Circle of Friends, Part 6

by Susan Mallery

  How could he deal with the guilt and find peace? How could he be the man Crissy and his baby deserved?

  There were no answers in the night. Just the sleeping newborns and the ache in his chest that told him he very much wanted to be a father and damn the consequences.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  JOSH WAITED UNTIL the next morning before going to Crissy’s house. He thought about calling first, but had the feeling she might refuse to see him. After what he’d said before, he’d earned her anger.

  So he showed up at seven-thirty with Starbucks coffee and a bag of scones. She answered after the first ring.

  She was in the perfect state of almost-ready when women are most beautiful. Her makeup was on, but she wore a robe instead of a suit. Hot rollers covered her head and she had a brush in her hand.

  He’d been in pain since she told him about the baby, but this time, when he looked at her and felt the ache, it had a very different cause. He ached because he wanted her. Not just in his bed, but in his life. He wanted to talk to her and share dreams with her. He wasn’t prepared to say he loved her, but with time, that could come, too.

  “I have a meeting this morning,” she said by way of greeting. “I don’t have a lot of time.”

  “Then I’ll talk fast. Can I come in?”

  She eyed the coffee. “I’m supposed to stay away from caffeine.”

  “I brought you decaf.”

  “In theory a good thing,” she muttered, taking it from him and stepping aside so he could enter her house.

  He followed her into the kitchen and set down the scones. She shoved her brush into her robe pocket and turned to face him.

  “What do you want?”

  Not exactly the response he’d hoped for but he knew he was going to have to earn his way back to her good side.

  “I want to apologize,” he said, trying to put as much conviction in his voice as possible. “My reaction to your announcement was wrong in more ways than I can count. I know you didn’t set me up. It was ridiculous for me to go there. I was wrong to accuse you of running away from responsibilities. I’m sure there are other things I said that I shouldn’t have and I apologize for them as well. I’m sorry, Crissy. I mean it.”

  She stared at him for a long time, then looked down at her coffee. “It’s not that simple, Josh. I know I’m supposed to accept your apology so that everything could be fine between us, but that would be a lie. I hate what you said and even more, I hate that you thought it in the first place. I’m not the kind of woman who tricks men. Why don’t you know that?”

  “I do. I reacted out of a lot of stuff that has nothing to do with you. My past. Issues with Stacey. That all crashed in on me.”

  She raised her head and stared at him. “You’re wrong. All that stuff does have something to do with me. Your past makes you who you are. It will always affect me.”

  She was right. She was the kind of woman who would always be right. It could make a guy crazy, if he let it. Josh planned on enjoying the ride.

  “I can’t change my past, but I can learn to manage it better,” he said. “As to the pregnancy, I know we’re equally responsible. Neither of us was thinking that night. Now there are consequences and I want you to know I’m prepared to be a part of that.”

  She set down her coffee. “It’s not consequences. It’s a life. In eight months, we’ll have a baby. You’re either in for the whole messy ride or you’re not. If you expect me to believe you’re the least bit interested, you’re going to have to show a little enthusiasm and energy.”

  Annoyance tightened his muscles. What the hell did she want from him? Blood? He’d shown up and apologized. And he’d meant it. Every word. He was willing to accept that he was totally in the wrong, that they were having a baby and he wanted to be part of that baby’s life.

  “This is a big step for me,” he said slowly, trying to keep his temper from showing. “I never wanted children, never thought about having them. Suddenly everything is different. I’m doing my best to make the mental shift. Could you give me a break on that? A lot of guys wouldn’t have even tried. I deserve some credit for showing up.”

  She folded her arms over her chest. “Oh my, yes. Big, big points for showing up. Yeah, you. What a fabulous man you are. The great Dr. Josh Daniels showed up. If you’d given me more warning, I could have arranged a band to be playing.”

  She was furious and should have looked ridiculous in her robe and curlers, yet she didn’t. Her words stung enough to make him want to lash out. He knew instinctively that was the road to disaster so he struggled to find a better way to say what he meant.

