Created In Fire (Art of Love Series) (16 page)

“Tell your Dad and Jessica to use the sky blue color in the room. If this baby is anything like its parents, the child is going to need all the calm environment it can get,” Carrie said, her voice drifting off in her tiredness.

Michael closed his eyes when he felt his own tears well up. Carrie had been hurt and frustrated, but she’d still stopped and checked the baby’s room. Picking a paint color was more than he hoped for from her.

He kissed her hair, her temple, and then tucked her head under his chin.

“Okay,” he said, his voice shaky. “Calming sky blue it is. Maybe we should paint the whole house that color.”

Carrie laughed again, sniffling against the pillow until she fell into an emotionally exhausted sleep, still wrapped tightly in Michael’s arms.

Michael held her for over an hour, until he was convinced Carrie wasn’t going anywhere. During that time he tried to see their situation from her side. Even if he couldn’t imagine how she dealt with it before, it wasn’t hard to appreciate how frustrated and out-of-control the current pregnancy must be making her feel now.

Feeling sleep coming at last to him as well, he finally eased Carrie off his arm and onto the pillow. Then he tucked himself more comfortably around her, just grateful to have her in his arms.

*** *** ***

The next morning Michael woke alone in a very quiet house. It had been so long since he’d been alone, the experience now felt strange to him.

He went to the master bathroom just to see if Carrie might be there and need him. But she wasn’t. The medicine bottle was on the counter, but Michael could see some of the tablets were missing.

There would be no need to rescue her today.

The thought did not make him feel better. Instead, it made him incredibly sad. Well, that and the fact that he hadn’t been able to hug or kiss her goodbye this morning after holding her all night.

And she obviously hadn’t wanted him to do it.

God only knew what Carrie was going to have to deal with at work that day. For the first time, Michael sincerely wished he had the power to change at least that situation. He might not think he’d done anything wrong, but dealing with scenes like the one with Erin—well, that was a hard lesson learned for him. He should never have dated so many women who had contact with her. He was ashamed now, but unfortunately he couldn’t undo any of it.

Michael was washing his hands in the sink when he saw the tiny note Carrie had taped in the lower right corner of the mirror. It was so small, he almost missed seeing it. It was obviously meant only for her eyes.

He read it and then re-read it, his brain hurting with what he realized it was and what it meant. It was a just couple lines of bible scripture she had put there about forgiving someone seventy times seven. Michael inappropriately swore, then laughed at the irony of his vulgarity. Her intent was damn humbling to him.

Despite her apathy for her parents, she had dipped into her spiritual programming to look for answers. He should have felt validated to know that Carrie was really trying to work on letting go of their past.
Seventy times seven
, he thought.
Have I wronged her four hundred and ninety times?
God, he hoped not and found himself praying that it hadn’t been so many.

He could have seen finding the note as winning their argument about the past. But like Shane had said, whether he had meant to hurt her or not, Michael had still ended up doing it. He was far from blameless. And there wasn’t any rationalizing it away when Carrie cried all the time about what happened in college. For the first time, he could imagine Carrie looking for him after they had been together and finding him with someone else. If he’d seen her kissing Tom the day after they’d been together, he would have been devastated.

Maybe he had broken her heart back then. He certainly hadn’t meant to.

Instead of feeling righteous about her little reminder note, Michal could only fall more in love with Carrie for trying to keep her word despite not be able to really forget what happened.

Yet for the pain between them, everything in Michael kept insisting that if Carrie ever did set the past aside, they would love each other until the end of time. But he couldn’t do her healing for her. She had to want to be with him as much as he wanted to be with her.

Shane had been right about that too. All Michael could do was hold her through the night, love her all he could, and hope she eventually thought a life with him was worth the emotional effort.

What Michael wanted to do was somehow make it all up to Carrie, but he had no idea what that would take. Not knowing led to feeling helpless, which had always been the one thing he’d never handled well.

Last time he’d felt this helpless about Carrie, she had just married husband number two. He had spent her second wedding night with Erin, drunk and resentful for being with the wrong woman. Nothing he had done with Erin had meant anything to him. Not that night, and not any of the others he’d spent with her. From that perspective, he had been a bastard to Erin.

All passion and no genuine emotion,
Michael thought.
That was what his life had been wanting Carrie and not having her.

The truth was that merely kissing Carrie was more satisfying than anything more passionately intimate he’d done with any other woman. She was the ultimate partner for him. They had fallen into a twisted pattern of hurting each other all because he’d treated her badly in college, Michael thought, angry with himself instead of Carrie this time.

Maybe he was finally getting it at last, because he could suddenly see that when he had knocked one domino down in the line he and Carrie had built, the rest had tumbled after it, unable to stop until something outside the pattern broke the momentum.

Their baby—their second child, he conceded—broke the pattern two months ago.

If he hadn’t gotten Carrie pregnant, she’d be married to the Tom guy by now, and he’d be—what? Probably sleeping with Erin or some other woman again, Michael had to admit.

Thank God for the baby, he thought, practically shaking with relief that somewhere in their night together he’d gotten lucky when a condom had failed. Because of the baby and Carrie’s promise to herself to keep it, he at least had a chance now.

He wondered if telling her Shane’s theories would make it better or worse. Worse for Michael would be her being so upset that she moved back to her apartment. He already couldn’t imagine sleeping without her next to him. The thought of losing her now was enough to drive him crazy.

His sexual prowess wasn’t going to make her stay with him, no matter how much effort he put into it. Nor was Carrie impressed with his lifestyle enough to want to share it.

