Forever After (23 page)

"Darcy, I'm taking the case.  I'm going to do whatever I have to for Gilbert to get custody."

The last speck of hope died.  "How long does a custody case last?"

His tone was informational.  "There's no time limit.  It could take months depending on postponements, heavy caseloads, investigations."

"So you're going back to Philadelphia."  It wasn't a question but a conclusion.

He didn't answer directly but shifted sideways and covered her hand with his.  "Darcy, even if I do, I won't be that far away.  We can still see each other."

What was she?  A watering hole?  A playmate?  Had the last three months meant nothing to him?  She studied him as she would a dented chassis, pried her hand out from under his, and snatched it back.  "I'd see you what?  Once a month?  Six times a year?  And what are the ground rules?  Are you going to be involved with anyone else?  What about me?"

One emotion tumbled over the next until she was angry, sad, and hurt all at the same time.  "I don't want a part-time relationship, Seth.  Part-time falls into the same category as casual, and what we have is anything but that.  I thought I could handle an affair with you or maybe secretly I hoped you'd love me like I love you.  But I was fooling myself.  I want permanence.  I want a home.  I want total commitment.  And I want children.  When I found out I wasn't pregnant, I felt so sad.  I realized I'm not afraid to get pregnant again because I love you and want your baby.  But then I realized how complicated that would have made everything."

She shook her head.  "Seth, I can't see you on a sometimes basis.  That would hurt too much.  We've got to sever this relationship now.  That will be best for you and me."

Fury roiled inside Seth and pulsed in his clamped jaw.  Why couldn't she accept passion and now?  Why did she want love and the future?  Her words were hurting him, stabbing his gut and he didn't know why.  So he flung out the first thing that streamed into his head.  "Stop being so noble, Darcy.  Don't give me that 'this is the best thing for both of us' bull.  You used me for as long as you wanted.  And now you want out."

"I don't want out.  I want more.  And I never used you.  Did you use me?"

Dammit.  He felt like the bottom had just dropped out of his world.  He'd decided to take the case in Philly because he needed space.  He felt battered by emotions he didn't recognize, confused by Darcy's view of love and commitment.  If her love was so strong, why was she doing this to them?  "Why can't you just say it?  It was great while it lasted, but now it's over.  I'll forget; you'll forget.  Move on, move ahead.  It was nice knowing you but I have to get on with my life."

Angry pink suffused her cheeks.  "Is that what you're doing, Seth?  Getting on with your life?  Or are you moving back into the old rut?  What will you have when you're sixty?  A list of all the cases you've won?  Awards hanging on your wall from the Chamber of Commerce?  Invitations to cocktail parties?  All those things won't warm your heart on holidays, or bring laughter into your life, or offer you love.  You're wrong about forgetting, Seth.  I'll never forget loving you this much."

An old voice told him she was trying to make him feel guilty, trying to manipulate him to get what she wanted.  She was no different than any other woman he'd known.  "You have some fairy tale idea that Mr. Right will come along and you'll live happily-ever-after.  This is the real world, Darcy."

"Your idea of real and mine are different.  I believed you were Mr. Right.  I know we'd have problems like any two people with careers and different personalities.  But I believed we could make each other happy and together we'd have so much more than either of us could have alone.  You can't and won't believe that because you're a coward."

It came out so simply and swiftly like a bullet from a silenced gun.  He shot to his feet.  "You have no right--"

"I do.  I love you.  That gives me rights.  You call your love passion.  You're afraid to take risks.  You're afraid to change your viewpoint about women.  You're afraid to risk loving me, trusting me.  That hurts, Seth.  It hurts too  much.  I can't do all the giving and I can't live on the fringes of your life.  Our relationship's been convenient for you.  You've risked nothing.  You have the pleasure of making love with me without truly loving me.  You have the pleasure of my company when you feel like sharing.  The sad part is I know you're capable of more."

