Not Through Loving You

by Patricia Preston

  Lia laid it on the table faceup. A skeleton held a white dove with an arrow through its chest. “Okay, that’s definitely creepy. What does it mean?”

  “It’s supposed to symbolize the demise of the heart. Of course, these are just cards.”

  “Demise of the heart?”

  Gilda swept them into a pile. “I’ve never found them to be that reliable.”

  “I’m glad of that,” Lia responded. “I need to get back to Lafayette Falls.” She had made a trip home to Nashville for enough clothes and personal belongings to last her a couple of weeks.

  Gilda saw her out. After a hug on the porch, Lia headed for the red Jag.

  “Don’t forget to look for the rainbows,” Gilda called.

  Lia waved before she got in her car. Sitting on the passenger’s seat in the Jag was a three-foot Big Bird that she had bought at a toy shop in Nashville. She hadn’t found the large teddy bear she wanted, but she couldn’t resist Big Bird. She would have bought more things, but there was little room in the sports car, which was filled with her luggage.

  Tomorrow she would go shopping in Lafayette Falls. She already had the locations of three shops in town that sold baby clothes and nursery furniture. Baby John would want for nothing.

  At the Lansdale Hotel, she let out a tired sigh as she rolled her luggage toward the elevator. It was only three o’clock, but it seemed like she had been on the go forever. She was thinking about taking a relaxing bubble bath before she went to Aaron’s house when the hotel manager approached her.

  “Miss Montgomery,” he said. “Could I see you a moment?”

  Surprised, she followed him into his office. He made a couple of clicks of his mouse and turned a monitor toward her. “This is footage from our security cameras. It was taken after midnight at almost one.”

  She saw a scan of the parking lot and two young men looking at the Jaguar.

  “As you can see, they never touch the car, and they were there a total of six minutes. They took off when the security guard came out. We’ve never had a car theft or a carjacking here, but we thought you should know about this and be alert whenever you are coming or going, especially at night,” the manager said. “If you are leaving at night or coming back late, notify the front desk. The security guard will be happy to escort you in and out of the building.”

  “Thanks.” Uneasy, she glanced at the screen showing the two guys using their phones to take photos of the car. She would definitely get her shopping done during the day.

  At five, she pulled into Aaron’s driveway and took a moment to appreciate the place where her nephew would grow up. Surrounded by tall pines, cedars, and oaks, the house of warm-colored logs and stone looked like something out of the Alps. Flower beds alongside the house added splashes of yellow, purple, and red to the carpet of green grass. It was postcard pretty, and she liked it.

  Of course, that was the outside. She hadn’t forgotten the disaster that was the interior. Nor the blow-up dolls and the porn film. “Men,” she said to Big Bird. “Gross.”

  Before she got out of the car, she checked her face in the rearview mirror and straightened the shoulders of the breezy blue chiffon top that she wore with white pleated shorts. With Big Bird in tow, she headed toward the front door where she found Aaron waiting on the porch for her.

  He was dressed in an old football jersey and worn jeans, both splattered with fresh paint that was a honey beige color. A ball cap turned backward had kept his hair from catching droplets of paint. “Stevie and I are painting the dining room,” he explained while she stood there, thinking that from scrubs to dress clothes to old clothes, he looked good, regardless. Was that fair?

  “What do you think about Big Bird?” She showed off the three-foot stuffed bird.

  “He’s definitely a big bird,” Aaron answered as he opened the door for her and waited for her to enter first.

  She stopped on the threshold with Big Bird’s beak against her cheek and turned to Aaron. Just for a moment, she had a rush of emotions, dominated by both attraction and anxiety. It had to be that black card.

  Aaron met her gaze. “What?”

  “His legs bend,” she blurted and bent one of Big Bird’s legs. “He can sit on a shelf and that sort of thing.”

  “John Aaron will love him,” Aaron said.

  Her heart melted just a little, and she hugged Big Bird tight. No intermingling.

  She walked into the house, which smelled of paint and citrus. Several cardboard boxes were stacked against the staircase wall.

