But at least he would have known.
Not that it made any difference. He wasn’t going to suggest they go to the Thai place. Or to a Yankees game. He went to one without her. He went to Lincoln Plaza to see a new film, too.
He barely grunted a greeting at Mrs. Alvarez as he left to go jogging that evening. She was sitting on the stoop, watching for a delivery man.
He didn’t like the way she looked at him when he passed. Closely. Curiously. Speculatively?
Had Mariah told her about the baby? Had she guessed?
Mariah didn’t show yet. But it wouldn’t be long until she did. What would she look like when her belly was big with child?
The thought made Rhys stumble on the bottom step.
“You watch yourself there,” Mrs. Alvarez said.
Rhys didn’t answer. He hauled himself up and shoved the thought of Mariah away.
He didn't care. Didn’t want to know!
Sarah had been four months along when…
No! He started to run toward the park. He wouldn’t think about that, either. Wouldn’t let himself remember. He picked up speed, dodged around a pedestrian, sprinted across Columbus.
He did more than jog around the reservoir. He ran.
Mrs. Alvarez was still on the sloop an hour later when he staggered back, sweating and gasping for breath. “You run like all the demons in hell are after you,” she said.
Rhys thought that pretty much summed it up.
On the eighth day, he spotted her getting out of a taxi.
Rhys had just rounded the corner, coming home from an early evening run—he’d stopped calling them jogs. And, even though he’d hit the wall metaphorically just minutes before, he sprinted to grab Mariah’s arm before he got to the door.
“Where the hell have you been?” The words were out before he could stop them—or even give them any thought.
She stared at him. She looked tired, he thought. And surprised.
So was he. Hastily he dropped her arm and stepped back. “People have asked,” he explained gruffly.
Mariah’s eyebrow arched. “People?”
“Chloe.” Which wasn’t entirely true, but might well be.
Chloe Walker had lived in Mariah’s apartment last summer while it was being renovated. She’d gone out with Rhys occasionally while Mariah was staying out in the Hamptons. Then last autumn, instead of going home to Iowa to marry her fiancé, she’d married Gibson Walker, the photographer she’d come to work for, instead.
Now Chloe was pregnant, too. Big as a house. She looked as if she was taking in tenants. Rhys had run into her, literally, at Zahar’s two days ago. She’d said, “We missed you at Mariah’s the other night.”
And he’d mumbled something about being busy.
In fact he’d gone down to a jazz club in SoHo just to be out of the house when all of Mariah’s guests had come. He hadn’t wanted to go to her place and have dinner, hadn’t wanted to see anyone, to pretend that nothing had changed. He didn’t want to answer questions if they knew—or to feel awkward if they didn’t.
“Another time,” Chloe had said cheerfully. “We’ll have you guys over. After the baby’s born. Say hi to Mariah.” That was as good as asking after her.
“She said she hadn’t talked to you since your dinner,” Rhys told Mariah now. “And she wondered where you were.”
“Montana. I had an assignment out there.”
He was surprised. She never went that far from home as a rule. He wanted to ask about it. He always enjoyed hearing about her interviews, liked to find out her take on the rich and famous. Mariah understood people better than anyone he knew. She empathized. She got inside their skin. She made them come alive for him.
But he didn’t ask.
He picked up her suitcase off the ground before she could. “I’ll carry it up for you,” he said brusquely.
He told himself he should have just let her go up by herself. But the suitcase looked heavy. She probably shouldn’t be carrying anything that bulky. Not in her… condition. He tried not to look at her midsection. Tried not to notice if she was “showing.”
She led the way. Rhys followed.
She was silent as she opened the door and started up the steps, but then she started talking, telling him about her interview. When she mentioned Sloan Gallagher, his eyebrows went up. Even he knew Gallagher didn’t give interviews. He was curious how she’d managed to talk Hollywood’s most sought after, most reluctant star into speaking to her.
He didn’t ask.
He just clamped his mouth shut and went up the stairs behind her.
It was a memorable view.
In fact, the sight of Mariah’s curvy bottom in a pair of linen trousers on eye level for two flights almost did him in. Winded from his run anyway and annoyed at his reaction to her, by the time he got to her door Rhys was gasping for air.
Mariah turned to look at him. “Out of shape?” she asked, and he didn’t think she was joking.
He didn’t answer. Couldn’t without wheezing. So he just waited while she unlocked the door to her flat and, when she had, he followed her in and put the suitcase down.
“Thank you.” She smiled at him. “Would you like a glass of iced water?” She sounded cheerful, glad to see him, as if nothing had changed.
But it had. He shook his head. “No.” He turned toward the door. “Gotta go.”
She blinked in surprise. Her smiled faltered, then faded.
He did his best not to notice. “See you,” he muttered and went down the stairs two at a time.
He wondered if it was just wishful thinking that heard her say, “Not if I see you first.”
So much for hopes.
She’d gone away telling herself that not being there expecting to hear from him would help—both of them. She wouldn’t be jumping up at every moment hoping the phone or the doorbell was him. He would have time to come to terms with the news.
She’d come home believing that he would have done so.
