Barbara Freethy - Some Kind Of Wonderful (24 page)

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*  *  *
A while later Matt heard Emily stirring and knew that they couldn't
spend the next few hours in bed
as he would have liked. Although he
doubted a few more hours with Caitlyn would be enough. He
needed days,
weeks, months, even years.
It surprised him to want to be with someone that often. He'd always
guarded his privacy. Letting anyone in had been dangerous in the early
years and unacceptable in the latter. But Emily's arrival had opened
up
the gates to his past, and the walls he'd been building for more than a
decade were slowly crumbling.
He had two females to thank for that, Caitlyn and Emily. Maybe he
should add Sarah, too. For if she hadn't left her baby with him, none
of this would have happened. Caitlyn would have stayed on her
side of
the hallway.
But she wasn't across the hall, she was lying next to him, in what he
was already learning was her
favorite position, one arm and one leg
over his body, as if she would keep him close even in sleep.
Some men
might have seen it as needy, as too much, but he liked it. No one had
ever wanted to keep
him close, to protect him while he slept. But this
small, feminine woman had more heart than most. Maybe too much heart.
He knew she was crazy about Emily. And he was beginning to realize how
hard it would be for her
to let Emily go.
Maybe she wouldn't have to let Emily
go.
The thought hit him over the head like a sledgehammer. He hadn't wanted
to consider the possibility
that Sarah wouldn't return. But what if she
didn't? What if he had to raise Emily?
Maybe he wouldn't have to let Caitlyn
go either.
Whoa! He couldn't start thinking that way. A couple of nights of sex
was a long way from a long-term relationship. And sure he wanted a
family someday, but now? He wasn't ready. At least he hadn't
thought he
was ready. Things were changing. He was changing.
Emily gave a little cry fiom the living room, disrupting his thoughts.
It was her waking-up cry. Matt realized. He was beginning to be able to
distinguish between waking up, being wet, and wanting food. Another
sign thai he was no longer the same man who knew- every score of every
sports game being played but one who was listening for the fine nuances
of a baby's cry,
"Is she awake?" Caitlyn murmured, stirring beside him.
"I think so."
"I'll get her." She sat up, a chill hitting his body as she got out of
bed.
He would have argued, but the view was just too good to pass up.
Caitlyn tried shyly to hide her nakedness as she slipped on her black
pants and rose-colored sweater, but her quick movements only made him
smile. He'd already traced every inch of her body with his tongue. They
were hardly strangers. Caitlyn's lack of casualness reminded him that
in many ways she was such an innocent. He should be protecting
her—protecting her from himself.
But protection was the last thing on his mind as he watched her hair
flow past her shoulders, wild and tangled from his fingers. When she
looked back at him, her brown eyes were bright, her face still flushed
from their lovemaking.
"You're staring," she told him.
"No judge on this earth would convict me. Come back to bed."
"Later," she said with a laugh. "Emily waits for no man."
Matt lay back and stared at the ceiling after she left the room. He
could hear her talking to Emily,
and he thought how much he liked this
moment, this sense of satisfaction, this feeling of peace that
everything was as it should be.
They were becoming a family, the three of them. He couldn't deny it. He
was falling in love—with Caitlyn, with Emily, with the idea of being
the man in their lives.
"Matt?" Caitlyn called to him, then appeared in the doorway with Emily
in her arms. "Someone is knocking on my door. Could you get Emily a
bottle while I answer it?"
He was already out of bed and putting on his jeans by the time she
finished speaking. Throwing on his T-shirt, he took Emily out of
Caitlyn's arms while she went across the hall. He heard her talking to
someone through the half-open door. Their voices grew louder, then the
sound of music followed.
After grabbing a bottle for Emily, he walked out to the hall to find a
young man, with a bouquet of red carnations in one hand, singing to
Caitlyn.
"Forgive me, Cait, for making you
wait, I love you true, so don't make
me blue. I'll be by soon, near
the end of this tune."
Caitlyn looked at Matt with amazement and embarrassment in her eyes.
"He won't stop."
"Hey, buddy," Matt said. "What's this all about?"
The man got to his feet and handed Caitlyn the enormous bouquet of
flowers and a card. "Have a nice day."
Caitlyn opened the card. " 'Chapter three said don't forget to send
presents to show how much you care.
I still love you, Caitlyn. Call me,
Brian,' " she read aloud.
"Chapter three?" Matt asked.
"He's reading a book so he can figure me out."
"He should have saved his money. No one is going to figure you out by
reading a book."
She raised an eyebrow. "Is that a compliment or an insult?"
He laughed. "It's a compliment. You're one of a kind."
She didn't smile. "What am I going to do? I think he's on his way over."
