Her Christmas Future

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  She’d been needy nine years before. Her baby had just died. But surely he’d seen how much she’d grown up. She wasn’t that kid anymore...

  The shake of his head was almost sad. Like he was saying no to something that had mattered to him. Which didn’t make nearly enough sense to her.

  “I’m not at all sure it’s you,” he said, confusing her further.

  “What, then?”

  Martin held her gaze for another few seconds and then looked away. Leaning his elbows on his knees, he stared out toward the lights along the shore, or those of boats bobbing out in the dark beyond.

  “I’m too... It’s too...”

  “Too what?” He was scaring her.

  “You have this weird pull over me,” he told her, glancing sideways at her. “It’s like you’ve still got me wrapped around your finger and all you have to do is tug and there I go, off to wherever you drag me.”

  Wow. She hadn’t expected that. Wasn’t even sure what to make of it.

  Was he blaming her for his feelings?

  Was she causing it?

  Was he asking her to stop?

  How did she stop what she didn’t know she was doing?

  Or...

  “Maybe it’s just a product of who we are,” she said softly, finding a strange sense of calm. “We’ve been through so much, Martin. Stuff that we’ll never get over. That bond will always be there, even though we aren’t together...” As she talked, she felt stronger. Her words grew bolder. Her need to speak with him that weekend while she wrestled with what to do, even her heading to him in LA when the sadness and jealousy were getting to her—they were all part of it. “I feel it with you, too,” she told him, wondering what it meant. That they were having this conversation. That he’d started it.

  Was it unbelievable that she’d thought they’d ever find their way back to being in each other’s lives?

  “Take tonight, for instance. I’m sitting wondering why you called,” Olivia continued. “Wondering what you need from me. Worrying whether or not I’m giving it to you...”

  When he sat back, he didn’t look happy.

  His nod seemed...final.

  “I’d already come to the conclusion that what we’re doing isn’t healthy,” he said, his words like stakes in her heart. “After hearing what you just said, I’m even more convinced.”

  “What are you saying?” She didn’t want to know. But her need to know was stronger than any desire to cover her ears.

  “I think we need to do what we should have done nine years ago, Liv. What we said we were doing when we divorced. We need to break this invisible tie that’s holding us back from getting on with our lives. We need to let each other go.”

  Chapter Six

  It took everything Martin had to stay seated, calmly watching the stricken expression that crossed Olivia’s beautiful face. For a second he started to panic. Like he was making a mistake. But only for a second. Reason returned almost instantly and he knew he had to be strong.

  Not just for him, but for her, too.

  “If we were meant to be together, Liv, nine years wouldn’t have passed with us still here, in this same place. We’d have found our way back to each other.” That fact, along with others, had occurred to him on the long flight back from Italy the night before. He’d slept some. Enough. And made calls to apologize for the emergency that had come up that required him to cancel some engagements. And left it to his administrative assistant, Barbara, a woman ten years his senior who’d been with him since his dot-com days, to handle things. Happily married and a grandmother now, she rarely traveled with him, but was the absolute best at keeping him on track.

  She knew him. And better than that, she understood his goals. Shared them, even. That’s what he wanted in a mate, too. Someone who shared his goals. Someone whose goals he could share.

  “I’ve built a life, filled with important work, that really fulfills me. I never knew how much I’d thrive on traveling all over the world. Seeing life from differing perspectives. Meeting so many interesting people. Helping at-risk kids make lives for themselves. I look forward to the day when I get up in the morning. I’m excited about the future. The only thing missing is someone to share it with me.”

  Her gaze didn’t waver. Her lips did. As though he was hurting her. He hadn’t meant to. Hadn’t wanted to.

  “Are you happy?” he asked then as some wayward thought struck him that maybe she’d be open to filling the newly forming, or at least newly acknowledged, open position in his life. “Here in Marie Cove? Being a doctor? Working in the NICU?” Could it be that he’d missed something? That she’d served whatever penance she’d felt she owed and would be willing to move on?

  “I am.” There were tears in her eyes, but certainty in her voice, too. “I love what I do, Martin. And I love my life. My friends. My mother... I spent the first eighteen years of my life without her. More than that, really, since I wasn’t thrilled with her when she first showed up. She moved here to be close to me. Got a job here to be close to me. Mostly, though, every single time I save a baby’s life...it’s like a spiritual thing... I can’t not be there...”

  She was sealing their fate. He knew it. And knew she did, too.

  Nothing between them had changed. She put her career first, and he wouldn’t come second again. She wanted to live her life in one spot, and he didn’t want to travel the world alone. She was stuck in place and he was running...

  “Who knows where I’ll be a year from now,” she continued, but he held up a hand, shaking his head. He wasn’t open to the “who knows what the future will bring” speech again. He’d heard it nine years before. And since then, too. He didn’t have another ten years to wait around and find out. He’d turned forty the year before. Had already let go of any desire to be a father, raise a family. Had made peace with that. Had actually seen that it was for the best. But he couldn’t let his need to be with her talk him out of anything more.

