Rogue's Reform

by Marilyn Pappano

  “Let’s go Sunday,” he suggested. “We’ll spend the day.”

  “And do what?”

  “Everything. Go shopping. Catch a movie. Have dinner in a restaurant. Look at baby things.”

  “Really? You don’t mind?”

  “If I minded, Grace, I wouldn’t offer.”

  Slowly she smiled. “Thank you. I’d like that.”

  “Then it’s a date.”

  A date, she repeated silently to herself. She’d never had one of those before, either. Of course, this wouldn’t be a real date, but dinner and a movie, regardless of what came before or after, regardless of the reason behind it, was about as datelike as she could imagine. It would do.

  He turned into her driveway and parked beside her Bug. Before shutting off the engine, he turned to face her, but his gaze didn’t quite reach her face. “After I picked up Guthrie’s stuff today, I did a little shopping of my own. I, uh, bought some things for the baby, if it’s okay with you. It’s not new stuff, but it’s—it’s well made, and I didn’t know if you’d rather have new, but…I can always return it or—or something.”

  Grace was touched. Other than the clothing the Ladies Auxiliary had gathered to replace what her father had burned, no one had ever given her a gift before, and his hesitancy made this extra special. It was nice to know that she wasn’t the only one stricken by uncertainty, that someone as handsome and charming as Ethan could find words hard to come by, too.

  She glanced at the back of the truck, where a tarp made a large hump, then at him. “Can I see it?”

  “Go on inside. I’ll get it.”

  She was halfway out of the truck by the time he came around to help her. She had turned on the porch light and the heater and was taking off her coat when he came through the door with two pieces of wood that he braced against the wall.

  A headboard and a footboard for a crib, made from solid oak that gleamed under the hall light. She moved forward to rub one hand over the wood, cold enough to form a sheen of condensation in the warmer temperatures of the house. The pieces were solid, intricately carved, old and elegant.

  “Ethan, it’s beautiful.” Her throat was tight, her voice husky. She was about to cry, because her very first gift ever was also the very best gift ever. She’d been prepared to look for a cheap, hand-me-down crib at garage sales or in one of Buffalo Plains’s antique-junk stores because she’d known she couldn’t afford anything better. Now she wouldn’t have to, because she wouldn’t be able to find anything better.

  “You don’t mind that it’s old?”

  “It’s old and beautiful. Think of all the babies who have probably slept in it over the years—all the sweet dreams and peace and love it’s witnessed.” She smiled at him. “No, I don’t mind at all that it’s old. Thank you.”

  “I’ll get the rest of it,” he said with obvious relief.

  She eased down onto a step and watched as he made several more trips, bringing side rails, their spindles delicately curved, and the metal frame that supported the mattress, as well as the mattress, brand new and still in its plastic wrapping.

  He made one last trip, coming through the door backward, pushed the door shut, then turned and set a cradle on the floor between them. It was old, too, the workmanship not as expert, the wood not as fine. It looked like something a loving father or grandfather might put together in a garage workshop, and she adored it.

  “Oh, Ethan.” She awkwardly slipped to her knees to touch it, setting it rocking, then stopping it gently.

  “I thought you could use it downstairs for naps and—and things, or maybe at the store if you don’t need it here.”

  “Of course I need it. It’s perfect.” When she started to get to her feet, he quickly moved to help her. Finding herself closer to him than she’d been in seven months, she impulsively rose onto her toes and pressed a hesitant, chaste kiss to his cheek. “Thank you, Ethan.”

  They stood there a moment, Ethan looking as awkward and unsure as she felt. Finally he made a move toward the door. “I didn’t bring my work clothes, so I—I guess I’d better head home.”

  “Would you like to stay for dinner?” The instant she blurted out the invitation, she wanted to call it back. Wasn’t it enough that he’d given her a ride home, a beautiful crib and an adorable cradle? Did she have to have his time, too? He had a life of his own that didn’t include her, one that had taken his Sunday evening, all of Monday and most of that day. He probably hadn’t even remembered she existed except when the baby was on his mind.

