The Surprise of a Lifetime

by Emilie Richards

  When Devin had first begun to visit he had been reli­gious about arriving and leaving at the times they had agreed on. Now he seemed to find almost any excuse to stay longer. He adored his son. She knew that was every mother’s wish, yet the depth of his love frightened her.

  When was he going to realize that he could have more of Nicholas than he was settling for? When was he going to take her to court and demand more?

  When was he going to realize that she was so head over heels in love with him that just the sight of him at her front door twice a month made her want to throw herself into his arms and beg him to love her, too?

  Robin didn’t know when she had fallen in love with Devin Fitzgerald. Perhaps it had been that first and fateful night together. Afterward, despite everything she had told herself at the time, she had foolishly hoped that he would call. She hadn’t left Devin a number, but he certainly knew what town she lived in. She would have been easy to lo­cate at the newspaper. But there had been no phone calls, no flowers or notes. She had continually reminded herself that neither of them had made a commitment. They had indulged in the perfect one-night stand, and it should be a glorious memory.

  And it might have been, someday, if she hadn’t discov­ered soon after that she was pregnant.

  “How do you like your steak?” Devin came to rest exactly where she had been staring.

  “Medium.”

  “Me too. Another thing we have in common.”

  “Steaks and one greedy little boy. We’re on a roll.” She tried to smile.

  “I seem to remember more than that. Wasn’t there one spectacular April night when we talked till dawn? I thought we’d discovered a lot in common.”

  Her breath caught, and she looked down at Nicholas. “The thing I remember most clearly about that night was the epilogue.”

  “Not me.”

  She looked up again, but he had disappeared. Her cheeks warmed. Their night together—”spectacular,” had he called it?—had been off conversational limits until now. Neither of them had mentioned it in all the months since Nicho­las’s birth. It was almost as if their child had been con­ceived without sex as well as without love.

  Nicholas finished nursing at last, and she laid him against her shoulder to burp him, although he could do it quite well without her help.

  Devin appeared in the doorway again. “Would you like me to take him so that you can change?”

  “I wasn’t planning to.”

  “Why don’t you get into something comfortable? You’re home. You should relax.”

  She would have protested, except that it seemed like a good idea. She was still wearing a dress and panty hose. She held out their son, and Devin came over to take him. He leaned over, and his arm lightly grazed her breast as he lifted Nicholas. Her breath caught. She was acutely sensi­tive to his touch. She remembered his lips in the same place.

  Devin’s eyes flicked down, and she realized her dress was still unbuttoned and her bra undone. Her cheeks heated again. She stood and turned away, fastening her bra and but­toning her dress as she crossed to the stairs.

  His voice was husky. “Robin, are you getting dressed again so that you’ll have more to do when you undress com­pletely in a few seconds?”

  “I have some modesty left.” She didn’t turn around.

  “Too bad.”

  She hazarded a glance over her shoulder, but Devin and Nicholas were already back in the kitchen.

  Upstairs, she stripped off everything and decided to take a quick shower. The woman staring back at her from the bathroom mirror couldn’t really be in love with a world-fa­mous rock star. She looked much too sensible. Take her haircut, for example. She had cut it short to lessen the de­mands on her time before Nicholas was born. And ear­rings. She had given up wearing earrings in her pierced ears because Nicholas liked to pull on them. She wore almost no makeup, and she hadn’t gone shopping for anything new to wear since before her pregnancy. She looked a lit­tle tired, a little harried.

  She looked like every other new mother in the world. She didn’t look like someone who was insane enough to be in love with Devin Fitzgerald.

  In the shower she inspected her body with a practiced eye. She was slender again, although her breasts were cer­tainly larger. She had several fine, silvery stretch marks across her abdomen, but it was flat enough to please her. All in all, she had survived the pregnancy well. But not well enough to appeal to a man with his pick of women the world over.

  She had planned to dress with that in mind, but she found herself choosing spruce-green leggings and a match­ing scoop-necked T-shirt that ended mid-thigh. At the last minute she found some simple gold studs that might escape Nick’s notice and threaded them through her ears. She added a gold locket just before she started down the stairs.

  “Much better,” Devin said when she entered the kitchen. “You look…comfortable.”

  She told herself she wasn’t disappointed that “comfort­able” was the best he could manage. “Do you need help?”

  “No. Sit. Have a glass of wine. The urchin’s had mashed banana and rice cereal, so don’t let him con you into think­ing he needs more.”

  She looked at Nicholas, who was swatting at toys on the tray of his high chair. He was a beautiful little boy, rosy-cheeked and big-eyed. “He’s going to be huge.”

  “I was a big baby. I’ll bring you pictures sometime.”

  “He doesn’t look anything like me.”

  “No, and I’m hoping he doesn’t have your temper, ei­ther.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Aren’t you the same lady who slugged me three times when she was in labor?”

  She was beginning to tire of blushing. “I guess I never said I was sorry for that.”

  “You had a lot on your mind. Besides, it’s common knowl­edge that women in labor like to take it out on their part­ners.”

  “You weren’t exactly my partner.”

  “Maybe not, but I got you into this.”

