“When she was working her shift I overheard her on the phone. She said his name, so I know he was getting an earful. And the tense tone said it was not in a good way.” Sophia frowned. “Not only that, she’s been distracted lately. And edgy.”
“Is the mood impacting her work?”
“No. She’s wonderful with the children.” Sophia sipped her wine. “I’m just concerned about her. She’s normally so perky that I noticed the difference.”
“I can talk to her if you want.”
“No. Just keep an eye on her.”
“I’ll do it,” Em promised.
The server brought their salads and after determining there was nothing else they needed and encouraging them to have a nice dinner, she left.
Em picked up her fork and messed up the tidy rows of bacon, egg, avocado and blue cheese bits. She continued to move the lettuce around without putting any in her mouth. Before Cal had arrived, she’d been pretty hungry. One look at him in his jeans and T-shirt had pretty much destroyed her appetite.
It was the first she’d seen him since the night he’d taken her to bed and loved her until she’d thought she would drown in the pleasure. The first time since he’d pulled the rug out from under her with revelations of his past. A little while ago he’d come over after calling, then volunteering to stay with Annie while Em had a relaxing night out. Awkwardness and tension had rolled off him in waves and now relaxing just wasn’t going to happen.
“I feel weird without Annie.”
Sophia stared across the table. “Yeah. What’s up with that? We picked this place because it’s nice but casual and kid-friendly. For Annie. How come I’m not seeing my goddaughter right now?”
“Let me add another sorry to the one you got because I was late. Cal wanted to spend time with her and it seemed like a good idea.”
“Because you feel guilty?” Sophia asked.
“Because he’s a fantastic father.”
“And how are things between you and Doctor Do Good?”
“Oh, you know—”
Sophia gave her a wry look before awareness sparked in her eyes. “That’s eerily similar to what you said the last time you didn’t want to tell me what was going on with you and Cal. And for the record, it doesn’t ease my mind.”
Em remembered that afternoon in Sophia’s office when she didn’t want to tell her friend that she’d slept with Cal. Suddenly she felt as if she were stuck in a bad sci-fi movie where she couldn’t get out of a dangerous time loop and kept repeating destructive behavior.
“Cal and I are coparenting Annie. That’s all there is to that.”
“You slept with him again, didn’t you?” Sophia’s gray eyes narrowed.
Sophia was her best friend, but that was good news and bad. The club soda and lime waiting for her tonight was good, but this way she had of reading minds was not.
Unfortunately lying through her teeth to her BFF wasn’t good, either.
“Yes, we slept together, but it’s not what you think.”
“Putting aside what I think for now, let me just ask this. Have you even heard the phrase just say no?”
“It’s not that simple.”
“You’re wrong. Single syllable. Practice it. N-O. Easy.”
“For you maybe. But nothing about Cal Westen has ever been easy for me.”
“What happened?” Sophia chewed a bite of salad.
“He stopped by without calling, which is very unlike him. Said he just wanted to see Annie. He wouldn’t wake her, and he didn’t. He just put his hand on her back, to make sure she was okay.” Em sipped her club soda. “He was really upset after losing a kid in the E.R. Someone ran a stop sign and hit the SUV. He really took it hard.”
“I can understand that.” Sophia’s expression turned dark.
“I had to do something for him,” Em said.
“So you slept with him?”
“You make it sound calculated. I just put my arms around him. It was all I could think of to comfort him.” Em shrugged. “After that I’m not exactly sure how we ended up in bed. It sort of just happened. Please don’t lecture me. I know it wasn’t smart, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself.”
“Yeah, I understand how that feels, too.” Her friend pushed the lettuce around her plate. “It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt.”
“Soph, I found out about his baggage.”
“What?”
Em told her about the pregnancy lie, the marriage and suicide attempts before his wife simply walked out.
“It sounds like a nightmare,” Sophia said.
“Yeah. It helps me to understand why he said what he did when I tried to tell him I was pregnant.”
“His past makes it okay for him to be a jerk?” Sophia picked up her fork again and speared a crouton.
“You’re being pretty heartless,” Em accused.
“I’m realistic. I can do that because I’m not emotionally involved with an emotionally unavailable man.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Remember I told you that if he wanted you to know about his past he’d tell you?”
“I asked,” Em said. She hadn’t thought it was possible for her stomach to twist into more knots, but it did when she saw the expression on her friend’s face. “What?”
“Think about it, Em. Why now? You went out with him for six months before you got pregnant. At any time during that period did he share personal information?”
“No. After establishing that we were both single, he’d either dodge questions about his past or change the subject.”
“Why didn’t he dodge the question or change the subject this time? After sex, I might add.”
After sex the second time to be more precise, Em thought. As if the first time was a fluke, but time number two made it a pattern he didn’t want. The impact of what her friend was saying hit her hard.
“He’s deliberately pushing me away,” Em whispered.
“That would be my guess,” Sophia agreed.
