Love in Bloom (32 page)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Clay awakened just after sunrise, knowing Paige would soon be awake, too.  She had rounds at the hospital this morning.  Last night had been nothing short of spectacular.  But what would today bring?

Paige stirred against him and opened her eyes.  Tilting her head up and seeing he was awake, she smiled.  "Good morning."

"Good morning."

She laid her hand along the side of his neck.  "You didn't have a nightmare."

"I don't have them every night."

"I was afraid my being here might trigger something."

"Maybe your being here, in bed beside me, chased them away."  She looked so lovely, gazing at him with her wide blue eyes, her hair tousled from sleep.  But her beauty, inside and out, clawed at him because she might not be here tomorrow or the next day.  Which meant one thing--as much as she loved mankind, she didn't love him enough.

The phone jangled on his nightstand, severing the tentative bond between them.  Clay couldn't imagine who'd be calling this early.  Paige's cell phone on her side of the bed would have signaled an emergency.

With his arm still around her, he snatched up the phone.

"Clay, this is Monica Conrad.  Can I speak to Paige?"

A sense of foreboding burned in the pit of Clay's stomach.  Stretching the phone cord across his chest, he handed the receiver to Paige.  "It's your mother."

Paige pulled away from him and sat up.  He hiked himself up against the headboard.  As Paige listened to her mother, he watched her expression turn serious, the sparkle leave her eyes.  She glanced at Clay, then looked away.  The sense of foreboding burned wider and deeper.

Finally Paige said to her mother, "I understand.  I'll see you tonight."  She handed the receiver to Clay, avoiding his gaze.

He set the phone down with a rough snap.  "What did she want?"

Paige looked at him then, with eyes filled with misery and confusion.  "She wants my decision by tonight.  She says she can't wait any longer.  Doc's taking her to Johns Hopkins.  There's a doctor there who might be interested in our work."

Paige was still connected to her mother, to their work.  "What have you decided?"

Tears glistened in her eyes.  "I don't know."

He couldn't live in this limbo.  If Paige was going, he'd have to live with that.  But he needed to know.  She needed to decide.  "What do you want?"

She shook her head, unable to answer.

Unbidden, anger took the place of the foreboding.  "You're a hypocrite, Paige.  You told Ben to go after his dreams and you're afraid to do it yourself.  Does your mother's approval mean so much more than your own happiness?"

She swayed away from him.  "No, of course not.  I loved the work."

His mouth twisted wryly, and he couldn't help but ask the questions that had plagued him about her life to this point.  "Did you?  Or did you love your parents so much that that deluded you into thinking you had to be just like them?  Love what they love.  Be what they wanted you to be.  Have you ever thought about you, Paige, separate from them?  Have you ever imagined a life you forged, not them?"

"All I ever wanted to do was..."  She looked down at her hands.

"Heal," he filled in.  "And you can do that anywhere."  He was going to do something he'd sworn he wouldn't do.  But if there was any way he could keep her here...  "Paige, I love you.  But you have to want a life with me as much as I want one with you.  Your loyalty can't be divided.  If you stay and wish you'd gone, it will destroy the love we have."

A tear tripped down her cheek, wrenching his heart.  "I know.  If I stay, I have to forget my life in Africa, my parents' goals and dreams.  But I don't know if I can.  Mother suggested I go back with her, see how I feel..."

That suggestion fueled Clay's anger.  "Out of sight, out of mind.  She's hoping you'll forget me."

Paige reached for his hand.  "I'll never forget you.  And it might give me some time."

He eluded her touch, knowing it would be too painful right now.  Swearing, he impatiently ran his hand through his hair.  "All time will do is postpone the inevitable.  You don't need time.  You need a large dose of courage."  He hadn't meant to be that harsh, but he didn't want to lose her.  He'd lost too much already.

She took in a breath and her face paled.  "That's not fair."

"It's the truth.  And maybe it's time you looked at it.  You know what you want.  You're afraid to reach out and take it."

Her shoulders stiffened, and he knew he was pushing her away.  But he'd taken risk after risk with her, and now it was time she take one.  If she loved him enough, she would.  "Do you remember what you said last night?"

"I said lots of things."

"In the shower."

Color came back to her face and her voice lowered.  "I don't remember."

He went on relentlessly, trying to make her see what was evident to him.  "I knew you weren't protected and I said we should stop.  Your exact words were, 'I don't care.  I want this.  I want you.  Now.'"

Her hands fluttered against the sheet.  "But we were in the middle of something physical.  It was just...I..."

