Her Christmas Future

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “So, in your opinion, I know you can’t give me specifics about a particular patient, but in your opinion, based on Wendy’s age, and assuming she’s overall healthy, this procedure could possibly allow her to live a normal life span?”

  The woman had clearly been integral to the Applegate family. He’d like to think long life was an option. He’d like to think that Beth and her sister’s sacrifices wouldn’t be in vain.

  “Yes.”

  Her response was followed by an immediate turn of her head toward the side window.

  What the hell?

  “What’s bothering you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Come on, Liv. Tell me it’s none of my business, but don’t lie to me. Surely we haven’t come to that?”

  Her silence was better than a lie, he supposed.

  And let it hang there between them the rest of the way to his place. She didn’t owe him her thoughts. She didn’t owe him anything.

  But as the few miles passed far too quickly and he pulled into the garage of his condo and knew that her car was going to be pulling out momentarily, he couldn’t just let the silence continue to separate them.

  If any more came between them, they might not find a way to make anything work. Which would maybe be the right thing if it was just the two of them.

  He put the SUV in Park, but left it running. “There’s a baby on the way,” he said, wishing he could read her mind even half as well as he used to think he could. “We’re going to be facing some intense situations—individually and together—and while I admit I’m not coming up with answers here, I do know that we have to be honest with each other or this whole thing could explode in a way neither of us want. In a way that couldn’t possibly be good for a child.”

  She glanced at him then, some life back in her gaze, but he couldn’t decipher any message she might be throwing at him. She didn’t look angry. But it wasn’t good.

  In their olden days, he’d have guessed, anyway. And kept guessing until he found something he could fix.

  He’d since realized that hadn’t been fair to her. She wasn’t his to fix. Either it would come from her, or it wouldn’t. The choice was entirely hers.

  And, as it had turned out back then, anyway, even when he’d known what had needed fixing—her uterus, their daughter’s body—he hadn’t been able to do a damned thing about either one of them. No amount of money or hard work in the world could help.

  Possibilities are endless if you give it your all and work hard enough, his parents had always said. Refusing to accept any excuses in their home. Pushing him to be the best version of himself. And when it had counted most, when his family had needed help, he’d had nothing.

  “Sometimes silence is better than honesty.” Her voice was like a husky-sounding siren filling the car. His ears.

  The doctor was no longer with them.

  “What’s going on?” The question was pulled from him by the sad look in her eyes that was directed straight at him.

  Like he had something to do with what was bothering her. Or was indirectly involved at least. Was she making plans for his role in the child’s life since he’d failed to do so in a timely enough fashion?

  Was she going to keep him from the baby because he couldn’t commit to who or what he was going to be?

  “I’m jealous of Wendy.”

  His mind stopped. Her words frozen in place there.

  “Jealous, how?” he asked eventually, realizing it was up to him to draw her out, or remain sitting there, with them staring at each other, going nowhere.

  “Is there more than one way to be jealous?”

  She wasn’t smiling. Was completely serious.

  He’d asked for the truth.

  “Why would you be jealous of her?” he asked. “Because she’s Beth’s aunt and will be around all the time so the baby can hear her voice as its ears develop?”

  “Because you and she...”

  He shook his head and she broke off.

  He should have let her finish. Refused to let himself speak.

  “She can sit there with you and flirt and she gets to be the recipient of your charm and—”

  “Are you saying that’s something you want for yourself?” His penis started to grow hard as his heartbeat revved up.

  When she shook her head, his system took a nosedive. And then she shrugged. “We’ve been there, done that. It didn’t work for us. Doesn’t work for us.”

  He nodded. Unable to deny the truth of that. The pain their union had caused them...and not for lack of trying to make it work from both sides...

  “And it wasn’t just that,” she said, her eyes glistening now. “You were talking about things that you’d shared, even though you’d never met each other before. You could relate on a personal level to how she felt about Michigan’s coach. You bonded over that shared reality. And it was all a blank page to me. I had no idea Harbaugh ever played for Michigan.”

  “I had no idea you knew Michigan’s coach’s name.” She’d had zero interest in football. And he was homing in on what did not matter. He got it. Held there, anyway.

  She told him about a recent patient whose father had been a fan. He heard her describe things the dad brought into the boy’s area of the NICU to give the baby a more personal, nursery-like feel. And tried to find a way to make the decade that he’d been alive before her not matter.

  “You grew up on cassettes,” she said. “I grew up on CDs.”

  Different frames of reference. He got that. A lot of couples made it work. Or some did. He sure as hell hadn’t been the first man to marry a younger woman. There were couples in LA with decades’ differences in their ages. And not all of them with the man being the older of the two.

  He could argue it all. Had argued it all internally many, many times.

