Seclusion

by Leanne Davis

  “Sarah got a hold of you?”

  “Yes, someone did. Some woman said you were in the hospital. That you were pregnant, and there were some complications. What’s going on? I got here as soon as I could.”

  Angie’s head dropped, her hair fell forward. She was drawing in on herself. Sean’s heart started speeding in his chest. He stood up. The professor’s eyes landed on him.

  “Who are you?”

  Sean almost said it right back to him. Sean glanced at Angie. She wouldn’t raise her eyes to meet his. Angie’s skin started to flush pink. She was in agony with herself.

  “I’m Sean, Sarah’s brother.”

  The professor’s hand came out across Angie’s bed. Sean had no choice but to take it as the professor said, “I’m David Petrovich. I’m—”

  He glanced at Angie as if looking for confirmation of who he was. Angie finally, slowly, raised her gaze to meet Sean’s. “He’s the baby’s father.”

  David. Sean had never asked a name for the faceless, married professor Angie had run from. That had driven her here. Now he had a name, a face, and worse, the man’s misery showed in his expression.

  David Petrovich was in his forties, his hair was gray on the temples and peppered in his crown. He had dishwater blond hair, glasses in brown frames with brown eyes, and a serious, intense kind of face. He was dressed in black slacks, and a matching striped shirt. He was neat, casual chic, and Sean would admit a good looking man despite his age.

  Sean could almost see the appeal for Angie of a man like David Petrovich. He was everything Sean wasn’t, Scott wasn’t, and her mother wasn’t. He didn’t look a thing like any man Sean had ever known to come from Seaclusion.

  His eyes were cloudy with confusion, his gaze sharp on Angie.

  Sean muttered, “I’ll leave you two to talk.”

  Sean was pretty sure neither one of them heard him speak. He walked out. His heart melted and disintegrated in his chest. The stab of jealousy about crushed all his good intentions toward Angie’s baby. Who the hell was this guy? To come here looking all deep and hurt? Looking at Angie as if he couldn’t believe she was pregnant before him, and yet, there wasn’t the disinterest Sean had hoped to see in the professor. There was in fact, things shining out of David’s eyes that had Sean’s stomach tightening.

  He had a feeling, he’d shot himself in the foot by not declaring himself sooner, better, deeper. He was going to lose Angie to someone who was more responsible, more sure of themselves, of their place in the world and what they wanted. And worse, he was going to lose Angie to the baby’s father, and there was no competing with that, especially with the lackluster reception Sean had given to what was Angie’s most beloved thing in life, her baby.

  And twice Sean hadn’t wanted Angie’s babies.

  There was no denying it. No changing it. He was going to lose because of it.

  Chapter 19

  Angie stared at David, as he stared at her. Silence sat between them as Sean’s footsteps faded, and the door gently clicked shut.

  “Are you all right? Is the baby all right? Start there.”

  “Yes. The baby is fine. I had some bleeding. I thought I might be miscarrying, and not wanting to take any chances I came here this morning. But the baby is still there, strong heartbeat.”

  “How far along are you?”

  “Fourteen weeks.”

  His shoulders seemed to sag. “Were you planning on telling me?”

  “To be honest, I don’t really know. It’s been such a shock for me to get used to. And I was more interested in my own reaction than doing right by you. So get mad, but I had a right to take some time to figure things out. You are the one who is married, not me. This isn’t easy for me. These aren’t the circumstances I wanted to bring a child into.”

  “But you called me last night.”

  “Yes. I wasn’t going to not tell you. I just hadn’t felt ready to tell you. And last night, when I thought I might be losing the baby, I needed the baby’s father to know about it. To care. Shocked or not, tell me you care.”

  He came closer. “Of course I care. I care about you, and I certainly care about our baby. But forgive me if I’m spinning here. Yesterday, I didn’t know where you were or where we stood, today I find out not only where you are, but that I’m going to be a father again.”

  “You never explained to me you were married. Now I’m the one who keeps things from you?” David shook his head. “We have a lot to talk about. A lot to work out. But for now I’m just glad to see you again, that you’re okay. Let’s get you home, and then we’ll talk about all this.”

  “I’m staying with my Uncle Scott and his wife Sarah. Sean lives there too. He’s, well, he’s Amy’s father.”

  David stood back startled. “That guy? He looks like an overgrown teenager.”

  “He’s my age. We’re the exact same age. I’m that young kid.”

  “No, you’ve never been a young kid. You know that. You were never a young kid to me. You were for me the meeting of my soul mate.”

  Angie closed her eyes. The words that so seduced her.

  “We became involved again.”

  David seemed to not understand what she was talking about. He tilted his head at her in confusion.

  “Sean and I. We started seeing each other since I’ve been here in Seaclusion. I don’t want any more secrets, no more lies, no more hiding.”

  “You and Sean? As in lovers?” She nodded.

  “How could you? You’re pregnant.”

  “Pregnant doesn’t make me dead. And Sean didn’t know. It all just happened. But please don’t play the wounded, betrayed lover. I came home to forget you. To heal from you. You were the one who was married, not me.”

