Ethan (19 page)

“So I’ll have one
,” Shae returned. And it wasn’t like Shae would have to divide herself between duties. She had enough money to bring in a housekeeper, and even a nanny when Shae needed to work.

“If you have feelings for
a man,” her mother began, always astute. “It may be worthwhile exploring those.”

But Shae shook her head. “It’s complicated.”

“Relationships always are,” Jude commented, which made each of the women turn and stare at him in surprise.

Jude never brought a woman around. He was the king of casual dating.

“You’re an expert on that, are you?” Shae challenged.

“We’re not talking about me,” he retu
rned, and then his voice got warm and soft and he said, “I want you to be happy, Shae.”

“Sometimes we don’t get it all,” Shae
confided.  “I really thought I would, so it’s a real bummer accepting that there are some things I can’t make happen.”

“Such as falling in love.” Jude nodded his understanding and Shae detected a sadness in his hazel eyes.

“Exactly.”

Chapter Nineteen

Shae
drove herself to the clinic, as was the plan. Kara had offered to accompany her, to wait for her at reception and be the first to embrace her in this new life Shae had spent a whole lot of time dreaming about. But she knew it was something she had to do on her own. It was an all or nothing kind of thing—the man, the marriage, the baby carriage, as Ethan had mentioned, or flying solo, the way she would parent. While she had her family for support, and appreciated each and every one of them, this was a decision where she had to accept full responsibility.

She paid for parking and hustled across the street when the light changed in her favor.

The waiting room was nearly empty, with a couple talking quietly among themselves and two single women reading magazines. Shae checked in and chose a seat close to the TV. She was too keyed-up to read so didn’t bother pulling the paperback from her purse. She had trouble following the newscast, though, and let her mind drift.

And, of course, it went to Ethan. He’d been calling her. Checking in, he’d called it. They had chatted about suburbia as she’d found it,  and a new project he was considering, and in the hesitant moments when her stomach tightened and she held her breath, hoping to hear anything more significant than the surf report, she
’d realized how badly she wanted him to claim feelings she knew had begun to take root before she’d left. But it hadn’t happened. Either she was fooling herself and Ethan had felt no more for her than a passing fancy, or he was still so tangled up in the past that he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, feel anything of promise for Shae.

He had found a support group, comprised of active and retired military, and he’d even
revealed that he’d found what he was looking for there, that last piece—the strategies he could apply in moving forward. He was finally able to draw a breath that didn’t pinch his lungs, he’d said. And, he’d joked, he no longer felt the need for constant movement. He’d stopped hiding. He’d told her that in a tone full of confession and it had lit her hopes. But then nothing. Well, worse than nothing. He’d thanked her.

“You did it, Shae,” he’d said. “You dove int
o that mess and found me.”

“You
’d have gotten there eventually,” she’d returned, while inside her stomach began a slow slide south.

“
No. You called it, Shae. You gave me the direction I needed.”

“Y
ou followed my lead.” And she was glad he had. She was happy for him, even though her heart was breaking. She knew her voice had been thin, sharp, but she’d wanted done with the conversation. She knew his gratitude for what it was, a kiss-off.

S
he hadn’t heard from him in the four days since, and didn’t expect to hear from him again. He was moving on, a healthy man seeking a healthy relationship.

Her name was called and Shae looked up from the TV. The nurse stood in the open doo
r, dressed in scrubs that had baby bottles and diaper pins decorating the top.

She’d meant what she’d said to Jude. She had thought she could have it all and it hur
t like hell that it hadn’t happened.

But it would hurt a whole lot more if she gave up on this part of her dream as well.

She stood, pushed her purse under her arm, and moved through her appointment almost on auto-pilot—except that everything was new to her, and colder than she’d expected. Shorter, too. She tried to approach it clinically, distancing herself as she removed her clothes and slipped into a robe. She laid on the exam table, feet in the stirrups, and could not have told the difference between having a pap done and the implantation of an anonymous man’s seed.

By the time the doctor was done—within a mere four minutes—Shae felt on the edge of tears.
The numbness that had carried her through the procedure deserted her. No, this was nothing like she’d thought it would be—making a baby with a man you loved was a far cry from the sterile environment of a doctor’s exam room. But it was what she’d chosen. And, she reminded herself, it was the life she preferred—a child versus childless, and even as a few tears slipped from her lashes, she still felt the same way.