Em could hardly breathe as the realization sat like a boulder on her chest. All this time since coming clean about having Cal’s baby, she’d been blaming herself for the fact that he would never trust and love her only to find out that a woman had destroyed his trust when he was most vulnerable, not to mention impressionable. That was before Em had ever met him. The truth was she’d never had a chance to win his heart, even before she’d messed up.
Sophia studied her intently. “Please don’t tell me you’ve fallen in love with him.”
“No.”
“Good.”
Em sat back in the booth and dropped her hands into her lap. “Technically I never stopped loving him.”
“Oh, Em—”
“And we share a child that we’re both committed to coparenting. This time it won’t be so easy to put him out of my mind.” Not that Em had ever successfully done that. “I’ll have to see him all the time. I’m going to have to watch the parade of women in his life, and so will Annie. I wanted so much better for her than I had.”
“At least she’ll know her father and not have to wonder about him,” Sophia offered.
“Maybe.” Em smiled weakly. “No one knows better than me that life isn’t perfect. But I vowed that my children would have two parents who were together. A couple. What happened to my dream?”
“You fell in love,” Sophia said.
Instead of finding happily ever after she found heartbreak. Maybe ignorance was bliss. Maybe she would have been better off not knowing about his past because the truth meant he’d never let himself care again.
In this case honesty was not the best policy.
Chapter Thirteen
After putting Annie to sleep Cal sat on Em’s light green sofa with his feet propped on her cherrywood coffee table and used her remote to flip through the TV channels. At least she had more than when he’d first met her.
Emily Summers hated electronics of any kind and barely tolerated computers. When th
ey’d been together before, he’d hooked up her DVD player and HD cable box so they’d have more visual choices, not that they’d spent much time doing that. His body tightened painfully as memories of their intimate alternative entertainment activities flashed through his mind. After that a flash of something else zapped him when he wondered who’d hooked everything up for her after moving to this apartment.
It was none of his business; that was the past and didn’t matter. As soon as the message got from his gut to his head everything would be fine. Great. Fan-freaking-tastic.
He’d lost count of how many times he’d checked the Sci-fi channel and ESPN hoping he’d missed something good even though he’d come up empty.
That could be a metaphor for his life. Empty summed it up pretty well. Except for Annie he only had a revolving door of relationships that were meaningless exercises in companionship and simply filled his free time. He only felt alive, stimulated and content with Em and that was damned annoying.
He flipped the TV off and tossed the remote on the couch beside him, then leaned down and picked up the five throw pillows in shades of green, beige and maroon that his daughter had delighted in throwing on the floor. He smiled, remembering the way she’d giggled and made a game out of it. When he picked them up, she threw them down again.
He’d made a lot of progress with his daughter in the last two months. She knew him and there’d only been a couple of rough spots tonight. The first had been when Annie watched her mother leave. The bitterly unhappy crying still had the power to rip his heart out, but he knew how she felt because Em had once left him. He’d been bitter and unhappy about it.
After checking on his little girl who was sleeping like a baby, he wandered into the kitchen and absently opened the refrigerator. On the top shelf was a beer—an opened, half-empty beer. He must have stuck it in there because Em didn’t drink. But why hadn’t she thrown it out?
Glancing around the apartment he realized this felt more like home than his huge house on the golf course. Pale gold gave the place a charming warmth. The yellow pottery bowl filled with apples, bananas and oranges added a touch of color on the bar. Photos, mostly of Annie, were scattered around on every flat surface and there were some hanging on the walls. Lately this small two-bedroom, two-bath apartment was the only place he wanted to be. With Em.
He glanced at his watch and noted that it was eight twenty-five, a full seven minutes later than the last time he’d checked. Was she out with a guy? She’d only said she was going to meet a friend for dinner and was taking Annie until he’d offered to watch his daughter. Had he handed her the opportunity for a more intimate date with another guy?
“No.” He said it out loud and with a force that was surprising. “Can’t be another guy because that would imply she already had one. Which would be me and that’s not what’s going on.”
He heard footsteps outside on the walkway and hurried into the living room to flip the TV back on and settle himself on the sofa with an appropriately relaxed air. And if he could pull that off, he’d get an Academy Award for outstanding performance by a jealous guy who had no right to be.
The deadbolt turned just before the door swung wide and Em was there. “Hi.”
“Hey.” He stretched and yawned, wondering if that was performance overkill. “Did you have a good time?” In his mind he added, with…? Hoping she’d fill in the blank.
“Yeah.” She set her purse on the bar beside the yellow bowl. “How’s Annie?”
“Good. We had a great time. Couldn’t have been better.”
“Did she cry very long after I left?”
He stood and slid his fingertips into the pockets of his jeans as he wandered closer to her. “She was successfully distracted by five-pillow pickup.”
“Oh?”
“She threw them on the floor, and I picked them up.”
“I know that game. It’s one of her favorites.” Em met his gaze. “Did she wear you out?”
“Nah.” Maybe the yawn was too much. “So…Where did you go?” And who did you go with?
“Just dinner. The Grand Café at Green Valley Ranch.”
