Italian Doctor, Full-Time Father

by Dianne Drake

  “Always the doctor, aren’t you, Catherine?” he snapped.

  “And what else am I supposed to be?” she cried.

  “Catherine Brannon. The Catherine Brannon I met all those years ago.”

  “Not any more, Dante. She’s gone.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Was she sure? She’d worked hard to put that Catherine away. But, no, she wasn’t sure she’d succeeded, although she wouldn’t admit that to him. Oh, it would be easy to tumble into his arms right now. They were practically naked under the quilts—a perfect scenario, and one she wanted on so many levels. It would be easy to lift her quilt and invite him in. The two of them, trapped in a tool shed in a blizzard, passing the time by making love. Nice romantic fantasy, and one so easy to slip into. But what about tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that, when the blizzard was over, the toolshed was no longer a romantic little hideaway, and Dante was still Dante, and she was still who she was? What then? “I’m very sure she’s gone. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to put her away. She needs to stay where she is.”

  “I don’t believe that, Catherine. What I think is that you’re the same person you’ve always been. The same amazing person I met years ago.”

  “Amazing perhaps, and wiser for sure,” she said on a sigh. “Especially these past few days.”

  “So why do I get the impression that you’re fighting yourself?”

  “Maybe because I am. Wanting something, wishing for it to happen yet knowing I can’t have it…”

  “But I love you, Catherine,” he whispered. “I always have, and that hasn’t changed.”

  “And love’s never enough.” She felt the tears welling in her eyes. This wasn’t the way she’d wanted to end it…end it for ever this time. Not in a tool shed. Not in a blizzard. But it would end here now because the ugly truth was that, she couldn’t make it work with Dante. As much as she wanted to, there wasn’t enough in her to hold onto him. Wanting and having were two vastly different things, and in the end she was only Catherine Brannon, the one who stood on the outside looking in, never being allowed in.

  “Do you hate what I do that much?” he asked, his voice sounding strained.

  “Hate. Fear. Does it matter? We don’t work, so wouldn’t it simply be easier walking away, leaving it alone? Before we go further? Before we say or do something…cause more pain?” She shook her head. “Because I don’t want to hurt you, Dante. I never want to hurt you, but I will.”

  “You owe me more than this, Catherine.” His voice was bitter now. “You owe me an explanation. I need to understand this!”

  How could he when she didn’t? “Like I needed to understand why you walked out on me the first time?” she snapped, truly regretting what she’d said. But she had to. It was the only way to put emotional distance between them. “Where were you telling me what I needed to hear then, Dante?”

  He was quiet for a moment, and she heard him draw in a ragged breath. It sounded like stark pain and she was glad the shed was dark because seeing Dante’s face would have broken her heart. Could she have found the courage to do this while looking at his beautiful face?

  She hated this, hated herself for dragging out the raw feelings. But she loved him, and he loved her. It was a fatal love, though, and she loved Dante far too much to let her inadequacies into his life. He was right. She did owe him, and pushing him away from her was the high price she would pay for that love. What she owed Dante was the happiness her father had never found with his family and the trust that wasn’t in her. “Where was the explanation you owed me then?” she continued. “When I didn’t know, and you weren’t telling me, and I was left guessing, and wondering?”

  “You’d shut me out, told me to go away. Told me you hated me. What the hell did you expect me to do?”

  “Fight for me, Dante. I wanted you to want me so much that you’d fight for me.”

  “But there was no fight, Catherine. I don’t understand.”

  “There was always a fight, Dante. You just didn’t know what it was. Then when you left and changed so many things in our relationship…” The shallow breath she drew in trembled. “And you didn’t even tell me they were changing.”

  “But I didn’t want us to change,” he said, the anger now abating.

  “Yes, you did. What we had, it worked for who we were. Then, all of a sudden, you changed the rules.”

