by Gina Wilkins
He walked the few blocks to the pool. Though it was hot, he needed the fresh air to clear away the memory of hospital scents from his mind. Tension still tightened his shoulders—it would be a while before that eased completely—but it felt good to be home.
To his relief, there weren’t many people at the pool. The young lifeguard, with whom Trevor had had a long, firm talk after Sam’s near tragedy, straightened in his elevated chair when he recognized Trevor.
Trevor immediately spotted Jamie in the pool, her hair wet and slicked back from her face. She had one hand on the molded plastic seat in which Abbie floated happily, and she was talking to Sam—who, Trevor was surprised to notice, was standing waist-deep in water beside Jamie. He was even more astonished when, acting on Jamie’s instructions, Sam put his face in the water, kicked off and swam three or four feet in exaggerated, splashing strokes. He sank then, but came up laughing, dripping, and wiping water from his face with both hands.
This from the boy who didn’t even like to have his hair washed for fear of getting water in his eyes?
It was Sam who spotted Trevor first. His wet face lit up. “Daddy! Did you see me? I swam.”
“I saw you. You were great, Sam. When did you learn to do that?”
“Jamie taught me. She used to be a lifeguard.”
Jamie had already lifted Abbie out of the floating seat. Holding the dripping baby on her hip, she carefully climbed the steps out of the pool. She approached Trevor with a smile, Sam at her heels. Seeing Trevor, Abbie squealed and held out her hands. “Daddy!”
Paying no heed to his travel-wrinkled shirt and chinos, he gathered his daughter close and eagerly accepted her slobbery kisses. This, he thought as Sam grabbed on to his leg and hugged fervently, was exactly what he had needed. “How’s my princess?” he asked, nuzzling Abbie’s warm cheek. “Did Jamie teach you to swim, too?”
“No,” Sam said, gazing up at him. “But she walked. All by herself. Without holding on to anything.”
Trevor lifted an eyebrow in Jamie’s direction. “It sounds as if I’ve left my children with Mary Poppins.”
She smiled, though he couldn’t quite read the expression in her eyes. “Not exactly. I have experience teaching swimming, and Abbie was definitely ready to walk, anyway.”
He was having to make an effort to keep his eyes focused on her face, rather than the expanse of skin revealed by her hot-pink bikini. He was aware that a hug from Jamie was the only thing missing to make his homecoming complete, but the way she stood let him know that was unlikely. Though she hadn’t hesitated to come through for him when he’d needed her, he still had a long way to go to win her forgiveness.
He would not accept that she might never grant it to him.
She reached for her cover-up and pulled it over her head, to Trevor’s mingled regret and relief. “How was Trent when you left?” she asked.
“The same. He’s out of immediate danger, thank God, but he has a long recuperation ahead of him. It’s really a miracle that he wasn’t killed.”
“Didn’t I tell you he would be all right?” she asked with a shadow of her usual smile.
“Yes, you did.” Aware of curious eyes focused on them, Trevor asked, “Are you ready to go home, or do you want to stay a while longer?”
“We’re ready,” Jamie answered. “The kids have been in the sun long enough.”
Trevor pushed Abbie’s stroller, Jamie carried the floating seat and Sam skipped alongside them, chattering a mile a minute about the fun he’d had with Jamie. Trevor listened with a pang that he found ironically amusing. As far as he could tell, his children hadn’t missed him at all. He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. They couldn’t be blamed for falling under Jamie’s spell. Everyone else did—including him.
AN HOUR LATER, the children had been bathed, Abbie was tucked into bed for a nap and Sam was parked in front of the TV with a bowl of sliced fruit and his favorite hour-long cartoon video. Jamie had showered and dressed in shorts and an I-Love-New-York T-shirt. Trevor liked the shorts. Hated the T-shirt. It reminded him of his fears that neither he nor Honoria would ever be exciting enough to hold her.
He had coffee ready when Jamie came out of the shower. “I really should go,” she said. “I’m sure you can handle things here now.”