  “I’m getting rid of some stuff and putting some of it in storage,” Aaron said as she followed him into the centrally located family room.

  She got a glimpse of the kitchen, and she was impressed to see spotless countertops. In the family room, the clutter and blow-up dolls were all gone, and the television was off. Drop cloths covered the floor that led into the dining room, which was empty now and the walls bare. Stevie appeared, dressed much like Aaron, except he had more paint on his clothes and body. He held a paint roller.

  “Hi, Lia.” He grinned. “Look at that Big Bird. You’ve been shopping.”

  “I couldn’t resist.”

  “I know.” Stevie winked at Aaron. “My motto is shop ’til you drop.”

  “This way,” Aaron put in quickly, and he herded her toward a hallway to his left. He led her to a room across from the master bedroom suite. “I’ve been using this room for a study, but when John came along, I decided it would be the best place for the nursery. I’ve moved my office upstairs.”

  She walked into the empty room. The floor was hardwood, and the interior-facing walls were drywall, painted a cream color, with golden oak cornices and baseboard trim. The exterior wall was made of warm-colored logs, cut flat on the inside, and in the center of the wall was a rectangular window with a half-moon transom above it.

  “I love the view,” she said, looking out the window. She placed Big Bird on the windowsill and bent his legs to keep him in place. She turned to Aaron. “I think this room will make a fantastic nursery.”

  “Do you really?”

  She saw a light in his eyes. It was a mix of joy, hope, and enthusiasm that was catching.

  “I do.” She beamed at him. “I love the wood accents.” To her, the wood gave the room a warm Western feel that she liked. Absently, she wondered if they made cowboy boots for babies.

  “Just a minute.” He left for a moment and returned with a fan deck of color samples from a local paint store. “We’re going to paint this room tomorrow. I think, maybe, blue or green would be good.”

  He handed her the fan deck, and she spread it open to display various shades of blue and green paint with names like Larkspur Mist, Ocean Crest, and Cool Jade. He bent to look over her shoulder as she glanced at the different shades. “This is a hard choice. I don’t think we should use a dark color, do you?” She looked up to find him closer than she had thought.

  “Medium to light, I think,” he said without moving.

  Disconcerted, she turned her attention back to the colors. Standing so close to him caused her hormones to buzz. “You know, you look all of twelve years old with that cap turned backward.”

  “You don’t like my cap?” Aaron chuckled as he took it off and ran his fingers through his matted mop of dark hair. He stuck the cap on her head, and the bill fell across her forehead.

  She pushed the cap back. “We need to pick a color.” Moving from him, she stopped at the window. Safe zone. She put his cap on Big Bird and proceeded to hold the strips of color chips against the wall. “I like Seascape. It’s a pretty blue. So is Ocean Crest, and I like Orchard Light and Herbal Garden,” she said with both blue and green color strips pressed against the wall.

  “Yeah. It’s a hard choice.” He stood beside her again, his arm pressing lightly against her shoulder. “Which one is your favorite?” His voice was just above her ear. Was he even looking at the samples?

  Lia fumbled with the strips as Aaron grazed her spine with
his fingers. She needed to find a favorite fast so she could go. The strip of color chips she held up to the wall was of the blue-gray family. The medium-light shade was a soothing blue with a hint of gray that gave it softness. She glanced at him and back at the color against the wall. It was the color of his eyes.

  “I like Federal Mist,” she said in a low voice.

  “Me, too. You want to go with that one?” He cupped the side of her face.

  “Yeah.” She wet her lips, despite the protests howling through her heart as their lips met. Why did life have to be so confusing and complicated?

  Unlike last night, she didn’t pull away. She grasped his shoulder as the kiss heated up fast, like a summer thunderstorm. With her mouth locked on his, she welcomed the hunger she felt in him as if she could satisfy it. Yet a warning rumbled inside her.

  Thoughts of the black card and the mortally wounded dove haunted her as they pulled apart. “I should be going,” she said quickly. Actually, she needed to break into a run.

  “Aaron?” a man called.

  “Come on,” Aaron said to her. “I want you to meet my father.”

