Just like Rose did.
“How long until you find out the DNA results?”
“I’m not sure. A week or two. The Comfort Cove DNA lab is small so they’re sending it to Boston, but they take current cases first.”
She had no real idea how long it would take.
“That’s crap. To make you wait.”
She shrugged, and started to rock slowly and steadily. “I’ve been waiting twenty-five years. I’d rather they use their resources to try and prevent current crimes first.”
“It’s going to be hard. Knowing.”
“If this guy’s the one, yeah.”
“As hard as the not knowing is, there’s comfort in the chance she’ll show up someday.”
Hugging her quilt, Emma tilted her head and smiled. “You know someone who’s gone through this?”
“Hell, no!” His smile was empathetic. “Just seems obvious—the knowing and not knowing would both be hard.…”
“You know what’s crazy?” she asked. “Tonight while I was sitting there, I realized that somewhere along the way, not knowing became safe. I know I can deal with not knowing. I know how to deal with it.”
“Why is that crazy?”
“Because from the time I was four years old, the main priority in our lives has been to find Claire. At whatever cost.”
“Your reaction doesn’t make you crazy.” Chris’s gaze was warm, but there was no pity in it. “It makes you normal. Change is hard,” he said, “even when it’s good change. It’s normal to resist.”
Emma offered him a glass of tea. He accepted. And somehow an hour passed as she told Chris about Cal Whittier, too.
But he still hadn’t told her anything about himself.
“What do you do for a living?” he asked, cradling his nearly empty glass of tea in his hands.
“I teach American History.”
He quirked one eyebrow. “Really? What level?”
“High school. All four grades.”
“I quit school before I graduated.” His admission surprised her. He didn’t seem the type to have quit school.
“Where did you learn to play the piano?”
“Home. My grandmother had a piano. I’m self-taught. I play by ear.” He had enormous room for ego. Yet he spoke as though he’d just told her he’d taught himself to make grilled cheese.
She complimented him on his talent.
And then there was silence.
It was after eleven and she had to teach in the morning.
“You said you had something to talk to me about.” A brush-off wouldn’t be fun, but if it was coming, she might as well get it over with.
In fact a brush-off would be good. It would be easier than having to tell her piano man there was no way she could get involved with a lobsterman. Ever.
“I have a question to ask.” His hesitance set her heart racing again.
He was going to ask her out.
He couldn’t.
She’d have to tell him no.
She didn’t want to. She wanted to be loved by a man who loved her so much that that love changed him.
Her journal was in the drawer less than three feet away from Chris. He didn’t need to be changed. He was perfect as he was.
Just not for her.
He was a man of the sea.
She had to be brave.
“You said you had a question to ask?”
“Did I get you pregnant?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“WHAT?”
A little taken aback by Emma’s reaction, Chris repeated his question. “I asked you if you’re pregnant.”
“No! Of course I’m not!”
Her conviction was good, but his gut wasn’t satisfied.
“You’re on the pill, then?”
“No.”
“Have you had a period?”
Emma stared at him openmouthed, and then said, “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
“I disagree. Considering the circumstances, it’s my business as much as it is yours.” He’d apologize for his harshness later. Maybe. Right now they had to get this done.
“The circumstances?”
Damn him for remembering what those arms, currently strangling that blanket, had felt like wrapped around his neck. His waist. His legs.
Damn him.
“We had sex two weeks and three days ago. I ejaculated inside of you. Twice.”
And, Lord help him, he wanted to be inside her again. Right then. Right there.
He watched the expressions chase themselves across her face. Horror. Fear. Discomfort. And something else. Something that reminded him of that night at Citadel’s when her eyes had met his across the room.
What in the hell was the matter with him?
He was petrified of letting this woman ruin his life and he wanted her again, too.
“You wore a condom.” Her voice broke on the last word.
“They’re only good for one go.”
Watching Emma suck in her lower lip, as though she was biting it from the inside, Chris felt her pain. He’d been drunk and high on her, and an absolute ass.
Emma stood, leaving the chair rocking at full force. “I am not pregnant. Rest assured I am absolutely certain of that fact.” Standing in the archway, her back to the foyer, she watched him, as though waiting for him to leave.
“You’ve had a period, then?”
He had to hand it to her, she didn’t lower her gaze. She flinched, but she didn’t look away.
“No.”
“So you don’t know for certain that you aren’t pregnant.”
“I do know.”
“How?”
“Because I know my body. I’d know if I was pregnant. There’d be…changes.”
