Momentary Marriage (30 page)

“Don’t you see the problem?” he said urgently. “Something has to give. You either have to have a child in a relationship you believe will end or you have to let yourself believe in a relationship lasting. Have to realize that some people can make love last!”

“I see what you’re saying,” she told him finally, feeling something hard and cold settle into her midsection. Reaching for a tissue to wipe the drying tears from her cheek, she said, “If I can only raise a child in a relationship that can’t be the way I want it to be—then I’ll have to…not have children.”

His eyes narrowed, his intent gaze not leaving her face. The tick of a nearby clock counted the seconds stretching between them in the frozen silence. “My God, Kelsey. I feel sorry for you. I wonder if your father knows the consequences of his desertion.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Two days later, Doug knocked on Kelsey’s door and waited. She and Jared were separated and the hell of it was, Doug didn’t know what to feel about that. On the one hand, his belief about her appeared to be validated. She didn’t make commitments to men. Maybe she just hadn’t found the right man.

On the other hand, he couldn’t rouse any sense of happiness, couldn’t anticipate his own eventual breaking of the spell surrounding this particular princess.

Ever since Amy had walked out of his life, he’d been lost in a fog. Dazed, angry and frustrated. After all, what the hell had he done that was so bad?

The apartment door opened and Kelsey stood there, her dark hair pulled away from her face, her skin scrubbed clean of make-up. He could tell she’d been crying.

“Hi, Kels,” he said, compassion stirring in him. She looked completely miserable.

“Doug,” she sniffed, reaching out to draw him inside. “H-how are y-you?”

Her face crumpled into a sob and before he knew it, he’d taken her into his arms, offering a comforting hug. He knew the pain slicing through her, knew the misery of greeting a new day.

Urging her over to the couch, Doug sat down next to Kelsey and tried to figure what to do next. Her face turned into his shoulder, she cried as if she were four years old.

With fingers that felt oddly numb, he smoothed her dark tangled hair and muttered “there, there” stupidly. Here she was, his fairy princess, retreating to his arms when the cold, cruel world had battered her heart again.

Doug kept patting and murmuring, but he felt as if his brain were in a deep freeze. Felt strange and restless. He’d come by her apartment after work, after Jared had tersely confirmed their separation.

He’d never seen the man so icily remote.

Why wasn’t he jubilant about this new development, Doug wondered, feeling detached from the drama.

“I should have m-married you,” Kelsey sobbed suddenly, her face tormented.

Doug froze. Clearing his throat a moment later, he felt something like panic clutching him around the throat even as his hand moved awkwardly up and down her arm.

She drew in a ragged breath. “But you love Amy and I love Jared. I think I’ll love him forever.”

“I’ve always cared for you,” Doug said, still reeling from his reaction to her previous words. Words he’d have given anything to hear six months ago.

“I love Jared,” she said again, tears drowning her blue eyes. Clutching at his lapels, Kelsey wept into his shoulder.

Doug stared at the clock on the table, its second hand moving forward in a precise, clicking of time. Unable to hear the ticking through Kelsey’s crying, some part of his brain tried to fill in the missing sound.

But the rest of him was hearing the words he had just said to her. He’d always
cared
for her? What a bizarre way to describe a ruling, consuming passion. Had she ever before mentioned the word “marriage” in relation to the two of them? She hadn’t been proposing to him, but still, just the thought of being married to her should have made him do somersaults. Instead, he’d felt…terror. Trapped.

She drew in a hiccupping sob, rubbing her cheek against the material of his coat sleeve. “I know you care. I’ve always been so comfortable with you. So safe.”

A flash of revulsion went through him, but Doug didn’t flinch or pull away. What was wrong with a woman feeling safe with a man? That didn’t preclude love. But as he sat there on Kelsey’s couch, his arm around the woman he’d always thought most beautiful in the world, his brain kept supplying him with pictures of…Amy. Amy welcoming him to her bed. Amy staring at his naked body as if she wanted to devour him.