Ethan stood in the master bedroom—he didn’t pace, because he no longer felt that constant itch under his skin—in front of the open windows, and let the evening breeze drift over him. Barely seven o’clock and already the sky was an inky black. A month ago, he and Shae had surfed at this time, with the sun still a fiery ball balanced above the horizon. It’d been twenty-six days since she left, but he recalled even the smallest details about her with vivid clarity—the way she tilted her head when she considered his thoughts; the soft curve of her cheek and how alive she’d felt under his fingertips; the electric snap in her blue eyes when he challenged her ideas or ignited her passion.

Was it possible to fall in love in a week?

Was love what he felt?

The emotion
was new and fragile and he wanted to cup his hands around it, protect it, nurture it, watch it grow.

Yes, it was love or something close to it
. And if he gave it a chance, it would grow stronger. He was convinced of it. Now he just needed to win over Shae.

It had taken his four
th group meeting before he fully believed in himself. To know he had what it took to love again, and to do it right. And a fifth meeting to know he could have that with Shae.

He didn’t have to contend with life in the service, deployment and the almost daily barrage of violence, the constant need to stand ready. He had it easier than a lot of the
group members he’d come to know.

He’d needed to understand the affect service had on him, the pressure it had applied to his marriage, to every personal relationship. He got it now. He understood that he’d put distance between himself and Tina. He’d even come to peace over her betrayal. Her choice to die continued to trouble him. But it was no longer a burden of blame. It was no longer grief, but loss. And he could handle that.

Ethan stuffed his hands in the front pockets of his jeans, cupping one around his cell phone as he thought more about Shae. He’d called her every couple of days and they had talked about the mundane, keeping things casual, neither one willing to take a poke at the real issues. Hoping she’d call this time, he’d let four days pass.

She was visiting with family, shopping in The City, looking at houses. She was having trouble choosing one, though she’d admitted that several appealed to her. She had been to the
clinic. She didn’t talk about it, but Ethan had asked and after a long pause she had informed him that she was ‘on schedule.’

And tha
t made his heart clench, skip a beat and then kick back into motion. He’d had no right to ask her to wait. To put her plans on hold.

But he was going to now.

He pulled out his cell and scrolled through his call log, pressed on her name and waited three rings before she answered.

“Hi, Ethan.”

“You were waiting for my call?”

I was hoping for it
, she thought. “I expected it two days ago,” she said. But it was a good thing he hadn’t called. It might have wreaked havoc on her plans.

“I thought if I gave you more time, you would call me.”
Miss me a little. That’s what he’d hoped for.

But he was the one with lots to think about, work through. Shae had left him ready to give them a chance.

“I wasn’t the one undecided,” she reminded him.

“I know, and I’m sorry it took me so long to figure it out. Shae—”

“Things have changed for me,” she said quickly. She didn’t want the conversation to get sticky, to fill up with regrets.

Ethan felt his heart do a floundering kind of dip
and roll. Was he too late?

“You bought the house?”

“I put in an offer,” she confirmed. And she had a plethora of paint samples spread out on the table before her, some for the nursery, some for the master bedroom, others for the kitchen and dining area. She was moving on, even if it felt like she was trudging through quicksand.

“Congratulations,” he said, but his voice sounded flat even to him. He reminded himself that he could work from anywhere some of the time. “I’d like to come up and see you.”

“Why?”

“We’re not finished, Shae,” he said, his voice low and intimate. “You know we’re not.”

She had believed that. She’d left him knowing they were only just beginning.

But
in his silences she had lost hope.

Shae shook
the thoughts from her head and swallowed the lump in her throat. “It’s too late,” she said.

“I don’t believe that.”

“I kept my appointments, Ethan,” she said. Well, she’d followed through with two—she just couldn’t bring herself to go in for the third attempt. The isolation in the procedure had been worse than she’d expected, more than she could bear. And she alternated between praying one of them had taken and planning, if neither of them had, to travel south again and visit Ethan. To give them one more shot at getting it right. “You shouldn’t call anymore. It would be easier for me if you didn’t.”

“Are you pregnant?” He pushed the words p
ast his lips, his body tight, flushed. His pulse throbbed in his head.

“Maybe.”

There was a long pause. Shae could feel her heart beat at the base of her throat. She couldn’t have spoken if she tried. And every muscle in Ethan’s body screamed denial. He took a deep breath and tried to pick up the threads of their conversation.

“You don’t sound happy, Shae.” His voice was thick with feeling.

