Choices (40 page)

“Laurel.”
He smiled a broad and megawatt smile, but if faded when he saw my reaction to his presence. He at least had the decency to look chagrined.

“Jesus Christ, what are you doing here?” I swayed slightly and managed to stay upright. He looked tired but vibrant, pissed but
happy, rumpled but incredibly, breathtakingly beautiful. It took every ounce of control I had to not throw myself in his arms and lavish his face with a million kisses. I was so happy and excited to see him my milk started to come in and soak the pads inside my bra, King Cobra was rising and my head was spinning. I tried to take it all in. I tried to understand it all, make sense of it, put it in a pretty box and wrap it up and say okay I’m done with these overwhelming emotions that make me want to vomit and swoon all at the same time. Someone else can have it now. But I couldn’t do that! Brandon was standing in front of me. His lips were moving. He was saying something but I couldn’t figure it out. It wasn’t making any sense. He moved toward me and I pulled away.

“Laurel, you look like you’re going to faint. Here let me help you sit down.” He guided me gently to the couch and sat next to me.

“What are you doing here? How did you know I was still here? Why are you here?” I was on the verge of completely losing control but holding Noah anchored me and gave me strength.

“Paul found me in New York.”
He brushed away a tear that escaped with his beautiful thumb.

“Paul?”
I was confused but then I remembered his determined words before he left the hospital.

“Yeah, I had the same reaction. Crazy isn’t it?” He reached out his hand to touch my hair and then quickly decided against it.

“Why are you here, then?” I asked while my heart was pounding, while I tried to contain my breath, hoping he was here for the reasons I wanted him to be here.

“Paul explained a lot to me while I was in New York. He came to see me about a week ago
. He just marched right into my tiny little office on the basement floor of Perkins Eastman Architectural firm and told me to sit down and shut up. So I did. I already knew though. The police and Grammy called me before he came to me. I was actually clearing up some work and trying to figure out how I wasn’t going to lose this job by taking off more time for another funeral in my immediate family. I knew what happened to you, to Grammy and to my…” He choked on the word and scrubbed a hand over his weary face. “To my mother.” He began again. This time I wanted to reach out and comfort him but I decided to let him speak.

“I buried her in our family plot over at St. Peter’s. Grammy and Pop were there too.
They were cleared of all charges. The police determined it was self defense. They left the farmhouse to me and moved into an assisted living facility to live out the rest of their golden years.” He expelled a heavy, weary sigh and leaned forward to put his head in his hands. “I tried to figure out what to do, whether or not I should come. Paul convinced me that I should. He told me things I never thought were true and I had to come and see for myself.” He didn’t look at me this time. His gaze was intent on Noah.

“Laurel, I’m so sorry for what my mother did to you in order to protect to me. I wish I had the courage to tell you sooner. Maybe if I had no
ne of this would have happened.” My hair rose, my nipples tightened even more and the baby actually started squirming because I was squeezing too hard.

“What are you tal
king about? I don’t understand? What kind of courage?” King Cobra was rising again! I was so afraid to hear his next words, so afraid but they came anyway. My fear did not hold them back.

“I knew Laurel, I knew everything.”
Tears spilled from his eyes and he tried to claps my hands but I shot up off the couch and moved away from him. I was numb and disconnected. I heard his words but I just couldn’t engage my brain to allow them any comprehension.

“You knew? Knew what?” I asked but I knew. I knew exactly what he was going to say.

“I knew what my mother did. I found out a long time ago when I was a kid.” I wanted to slap him. Gone were the feelings of warmth and admiration. I wanted to gouge his eyes out and make his face bleed.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I almost screamed.

“I overheard Jo talking to Grammy on one of Grammy’s infrequent visits. I was maybe eleven or twelve. I was young but I got the gist of it. I was abducted. I know, switched at birth and I came here to meet you to find out more about my real parents.” His eyes filled with tears and mine filled with outrage.

“You used me! You used me! Get out! Get
out!” I ran for the front door and the baby cried. Brandon jumped as well but managed to cross in front of me and hold onto my shoulders.

“Listen to me Laurel
!” He squeezed my shoulders.

“NO! I won’t hear anything you have to say…anything!”
I was trembling and shaking and doing my damndest to remain still. It wasn’t working.

“Laurel, listen to me. You’re holding the baby, our baby. Paul told me he was mine. I should and could be mad at you for that but I’m not. I understand why you did it. Give me the chance to help you understand why I did what I did.” He gently shook my shoulders to get my attention and to focus on him.

“I don’t even know what you named him?” I was calming down slowly and then suddenly like a freight train; anger slammed into me.

“If you think for one bleeding second I’m going to calm down and talk about the baby to you after what you just said to me you are sadly mistaken.” My anger was rising and I was devastated.
You don’t love me? You never did?

“I know you’re mad at me. I know but yes, Laurel, I want to know about the baby and you’re going to tell me.” He removed his hands from my shoulders and gestured for us to sit down again.

“Wrong. You’re going to tell me exactly what you knew and what you were up to.” My mind was swirling. I was trying desperately to control King Cobra and keep the floor underneath my feet and not my cheek.

“It sounds bad, I know.”

“Oh, you think?”

“Look Laurel, I was angry, confused and desperately wanted answers that I couldn’t get from Jo.”

“So you decided to seduce me?”

“Yes.” He shook his head, then ran a hand through his mass of bronze colored waves, scrubbed his face and quickly shouted, “NO!”

“Which is it I’m confused.”
And my heart is breaking!

“That day at the party I had every intention of tracking you down and doing just that…seducing you, but then you smiled at me and touched me and sucked me in with that crazy sexy hair of
yours and sad eyes and I knew two seconds into my plan it wasn’t going to work. I made peace with the whole idea of trying to find my birth parents, right then and there! I gave it up just like that and wanted only to get to know you. I never expected to fall in love with you. I never expected to gain a son.”