"When you forget to be in control, you're tender and giving and honest.  I love you too much to let us go on like this.  And I think too much of myself to settle for less than I need.  I thought we were building a solid foundation.  But the problem is the foundation's not enough.  We need the walls and the ceilings and most of all the roof.  To me, marriage is that roof."

The zipping authority in her voice shocked him momentarily.  "It seems you've done a lot of thinking and analyzing.  You've reduced it to black and white--no shades of grey."

Darcy closed her eyes as her vision filmed and her pulse thrummed in her ears.  The road to their future was as clear as a one-way street sign leading to a dead end.  She didn't want to do this.  Breaking up with him was like slicing her heart in half.  But she had to.

Taking a deep breath, she said slowly, "That's the way I see it."  When she opened her eyes again, she quaked with the longing to dive into Seth's arms, to ask him to love her one more time.  But she couldn't.

Seth wordlessly dug in his back pocket for his key chain, slipped off the extra key to Darcy's house, and laid it on the end table.  "Do you want me to pack up your stuff at my apartment?"

A tear nudged loose from Darcy's eye and trickled down beside her nose.  She swiped it away with the back of her hand.  "I can come over tomorrow morning while you're at the office.   I'll leave your key on the bar and bring your clothes with me."  Irrationally she wanted one last look at his apartment.

He didn't argue but walked slowly away from her to the door.  And then he spoke the words she had tried to insulate herself against.  "Good-bye, Darcy."

When she looked up, he was gone and she felt as if she had been demolished by a one-man wrecking crew.  While rivers of tears coursed down her cheeks, she sat curled in the corner of the couch until the daylight dimmed.  When she realized she was sitting in shadows, she flipped on a light.

She'd been alone before...she could manage alone again.  Broken hearts mended.  Time healed.  Life did go on.  The hurt couldn't get any worse.  It just couldn't.  Some day she'd feel whole again.

Some day.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The axe hacked the log once, twice, then split it in two.  Seth stacked the wood on the pile that had been mounting for the last two days.  He laid down the axe.  With his legs planted wide apart, inhaled a deep breath.  The trees had already turned in the Pocono Mountains.  The forest looked as if one large brush had frosted the trees with orange and red.

For a month he'd analyzed, remembered, debated, and searched his soul.  This weekend--only him, a cabin, mountain trails, and scurrying wildlife--was what he needed before he could confront Darcy.

Darcy.  Hair like melting fire, sparkling eyes as blue-green as the Caribbean, gut-level honesty.  She represented a life he'd never known, one of chocolate chip cookies, heart-warming humor, familial love.  Stupidly, he'd run from her and what she wanted to give.  The first week his mind had felt like a jammed switchboard.  Finally he realized he missed her unbearably because he...loved her.  He was a stranger to the word, but the feeling was beginning to fit and make sense.  More sense than the empty life he'd been leading.

He'd made several abortive attempts to call, but he wanted to be certain about his future before he phoned Darcy.  It was his turn to be fair.  It had taken two weeks and another meeting with Frank Gilbert to decide he didn't want to go back to Philadelphia.  He'd thought hard about everything Darcy had said.

When clients came to him, they wanted single-minded advocacy, not mediation.  They wanted to subordinate their child's interest for their own.  He was sick of that.  He was tired of a constant diet of name-calling, recriminations, expert witnesses who deemed to know what was best for the child, clashing and invalidating each other's testimony.  Conflict, tension, dirty laundry aired.  For what?  To win.  To succeed.

He had succeeded.  He'd worked within the system and furthered the cause of men's rights.  But now he wanted more variety, a different type of practice.  Happiness was more important.  His own and Darcy's.

There had been a few moments of truth in Seth's life:  the day he faced the fact his parents were separated permanently, the evening he made the decision to live with his father, and the night a month ago when he confronted his empty apartment.  Empty because Darcy wasn't in it.  Empty because he wouldn't make a commitment.

