“You don’t know me at all anymore.” She slid off her stool. “I should go.”
“Getting a little too hot in here?”
“There’s no point to this conversation.”
“Does there have to be a point? We’re just catching up.”
“I suppose.”
“And I don’t think you’re ready to go.”
“Well, I did tell my mother I’d pick her up from work, so I have some time to kill, but I don’t have to do it here.”
“Why don’t you come upstairs?”
A tingle shot down her spine. He wasn’t suggesting a hook-up, was he? She should be angry, furious, but the emotion running through her felt more like excitement.
“We can talk,” Alex added, his gaze narrowing. “You didn’t think…”
“No, of course not,” she said quickly. “I’m married.”
“Right. Upstairs might not be a good idea. In fact, I have a better one.”
“What’s that?”
“It will be a surprise.”
She gave him a doubtful look. “I don’t like surprises.”
“I know. You like to plan and control every moment of your life, but you’re taking a trip down memory lane, and I don’t want you to miss any of the important spots.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’ll see.” He turned to the other bartender. “I’ll be back in a while.” As the woman nodded, he moved through the door behind the bar and returned a moment later with a big coat. “You’re going to need this.”
“This is not a good idea,” she said as she took the coat.
He grinned. “It won’t be the first bad idea I’ve had, especially where you’re concerned.”
“You always could talk me into things.”
“Only when you secretly wanted to do them,” he said, once again reminding her of just how well he knew her. Almost twenty years had passed, but she felt like a young girl again… and hell, maybe that was worth something. Why not have a reckless night? She was forty. Tomorrow and reality would come soon enough.
* * *
Following her would-be mugger home was not the smartest idea Angela had ever had, but she felt a force propelling her forward that seemed impossible to resist. The apartment building was only a block away from the convenience store and had obviously seen better days. Everything was old. The hallways smelled of cigarette smoke and a mix of other food smells. Through the thin walls, she could hear a couple yelling at each other.
Laurel stopped in front of a door on the second floor and unlocked the two locks. She led the way inside, calling for her sister. “Kimmie, I’m back.”
A small girl of about six or seven came running around the couch with a ragged stuffed bear in her arms. She barreled into Laurel as she shot Angela a suspicious look. “Who’s she?” she asked.
“I’m Angela,” she replied.
She looked around the small, dark, dirty apartment, even more appalled at the living conditions. There were no lights on, just a couple of candles casting big shadows on walls of peeling paint. The blinds at the windows were broken. A queen-sized bed in one corner was unmade, and the couch was messy with pillows and blankets. “Where is your mother?” she asked.
“She’s been gone a long time,” Kimmie announced.
Laurel glared at her sister, then looked back at Angela. “Not that long, and she’ll be back. She always comes back eventually.”
“Is the electricity off?”
“We like candles,” Laurel said defensively.
“Do you have heat?”
“It’s not that cold. We have blankets. We just need a little money for food and some cough medicine,” Laurel added as Kimmie gave a congested cough. “We’ll pay you back.”
“How on earth would you do that?”
“I’ll find a way,” Laurel said, lifting her chin.
“I need to call someone to help you.”
“You can’t,” Laurel said quickly. “They’ll split us up, and Kimmie needs me.”
Angela stared at the two little girls clinging together and couldn’t help but be reminded of herself and her sisters. But they had grown up in a loving family, a beautiful home. They’d had so much more than this. It was criminal the way the girls were living.
“My aunt said she’d come on Sunday,” Laurel put in. “We’ll be okay until then if you can give us a few dollars.”
She didn’t know if there was an aunt, but she seriously doubted it. Laurel would do anything to keep her and her sister together. Angela debated her options. This wasn’t her problem. She could call the cops and hand the girls off and know they’d be taken care of, maybe not the way they wanted, but they would be safe and fed and provided with care. That was the most important thing.
“Please,” Laurel said, obviously sensing she was losing the battle. “Don’t turn us in.”
“You can’t live here alone, honey.”
“We’ve been alone before, and we were fine.”
“You’re not fine. You’re hungry, and Kimmie is sick.”
“You don’t know what it’s like in the homes they send us to. It’s horrible.”
Kimmie started to cry, and Angela wasn’t sure if it was because she knew what was coming or she was just picking up on her sister’s fear. Her sobs were mixed with coughs and big sniffs.
“Okay, stop crying,” she said. “You’re going to make yourself feel worse.”
“I don’t want to leave Laurel. She takes care of me,” Kimmie whined. “She holds my hand when it’s dark, and it’s really dark outside now.”
It was dark. It was very late. She’d been gone for hours, driving around feeling sorry for herself.
Well, she wanted to be a mother, and right now there were two children in front of her who needed some nurturing. “I won’t call anyone tonight,” she said, making an impulsive decision that she hoped she wouldn’t regret. “I’ll wait until the morning, but you two are coming home with me. I can’t leave you here alone, and you need food. You can come to my house. We’ll leave your mother a note and tell her where you are in case she comes back.”
