No Longer Mine (26 page)

It was ironic. He had married a woman he didn’t love because she had been pregnant, and years later he learns the woman he did love had been pregnant as well. It sounded like something that belonged on a talk show.

Do you know a man who left his fiancée to marry a woman he didn’t love because she was pregnant
with his child? Did this man unknowingly leave his fiancée pregnant?

Wade carefully shifted Nikki aside, not trusting himself to speak. He got to his feet and walked to stare out the window, hands tucked into the back pockets of his jeans. Damn it all to hell.

What am I supposed to do now?
he wondered. He closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the cold pane of glass, a weary sigh escaping him. Grief, black as night, swirled within his heart, mixed with impotent anger. What was he supposed to say?

And beneath it all, the anger, the grief, the confusion and the guilt, he felt relief. It hadn’t been another man. He wouldn’t have to let her go in order to save her from his own anger.

The grief mingled with happiness, making it bittersweet. He had lost a son he had never known existed. But he would be able to keep her. They could make more children, other sons.

He’d never know this one.

There can be others though
, he thought, his mind racing from one thought to the next.

Why hadn’t she told him before now?

Why hadn’t she come to him when she had learned about the baby? He would have helped her.

Do you really think she would have wanted your help?

No. Probably not.

But why hadn’t she told him before now? There had been plenty of times she could have mentioned.

Wade, by the way, a few months after Jamie had Abby, I had a baby myself. He looked just like you.

He heard the brush of fabric across fabric, then the shift of wooden planks being walked on. Turning, he stared into her eyes, seeing his own torment reflected there.

“Why didn’t you tell me before now?” he asked quietly, keeping tight control of his own anger. It was, after all, rather poetic justice. He had come seeking retribution and had ended up finding out he was his own worst enemy. He was the nameless, faceless bastard that had haunted his dreams.

Her shoulders lifted and fell in a weak shrug, the corners of her full mouth turned down in an unhappy frown. “I didn’t want you back in my life. I was determined to keep you out of it. I told myself you didn’t

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have the right to know, even though I knew it wasn’t true.” Nikki moved away as she spoke, snagging his shirt from the floor and pulling it over her head. It fell quickly to cover her pale flesh and fragile body.

“And I try not to think about it much. It hurts too much. Telling you wasn’t going to bring him back, so I told myself there was no reason to put myself through it.” Slowly, Wade nodded, accepting that. He could understand that, even if he didn’t like it. He couldn’t even imagine how he would have felt if Abby—

He shied away from that thought, focusing on the matter at hand. “I had a right to know,” he said quietly, his voice intense. “Regardless of how you felt about me, I had a right to know.” Nikki turned to stare at him, her head cocked, her shiny sweep of chestnut hair falling across her brow. “Did you really? Legally, yes, you did. But I have to wonder, if I had told you from the beginning, what would have happened? You would have insisted on having rights, visiting privileges. I would have been forced to see you with your wife and your daughter. I was already in bad shape. How right would it have been to put me through that, especially when I did nothing wrong, nothing to deserve what happened to me? I lost everything, Wade. He was all I had. Why should I have shared him with you?”

“Because he was mine,” Wade rasped, his eyes narrowing as he moved closer.

“And you were mine. I shouldn’t have had to share you with Jamie. It would have killed me to see you with her. Can’t you understand that?” she demanded, her eyes flashing angrily at him.

“Yeah, well, if you had been forced to share your son, maybe you wouldn’t have left Louisville, and maybe he’d still be alive,” Wade snapped, catching hold of her and jerking her up against him.

It was a good thing he had hold of her arms, because she wilted at his words, her body going lax while she stared up at him out of huge anguished eyes.

Wade could have kicked himself the minute the words left his mouth. There was no way to take them back. Staring down at her, he damned himself to hell and back, but he didn’t release his hold on her. She was as limp in his hands as a rag doll, absolutely no strength in her body. Her eyes were dark and wounded.