Amy laughing at his jokes. Amy limp as a noodle when he rubbed her feet.

There’d been moments when she’d looked at him like he’d rocked her world. Not once had she told him she felt safe with him. For some reason, the thought felt like heresy to him, that Amy made him feel something better, bigger, than did her sister.

How could that be?

In a surge of something absurdly like guilt, he said again, “I’ve always cared about you, Kels.”

“I know,” she said, her voice low. “And I treated you badly. Took you for granted, but I’ve always loved you….”

Like a brother.

She didn’t say the words. Instead, they were screamed in his head. Kelsey loved him like a brother, wanted his comfort, his friendship. He offered her…safety from the world.

Sitting there, feeling strangely out of place, he realized that three months ago he’d have been proud to offer her just that. Now, he wondered if he himself hadn’t been hiding from the bad stuff. The heartache and disappointments. Had he used Kelsey—the fantasy of winning Kelsey—to fend off his own demons?

He’d never loved her. Not like he loved Amy.

*
**

“Mr. Morton? Did you catch them? Did you make the meeting?” Doug’s secretary stood in his doorway.

Standing at the expanse of window in his office, he glanced over his shoulder and saw her dark, furrowed face, eyes peering at him over her glasses.

“They’d left already,” he said heavily.

Her appalled silence echoed his own feelings. He was reliable Doug. When had he ever blanked out on something as important as this? If they didn’t want a strike, the union situation had to be settled.

And he’d stood them up. Left the union representatives waiting over an hour for him. Jared would be furious, with good reason. It didn’t matter an iota that Clay Northrup had been handling the negotiation. Clay had been called away to his sick mother’s bedside and dealing with the union had been left up to Doug.

“Shit!” He slammed his hand against the plate glass window, making his secretary jump. “I can’t believe I forgot that damned meeting! Shit.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hilda flash him an uneasy look. “Sir, have you been…ill lately? You haven’t been quite…yourself. Forgetting things can be a sign of a physical problem.”

Forgetting the meeting with the union reps. Forgetting to return the overseas phone call yesterday. Next he’d forget where he worked. If he still worked here, he thought with a stab of bitter humor. Maybe he was losing his mind.

Maybe Hilda was on to something. His head was pounding, his eyes felt gritty. But he knew he didn’t have the flu. Maybe he was suffering from some strange mental disorder, a imbalance in his brain that required a lobotomy might be nice. Actually, it could be the answer to his prayers to end the confused suffering of the last few days.

Days of wondering if he actually knew anything about anything. Days and nights wrestling with the fact that he didn’t love Kelsey. Actually didn’t love her as a woman.

Nothing had been right since Amy dumped him. His world seemed to have tilted from its usual axis. Everything inside him was off-kilter.

Behind him, Hilda still hovered in the doorway.

“I’m fine,” he told the woman. “I’ll call Stewart and Shavely and reschedule the meeting. I’ll make some excuse for today.”

Hilda hesitated. “Of course, sir. Would you like me to get Mr. Stewart or Mr. Shavely on the phone now?”

“No!” Doug denied quickly, conscious of the pounding in his head. “No. I just need a few minutes here. I’ll get him…myself.”

“Fine,” she said, returning to her usual, clipped manner. “I’ll get back to my desk then.”

“Thank you, Hilda.” Aware of her leaving, he leaned his forehead against the cool glass, staring out at the city, unseeing. Everything had gone to hell since that afternoon Amy had told him to “fuck himself.”

He was beginning to think he already had.

What kind of idiot was he not to know which woman he really loved? How did a man get so messed up about something like that?

He’d had Kelsey in his arms two days ago, sobbing her heart out to him. For a fractional moment, she’d sounded like she was ready to divorce Jared and marry him. Of course, she’d quickly reaffirmed her love for Jared. But that wouldn’t have mattered to the old Doug. If he’d thought there was the slightest chance to win her, the old Doug would have offered to fly her anywhere in the world to get her divorced and securely hooked up to him before she returned to sanity.