Matt didn't like her question or the note of indecision in her voice.
What was there to do but call Brian and tell him she wasn't interested
any more, that she loved.. . okay, maybe not loved, but liked, or at
the very least was having sex with, someone else.
"What do you want to do?" he asked somewhat tersely.
"I don't know."
"Well, hell, if you don't know . .." He stalked back into his apartment.
She followed him into the room. "What is your problem?"
"I don't have a problem. You're the one who has a problem."
"You're mad."
"I'm fine. I'm just going to give Emily her bottle and turn on the ball
game. You can do whatever you want." Matt sat down on the couch with
Emily in his arms and flipped on the television. He wanted Caitlyn to
sit down next to him, preferably after she dumped Brian's flowers into
the trash. He wanted
her to put her head on his shoulder and play with
Emily's toes while the baby drank her bottle. He
wanted them to be as
close as they'd been fifteen minutes ago. He wanted Brian out of her
life.
Caitlyn kept turning the flowers around and around in her hand. "I need
to call Brian, stop him from coming."
"Sure, fine, whatever." He turned the volume up louder.
"Don't you want to know what I'm going to say to him?"
"Not particularly."
"Can I come back?" Caitlyn asked.
"Do what you want." He banged his head against the couch after she
left. What an idiot he was. What
if she didn't want to come back? Shit!
What would he do then?
*  *  *
Caitlyn entered her apartment and immediately picked up the phone, but
she didn't dial right away;
she was still thinking about Matt. Was he
jealous? Upset that she hadn't tossed Brian's flowers away? Was that
why he'd acted like such a
jerk? Didn't he know it was so much more complicated than just throwing
some flowers in the trash?
She didn't want to hurt Brian. He was trying so hard to make things
right, and there was something endearing about his efforts. For a man
who had devoted himself completely to his intellectual pursuits,
it was
somewhat gratifying to Caitlyn to have Brian suddenly devoting himself
to her. She knew deep down, however, that it was too little, too late.
But she did owe Brian something; she owed him the truth.
Before she could dial, there was a knock at her door. Brian. She took a
deep breath and opened it.
He tipped his head toward the phone in her hand. "Were you calling me?"
Brian asked with a hopeful smile.
"As a matter of fact, I was."
"I told you I was on my way. I have this feeling that if I don't get
you back now, I won't get you back
at all."
"You better come in." She stepped aside so he could enter her
apartment. "Do you want to sit down?"
"I was thinking I might kneel."
"Brian—"
"Wait, before you say anything." He pulled a small velvet box out of
his pocket. "This is for you."
She knew what it was; she knew
exactly
what it was. And she didn't want
it. Couldn't take it. "I can't."
"Please," he said. "Just open it."
After a moment, she took the box out of his hand and opened it. She
expected to see the ring she'd
given back to him eighteen months ago,
but this one was different. The other ring had been an old fashioned
setting for an old-fashioned girl. This diamond was at least two
carats, a square blunt cut,
a setting that emphasized how large the diamond
was. It was modern, sophisticated, expensive, and
just as wrong as the
other one had been.
"I know you've said a number of times how much you've changed," Brian
said. "I understand that.
I'm not trying to go back; I'm trying to go
forward—with you. That's why I got you a new ring, one
to go with the
new us." He paused, his eyes anxious. "Did I get it wrong?"
'"It's beautiful," she said, for it was a spectacular ring. Any woman
in her right mind would like this ring. And if she'd been madly in love
with him, she probably would have liked it, too.
"Can I put it on your finger?"
She snapped the lid shut.
"I guess not," he said with disappointment.
"We need to talk. Please sit down."
He sat at one end of the couch; she sat at the other end.
"I want you to know that I really appreciate the effort you've put into
trying to get our relationship back on track, but I haven't been
entirely honest with you," she said.
"There is someone else," he interrupted. "That's it, isn't it? Your
neighbor, Matt."
"No, that's not what I'm talking about." She hesitated, wondering if
she had the courage to do this. It had been different telling Matt;
she'd known the secret would stay with him. But once she told Brian it
would be out in the open. Her parents would have to know. Jolie would
have to know. And Caitlyn would have to live the rest of her life with
everyone knowing that she couldn't have children. They'd look at her
with pity. They'd guard their words or watch their actions when a baby
came by.
"Whatever it is," Brian said. "You can tell me. It won't change the way
I feel about you."
"I think it might." She forced herself to look into his eyes. "After
the accident, I got some bad news. I didn't tell anyone,
because it hurt so much, and I couldn't talk about it, so I tried not
to think about it."
"You're not sick?" he asked tentatively.
"Not exactly. I can't have children, Brian. When my pelvis was crushed,
everything inside was damaged, irrevocably damaged. I won't be able to
get pregnant or carry a child."