  “Angie—”

  She shook her head. She wanted to savor the baby being okay. She didn’t want to get worked up, she needed to stay calm. “Let me get home.”

  David backed right off, nodded his head. “Of course. Let’s get you home.”

  Angie was relieved Sean was gone as she was wheeled to the entrance of the hospital and helped into Scott’s car. David was right there helping her. She didn’t think she could handle Sean and David at the same time.

  Scott was rude to David. He didn’t like the twenty year age gap between her and David. He didn’t like that David was married, and had grown children. And he really let it be known, he didn’t care if David had a decade on him, Scott was her caretaker, not David.

  So the car ride home was only Scott, Sarah and her. When they got to their house, it was a relief; neither of her boyfriends were there. Sean’s truck was gone, and David had been told by Scott not to come by today.

  Angie spent the day quiet, and in bed, resting, hydrating, reading, finishing her thesis. It was almost done. So close she could almost taste it. Her final product. She thought she’d done a good job. It would get her the A she wanted, and the degree she so needed.

  She was grateful, thrilled, beyond words that her baby was going to be okay. It meant everything to her. It meant the world to her. But most of this entire episode struck home for Angie how much she wanted this baby, and that it was time to make her life about this baby, with or without a man in her life.

  Sean’s concentration was shot to hell. He didn’t know what to do about Angie. He didn’t know what he wanted to do. But he did know he didn’t want her to go home with her baby’s father.

  He finished up in the shop with Scott. They hadn’t said a word about the drama of the last few days. They’d kept it strictly business between them. Something Sean was grateful for. He wasn’t ready to answer anyone else’s questions about where he and Angie stood because he didn’t know.

  Scott finished up before he did. Sean was left to clean up, put parts away, eventually he ran the broom around the floor, switched the lights off, and locked the door behind him. He turned to make the short walk to his trailer when something caught his attention.

  There stood David. He stared at Sean as much as Sean st
ared at him. David had obviously just pulled into the Delano’s driveway. Sean waited where he was to see what the older man would do.

  David walked over toward him. Sean held his ground. Eyeing the man up. They stood nearly eye to eye. At least the older man wasn’t taller than him.

  “Sean.”

  Sean didn’t know what to call the man. David. Mr. Petrovich. Dr. Petrovich? He was that much older, Sean felt like he owed him the kind of respect he usually showed older people.

  “Yeah? What do you want?”

  David stopped short about three feet from him. He put his hands in the pockets of his designer jeans, under the black shirt he wore with them, stylishly un-tucked. David cleared his throat. “This is going to be awkward no matter what we do, isn’t it?”

  “I take it Angie mentioned me.”

  “Yes. She said you were involved. That you are Amy’s father.”

  “Yeah, technically. But I’m not now. I don’t know what Angie wants. I haven’t spoken to her.”

  “Neither have I.”

  “But that’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To talk to her? And what exactly have you decided to do, Professor? Divorce your wife? Run off with your student who is twenty years younger than you and start a new life? A new family? Look, she might buy it, but I don’t. I think you got caught, and now maybe with the baby you feel responsible for her. But I don’t believe for a second you were ever planning on leaving your wife and kids for her.”

  David looked away. “I fell in love with Angie.”

  “How many other students do you fall in love with each semester?”

  “Come off it, Angie isn’t like other young girls. She’s different. She’s intelligent, she’s quiet, she’s full of integrity, conviction, depth and a understanding of the world far beyond her age. It wasn’t like I wanted her for her youth and long blond hair. It was and is that I fell in love with her. Sex was a natural expression of how I felt, not what I was trying to get from her. Not another notch on some imaginary mid-life crisis belt. I get it, I see the look in your eyes, in Scott’s. I even understand it. But it wasn’t like that. Angie knows that. Besides, it’s between us.”

  “Why did she run and refuse to tell you where she was?”

  “Because I didn’t tell her the truth. I told her I was separated from my wife. I wanted to be, but technically I was not. My life is complicated. I have two daughters, and I wasn’t ready to break up their household yet. When I met Angie, it became clear to me what my life is missing.”

  “You still lied to her. Look, this is for Angie, why are you telling me? You warning me off or something?”

  “No, nothing so juvenile. I’m also not looking to fight you for Angie like we’re part of some bad western. I just, want a chance to work things out with her. And I think you can agree, that’s what would be best for her, and for our baby.”

  “What if I told you I loved her, I’d agree to raise the baby as mine?”

  “Would you?”

  Sean paused. He hadn’t expected to be so pointedly put on the spot. “No, I’m not willing to raise it as mine. But I might be willing to live with it. Deal with it.”

  “Doesn’t seem like enough. You seem like a nice kid. But that’s all you seem. Do you really want this? All this drama? Angie pregnant, having a baby with me? Nothing changes that part. I’ll be a part of the picture no matter what happens with Angie and me.”

  “What makes you think you’re the only one who sees what’s so special about Angie? I noticed it eight years ago.”

  “You couldn’t keep her here then. I really doubt you can now.”

  Sean’s jaw locked. “Why did you come here?”

  “I want to take Angie home. I’m asking you to do the right thing and let her go.”

