Close to Her Heart

by C. J. Carmichael

  “I don’t have anything else that fits.”

  “Not even pajamas?”

  “You can tell I slept in this?”

  “Um. Yeah.” His gaze swept over her uncombed hair and make-up free face. “Tell me you’ve had breakfast, at least.”

  “Milk and my multi-vitamin.”

  “Mom cannot live on milk alone,” he announced, handing her the B.B. bag.

  “Oh my gosh. Amazing. How did you know I was craving one of these?” She bit hungrily into the sandwich, then mumbled her thanks.

  He pulled out his phone and called Miriam. “I’m at Dani’s and I’m staging an intervention. You have to take her shopping. Now. Okay, I’ll give you half an hour. No longer.” When he’d ended the call, he added, “I suggest you do something with your hair before Miriam gets here.”

  Dani set the sandwich aside for a moment, so she could deal grab her brush and an elastic from the bathroom. “I’d forgotten what it’s like to have a mom. You’re good at it.”

  He perched on one of the kitchen stools and regarded her thoughtfully. He’d lost his mother when he was nineteen. Dani, when she was sixteen. They talked about it sometimes, the way it hurt. The way the missing never stopped, not even now that they were adults.

  But it had been so much harder for her than him. She’d only been sixteen and her father had been useless. She’d had to step into the role of mother to her younger sisters. Which was why, she’d once told him, she didn’t think she’d ever have kids.

  Obviously, she’d changed her mind on that score.

  “I feel like I hardly slept at all last night, but I must have dropped off for a few hours at least, because I dreamt about my Mom.”

  Dani had managed to pull her hair into a presentable ponytail. The style showcased the perfect bone structure of her face, the sweet curve of her lips and the blue of her eyes. She’d set down the brush and was now staring out the window, in the dreamy way of someone who wasn’t really living in the present.

  “Was it a good dream?”

  “Yeah. She came into my room and kissed my forehead. She told me not to stay up too late reading.”

  “I bet your Mom used to say that to you a lot.”

  “All the time. But she would never turn the light out. Because she understood. Mom and I were alike in that way. She loved to read too.”

  Dani had told him this before. But he still listened. Just the way she listened to him when he felt like talking about his mother. He wondered if any of Dani’s sisters realized what a misfit she’d felt like growing up with them all on the Circle C Ranch. Sage, Callan and Mattie were all accomplished riders, athletic and great lovers of the outdoors. Whereas Dani—and her mother—felt more at home in the world of books.

  “How do you think your mom would have felt about—” he glanced at her waistline—“the baby?”

  “Happy, I think. That’s one of the hardest things. Not being able to tell her. Not ever being able to share the experience of motherhood with her.”

  As a man Eliot doubted he could fully comprehend what the loss meant to Dani. But he could sure see how sad she felt.

  “My very last memory of Mom is seeing her standing in my bedroom doorway, looking back at me with a smile before closing the door. I wish I’d known then that in less than two hours—”

  She didn’t finish her sentence, because she didn’t need to. Eliot knew her mother had been killed in the barn late that night, while she and her husband were trying to help a heifer with a difficult delivery. Distressed and in great pain, the heifer had landed her mother a kick to the head, causing instant death.

  Dani turned from the window, focusing her amazing, faded-blue jean colored eyes on him. “What’s your last memory of your Mom?”

  He cleared his throat. “She came into my room to ask if I thought her scarf went with her new coat.” His mom hadn’t had daughters to ask such questions of, and so she’d turned to him, her youngest son. Frankly, he’d been happy to oblige. He’d always had a good eye for color.

  “And did it?”

  “No. But I told her it did, because I knew they were running late. Dad was already out in the car, revving the engine the way he always did when Mom kept him waiting.”

  If only he’d told his mother the truth. Then his mom would have gone to her room to select a different scarf and his parents would have departed for their party a few minutes later. They wouldn’t have been in the intersection when the teenage driver paying more attention to text messages than the road, ran the red light.

