“Had to have? Why?”
“I’m forty-two years old.”
And suddenly Phyllis understood. “You were afraid something would go wrong.”
Becca nodded, tears still brimming in her eyes. “I only figured it out myself not so long ago, but I was just afraid, period. Afraid to open myself up to any more love because that meant I also had to open myself up to the possibility of loss. Of being hurt.”
Nodding, Phyllis took a sip of her drink before it got too warm. “I can understand that.”
“You met my sister, Sari, the night of the Little League championships,” Becca said.
“She’s pregnant, too,” Phyllis said, remembering. Sari was as beautiful as Becca and giddy with happiness. Kind of hard not to be a little jealous of all the blessings these sisters shared. “I don’t know when I’ve ever seen anyone so animated.”
“Yeah,” Becca said. Her smile faded. “But two years ago you’d have met a different woman entirely. Sari lost her sixteen-year-old daughter in a car accident.”
“Oh, my gosh.” Phyllis’s stomach dropped. “I’m so sorry.”
“Me, too.” Becca’s eyes lowered to the table again and another imaginary speck. “The thing is, I was so busy tending to Sari, I never realized how much Tanya’s death was still affecting me. I’ve been terrified of losing anyone else I love.”
“It’s debilitating to realize that there are some things we just can’t control,” Phyllis offered, thinking suddenly of Christine. Her friend had never known the security of control. Had never known a day of peace.
“Will couldn’t forgive me for wanting the abortion.”
“For moral reasons?” Phyllis asked.
“I don’t think it’s that,” Becca said slowly. “At least, I don’t think so anymore.”
Phyllis heard the note of doubt.
“You don’t blame yourself for considering the idea, I hope.”
“I’m trying not to.”
“Becca, there are times when abortion may be the only choice. Certain extreme situations…”
Becca glanced up, her eyes filled with doubt. “I know that in my head, but in my heart…”
“I knew a girl once who’d been molested by her stepfather,” Phyllis said, thinking of Christine’s broken spirit as she’d told her story. Hoping that her friend was truly all right after this latest episode. Needing to see Christine. Angry that something else had happened to her and wishing she could find a way to ensure that Christine never had to suffer again.
“He was usually careful, but one time, when he was particularly drunk, he forgot. She got pregnant.”
The sound Becca uttered was heartfelt and desperate.
“She knew she couldn’t have that baby. Not only would it ruin her life, her reputation, get her kicked out of high school, not only would it tell her little sister what had been going on, but if she wasn’t capable of tending to her stepfather’s lusts, he’d turn to her younger sister. This girl had to protect her little sister at all costs.”
“Please tell me she had the abortion,” Becca said, holding her neck. “How could a teenage girl possibly be expected to bear the child of…of such an unholy union?”
“There wasn’t a legal clinic where the girl was living.”
“No.” Becca’s blue eyes were filled with empathetic pain.
“She found a quack who did it for her, but as a result, she’ll never be able to have more children.”
“How can life be so cruel?” Becca whispered.
Phyllis had asked herself the same thing many times since Christine had confided in her.
“I don’t know, Becca, but don’t you see? That’s why, when we’re given a blessing, we can’t look at the what-ifs.” Phyllis desperately needed to help her new friends find the happiness she felt so sure was waiting for them. “We just have to grab it with both hands and experience it completely for as long as we’re blessed with having it.”
Smiling through her tears, Becca asked, “Could you please tell that to my husband?”
“You don’t think he’s willing to be happy?” Phyllis had never had that impression.
“I do,” Becca said. “It’s just that when I was considering the abortion, it made him feel he didn’t know me at all. He was just so shocked. It made him start to question all kinds of things he’d never questioned before. It made me take a good long look at things, too.”
“Tough situations have a way of doing that to a person.”
“I’ve found my answers,” Becca said with such peace that Phyllis knew something had changed since the last time she’d seen her. “Now I just have to wait until Will finds his.” Becca paused. “And pray they’re the right ones.”
Thinking of the questions Will had asked her earlier that day, Phyllis had to wonder if he’d ever find the answers he was looking for.
Because he wasn’t asking the right questions.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
JOHN STRICKLAND and Will were out on the golf course the next day, in spite of the more-than-hundred-degree heat. Will’s off-white golf shirt clung to him; dust from the course clung to it. His shorts, a dark tan color, were not quite so badly off, but he figured it was only a matter of time. He was sweating like a pig.
And still determined to knock that little white ball clear to Africa. Or as close as he could get. Setting his cleated shoes firmly in the ground in front of the tee, he positioned his body, tested his stance, then positioned again.
“So what’s this about you and Becca going to childbirth classes together?” John asked just as Will was preparing to swing. His club hit the ground with a thud.
“Yeah,” Will grunted. They’d had their second class the night before, and seeing Becca had only confused Will more. He missed her so damned much—had been almost desperate for the opportunity to touch his wife, if only to place a pillow beneath her swollen body.
