“But not the circles you’d want her in, anyway.”
“No,” she allowed, then smiled at him. “Have I thanked you for being so nice, and after I wasn’t at first?”
“We didn’t hit it off that first meeting,” Richard conceded. Except he’d felt the first twinges of lust, angry as he was.
“No. Or the first phone call, either.”
He remembered back. Cast-iron bitch. He’d been so sure.
“I wanted you to tell me what to do,” he said. “I didn’t have the slightest idea. I still don’t.”
She listened willingly when he told his fear that it was too late for him to become a full-time parent.
“Did you ever think of, I don’t know, contesting custody, or asking for alternate years, or…?” Molly asked, expression compassionate.
He grimaced. “Yeah. I was okay until Lexa got married and announced they were moving to California. I might have made a stink, except I was in the National Guard and half expecting to get sent to Iraq.”
Her eyes widened. “Did you?”
“Yeah. Year-long tour.” He looked away from her. “Twice.”
He didn’t know what she saw on his face, but her voice dropped to a whisper. “Oh, Richard.”
“There wasn’t any way I could have had the kids.” He kept his gaze fixed on the framed photos and pair of unusual candlesticks atop the fireplace mantel. “I didn’t come home in great shape, either. Especially after the second tour.”
“You were injured?”
“Not on the outside. I was one of the lucky ones.” He spared her a glance but didn’t let himself drown in her sympathy. “It was a year or more before I could sleep through the night after coming home, though.” He shuddered slightly, hoped she hadn’t noticed. “I had flashbacks. I was angry. Jumpy.”
“PTSD.”
“I don’t know. If so, I’d say most returning vets are coming home with it.” He shrugged. “I got better. But God knows I wasn’t in any shape to be a single parent.”
Miraculously, she was the one who scooted a cushion closer to him and laid a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry.”
His fingers curled into fists, the only way he could keep himself from touching her. From driving those same fingers into the dark fire of her hair.
“Are you still National Guard?”
He shook his head. “I got out. Barring something that pulls me back.”
“I had no idea.”
“Why would you?” That sounded unfriendly, and he didn’t mean it that way. “We didn’t know each other.” He frowned. “Why didn’t we? West Fork isn’t that big a town.”
“Cait and I have only been here three years. We lived on the east side before I got offered this job. Cait wasn’t thrilled.” A quick, wry grin pulled at her mouth. “She consented to the move once we determined the dance school here was acceptable.”
He found himself looking at her, maybe having some trouble tracking her words. “Molly,” he said, huskily.
Her lips parted. They stared at each other.
And then, goddamn it, came the sound of a door opening upstairs, voices, the clatter of footsteps, and the moment shattered. Cheeks pink, Molly whisked herself back to her end of the sofa and snatched up her coffee cup. Groaning inwardly, Richard drained his coffee and lifted his eyebrows at his son, who had taken the last three steps or so with one leap and thud. Cait had stopped three-quarters of the way down, her hand on the rail.
“You ready to go?”
“Sure,” his son said.
Molly hustled to the closet and handed out their parkas. “Thank you for coming. I enjoyed having you.”
“We enjoyed dinner,” Richard said.
“It was good,” Trevor agreed. He zipped up his parka. “Thank you, Ms. Callahan.”
“You’re very welcome, Trevor.” She smiled impartially at them. Richard thought her eyes were a little shy when they met his. “And Richard.”
He’d have given damn near anything to kiss her good-night. He would already have kissed her, if his son didn’t have such terrible timing. Maybe it was just as well. Trevor needed to come first, and the Callahans, mother and daughter, could do him some serious damage.
Trevor and he were in the truck, Richard ready to turn the key in the ignition, when Trev spoke. “I don’t think she’s going to get an abortion.”
His head snapped around. “What?”
“I told her I’d marry her if that’s what she wants.”
Richard heard the defiance and the misery, but that didn’t stop him from saying, “Are you crazy?”