  *

  When it came to shopping, Miriam knew what she was doing. She navigated while Dani drove, taking them first to Sugarlump where Dani purchased gray slacks, a plum-colored skirt and two dresses for work. Currently her tops and blazers still fit and she thought they still would for at least a month. She also bought underwear. “Bras. I need bigger bras.”

  Her breasts, actually, were what had first tipped her off she was pregnant. They’d tingled and become super-sensitive. Now her pretty B cups had expanded into C.

  She allowed Miriam into the change room to see. “If this keeps up I’ll be into triple G by the time I give birth.”

  Miriam winced. “Wonder what will happen when you shrink back to normal?”

  “Yeah.” Dani stared at her image in the mirror. Was this the end? Was she now on a downward slope that would whisk her into middle-aged frumpiness?

  “On the bright side, you look pretty hot right now. Buy the bra. It’s perfect.”

  On the way out of the store, another purchase added to her canvas shopping bag, Dani reminded herself that her sister Mattie, five years older than her, had delivered twins, and still looked great. Yes, Dani’s body was about to be invaded, stretched and re-shaped. But it would snap back. Eventually.

  But would her life be equally elastic?

  What were her days going to be like once she had a baby? How would she juggle work, time with friends, her running and social life?

  Truth was, she couldn’t imagine any of it. She was holding on to a slim hope that somehow Adrian was going to provide the solution to all her problems. Her stomach tightened—Nerves? Excitement?—as she anticipated their lunch tomorrow. Less than twenty-four hours now.

  “Hungry?” Miriam asked.

  “Starved,” she admitted. Even though she’d eaten every crumb of the breakfast sandwich Eliot had bought for her.

  “Well, you can’t eat until you’ve bought some jeans. I checked online and Village Maternity carries Citizens of Humanity. We’ll go there next. I don’t ever want to see you in those yoga pants again.”

  Dani smiled. “What if I’m doing yoga?”

  “Well. Maybe then. But just maybe.”

  *

  The next day Dani was grateful to Miriam for taking her shopping. She wore her new maternity jeans with a pink linen blouse and wedge sandals. Her hair was long, in soft curls, and she’d put on her usual make-up trio—eye liner, mascara and lip gloss. She turned this way and that in front of her mirror. You had to look closely to see the baby bump.

  But it was there.

  She took a cab to the restaurant, purposefully arriving ten minutes late because she wanted this meeting to be different. Usually, she was the on-time one, with no six-year-old daughter to serve as an excuse. But today, she wanted Adrian to have his eyes on her as she walked toward his table. She pictured him smiling, rising from his chair and opening his arms. She had it all worked out and so it was disappointing to discover that he still hadn’t arrived, wasn’t waiting at all.

  She was escorted to their reserved table by the window. First thing, she checked her phone, but there was no message warning her he was running late.

  “Would you like something to drink, Miss?” The waiter, a young male whose appreciative gaze told her that she was, indeed, looking good, set down two menus.

  “Water is fine for now.” She thought back to when she’d first met Adrian, at a meeting shortly after he’d accepted the posting for
faculty head. He’d looked Italian to her, with his thick dark hair and olive skin.

  And his eyes—they were soulful and sad, wise and perceptive. She’d felt as if they’d established a special connection from the moment he looked at her and said her name.

  “Dr. Carrigan. Yes. I’m familiar with your work. As a father, I find it very interesting.”

  Her work—the reason she was here in Seattle at the University of Washington—was with the much respected Dr. Jenna Dayton. Jenna was interested in the infant’s sensitivity to fairness and early pro-social behavior and how that linked to later academic success. They’d just completed a major research paper and released a jointly written article that had been getting a lot of attention.

  Dani had felt gratified by Adrian Carlson’s acknowledgment. And she wasn’t put off by the mention of a daughter, either. Like everyone else, she knew Dr. Carlson’s circumstances, that his wife had died six months ago, that he’d re-located with his daughter needing to make a new start.

