Lisa shrugged. “It hurt a little, but at that point, I didn’t care. And you made me forget about the pain soon enough.”
He leaned over, wondering what he’d ever done to deserve this woman. “I’m still sorry I hurt you,” he said, running his hand along her brow and down over her cheek. “But, God, Lis—I’m the only one?”
Her tentative nod freed something inside of him, a sense of security he’d never known before. His fingers brushed the sensitive spot on the side of her neck. She’d just given him the best Christmas present he’d ever had.
Lisa shivered, and Marcus continued the caress, down over her shoulders to her breasts and below. Lisa’s belly had expanded to the size of a small basketball, and he caressed the taut skin. She was his Madonna. She was his angel sent from above.
Marcus began to make love to Lisa again, his movements more careful than usual—as if she were a virgin, showing her how it should it have been for her all those years ago. When it was time, he entered her slowly, with the ease of familiarity, but also with a hesitant exploration, learning her anew.
He loved her as slowly as he could, until he was certain he wasn’t going to last another second. And then he plunged into her fully. But just as he reached his hilt, something jerked against him, from within her, as if protesting his invasion.
Marcus flew off Lisa and away from the bed so fast he almost hurt himself, staring at his wife as if he’d never met her before. He couldn’t believe what had just happened.
Lisa’s baby had kicked him. Where it counted. Another man’s baby was inside his wife telling him to go away.
What if the baby did that after he was born, too? Told him to go away? Would it come in between him and Lisa? Force her to choose between the two of them?
“Marcus?” She sounded close to tears as she sat up, staring back at him.
Lisa’s baby had kicked him.
There really was a little human being growing inside her. One she was going to give birth to in the not-too-distant future. And he’d felt it move. In the most intimate way possible.
He knew her baby in a way no other man ever would.
Yet…it changed nothing. Still didn’t make Marcus the father of Lisa’s baby. But suddenly he found that he was no longer jealous of the man who had fathered her child. Envious as hell, yes. Definitely. Always. But no longer jealous. Marcus knew that baby far more intimately than that man did.
LISA SLEPT LITTLE that night, tormented by the look of horror she’d seen on Marcus’s face when the baby had kicked him. He’d come back to her, finished what he’d started, tenderly drawing a response from her as he always could, but the minute he’d fallen asleep, her tears had come, sliding silently down her cheeks to sink into the pillow beneath her head. So much for a merry Christmas.
Lying in bed beside Marcus, listening to his steady breathing, she despaired of their future. How could she raise a child with a man who hated it? What would it do to their son or daughter to live in a house with a man who was repulsed by the child’s touch? What right did she have to subject any child to that kind of life?
Getting out of bed, Lisa wrapped herself in the big furry bathrobe Marcus had given her for Christmas that morning and sat in the bathroom trying to make sense of the tangle that had become her life. The man she adored hated her baby. What was she going to do, torn as she was between the baby she’d come to love so dearly, the baby she needed so badly, and the man who was her other half? How could she possibly keep all three of them happy?
She didn’t know, but she could no longer hide from the fact that something had to be done. She couldn’t raise her baby in a house full of resentment or indifference. The poor child would grow up feeling unloved.
Much as Marcus had done.
And as confident as he was, when it came to loving, Marcus still blamed himself for the fact that his parents hadn’t loved him enough to find time for him. He believed that he was lacking, that he was unlovable. And, God help her, she didn’t think she could ever leave him and, in his mind, confirm that belief.
CHAPTER TEN
OLIVER WAS CONCERNED about Lisa. She’d invited him to dinner one Sunday in the middle of January, and by the end of the afternoon, she looked awful. Her skin was white, her eyes dull, and she had almost no energy at all.
“I’m just tired, Dad,” she said when he became too worried to keep silent about it.
“Dr. Crutchfield said to expect this,” Marcus added later as he walked Oliver to the door.
Oliver wasn’t a doctor. And after losing one daughter and a wife, he knew he tended to overreact a bit sometimes, but he’d still rest better with the reassurance of someone who would know just what she was talking about. Someone who wouldn’t sugarcoat things for him if, indeed, there was something wrong with his daughter.
He hadn’t seen Beth at all over the holidays and was certain he’d recovered from whatever middleaged foolishness had overcome him. At least that was what he told himself when he made a detour by Beth’s office on his way home from the university on Tuesday.
“Oliver! Come in!” She sounded happy to see him. He’d been half-afraid she’d show him the door.
“You busy? I can get back to you another time,” he said, noticing the huge stack of files on her desk. She looked tired, too. Maybe it was just something that was going around.
“No! No. Come on in. Have a seat. I’ve missed you these past several Fridays. Not that you have to come by or anything. It’s just that I’d gotten kind of used to seeing you.”
She was babbling. Oliver liked it. A lot.
“I’ve been pretty busy lately,” he lied, shrugging out of his overcoat. He hated lying, but even more, he couldn’t stand to hurt her with the truth. He’d been out with another woman the last Friday, a volunteer at the hospital like he was, a woman his own age. “There’s always so much to do when the new semester starts up.”
