Cherry Adair - T-flac 09 (18 page)

“I’m sorry. I’m not mad at
you.
I’m mad at myself.”

“I’ll take your word for it. But don’t look at yourself in the mirror,” Heather told him flatly. “You’d scare yourself to death.” She did a quick mental checklist of where she’d zigged instead of zagged.

Obviously, the first thing was in assuming that he wouldn’t want the baby. At the time, she’d figured that he write her off as a one-night stand.
Her
assumption had been that he was a man who wanted no ties. He had a job, a life that didn’t revolve around her. She had done her best to ignore every pang of wishful thinking she had had in the last three months.

Inhaling deeply, she held the breath, then let it out slowly. “Are you in a position to be a father right now? Do you even want to be a parent?” She met his eyes unflinchingly. No matter how he felt, the anger and sense of unfairness that he was absolutely entitled to, she believed that he wouldn’t hurt her.

She wasn’t sure what he was reacting to. Her being pregnant? The fact that she’d chosen abortion? Or the fact that she’d made a decision without consulting
him
?

She didn’t know. She’d gone through so many emotions in the past few months herself that she could hardly judge someone else’s. Tears prickled behind her eyes and she watched him through a watery film, a clog in her throat. She’d never believed in love at first sight, never thought she could trust a man enough to give him her heart without reservation.

Until Caleb.

He’d walked in and demanded that she marry him.
Before
she’d breathed a word about the pregnancy.

For the first time in her life, she was one hundred percent certain that a man wanted her, the woman. Not her, the only child of power broker Brian Shaw. Caleb knew nothing about her past. Nothing about her father.

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And that, she thought achingly, was how it was going to have to stay. Be careful what you wish for, you might get it.

She almost hoped that he’d stay angry. Anything to break the accusatory silence hanging heavily between them. Maybe by defending her decision to him, she could make him understand that this was her only real choice. How could she protect a baby when she could barely keep herself alive?

“Bullshit question.” Caleb rubbed a hand around the back of his neck. “I have no idea if I’m ready to be a father,” he said with naked honesty. He tilted his head as he studied her. “You’ve had time to think about this. I haven’t. The fact is you’re pregnant with my child. Maybe the better question is how good of a father I’ll be. I get a woman’s right to choose, but…you left me that night. I didn’t leave you. I thought that we had a special connection…”

His one-shouldered shrug pierced her guilt-heavy heart. She thought that she’d been protecting him, and herself, by leaving before becoming entangled in an emotional knot. Fate sure was a laugh a minute.

She tightened her fingers on the table’s edge. “The decision has already been made. I’m not going to change my mind. Trust me, it’s for the best. You have no idea how complicated my life is right now.
Too
complicated.”

His left brow arched as he crossed his arms over his chest.

Had he heard the catch in her voice? Damn it, he’d see a sign of weakness and pounce on it. Her stomach tingled as she recalled the way he’d said “special connection.” Was it possible that he really felt the same way? Had he given her a thought in the three months since they’d last seen each other? If she hadn’t called him, would he be here now?

Had she made the biggest mistake of her life walking out on him?

She exhaled slowly, watching him pace restlessly around her small apartment. He was a man of action, a man of controlled power, and this place was too confining for him to unleash his energy. She knew, because she’d been trying to do the same thing for the past week herself. One couldn’t pick up the necessary speed required to outrun the demons.

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Walking to the bay window, he stood to one side, lifting the sheer curtain to look down on the street below. Searching for an easy answer? Heather wanted to tell him there were none. He turned, jamming one hand into his front slacks pocket, his eyes unreadable. “Don’t you want to be a mother?”

Yes! “No.”Her hand unconsciously cupped the slightest bump of her tummy. She blinked back weak tears before he saw them. The decision was made. She’d thought, maybe, that by telling him about the baby he’d be supportive and heck, even offer to drive her to the appointment, hold her hand. Not make her go through the painful decision process all over again.

The ache in her heart would eventually fade, she told herself for the umpteenth time.

She was doing the right thing.

She knew she was.

“Liar.”

She blinked. “What?” Distributing her weight slightly from one foot to the other, Heather bit her lip hard enough to shift the pain from her chest to a more manageable place. She had to control this situation before she ended up in a powerless puddle.

“I said, you’re a liar.” Caleb’s eyes clashed with hers and kept her pinned there. “I think you
adore
kids.

Tell me—when you had your first fantasy about getting married, how many baby names did you try on for size? What was the name of the not-yet-a-man you’d chosen as your future husband from the pubescent crop in high school? Billy? Bobby? Ralph?”

“Reed Newmark.”

He huffed a silent laugh. “Bet you wrote his name over and over. And circled it with little pink hearts.

Wrote Hannah Newmark on every page of your English Lit book.”

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HeatherNewmark. “It was Social Science.”

“Ah.” He picked up a small shell she’d found on the beach from the bowl on her bedside table, and twisted it between his long, elegant fingers before looking back at her. “And how many babies did you picture that you and this paragon of virtue and manliness, Reed, would have?”

She glared at him. “Fine. I
do
adore children. Are you happy now? I’ve always wanted a big family—”

She’d dreamed the same dream most women dreamed, until she saw how the dream could end. A loving husband turned murderer, a family torn apart…

“You’re healthy?”

“Of course!”

“Married?”

“You know I’m not.” She sent him a glare.

He had the nerve to grin. “Great. That’s settled.”

