He looked up and grinned at her. “Ready to beg?”
“Yes. Keep going.”
“That’s not what I meant. You’re supposed to beg for me to let you go, let you move.”
“I don’t want you to let me go. And I’m moving all I want.” It came out ragged and panting, barely in control. “I like this.” She’d never said anything like this before, so simply and frankly, and it felt wonderful to acknowledge her needs and desires this way, so she said it again. “I love this. I love your mouth there. I love…wanting this, knowing you’re going to take me over the edge.”
“Oh, you do?”
“I do. Don’t stop.”
He didn’t, not for hours. Or maybe it was weeks. Finally, she opened her arms to him and they slid together, fullness and heat, hardness and sweet, wet warmth.
Afterward, she didn’t want to let him go, and so he stayed inside her and on top of her until, after minutes, he finally told her, “Can’t believe you can actually breathe, Lib. I’m lying all over you.”
“Breathing isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. How about you? I’m lying all over you.”
“Oh, I’m breathing. But let me lie back and hold you now.”
“Mm.”
They slid apart. He stretched his arm across and she nestled her head in the crook of it, and they both fell asleep.
Scarlett woke at two in the morning, crying as if she’d had a bad dream. Libby went to her at once, without waking Brady. She found his T-shirt on the floor and put it on, aware at once of the scent of him that enveloped her. The sleeves of the shirt reached halfway down her arms, and the hem circled at her thighs.
Libby didn’t want to pick Scarlett up in case she cried more in the arms of someone who wasn’t Daddy, and became harder to settle. Instead, she leaned into the crib and stroked the little girl’s back, making soothing sounds in her throat.
Maybe Scarlett smelled the comforting aroma of Brady, the way Libby had, infused into his shirt. The bad dream seemed to fade, and sleep captured her again. Libby stood there for a moment, holding her breath in case Scarlett cried again, but, no, she seemed fine.
But where am I going to sleep now?
After the best lovemaking she’d ever experienced, it should be an easy choice. The hardwood floor of the hallway felt chilly underfoot, and Brady’s T-shirt covered her inadequately. His body and his bed would be warm beneath the thick comforter, while Libby’s own bed would be flat, unslept in and cold. She’d given away so much tonight, and felt vulnerable. It was like vertigo, and she yearned for a safe retreat. If she went to Brady’s bed and discovered that he didn’t want her…. Scary. Giving love and getting rejection was so scary. In some ways, it had been easier with Glenn, because their lovemaking had never had a lot of power for her. Her body had never tricked her into betraying the needs she’d admitted to in Brady’s bed tonight.
When she reached the doorway of Brady’s room and heard his rhythmic breathing, she continued along the hall.
Brady awoke at around four and realized that he was alone in the bed. It wasn’t the best time of night for a discovery like this.
For the first few months after Stacey’s death, Scarlett would waken at around this time every night, wanting to be fed. With his energy at its lowest ebb, he would stumble down to the kitchen to warm her bottle, stumble back upstairs and carry a now-screaming Scarlett into the bed with him while she drained the bottle.
She was usually asleep again before she finished it, so then he’d carry her back to her own bed, where she’d sleep through until he had to awaken her at six-thirty to start their day. In that two-hour interval, he would count himself lucky if he got back to sleep at all.
It would probably be the same tonight. This was always when his thoughts and his emotions took on their darkest aspect, torturing him with questions and regrets.
In his marriage, those questions and regrets had revolved around the emotional balance between himself and Stacy. Should he have been tougher on her about her persistent dishonesty? Should he have divorced her, way early on, when she admitted that she’d lied about her pregnancy to get him to the altar?
Tonight, Stacy seemed a long way in his past, and he thought about Libby instead. Why had she left his bed? He wanted her here, wanted to hold her, remind her with his touch about the perfection of what they’d just shared.
But at some point while he slept, she’d gone.
Tonight, it probably didn’t mean “I wish we hadn’t done this.” It probably just meant “I don’t want Colleen to wake up in the night and find I’m not there.” But he missed Libby, all the same. He wished she hadn’t gone, or that she’d at least half woken him with a kiss before she left.
As he’d anticipated, Scarlett awoke in the morning before he’d managed to get back to sleep.
“Do you remember we talked a week ago about traveling back?”
Libby was stirring oatmeal on the stove for the girls’ breakfast. Brady stood by the coffeemaker that sat on the bench-top, pouring black liquid into two mugs. He added milk, then handed Libby hers. He let his fingers touch her hand, and she suspected it was deliberate. His close lean and his low voice and his steady gaze were all deliberate, too. He was reminding her about how they’d felt.
“Traveling back from a kiss?” she asked.
“Yes, or from—”
“The other. Yes, I remember.”
“Is that what you’ve done, Libby?” His voice was even lower.
“No. You mean because I moved back into my bed?”
“Yes. I woke up at four, and you weren’t there.”
“I wasn’t traveling back. Sideways, maybe. I— You know…the girls…if they—”
“Of course, yeah. Next time, just give me a goodbye kiss.”
“Next time, I will.”
