A moment later she was asleep, exhausted and too satiated to think about anything at all.
*****
Wendy heard Mack stirring around the room, but she was so deliciously sleepy that she couldn’t bring herself to move. It was too early yet. She’d keep her eyes closed for just a few more minutes, and soon he’d come back to her – to share a cup of coffee, or to say goodbye before his day began, or perhaps to make love once more. What time was it, anyway?
The distant click of a door closing roused her to full consciousness and she struggled to sit upright. “Mack?” she called.
There was no answer.
She scrambled out of bed and grabbed her robe. By the time she reached the sitting room, only the vague scent of aftershave in the air hinted that Mack had been there at all. There was no room service tray, no morning newspaper, no note.
He’d been in a rush, no doubt – too hurried to read the paper or order breakfast, so obviously he hadn’t had time to write her a note.
Or he hadn’t wanted to. It took only a moment to write a note.
Besides, Wendy didn’t think the president was the kind to be a stickler for appointments – if anything, under these circumstances, he’d be worried about keeping Mack waiting, not the other way around.
Once admitted to her conscious mind, the doubt stuck to her as firmly as a bramble, and was just as annoyingly prickly. If Mack had wanted to leave her a message, he would have done so, no matter how late he might have been because of it. And since he hadn’t...
What did you expect, Wendy asked herself. A rose on your pillow? Welcome to the real world!
Her eyelids were still puffy from her bout of tears the night before, and her eyes stung a little. But she was tired, that was all. Once she got to the apartment and plunged in, she’d feel better.
The mess which greeted her when she stepped into the apartment caused an odd mix of feelings. Even as she made a gloomy face because so much remained to be done, she felt her spirits lift, because as soon as the work was behind her, she could be truly free to take up her new life with Mack. He had encouraged her to do this, to cut the last ties and move the important things from her past into the new home they would make together. Surely that sort of thoughtfulness – that confidence in a long, shared future – was more important than notes, or roses on pillows!
The determination to look at it that way gave her new energy, and she flew through the day, stopping only to warm up a can of soup for lunch and to take her few houseplants to a neighbor. It wasn’t much of a gift, Wendy admitted, as the poor things needed to be nursed back to health after their long period of neglect. But the woman seemed happy to see her, and Wendy enjoyed the break and a cup of coffee while they chatted.
Then the charity people started coming to pick up donations. The couch, chairs, and kitchen table were hauled away. Then the boxes and bags of clothes and food were picked up. Finally the only furniture left – besides her bed, which was a family heirloom, and the rocker she wanted to take home for Rory’s new nursery – was the baby’s crib and changing table.
She had called a nearby church about the baby things. The other stuff didn’t matter so much, but Rory’s crib and changing table held special memories, and she didn’t want to ship them off to an anonymous agency. She’d hardly begun to explain her feelings to the pastor when he stopped her. “There’s a young couple I know,” he said. “They’ve got almost nothing, and their baby’s due in a few weeks.” He brought them over himself, in a borrowed pickup truck, to get the furniture.
The young mother’s face glowed when she saw the crib, and she reached out to touch it with one finger as if it might disappear like a soap bubble before her eyes. Then, her eyes full of consternation, she turned to Wendy. “Did you lose your baby? I’m so sorry...”
“No,” Wendy said hastily. “Oh, no. We just moved so far away that it doesn’t make sense to ship these things.”
That obviously made no sense to the woman, but she didn’t press, and Wendy saw no need to explain.
“We can’t afford very much, of course, but we’d like to pay you,” the young man said.
Wendy started to shake her head, and then saw the pride in his eyes and smiled. “All right. I’ll charge you one picture of your baby. And I won’t negotiate, so don’t try to talk the price down.”
Just thinking about babies made her long for Rory. She’d called at least once every day, of course, but though Mrs. Morgan said the baby grew wide-eyed and stared at the telephone while Wendy talked to her, she wouldn’t make a sound at all. But in a day or two they’d be home.
And things would be different after this homecoming. Wendy hugged the memories of last night close to her heart and waved goodbye from the front steps as Rory’s crib disappeared down the street.
She was packing the last of the Christmas ornaments when Mack came, and automatically she looked at her watch. It was only mid-afternoon, and the instant rush of happiness she felt at seeing him was mixed with surprise.
He looked just as startled. “What happened to all the furniture?”
“There isn’t any sense in hanging onto a half-worn-out couch and two creaky chairs,” Wendy said briskly, “so I gave them away before I had time to get sentimental and talk myself out of it. Honestly, Mack, I’ve been so efficient today I can hardly stand it.”
He didn’t smile at her joking tone.
“Did something go wrong with your meetings?” she asked quietly.
Mack shook his head. “We’ve done everything we can for now.”
“Then it’s a good thing I’ve been efficient. I think I can finish today, if you want to book a flight for tomorrow.”
“I came to talk to you about that.”
His tone frightened her. Wendy laid a delicate glass ornament carefully into a nest of tissue paper. Her fingers were trembling too much to trust herself to pick up another, and her stomach had twisted into knots. “All right,” she said, trying to keep the nervous edge from creeping into her voice. “I’d ask you to sit down, but...”
