by Nora Roberts
The smile went away and, she thought as she watched his eyes, so did he.
"Middle of the night, she was about four months along, she started bleeding, bad. She was in pain and scared. We were both so scared. I got her to the hospital, but it was already pretty much over by then. We lost the baby."
"I'm sorry." She rose again, but didn't touch him. "I'm so sorry, Michael. There's nothing more painful than losing a child."
"No, there's nothing. The doctors said she was young and healthy and we could try again in a little while. We pretended we would. Tried to keep it together. But we started fighting, sniping at each other. I'd slam out, leave her alone. She'd slam out, leave me alone. One night I came home and she was waiting for me. She'd figured it out before I had. She was a smart woman. We'd stopped being friends. All we'd had to keep us married was the baby, and the baby was gone. Now we were stuck, and we didn't have to be stuck. She was right. So we decided to start being friends again and stop being married. End of story."
She touched him now, took his face in her hands, felt the tension. "There's nothing I can say to ease that kind of grief, the kind you carry with you forever, no matter what."
He shut his eyes, let his brow rest on hers. "I wanted the baby."
"I know." She eased her arms around him. "You loved it already. I understand. I'm sorry, Michael." Gently, she stroked his back. "I'm sorry I made you tell me."
"It was almost ten years ago. It's done." He drew back, then swore at the tears on her cheek. "Don't do that. Hell, you should have asked me something else." Uneasy, he brushed the tears away. "Like about how I used to stunt double for Mel Gibson."
She sniffled, straggled to give him the smile he wanted. "Did you? Really?"
"You women always go for Mel. Maybe you should come down to Hollywood with me. I could introduce you." He twined a blond curl around his finger. "Me and Max, we have to go down tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?" She shook her head. "You're going to L.A.? You didn't mention it."
"Just got a call Saturday." With a shrug, he sat down to tug on his boots. "Action western with your pal Mel. He wants me and Max. So we got to do some meetings, some test shots. See if we can give them what they're looking for."
"That's wonderful. I'd think you'd be more excited."
"It's a job. I don't suppose you're interested in tagging along."
"I'd love to, but I can't leave the girls, and work. How—" How long will you be gone? She bit the question back. "They'll be so impressed when I tell them."
"I've got a guy coming in for a few days to see to the stock while I'm gone. I should be back by Friday."
"Oh." Only a few days. She smiled again. "If you are, I have this opening I have to go to on Friday night. Would you like to go?"
"An opening of what?"
"It's an exhibit at the art gallery. Expressionists."
To his credit, he didn't snort. "You want me to go look at paintings and make all sorts of idiotic comments on brushstrokes and underlying meanings." His cocked his head. "Do I look like a guy who's going to stand around sipping espresso and talking about the use of color on canvas?"
"No." He was sitting on a stump, bare to the waist, with faint purpling braises on his ribs. His hair was wild and tousled. "No, you don't."
No more, he thought, than she looked like a woman who would toss aside responsibility and ran off to L.A. with her lover for a week.
What the hell is she doing with me? he wondered as he rose. And to me? If this goes on much longer, what will we do to each other?
"We'd better get back." He shrugged into his shirt. "You don't want to keep Seraphina waiting."
"Michael." She laid a hand on his chest. "I'll miss you."
"Good." He lifted her into the saddle.
Chapter Nineteen
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He wasn't gone a few days, but nearly two weeks. Laura reminded herself every night that he was under no obligation to call her, to tell her what was delaying him. Or just so that she could hear his voice.
She reminded herself that they had an adult relationship in which each party was free to come and go as he or she pleased. It was because she'd never had a relationship like it before, she told herself, that she was fretting. Worrying. Feeling hurt.
She certainly had plenty to keep her busy. And she had learned the hard way never to allow a man to be responsible for providing her with a fulfilling life. That was her job, one she intended never to neglect again.
With her work, her children, her family and friends, she had a full, contented life. Perhaps she wanted to share it with Michael and to be a part of his life, but she wasn't a lovestruck teenager who sat by the phone hour by hour waiting for it to ring.