“What’s settled?” Nerves danced up her spine.

“We can be married this afternoon down at City Hall.”

The man was a human bulldozer. “I’m not marrying you.”

He stepped toward her, and she moved quickly to put the table between them.

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“I’m a good catch,” he assured her with utmost seriousness.

“No!” No matter
how
tempting the offer. She had to remember that she was fighting for her life, something she couldn’t do with a family. Her tummy jumped as she thought the word.

Eyes glittering, he tugged at his earlobe. She glared at him. The tension in the air was thick enough to cut with a diamond-tipped blade. And while Caleb’s shoulders looked a little less tense, it was obvious by the way he stood that he was still—
what
? She wasn’t quite sure. Pissed off? Stunned stupid? Feeling trapped? His face was closed, his expression unreadable.

Sphinx Man, for God’s sake. She couldn’t read him at all.

Of course she wasn’t sure what kind of signals Caleb was giving off. She didn’t know the man. She was in love with him, pregnant with his child, but she didn’t know him at all.

About ten feet separated them. A chasm.

She suspected that if she gave Caleb even a hint of how terrified and uncertain she was, he’d jump right in and take over. And while it was tempting to defer the impossible decision to him, it was still her body.

Her life. He didn’t know the consequences.

“Why not?” he asked, sounding annoyingly reasonable.

His voice was closer and she looked up, detailing his James Bond-ish style. A beautifully cut, rough-weave cream jacket stretched over his broad shoulders, his body hard and fit in the microfiber black T-shirt and casual but expensive black slacks.

He appeared so in control, while she felt like Wile E. Coyote headed for a cliff. “Because.” She gathered the loose hair at her nape, tucking it back into the lopsided ponytail she’d put up some time earlier. Who was she kidding? Her life had been unraveling before she met him. Adding a baby and a mock marriage wouldn’t change her life for the better, it would be worse. She’d be putting her new
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family in danger.

“Because?”

Because God only knew
who
was out there, waiting for her to make one slipup so he/they could grab her. She was tired of being scared all the time. And scared that there would be no end to this waiting for the other shoe to drop.

She’d spent the last three months weaving a lovely fantasy about Caleb to keep her fear and loneliness at bay, but the reality was just that—reality.

And it completely sucked.

“We’ll make it work,” he said softly, not waiting for her answer. He stretched out his hand.

“No way.” She kept the inflection out of her voice with effort. If she looked at him right now she’d be lost. Metaphorically speaking, she was hanging onto her emotions with both hands, teeth gritted. She’d known when she’d decided to terminate the pregnancy that the decision would haunt her for life. She hadn’t realized that it might be the same for Caleb.

She tried again, ignoring his hand to march toward the window. “We had a one-night stand. Hardly a solid basis for marriage.”

“Are you telling me you feel nothing for me?”

Her pride was soothed by the disbelief in his tone. At least he didn’t think she went around sleeping with whatever hot guy flirted with her in the produce section. “I didn’t say that,” she hedged.

Damn it. She never should have called him. So why had she? Had she subconsciously wanted to give him the opportunity to offer her options? What kind of person did that make her? She turned to face him.

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“I shouldn’t have told you.”

“I’m glad you did,” he said in his rough voice.

God! Why couldn’t he act the way she’d thought he would? If anything, she’d imagined that he’d be
relieved
that she’d made the decision she had.

She pulled back the curtain as he’d done moments before. He was directly behind her, making him difficult to ignore. Somehow he’d moved from a safe distance across the room to right beside her without her noticing it. Damn, the man was stealthy. It was harder to be resolute when she could smell the faint tang of his soap, and the achingly familiar musky scent of his skin. Her mind flashed images of his naked body. Of the crisp feel of his chest hair under her hands. Of the weight and texture of his sex in her hand.

He took her shoulders, turned her around, and stared down at her with a look so intense her knees trembled. “We made a baby together. Jesus. That’s amazing.”

“It was a
mistake.
”

“That’s something our son will never know,” he told her harshly. He tilted her chin up with his finger, his eyes more teal than blue as he searched her face. “Our son.” He shook his head slightly in wonderment.

“Are you all right? Have you seen a doctor?”

“I’m okay.” She wanted desperately to lay her head on his chest and rest there, just for a minute. Just a minute or two to catch her breath, and draw some of his seductive strength inside herself. “I went to the clinic last week. Everything is fine.”
My life was turned upside down.

But her body didn’t care. Their baby was healthy and thriving inside her.

A muscle jerked in his jaw as he tucked her hair behind her ear with gentle fingers. “No morning sickness?”

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“I don’t think so. If so, it was pretty mild. Nothing really. I had the flu for a while and I—and then I finally went to the doctor last week and—and I’m pregnant—and God, Caleb!” Tears leaked over her lower lashes before she could stop them. She put her fingers on her cheeks as if she could stop them.

She’d cried more in the last couple of months than she’d probably cried in her lifetime.
I want this all to
stop! I want my mother. And my father. Damn it, I want my
life
back.
“I can’t have a baby now.”

Thank God her internal monologue didn’t show in her voice. “I just
can’t.
”

Heather dragged in a liquid breath.

“Come here, sweetheart.” He pulled her into the shelter of his arms. “There you go.”

Lord, he felt
wonderful.
Solid. Big. Indestructible. He smoothed a palm down her back. “You’ve only known for a week? You didn’t exactly give yourself a lot of time to think things through.”