  But after a moment, he smiled, and it was almost a normal smile. “Sure. I’d like that. Can I help you with anything?”

  She forced herself to smile, too. “I thought your talents in the kitchen extended only to egg-and-bacon sandwiches. My midwife doesn’t let me have eggs or bacon.”

  “I may not cook much, but I follow directions pretty well.”

  “All right.” She led the way down the hall, giving the crib headboard a furtive pat as she passed.

  She assembled the makings for meat loaf, mashed potatoes and salad on the counter, and they went to work. Ethan followed directions to the letter, chopping and peeling as efficiently as she ever had. He even volunteered for the messy job of mixing and forming the meat loaf while she sat at the table, her feet propped on the other chair.

  “Have you picked out names yet?” he asked idly as he shaped two small loaves on the rack of her broiler pan.

  “I can’t decide. I want something pretty, classic, not at all trendy, a name that will suit her as well at six and sixteen as it does at sixty.”

  “Something like Grace.”

  She wrinkled her nose and made her glasses slip. “Grace is my kind of name, not at all what I’d choose for my daughter.”

  After washing up, he placed the pan in the oven, set the timer, then faced her. “Grace is pretty and classic, and it suits you very well.”

  “It’s plain, drab and old ladyish.” And it suited her very well, she admitted, the corners of her mouth turning down.

  He lifted her feet and sat down on the other chair. When she would have lowered her feet to the floor, he held them on his lap and began matter-of-factly unlacing her left shoe. “Plain and drab. Is that what you see when you look at yourself?”

  “That’s what everyone sees when they look at me.”

  He shook his head.

  “Please don’t tell me you don’t think I’m plain. If you do, I’ll believe you need these glasses worse than I do.” She’d intended the words to be playful, teasing. She was embarrassed to find her voice a bit quavery.

  He pulled one shoe loose and dropped it to the floor, then turned his attention to the other. “You’re not plain, Grace. You just dress and act like it.”

  “I dress plain, act plain and look plain. Gee, where did I get the idea that I am plain?” she asked sarcastically.

  He dropped the other shoe on the floor, then claimed one socked foot in both hands and rubbed. She gave a start, thinking for an instant that she should stop him; what he was doing was too intimate. Then logic stepped in, reminding her that they’d been far more intimate than this when they were perfect strangers. They were fully dressed, sitting at the kitchen table, and it felt so incredibly good. What could it hurt to let him continue?

  “What do you want?” he asked, his fingers working magic on her tired foot. “To be some great natural beauty?”

  “Yes. That would be nice.”

  “And how do you define that?”

  “Shay Rafferty. Your sister-in-law Olivia.”

  He shrugged. “They’re pretty enough. They’re not beautiful.”

  “I bet Easy and Guthrie would disagree with you.”

  “They’re allowed to do that. And I’m allowed to disagree with you. Ask me what I see when I look at you.”

  “No.”

  “Ask me,” he repeated. When she stubbornly shook her head, he gentled his touch on her foot until it was no more than a tickle that made her squirm. “
Coward. I’ll tell you, anyway.”

  Before going on, he sobered. “I see skin as creamy and smooth as I imagine the finest china must be. Good cheekbones, delicate features, great eyes behind those glasses.” His mouth slowly curved up into a smile. “Nice blush. You have a mouth made for kissing and smiling that doesn’t do enough of either and a jaw that really ought to be shaped more stubbornly to be in keeping with your personality.

  “I see a woman who gave me one of the best nights of my life, a woman with the potential to change the entire rest of my life. A woman who is stronger and braver than I’ve ever had to be. A woman with an incredible capacity for giving, for loving and, I hope, for trusting.” His voice softened. “I see the best mother any child of mine could ever be lucky enough to have.”

  For a long time after he fell silent, Grace stared at him. He was a charmer, she reminded herself. A sweet talker who’d always found it much too easy to talk his way into and out of any situation. He’d easily talked her into his bed, and could just as easily talk his way right into her heart. Heavens, hadn’t he made a start before that pretty speech?