Mack waved a hand at the almost-empty room. “I should have said something before you did all this. I’m sorry, Wendy.”
“Sorry about what?” Her fear was filtering away, replaced by frustration.
“If you don’t come back to Chicago with me, it’s all right. I understand.”
What was left of Wendy’s fear burned up in a flash of fury. “Meaning, of course, that you don’t want me to come! Damn it, Mack, I just got rid of everything I own and you – you do this to me?” Her voice was high and tight, and her throat ached. It wasn’t the material things that mattered. But for him to reject her –
“Of course I want you to come.” The words were flat.
For Rory’s sake, she reminded herself. But he didn’t want Wendy. That was painfully clear.
She wanted to scream, What about last night?
The answer was instantly and painfully obvious. Last night he had hesitated as if torn between his physical desires and the knowledge that acting on those desires would be foolish, but Wendy had pushed him past the point of common sense. He must have realized from her abandoned responses that she loved him – and the prospect terrified him.
She shook her head. It was bad enough to know those things; she didn’t want to hear him list them.
“Until we were at dinner last night,” Mack said, “I’d never even considered that you had a life here. A perfectly normal, attractive life that you didn’t want to give up. A life I manipulated you into sacrificing.”
His answer startled Wendy so much that her throat went dry. Was Mack such a gentleman that even now he was willing to take the blame to save her embarrassment? Or did he really believe what he was saying? “I didn’t even have a job, Mack. The life I gave up wasn’t all that alluring.”
“But that state of affairs wouldn’t have lasted long, would it?” Mack said quietly. “You practically got a job offer last night, and there was another one waiting in the mail.”<
br />
She frowned and remembered Jed’s letter. Mack had obviously seen it – she’d left it lying on the coffee table, so she wouldn’t forget to call her old boss today. But to make so much of it...
“A very good offer,” he mused. “But in the meantime you’d committed yourself to me, and when you came back and saw what was waiting for you, it was too late.” His voice was very gentle. “Marketing isn’t just a job for you, is it, Wendy? It’s a gift – one you can’t turn your back on so easily.”
She shook her head. Something wasn’t right, but she couldn’t clear her head enough to think straight. “My gift – if that’s what it is – didn’t bother you much a few weeks ago.”
“I didn’t know how important it was to you, then. I should have made it my business to know, but I didn’t. I thought it would be enough for you to have Rory.”
“Don’t you think I should decide that for myself?” She took a deep breath. “At least be honest, Mack. What’s really going on?”
He hesitated for so long that she didn’t think he was going to answer at all. Finally he said, “We can give this all we’ve got, but if we aren’t both contented, it’s still not enough.”
What a diplomatic way to say he was miserable. And how very like Mack to be a gentleman about it. “Then that’s all there is to say.” She managed to keep her voice level. “Thank you for being honest.”
He nodded.
“What about Rory?”
“I hadn’t thought that far yet. But better a breakup now than in a few years, don’t you think?”
“I suppose so. But won’t this mess up the adoption?” How desperate he was to be free, she thought, to have put the baby’s future at risk.
“I don’t know.” He cleared his throat. “I suppose we could share joint custody.”
It would kill her, Wendy thought, to see him regularly and be reminded each and every time that he didn’t care for her. And yet she couldn’t turn her back on Rory. “Or you could let me bring her here, and you could forget the whole episode.”
“Wendy…”
“I know. We’re right back where we started. Except that I’m a more formidable opponent now, if it ends up in court. I can use your own resources against you. Not very good judgment on your part.”
“Not good at all, I’m afraid.” There was no challenge in his voice, only sadness.
Still, it hurt her more than she was willing to admit. Wendy turned away. “I’ll have to think about it. What’s best for Rory, I mean.”
“I’m sorry, Wendy.”
She heard him moving toward the door.
“Wait, Mack!” She pulled off her rings, Elinor’s elaborate marquise diamond and the matching wedding band, and held them for an instant, clenched so tightly in her palm that the stones cut grooves in her skin. She had put them on with hope, and worn them with growing confidence – but now those feelings were nothing more than dust.
She turned and held the rings out to him. “Tell your mother I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”
Mack flipped the rings over in his palm. “Why my mother, specifically?”
Wendy turned her back on him and fought her tears. Dammit, she would not cry – not till he was gone. “The whole thing was Elinor’s idea, wasn’t it? Setting up a perfect little family for Rory?”
He looked intrigued.
“Come on, Mack. She obviously knew what you were planning to do.”
“Of course she knew. I told her the night I brought you to Chicago.”
“And she was pushing you at every turn, wasn’t she? I heard you tell her once that you were working on it, and you sounded angry.” Then Wendy registered what he’d said, and the rock in the pit of her stomach felt as if it had turned over. “What did you tell her, Mack?”
“That I was going to marry you.”
She considered that flat, chilly statement, trying to find something comforting to hang onto. But even if the plan had been Mack’s after all, not Elinor’s, it was still coldly and purely logical. What difference did it make exactly when he’d reached his decision? The tiny flame of hope died down and flickered out. “Because it all made such perfect sense.”
