Her Ideal Man (10 page)

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Authors: Ruth Wind

BOOK: Her Ideal Man
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Tyler looked at his son blankly. He hadn't realized the boy had been anywhere around, and even if he'd realized it, he wouldn't have expected Curtis to know what
pregnant
meant. “How do you know what that means, kiddo?”
“Cody's kitty got pregnant and she had babies.”
Of course. The kittens had been the center of Cody's life for weeks now. “Well, Miss Anna isn't going to have kittens.”
Curtis rolled his eyes. “I
know.
She hath to have a real baby. Like Auntie Ramona.”
“What?” Tyler looked to his mother for confirmation.
“I was going to tell you. She just confirmed it. She's due in September.”
A curious pluck of sorrow struck Tyler's chest, plaintive and sad. And as if he felt it, too, Curtis said wistfully, “I wish Miss Anna was my mommy.”
A hundred responses rose to Tyler's lips, but he didn't dare utter a single one of them. “Well, she's not, so you'll have to make do with Grandma.” Ruffling his son's hair, he said, “Be good. I'll see you in a little while.”
 
He went straight to the clinic. Before anything else could be decided, he had to know the physical facts.
So early on a festival day, there was no one in the clinic, and Tyler found Ramona filling out forms at the front desk. Her abundant hair was swept into a loose knot on top of her head, and as she glanced up; her spectacles slipped down on her nose. “Hi, Tyler!” she said with a smile. “How are you?”
“I'm not sure,” he said honestly. “But I hear congratulations are in order.”
An expression of almost blissful happiness crossed her face, an expression so ripe it made Tyler want to sit down and weep. “Yes. I've had my tests, so we know it's going to be a boy. Jake is over the moon.”
Tyler hugged her, and gave her tummy a little pat. “I guess you're going to name him for me, huh?”
She chuckled. “Lance said the exact same thing.” She took off her glasses. “I have a feeling this isn't a social call, however. Is there something wrong?”
“Yeah.” He frowned. “No. I mean, I don't know.”
With the gentle touch that made her so beloved by her patients, Ramona gently guided him to a chair. “Tell me about it.”
He hated this stuff. It embarrassed him. He hated going to the doctor, hated having to discuss anything with people who poked and prodded. He especially hated discussing something so intensely private. “I had a vasectomy when Kara was pregnant.”
“I remember,” she said, smiling. She'd made the referral to a doctor in Denver.
“Can they come undone?”
Ramona said nothing for a moment, and Tyler saw that he'd managed to surprise her. Questions rose in the dark brown eyes, but she said mildly, “Yes, unfortunately, it does happen. Do you have reason to believe that has happened to you?”
He laced his fingers together. “Yeah.”
“Only one way to find out. I need a sample.”
He blushed to his toes. “Oh, God.”
Lightly, Ramona laughed, and put a container into his hand. “I'm a doctor, Tyler. I won't tell.” She rubbed his shoulder for a minute. “You know the drill. The sooner you get it done, the sooner we'll know.”
Mortified, he simply sat there, heat radiating in red waves up his face and over his ears. Ramona pushed him gently. “If you're a good patient, I'll give you a lollipop.”
He sighed, a reluctant smile on his mouth. “Do you have any chocolate ones?”
She plucked a round brown sucker from the dish on the desk and held it up.
“Okay.” Tyler rolled his eyes and went into the examining room and closed the door.
 
Anna managed to make it through the day without having a panic attack. On the way home, she stopped at the grocery store and bought a home pregnancy test. It told her what she already knew. She was pregnant.
Her apartment took up the second floor of an historic Victorian house, part of the employment package offered the curator of the museum, since housing was at such a premium in the valley. Her rent was far below market rate, and she loved the charming rooms, with their old-fashioned wallpaper, the claw-footed bathtub, even the quaint, small kitchen. Most of all, she loved the long windows overlooking the splendor of the valley on one side, a view of treetops on another, the mountains on the other.
