“No,” he said. “No, no, no.”
“Eric.”
She reached for his hand but he was too quick for her. Aghast, he shook his head, jumped to his feet and wheeled away, an animal trapped in a cage he was desperate to escape.
“Don’t say it,” he warned. “Don’t say it.”
“I had a massive hemorrhage and almost died. My uterus just about ruptured. I had an emergency hysterectomy. I can’t have children.” She paused.
“I told you not to say it,” he roared.
This pain—his pain—was worse than anything else she’d endured in her life. She’d give up a hundred children for adoption if she never had to see this kind of agony on his face again.
“Eric,” she said, trying to remain calm while she killed his dreams, “I’m sorry.”
Isabella hurried to him but he turned away, bent at the waist as though the weight of his grief wouldn’t let him stand up straight, and rested his palms on his thighs. She put a tentative hand on his back and then, when he didn’t jerk free, both hands. Shudders rippled through him, one after the other, over and over, and she wondered if he might hyperventilate.
But then he straightened and faced her and his eyes were dry. A little manic and a little desperate, but dry.
“I need time.”
“Let’s talk this through, Eric—”
“Not now.”
He needed time. She understood. But there was one more thing she had to tell him, and maybe that would make a difference. “If I’d known I was only going to get one child in this life, I’d’ve saved her for you.”
“I asked you what that scar was and you said nothing.” Eric stared at her with distant eyes as he reached for the knob. “I thought I knew everything about you, Isabella.” His chin trembled for a moment but then his jaw tightened and it stopped. “Now I’m realizing I didn’t know anything about you.”
Without another word he wheeled around and left the screen door banging shut behind him.
Chapter 18
Eric hurried out of the cottage and staggered down the steps, feeling as though his knees would give out soon and each stride could therefore be his last. Clammy sweat trickled between his shoulder blades and nausea hovered in his throat, refusing to go either up or down. For the first time in what seemed like a thousand years he thought he might really cry. Not the embarrassed tear or two he’d wept when he’d watched Schindler’s List, either, but the sobbing, roaring, throwing-things-at-the-wall kind of meltdown that grown men usually didn’t have.
The pain was beyond anything he’d thought a human being could endure in the absence of a death or mortal injury. A bottomless emptiness that would circle to the moon and back if he took it out of his aching chest and stretched it out. He couldn’t breathe or think. His only goal was to survive until some of the misery eased back a little.
Isabella had lied to him.
Isabella had a daughter.
Isabella couldn’t have any more children.
These three things formed a straight line and marched through his mind over and over again, brutal in their relentlessness. Isabella had lied to him…Isabella had a daughter…Isabella couldn’t have any more children…Lied…Daughter…No more kids…Lied-daughter-no more…On and on into infinity it went, and he’d foolishly thought Isabella would be the mother of his children.
He stumbled down the path, simultaneously numb, pained, blind and hyperaware of everything around him.
Above him floated a rabbit-shaped cloud, but he and his daughter would never lie on their backs in the grass and identify cloud shapes.
Down there was Grandmother’s rose garden, but the rose petals from that garden would never be strewn down a church aisle as his daughter marched off to get married.
Straight ahead was the enormous weathered greenhouse where he would never plant tomatoes with his son. Nor would he ever see his own eyes, nose or smile reflected back at him from a tiny face. And he’d never pass his sarcastic nature on to another human being, but maybe that was a good thing even if it didn’t seem like it right now.
Instead of the endless possibilities he’d felt only a few minutes ago, when Isabella had told him she loved him, he saw only lost opportunities and brick walls. An endless stream of things that could never be, no matter how much he wanted them or how desperately he needed them.
Blinking against the sun’s glare and the moisture in his eyes, he turned into the greenhouse and sank onto the nearest bench, figuring this was as good a place as any to nurse his bleeding wounds. After a few deep breaths his mind cleared a little and he tried to think rather than just feel, but thinking was impossible because his emotions were running so high and so many of the things he’d thought he’d known about his life had turned out to be houses of cards.
