Deception (17 page)

Alex jerked away and scooted off the bed. Angry strides took him to the closet where he pulled out a pair of jeans.

Tess replaced the receiver. “We’ll only stay a few minutes, then we’ll go to dinner.”

He pulled the pants on with jerky motions, then yanked a crewneck sweater over his head.

“I have to go, Alex. She named the baby after me.” And our daughter, but she couldn’t tell him that yet.

“You don’t
have
to do anything.”

“She’s the only family I have.” She hated pleading with him, hated the zing of anticipation she got from the thought of holding baby Theresa.

“And she treats you like shit.”

“So I should treat her the same?”

He grabbed his shoes and turned to pierce her with a haunted look. “Don’t do this, Tess.”

She glanced down at her hands clenched in her lap. “She has red hair.”

Alex cursed. “You’re torturing yourself,” he said, his voice strained.

What could she say? Deny the truth? Deny that holding little Theresa would break her heart all over again, make her ache for the baby she’d lost?

He let out a deep breath. “I don’t want you to go.”

“I know. But I have to go. I have to…see.” And hold and snuggle and pretend just for a moment.

“She’s not ours, Tess.”

“I know.” She swallowed and tilted her head back, willing the tears away and pushing the emptiness back into the hole from where it came.

Alex dropped to his knees between her legs and ran his hand up the outside of her thighs. “I don’t know what to say, what to do to take this grief away from you. Help me help you.”

She shook her head and more tears fell. “There will always be a part of my heart that mourns our daughter.”

“We can have others.”

Her chest constricted, making it hard to breathe. “We tried.”

“We haven’t been using protection.”

“We didn’t use protection for most of our marriage.” She touched his cheek. “I’m sorry I can’t give you a baby.”

His hands tightened on her thighs and his eyes grew even darker. “The doctors said there’s no medical reason we can’t conceive.”

“Doctors are often wrong.”

He reached for her, but she scrambled off the bed. “I need to get ready. Where are you taking me for dinner?”

“Tess, please—”

She looked back at him still kneeling by the bed. “I can’t, Alex. I can’t talk about this anymore. It hurts too much.”

He got to his feet and came toward her. She wanted to turn away because she didn’t want his pity, his regret, or his sorrow. But she needed his touch too much. He pulled her to him and she buried her face in the rough knit of his sweater, holding back the sobs and the tears, not wanting to cry anymore over the impossible.

Tess and Alex stepped into the hospital lobby. The smell of disinfectant and antiseptic reminded her too much of rushing in here with Tony. In her mind she heard the beeping, hissing and shushing of the monitors keeping Alex alive. The squeak of the nurses’ rubber-soled shoes had brought her out of many a light sleep while she sat at his side, holding his hand, willing him to live.

“You okay?”

“Fine. It’s just hard.”

“You don’t have to do this.”

“No. It’s not the baby. Well, some of it’s the baby. Walking in here reminded me of the night you got shot.” She shivered and rubbed her arms, looking around at the families sitting on the couches waiting for word of their loved ones. “I thought you’d died.”

Alex touched her cheek, bringing her back to the present, reminding her that he stood before her, whole, alive, warm and vibrant. She leaned into his caress.

“That night’s pretty much a blank to me,” he said. “I don’t remember riding to the hospital. I do remember the pain. And I remember wanting to stay awake, needing to tell you I love you one more time.” He blinked and shook his head. “There’s more. I just wish I could remember.”

“It’ll come to you.”

“I wonder sometimes. It’s so damn frustrating having the answer yet not having it, and knowing others need me to remember. What if he kills again before I remember? What if he comes back and hurts you? What if I know him?”

She touched his arm. “You’re doing all you can. No one can ask more of you.”

“But it’s not enough.”

“It has to be for now.”

“I’m glad I have you to help me.”

She smiled. “Not half as glad as I am to have you around, eating my chocolate chips.”

One corner of his mouth turned up, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “What if I hadn’t recovered? What if I couldn’t walk anymore?”

“Then we would have dealt with it together.”

Tess grabbed Alex’s hand before they pushed open the door to Shannon’s room. Alex squeezed, giving her the courage to enter.

