by Susan Meier
He cautiously headed for the ladder. Seeing Kate by the pool brought another cascade of memories. Mostly because she hadn’t changed physically; she looked the same. She sounded the same. It was as if she hadn’t ever gone away. As if he still had the right to take her in his arms and kiss her.
His heart pitter-pattered. Not because she’d probably deck him if he tried, but from an unexpected burst of longing. He hadn’t ever really gotten over her, just told himself to forget her because he’d driven her away. Now that she was back, he had an entire marriage full of memories and emotions surfacing, confusing him.
“Visitation?”
“More like planning your next time with Trisha.”
He took a step toward her.
She took a step back. “Tomorrow’s Saturday, I thought you might have time to see her again.”
“I’ll make time.”
She smiled tentatively. “That’s great.”
He could see her in the green bikini. Remember the sun shimmering off her hair. Remember her giggle.
“Is one o’clock too early tomorrow?”
“No. I’ll drive Mom to the hospital around noon. Trish and I will be back by one.”
He nodded.
She gestured vaguely toward the driveway. “Guess I’ll go.”
Don’t let her go!
Yearning surged up in him. Not for a kiss or sex or even a chance to flirt. Just the opportunity to be with her. To see how she’d been. See who she was now that eight years had gone by. Just to be in her company again. “Or you could stay and we could talk about some things.”
She shielded her eyes from the sun. “We do have some things to resolve.”
“Like child support. I haven’t paid a cent in eight years. I’m guessing I owe you a bundle.”
“I think I forfeited that when I left.”
“I don’t.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m not worried. I just…I just…” He combed his fingers through his hair. “I want to know things about Trisha.” And hear the sound of your voice while you talk. “Things like her favorite foods. Her favorite teacher. What she doesn’t like.” And hear the lilt in your voice when you talk about her.
“She’s a normal little girl. There’s not much to say.”
He directed her to the French doors that led to the family room. “You can tell me about her first tooth. Her first words.”
Guilt tightened Kate’s stomach again. Without being accusatory, he’d reminded her that he’d missed some important milestones in their child’s life.
Could she blame him for wanting to know?
Could she deny him?
No. Not only was telling him about their daughter fair, but it might also ease some of the tension of the next day’s visit and maybe even prevent him from running to his lawyers. She didn’t want to make friends with him, but she did have to deal with him. A good conversation might go a long way to fixing their awkwardness. “Sure.”
He opened the door and motioned for her to enter first. When she saw the family room was the same as she’d decorated it, a symphony of butterflies took flight in her stomach. He might not have wanted to do the work required to change the green granite fireplace and hardwood floors. But why keep a sofa and chairs that could have been replaced long ago? Why keep her knickknacks? The art she’d chosen?
He walked toward the kitchen of the open-floor-plan downstairs. “Iced tea?”
“Yes. Thanks.” She’d need something to swallow the lump of emotion clogging her throat. She remembered the first time they’d stepped into this house, when it was little more than framework and plywood. They’d bought it new, not yet complete, so they could put their stamp on it.
She brushed her hand along a white wood chair rail, lovingly caressed the drum shade of a lamp.
He handed her a glass of iced tea.
“Thanks.” She looked up, caught his gaze, and her stomach plummeted to the floor. It was like thirteen years ago, when he was young and sweet and not pressured by the business or his family. Her chest tingled. Her already weak knees liquefied.
Oh, surely she wasn’t going to let herself be attracted to him?
He motioned for her to sit on the chair and he sat on the sofa in his wet trunks. “So start with her birthday.” He grimaced. “I guess I’d like to know what day she was born. Were there any complications?” He caught her gaze. “Were you okay?”
The concern in his voice brought back her feeling of connection to him, the younger him, the guy who’d loved her. She swallowed, fighting it. “I was fine. It was a normal pregnancy.” She smiled wistfully. “She was born on July 27 after about eighteen hours of labor.”
He sat back. “Ouch.”
She batted a hand. “It was normal. Nothing every other woman in the world doesn’t go through.” A thought struck her. “I have pictures.”
He sat up. “You do?”
“What mother doesn’t?”
With a laugh, she flipped through her wallet to find the pictures she carried of Trisha. Luckily, she was packrat enough to have kept every special-event picture she had, even the infant photo from the hospital.
Sitting beside him on the sofa, she presented the wallet displaying the pictures. “Here’s her first picture.”
He laughed. “She looks like a prune.”
“That’s from floating around in amniotic fluid for nine months.” She flipped to the next picture, the one taken at a studio when Trisha was three months old. “This one’s better.”
He sighed an “Ah,” and said, “She was adorable.”
Hearing the emotion in his voice, she slid the picture from its wallet slot. “You can have this one.”
His gaze shot to hers. “I can?”
She quickly looked away. “Sure. I have lots of photos that I can send you.”
“I—” He swallowed. “Thanks.”
She felt the weird vibe again. She’d hated this man, feared him for so long that she’d kept his child from him. And now here they were sitting together, talking like normal people, when inside he probably disliked her as much for keeping Trisha from him as she disliked him for ruining their marriage.