“Just a cup of coffee before you go,” he urged. “You can catch me up on everything I missed.”
She nodded with visible hesitation. So, before she could change her mind, he handed her a mug and waved her toward the kitchen table.
“I see your clothes have dried,” she commented, stiffly taking a seat.
He glanced down ruefully as he sank into his own chair. “They look as though I’ve slept in them for a few days, but they’re dry.”
“I’ve always liked seeing you rumpled,” she murmured, gazing into her coffee.
It was the kind of remark she might have made to him before their breakup. But she’d said it with such an inscrutable expression that he had no idea what to make of it. And then she immediately changed the subject. “Tell me about Trent. We haven’t been able to talk much during the past few days. What’s going to happen with him now?”
He rubbed a hand over his face. “He’ll be in the hospital for several more weeks. Our parents are going to stay with him until he’s released, and they’ll bring him home to recuperate as soon as he’s able to travel.”
“Your family has had to endure so much during the past year.”
He knew she was indirectly including Melanie’s death in the statement. “We’ve had our blessings, too,” he said, thinking of the babies born, the holidays celebrated, the medical scare his father had survived. “We’re all very grateful that we didn’t lose Trent.”
“What about his air force career?”
“It’s over,” Trevor said flatly. “All he’s ever wanted to do was fly, and now, because of his own recklessness, he’ll never be able to do it again.”
“His own recklessness?” she repeated with a frown. “The accident was his fault?”
“He was hotdogging. Showing off. Yeah, it was his fault. And he’s paid for it by losing his dream. I just hope he can learn to forgive himself for that eventually. He’s so bitter about it now that he’s hardly even speaking to anyone.”
“He’ll have to find a new dream,” Jamie said, the prosaic words softened by the sympathy in her eyes.
Trevor thought bleakly of lost aspirations, and of the emptiness they left in their wake. “That’s easier said than done.”
“Trust me. No one knows that better than I do.”
“You’re referring to acting?”
Her expression distant again, she said, “I’ve learned to let go of several dreams.” Abruptly, she pushed her coffee mug away and stood. “I really should go. I have things to do at home.”
He wouldn’t—he couldn’t—let her go. Not yet. Not without trying to entice her to stay.
She moved so quickly that he barely caught her. Trapping her with his hand on her arm, he said, “Wait. I want to thank you for what you’ve done this past week. I don’t how we would have gotten along without you.”
“You’re welcome,” she said without looking at him. “I’ve enjoyed the time with the children.”
He drew a deep breath. “I want us to be together again, Jamie. The way we were before.”
She stiffened. “Regular Friday-night dates?” she asked after a pause. “The occasional nooner at my place? You leading your life and me leading mine? Sorry, that’s not good enough for me anymore.”
He shook his head impatiently. “That isn’t what I meant. I want a real relationship this time. I won’t keep you from my kids again.”
“That sounds a lot like another arrangement of convenience to me, one that now includes babysitting. As much as I love Sam and Abbie, I’m going to have to pass.”
“Damn it, Jamie, that isn’t what I mean.” He wished she would turn to look at him, but she stood rigidly, offering no encouragement. He playe
d his last card with a sense of desperation. “I love you.”
She moved then, but not the way he’d hoped. She jerked away from him, taking another step toward the door.
“Jamie,” he repeated, just in case she hadn’t heard. “I love you.”
She wouldn’t look at him. “There can’t be love without trust.”
“There’s no one I trust more than you. I hurt you and damn near ruined my own life before it finally sank in, but it’s true.”
She turned very slowly, her eyes narrowed. Angry. “You didn’t just hurt me, Trevor. You devastated me. What makes you think I can ever trust you now?”
It was illuminating being on the other side. He hated it. “I—”
“I won’t spend the rest of my life trying to prove to you that I’m not like your wife,” she said flatly. “I used to worry that she had been too perfect, that I could never live up to her image. Now I’m afraid I could never escape her shadow. It isn’t fair for you to put that burden on me. I don’t know what she did to you, since you’ve never talked to me about it, but I won’t—”
“There’s a chance that Abbie is not my daughter.” The words seemed to have been ripped from his chest. He had never spoken them aloud before, and it was even more painful than he had imagined. Each syllable seemed to slice his throat as it passed through.
