Читать книгу Her Baby's Father - Anne Haven - Страница 10

ROSS TURNED AWAY from the French doors. She felt his gaze and slowly moved her head until their eyes met. He didn’t say anything, but the truth was evident in his expression.

Of course Drew was married. She shouldn’t have expected anything else from him. And she supposed there were worse things for her child, growing up, to face. Drew could be dead. Or in prison.

But she’d hoped against hope he might actually want to be involved in his child’s upbringing. Now that seemed highly improbable. Like her father when she’d run away to find him, Drew had another life, another family. Though her father, at least, had had the decency not to be married to another woman when he’d slept with her mother.

“How long has he had a wife?” she asked.

“A couple of years.” Ross pulled out one of the spindle-back chairs at the kitchen table and sat down. He leaned forward, forearms on knees, hands clasped. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s hardly your fault,” she said, her anger at Drew spilling into her voice.

Ross ignored her tone. “Have a seat,” he said, pulling out another chair and positioning a third in front of it. “Put your feet up.”

She was too agitated to sit. “I’ve been in the car all day.”

“Suit yourself.” He watched her for a moment. “My offer still stands.”

Idly she wondered exactly what his offer was. How much money was he willing to pay for her to go away? Of course, even if it was, to him, a pittance, it would surely allow her to take care of herself and the baby for a few years until she could finish paying off her mother’s medical bills. Start saving again.

She leaned against the counter, hugging herself. “You want me to leave town,” she said. “Leave before contacting Drew. Never tell him, so he can maintain his marriage without having to pay a price for what he did.”

Her words sounded confrontational, but she felt herself wavering, wondering if she should do as Ross suggested—take what he offered and disappear. She could drive the coastal route back to California, stop at cute tourist towns, pretend she’d only gone on a sight-seeing vacation. She might even be able to talk Benita Alvarez into giving her back her old job at the office supply warehouse.

“Yes,” Ross said. “That’s what I want.”

She had to admire his honesty. But suddenly her moment of weakness had passed, replaced by anger and indignation. Jennifer recalled her conversation with Drew at the tiny bistro—eight tables in all and the cheapest appetizer cost more than she made in an hour—when she’d asked him directly whether he was involved with anyone. He’d sat there across the linen-draped table and lied to her as easily as he breathed. No hesitation. No awkwardness. The perfect hint of self-deprecating charm in his answer. No clue that he was married. Committed.

“I thought we were two unattached adults,” she said, the words coming out hard.

“I believe you.”

“He’s put me in a really crappy position.”

“Jennifer.”

“So I’m not particularly in a mood to disappear. He lied to me, right to my face, and if I slink off, that means he gets away with it. And I don’t really want to hear how it’s going to be tough for his wife. She’ll just have to face reality.”

“Jennifer,” he said again, trying to slow her down.

She looked right at him. Waited to hear what he would say. Realized she wouldn’t like it, not a bit.

“His wife is pregnant.”

The news made her feel as if she were on an elevator that had stopped too quickly. As if her big belly had continued moving and was now ten feet below the rest of her body.

“Oh.” Somehow a pregnancy seemed even worse than if Drew and his wife had already had a child. She knew firsthand what a fragile and emotional time this was. Your whole life was filled with a sense of possibility and joy, but also fear.

Fear that something would go wrong. Fear that you would lose your unborn baby. Fear that your husband would desert you or have a trashy affair with another woman, some tramp he’d known in high school.

Shame washed through her.

But she hadn’t known.

Jennifer walked over and took the chair Ross had offered her a few minutes earlier, then sat with her hands clasped under her stomach. On the table was a single small flower in a narrow stem vase. She didn’t know the variety. White petals, each with a flare of blue moving out from the yellow center.

She stared at it and tried to keep her voice from wobbling. “How pregnant?”

“Six months.”

Six months? Six?

She told herself to keep it together, despite the awful coincidence. Told herself she could be better than this screwed-up situation.

Buck up, honey. Time to be strong.

“She’s due the week before you,” Ross said.

“Was the baby an accident?” she asked. “Or had they been planning to have one?” Not that Ross necessarily would have known.

But apparently he did. “Lucy has wanted kids for a long time.” His tone was grim.

Jennifer looked up, met his gaze. Now she understood why he thought Drew would never support or acknowledge his child—and she wished she didn’t. To harbor the illusion Drew was just a garden-variety sleaze would have been nice. Now she had to deal with the fact that he was despicable. He’d slept with her while he and his wife had been trying to conceive a child. He’d fathered two babies in one week.

“Does Lucy—” she tried the name on her tongue, not really liking the sound of it “—know the kind of man he is?”

And while she waited for Ross to reply, she had to ask herself the same question. Did you? The answer was painful. Because some part of her had known. Known not to trust him. Known he was capable of something like this. Yet she’d allowed him into her bed.

