by Brenda Novak
“I think we were both tired,” Macy hedged, smoothing the fabric of her robe so she wouldn’t have to look June in the eye.
“And with what you’re going through, it’s no wonder.”
Macy was searching for a polite response when keys jingled in the lock and the front door swung open to reveal a cross-looking Thad.
“What are you doing here?” Macy asked, standing. “I thought—”
He scowled. “My mother reminded me that my place is here with you. It took me until I opened the door to my empty house to realize that she’s right.”
Macy wasn’t sure how to take his words. What did he mean, his place was with her? Instinctively, her hand went to her belly. The baby, of course. She’d never seen a man so dedicated to one goal.
“I told him the only way to keep a marriage intact is to put things right before going to sleep,” June added, beaming now that she felt her son was finally behaving himself. “Always kiss and make up. That’s what I say. And we’ll get out of your way and let you do just that, but first I wanted to bring you a little something I had made.” She extended the gift bag to Macy, and Macy took it, wondering at its slight weight.
“What’s this for?” she asked. “My birthday isn’t for six months yet.”
“It’s just a little surprise I thought you’d like.”
Curious, Macy dug through the tissue paper and pulled June’s gift out into the light. Her stomach did a little flip when she realized it was a picture of Thad and Haley, smiling, cheek to cheek, encased in a piece of clear plastic that was cut around their two shapes and made to stand on its own. She loved it, knew, despite whatever happened with her and Thad, she’d treasure it always.
“Thank you,” she murmured softly. “It’s wonderful.” She glanced up at Thad and saw his scowl darken and wondered if he’d come back to appease his mother, or for some other reason. The look on his face certainly indicated that he wasn’t entirely happy about being where he was.
“We saw them at the mall and thought it was a perfect way to enjoy a good picture,” June was saying as she and Sam stood to go. “You can set it out wherever you want it, on a shelf or table, so you can see it all the time.”
Macy knew she’d need no reminder of Thad. If Haley survived the operation, she’d owe her daughter’s life to him.
“Thank you,” she repeated. “It was very thoughtful of you.”
June hugged her again. “We’re happy you’re part of the family,” she said simply, and she and Sam left.
Part of the family. Macy stood at the door, closing her eyes and listening to the sudden silence. She hated feeling like a fraud, hated knowing that Thad’s parents were lavishing love on her under false pretenses. Yet a small part of her desperately wanted to believe that the love was real, that they would be part of her life forever.
God, what was she going to do when it all unraveled?
* * *
FROM WHERE HE STOOD across the room, Thad watched Macy at the door and frowned at her bent head. He shouldn’t have come back. After he’d spoken to his mother in the car, he’d decided that he really shouldn’t leave Macy alone with his parents. Without him, the true nature of their relationship would come pouring out of Macy in a matter of minutes, he’d told himself, as it nearly had at the hospital. But deep down, he knew it was only an excuse to do what he wanted to do in the first place.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I really like your parents,” she said. “I like your whole family.”
“They like you, too. At first I wondered how well they’d accept you, considering all the surprises we’ve dropped on them, but they seem to like you just as much as—” He caught himself before Valerie’s name slipped out, wondering at how easily it had come to his lips. “Never mind.”
Macy turned and gazed at him with those unique, mesmerizing eyes. The delicate structure of her face, full of the classic beauty he’d admired from the start, was clearly visible in the halo of the lamp not far from her. “You can talk about her, you know,” she said. “I’ve wondered why you rarely do. Obviously she’s in your thoughts.”
He shrugged. “We had a good marriage, but there’s no need to bore you with the details.” Details that used to be painful for him. But it seemed to be getting easier to think about Valerie, which meant he could talk about her, too. Only, he didn’t want to discuss her with Macy.