She handed him her wallet and rose from the sofa, getting away from him. “The next six or eight pictures are Trisha. Just go ahead and flip through.”
He did as she asked, pausing over every picture in the wallet, intensifying her guilt. Especially since she was standing in the house where she’d loved him. Where they’d been so happy.
But a quick glance at the window sliced through all her good memories and brought her back to reality. He’d broken that window the night she’d left. She hadn’t been wrong to run. She might have been able to stay if she’d only had herself to think about. But she’d had a baby. An unborn bundle of joy. And he had been escalating. His behavior got worse every day. She’d done the right thing.
After a minute, he handed the wallet back to her. “Those are—” He sucked in a breath. “I can’t even describe what I feel.”
She brusquely took the wallet. Shoved it into her purse. Ready to head for the door, she said, “I’ll send you my extra photos. I’ll make sure I get one from every stage of her life so far.”
Before she could even turn to make her escape, he said, “How about her teeth? I notice two of them are missing.”
She hesitated. The door beckoned. But in the end, she turned around. She owed him at least one conversation to catch him up on what he’d missed.
“She lost those last month. Together.” She gingerly sat on the chair again. “It scared her to death, but when the tooth fairy put a twenty-dollar bill under her pillow she got over it.”
He chuckled. The deep, rich sound brought back a happy memory of him lifting her off her feet and twirling her around as he laughed. Sadness rattled through her. She hadn’t thought of that in eight years.
She hadn’t thought any good thing about him in eight years—probably longer. All the memories of their love h
ad been blackened by memories of his drinking. In a sense, their good times had been stolen from her. But here in this house, with sober Max, they were coming back to her. And, oh, how she’d missed those.
She glanced around again, her heart in her throat. Remembering those wonderful things from the beginning of their marriage might be risky, but she didn’t care. Just for ten minutes, she wanted to be reminded that she hadn’t been an idiot who’d fallen for a drunk, but a normal girl who’d fallen for a wonderful guy.
“The tooth fairy, huh?”
Knocked out of her reverie, she faced him again. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure she knows it’s me who leaves the money, but she’s okay with it.”
“I guess she no longer believes in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, that kind of stuff.”
“No. You missed those.”
She’d meant that to sound flippant and fun. Instead, when the words left her mouth the room became silent.
And stayed silent so long that she couldn’t take it anymore. The big elephant in the room was that he might have been a drunk, but she’d hidden his child from him. She’d had good reason. Tons of good reasons. But could a woman really keep a child from her father without at least a little remorse? A sense of responsibility for hurting him, no matter how bad a husband he’d been?
“I’m sorry.”
He glanced up sharply, caught her gaze. “For what?”
“For hurting you by keeping Trisha from you.”
“You did what you had to do.”
Relief saturated her. “You accept that?”
“I have to.”
“Part of twelve steps?”
“In a roundabout way.”
He was so calm. So accepting. So different.
Confused, she scooped her glass of iced tea from the coffee table. He genuinely seemed committed. And that could be nothing but good for Trisha. But it also intensified her guilt.
“So,” he said, obviously changing the subject. “I noticed she had a lot of dolls.”
“Most little girls do.”
“Going to be weird for me to insinuate myself into her life.”
Since he was trying and she was tired of feeling guilty, maybe she should just do what he was doing—pretend nothing was wrong? “I’ll help you.”
“That’d be great.”
He smiled a genuine smile and her heart swelled with longing as her brain filled with memories of him before he’d started drinking, when he was young, happy, downright silly sometimes.
The conversation died again. She glanced around at the room she’d decorated and looked beyond it to her kitchen, her living room. Even the foyer tables, lamps and art that were her choices.
He’d loved her. He’d loved her enough to give her a free hand and then enjoy what she’d chosen. They’d been so happy—
Tears blurred her eyes and she bounced out of her seat. “You know what? I’ve gotta go.”
He rose. “Okay.”
She raced toward the French doors. Damn him for being so accommodating! So nice. So easygoing now. Now, when it didn’t matter. Now, when there was no going back.
The sense of loss swelled in her. Halfway to the doors, she spun around. “You ruined it.”
He didn’t even attempt to pretend he didn’t know what she was talking about. “I know.”
“We had it all! Everything other couples longed for. Money. A house. A great sex life. Laughter. And you threw it all away!”
“Why do you think I quit drinking? Because I know that! At first when you left, I was so lonely and miserable that I drank more. Then one day it hit me that I’d done this to myself—” He blew his breath out on a sigh. “I’d done this to us. And that’s when I went to AA.”
The last thing she wanted to hear was that he’d quit drinking because he knew that was why he’d lost her. It hurt too much. The tears on her eyelids threatened to spill over and she tightened her jaw.
“I also know I’ve had seven years to get past a lot of stuff that you’re just facing now.”
His voice was soft, apologetic. But that only made it worse. Her tears teetered on the edges of her eyelids, then tumbled onto her cheeks.
She pivoted and raced to the door. She had to get the hell out of here.
