor me.” He said it through his teeth and gave her a look that set her to doing what he asked.

  “Bully,” she muttered as she slapped plates on the table.

  “Somebody’s got to, apparently.”

  “I thought you didn’t want any part of me—or the baby… babies,” she corrected herself.

  I don’t! But he didn’t say that. He peeled the potatoes and cubed them as the water started to boil. He focused on preparing the meal. He didn’t look at Mariah. Not straight on. Not intently. It seemed too personal, too intimate.

  He’d made love with her—and now he couldn’t look at her body—at the changes his lovemaking had wrought. Even thinking about it annoyed him. He poked at the steak as it cooked.

  Mariah, who had finished setting the table, stood watching him. He could feel her gaze on his back. He wanted to turn around, wanted to look at her, to see the woman who was his friend, to smile at her. To have everything that had happened between them go away.

  But it wouldn’t.

  So he would do this.

  He would take care of her. For now. He would see that she got square meals. That she survived this pregnancy.

  And then…?

  That was someplace he wouldn’t go.

  She couldn’t figure him out.

  He was grouchy, pushy, bossy and controlling—and all the while he made it quite clear he wished he didn’t have to be there at all.

  “Go away,” she told him.

  She must have told him ten times that first morning when he’d pushed his way into her apartment. He’d been grubby and rumpled, his hair mussed, his cheeks unshaven, his eyes bloodshot. “Go home,” she’d said.

  She’d told him the same thing a dozen times since. He never listened. He never answered. He never smiled. Or talked.

  Worst of all, he never left.

  He seemed to think she couldn’t cope without him.

  “I don’t need you!” she told him after his third day of appearing on the dot of six to cook her dinner.

  “You need someone,” he said implacably, heading toward the kitchen. “Where’s What’s-His-Face?”

  Mariah, frowning, followed him. “What’s-Whose-Face?”

  “Kevin.” He spat the name as if it were a swear word.

  “He’s in Cincinnati this week.”

  Kevin’s girl had had a change of heart. At least he hoped she had. He’d taken a week’s vacation and had gone home to test the waters.

  ‘Figures,” Rhys snorted. “Threw you over, did he? Two kids too many for him?”

  “What?” Then she said quite honestly, “We haven’t discussed it.”

  “You need to.”

  “Why? So you can be off the hook?”

  He opened his mouth, and closed it again. “You can’t do this alone,” was all he said.

  Mrs. Alvarez smiled at him.

  A lot.

  She nodded approvingly every time she saw him going up the stairs to Mariah’s apartment. She beamed when she saw the two of them together. She gave Mariah thumb’s-up signs.

  Mariah didn’t respond.

  She didn’t seem all that thrilled that he was busting his butt trying to help her. She acted as if it was some big imposition. She kept telling him it wasn’t necessary. He got the feeling she wanted to be rid of him.

  Well, there was nothing he’d like better than to be gone, damn it. Just as soon as some other guy stepped into the breach…

  And then one afternoon he rang up to tell her he’d take her out to dinner tonight instead of cooking for her, and some guy answered the phone.

  “Who’s calling?” he asked.

  “Who the hell wants to know?” Rhys snapped back.

  There was a second’s pause. Then the guy said, “This is Kevin Maguire. And you are—?”

  There was a far longer pause before Rhys bit out, “Rhys Wolfe. Tell Mariah I’ll pick her up for dinner at six-thirty.”

  And Kevin Maguire, damn his arrogant hide, said, “Oh, that won’t be necessary. Mariah said if you called to tell you she and I are going out.”

  “Out?” Rhys sputtered.

  But all he got was a dial tone.

  How dared she? She was supposed to be eating with him! At least, he’d assumed she’d be eating with him. They’d eaten together ever since he’d come back. And yes, she’d told him Kevin was only gone for a week, but that didn’t mean…

  Apparently it did mean…

  “Well, fine,” he muttered. “Good.” Let ol’ Kevin have her. Let’s just see if he wants her, Rhys thought with a certain grim satisfaction.

  He didn’t call her that night. He watched through the curtain as she went out with Kevin. Kevin was holding her arm as they came down the steps and moved down the sidewalk.

  Rhys glowered after them as he watched them go.

  Mariah seemed to sway when she walked, as if she hadn’t quite figured out how to balance the load yet.

  The load. The babies.

  His babies.

  His fingers knotted into fists in the pockets of his jeans. He didn’t want to think about that.

  He waited up to see if she would call him. If Kevin threw her over, he supposed the least he could do was stay awake for it.

  She didn’t call.

  He heard her come in. It was close to midnight, and it made him gnash his teeth that she’d stayed out so late. And he waited up a good hour after he made sure Kevin Maguire had gone again, but she never rang.