“I thought so.” He dropped the rings into his pocket. “But you have a way of turning things upside down. You know, before I ever met you, Wendy, I had figured out this neat little explanation for what you were doing.”
“Blackmail,” Wendy said succinctly.
“No. I never thought that – at least I didn’t after I realized how easy it was to find you. I thought you’d started out to do what Marissa had asked, but when you saw what an overwhelming job you’d taken on, you yelled for help. It was logical, and I could make myself believe it, till I actually met you and realized you’re not the sort to throw in the towel over a mere baby. Or much of anything else, either.”
“Is that supposed to be an insult?”
He smiled a little, almost sadly. “Hardly. You struck me from the minute I saw you as the sort who would grit her teeth and deal with anything rather than give in and ask for help.”
Wendy bit her lip. For just an instant, she felt uncomfortable – as if Mack could see straight through her.
“Even if you had to lie to yourself and everyone around you in order to keep slogging forward,” he went on quietly. “I admired that persistence of yours. I didn’t expect that I would come to resent it. But that’s exactly what you’ve been doing for the past few weeks, isn’t it?”
Wendy shrugged. “You said yourself we’d just make the best of it.”
“It’s not enough anymore.”
“Too bad for both of us you didn’t figure that out a little earlier.”
“I swear I didn’t intend what happened last night, Wendy. When I heard you crying, I just wanted to tell you I understood, and that it was all right if you needed to be free – that I knew I’d asked far too much, and I realized you couldn’t ever love me.”
Wendy tried to breathe, but every muscle in her body seemed to have frozen solid.
“Your tears were like jewels dancing in your eyes.” His voice was husky, uneven. “Then you reached out to me, and even though I knew that you were trying desperately to convince yourself, I couldn’t turn away. I let myself believe that it could be enough – there are jobs in Chicago, and you love that baby so much... But after we made love, when you started crying again, I knew that you could never really be satisfied.”
“I didn’t cry,” she said.
“Yes, you did. You were practically sobbing in your sleep. Then when I saw the letter this morning, the job offer...I understood why you cried.”
“You fool,” she said. But her voice was no more than a thread, and perhaps he didn’t hear.
“That’s when I had to admit to myself that making do wasn’t enough for me, either. I can’t bear to make you lie to me anymore, Wendy -- or to yourself.”
“Stop it, Mack!”
He looked tired, and much older. “Perhaps it’s best if you hear the whole truth. I knew I could be satisfied with coming second in your life, after Rory. Last night, I even told myself I could bear being third – after your work. But I can’t bear being nothing at all. I’d tear myself apart, and you, too.” He raised a hand to her cheek, a brief and tantalizing caress. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, for everything. I’ll go, now.”
She had to stop him. He was moving toward the door, and if he reached it, and left her...
“Maybe you should have told me from the beginning how you felt.” Wendy hardly recognized her own voice.
Mack frowned. “I could hardly have swept you off your feet and told you I’d fallen in love.”
She took a couple of tentative steps toward him. “It would have saved a lot of trouble.”
“Only because you’d have screamed and run.”
“Maybe.” She reached out blindly, and her fingers clamped around his wrist. “Because I wasn’t smart enough to know till later that I love you.”
He seemed to have turned into a s
tatue. Only his eyes were still alive, searching her face. “But you cried,” he said uncertainly.
“Because you didn’t need me! You didn’t even want me at your dinner last night, and—”
“Of course I wanted you. I was just determined not to push you till you were ready. Those things are almighty boring.”
“And when I opened my mouth about your new product, you went dead silent.”
“I was stunned. It was a perfect answer, and you tossed it off without even thinking.”
“Then when I practically begged you to make love to me, you had to stop and think about whether it was the right thing to do!”
“Well,” Mack said reasonably, “just last week I got a quart of cold water over me, and all I’d done was kiss you.”
Wendy gasped. “You thought I dumped the coffeepot on purpose?”
“Didn’t you?”
“Of course not. You were the chilly one – wandering in and out of my bedroom and never turning a hair.”
“I thought if I could gradually get you used to my presence, my touch, my kiss... I was playing for high stakes, Wendy. And I was willing to wait as long as it took, only the waiting was more difficult than I thought it could be. You didn’t seem to be aware of me as a man, and finally I couldn’t stand it anymore. So I stopped torturing myself – till last night.”
Very gently, his arms closed around her. His kiss was tender, and yet so explosive that she was trembling by the time he raised his head, and the last lingering doubt which echoed through her mind had vanished forever.
“You did cry in your sleep,” he said.
“If you say so. I suppose I didn’t want to accept the idea that you wouldn’t ever love me the way I love you.”
He smiled down into her eyes. “If that’s what caused it, then you’ve got nothing to cry about any more, because I love you very much indeed. I think I knew it the night I came back to Phoenix to get you, and you weren’t here.”
“You mean, Rory wasn’t here.”
“That, too. But it wasn’t Rory’s absence which panicked me.”
“Let me get this straight. When you proposed–”
The Only Solution Page 17
