Lightning Strikes

by Mary Lynn Baxter

  She didn’t respond.

  “It seems like forever since we’ve had any time together.”

  “Gordon, please, don’t start that ‘poor me’ routine.”

  “That’s how you make me feel.”

  There was a petulant ring to his voice that set Amanda’s teeth on edge and made her want to slam down the receiver. But knowing he was getting a raw deal, she got a grip on her emotions.

  “I get the idea I’m being brushed off. That’s a damn uncomfortable feeling, especially from your fiancée.”

  “I’m not your fiancée,” she flung.

  “Well, you practically are.”

  She bit back a sharp retort, then said as calmly as possible, “On that subject, I don’t appreciate you confronting Noah.”

  “So he told you, huh?” His tone was bitter. “That figures.”

  “I never promised to marry you, Gordon. And you know that.”

  An unfriendly silence followed as her soft but firm words apparently hit their target. She could picture him in her mind’s eye, his face flushed and his mouth pinched, struggling for a suitable comeback.

  “So I spoke a bit out of turn,” Gordon finally said, a defensive edge to his voice. “But I can’t believe you were ever in love with that guy. If anyone needs an attitude adjustment, it’s him.” He paused. “Thank heavens he’s no longer part of your life.”

  Amanda clamped down on her lower lip to stop it from trembling, hating the tangled mess her life had become.

  “If you don’t mind, we need to talk about this later. I have to go.” This time she paused. “Until then, please refrain from telling anyone else we’re getting married.”

  “All right, if that’s the way you want it.”

  “I’ll call you later, okay?”

  Before he could reply, she hung up, then hastened to the candle by the window. She leaned over and was about to blow it out when the doorbell rang.

  She stared at the flickering light a moment longer, then straightened. If that was Doris, she’d kill her. More than likely she, too, had called the hospital and found out that Amanda had taken a short sabbatical.

  Amanda strode to the door, but she didn’t open it. “Doris, is that you?”

  “No, it’s me.”

  Noah!

  “Amanda, let me in.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “Dammit, it’s beginning to rain like hell again.”

  Her head was spinning. “I was about to leave to go back to the hospital.”

  “This won’t take long.”

  “Is it about the lab test?”

  “Amanda! Surely you don’t expect me to answer that on the doorstep?”

  She didn’t want him to tell her alone, in her own home, either. Yet, without saying another word, she yanked on the doorknob, then stood aside while he walked past her.

  “You want a towel?” she asked, following him into the living room, her gaze taking in his drenched body. Moistening her lips, she dragged her eyes away.

  “No, I’ll be all right.”

  His hoarse tone brought her head up. They stared at each other then, both conscious of the intimacy and the seriousness of the situation.

  Amanda’s head ached while Noah looked like the grim reaper.

  Oh, God, if he told her…

  “He tested negative.”

  At first she wasn’t sure she’d heard him, his voice was so low and gruff, his face so intent. He seemed to realize that she hadn’t comprehended because he repeated his words.

  Amanda felt the color surge back into her face, along with a feeling of relief so profound she felt weak to the core. “Thank God.”

  “I’ll have to be retested in six months, but for now I’m one more lucky bastard to have dodged that bullet.”

  “That you are.” Her voice was thick and unsteady.

  “So what now?” he asked, his blue eyes pinning her.

  “I’m…going back to the hospital.”

  “We have to talk.”

  “I’ve already told you, we—”

  “Do us both a favor for once and stop lying to yourself.” His mouth worked with emotion. “And to me.”

  She hugged herself. “Please, I can’t…do this.”

  “Do what?” His eyes were pleading now.

  “You know what.”

  “Let me back into your life?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can we sit down?”

  “I should get back to the hospital,” she said, her breathing quickening.

  “I told Carl not to expect you back.”

  Her lips twisted bitterly, and she shook her head. “Your arrogance never ceases to amaze me.”

  “Trust me, I—”

  She laughed—a hyper, empty laugh. “Trust you? Now, that’s priceless. And the last thing I should do.”

  “I deserved that, I know,” Noah said, lowering his body onto the sofa.

  She stood helplessly by and watched as he stretched his long legs out in front of him, which in turn tightened his jeans over his crotch area. She averted her gaze, though she knew he was aware of the color that stained her cheeks a bright red.

  “Amanda.” His cry was anguished.

  “Regardless of how I feel, you’re not going to leave, are you?”

  “No.”

  She walked to the window, keeping her back to him as much for her protection as anything. This was so hard, she thought, barely keeping her tears at bay. Why did he have to come back and torment her this way? Suddenly, she wanted to scream at the unfairness of it all.

  If only she was in love with Gordon. But she wasn’t and never would be. Because she had never stopped loving Noah. Though her knees wanted to buckle under the weight of that admission, they didn’t. By sheer force of will, she remained upright and rigid.

  “Amanda, I’ll never hurt you again.”

  She made an unladylike noise.

  “This is not easy for me, either.” His tone was harsh.

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

  He didn’t respond.

