A crushing pressure filled her chest, making it difficult for her to breathe. "You are so very wrong," she whispered. "They'd be very fortunate to have you as a dad."
He whirled around and scowled. "How the hell would you know?"
"From what you've told me about Aaron Nichols, I know firsthand you're a better man than your father ever was."
His laugh was self-depreciating. "I could be worse. Much worse."
She shook her head, refusing to be baited. "I wouldn't consider marrying a man who wasn't gentle and kind and loving. You have those qualities, Grey. And those qualities are what I love the most about my father."
She watched him struggle with some internal battle-wanting to believe her but allowing that vulnerable little boy in him to cling to the past and all the troubling memories of his childhood: the verbal abuse from his father and his mother's neglect.
Until Grey resolved those fears and insecurities, she knew they had no chance at a future.
He scrubbed his hand along his jaw, misery clouding his features. "So, what this all boils down to is you want all or nothing."
"Yeah, I guess I do. I'm afraid being someone's mistress isn't my style." She drew a deep shuddering breath, and although her heart felt torn and ragged, a strange calm swept over her. "I want to be your wife, Grey, and I want to be the mother of your children, not just the woman you happen to be living with and sleeping with. If you love me the way you say you do, then marriage would be the next logical step in our relationship. Anything else we can work on together, as husband and wife."
He uttered a strangled sound, and his hands fisted at his sides. "Dammit, Mariah… I can't."
She couldn't stop the tears that stung the back of her eyes and spilled forward. "And I can't keep loving you and being with you day after day, not without a promise for a future together."
His own eyes misted, and his throat worked spasmodically. He took a step toward her, then stopped. "Mariah, please don't do this to us."
"I have no choice." Bridging the distance between them, she brushed her lips across his, wanting to forever remember the taste of him. His body shuddered in response, but he showed greater restraint than she and kept his hands to himself.
"I love you, Grey," she said softly, touching his cheek, his jaw, imprinting everything about him into her mind before letting her hand fall away. "I probably always will. Even if you don't realize it, you would have made a wonderful husband and a great father. One of these days you're going to realize exactly what you threw away, but by then it'll be too late. You'll be alone and lonely, wishing you had a wife to keep you company and grandchildren to spoil. Maybe, if you're lucky, one day you'll take a chance and find happiness with another woman."
"I don't want any other woman."
She smiled sadly. "And I don't want any other man, but I want a husband as well as a lover. Someone I know will be there for me when I'm old and gray and a little slow getting around. I want to come home to the same man for fifty years and still feel that surge of excitement I do every time I look at you. I want children to enrich my and my husband's life, and when they're grown, I want a man who will still be my best friend, my lover, my life." A tear trickled down her cheek, but she didn't bother wiping it away. "I wanted that with you, Grey."
His anguish was real, so real she had to fight the urge to tell him to forget everything she'd just said, that she'd take him on any terms he demanded.
A thread of common sense kept her grounded to reality.
She swallowed the huge knot of sorrow lodged in her throat. She knew what she had to do, though she might have just as well carved her heart out of her chest while she was at it. "It's over, Grey, for good this time," she said in a choked voice, hating the words that would forever sever him from her life.
"Mariah, you can't mean this."
His despair ripped at her soul. "I do," she whispered, and turned to finish packing the bags. "The honeymoon is over, Grey, it's time to take me home."
Chapter Ten
Mariah blinked her eyes open and groaned. She wanted to die. From heartbreak. And from the miserable bout of flu that had lingered for the past week. The two combined was enough to give new meaning to the word anguish.
She glanced at the clock on her nightstand, unable to believe she'd slept until noon. She was so tired lately that no amount of sleep seemed to make her feel refreshed. With effort, she got out of bed, put on her old, favorite chenille robe and shuffled into the kitchen.
It was Sunday, but Jade wasn't home. Mariah was grateful for small favors. For the past five weeks since her second breakup with Grey, her sister had been doing her best to snap her out of her gloom, that is after Jade's initial "I told you so." But Mariah couldn't seem to summon up enough energy, or enthusiasm, to give in to her sister's prodding to "get on with her life."
