Читать книгу Unexpected Babies - Anna Adams - Страница 9

SHOCKED AT Cate’s pregnancy and the fact she’d hidden it, Alan avoided his family that night. He couldn’t have hidden his panic at the uncertain future of his marriage, but he realized he had to keep fighting. Dan and Cate and the new baby needed him to save the business and their family.

The next morning, Alan parked in front of Caroline’s small cottage. Several miles down the beach from his and Cate’s house, the cottage bore the loving stamp of the Talbot women in its neatly maintained appearance and glinting windows. Like all the Talbot homes, the cottage welcomed visitors.

Until today, anyway. He might not be so welcome once he suggested Caroline was neglecting her sister.

He opened the car door and strode up the walk to rap on the door. It swung open. Caroline peered around it and Alan got to the point. “Why haven’t you visited Cate?”

“And good morning to you.” She stood aside. “Come in, Alan, and tell me what makes you so surly.”

Yesterday’s news about the baby gave him plenty to be surly about, but he still wouldn’t discuss his growing family with Cate’s twin. A new thought made him uneasy. As close as the sisters had been, she might already know. He couldn’t ask. He didn’t want to know if Cate trusted Caroline more than she trusted him.

“Cate needs to see everyone who might help her remember. You didn’t go to the hospital yesterday.”

“Maybe you didn’t notice but she screamed when she looked at her own face after seeing mine.”

“She’s been there for you, Caroline. All your lives.”

“I know. She pretended to be me when I played hooky from school. She helped me run away with my bad husband, and then she picked up the pieces when he left me. She’s baby-sat Shelly when my childcare fell through, and she does more than her fair share for Aunt Imogen and Uncle Ford.” Caroline paused to draw breath. “None of what she’s done changes the fact that my face scares her.”

“She sees your face every time she looks in a mirror.” He stepped inside the small house. It wasn’t so welcoming to a man. Only women lived here, and he felt too large for the narrow hall, the dainty French furniture. “Are you afraid to see her?”

She met his gaze. Not for the first time, this woman who looked so much like his wife but thought so differently disconcerted him. In silence, Caroline led him to the kitchen. She poured a cup of strong black coffee and set it on the counter in front of him.

“I’m terrified. Cate is part of me. We share so many of the same memories I’m not sure who I am without her.”

Her frankness only emphasized their serious fix. Caroline had become his friend as he’d fallen in love with her sister. He’d helped her and Shelly when he could, but she’d never confided in him this way.

And now they were going through the same crisis. Who were they when Cate, the glue that had held their family together, no longer knew them?

He closed his eyes. A shout rose in his throat. Pure pain that no one but Cate could alleviate. Only his Cate no longer existed.

“I understand why you’re reluctant,” he managed to say. “She may not remember you, but she needs you. You are part of each other. You can tell her things about her past that the rest of us don’t know.”

“I don’t know her better than you do, Alan.” She took another coffee cup from the cabinet. “I’m only her sister. You’re her husband.”

Not a very good husband. He’d blamed their uneasiness on the stress of raising a teenager who was about to leave home. He’d assumed they’d find their way back to each other after Dan left.

Not that he’d resented Cate’s devotion to their son. They’d both wanted to be better parents than their own. But he’d lost sight of Cate, the woman, in his reliance on her. Over the years, he’d become the provider. She’d been the mom. Had their roles divided them, or had Cate stopped loving him?

“What’s on your mind, Alan? Something else is going on.” Caroline’s conviction reminded him of Cate after she’d seen through all his half truths. “You’ve never stormed in here before to point out my responsibilities to Cate.”

“Help her. Make her remember.”

“Make her?” Caroline blanched. “You’re thinking she chose to forget? I wonder, too. Who made her so unhappy? You? Me? I’ve let her take care of me as if she really were older.”

“She is. She takes those thirteen minutes seriously.”

“And twenty-seven seconds.” Caroline poured coffee in her cup and lifted it to her mouth for a wary sip. “Don’t forget those twenty-seven seconds.”

“She never meant to make you think you couldn’t take care of yourself.”

“Sometimes I couldn’t. I needed her, but I couldn’t admit it. I always wanted to prove I knew how to handle my own life.”

Her guilt sounded too familiar. He’d needed Cate to believe he was her knight in shining armor, but he’d tried so hard to be a professional success—and then failed so spectacularly—he’d broken her ability to trust him at all.

Damn it, he’d learn how to win back her faith, but she still needed the rest of her family. “Why don’t you take care of her this time?”

She widened her eyes, as if she hadn’t thought of the possibilities. That happened when guilt overwhelmed you. “What’s to stop me?” She toasted him with her coffee cup. “I will go. Tonight. Evening visitor’s hours.”

