Baby Love (23 page)

Rafe knew that. It had just escaped him for a while. Thinking back to those long-ago days when he'd first met Susan, he could remember all the hours they'd spent simply talking and laughing together, falling more and more in love with each passing second. Long before they'd ever become lovers, they had been best friends, double-dating, studying together, and talking endlessly on the telephone, sharing their innermost thoughts and secrets.

Rafe closed his eyes, thinking about what he knew of Maggie's teen years. School, work, and then home at night to do even more work. Had she ever steamed up the windows of a car parked on Lovers' Loop? Or fended off the advances of a horny boy at the movies? Probably not. Hell, no. When would there have been time for her to date? Unlike Susan, who'd been pampered, indulged by her daddy, and sheltered from the harsh realities, Maggie had jumped into adulthood and responsibility when she was little more than a child herself. There had been no one to watch out for her, no one to protect her, and absolutely no one to indulge her.

Instead, she'd fallen into that bastard Lonnie's clutches, and, unless Rafe missed his guess, he'd put a
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halt to any semblance of normalcy in her life after that.

Rafe sighed again and rubbed his forehead. His brother was right. Instead of courting Maggie and winning her heart, he had laid siege, fashioning a velvet-lined trap, leading her into it, and snapping the teeth closed.

"Thank you, Ryan. "

"For what? All I've done is try to point out the problem. "

Rafe pushed wearily to his feet. "Sometimes just recognizing the problem is half the solution. "

Maggie's heart leaped when she heard the doorknob turn. An instant later, Rafe stood in the doorway. She wasn't sure what she expected to see in his expression. Anger, perhaps? Instead the set of his chiseled features was impossible to read, shadows darkening his smoke-blue eyes to a somber slate that reminded her of the summer sky right before a storm.

"Hi, " he said huskily, his gaze moving slowly over her as he stepped into the room. After closing the door, he leaned against it, the breadth of his shoulders spanning a large share of its width. His black hair lay in wind-tousled waves across his high forehead. His blue chambray shirt was open at the collar to reveal a patch of burnished chest that Maggie knew would feel as hard as a granite slab.

"Hi, " she said weakly. "I was beginning to think you weren't coming back. "

He folded his arms. "An exercise in wishful thinking?"

She felt heat flood into her face. Since it was obvious she was less than enthusiastic about their wedding night, she saw no point in making denials. "I'm sorry I ruined the little celebration you planned. Especially about breaking Susan's crystal. I accidentally set the goblet on an olive. Stupid of me. I should have looked before I turned it loose. "

223

224 CATHERINE ANDERSON

"I really don't give a hang about the crystal, and it's yours now, not Susan's. "

"Oh. " She wished he would stop staring at her like that. It made her nerves jangle. "Well, for ruining the party then. If you'd like to try again, I'll do my best not to spoil it. "

"I don't care much about that, either. It was bad timing. " He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I've heard of being saved by the bell. But by an olive?"

He straightened and moved toward her, his stride slow and unhurried. As he drew nearer, her heart skittered madly.

He came to a stop near the nightstand and rested his hands on his lean hips, the very picture of a rugged male, his long, denim-clad legs braced apart, his firm mouth tipping into a crooked grin. Maggie tried to meet his gaze and return his smile. A twinkle came into his eyes.

"Maggie, you look as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rockers. I'm not going to attack you. I just want to talk to you. I think we'll both feel a whole lot better once I do. "

She lowered her gaze to her hands, realized she was toying with her wedding ring, and began picking fuzz from the blanket instead. He resumed his seat on the edge of the bed and rested his arms on his knees.

"There won't be much blanket left if you keep that up, " he observed dryly. "I'll have to go hunt up a quilt so we don't freeze to death during the night. "

She didn't miss the fact that he had made clear his intention to sleep with her.

"Maggie, " he said softly, "can you look at me, please?"

She forced herself to meet his gaze again.

"This has all been pretty hard for you, hasn't it?"

"All what?"

He sighed and looked away. "Everything, from start to finish. Here you are, apologizing to me about making a mess of things? I'm the one who needs to apologize. "

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He gave a low laugh. "The hell of it is, I don't know where to start. "

He dug the heel of his boot into the rug. Maggie watched him, her heart pounding for an entirely different reason now. She had an awful feeling he was about to tell her this had all been a disastrous mistake.

"You're going to send us away, aren't you?"

He looked startled. "Away? Hell, no. What gave you that idea?"

Maggie tried to moisten her lips. Her tongue felt as rough and parched as a line-dried washcloth. "I, um...

