by Arlene James
If Lily had a baby, she could die, and he could not face the possibility of such loss again. Yet how could he ask Lily to give up the possibility of a child of her own?
Could he be that selfish? Even if it was the only way that they could be together? For it was, he realized with a leaden heart, the only way they could be together.
Chapter Fifteen
“Night and day,” Lily said, twisting her hands together. “That’s the only way I know how to describe it. We were talking about the mystery benefactor who funded the grants and brought the new businesses to town. I laughingly suggested that it might be Tate, and he flatly denied it. I believed him. Then Isabella brought over Bonnie’s baby sister, but it was almost time for church, so we had to go, and that’s when everything changed.”
Coraline shook her head, looking like the prim school principal that she was, sitting there on Lily’s unconventional couch. “He did seem very distracted during the Wednesday service.”
“He didn’t sing along with any of the hymns,” Lily revealed softly, “and he didn’t speak a word to me on the way home.”
“And you haven’t heard from him since?”
“Not in two days, and I’ve left three messages on his phone.”
“I see.”
“The thing is,” Lily went on, hardly able to meet Coraline’s gaze, “I have a history of, well, forming attachments to unattainable men. It usually doesn’t get this far. That is, it’s usually all…me. This time, though, I thought…” She shook her head. Perhaps she had misread his intentions, after all. Those kisses probably hadn’t meant a thing. Still, Tate didn’t seem like the sort to lead a girl on. “I—I don’t know what to do or say now. I’ve never been in this position before. Should I apologize, back off? What?”
Coraline smiled. “I don’t see that you have anything to apologize for, Lily. I think we should just pray about this matter and see what happens.”
Somewhat comforted, Lily nodded. “Thank you. I’d like that.” She bowed her head. Coraline began to speak. After the prayer, Coraline rose to leave.
“Now, don’t you worry about a thing,” Coraline said. “God will work it out.”
Lily thanked her for coming, certain that she was right. God would take care of everything. Whatever happened, she had found good friends here in Bygones. That counted for a lot. It might even, eventually, make up for a broken heart, but maybe it wouldn’t come to that. Every relationship must have its ups and downs. She could be making a mountain out of a molehill here. Tate could walk into the shop tomorrow or the next day and they might carry on as if nothing had ever happened.
Lily felt a certain peace after that. She was glad that she’d called Coraline. She only wished that she’d called earlier instead of moping around about it for two days. It was true that Tate had been distracted during the service on Wednesday. He’d sat with his head down the whole time; Lily had told herself that he was concentrating on the short message and prayer requests, but then he’d sent Isabella home with his parents. Withdrawn, distant, he hadn’t spoken a word on the drive back to her place, and when they’d arrived, he hadn’t gotten out or come around to open her door. He’d only nodded when she’d told him good-night, and he hadn’t even waited for her to get inside before he’d driven away that night.
After a day of silence, she’d left a message on his cell phone, but he hadn’t called back. The next morning, she’d asked, via phone message, if she had offended him in some way. The silence since had been deafening. Finally, in desperation, she’d called Coraline to ask her advice.
Lily didn’t expect Coraline to talk to Tate, but when she heard a knock on her door late that night and opened it to find a shamefaced Tate standing there, Lily knew that’s what had happened.
“Oh, no. Coraline came to see you, didn’t she?”
“She was right to,” he said, sliding past Lily and down the narrow entry into the living area. He needed a shave, and the jeans and T-shirt that he wore looked rumpled.
“Is everything all right?” Lily asked, sensing his tension. “Is Isabella—”
“Isabella’s with my mom,” he said, “but no, everything isn’t ‘all right.’ Lily, I have to ask you something. I should have asked it as soon as I realized how I feel about you.”
Lily’s heart leaped. “Tate? What do you mean, how you feel about me?”
He gusted a sigh and rubbed both hands over his face. “Lily, I like you.” He threw out his hands. “Who am I kidding? I’m crazy about you! I haven’t ever been so wrapped up in a woman, but…” He shook his head. “I know you love Isabella.”
“Of course I do.”
He tilted his head. “But is that enough?”
“Enough?”
“What I mean is, would you want…would you need to have your own child, your own baby?”
There could be only one answer to that, but she stalled a bit, hoping against hope. “Naturally I would want my own child. As for needing my own child, I don’t know if I’d put it that way exactly, but…” She tried to think of another way to say it, a way to make it acceptable somehow. In the end it could be said only one way. “Yes, I would expect to have a baby.” Or two.
He closed his eyes. “I can’t,” he stated flatly.
Lily gulped. “When you say you can’t, do you mean—”
He looked her straight in the eye and said, “I won’t.”
She knew she hadn’t misheard that. “You’re saying that you refuse to have another child.”
“That’s right. I refuse. Period.”
For a long moment Lily said and did nothing, until finally the full implications of that settled over her. “I see.” She felt amazingly calm, considering that the very last spark of hope had just died within her. “I could say that is a deal breaker, but we don’t really have a deal, do we?”
Tate bowed his head. “No, we don’t.”
“Well,” she said, reeling emotionally, “thank you for being honest with me.”