The girls were too desperate to ask any questions, even though they probably should have. She was a stranger, but obviously in their world they had to take a chance on who to trust, and right now they were trusting her.
She jotted down her name and phone number and a quick note of explanation while Laurel grabbed some clothes for her and Kimmie.
When they left the apartment, Angela had no idea if she was doing the right thing, but she was doing something, taking action, and it felt good. She just hoped Colin would agree.
Chapter Six
“Are you crazy?” Colin asked as Angela finished telling him that Laurel and Kimmie were going to stay with them for the night. “You can’t just take someone else’s kids and bring them home.”
“I’ll explain more in a minute.” She glanced down at the girls, who were practically hiding behind her. Colin’s anger had obviously scared them. “The girls are hungry. I hope there are leftovers.” She was more than a little thankful that the party had ended before she got back. It was going to be difficult enough to explain what she’d done to Colin.
“Of course. Your mother makes enough food to feed an army,” he replied, running a hand through his hair in frustration.
“Let’s get some dinner, girls,” she said, heading toward the kitchen. “My mom made three kinds of lasagna. I hope you like Italian.”
“What’s lasagna?” Kimmie asked.
“It’s like spaghetti with big flat noodles,” Angela answered. “You can wash your hands, and I’ll heat up some pasta for you.”
Laurel pulled a kitchen chair over to the sink for Kimmie to stand on and then turned on the water.
Angela quickly pulled out salad, lasagna and bread, acutely aware of Colin standing in the doorway. “As soon as I get them settled, I’ll talk to you,” she told him.
He gave a helpless shake of his head a
nd then left the room.
She made up two plates of food and set them on the table while the girls took a seat.
“Is this for us?” Kimmie asked in wonder.
“Eat as much as you like,” Angela told them.
The girls dove in before she had finished speaking. It was clear they’d been hungry for a while.
“You don’t have to rush,” she added. “There’s more where that came from.” She watched them for another minute and then returned to the living room.
Colin had a trash bag in one hand and was collecting used paper plates and cups, a reminder of the birthday party she’d run out on.
“Where should I start?” she asked, twisting her hands together.
He set down the trash bag and planted his hands on his hips. “Why don’t you start with where you’ve been for the last three hours?”
“I drove around for a while. I never meant to be gone so long, but I needed to think.”
“We were worried about you. Your mother and sisters were very upset.”
“I’ll apologize to them tomorrow.”
She sat on the sofa and drew in a breath. Colin took a seat on the ottoman in front of his favorite armchair. He stared at her for a long moment. “I feel like I don’t even know you anymore,” he murmured.
She was feeling a little that way herself. She’d been restless for months, but her birthday had brought everything to the boiling point.
“Tell me again what happened,” he said. “You drive around and then stumble upon two homeless girls and decide to bring them home?”
She hadn’t told him that Laurel had attempted to mug her, something she intended to leave out of her story for the time being. “They need help. Their mom is away and there’s no electricity at their apartment.”
“Then you should have called the police.”
“Laurel said when the police come, they always split them up. Kimmie is scared and has a cold and needs to be with her sister.”
“Angie, this is not our problem.”
“I know that, but I couldn’t look the other way, Colin. I saw two young girls who needed someone to help them. So I did.”
“You should have taken them to the police station.”
“I thought about it, but it’s late, and I didn’t think one more night would make a difference.”
“What if their mother comes home and finds them gone?”
“I considered that. I left a note with our phone number.”
“Oh, that’s great. The mother could be a crazy person, a drug addict. She could be a criminal and now she has our phone number.”
“I didn’t know what else to do. Laurel said she thought her mother would be back by Sunday, or that her aunt would come.”
He shook his head. “Angie, these kids need professional support. I know you want to be a mother, but this is ridiculous. You can’t just grab two kids and bring them home. You’ve lost your mind. I’m calling the police.” He stood up.
“Wait. Just let them stay until the morning, Colin. I made them a promise, and I want to keep it. What are a few hours? It’s not like we don’t have the room.”
His gaze narrowed. “Will you really call tomorrow? Or will you have another reason for keeping them just a little longer?”
“I just want to be sure they’re taken care of. I need to think about the best thing to do.”
“You need to think about a lot of things, like why you blew off your own birthday party, why you can’t be happy in a marriage with just the two of us, and why you think you can somehow take two kids off the street and become an instant mother.”
“It’s been a bad night,” she said quietly, realizing that his frustration had to do with more than just Laurel and Kimmie’s arrival. “I’m sorry that I ran out on the party. And while I want to say I could be happy in a marriage without children, I don’t think I can. I love you, Colin. It’s not that you’re not enough – it’s that I’m not enough. Something is missing inside of me. I ache. And I don’t think that feeling is going to go away. I need to be a mother.”