“So the truth comes out,” his son said disagreeably. “You didn’t want to marry Mom.”
Richard didn’t swear much, but this would have been the moment if he hadn’t gritted his teeth hard. How in hell was he supposed to handle this?
Trevor turned away to look out the side window. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters,” Richard said grimly. “And the answer is, no. I didn’t want to marry your mother. I wanted to go to college. I wanted to grow up. I wanted to do something else with my life, not go to work for my father. None of that means I didn’t love your mother.” He thought a white lie was justified under the circumstances. “Or that I didn’t want you once I realized you were a possibility.” He wrapped both hands around the steering wheel. “Can’t you understand that?”
Trev’s chin dropped to his chest. “Yeah.” His voice came out thick. His breath rushed in and out. “I’m scared that’s what she’ll want.”
“Son.” Eyes burning, Richard pulled his boy into a rough embrace. “I doubt that’ll happen. She’s fifteen. That’s not what her mother’ll want. But…” His own breathing shuddered. “I’m behind you, okay? Whatever you need.”
He’d have sworn he felt tears on his neck. They stayed that way a long time in the dark.
CHAPTER TEN
IN THE NEXT WEEK, Molly developed the unwelcome suspicion that Cait was enjoying the role thrust on her. She’d never in her life held such power over others. She was the martyr, suffering visibly; everyone else had to wait on her decision. And yes, she was probably genuinely scared and uncertain, but she was also petulant and, in a strange way, triumphant. Molly began to feel she didn’t know her at all.
Clearly, Cait was taking that decision down to the wire. Maybe she’d shared it with Trevor—but Molly doubted so, from the wary way he watched her on the occasions she saw them together.
The teenagers were talking, Molly knew that much. Secretly, which was disconcerting. A couple of times, she saw Trevor waiting for Cait after school. Once Molly arrived home to see him hurrying away from the house down the sidewalk, hands in his pockets and face averted. Cait seemed to be spending a great deal of time closed in her bedroom on the phone talking to someone.
Which was probably good, because she sure wasn’t talking to her mother.
Molly might have found those days unbearable if not for Richard. One of them called the other almost every night. She thought about the few times he’d touched her, however casually. Maybe it was just as well that phone conversations allowed no opportunity for good-night kisses. Assuming, of course, he wanted to kiss her, and she wasn’t positive he did.
They’d plunged into such intimacy so fast, she was unnerved. The sound of his voice on the phone, warm, slow and deep, made her quiver. She was embarrassingly eager when he suggested getting together. He was certainly the sexiest man she’d ever seen, with his lean, dark face lit by a flicker of a smile. The sight of his very male saunter made her knees weak. She could hardly remember being so affected by a man, and gee, that had turned out so well.
Every time her self-esteem hit a low ebb, she reminded herself he had wanted to ask her out. Maybe he felt as cautious as she did, but he was definitely interested. That gave her something to hang on to.
The weird part was that in the meantime he had become her best friend. Her confidant, her prop, her reminder that it was possible to laugh.
He
talked, too. Less willingly than her, she thought, but what man was happy baring his deepest feelings or most regretted failures?
So, okay, they hadn’t gotten there yet. She hadn’t told him about her marriage; he hadn’t told her about his. Neither had talked about the price they’d paid for those early marriages, or the divorces that had followed. But during one of their phone conversations, he told her more about the war and some of the things he’d seen. Hearing his horror, she asked why he’d joined the National Guard, and he admitted it had been mostly money.
“There wasn’t some other way you could have moonlighted?” she asked.
It took him a while to answer. “Yeah, I could have found something. I suppose I wanted to get away, too. I liked the camaraderie you build with the other members of your unit. The sense that maybe you’re doing something worthwhile.”
“Do you think you did?” she asked softly.
“No.” His voice was harsher than she’d ever heard him. “Look at the headlines. We didn’t change a damn thing over there. We tried, but we didn’t understand them and they didn’t understand us. I made friends, but I never knew if it was pretense. God, all I wanted was to come home.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “So sorry.”