The effect on Jamie was dramatic. Her face went pale, her eyes huge. “Oh, Trevor—”
He forced himself to speak again. “I found out after Melanie died that she’d been having affairs. After reading her journal, I realized that even she didn’t know exactly who had fathered Abbie. While she was imitating the perfect Stepford wife for me, she was playing around while I was at work, leaving the household to the maids and nannies. I thought she was occupied with charitable activities. Her ‘charities’ turned out to be married senators. Abbie was three months old when I read that. I already loved her more than my own life, and I still do. I just don’t know if she—”
His voice broke.
“Trevor, I’m so sorry. You must have been—”
“Devastated,” he supplied, remembering the word Jamie had used earlier. “I had just lost my wife. And then I found out that I hadn’t even really known her. And my baby girl—”
She took a tiny step toward him. “You never had a blood test?”
“No. I’m afraid to,” he said simply. That cowardly streak of his again. Until Melanie had died, taking his smug illusions of control with her, he’d always thought himself a reasonably bold and confident man.
Jamie was still looking at him. “Do your parents know?”
“No one here knows. There was plenty of talk in Washington. It turned out a lot of people knew Melanie better than I did, and the word got out very quickly that she’d been with one of her senators the day she died—but I’ve managed to keep it quiet here. What happened was partly my fault, of course. I was too focused on work, too busy with my own ambitions to pay enough attention to her. We played out a predictable little script, saying and doing the right things without either of us taking them seriously enough. I was perfectly content to go on pretending we had an ideal life, without working hard enough to make sure that it really was. But for her not to tell me about Abbie—it’s very hard for me to forgive her that.”
“And so you decided that no woman could be trusted? Or was that doubt reserved for me?”
Her words were spoken lightly, but their seriousness was obvious by the pain still visible in her eyes.
“I’m sorry.” He wished there were more adequate words to express his regret at what he had done to her. “You were right—it wasn’t you I was angry with. It was Melanie—and myself. And it was unfair of me to take that out on you. I let my anger and my fears take over, and I was a total jerk. I finally admitted it while I was sitting at my brother’s bedside, thinking of how fragile life is, and how much I had thrown away by turning on you the way I did.”
“I’ve suffered a few betrayals, but no one has ever hurt me the way you did when you all but called me a slut,” she said quietly.
He frowned, instinctively rejecting the word. “I didn’t—”
“Semantics, Trevor.”
He wished she would call him Trev. Or smile for him. He was painfully aware that he had taken the laughter out of her.
“What is it going to take,” he asked softly, “for me to earn your trust again? Because whatever it is, I’ll do it.”
Her reply was unencouraging. “I don’t know if you can.”
The kitchen door swung open and Sam walked in, blissfully unaware of the tension between the adults. “Abbie’s awake. She’s calling you, Daddy.”
“I’ll go get her.” He paused and looked at Jamie. “Don’t leave before I get back. Please,” he added, aware of how arrogant that might have sounded.
“Jamie’s staying for dinner,” Sam insisted quickly. “She’s making spaghetti. Remember, Jamie? You said.”
“Well, that was before I knew your daddy would be back so early,” Jamie reminded him.
Sam shook his head, his lip jutting out stubbornly. “You said you’d make spaghetti. Daddy likes spaghetti, too.”
“I love spaghetti,” Trevor agreed shamelessly.
The look Jamie gave him should have made him gulp. But then she nodded and he knew she would be staying a while longer. At the moment, that seemed to be all that mattered.
“I’ll start the dinner,” she said, turning toward the stove. “You go get your daughter.”
Your daughter. Her very deliberately chosen words echoed in his mind as he entered Abbie’s room. Abbie stood in her crib, bouncing and calling for him. “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.” He lifted her into his arms and snuggled her close, making her giggle in delight when he tickled her ribs.