  “Because the rules in my life changed, Catherine. I didn’t have any control over that. With my family situation—my father’s heart attack, un-resolved issues after Dario’s death, then with your situation…”

  “I wasn’t part of a situation, Dante. I was part of a relationship, and you forgot that. I was a decision, a problem to solve.”

  “No,” he whispered.

  “Yes. And I did hate you for a while when you called and told me what you’d decided to do, and that laundry list of decisions affecting your life included me—after I’d already heard my destiny on a television sports broadcast.”

  “Too many pressures, Catherine. I’m sorry. I wasn’t…” He paused, struggling to find the right words. “I’m sorry I wasn’t faithful to you.”

  She was a movie star, and it had made the news. It had hurt, but no more so than anything else going on between them. “We weren’t engaged any longer. It didn’t matter.”

  “It did, Catherine. To me, it did. Things got complicated, and there’s no excuse for what happened. I was reacting to so many things. Angry. You’d said you hated me.”

  Catherine laughed bitterly. “So you used that as an excuse to climb into another woman’s bed the instant we separated? I couldn’t come to you so you turned to someone else?”

  “It wasn’t like that.”

  “It’s always like that, Dante. Mistresses come in different forms, different seductions. And there’s no way to fight that. Believe it or not, I do understand and I’m not angry with you about that.” That was the truth, too. There had been too many things going on, too many wild, uncontrolled emotions. She’d reacted by telling him she hated him, he’d reacted with another woman. They’d driven each other to what they’d done.

  “No, Catherine,” he snarled, “you don’t understand. You don’t understand a damned thing!”

  “Because you didn’t trust me enough to help me understand, Dante.”

  “But you kept your distance, didn’t want to be let in. You never let me in. And you were the one who set the rules, Catherine. Not me.”

  Her rules. He was right about that. She had kept her distance. That’s all she knew how to do. “Sometimes it’s easier that way.”

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Because the closer you get, the more you hurt. People let you down, or you let them down. Either way, the pain is inevitable.” And unbearable.

  “Like the way I hurt Dario,” he whispered, almost under this breath.

  “I don’t understand,” she said, hearing the pain in his voice.

  “Neither did Dario, and that’s the last thing he ever said to me, that he didn’t understand why I’d broken a promise to him.” Dante’s voice was filled with an anguish like she’d never before heard—an anguish that was ripping at her heart. “He was in the points for the championship. This was the race that would have put Dario at the top, and I was supposed to be there with him. I’d promised, and we’d planned it for weeks, then I backed out at the last minute. Told him I couldn’t make it, that there would be other races and other championships. And the hell of it was there was no reason for me not to go. I was just tired. That’s all. Too damned tired.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, wishing she had other words, better words, words that could help ease his pain. But she didn’t, and she felt inadequate.

  “I’d been to every other race Dario had asked me to come and watch, and there were so many races over the years. I just didn’t want to go and that’s what I told him. He was hurt. Angry. And still getting over the death of his wife.”

  He pause
d for a moment, and everything in the shed went so quiet she could almost hear the snow coming down outside. It was an eerie silence, one so charged with sadness and regret that it caused her to shiver. “You couldn’t have known…”

  “But I should have. That’s the thing! I should have known what an emotional wreck he was, Catherine. We were twins, for God’s sake. Twins have that connection…Dario and I had that connection. But I didn’t know. Or I didn’t want to know.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “Well, do. I was too involved,” he continued on. “I’d taken too much time off from the hospital after my sister-in-law’s death, and my position was in jeopardy. Which is ironic, isn’t it, seeing how I didn’t follow through on being a doctor anyway? Then I argued with him, told him my career was in jeopardy. But I should have known…should have sensed that the real jeopardy was his. And my last words to my brother…I told him he needed to live his life and leave me alone to live mine. He told me he didn’t understand what was going on with me, why I was doing this, and I hung up on him.”

  “Why were you doing it?” she asked gently.

  He shuddered in a breath. “I loved him, and I wasn’t jealous, but I was just tired and I needed a break from the family. That’s all it was.”

