Bound by Trust

by Lila Munro

  She was still unable to get him to answer her calls and she’d decided it was best not to go to his command with her problems. Although she knew they would have dragged him on the carpet for abandoning his wife and unborn child, she didn’t want to force him to do something he so clearly didn’t want to, make amends. Besides that, he had worked too long and hard for this promotion and she didn’t want to ruin it for him. If his career was that much more important than she was, then he needed to do what would make him happy. She was actually surprised a deputy hadn’t shown up to serve her divorce papers yet.

  Then she began to wonder how she would make it through the holidays without him and what he would be doing. Was there any chance he would come to his senses and come home? Would he slink off to Montana without her to spend Christmas with his enormous wonderful family?

  Sitting on the piano bench, she watched the twinkle lights blinking on her now complete lonely tree and ran her fingers over the ivory keys. She took position and began to coax out the notes that matched the love song she’d sung to him going to Big Sandy that day and realized that she missed him so much it hurt.

  * * * *

  Rafe had moved into a room at the temporary lodging facility on base and had taken leave after the first five days, feeling like he was a half person now and unable to function. For the next few days he ordered take out, watched football, and went without shaving, only leaving the bed to use the bathroom and answer the door when the next pizza arrived. It was a miserable existence without her and he wondered what she was doing without him and if she had been able to move on with any more dignity than he had.

  With only two weeks left before Christmas, he didn’t have his wife to celebrate with, didn’t have the energy to go home to Montana and hide from his enormous mistake, and wouldn’t even have a piece of turkey to eat. How much worse could things get? Slowly he flipped through the channels again noticing that every single Christmas commercial somehow reminded him of Madi. It was either the piano music in the background of the phone commercial, or the lady on the jewelry commercial with dark hair and green eyes, or the commercial for pie crusts. All of them haunted him, conjuring up images of her happily playing him some new piece she created on a whim, or standing in their kitchen with flour on her nose, laughing at the broken egg on the floor.

  He toyed with the idea of getting up, taking a shower, and going home to her and apologizing, but it quickly faded to thoughts of how many times he’d been the one to pick up the broken pieces over the past few months. How much was a man supposed to give up for the woman he loved, anyway? Was there a lifetime limit? If there was, he was sure he’d already exceeded it.

  Before he could pick up the phone to call Sing Lei’s for the fifth time that week, it rang. With his heart pounding, he answered, hoping to hear her sweet voice only to be disappointed to discover Aiden’s less that honeyed one.

  “Hey, man, we’re all going to the club tonight,” he greeted. “So, pull your sorry ass out of that rack you now call home and come out.”

  “No, I’m perfectly happy in my new home.”

  “My Aunt Zelda’s bunion you are. I’ll pick you up at eight.”

  With that he hung up and left Rafe holding the phone, wishing he’d bothered to change his number.

  “Madi, this is your sister, answer this door.”

  In her flannel pajamas and the pink robe missing one pocket that Rafe laughed at, she trudged to the door and jerked it open.

  “What do you want?” she snipped.

  “I want you to get cleaned up and come with me to the club. There is a company function going on and I don’t want to go alone.”

  “Well, go with your husband.”

  “He’ll be there, but he had to go early to set up something. I’m driving myself and I want you to go with me.”

  “No, I’m perfectly happy here. Besides, a company function denotes company, and I don’t feel like any.”

  “Madison Elizabeth McCarthy, you have been cooped up in this house for two weeks moping and crying and I say, enough is enough.” Meredith stood at her full height to admonish her older, allegedly wiser, sister. “Now, either you get in there and take a shower, or I will go get Jared to put you in the car in your pajamas.”

  “Fine, I’ll go, but I will not like it.”

  “I don’t care if you like to not, I’m only interested in getting you there.”