She’d come home ready to open her arms to him, to rejoice with him, to agree that, while this might not have been the best way to start a family, it was going to be all right, that they would make it—the three of them.
And when he’d come running to grab her suitcase it had been all she could do not to embrace him right then.
Good thing she hadn’t, she told herself.
Otherwise she’d have been kicking herself now—wishing she’d shown a little restraint.
Because Rhys was apparently nowhere near ready to accept the news of his impending fatherhood. He was nowhere near ready to want to be a part of this miracle of new life that he and she had begun.
He might never be ready.
It was the first time she’d actually let herself think that thought.
Her mind—and her heart—almost instantly rejected it. She loved Rhys. She didn’t want to believe he would turn his back on that love—or on their child.
“But it’s possible,” she told herself, staring in the mirror, studying her naked body which seemed already to be changing shape. She was almost three months along now. Getting bigger, rounder.
And still getting nauseated, though not as often or as severely. It usually took something yucky to set it off— like the time Sloan Gallagher had offered her a taste of what he called a “Rocky Mountain Oyster” for breakfast.
She’d looked at it dubiously. “A what?”
“A testicle,” he’d told her.
She’d made a run for the bathroom.
Later, to regain her credibility, she’d had to explain—to tell him it wasn’t simply female squeamishness that had sent her running with her hand over her mouth, but a certain “condition” her body was in.
She’d been embarrassed, felt vulnerable. He’d been gentle and kind and surprisingly supportive and understanding. For a hard-edged roughneck like Sloan Gallagher was reputed to be, she was amazed. And impressed. It gave her more fodder for her article she was calling “Would the real Sloan Gallagher pleas
e stand up?”
Stella would love it.
And a good thing, too, Mariah told herself. Since it looked as if she was going to be a single mother.
“He said he’d help financially,” she reminded herself.
And he probably would. But finances were the least of her problems. Mariah might not be rich, but she was doing fine financially on her own. And she expected to continue doing fine even after she had the baby.
It wasn’t in the financial area that she wanted Rhys’s support.
It was in her life—in the baby’s life.
But she wasn’t going to beg.
She smiled at him when she saw him. She talked to him when she ran into him on the stairs. She waited for some sign that he was coming around.
And she kept right on waiting.
“A baby shower?” Rhys almost swallowed his tongue. He stared aghast at the phone in his hand. “Whose baby shower?”
“Chloe’s, of course,” Izzy MacCauley said cheerfully. “Who else do you know who’s going to have a baby?”
Realizing that the question was rhetorical, Rhys breathed a little easier. “Men don’t go to baby showers,” he told Izzy, who had just invited him. “They’re for girls.”
“Nonsense. Gib and Finn will be here. And Sam Fletcher. You’ve met Sam.” Izzy wasn’t the sort to take no for an answer and he knew it.
“All right,” Rhys told her. “I’ll come.”
“Great. Why don’t you come with Mariah?”
“I can’t!”
“Why not?”
“I’m…” he cast about desperately for a reason “…going fishing with my brother that day. I don’t know when we’ll be back.”
“Okay,” Izzy said. “We’re just glad you’re coming. We missed you at Mariah’s party.”
“Mmm,” Rhys said.
She hung up.
He made the mistake of telling Dominic about the baby shower while they were fishing. “It’s not a big deal,” he said. “I can miss it if we get back late.” Please, let’s get back late.
But Dominic just grinned. “Baby shower? Hell of a social life you’ve got. Wouldn’t want you to miss that.”
Dominic made sure they were back. He even volunteered to take care of putting the fish in the freezer while Rhys cleaned up and went to the MacCauleys’.
Giving him a sour look, Rhys left him to it.
He took his time showering and shaving. He had second and third thoughts about going at all. What if Mariah had told everyone?
What the hell was he walking into?
“Have fun,” Dominic grinned when he left.
“Oh, yeah,” Rhys said. “Oh, yeah.”
Everyone was already there when he arrived.
“Come on in.” Tansy and Pansy, Finn and Izzy’s nieces, drew him in. “Everybody’s out on the terrace.” They led him through the airy, high-ceilinged living room and out onto the terrace in back where a dozen people laughed and chatted.
He only saw one.
Mariah.
Actually he saw two, he realized a second later. She was sitting on the glider bouncing Finn and Izzy’s younger son, Crash, on her lap. As the glider swayed back and forth, Mariah held ten-month-old Crash’s hands, and let him dance on her knees. They were both laughing, and she looked like… like a mother.
It knocked Rhys for a loop.
He’d never thought of Mariah like that.
He’d seen her around kids, but he’d never considered her having any. And now… now he stared… until she looked up and noticed him. Then quickly he looked away.
“Can I get you something to drink?” Finn asked him. “Beer? Iced tea?”
“Beer,” Rhys muttered. He was tempted to ask for Scotch. Neat.
He drank his beer. He stayed away from Mariah. It was clear she hadn’t told anyone about her pregnancy. Everyone was busy hovering around Chloe, patting her belly and recalling when Izzy had been that big.
No one mentioned that in a few short months Mariah would be that size as well.
Rhys gulped his beer and tried to blot the image from his mind.
“Can I get you another?” Finn asked him.
