by Peggy Bird
“Three times being greeted the same way in the same day.” He picked one more piece of glass off her shirt. “I’ve been polite enough to answer your question, now it’s your turn to answer mine: when were you going to tell me?”
“Tell you what?” She pretended to inspect her shirt for more glass, trying to avoid looking at him. Trying not to smell his aftershave or think about what it felt like to curl up in his arms or how his mouth tasted when she kissed him or …
“That we’re having a baby.”
She was sure she looked stunned. But she recovered quickly. “We’re not having a baby. I’m having a baby.”
“Don’t tell me it’s not mine. I know you weren’t with anyone else while I was away.”
“Why, because you’re such a world-class lover that no woman wants any other man after she’s been with you? Is that what Bella tells you?”
“I know you, Cynthia,” he said softly, “It’s not in your nature to hook up with someone while you were sending me texts and emails every day. You’d never do anything like that.”
She picked up the overturned stool and sat on it. “Whatever. It doesn’t make any difference. I’m having this baby by myself. I told you when we were … I told you already. I’ve never had any expectations about what was … about us. No demands. I’m not trying to trap you or entangle you. So you can breathe easy; you’re off the hook.”
“My breathing’s just fine the way it is, thanks. And suppose I don’t want to be off the hook? Suppose I want to be entangled?”
“Who with? Bella? She sure looks like she wants to be entangled with you. I’m surprised she’s still not wound around you like a snake.” She hated herself for sounding so nasty, so jealous.
“Bella has nothing to do with this … with us.”
“There is no ‘us.’ You made me realize that last night.”
“There most certainly is an ‘us.’” He moved directly in front of her, put his hands on her shoulders. “There’s been an ‘us’ since the first time you walked into my house. I knew you belonged there and you did, too.”
“I did not.” God, could she sound any more childish and unconvincing. “Even if I … ” She shut down the rest of the sentence. He wasn’t going to distract her. “It doesn’t mean anything now. Not after last night.” It had been a mistake to sit down. She had to look up at him, couldn’t move to get his hands off her shoulders. Not that she really wanted to shake them off. If this was the last time she saw him, she wanted to remember how it felt to have him touch her, what the warmth of his hands on her skin felt like. She had to stop herself from lowering her head to rub her cheek against his hand.
“It means a great deal to me that there’s an ‘us.’ Because last night I realized what a mistake I’d made. I should have … ”
“Not lied to me?”
“Let me finish, querida. I realized I should have told you how much I love you before I left. I wanted to. But I didn’t know if you’d believe me. So I decided the way to convince you I loved you was to live up to my word and come back to you. Now I know it was a mistake. Not telling you is what made you run.”
“No, seeing you dating another woman in Portland when you told me you were in San Francisco on business is what made me run.”
He paused for a few breaths. “Have you looked at your phones since you’ve been home?”
“My phones? No, I came right to the studio. What do my phones have to do with anything?”
“You’ll find messages on both your cell and your home phone and a couple of texts telling you I had to go to Portland for a funeral. I asked you to drive my car to Portland so I wouldn’t have to wait to see you until I got to Seattle. But I never got a call back.”
“Oh.” She thought about it for a few seconds. “But if you were there for a funeral, how come … ?”
He ran through the explanation about Bella, her father’s death and the opening at the art museum.
She was sure she looked as skeptical as she felt. “That sounds just a little too pat. What’d you do, practice it all the way here?”
“I imagine it does sound rehearsed. It’s the third time today I’ve had to give that particular explanation.”
“Who else did you practice it on?”
“Liz, who granted me one minute to convince her I deserved to know Amanda’s address. Then Amanda, when I went to her house where I thought I’d find you but only found your angry friend.”
“Your charm must have been working overtime to get both of them to tell you everything. I thought I was going to see my friends when I went to Portland. But I guess they were your friends. Otherwise why would Amanda rat me out to the one person she knew I wasn’t going to tell about being pregnant.”
“It wasn’t like that. She misunderstood what I said. She thought I’d already talked to you and you’d told me about our baby.”
He said the words “our baby” so softly, so sweetly. She wanted to believe he cared about it as much as she did. Needed him to want this as much as she did. But she couldn’t bring herself to hope. Not yet.
“If Amanda had done something like that, she’d have called me right away to explain.”
“I asked her not to. I was afraid you’d run again. She said to call her when you stopped crying.”
“Why would I be crying? I’m mad, not sad.”
He touched her face where a tear was making its way down her cheek, wiping it away with the pad of his thumb. “Yes, mi amor, I know you’re mad.”
“Don’t call me that. I’m not your love. I’m not anything to you. You lied … you weren’t … you don’t … ” When tears choked her and she stopped talking, he pulled her up from the stool and wrapped her in his arms.
He kissed the top of her head. “I didn’t lie. And I do love you, mi amor, mi corazon. You’re my love, my heart. I’ve spent hours over the past month thinking of ways to convince you to marry me.”
“You don’t have to marry me because I’m pregnant,” she said between shuddery breaths, pulling away from him.