“Yeah.” He was quiet for a moment. “My best friend over there lost a leg. I suppose I felt guilty I came home whole.”
“Did you?”
He laughed, if gruffly. “Maybe not.”
“The soldiers we send are so young,” Molly said. “Kids.”
“This once the Humvee I was in drove over an IED.” He paused. “You know what…?”
“An improvised explosive device.”
“Yeah. Cut right through the armor. Turned it to shrapnel. Killed the guy sitting next to me. He was eighteen years old.”
“Eighteen.” She grappled with that. “How old were you?”
“By then I was a real man. In my twenties.”
She was smiling, although she didn’t know how she could, as sad as she felt. “A father figure.”
“Something like that.” And she heard his smile, too. “I’ve never talked about any of this with someone who wasn’t there. No, that isn’t true. I tried with Lexa, when I came home that first time. She didn’t want to hear it.”
“Listening, isn’t that one of the most important things we can do for each other?”
It was hard to interpret his silences, but she relaxed when he answered. “I’m starting to think so.”
Today was a rare, almost warm day, weird considering Thursday was Thanksgiving. The holiday hung over Molly, who had come to think of it as D-day for Cait. Or D-week, anyway. She was nine weeks right now. She had to make a decision.
I will not think about that today.
Molly had picked up deli sandwiches and met Richard at the riverfront park. She felt almost daring, sneaking away from school to meet him in person. The “in person” part made her a little giddy, which she wouldn’t have wanted anyone to know.
He got out of his Ward Electrical van when she pulled in next to him. Despite the sunshine, he put on a parka over his dark green uniform shirt, and she tucked gloves in the pocket of her own parka. He’d brought the coffee—plain and dark for him, a frothy latte for her. She bent and inhaled the steam before smiling at him.
“This was a good idea.”
“You say that now, but you may be shivering in a half hour.”
“If I am, we can sit in the car,” she pointed out reasonably.
They walked past the playground, where a young mother was pushing a toddler on a swing, then across short, damp grass to one of the benches that overlooked the river. It was running high and brown with snowmelt from higher in the mountains, but was still some feet below flood stage.
Molly laid out their food between them and accepted her cup, taking an appreciative sip. “This is so much better than a brown bag lunch at my desk.”
He made a sound of agreement. “Or a burger in the van.”
“Fast food’s not good for you.”
Richard laughed. “I do try to go a little easier on the grease than I used to.”
“I suppose not having anyone else to cook for cuts down on the incentive.”
“You could say that.” He sighed and stretched out his legs, stacking one booted foot on the other. “I’ve been trying a little harder since Trevor arrived, but he’s walked out on so damn many meals, it’s a little discouraging.”
“Still?”
He sipped his coffee before answering. “Not as often.”
“That’s good.” She hesitated. “Isn’t it?”
“Yeah. It’s good. Sometimes I think he’s mellowed toward me, then something happens and it’s like a lit fuse. I don’t know what to think.”
“Does he talk to his mother at all?”
“Not according to her.” He unwrapped his sandwich.
“Do you talk to her often?” Belatedly, she thought, Not my business.
“No.” His gaze fixed on the river, face unreadable. “We don’t have much to say to each other.” About the time Molly was wondering if she’d been warned off, he spoke again. “You and your ex?”
“Heavens, no! I haven’t talked to him in years beyond saying ‘yes, Cait is here’ and passing on the phone. And not even that in a long time.”
“Years?” He glanced at her, some lines having deepened on his forehead. Not a frown, but…something. “You said he doesn’t see much of Cait, but I wondered if you’d told him…”
“No. Absolutely not,” she said strongly. “He has no interest in her whatsoever.”
“I don’t get that.”
“I don’t, either.” She was shredding her own multigrain roll, so that seeds pattered onto the paper wrapping that lay open on her lap. “The ironic thing is, he was hot to have more children. His pressure was one of the things that damaged our marriage.” Wow, did she want to tell him this?