  Maybe she was waiting for morning.

  She didn’t call in the morning, either.

  Finally, he called her. “What’d he say?” he asked without preamble.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Don’t play games, Mariah. What’d Loverboy say about the… twins?”

  “He thinks two is a lovely number.”

  Rhys’s eyes narrowed. His fingers tightened on the telephone. “It didn’t scare him off?”

  “Were you hoping it had?”

  “No!”

  There was a long
silence. “Then I guess you’re in luck,” Mariah said quietly.

  Rhys heard the receiver click in his ear.

  “I’ll come around as much as you want,” Kevin said glumly as he sat with his elbows propped on Mariah’s kitchen table, his head in his hands. “What the hell else have I got to do?”

  His girlfriend was still dithering. She was “almost sure” he was the guy for her. She just needed “a little more time.”

  Mariah patted his shoulder as she passed. “She’ll come around.” A platitude if ever there was one, and she was sure Kevin knew it. After all, look who was talking!

  Rhys certainly hadn’t come around—except physically. And that was somehow worse than his not being there at all.

  “I don’t mean to take advantage,” she said.

  “Misery loves company,” Kevin told her.

  They were two of the most loving people in New York. They spent almost every evening together. Mariah took to dropping by the office to write instead of doing it at home, ostensibly because she was getting claustrophobic staring at her apartment walls all day. In fact, she didn’t want to be there when Rhys was.

  Because then she wanted Rhys.

  And didn’t want him at the same time.

  She felt as if her brain was as scrambled as her emotions.

  The August heat didn’t help.

  They called it “the dog days of summer”—those ghastly few days when the humidity made people wish they’d been born with gills, and the heat, especially in the city, was like a blanket, suffocating them all. Any self-respecting dog, Mariah was convinced, would never be caught dead outside in weather like this.

  It was over a hundred for the fourth day in a row, and as she dragged herself home that afternoon Mariah almost regretted having agreed to go to Mooney Vaughan’s rehearsal at Carnegie Hall that morning.

  Vaughan, one of America’s most famous jazz trombonists, had told her they could meet the next afternoon. But Mariah had known that Kevin was going to be busy all day today squiring some potential advertisers around the city.

  She didn’t want to be sitting home alone.

  So she’d said she’d go to the rehearsal, then have lunch and the afternoon with Mooney, talking about his life and work for her next article.

  It was the perfect solution. She wouldn’t have to worry about running into Rhys.

  And it worked—until she dragged her way home late that afternoon. There had been a terrific traffic jam and the bus she’d been on had lost its air-conditioning. Finally she’d got out and walked. And walked. And walked.

  She tried to get a cab, but there never seemed to be any cabs at five o’clock—except off-duty ones. Certainly she didn’t see one that wanted to stop for her.

  So she walked slowly, took her time, and still nearly died by the time she got home. She sat down on the stoop, unwilling to tackle the stairs until she felt as if she wouldn’t die en route.

  The ornamental gate below the stoop opened. “Hey,” Rhys said.

  He looked cool—and rested—and beautiful. And Mariah, who felt hot and exhausted and like something normally found on the curb, hated him. She looked at him, then turned away and shut her eyes. She did not have the strength to deal with him.

  He came out through the wrought-iron gate and peered down at her. “Are you okay?”

  Mariah didn’t open her eyes. She stretched out on the steps and let as much of the breeze created by people walking past reach her over-heated skin. “Just peachy.”

  A cool hand on her cheek startled her into opening her eyes. “What are you—?”

  He grabbed her hand and began hauling her to her feet. “Come on.”

  “What? Where are you—?”

  But it was perfectly clear where he was taking her— down the steps and into his place.

  “Rhys!” she protested, but to no avail. And once he had his door open and she was hit with the blessed coolness of his air-conditioned apartment she stopped arguing.

  She would stay a minute. Just a minute. She would catch her breath. And then—

  “Sit down.” He sat her on the sofa, lifted her feet onto the coffee table in front of it, then dropped her bag with her tape recorder and notebooks on the floor beside her. “Water? Iced tea? Juice?”

  “Water,” she said. “Please,” she added, contriving not to sound like someone gasping their way to an oasis.

  Thirty seconds later he was back and pressing a glass of water with ice cubes into her hand.

  He thought she looked as if she was going to faint. He’d just happened to be standing by the window when he’d seen her come up the street. Even three houses away he could tell her face was abnormally flushed, and she wasn’t moving with her typically brisk stride. At first he’d assumed it was because she was carrying a lot of baby. Then he’d decided it was more than that. Especially when she’d sagged on the stoop.

  He’d practically shot out the door. He’d had to stop and school himself to sound casual.