Opening the freezer, she reached for a bowl of frozen grapes, then stopped when her stomach rebelled at the thought of any kind of food, even her favorite snack. Tears welled in her eyes and caught in her throat.
Damn. Now she was crying over frozen grapes. She'd been so emotional lately, the slightest, silliest things seemed to set her off and make her bawl like a baby. Jade was becoming impatient trying to gauge her mood shifts, not that she could blame her sister. She couldn't even anticipate her emotional state from one moment to the next.
Closing the freezer, she made her way to the kitchen table, sank into a chair and rested her cheek on the cool, wooden surface. She closed her eyes and attempted to relax and get a grip on reality.
The first two weeks back from the cabin she'd spent refusing Grey's calls at the office, listening to his pleas on her answering machine at home and making Jade turn him away at their door.
Then it all stopped. And the silence hurt worse than hearing the torment in his voice when he'd left his final "I love you" on her answering machine. She'd listened to it a zillion times since.
Mariah gulped back more tears. She missed him so much, and not for the first time wished they could go back to the cabin and the gentle, tender moments they'd shared, the fun, the laughter and the fierce loving that would haunt her forever. That one week had been romantic and idyllic. She'd hoped, and dreamed, and let herself believe that her love could change Grey. But in the end, her love, their love, hadn't been powerful enough to allow Grey to let go of his disturbing past and chance a future with her.
Sighing, she let her mind drift and the tension ease from her body. She grew lethargic. She was tired, so tired…
A hand settled on her shoulder and shook gently. "Hey, Riah, you okay?"
Mariah woke with a start and lifted her head from the table to find her sister standing beside her with a concerned expression on her face. "I'm fine," she said, her voice hoarse. Pushing her disheveled hair from her face, she glanced at the kitchen clock, which told her she'd been sleeping for nearly an hour. "I guess I just kinda drifted off."
"Yeah, well, you seem to be doing a lot of that lately,"
Jade said. "At your desk at work, in the bathtub, sitting on the couch and now at the kitchen table. At first I took it personally when you'd drift off while I was talking to you, as if I was boring you or something." She gave Mariah a critical once-over that made her uncomfortable. "And don't you think it's odd that you can't shake this flu you've had for the past week, and that I haven't caught it?"
Mariah frowned. "I haven't really given it much thought."
"Obviously," Jade said dryly as she plunked a small brown bag in front of Mariah. "But I have, and I think I finally figured out what your problem is."
Mariah had a feeling the cure was in the bag, which she eyed hesitantly. "What's this?"
"A little present for you." Jade sat in the chair next to hers. "Go on and open it."
Very tentatively, she did, and gasped when she saw the contents. "A pregnancy test? I'm sick, not pregnant!"
A brunette brow rose, enhancing Jade's dubious expression.
"I can't be pregnant," she sai
d reasonably, even as she frantically counted back to the day of her last period, which had been light and only two days long, nothing like her normal five-day flow. Around the thundering of her heart, she managed, "I'm on the Pill."
"Which is only ninety-nine percent effective," Jade pointed out. "Humor me, Riah, and take the test."
Mariah stood, her stomach churning with a sudden dread she refused to acknowledge. "You're wrong," she said. Grabbing the little brown bag, she disappeared into the bathroom, praying that Jade was, indeed, mistaken.
Less than ten minutes later she walked back into the kitchen, stunned to the point of numbness. Holding the test strip in her hand, she met Jade's anxious gaze.
"It's positive," she said, then burst into tears.
"Oh, Riah." Jade stood and wrapped her in a comforting embrace. She soothed her for a few moments, then took her by the hand and led her into the living room.
They sat side by side on the couch. "It's not as if I didn't try and warn you," Jade teased, trying to lighten the moment. "Nooo, now look at you, heartbroken and pregnant."