No. For the moment, Michael realized he was reduced to counting on a contractual agreement to keep the woman he loved with him. He was once again one damn domino away from losing Carrie.

Realizing how bleak his situation was in reality and how far away it was from the loving relationship he wanted, Michael sank down on the toilet lid as Carrie was prone to doing when she was exasperated. The irony of copying her action made him laugh. They were both movers and shakers. They solved problems. Yet they couldn’t seem to solve their own.

What a pair of frustrated wimps about their personal issues they had become, Michael thought. But when the ironic laughter stopped, Michael swore again, put his face in his hands, and let himself cry for not being able to blame anyone but himself for his current dilemma. Intentional or not, he finally accepted that he had delivered the first damaging emotional blow and started all this.

After his crying jag finally passed, Michael washed his face and headed for the patio to do what he always did when his life was in turmoil.

He transformed his helplessness and pain into art.

Chapter 11

Carrie stayed at work late, returning to Michael’s house at almost eight that night. She walked in to see the light on in the kitchen and Michael on the patio. On the table in front of him was a three-foot metal sculpture. Michael was wearing welding goggles and using a torch to secure the connections where it overlapped and intersected.

Carrie slid the door open and walked outside. “I like it,” she said in greeting. “What is it?”

Michael turned off the MIG welder. “What’s it look like?”

Carrie had an answer, but didn’t want to give it. “It’s too early for an outside interpretation.”

Michael pulled off his goggles and laughed harshly. “Just tell me, damn it. Don’t dance around trying not to hurt my artistic ego. I’m not Lana or Tyler who need to be coddled over their work. My artistic manhood is hard enough to handle the heat of your opinion.”

“Nice metaphor,” Carrie said, laughing and flushing, unable to avoid extending that metaphor to remember Michael comparing the inside of her to a blast furnace. “But I forgot my artistic thoughts when you used the word manhood and hard in the same sentence. I’m hormonal, and you’re looking pretty good right now. I woke up wanting you this morning, but I had to go to work.”

“Better than my day. I woke up and you were gone. I’ve been worried about you all day,” Michael said honestly.

Barely resisting the urge to snatch her up, he instead made himself take time to feel happy just to be sparring with her.

“I was mostly fine. Medicine is still working. I need to eat though. I had a snack around five, but I’m starved now,” Carrie said.

“How about pizza in thirty minutes?” Michael asked.

“Works for me. Vegetables on my half please. The idea of meat makes me woozy,” Carrie said, frowning. “It’s crazy the way you want things and then you don’t. Eating is a roller coaster ride for me lately.”

Michael pulled his cell from his pocket and ordered the pizza while Carrie walked closer to inspect his art. The joints had completely cooled, but he noticed she didn’t attempt to touch it.

“So what do you see?” he asked, sliding the cell back into his pocket.

Carrie stepped back and looked down the patio, unable to look at Michael while she thought about what she wanted to say to him.

“It looks like streams of tears,” she said at last, turning to face him. Carrie saw a flash of surprise in his gaze and knew she’d gotten it right.

“That’s exactly what it is,” Michael said, staring at the only woman—no, the only person—that he’d ever known who understood his art. His future stepmother was the only other person who’d ever come close.

“Are they—are they mine?” Carrie asked, having trouble being brave enough to ask the question. “I can’t help crying right now, Michael. I cry over everything. I think—everyone says it’s the pregnancy.”

“They’re not yours,” Michael said softly. “I saw your note on the bathroom mirror this morning, sat on the toilet, and cried about what a mess I’ve made of things with you. It humbled me to see proof that you are really trying to find a way to forgive the past.”

Carrie dropped her gaze, unwilling to let him see how much hope his words gave her.

He looked back at his art. “The tears are mine. I’m calling this piece
Understanding At Last
.”

Carrie felt empathy in every cell. He may not realize it, but the art was about her too.

“Michael, I’m truly sorry you’re hurting too. I don’t want to hurt you,” she said.

It had been a hell of a day. She’d had to work with Erin on Lana’s art show that was happening Friday. The tension had been awful. On top of that, her boss had watched Erin and her interacting all day like a predator on the scent of a wounded animal. She’d fought with lighting technicians about schemes, and had to track down the equipment that her assistant—yet another old girlfriend of Michael’s—had not been able to find.

The last thing she needed was to think about Michael sitting at home and having painful epiphanies. It was not her concern. So why then did the thought of Michael thinking about their situation and crying over it make her want to cry as well?

Michael saw Carrie blinking back tears and laughed. He wasn’t being unkind. He was just appalled that he made her cry so often.

“Don’t go getting all empathetic on me right now or the waterworks will start again for both of us,” he told her, lifting his T-shirt up his chest to dab her eyes and making her laugh at his bare stomach against her. “I don’t want the pizza delivery person wondering why we’re both crying when he gets here.”

“Oh, God no, we wouldn’t want the pizza delivery person to think badly of us,” Carrie agreed, sarcasm twisting her smile into a smirk. “Your neighbors might start asking questions.”

Her sarcasm pleased him. It meant she was finally comfortable enough to be herself.

Michael dropped his shirt and stepped into her, swooping down to her mouth for the kiss he’d been needing all day. It turned hot so quickly that they both had trouble pulling away from each other.

“Are you feeling okay today?” he asked, kissing his way past her ear to bury his face in her hair again. He should ask her about last night, talk to her, but—hell, all he wanted was to be with her. He didn’t care about the rest if he could have that.

“Are you asking if I feel well enough for sex?” Carrie asked against his collarbone, smelling the sweat of him and feeling dizzy with lust.