  “I’ve realized that our...various liaisons with each other...they’re keeping us from finding any kind of lasting relationship anywhere else,” he said, maybe a little too harshly.

  “You don’t want to have sex anymore.” Her tone gave nothing away, and for a moment Martin longed for the young woman he’d married whose emotions dressed every word she spoke.

  “Do you think we can meet for an occasional dinner, or, say, even the passing of documents that need to be signed quickly, without having sex?” His reference to the last time he’d been in her condo was finally out. He’d come to town to get her signature on an investment return document; she’d invited him to share the omelet she’d just taken out of the pan. They’d made it until a final cup of coffee on the balcony, where he’d kissed her. The sex they’d had that morning had been rushed and decadent, with both of them throwing clothes back on hastily to make it to work on time, and the memory had been sitting right there with him since she’d led him to the balcony.

  He’d even gone so far as to wonder if she’d led him out there on purpose. To remind him of that morning. To further keep him around. Or remind him that they couldn’t be trusted alone together.

  The warring thoughts convinced him more than anything it was time to end things between them. Not because Olivia had any perverse or controlling motive, or even desire to have any hold on him, but because his caring for her made him vulnerable to her. Made him unsure of himself. Of her.

  A woman who wasn’t right for him. A woman he wasn’t right for. He’d hurt her as badly as she’d hurt him. Maybe more. He didn’t negate that.

  The fact that she hadn’t answered his question didn’t go unnoticed. She didn’t answer because she knew they couldn’t keep a promise to not have sex. They’d already tried. More than once. They’d failed. And that fact left them no other choice.

  “I’m forty-one, Liv. I don’t want to grow old alone. Or even live alo
ne anymore. I want a partner, and half of my life is gone.” He couldn’t ask a woman to share his world and step aside occasionally when his ex-wife was around.

  Which meant that if he couldn’t resist the temptation to touch Olivia, and vice versa, if they couldn’t resist the passion that was always present between them, then they had to stay away from each other. Period.

  He promised himself the sadness that was cutting a gaping hole in his gut would pass.

  * * *

  “Do you have to leave? Shouldn’t we talk about this?” Olivia followed Martin past the dining room, through her open-spaced living room and to the porcelain-tile entryway by her front door. She didn’t want him to go, reached out a hand to touch his back, but pulled her hand in before she made contact.

  Her news trembled on the tip of her tongue. And yet...what news was there? Only possibilities. It would keep him from walking out on her. She was as certain of that as she was that she’d take her next breath.

  Was it fair to play with him that way?

  If Beth ended up pregnant, Olivia would have to tell him. Not legally, maybe, because he wasn’t on the surrogate agreement—wasn’t going to be named on the birth certificate. But she’d have to tell him.

  Still, she couldn’t use a baby to hold him to her, even then. It wouldn’t be healthy for any of them.

  “What if we tried again?” The question came with hesitation. But it would be better to have the conversation before they knew whether or not they had a baby in the picture, so they’d know they didn’t make choices based on the child.

  Except she knew there was a possibility. So was she asking the question because of the baby, or because he’d just broken up with her?

  Again.

  Forcing her to fight... The thought came and hung suspended while another presented: fight for what? What did she want from him?

  “Should we try to come up with some kind of compromise?” she asked, looking for answers that she knew weren’t there. She just couldn’t stop looking, and that meant something, didn’t it?

  Turning at the door, he stood, less than a foot away, staring straight into her eyes. Maybe if they met eye to eye, rather than him towering several inches over her, she wouldn’t feel so...protected by him.

  She didn’t need protection. Didn’t even want it.

  “When I met you, I thought I’d already reached the pinnacle of my professional success,” he told her. “The thrill was gone. I was thirty years old and I’d done everything I’d ever hoped of doing. I’d made my mark on the world, and I’d made all the money I’d ever need,” he said, not telling her anything new, but telling it in a way that felt new.

  She soaked in his words. Needing more.

  “The only thing left that gave me any sense of anticipation, of looking forward to the years ahead, was having children. My parents had nothing monetarily, but what we had was more valuable than any wealth will ever be. The emotional riches they gave me... I wanted to pass those on. And to have a family life that wasn’t fraught with financial distress.”

  Her heart thumped. She almost blurted out that he might still be able to have that...

  “Then you walked into that room, and the minute I saw you, and caught you looking at me, the world was brand-new again. It’s like I suddenly had everything to do. And a lifetime to look forward to.”

  She’d felt the same way. He’d been a guest lecturer at a professional technology seminar she’d attended, or rather, one of many she’d been encouraged to choose from, her senior year in college. Everyone had raved about the lecturer, and as little interest as she had in the underbelly of the computer world, she figured it was worth paying the extra money to attend his seminar as she’d have a better chance of staying awake.

  “It’s the spark,” she said softly, holding his gaze. “That thing that lights you up enough to get you out of bed in the morning...to give you strength when times are hard...”

  He nodded. “Everyone needs a purpose.”

  Such simple, overused words, and yet...they were everything.

