Reconciled for Easter (17 page)

After a while, a childish voice spoke from the hall. “Mommy? Daddy? Where are you?”

“We’re in here, sweetie!” Abigail called out, instinctively responding to the plea in Mia’s voice. It was bright morning outside now, and Mia would have woken up disoriented and confused. Unable to find her parents when she needed them. A rush of guilt surged through Abigail at how she had been making love to Thomas, brooding over their relationship, when her daughter needed her. “It’s all right! We’re in here.”

It was only when Mia pushed the bedroom door open and padded in barefoot with wildly tangled hair that Abigail realized she probably should have gotten up before she let their daughter into the room.

Mia stared with wide eyes at her parents in the messy bed together. Thomas was still cradling Abigail against him, and he was naked under the covers.

Abigail had no idea what to say—how to explain an arrangement that must be bewildering to their six-year-old daughter. Evidently, Thomas was at a loss for words as well.

Mia stared in silence for a long moment. Then the expression on her face changed. “Mommy?” she asked, “Daddy? Do you love each other again?

Thomas recovered from the awkward silence that followed Mia’s question more quickly than Abigail did. “Can you do us a big favor, sweetheart?” he asked, his voice pitched to provoke his daughter’s interest.

Mia’s face changed, immediately alert at the shift in dynamic. “What, Daddy?”

“Can you go to the kitchen and turn on the coffee pot? It’s all set up. You just need to press the on button. Mommy and I just woke up, so can you do that for us?”

“Can I pour the coffee myself?”

“Maybe. But go turn it on first. It will take a little while to brew,” Abigail replied, finally finding her voice.

Delighted by this new task, the girl left the room to scurry down the hall toward the kitchen. As soon as she was out of sight, Abigail and Thomas leapt into action.

Abigail found Thomas’s flannel pants under the covers and flung them over at him. Then she dug farther under the sheet as he pulled his pants on. Thomas rolled out of the bed and strode to the bathroom. She heard water in the sink as he must have washed his hands and face. Abigail kept searching, groaning in frustration as she practically buried herself under the covers in her urgent hunt.

“What are you doing?” Thomas asked, returning to the bedroom.

“I can’t find my underwear!”

With a soft chuckle, Thomas joined the search, and they discovered her panties kicked all the way down in a corner at the bottom of the bed.

Abigail slid them on just as Mia returned. “I did it!” she announced, beaming with obvious pride at her accomplishment.

“Thank you.” She knew she needed to answer Mia’s earlier question. She tried to think of appropriate words, but she was still too uncomfortable in a rumpled bed that smelled like their morning lovemaking. She was also rather sloppy between her thighs from two rounds of sex.

Before she was able to think of something to say, Thomas bridged the gap. “Shall we make some breakfast, Mia?”

“Yeah! I’m starving!”

Thomas put a hand on Mia’s back and steered her out of the room. “We’ll get started while Mommy goes to the bathroom.”

“Okay.”

Abigail shot Thomas a grateful look. “I’ll be right there,” she called out before she headed for the bathroom, where she cleaned herself up and pulled on the jeans she’d been wearing the day before. She kept Thomas’s t-shirt on.

When she joined the other two in the kitchen, she found them absorbed in waffle-making. When breakfast was prepared, they took the waffles with some juice into the sunroom to eat. It was warm and bright in the room, and conversation was light and casual until Mia finally snuggled up next to Abigail on the settee.

Deciding that she couldn’t put the conversation off forever, Abigail began, “You asked me a question earlier."

Mia nodded, pushing her little glasses back up her nose. “Do you love Daddy again?”

They were speaking softly, and Thomas was calmly putting breakfast dishes onto a tray, but Abigail knew he was listening.

She understood why he was leaving the answer to her, and she appreciated his sensitivity.

Abigail cleared her throat. “Your daddy and I will always love each other.”

Mia frowned thoughtfully. “But do you love him so you want to be with him always?”