He set his own cup on the counter. “I have to go into the office for a few hours. Can you fax me your budget for the medical center interiors?”

“Sure. Why are you working on Sunday, Alan?”

He had no choice. He still had to save the company. Caroline and too many others depended on him for their jobs. “I’ve spent so much time at the hospital I have to catch up on paperwork. How close are you to the figures we discussed when we started the project? Not over budget anywhere?”

She plucked a pair of glasses from the shelf beside the sink and slid them onto her nose. Cate didn’t need glasses. “I’ll get the file now if you want. We’re close on window treatments, and I hooked us up with the rugs.”

“Hooked us up?”

She flashed a grin. “Don’t you ever talk to Dan? I worked us a deal.”

Like her, he felt more at ease talking about work, a topic he and Cate rarely discussed. Lately, he’d tended to share tense silence with his wife. Silence couldn’t bide easily between two people hiding life-altering secrets.

“I’M DR. DAVIS. I hear you don’t remember me.”

Cate looked up from her book, relieved to quit pretending she could concentrate enough to read. A tall woman stood in the doorway, finely dressed in a beige suit that complemented her dark-mocha skin. Her looks were lovely, but the supreme confidence in her eyes brought Cate the deepest sense of assurance she remembered feeling.

“I’m happy to meet you.” Cate took a get well card from the table and slid it into her book to mark her place. “Come in.”

The other woman set a file on the nightstand. “Did you tell Alan about the baby?”

“Yesterday.” She left out the part where he’d gone and not come back.

“He didn’t take it well?” Dr. Davis reached for the call button on the cord at Cate’s shoulder. “You can’t blame him for that?”

“Maybe. Who are you calling?”

“A nurse. I’d like to examine you now that you haven’t spotted for several days. Your body has endured a great deal of trauma, and I’d like to make sure the baby’s perfectly healthy.”

“What do you need me to do?”

“Relax if you can.”

Cate tried to disguise her distress. “I’m not sure I could even if I remembered how a pelvic feels.”

Dr. Davis laughed. “Good point.”

The nurse came, and the doctor began her exam. She seemed dissatisfied with what she found. From her particularly vulnerable position, Cate still tried to be brave. “What?” she asked bluntly.

“Nothing to worry about.” Dr. Davis peered over her shoulder at the nurse. “Open Cate’s file and remind me of her dates.”

The date of Cate’s last cycle seemed to make matters worse. Cate fought her increasingly primitive need to remove herself from the doctor’s hands. “You’re scaring me, and I really need to shove you away.”

The doctor straightened, peeling off her gloves. “Don’t be afraid. Nothing’s wrong, but I need to listen.” Taking the stethoscope from around her neck, she placed it all over Cate’s belly.

“I think we need an ultrasound.”

Cate grabbed her arm, pulling her close with strength that surprised her and the doctor. “You can’t hear a heartbeat?”

Humor softened the doctor’s wide eyes. “I hear plenty of heartbeats.”

Her response made no sense at first. Finally, Cate remembered she was a twin. She dropped back. “Plenty?” she squeaked.

“Just two, but I don’t rely on my ears this early on. Why don’t we make sure before you pass out?”

“An ultrasound will tell you? Ultrasounds don’t lie, do they? I mean I’m not suddenly going to come up with triplets, am I?”

“Try to stay calm. Sudden isn’t the way triplets show up.” Dr. Davis pulled the sheet up to Cate’s waist. “Why don’t I use my influence to run the test now?”

Calm? At thirty-eight, with a nearly grown son and a husband she didn’t know? “Now would be perfect.”

Dr. Davis picked up the large, insulated cup that stood on the nightstand. She shook the cup and then smiled as water and ice sloshed together. “Start drinking this.”

LATER THAT EVENING, Cate stared at the ultrasound photo. Two babies. In another twenty-two weeks or so, she’d give birth to twins.

The two small beings on the ultrasound screen had reconnected her to the process of living. She wrapped herself in the happiness she’d felt at watching the two twisting shadows. They needed her, and she resolved to figure out who she was in time to be a good parent to all her children.

And she’d learn to be a wife to her husband. He wanted their marriage. She must have wanted it, too. Their children deserved two healthy parents.

Someone knocked softly on her door. Cate lifted the top of her table and slid the ultrasound photo inside. “Come in,” she called. She smoothed the sheet around her hips and legs and prepared to interrogate her visitor about her past.

Caroline leaned around the edge of the door. Her face still jolted Cate, but another scream seemed inappropriate.

“Do you mind if I join you?” Caroline asked.

