by Susan Crosby
Donovan stayed uncharacteristically quiet, as if they were visiting a shrine. Maybe they were. Her own shrine to family and dreams that she’d given up on twelve years ago.
Finally he leaned against a pillar in the sun room. Still he hadn’t touched her. She needed so much to be touched, to be held. The house, her house, was calling to her, as it always had, making promises she knew couldn’t be fulfilled.
And somehow she knew Donovan was about to make things harder on her.
“I know you do need a partnership offered to you, Laura, and I’m here to do just that,” he said, his voice sounding strange after the long silence. “There’s a catch, however.”
“Isn’t there always?”
“How’d you get to be so cynical?” he asked, smiling slightly but not waiting for an answer. “The catch is, this partnership would require more than eighty hours a week. Also, the revenue can’t be counted in cash, but it’s immeasurable, refilling itself to overflowing all the time. Marry me, Laura. Live here with me. I love you.”
He loved her? The room spun, not just with joy but worry. “But—”
He pressed his fingers to her lips. “No buts. Just love me and my son, and whatever other children we’re blessed with.”
How could the best day of her life also be the worst? “Children,” she repeated.
“Yeah. I’m not talking a dozen or anything, but a couple more. I didn’t realize how much I’d wanted kids until Ethan came along. This house could hold just the right number, don’t you think?”
“You’re not accepting the job offer?”
“I’m not. When I asked myself if I wanted the job of a lifetime or the chance of a lifetime, it was a simple choice. I’ve been out in the world. I know the value of life, the importance of love, the necessity of a true partnership. I could have all that in D.C., too, if you were willing to move there. But this is where I want to raise my children—with you. I’ve learned that nothing is forever, that life constantly shifts and changes. I can go home again.”
She walked away from him, staring at the overgrown backyard. He didn’t give her time or space, but was beside her in an instant.
“Yes? No? Maybe? Give me time? Drop dead? Not if you were the last man on earth?” he said, covering anxiety with humor.
“I’ve been keeping something from you, Donovan. Something important. No, more than that. Something critical.”
“I’m listening.”
“I didn’t tell you in the beginning, because I thought this would be temporary.”
“This?”
“Us. Our affair.” The word sounded harsh in her ears. Affair. It really was what they’d had, but it sounded tawdry now, especially knowing she loved him—and he loved her. She’d ignored that declaration, not letting him see how much his words had meant to her. It was what she’d wanted—and feared—would happen.
“Our affair,” he repeated. “Is that how you see what we’ve had? No emotions involved, just sex?”
“I can’t have children.” There. She’d said it. Now they could deal with it.
He waited a few beats. “How do you know that?”
“Because twelve years ago, I had uterine cancer. I had a hysterectomy, then chemotherapy and radiation, all of which saved my life, but took away my ability to have children.”
She felt him staring at her, but she didn’t make eye contact, continuing to look out the window, seeing nothing. He turned away.
She trembled from keeping herself so still, so rigid. She wished he would just go, get it over with, let her get on with the healing she would need to do. Go to D.C., she wanted to scream. Get out of my life. Take your adorable son with you.
After what seemed like an hour, he faced her, took her shoulders and made her look at him. His eyes were wet. “Cancer.”
She nodded.
“You could’ve died,” he said, low and hoarse.
He pulled her against him so hard she bounced off him a little, held her so hard she could barely breathe. That she’d started crying didn’t help.
“You could’ve died,” he said again.
“I didn’t,” she said, comforting him, running her hands over his back, up into his hair, as he pressed his face into her shoulder. “I’m here.”
He kissed her, emotion spilling from him. If she’d had any doubts that he loved her, they were gone now. His fear, his relief, all poured out of him in that kiss that was tender and grateful and life-affirming.
“Why didn’t you think you could tell me?” he asked, touching his forehead to hers.
“My reasons were purely selfish. I’d wanted you for so long. I finally had a chance. I didn’t want to give you up until I had to. When you turned me down in the high-school parking lot, I was devastated. I wanted a memory this time.”
He finally straightened. She brushed his cheeks with her hands, as he did hers, both of them smiling a little.
“You know why I turned you down, don’t you?” he asked.
“You said I was too young.”