Though she did try to will it to ring a time or two.
At the moment, though, she wasn't worried about the phone. She had other problems on her hands. Ali's spring dance recital would begin in less than two hours. Not only was no one ready but one of the kittens had coughed up a hairball in the middle of Kayla's bed, causing much dismay and more female disgust—and one of the barn cats had gone exploring, seducing Bongo into giving mad chase through the herb garden, which resulted in bad news for the chamomile and tansy and earned Bongo a bloody nose.
Nothing Laura did could lure the insulted, hissing cat down from the cypress tree where he had taken shelter. And Bongo continued to whimper pitifully under her bed.
Despite all of that, her biggest problem was Ali herself. The girl was moody, uncooperative, and whiny. Her hair was terrible, she claimed. Her stomach was upset. She didn't want to go to the recital. She hated recitals. She hated everything.
Her patience strained, Laura tried one more time to style Ali's hair to the child's specifications.
"Honey, if you're nervous about tonight, it's all right. You'll be wonderful. You always are."
"I'm not nervous." Ali pouted into the mirror. "I never get nervous before I dance. I just don't want to go."
"People are depending on you—your instructors, the other girls in your troupe. The family. You know how excited Grandma and Granddad were when they left for Uncle Josh's. Everyone's looking forward to tonight."
"I can't depend on anybody, can I? I have to do what I say I'll do, but nobody else does."
Around the circuit again, Laura thought. "I'm sorry you're disappointed your father won't be there. He's—"
"I don't care about him." In a bad-tempered move, Ali shrugged and scooted out from under her mother's hands. "He never comes anyway. It doesn't matter."
"Then what's the problem?"
"Nothing. I'll go. I'll do it because I keep my promises. My hair looks much better now," she said with dignity. "Thank you."
"Honey, if you'd—"
"I have to finish getting dressed." She pressed her lips together, a small girl, pretty in her tights and ballet skirt. "It's not your fault, Mama. I didn't mean it to sound that way. I'm not angry with you."
"Then what—
"Mama!" Kayla's wail bounced down the hallway. "I can't find my red shoes. I want to wear my red ones."
"You can go help her," Ali said and tried to smile. "I'll be downstairs in a minute. Thanks for doing my hair over."
"It's all right." Because she could see the sorrow haunting Ali's eyes, she leaned down and kissed her on both cheeks. "I love playing with your hair. And I suppose if you wanted to put just a little of that lip gloss on, it would be all right."
"You mean before we go, not just for onstage?"
"Just for tonight." Laura tapped her fingers against Ali's lips. "You're not growing up on me any faster than I can help it."
"Maaamaaa, my shoes."
"And neither is she," Laura murmured. "I'm coming. Downstairs, Ali, ten minutes tops."
She found the shoes. Who would have expected to find them right there on the shoe shelf in the closet? After pulling a brush through her own hair, Laura herded her girls toward the door.
"Come on, troops, get a move on. Thi
s train leaves in five minutes. I'll get it, Annie," she called out when the doorbell rang. "Could you check on Bongo before you leave? He's under my bed and—"
She broke off as she pulled the door open and found Michael standing on the other side.
"Michael! You're home."
"It looks that way."
If she had leapt into his arms, right there in her own home, there in front of her children, he doubted he could have stuck with the decision he'd made. But she didn't. She only smiled at him, held out a hand.
It was Kayla who leapt. "Did you bring Max back?" With the simplicity of childhood, she hugged his waist and lifted her mouth for a kiss. "Did he come home too?"
"Sure. Max and I travel together. Where'd you get the red shoes, kid? Pretty snappy."
"Mama bought them. They're my favorites."
"You came."
Michael halted his admiring study of Kayla's red shoes and lifted his gaze to Ali's face. She looked, he thought, so much like her mother just then, with that stunned wonder on her face and the emotion swimming in her eyes.