Isabella wasn’t a liar. He knew that. Yet she’d told him a huge lie, the kind that ruined families, tore marriages apart and was hard to forgive. Logically he understood that she’d done the best she could and had her reasons, but he still felt betrayed.
The worst part—well, not the worst, but one of the worst—was that this whole time he’d thought he’d known everything significant about her. Hah. He hadn’t known her central secret, so he supposed that meant he’d known nothing about the woman at all. Nothing.
It wasn’t just that she’d had a daughter, although that was enough to absorb. He had nothing but admiration for Isabella’s strength and the loving choices she’d made. She’d decided to bear a child as a young unmarried woman, to risk her parents’ displeasure, and then, knowing she couldn’t give the child the best possible life, had given her to a family that could. And then Isabella had returned to school, graduated and become the strong woman he’d always known she would be.
Good. Great. Wonderful.
But he’d wanted a daughter with Isabella. He’d wanted to be the man who had a daughter who looked like Andrea, who was a Girl Scout and a black belt. He’d wanted to change Andrea’s diapers, rock her to sleep at night and wait up until she came home safe from her first prom.
And he’d never have that chance, he thought, the bile rising again in his burning throat. He anchored his elbows on his knees, buried his face in his hands and tried to think of it another way, tried to give it a better perspective, but he couldn’t find one. His frustration and desperation grew, heating and chilling him at the same time, crowding his flesh under his skin until he felt like an overstuffed sausage that would burst at any moment.
Isabella couldn’t have children and therefore he couldn’t have children. Never for one second did he consider any other options. He and Isabella were in this together and their fortunes rose and fell as one even if she didn’t accept that yet.
He didn’t want some other faceless woman, even if that woman had a functioning uterus that could produce a new generation of Warners. It was Isabella or nothing, and since Isabella couldn’t give him the children he wanted, it was nothing.
But it could have been something. If only she hadn’t fallen for that idiot Al, who was the kind of jerk that other men recognized on sight even if he managed to fool the occasional unsuspecting woman. If only she’d protected herself better. If only he hadn’t taken years to realize that she was the only woman he could ever love—he could have claimed her before Al did.
But none of that had happened.
So she’d blessed Al with a child, the most precious thing a woman could give a man. And what had Al done? Had he worshipped her? Cherished her? Hell, no. He’d dumped her. Broken her heart. Signed his child away. Wasted a gift—squandered it.
And what would Eric do if he had a chance for such a gift from Isabella? Drop to his knees and thank God, that’s what. Give his fortune to charity, no problem. Adore the child and Isabella. Protect them every day of their lives. He would have been happier than any man had a right to be, but that wouldn’t happen now, would it? It would never happen.
He’d never have the primitive pleasure of making love to Isabella and knowing th
at the act, which was already the most beautiful thing he’d ever experienced, could result in a child. Never see her belly swell, never feel the flutter of the baby’s first movement inside her and know that he’d been part of the creation of such a miracle. Never, never, never.
All the nevers were suddenly too much for him and he lurched to his feet as a hoarse cry erupted from his throat. Glancing wildly around—he didn’t know what he needed, only that he needed something—he saw potted orchids and ferns and every freaking kind of flower in the universe, but he didn’t need a flower, he needed—
There. A stack of empty terra-cotta pots. That’s what he needed.
Roaring like a lion with his tail mangled in a trap, he grabbed the pots and heard the satisfying crash of the bottom one sliding out of his grip, hitting the bricked path beneath his feet and shattering.
Yeah. He needed more of that.
Wheeling around, he hurled the next pot at the glass wall ten feet away and it smashed through it with the force of a greased bullet. Crash. Glass flew everywhere, skittering and pinging across the nearest tables.
That was for the baby girl he and Isabella would never have.
Crash.
That was for the ridiculously expensive wedding he’d never have to grumble about paying for.