  No wonder he hadn’t told her, blaming himself the way he had. “He knew you loved him, Dante. It was a tough time for all of you, he understood that. You loved each other, and nothing, not even your argument, changed that.” She felt so inadequate, so utterly useless, because she understood the terrible grief of never, ever making it right with someone. Understood it so well. “We all say things we regret.” She had said so many hateful things to her father. “That’s part of loving someone, I think. They get the best of us, and also the worst.”

  “But my worst killed my brother! He needed me, and I turned my back on him.”

  “No,” she choked, reaching across for Dante’s hand. But he jerked away from her. “You’re wrong. And Dario would be the first one to tell you that.”

  “How can you know that, Catherine? How could anybody know that? He was upset about losing Louisa, which caused a break in his concentration. And I could have stopped him from driving. But I was too busy being the selfish bastard you accused me of being.”

  More than anybody else could, she did understand. “Dante,” she said gently, trying to take hold of his hand again. This time he let her, but his body was stiff, resistant. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. It was just another of those bad reactions we both seem to have with each other. And Dario’s death was a terrible tragedy, nobody’s to blame. He made his choice.”

  “And it wasn’t a good choice.”

  “But it was his choice, Dante. His. He deserved the respect of being allowed to make his own choice.”

  “Which got him killed.”

  “A slippery track got him killed. The reports said a little oil combined with the water on that curve would have been a deadly combination for anyone hitting that spot. I did read the newspapers about it. That was the official verdict.”

  “But if he hadn’t been on the track in the first place…”

  “You can’t make other people’s choices for them, Dante. That’s not your right. I think Dario would have driven no matter what you did.” You couldn’t make other people’s decisions for them, and you couldn’t allow them to make decisions for you. It was a tangled reality, and one she hadn’t gotten right herself because she’d spent a lifetime allowing so many people to make her decisions. And suddenly she understood. It was crystal clear.

  Catherine scooted closer to Dante until they were touching. Still under separate quilts, but together. Then she threw off her own quilt and snuggled under Dante’s. His body was warm against hers. But his muscles were still tight. Unyielding. “I didn’t know Dario, Dante, but he was your twin and if he was anything like you, I know he would have never put other lives in jeopardy because he was having a bad day. He would have stepped away from the car, the way you would.” She smiled as she snuggled her head into his shoulder. “The way any good Baldassare would.”

  He lifted his arm to wrap it around her shoulder. “You might think that but the truth is we’ll never know.”

  “Yes, Dante. We do know. You may not be ready to forgive yourself yet, but deep in your heart you know.”

  What Catherine knew was that she shouldn’t be doing this. Shouldn’t be under the same quilt with him, pressed to his body, his arm around her. But it was her choice, truly her choice because she couldn’t be anywhere else, doing anything else right then. She did love Dante, but nothing had changed about what she had to do. Except when she would do it. Not now. Not in the tool shed. Not in the blizzard. Like Dante had never been able to forgive himself for arguing with Dario when he had, she would never be able to forgive herself for ending it with Dante at this moment. “Dante, I…”

  She meant to apologize again but before the words were out his fingers were caressing a trail up her bare arm. Instantly, her breathing went shallow and her heart rate doubled. In a wave of turbulent emotion, knowing what was to come and wanting it like she’d never wanted anything in her life, Catherine did the opposite of what she’d expected to do. She pulled away from Dante. Scooted to the edge of the quilt underneath them until she had no top quilt on at all, then fumbled around in the dark for it.

  “I have it,” he said, his voice so low it nearly blended into the darkness. “And I’ll be glad to share it with you.”

  “I’m fine,” she lied, already starting to shiver. She was down to bra and panties, the only dry clothes she’d had left when she’d rid herself of the top wet layers.

  “It’s cold out there.”