He sat back down on the ottoman, his eyes bleak. “I don’t know what to say. I understand, but I can’t give you a miracle, and that’s what it might take for you to have a baby. I also can’t keep having this conversation with you. I can’t face the disappointment that seems inevitable every time we try to make a baby. Do you know that in the last three years, I actually knew exactly when your period was going to come? Do you know that I dreaded coming home those days, knowing that I’d find you in tears? Every single month, you cried.”
“I’m sorry. It was hard to hold in the pain.”
“And it was hard for me to see it, to know that I couldn’t give you what you wanted. Now you want to start again. And all the schedules, treatments and clinical dissection of our reproductive challenges are too much for me. I want to talk about other things. I want to have a life that’s happy and just not so damn stressful. I love you, too, Angela, but I don’t know where we go from here.”
Her heart sank with his words. “I don’t want to lose you, Colin.”
“Maybe you do.”
She was shocked by his stark response and immediately shook her head. “No, I don’t. How can you say that?”
“Another man might be able to give you a baby.”
“It’s more my problem than yours.”
“No, it’s both of us, but with one of us out of the equation…”
A wave of nausea ran through her. “Colin, I don’t want another man.”
“Even if it meant you could have a baby?”
“I want you and a baby. Why is that so wrong? It’s what everyone else has.”
“It’s not wrong. It’s just what it is.”
She stared back at him, suddenly realizing that the scenario he’d suggested a few minutes earlier worked the other way, too. “Maybe you want another woman.”
“I don’t. I married you, Angie, for better or worse, but I can’t make the impossible happen. And even if I agreed to try another fertility treatment, there’s no guarantee of a better outcome. Then what? Another try and another? When will it be enough?”
“I don’t know, but I’m thirty-five, and right now I have a little window of time to make something happen.” She drew in a deep breath, feeling like they were going around in circles, which was what they’d been doing the last few years. She understood Colin’s weariness. She felt it, too. She just wasn’t ready to admit defeat. “We can talk about this tomorrow. I want to get the girls settled in for the night.”
“You have to call the police in the morning, Angie.”
“I know. But tonight I’m going to make sure the girls are fed and washed and have a nice bed to sleep in. It’s not a lot to offer them, but it’s something.”
“You have a big heart.” He paused. "You would make an incredible mother." He got up and walked over to her, pulling her to her feet. He kissed her tenderly on the mouth. “I do love you. No matter what happens, never doubt that.”
Her eyes blurred with tears. Even when Colin was angry, he was always kind. He would make a great father. “Why does this have to be so hard?” she murmured.
“I don’t know. But what I do know is that we can’t go on like this.” His eyes darkened. “Tomorrow, we’re both going to have to make some hard decisions.”
* * *
Liz didn’t want the night to end. She didn’t know if John was crazy, or she was, but ever since she’d met him on the roof of the hospital, she’d become a different person – a person she was starting to like, a person who couldn’t seem to stop smiling. After leaving the Remington Hotel, they’d gone to a trendy new club in a converted old brick building. While the bouncer had looked disparagingly at her less than exciting outfit, John had said something to him, and the next minute they’d been allowed inside.
Since then they’d been dancing to a D.J. for over an hour. She was sweating and tired but also feeling more alive than she had in a long time.
J
ohn grinned as he grabbed her hand and spun her around for the thousandth time. The dance floor was packed, but he didn’t seem to care. He was the kind of man used to owning his space. She envied his confidence, his ability to be the center of attention and not give a damn what anyone around them was thinking.
She’d worried too hard and for far too long about other people’s opinions. She needed to start living her life and not the life others thought she should have. Sometime between lighting the candle on her cupcake and making a wish, her entire world had shifted – in a good way.
As the music ended and couples headed back to the bar area, John leaned in and said in her ear, “Ready to go?”
She wasn’t nearly ready, but the man had already spent several hours with her. He’d made her birthday special, and it was time to let him go. “Yes,” she said, then followed him to the door.
The street was quiet after the loud chaos of the club. The cold air turned the beads of sweat on her forehead and arms into goose bumps.
“We need a cab,” John said, putting his arm around her shoulders. “You’re cold.”
“I’m fine. It feels good.”
“You’re too nice, Liz.”
She frowned. “When a man calls you nice, it’s usually the kiss of death.”
He laughed. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Sure, whatever.” She looked down the street, searching for a taxi.
“Hey, seriously.” John waited for her to look at him. “You’re very cool, Liz.”
“Well, cool sounds better than nice,” she conceded. “You’re not bad yourself.”
He stared back at her, the humor in his gaze replaced by something more serious. Her breath caught in her throat, the tension building between them. And then a cab pulled up at the curb and a couple jumped out.
“We should grab this,” John said.
Disappointment swept through her. For a minute there, she’d thought he wanted to kiss her. He held the door open for her, and she slipped into the back seat. It was almost midnight, and her fairytale was about to end.
John gave the driver an address she wasn’t familiar with, and her heart sped up again. Was he assuming she’d go home with him?
A Secret Wish Page 7