  Forty-five minutes later, with a light snow falling in front of the headlights, that was just beginning to stick to the frozen ground, the two ladies headed out in the bitter cold to the club. Madi wasn’t happy about it, but Meredith seemed to be pleased with her victory. Bundled up in their winter coats, they barely squeezed the seatbelts around their swelling middles. While Madi sulked, her sister happily hummed along with the Christmas carol crackling out of the stereo.

  Wonderful, Meredith has turned into whatever the opposite of Scrooge is.

  “So, what is going on exactly?” Madi pried, thinking maybe talking would make her sister quit her incessant, nerve-plucking humming.

  “I’m not sure, a mixture of Christmas party, slash some meet-and-greet thing.” Meredith had to suppress a smirk.

  After almost an hour of maneuvering the slippery roads, they pulled into the club parking lot only to find Aiden waiting with his cell phone to his ear.

  “Where the hell have you two been anyway?” he demanded, his voice a mixture of concern and irritation.

  “We got pulled over by a jolly old elf in a tiny sleigh pulled by eight reindeer,” Meredith said innocently.

  “That’s not funny, Meredith, the roads are getting slick. I was beginning to worry.”

  “Okay, okay. Miss Grungy Pink Robe here took forever to get ready. But we are here now and in one piece, so stop worrying.” She tiptoed up, kissed his cheek, and whispered in his ear, “Is he here?”

  “Yes,” he whispered back through gritted teeth. “But there is trouble at the Alamo, Jill’s here too and is hanging on him like a leech.”

  Madi, tired of seeing the two of them shower affection on one another, pushed past them, and went inside the club. When her eyes adjusted to the neon bar lights, she looked around and saw exactly what she had been afraid of seeing. Rafe. But the part she didn’t expect to see was tall, blonde Jill hanging on him with a piece of mistletoe over his head, her lips planted on his in a heated kiss. Infuriated by not only the knowledge that he had lied to her, but the fact that she had to see it firsthand, she stomped off toward where they stood.

  Grabbing Jill by the arm, she jerked her from Rafe’s arms and shoved her a few feet back. “Sorry to interrupt, but I’d like a word with my husband. Then you can go back to what you were doing.”

  Jill looked shocked, then embarrassed, as she slithered away and disappeared into a covey of other blood-sucking women.

  “Madi, that wasn’t what it looked like,” Rafe defended himself.

  “Really? Well, it looked an awful lot like kissing to me, and it also looked like you were enjoying it. And do I detect…” She sniffed for dramatic purposes. “Chanel in the house?”

  “Honey, I didn’t kiss her, she kissed me and I swear to you nothing else has happened between us.”

  “You expect me to believe that,” she hissed through clenched teeth. “After all the lies I lived with before…”

  Frustrated, she twisted a half-circle with her hand on her head, then stopped, turned back, and took his left hand. For a moment she twirled the gold band around his finger, then slowly pulled it off.

  “Gage never wore one either, at least he didn’t try to deceive me into thinking he was pretending to be married,” she whispered, placing the ring in his palm followed by her own. “Now you don’t have to either.” She closed his palm around their symbols of attachment and left him standing there.

  Outside, she was tugging on the car door that was already freezing shut when he caught up with her. He put his hand on the door, keeping her from opening it any further than she had
already managed.

  “Madi, please, don’t go. I don’t want this to end like this. I swear to you, nothing is going on with Jill. I did not sleep with her, and what you saw didn’t mean a damn thing. I love you.” Rafe’s voice hitched.

  With her chest heaving, Madi screamed back at him, “And just how would you like it to end then, Raphael McCarthy? When you get killed too, and they send your girlfriends home in a box for me to find? Or maybe you can top him and video tape it for me to find on the compu—”

  Before she could finish, she doubled over with her hands on her stomach and cried in pain.

  “Madi.” Rafe stuffed the rings in his front pocket and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Madi, honey, what’s wrong?”

  Her face contorted and she gasped as another wave of pain threatened to tear her in two. By that time Meredith was at her side and Aiden was struggling with the car doors.