  “It’s warm enough.” She wouldn’t die of exposure or anything like that, but there was nothing about her that was close to being warm. Still, to crawl back under the quilt with Dante would be to surrender to something she was desperately trying to fight in the only way she knew how.

  “Does it frighten you that much, Catherine? Because if it does, all you have to do is say no, and I’ll respect your wishes. I won’t lay a hand on you.”

  “Yes, it does frighten me, Dante. Because I want this, want you. And I can’t…”

  Before she could finish, she felt the warm rush of the blanket come down on her, and with it Dante. “No?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “Please, yes.”

  Instantly, Dante moved his hand to her hip, slipping his fingers under her panties, his fingertips dancing their way across her lower belly, then down.

  Catherine arched under him, trying to take in a deep calming breath, but as his fingers continued their waltz into places that hadn’t been touched this way since he’d last touched her there, all she could do was surrender to the pants and gasps he was purposely trying to elicit from her. Her body was responding too quickly to suppress anything, try as she may. Just a mere touch and a small whimper escaped her lips, then crescendoed into a moan. He’d always known how, and she’d always been so fast to react… “Dante!” she cried, her voice now loud and hoarse.

  He chuckled as she rocked against his hand, then bent to kiss her between her breasts when she relaxed. “I always loved the way you did that,” he said, reaching round to remove her bra.

  “And I always loved the way you did that,” she purred in response. It was their first time again. Everything exciting and new. So much to explore. Yet this time so familiar.

  “Remember what I used to say?” he asked.

  “That my body was meant to be touched?”

  “The perfect body to touch,” he said, removing her panties and tracing a delicate line from the valley between her breasts to the valley below. “To taste, to hold…” He pulled her to him now, lowering his lips to hers. But gently. Only for a moment, though, as her tongue found his, arousing a crazy fluttering in her belly and a fire even lower.

  “Dante,” she cried urgently, as she wrapped her legs around him, not ashamed of the pounding nee
d overtaking her that was driving out sense. It should have been slower—old lovers reuniting. They should have taken their time to explore, to savor this first and very last time, but her need to have him inside her, to be one with him once more, shoved everything else out of her mind, and in that instant, as she opened herself to him, she felt his body tense, then that first hard stroke of him robbed her of breath.

  He slid his hands down her back and when he’d reached her bottom, pulled her harder into him, as if even a hair’s-breadth between them was too much to bear. There he held her there for a moment, while she felt the heat of him course through her, and smelt the pure male sex invade her in a way she’d never thought she would have again. “I do love you,” she whispered, as she began to thrust.

  His response was a deep, guttural moan, and something that sounded like an apology. But she couldn’t tell for sure because he began to ride the motion she’d created, first merely going along then finally dominating. Moving together, the feel of his chest rubbing over her breasts, each of his thrusts becoming harder and harder…Catherine melted into the pure pleasure of it all, grabbing hold of Dante’s shoulders to find her own wild rhythm. It was different this time. Harder. More urgent. For her a release of so many years and emotions… “Dante,” she gasped as she reached her climax. Which drove him to his. For those moments there were no years between them. No years, no problems, no reality but their own.

  Then, suddenly, that’s all there was. Years of separation. Once it was over, Dante pulled away, taking his quilt with him. He dressed, and went to sit on the other side of the shed. And Catherine scooted to her side of the quilt and stayed huddled there until the blizzard abated, and they were able to go back to the clinic.

  The next morning, Catherine was gone. That’s the only way she could do this—to leave. Go home to go figure out the pieces of her life and see what could be salvaged. And what couldn’t.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Five months later

  SHE looked in the full-length mirror, turned from side to side, then spun away from the mirror for a quick glance over her shoulder at the back view. Not too bad. She wasn’t showing much yet. Not so much that anyone who didn’t know she was pregnant would notice. Except Max. He knew, and he was keeping track of every pound she gained, calling himself the baby’s grandfather, making sure she took her proper prenatal vitamins, ate the proper foods, got the proper rest.