Macy moved to the chair by the window and sat down, and Thad tried to ignore what the sight of her bare legs did to him. Was she naked under that silky robe? He felt his body respond instantly to that thought, and sat down himself, to hide his arousal and his surprise that he could react in such a way with thoughts of Valerie still lingering in his mind. Things were definitely changing, he realized, but he wasn’t sure they were changing for the better. He felt guilty, which was something he hadn’t experienced this strongly for a long time, and didn’t particularly like.
“I’m sorry that you miss her so terribly,” she said.
He ran a hand through his hair, telling himself not to be distracted anymore by the smooth, golden skin on her legs, not to imagine them wrapped around him. “Life doesn’t always turn out the way we plan. No one knows that better than you.”
“I guess pain is sometimes the price of loving so hard. But eventually, you have to let go of the side of the pool, so to speak.”
Thad had never looked at love that way, but Macy was right. He’d always thought it was loyalty that kept him from letting go of Valerie, but maybe he was just hanging on to the edge of the pool. Maybe he was afraid to love again, to open himself up to the possibility of feeling such incredible loss a second time. If so, it made sense that he’d shy away from Macy. She and Haley weren’t a very good gamble, not with Haley so ill. “What about you? Do you miss being married?” he asked her.
She flashed him her diamond. “Why would I? I am married, remember?”
He raised his eyebrows. “Take it from me, marriage is a lot more than we’re making it.”
A sad smile curved her lips. “Too bad Richard and I weren’t a very good example of that.” Bending, she picked up the picture Thad’s mother had given her and stood. “I’m going to turn in. Feel free to use the guest room, if you like.”
Thad watched her cross in front of him, hating the thought of letting her slip away and wishing there was something he could say to keep her, when she paused on her own. She studied the picture in her hands, arranged it on the table closest to her, then glanced back.
“Or you can sleep with me, if you still want to,” she added in a rush, and hurried down the hall.
* * *
MACY SAT on the edge of her bed without moving, listening for any sound of Thad’s movements. He hadn’t left the living room yet. Was he going to take her up on her offer?
Was she out of her mind for making it?
Yes! Surely she’d thrown caution to the wind. She’d laid all her cards on the table and now felt more vulnerable than she’d ever felt in her life. Would he reject her the way she’d rejected him? Would he want to talk first, make some adjustments to their little agreement? Or would he come in and make love to her the way she wanted him to, with passion and abandon and complete absorption?
It was difficult to tell. Ever since he’d returned to the house, he seemed tense, almost angry. At her? Or himself? What was going on in his mind?
A soft knock and Thad’s voice, calling her name, brought Macy’s heart into her throat. She jumped to her feet, glanced frantically at her closet, wondering if she should put on something more appealing than her summer robe, then decided it was too late. Crossing to the door, she opened it a crack.
“Are you going to let me in?” he asked when she didn’t open it all the way. He sounded hopeful, unsure. “Or have you changed your mind?”
Macy hadn’t changed her mind. She hadn’t made it up to begin with. She was living minute to minute. “I was thinking about changing into something you might like better.”
His gaze raked h
er from head to foot, his eyes full of appreciation, his jaw rigid with control. “I like you just the way you are.”
Macy felt something flutter in her chest at the apparent need in his voice. She stepped back, opening the door wider, and he entered her room only a fraction of a second before his hands slipped inside her robe and closed around the bare skin of her waist. He sucked in a long breath and closed his eyes, then started running his fingers over the plane of her stomach, the valley of her spine, and finally, her breasts.
Bending her slightly back, over one arm, Thad pressed kisses up the column of her throat to her ear and across her cheek. “You’re so sweet, Macy, so perfect.”
Macy felt her body go boneless at the feel of him pressed against her, his breath rasping softly in her ear. Finally his mouth touched hers, lightly at first, gently, then his kiss went deep as he parted her lips and tasted her for the first time.
If not for Thad’s arms around her, Macy feared her legs would give way completely. Never had she been kissed so expertly, so hungrily, so sincerely. It was enough to make the room shift and swirl.