But when she’d said the words “marry you,” all he’d felt was sick.

What a desperate idiot he’d been all these years. How long had he had such self-contempt that he’d chosen to grovel at the feet of a woman who didn’t want him? Was being “ordinary” so bad?

He’d watched his own father, an uninspiring man by most measures, go off to work each day and come home again beaten down. On weekends, he’d tended the yard. In the evenings, he’d sat in his recliner in his shorts, a beer in his hand, laughing at cheesy sitcoms.

Then again, he’d always come home.

Doug looked down at the people on the sidewalk below his office window. How many of them had had fathers who’d always come home? Maybe his ordinary father had fought and won a battle he’d never seen as important. Secretly ashamed of the man who’d put food in his teenaged mouth, Doug now felt the wetness burning behind his eye lids.

What a prick he was.

He’d spent the last ten years yearning for a woman to make him different than his father. As if his own mother was responsible for the man his father had become. And if she were, was that so horrible? They lived in
Jersey
now, the two of them retired, sitting on the porch and going to the movies.

Maybe he didn’t want to become his father, but he should respect the man, all the same. Instead, he’d been a stupid ass, following at Kelsey’s heels, hoping to use her…
use her
to escape himself.

Amy was right. He’d never really loved Kelsey. But he knew now that he loved her sister, and the fact that his own soul mate now wouldn’t return his phone calls or answer his ringing of her bell had him wondering how he could face the next hour.

He stood there in his darkening office, his head bent against the glass, more lost and confused than he’d ever felt in his life.

When Kelsey had married Jared—even then he hadn’t felt this pain. Because he’d never loved Kelsey and he now knew he loved Amy with all his stupid, blind, ignorant soul.

Amy hated him. Amy who’d always laughed at his jokes. The one woman he needed, wanted and lusted…and he didn’t know how to get her back.

*
**

Several days later, Kelsey opened her door to see Doug standing there, looking worried.

“Hey,” she said, stepping back and waving him in. Sheer determination had gotten her through the days since she’d last seen Jared. She wasn’t sure what had gotten her through the nights. It seemed as if each one would kill her.

But she wasn’t about to burden Doug with her misery again. She’d hurt him too much already. Too her great relief he hadn’t seemed to have taken her maundering words about marrying him to heart. She’d been sobbing like a fool and he seemed to know she needed to ramble, thank heavens.

“How are things?” she asked as light-heartedly as possible. “Seems like I haven’t seen you for weeks.”

“My life is crap. Amy’s driving me crazy and I can’t eat or sleep, much less work,” Doug said abruptly, sitting down in a chair. “Jared probably wants to fire me.”

“Don’t be silly. You’re his right hand man.” Kelsey tried to smile, knowing the result was lousy. Somehow she had to help him for a change, comfort him. No matter what her sister said, Kelsey knew these two loved each other.

“This sucks,” Doug said, disgust on his face. “You and Jared on the rocks. Me and Amy broken up. I don’t know what happened between you two, but I wanted you to know I… Well, I just hope you can work things out.”

“You do?” She was so relieved, the first genuine smile she’d smiled in days spread over her face. She hadn’t screwed things up further by crying all over him the other day.

“Yes, of course, I do,” Doug said. “You and Jared are my closest friends. I’d hate to see you break up.”

Scrambling to get her bearings, Kelsey just looked at him.

“I-I know I wasn’t thrilled when you guys sprang your-your relationship on me,” Doug admitted, stammering as his face reddened. “You know, I’ve always kind of—stupidly—thought you and I might end up together—“

“Doug—“ she started, her voice strained.

He waved a hand, halting her speech. “That was before.  I realize now that I’ve been a prick—just seeing things from my own perspective, not yours. I’ve watched you two when you’re together and I’ve seen how much you love each other. I never thought I’d say this, but you’re good together.”