Читать книгу Baby 101 - Marisa Carroll, Marisa Carroll - Страница 12

DAMN IT, had he really said the words aloud? He looked at Lana. Her eyes were dark with an emotion he couldn’t read.

“Are you sure?” she asked quietly.

He raked his free hand through his hair. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a decent night’s sleep. Greg had been fussy all evening. Dylan had felt tied in knots trying to soothe the little one. She had said Greg could sense when he was angry or frustrated. As if to prove her right, the baby stirred and frowned in his sleep. Dylan began jiggling him gently, holding him close so he could hear his heartbeat and be reassured. Except his heart was hammering in his chest, thundering in his ears. He didn’t think that could be reassuring. He settled Greg a little lower in the crook of his arm.

She was waiting for an answer. “Yes. No. Look, will you just forget I said anything?” He should never have started talking to her. It was late. He was tired. She was too damned good a listener. He’d thought it was safe enough to talk about Saudi. After all, they’d both made it through without a scratch. But memories of his friend Greg and the months of pain and suffering before his death had crowded in.

And with that breach of his defenses came memories of Jessie. Young. Scared. Alone. So pretty. So needy.

“It’s not easy to forget a statement like that.”

He’d expected an automatic assurance that his words were instantly forgotten. A meaningless gesture, maybe, but one that would get him off the hook for tonight. That’s what Jessie would have done. What most women would have done. But not Lana Lord.

“No, I suppose it isn’t.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No. I never intended to say the words aloud.”

“And what about your son?”

“What about him?”

“Will you let it keep on affecting the way you feel about him?” He wondered if she was as good a shot with a gun as she was with words.

“I can’t answer that.”

She looked away. She folded her hands on the counter and stared at them. The overhead light picked out streaks of cinnamon and gold in her hair. He could smell her perfume, light and flowery. If he leaned a few inches closer he would feel the warmth of her skin radiating through the space between them. “I’m sorry to hear that. I don’t want Greg to suffer what I did as a child.”

“Suffer? I don’t understand.” But he thought he did, a little, anyway.

“Wondering why my mother left us on the doorstep of the clinic. Wondering what we’d done wrong that she would leave us all that way.”

“You said your adoptive parents loved you.” He didn’t love Greg. Couldn’t love him as a father should, and that ate at him. She was right. Kids could sense that kind of thing, no matter how hard you tried to hide it.

“They did. And it helped me put those doubts aside. But it never completely made them go away. I would hate for Greg to have those same doubts.”

“I told you I never intended to speak of it to a living soul.” Her adoptive parents had learned to love her. Maybe that was the key. Maybe he could be taught to love his son.

“You will try not to let it come between you and Greg.”

“I try every day of my life.”

She wasn’t looking at him, but at the baby he was holding. Her thoughts were all for Greg. For a moment Dylan was jealous of the sleeping infant. Lana was a woman who knew her mind and her heart, not like Jessie, who was buffeted by every passing emotion. Lana was fiercely loyal and fiercely dedicated to those she loved. It would be a lucky man who earned that love for his own. Was he hoping to be that man? Was that why he’d taken off his wedding band after all these weeks?

“What was she like?” she asked softly.

“She was twenty-four when she died, twenty-one when we married. It was a few weeks before Greg died. He had bone cancer. It went fast and it was pretty brutal.”

“You comforted her and perhaps you mistook her gratitude for love?”

“I knew there was another man,” he said, and heard the old anger in his voice. He swallowed hard and went on. “She was coming off a bad relationship. He was older, married. He broke it off and went back to his wife. Then Greg got sick. She was a wreck.” He hadn’t meant to be so blunt. This conversation was getting out of hand. Before he knew it he’d be telling her everything.

“And you were the one who was there to pick up the pieces.”

He considered not answering, turning away and walking out of the room. She wouldn’t follow him. She wasn’t that type. But if he stayed put, she’d keep asking questions as long as he kept answering them. And someplace inside him, a part of him wanted to keep talking, to maybe find out a few answers himself.

“I watched her grow up. She was just a kid when we went to Saudi. She sent tapes and letters. She was so young she dotted her is with little hearts and drew smiley faces in her Os.”

“But when you got back it was a different story.”

“Yes. She wasn’t a little kid any longer. She’d been living with an aunt. All the family they had left. And, well, she was a little wild.” She’d had a lot of problems with commitment and fidelity, too, but hell, he hadn’t known any of that until it was too late for both of them. She was cute and playful, and he’d fallen head over heels in love with her the first time he saw her. But he hadn’t told Greg. She was too young for him, and Greg had come to work for his dad. It would have complicated things.

He was Greg’s buddy, nothing more. Too old and too serious for her.

“You fell in love with her,” she prompted in that quiet voice of hers.

“Maybe a little.”

“Maybe a lot?”

“Maybe.”

“But you were just her older brother’s buddy from the war.”

“Yep, that was me. She went off to college and fell in love with her mystery man. Greg didn’t like it, but she was of age and there was nothing much he could do.”

She nodded. “Then Greg got sick. The love affair soured. Dylan to the rescue.”

“Semper Fi.”

“The Marine Corps motto.”

Semper Fidelis. Always faithful. He nodded. “Greg was my best friend. Jessie’s future was the most important thing in the world to him.” And he’d failed to keep her safe and happy. Instead, he’d contributed to her unhappiness and her death.

“But surely that doesn’t extend to—”

What was she going to say? He beat her to it. “A marriage of convenience? A rescue mission to save a screwed-up kid from herself?” He was angry again, and it showed. Greg squirmed and whimpered.

Lana took it right between the eyes. She didn’t flinch or look away. “Yes,” she replied steadily. “I guess that was what I was going to say.”

“I married Jessica because I loved her.” Somehow that seemed important to say. Maybe he thought it would shock him out of his awareness of Lana as a woman, all softness on the outside and steely strength on the inside, sitting there before him. Still, it was the truth. At least it had been for a while. But not at the end. Not for a long time before the end.