by Rian Kelley
“Didn’t you say Jude was coming?” she asked.
“He’ll be here,” her mom promised.
“He won’t stay long, though,” Kara warned.
“Why not?”
Her mom sighed and a small frown sank between her blue eyes. “He’s restless.”
“Is that why he left the force?”
“He didn’t leave,” her mother corrected. “At least, he hasn’t said as much.”
“He’s ‘taking a break,’” Kara supplied. “Those were his words.”
“Anything happen?” Shae asked. Jude loved his job. He found purpose in it. He’d told her as much. “On the job?”
“You mean like a shooting or something?”
Shae nodded, but neither Kara nor their mother had a chance to answer.
“No, nothing like that.”
Jude stood in the open French doors. Where Shae took after their mother in stature, both being petite with delicate bone structure, Jude was cast in the mold of their father and his Scottish heritage. He stood above six feet tall and his shoulders were almost as wide. When he played high school football, they’d called him The Rock—short for Rock of Gibraltar. He had a natural strength that Shae envied.
“Hey, bro.” She smiled at him and it was genuine. She was always happy to see Jude. “Long time no see.”
“You should come home more often,” he returned. He took the seat across from Shae and his smile almost reached his eyes.
Jude was always warm, open, the kind of guy who cared and let you know it. But he was different today. Distant. And it concerned Shae.
“What’s up?” she asked. “Early retirement?”
He snorted. “At thirty-five? No.” He took a drink from his long neck and then placed the bottle on the table. He turned it absently while he thought and spoke. “I do need a break. Time to think about things.”
“What things?”
“Some work related things,” he allowed.
“Then that’s not really a break,” Kara pointed out.
He nodded. “You’re right.” And then he turned the conversation. He leveled his gaze on Shae and said, “I hear you’re thinking about staying.”
Shae had looked at seven houses so far. Four had made the list as possibilities.
“I’m staying,” Shae said, infusing her words with a confidence she didn’t feel. Ethan tugged at her heart. A big part of her wanted to return to Santa Barbara, to Ethan. If given enough time, would he come to trust what he was feeling for her? Would he give them the opportunity they needed to see where their hearts led them? They were unknowns. And time was exactly what she didn’t have. And whenever she found herself drowning in those thoughts, she turned off the tap and reminded herself of what was real. Of what she could do. Of which dreams she could actually hold in her arms. Next week she entered her window of optimum implantation. The appointments were set and she was going to keep them.
“You find a house you like?”
She nodded. “Several.” But she was indecisive. She’d never suffered from that character trait before and knew it was tied to her heart strings—and directly to her yearning for Ethan and a home they could build together, if he’d just let himself believe. . .
“Maybe you should rent for a while,” Kara suggested.
Shae had thought that, too, but there was no need. Any of the four houses met her needs. She liked one more than the others.
“No. I’m thinking I’ll put an offer on that first house,” she revealed and Kara squealed in delight.
“That house is perfect for you!” She started bouncing in her seat.
“Perfect because it’s just around the corner from you?” Jude asked.
“Well, yes, of course!” Kara agreed.
“And only a mile from us,” their mother weighed in. “I’d say that makes it the obvious
choice.”
Shae laughed. “It also has everything I want and needs very little to make it my own.”
“I have a great painter,” her mom promised. “I just delivered his third baby last month. He’s got to be hungry for work and he does an excellent job.”
“Have you decided on a color for the nursery?” Kara asked.
Shae had told her mother about her impending pregnancy, and she had been joyful but had warned her about the changes she should expect. She supported Shae and understood her desire for a child. Her mom had told her father—who had yet to speak to her about it. And Kara had told her siblings. So far, there was a mixed review. From her father’s frequent stares, she knew he worried about her. His one and only comment to Shae had been, “Parenting is a big job. It’s twenty-four-seven.” Nikki had gushed about tiny toes and layettes–but she was engaged and probably had the same kinds of things in mind as Shae.
So Jude wasn’t surprised. He glanced at Shae over his beer bottle and his eyes creased in genuine amusement.
“Never one for conventional standards,” he said.
“Never,” she agreed.
He nodded his approval. “And that’s the way it should be.”
“Convention is stifling,” Shae assured him.
“And safe,” Jude said.
Shae snored loudly to let him know what she thought about playing it safe. She never would have gotten where she was if she hadn’t taken a risk or two.
“Well, if you’re okay with risk, then why don’t you give mystery man a chance?” Kara asked.
Jude’s eyebrows shot up in question.
Her mother’s chin fell off her hand. “Mystery man?”
“There is no mystery, Mom,” Shae assured her. “There’s no man.”
“There was,” Kara persisted, even though Shae was sure her face was one big scowl. Her sister shrugged. “Sorry, Shae. You know I’m behind you one hundred percent, no matter what. But parenting is hard. I have three kids and there are days I know I wouldn’t make it through if I didn’t have Tim’s help.”
“So I’ll have one,” Shae returned. And it wasn’t like Shae would have to divide herself between duties. She had enough money to bring in a housekeeper, and even a nanny when Shae needed to work.