He stared at her blankly as if the words hadn't registered. "There must
be something they can do," he
said slowly. "I can't believe that
there's not something they can do. Have you talked to your mother? Have
you seen specialists?"
She cut him off before he could get even more wound up. "I had a second
opinion, Brian. And there
isn't anything my mother can do that I didn't
do already."
"But Caitlyn, there are so many new scientific advances. There may be
something you have overlooked. We need to research the possibilities,
talk to specialists, go on the Internet."
"Brian, please. I have looked into the possibilities."
"But you're not a scientist. No offense, Caitlyn, but this is my area.
Let me talk to some people for you. Let me get a copy of your medical
file." He paused, looking confused. "Why didn't you tell me before? Or
even after? You could have written or called me or even come to Boston,
for that matter."
"Because I didn't want to deal with it. I didn't want to talk about it.
I didn't want to listen to all of the suggestions you just threw out.
It was easier after I gave you back your ring and you left to take that
fellowship. I knew it was over between us."
"It wasn't over. I never thought it was over."
"But you do now. I can't give you a baby. Don't you understand?"
Her words hung between them for a long moment.
"I understand what you're saying, but—"
"You think I'm wrong. You think you can fix this. You can't. I'm
finally starting to accept the truth. I can't have a child of my own,
and I know that you want children. That's why I can't accept this
ring." She pressed the box into his hand. "I can't marry you, Brian."
He shook his head in confusion, looking much the way she'd felt
eighteen months earlier, as if he'd
just had the rug pulled out from
under him. "What if... what if I said it didn't matter?"
"But it does matter. Why would you say otherwise?"
"I've never thought of marrying anyone but you. Our families are
perfect together. I can't imagine
starting over with anyone else. We're
good together, Caitlyn. We fit into each other's lives. There
must be a
way out of this."
"I know that it's hard to grasp; it's taken me a long time. But you
have to understand one thing before
you go. Our relationship is over."
"Are you saying you don't love me anymore? Or are you giving me an easy
way out?"
She thought about his question. "When we first met, I was a young girl,
barely out of my teens. I loved the fact that you spoke my parents'
language. Bringing you home made me feel smart and accepted and right
in the middle of things, the way I'd never felt before. You took
charge. You made decisions for us. Frankly, you took up right where my
parents left off. I was happy to go straight from living with my
parents to living with you.
"Then the accident happened, and everything changed. I realized that
bad things could happen to me
and no one could fix them. Living through the pain, the rehabilitation,
and the
uncertainty about being
able to walk again made me look at my life in a
different way. Finally, knowing that I couldn't have children changed
me forever."
She took a breath as the words poured out of her. "I grew up, Brian. I
grew up in a way I never
imagined. I didn't have a choice. I had to
learn how to take care of myself and stand on my own two
feet, and I
had to think about what I wanted from life and how I could get it. I
believe that most men
in this world want children of their own. And I
know that you're one of those men. Family has always
been important to
you and your parents. I can't take that away. And I won't let you
sacrifice for me."
"It's my decision. You should have told me before. You should have told
everyone."
"I was hiding. Matt made me realize that it wasn't fair—"
"Matt?" he asked in shock. "You told Matt? You told this neighbor that
you met last week a secret you couldn't tell me?"
She cleared her throat, realizing her error. "It just slipped out."
"Sure it did." Brian stood up. "This is all a bunch of bull. Caitlyn.
You're not thinking of me. You're thinking of yourself. You want the
guy who lives across the hall." An angry gleam appeared in his eyes.
"Or is it his baby you want? That's it, isn't it? He's got a ready-made
family, just waiting for you to
step in and play mom."
"The baby belongs to his sister," she said tightly, knowing what he was
saying wasn't true. She was attracted to Matt. She cared about Matt. It
didn't have anything to do with Emily. Well, maybe a little,
but not
the way he made it sound, like she was using Matt, like she was
expecting them to be a family.
"What do you want me to do, Caitlyn? Do you want me to go? Or do you
want me to stay and see if we can work this out? I would like children.
I'll admit to that. Maybe I won't be able to come to terms with the
fact that you can't have any. But maybe I will. We'll never know if you
don't give us a chance.
"One thing I won't do is share you with another man. You have to decide
who you want. I love you.
You used to love me. Do you want to throw all
that away on a casual affair? On a man and a baby
who don't belong to
you?"
He let the words sink in, "'Or do you want to try again with me? I can
promise you that I won't leave
you again. I won't put my job before
you. You weren't the only one who changed in the last year. I realized
when I got to Boston that I'd left something important behind—you. It
was the biggest mistake I'd ever made. So what's it going to be?"

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