His daughter, he thought, filled with a love for her so fierce it almost hurt. No pages from his late wife’s diary, no whispered speculation, no blood tests—nothing—could ever change that.
WITH SAM’S EAGER, if untrained, assistance, Jamie prepared salad, spaghetti and garlic bread for dinner, as she had planned to do before she’d known Trevor would be there to eat it. She tried to give her full concentration to the task, but it wasn’t easy, considering all the things he had said to her. She had so much to think about. And she needed time and solitude to do it.
Her thoughts kept bouncing between Trevor’s admission of love and his revelations about his wife. She couldn’t imagine what he must have gone through when he’d learned the truth about Melanie while still dealing with the shock of her death. To know that his acquaintances and colleagues in D.C. had already known the truth, and had been talking about it behind his back…. For a man with Trevor’s pride and family history with scandal, that must have been hell.
What kind of scars would an ordeal like that leave on a man’s heart and soul? And how much courage would it take to put himself at risk for anything like that again?
The questions nagged at her, making her frown and remind herself that she was the injured party, not Trevor. Even if she could sort of understand—at least a little—why he’d acted the way he had, that didn’t mean he deserved her forgiveness. He had broken her heart. Never mind that his own must have still been shattered.
She’d always been too softhearted, she thought with a scowl. Too prone to see the other side. Too quick to forgive. Too—
“Jamie? Are you mad about something?” Sam asked.
Realizing that she had been setting the table more forcefully than necessary, she stopped thumping glasses and slamming dishes, and turned to smile at the boy. “No, Sammy, I’m not mad. I’m just in a hurry to get everything ready so we can eat. I’m hungry, aren’t you?”
She wondered if she would even be able to choke down a bite.
Reassured, Sam nodded and grinned. “I’m so hungry my throat feels like my tummy’s been cut.”
She couldn’t help laughing. “Where did you hear that?”
“From Granddad.”
One of Caleb
’s good-old-country-lawyer expressions—which Sam had obviously turned around. Deciding not to correct him, Jamie said, “Why don’t you go tell your daddy that dinner’s ready?”
Trevor had been in the living room with Abbie. He carried her into the kitchen with a smile of pride. “She’s been walking for me. She took six steps without falling. She’s doing great, isn’t she?”
“She’ll be running marathons in no time,” Jamie replied without quite meeting his eyes.
“I’d better go through the house looking for hazards again. They’ve changed now that she’s about to become more ambulatory.”
Trevor put Abbie in her high chair and Jamie set a divided plastic dish holding cut-up pasta and bitesize pieces of cooked vegetables in front of her. Abbie dived in with both hands.
“Definitely have to work on table manners next,” Trevor murmured.
Jamie nodded and took her seat beside Sam. Excited to have his father home again, and eager to talk about everything he’d done while Trevor had been away, Sam talked almost ceaselessly during the meal, waving his arms to emphasize his comments. Trevor had to warn him twice to calm down a bit before he spilled his drink, but other than that, he listened attentively.
Jamie tried not to stare at Trevor, but she couldn’t seem to stop her eyes from turning in his direction. He was such a good father, she thought, watching him help Abbie take a sip from her cup of juice.
“This is good spaghetti, Jamie,” Sam said around a mouthful.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full, son.”
“Thank you,” Jamie told the boy, pretending not to hear Trevor’s murmur. “I’m glad you like it.”
Swallowing hastily, Sam added, “It’s the best spaghetti I ever had.”
“That’s very high praise.”
“I like ravioli, too. My mommy made homemade ravioli. I remember it. Do you remember, Daddy?”
Trevor never even blinked. “Your mommy cooked the best homemade ravioli in the whole world.”
It touched Jamie that, despite the lingering resentment Trevor must have felt toward Melanie, he still managed to speak warmly of her to her son. And he always would, she realized. Neither Sam nor Abbie would ever hear any unpleasant word from Trevor about their mother. He would always put his own feelings aside for the sake of his children.