“I’m surprised you want to. Come in and let me apologize for the way I acted. I didn’t expect to see you in my mirror.”

“I shouldn’t have run out of here, but I love you Cate. No, don’t worry—you know, you used to be better at hiding your feelings—I don’t expect you to pretend you feel the way I do, but I want you to depend on me. It’s my turn to be the big sister.”

“Am I older than you?” Cate asked as Caroline paused to replace a lungful of air.

“By a little more than thirteen minutes, but I’ve needed you more than you ever needed me.” She stopped again, and her face flushed a deep red. “I used to wonder if you wished you didn’t have a twin, and now you don’t.”

“Well, don’t sound sad. You’re about to settle all your debts. I need a crash course in my own history.”

Caroline’s instant regret almost made Cate smile. “What can I tell you?” Caroline asked in a wavering tone.

With her new deadline, she had no time for subtlety. First things first. “Why are you so reluctant to talk to me?”

“I’m embarrassed. You rescued me from every jam I ever got myself into. I can’t repay you for—”

Cate interrupted. “I know you all loved me, because my close call seems to have turned me into a saint.” Saints held no charm for her. She didn’t trust the tale, and she needed facts. “Tell me the bad stuff, too.”

“What bad stuff?”

“We’re sisters. You must have helped me as much as I helped you.”

A deeper blush darkened Caroline’s high cheekbones. Cate lifted her fingertips to her own face as her twin went on. “You never needed help.”

Not true. She probably just hadn’t asked for it. “I need help now. Dr. Barton implied our family—the Talbots—are…”

Caroline’s discomfort eased as Cate trailed off. “Notorious?” she suggested.

Cate nodded. “I know our parents are deceased, but what happened to them?”

“Dad met Mom in the Navy. They were both intelligence officers, and apparently, the only thing they loved more than imminent danger was each other. They sent us here to live with Aunt Imogen when we were five. The Navy stationed them in Turkey, I think. Some remote place, but it was only their first isolated duty station. They liked the life so much they never came back.”

“Never?” Such parenting alarmed her. She felt for the two small girls they’d been. “We never saw them?”

“They came for visits. Brief ones.” Caroline shook her head. “But we missed them so much it was easier when they stayed away. When they tried to leave we cried—well, I cried. You pretended you didn’t care.”

“I did?” She couldn’t picture herself as such a tough kid.

Caroline pulled up a chair and made herself comfortable. “Always. You didn’t want anyone getting close enough to see how much you hurt.” She stopped, seemingly amazed, and reached for Cate’s water. “Do you mind if I drink some? It’s hot outside.”

“Go ahead.”

“I never realized you were pretending until I said that just now. I always envied you because you didn’t seem to need anyone, but you—”

Cate found she didn’t want to know what Caroline thought of her inner workings. Plain facts mattered more. Maybe later she’d be willing to discuss her private thoughts with her sister. “How did they die?”

Caroline’s expression clouded. She drank more water and set it back on the table. “In a car accident. They were driving to Nice to fly home for our high school graduation, and they took a curve too quickly. We think they had an argument before they left their hotel because the management billed us for damages.”

Cate stared at her for a second and tried not to laugh at the morbid picture.

“I know.” Caroline shook her head. “Aunt Imogen’s attorney pointed out the tactless nature of their claims, but they still wanted to be paid. My God, how we missed them.”

“I missed them, too?”

“You wouldn’t talk about it, but someone plants flowers on their graves and keeps them tended. Usually, when I go out to the cemetery, something new is blooming. You must be the gardener, but you always said you didn’t know anything about the plants. Aunt Imogen has a killer thumb, and Uncle Ford’s still too mad at Dad for dying to do something so kind.”

Sadness surprised Cate, knotting uncomfortable tears in the back of her throat. She’d like to see that cemetery, but she had to go by herself the first time. After that, she’d ask Caroline to help her with the flowers. She moved on to their aunt and uncle. “How about Aunt Imogen and Uncle Ford? Dan told me a story about Aunt Imogen’s Navy man.”

“I don’t believe she ever had an affair, if that’s what you mean, but like you, she keeps her feelings private. Maybe she’ll tell you about him if you ask her in your present condition.”

Cate grinned at Caroline’s prim tone. “I wondered why she wasn’t married, but it seemed rude to ask. And Uncle Ford?”

“He’s never made conventional choices. None of us was conventional except you.” Caroline swallowed. “Actually, no one was ever sure if Grandma and Grandpa actually married each other. I mean we have a marriage certificate, but the story is, they bought it on the boardwalk in New Jersey.”

“What?”