He said, “Sure.”
He talked to Finn and Gib about the time he’d spent in Colorado with Nathan. Finn envied Nathan his niche as a wildlife photographer. Both he and Gib specialized in other areas of the field, but were always eager to talk about related topics.
He talked to Sam Fletcher and Damon Alexakis, both importers and friends of Izzy and Finn, about the Far East. Sam had just come back from Singapore. Damon had just returned from Greece. Rhys had been in both places in the past year when he’d been overseas teaching or putting out fires.
He talked to Tansy and Pansy and to Izzy. He watched Mariah the whole night.
She looked marvelous. There was a glow about her. He’d noticed it the minute he’d come through the door and spied her with Finn and Izzy’s baby in her arms. She was comfortable with Crash. She doted on him and he responded to her.
Which was good, he told himself, because she’d need just such competence in not very many months.
Then, as he watched, Finn came over and scooped Crash out of her arms. “Take a break,” he told her. “He’s imposed on you enough.”
“I don’t mind,” Mariah said.
“You would,” Finn told her, “if you had to do it all the time.”
And Rhys began to notice how true that was. Finn and Izzy worked as a team dealing with the twins and with Crash and his older brother, two-year-old Rip. Sam and Josie Fletcher did the same with their son, Jake. Even Chloe wasn’t coping on her own. Gib was hovering—bringing her a plate of food, getting her a cushion to put behind her back. He was always there for her.
It made Rhys think.
Mariah shouldn’t have to go it alone.
She would need support. Sending her a check every month wasn’t going to be enough.
One single parent wasn’t going to be enough.
He never said a word to her all evening. He talked to everyone else. All the men. Every woman but her. And Chloe.
It occurred to her later that he’d never talked to Chloe.
Was he allergic to all pregnant women, then?
Mariah didn’t know. She tried not to be irritated. She tried not to care. It wasn’t easy, especially when, as she was leaving, Izzy said to Rhys, “Are you going now, too?”
He shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’ll stick around.”
Izzy looked surprised.
Mariah tried not to. “I don’t need an escort,” she said briskly. She thanked Izzy and Finn for the party, gave Chloe and Gib one last hug and more good wishes. She said goodnight to everyone else. She didn’t even look at Rhys.
She didn’t know if Izzy or Chloe or anyone else noticed.
She didn’t care.
She went home and went to bed.
But she didn’t sleep. She tossed and turned and fumed and fretted. She rubbed her belly and wondered about the child inside. Seeing Chloe tonight had brought things home to her. Right now her child was almost an abstraction. She couldn’t even feel it yet. But it wouldn’t be long until she was as ungainly as Chloe was now. And in a little more than a year she would have a child the size of Crash.
Another person.
Needing her.
Would she be enough? Would she be able to cope?
Of course she would.
But in the middle of the night it was hard to feel as confident as she did in the bright light of a summer afternoon.
Fortunately it was a bright summer afternoon and she was working on an article and feeling much more in control and competent when the buzzer on her door sounded.
She expected Mrs. Alvarez, who had said she would bring Mariah back a carton of milk when she returned from the grocery store.
But when she opened the door it was Rhys who was standing there.
“Hey.”
She smiled a little cautiously this time. He smiled a
little, too. She felt her hopes gather once more. Maybe he’d thought about parenthood, too, after last night. Maybe it had been the wake-up call he needed. Maybe he didn’t say anything last night because he wanted to wait until they were alone. Her smile widened somewhat.
Rhys scratched the back of his head and shifted from one foot to the other as if he was nervous. But then he said, “I came to talk. Do you have a minute?”
She nodded and opened the door farther. “Do you want to sit down? I can make some iced tea.”
“No. Thanks,” he added after a moment. He walked to the end of the living room, then turned and faced her.
“I’ve been thinking,” he began finally. “About you. About your being… pregnant.” He paused.
She nodded, encouraging him.
“Last night made me think. Seeing Gib with Chloe and Finn with Izzy and Sam and Josie and all of ’em made me think.”
Mariah nodded again. Her heart beat faster. “Yes.”
“It looks like it takes two,” he said. “No matter what they say about single parenting being okay—and it is if you can’t get anything better, I guess—it’s still not the ideal. The ideal is two parents.” He looked at her, then down at his feet, then out the window.
“Yes,” Mariah said. Then, “Yes,” more firmly, more loudly. “I agree.”
“You’re gonna need emotional support. Moral support. Not just financial.”
Thank God, Mariah thought. Oh, thank you, God.
Rhys rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s what I’ve been thinking about. I can do the financial. But the other… I know it’s important.” He cast a quick glance at her to see and she stared at him, not following.
“Yes,” she said again. Been here, done this, she thought. “What are you saying?”
Rhys jammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and rocked on his heels. “Well, like I said, it’s important—that a kid have two parents. Two people to take care of him. And you’re gonna need somebody, too. So I was thinking… you need to find somebody. A guy, I mean.”
She felt her jaw drop.
“And I wanted you to know I wouldn’t mind… if you found somebody. Some guy. To have a relationship. To marry you.” He looked at her as if he expected her to say thank you.
Rhys's Redemption Page 5