Tonight, she stood in the living room, leaning against the wall to look at the mountains. Where Tyler lived in the woodcutter's cottage, where enchantment had stolen over them and left her with a child.
It would make a nice fairy tale, but the truth was, Anna was frightened. Her mind whirled with a dozen different considerations—how she would be able to provide for the baby, how it would change her career aspirations, how Tyler was going to react and how much he would want to participate in the child's life.
A part of her felt exuberant and excited and dizzy with happiness. Sipping her tea, she smiled and put her hand on her still-flat belly, imagining a child with his blood, with that noble beauty on its face. And she loved children; she'd always wanted some of her own. It wasn't as if she were some young, naive girl with no options. She was well educated and established in her career, and there was no reason she could not simply raise the baby by herself, as millions of other single women had done. She trusted her ability to be a good parent. She'd had very good training, after all.
And that was the biggest problem of all. She felt tonight an unexpected need to run home to the bosom of her family. She ached to cry on her mother's shoulder, and have her grandmother cook something sinful and cluck over the ways of the modern world. She wanted her sisters to be exclaiming over the blessed event and offering herbal potions that kept their morning sickness at bay, and give her tips on everything from drugs to breast-feeding. She didn't know how she could bear to go through this alone.
But she also could not bear the thought of leaving Colorado. Not after so long a time trying to get here, not after all her dreams and scheming had finally paid off. The idea of leaving now gave her a physical pain, as if some part of her body had become rooted.
The phone rang, and Anna answered it without much energy. To her great relief, it was her sister Mary Frances, calling to chat and complain and gossip. Jack had been caught with another woman, and his wife was divorcing him; Teresa's teenagers were driving her crazy; Catherine was going to have another baby. “You'd think she had enough, already!” Mary Frances exclaimed with a snort.
Anna smiled. Mary Frances had always prized her attractiveness above all things, and had stopped with one daughter, who was as prissy and pretty as her mother. “She loves them. She's a good mother.” A pang arrowed through her. If she went home, she could share her pregnancy with her sister. “When is she due?”
“Thanksgiving. You could come home for a visit then, maybe.”
“That might be a good time, actually. Or Christmas.” Little did they know what she'd be bringing with her. The thought gave her a chuckle, which she swallowed.
“Jack is in so much trouble, he's threatening to move out there with you.”
“That would be nice.” One or another of them was always threatening to come to Colorado. None of them had yet. If it was Jack, at least he'd keep her secrets.
Mary Frances talked a little longer, then hurried off the phone to greet her husband, just home from work. Anna sat beside the telephone, feeling blue and lonely. She desperately wanted someone to talk to, but the only person in town that she would feel comfortable spilling her guts to was, unfortunately, the mother of the man who had made her pregnant. Awkward, to say the least.
Her stomach growled and, with a chuckle, Anna headed for the kitchen. At least she knew why she was so hungry all the time lately. “Come on, kid,” she said aloud. “Let's go get something to eat. I'm thinking a pastrami sandwich.”
 
 
Louise cooked when she was upset. By the time Alonzo came home from work that night, there were piles of fried chicken, a huge vat of potato salad, enough brownies. for an army, and her special green beans with bacon.
Alonzo took off his hat, hung it on a hook and sat down at the table. “Do you wish to tell me what tragedy made all this food appear?”
Until that moment, Louise had managed to remain calm, but the simple sound of the man she was falling in love with unraveled her calm. She put her hands on the counter, bowed her head and burst into tears. “I've made such a mess of things.”
Gently he stood up and rubbed a hand on her back. It was an awkward, but welcome, gesture of comfort. “Tell me.”
Haltingly, she spilled the small duplicity she had practiced when she sent Anna to the mountain, knowing the storm would likely trap her there. “Now she's pregnant, Tyler's furious, and poor Anna is going to pay the price. In other words, I was just being my usual busybody self, and may have ruined three lives in the bargain.”
“I told you this would happen,” he said, shaking his head. “You can't do this.”