  “I could just walk out and leave you,” she said, still not turning around.

  “That you could.”

  “And you wouldn’t stop me?”

  “No.”

  Amanda left the window and made her way to the couch, where she sank onto the other end of it, knowing she might as well get this agony behind her. Somehow, she’d get through this ordeal, like she’d gotten through the others.

  And really, this was best. There was a chance she wouldn’t leave Vanderbilt, after all. And if she did, she might want to return someday. In order for that to be possible, she had to bring closure to this “thing” with Noah. Seeing him again, touching him again, kissing him again, had made that a must.

  The day of reckoning had come.

  “I’m listening. Say what you have to say.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “It’s not a pretty story.”

  “I didn’t think it was.”

  “It’s not a short one, either.”

  Amanda felt her frustration mount. She must be out of her mind to endure this torture. What good would it do? No matter how much she still loved Noah, what was broken between them could never be fixed.

  “If you’re asking me to turn off my phone, forget it,” she all but snapped.

  “I can’t very well ask you to do something I can’t do.”

  “So, I guess you’d best start talking.”

  “I was hoping—”

  “Noah, please, just say what you have to say, then—” She faltered.

  “Get out,” he added in a harsh voice. “That’s what you’d like to say, only you didn’t.” His words were a flat statement of fact.

  She didn’t say anything. What was there to say?

  “All right, we’ll do it your way.” He paused, drawing his brows together. “Late one evening, about fifteen months ago, a woman knocked on my door.”

  Oh, boy, Amanda thought, he
re it comes. He was, is, married. She stiffened, preparing herself for the knockout punch, thereby hoping to shield herself somewhat from its devastation.

  “An old flame, no doubt.”

  It was obvious he could see her pain—after all, she knew it was mirrored for all the world to see, if only they were looking. Thank God they weren’t. She’d already borne enough humiliation at this man’s hands. If she had her way, what he was telling her now would never leave this room.

  “That’s an apt description,” Noah said.

  “So you are married.” Tears ran in silence inside her.

  “No, I’m not married.”

  Amanda’s pupils dilated, and she raised them to meet him square in the eyes. “But you were.”

  “Just let me explain, okay?” he demanded, surprisingly without censure. “I promise not to leave anything out.”

  She nodded, feeling evil begin to grow inside her like a cancer.

  “When…Tessa arrived on my doorstep, I knew I was in deep trouble. I didn’t know how or why, but my gut said so. I know never to dismiss that.” His voice was as bleak as his face.

  “Where…and how did you get involved with this woman…this Tessa?” Amanda didn’t want to know, yet she did. Some perverse part of her was determined to jerk all the skeletons out of the attic, then bury them once and for all.

  “At a medical convention. A buddy introduced us, and we hit it off. She was pretty and full of energy.” Noah paused, a flush suddenly overriding the paleness of his features. “And she came on to me like gangbusters.”

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Amanda’s tone was cutting.

  “You sure as hell didn’t.”

  She blinked, not grasping this unexpected twist. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You quietly ignored me.” When she would’ve said something, he went on, “From the first moment I met you at the hospital, I was interested.”

  “You were?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “You had a strange way of showing it.”

  “Hell, you were the one who acted as though I didn’t exist.”

  Amanda bent her head, groping to come to terms with what he was saying. “Let me get this straight,” she said, lifting her head. “You were interested in me, but you’re saying I didn’t respond?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying. You were standoffish and untouchable.”

  His eyes took on a sudden hot glow and for a moment, dark blue ones locked with light blue ones. “But was I ever wrong. I’ve never been with a woman who loved to make love more than you.”

  “Stop it, Noah! I know what you’re doing and it won’t work.”

  He went white again. “You’re right. Sorry.”

  “Go on,” she said in a terse voice, no longer sure how much more of this she could endure. Of all times for her phone not to ring.

  “First, I need to backtrack.” There was an uncomfortable pause. “After I came home from that convention, we did start dating, remember?”

  “Of course I remember.”

  “And fell in love. And after only three months we were planning our wedding.”

  She closed her eyes and fought off an acute lightheadedness. When she opened them, his gaze was warm and intent. She sensed he ached to take her in his arms. She wanted that, too, God help her. Still, if he so much as tried to touch her, she’d deck him. She swore she would.

  “Noah, please, stop dragging this out.”

  “By then, you were all I wanted, all I thought of day and night.” Another pause. “Then, a few months before our wedding day, Tessa showed up.”

  “She…she was pregnant. Right?”

  “Right.”

  Even though Amanda thought she was ready for that blow, holding her body as erect as a concrete block, she wasn’t. A baby! Noah had a baby. Someone else’s baby! She couldn’t grasp that, nor did she want to.

  What she wanted to do was physically and verbally attack him, something that both appalled and shamed her. Instead, she didn’t move, too limp, too drained and too heartsick.

  “Amanda—” Noah’s voice sounded as if it came from outside of himself. “Dammit!” he muttered, as if in agony. “This is so hard.”