Ever the queen, Shannon sat in a halo of light that illuminated nothing but her and a tiny bundle nestled in her arms. Three tiny figures launched themselves at him and Tess. Six-year-old Caitlyn and four-year-old Elizabeth headed straight for Tess. Sarah, the baby at two, wrapped her chubby arms around his knees and he lifted her up.

“How’s my princess?”

She laughed, her big blue eyes dancing. Out of all the girls, Sarah looked the most like Shannon. She was also, secretly, his favorite, probably because he was her favorite. She pointed a tiny finger at her mother and new sister.

“Tressa,” she said, with a solemn tone in her toddler voice.

“I see that. A new sister, huh?”

Tess leaned over the bed, blocking his view of the baby. Sarah wriggled in his arms and he let her down.

Caitlyn, Elizabeth and Sarah crowded around Tess and the baby. Alex’s gut twisted at the look of yearning on his wife’s face. She brushed at a stray tear and cuddled the newborn closer to her breast, huddling over her, as if she was afraid someone would take the baby from her.

He hoped Roger realized how lucky he was to have four gorgeous, healthy, happy children.

Alex tuned out Shannon’s detailed recitation of the labor and delivery and made his way to the back of the room. He wanted to give Tess more babies, to fill her empty arms and the vacant place Maggie had left in her heart. He wanted to see Tess cuddle and look with wonder at their child’s tiny fingernails. Six months ago it had been the last thing he wanted, but that had more to do with their shaky marriage than the actual thought of having kids. Now that they were working through their problems, things were different.

They’d been through the tests, countless hours of sitting in doctor’s offices, enduring their poking and prodding, waiting for results only to discover nothing wrong with either of them. Then they’d found out Tess was pregnant with Maggie and for five brief months life had been perfect. Or so he had thought. Now he wondered if Tess’s loneliness and discontent with his work schedule was beginning even back then. Before Maggie’s death.

Movement to his left had him turning in that direction just as Roger stepped out of the shadows. Alex experienced a déjà vu stronger than any before. A shadow emerging from the deeper shadows. A hand knocking his hat off. Gunshots. The pounding of retreating feet.

Roger laid a hand on his shoulder and Alex pulled his thoughts back to the present. “You okay? You look like you saw a ghost.” Roger’s concerned gaze looked him over. His own face was drawn and pale. No doubt Roger had been up all night while Shannon gave birth. “Knee bothering you?” he asked.

Alex shrugged his hand away. “The knee’s fine.”

Roger backed into the shadows and leaned a shoulder against the wall. “Heard you’ve been asked to come back.”

Alex shot a look at Tess but she was too busy studying the baby and talking to her nieces to have heard. He had planned to tell her over dinner tonight, but now he considered putting it off. She was dealing with enough crap with the baby.
Chicken. You’re afraid of her reaction.

“So, you coming back?” Roger looked at his wife and four kids without expression. Shouldn’t he be over there with his new daughter? Then again, for Roger this was a bi-annual occurrence. Still, fourth or tenth, Alex would have been right beside Tess.

“If I can get Dr. Ford to sign the medical release.”

“Alex, come here and meet Theresa Margaret,” Shannon called.

He stilled. “You named her Margaret?” he said to Roger. What the hell? Surely even Shannon couldn’t be that dimwitted to name her daughter after Tess’s dead daughter, could she?

Roger looked away. “Shannon’s idea. She said you wouldn’t mind.”

Of course she did. Sometimes Shannon still managed to surprise him.

Stiffly, forcing his legs to move, he walked over to the chair and looked down at the sleeping newborn in Tess’s lap. Theresa’s top lip hung over her bottom. One hand curled around her ear. Bright red tufts of hair stuck straight up from her scalp.

The red hair reminded him of Maggie. By the time he’d made it to the hospital she’d already been taken to the morgue, but he’d been able to see her. She’d been so damn tiny—a lot tinier than this baby. He hadn’t been able to hold her, not because they wouldn’t let him, but because he just couldn’t. He’d felt too guilty, had been too angry at himself and so damn scared that it could have been Tess lying there. And relieved that it wasn’t. He’d never admitted that to anyone, especially not Tess. The overwhelming, knee-weakening relief of learning that Tess was okay. The prayer of thanks he’d sent up to God that He’d spared his wife and taken the baby instead.