“Thank you,” Louise said with a scowl. “That's very comforting.”
“Ah.” His eyes narrowed. “Now you can't fix it, and you want somebody to tell you it is okay. I'm not gonna do it, Louise. You have to learn a lesson now. Now you have to do what you can to make it right.”
“What can I do? The die has been cast.”
He took his hat from the hook. “Stop cooking and start thinking,” he said. “I am going to my house now. This makes me mad at you, and I don't want to fight.”
Stunned, Louise watched him go. Then she clamped her mouth shut. Fine. He was just like all the rest. He could just eat in his own house forever, for all she cared.
Chapter 10
E
ven after the sandwich, Anna felt guilty and sad and alone. Finally, she put on a skirt and a warm coat and walked to the small Catholic church downtown. It was a satisfyingly old place, built in the Spanish mission style, and she loved it. The congregation was small, but devout, and had welcomed her warmly upon her arrival.
The doors were always open, unlike those of many of the churches in cities now, and Anna let herself in quietly. The floors were clay tiles, and could not hide her footsteps, and although there was only one other person in the small nave, she did not want to disturb anyone. She slipped into a pew near the middle and knelt.
Somehow it helped just being here, smelling the incense and candle wax and the church smell that she could never quite identify—mothballs and dust and cleaning products. She had felt a particular love for this church from the beginning, with its Spanish art and the stylized santos and the brightly embroidered altar cloths.
Quietly she bent her head and just let the sense of peace invade her. The saints had answered her prayers before. Tonight she would only ask guidance. The courage to do the right things for her child, and the wisdom to make good decisions.
She heard the sound of footsteps, but did not look up until a voice said softly,
“Señorita,
may I sit with you a minute?”
Anna recognized Alonzo's voice. “Yes,” she said, “of course.”
The Mexican adobe maker slid in beside her. “We all come to the church when we are sad, no?” he said, folding his hands in his lap. “Tonight, I was very angry and spoke harshly and wounded a woman I love very much, even though she cannot seem to accept me.”
Anna smiled, knowing he meant Louise. “All in good time.”
“You know why I'm mad at her? Because she won't mind her own business, and now somebody is going to be hurt, no?”
Ashamed that he knew her secret, Anna lowered her eyes. Suddenly, the mortification of finding herself in such a situation flooded through her, and she felt tears spring unbidden to her eyes. “I shouldn't have done it. I knew better. It was my own fault.”
Alonzo took her hand. “Ah,
hija,
there is no shame in loving, eh? And now this new life will come in the world, and maybe make you happy.”
His gnarled brown hand was strong around hers, and she clutched it back, nodding, but unable to stop the tears. “I keep thinking of my family. If my grandmother knew, she would be so angry with me.”
“They're far away, no?”
“New York.”
“Are you going home?”
Anna lifted her head, the answer plain. “I really don't want to. I love this place. I've worked so hard to come here, to live in Colorado, and it would be crushing to have to admit I couldn't do it after all.”
His fingers squeezed hers. “Tell you what. My children, they are far away, too. Grown up, and they no need some old man tellin' them nothing.” The warm brown eyes twinkled. “You need anythin', you come to Alonzo, okay?”
New tears welled in her throat, but she nodded.
He winked. “Tell you something else,” he said. “Mad as I am at that woman, she don't have no daughters, and she feels real bad. We'll take care of you, okay?”
Impulsively, Anna kissed his cheek. “Thank you.”
“Now let me walk you home. It's not far, no? And a mama needs her sleep.”
 
For several days, Tyler felt frozen. He went through the motions of his days without thinking, as if someone had hit a pause button in his brain. He'd surface suddenly to find himself doing something automatically and wonder how he'd gotten there.
The results of the humiliating test were positive: His vasectomy had indeed failed or grown back or whatever it was they did. It gave him a deeply unsettled sense of lost chances. If Kara had not known of his vasectomy, would she have been less likely to ignore the developing problems in her pregnancy with Curtis? Maybe they would have had another chance, maybe things would have turned out differently if—
But if anything was different, Tyler would not now have Curtis. Untenable.