She smiled, looking relieved. “That’s all right. I probably wouldn’t have been much company, anyway. I’ve been busy, too. Last Friday I was asleep by eight o’clock.”
He could just picture her all curled up in bed. He’d bet she wore a nightie, not pajamas. “Have you seen Lisa lately?” he asked, reminding himself of the reason for his visit.
“Not in the last week or two. She’s been spending all her free time with Marcus. But I’ve spoken with her doctor. Why?”
Oliver shrugged, feeling better already. “I had dinner over there Sunday. She looked tired. Wan.”
Beth grinned. “Wouldn’t you be feeling kind of tired yourself if you were lugging around all that extra weight? She’s gained almost ten pounds.”
Oliver considered the grandbaby his daughter was going to present him with. “I guess I would,” he said. He was suddenly happier than he’d been in weeks. “And Lisa’s small-boned, too, like her mother. Though I don’t ever remember Barbara looking so sickly.”
“I’ll take a look at her, Grandpa. Would that make you feel better?”
“It would,” Oliver said, feeling deflated. Grandpa. What would a woman Beth’s age ever find of interest in an old codger like him?
And why was he even thinking such things again? He’d been cured of all that.
LISA WAS ANEMIC. Debbie Crutchfield recommended that she cut down her working hours to part-time until she was fully rested and had regained her strength.
“I think you should quit working altogether, Lis. At least until after you have your baby,” Marcus said as soon as they left the doctor’s office. He helped her into her coat, pulling it up over the sleeves of her suit jacket before he tied the belt across her expanding belly.
She was glad he was there. He’d missed one of her checkups because he hadn’t wanted to accompany her to the ultrasound that immediately followed the appointment.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Lisa said, her arm through his as he walked her back to the car. If she had to quit work, she would. She was willing to do whatever it took to have a healthy baby. She just didn�
�t know what she was going to do after the baby was born. She was almost into her seventh month. That gave her three more months. Three months to decide what would happen when she had another life to consider before her own. Would she still be able to lean on Marcus then?
He’d just said it again. Your baby. Not our baby. He couldn’t make it plainer that the baby she was carrying was hers and hers alone. And she was growing more and more afraid that was just how she was going to be raising it. Alone.
“We haven’t talked about afterward, Lis,” Marcus said later that night. They were in the den, sitting in front of a roaring fire, waiting for the eleven o’clock news.
“What do you mean?” she asked, her heart leaping. Had he read her mind? Did he know that he and her baby couldn’t live as strangers in the same house? That she might be forced to choose between the two of them?
“Your work, for one thing. Do you plan to go back after the baby’s born?”
Oh. “I guess I just assumed I would, once he’s old enough for me to leave him.”
Marcus’s eyes narrowed. “You keep saying ‘he.’ Do you know you’re having a boy?”
“No.” Lisa shook her head. What an insane conversation to be having with the father of her child. If he’d been with her during the ultrasound, he’d know. Or if he’d cared enough to ask her at any time during these many weeks since. “The baby was lying on his stomach and it was impossible to tell.”
Marcus nodded, looking about as interested as if they’d been discussing the weather. “So you plan to hire a nanny to care for it?”
It. Not him or her. It. “Yes. I’ve already made some inquiries at the hospital.” She plucked at the bottom of the lounging pajamas she’d put on as soon as they’d arrived home.
“I think that would be preferable to day care,” he said.
Lisa froze, not certain she wasn’t reading more into his casual statement than was there—as she had a tendency to do these days. But it had sounded like Marcus had just expressed a personal opinion where her baby was concerned.
“I thought I’d only work part-time, for the first year at least,” she said tentatively.
“That sounds like a good plan. A child should have its mother with it as much as possible during those first years.”
As he, Marcus, had not. Lisa heard what her husband wasn’t saying. Oh, Marcus, please let yourself be loved as you were meant to be loved. Not just by me. But by your new family, too.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to leave him more than that, anyway,” she said, chuckling. “I’m finding I have some rather possessive motherly tendencies.”
Marcus smiled. “I’m glad.”
He reached for the television control and flipped on the news, which effectively put an end to the conversation. But Lisa was smiling when she went to bed that night. Was Marcus finally starting to thaw? Could it be that she’d be able to have her baby and her husband, too? Was it possible she’d gambled—and won?
SHE WAS STILL ASLEEP when Marcus left for work the next morning. He left her a note on his pillow, telling her good-morning, rather than waking her. He was happy to see that she was finally getting some rest. With her nights constantly interrupted by trips to the bathroom, getting up at the crack of dawn had become too much for her.
He’d be relieved when the whole thing was over, he thought as he drove through the old and elegant streets of New Haven, beautiful even with the gray skies overhead and the slush on the ground. As much as he enjoyed watching Lisa’s body blossom, he was growing increasingly more worried about her as her pregnancy progressed.
Of course, he had his share of apprehensions for afterward, too. Would Lisa still have time for him? Would her baby resent his place in Lisa’s life? She was going to be a very devoted mother, which pleased Marcus, but would she need him around once she had her baby to love?
