“Wow.” He knew what a coup that was. He was a big name. A very popular entertainer. The two of them had gone to hear him once last summer at Carnegie Hall. After, Rhys remembered, they’d gone up the Empire State Building again, the music still singing in their minds. It had been a star-filled night and…
He forced himself back to the present. “Did he play for you?”
Mariah smiled. “He did. It was wonderful. He’s just like his music,” she said. “He has this energy, this enthusiasm. He’s seen some difficult times… you know he lost that son in an accident and his wife, well, you know about the drugs… He’s had heartbreak. But he was just so… I don’t know… steady. That seems like too simple a word. He wasn’t at all Pollyannaish. Of course, you wouldn’t expect him to be. But he wasn’t bitter or cynical either. He talked about it all—you could hear the pain. But alongside it there was such… hope.”
Her eyes grew soft as she spoke. There was this gentle, understanding smile on her face. It was a smile Rhys knew well. It had been a part of his life for the past three years. It had gentled and soothed him. He studied the bottle in his hands, remembering.
Mariah giggled suddenly. It was such a soft, happy sound that Rhys looked up, surprised to hear her laughter. “What?”
She looked down and pressed a hand against her abdomen. “He kissed my belly.”
“What?” He gaped at her now.
She looked at him, still smiling. “For luck,” she said. “As a blessing. He said it was always a pleasure to be in the company of new life. And he… he played them… us… a song.” She swallowed and her smile seemed to tremble all at once. She blinked rapidly.
Then she put the glass down on the end table and started to get to her feet. “I don’t think I should stay.”
Rhys was out of his chair before she was off the sofa, blocking her way. “Yes,” he said firmly. “You should.”
She looked at him. Their gazes caught. “Please, Mariah. Stay.”
She stayed.
It was foolish. It was a mistake. She knew it would make her want all the things she’d wanted for so long and knew very well she couldn’t have.
But, as always, she was powerless against him when he looked at her with those fathomless blue eyes and asked her to do something.
She stayed. She shared the meal with him.
He put on a Mooney Vaughan CD and the music seemed to fit her mood. Buoyant one minute, wistful the next. Highs and lows. Fasts and slows.
“The whole emotional register, that’s what I’m after,” Mooney had said to her that afternoon, his soft low voice like rough silk.
Mariah’s whole emotional register was in play tonight. She couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t maintain the distance, the indifference she knew she ought to strive for.
She didn’t know if she could ever be truly indifferent to Rhys. She knew him too well. Had loved him too long.
She’d tried to fight her feelings for him for the past three years. She’d told herself that she was doing a good job. And spending all those evenings with Kevin had distracted her.
But they hadn’t changed the way she felt.
But they hadn’t changed the way Rhys felt, either. She knew that. She could see it in him. He was still Rhys. Still easygoing and funny, insightful and quick, intense and passionate. All of those things by turns.
When he let himself go.
When he forgot that things had changed, that she had changed—that she was carrying his babies in her womb.
And she could see every time he remembered, whenever his gaze dropped to her belly, when he started to speak then stopped and his tone of voice changed, flattened, when almost imperceptibly, but very definitely, he withdrew.
And then, she knew, he was remembering. Not just her i and the babies, but the past—and that earlier baby—the ones he loved and couldn't let go.
Mariah wanted to cry then. She didn’t. She had more of a sense of self-preservation than that. She didn’t say anything—or she said something that drew his attention away, that made him smile and change the subject.
She survived the evening.
She thanked him politely. She tolerated, was actually grateful for him lugging her carryall up to her flat. She thanked him for that, too.
He just nodded. “Take care of yourself, Mariah.”
“I will,” she said. “Thanks again.” And then she added airily, “See you around,” as if they were friends again.
Maybe they were.
But when she went to bed that night she cried.
He didn’t see her the next morning.
He wasn’t really looking. It was just that the light was good if he sat in the chair by the window while he did the crossword from the Times. And he couldn’t help it if he could see the stairs. He saw Mrs. Alvarez go up and down four times. And he saw the Gillespies, the married couple who had the floor through on the floor above Mariah. And he saw their cleaning lady, and Mrs. Alvarez’s cousin, Consuelo.
But he didn’t see Mariah.
Probably out with Kevin, he thought. He dragged his mind away from that and focused on the crossword again. His pencil lead snapped.
“The hell with it,” he muttered and hauled himself to his feet. He wandered through the apartment and out into his small back garden. His tomatoes were ripe. He'd put some in the salad last night. He picked a few more now.
Then he heard a noise up on Mariah’s terrace and saw her hanging out her laundry again. Just her. No Kevin.
“Hey,” he called to her.
She looked over the railing.
“I’ll bring you some tomatoes!” He didn’t stop to see if she wanted any. He just gathered what he had and went back in, putting them in a bag.
When she opened the door he shoved it at her. “They’re more yours than mine anyway. If you hadn’t watered them…” he shrugged and gave her a wry grin “…well, they owe their life to you.”
“So now you’re giving them to me to eat them? Hardly seems fair.”