“If you have feelings for a man,” her mother began, always astute. “It may be worthwhile exploring those.”
But Shae shook her head. “It’s complicated.”
“Relationships always are,” Jude commented, which made each of the women turn and stare at him in surprise.
Jude never brought a woman around. He was the king of casual dating.
“You’re an expert on that, are you?” Shae challenged.
“We’re not talking about me,” he returned, and then his voice got warm and soft and he said, “I want you to be happy, Shae.”
“Sometimes we don’t get it all,” Shae confided. “I really thought I would, so it’s a real bummer accepting that there are some things I can’t make happen.”
“Such as falling in love.” Jude nodded his understanding and Shae detected a sadness in his hazel eyes.
“Exactly.”
Chapter Nineteen
Shae drove herself to the clinic, as was the plan. Kara had offered to accompany her, to wait for her at reception and be the first to embrace her in this new life Shae had spent a whole lot of time dreaming about. But she knew it was something she had to do on her own. It was an all or nothing kind of thing—the man, the marriage, the baby carriage, as Ethan had mentioned, or flying solo, the way she would parent. While she had her family for support, and appreciated each and every one of them, this was a decision where she had to accept full responsibility.
She paid for parking and hustled across the street when the light changed in her favor.
The waiting room was nearly empty, with a couple talking quietly among themselves and two single women reading magazines. Shae checked in and chose a seat close to the TV. She was too keyed-up to read so didn’t bother pulling the paperback from her purse. She had trouble following the newscast, though, and let her mind drift.
; And, of course, it went to Ethan. He’d been calling her. Checking in, he’d called it. They had chatted about suburbia as she’d found it, and a new project he was considering, and in the hesitant moments when her stomach tightened and she held her breath, hoping to hear anything more significant than the surf report, she’d realized how badly she wanted him to claim feelings she knew had begun to take root before she’d left. But it hadn’t happened. Either she was fooling herself and Ethan had felt no more for her than a passing fancy, or he was still so tangled up in the past that he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, feel anything of promise for Shae.
He had found a support group, comprised of active and retired military, and he’d even revealed that he’d found what he was looking for there, that last piece—the strategies he could apply in moving forward. He was finally able to draw a breath that didn’t pinch his lungs, he’d said. And, he’d joked, he no longer felt the need for constant movement. He’d stopped hiding. He’d told her that in a tone full of confession and it had lit her hopes. But then nothing. Well, worse than nothing. He’d thanked her.
“You did it, Shae,” he’d said. “You dove into that mess and found me.”
“You’d have gotten there eventually,” she’d returned, while inside her stomach began a slow slide south.
“No. You called it, Shae. You gave me the direction I needed.”
“You followed my lead.” And she was glad he had. She was happy for him, even though her heart was breaking. She knew her voice had been thin, sharp, but she’d wanted done with the conversation. She knew his gratitude for what it was, a kiss-off.
She hadn’t heard from him in the four days since, and didn’t expect to hear from him again. He was moving on, a healthy man seeking a healthy relationship.
Her name was called and Shae looked up from the TV. The nurse stood in the open door, dressed in scrubs that had baby bottles and diaper pins decorating the top.
She’d meant what she’d said to Jude. She had thought she could have it all and it hurt like hell that it hadn’t happened.
But it would hurt a whole lot more if she gave up on this part of her dream as well.
She stood, pushed her purse under her arm, and moved through her appointment almost on auto-pilot—except that everything was new to her, and colder than she’d expected. Shorter, too. She tried to approach it clinically, distancing herself as she removed her clothes and slipped into a robe. She laid on the exam table, feet in the stirrups, and could not have told the difference between having a pap done and the implantation of an anonymous man’s seed.
By the time the doctor was done—within a mere four minutes—Shae felt on the edge of tears. The numbness that had carried her through the procedure deserted her. No, this was nothing like she’d thought it would be—making a baby with a man you loved was a far cry from the sterile environment of a doctor’s exam room. But it was what she’d chosen. And, she reminded herself, it was the life she preferred—a child versus childless, and even as a few tears slipped from her lashes, she still felt the same way.
Ethan stood in the master bedroom—he didn’t pace, because he no longer felt that constant itch under his skin—in front of the open windows, and let the evening breeze drift over him. Barely seven o’clock and already the sky was an inky black. A month ago, he and Shae had surfed at this time, with the sun still a fiery ball balanced above the horizon. It’d been twenty-six days since she left, but he recalled even the smallest details about her with vivid clarity—the way she tilted her head when she considered his thoughts; the soft curve of her cheek and how alive she’d felt under his fingertips; the electric snap in her blue eyes when he challenged her ideas or ignited her passion.
Was it possible to fall in love in a week?
Was love what he felt?
The emotion was new and fragile and he wanted to cup his hands around it, protect it, nurture it, watch it grow.
Yes, it was love or something close to it. And if he gave it a chance, it would grow stronger. He was convinced of it. Now he just needed to win over Shae.