  “Don’t gulp,” he said now.

  “You are so bossy,” she complained. “You didn’t used to be this bossy.”

  “You didn’t used to need telling what to do.”

  “I don’t—” she began to argue.

  He spread his hands. “Okay. Fine. You’re coping. You’re doing swell. But people are dropping like flies all over the city. Have you been listening to the radio? Two hundred and forty-seven cases of heatstroke just this afternoon. Two hundred and forty-eight, judging from the looks of you.”

  “I don’t have heatstroke,” she protested. She’d finished the water and was looking at the glass longingly.

  “I’ll get you some more. Stay there.” A glower fixed her where she sat. He brought her another glass. She drank this one more slowly. When she finished, she looked up and smiled. It was a pale imitation of a real Mariah Kelly smile.

  “Thank you,” she said. She started to get up.

  He blocked her way. “You don’t have to leave right now. Or is Loverboy waiting?”

  She blinked, then shrugged. “Kevin, you mean. He’ll be along later.” Maybe. He hadn’t thought he would be able to get over tonight as he and Stella were going to be taking these people out. But she wasn’t telling Rhys that. “I don’t want to disturb you.”

  “You’ll disturb me if you faint on the steps.”

  “I won’t faint! I just—”

  “Look,” he said. “I made a lot of chili this afternoon. Eat it with me.”

  “Kevin—”

  “Isn’t here now. And you look hungry. You have to eat, Mariah. Besides, you don’t want to climb those steps right now. You know you don’t.”

  Still she hesitated. She didn’t want to start hoping again, either. And, even when she told herself she wouldn’t, every time Rhys was nice to her, she couldn’t help it—the dreams she’d thought well buried rose like the phoenix to taunt her again.

  “Chili, Mariah,” he said. Tempting her. “Green salad. Tomatoes from the garden.”

  Damn it, she thought. Stop being nice! I hate it when you’re nice.

  “Chocolate ice cream for dessert.”

  God, he knew her weaknesses. She sighed. “Fine,” she said ungraciously. “You win.”

  He grinned. “It'll be ready in a few minutes. Want something else to drink? Beer?”

  “No. I… I’m not drinking any alcohol.”

  “Oh. Right.” He glanced in the direction of her belly, then just as quickly away again. As if he couldn’t bear to look.

  Mariah glared at him.

  “I’ll get you some iced tea,” he decided.

  “Thank you,” she said politely. Keep it distant. Keep it impersonal, she told herself. She folded her hands in her lap and smiled at him.

  “You look like you’re waiting for the dentist,” Rhys muttered.

  “What?”

  He scowled. “Nothing. Just stay there. I’ll get your tea.”

  He banged around the kitchen, almost dropped a glass, stirred t
he chili and fumed. How dared she sit there and act like some proper stranger?

  You wanted something different? Rhys asked himself. Something more!

  Well, no, but…

  So it was just as well. She was a guest now.

  He got out the pitcher of iced tea and poured a glass for her. Then he snagged a bottle of beer for himself.

  He twisted the cap off and took a long swallow. A very long swallow. Then he stirred the chili again. Had he made so much because unconsciously he’d intended to ask her to dinner?

  It wasn't a question he wanted to answer.

  He took another swallow of the beer. Maybe he should have poured himself something stronger.

  “Lemon, no sugar, right?” he called to her.

  There was no reply. He didn’t need one in any case. He knew how Mariah drank her iced tea. He was just saying it to make conversation. Polite conversation. The kind they both wanted.

  He picked up the glass and carried it back in.

  She was asleep.

  He stared. She was still on the sofa, but she no longer looked as if she was waiting for the dentist. She was nestled in it now, her arms curving loosely around her burgeoning middle, her head back, cheeks still flushed, her eyes closed. So much for the dentist.

  He smiled. Couldn’t help himself.

  And he moved closer. Asleep, Mariah looked like a child. As if she was thirteen, not thirty. Or twenty-nine or however the hell old she was. She looked young and vulnerable and defenseless.

  Not at all old enough to become the mother of twins.

  Twins!

  “God.”

  He said the word aloud without meaning to, and at the sound of it she jerked. Her eyes opened and she blinked rapidly. “Oh!” She sat upright, folded her hands again, and tried to look as if she hadn’t just been sound asleep. “S-sorry. I… It’s the heat. And I’m just a little tired and…” She stopped, still looking flustered.

  “Here’s the tea.” He handed it to her then crossed the room and sat down in the armchair opposite her. “Why’d you go out today? Were you doing an interview?”

  “Yes.” She took a sip of the tea and straightened up against the sofa back again, but she didn’t seem as stiff as before. “With Mooney Vaughan.”