“Life is tough when you’re a tomato.”
They stared at each other. Awareness pulsed.
“You look… better today,” he said finally. “Not that you didn’t look great yesterday. But…” He shrugged helplessly.
“I looked wrung out yesterday. I was wrung out yesterday. Thank you for the tomatoes.” She didn’t invite him in. In fact she looked as if she was about to close the door when she suddenly said, “Oh!” and Rhys saw the bag jerk in her hands.
“What’s wrong?”
Mariah smiled slightly. “He… or she… kicked me.”
Rhys’s eyes went straight to the bulge behind the bag of tomatoes. Mariah held the bag away and flattened her shirt against her belly. “Watch.”
He watched. Stared, fascinated, as indeed her belly seemed to ripple of its own accord.
“Weird, huh?”
Rhys’s mouth was dry. He opened his mouth to speak, but could think of nothing to say. Weird? Yes.
And suddenly sharply painful. It brought back the memories all over again.
Memories of the day Sarah had first felt the life of their child. She’d grabbed his hand and pressed it against her abdomen.
“Feel? Can you feel it, Rhys?” Her eyes had been shining and eager, wanting to share this miracle with him.
He’d pressed and waited. But the flutterings had been too light. The baby still too tiny. The movements had been too weak to be felt, much less seen. Finally he’d shaken his head.
Sarah had kissed him in consolation. “Soon,” she’d promised. “You’ll feel them soon. It won’t be long.”
But it had been forever.
A week later Sarah was dead.
His throat worked now. He turned away from Mariah whose belly was still rippling. “I have to go.”
They were always there—the memories. Ready to blindside every moment. Ready to come out of nowhere and destroy any moments she and Rhys might share.
Mariah wanted to throw his damn tomatoes.
She wanted to kick the door. Or kick him!
But she couldn’t. She couldn’t even rage at him. She knew his pain.
She recalled too well the night he’d told her about Sarah and the baby. She remembered far too clearly the thick, harsh ache in his voice. She’d seen the pain and heard the unshed tears.
How could she be angry at a man who cared that much, a man who’d lost so much? She couldn’t.
But still she couldn’t help feeling that it wasn’t fair.
It wasn’t her fault Rhys had lost the woman he loved and the child she bore!
But it was her fault, she reminded herself, that he was becoming a father again.
“It was his fault, too,” she muttered as she carried the tomatoes into the kitchen. That was only the truth.
But mostly it was hers.
If she hadn’t gone down that night… if she hadn’t held out her arms to him… if she hadn’t loved him…
One of the babies kicked her.
And she knew that the ifs didn’t matter anymore. It was too late for if.
She patted her belly. “You’re here and I’m glad you’re here,” she told her unborn children fiercely. “And if I need reminding you just go right ahead and kick me.”
Pity, she thought, that they couldn’t kick her where she needed it—in the butt.
CHAPTER SEVEN
He went back to work.
He called his boss the next day. He asked, “You need me anywhere?” and got himself sent to Turkey—just like that. Rhys packed his bag before six and left before midnight. He didn’t even tell anyone he was going.
It wasn’t until he’d been in Turkey three days that he finally called Dominic to tell him where he was.
“You’re where? Turkey? What are you telling me for?” Dominic sounded impatient, harassed and totally uninterested in where his brother might be. Rhys heard him cover the mouthpiece of the phone and bark, “Tell him now. Just no!” at his secretary. Then he came back to Rhys. “What are you telling me for?”
Why was he telling Dominic? He never had before. “I… er… just thought you ought to know. In case something happens,” Rhys said. “To Dad.”
“Like I kill him?”
“Whoa. That bad, is it? What’s he doing now?”
“Breathing down my neck. He’s got a new girl every damn week. Keeps parading ’em through the office. I can’t get any work done. I need to throw up a roadblock, find a woman of my own.”
“To marry?”
“Maybe,” Dominic said, shocking him. “If we like each other. Know any available women?”
“No.”
“Of course you do. Footloose fellow like you. You must have a girl in every port.”
“Not for you to marry.”
“What about your neighbor?”
“Who? Mariah?” Rhys’s whole body tensed.
“Yeah, Mariah. She’s a fox. She’d sure as hell make the old man back off. I wouldn’t mind marrying Mariah.”
“No!”
The force of Rhys’s reply caused complete silence five thousand two hundred miles away. “Oh,” Dominic said shortly, reading way too much into Rhys’s exclamation. “Like that, is it?”
“No, it’s not like that!” Rhys denied hotly. “It’s just…” But he couldn’t say she was pregnant. That would really have Dominic wanting to know who the father was—and making a very well educated guess. It also wouldn’t be beyond Dominic to mention the fact to their father, to take a little of the heat off himself for a while.
“It’s just that Mariah deserves better. She doesn’t deserve a loveless marriage.”
“And you aren’t interested?”
“I’m a one-woman man.”
There was another long pause. Then Dominic said, “Sarah’s been gone a long time. She wouldn’t expect you to—”
“I’m not interested,” Rhys said harshly. “Just drop it, okay?”
