Never Again Good-Bye (13 page)

She nodded slowly, wiping her eyes as he put her down and kissed her cheek. “Can I go to bed now?” she asked.

“Sure. I’ll come tuck you in.”

“That’s OK,” she whispered. “Good night.”

Laney got to her feet, feeling a little unsteady, as the little girl walked hurriedly toward her bedroom. “Wes, can I go talk to her just for a minute?”

He thought about it, then nodded reluctantly. “Be careful.”

She hurried after Amy. The little girl hadn’t bothered to disrobe. Already, she had curled up on her bed and lay in a fetal position clutching her teddy.

“Amy?” she asked softly, going to sit beside her on the bed.

The little girl didn’t answer.

“Amy, I just wanted to tell you that … I know how much you loved your mommy. And you know, your mommy is still with you. Her love didn’t die with her. It’s still here. All around you. And I don’t want to take her place or make you forget her. I just want to love you, too.”

Amy didn’t answer.

“Amy, when you were a baby, I wanted to keep you then. But I was just a teenager, and I didn’t have a husband, and my father took you away …” Her voice broke, and she tried to go on. “I don’t want you to think that I gave you away because I didn’t love you. God gave you to the best parents in the world. Your mommy and daddy were so happy to get you. And when your mommy died, I know that her biggest fear was that she would be leaving you without a mother.”

Tears rolled out of Amy’s eyes, and she closed her eyes to hold them back.

“Amy, I’m not religious like your daddy. I don’t really know a lot about God. But I do know that I’ve prayed over the years that somehow you would be happy and taken care of and that you’d have two parents who loved you. And I’ve prayed that somehow my pain would go away. Since I’ve found you, I’ve believed that God might be answering those prayers. Maybe it really is what your mom would have wanted. Maybe God has worked it all out.”

Amy’s eyes remained squeezed shut as tears oozed out and rolled across her face.

“Amy, all I know is that I love you more than anything in this world. And in the short time that I’ve known your daddy, I’ve come to love him, too. He’s a good, kind, sweet man, and I couldn’t have picked a better father for you. I want to take care of you both, Amy. I want to keep you both from being lonely, and I want to help you when I can. I want to make your life better, because you’ve already made my life better. Do you think … that maybe you could give me the chance to do that?”

Amy opened her eyes and looked up at Laney. It was hard for her, Laney thought, but she
was
trying. “Do you really think it’s OK with Mommy?”

“I think Mommy would have had the idea herself,” she whispered. “She knew that no one could love you as much as she could except for your other mother.”

The fact that she didn’t call herself Amy’s “real” mother seemed to help, and Amy thought that over for a moment, sniffing and wiping her eyes. Finally, she whispered, “Do I get to carry flowers at the wedding?”

Laney smiled through her tears. “Yes. Of course.”

“I want to carry daisies,” Amy whispered. “They were Mommy’s favorites.”

“We’ll get you the prettiest bouquet of daisies anybody ever saw,” Laney whispered.

From the hall, Wes listened to what he could hear of the conversation. She was reaching Amy. He leaned back against the wall and thought of what she’d just told Amy about loving him. Some emotion he hadn’t expected welled in his throat, and he swallowed it back.

In a moment, Laney came out of Amy’s room. She saw Wes standing there and looked up at him. She was crying. “You heard?”

“Yeah,” he whispered.

“She’s gonna be all right with this,” Laney said softly. “She wants to carry daisies.”

He smiled painfully as tears sprang to his eyes. He started to speak, but his mouth quivered, and he gave up. Nodding at her to follow, he led Laney out onto his back patio where they could talk without being overheard.

The stars were just beginning to make their debut, and a warm breeze skittered across the yard, bringing with it the scent of freshly mowed lawns and summer flowers.

Except for a child-sized lawn chair, the only other piece of furniture there was a padded swing that seated two. Wes sat down and waited for Laney. She hesitated.

“Come on,” he said quietly. “We’re going to have to get used to being close to each other.”

Close to each other
. Did he know, she wondered, that being close to him made her a nervous wreck?

Laney sat down. Their thighs and shoulders brushed, and her heart pounded like an adolescent’s. Years had passed since a man had had such an effect on her, and she had believed those nervous feelings were a thing of the past. The swing rocked back and forth with a rhythmic squeak, and Wes leaned his head back.