He wanted to shake her into giving him the information. Or kiss her and make her forget anyone but him. More than once she’d teased him about being dumb for a smart guy. This was another one of those times. Kissing her was a very stupid idea. The last kiss had landed them in her bed where he found out for a fact that she still had the same floral comforter he’d once swept onto the floor because he couldn’t wait a second longer to have her.
Cal backed away when the sweet scent of her skin tempted him to ignore his common sense. He figured flat-out asking who she’d been with was the only way to find out what he wanted to know.
“So who did you go to dinner with?” he inquired, as casually as possible.
She met his gaze and whatever she saw made her take several steps back. “I met Sophia.”
The friend who’d been with Em when Annie was born, he thought. Instantly the tension inside him eased. “How is she?”
“Fine.”
He waited for more, but got nothing. “Was it a special occasion?”
“Just catching up.” Em shrugged and glanced at the clock. “Look, Cal, I appreciate you watching Annie for me….”
But it’s time to go is what she meant. The devil of it was that he wasn’t ready to leave. “I figured you’d be out later and there’s this movie on HBO.”
“It’s getting kind of late.”
Emily-speak for hit the road. He tried in vain to tamp down his annoyance by telling himself he couldn’t have it both ways. Right here in this room he’d pushed her away with the story of his past and shouldn’t be so angry that it worked.
“Okay.” He grabbed his car keys from the bar. “You’re right. I should get going.”
Back to the big empty house on the golf course. The mansion that was as boring as the TV season during summer reruns.
Emily followed and they stood in front of the closed door. “Thanks for staying with Annie. It was an unexpected treat to go without a diaper bag. Although I missed her terribly.”
And what about me? he wanted to ask. Did you miss me, too?
He looked down at her, the big dark eyes and a mouth that was made for kissing. He curled his fingers into his palms before he reached out for her, to draw her against him. She was behaving exactly as he’d wanted her to and it would be stupid to undo the steps he’d taken.
“Okay, then,” he said. “I’ll—”
A knock sounded, startling both of them. Em looked puzzled before opening the door. Patty stood there, blue eyes wide with surprise when she saw him.
“Hi—” She looked from him to Em. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were—I’ll come back another time.”
“It’s okay, Patty.” Em glanced up at him. “Cal was just leaving.”
“Yeah. I have to go.” Because it would be nine kinds of stupid to stay. “Nice to see you, Patty. I’ll just—”
A baby cry came from Annie’s room. Em looked at the teen. “I need to get her. Can you—”
“I’ll go,” Cal said. “You guys can talk.”
“Are you sure?”
“Completely,” he said. “Pretend I’m not here.”
He walked into the bedroom and looked in on his daughter. Her eyes were closed and she was on her tummy. She moaned, but he didn’t want to pick her up unless absolutely necessary and full-on wake her up. He put his palm on her back and rubbed, gently, soothingly, just to let her know someone was there. Voices drifted to him from the other room and he could hear every word.
“I have to tell you something, and you’re not going to like it—” Patty’s voice broke on a sob “—I’m pregnant.”
“Oh, Patty, no.”
“I missed my period and hoped it was just a false alarm. But the pregnancy test was positive. Please don’t be mad—”
“I’m not mad.”
“It’s against the rules,” the teen said. “I kn
ow that. But we’re a family and it was so hard, you know?”
“Yeah. I understand.”
“I don’t know what I’ll do if I have to leave Helping Hands. You always say we have to learn from our mistakes. We didn’t mean for this to happen. We were so careful.”
Cal understood that. He and Em were poster children for careful and he stared down at the result of being cautious. Birth control wasn’t 100 percent foolproof. He was the fool who could swear to that. But when he felt the rise and fall of his daughter’s back and watched her so sweet in sleep and remembered her laughter, he didn’t feel like a fool. A feeling big and pure welled up inside him that he recognized as love.
“Patty, does Jonas know you’re going to have a baby?” Em’s voice was firm and calm, not betraying her feelings.
“I can’t tell him.”
“You have to,” Em urged.
“You’re going to throw me out,” Patty sobbed. “I knew it. And if I tell Jonas he’ll leave like Lucy’s boyfriend did.”
“Jonas loves you.” Em’s voice softened. “I know it will be hard, but he has a right to know the truth. Being honest is always best.”
“Not this time,” Patty protested.
“You’re wrong. I made a mistake not telling Cal about his daughter. I wish I could take it back, but that’s not possible.”
“Jonas won’t understand.”
“He might be angry at first,” Em said, “but he’ll get over it. He loves Henry. You know that. And he loves you. He’ll love this baby, too.”
“You always said that one baby is a lot of work. Two is four times as much. How can we work that out? We can barely do it now.”
“You’ve got a support system,” Em told her. “Me. Jonas. Lucy. Cal—”
Was he part of their little family? He hadn’t wanted Em to stay here, but she wouldn’t hear of leaving. So, in getting to know his daughter, he’d gotten sucked into this ragtag group.
The Doctor’s Secret Baby Page 16