Disgusted with himself for harboring such fears, Marcus attacked his work that day with a vengeance. He had another meeting with George Blake, and he was going to get the deal done. It was time to quit being Mr. Nice Guy.
Blake and his team arrived fifteen minutes early, but Marcus was ready for them. He led them to the executive conference room down the hall from his office then waited only until Marge had served coffee before beginning the meeting.
“Gentlemen, I think what we’ve worked out here together should just about take care of the future of Blake’s department stores,” Marcus said, cutting to the chase. He held up a copy of the latest proposal for a fifty-one/forty-nine percent merger, allowing Blake’s the fifty-one percent and Cartwright Enterprises the management privileges, all of which were specified in minute detail.
“I have just one suggestion about page fifteen, item one, young man,” George Blake said, “under software implementation for inventory control.”
Marcus stifled a groan. He’d known the old guy was going to find a way to make this difficult. It was time to play hardball. “What would that be, George?”
“I’m not sure that it’s fiscally wise to invest so heavily in a system that will be outdated by the end of the year.”
Marcus’s rebuttal died in his throat. “Oh?” he said. He’d had to fight for months to get George to allow him to put computers in the Blake’s enterprise at all because the old man hadn’t known the first thing about them and, thus, didn’t trust them.
“CD-ROM, all of that, will be a thing of the past before we know it,” George said, tapping the pages in front of him. “If we were buying this two years ago, I’d agree that it would be worth the investment, but at this late date, I say we buy a system that will allow us to move into the future, a system that we can expand on, rather than replace.”
Marcus felt like giving the old man a hug. He grinned, instead. “I’d say that’s sound advice, George. I’ll have my team on it first thing in the morning.”
OLIVER WAS BUSHED. He stopped by Beth’s office after volunteering on Friday, needing to see her in spite of the anger tamped down inside of him. They’d lost another kidney patient that week, one who probably could have been saved if they’d had the new dialysis equipment he’d been campaigning for. Thornton had the money. They just chose to spend it in other places. Such as Beth’s clinic. A few lives gained for one lost, he thought with uncharacteristic bitterness.
“You up for dinner?” he asked, poking his head around her door.
“You bet.” She turned off her computer, grabbed her coat and locked up behind her, watching him all the while.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
They were walking briskly out to their cars, hunched over against the cold.
“Rosie Gardner died today.”
He could see the instant understanding in her eyes as she slowed to look at him. It was hard to blame her for taking the dialysis-equipment money when she looked at him like that.
“I’m sorry.” She linked her arm with his so naturally that he shouldn’t even have noticed. Except that he did. His whole body noticed.
“If we’d just had that damned equipment,” he said, reminding himself that it was better if he stayed at least a little bit angry with her. Except that he wouldn’t have a grandchild on the way, an extension of Barbara, if it wasn’t for Beth’s clinic.
“Have you asked Marcus for help?” she asked, standing beside her car while he unlocked the door for her. He could see her breath in the frosty air.
“Of course not. I’d never ask Marcus for money. Too many other people do that every day of his life. The boy already thinks his money is the only reason most people care about him. I certainly don’t want him thinking that about me.”
Beth smiled, her full dimples twinkling up at him. “I didn’t mean personally. I meant Cartwright Enterprises. If you get your money from a private source, it has to buy only what it was donated to buy. The hospital no longer has a say in designating how the funds are spent. And it’s not unheard of for private companies to donate to hospitals, though the way hospitals have become big businesses themselves
, it’s not done as often anymore. Still, it’s a great tax writeoff.”
“You’re sure the hospital has no means to direct the spending?” Oliver asked. He’d understood that everything that was used in the hospital had to be hospital-sanctioned.
“They can direct only insomuch as determining which machine they deem most suitable to their needs, but all the money either has to be used for the designated purpose or returned.”
Oliver followed Beth to a steak house around the corner from the hospital, mulling over her suggestion. It might work. It just might work.
Beth was one smart woman. Which was one of the reasons he enjoyed the time he spent with her.
It had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that her lips were made for kissing.
“OH, LOOK AT THIS ONE! It’s so tiny.” Lisa held up the cutest little T-shirt she’d ever seen.
“I think your baby’s already too big to fit into that,” Beth said, grinning at her.
“Nah,” said Crystal, a maternity nurse from the hospital. “She’s hardly showing yet. Just wait another couple of months. Then he’ll be too big.”
“Don’t even talk about it.” Lisa rubbed the front of her navy blue maternity dress. “Another couple of months and I’m not going to be able to walk.”
Everyone laughed and Lisa was suddenly glad Beth had arranged the baby shower for her. She’d missed her friends.
“Have you guys picked out names yet?” Nancy, a doctor from ER, asked.
“Sawyer if it’s a boy,” Lisa said. “Sara Barbara if it’s a girl.” The names had been picked so many years ago she didn’t even have to think about it.
She opened another gift, a pair of tiny designer tennis shoes. And looked up just in time to see Marcus standing in the doorway. He was supposed to be in Storrs at a meeting for most of the afternoon. Which was why she’d agreed to Beth’s suggestion that the shower be at her, Lisa’s, house.
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