Questions had popped up each morning, every afternoon, all night.  Was he a coward?  Was he afraid he'd become too vulnerable?  He couldn't be any more vulnerable.  His heart felt as if it had been flayed by a whip.  Without Darcy in his life, even his career seemed senseless.  She'd changed his outlook, his focus.  A family was vital and possible.  Love was something you gave, not took.  It wasn't a character flaw for a man to admit he needed love and tenderness as well as sex.  Darcy's diagnosis had been accurate.  He'd been afraid to admit he needed her to make his life whole.  But he wasn't afraid anymore.

Seth pushed the sleeves of his sweatshirt to his elbows and stared into the brilliant magenta and lavender sunset.  The smell of pines, damp earth, and the coolness of dusk teased his nose.  He felt as if he'd awakened from a twenty-year coma.  He was more aware of every nuance of light, each sound, the difficult emotions he fought to deal with and conquer.  He'd jeopardized the only relationship that had brought him laughter and love.

Had he always thrown love away?  Was that why he'd been so damned lonely?  Had he ever given his mother a chance to get close?  Had he judged her too severely?  Only once had Seth run toward love--when he moved in with his father.  The rest of his life he'd erected blockades so no one could venture too close.

  But Darcy had ignored his walls.  She'd infiltrated his life until he was no longer lonely, no longer unsatisfied, no longer seeing success as his god.  She made him constantly rethink his values.  She wouldn't accept pat answers or minimal communication.  She was a total woman and when she gave, she gave all.

For the last few weeks a voice had nagged at him incessantly.  Darcy loves you.  She'd proved that by letting go.  She hadn't issued ultimatums.  She wouldn't chain him to her with manipulation.  And she wanted his baby.  No woman had ever wanted that from him.  Quite the contrary.  They wanted to remain unencumbered.  He'd been a fool to throw her love away, a bigger fool to believe he could.

Darcy was more than his lover.  She'd become his life.  He didn't want bachelorhood, or Philadelphia, or a high scale law practice.  He wanted Darcy, a family, a home and general law practice in Hershey.  If he wanted custody cases, he could find them there.  They weren't the issue any longer.  Darcy was.  He wanted her with him no matter where he was or what he did.

Seth swung the axe into a log and strode toward the cabin.  His partnership with Vic had been a contractual reality for a week.  There was one thing left to do--convince Darcy to marry him.  Loving and sharing his feelings was a new jurisdiction for him.  Darcy could be stubborn, so he had to do a bang-up job of convincing her.  It had to be the best closing argument and summation he'd ever attempted.

His life depended on it.

***

"You're staring into space again," Marsha admonished as she addressed an invitation at Darcy's dining room table.

Darcy believed her preoccupation with Seth would get better as the days then weeks passed.  But it hadn't.  She couldn't forget his eyes were the grey of summer twilight, or how his hands and lips brought her body to life, or the determined thrust of his chin.  She hurt as much today as the day she'd left her key in his apartment.

Maybe she shouldn't have agreed to help Marsha address her wedding invitations.  Expecting herself to concentrate on Marsha's wedding without thinking about Seth had been naive. She couldn't keep her mind on the list in front of her.

Marsha tapped Darcy's fingers.  "Are you okay?"

"As long as I keep busy, I'm fine.  I've been working on cars at the shop all week.  When I sit in the office, I don't get anything done."

"Why don't you call Vic and find out if Seth is still in town?  I'm sure he'd tell you."

"No."  Darcy licked an envelope, sealed it, and grimaced from the taste.  "The few times I've spoken to Peg, she hasn't mentioned Seth and I haven't asked.  I don't want to know.  It'll only be a matter of time until he does leave."

"So you need to start dating again."

Looking into the future was like looking into an elevator shaft with no bottom.  She didn't want to date.  The idea of being with a man other than Seth repulsed her.  But she knew she had to get out.  She was living like a hermit.

"Where am I supposed to find someone to date?"

"Put your dancing lessons to use.  Go to some singles' mixers.  Hey, I know," Marsha snuck in slyly as if she hadn't directed the course of the conversation.  "Chuck has this cousin from New York who's coming to the wedding.  You and he could--"