“Just saying,” Dominic replied, his tone mild. “Don’t bite my head off.”
“Don’t push me, then. And forget Mariah.”
Dominic didn’t push. He mentioned a couple of other women who might be useful decoys. “Anyone to keep the old man at bay. I don’t know where he finds these women.”
“A deep freeze?” Rhys guessed. He was wishing he hadn’t called. A niggling little part of his brain told him that maybe he should suggest to Dominic that he contact Mariah.
Maybe they would hit it off. Maybe she could marry Dominic and keep the kids “in the family,” as it were.
Rhys’s whole being recoiled at the thought. He didn’t want his brother anywhere near Mariah.
He didn’t stop to think about the reason for that.
He was gone.
Just like that. Overnight. One day he was there, the next he was not.
At first Mariah just thought Rhys was lying low, doing his best—and succeeding—in avoiding her. Then she realized that the angle of his blinds never changed, that his lights came on like clockwork—and no one was watering his tomatoes.
He was gone.
The hell with him, she thought.
She threw herself into her work.
She finished her article about Mooney Vaughan and told Stella she was interested in whatever else came along. Stella called back two days later with a projected story about Simon Hollingsworth, an architect and designer who had done some of the most innovative work on the east coast.
Mariah went up to Cape Cod for four days to interview Simon. He invited her to Martha’s Vineyard to see the project he was working on, then she spent two days with him in Newport looking at some renovations he’d done.
He mentioned other places he’d worked on—on Block Island, along the coast of Maine, down in Virginia. Mariah visited them all. It was exhilarating, demanding. It kept her going long hours.
Hours she didn’t have to think about Rhys.
When she got home, she concentrated on the writing. That was more difficult. And not just because of Rhys.
It was harder to sit at the computer. Her belly was bigger.
It got in the way. The babies were more active. They wanted to kick and play whenever she tried to sit still and work.
So she went for long walks. Kevin sometimes went with her. They talked about his girlfriend. They talked about the stories she was working on. They talked about the babies. They never talked about Rhys.
Mariah didn’t let herself think about Rhys. It was a question of mind over mind, she assured herself. If she kept her mind occupied with other things, he wouldn’t have a chance to creep in.
The trouble was, she couldn’t research and write and go for long walks all the time. Some of the time she had to go to bed, to try to sleep. But sleeping wasn’t easy. The babies seemed destined to become nocturnal kickboxers, at least if their prenatal behavior was anything to go by.
They kicked and punched their way through most of the hours between midnight and five a.m. But even if they hadn’t she would have had to get up anyway. She always needed to go to the bathroom.
“You know how they say you’re eating for two?” she said to Sierra one afternoon when her sister dropped by and commented on the dark circles under her eyes and the weary look on Mariah’s face. “Well, I’m peeing for three. And we all seem to need to get up at different times.”
“You look exhausted,” Sierra said frankly. “Like one of those Halloween spooks.”
“Thank you very much.”
“Well, you usually look so healthy. Now you look scrawny and pale.”
“Scrawny? How can I look scrawny when I feel like a beached whale?”
“The scrawny part is you. The beached whale bit are those freeloaders who are going to be your children. Pity Rhys can’t lug them around for a while.”
Mariah didn’t respond to that. She knew the mention of Rhys was a probe to find out how things stood now. Mariah hoped if she didn’t answer the question would never be asked.
She should have known better.
“
Have you heard from the father of your children?” Sierra asked when she didn’t get anywhere with the more subtle approach.
“He’s working.”
“Bully for him. Has he called you? Does he know you’re dragging around looking awful?”
“Well, I certainly haven’t told him!”
“So he hasn’t called.” Sierra could read between the lines. She studied her sister closely. “Maybe you should take some time off.”
“No.”
“Why not? You need to get some rest.”
“I need to keep food on the table. I’m my sole support.”
“Rhys—”
“Rhys is not supporting me! I wouldn’t let him. Besides, I love my work. And people expect my byline. They look forward to it. Stella said so just the other day.”
“When’s Rhys coming back?”
Mariah shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t care. He’s not involved.”
“The two of you should have your heads knocked together,” Sierra said bluntly. “I don’t know who’s dumber—him for not wanting to get involved or you for letting him get away with it. The babies—”
“Are fine. Stop worrying. Honestly, you’re as bad as Mom.”
A comparison that was a surefire way to get Sierra to stop doing anything.
Now she said, “Mom’s worried, too? Well, for once she’s absolutely right.”
* * * * *
While Rhys worked, he didn’t have to think.
When he was off, he was usually too tired to do more than have a beer with a buddy, then hit the sack.
It should have been exactly what he needed.
And it would have been—without the dreams.
Every night there were dreams. Dreams of Sarah. Collages of their life together—happy childhood moments, the joy of their engagement, the bliss of their wedding day. There were a hundred moments—a thousand memories— all coming to wash over him the second he shut his eyes and gave in to slumber.
And they made him ache with longing. And he awoke sad and desperate—reaching for something—for someone—who slipped further and further away.
Rhys's Redemption Page 11