She took little consolation from the fact that it never would have happened if he hadn’t caught her at a vulnerable moment right before the holidays, a time that had made her feel raw and alone, with her closest friends out of town and the recent loss of her mother weighing more heavily than usual. She’d needed something familiar. Drew had been a person from her past. Somehow that had comforted her, even though their shared history was a source of ambivalence.

But she shouldn’t have been such obliging prey. She shouldn’t have been so easily taken in by him.

A married man. Whose wife was already pregnant.

The craziest piece of it all, though, was that she still couldn’t regret sleeping with him. It had given her the precious baby inside her.

“I don’t know if she does,” Ross said at last. “But I do know she loves him.”

“Will she still?” Will she still love him when she has proof of his infidelity? Will she still love a husband who impregnated another woman?

Ross didn’t answer. His jaw was tight. A vein pulsed at his temple.

It was a pointless question. No one could predict how someone else might react to such circumstances. But she sensed this woman’s feelings would matter to Ross. His sister-in-law was one of the people he cared about, whose well-being and happiness he wanted to preserve. It was very noble of him.

“Don’t think this makes me less interested in confronting him.” She placed a hand flat on the tabletop. “You want me to go away. But I hope you understand that if Drew is going to try to reject his child, he has to look me in the eyes as he does it.”

Ross watched her. He seemed to read something inside her, to assess her resolve. Finally he stood. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. I’ll arrange a meeting.”

ROSS CLOSED HIMSELF in his study to make the call. He sat for a long moment behind his dark mahogany desk, figuring out how to handle the conversation.

Jennifer was so sure of her need to see Drew. So sure it was the best thing for her and the baby. He didn’t agree, but perhaps he was wrong about his brother and the way Drew would conduct himself. Perhaps Drew would seize the chance to do the right thing, to become the man he always should have been.

Not likely. And who knew what the right thing was in this case? He didn’t see any resolution that didn’t result in someone getting hurt.

It was just past six, so he punched in Drew’s number at the law firm on the chance he would still be at work. Voice mail answered after five rings, and Ross hung up.

He dialed Drew at home in Vancouver. Lucy picked up, as he’d anticipated, but still he heard her familiar soft voice and had to force himself to sound normal. He hated to know more about her life than she did.

“Hey, Luce.”

“Oh, hi,” she said.

“The baby doing well?”

She gave a small laugh. “As far as I can tell.”

He thought of how it had felt to cup Jennifer’s stomach, to feel her child move inside her. Incredible. And not an experience he would ever share with Lucy. They had certain lines they were careful not to cross now.

“Is Drew there?”

“His car just pulled into the drive. I’ll go get him.”

Ross picked up a pencil on his desk and tapped it against a yellow legal pad. Gazed distractedly around the study. Like the living room, it was missing its drapes.

Drew came on the line a minute later.

Ross did the small-talk thing, something he and his brother were good at, and then got down to business. “I need you to come over,” he said, keeping his tone casual.

“Now?”

“Yeah. That would be good.”

“Hey, I just got home.”

Ross didn’t feel too worried about his brother’s convenience. “I know. When can you make it?”

“Not right now. Lucy’s got plans.”

“Later tonight, then.”

“Maybe. What’s this about?”

“Nine o’clock?”

Drew covered the mouthpiece. Ross heard a murmur of conversation.

Drew came back on. “I can be there at nine. What’s so important?”

“Just something I want to get handled. In person.”

“A mystery, huh? Okay, big bro. See you in a few.”

Ross hung up. He closed his eyes and massaged his temples, momentarily giving in to the frustration that rose inside him. He would have liked not to deal with this. He would have liked… What? For Jennifer not to have come to him? For her to have struggled on her own, raised his niece or nephew in a lonely little apartment somewhere? Or for her and Drew not to have conceived the baby—for them not to have slept together in the first place?

Well, yes, definitely that, he admitted to himself.

But it couldn’t be changed. And feeling the baby move had elicited an aching tenderness in him—one that vied with the wish for her not to be pregnant with his brother’s child.

Ross reached for the phone again. He needed to call someone from the free clinic who’d invited him to see an action flick with a group of friends that night. “Sorry to do this, Barbara, but I have to beg off.”

The nurse practitioner made an indignant sound. “Again?”

“Something came up.”

“Huh. That’s pretty convincing.”

“Seriously. Something did. Family stuff.”

“It’s not your mom, is it?”

“No, she’s fine.”

Barbara let a moment of silence go by. “Oh, I see. Jackie told you, right?”

“Told me what?”

She sighed. “That I invited my sister-in-law to come along.”

“Barbara…” he said, trying to sound stern.

“I know, I know. But she’s really cute. You’d like her. I know you would.”

Judging from the two other women Barbara had set him up with, he probably would. They were both nice. Both attractive. But neither had done anything for him romantically.

Nevertheless, it was good to stay in circulation—something he’d found difficult after his divorce four years ago.

Ross sighed. “This isn’t about your sister-in-law,” he said. “Jackie didn’t tell me anything. I’d come out if I could, but I can’t.”

“Okay, okay. I believe you.” Her voice softened. “Good luck with whatever’s going on.”