  In the kitchen, which was clean and odor free, Frank Kendall was unloading packages of thick rib eye steaks from a grocery bag. He was a stocky, bulldozer of a man whom Aaron didn’t resemble at all.

  “Aaron looks just like his mother,” Frank told her after they were introduced. “Out of my four boys, Aaron favors his mom. Terry and Greg favor me.” He glanced at Stevie, who was getting a beer out of the refrigerator. “And that one, I don’t know about.”

  “He doesn’t want to claim me,” Stevie said.

  “I didn’t say that.” Frank grinned. “So, Lia, what kind of steak do you want? Sirloin or rib eye? I’m a master when it comes to grilling steak. You won’t eat a better steak anywhere. My boys will tell you that.” Aaron and Stevie agreed.

  “Thank you, but I was just leaving.”

  Frank motioned to Stevie. “Take that bag of charcoal out to the grill and get it fired up.” Then he turned to Lia. “I know you ain’t had supper, so you can stay and eat. You’re the baby’s aunt, and that means we’re all family here. Right? Family stays and eats.”

  “Uh—” Lia didn’t know what to say. She glanced at Aaron, who stood beside the kitchen island, his face impassive. They were never going to be family. “I don’t want to impose.”

  “Here.” Frank handed her a colander with a head of lettuce in it. “I need you to chop this up. Chopping board and knives are on the island.”

  She stared at the lettuce for a moment. “Okay.” What else could she say?

  “Slice these.” Frank handed Aaron a bowl of tomatoes. “Those are from my garden,” he told Lia. “Homegrown tomatoes are best. Great in a salad.”

  “I love homegrown tomatoes,” she said as Aaron, who stood on the other side of the island, handed her one of the cutting boards. Before she pushed the knife through the lettuce, she thought about the time. Summer days were long, so it was a while before dusk. “I have to leave before nightfall.”

  “Why?” Aaron asked.

  “I want to get back to the hotel before dark,” she answered as she chopped the lettuce. “The hotel manager showed me some security footage of a couple of guys checking out my car late last night.”

  Frank turned from the sink. “They were trying to steal your car?”

  “They didn’t touch it or get close enough to set off the alarm system,” she answered. “They looked it over and took pictures of it. The manager said they’d never had a carjacking at the hotel, but he told me to be vigilant, especially at night. So I decided the best thing to do is not come or go after dark.”

  “Did the manager call the police?” Frank asked.

  “I don’t think so. Those guys didn’t do anything to the car, and the hotel has a security guard.”

  Frank frowned. “Still, he should have called the police and let them know to do an extra patrol for a few nights.”

  “You can stay here.” Aaron had stopped slicing tomatoes. As he wiped his hands on a kitchen towel, he told her they would take his Range Rover to the hotel and get her things. “You can have the room across from the nursery.”

  Dumbfounded, she had to take a moment before she could respond. “Are you talking about me staying here, in this house?” She couldn’t wrap her mind around that.

  “That’s not a bad idea.” Frank shared his opinion, agreeing with his son. “You stay here, and you and your car will be safe. I’ve still got my three fifty-seven from my days on the force,” he said. “Nobody’s gonna mess around here.”

  She tried to smooth things over. “I’ll be fine. My car will be fine. It’s got a LoJack system on it. I’m not worried.”

  Aaron reached for a set of keys hanging on a hook beside the kitchen door. “You’re going to be decorating the nursery and picking out some furniture for the rest of the house, so you might as well stay here.” He spoke in a persuasive tone, but she picked up an undercurrent of resolve—like the decision had already been made, and he wasn’t going to change his mind.

  Now she knew why she’d drawn the black card. She was the dove. Involved in a long-term relationship that was in shambles and caught up in a lust fest with a doctor whom she needed to consider family. No wonder she had an arrow through her chest.

  “I appreciate your hospitality and everything.” She pushed away from the kitchen island. “But I’ll be fine, and I really need to get going.”