“You’re not listening. I was thinking of ways to convince you to marry me before I found out about our baby.”
“Our baby … ” She closed her eyes to keep more tears from forming. “How did … ?”
He drew her back against him and she didn’t resist. She felt his smile against her hair. “I remember the ‘how’ very well, mi amour. I thought about it often while I was gone. Every night, in fact.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” she said. “You know what I meant.”
“It doesn’t make any difference now, does it? I’m not sorry. In truth, it’s probably the only way you’ll say yes to me.”
“Say yes? To what?”
“When my sisters were pregnant, they never had difficulty hearing, but you seem to.” He took her chin in his hand. “Having to suggest marriage more than once to get an answer seems excessive, but you’re worth it. So, I’ll repeat myself. For the past month, I’ve been trying to figure a way to get you to say you’ll marry me. Not because we’re having a baby, but because I love you, because you love me. Because I’ve known since the first day we spent together that you’re the woman I’ve been looking for.”
She saw what she now realized she’d always seen in his eyes — love, respect, determination, maybe a little amusement. “Marry you?”
“Marry me. You’re already mine. You’ve been mine since the first time we made love. But I want to make sure you stay mine for the rest of my life. For the rest of your life, our lives together. If I can’t convince you with my words, maybe this will convince you.” He pulled a small box from his jacket pocket and handed it to her.
She looked at it. “What’s this?”
“The present I brought you from my trip. I had it made for you by a goldsmith I know in Honduras.”
She opened the box. “It’s a ring.” When she looked up at him, she felt her tear-filled eyes widen. “A beautiful ring.”
“Yes, querida, an engagement ri
ng. The diamond is traditional. The sapphires are the color of your eyes. The design I remembered from one of your neckpieces. So — and this is time number four or maybe even five — marry me.” He took the ring from the box and slipped it on her finger. It fit perfectly.
“Marry you. But … ” She stared at the ring, unable to think coherently.
“No more ‘buts.’ I want you to come home with me now. We’ll sort out when we’re getting married after we talk to our families. For now, just come home with me.”
“Home?”
“Yes, home. We can move your things from your apartment over the next week. We’ll combine your things and mine, whatever you want, into our house. We can put what we don’t have room for into storage for when we move into a bigger house.”
“A bigger house?” She was beginning to wonder if she would ever again have anything to say that didn’t echo something he’d just said.
“When our family gets too big, we’ll move someplace larger. But always where we can see the water. I promise.”
She sniffed back a tear and bit back a smile. “You have this all figured out, don’t you?”
“I’ve been thinking about it for a month.”
“I haven’t agreed to any of this and already you’ve planned out my life for me. Suppose I don’t want to marry you or live in your house?”
He looked devastated. “You don’t love me?”
“Of course I love you. You have no idea how much I love you. I just don’t like being told everything’s settled before I even have a chance to say anything.”
Taking her face in his hands, he gently kissed her forehead, her eyelids and her lips. “You’re right. I shouldn’t be making all these decisions alone. You have every right to think it over. I’ll just wait while you think about it. Let me know when you decide.” He went back to her mouth again, took her lips in a fiery kiss that melted her knees and most of her insides. “You don’t mind if I keep kissing you while you decide, do you? It’ll give me something to do while you think.”
She took a step back from him. “You know I can’t think when you kiss me.”
“No,” he said with a half-smile. “I didn’t. But it’s good to know. I’ll keep that in mind. The information might come in handy.”
She was playing with the ring on her finger as she watched his face, looking for … for what? He’d said everything she’d ever wanted to hear from him. And what he’d already said was written right there on his handsome face. Had been all along.
Taking a step back toward him, she put her arms around his neck, buried her fingers in his hair and kissed him as thoroughly as he had kissed her.
“Okay. I’ve thought about it. I’ll marry you.”
“Thank God. Now let’s go home.” He took her hand and started to the door.
“Wait. First, I have to close up the studio.”
“What can I do to help get us out of here? I want to get some food into the house before I fall asleep.”
She handed him a dustpan and broom, pointing out the remains of the broken glass rod. He laughed and started sweeping them up.
“It sounds like you think you’ve covered just about everything,” she said as she began to put away her tools. “But I bet there’s one thing you haven’t thought about.”
“What’s that, mi corazon?” He dumped the glass shards in the trashcan and put the broom away before coming behind her and nuzzling her neck.
“How in the world are we going to get a car seat in the Porsche?”
About the Author
Thanks for reading Trusting Again, book number four in the Second Chances series. I hope you enjoyed getting to know Cynthia and Marius. If you’re curious about the other two couples in the story, check out Beginning Again, the story of how Liz and Collins met, or Loving Again, which tells Sam and Amanda’s story. Oh, and there are two more books in the series, one due out in October 2013, the other in early 2014.
If you’d like to keep in touch, here are a few places where you can find me:
My website and blog: www.peggybirdwrites.com
On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Peggy-Birds-Authors-Page/264392460308782?__req=6
On Twitter: https://twitter.com/peggybirdwrites
On Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/writingbird/
One last thing: I always like to know what readers think of my books. So if you’d write a review on Amazon or Goodreads with your honest opinion, I’d appreciate it. Thanks so much.