" She gestured limply with one hand. "I'm not unwilling to hold up my end of the bargain. Honestly, I'm not. I was just nervous earlier, that's all. I'll—" She couldn't bear to look at him as she said it, so she went back to picking at the blanket. "I'll be fine now—and do whatever you want—if you'll just give me another chance to hold up my end of the bargain. "

"I'm the one who wants to ask for another chance. "

That brought her head up. "You?"

"Yes, me. " He laced his fingers and bent them backward, making his knuckles pop. "I went through everything I wanted to say to you while I was walking back to the house. Do you think I can remember one damned thing? Hell, no. " He shook his head. "Why is it, do you think, that when it's really important to say all the right things, a person usually says all the wrong ones?"

He looked so genuinely distressed that Maggie momentarily forgot her own concerns. "What is it you want to say?"

He closed his eyes, the muscle along his jaw rippling under coppery skin as he clenched his teeth. "That I'm sorry for being such a jerk, for starters. "

A jerk? A picture flashed in her mind of him pacing the floor during the night with her baby. This man had been controlling. She secretly felt like a commodity he'd purchased to replace something he'd lost. But in spite of that, she couldn't recall a single instance when he'd
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been what she would term a jerk. " You've actually been very kind to us. "

The smile that crept over his firm mouth was pained. "Kind? On the surface, maybe. " He pushed suddenly to his feet and started stepping off the distance to the fireplace with long strides, the tendons in his legs bunching under the denim of his jeans with every movement. As he pivoted back toward her, he hooked his thumbs over his belt. "I'm no good at this kind of thing, so I'm just going to jump into it with both feet. Bear with me, okay?"

Maggie nodded.

"First off, you're afraid I'm going to hit you. We have to talk about that. " His eyes went dark with shadows again. "Call it a quirk, but I don't want a wife who feels afraid every time I scratch my head. "

Maggie's lungs hitched, and an airless pounding reverberated in her temples. She
had
flinched away from him. She couldn't deny it.
Oh, God.
It was her turn to close her eyes. Despite his denial, she felt certain he was about to tell her this wasn't going to work, and she didn't know what she was going to do.

He cleared his throat and muttered under his breath. "I have a bad habit of talking with my hands.

Rubbing my jaw, shoving my fingers through my hair. My dad does it. I think it's something Rye and I picked up from him. I seriously doubt it's a trait I can overcome because I do it unconsciously. "

"I'm sorry for throwing my arm up like that, " she said in a wobbly voice. "I didn't think you were going to hit me. Really I didn't. "

"Yes, you did. "

His words cut sharply through the air and seemed to echo. "No, " she assured him hoarsely. "Maybe it looked that way. But it was only a reflex reaction. You've never struck me, and I've no reason to think you might. "

"Maggie, I'm not scolding you. All right? You
do

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have reason to believe I might hit you. More reason than I probably know about. And like I just said, reflexes or unconscious gestures are something none of us can control. I'm not asking that of you. I just need for us to come to an understanding about it. I want you to know that I'll never hurt you.

"I wish I could tell you that I've never in my life struck a female, but the honest-to-God truth is that I did once. " He rubbed the back of his neck. "I doubled up my fist and let her have it, square in the face.

Bloodied her nose, busted her lip, and knocked her flat on her ass. "

Nausea rolled through Maggie's stomach. She was fairly certain that she'd have no nose left if Rafe Kendrick punched her. "Wh-what did she do to make you so mad?"

"You plan to take notes so you never make the same mistake? Probably not a bad plan. " His eyes took on a distant expression. "What did she do?" He seemed to mull that over. "Well, she scratched me, to start with. And then she hit me. I might've let both those things slide, but then she smashed my Twinkie.
That
pissed me off. "

Maggie blinked and refocused on his face. "Pardon?"

He narrowed an eye at her. "You heard me. " That narrowed eye closed in a slow, teasing wink. "Don't screw with my Twinkies. I tend to react violently. "

"Twinkles. The kind you eat?"

"Is there another kind?" He got a contented look on his face. "You know, the ones with the creamy centers? I used to be crazy about them. Still am. "

Maggie was still thinking of that poor woman's smashed nose.

"Anyway, when my Twinkie got smashed, I lost my temper and let her have it. My first-grade teacher called my dad and told on me. "

"You were a first-grader?"