She ran her hands over the hard ridges of his chest and back and began to tug at his shirttail. He helped her remove his shirt, then took her back in his arms. Macy gloried in the smooth feel of his skin and the clean, masculine scent of him as she delved into the thickness of his hair, letting the short, silky locks slide through her fingers.
“You have a wicked kiss,” she whispered.
“I hope I’ve got more than that to interest you,” he growled low in his throat, and the promise in his words made something clutch below Macy’s stomach. He tightened his grip on her, letting her feel his arousal. Then his hands began moving again, exploring, as his tongue slid against hers.
Macy had lived for this moment. That was all there was to it. She was going to bear Thad’s child. Whether they were in love when they’d married, he was her husband, and she was in love with him now. Certainly she could welcome him into her bed.
“Let me see you,” he said, tugging on her robe.
Macy tensed, worried, suddenly, that Thad would not find her beautiful. But her moment of insecurity vanished when her robe fell away and Thad stood back to admire her. As his gaze scanned her body, a sensual smile curled his lips. “You’re incredible, Macy,” he whispered, his voice hoarse. Raising a palm to cup one breast, he bowed his head to lick the tip of the sensitive nipple, causing the muscles below Macy’s belly to clutch again.
“You’re everything a man could want,” he murmured, suckling one breast while teasing the other.
She lifted his chin and kissed him again. She could feel his heart pounding in his chest, keeping time with her own. His spiraling excitement sent hers even higher. Cupping her bottom, he angled her hips into his own in a symbolic action that made Macy’s breath catch.
“I want to feel you inside me,” she gasped, wondering if he knew he was tying the very core of her into a tight knot only he could unravel.
“Tell me that again,” he breathed before his mouth closed over her other breast. “Tell me it again and again, and I’ll make sure you’re as pregnant as I hope you are.”
Macy wanted him physically, but there was another dimension to her pleasure that was humming through every cell of her body, something she could no longer contain. “I love you,” she whispered.
Suddenly he went still, except for his chest, which heaved in and out with his breathing. After a moment he stepped away, ran a hand through his tousled hair and picked up her robe, then belatedly tried to drape it back around her. “I’m sorry,” he said, obviously shaken. “I shouldn’t have let that happen. I know better.”
Rubber-limbed, Macy struggled to rein in her raging hormones long enough to tie the belt to her robe. She wanted to act as though it was nothing, that she wasn’t shaken to her very center, but she had no emotional strength or artifice left.
“I think we should talk,” he said at last. “I’ll be in the living room. Come out when…when you’re ready.”
Mortified by his unexpected and complete withdrawal, Macy slumped onto the bed, her face burning with embarrassment. She’d offered him her heart, her body, her future on a silver platter, and he’d turned her away. All because of three little words.
Tears stung Macy’s eyes, but she pressed her fists against the sockets to block them. She wouldn’t cry, dammit. She wouldn’t cry over a man she already knew was still in love with his dead wife. She’d been a fool to risk what she had.
“Damn you,” she whispered, but she wasn’t sure if she was cursing Valerie, Thad or herself.
“Macy? Are you coming?” Thad stood just outside the partly opened door, but he advanced no farther.
“Can you give me a minute?” she asked, trying to keep the wobble out of her voice. “That kind of rejection packs a pretty big punch.”
He hesitated for a minute, then, “I didn’t reject you, Macy. I just…I just can’t accept your terms for intimacy. And I know you wouldn’t be happy with mine.”
“So what do we have to talk about?” she asked dully.
“I want you to know how much I wish things could be different. I want you to know I never meant to take advantage of you or hurt you or…I…” Words seemed to fail him.
She sighed. “I know, Thad. You don’t love me. Just go home to your empty house and your memories, okay?”
He stood there without speaking for a long moment. “Is that it, then?”
“I don’t know what more to say. Are you worried about what our families will think?”
“I hadn’t gotten that far.”