It had taken his fourth group meeting before he fully believed in himself. To know he had what it took to love again, and to do it right. And a fifth meeting to know he could have that with Shae.
He didn’t have to contend with life in the service, deployment and the almost daily barrage of violence, the constant need to stand ready. He had it easier than a lot of the group members he’d come to know.
He’d needed to understand the affect service had on him, the pressure it had applied to his marriage, to every personal relationship. He got it now. He understood that he’d put distance between himself and Tina. He’d even come to peace over her betrayal. Her choice to die continued to trouble him. But it was no longer a burden of blame. It was no longer grief, but loss. And he could handle that.
Ethan stuffed his hands in the front pockets of his jeans, cupping one around his cell phone as he thought more about Shae. He’d called her every couple of days and they had talked about the mundane, keeping things casual, neither one willing to take a poke at the real issues. Hoping she’d call this time, he’d let four days pass.
She was visiting with family, shopping in The City, looking at houses. She was having trouble choosing one, though she’d admitted that several appealed to her. She had been to the clinic. She didn’t talk about it, but Ethan had asked and after a long pause she had informed him that she was ‘on schedule.’
And that made his heart clench, skip a beat and then kick back into motion. He’d had no right to ask her to wait. To put her plans on hold.
But he was going to now.
He pulled out his cell and scrolled through his call log, pressed on her name and waited three rings before she answered.
“Hi, Ethan.”
“You were waiting for my call?”
I was hoping for it, she thought. “I expected it two days ago,” she said. But it was a good thing he hadn’t called. It might have wreaked havoc on her plans.
“I thought if I gave you more time, you would call me.” Miss me a little. That’s what he’d hoped for.
But he was the one with lots to think about, work through. Shae had left him ready to give them a chance.
“I wasn’t the one undecided,” she reminded him.
“I know, and I’m sorry it took me so long to figure it out. Shae—”
“Things have changed for me,” she said quickly. She didn’t want the conversation to get sticky, to fill up with regrets.
Ethan felt his heart do a floundering kind of dip and roll. Was he too late?
“You bought the house?”
“I put in an offer,” she confirmed. And she had a plethora of paint samples spread out on the table before her, some for the nursery, some for the master bedroom, others for the kitchen and dining area. She was moving on, even if it felt like she was trudging through quicksand.
“Congratulations,” he said, but his voice sounded flat even to him. He reminded himself that he could work from anywhere some of the time. “I’d like to come up and see you.”
“Why?”
“We’re not finished, Shae,” he said, his voice low and intimate. “You know we’re not.”
She had believed that. She’d left him knowing they were only just beginning.
But in his silences she had lost hope.
Shae shook the thoughts from her head and swallowed the lump in her throat. “It’s too late,” she said.
“I don’t believe that.”
“I kept my appointments, Ethan,” she said. Well, she’d followed through with two—she just couldn’t bring herself to go in for the third attempt. The isolation in the procedure had been worse than she’d expected, more than she could bear. And she alternated between praying one of them had taken and planning, if neither of them had, to travel south again and visit Ethan. To give them one more shot at getting it right. “You shouldn’t call anymore. It would be easier for me if you didn’t.”
“Are you
pregnant?” He pushed the words past his lips, his body tight, flushed. His pulse throbbed in his head.
“Maybe.”
There was a long pause. Shae could feel her heart beat at the base of her throat. She couldn’t have spoken if she tried. And every muscle in Ethan’s body screamed denial. He took a deep breath and tried to pick up the threads of their conversation.
“You don’t sound happy, Shae.” His voice was thick with feeling.
“Timing’s a bitch, Ethan.”
“I needed too much of it,” he agreed.
“And I didn’t have any to spare.”
She disconnected the call, placed her cell phone on the table amid the paint squares, and tipped her head back, blinking furiously against tears.
Chapter Twenty
Ethan rang the door bell then stepped back. He realized he was balanced on the balls of his feet, toeing the top step of the porch, and tried to focus on the house. It was nice. Middle America. The house Shae had grown up in. Two stories, stone and stucco, it blended into the landscape. A wind chime made of sand dollars hung from the eaves and made a raspy, muted sound as the air stirred. Indian corn hung in a wreath on the front door and Halloween decorations were taped in the windows.
Ethan tried to roll the tension out of his shoulders as he waited for the bell to be answered. Damn if he didn’t feel like he was a teenager again, teetering on the doorstep on prom night.
When the door did open he was greeted by an older woman he knew was Shae’s mother. They shared the same petite, delicate bone structure and sparkling blue eyes. When she smiled it lit every one of her features, giving her a warm glow.
“Hello,” she murmured. She stood inside the door but her greeting was friendly.
“Hi,” Ethan returned. “I’m here for Shae,” he explained.
Her eyebrow arched, carried a tinge of challenge that was so much like Shae he laughed.
“That look,” he explained. “It’s Shae, every bit of it.”
Her smiled relaxed into a chuckle. “Are you the mystery man Kara mentioned but Shae insisted was more dream than substance?”