There would be a next time. They both knew that. They promised it to each other all through a perfect day spent together with the girls. They didn’t promise with words but with the way they looked and touched. And maybe the day was perfect because they kept promising it to each other. That night, Libby didn’t move from Brady’s bed until almost dawn.
Chapter Eight
Libby called the Toyland Children’s Center first thing Monday morning and told the manager that she would take the job.
She hadn’t told Brady about it, and she remembered what he’d said ten days ago about silence being a form of lying. She didn’t want to believe he was right. Silence was a protection. Was it wrong to try to protect herself? Against dependency on someone else? And against having decisions bulldozed out of her hands?
She’d started to understand, by this time, how ingrained was Brady’s sense of right and wrong, but he couldn’t know how it was for her, he couldn’t need silence as a protection the way she did. So she kept her decision about the job to herself, and made the call as soon as he’d left the house.
“How soon can you start?” Martha Dinmont asked at once.
“Well, when you need me, I guess. As you know, I’ve just moved here from St. Paul and I have no other commitments to wind up.”
Other than going to her doctor’s appointment this afternoon and—larger issue—finding a place to live. The edge of urgency had increased inside her since Friday night, and she was remorseful about the way she’d spent so much of the weekend with Brady, instead of continuing her search for an apartment.
As she’d said to him, sleeping together muddied her emotions rather than making them clearer. Or to use another metaphor she’d thought about, the needle of her compass still pointed in the same direction, but it quivered now, when before it had been steady.
If the new level of their relationship was a mistake, they’d both have to deal with the fallout, putting the needs of their girls first. If their physical response to each other burnt out quickly, it would be even more crucial for Libby and Colleen to have their own place. Would it burn out quickly? Her experience was too limited to give her an answer.
“Frankl
y, that’s now,” said the center manager, in response to Libby’s statement. “We have a girl out sick today, as well as no one currently in the position you’ll be filling. I realize it’s a lot to ask, but…” She let her voice trail off hopefully.
“You’d like me to start today? If you can, uh, give me an hour or so to get myself together.”
“Sure. Of course. You’re doing me a favor. I have a part-timer who really wants to leave by lunch-time.”
“And I have a doctor’s appointment at three-thirty this afternoon.”
“Your hours will end at three,” Mrs. Dinmont promised. “I’ve looked at our staffing and I’ll want you to work six until three.”
“Okay. We talked about this as a possibility, didn’t we?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Libby hadn’t been sure. The manager had mentioned two options on Friday, the alternate one being nine until six. Both timetables had their advantages, and their down sides.
“You’re welcome to leave Colleen here while you go to your appointment. Obviously at no charge, since she’s going to be a regular.”
Martha Dinmont was definitely eager for her to start today. Not quite ready for this, Libby adjusted her thinking.
She and Colleen were just about ready to head out when the phone rang. It was a call for Brady, apparently a client, who told her, “I’m sorry to trouble you at home, Mrs. Buchanan, I’ll try him on his cell phone again later.”
She didn’t waste his time or hers explaining that she wasn’t Mrs. Buchanan.
The phone rang again as soon as she put it down. It wasn’t Brady, as she’d thought it might be, if he and his client were playing phone tag. It was the Realtor she’d spoken with last week about the garden apartment complex across the river that she’d liked.
“You wanted me to let you know if a two-bedroom became available?”
“Yes, I did.”
“We have one opening up on December one, if you’re still interested.”
“Can I see it? It’s not the one you showed me through, is it?”
“No, it’s in the adjacent block, second floor, overlooking the lawns, not the street. Let me see if I can reach the current tenant, and I’ll get back to you.”
“I won’t be at this number.”
Libby gave the number of the day-care center, then she and Colleen managed to get out of the house.
The house was quiet. Libby and Colleen weren’t home.
Brady had detoured here on the way between two jobs, intending to grab a quick lunch, and on finding the place empty, he didn’t try to kid himself. He was disappointed. The kitchen was immaculate, apart from a pile of sheets and towels on the floor, waiting to go down to the washing machine in the basement. The mail had arrived, and Libby had left a neat stack of letters on the hall table, where he’d be sure to see them.
She’d also put a glass spaghetti jar there, full of sprays of greenery and one lonely, late-blooming white flower she’d managed to scrounge out of some corner of the garden. Brady appreciated the arrangement more for what it said about Libby than for how it looked—although it did look kind of nice.
He’d rather have been looking at Libby herself, however. He needed the distraction.
Gretchen and Nate had taken turns sticking emotional splinters under his fingernails for half the morning. He knew they were indispensable, and he knew how long it would take him to get their replacements hired and orientated and on top of the work.
So he’d wanted to see Libby. He’d ached to see her, and ached for the way her body could make him forget that the rest of the world even existed. He’d ignored any possible suggestion of parallels between the risks Gretchen and Nate had run by getting involved when they had to go on seeing each other professionally, and the risks he and Libby were running by getting involved when they had to go on seeing each other because of their daughters.
Ducking into the powder room that filled the space under the stairs, he made a discovery.
Little soaps.