  He was a liar, a thief, a con artist. He manipulated people to his own advantage, played games with their feelings and their lives. And he was a drifter, liable to pack up in the middle of the night and disappear down the road.

  And knowing all those things did nothing to diminish the warmth and wonder that had seeped through her. It couldn’t steal her pleasure in his words. Maybe they were lies, she admitted, but even so, they were sweet lies, and she wanted, needed, to believe them.

  She gave a soft, satisfied sigh, then said, “You are good.”

  He concentrated for a time on the tightness in her right heel, rubbing, twisting, then quietly said, “That wasn’t a line, Grace. It was the honest truth. Believe it or not, I do recognize the difference.”

  “So do I.” And to some extent, she believed she did. At the bar last summer, he’d told her she was beautiful, had complimented her in flowery, effusive, insincere tones. She recognized the difference between those compliments and these. She felt the difference.

  Abruptly, he lowered her feet to the floor. “Let’s go into the living room. You’ll be more comfortable.”

  Once they were settled again down the hall, he returned to their earlier subject. “Do you have any names at all in mind?”

  “Just one. If it’s a boy, I—I might call him Seth.” She watched from beneath her lashes to see if he attached any particular significance to the name. He didn’t.

  “Seth.” He said it without inflection, no sign of like or dislike. “You’re partial to that name, huh?”

  “I like it. It’s a nice, strong name, neither trendy nor too unique. A Seth could be anyone, could do anything.” And it had meaning to her, if no one else. Back in the early hoping-for-a-white-knight days of her pregnancy, she’d gone to the trouble of finding out Ethan’s full name—not hard to do, since the library had issues of the Buffalo Plains newspaper dating back over seventy years. Each May the graduating senior class received their own insert, with photographs and full names. She’d looked up her own—plain, drab Grace Lynn Prescott—before finding Ethan’s two years earlier. Looking much the same as he did today—though younger, cockier, more brash—Stuart Ethan James had smiled up at her in glorious black and white.

  It wasn’t a name to love, not one that rolled off the tongue. But by combining his first and middle names, she’d found a name she could love, and no one would ever guess how she’d chosen it.

  “What are your favorite girls’ names?”

  “Elizabeth. Rachel. Sarah. Anne.”

  The last one made him smile. “Annie. Annie Grace.”

  “Annie’s nice,” she agreed. “But not Annie Grace.”

  “I like it.”

  “And you say my jaw should be stubborn,” she muttered. “What other names do you like?”

  He shrugged. “I never gave it any thought. I never intended to have kids. I was always really careful about that, I thought. I realize now that I was just lucky.”

  The all-over pleasure she’d been feeling began to shrink like a balloon with a tiny leak. “Until your luck ran out with me.”

  “That’s not what I meant, Grace.”

  “You said you were lucky to never get a woman pregnant. Now I’m pregnant. Your luck ran out. That’s all you could have meant.” Scooting and sliding to the edge of the cushion, she struggled to her feet, then went to the door. “I think you should go now.”

  He got up so agilely, so easily, coming to block the doorway so she couldn’t leave the room. “Damn it, Grace, listen to me, would you?” When she neither spoke nor tried to push past him, he lowered his voice. “It’s true. I never wanted to be a father. My old man was so bad at it, and I figured I wouldn’t be any better. I never wanted to do to a kid what he did to me, to make some kid feel the way he made me feel. So I always used a condom. I did with you. And you got pregnant, anyway. Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe it was just bad workmanship. But maybe…it was meant to happen. Maybe it was fate’s way, or God’s or whatever’s, of giving us both what we wanted.”

  She wanted to ignore him, to remain unswayed by his words, but couldn’t, and so she deliberately made her tone grudging. “And what would that be?”

  “A family. A reason for being here. Someone to love who will love us back.” He dragged his fingers through his hair. “Since I left here last summer, I’ve been trying to get my life straightened out. It hasn’t been easy, but I kept trying because…I wanted to be someone a person could be proud of. I thought I was doing it for Guthrie. He was the only family I had. But maybe, without knowing it, I was doing it for you, and our baby. Maybe I was working at becoming a better person so you wouldn’t be ashamed. So she wouldn’t be ashamed.”