“Kate, don’t.”
She stopped, her hand on the doorknob. “Don’t what? Don’t leave? Don’t care?”
“It doesn’t do any good to put yourself through the mess of remembering everything every time you see me. It’s over. It’s done. We might have lost us, but we have a daughter. And that’s something wonderful for me. So don’t go back in time wishing for what could have been. Just help me deal with today.”
Her chin wobbled with the effort not to sob. He’d had so much time to get over this that it almost seemed as if he had no emotion about their lost marriage.
But she did.
And it hurt.
Damn it. It hurt.
Tears streaming down her cheeks, she yanked open the door. “Sure. Fine. You can come by again tomorrow at one.”
CHAPTER FOUR
SATURDAY MAX ARRIVED at the Hunter residence with a gift. A small doll. He’d called Annette and she’d told him little girls usually liked fashion dolls that they could dress up. So he’d gone to a toy store and purchased one, along with several outfits.
He wasn’t trying to buy Trisha’s affection, but he did think the doll would give them something to talk about.
He rang the front-door bell and waited, tensing, for what he wasn’t sure. Things hadn’t gone so well with Kate the day before. He could see her struggle. How fair was it that one day he decided never to drink again, asked for forgiveness and just moved on? It didn’t help that he was sorry. Sorry didn’t take away the pain. Or fix the memories. All he could offer her was the advice to move on.
From the alcoholic who’d hurt her, it was probably small comfort.
Realizing a few minutes had gone by, he rang the bell again. No one came. He frowned and walked to the edge of the porch. Leaning around, he saw no car in the driveway. She’d said she had to take her mom to the hospital at noon. Maybe she’d gotten hung up?
He didn’t even have her cell phone number to call her. And after the way she’d left the day before, he didn’t really feel comfortable asking for it.
So many things to work out. And none of it was going to be easy. But because they had a child, she was forced back into his life. Now she was struggling to forgive him and he was struggling with a pointless attraction.
He glanced around again, accepting that she wasn’t home and not sure what to do. Finally, he lowered himself to the swing. With one foot, he set it in motion. The temptation was strong to close his eyes and remember…
Kissing her soft sweet lips.
Longing for her to say the right words on hot summer nights when she was home for school vacation so he could seduce her—
But he didn’t. He didn’t seduce her on any one of those nights on the swing and he didn’t let his mind drift too far today. It was better to deal with the present rather than escaping into the past. Especially since he knew how that past had turned out.
The sound of a car coming down the street opened his eyes and he glanced up just as it pulled into the driveway.
He rose. Before he got to the side of the porch, car doors began to open. Kate levered herself out of the driver’s side as Trisha bounced out of the back seat right behind her.
She raced to the other side of the car. “I’ll help Grandpa.”
Kate ran after her. “No! I’ll help Grandpa.” She glanced at her mom as she got out of the passenger’s side front seat. “Mom, give Trisha the house key so she can open the kitchen door.”
As Bev rifled through her purse for a key, Max headed for the porch steps. In a few strides he was at the driveway, near the car’s back door where Kate and her mom hovered. “Can I help?”
Bev said, “Yes!” as Kate faced him and solemnly said, “We’ve got it.”
“I’m no
t sure we do,” Bev said, obviously not comfortable taking her ex-son-in-law’s side over her daughter’s, but equally uncomfortable dealing with her sick husband. “I’d appreciate someone stronger than I am helping us get him up the steps.”
“I’m glad to help.”
Bev opened the back door of the car as Trisha yelled, “Kitchen door’s open,” from the side porch.
Kate walked to the trunk of the car and unloaded several bags and a suitcase.
But when Max reached inside to help Kate’s dad, Dennis Hunter shrugged away from his hold. “I’m fine. I can do this myself.”
Kate raced over with a walker. “Here, Dad. Try this.”
He grunted and grumbled as he got out of the car and once again shrugged away from Max’s hand when he tried to assist him, though he let Kate wrap her fingers around his biceps.
Dennis shakily leaned against the walker, but by that time Max had figured out his help wouldn’t be accepted. So, grabbing the bags and the suitcase, he walked ahead of them, making sure there was nothing in the way as Dennis hobbled to the back-porch steps. With Kate’s assistance, Dennis gingerly climbed them. Max stood off to the left, just in case.
“He’s a stubborn man,” Bev said, coming up beside him.
“And he’s probably not too fond of me.”
Bev shook her head. “No. He’s not. But right now, this is all about his pride.”
When Kate had her dad in the house, Max and Bev walked up to the porch. He appreciated Bev’s candor, if only because honesty made it possible for him to know what to do. If she wasn’t telling him to leave, he knew it was okay to stay.
As they entered through the kitchen door, Max saw Kate and her dad hobbling toward the front foyer. He and Bev followed them.
“Just set those things on the floor in front of the living room. This morning we turned it into a makeshift bedroom for him,” Bev said, as she and Max followed Kate and Dennis down the hall. By the time they got to the doorway, Kate had her dad seated on what looked to be a hospital bed.