  Dani wasn’t used to looking to colleagues—especially those in positions higher than hers—for dating prospects.

  But Adrian was the kind of man a woman was lucky to meet once in her lifetime. He had the polite manners of a European, combined with a brilliant intellect and a sharp wit. How could she resist?

  If he hadn’t been attracted to her, too, she would have been spared.

  But she could tell, from the start, that he was.

  The way his eyes would dart to hers when something was said that struck him as interesting or clever. The way he rolled his pen with his long elegant fingers when they were alone, later, at the end of the meeting. She looked at those fingers and imagined them on her skin—

  “Darling. I’m sorry I’ve kept you waiting.”

  She’d been daydreaming so hadn’t noticed him enter the restaurant. Now, Adrian was at the table, bending to kiss her before taking a seat.

  “Ava was so excited about going to this party. Then when it was time for me to actually leave, she turned clingy. I was afraid I was going to have cancel our lunch entirely, but fortunately, the mother hosting the party brought out supplies for a craft—making a sock puppet or something—and instantly I was extraneous. Ava wouldn’t even hug me goodbye.”

  Dani heard the words, but didn’t take in their meaning. She was focused on the way he called her darling, his favorite endearment for her. Adrian never dropped the “g” the way flirtatious cowboys back in Montana often did. His darling sounded smooth and sophisticated.

  She sipped her water, trying to push away the resentment she felt about his late arrival. This was supposed to be a happy occasion. She couldn’t begin by nursing a grudge.

  The waiter returned and before she could intervene, Adrian had ordered them a bottle of a Sonoma Syrah. “I’ve been looking forward to seeing you all weekend,” he said, reaching for one of her hands. “I’m glad you wore that blouse. You look so feminine in pink.”

  He stroked the skin on her hand gently, slowly, suggestively.

  “It’s been a long time since we made love.”

  “Yes.” She studied his eyes. Was this her opening? But before she could get out the right words, Adrian was talking again.

  “There’s a boutique hotel down the street. What do you say we rent a room after lunch?”

  They’d never done that before. It sounded extravagant to Dani. But also erotic.

  “Maybe. But there is something—”

  The waiter was back with the wine and two glasses. Dani let him pour some of the Merlot into her glass, not wanting to make a big deal about not drinking until she’d delivered her news.

  When they were alone again, she leaned in close and lowered her voice. “If you’re wondering if I’ve been avoiding having sex with you the past while—the answer is yes.”

  Adrian looked shocked. Hurt. “Darling. You’re not happy with me?”

  “No, no, that’s not what I’m trying to say. I didn’t want you to see me naked.”

  “But—why? Your body is beautiful, Danielle. You know how much I love it. How much I need it.”

  Why was it so hard to tell him? Maybe she should have done it over the phone. Not to mention sooner.

  “I’m pregnant, Adrian.”

  She watched his face go completely still. It was like the switch to his personality had been powered off. She understood. He was pulling into himself. Processing her words.

  Slowly he withdrew his hand, bringing it up as if to ward off a blow.

  “But—” He fell silent again. “The night of the Christmas party. When we found that back room—?”

  “Yes.” She’d worn a strapless red dress to their faculty Christmas dinner. The dinner had been organized in a restaurant that catered to small business gatherings. Their party had run late, and she and Adrian were the last to go. He’d been expected home—his nanny wanted to spend the night at her sister’s, because they were catching a plane together early the next morning. So he’d found a little room, pulled her inside and closed the door.

  “You’ve been driving me crazy all night long. Where did you get this dress? Oh, my God, you look so beautiful.”

  She remembered the heat of his mouth on her neck, shoulders, back. She’d gone to the bathroom earlier, removed her panties. When his hands travelled up her legs and found her nakedness, he’d groaned in her ear.