“I don’t know, sweetie,” Abigail admitted. “We’re taking our time before we decide. We’re going to spend some time together and see what happens.” She felt Thomas’s eyes on her, but she didn’t meet his gaze.

“Oh,” Mia said.

Abigail was terrified she was handling this wrong, but she didn’t know what to tell her daughter except for the truth. “How do you feel about that?”

“Okay.” Mia’s eyes moved back and forth between Thomas and Abigail. “Are you going to go on dates with Daddy now?”

“Maybe.”

“Oh. Will he take you to the symphony?”

“Maybe.” Abigail smiled fondly, vaguely impressed that their daughter was putting the pieces of the situation together so astutely.

“Will you get dressed up all pretty for Daddy?”

Abigail nodded. “Probably. But they’ll just be dates. We don’t know if that means we’ll be together all the time. We’ll have to see how it goes.”

“Like me trying karate to see if I like it before I sign up for the all-year class?”

“Yeah,” Abigail said, tightening her arm around the girl. “Something like that.”

“Okay.”

Mia seemed content with this explanation, and Abigail finally dared to meet Thomas’s gaze. There was a faint questioning look in his eyes that caused a clench in her chest, but he didn’t put the question into words.

***

An hour later, Abigail was towel-drying her hair after taking a shower. She turned to look over her shoulder as Thomas came into the bedroom.

He shut the door quietly behind him.

“Is Mia all right?”

“She’s reading,” he explained. His eyes never left her face, and suddenly Abigail knew what he was going to ask her. “Did you mean what you said to Mia earlier?”

“Uh, yeah. I did, I guess.”

He took a step closer to her. “So you’re willing to…to take that step?”

“Yes. I want to. A lot. But I think we still need to take it slow. We can’t just jump back to how we were. There’s still too much for us to work through. And I think we better start up counseling again.”

Thomas nodded. “I know that.” His voice was soft and his face unrevealing.

Suddenly nervous that she’d hurt him, that he was disappointed by her hesitance, she reached out to take his arm. “Is that all right, Thomas? I know we both want things to get better, but I—”

“Abigail,” Thomas interrupted as her voice cracked. Something changed, flared up in his eyes. “Do you actually think I’m disappointed?”

She studied his face again, and this time she recognized what had ignited in his eyes. Her cheeks warmed and she dropped her eyes, self-conscious and oddly delighted by the expression she’d seen there. “Oh.”

He gently took her face in his hands. “Abigail.”

She looked back up and saw again the blaze of excitement, passion, something like joy. For a moment, she was overwhelmed with shudders of responding emotion. And she admitted, “I’m excited too. But I’m still nervous about it. I don’t want to end up hurting you. And I won’t do anything to hurt Mia.”

“We’ll be careful,” he agreed. Then his mouth turned up in a tantalizing smile. “So do you have plans on Tuesday night?”

Abigail’s lips parted. “Tuesday?”

“I’m not on call on Tuesday night.” Thomas chuckled, a warm, delicious sound that seemed to travel through her whole being. “Why do you look so dumbfounded? I was just asking you out.”

***

On Tuesday evening, Thomas took Abigail to a small town about an hour away. Like Willow Park, it was a quaint town that had capitalized on its historic downtown and regional charm. Abigail had asked Thomas not to take her anywhere too close, since she didn’t want to feed the town gossips. So they left Mia with a babysitter and had driven out for an early dinner at a charming inn and then an outdoor folk-music concert on the town green. They even stopped in at a few of the antique and craft shops.

Abigail had a wonderful time. Thomas was excellent company—charming and clearly in good spirits. But he didn’t come on too strongly or overdo the flirting. He occasionally put a hand on her back as they walked, and he draped his arm on the back of her seat at the concert. But he acted basically natural, and that helped Abigail feel less self-conscious than she might have been on her first new date with her husband.