Three days after the shocking revelation, Tyler crept into Curtis's room late at night, and settled quietly by the wall, watching the child sleep in the soft orange glow of the stove. Curtis slept in his nest of thick quilts, only his blond head and the top half of his face showing.
Even Tyler could acknowledge how much the child resembled him—although Lance repeatedly commented on how much Cody acted like Tyler as a child. Both boys were Forrests through and through. Even when Tyler looked hard, he couldn't find a trace of Kara, except in the boy's tidy nature. He liked things to have a place, and all those things to be in those places, just as Kara had.
As he watched, Curtis stirred and turned to his back, flinging one small arm out of the covers, clutching his stuffed bear close to his chest, and Tyler remembered what he'd said.
I wish Miss Anna was my mommy.
Tyler had seen the way Anna interacted with children. She was natural and easy and calm with them, but she wasn't afraid of discipline, either. More than once, he'd chanced upon her cuddled up in some corner with Curtis on her lap, telling some story in her accented voice. And Curtis hung on her every word, his big blue eyes shining, his face showing his besotted adoration of her. Tyler remembered the way Curtis had hurled himself off the porch at Louise's house, right into Anna's arms. Without missing a beat, she'd knelt to catch him.
Tyler rubbed his face. Curtis had never had a mother, so Tyler had assumed he didn't miss it. It made him feel a little jealous that he hadn't been enough, that no matter what, Curtis still wanted a mother. Like other boys had.
Quietly, Tyler moved to the bed and pressed a kiss to his son's clear, untroubled forehead. Curtis smelled of soap and milk and the baby lotion Tyler still rubbed on the skin that was so sensitive to the dry climate, and the smell went right to his gut. Rocking back on his heels, he let his gaze touch the fan of lashes on the round cheeks, the rosy little mouth, the impossibly fine blond hair.
Waves of love washed through him. It was so easy to love his son. So uncomplicated and straightforward and rewarding. Nothing in his experience had ever come close to equaling it.
With a pang, he thought of the baby Anna carried, a baby he might not ever know, or hold, or have a chance to love. He wondered how the combination of genes between them would work—Tyler was so fair, Anna so dark. Likely it would be dark, like Anna. With her rosy cheeks. He thought of it, a daughter with her apple cheeks and sunny nature, a sister for Curtis.
And into his unguarded mind crept a memory of Anna herself, lying in this very bed, his too-big shirt slipping off her shoulder, her glossy hair spilling around her face.
A fist twisted his gut. He had betrayed himself, and Kara's memory, and Anna, by allowing his lust to overtake him that weekend. There were reasons a man didn't indulge in such casual affairs—because there was nothing casual about that kind of joining. At least not for him.
And there were consequences. Consequences that mainly fell upon Anna, and that made him feel sick.
He had to stop avoiding the situation and at least let her know he acknowledged responsibility. He would see to it that she was well cared for, that her child wanted for nothing.
It wasn't enough, but it was all he could do. Maybe he could talk her into at least staying in Colorado, so that he would be able to see the baby sometimes.
 
The next day he went to see Anna at the museum. He still had no idea what he was going to say. It just seemed that the only honorable thing to do was just go talk to her. Acknowledge his part in her dilemma.
Their dilemma.
It was a quiet morning. A volunteer docent with a string of pearls around her neck and a forthright manner waved him toward the back of the kitchen of the old house. “Just go on back, honey. She's doing some paperwork.”
His feet made no sound on the elegant runner down the hallway, and Tyler was able to steady himself for a moment outside her open door. He paused, taking in a breath, and stepped forward one more step until he could see the office, and Anna, beyond the open door.
It was a small room and, unlike the rest of the museum, a little shabby. Once it had likely been a servant's dining room, or perhaps a storage room, for the plaster walls were unadorned and the floor was ordinary pine planks. With his carpenter's eye, he noticed that the sashes and window frames were plain.