More from This Author
(From Together Again)
Instead of the peace and coffee she’d been looking for before boarding her plane, Margo Keyes’s latte came with a side order of idiot-on-a-cell-phone. Anyone within twenty feet of the man in the blue blazer heard some of the conversation. Where she was sitting, it was in Dolby digital surround sound.
It figured her trip would start like this. She’d been apprehensive about it from the get-go. Not that she had a fear of flying. It was the landing — or rather, what was waiting for her after she landed — that was the problem.
Her chance for quiet acquisition of caffeine courage diminishing by the second, she glared at the man in the blue blazer, hoping he’d take the hint and shut up. Too intent on his call, he seemed to miss what was, she was quite sure, a stunning look of disapproval.
“Are you interested or not?” he yelled. Allowing no answer to what was apparently a rhetorical question, he continued, “If you don’t want what I’ve got, I know someone who does. So, what’s it worth to you?” After he paused, presumably for the response, he said, “Good. I’ll let you know what the bid is after I talk to my other customer.” He ended the call, shoved his phone in his pocket and glared back at Margo before storming off.
Walking down the concourse, she consoled herself that if the coffee break hadn’t worked, at least she had a business class seat reserved on the plane and a hotel suite waiting at her destination. She’d indulged in both, rationalizing if she was making this trip at least it should be comfortable. Interesting concept, that; comfortable discomfort.
As the plane taxied out to the runway, she pulled out her BlackBerry to review her schedule for the next ten days, hoping some magic wand had been waved over it, making it all shiny and fun. However, as usual, her fairy godmother was AWOL. She put her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. What the hell had she been thinking, saying yes to this? Ever since she’d moved to Portland, she’d restricted her Philadelphia visits with her mother to long weekends in the spring and fall. It got her points for being a good daughter, avoided too much time being fussed over and kept her out of the two East Coast seasons she didn’t like. This trip? Ten days in mid-June when she’d just been there two months before.
Checking the airline schedule online, she found a flight home the day after the presentation she was to give the following week. That would cut three days off the trip. But before she could change her reservation, the flight attendant asked her to turn her phone off.
Nothing left to do but work. She opened her stuffed-to-the-gunnels messenger bag and took out what she’d brought to help her craft her speech. It looked like she’d included everything in the courthouse except the old law library. Being tapped as the last-minute stand-in for your boss at an important conference will make you do that.
While trying to organize it all, she lost track of her jacket. She eventually saw it too far under her seat to grab and asked the person sitting behind her to get it for her. A man threw it back. When she turned to thank him he added a dirty look — a familiar dirty look. Shit. The man in the blue blazer from the coffee stand.
Finally settled, she began to review case files. Unfortunately, the steady stream of orders to the flight attendants from the seat behind her distracted both her and the cabin crew. When she’d read the same report three times and still didn’t know what the hell it was about, she gave up trying, put her work away and replaced it with her iPod. By plugging in the ear buds she could drown out ABB (“Asshole in
Blue Blazer,” as he had now morphed into being) with Pink Martini, Colbie Caillat, Suzanne Vega and Alicia Keys.
By the time she’d worked through most of her current favorite albums, the pilot announced their imminent arrival in Philadelphia. Winding the cord for the ear buds around the iPod before stashing it away, the thought occurred that ABB had now wrecked a second part of her day. Two strikes against her and she hadn’t even gotten to the hard part yet.
The man jumped up as soon as the plane’s wheels hit the ground, arguing with the flight attendant when she insisted he get back in his seat. He sprang into action again as soon as they arrived at the gate, rooting around in the compartment above Margo like he was hunting for truffles. Fearful he’d dump out the contents of her messenger bag she stood, too, and removed it from the overhead.
“Out of the way,” ABB said. “I’m in a hurry.”
“We all are,” Margo said. “But they haven’t opened the door yet.”
“I have to be out of here when they do. Move, bitch.”
“Excuse me? What did you … ?”
The man grabbed his briefcase and pin-balled his way through passengers and cabin crew to the door, which was still closed. “Asshole in Blue Blazer” moved ahead of “walking across the country pushing heavy beverage carts” on the list of reasons she was glad she hadn’t followed up on that girlhood fantasy of being a flight attendant so she could get paid for traveling.
At baggage claim, still thinking of comebacks for ABB, some of which were anatomically impossible, most of which were too obscene to say out loud and many of which were both, she let her bag go past a couple times before she realized it had made an appearance. Off balance when she snagged it, she swung around awkwardly, smacking into someone behind her. When she started to apologize she saw, much to her consternation, she’d whacked — guess who? — talking again on the phone.
Echoing her sentiments, ABB said, “Oh, hell, you again. Just what I need,” and elbowed past her. He grabbed the briefcase leaning up against the luggage belt in front of her, and ran toward the taxi stand, leaving her apologizing to empty air. “Welcome to Philadelphia, Margo,” she muttered to no one in particular as she pulled out the handle from her suitcase.