“I also told you I was leaving. Believe me, I was more than tempted. But what kind of man gets involved with a woman when he knows he’s going to leave?”
The silence that dropped between them was palpable.
“Yes,” he said, without her asking the question. “Yes, I must have already decided I wouldn’t be leaving Chance City when we first slept together. I didn’t know it consciously, but I must have known, because that’s not the way I operate. And you haven’t answered my question, Laura.”
She believed he loved her. Still, a big issue needed to be addressed. “You said you wanted to fill your yard with kids.”
“You’re too literal, counselor. What makes you think I wouldn’t be open to adoption? Or if that’s not right for you, we borrow the neighbors’ kids or my nieces and nephews from time to time. But can you imagine the number of children I’ve seen who’ve been orphaned? How many kids I wished I could take home and keep safe? Are you willing to do that? Adopt?”
“Yes,” she said instantly, the word scraping along her throat. “I never saw myself as a mother, never allowed it, but I’ve learned I have a lot to give a child, especially when I love his father.”
“So that’s a yes, you’ll marry me?”
“That’s about the biggest yes in the history of the world.”
He kissed her, softly, sweetly, then framed her face and asked, “Aren’t you curious about how I’m going to support us?”
“Yes, I am, in fact, although I have to tell you that you’d better come up with something good, because I’m quitting the firm in Sacramento. My income’s dropping by a whole lot. We may not be able to afford this house.”
The thought of not having this house now that she’d come to believe it was hers struck fear in her.
“Relax. We can afford this house,” he said right away, reading her expression perfectly. “Remember last month when you were giving me ideas about work I might do that would allow me to stay here with Ethan? Well, it seems a publisher wouldn’t mind paying me to write fiction, based on my experiences. I’m going to create a series starring an ace journalist who makes a name for himself by going where the story is, risking his life for it, no holds barred, and the enemies he makes.”
“Will he ever fall in love and settle down?”
“What? Turn him into a boring, everyday—”
She shoved him away. He laughed and pulled her back. “Maybe. Maybe he needs some heartbreak first so that he realizes what he’s got when he finally finds it.”
“Much better,” she said. “So, where’s Ethan?”
“At Mom’s.” Donovan ran his hands down her, curved his palms over her rear and brought her close. “We have plenty of time to go back to your house for a while.”
“Actually, I’d like to go tell him, if you don’t mind.” Excitement filled her to near bursting. “I’m going to be a mother. I’m kind of in a hurry to celebrate that. Actually, I’m in a big hurry. It’s something I thought I�
�d never have the chance—” She swallowed.
His expression was one of total indulgence to her happiness. “We can go tell him right now.”
“Do you think, since he calls Anne Mum, that maybe he’ll be able to call me Mom?” she asked, worried. “I don’t want to replace her, just add to what she’s already given him. And I know we need to give him time to come to terms with it all first. Plus, it means another move for him—here, to this beautiful house—”
He laughed. “Slow down. Take a breath.”
She inhaled shakily. “Okay. O-kay.”
“All right. Anything else on that list of yours?”
“Probably lots, but for now? No.”
He hooked an arm around her, and drew her back inside the house. “This place needs a lot of work.”
“Of course it does. But then, anything that’s worthwhile does. I love you, newsman.”
“It’s about time you said it.”
“I’ve said it in my head so many times, I thought I already had.”
They stopped in the middle of their future living room and kissed. “Don’t ever stop,” he said against her lips. “I’ll never get tired of hearing it.”
“I love you with all my heart.” She would tell him that every day, for the rest of their lives. She would let herself be spontaneous. She would laugh and love and cherish.
They would have big family parties. She would be a full-fledged McCoy for the rest of her life.
“I’ll learn how to cook,” she said.
Donovan laughed then, and the house—her house—smiled, too.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-4633-5
LOVE AND THE SINGLE DAD
Copyright © 2010 by Susan Bova Crosby
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*Wives for Hire
**Back in Business
*Wives for Hire
*Wives for Hire
††The McCoys of Chance City
††The McCoys of Chance City
†Behind Closed Doors
†Behind Closed Doors
†Behind Closed Doors
†Behind Closed Doors
†Behind Closed Doors
†Behind Closed Doors