by Kaitlyn Rice
Proud of his son, period.
Vaguely, Ethan registered the sound of footsteps again. Josie hollered something, then the front door slammed.
Ethan didn’t care about anything but that slam.
He knew he was alone with his son and his son’s mother. The time for questions and answers had come.
He could control his temper. Anger would gain him nothing and might cost him dearly. He’d take his cues from too-cool Callie, who had certainly kept her composure during the past two months while she’d masqueraded as her own son’s devoted aunt.
While she’d lied to him, repeatedly.
This was their son—the baby she had wanted so badly.
But so had he.
So had he, damn it!
When Callie approached, Ethan stepped sideways, hoping to heaven she wasn’t planning to touch him. His emotions were too volatile, and he didn’t know whether he’d laugh next, or succumb to some darker emotion.
Rage. Remorse.
Either of those responses would surely be reasonable.
But Callie stepped past him, unfastening the baby’s seat buckle and picking him up.
Ethan had always suspected that Callie would be an overprotective mother. Way back when, he’d figured he’d have to convince her to let their child play team sports or ride around the neighborhood on a bicycle. Now, Ethan knew he’d have to fight for time with his son.
And he would.
He scowled as he watched her cuddle the boy to her chest. She carried him across to the sink, then wetted a washcloth and wiped the baby’s face and hands.
He’d watched her wash Luke before, several times. Yet he felt as if he didn’t know her, even after having loved her for most of his adult life.
Even after rekindling those feelings with her last night.
After last night, her treachery felt monstrous.
He expected her to turn toward him and make another composed recitation of the facts. Hadn’t she always fought that way?
But she stunned him by returning to put the little boy in his arms. “Luke’s yours, Ethan. He’s your son.”
He knew.
And he was off balance again, confused by Callie’s generosity.
“I know.” He held Luke tight enough to satisfy his ravenous heart, but then moved him away so he could look at him again.
Unbelievable. The little boy did look just like him.
He’d been foolish to miss it before. He wouldn’t have, except that he’d known Callie wasn’t pregnant at the time of their separation. He’d been the one to hold her the last time she’d learned she wasn’t pregnant.
“How?” he asked abruptly.
“This might take a while,” Callie said. “Come in here where we can sit comfortably.”
She led him into Isabel’s living room. After they’d sat at opposite ends of the new sofa, Callie said, “You left when I was still an active patient at the reproductive clinic, remember?”
Luke squirmed, so Ethan shifted him to his knees and held on to both hands, bouncing him gently and making him chortle.
“I thought we’d exhausted those options,” he said, bouncing higher as Luke laughed louder. “Trying that way and failing repeatedly had cost us a lot more than money.”
Callie nodded. “You’d given up hope. I hadn’t.”
“So you went to the clinic after I’d left you?” he asked. It was a stupid question. Of course she had. But he needed to know exactly how everything had played out.
“Dat-dat,” Luke said, and Ethan realized he was forgetting to bounce. He pulled the boy into his arms again and stood up, too nervous to sit. He paced the floor, jiggling the boy just hard enough to make him laugh again.
Callie stood, too, but she remained near the sofa and held Ethan’s gaze, just as she had in the kitchen a few moments ago.
Except now, tears were rolling down her cheeks. “Six weeks later, I went back.”
“And you gave yourself the shots afterward? You went for all those blood tests and ultrasounds, alone?”
She nodded. “Sometimes Patty from the lab went with me.”
“Why would you go, when we had separated?”
He felt Luke patting his cheeks and realized his face was wet, too.
“I hoped that one last try might be the one that saved us.” She paused to brush away her tears. “So I did try. And the blood tests were all positive and the ultrasounds showed one growing baby.” She shrugged.
Then she glanced at Luke and nodded.
She’d expected the pregnancy to save their marriage? That was a huge expectation to put on an unborn child. Ethan would have told her that, then.
Now, telling her was pointless.
“You didn’t think you could call to tell me?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Sweet mercy.”
Unexpectedly, the baby gripped Ethan’s cheeks to turn his face. “Dat,” he said, pointing toward Isabel’s picture window. Outside, a little blue swing swayed gently in the breeze. Ethan had seen it earlier, when he’d driven up. He’d smiled at the thought of Callie’s nephew enjoying it.
Callie sighed. “He wants to swing.”
Ethan knew.
He looked at Luke, but spoke for Callie’s benefit. “I can take you outside.” He paused for a moment before adding, “Son.” He paused for a longer moment. “But tell your mother to come with us so we can finish talking.”
Callie walked out to the yard with them, then helped buckle their little boy into the swing. She walked around to stand behind Luke, once again helping Ethan push the baby.
Luke was just as happy as he’d been the last time they’d done a similar thing.
But they were so completely different.
That day at the City Park, he’d spent his time alternating between wanting Callie, enjoying the day and feeling guilty about LeeAnn.
He’d had the slight hope that he and Callie would be a couple again.
Now, that was surely impossible.
“You should have told me after that first blood test came back positive,” he said.
“At that point, I was hoping you’d come home on your own,” Callie said. “I thought my news would be a happy surprise for you, when you did.”