It was getting late when they ended up in a bakery for coffee and dessert. Abigail had had a glass of wine with dinner, but she was purposefully going light on the alcohol so she wouldn’t be tempted to get carried away by the evening’s atmosphere or Thomas’s warm charisma. She’d already decided it would probably be best not to have Thomas sleep over that night. She wanted to keep things as non-confusing to Mia as possible.

But Abigail was feeling absolutely wonderful—happy, relaxed, and pleased with the world in general—as she ate a decadent chocolate dessert on the patio of the bakery and laughed at Thomas’s wry banter.

They’d talked some about Mia on the drive out, but since they’d arrived in town they’d been talking about everything from architecture to politics to the new tour guide they’d hired at Milbourne House.

Thomas was just telling her about a bizarre man he’d met in the elevator of the hospital when a female voice interrupted them. “Dr. Morgan!”

Both Abigail and Thomas turned toward the speaker, an attractive woman with nut-brown hair and a cast on her wrist. She wore jeans and a button-up shirt, and her smile widened as she approached “Dr. Morgan. Were you here for the concert?”

Thomas stood up and held out his hand in greeting. “Bethany, it’s good to see you. Yes, we drove out for the concert.”

Bethany turned to Abigail with a smile. “I hope you enjoyed it.”

Abigail stood up too. “Yes, it was lovely.”

“This is Bethany Harris,” Thomas said, his eyes on Abigail’s face. Something in his expression had changed, but Abigail couldn’t pin it down. “She’s a nurse at the hospital. Bethany, this is Abigail.”

Bethany smiled as they shook hands. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“I’d forgotten you live here,” Thomas said casually, stepping over so he was just at Abigail’s side. He put a discreet hand on the small of her back as he continued, “It’s a charming town.”

“Thanks. We’ve worked hard to make it so.”

Abigail was still wondering about the change in Thomas’s expression. He was studying her face out of the corner of his eyes, like he was looking for signs of something.

She had no idea what had distracted him, but she could feel in the vibes from his body that he’d tensed up a little.

There didn’t seem to be any reason why. Bethany seemed like a perfectly agreeable woman—friendly and natural.

Since Thomas wasn’t putting much effort into the conversation, Abigail picked up the slack. “What happened to your wrist?” she asked, gesturing toward the cast.

Bethany made a face. “Fell down some stairs. Very stupid. Now I’m paying for it. I can’t believe how many things are nearly impossible with only one hand.”

“Don’t I know it,” Abigail replied sympathetically. “I was in a car accident a couple of months ago, and I had a cast on my arm for eight weeks. How much longer do you have?”

“The doctor said maybe another month. I guess I’ll live.” Bethany glanced over to Thomas, who still looked rather odd. “Anyway, I just stopped by to say hi. I hope you enjoy the rest of the evening.”

“Thanks,” Abigail said, as Thomas managed a farewell as well.

As they sat down at their table again, Abigail frowned and studied Thomas’s face. What on earth could have caused him to get so uptight? He was still searching her face almost urgently.

“I’d forgotten she lived here,” he said, as if in response to a piece of conversation Abigail had missed.

Abigail blinked. “That’s what you said before. No reason for you to remember. There must be millions of nurses at the hospital.”

Thomas’s eyes narrowed, and something changed on his face. But he said lightly, “That might be a slight exaggeration.”

She chuckled. “Maybe. But what got into you? Do you not like her? She seemed really nice.”

“She’s fine,” Thomas said, still focused as if he were trying to peer into Abigail's soul. “She’s good at her job. I don’t know her very well.”

Abigail shrugged. “Anyway, you were telling me about that crazy man on the elevator.”

Thomas leaned back in his chair and stared at her for a moment, as if he were silently astounded.

Growing self-conscious and absolutely bewildered, Abigail demanded, “What the heck is the matter with you, Thomas?”

“Nothing,” Thomas assured her, his face clearing of its inexplicable distraction. “Sorry. I was just thinking about something else.”

Abigail watched him thoughtfully as he finished his story. But she concluded that—whatever the thing had been—it was temporary and not very important. It hadn’t really altered the mood between them.