Crash.
That was for the catcher’s mitt his son would never need.
And these—these next ones were for the times he’d never make love to Izzy to try to get her pregnant. Crash-crash-crash.
He was out of pots now but he wasn’t done smashing things. Panting with savage satisfaction, he pivoted and looked for something else to destroy and take the top edge off his pain, but there was nothing. He cursed because he needed something, needed—
“What are you doing?” asked a quiet voice.
Jerking with surprise, Eric froze, pots and destruction forgotten. Nathan. Shit.
The poor kid stood there, wide-eyed behind his glasses, gaping up at Eric like a deer that needed only the slight flicker of the grass beneath his hooves to take off at a dead run and disappear. The boy held a basket of ripe red tomatoes and Eric had the distant memory that Viveca—or maybe it was Bishop—had helped Nathan plant a bunch of stuff a while back.
Eric floundered.
This was the kind of moment that a parent would know what to do with, but he wasn’t a parent—ha-ha—never would be a parent, and had no damn idea what to do now. A calm word or two would be good, one of those don’t-worry-everything-will-be-okay speeches that reassured kids, but Eric’s mouth was dry and his mind was empty. The only thing he could do was swipe the back of his hand across his damp face and pray he didn’t look as wild and out of control as he felt.
They stared at each other for several excruciating beats and then Nathan furrowed his brow, opened his mouth and spoke in that same soft voice.
“Are you throwing a temper tantrum?”
Eric was so startled he let out a bark of something that would have passed for a laugh if the sound hadn’t been so infused with the pain from his broken heart.
“Yeah,” he said. “I suppose I am.”
“You’re making a big mess.”
“Yeah.” Eric looked around, realizing, for the first time, the extent of the destruction he’d caused.
“You’ll have to clean it up,” Nathan warned with no hint of compromise or mercy in his voice. “You can’t make a mess like this and leave it for someone else to clean up. Bishop’ll be mad.”
“Yeah.” Eric swallowed hard, imagining the old man’s horror. “Right.”
Nathan cocked his head, studying Eric with a narrowed gaze and obviously looking for clues as to what could cause this kind of maniacal behavior from an adult.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“I, ah…” Eric paused, trying to sum up his misery in twenty-five or less G-rated words. “I’m really disappointed about something.”
“Oh.” Nathan scrunched up his face, rubbed his nose, and finally nodded with understanding. Disappointment. That was something he could get behind. “You should plant something.”
“Huh?” Eric said.
“Plant something,” Nathan said, louder this time. “Mama Viv—
Something in Eric’s heart swelled and ached. He’d wondered what Nathan had chosen to call his adopted mother. Mama Viv. He liked it.
“—and Bishop both say that if you’re upset you should plant something. Because it makes you feel better. It’s good to dig in the dirt.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” Nathan held up the basket so Eric could make a closer inspection of the bright red tomatoes. “So I planted some tomatoes. But I wasn’t upset when I planted them. I just planted them.” He pointed to a pot of black-eyed Susans in a pot on a table ten feet away. “But I planted those when my basketball team lost every game.” He pointed in the other direction, to a pot of what looked like a vine of some kind. “And I planted that squash when I broke my ankle last year.”
“Wow,” Eric said. “Did that make you feel better?”
“Well.” Nathan tilted his head thoughtfully. “My ankle still hurt, but it did make me feel a little better when I couldn’t go on a hike with my summer camp.”
Eric grinned. It was hard to feel too sorry for yourself with this kind of sage advice and comfort coming your way. “I guess I’ll try it then. I’d like to feel better.”
“Here.” Nathan selected a tomato and thrust it at Eric. “You can have one of these until you plant your own.”
Eric reached for it, touched to the soles of his feet by the boy’s kindness, but just as his fingertips skimmed the tomato, Nathan snatched it back. “Oh, wait.” He held it up to his face for a thorough examination and frowned. “This one has a worm.”