“The things you said to her … they reached her. I think they made her feel better.”

She remembered what she’d said about loving Wes and felt awkward. She hadn’t known he was listening. Now it hung there between them, like a secret unveiled, an embarrassment they couldn’t mention.

“You were right, Laney,” he said finally. “This will give her the best of both worlds.”

“I know it can,” she said.

“She wasn’t for it, exactly, but she wasn’t against it,” he went on.

“I won’t push things,” she said. “I want to make friends with her first, before I try to be her mother.”

“You’ll be fine,” he whispered.

The masculine scent of his cologne drifted to her senses, and she closed her eyes and savored it. It would be all right, she thought. Marriage to Wes would even be good.

“You realize I want us to live here,” he said, breaking into her thoughts. “I know your house is bigger and you just moved back, but this is Amy’s home. It’s mine too. I’m not ready to turn my back on it yet.”

Laney knew what he really meant was that he wasn’t ready to turn his back on Patrice. “I understand,” she whispered.

“Do you?”

She met his gaze in the darkness. “Yes. And I’ll try to make it easy on you.”

His eyes canvassed her face gently, and the swing continued to squeak. His green eyes glistened, not with regret this time, not with grief, not with anger or sadness. This time she felt them glisten for her. “And who’s going to make it easy on you?” he asked after a while.

Laney caught her breath at his unexpected question. “I never expected it to be easy.”

He assessed her for a moment longer, his eyes probing, searching, and then he moved his gaze out over the small lawn. So much was between them, he thought. He felt drawn to her, but that pull made him hold back. They were getting married, yet she knew very little about him. It didn’t take a genius to see that she walked on eggshells around him. He had asked her questions bordering on cruelty. She had asked him nothing.

He shifted a little to face her and lifted a strand of her hair, brushing his thumb pensively across the ends. The swing stopped. The wind stilled.

“We found out Patrice had cancer about two years ago,” he said in a gravelly voice that told her the words didn’t come easily. “When they tried to do surgery they realized it had spread too far. We tried chemotherapy, radiation … None of it really helped. It was hard on Amy.”

What about him? she ached to ask. Was it hard on him? Was it still hard? Laney kept her eyes on him, and he stared down at the hair sliding over his finger. “How long were you married?” she asked.

“Twelve years,” he said.

“Twelve years,” she repeated in awe. “To love someone for that long …” Her voice faded wistfully, dying on a note of bewilderment.

“It isn’t so long,” he said quietly. “It wasn’t long enough.”

“No,” she whispered. “I don’t suppose it was.”

His hand continued stroking her hair, growing more familiar with the softness. “Have you ever loved anyone like that? A man, I mean?”

“That only happens to the lucky ones,” she whispered.

“And you aren’t lucky?”

She gave a tiny shrug and looked at Amy’s bike leaning against the fence.

“Why?” he asked. “Why haven’t you married?”

“I couldn’t,” she said.

“Couldn’t?” He wasn’t going to let it go at that. There must have been chances. “Were you afraid?”

She kept her gaze distant, fighting the ghosts that didn’t have to be a part of her life anymore. “You don’t understand.”

“No,” he agreed. “But if you felt you couldn’t marry anyone until me, I’d like to understand. I want to know what makes a woman want to give up any chance she has for that kind of love by tying herself to a man she hardly knows.”

Laney took a deep breath and narrowed her eyes against the pain. Her voice was hardly louder than that breath. “Ever since I had Amy it was like I’d put my life on hold. Like a big piece of it was missing, and I couldn’t move ahead until I’d found that piece.” She looked at him, searching for understanding. “You can’t know what it’s like. Every time I saw one of those missing children on television or heard of a case of child abuse or saw a mother neglecting a child in a store, I wondered if she was mine. I bought her things, then gave them away. I wrote her letters, then burned them. It almost drove me crazy.”

Wes’s hand closed over hers. “How did you find her?”

“There was a searcher—a private investigator who specialized, illegally, in this type of thing. I paid him a lot of money, and he got me the records. Once I had your names, the rest was easy.”

He took her hand and laid it palm up in his, straightened out her fingers, and stroked the inside of her fingers with his fingertip. She watched, wondering why she wasn’t terrified of the contact that was so foreign to her. “What would you have done if Patrice had still been alive? Would you have stopped at just seeing Amy?”