  None of his valid points had fixed the problems between him and Olivia. No matter what other couples did or did not do for each other, or wanted out of a marriage, or decided to settle for, he and Olivia both knew what they wanted and needed, and those didn’t mesh.

  He knew this. Had told himself a million times over and over and over again.

  They were right where they’d ended up, again. Every time. No matter what road they traveled. They kept coming back. They couldn’t find their way out of the circular path, but hadn’t been able to let it go, either.

  Which was why he’d broken things off with her.

  “You asked for the truth.” Her brows raised, as though she was pleading for mercy. Or apologizing.

  He nodded.

  “So...there you have it. I’m jealous of you with other women. Most particularly women your own age or older. Women who lived when you did before I was born. Women who can share your perspective.”

  Wait...what? She was jealous of him with all other women? Even Wendy, because they could converse easily without the tension of a failed relationship between them?

  She didn’t want him with other women?

  The idea gave him an immediate sense of great satisfaction. Of course, he’d always been bothered by the idea of her with other men, but had figured that had just been him.

  “I’m not sure what good this honesty serves,” she continued. “So now can we agree that sometimes us staying silent will serve the baby better?”

  “You’re jealous, as in, you don’t want me but you don’t want anyone else to have me, either? As in, if you can’t have it no one else should?”

  It wasn’t an emotion to be proud of, but it was real. People felt envy. What mattered was what they did with that.

  Olivia was dealing with it.

  She shook her head slightly. Stared at him in the shadows left after the overhead garage light went off, her features lit only by the security light.

  “I’m jealous because I do want you, and can’t have you,” she sa
id. “I’ve been struggling with it all night. How do I see you like this, have you in my life, and not want you?”

  All systems were on full alert without warning, driving all other thoughts out of his brain except joining their bodies and hearing her cry out with the pleasure he knew he could bring her.

  “When I see you out with other people, I see how kind you are, how you always make other people comfortable, draw them out, make them feel good about themselves and yet be genuine at the same time, and then I see a particular look in your eye, or the way your hair curls—it’s like it’s always been for me with you. I want you so badly...”

  Oh God, he wanted her, too. Even worse.

  “And then I remember what it was like at home, when we were faced with everyday life...when it was more than just who we were, or how attracted we were, when all the little things started to matter.”

  “I want you, too, Liv. What you just said, about how you feel when we’re out together, seeing you with others—it lights a fire in me that burns me up.”

  He couldn’t tell if she was pleased with his admission or not. She licked her lips. He needed to kiss them. She didn’t move forward, but didn’t tear her gaze away, either.

  “So...are we saying that you were right to break us off a few weeks ago? That we can’t see each other anymore? In spite of the baby?”

  He wasn’t saying anything like that.

  At least, not intentionally.

  “Because what we do to each other, that can’t be a healthy environment for a child. To have its parents attracted to one another, but unable to share a life.”

  He couldn’t see a way for that to be healthy for any of them.

  “But...depending on your level of involvement...maybe it would be better for the baby if you and I could make some kind of plan so that you can still have access. I mean, having you as some kind of presence in the baby’s life... Even if that just means I keep you apprised of the child’s well-being in any event that you’d need to be more of a figure in his or her life. Wouldn’t that be better for that child than for your relationship to just be nonexistent?”

  Her tone sounded as though the doctor had returned. But the glint in her eyes as she held his gaze steadily was anything but medically induced.

  “What are you saying?”

  She sighed. “I really don’t know,” she told him. “I don’t want to pressure you to be anything, or do anything, but when I think about us just arbitrarily deciding we can’t be together, and cutting you out of any possibility with our baby...it just...”

  Her lips trembled, her eyes starting to squint like she might start to cry.

  “I don’t see a way out for us, Liv,” he told her, but had to continue. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and one thing that’s become clear is that our original plan, or mine at least, to get on with our lives, for me to find a partner, all of that...well, it’s not going to play out as I’d intended. Clearly. The child exists. It’s half mine. I can’t walk away from that. And that changes the plan.”

  He felt like he was rambling. Was playing things out as they came to him. But finally, something concrete was coming.

  He reached out a hand. Touched her face lightly, and she turned her lips into his palm. Not kissing him, just...touching. A hello? A goodbye?

  He couldn’t tell her goodbye. Not tonight.

  “We’ve limped along for the past nine years,” he said softly, holding her cheek, needing to hold so much more of her. “Maybe we limp for the next eighteen or so...”

  Her gaze was tender, vulnerable, as she looked at him. “Is it wise?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “We should probably think about it...”

  He nodded.

  “Can I stay tonight, Martin? It might not be wise, or best, or healthy. But one more time... I need your arms around me so badly. Everything’s coming so fast, and there you were, sitting there talking to Wendy and... I need to feel you inside me.”

  Still holding her face, he lowered his lips to hers. Intending to kiss her gently, and somehow ending up gathering her as close as the console would allow and consuming her mouth.