  “When you got pregnant so soon, I knew it was the seal on the choice we’d made,” he continued. “Validation and promise all rolled into one.” The half smile on his face as he appeared to look back took her back, too, reminding her of how great they’d been together.

  How sexy he’d been since the first moment she’d seen him in that theater-style auditorium crowded with students and faculty.

  The flame of desire started low in her belly once again and spread like the fire it was. She leaned in without thought, expecting a kiss, and did a mental regroup before anything happened.

  Whether he’d been aware, under the spell with her, she didn’t know. But thought so. And took heart.

  “After Lily died...it all changed.”

  “Not all of it.” They still wanted each other. They’d always wanted each other.

  “How do you feel about traveling?” he asked, his gaze more piercing after her last comment.

  She shrugged. “I’m not opposed to it. You know, in a few years, maybe. When I’ve got more experience under my belt I’d love to travel and teach others what I’m learning in the NICU. We’re a small hospital, but being so close to the California universities, we’re getting to see a lot of the newest technologies and practices. We’ve got a baby now who was born just over a pound and she’s thriving...” She heard the rise of excitement in her voice, saw the way his eyes closed for too long to be a blink and stopped.

  “I want to travel,” she said. But not yet.

  And it wasn’t just about that.

  “You don’t want a wife who’s an equal,” she said, words she’d never said to him before. “You want a wife who wants what you want, who supports what you want, but not one who wants things for herself.”

  “I need a woman who wants for herself, needs for herself, the same kinds of things I need and want.”

  What did she say to that? As usual, he made sense. He always made so damn much sense.

  “I’m a specialized pediatrician who’s respected in my field and yet you make me feel almost like a kid again,” she said. “And not in a good way. When do you ever see that I know as much as you do, Martin?”

  “You’re a doctor, Liv! You’ve been through medical school. You know far more than I do,” he told her, frowning.

  “And yet...you’re the one who’s ready to walk away from us. Is that healthier?”

  “Do you think it’s not?”

  She wanted to think it. And had no valid reason for the wanting. Except that she might be having a baby, through an angel named Beth, and if she was, Martin was the father.

  Which was no reason for them to continue trying to fit together when they didn’t.

  Martin was right. She knew he was.

  And hated that she hadn’t seen it first. Or at least at the same time.

  It had always been a problem with them. He’d made her feel warm and loved, turned on as hell, but always like a bit of a kid, too. Her with no daddy in her life.

  “My mother told me a few years ago that she thinks I feel for you as some kind of father figure...that I had, as she put it, ‘daddy issues.’”

  He didn’t seem taken aback by the statement. Or even surprised. “Do you?”

  Shrugging, she shook her head. “I’ve never thought so. I most certainly don’t think of you in a paternal way. And while, granted, you’re only a bit younger than my mother, you’re only ten years older than me. Not many ten-year-old fathers walking around.”

  “I am closer to your mother’s age than yours,” he said. “She and I share a generation.”

  “You really think our age difference is the problem?”

  Shaking his head, Martin ran a hand through the thick dark hair she’d had her fingers in just a few nights before. “I think it’s part of the problem,” he told her.
“You put a lot more emphasis on career than I do,” he said. “Neither one of us need the money.”

  Her divorce settlement had been far too generous in her opinion, but he’d insisted.

  “I need to be a person in my own right,” she told him. For the hundredth time at least.

  His nod seemed more resigned than understanding. He’d never really understood.

  But he’d tried. She was sure of that. And that counted for something.

  “I love you,” she said. It should all come down to that.

  “I love you, too, Liv, which is why I can’t keep doing this.”

  She was losing him. That was the reality. So maybe his last gift to her had been a baby to raise on her own.

  Maybe not. Maybe Beth wouldn’t be pregnant and it was all just part of the difficult process of letting go.

  Maybe he was right and they’d made it this difficult by not getting it done right nine years before. By letting it drag on so long when they already knew it didn’t work.

  “I’ve found a different purpose, Liv.” His words were a death knell. “I’ve got the sense of anticipation back in my life. I’m not turning out to be exactly who I thought I would be. I’m not a family man. I no longer see myself as a father. Or, rather, I am a father, just not as I’d envisioned. After Lily...that picture of raising a child of my own faded away. But... I’m doing good in the world and it feels right. I’m happy.”

  She thought she’d been happy, too. Was fairly certain she had been...

  “I can’t bear the thought of losing you,” she said. “I’m listening to what you’re saying. It makes sense. I see the logic. And then I think about never being able to call you, or know that you’re okay, and...what if one or the other of us gets in an accident? Does the other get to know?”

  He shook his head. “That’s the point,” he told her. “We need to cut those ties because, until we do, they’ll be pulling us too closely together. So close there isn’t enough room left for either one of us to have a partner in our lives.”

  “You date.” She didn’t. With her career, her volunteer work, her friends, her love for him, she’d just had no desire...and had told herself she was all grown up and healthy because even though she didn’t date, she was able to live with the fact that he did.