“But I didn’t come home.”
She angled her chin. “Nope.”
“I would have, if I’d known.”
Callie stopped pushing Luke. “I know you would have,” she said, and glanced at the baby. “For him.”
He shook his head. “For both of you.”
She made a wry face. She might not believe him, but he’d never stopped loving her.
Now he knew.
Love wasn’t always enough.
She hadn’t trusted him then—not completely. She’d always had the worry that he would leave her. Ella had instilled that thought deeply into her soul.
Now, Ethan realized that he couldn’t trust Callie.
The two of them had lost that inherent attitude of fairness toward each other that every couple needed. Maybe they’d never really had it. Callie wouldn’t have learned about it from her mother.
And maybe he’d expected too much of himself. He was a man, and quite human. When he hadn’t been able to fix Callie’s problems, he had left.
“He’s my son, Callie. That’s too big a secret to keep. You should have told me. Especially after last night.” The last few words faded to a whisper. The magnitude of her duplicity overwhelmed him.
Her actions were unforgivable.
“I was going to. Today.”
Ethan kept swinging Luke, thinking. Maybe she had been planning to tell him. She had asked him to come to Augusta to talk.
But maybe she hadn’t.
He needed time to figure things out.
“I want to spend the afternoon alone with Luke,” he said abruptly, stopping the swing and unbuckling the seat belt without help.
She frowned as she watched him lift the boy into his arms. “To do what?”
“Nothing, really,” Ethan said. “I just need time to adjust to the idea. Maybe we’ll go to the park again.”
She lifted a hand to her head and stared at her little boy—at his little boy. “It’s pretty hot today,” she said. “It must be in the mideighties already.”
“I’ll keep him in the shade and leave if he acts distressed. You know I have a legal right to my son, Cal. Be reasonable.”
Still, she hesitated.
Maybe she thought he’d run off to some unknown place with Luke, keeping their son to himself. She should know better. That wasn’t his style.
He hadn’t thought it was hers.
“I’ll stay right here in town, I promise,” he said. “If it makes you feel more comfortable, you can drop us off at the park and pick us up in a few hours.” He shook his head. “Don’t worry that I’ll run off with him.”
She gasped. “That’s not what I’m worried about at all.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No. We just need to talk.”
“Sometimes all the talk in the world will get you nowhere. We proved that.”
Callie’s eyes were too bright. She wasn’t normally an easy crier. She’d ranted and worried and fidgeted at various times, but she’d only cried when she felt hopeless.
“All right,” she said. “Let’s transfer his car seat to your car. It isn’t necessary for me to drop you off. I know Luke will be safe with you.”
Good. Another act of generosity. He and Callie hadn’t succeeded as a married couple, but perhaps they could be good parents separately. Ethan held Callie’s gaze. “I’ll have him home no later than five o’clock.”
She closed her eyes, gave a nod and opened them again. “Okay. And you’re right,” she said. “We can be reasonable. And if we put our minds to doing what’s right for Luke, we’ll get through this.”
Hopeful words, and yet she’d sounded miserable.
That’s when it struck Ethan.
She lived in Denver.
He lived here.
They would each want to spend every available minute with their son. Somehow. In that instant, he understood a hint of what she must have gone through.
Yet her choices had proved her level of doubt. She hadn’t given him a chance to prove himself. She’d simply decided for him. “Right,” he said, pretending confidence. “We’ll figure it out.”
Chapter Eleven
“Josie, look out for that car!” Callie shouted, glaring from the truck’s side window as a bald man in a sporty yellow convertible whipped between lanes and came too close to the side where Luke slept in his car seat.
“Which one?” Josie asked.
“All of them!” Callie said quite seriously, causing both Josie and Isabel to chuckle.
Josie’s eyes met Callie’s in her rearview mirror. “Come on, Cal. I’m following your explicit instructions—slow on corners, slower in traffic, and I’m heeding the posted signs. I even stayed under the speed limit on the highway.”
“By two miles per hour.”
Isabel glanced around from her spot in Josie’s front passenger seat. “Our kid sister’s doing fine,” she said. “I think you’re just worried about leaving Luke with Ethan again.”
“Sure I am,” Callie admitted. “I’m handing my son over to a man who has every right to hate me.”
“For two hours, while we shop for Izzy’s new range,” Josie said, braking for a red light. “Besides, Ethan doesn’t hate you. Didn’t you say that Wednesday evening, he invited you to come in?”
“Yes.”
“See?”
Callie sighed. “We talked about Luke, Josie. Ethan hadn’t realized he was ready to walk. We spent an hour sitting on the floor, encouraging him to toddle between us.”
“Did he walk on his own?” Isabel asked, smiling.
Callie grinned, too. “He took five steps once. Another time, he lurched off toward the sofa and caught himself. He’s on his way.”
“Then your time together was well spent,” Izzy said.
Maybe. But their time together had been only for the sake of the child. Ethan’s tone with Callie was too polite, his expression too distant. And neither of them had mentioned last Saturday night. Ethan’s vow of love appeared to have been forgotten.