Libby had cleaned the powder room and hung an embroidered hand towel that definitely wasn’t his, as well as an orange on a ribbon, stuck thickly with cloves, to keep the air freshened. In a glass dish next to the basin, she’d arranged some little shell-shaped soaps.
Hiya, fellas! I remember you from Minnesota.
This time three days ago, he might have groaned at the sight of them. Today he laughed, and knew that the little soaps weren’t so much of a burden to bear after all. When Libby brought them into his life, they came with certain compensations. As he left the house, he was smiling.
Colleen clung to Libby’s leg and cried when Libby tried to leave her at Toyland while she went for her doctor’s appointment.
She wasn’t yet twenty months old. She didn’t understand Libby’s promise that Mommy would always come back.
“You really want to come with Mommy?” Libby said to her daughter. “Okay, then, let’s go.”
Colleen stopped crying as soon as she realized that Mommy wasn’t going to leave her here after all, and that they were going in the car together. Libby found the hospital easily enough, and parked in its multilevel garage.
She was called in to see the nurse almost at once, but had to give her medical history, which took time, and then had to wait in a cubicle until the doctor himself came in, by which time it was already five after four. At least she’d been able to keep Colleen entertained with a couple of stories.
“Okay, let’s talk about what’s going on in your body,” Dr. Peel said, before he’d even closed the door.
Libby was out again in five minutes, with the promise of “tests.” She had to make an appointment at a radiology clinic for an X ray and a pelvic sonogram.
“Non-invasive,” the doctor had said, looking at her with the light from the windows reflecting off his square-framed glasses. He had pale blue eyes, pale skin and a pale, token smile. “Nothing to be nervous about.”
Libby hadn’t warmed to Dr. Peel, and regretted that she’d put off seeing Anne Crichton about her heavy, painful periods, before she left St. Paul. Dr. Crichton was warm and energetic and in her late thirties, with two young children of her own, and Libby had been seeing her about routine concerns for several years. Dr. Crichton was the one who’d told her that, with the discovery of Glenn’s illness, they’d lost their chance to have a child.
But it was foolish to regret not making the appointment, when she thought about it. She wouldn’t have had time to have these follow-up tests done in St. Paul, let alone to undergo any treatment that might prove necessary.
Dr. Peel thought that the problem was “probably just fibroids. But there are other possibilities we need to rule out.” He’d ducked out of the cubicle again and left Libby to conjecture about those. He was clearly in a hurry to get through his final appointments of the day.
Based on his somber intonation, she thought immediately about cancer and felt a dread that seemed to suck her whole stomach inside out.
Cancer.
The word drummed and echoed inside her head. Cancer. She knew about cancer. She’d been on that roller-coaster ride already, with Glenn. Cancer wasn’t always fatal, true, but it was never a quick-fix problem. If she had to undergo lengthy treatment, what would happen to Colleen? And if the treatment failed, as it had failed for Glenn…
She felt ill with fear.
As if understanding that something was wrong, Colleen stretched up her little hands and Libby gathered her against her heart, kissing her forehead and her hair. She kept her voice steady. “Let’s go out to the desk, sweetheart, and make those other appointments, and then we’ll go home.”
No, she remembered, not home. They had to see the apartment. She couldn’t let it slide.
It was the last thing she felt like doing, and she was late in getting there, but she went through with her inspection and told the Realtor after five minutes that she’d take the place. It was in good condition, it was away from the street, it faced south to admit th
e winter light and it was ten minutes closer to Toyland Children’s Center than Brady’s place was.
In the back of her mind, all she kept thinking was, “Probably fibroids? I’m a single mother with a young child. Probably isn’t good enough.”
The lights were on in the kitchen and living room when Brady turned into his driveway at just after six, which meant that Libby was home.
“Isn’t that nice?” he said to Scarlett, in the back seat. “We’re going to see Libby and Colleen.”
And Libby was probably cooking!
“Ibby,” Scarlett said.
“Yes, Libby. And your sister. Colleen.”
“Toween!”
“That’s right, beautiful.” His heart rose like a helium balloon. Scarlett had said the name so happily, as if she’d recognized that Colleen was a great new addition to her life.
The two of them held hands going up the steps, and when Scarlett toddled inside, there was Colleen in the kitchen, playing on the floor with pots and pans, and Scarlett said it again. “Toween!”
Libby turned away from the stove where she had some sliced mushrooms frying in a pan, and water beginning to steam in a big cooking pot. She looked flushed, tired and distracted, her hair was all over the place, as untidy as spun sugar, and Brady could still glimpse the fading scratch on her arm from ten days ago. Now, however, she started to smile. “Was that—”
“Yes.” He grinned. “She’s saying Colleen. Said it in the car, too.”
“Oh! Oh, wow!” She blinked and sniffed and stretched her shoulder across her face so that she could wipe her eyes on the short sleeve of her top, and Brady realized that she was crying. Or trying not to. She was laughing at the same time, shakily. “This is so stupid! What a thing to get so emotional about! I’m just a mess.”
“She said Libby, too. Well, Ibby, anyhow.”
“Oh, she did? Ibby, huh? That’s the best thing that’s happened all day!”
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