“Lily, I’m sorry. I thought we might… I really hoped…”
“Could you go now?” she asked evenly, feeling very brittle.
Nodding, he moved toward the entry, only to stop, but then he merely glanced back, nodded and left.
Lily stood where she was for a moment. Then she walked over to the dining table and sank onto one of the stools there. After a moment she folded her arms, laid her head down and sobbed.
She should have known. She should have known. On some level, she had. All those kisses aside, she had never really believed that Tate could feel for her what she felt for him. Things like that didn’t happen to women like her. She told herself that she would survive this, just as she had survived other disappointments. But, oh, how this hurt, worse than anything before, worse than anything she had imagined.
Always before, it had been pie in the sky, castles in the air, one-sided and imaginary. This time…this time, she’d almost gotten it right. Almost. Funny, but almost was worse than anything else had ever been. She wished to be that woman again, the one whom the guy simply did not notice. It was easier that way. Safer.
Lily indulged herself in the pain all that night and all day on Saturday, staying in and letting Sherie handle the shop alone. Sherie was completely frazzled when she came up at the end of the day to check on Lily. Seeing Lily’s red eyes and nose, Sherie assumed that Lily had a cold and offered to make her a pot of mint tea, saying that she needed the boss “in fighting shape by Monday,” which was Sherie’s scheduled day off.
“Don’t worry, you’ll have Monday off, as planned.” A busy mom, Sherie needed Sunday and Monday with her boys.
“Okay. You’re the boss.”
Lily remembered that the next day, Sunday, when she spoke to Coraline after church. Tate had not shown up, and Lily felt sure that he wouldn’t as long as she was there. She didn’t have to stay. Yes, if she gave up the shop, she’d be buried in debt, but she could always go back to practicing law, and if she did, her parents and grandparen
ts would likely help her.
“Maybe I should just go home to Boston.”
“Lily, you have obligations here,” Coraline reminded her. “People are depending on you. Sherie, to name only one. To be quite frank, the town is depending on you.”
“I know, but…”
Coraline hugged her. “Just think about it, dear. I’m praying for you.”
Lily nodded.
Back at the apartment she wandered around for an hour or so. Then she remembered something that she’d seen on the computer one day weeks ago. She went downstairs and searched through her email in-box until she found a certain notice that she’d glanced at and dismissed. Closing her eyes, she bowed her head and said a quick prayer, then she sent off an email and received an immediate response. Encouraged, she reached for her phone.
“Coraline, I need a ride to the airport.”
To her surprise, Coraline promptly agreed. Things fell into place quickly. Giving herself no time for second-guessing, Lily called Sherie, apologized for the short notice, explained herself, then ran upstairs to pack.
Bygones had become her home, and she had friends here, good friends, dear friends, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t, shouldn’t, leave. She cared about what happened to this town. She loved her little shop, but she had to think of herself, too. She had to find a way to heal her heart, a way to go on. God would work it all out. Somehow.
* * *
He didn’t mean to drive down Main Street. That wasn’t part of the plan at all. But somehow Tate turned a block too soon. Instead of turning off Granary Road onto Municipal Place and then into the post office parking lot, Tate found himself in the middle of Main Street. Then, of course, he just happened to glance across the way as he passed Love in Bloom, and that was when he threw on the brakes.
The sign in the window said, in big block letters, “Closed Until Further Notice.”
His heart stopped. He yanked the truck to the curb and hit the pavement running, nearly knocking his hat off and dodging another pedestrian and a passing sedan on his way across the street. The door to the shop was, as expected, locked, and all the lights inside were off. He ran to the apartment door, through it and up the stairs. The door on the landing at the top refused to budge, but Lily didn’t answer his knock, no matter how hard he pounded.
Tate got out his cell phone and dialed her number. The call went straight to voice mail. He didn’t leave a message. What was he going to say? Where are you? Have I driven you away? You can’t leave!
He had no right to demand her whereabouts; he probably had driven her away, and she certainly could leave anytime she wished.
Starting back down the stairs, he stumbled and nearly fell. Alarmed, he sank onto the nearest step and covered his face with his hands.
What if she had truly left? What if he never saw her again?
Sudden tears clogged his nose and filled his eyes. Wildly, he told himself that she was gone, not dead, but a cold voice inside his head declared that if he never saw her again, she might as well be dead, so far as his heart was concerned. Bleakly he faced the hard truth of that. Without Lily, his life would forever be lived in shades of gray, all the bright, glowing colors leached away by numbness and emptiness, all for shallow safety.
“Oh, dear God, what have I done?” he asked, clasping his hands together and tilting his head back so far that the brim of his rigid straw cowboy hat touched his collar.
He’d thought that if she loved him enough, she wouldn’t need a child of her own. He hadn’t stopped to think that if he loved her enough, he’d take any risk to have her for however long the good Lord saw fit to let them be together.
“Lord, I’m a fool. I can’t live my life without this woman now, not so long as she’s in this world. I’m so scared You’ll take her away from me that I’ve thrown her away! And after You brought her straight to me. I don’t know what to do except try to find her and…deserve her and…make it all right somehow, but You’ll have to help me. Please, help me.”