“When were you due?” His mom and dad might have up and died on him, but they’d taught him a thing or two besides how to fish before they left him. Such as how to clean the toilet bowl. Wash darks with darks and lights with lights. Make an omelet. And the basics of a woman’s cycle.
“I’m irregular.”
Not the free pass he was looking for.
“There’s only one other option, then.”
“What?”
“You have to take a pregnancy test.”
“I—”
“We can go right now and pick one up. They’re only a few bucks and available in any all-night drugstore. You pee on a strip and in a few minutes we’ll know.”
She took a big breath, but he didn’t get to hear what she’d been about to say because she started to choke. Tears came to her eyes.
Chris went to the kitchen, found a glass, filled it with water and carried it in to her.
He couldn’t be a father. He couldn’t go out on the ocean knowing that he was leaving behind someone whose life depended on him. And he couldn’t not go out on the ocean. He’d rather be dead. He’d tried to explain his feelings to Sara and the honesty had netted him a broken engagement.
By the time he returned to the living room, Emma had quieted and took the glass, swallowing half of the liquid without a word.
“I know what a pregnancy test is, Chris,” she said, sounding the calmest she had since he’d arrived.
He wanted to ask if she’d taken one before, but forced himself to stay focused on the present. Her past—her future—were none of his concern.
Until he confirmed that he was not about to be a daddy.
He stood and yanke
d his keys out of the front pocket of his jeans. “Then let’s go.”
She stood, too, but shook her head.
“I can’t accept a ‘no,’ Emma,” he said, trying to be firm, but starting to panic. Some men could fish five days a week and go home and be with their families. Some men could put family first. Chris’s father hadn’t been one of them. And neither was Chris.
His mother had suffered. Ultimately, everyone had suffered.
“I need to know if there are consequences from our night together.” He tried to speak calmly. “I know we’re talking about your body at the moment, but if we created…if you’re pregnant, then our lives are equally changed. I have to know.”
Her dark eyes took on that glow again, or the simmer or whatever the hell it was that they did that messed him up inside and made him do things that were completely out of character. Like reach for her hand. Bring it to his lips. Kiss the palm.
And meet her gaze. He stopped short of promising her he’d do whatever she wanted him to do. But only barely.
“Please,” he said.
Leaving her hand in his, she said, “I understand. And…you’re not being unfair. I just can’t do it tonight. Meeting Cal…taking in those ribbons…my mom… I just… I’m on emotional overload. I can’t take the tension of waiting for an answer tonight. I guess this doesn’t make any sense.” Her expression pleaded with him. “I know I’m not pregnant, so there shouldn’t be any tension, but—”
“How about tomorrow?” he asked. It was late. They were both tired. News sat better on rested souls. “I can pick up the test and meet you here around six.”
“Okay.”
He stepped closer and took her other hand. “Don’t cry.”
“I’m not going to.” But she was. He could see the moisture gathering in her eyes.
“I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“You didn’t. It’s not you. It’s just…everything is closing in on me. But I’m strong and I can handle it. I’m a survivor.”
Her chin trembled. And her gaze didn’t drop at all as tears spilled from her eyes and down her cheeks.
Just as openly as she’d given him her passion, she gave him raw emotion.
And Chris did what he had to do. He took her into his arms, sat down with her and held her.
She didn’t say a word. Eventually her breathing evened and Chris realized she’d fallen asleep. He thought about ways to put her down easily. To slide out from beneath her. He considered carrying her upstairs. It shouldn’t be too hard to find a bed to place her in up there.
Feeling more relaxed than he had in weeks, he ran through his options. He slid down to a more comfortable position while he decided what to do.
At some point, all those sleepless nights caught up with him.
* * *
EMMA WOKE UP slowly. She was usually an easy riser, a person who didn’t lollygag around in bed, who got right up, but today she didn’t want to give up the coziness of sleep.
Since when was sleep cozy for her?
A heart was beating beneath her cheek. Suddenly, she was wide-awake, listening to the even breathing of a man she’d slept with but never seen asleep.
Dawn was just creeping in through the living-room curtains, making it between five and six in the morning. She had to be in the shower by six-thirty. She had to take a pregnancy test less than twelve hours after that.
Weird how, lying there on the couch against the warmth of Chris’s chest, the idea didn’t seem so completely alarming. She really didn’t think she was pregnant. And imagining Chris with her, maybe even holding her hand, while they waited for the results that would reassure him, made the activity seem less like an ordeal and more of an inconvenience that she could handle.
When she was pretty certain she was out of time, she carefully disentangled herself from him, covered him with the quilt made from Claire’s clothes and quietly climbed the stairs.