  “No, you were right about that the night Nicholas was born. We did it together. I remember being there.”

  “Do you?”

  Her voice sounded strangely breathy. “Uh-huh.”

  “Funny thing. So do I. I remember it well. And I remem­ber thinking how wonderful it felt to go to sleep with you in my arms. Then I woke up the next morning and you were gone. No note. No phone number. Nothing. It seemed like a pretty clear message.”

  She stared at her wineglass without saying anything in return.

  “Why did you leave like that?”

  She shook her head. She didn’t know how to explain what it had felt like to wake up beside him, to realize what she’d done and with whom. Panic had set in. She was no rock-star groupie, and sex had always meant more to her than pleasure. It had meant commitment and love. It had meant Jeff.

  “I picked up the telephone more than once over the next weeks to call your paper and wheedle your name and phone number from them,” he said.

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “A lot of reasons, I guess. I was just getting over a bad marriage and wasn’t ready for new entanglements. I was em­barrassed that I didn’t know your name. And I was afraid I’d make your guilt worse if I called you.”

  “Guilt?”

  “Wasn’t that why you left? You felt like you’d been un­faithful to your husband?”

  She let out a long breath. “I think you’d better flip the steaks.”

  “I’ve done that. They’re ready.”

  She watched him open the oven door and slide the steaks onto a platter. His words were like cannons going off in her head. She didn’t want to believe him.

  He was seated and they were eating before he spoke again. “Do you have many thoughts about the future, Robin? Do you think you’ll stay here to raise Nicholas?”

  She shook her head. “No. It’s perfect now, and I love Farnham Falls. But I want better schools for him and more opportunities. I think he’ll need m
usic lessons, don’t you?”

  He smiled, and the expression in his eyes was so warm that it seemed to heat the air between them. “Yeah. But they could be arranged anywhere. And when he comes to visit me—”

  “He won’t be coming to visit you, Devin.” She set down her fork. “You can see him here or wherever we are, but I never said that you could take him anywhere without me.”

  “No?”

  She heard the steel in his voice. Her heart began to beat faster. “No. What can you be thinking? He’ll go from being Nicholas Fitzgerald to being the illegitimate son of Devin Fitzgerald. What kind of experience would that be?”

  “Is that it, or are you afraid I’ll forget to bring him back?”

  She balled up her napkin and set it on the table as she rose. “I think you’ve overstayed your welcome.”

  Devin rose, too. Nicholas, sensing the tension, or perhaps just from exhaustion, began to cry.

  Devin stroked Nicholas’s hair. “I’m his father, not a kid­napper. I love him. I’ll always want what’s best for him. And I know that means living with you. But when he’s older I’ll also want to have him with me sometimes. Surely you can understand that.”

  She could understand it. That was the hard part. She could understand it, but it frightened her so much.

  Devin sat down. “Sit down. Please. Finish dinner. I’m not trying to take Nick away from you.”

  She reached for Nicholas instead, to comfort him or her­self, she wasn’t sure. She brought him back to her seat.

  “How did that get started?” Devin asked. ”We’re fight­ing about the future. Who knows where we’ll be by then, or what we’ll feel?”

  “I already know what it feels like to lose the person I loved most in the whole wide world. I couldn’t live through it again.”

  “You won’t have to.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  He didn’t smile. “Oh, I think I do. All too well.”

  She supposed Devin was talking about his ex-wife, al­though according to everything he’d told her, theirs had never been a fairy-tale marriage. “I’m sorry. I guess you do.”

  “All these doubts and fears are going to eat away at both of us unless we put an end to them now. And in the long run that’s going to be bad for Nicholas.”

  She nodded, ashamed, but still wary.

  Devin reached for her hand and covered it with his. She worked overtime not to touch him, but she couldn’t seem to make herself pull away. “We need to give him the gift of our friendship,” he said. “Can we work on that?”

  “We aren’t friends, Devin.”

  “But we could be. If you’d let us.”

  She couldn’t imagine being Devin’s friend. Her feelings were too tumultuous, too intense, for friendship.

  “Will you try?” he asked.

  She nodded again.

  “We’ll take it slowly. Then one morning you’ll wake up and wonder how you ever existed without my…friendship.”

  “Think so?” She made herself pull away. She lifted her fork. Nicholas was now playing contentedly with her locket.

  “I have to think so,” Devin said. “I have all our best in­terests in mind.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Robin heard squeals coming from the living room of the house even before she opened the front door. She couldn’t fault Devin for playing with his own son, particularly when he only saw him for two days, twice a month. But the squeal foretold a frantic baby by bedtime. On the days that Devin visited, Nicholas was always hard to get to sleep. Already he adored his father, and he seemed to know that if he closed his eyes, when he woke up Devin wouldn’t be there.

  From the foyer she could see that the two men in her life were playing hide-and-seek. The game was still relatively uncomplicated. At eight months Nicholas had not yet grad­uated to crouching in closets or basement corners. Devin could hide behind the same sofa time and time again, and it was more than all right with Nicholas.