Will swung, knocked the ball onto the green within two feet of the pin.
“Good shot,” John said, stepping slowly up to the tee. “I’m thinking about moving to Shelter Valley.”
Will grinned. Finally some good news. “I’ll be damned.”
“Yeah,” John said, getting off a beautiful shot, as well.
They gathered their golf bags and started the trek toward their golf balls once again.
“This isn’t just because you’ve taken a liking to Martha, is it?” Will asked.
“No,” John said, so matter-of-factly Will knew it was the truth. “She’s still too raw from the breakup of her marriage, and while we’ve enjoyed the little bit of time we’ve spent together, neither one of us is ready for anything more. But I know that soon I’ll be ready to settle down again, to have a home and someday a family. I loved my wife deeply, but I think I need to move on now. Who knows? If Martha and I still like each other after her divorce is final, maybe I’ll ask her out.”
Will was delighted to hear it.
And a bit put out. His friend was on the brink of discovering what he himself was in the process of losing.
“How did you know you loved your wife?”
Settling his heavy bag more firmly on his shoulder, John half turned toward Will. “You’re asking me that, old man? You’ve been at this love business a lot longer than I was.”
His eye on the little white ball still several yards ahead of him, Will strode along. “Time means nothing. It’s what you do with it that counts.”
“What’d you do with your time?”
Will shrugged. “Obviously I didn’t pay enough attention to my wife. Funny how you can live with someone for twenty years and not even be sure you know them.”
“Keeps life exciting.”
Will harrumphed. If this was excitement, he could live an entire lifetime without it.
Another couple of holes, a missed shot, and Will and John took shelter from the sun on a bench beneath a canopy set up for that purpose, sipping water from little paper cups.
“So tell me what you loved abou
t Becca back in college,” John said into the silence that had fallen. Midafternoon on a sweltering day, the two men had the back half of the course to themselves.
“Her body, of course.” Will gave the expected—and true—response.
“From what I can tell, she’s still got that going for her.”
Will was kind of proud John had noticed—once he’d suppressed the initial instinctive need to kill any other man who looked at his wife.
“That’s it? Her body?” John asked.
“Well…no. Her intelligence really attracted me.”
“She lose that somewhere along the way?”
“Of course not.”
John nodded. And suddenly Will knew what he was getting at. Focusing more completely, he was surprised to find that there was quite a list of things he appreciated about Becca.
“I love the way she carries her composure with her everywhere she goes. Like she’s some kind of damn princess entering the room.”
John pulled his five iron out of his bag. Will planned to take the next hole with a seven.
“You can always count on her manners. She knows how to act in any situation,” Will said, kind of surprised to realize he’d noticed such a thing. Or that it mattered to him.
John slid his five iron back into his bag.
“I can tell what she’s thinking by the look in her eyes.”
“I know what you mean,” John said quietly, and Will realized the other man was thinking of his deceased wife.
“She’s the most unselfish caring person I’ve ever met.”
“Does she make your blood race?” John asked.
The question was a bit personal, but… “Yeah, she turns me on as much now as she did in college. More probably,” he added. “She’s got experience now.”
“Besides sex,” John said, giving Will a sideways glance, “does she make your blood race?”
Looking out at the rolling green lawns spread before him, Will thought about that.
“She sure can make me angrier than anyone else I’ve ever met, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Yup.” John took his seven iron out of his bag.
“It was.”
“Why?”
John stood. “That’s love, man,” he said. “They make you crazy, feeling all kinds of things you don’t feel with anyone else. It’s only because they can make you feel so incredibly good that they can make you feel so incredibly bad.”
Will stood, too, pulled out his five iron. “When did you become so smart?” he asked.
John shrugged, set his ball on the tee he’d just pushed into the soft ground and assumed his position.
The game ended in a tie, but Will hadn’t been playing his best. He’d been having a hard time concentrating.
“Let me ask you something,” he said as they headed out to their respective vehicles in the nearly deserted parking lot.
“Shoot,” John muttered, lofting his bag into the trunk of his rental car.
“You’ve lived in the world—big cities, high-level jobs, faced all kinds of challenges.”
John slammed his trunk, leaned back against it, arms folded in front of him. “Yeah.”
Will stood beside the car, his bag still slung over his shoulder. “So what do you think you’ll find here in Shelter Valley to test a man’s mettle?”
“Look at you, man,” John said. “You’ve faced twenty years of disappointment, not being able to give your wife the one thing she truly wanted.”
Will didn’t need to be reminded of that.
“Guess that would test a man’s mettle. Probably more than some white-collar game you could get all wrapped up in, working for some big company in some big city somewhere.”
Will pondered his statement.
“You and Becca are separated, right?” John asked.
Will nodded. John knew that. Hell, the whole damn town knew that.
“What could possibly be more of a test than losing your wife?”
NOT BOTHERING to change out of his sweaty dusty clothes, Will left John in the parking lot of the golf course and drove straight to his brother’s house. Greg and his family weren’t back yet from their summer home up in northern Arizona, but Will had a key. He only needed access to the attic above the garage, anyway.