"I told you I would."
"I thought you'd forgotten. I thought you were too busy."
"Forget an invitation from a beautiful ballerina to watch her dance?" He shook his head as he straightened. "Boy, that wouldn't say much about my memory." Head cocked, he held out the bouquet of pink baby roses. "We do have a date, right? You didn't go call some other guy to take my place?"
"No. Are these for me?" Mouth open in a litle O of confused delight, she stared at the roses. "For me?"
"Who else?"
"For me." She breathed it, taking the flowers in her hands. "Thank you. Mama, Michael brought me flowers."
"I see." And her eyes stung a bit. "They're lovely."
"We'll use the Waterford." Annie stood a few steps back in the hall, her hands folded, her eyes on Michael's face. "When a girl receives her first flowers from a man, they should be treated as something very special."
"I want to put them in the vase myself."
"And so you should. It will only take a moment, Miss Laura."
"Yes, all right. Thank you, Annie."
"I'll help." Kayla raced down the hall. "Let me smell them, AH."
"Her first flowers," Laura murmured.
"Man, why do females always get wet-eyed over a bunch of posies?''
Which reminded him that he'd never given Laura flowers. Never real ones, just something plucked carelessly out of the ground. He'd never thought of it. Had never, he realized, given her anything but good, hot sex.
"Flowers are symbolic." And she remembered the pretty little wildflowers he'd given her. So sweet, so simple. So right.
"Everything is to women."
"You could be right." She turned back, beaming at him. "It was so thoughtful of you to bring them. And to come. I didn't realize she'd asked you. Had no idea she was counting on it."
"She asked me a couple of weeks ago." He dipped his hands in his pockets. Laura hadn't asked him, he remembered. Hadn't mentioned it. "I've managed to avoid ballet for thirty-four years. This ought to be an experience."
"I think you'll find it painless." She started toward him now, and he took his hand out of his pocket to take hers before she could touch him.
"So how are you?" he asked.
"Fine." Was he just tired, she wondered, or was this distance she felt? "Did things go well in L.A.?"
"Yeah, it went. They'll start shooting in about three weeks. We'll get a couple months' work out of it. Maybe more."
"You'll stay in L.A. during the filming," she said slowly as a weight sank in her stomach.
He shrugged. It wasn't the time to get into all of this, and he was spared when Ali marched back down the hall, bearing her vase of baby roses like a trophy.
"Don't they look beautiful, Mama? Annie's going to put them in my room."
"They're perfect. We really need to go. Performers have to be there thirty minutes before curtain."
"I'll take those now, sweetheart." Annie slipped the vase from Ali's hand. "And I'll be there to see you dance." She inclined her head toward Michael in what, from anyone else, he would have taken as a friendly smile. "We all will."
It wasn't impossible to put everything out of his mind for a couple of hours. The kid was so cute. All of them were. But it was hard to sit beside Laura, in the middle of all those people—the families, the partners, the couples—and not be miserable.
But he'd had time, and he'd had the distance to allow himself to take a good hard look at what was going on. And what was happening to him. He'd fallen for her, all the way.
It would never work.
He'd seen himself in the dingy little bar in south L.A., drinking beer and swapping stories with wranglers. Going back to his hotel room after a long day, sweaty, dirty, smelling of horse. And he'd seen himself growing up in a house that had breathed neglect and violence and tension.
He'd seen himself for what he was. A man who had chased all the wrong things most of his life and had found plenty of them. A cliff rat, son of a waitress and a wastrel, who would in time and with effort be able to make a decent living.
And he'd seen Laura, the Templeton heiress, sitting in her plush country club drinking tea, dressed in her tidy suit, running a fancy boutique, strolling through a grand hotel that she owned.
He didn't doubt that he'd given her something. Or that under different circumstances, they could give each other more. But it would be only a matter of time before the haze of lust cleared from her eyes and she saw what she was doing. Having an affair with a horse trainer.