But Anna had not left it so. He almost smiled at the gypsy splash she'd made in the room. A gossamer lavender scarf was draped over the shade of an ancient, ugly floor lamp. A giant travel poster of the Rockies at sunset covered one wall, and pillows in dazzling combinations of red, purple, green and blue covered the aging horsehair sofa, along with a silk shawl, complete with fringes. The bookshelves were crammed full, and on the only remaining wall were dozens of photos. Probably her family, he decided. A handsome, swarthy lot, with striking eyes and lovely hair.
Anna had not yet seen him. She sat behind her desk, scribbling, her cheek resting on her hand. She scowled, crossed something out, consulted a calendar and wrote again. Her black curls were swept into a loose knot at the back of her head, but the riotous mass would not be confined so easily, and curls sprung out at her neck, forehead and temple, giving her an appealingly feminine look.
Although he tried not to do it, he found his gaze on her red, red mouth, that lush and sensual mouth that had given and taken so much pleasure, and felt the predictable stirring in his loins, a heat that spread through his groin and thighs, up to his chest, before he forced himself to glance away, think of other things.
Like the baby she was carrying.
He stepped into the doorway and knocked on the threshold. “Anna, can I talk to you a minute?”
She started visibly, dropping her pencil with a soft “Oh!” Her startled gaze flew up to meet his, and for one long, breathless second, Tyler swayed dizzily in the luminous depths of those black eyes. “Tyler,” she said. “You scared me. Come in.”
He took a step, but paused. There was not a single clear space for him to sit. The chairs and long couch were piled with papers, and Anna jumped up, hurrying around to move them. “Sorry. I'm a slob, I'm afraid. Just let me take these, um, papers and things and—” she looked around for a place to put them “—you can have that chair. Go ahead,” she said, a little breathlessly, when he didn't move. “Sit down.”
He stood there, noticing the soft blush painting her cheeks, noticing the trembling of her hands and the way she was trying to pretend it was all perfectly normal, and something in his heart twisted hard. He sat in the chair she'd vacated and laced his fingers together, waiting while she dumped the papers on the floor and scurried back behind the desk. “Anna, I just came to—” What? He frowned. “I just thought we should at least talk.”
“Oh, Tyler.” Her voice was pained. “I really don't want to do this. You don't owe me anything. It just is. It's just one of those things.” She took a breath. “I shouldn't have been there. I shouldn't have said yes. I shouldn't have... I should have... I don't know. It's just not your problem, okay? I can handle it. I'm not a teenager. I'm a full-grown woman with plenty of support and a good education and lots of experience with children.”
When she paused for another breath, he said quietly, “Anna.”
She looked at him, wary and too vulnerable, and Tyler knew there was only one thing he could say to make this right. It might be different if she were another sort of woman, but she was a protected Catholic girl, a virgin until that weekend, and he suspected the smoke screen of words only hid her very real fear and embarrassment.
“Anna,” he said, “will you let me take care of you and the baby? It isn't your fault, or at least not yours alone. I will never be able to sleep nights, thinking of you trying to handle all of this by yourself.”
She leaned forward. “Tyler, I don't want to cause you trouble, either. I really will be okay.”
He met her gaze. “Anna,” he said roughly, “will you marry me?”
“What?”
“You heard me.” He found himself holding his breath, unsure of what he wanted her to say, how he wanted her to respond. Of course, she would refuse, but at least his conscience would be assuaged, and they could go on to the next step. Whatever it was.
She inclined her head, and he saw light and dark racing through her liquid eyes. She took a breath. “Yes.”
A twist of cold and hot spun through him. “What?”
“Was it a false offer?” Furious heat raced into her face, and Tyler hated himself three times as much as he had when he came to the museum, because in some ways maybe it had been a false offer.
“No,” he heard himself say. “I meant it. Curtis is the most important thing in my life, and I can't stand the idea of you taking my child away somewhere, where I'll never see it. I can't stand to think of you alone.”

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