  “And your wife? Your kids? What do they think of that?”

  “I moved out. I have my own apartment now. I’ve started divorce proceedings. My kids, well, we have work to do, but that isn’t going to stop me from living my own life, a life that will include Angie. I want to ask her to marry me. Marry me so we can raise our child together as a real family. Let her go. Let her and I continue on with this family we’ve already started.”

  Sean’s heart squeezed. He almost didn’t argue. He wanted to let her go. It would be so much easier. Make his life easier. But then the image of her eyes smiling, flashing at him, crossed through his mind. Could he really go back to his life before Angie?

  “What if she loves me?”

  “It’s not even been four months, how much of a relationship can you have formed? I was always in her mind.”

  Sean didn’t answer. How could he? The man was right, the baby, the professor, was always in Angie’s thoughts.

  “What do you want from me? Really? For me to go in there and tell Angie to go with you? Forget me?”

  “No. Just don’t fight it. Us. Let her go. That’s it. Let her do what’s in her own best interest.”

  “Being your wife?”

  “Yes.”

  It didn’t sit right with Sean. She was meant for more than being this man’s wife. This man who was trying to tie up Angie’s life in a small little box with a bow on it. In a way that didn’t fit to Sean.

  Sean sighed. What was it he thought he could give Angie that was so much better for her than the life the professor was offering?

  “She wants to get her doctorate. What about that?”

  “That’s the beauty of it. I have money. She won’t have work another day of her life. She can have our baby, go to school, have all her dreams. Anything she wants.”

  “Nobody gives Angie her dreams. If you knew anything about her, you’d know that much.” Sean turned and walked away.

  Sean looked up when he felt her presence. Angie was standing there across the beach, staring at him. She bent her head against the wind and started toward where he sat on a fat piece of drift wood on the beach below the Delano’s house. It was near sunset. The overcast day had given way to a sliver of evening sun slipping through, casting the beach, the water in a beautiful golden light against the darker shadows of twilight. Angie’s hair streamed out behind her, and over her face as long strands of hair caught in her lips. Her light jacket fell against her chest and followed the curves of her body.

  She came close to him. She didn’t run, she didn’t jog. She walked. She stood there, staring at him, and finally sat down beside him. There was no throwing her arms around him in wild abandon of their love for one another. There was quietly, slipping beside him, to tell him that she was breaking his heart, leaving and marrying the father of her baby.

  “Sarah said you’d be down here.”

  “Yeah. She said you’re feeling better.”

  “You checked?”

  “Yes. I checked.”

  She nodded. “You saw David?”

  “I had a long talk with David and how he’s going to take care of you, marry you, support you, give you all your dreams served on a platter. Yeah, I talked with David.”

  “And what did you say, Sean? What did you say to him? Did you beg him to leave? To leave me alone? Did you tell him not to try? That you loved me? You wanted those things with me?”

  Sean looked out at the sun sinking into the water. He didn’t speak for several moments. Finally he sighed. “No, I didn’t.”

  “I know. It’s okay. We…God, this is too much for us. It’s only been a couple of months.”

  “Yeah. Only.”

  “I owe you an explanation. About David.”

  “I get the picture.”

  “He was my first history professor as a freshman getting my bachelor’s degree. I knew him for several years before I became his teacher’s assistant while working on my graduate studies. There was nothing different between us for a long time. We were friendly. We had coffee once or twice; we talked about school. We eventually started talking about life, thoughts, causes, dreams. Eventually we talked about everything. And I started to fall in love with him. He was everything I wasn’t. Every
man I’d never had in my life. He was so stable, sure of himself, well read, well-traveled, interesting in ways I only dream of being.”

  “He also has twenty years on us to be so.”

  “Yes, he does. He’s forty-five years old. I knew he was married. I thought he was separated, divorcing. I thought we were discreet for his career, my reputation at school, and because he didn’t want to lose touch with his girls. I thought I had my eyes wide open, that I would never be taken in.”

  “But?”

  “But he wasn’t separated. He was living with his wife still.”

  “And when you found out? Did you storm out on him in indignation? Or did you keep seeing him, telling yourself it was okay because you really loved him, you understood him, where his wife didn’t?”

  She winced. “I did. Yes. I thought all those things.”

  “Didn’t it occur to you, you were the best mid-life crisis ever?”

  “No.”

  “Didn’t the fact that he had kids your age bother you? Even just a little?”

  “Of course.”

  “But not enough to stop the affair?”

  “You’re talking to the girl who never had a father, or a grandfather. To the girl who just wanted love. Wanted to be wanted. No matter what. So no, I didn’t stop the affair.”

  “Were you at least pissed at him for lying to you? For the wife?”

  “Yes. You have no idea the tears I’ve cried over what I did.”

  “How did the wife find out?”

  “His daughter saw us together. She showed up at school, and laid into me in the middle of the commons. People were passing us by the hundreds, stopping to listen. To condemn me. It was the most humiliating moment of my life. I paid for my sins. Public denouncement, by your own peers is pretty powerful stuff.”

  “Can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same.”

  Angie nodded at his honesty. “I know. And you’d never have had a relationship with someone who was married.”