They were both better off that he'd seen it first. Knowing her, he doubted she would be able to break it off clean. She was too soft, too kind, to walk without guilt. Worse, she might continue the relationship long after she'd realized her mistake because of that sterling sense of obligation.
He was no good for her. He knew it. The people who knew both of them understood it. Eventually she would know it. And it would kill him.
Maybe if he hadn't run into that old buddy of his in L.A., the old merchant marine stevedore he'd shipped with, drunk with, raised hell with. One of the men who had gone to war with him for profit after the sea lost its lure.
But they had run into each other. And the stories were rehashed, the memories swam back. And for one harsh, illuminating moment, he had looked into the surly, bitter, used-up face of the man across from him. And had seen himself.
Michael Fury was a man he never wanted to touch Laura, a man he never wanted her to know. If such a man tried to touch her, to know her, she would cringe in shock.
Before either of them had to cope with that, he would do her a favor and slip out of her life.
As AH twirled on stage, Laura laid a hand over his and squeezed. And broke his heart.
"Don't they look wonderful?" Margo murmured.
Beside her, Josh tapped his foot absently to the music and continued to watch his niece. "They're all great, but Ali's the best."
"Naturally." She chuckled a little, leaned closer to his ear. "But I was talking about Laura and Michael."
"Hmm?" Distracted, he shifted and glanced at the couple one row in front of them. "Laura and Michael what?"
"They're wonderful together."
"Yeah, I guess…" He trailed off, stunned as the meaning seeped in. "What do you mean'together'?"
"Ssh." She shushed him, fighting back another laugh. "Together, together. What, are you blind?"
His throat went dry and tight. "They're not seeing each other. They're not dating."
"Dating." She had to clamp a hand over her mouth. "For God's sake, Josh, they've been sleeping together for weeks. How could you not know?"
"Sleeping—" Shock, rage, disbelief all slammed together against the words. "How the hell do you know that?"
"Because Laura told me," she hissed into his ear. "And because, if she hadn't, I have eyes in my head. Ssh," she ordered when he opened his mouth. "You're annoying people. And here's Ali's sol
o."
He shut his mouth, but not his mind. He had a great deal to think about. And as far as he was concerned, his old pal Michael Fury had a great deal to answer for.
There'd been nothing he could do about it that night but go home and grill his wife. Then argue with her over the situation. Josh put her attitude down to female hormones. Women found Michael romantic—which had always been his good luck and was the crux of the current problem.
Josh found him in the paddock, working a yearling on the lounge line. "I need to talk to you, Fury."
Michael recognized the tone. Something was stuck in Josh's craw. He wasn't in the mood for it, not when he was still thinking about the baffled hurt on Laura's face the night before when he'd given her a quick pat on the head and told her he was beat.
In other words, I'm going to bed, sugar, and you're not invited.
Still, he released the yearling and walked to the fence where Josh waited. "So talk."
"Are you sleeping with my sister?"
Ah, well, the time had come. "We don't sleep much," Michael said easily and braced when Josh's hand whipped out and gripped his shirt. "Watch it, Harvard."
"What the fuck do you think you're doing? Who the hell do you think you are? I asked her to rent this place to you. Do you a favor, and you just jump right in."
"I didn't jump alone." Damned if he'd take the rap for that. "She's a big girl, Josh. I didn't lure her into the stables promising her candy. I didn't force her."
The idea of it curdled his blood, then shamed him. "You wouldn't have to," he shot back. "You forget who you're talking to. I know you, Mick. 1 know your style. Christ, we cruised together often enough."
"Yeah, we did." Eyes level, Michael pried Josh's fingers off his shirt. "But that was all right, the two of us going out sniffing out babes."
"This is my sister."
"I know who she is."
"If you knew, if you had any idea what she's been through the past few years, how easily bruised she is, you'd stay the hell away from her. The women you played with always knew the rules, went in for the game. That's not Laura."
"And because she's your sister, because she's a Templeton, she's not entitled to play." Bitterness rose like bile. "Certainly not with me."