by Lilian Darcy
So they’d said goodbye in front of about six other people, with one short kiss and a superficial few words. It was so easy to keep in touch, now, with texts and calls and email and Skype, and neither of them said a word about whether they would. He still seemed to be in shock, and suffering through a whole lot of issues he clearly wasn’t planning to share with her.
She’d left early Friday morning, and had spun the drive out over five days, because the tiredness increased daily, and the morning sickness kicked in, exacerbated by the fatigue and by the junk food options available en route. She found she had to make proper rest stops and go to proper stores and find fruit and decent bread and fresh juice and salad sandwiches, because burgers and fries and soda were too horrible to contemplate.
She’d arrived at Spruce Bay on Tuesday afternoon, six days ago, to find Daisy as serene and fresh and cheerful as her namesake flower about the coming wedding. Any residual awkwardness over the fact that her fiancé, Tucker Reid, had once been planning to marry Lee herself was quickly smoothed over.
That was more than ten years ago. It had never been the right plan. From the beginning it had happened for the wrong reasons. Now, Tucker was visibly in thrall of Daisy’s bright, creative and very feminine energy, and Lee just wasn’t that kind of girl. If there was anyone she was aching for, it was Mac, and that didn’t make any sense, because they’d never said they loved each other. They’d never thought about it. They’d just taken the whole thing day to day.
Watching Daisy and Tucker during their simple wedding ceremony, with the bride looking so beautiful in a floaty dress with sheer, tiny sleeves, and the groom totally unable to hide his love and desire, Lee had tried to put herself and Mac in their place, there at the altar, and couldn’t picture it.
He hadn’t been in touch. He might be packing up to move back to Idaho. He would surely have heard about the job at Barrier Mountain by now. What had they ever had together that could make her believe in this kind of a future? Flowers and a veil and the promise of undying love... No. They hadn’t been heading in that direction at all. They’d said nothing to each other about anything like that.
“But we never actually ended it,” he repeated now.
“No, we didn’t.”
“And if you hadn’t gotten pregnant, what would have happened? Were you planning to end it, before that happened?”
“Not at that point. I—”
“Not at that point?”
“We met at a bar in a resort town, Mac. In that situation, you’re not looking for something long-term, and you kind of assume the other person isn’t, either.”
“Right.” After a moment, he added quietly, “Are you really that cynical and hard-edged? You were that ready to dump the whole thing the moment it threatened to go deeper?”
“No! I was...really enjoying it, if you want the truth. Every bit of it.”
Scaring myself a little, wondering once or twice if I was being played.
“So why end it just because something changed?”
“A pretty big thing changed,” she pointed out.
“Yes. Something we should have talked about, and thought about, and made decisions about together. Something really—” he took a breath “—confronting.”
“Confronting?”
“Yes! For me. Can’t speak for you. And you presented me with a done deal, at a point where I had decisions to make about my own future, and then before I could think anything through, you’d just gone.”
“Are you saying you were looking to settle down? Are you saying you weren’t living the stereotypical ski bum bachelor lifestyle?”
He flinched visibly, but his reply was a casual drawl, with a crooked smile. “Ski bum is a little harsh. You’d have to go to Adam Panik for that.”
She ignored him, since she couldn’t tell if he was seriously upset about the accusation, or what. “Are you saying you’d given me any signal or indication whatsoever that you were looking for something more than a seasonal fling? Not even a full season! You were talking about moving back to Idaho. You were excited about it. You said you hadn’t made up your mind, but everything in the way you talked about the job said that you wanted to take it. You’d had a really good time partying with your friends and family, and you were looking forward to more of that, too. What happened, by the way? Did you get the job?”
“Yes, I got it. They called Friday afternoon, would have been about five hours after you left. They wanted me to go back up to talk through a few final details.”
“So why aren’t you there?”
“I wanted to take it. But I turned it down.”
“Why? If you wanted it?”
“Hell, Lee!” He pivoted on his heels and slammed a fist on the counter. “To come east. To be a father.”
“Just like that.”
“No, not just like that. Didn’t you leave Aspen and come here just like that?”
“I have family here.”
“So do I. I have a child.”
“Not yet.”
“Yes, yet.” He closed the space between them and laid his hand on her stomach, through the bunched thickness of the robe. The mix of possession and nurturing in his touch robbed her of breath, and she could feel his aura around her like something warm and heavy and good. “I have a child. Here. Inside you. Real and alive and needing me for protection. What else was I going to do?”
Her heart lurched. It was such a huge statement about his intention to stay involved that she didn’t know what to do, how to feel. This wash of relief, for example, was it pure illusion? What did she want from him? He’d spoken with more anger than love, and she didn’t know what to think about that.
He slid his other arm around her shoulder so that she was cradled in his embrace, feeling the wall of his chest behind her. She wanted to lean back against him, turn her cheek to pillow it against his shirt. But if she did that, if she accepted this, wasn’t she just ignoring all the things they hadn’t yet resolved?