  Desperate to be consumed by her.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Olivia couldn’t resist him. She could save babies’ lives. She could raise a child on her own. But that Thanksgiving night, she couldn’t pull out of her ex-husband’s arms.

  He gave her a chance to go. More than one chance.

  The first as he’d left the car and stood aside while she climbed down not far from the driver’s door of her shiny white BMW. She had her purse. Her keys. The garage door was still open.

  And she’d walked straight up to him, pushing her body against his, and planted her lips on his, sticking her tongue into his mouth.

  In the elevator, she’d crossed the foot of distance he’d left between them and pressed her pelvis up against his burgeoning fly. Rubbing herself on him in a way she knew drove him to distraction.

  And once they were inside his condo, she didn’t wait until they got to his bedroom before she started unbuttoning his shirt. And hers.

  It didn’t matter that they couldn’t live together, that daily life was a problem for them. That they needed different things. At the moment they needed exactly the same thing.

  And she needed it worse than she needed to remember any of the rest of it. She wasn’t signing on for a lifetime or making decisions for anything but the moment.

  “Are you sure?” he asked as they landed on the sectional in front of his entertainment center. “The last time...”

  She kissed his words silent. And then, still half-dressed, and sitting right on top of the fly of his pants, she stopped. He was so gorgeous, his eyes that saw so much but hid so much of what he knew. The nose that gave him authority somehow. The lips that smiled and approved and kissed like a hungry lion. The slight bit of silver at his temples giving him a distinction that only turned her on more...

  “I don’t want the last time to be the last time,” she said, finding it hard to keep pushing truths down inside her. And knowing that as badly as she needed to be one with him, to find a release for the passion he’d always raised in her, she couldn’t be reckless again. “I’m not saying anything about the future,” she told him. “I’m in such a deep sense of ‘wait and see’ that I couldn’t guarantee that anything I’d say tonight would still ring true to me next week. Not where all of this is concerned.”

  “What are you saying?” he asked softly, giving her his full attention.

  He was still hard beneath her backside. She could feel him, even through their pants. But he was no longer pressing up against her. Her shirt hung open. His was off, on the floor somewhere between them and the door. The front clasp of her lacy bra was undone, the sides hanging half over her breasts.

  “I don’t want the last time to be our last time,” she said again, certain of what she was feeling, but not sure why. “I don’t want conception to define the end of...it.”

  “I ended it before I knew about any possible conception.”

  “I know,” she said, and nodded, her long hair falling over her breasts, tickling them as she moved her head. “I was out of sorts, emotionally tied up, reckless. I was looking for escape...”

  “You were using me.”

  Maybe. It hadn’t felt that way at the time.

  “Is that what we’ve done over the years? Used each other?” She wasn’t judging either one of them.

  “No.”

  She hadn’t thought so, either.

  “We do something for each other, Martin. Right or wrong, good or bad. Maybe we can’t do it anymore. Maybe we’ll never be able to stop. All I know is that I want you so badly I ache. And that I can’t stand the thought of the baby’s conception and the last time we’re ever going to be together being the same night. It doesn’t feel good.�
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  It tainted the baby somehow.

  “I’m not saying there’s any logic to it. But I can tell you the thought has been bothering me for a few weeks. I need it all separate in my mind. I need to be able to tell our child that her conception, or his, wasn’t the last time we were together. Or that it was just a one-time thing.” The words started to come more clearly as she saw the raw interest in his gaze. He was really listening.

  “Not that I plan to report, but I’d want to know. I’d ask if it were me. And I don’t want to put that kind of finality on anyone. What you and I have, or don’t have, it’s between you and me. We’ve been avoiding this showdown for the entire nine years we’ve been divorced. We’ve had an ongoing thing. One that we clearly still haven’t resolved. So...we’re finally talking about it. We need to resolve it. However that happens, I have no more idea than you do, but at least we’re acknowledging the need. And the fact that we both want a solution. We just don’t have it yet. And I don’t want the final moment to be our baby’s conception.”

  “But it can be after tonight?”

  She moved on him then, reaching her hand down between her legs to rub him through his pants, ready to just get them off.

  “If it has to be,” she said. She knew what she was saying. Meant it.

  “But let’s make it really good, okay? So if it has to be the last time, we went out with a joining that blew us both away?”

  Raising his hands, he started to softly roll her nipples between his fingers.

  She lifted her body enough to undo his fly and release his penis, and then, with both hands, slid her jeans down as far as she could get them. Far enough that she could straddle him.

  “Wait.” He said the words as she was already shoving her hand beneath his butt to find his wallet. The condom was out and on while he was still busy at her breasts, keeping those shards of fire shooting down to her crotch.

  And then she slid home, taking all of him, in all of her, and just didn’t care in those seconds about right and wrong.