Exactly as Callie had expected. It was one of the reasons she’d wanted to tell him about Luke before he professed his love for her. To save them the hassle of remembering words spoken too quickly, about feelings that weren’t based on complete honesty.
As her sisters watched traffic, waiting for the light to change, Callie lost herself in the same circle of thoughts she’d been having for seven days.
It was Saturday. Exactly a week and only a week since the night she’d spent with Ethan.
So much had changed and so much hadn’t.
Isabel had returned to her house on Tuesday. She had contacted her clients and started taking orders again for her specialty quilts and baskets.
Yet Callie and Luke were still camped out in Josie’s living room. Although Callie and Ethan had talked about Luke every day that week, they hadn’t managed to talk about what they should do about him. Even if Ethan’s feelings for Callie had changed, they still had to make some decisions together.
But she feared the discussions. Feared the upcoming changes. Forcing the conversation would surely rush her to an unwanted end.
Adding to her turmoil, Stan had called twice yesterday, reminding her that she’d promised to be at work on Monday.
She couldn’t return to Denver that soon. Stan might think the lab was in peril of falling apart—hell, maybe it was—but her life was already in shambles. She wouldn’t be worth a beaker of air if she returned to Denver now.
She was glad Ethan knew about Luke.
But she wasn’t.
She was glad to have made love to Ethan last week—really glad. But she wasn’t. His coldness hurt.
She’d add those memories to a bank of bittersweet thoughts that would have to last a lifetime. She loved Ethan. She always would. She’d never be with anyone else.
Callie had felt incredibly generous when she’d called him yesterday evening, offering to bring Luke by for a few hours today while she and her sisters shopped.
But LeeAnn had answered the confounded phone.
LeeAnn.
Still in his life.
After everything.
This needed to be settled.
First thing this morning, Callie had dug the divorce papers from her zippered luggage compartment. She’d also found her wedding ring. She’d slipped it on her finger for a brief moment, preferring the look of her hand so much more with it on.
But Josie had come from the shower just then, so Callie had yanked it off and returned it to her luggage pocket.
When she’d loaded Luke’s diaper bag for his outing this afternoon, she’d put the envelope containing the divorce papers right on top. If she handed Ethan the documents and suggested that they set up an appointment with his attorney, they would be forced to deal with the situation.
Perhaps they needed the wisdom of a judge to help make some of these decisions.
Josie made a sudden turn, causing the truck’s wheels to squeal and pulling Callie’s thoughts to the present. They were just a couple of minutes from Ethan’s neighborhood.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Josie asked.
“Yes. Absolutely,” Callie said. “Ethan’s off work today, so it makes sense for him to watch Luke. They’ll have fun. They’re really bonding.”
Isabel must have heard the wobble in her voice, because she said, “That’s a good thing, Callie. You know that.”
Yes, it was. But it hurt because she felt left out. “Mmm-hmm.”
“You’ll work this out,” Josie said. “You just need time.”
Callie murmured another distracted Mmm-hmm and started gathering the diaper bag, the teddy bear Luke had dropped when he’d fallen asleep, and her wits.
When she noticed Ethan
’s empty driveway, she sighed in relief. At least LeeAnn wasn’t here today.
After Josie had pulled into the drive, Callie released Luke’s car seat from its bracket, deciding to carry him in while he was still asleep. She looped the diaper bag over her shoulder and waited for Isabel to get out of the two-door truck and push the seat forward. Then Callie slid across with Luke and his things, and got out.
After Isabel had returned to her seat and closed the truck door, Callie leaned near the window to speak to her sisters. “I’m going to talk to Ethan a sec,” she whispered. “Be right back.”
She headed up the walkway and had only taken two steps before Ethan opened his front door, smiling widely.
What a great, great smile. Warm. Welcoming. Callie’s heart lurched.
But when Ethan saw that the baby was asleep, he replaced his smile with an expression of determined caution.
Callie so preferred the other look.
Still, Ethan opened the storm door for her, then took the carrier and lowered it to the floor. “I appreciate your giving me this time with him.”
Callie didn’t answer. She leaned down to tuck the teddy bear in beside Luke’s leg, then took a minute to fuss with his blanket. All she could think about was handing Ethan those divorce documents—even though she was reluctant to do so.
Now she wasn’t avoiding divorce proceedings to protect her son from a divided life—that was inevitable, and she wanted only to make it as favorable to Luke as possible.
She resisted now only to protect herself. A less noble reason, certainly. And she had no choice. She had to proceed with the divorce. She needed to go home to Denver.
She stood up, glanced at Ethan, then peered down at the diaper bag suspended at her hip. She’d just unzipped it when she heard a screech of tires.
A Josie-taking-off-in-her-truck type of screech.
Callie and Ethan both stepped to the storm door to look out. Sure enough, Josie’s silver Toyota was disappearing down the street. With Luke safely out of her truck, Josie had returned to her habitual recklessness. Didn’t she realize that this was a residential street, where a child might dart from behind any bush?
And hadn’t she forgotten something?
Someone?
Stepping outside, Callie ran into the yard and waved her arms. “Hey, stop!” she hollered.