His palm rested below her navel, where you couldn’t feel the baby yet, even though her stomach was so taut and flat. Those muscles would be softening soon, to allow her body to stretch and expand, but it hadn’t happened so far. “Can you feel it?” he asked, as if his thoughts had run in the same direction.
“Not yet.”
“Have you seen a doctor?”
“I have an appointment for tomorrow.”
“So I arrived on the right day.”
She pushed herself out of his arms and pivoted to face him. “You’re acting as if this is simple, and it’s not.”
“It is for me. Well, some of it.”
“It isn’t. It can’t be.”
“The welfare of the baby—that’s simple.” His dark eyes glittered. “It’s my baby, too, and you’re not going to shut me out. You’re not going to make decisions that I don’t have a say in. And you’re not going to keep on living your life as if nothing’s happened. I’m here to make sure of that.”
He sounded so strong and forceful about it that he almost scared her. Angered her, too. “There’s no need for you to act like we’re in a battle over that, Mac. What gives you any reason to think I’m going to live my life as if nothing’s happened? I know something has, and I’m taking it seriously, and I don’t see why you would assume any different.”
“Maybe not,” he growled. “That’s yet to be seen.”
She had to fight herself back to a place where she could talk in rational words. She took a deep breath. “There are two separate things going on here. There’s the fact that we’re having a baby together, and there’s the question of whether we have a relationship, and I’m not going to mix those up.”
“Aren’t they mixed up already?”
“No! I’m not going to make the massive mistake of thinking that your being involved
with the pregnancy and the baby means you and I are together. That would be all wrong. You cannot stay here in the apartment, Mac! You cannot barge in here and demand accommodation, when we don’t know if we even have a relationship.”
“Of course not.” He swore under his breath and began pacing the kitchen again.
He’d brought her up short. “But you said—”
“You really don’t think very highly of me, do you?”
“Mac—”
“As anything other than a bed partner, that is.”
“You said—”
“I wasn’t serious. Do you honestly think I’m going to forcibly camp out here until we’ve agreed on a custody arrangement?”
“No, I—”
He looked at her. “Oh, wait a minute, no! You thought I was going to muscle in here and court you until you swore undying love.”
“I don’t know what I thought,” she said flatly, because he made it all sound ridiculous. “You were the one who said it.”
“I wasn’t serious,” he repeated. “I was making a point.”
“What point?”
“That I’m here. That I’m a part of this.”
“So where will you go? How will you manage? What will you do?”
“You really, really do not think highly of me.”
If he’d been angry when he first showed up, he was angrier now.
White with it.
Eyes narrowed and still glittering.
Mouth hard.
There was no question of softening him with a kiss, reminding him what they’d had together in Colorado. They were way beyond that. She felt deeply in the wrong, and yet incapable of apology because she didn’t understand where he was coming from.
“Believe it or not, I’m not broke, Lee.”
“I never said—”
“I have savings. I have a good résumé. And as my mom has said to me about a thousand times, I don’t have a lazy bone in my body. I wasn’t planning to scrounge off you while I sat and watched TV all day.”
“Mac, I never said—”
“I’ll find accommodation, I’ll check out the whole area and I’ll start looking for a job. The people at Barrier Mountain were pretty flattering in how keen they were to have me. I’m thinking it shouldn’t be too hard to find something here.”
“No, that’s true.”
“And it seems like you were right. We did end it in Colorado. The relationship, that is. The involvement, no. Because I’m not going to father a child that disappears from my life.” His voice cracked. “I’m not going to let you handle the pregnancy without my input. And I’m not going to stay conveniently two thousand miles away so that you don’t have to deal with me. I don’t know what I ever said or did to make you think that was what I’d want.”
He was right. On this point, he was completely right, and she felt ill about it, and deeply ashamed. “I shouldn’t have made assumptions.”
“No. You shouldn’t. You should have given me time. I’m going to skip the coffee.” He went to the door and was already at the top of the stairs when he turned and told her, “Text me the time and address for the appointment tomorrow, and the name of the doctor. I’ll see you there.”
Chapter Eight
He was already waiting when she arrived at the obstetrician’s office the next morning, shortly before the scheduled appointment time, his hands pushed into the pockets of his jacket and his shoulders hunched.
The ob-gyn group practice was housed in a beautifully restored Victorian in the nearby town of Odinville, with turrets and bay windows and wraparound verandas, surrounded by garden. Lee thought it would be a beautiful place to come to for her prenatal appointments, watching the spring and summer unfold as her body changed and the baby grew.
Mac looked very different, pacing up and down in front of the building, to the way he’d looked yesterday. He’d shaved and slept, and the red-eyed and rumpled look that came from two thousand miles of driving had disappeared. As well, she realized, he’d dressed for this.