  She ducked out of the kitchen and hurried toward the front door. Aaron was on her heels. “Lia.” He caught her arm in the foyer, and she stopped. “Be reasonable. What Dad said is true. Those guys will probably be back, and you might lose more than your car.

  “You should stay here with us.” With a half-smile, he lightened the tone. “I promise it won’t get boring. Not with Dad and Stevie around.”

  She considered the simplicity of Aaron’s life. The picturesque home in the country, a close family, and a rewarding profession. Maybe she should stay and see what that kind of life was like since she had never known life outside of the music industry. She dismissed the thought.

  “I don’t belong here.”

  “You don’t belong at that hotel either,” he said briskly. “You’re welcome here and,” he cleared his throat, “and I promise I’ll keep my hands off of you.”

  “I, um, I wasn’t thinking about that,” she fumbled with her words, “you know.”

  He smoothed a lock of her hair from her cheek. “I shouldn’t have kissed you. I’m sorry, but temptation got the better of me.” His admission came with a troubled gaze. “I know you’re committed to another man, and I’m not going to disrespect that. I promise.”

  She nodded uneasily. Agreeing with him was for the best. Unless she really did want to end up like the dove on the demise card. “All right.”

  “Let’s go get your stuff.”

  “I really don’t want to impose.” She had reservations about how well she could maintain her distance from him. “I can find another hotel.”

  “Lia, we’re not going to argue about this.”

  “I wish I had never said anything about the car.”

  He opened the front door and waited for her. “Come on.”

  Chapter 7

  “Daddy’s proud of you.” Aaron stood beside John’s incubator in the NICU pod. With the access panel open, he changed the baby’s diaper. He had removed the nasogastric tube and replaced the oxygen hood with a nasal cannula. “You’re nearly four pounds now, and your white blood count has improved. Lungs sound good, too. I think you’ve turned the corner, buddy.”

  He smiled at the wide-eyed baby, who watched him with interest. Aaron was pleased that John was an alert baby. “You won’t be in this contraption much longer. In a couple of days, if all goes well, you’ll be a grower, and we’ll move you to an open bed for a while. Get a little more fat on you, and then Daddy will take you home.”

  John grasped Aaron’s pinkie finger.

/>   “Are you excited about that? I’m excited about that.” Aaron smiled as he withdrew his hand and closed the side panel. He discarded his exam gloves and turned to see Helen heading his way. She carried a bright orange medical bag.

  “The helicopter’s ready,” she said as she handed him the bag.

  “Thanks.” He hung the strap over his shoulder. “I listed Baby John’s aunt as an approved visitor in his chart. I told her she could start visiting him in the afternoons around two.” He took Helen aside. “Make sure she’s feels comfortable in the nursery.”

  “Sure, Doc.” Helen gave him and the baby in the incubator a worried glance. “She’s not going to be a problem for you, is she?”

  “No.” Aaron glanced at John again. “No, she’s not going to be a problem.”

  Famous last words, Aaron thought as he ran across the helipad and accepted a flight helmet from one of the air ambulance crew members. He settled inside the helicopter, riding beside an infant transport incubator that held a newborn baby girl.

  Baby Girl Whitten had become cyanotic with diminished pulses in her feet. Aaron had diagnosed her as having hypoplastic left heart syndrome. The left side of her heart was underdeveloped and not pumping oxygenated blood to her body. The condition required heart surgery; a team of neonatal cardiac surgeons at the St. Louis Children’s Hospital would take over her care when they landed.

  “Hang in there, sweetie,” he told the baby as the helicopter lifted off and headed west.

  Aaron flexed his neck. His back muscles hurt, and he knew exactly why. It was that crappy mattress in the spare bedroom upstairs, the one he had slept on last night after he had given Lia the master bedroom downstairs.

  “Aaron, this is your room. I’m not taking your room,” Lia had protested when he ushered her into the master bedroom and she had seen the bookcases on either side of the stone fireplace that held personal mementos—trophies, awards, autographed sports memorabilia, and family photographs. She had seemed particularly disconcerted by a framed professional photograph that Brett’s wife, Natalie, had taken of a rainbow over a waterfall on Kauai.