Mariah swiped away the wetness from her cheeks, her shock fading into disbelief. "I just don't understand how it happened."
Jade's mouth curled into a sly grin. "It happens when two people have that recreational activity called sex, not that I'd recall what that's like. It's been so long I can almost qualify as a born-again virgin."
Despite her situation, Mariah smiled. Staring at the bright blue plus sign on the strip confirming her delicate condition, she shook her head. "I guess I've just become a statistic."
Jade agreed, and after a few reflective minutes she asked, "What are you going to do, Riah?"
"I'm keeping the baby, of course," she said without a second thought. That wasn't an issue for her. Raising a child alone wouldn't be easy, and it certainly wasn't what she'd envisioned for herself, but she wouldn't consider any other option.
"I didn't doubt that you would keep the baby." Compassion softened Jade's features. "What I meant was, are you going to tell Grey?"
Mariah rested her head on the back of the sofa and stared up at the ceiling fan. The whitewashed oak blades whirled, casting blessedly cool air downward. A rush of tears filled her eyes before she could stop them. Now she knew why she'd been on such an emotional roller coaster lately, and why the mere mention of Grey had her blubbering like a two-year-old.
But her tears changed nothing, especially the fact that Grey didn't want a family.
Swiping at the moisture trickling from the corner of her eye, Mariah drew a steadying breath and looked at Jade, her decision made. "No, I'm not telling Grey."
"Why not?" she asked gently.
For all her brashness, Jade could be so sensitive at times. Usually the right times. "I don't want Grey to feel obligated to a child he made clear he doesn't want."
Jade digested that, then countered with, "Don't you think he has the right to at least know about the baby?"
She shook her head emphatically. "If Grey knew, he'd feel responsible to marry me, and I refuse to force him to do something he doesn't want to." Just like Grey's mother and father. No way was she going to let Grey's history repeat itself with them. "He had his chance to marry me, and instead he let me walk away."
"You being pregnant might change his mind."
"For all the wrong reasons," she refuted. "He made his feelings on marriage and children very clear. I don't want to be an obligation to Grey, and this baby to be an unwanted burden, one he grows to resent. This isn't an issue that's up for negotiation."
Jade's cobalt blue eyes held understanding. "Well, you don't have much choice but to tell Mom and Dad about this new addition to the family. Not to mention the fact that you won't be marrying the baby's father."
Mariah's temples began to throb at the thought of breaking the news to her very old-fashioned father. Oh, he was going to be thrilled that he was finally going to be a grandpa, and not so happy to learn she was going to be a single mom. "Mom and Dad will learn to adjust. This is the nineties. Women have babies on their own all the time."
They grew quiet, as if Jade sensed there was nothing she could say or do to change Mariah's mind.
And there wasn't.
Slipping her hand inside her robe, Mariah pressed her palm to her still-flat stomach, awed that a little life was growing inside her. There wasn't any doubt that the baby had been conceived at the cabin, and wondered if it had happened the night in front of the fire or the night Grey had told her he loved her.
The night her world had fallen apart.
This baby hadn't been planned by any means, but it had been created out of love. And her child would know love, Mariah thought determinedly. Lots of it. From a caring mom, a neurotic aunt and enthusiastic grandparents.
"Wow, a baby." Jade sighed, a wistful quality to her voice. "Do you think it's a boy or a girl?"
Mariah closed her eyes, envisioning a little girl with Grey's dark hair and golden eyes, then a little boy with similar coloring. "It doesn't matter, as long as it's healthy."
Jade grinned. "If my vote counts for anything, I hope it's a girl."
Mariah groaned, imagining the bond Jade would form with her niece. "And the first words out of her mouth would be, Let's go shopping.'"
"Of course." Jade laughed, her eyes sparkling wickedly. "Whatever it is, a boy or a girl, I plan to spoil this baby rotten."
Mariah wasn't sure she liked the sound of that. "Do I have any say in the matter?"