“Oh.”
“We’ll leave that on the grass for the deer.” Nathan rummaged for a minute and withdrew another specimen, one that apparently met with his approval. “Take this one—”
Eric took it. “Thanks, man.”
“—and put it in a salad or a BLT—”
“Okay.”
“Or you could make tomato sauce for spaghetti with it, but I’d have to give you about twenty more tomatoes, and I don’t have that many.”
“Right.”
“Did you know tomatoes are fruits? Not veggies. Fruits.”
Eric smiled at Nathan’s particular emphasis on the word. “I did know, actually, but thanks for reminding me.”
“You’re welcome.” Eric shot a furtive glance at the door. “I’m going to go back to the house, but not if you’re going to smash anything else—”
Eric held up a hand. “Don’t worry.”
“Okay.”
Nathan backed up a step, hesitated, and then launched himself at Eric, hugging him around the waist and trapping Eric’s arms at his sides. The warmth of the boy, the wiry feeling of his strong little body, his smell of grass and sunshine and shampoo, was almost too much for Eric. New emotions clogged his throat, but he choked them down, determined not to make any more scenes in front of this child.
He’d just started to extract his arms so he could at least return the hug when Nathan looked up at him, all wide-eyed innocence and exuberance. “You know why I’m hugging you?”
Eric shook his head.
“Because Mama Viv says my hugs are the best things for making her feel better when she’s sad.”
Eric swallowed, almost too moved to speak. “Mama Viv is right. I feel better already.”
The embrace lasted two more seconds and then Nathan apparently decided that that was enough affection for the time being. Letting go of Eric and clutching the basket handle he raced down the path to the door, flung it open and nearly ran into Andrew, who was holding his own basket. After a beat or two of them trying to step around each other, Nathan darted around Andrew and disappeared down the path toward the house.
“Hey.” Andrew called after him and waved his basket. “I thought you needed this for tomatoes.”
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“That’s okay,” answered Nathan’s now-faint voice. “Eric was smashing things, but he’s calmed down now so don’t be mad at him.”
Andrew was just discovering this information for himself. His slow gaze traveled around the greenhouse, lingering on the one shattered pane of glass, the terra cotta debris and then, finally, settling on Eric’s face.
They stared at each other for a minute. Eric’s ears burned with embarrassment because he could just imagine how he looked right about now. Flushed, no doubt, a little sweaty and probably wild-eyed.
“Ah,” Eric began. He was not in the mood for a round of Andrew’s teasing.
Andrew cleared his throat and shifted back and forth on his heels, the picture of awkward discomfort. His gaze darted again to the pottery chards and then returned to Eric’s face.
“So…you’re good?” Andrew asked hopefully, backing toward the door.
Feeling an odd mixture of disappointment and relief, Eric nodded.
“Great.” If Andrew had been strapped to the electric chair with the executioner’s finger on the switch when the governor’s call finally came through, he couldn’t have looked more relieved. “That’s what I thought.”
Eric shoved his hands in his pockets and watched Andrew turn, walk to the door and put his hand on the knob. He was just looking around for a broom when Andrew heaved a harsh sigh and turned back. Looking deeply aggrieved, Andrew pointed to the wreckage on the floor.
“What the hell’s going on?”
Eric couldn’t answer right away. He dragged in a deep breath and hoped the burst of oxygen would give his brain some energy. “It’s not good.”
“I’d pieced that much together with my crack detective work.”
Eric hadn’t had any intention of discussing his personal life and, if he’d thought about it much, he’d’ve decided that he’d sooner appear on a TV shrink’s show for advice rather than turn to Andrew.
But he was desperate, Andrew was here, and Andrew was happily married. Plus Andrew was shrewd and hard-headed, and maybe he’d have something worthwhile to say.
“Isabella…can’t have children,” Eric told him, nearly choking on the painful words. “And that’s in confidence.”
Road to Seduction (Kimani Romance) Page 19