“Yes,” Laney admitted adamantly. “At least until she was grown up. But I wanted to be in the same town to be able to watch her from a distance. No one would ever have known.” He closed his eyes and leaned his head back, but, thankfully, kept his hand over hers. “It all seemed so easy when we adopted her. Everybody was a winner, we thought.”

“You
should
have thought that,” she said. “I wouldn’t have wanted Amy raised by people who felt guilty for loving her.”

Turning her hand over, she laced her fingers with his. He opened his eyes. “Wes,” she whispered intently. “Thank you for working with me on this.”

“I’m not working with you, Laney,” he said. “I’m marrying you.”

The words settled like a soothing caress over her senses, and when he took her chin with his finger and beckoned her closer, she went.

Their lips met tentatively, then withdrew. When the terror in both of them passed, they tested again. He was warm, warmer than she’d ever imagined a man could be. Her hand slowly rose between them to touch his chest. She felt his heart sprinting as the kiss bonded their lonely souls, offering them something more than a child to share.

But that bond through its very warmth was frightening to Laney. She’d never felt that warm. That protected. And it couldn’t last. Even his anger had been easier for her to accept. She pulled away and caught her breath. Standing up, she looked nervously down at him. “I have to go now,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly, rising too. “I didn’t—”

“Don’t,” she said, stopping him. “It’s OK. I’m just—”

“It’s getting late,” he cut in.

“A little tired,” she finished.

“There’s so much to do.”

“Yeah.”

They stared at each other for a tense moment, then Laney started back into the house. Wes followed her to the door. “Are you OK?”

“Fine,” she said too exuberantly. “Yes, fine.” She started out the door.

“See you Thursday, then? Or before?”

“Thursday,” she said hurriedly. “I’ll see you Thursday.”

And then, before her heart flew right out of her chest, she got in her car and drove away as fast as the speed limit would allow.

Wes stood in the doorway watching her car lights disappear in the distance. A faint smile softened his features for a moment, the first in a very long time, and he thought that marriage might not be so bad after all. He had kissed her against his judgment, against his own warnings, against every spark of wisdom within him, and he’d been as nervous as a sixteen-year-old kid. It had been a long time since his heart had had such a workout. The last time was …

His smile faded as memories of Patrice washed over him like a reprimand. It was too soon for him, he told himself. He had no right. Slowly he closed the door and went to his bedroom.

That night he slept with Patrice’s picture clutched against his chest.

Chapter Eleven

I
t wasn’t the wedding that Laney had dreamed of as a child, but it was a wedding, and as surely as if she were in a cathedral with two thousand guests instead of two witnesses and a little girl who wasn’t sure how to react, she was pledging the rest of her life to Wes Grayson and his daughter.

Alan Caldwell did his best to make the no-frills ceremony seem more significant, but the lawn mower next door and the radio playing by her other neighbor’s pool robbed it of some of its charm. Laney had chosen to wear white, simply because she had never considered a wedding in any other color, but she had neglected things like flowers and candles when she had prepared for this, except for the spray of baby’s breath tucked in one side of her hair and the bouquet of daisies Amy carried in her mother’s honor.

Laney had dreaded seeing Wes’s sister and facing up to her so-you’ve-trapped-him scrutiny, but the woman had surprised her. With a flip of her flirty blond curls, she had said, “So here’s where Amy got those eyes to die for.” And then she had taken Laney’s picture with the enthusiasm of a proud sister-in-law. Laney had loved her immediately.

Clint Jessup, Wes’s best friend since college, had been another story. When they were introduced, he had barely managed a smile. Laney was left with the distinct impression that the man had done his best to talk his friend out of this nonsense but had grudgingly agreed to be a part of it when he failed. Wes had explained that Clint was soon going to marry Sherry’s best friend, the love of his life. The idea of feeling less than total commitment to the institution of marriage had, no doubt, given him reason for concern.

And then there was Amy. Laney had bought her the little white lace dress she wore and had it delivered to Wes’s house. She hadn’t been sure if Amy would like it or if it would fit, but the fact that Amy had worn it meant everything to Laney. In her hair was a lace bow, lovingly tied, but slightly crooked, and she carried the daisies like a fragile treasure. She was still withdrawn, still quiet, still unsmiling. But she was no longer openly hostile.