  “Oh, Madi, it wasn’t supposed to be like this.” Meredith pushed Rafe’s hands away and helped her into the front seat of her Malibu when Aiden finally got it to pop open. “Aiden, drive,” she said, slamming the door behind Madi and getting in the passenger side behind her. “Rafe, get in, if you’re coming.”

  “Meredith, get my phone,” Madi managed in between ripping pains. “Dr. Pearlman is in my speed dial, tell his service to page him to the ER.”

  “Who the hell is Dr. Pearlman?” Rafe demanded, reaching up and taking Madi’s hand.

  “Her obstetrician,” Meredith answered, dialing.

  * * * *

  Sirens, flashing lights, bright sterile white, she was in the sky, floating away. Madi’s thoughts wandered over a collage of events she knew happened, but couldn’t quite completely remember. Her eyes fluttered and opened to see a blurry, dim, ethereal florescent glowing. Paralyzed with wonder, her senses told her everything was horribly wrong. Had she died? Did the baby? No she couldn’t be dead, she felt herself breathing. Where was she then, if not in heaven?

  Hesitantly, she turned her head and it was then that she saw the IV bags hanging beside the bed with a long tube running into her arm. Looking further, she discovered Rafe’s head laying on the edge of the bed. His eyes were closed and one arm dangled precariously below his waist while the other was draped across her belly. Gingerly, she eased up until she could reach him and gently ran her fingertips over his stubbly cheek. He twitched his nose then his eyes fluttered and opened. For a moment they just looked at each other, and then he lifted his head up, pulled his arm from across her, and took her hand.

  “Madi? Oh, honey, you scared the hell out of me.” He stood and leaned over to kiss her forehead.

  “I’m sorry.” She felt her throat constricting. “Is… Rafe, did I…”

  “Shhh.” He placed his fingers tenderly over her lips. “I’m the one who’s sorry. Why didn’t you tell me, Madi?”

  “I tried, the night you left, that was what I was trying to explain to you.”

  He closed his eyes and sighed. “And I wouldn’t give you the chance.”

  “No, the baby was due the same time you were supposed to report in. All I wanted to know was if they could hold off a few weeks, until the baby and I could travel. I wasn’t trying to get out of going.” Hot tears burned her eyes and fell down her cheeks. “But I guess we won’t have to worry about it now.”

  “Oh, honey, no, no.” He reached behind him to a monitor and twisted a knob a quarter turn. A gentle throom, throom, throom emanated from the machine. “The baby is fine.”

  “Is that…”

  “Yes, that’s our baby’s heartbeat, Madi.” He stroked her cheek. “They have you on an internal monitor for now. It wasn’t preeclampsia, but your blood pressure did shoot up because of stress, and caused you to start contracting. You’re on some meds now, to keep that stopped.”

  “Where am I?”

  “Columbia. They airlifted you here after they stabilized you. If you stay stable, you can go home in a few days, but you’re going to have to be on bed rest.”

  “For the next five months?” She sighed and put her hand on top of her head. “I have the recital to finish getting ready for.”

  “Madi.” Rafe leaned down and looked her straight in the eyes. “You have to quit worrying about all of it or your blood pressure will shoot back up and you’ll never get out of here, and quite frankly, I’m tired of sleeping alone. Not to mention I don’t know what I would do if I lost you or our baby, so please, relax.”

  “What about your orders?”

  “What did I just say? None of it is important right now.”

  * * * *

  A drive that should have taken a mere two hours, took Rafe almost four to accomplish three days later when he was allowed to take Madi home. It had been snowing steadily for forty-eight hours and the roads were treacherous to say the least. He’d wanted to bring her home in the Lexus so she’d be more comfortable, but in the end felt safer with her in the truck. So, it was with her padded with pillows, and her mother and Duncan in the backseat, that he sweated buckets for a little over a hundred miles in his attempt to get his wife and baby home in one piece.

  “Are you okay?” he asked again, squeezing her hand.

  “I’m fine, and if you ask me that one more time, I’ll get out and walk.”