  Robin’s head ached; her neck was stiff, and she felt as if she hadn’t slept in weeks. She had taken a cut in pay to spend so many hours at home with Nicholas, but there re­ally hadn’t been a cut in her workload to go along with it. Free time was a concept she might resurrect when Nicho­las graduated from high school, but until then, she had re­signed herself to never reading a novel, watching a sitcom or going out on a date again.

  “You look whupped.”

  She smiled wanly, too exhausted for once to be wary of what she was communicating to Devin. He looked partic­ularly wonderful this afternoon in dark brown trousers and a woven shirt that was almost exactly the golden brown of his hair. By the standards of his profession he was decidedly conservative. No tattoos or body piercings marred his tanned skin. And she had seen attorneys and accountants with longer hair.

  She supposed that someday she might walk into a room inhabited by Devin Fitzgerald and not feel this instant tug at her heart. But she wasn’t going to count on it.

  “I finished at work,” she said. “I thought I’d change my clothes before I started in on my errands. Is Nick doing all right?”

  “Nick’s fine. You’re not. No errands.”

  “Excuse me?” She was almost too tired to be annoyed, but not quite. Her temper soared.

  “I said no errands. You’re going to drop in your tracks, Robin. Please. Take the afternoon off. Spend some time with us.”

  If he hadn’t said please, she might have thrown a tantrum right then and there. Realizing how close she had come to one made her realize something else. He was exactly right. She was exhausted. She was not particularly temperamen­tal, yet these days she dissolved into tears at the slightest opportunity. This morning at work she had snapped at a co-worker for nothing more than a misplaced comma. She was headed for trouble.

  She was so lost in her thoughts that she hadn’t realized how close Devin had drawn to her. She felt his palm against her cheek, and God help her, she leaned into it like a dog aching to be petted.

  His arms closed around her. Lightly, as if he wanted to let her know she could step away anytime. “I hate seeing you this way,” he said softly. “This is supposed to be a good time in your life, Robin.”

  “It is.” Her protest sounded weak, even to her own ears.

  “May Nicholas Fitzgerald and his father have the plea­sure of your company at a picnic this afternoon? Just the three of us? Then I’ll do whatever I can to help you get ev­erything else finished tonight.”

  “You? You’re the mystery man. You can’t even be seen at a grocery store.”

  “I’ll wear a wig and sunglasses.”

  She gave a dry laugh. There wasn’t a wig that had been made that would disguise him. “Even if that worked, you wouldn’t know what to do at the laundromat.”

  “Laundromat? What’s wrong with the washer and dryer?”

  She cursed silently.

  “Robin, you should have told me you were having prob­lems. I’ll have them fixed or order new appliances.”

  “Just the washer.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  She shrugged. She wanted to lean against him and feel his arms tighten around her. But that was exactly the rea­son why she hadn’t told him about the washer. She didn’t want to need Devin or anything he could give her. She had to do this on her own, or the consequences might be terri­ble for them all.

  “What else isn’t working?” he asked.

  “Everything else is just fine.”

  “Then what else do you have to do?”

  “Winter’s coming. Nicholas needs a snowsuit and warm pajamas. I have to go to the post office to get stamps and mail a package. I have two sweaters at the cleaners’…” She paused. “This is deadly-dull stuff. Stuff you haven’t done in years.”

  “Let’s stop talking about what I haven’t done. Will the grocery store and dry cleaner deliver?”

  “If you pay them an arm and a leg.”

  “We’ll pay it, then. Do you have catalogs for child
ren’s clothes?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “We’ll look through them together tonight and make out an order. Will the rest of this stuff keep until tomorrow?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Then let it go.”

  Devin was trying to take over her life, but despite her best instincts, she couldn’t summon the energy to refuse. “What kind of picnic?”

  “The kind I plan and execute perfectly. With whatever you happen to have in the refrigerator.”

  “There’s not much. I could—”

  He touched her lips with a finger to silence her. “You could change your clothes and lie down for a few moments of peace and quiet while the kid and I get everything ready.”

  She was supposed to say no. Enough of her mind was still working to know that. But the temptation was too great. An afternoon with Devin and Nicholas. The three of them. Almost like a family.

  Dangerous dreams.

  His arms tightened subtly. She sagged a little closer. “It’s going to be winter again before too long,” he said. “It’s a sin to waste the best days of autumn shopping for groceries and mailing packages.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “’Yes’ will do for a start.”

  “The last time I said yes to you, Devin, I ended up in a snow-filled drainage ditch having your baby.”

  “But look how well it turned out.”

  She felt his lips against her forehead. By the time she was sure he had kissed her, he had released her, and it was too late to object.

  “Scoot,” he said. “Junior and I have a picnic to put to­gether.”

  “I don’t know….”

  “Yes, you do.”

  And despite everything she had said, and every argument she hadn’t articulated, he was right.

  * * *

  Devin plundered cabinets and the refrigerator, dressed Nicholas for a walk in the woods and called the dry clean­ers to have them deliver Robin’s sweaters and pick up the dirty laundry that afternoon. He ran a test cycle on the washing machine, discovered the problem—as well as the fact that he couldn’t fix it—and called the nearest appli­ance store. They promised him a new machine by the end of the week.