Wes was a warm, quiet presence at Laney’s side. Their kiss the other night had done a number of things. It had made her heart flutter in anticipation of the marriage itself instead of just motherhood. Laney realized she would have a husband to contend with, and she didn’t know if she could deal with that. Why had he kissed her? she had wondered over and over. He barely tolerated her.

Her hand trembled when he slipped the gold band on her finger. His trembled when she slipped his on. Their eyes held a million fears as they faced each other to exchange vows. And when Alan said, “You may kiss the bride,” Laney felt her heart fall to her feet.

Wes lowered his head and touched her lips with his, so softly that she felt a surge of disappointment at first. But he didn’t withdraw when she expected. Instead he stepped closer and slid his arms around her and breathed in a sigh that stole her breath. And then he gave that breath back to her. His lips moved softly against hers, gently welcoming her to his world despite the conditions. She felt herself running headfirst toward the biggest heartbreak of her life, yet she responded to the kiss with a fervor that equaled his. They looked into each other’s eyes with a note of surprise when they broke the kiss, then let each other go too quickly.

They had scarcely separated when Sherry threw her arms around Laney, welcoming her to the family, and thrust a wrapped package into her arms. “It’s a wedding gift,” she said quickly. “I made it for you. I admit it was kind of rushed, so if it falls apart or anything, I’m sorry. Don’t open it till you get home.” Sherry winked at her brother. “It’s for you, too, Wes.”

Wes dropped a kiss on his sister’s cheek. “Thanks.” He turned back to Laney, his smile hesitant. “Is it moving?”

She shook the box. “No.”

“Good,” he said. “Then it isn’t some exotic animal she got from a mail-order catalog. Sherry’s taste in gifts has always been questionable. But it’s the thought that counts.” Sherry grinned conspiratorially at Clint, who rolled his eyes. “Yeah, and a little thought can lead you a long way,” she said.

Clint finally broke into a laugh and told her to quit while she was ahead, and Laney couldn’t wait to see what was in the box. It was a day for special gifts. A daughter, a husband, a home. What more could anyone ask for?

L
aney thought of a hundred things she’d like to ask for that evening when they had put Amy to bed. Tranquilizers, a cot in the living room, a hole to hide her head in.

What had been a busy day of moving in had now come to a complete halt, and she found herself in the most awkward situation of her life. What did he expect of her? What did she expect of him? Where would she sleep in this two-bedroom house? Where would he
expect
her to sleep?

She looked around the small living room at the family portrait on the wall, at the knickknacks she was sure Patrice had bought, at the color scheme that belonged to another woman. They mocked her now, chiding her for inserting herself into a family where she didn’t belong. She wanted to cry, but she was too afraid. She wanted to run, but she was too determined. She wanted to be sick, but she was too embarrassed.

She looked up and saw Wes standing in the doorway, looking at her with his own apparent reservations. If only he looked like an ogre, she thought, hugging her knees to her chest, maybe she could make this cut and dried. If only he didn’t have those soft green eyes that made her heart melt, she might not be so afraid. If only she weren’t so tragically attracted to him …

“I was think—”

“You never ope—”

The words came out simultaneously, and they both stopped. Laney felt her cheeks coloring. She swallowed. “You go ahead,” she said. “What were you going to say?”

He walked into the room and sat down next to her. “You never opened Sherry’s gift.”

She looked at the wrapped package on the coffee table. “Well, I could do it now.”

He handed it to her. “Brace yourself. My sister’s a real character.”

“I like her,” Laney said. Her hands trembled as she peeled up the tape, careful not to tear the paper. “I wonder what it is. She said she made it herself.”

Wes helped her with one side of the paper then propped his elbow on the back of the sofa and rested his head against his hand, watching her.

She opened the box, pulled back the tissue covering, and found the contents. Her face stung with crimson heat.

“What is it?” Wes asked when she set the top back on too quickly.

“Nothing, it’s just …”

“Just what?” He smiled and reached for the box. She had no choice but to surrender it to him. “What did my crazy sister do this time?”

He pulled off the top and reached for the black pile of lace. Taking one strap, he held it up. “A negligee,” he said, his own face reddening. “That Sherry.”

Slowly he folded it back up, set it in the box, and closed it. “Well,” he said after what seemed an eternity. “She meant well. She’s an aspiring fashion designer, you know. Goes to school part-time. She’s always experimenting …” His voice trailed off as he realized he was babbling.