Tess looked up at him with pleading eyes, silently begging him not to say anything. So she’d known the baby’s name and hadn’t told him. For some reason he felt a sense of betrayal.

“Would you like to hold her?” she asked, even though her body language screamed she didn’t want to give the baby up.

Watching Tess hold the baby made him hurt. He wished he could give her the baby she so desperately wanted. He stepped back, shook his head. If she’d lived, Maggie would have been sixteen months. He thought about that a lot. Every month he wondered what she would look like, what milestones she would have achieved. With that red hair she probably would have been a replica of Tess. But he often wondered what qualities he would have been passed on to her.

“It’s time to go if you want to eat,” he said.

Tess nodded and held the baby tighter. Startled at the sudden movement, Theresa threw her hands out and scrunched up her tiny face. Tess soothed her by uttering words Alex couldn’t hear.

Heart heavy, he walked to the door and waited for Tess to relinquish the baby to her mother. She took her time smoothing the blanket and running a finger down the baby’s red cheek, a wistful smile on her face.

Chapter Nineteen

Alex reached across the table and pulled Tess’s arms from around her waist. “Stop it.”

She blinked and focused on him. “Stop what?”

“Stop going to that place you go to when you think about Maggie. Stop shutting me out of your thoughts.”

Was that what she’d been doing? Shutting him out? She
had
been thinking of Maggie, but she didn’t think she’d been shutting him out.

His gaze met hers. “Whenever you get like this it’s almost impossible to reach you.”

She opened her mouth to deny his accusations, then closed it, remembering the days and weeks after Maggie’s death, the incredible grief and all-consuming pain. She’d retreated to a place deep inside, a place where the outside world wouldn’t tread on her feelings. After a while it had become harder and harder to pull herself from that private place.

Holding her niece had been more difficult than she had expected. It reminded her of holding Maggie’s still body and staring at her chest, willing her to breathe, to wake up. To live.

Yet holding Theresa had also helped her let go of her grief, to realize that there would always be a place in her heart for Maggie, but there was also a place for another baby, and that baby didn’t necessarily have to be her biological child.

Adoption. It had been a word people had mentioned to her before but one she had brushed off for different reasons. Now, she thought about it and realized that a part of her was excited and scared at the same time.

“What do you think about maybe adopting a baby?” she asked, staring hard at Alex to catch his reaction.

He took her hand, keeping his expression neutral. “Sweetheart, whatever you want.”

“You don’t care if the baby isn’t biologically ours?”

“Would you?”

She shook her head. “In every other way it would be.”

“Are you sure?” he asked. “Is this what you want?”

She thought about it for a minute. “I want a baby. I want to be a mom. How it happens doesn’t matter anymore.”

“We’ll look into it,” he said, his eyes warm and full of love. “Why didn’t you tell me Shannon named the baby after Maggie?”

She flinched and tried to pull her hand away but he wouldn’t let her go.

“You thought I would get mad, didn’t you?”

“Aren’t you?” She raised her eyes to his.

“I’m more angry that you didn’t tell me. You have to trust me, Tess.”

Tess looked away. Was that why she hadn’t told him? Because she didn’t trust him? She hadn’t thought so, but maybe he was right. “I’m sorry.”

He touched her face, traced her cheek with the pad of his finger. “I love you, Tess. We’re learning, that’s all. And we’ll get it right eventually.”

She leaned into his touch. “It was hard, holding Theresa. I missed Maggie.”

He pulled his hand away and Tess expected him to pull away mentally as well, but to her surprise he didn’t. “She reminded me of Maggie, with the red hair.”

Tears sprang to Tess’s eyes but she blinked them away. This was the first conversation they’d had about their daughter that didn’t deal with anger and recriminations. “She didn’t have as much hair as Theresa.”

Alex didn’t say anything and her heart fell. He was pushing her away again, unwilling to talk about their daughter. There had been days after Maggie’s death when she’d ached to talk to Alex about her, but he’d always turned away.

“I never got to hold her.” He sounded so lost, so sad. “I saw her in the morgue, but I couldn’t hold her.” He cleared his throat and looked away.