“You didn’t want a brother or sister for Cait?”
“It wasn’t that. I did agree to try, but I was in grad school and the timing was lousy. We already had problems, and some of the pressure was coming from his parents. As it was he didn’t have much time for Cait.”
“His parents?”
“He’s an attorney. Did I tell you that?” When he shook his head, she smiled wryly. “Family law firm. Colt is the third generation to make partner. No surprise there. Believe it or not, he’s Colton Callahan the Third. He suddenly decided—or his parents decided, I’m not sure which—that it was time we hatched a Colton Callahan the Fourth.”
“Good God,” Richard muttered. “Caitlyn Callahan wasn’t good enough?”
“Apparently not. After all, she was only a Caitlyn the First. His parents weren’t what you’d call warm. They never made me feel as if I measured up. For one thing, in their world the wife didn’t work. She entertained for her husband, she served on the boards of charities, she put on fundraisers for appropriate causes. College was fine, good. Graduate school unnecessary.”
“And you stuck to your guns.”
His approving smile turned her to mush. “I did.”
“Wasn’t Colton in law school at the same time you were in grad school?”
“No, I was an undergrad when we met, but he was already in his second year of law school. Not thrilled when I got pregnant.”
“I don’t suppose you were, either.”
“No, of course not. But…” She looked down, evading the warmth in his eyes. “Once I felt her move, I was a goner.”
“So you ended up divorced before you could get pregnant again.”
Decision time. Did she really want to get this personal?
“It wasn’t that simple,” she said, stalling.
When he reached out and removed her sandwich from her hands, she realized she was mangling it. He rewrapped it, his eyes never leaving her face. “In what way?”
“I had endometriosis. Increasingly painful menstrual periods. It turned out the scarring was so
severe, it would be difficult to impossible for me to get pregnant.”
His face hardened. “Tell me the son of a bitch didn’t leave you because you didn’t get pregnant on demand.”
“I think it contributed, but that wasn’t the whole story. We didn’t have much marriage by then.” Colt hadn’t taken well her rejection of his sexual advances when she hurt too much. She’d needed pampering and sympathy he never thought to give. Didn’t care enough to give, Molly had come to believe. Their marriage, their family, increasingly became for show, while at home they hardly spoke. “I’ve suspected for a long time that I never would have married him if we’d waited.”
“If you hadn’t gotten pregnant.”
She nodded.
“Ditto for me.” He wadded the wrapping for his own sandwich and tossed it from hand to hand. “I think Alexa got pregnant on purpose.”
“What?” Molly gaped at him.
“I never asked her. I mean, she was having my kid. I didn’t want to stir hard feelings we’d never be able to bury. But I knew. She was unhappy about me going away for college. She’d wanted me to stay close—the community college or Western Washington. I wasn’t breaking up with her—we talked vaguely about me coming home some weekends, you know how it is—but I was desperate to go away. I’d been recruited by half a dozen West Coast schools, and I chose UC Berkeley. I could hardly wait to go. Reality is, I wouldn’t have come home much. Not with airfare from California. Lexa knew that. She was taking the pill.”
“And you trusted her.”
“Yeah. I trusted her.”
Neither said anything. The silence was oddly comfortable, even companionable. Molly reached for her sandwich again and began eating this time.
“That’s why you’re antiabortion for Cait, isn’t it? Because you know what it’s like not to be able to get pregnant when you want to,” Richard finally said.
His insight surprised her. Why not tell him the whole truth? That she couldn’t get pregnant again, ever? That she’d had a hysterectomy? Because it was too much. He didn’t need to know. I will not live vicariously through my daughter to that extent.
“I can’t deny there’s some truth in that,” she conceded. “But I’ve been doing my best to wall off how I felt then from Cait’s situation. Cait’s too young to have a baby. I know that. Yes, I feel squeamish about her having an abortion, but my own history isn’t the only reason.”
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