Carefully, he scooped her limp body up and deposited her on the couch before moving away, regret burning in the back of his mouth like acid. “I shouldn’t have said that,” he finally said, resuming his spot back at the window. “I’m sorry.”

The silence reigned for what seemed like an eternity. Wade tried to find a way to soothe the most recent pain he had inflicted on this woman but could think of nothing. How could he have said that? He didn’t blame her, so why did he say something that would make her think he did?

Wade had to figure out a way to make this better. They had so much they needed to talk about, so many important things, and he had gone and totally bungled things before they could even begin.

He was formulating what he would say and how to say it when the quiet noise behind him began.

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No Longer Mine

When he worked up the nerve to turn around, she stood before him dressed in his shirt and her jeans, her boots laced up. Her jacket was in her arms and she held it to her breast like a shield. “I’d like to go home now,” she said woodenly through stiff lips.

“No.” The panic that rose was swift and thick, enveloping his mind and freezing any apologies he had been about to make. Panic fueled the simmering frustration and he lost the ability to think clearly.

“I would like to go home now,” she repeated.

Wade shook his head, moving to grab her arms. She stood rigidly under his hands, staring at a point past his shoulder. “Damn it, Nikki. Don’t you think it’s time we settled this?” he insisted, wishing desperately he could take back the past few minutes. Hell, the past few weeks.

“It is settled, Wade.”

“It’s not,” he argued, tipping her head back, forcing her eyes to meet his. They were empty, blank.

Her skin was pale, her face smooth. Under his hands, she trembled slightly, minutely, as though frozen from within. “Don’t you think I’m entitled to a little bit of anger here? Maybe one could even expect me to be a bit of a jackass. This is one hell of a piece of news you handed me.” Her lids lowered slowly, shielding her eyes from him while she studied him from under the fringe of her lashes. “I lost my fiancé. That damn near destroyed me. If it wasn’t for my little boy, I would have given up. Then I lost him. Again, I had to rebuild a life for myself, this time alone. The past few years have been a bit traumatic for me, Wade. If anybody is entitled to be a bit of a jackass, it would be me.” Now her eyes rose, locked on his. Hot, angry. Softly, she asked, “Tell me something, Wade, what have you lost?”

“I lost you,” he whispered, his own eyes dark and haunted.

“Through nobody’s fault but your own,” she reminded. “That was your doing, nobody else’s. I think I’ve had more than my fair share of heartache. I certainly don’t need you to add to it. I told you this because I thought we were going to give this one more shot. I felt it was past time you knew. I made a mistake and I admit that. However, it has become clear to me that you blame me for making what most would agree was the right decision. You appear to blame me for wanting to raise my son in a place a little safer than where I lived. He could have easily been killed crossing the street or in a drive-by shooting. He could have been kidnapped and murdered or any number of things. Would that have been my fault? If it had happened in Louisville, would I still be to blame?”

Exasperated, frustrated, he shook her. “I don’t blame you. I shouldn’t have said that, but damn it, you threw me off track. How can I be expected to be logical?” She merely stared at him, through him. From the way she was looking at him, he realized she had already dismissed him from her mind.
Not if I have anything to do with it, you haven’t
, Wade thought angrily. She wasn’t going to spring a surprise like this on him, and then stomp off because he had reacted in a less than admirable manner.

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“You can’t just leave things like this, damn it. It’s unfinished.”

“Is it?” She turned her head, looking at him this time instead of through him. “And how would you propose that we finish this? What would be an appropriate ending? Are we going to kiss and make up, act like we weren’t the biggest mistake on God’s green earth? Or maybe we should just shake hands and be friends. How should this story end, Wade? God knows I’ve tried to figure that out, but I’ll have to admit I’m stumped.”

“I…I don’t know,” he answered helplessly.

Nikki turned away, tossed her jacket down on the couch as she paced the floor.
Damn it all. When are
things ever going to be easy for me?
she wondered with resignation. Nothing in her life was ever easy. She stopped at the back door, her eyes roaming sightlessly over the landscape.