“Wait a minute pal, who said anything about you gaining a son.”
I pulled Noah closer to me now.

“Laurel, I know you’re mad but please don’t say that, please! I have no one but you and the baby now, no one.” He was crying now, real tears, big and fat and he wasn’t ashamed to let me see them, wasn’t ashamed to shed them. He w
as being sincere and heartfelt and letting me into that pit of darkness we all possess but rarely shed light on, especially in the presence of someone else.

“Please tell me what you named him.” I struggled with this. I wanted to make him hurt. I wanted to lash out physically and hurt him like I was. I wanted to rip his heart and smash it into little pieces like he just did to me but I could see that it wasn’t just his heart that was smashed into little pieces his soul was too.

I swallowed and cradled him closer to me, “Noah Paul Phillips.”

“Noah. I like it. I like it a lot. I even know why you named him Paul. Paul told me his middle name and why you chose it but nothing else. I totally understand it. I wasn’t there for you and he was.
What’s his last name?” Now, he truly did look hurt and desperate. I really could hurt him now. I really could sink my knife in and twist and twist and twist. I could lie, like he lied to me. No I couldn’t! Who the hell was I kidding? I’m not that vicious.

“What do you think?” I breathed quietly.

“Good. I knew it.” Oh, there’s that arrogance. I almost didn’t want to tell him for that reason, that cockiness and brashness that I loved so much was really infuriating me right now. I should tell him it’s Brittingham.

“Philli
ps.” The look on face was priceless; a mixture of hope and cockiness. It made me want to slap him.

“Okay so now your questions were answered, now answer one of mine.”

“Shoot.”

“Oh, you have no idea!”

“Laurel, I get it. Ask the question.”

“Well, it’s not really a question but a request.”

“Go on.” He leaned closer to get a better look at the baby. “Wow, does he sleep like that all the time? Shouldn’t you do something? He looks like he’s in trouble.” Brandon noticed how little Noah’s chest rose and fell so quickly that it actually looked as though he were having trouble breathing. It was a shock too, the first time around with Vanessa but then it dawned on me why he was asking. He was asking to make sure everything was alright with his heart. “I guess I can’t ask to hold him can I?” He looked at me with yearning, eager eyes.

“NO and NO.
Babies breathe like that. They’re fine. Haven’t you ever sat and watched a puppy sleep?” I thought about not giving him an answer. I thought about hurting him some more and not telling him the baby was fine and his heart was perfectly healthy. I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t. “His heart is fine. It’s whole and healthy.” His shoulders relaxed and he took a deep breath and then he just looked at me with an expression that pleaded for me to cut him some slack. “Tell me about Beth. Since I was your prime source for information, what was Beth to you?”

“Beth.” He blew out a long breathe and stood up and paced over to the fireplace and placed both his hands on the mantle, stretched out his legs with his back facing me. He slowly turned around and gazed at me with the strangest look in his eye. I couldn’t tell if he wanted to strangle me or devour me. Funny, I was feeling the same way.

“You turned me away. You ripped my heart out and set it on fire. I left and went up to New York. I wanted to tell you then what I already knew about my mother’s nasty little deeds but you rejected me and killed my baby, or so I thought. I was so angry Laurel, so hurt and confused. I wanted you more in that moment on your back deck than I wanted information about myself. But you stole all that from me when you told me you killed the baby.” He was crying again, not as hard this time, but tears nonetheless and I winced.

“She was sweet, shy and very timid, nothing at all like you and very, very sick.
Her parents were gone and she had a small circle of friends who took care of her. I met her through those friends at work. I wanted to forget and she wanted to live as much as she possibly could. She had leukemia. We decided to get married and live the best we could, the best we knew how under both of our circumstances. Beth knew about you. She knew about my situation. She met my mom once and refused to be in her presence ever again. We eloped quietly with a justice of the peace in the city. Beth knew she could never compete with you, she never wanted to. She just wanted to live out what remaining days she had in peace and love and wanted someone to share it with. We had three months together and in those three months I did nothing but dream and wish for you. He paused. “I know what you’re thinking.”

“Oh, yeah and what’s that?” I was crying dammit. I didn’t want to cry in front of him. “
Laurel, we barely had sex, maybe a handful of times she was too…” I was pissed. How could he know that!

“You know you could never be a poker player. You wear every single emotion you feel on your face.”

“Oh, yeah, okay enough! I don’t want to hear about that part.”  I was crying now and so was Noah.

“I have to feed him and then lay him down. His bassinet is downstairs. Stay up here and I’ll come back up.”

I walked downstairs trying to control and place everything that was streaming through my tired, addled brain; to place all my emotions into tiny, little pieces of my brain to sort out later. I was so hurt but yet I understood, so frustrated yet I wanted to run into his arms and nuzzle his neck. We both hurt each other, mine was to save him and his was to save me. Really and truly, he had given me so much more compared to the shock of what he just told me that it really didn’t matter. It really didn’t. I know he was being honest. I understand why he did what he did. I believe him. Look what I did. I lied to him and kept his baby from him. I let his mother control me like she controlled him. I settled onto the bed in the spare bedroom in the basement and placed Noah gently against my heavy breast when I heard footsteps on the stairs and I sighed and bit back tears of wanting and frustration.

“Laurel, I know you wanted me to stay upstairs but I had to watch I had to see him. Please, may I stay?” He wasn’t cocky this time, he wasn’
t arrogant or scud-fire sure. He was uncertain, hesitant, questioning. “Please?” One stray tear escaped his eye and he refused to brush it away.