She’d never seen these clothes before—a charcoal-gray suede jacket, a classic pair of dark pants with a button-down shirt in a subtle, textured pattern of blues and grays, black shoes that could have worked for office or hiking or bar. She’d seen him only in ski pants and jacket and boots, or jeans and T-shirt and running shoes.
He’d dressed for the doctor, she realized, dressed to prove something about his worth and his intentions as a father-to-be. She couldn’t easily have shut him out of this, even if she’d wanted to.
And she didn’t want to, she knew.
In that area, there was a lot still to explore, but there was a huge part of her that was so, so happy that he’d shown up here, despite yesterday’s anger on both sides.
Speaking of that...
“Ah, look...I came on too strong yesterday,” he told her, as soon as they’d said hello. The words came rushing out as if he’d had them ready for hours.
“Yeah?” she said. Was it an apology? For which particular bit?
“I was tired. And angry,” he added after a stretched-out beat of silence. “And scared.”
“Scared, Mac?” The sky was gray today, and there was a chilly wind blowing. He hadn’t needed to wait out here in the cold for her. “Scared of what?”
“Well, first, that you may have put two thousand miles between us because you really, by hook or by crook, weren’t going to let me be involved.”
“Only because I thought you didn’t want to be, and I didn’t want to be stuck in Aspen raising a child on my own, passing my child’s father in the street and watching you not even acknowledge your—” She stopped, seeing his anger rise again, and held up her hand to ward off another round of harsh words. “Yes, I know I shouldn’t have assumed you would act like that, but...I guess I was scared, too. This is new and unexpected and off track for me, too.”
Her voice had gone husky. He heard it and looked at her with an extra layer of curiosity added to what was already a complicated mix of feeling. “Off track?” His eyes had narrowed.
“I hadn’t thought about parenthood. I was happy. I had my life set up exactly the way I wanted.”
“You didn’t want to be a mother?” There was something in his expression that she didn’t understand, but since they seemed to be trying to meet each other halfway today, she let it go.
“I’d thought that I might want to,” she said, trying for full honesty. “Someday. In my head it was still at least two or three years in the future, with a lot of emotional mileage to travel, as well as time. I thought I would need to talk about it and think about it long and hard, with the right person, after the two of us had spent a long time and a lot of thought working out whether he was the right person—”
“You mean this faceless man who might be the father, if you both decided you wanted to?”
“Yes. I always thought it would be really important to be sure I was taking a huge step like that for the right reasons.”
“And instead it’s come at you out of the blue, and instead of some perfect man in a long-term relationship, you’re stuck with me. After twelve weeks.” He pushed his hands deeper into the pockets of his jacket.
“No, that’s not what I meant. We’ve got each other. You’re as much stuck with me as a mother as I’m stuck with you. And I—I’m really sorry about handling this so badly.”
“Stuck with my DNA, my income, my bizarre ideas on how to raise a kid...”
He wanted her to laugh at that, but she couldn’t. Not quite. Not yet. Maybe he did have bizarre ideas. Maybe she did. “We haven’t thought long and hard about very much, Mac.”
“Yet.”
“Yet. I mean, for all I know you could have a child already.”
There was a beat of silence. “I don’t
,” he said. Then he repeated it. “I don’t.” He shot her a look. “Would it be a problem if I did?”
“Well, I’d want to conduct an extensive interview with the mother.”
Lee waited for him to laugh, or at least smile, but he didn’t. He was frowning and staring into the distance, and there was something going on here that she didn’t understand. He’d said he didn’t have a child. Said it bluntly with no room for doubt, and yet there’d been a hesitation. All of a sudden, she wondered whether she believed him. Would he really lie to her about something like that?
“Why are we standing here?” he asked abruptly.
“Because you served up a deep and meaningful discussion before we’d even made it inside.”
“We had to, didn’t we?”
“Yes, but the timing and the location aren’t ideal.”
“No. True.”
“Are we done? Is there anything else you wanted to tell me?” There was. She could feel it.
But he shook his head. “What’s the time?” He pulled his phone from his pocket and answered his own question. “We’re due. Better go in. They probably have a heap of stuff for us to fill in.”
“Where did you stay last night?” she blurted out as they climbed the wooden steps to the veranda. She felt like a jealous wife questioning her husband’s movements.
“I found a place that had vacation housekeeping cottages, just a minute or so from exit 21 on I-87. Took one on a week-by-week arrangement. I don’t want to take a lease on a place yet. If I end up working farther north, at Whiteface or Titus Mountain or somewhere, I’d be looking for something in that direction.”
“Right. I suppose that makes sense.” Whiteface was nearly two hours’ drive, Titus, even farther. Accommodation near the snowfields was expensive, but you could find something affordable if you were prepared to live on one of the back roads.
He opened the door for her, and she was still thinking about his plans, the way they seemed so independent of her own. He might be living two hours away, this time next week. And yet when it came to the pregnancy and the baby, he had no hesitation about saying he wanted to stay close and fully involved.