“Don’t worry. You and Alan are legal, and you’ve never taken a wrong step. You’ve walked a tight, straight line to give Dan a sense of family you and I didn’t get. You’ve made him strong.”

Tight, straight line? The walls started to close in again.

“In fact, you and Alan have given Shelly a good example. I want her to know someone in our family can make a marriage stick.”

A lasting marriage hardly equated with a wife who’d hidden her pregnancy. How had Alan responded to setting examples? What had she thought about such a responsibility?

“I need to ask you about Alan’s father, too. Uncle Ford mentioned that I wouldn’t be seeing him inside these four walls.” She glanced quickly around the room. “What did he mean? I don’t feel comfortable asking Alan.”

“Why?”

Because she didn’t trust their relationship. “Alan’s already stressed. I don’t want to add to his trouble, but he’s—Richard’s his name?”

“Yeah, Richard.”

“He’s family, too. I’d better know about him.”

“Richard has his quirks.” Caroline grabbed the water again. “I don’t want to talk about him, either. He raised Alan alone after Alan’s mom left when Alan was about ten. I’m not sure what went wrong.”

“I thought you and I were close.”

“We were.”

“I sure hid a lot from you.”

“Just the important stuff,” Caroline said with a trace of impatience. “I’ve never understood what went on between Alan and Richard, and you never told me anything. Of course there was gossip. I’ve heard Alan did a lot of the stuff fathers are supposed to do for their children, like laundry and cooking. I know Richard had a drinking problem. You and Alan both tried to pretend Richard was a better father than I think he was.”

Appalled and heartbroken for her husband, Cate tried to take this information in. “Why would we cover for him?”

“Maybe for Dan, or maybe you thought he’d remind me of Ryan, my own runaway spouse. You’ll have to ask Alan—or maybe Richard. He’s getting married this summer. He must have finally put his first wife behind him.” Caroline reached for her hand. “I haven’t helped you. You know my worst fears, but I only know hints of yours.”

Cate made herself accept her sister’s touch. Dr. Davis and Dr. Barton had both touched her in comfort, and she hadn’t minded. Family mattered more. Accepting affection she couldn’t return felt false, but she wanted to love her sister so she let her hand rest in Caroline’s.

“I have to ask you another question you won’t want to answer.” She felt disloyal to Alan after what Caroline had said about Richard. Imagining her husband as a lost little boy, forced to grow up, hurt her. She had to ask her sister about the state of their marriage, because she wasn’t sure he’d tell her the truth. If he’d persuaded her to go along with shielding his father, he must be used to pretending things were “normal.” “Were Alan and I happy?”

Caroline jerked her fingers back. “How would I know?”

Cate held her twin’s so familiar gaze with sheer will. “You’re my sister. I took you at your word when you promised I could depend on you.”

Caroline looked as if she’d like to run for her life. “You would no more have told me about problems between you and Alan than you would have hired a plane to list them in the sky.”

“I have to know.”

“You aren’t yourself.”

“I’m afraid not. I don’t trust the way people describe me so far. I was stuffy.”

“Not stuffy. Kind.”

“So much circumspection sounds unnatural.” Cate tucked her sheet around her waist. A walk down the hospital hall might clear her muzzy head, but weakness in her legs, combined with the deep cut on her thigh held her prisoner, and Caroline had backed away when she’d needed her most. “Thanks for talking. I appreciate your effort.”

“Wait.” Her expression dogged, Caroline propped one elbow on the edge of Cate’s bed. “Let me try again. Alan came to my house this morning, and he insisted I see you.”

Cate crossed her arms. She still possessed enough of her infamous self-sufficiency to resent Alan’s intervention.

“Hold on, Cate. He wanted to make sure I took care of you.”

If he knew she needed help, why had he stayed away last night? The obvious answer. She’d dropped a bomb on his head. He needed time to reconcile himself. Not the most romantic tactic, but if he showed up again soon, she’d try to understand. “Alan and I aren’t your responsibility.”

“Listen to me. You have to listen if you ask for advice. I don’t think he’d have come to me if he didn’t care.” Caroline fluffed her hair. “Why are we talking about this? He loves you. He’s been crazy since that car hit you.”

“He doesn’t act like a man in love. He acts like something’s wrong.”

“I noticed, but I don’t believe your marriage went bad.”

Cate plucked at a loose thread on her sheet’s hem. “I’m glad my marriage comforts you, but I’d love to know how I felt about it.”

“Yeah.” Caroline sounded unsure.

And she didn’t even know about the twins.

AGAIN, Alan stared at Cate’s door. Someone had printed her name on a small, square whiteboard beside the metal doorframe. He brushed away a smear at the end of the r in Palmer. Then he went inside.

Favoring her injured leg, his wife turned from the window.