When Ross walked back into the kitchen, he found Jennifer still sitting quietly at the table. Her feet were propped up on a chair now, clad only in white socks, her sneakers on the hardwood floor below.

“Nine o’clock,” he told her.

“He’ll see me?”

Ross selected an apple from the basket of fruit on the counter, washed it and took a paring knife from the drawer by the sink. “He doesn’t know it’s you.”

“Oh.”

“I thought it would be best that way.” He sliced the apple in half and then in half again before coring the quarters.

“Where are we meeting?”

“Here.”

“Okay…” Briefly she closed her eyes.

Ross arranged the apple slices on a plate and set it on the table within her reach. “Help yourself,” he said, taking a seat.

He ate and she ate, and while they chewed they didn’t make eye contact. His gaze passed over the swell of her belly. She was six months pregnant with no family and not much money. He couldn’t help but feel compassion. He saw the courage it must have taken to come here and the strength of purpose that kept her here despite what he’d told her about her baby’s father.

Jennifer turned her head, looking around the dining area. He saw her gaze settle on a formal portrait of his mother and father, taken several years earlier, which hung on the wall.

“How are your parents?”

A standard social question. Basic politeness. He would have loved to give the standard polite answer—that they were well, thank you. “My dad’s fine. Mom just had a double bypass.”

She looked as surprised as he’d felt the day they’d discovered the blockage in his mother’s arteries. “Did she have a heart attack?”

“Yeah. Right on the tennis court. Luckily the ambulance got to her quickly.”

Katherine Griffin had always been trim and active, but her diet hadn’t been the healthiest and she wasn’t the most relaxed person. Still, Ross hadn’t seen it coming. And should have. But he’d allowed his schedule to get too hectic this spring, and had only visited his parents once, briefly, during the month before Katherine’s attack.

“How long ago?”

“Four weeks. She’s been home about three.”

Jennifer frowned. “And…is she going to be okay?”

Ross raised his shoulders in a helpless shrug. These things were hard to predict. “She came through the surgery well. Her heart sustained some damage, though. How much is hard to tell at this point.”

She sat silently. Maybe thinking about his mother. Maybe about her own.

“I suppose stress isn’t very good for her,” she said finally.

“No.” The cardiologist had felt stress was a major factor in Katherine’s disease. During the recovery period, Ross wanted to keep her mind on pleasant topics. Drew’s illegitimate baby didn’t qualify. “You can see why this whole situation is complicated.”

Jennifer reached for another slice of apple. He watched her eat it in three slow and deliberate bites. “I’m sorry about your mother. And I’m sorry the timing’s so bad.”

He nodded. After another pause he said, “I’m not trying to stop you from talking to Drew, but tell me—if it’s money you need, what’s the difference whether you get it from me or from him?”

She glanced up at him, then away. “You’re not the father.”

Of course he wasn’t. Naturally she wanted the father to take responsibility for his actions, but no matter which of them helped her, the result would be the same: financial security for her and her child.

“It’s that important?” he asked.

“A child should have a father. Not a stepfather. Not a series of stepfathers or a series of stand-ins who don’t particularly want the role. Not an absentee benefactor, either.”

He opened his mouth to say that a benefactor was better than nothing. Her look stopped him. It said she hadn’t forgotten Drew had another family. I know he won’t want me or his child, but I have to do this.

Yet he didn’t understand why she did. Was it masochism? Pure stubbornness? A self-destructive love for his brother despite everything he’d done?

Ross was glad, though, that it wasn’t just about the money. Irrationally. Because it shouldn’t make a difference to him. And he shouldn’t care, either, that she would probably be disappointed.

He tried to imagine how Drew might be a father to her child, but couldn’t. Drew paying visits every Saturday afternoon? Drew cherishing him or her, taking an active part in his or her life? That wasn’t how the world worked and it wasn’t how Drew worked. It certainly didn’t seem like something Lucy would be able to accept.

Jennifer slipped her feet into her shoes. She pushed back from the table and stood. “Well, thank you for calling Drew.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I’m going to go get settled and find something to eat. I’ll be back a little before nine.”

Ross walked her to the front hall. “Where are you staying?”

He’d wondered if she still had any friends here who might put her up, but she said, “A motel in Beaverton.”

Upstairs he had two spare bedrooms. For her to waste money on a motel room when she could just stay here didn’t seem right. True, he would probably be better off to keep his distance from her. She affected him more than she should, more than was right, and in the past that had only caused problems. But he didn’t want to think of her completely alone in some cheap, depressing motel room after the conversation she was bound to have with Drew. If he, Ross, couldn’t give her money, at least he could give her a pleasant place to stay the night. And maybe some support as she tried to decide what to do next.

He didn’t open the front door. “Have you checked in?”

“No.”

“So don’t. Stay here, instead.”

“Ross—”

“Save your money for the baby,” he said. “You’ll need it. And it’s no trouble to have you here. I’ve got room upstairs and plenty of food for dinner.”