Greg and his wife had taken their van, leaving the floor beneath the attic clear for the ladder Will lifted off its hook on the wall. He hadn’t been up in Greg’s attic for years. Had no idea how hard the package would be to find. He knew only that he’d find it if he had to open every dusty old box up there.
WITH RANDI OFF watching a practice tennis match—and keeping an eye on her new women’s tennis coach, as well—Becca had the house to herself again. Wandering from room to room, she regaled her baby with facts about his father, merely sharing the memories as they came to her.
She missed Will so much her body ached. Someday, maybe, she’d be able to get angry with him for what he’d done, for promising to love her forever and then taking it back. She’d heard that anger was a cure for pain.
She’d just didn’t feel angry yet.
The problem was, she understood. Will was a good man. A great man. The best. Honest. Caring. Responsible.
“He’ll make a perfect daddy,” she assured her baby.
He could control many things, could make himself do whatever needed to be done. But he couldn’t make himself love her.
No one could do that.
He’d stick by his marriage vows. She knew that. Simply because he was Will. But if he didn’t love her as she loved him, the marriage would not only be empty, it would be too painful to bear.
“Please don’t hate me,” she whispered to her sleeping baby. “But I’ve called an attorney in Tucson. I’m going to file for divorce and release your daddy from an impossible promise he’s trying to keep.”
Before the tears that threatened could overwhelm her, Becca made herself keep moving. She shuffled blindly into the master bathroom, squirted some bubble bath into the tub, and then maneuvered for another couple of minutes until she was sitting on the side of her huge garden tub, able to turn around far enough to reach the faucet.
With the water running, she peeled off the lightweight maternity dress she’d worn all day, but had to stop to blow her nose before removing the gargantuan underwear she’d had to purchase that summer.
“Stop crying,” she demanded as she gazed at her form in the floor-length mirror. “You have to do something besides cry.”
Clothes in hand, she wiped fresh tears from her eyes and stepped into her room-size closet to deposit the day’s wardrobe in the dirty clothes hamper. Which brought a fresh wave of tears. The hamper never got full anymore.
She thought she heard someone call her name as she came back into the bathroom. She stopped a moment, then chided herself for her folly. Randi would be out for another couple of hours, at least—more if she went for drinks with some of her friends, who’d driven up from Phoenix.
Becca was going to have to get used to being alone.
“Becca?”
Freezing in midstep, Becca listened. “Will?” she called, feeling foolish as her voice echoed in the silent house. Was she so desperate that she was concocting his voice from the sound of water running in her tub?
Becca shook her head, grabbed her robe from the back of the door so she’d have it within reach when she got out of the tub and closed her ears to everything but her own thoughts. Picturing the baby she’d soon be able to hold.
“Becca? Can I come in?”
Spinning around, Becca clutched her long robe in front of her.
Will? She tried to answer him, but no sound came out.
“Becca? Are you all right in there?” he asked, but didn’t give her a chance to answer.
His dear, sweet, worried, gorgeous face appeared in the bathroom doorway, to be followed by the grungiest body she’d ever seen. He was covered in dust. His clothes were sweat-stained. His hair, a little grayer at the temples than it
had been a few months ago, was mussed and damp with sweat.
“What have you been doing?” she choked out over the emotion clogging her throat. She’d been so lonely tonight. Unbearably lonely. And here he was. Solid and strong. Right here in her bathroom.
“I went to get this,” he said slowly, his eyes wide as they took in her mostly naked body.
Becca just continued to stare. He looked so damn good to her. Perfect, standing there, wanting her.
“Guess I should’ve taken the time to shower, but I’ve wasted too much time already…”
He glanced down at his golf clothes, and Becca noticed the box he was holding.
“What’s that?” she asked, only mildly curious. She was more interested in hearing he’d come back to stay.
Not that he’d come to give her an old dusty box.
“It’s for you,” he said softly, lifting it toward her.
Suddenly self-conscious, Becca turned and slipped into her robe, knotting it tightly beneath her breasts before turning back to take the package.
He seemed to notice only now that the box was covered with dust. “Here, let me,” he said, brushing it off. He ripped through the tape securing it, too, reached inside and pulled out a little wooden table box.
“Oh…” Becca’s voice trailed off as her eyes once again flooded with tears.
Gingerly taking the box from him, she ran her fingers over the frosted-glass top. More than memory than by sight, she read the words inscribed there. Mommy’s treasures.
“I can’t believe it,” she whispered, loving the box with her hands, afraid to look up, to find out this moment was a dream born of a desperate imagination.
“Where was it?” She was still staring at the box.
“In Greg’s attic.”
He’d kept their box.
If this was a dream, she was going to play it out for all it was worth. The lid of the box opened as easily as it had twenty years before. Her fingers found the little card she’d left there. Blinking back tears, Becca read the words Will had written there so many years ago.
Becca's Baby Page 21