  “Oh, don’t stop. By all means, finish this sordid story.”

  His jaw set hard, and the grim lines around his mouth deepened. But he continued, “I knew she was telling the truth.”

  “You knew it was your baby.” Another flat statement of fact.

  “Yes.”

  Silence.

  She didn’t ask him why. She didn’t want to know. Besides, with blood and DNA testing, parenthood was easily determined. Nor did she ask how he could’ve been so careless and not used any type of birth control.

  “I won’t deny that the news knocked me for a loop, because it did. Nor will I deny that I was one stupid sonofabitch for taking her word that she was on the pill.”

  “I’m not sure I want to know any more of the gory details,” Amanda said, her voice a forced whisper.

  “I’m sure you don’t. But I promised myself I’d tell you everything, make a clean breast of what happened.”

  “Something you should’ve done from the get-go.”

  “I was afraid of losing you.”

  “You lost me, anyway.”

  “That’s a regret I’ve lived with every day of my life.” His pulse was pounding in a certain spot under his throat.

  “I don’t know what you expect me to say.”

  “Nothing. Just continue to hear me out.”

  She bit down on her lower lip.

  “I wanted to do the right thing. I didn’t want to leave her out in the cold, so to speak. But I did not want to marry her, either. The thought was repugnant to me.” He paused, desolation creeping into his eyes again. “Especially since I’d fallen head over heels in love with you.”

  “Noah—”

  “No, I have to get this out.”

  Though he stopped short of begging, there was a pleading note in his voice that Amanda had never heard before. But this wasn’t fair, her heart screamed. The thought of him married to another woman and having a child by her was tantamount to ripping her insides to shreds with a butcher knife.

  “I know this is tough for you.”

  “That’s an understatement.” All her extremities felt icy cold.

  “I considered every possible angle that would enable me to meet my responsibility to her and to you, and thought I had it figured out when—” He broke off, his eyes sunk back into his head.

  “When what?” she asked, though her heart was skipping beats.

  “She had a stroke.”

  Amanda’s mouth flopped open. “A stroke.”

  “A stroke,” he repeated. “I knew then I had no choice. I had to take care of her and the baby.”

  “That’s when you decided to marry her?”

  He nodded. “I asked for a leave of absence and moved to Boulder where I got a job at a hospital. Shortly thereafter, we went through a discreet marriage ceremony.”

  “I…see.”

  “I didn’t have to marry her, only I felt so damned obligated.”

  “Are you sure you didn’t…love her?” Somehow Amanda forced those awful words out of her mouth.

  His body grew taut. “How could you ask me that?”

  “Considering what you’re telling me, how could I not?”

  “Neither one of us was in love with the other. But we both were determined to make things work for the sake of the baby.”

  Her heart was a rattle in her throat.

  “I loved you, dammit, only you.”

  “Which was all the more reason why you should’ve told me.”

  “I couldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Frankly, I didn’t have the guts.”

  Amanda shook her head. “I don’t buy that.”

  “Also, as I said before, I didn’t want to lose you, knowing how you felt about betrayal.”


  “So now it’s my fault.”

  “Dammit, that’s not what I meant at all. How many times did you tell me how you hated coming from a dysfunctional household, how you hated that both your parents had been married numerous times?”

  “What does that have to do with our situation?”

  “As far as I was concerned, a helluva lot. You also told me how you felt used for having to raise three of your brothers and sisters.”

  “I don’t deny that. But—”

  “You made it quite plain that you thought fathers who walked out on their kids were commode scum, including your own.”

  “I’ll admit that my father’s abandonment left emotional scars and has haunted me all my life, but that’s no reason for you not to have confided in me.”

  “I thought it was a damn good reason.”

  “Well, you thought wrong.”

  “If I didn’t marry Tessa, then you would’ve been partly saddled with another woman’s child. I couldn’t do that to you.”

  “That wasn’t your decision to make.”

  She might as well not have spoken. He went on like a steamroller on the move.

  “But more than that, I believed you would’ve stopped loving me on the spot, told me to go straight to hell.”

  Amanda scrambled to her feet and glared down at him. “How dare you presume to know how I’d feel or what I’d say?”

  “I just—”

  “You just took the chicken way out!”

  “No!”

  “Yes!”

  They glared at each other, then Noah smothered a curse. “Okay, so what would you have said and done?”

  “What difference does it make now? It’s too late. You should have trusted me.”

  “Dammit, don’t you think I know that now?”

  “Where is…she?” Amanda asked, easing down onto the far end of the sofa. “Your wife, I mean.”

  “She’s dead.”

  Torture-filled minutes crawled by.

  “Dead?” Amanda echoed, stunned.

  He leaned his head against the cushion, unresponsive.

  “Noah?”

  He looked over at her, then said in a disjointed voice, “She died giving birth to our son.”

  “Oh, God, I’m sorry.”

  His eyes were like dark stones. “I felt it was my fault. Because I didn’t love her. Because I hated being married to her, I felt I had somehow caused her death.”