“Well, when you get there, know this: the game is over. I can’t pretend anymore.”
“So you want to tell everyone we’re divorcing?”
“I guess.”
“What about Haley?”
“I’ll explain to her we’re all going to be friends, that you’ll come see her sometimes. Your visits will be infrequent and get more infrequent until she forgets you.” At least I hope she forgets you. God knows I never will.
“And the baby? If you’re pregnant, I mean…”
Macy thought she heard tears in his voice but steeled herself against them. “I’ll call you when it’s born,” she said, unable to think beyond that moment. The desire had fled and now she felt—what? Nothing. Numb.
He didn’t say anything. He stared at her, a world of pain and confusion in his eyes. Then, after a moment, he left.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
HE’D KNOWN BETTER, dammit! When he’d spoken to his mother after he’d dropped Macy off, he’d known better than to return to her house. But he’d ignored his better judgment and gone back, and things had quickly gotten out of control, just as he’d known they would.
What the hell was wrong with him, anyway? Thad wondered. He used to believe himself a decent man. But that was when he was a loving husband, a father-to-be, proudly working and caring for his little family. Now he was just a lonely widower taking advantage of an even lonelier divorcée with a dying kid.
Haley. Thad’s heart twisted at the thought of losing her. She called him Daddy and held her spindly arms out for him every time he crossed the threshold to her room, smiling like he was Santa Claus. A man would have to be made of stone not to love her instantly. Yet he’d tried to bail out, at least emotionally, several times. But it hadn’t worked, and now it was too late. If she didn’t survive her cancer, he was going to hurt, just as he had when Valerie and their son died. There was no avoiding it.
But he could avoid hurting Macy again, he decided, growing more and more resolute. If only he could remember, especially when he was around her, that to all intents and purposes, he was still devoted to Valerie. Macy was the only woman who could make him forget that, but the forgetting could never last long enough to let their marriage work. Which was the crux of the problem, wasn’t it?
Good thing he’d left her house tonight before it was too late. Too bad he hadn’t left even earlier. The more physi
cal he let their relationship become, the more damage his leaving would cause. He’d see the next nine months through by respecting Macy’s directive to keep his distance, and soon she’d realize that her love for him wasn’t what she thought it was.
He must have been crazy to think he could watch her grow big with his child, take her to Lamaze classes and share in the birth. Kevin was right. All of that sucked him in too deep. If Macy was pregnant, the only way out was to take charge of the baby after she delivered—and to stay as far away from her as possible until then.
There was just one thing he had to do first. He had to see her through Haley’s operation Tuesday morning. He couldn’t leave her to face that on her own.
* * *
“YOU LOOK TIRED. Haven’t you been sleeping?” Macy’s mother asked.
Macy rubbed her eyes and pretended great interest in the last chapter of The Science of Medicine. She hadn’t slept. She’d lain awake all night, calling Thad every name in the book and wondering how she could have been foolish enough to fall in love with a man who’d hired her to have his baby. And then she’d gotten up early to pick her mother up at the airport. Edna had flown in a day early to surprise the newlyweds, only to find they’d already broken up.
“I asked you if you’re sleeping, Macy.”
“Mm-hmm,” Macy murmured, pushing her glasses farther up her nose.
“Come on, honey, he’s not worth it,” she said. “Don’t do this to yourself. You know what I’ve always said about men. Maybe now you’ll believe me.”
“He’s just in love with someone else. That doesn’t make him a creep.” Macy glanced at Haley to make sure she was as fully engrossed in her battery-operated keyboard as she sounded. “And I don’t like you doing your male-bashing thing in front of Haley. She might meet Prince Charming someday. I don’t want her to shoot him down before she gives him a chance.”
“She’d be wise to shoot and ask questions later.”
“Mom!”
“Oh, all right.” Her eyes narrowed and dropped to Macy’s stomach. “June told me you’re pregnant already. Is that true?”