  “You are so wicked, Danielle. And I love it.”

  He’d hitched up her dress, unzipped his pants and taken her there, with her back pressed against the wooden door.

  The one and only time they’d taken no precautions.

  She’d expected him to pull out in time, but he hadn’t. “I’m sorry,” he’d whispered. “That just felt too good.”

  Well, how was it feeling now? she wondered. He still hadn’t said a word to her.

  “That was—four months ago,” he finally said.

  “Yes. I’m sixteen weeks along.”

  He brushed a hand through his hair, a familiar gesture when he was confused. “You haven’t said a word.”

  “I was—” She ran her finger around the rim of her wineglass. “I think I was sort of in denial.”

  “Being pregnant isn’t the sort of problem that gets smaller with time, Danielle.”

  Problem. “I know.”

  “Have you—do you know how you want to deal with this?”

  He looked anxious. A fine sheen of moisture had popped out on his brow and upper lip.

  He began fiddling with the white linen napkin, folding it first one way, then the other. His gaze had dropped to the table, too. No matter how hard she stared at him, willing him to raise his head, she couldn’t get him to look at her.

  “Obviously, an abortion would erase the entire problem for you,” she said.

  For just a second, his eyes flashed up and she saw the hope in them.

  “But it’s not that easy for me,” she added.

  “Danielle, you’re an academic. One of the brightest people I know. So far you’ve made very smart decisions in your life. You’re only thirty-five and already you’ve earned a reputation with your research. In five years, you’ll be eligible for tenure.”

  Actually, she was thirty-four, she wanted to say. But she was too focused on the way he’d said, your life. Not our life.

  “Having a baby wouldn’t stop me from going back to work, continuing my research. It wouldn’t disqualify me for tenure.”

  “No.” He was quiet for a while, waving away the waiter when he tried to approach for a food order, sipping down half a glass of wine. His gaze went to the untouched glass on her side of the table. “Are we having a discussion here? Or have you already made up your mind?”

  She felt as if he was underscoring a line he’d already drawn between them with words like “problem” and “your life.” And it hurt. She’d finally come to him with this, hoping to share some of the burden. But he was handing it right back to her.

  “As you’re the father, of course I care what
you think.”

  “To a point,” he said with some bitterness.

  “Is there no part of you that sees this as good news?”

  “God, you make me feel like a monster for saying no. But the last two years have been hard. Dealing with Vanessa’s death. Trying to be a good father to Ava. Let me tell you from experience, being a single parent isn’t easy.”

  Did it not even occur to him that there was another answer here? That the two of them could make a life together? Raise his Ava and their baby as one family?

  “I guess I should have asked this sooner. But what have the past six months meant to you? What do I mean to you?” From under the table, Dani clenched her hands, preparing herself for some hard-hitting truths, and the fact that Eliot and Miriam may have been right about this relationship all along.

  “Danielle, I adore you. I truly do. I think about all the time. I want you all the time. But after six months, I’m not ready to say we should get married. And I’m not going to let an unplanned pregnancy rush me into making such a serious decision. Especially not when I should be putting Ava’s best interests ahead of everything.”

  This time it was Dani who bowed her head, Dani who couldn’t lift her gaze to meet his.

  Everything he said was perfectly sensible. She understood instinctively that he wasn’t trying to hurt her. He was being careful and protecting his daughter.

  “So—if I decide to keep the baby—do you want to stop seeing one another?”

  He sighed. “I’m not going to desert you. Or walk away from my share of responsibility.”

  Was he talking money now? She hesitated to ask, in case he started to think that was what she’d been after all along. When it totally wasn’t. Sure, they’d only been seeing each other for half a year. But it was long enough for her to know she loved him. Where would he find anyone more perfectly suited to him, than her? They shared common interests, enjoyed spending time together and had great chemistry.

  So what was missing?

  Why wasn’t six months long enough for him to love her, too?

  *