"Absolutely not." Jade's humor faded into a tender expression. "I still can't believe I'm going to be an aunt."
Grasping her sister's hand, Mariah gave it a reassuring squeeze. "You'll be the best."
"And you're going to be a mom." Her voice was filled with wonder.
Mariah rubbed her belly, already experiencing a fierce protectiveness toward her unborn child. "Yeah, though this isn't the way I'd planned it."
"Some things are better not planned."
Emotion constricted Mariah's throat. "Maybe you're right," she whispered.
"Aren't I always?" she said with her regular dose of sass. Then she grew serious. "I'll be here for you, Mariah, in any way I can."
Mariah reached over and gave her sister a warm hug. Damn. More tears. Would they ever stop? "Thanks, Jade, that means more to me than you'll ever know."
Jade pulled back, frowning. "Hey, what's with all the tears?"
"Damn hormones," Mariah muttered, though she knew hormones had little to do with it. These tears were for Grey and all the joy he was going to miss not being a part of his child's life.
"Wasn't that incredible?" Mariah was still filled with excitement as she and Jade exited her obstetrician's office and walked across the parking lot to her car. She'd just had her five-month checkup and ultrasound, and was thrilled and relieved to find out the baby was healthy.
"Yeah, it was," Jade agreed, smiling. "It's amazing to hear that little heart beat and see the baby actually moving inside you." She gazed at the ultrasound picture the doctor had given Mariah, an X ray that outlined the baby's head and body. In this particular pose, the baby was sucking its thumb. "Too bad the little critter wouldn't open up its legs so we could get a peek."
"Just think what a surprise it'll be when the baby is born." Mariah dug her car keys from her purse. "And you'll be right there in the delivery room when it happens."
"I don't know about this coaching stuff," Jade said as they slipped into the car. "You know the sight of blood makes me queasy."
"You'll be fine." Mariah buckled her seat belt over her rounded, ever-expanding waistline and gave her sister a reassuring pat on the knee. "I'll be the one in pain."
"Grey should have been here today, not me," Jade said quietly.
Mariah sighed, staring out the windshield at nothing in particular. She'd thought the same thing. When she'd seen and felt the baby move within her body she'd been breathless with wonder, and on the heels of that came a twinge of sadness that wrapped around her heart
and squeezed tight.
She couldn't help but feel doubts and sometimes guilt for keeping Grey's baby a secret. He was the father of this baby, but her arguments always whittled down to one plain and simple issue. Grey didn't want children. Ever. Oh, she didn't doubt he'd take responsibility for the baby, but she didn't want his acceptance to be one of financial obligation. She wanted it to be borne of unconditional love for the child.
There was no question in her mind that he'd make a good, caring father. She'd told him as much. But the awful, bitter memories of Grey's father's abuse shadowed his confidence. And there was no way she could prove him wrong, not until he was ready to believe in himself, and in his strength and ability to be a better man than his father was. She seriously doubted anything had happened in the past rive months to change his way of thinking.
Wrapping her fingers around the steering wheel, she waited for the tightness in her chest to ease. Although the emotional ups and downs had subsided over the months, along with the morning sickness, there wasn't a day that went by that she didn't think about Grey. She was desperately trying to put him and their relationship behind her and focus on her future with their child. But forgetting Grey was impossible. Whenever she looked in the mirror and saw the changes to her body, she thought of the man who'd helped create the baby inside her. And she remembered the love they'd shared for one perfect week.
Finally she glanced at Jade. Her sister expected a response to her statement, she could tell, but she wasn't up to defending her decision. She did that often enough with her father, though her parents had come to accept her choice.
"I've got a craving for a Monte Cristo," she said instead, forcing a smile. "How about lunch on me at Maxine's?"
Jade lifted a dark brow. "That's way across town."
Mariah shrugged and started the car. "But it's my favorite place. I haven't been there since…" Grey. She swallowed the name always on her mind and forever in her heart and finished with, "Well, in a while. I've had a craving for a Monte Cristo for the past month."
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