“Timing’s a bitch, Ethan.”

“I needed too much of it,” he agreed.

“And I didn’t have any to spare.”

She disconnected the cal
l, placed her cell phone on the table amid the paint squares, and tipped her head back, blinking furiously against tears.

Chapter Twenty

Ethan rang the door bell then stepped back
. He realized he was balanced on the balls of his feet, toeing the top step of the porch, and tried to focus on the house. It was nice. Middle America. The house Shae had grown up in. Two stories, stone and stucco, it blended into the landscape. A wind chime made of sand dollars hung from the eaves and made a raspy, muted sound as the air stirred. Indian corn hung in a wreath on the front door and Halloween decorations were taped in the windows.

Ethan tried to roll the tension out of his shoulders as he waited for the bell to be answered. Damn if he didn’t feel like he was a teenager again, teetering on the doorstep on prom night.

When the door did open he was greeted by an older woman he knew was Shae’s mother. They shared the same petite, delicate bone structure and sparkling blue eyes. When she smiled it lit every one of her features, giving her a warm glow.

“Hello,” she murmured. She stood inside the door but
her greeting was friendly.

“Hi,” Ethan
returned. “I’m here for Shae,” he explained.

Her eyebrow arched, carried a tinge of challenge that was so much like Shae he laughed.

“That look,” he explained. “It’s Shae, every bit of it.”

Her smiled rela
xed into a chuckle. “Are you the mystery man Kara mentioned but Shae insisted was more dream than substance?”

“Possibly
,” Ethan admitted. “But I plan to change that.”

“Not an easy task.”

“No.”

Her eyes skimmed over his shoulders, taking in their de
termined set, then rose to his face which was equally decisive.

“It could be you’re up for it,” she allowed and opened the door so he could pass through.

“She isn’t expecting you,” her mother tossed over her shoulder as she showed him to the back of the house.

“No.”

She stopped in front of a set of French doors that opened onto the back patio and turned to him. “I want a smile on my daughter’s face before you leave,” she told him.

“
Yes, Ma’am. That’s my plan,” Ethan confided.

She opened the d
oor and he followed her through it.

Shae was in the back yard, on a lounge
r and reading a magazine. She was munching from a bowl of party mix and a bottle of carbonated water sat on a nearby table.

“Shae
,” her mother began. “You have a visitor.”

Shae turned, her eyes went wide, and her hand poised before her lips, loaded with pretzels and Chex. Ethan smiled into her surprise.

“I hope you don’t mind,” he said. He rocked back on his heels. “I would have called. . .well, I did plenty of that. I needed to do more.”

Shae nodded. She dumped the party mix back into the bowl and swung her legs over the lounge chair as she prepared to stand.

“Are you okay, Shae?” her mother asked.

“
Yes. Thanks, Mom,” she said.

“Can I get you anyth
ing,” her mother asked Ethan. “Ice tea or maybe a sandwich—it’s about lunch time.”

“No thank you, Mrs. Matthews.”

“Laurie,” she corrected then told them, “I have an appointment I need to get ready for. Make yourselves at home.” She went inside and closed the doors behind her, giving them privacy.

“You’re here,” Shae said and stood.

“And I’m staying,” Ethan promised, “for as long as it takes.”

“As long as what takes?”

“Give us a chance, Shae,” he said simply. “That’s what I’m asking for.”

“You don’t know,” she began, “I mean, I could be pregnant—”

“I
do
know, and I don’t care.”

Shae nodded.

“You know me better than anyone, Shae. And I’m not talking only about my past. You know my struggles and my triumphs. You stood beside me, with an uncommon compassion, and helped me explore my darkest moments. That’s true and a man would be a fool to leave that behind. But you’re also gutsy. You rose to the top in a world that would just as soon chew you up and spit you out, and you did it with an honesty that doesn’t usually survive in our business. You took on a man you didn’t know from Adam, tread where few would be willing to go, and you did it knowing there would be no personal gain.” Ethan felt emotion seep into his voice, but he wasn’t finished. He cleared the huskiness from his throat and continued, “You’re driven, but by the purest motives. You have a sense of humor that delights me and a body that makes my knees weak.”

She looked a little like that deer in the headlights, so Ethan stepped closer. He took her hand in his and it felt so right, h
e didn’t want to imagine a moment when he reached and she wasn’t there.

“Will you give us that chance, Shae?’

She nodded, wiped a tear that had slipped from her eyes and said, “Yes.”