  She wanted to deny that she was ashamed of him. She liked him, and she liked spending time with him. But the simple fact was that she wanted to spend time with him in private. She didn’t want to walk down the street with him, didn’t want to sit down across from him at the Heartbreak Café in full view of all her friends and neighbors. She didn’t want to admit to those friends and neighbors that he was the father of her baby.

  And that, no matter how she looked at it, translated to being ashamed.

  “You put a lot of burdens on a baby not even born yet,” she said quietly. “She’s supposed to make us both happy, turn us into a family, give us both reasons for becoming the best people we can be…. What if her being here is simply a mistake? What if I’m pregnant for no reason other than a defective condom, and this baby was never meant to save either of us?”

  He shook his head. “I’m a gambler. I have to believe in fate, luck and God.”

  “But you don’t believe in yourself.” And the sad truth was, she didn’t believe in him, either. She wasn’t sure whether he felt an obligation to her baby—Annie, she thought with a surge of maternal warmth—or if he was simply trying to do the right thing. Having no experience with either honoring obligations or doing the right thing, he was more likely to give up and disappear again than stick it out through the good and the bad.

  And then where would she be? Alone except for their daughter. Lonely. And quite possibly brokenhearted.

  Ethan wished he could argue with her, but he couldn’t without lying. Hell, he couldn’t even look at her without seeing the truth—that she had no more faith in him than he did in himself. “What would it take to make you trust me?”

  Grace shrugged. “I don’t know. Time, I guess.”

  It was a perfectly reasonable answer. Before she put her faith in a man who’d never stayed in one place longer than seven months, who’d never gone longer than that without getting into trouble, who’d never committed to anything or anyone for more than twenty-eight lousy weeks, she wanted him to prove he could stay, out of trouble and committed, for longer than that.

  But how long would he have to stay before she trusted him? Twenty-nine weeks? Eight months? Fourteen? Wou
ld any amount of time ever be long enough, or would she forever be watching and waiting for the day when he took off again?

  And what exactly did she want him to commit to? Keeping her secret? Hiding his relationship to her daughter? Being a part of their lives only in the out-of-sight confines of this house while pretending to be strangers in public? That seemed a little one-sided.

  But he could live with one-sided, at least for a while. Sooner or later she would have to trust him, would have to publicly acknowledge him as the baby’s father. He would be here to see that happen.

  He hoped.

  “Okay,” he said, forcing a grin. “I’ll give you all the time in the world.”

  “And what do you want in return?”

  “A chance, Grace. Just a chance.”

  She looked as if that was too much to ask for, too much to give. But after a moment, she smiled a tight, stressed little smile. “All right.”

  In the kitchen, the timer beeped. She used it as an excuse to step around him, then leave him alone to deal with the emotion—damn near elation—her answer had caused. It wasn’t much, he sternly reminded himself. Just a chance. One chance. Guthrie had given him a hundred, his mother a thousand more, and he’d screwed up every single one of them. Odds were better than even that he’d screw up this one, too, and then he’d be in pretty sorry shape, because this wasn’t just another chance.

  It was his last chance.

  That thought chased away the last of his elation.

  Turning away from the door, he found himself facing the crib, filling half the hallway. “I’m going to move the crib into the dining room,” he called, “unless you want it someplace else.”

  “That’ll be fine.”

  He carried the pieces into the next room down the hall, a room as old-fashioned and drab as the rest of the house. The furniture was good—a matching table, chairs and sideboard of oak—but between its size and the heavy drapes that blocked every ray of light at the windows, the room appeared cramped and overwhelmed even though, in reality, it wasn’t. It was easy to imagine the countless unpleasant meals the Prescotts had shared in this room, with Grace hoping to go unnoticed in her chair, her mother dreaming of escape at her place, and her father ruling with an iron fist from the head of the table. Old Jed seemed the sort who wouldn’t tolerate idle conversation at the dinner table. Life with him must have been unbearably oppressive for Grace.