  Never had she felt more suffocated than since Rafe found out he was going to be a father. She didn’t know how she was going to get him to go back to work after the first of the year. It took her until that morning to convince him she could feed herself.

  “Madi, he is just concerned,” her mother piped up. “We all are; you gave us quite a scare.”

  Madi blew out a long breath; the next five months were going to be long.

  When they got to the house, Rafe plucked her from the truck like a ripe peach he was afraid of bruising and carried her in. Aiden and Meredith’s car was in the driveway and when they got inside, she discovered that Liz and Jared were there as well. After Rafe put her down gently on the couch, the women surrounded her like a bunch of mother hens and the men retired to the kitchen to eat. Liz had provided a big pot of vegetable soup and a pan of cornbread.

  “Now, dear sister, here’s the deal,” Meredith began. “There will be no more scares. You and Rafe are not to fight, speak crossly at each other, or even blink the wrong way toward one another. One of us…” she indicated herself and her accomplices, “will be here at all times when your husband cannot be. And you are to behave and do everything the doctor tells you to, if it means staying on this couch or in the bed until that baby comes.”

  “Okay,” she agreed. “Believe me, I don’t want a repeat, either. But what about the recital? Nev and the other kids will be crushed if they can’t perform. They’ve worked so hard at it.”

  “We’ll figure out a way. They can have rehearsal with you on the couch,” Liz suggested. “If we have to, we’ll have Rafe pull the piano back in here temporarily.”

  “Well, no one get underneath it prior,” Madi said sarcastically. “He can do some damage if you give him the proper tools.”

  The women rang out a chorus of laughter.

  “At least you haven’t lost your sense of humor,” Julia said, wiping her eyes.

  Somehow the recital came together, and a few days later, with Nev perched on the piano bench flanked by the two violin students, a tiny girl with a cello bigger than she was, and the little boy Madi had discovered could sing like no one’s business, Madi directed them from the couch. With all their parents listening and watching in wide-eyed wonder at their musical prodigies, the kids pulled off a near flawless mini-concert of traditional Christmas carols and a few nontraditional personal favorites. Madi was quite satisfied with their success.

  With the recital over, she could concentrate on making sure Rafe knew what to do to pull off a successful Christmas dinner. Since she was forbidden from travel, except to and from the doctor’s office, everyone decided that dinner would be held at their house.

  “Madi, do we really need all this?” R
afe was staring at a list a mile long.

  He couldn’t believe she actually expected him to locate all the things on the paper just two days before Christmas. He was further hoping she didn’t expect him to know what to do with it all. Mary’s cooking lessons didn’t include formal dinners for nine.

  “Rafe, it is Christmas, not one of our beer and barbeque parties. Yes, we need everything on the list.”

  “What the hell is turmeric?”

  “It’s in the spice aisle.”

  “And just what is it for?” He regretted asking immediately. “Never mind. I don’t need to know. Do I?”

  “No, you don’t need to know. My directing skills from the couch only go so far, I cannot help with dinner from here. Mama will be here to take care of it all.”

  “Well, that is a relief.”

  At two o’clock Christmas Day everyone collected for dinner. Nev was busy plucking away at the new harp that Santa had mysteriously left under Aunt Madi and Uncle Rafe’s tree, Duncan was carving the perfectly browned turkey, and Liz was floating around, playing the perfect hostess, making sure everyone’s glass stayed full and Madi’s plate of appetizers never went empty.

  Rafe watched her face aglow and marveled at how something so simple as having friends and family surrounding her made her so incredibly happy. He hoped his Christmas gift made her equally as happy. Quietly he sneaked away and pulled the letter-sized envelope from the back of the tree and took it to her.

  “What’s this?” she asked, setting her plate down and taking what he offered.

  “It’s most of your Christmas gift.”

  She raised her eyebrows with curiosity and tugged the flap open. Inside was a stack of official documents. One by one she pulled them out and read them. Her heart began to race and a lump formed in her throat.

  “Rafe, is this what I think it is?”