After a few moments he got up and went out to visit the bakery and bookstore, but neither Melissa Sweeney nor Allison True had spoken to Lily since Friday, though both had seen her at church on Sunday. He, of course, had stayed away, unable to face her, unable to see her, even at a distance. What a rotten coward he was! He hadn’t even gone to face her with the truth of his fears until Coraline had forced the issue, but he had only thought he was afraid of losing her before this. Now he was terrified that he had done so.
Tate crossed the street to speak to Miss Mars, who rather coolly advised him to speak to Coraline. He’d hoped to avoid that, but he should’ve saved himself the time and gone to her straightaway. Miss Mars felt that Coraline could be found in her office at the school, so rather than call, Tate got back in the truck and drove over there.
He felt quite chastened going in—and more so going out again, but he left armed with an address, prayer and at least a shred of hope.
* * *
Kicking off her shoes, Lily padded to the bed and collapsed. It had been a long, busy day, but she’d made good contacts and gotten great ideas for the future. Someone knocked on the door, the thuds reverberating off the heavy metal with head-jarring intensity. Why did hotels use metal doors, anyway? Wood was so much nicer and quieter. Groaning, she hauled herself up and went to tell the nuisance that a mistake had been made. She hadn’t ordered room service, sent out any dry cleaning or asked for extra towels, and she didn’t know a soul in Chicago.
“You have the wrong room,” she called through the door, not even bothering to look through the peephole.
“Lily, let me in.”
The voice, though muffled, was clearly recognizable, but what was Tate doing in Chicago? Astonished, Lily could do nothing for a moment but stare at her own reflection in the mirrored door of the closet.
“Lily, please. I’ve been waiting downstairs for hours.”
Shaken out of her shock, Lily smoothed the line of her skirt. She realized that she was wearing exactly what she’d worn the first day they’d met, her blue dress with white leggings beneath it. The light blue fabric had just enough elasticity to resist wrinkles and add flow to the short wide sleeves and long skirt. The leggings offered support for a long day of travel or, in this case, walking, and removed the necessity of a slip, plus they made the ballet flats work. She wished she didn’t look so tired, but she could do nothing about that now.
Gathering her long hair, she twisted it into a rope, pulled it over one shoulder and opened the door. Tate stood there in his jeans and sport coat, one of his new shirts open at the collar. He held his hat in his hands, head bowed meekly. Her heart started to pound at the sight of him.
“Can I come in?”
“Yes, of course.”
He walked past her into the room and tossed his hat onto the little round dining table in the corner at the foot of the bed. Then he turned, threw out his arms and demanded, “What are you doing in Chicago?”
Lily parked her hands on her hips. She owed him no explanations. He wasn’t her boss. She was the boss at Love in Bloom. He was nothing more than her official contact with the SOS Committee, and so long as she didn’t break her contract with them, he had no say in where she went or what she did. Still, Lily being Lily, she gave him an answer.
“I’m attending a flower show, obviously.”
He mimicked her stance. “Don’t you think you should’ve let me know where you were going?”
Lily folded her arms. “I don’t see why.”
“Because I need to know,” he exclaimed. “In fact, I need to know where you are every minute of every day. Not knowing makes me nuts! I can’t live without knowing.” He shoved a hand through his hair, adding, “I can’t live without you.”
Lily dropped her arms, frowning. She’d heard what he’d said, but somehow the words didn’t compute. “I—I’m not sure what you’re saying.”
“Yes, you are,” he grumbled. Then he straightened and looked her in the eye. “I’m
saying that I love you.”
“Tate!” Lily gasped.
“Despite my better judgment,” he went on doggedly, “despite my fears, despite my pigheadedness…” He held out both hands to her. “I love you, Lily. I can’t help it. I love you so much it scares me, and I’m sorry for being such a fool.”
“Tate!”
“I didn’t want to fall in love again, but you’re so sweet and generous and kind. I can’t imagine my life without you anymore.”
“Oh, Tate, I love you, too!”
She flew at him. He reached for her, but just before his hands closed on her waist, she stopped, drawing up onto her tiptoes. She had to know exactly where they stood, exactly what she was in for, not that she could go back now, whatever he said next.
“Does this mean you’ll consider having another child? If you’ll just say that you’ll think about it, we can—”
“I’ll think about it,” he said firmly.
She pressed her hands together and brought her fingertips to rest beneath her chin in an expression of gratitude. “Thank you. I know how difficult this is for you.”
“Who am I kidding?” he asked in an exasperated tone. “I’ll do more than think about it,” he said. “It’ll terrify me, but, sweetheart, I’ll do anything that makes you and Isabella happy.”
“Oh, Tate.”
“I’m willing to risk anything for you. For us. If you’ll just come back home to Bygones and marry me.”
Lily let herself fall into him, throwing her arms around his neck.
“Yes!” she cried. “Oh, yes!”
“We’ll have babies, if that’s what you want.”
“Babies.” She relished the plurality.
“I’ve been praying about it nonstop,” he told her, hugging her close, “and I’ll keep praying about it for however long God gives us.”
“That,” Lily promised, smiling and crying all at once, “is going to be a long, long time.”