His lips twitched. "That afternoon when I got home,

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my father escorted me to the tack room where he wore out the seat of my jeans with his belt, giving me one of the few spankings I ever got. " He held up a finger. "Rule number one in the Kendrick family: men never, under any circumstances, hit women. My dad is absolute death on that. I always kind of thought he overreacted, since I was only six and the girl was bigger than I was. But I think it was a lesson he wanted to drive home to me early on. " He shrugged. "He did, and with a vengeance. The lesson took. " He frowned, but his eyes still twinkled with mischief. "I think it's branded on my ass. I don't have it in me to strike a woman, Maggie, and I have no respect for any man who does. It goes against everything I was raised to believe in. When I get pissed at you, I may fantasize about wringing your neck, but when push comes to shove, I'll never retaliate physically. It's not in my nature. "

"Oh. "

"You can smash all my Twinkies, honey. By the case, if you want. I'll never lift a hand to you. " He folded his arms across his chest. "No matter how mad I get, when the smoke clears, there won't be a hair on your head harmed. I promise you that. " He glanced over his shoulder. "There's a Bible around here someplace. I'll give my solemn oath on it, if you'd like. "

"That won't be necessary, " she said softly.

"I know it's probably not the best idea for me to talk a lot about Susan, and I apologize for doing it now.

But would it help you to know that Susan and I had knockdown, drag-out fights sometimes, and I never once so much as slapped her?"

"You loved her, though. "

He nodded. "Yeah, I loved her. More than anything. I won't lie to you about that. I adored her, worshiped her. But sometimes she still made me so mad I wanted to strangle her. " He smiled slightly. "Married people get angry with each other sometimes. Really angry. Any man worth the powder it'd take to blow him to hell

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doesn't use his fists to settle the dispute. I'll walk out and go cool off before I'll ever hit you. I promise you that. "

Maggie nodded, wanting with all her heart to believe him. Her father had never hit her mom. She knew on some level that men like Rafe described truly existed. She'd just spent so many years dodging Lonnie's fists that it no longer seemed like a reality to her.

Rafe dug his heel against the rug again, then traced the sculpture pattern with the toe of his boot. "On the subject of Susan and how much I loved her, " he went on. "That's something else we need to talk about. A part of my heart will always belong to her and my kids. " His voice went husky. "I wouldn't be much of a man, and my love wouldn't be worth a damn if I could simply bury people I care about and forget them.

But please, understand that my memories of them have nothing to do with how I feel about you and Jaimie. Susan's gone, my kids are gone. Life goes on. A man can love and love deeply more than once. "

Tenderness clouded his eyes as he studied her. "I love you like that now. "

"You're starting to love me?"

"Starting?" He gave a self-deprecating laugh and ran a hand over his face. "I guess this seems sudden to you. "

"A little. Actually, a lot. "

"Do you think love has to conform to a mean and follow a time chart?"

"No, of course not. "

"Or make sense?" He shrugged. "Nine times out of ten, it makes no apparent sense at all, except to the person who feels it. I can't explain how it happened. Or exactly when. I didn't want to care about you. It made me feel like I was betraying Susan. But the feeling blind-sided me anyway. " He broke off and swallowed, avoiding her gaze for a moment. "You're a very special person, Maggie. I don't think you realize how special. " He looked deeply into her eyes again. "Remember tell-230 CATHERINE ANDERSON

ing me that you could never replace Susan? When you said that, I got the feeling you felt inferior somehow, that no matter how you tried, you'd never be able to measure up. "

"You said yourself that she was really wonderful, and Becca talks about her like she was a saint. "

"When people die, we tend to canonize them, I guess. Not to say she wasn't wonderful. She was. But as much as I loved her, when it comes to measuring up, she's the one who comes up short, Maggie, not you.

And if she were here, she'd be the first person who'd tell you that. "

"She would?"

"Susan was a sweetheart, no question, but never once was she put to the test like you have been. At fourteen, she was a cheerleader. A little rich girl. For her sixteenth birthday, her daddy bought her a brand-new car.

"When we got out of college and decided to get married, she worked at a hamburger joint to buy my wedding ring, which set her back about four grand. Every cent she earned went for that ring. Not for clothes.

Her dad gave her a charge card for that, and anything she wanted or needed, she just went and bought.

Her earnings never went to pay bills. She had none. She lived with her folks, and they paid for everything.

She had no real responsibilities until we got married, and even then, I tried my best to provide well for her. I'm not knocking her for that or saying it isn't the way it should be. I'm just pointing out that you've never had it that easy. "

"No, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't have jumped at the chance. In high school, I envied girls like that. "

"I'll be damned. You mean to tell me you have an ignoble trait?" He arched an eyebrow. "I'll bet you never once had the luxury of spending your wages on something as frivolous as a four-thousand-dollar ring. Or on anything else frivolous, for that matter. You just did what you had to, taking care of your mom and Heidi. "