Laney swallowed the tears gathering in her throat. “I …” She cleared her throat and tried again. “I was thinking. This couch is pretty comfortable. I could sleep here. I mean, I know you’ve given up a lot already, marrying me and all, and I don’t want you to have to give up your bed too. And I don’t want you to think that I think that this is a real marriage, because we both know it’s for Amy’s sake. We don’t have to pretend we’re attracted to each other or that we have to go through with anything that isn’t right for us. I mean, since we hardly know each other …”

Wes sat listening, his face expressionless as her words tumbled out. Had he expected it to be any different? Had he really hoped that they would consummate this charade of a marriage tonight?

When her arguments ran down, he looked into her liquid, frightened eyes and hated himself for anything he’d ever done to make her fear him so. “Laney, we got married for Amy. And we want very much for her to think of it as a real marriage. This house has two bedrooms. Mine and Amy’s. If either one of us sleeps anywhere but in that bedroom, she’ll know. She wakes up early, and sometimes she gets up in the night. If it’s going to look like a real marriage, we have to sleep in the same room.”

Laney hugged her knees tighter, and her lips trembled. “You’re right,” she whispered. “I know you’re right.”

She was shaking all over, he thought miserably. She was scared to death.

She stood up, finally, and looked down at him. “I … guess I’ll go get ready for bed, then.”

Did she think he was going to force her to make love? Did she think he was that insensitive? He stood up to face her. “Laney.”

She dropped her face and tried to blink back the incipient tears. “What?”

He took her hand and drew her closer to him. “Laney, you don’t have to be afraid of me. I’m not going to take anything from you.”

His voice was comforting, gentle, and she made herself look up at him. A tear seeped through her lashes, and his hand moved up to her face. With his thumb he brushed the tear away.

His lips came down to her cheek, kissed the wet spot, melting all her fears and apprehensions, and then withdrew. “I won’t touch you again tonight,” he whispered.

And when she didn’t answer, he dropped her hand and left the room.

L
aney’s spirits hovered between disappointment and relief when she heard him go into the bathroom and turn on the shower. She went into the bedroom and got ready for bed. The light from the room’s one small lamp slid across the long black gown Laney had brought for the occasion. It was not anything that could be considered alluring. It was simply attractive, pleasant to look at—nothing like the negligee Sherry had made her—and she’d justified it by telling herself that she couldn’t let her new husband see her in the football jersey she usually slept in.

She slipped under the covers and turned on her side so she would appear to be asleep when Wes came in. But Patrice’s picture on the bedside table seemed too threatening. The blond-haired, blue-eyed woman smiling peacefully out from the frame added weight to Laney’s heart. The picture was a cold reminder that this would be a marriage in name only. Wes was still in love with his first wife. His real wife.

She turned over and scooted to the opposite side of the bed. Wes probably kept that picture there because that was his side. She had no right to come between him and his memories of his wife. Lying on her back, she laid her wrist over her eyes.
Don’t cry
, she ordered herself.
Do not cry
.

She sensed Wes before she saw him in the doorway, clad in a maroon robe and a pair of pajama pants.

“I … I didn’t know which side you slept on,” she said quietly.

“Doesn’t matter.”

She sat up partially, keeping the covers pulled over her gown. “Yes, it does. I can sleep on either side.”

“I’m gonna sleep here … on this couch.”

She swallowed. “Oh.”

She watched him get two blankets from the closet and lay them over the cushions.

“Wes, I can sleep there. This is your bed. I never meant to drive you out.”

“Don’t be silly,” he said. “This is real comfortable. We got it when Patrice was sick, and I slept here for months so she could be comfortable in the bed.”

Several moments ticked by.

“About the picture,” he whispered finally. “I put it away once, and Amy got upset. I had to put it back. It’s going to stay there.”

Was it defiance in his voice? A reminder that she would not replace Patrice?

“I understand,” she whispered without looking at him.

She heard his steady, self-conscious breathing and the sound of his body shifting on the sofa. She tensed when she heard him get up, held her breath as he seemed to come closer, and opened her eyes in alarm when she felt him reaching over her.

“The light,” he said.

She looked up at him, about to say that she could do it, but she couldn’t speak. He was gazing down at her, an open struggle going on in his eyes, and for a moment she hoped he wouldn’t keep his word about not touching her again. Suddenly she needed very much to be touched.