She had to admit…it was lovely here, even in the desolate winter light.

Maybe this summer she would take a few weeks and go stay at her dad’s cabin, wherever in the hell that was. If he didn’t go and put it on the market like he had mentioned off and on the past two years.

On the market.

And Nikki remembered a For Sale sign that graced the yard of a little ranch house in Monticello.

Slowly, she turned on her heel. She remembered her feeling in the truck on the way up here that there was something odd going on behind those dark eyes. Remembered the odd shuttered look in his eyes as he braced himself above her. For a moment then, she hadn’t known this man.

What in the hell is going on here?
she wondered.

“Why did you bring me up here, Wade?” she inquired calmly, even though there was a burning in her chest. Even though deep inside, she already knew what was going on. Anger, the kind she hadn’t felt in years, was building. She tried to rein it in, but she wasn’t having much luck.

He stared at her, his dark eyes blank. She knew. She had figured it out. “I think you know why I brought you up here,” he finally said, turning away.

“Why is your house for sale?”

He stared out the window, his eyes not really seeing the beautiful cold winter morning. “I’m moving back to Indiana. Abby’s not happy here. I’m not happy.” His answer fanned the hot flames that were spreading to engulf her body. “So,” she said coldly, glaring at him. “This was…what? One last trip down memory lane?”

“More or less,” he replied.

“You went to an awful lot of trouble for a roll in the sack, Wade,” Nikki said, her voice ice cold. As she spoke, she turned back to stare out the window. She struggled to regulate her breathing, to rein in the anger.
Stay calm about this, Nik
, she told herself.
Getting mad isn’t going to solve anything.

She was silent a moment longer and then she whirled, her eyes locking on his.

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“
You son of a bitch!
” she shouted, advancing on him until she stood toe-to-toe with him. Small hands planted against his chest and she shoved with all her strength, but was unsatisfied when all he did was stumble backward a step before coming up against the wall.

“I never thought you were a cruel man, Wade, but that was before this little stunt. Did it ever occur to you what might be going on in my head if I were to give in to you?” she demanded, thumping his chest with a clenched fist. “You have been after me for months to give you a second chance. I wanted
us
to have a second chance. That’s why I came back from New York. Hell, if I’d wanted some quick and easy sex, I could have gotten that
there
.
I come back here. I give in, against my better judgment, only to find out you just wanted a private farewell party.”

“Nikki—”

“Shut up,” she said softly, baring her teeth at him in a snarl. “Just shut up.” She spun on her heel, pacing back and forth. “You barged into my life just when I was finally able to think about living again,” she muttered. Then she stomped back and rose up on her toes until they were nose-to-nose. “You tore it apart all over again. You intruded on my privacy for weeks. You interfered with my personal life. You went out of your way to cause me more pain. You brought me here under false pretenses.” She paused to suck in air, lower her voice. “I could have handled that. I didn’t protest or tell you no when that’s all it would have taken to make you stop. I didn’t do that, because I wanted you. I wanted to make love with you. But this wasn’t about making love. It was about adding one more memory to your hope chest.”

Nikki moved away from him, cupping her elbows in her hands and hugging herself. “Well,” she said hollowly, the anger draining out of her as quickly as it had risen. “I hope you enjoyed getting your rocks off. Did you get everything you wanted or is there something we missed?”

“Nikki—”

She held up her hand, cutting him off. Shutting him out. “Just take me home now, Wade. We’re done.”

Wade jammed his fists in his pockets, staring at her closed face. She had shut down and locked up, he realized. He wasn’t going to be able to talk to her now. He relented with a slight nod, gathering his gear, dragging the rest of his clothes on as she stood and stared out the windows.

He knew she wasn’t seeing anything. Her soulful eyes were as cold as the air outside, and empty.

Where do we go from here?
he wondered wearily, shoving his arms into the sleeves of his coat, pocketing his keys.