Back in the living room half an hour later she wrote a note, telling Chris to lock up after himself, folded it as he’d folded the one he’d left for her in the hotel room and propped it on the table beside the couch.
She left the house with a smile on her face.
* * *
CHRIS GOT TO work late. Very late. If he hadn’t had to pull Trick’s traps, too, he might not have gone out at all. He hadn’t slept so many hours in a row since puberty.
Late to work meant late coming in. He’d hoped to finish installing the engine in his boat that night and be driving her by Wednesday—and he could have, if he hadn’t had to be all the way on the other side of Comfort Cove by six. He had no way of contacting Emma Sanderson.
She still hadn’t given him her cell-phone number.
Damn. He’d spent the night with her twice now, but he still didn’t know her number.
He’d hoped to have time to shower after work. He didn’t even get a chance to stop at home. Changing into an old, ripped pair of jeans and a gray T-shirt he had stored on the Son Catcher, he exchanged his deck shoes for flip-flops and jogged toward the truck.
The woman was messing up his life. He had to be done with her.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“RELAX, IT’S GOING to be fine.” Emma smiled at Chris in her office, across the hall from the bathroom where, the little test strip was processing.
“You’re obviously not opposed to having a family,” he said, frowning down at his flip-flops.
The man had nice toes. Well shaped. Perfectly sized for his feet. Tan.
“I hope to have a family someday. But only after I’m married to the man I want to spend the rest of my life with.”
She could not have the baby of a fisherman.
“How long has it been?”
Perched on a desk chair, she glanced at the large round watch on her wrist—a gift from the parents of her graduating students the previous year. “Two minutes. Three more to go.”
He leaned against the edge of her desk, his hands braced on either side of him. “I’m never going to marry,” he said. “It wouldn’t be right knowing that I can’t give a family the priority it deserves. I’m like my father—I belong on the water.”
She knew all about the lobstering life from Rose.
“How long have you been lobstering?”
“All my life. My father was out on the Son Catcher—that’s my boat—the day I was born.”
Any minute hope she’d harbored that he was just trying out the life, that he’d leave it someday, went out the window.
Their fathers had both been fishermen. And it sounded as if they’d both placed the sea above their own families. An omen.
“Do you fish year-round?”
“Yeah. Some states don’t allow it. Massachusetts does.”
“I hear it’s dangerous.”
He shrugged. “Living is dangerous. I know what I’m doing. And if it’s my time, it’s my time.”
Two minutes left.
With his head still bent, he glanced at her. “You ever been out on a fishing boat?”
“No.”
She’d never even been down to the docks until two days ago.
“It’s indescribable out there.” His voice took on a new note, filled with some of the same emotion she’d pulled from his music. “The vastness, the freedom, the quiet—it’s addictive. The solitude is hard for some people—I thrive on it. And the waves…every day it’s something new. Every day they ask me if I’m up to the challenge and I know
that the day I’m not is the day I die.”
“Do you live on your boat?”
“Not technically, no. It has a small galley. I spend the occasional night out on the water.”
“And the rest of the time?”
He shook his head. Glanced at her watch. “I live in a small place not far from the docks.”
She nodded. A minute and a half to go.
“Does your dad still fish with you?”
“My folks are both gone.” He looked up. “They passed away nearly ten years ago. In a freeway pile-up not fifteen minutes from here.”
“They were together?”
He nodded.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Me, too.”
The pause between them could have been awkward, but it wasn’t. She wanted to put her arms around him and hold him like he’d held her the night before.
“Do you have siblings?”
“No.” And then in the same breath, he said, “How much longer?”
“One minute.”
And as soon as he saw that the test was negative, he’d be gone from her life.
* * *
CHRIS FOLLOWED EMMA into her bathroom. He had to know he was okay.
He had to know that she was going to be fine, too. Unencumbered, as she sought answers regarding her sister.
Holding his breath, he waited as she picked up the strip from the edge of the sink.
She looked at it and didn’t say anything.
“Well?” He glanced over her shoulder, and had no idea what he was looking at. What the colors meant.
With the stick in one hand, Emma picked up the folded instructions.
That couldn’t be good.
“What is it?”
The sense of dread that descended on him weighed more than a full lobster trap coming up from the bottom of the ocean.
“It’s inconclusive,” she said, staring at the device.
“What does that mean?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You’re pregnant.”
“It’s not a positive result.”
“So, you’re not pregnant.”
“It’s not a negative result, either,” Emma said on her way back to the office. Placing the stick carefully on top of the instructions, she sat down at her desk, and called up an internet browser on her computer. While Chris’s life started to unravel, she typed in, “Pregnancy test inconclusive.”
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