"It was just sex?  It was an impulse of the moment?  I don't think so.  We were making love and that was truth coming out."

"You think you know me better than I know myself."

"Maybe I do.  Did you ever think that maybe you wanted to get pregnant so the problem would resolve itself?  So you wouldn't have to make a decision?"

She flushed and looked guilty, as if that thought had occurred to her, too.

And he was angry again, disappointed, and hurt she couldn't love him with the same certainty with which he loved her.  "I don't want you that way, Paige.  I don't want you by default.  My parents and Trish were saddled with me after the accident--the new Clay.  It wasn't their choice.  I will not spend the rest of my life with someone who can't freely choose to be with me.  It has to be a decision, Paige.  A conscious, honest decision.  And if you're not ready to make it, you should go back to Africa with your mother.  That would be best for both of us."

****

Clay flicked off the computer in his office, disgusted with himself.  He couldn't concentrate.  All he could think about was Paige.  He'd issued an ultimatum.  He'd closed a door between them.  She'd left for the hospital, the climate between them cool and ambivalent.

What if she did need time and space?  He'd made it sound that if she left with her mother, he didn't want to see her again.  What if she left, then realized she wanted a life with him?  Should he shut off that hope?

Life had become complicated.  But he wouldn't go back.  He wouldn't have lived the last six weeks any differently if he could.  Maybe Paige needed to see his love didn't have conditions or demands.

Clay's assistant manager stuck his head into the office.  "Someone's here to see you."

Maybe it was Paige.  Maybe she'd made a decision.  His heart hammered hard.

It wasn't Paige standing in front of the cash register.  It was his father.  "Dad?"

In the typical three-piece suit, lines creasing his forehead, Vincent Reynolds looked serious enough to announce a stock market crash.  Instead, he asked, "Can we talk?"

Clay motioned to his office.  "Sure.  Come on in."  Once they were inside, he closed the door.  "What's up?"

"It's Trish."

Clay's heart almost stopped.  "What's wrong?  Has she been hurt?"

Vincent put up his hand as if to stop Clay's worry.  "No.  No.  Nothing like that.  I, uh, I want her to have a beautiful wedding."

Clay was perplexed.  "So do I.  Is there something I can help with?  Something you need?"

Vincent rubbed his hands together absently.  "No, nothing material.  What she wants is a happy day and I want to give her that."

Clay still didn't know what his father as getting at.  "Of course it will be happy.  Why wouldn't it be?"

"She wants us to...get along."

Clay finally broke the silence.  "And what do you want?"

His father passed his hand across his forehead.  "All these years, I kept believing you'd change, that you'd want to come back to the business, come back to me."

Clay could hear the pain, the disappointment.  But this time more than a career and a partnership were involved.  He heard the underlying note of hurt caused by rejection. 

"Dad, you've got to understand that when I decided to start over in Langley, I wasn't running away from you, I was running toward a new life.  Can't you see the difference?"

Vincent studied his son, looking for the truth.  "Maybe I can now.  I couldn't then.  Can you honestly tell me you didn't leave Reisterstown because of me?"

Honesty.  How could he be honest without hurting his father?  "I left because I needed to find myself.  I was creating problems for you and Mom.  Trish was spending too much time with me and didn't have a life of her own.  Mom hovered, afraid to let me out of her sight.  How could any of us keep going like that?"

"That's really the way you saw it?"

"Yes.  Plus one more factor.  I felt I was constantly disappointing you because I couldn't be the son you knew and loved before the accident."

Vincent's face expressed his sadness.  "I did a poor job of hiding how I felt.  How lost I felt.  My life had always revolved around you, Clay.  After the accident, nothing made sense."

"And what about now?" Clay asked quietly.

"I guess I behaved all these years as if I'd lost a son.  Can you forgive me for that?"

"If you can forgive me for needing a fresh start."

Clay's father didn't hesitate.  "Done."

"Done," Clay repeated, extending his hand.

His father then did something totally unexpected.  He took Clay's hand and gave it a short tug.  Clay realized his father needed his love and approval as much as he needed his father's.  He hugged Vincent Reynolds for the first time in ten long years.  It felt good.  It felt right.  And the peace that had expanded wider and wider during these past two weeks with Paige seemed to fill him until it overflowed.

Vincent stepped back and Clay could see his father was clearly embarrassed.

Clay moved to the office door and said, "You've never really seen the store and repair shop.  Would you like to look around?"

His father smiled.  "I'd like that a lot.  I might even be persuaded to buy a new mower.  If the price is right."

Clay smiled back.  "We'll make it right."