“Cate.” He’d expected her to be in bed.

“I almost stopped hoping you’d come, but I didn’t want to be flat on my back when we talked.” A smile hovered at the corner of her mouth.

He knew that sweet shape as well as he knew his own face. He’d kissed that mouth, frowned at that mouth, dreaded seeing it thin in anger, and waited with held breath for it to smile. A real smile—not like her smile now.

“You knew you could expect me?” Somewhere inside her remained the wife who’d trusted him to take care of her.

“If you’d stayed away again tonight, I’d have understood you’d made your decision.”

No, this Cate wasn’t the wife he’d lived with for twenty years. His Cate had never tested him.

“I’m glad I passed.”

“I didn’t think of it as a trial. When you didn’t call or come back yesterday, I assumed you had to think about where we stood.”

A cold fist squeezed his heart. “Is that what you’ve been doing?”

She shook her head. Her bright hair fell over her shoulder, tempting him to slide possessive fingers through the strands before she slipped away from him forever.

“How could I decide anything without talking to you?” she asked in a low voice. Behind her, the night sky perfectly framed her pale skin and tense silhouette.

Her open gaze gave him hope for the first time since she’d run from the office.

“I want to go on together,” he said. “You’re my wife.”

“Don’t put it that way, Alan.” Emotionally, she distanced herself from him. “I don’t want us to stay together because we happen to be married.”

“I get the idea you don’t want me to say I love you.”

Those words didn’t belong between them since he’d hidden the business trouble and she’d concealed their baby from him.

She limped toward him, but she stopped beside her bed and flexed her fingers on the lip of her table. From her knuckles to her nails, her skin faded to palest white.

“I know something’s wrong, and saying you love me would only alarm me now.” She lifted her chin. “You could tell me what’s wrong.”

No, he couldn’t. It wasn’t just that her injuries had given him time to win her back. He’d never been good at admitting she’d always be his deepest need. He’d shown her in the only way he’d known how, providing a good life for her and their son.

From now on, he’d pay more attention to her, become the husband she wanted. His father’s decadesold advice rang in his ears. “Give your wife the good things in life. Provide, and provide well, or she’ll find a man who can.”

“I still don’t know why I decided not to tell you about the baby.” She slid her gaze away from him. “Don’t we need to know why?”

“One day I hope you’ll tell me.”

Frustration tightened her mouth, but she controlled it. “Tonight I have to tell you I had a test today.”

“What kind of a test? Is the baby all right?” Fear nearly dropped him to his knees. Even if he couldn’t provide for this child as he had for Dan, he’d love the new baby. He’d be the best father his resources allowed.

“I’ve scared you again. I’m sorry.” Cate hurried around the bed and reached for his hand.

Her fingers felt vulnerable in his, but he couldn’t let go. “I should be taking care of you,” he said.

“I should have found a better way to say this. Dr. Davis did an exam today and discovered we’re having twins.”

“Twins?”

She nodded. Seconds passed. He didn’t know how to respond to twins. The cost, the timing. She’d never understand his panic. Distance came into her eyes. By not answering, he was losing her, the woman he’d loved since he’d learned to love, and the woman he no longer knew.

He threw a longing look at her chair. “Do you mind if I sit?”

She grinned, and he sat without her consent. Was she laughing at him? She didn’t respect him for sitting?

“Not that I mind,” he said. “The twins. I don’t mind the twins.”

“You don’t have to prove how tough you are. If I hadn’t been lying down when Dr. Davis told me, I might have fallen.”

“Twins.”

“Will you tell me how you really feel?”

“Startled.” He tried hard to think how she’d want him to answer. How he should answer as a decent human being who wanted his wife back, who loved the child they’d already created, and who knew he could love two more when the shock wore off. “How are you?” he asked her.

She actually seemed to find his lack of assurance comforting. She relaxed her tense stance.

“Glad to see you.” She squeezed his hand once and then let go to scoot onto the edge of her bed and straighten her leg. “I couldn’t tell anyone else before I told you.”

He should be the first to know. He tugged at the hem of her robe. “Do you feel anything for me?”

Her expression was solemn, but full of regret. “I feel responsible.”

He let her go. “I don’t know what I think about responsible.”

She folded her hands. “Let’s just be honest and see what kind of relationship we can salvage.”

“I want a marriage.” He still didn’t mention the business. Eventually, she’d understand. Between the twins and her memory loss, he couldn’t add to the pressure on her.

He’d been afraid she’d leave if he admitted his lie about the company had caused all their problems. Now, he kept the embezzlement to himself because he wanted to protect his wife and their unborn children. This time, he was right to try to protect her.