  Before he could, she said, “This is going to get me into trouble, but at this point, I don’t actually care. I want the truth, Josh. I don’t care if it’s pretty. Just go with your gut on this. Are you sure you never wanted children or did you decide that after you met Stacey and found out she couldn’t have kids? Was it your decision or a way to make her feel better?”

  The question ran into him like a truck. He managed to keep standing and hold in his need to deny the implication of her words. Then he stunned them both by saying, “I don’t know.”

  Crissy stared at him, her eyes wide, her mouth partially open. “I’ll give you credit for honesty,” she whispered. “I never thought you’d say that.”

  “Me, either. Too bad about the band not being here. They could break into song.”

  She winced. “Sorry. I can get a little sarcastic when I’m pissed off. Plus I really miss caffeine.”

  “I guess.”

  “Having a baby with me has nothing to do with Stacey,” she said. “Did she really expect you not to have a life after she was gone? It’s been four years. Aren’t you allowed to move on?”

  “It’s not that simple,” he said. The guilt had come on slowly. At first, when Crissy hadn’t mattered that much, he hadn’t been bothered at all. He’d assumed he’d healed. But lately he realized he hadn’t moved on as much as he’d thought.

  “What makes it simple?” she asked. “Is the whole world supposed to stop because she died? Should I pay for being alive by giving up everything important to me?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Then why should you?”

  Interesting question, he thought grimly. Too bad he didn’t have an answer.

  “Stacey will always be a part of me,” he said. “I can’t escape that.”

  “No one wants you to,” she told him. “But make her the best part of you, not the worst. You can be so amazing, but then you go down this dark path where you are only allowed to care about your patients. Is it because they’re safe? You get close, but not too close? It’s less messy than a real relationship?”

  He thought about Tommy and all the kids he’d done his damnedest to keep alive. “They’re not a part of this discussion,” he said, wanting to warn her off before they went to a place that had no point of recovery.

  “Why aren’t they?” she asked. “You can’t be involved with someone and keep pieces of yourself closed off. We can’t keep secrets.”

  He wanted to tell her they weren’t involved, except they were. If nothing else, they were having a baby together.

  He stared at her, knowing their connection was stronger than that. She mattered to him and that was the bottom line of the trouble. When Stacey had died, he’d promised them both he would never fall in love again.

  “I can’t do this,” he said, knowing he had to get out of there.

  “You’re leaving? Just like that? And you accuse me of running away.”

  “You don’t understand.” She couldn’t. She hadn’t been through what he had.

  “Then explain it to me. Tell me why what doesn’t exist anymore and can never come back matters more than what’s right in front of you.”

  “I loved her.
I still love her.”

  “No one says that should stop. But there’s a difference between loving her and respecting the life you had together, and burying yourself alive now.”

  “I’m not—”

  Crissy shook her head, interrupting him. “You know what? Forget it. I’m tired of fighting ghosts. I don’t know Stacey. I don’t know anything about her. Apparently she was pretty special because after four years you’d still rather be dead with her than alive with someone else.”

  He hated seeing her in pain. “Crissy, I’m sorry.”

  “Why? You’re getting exactly what you want. You can be alone with your memories. I’m the one who’s sorry. I have a lousy romantic history. I tend to pick men who aren’t capable of being an emotional partner. They were all so seriously flawed that eventually I simply gave up on men altogether. Then I met you. You seemed...perfect.”

  She dropped her arms to her sides. “Stupid, huh? You’re not perfect. You’re just a guy. You have the potential to be a partner, but not the emotional will. Ironic, isn’t it? You can be, but you choose not to be available. It’s safer for you to hide than to take a chance.”

  She gave him a slight smile. “You know what? Things are so screwed up between us, I’m going to tell you exactly what I think. Probably not a good idea, but what the hell. I think one of the reasons you fell in love with Stacey was that she’d been sick. The fact that she was probably not going to live a normal life span meant you didn’t have to try so hard. You got to focus on her and the illness and what might or might not happen. It was easier than risking your heart for real.”

  He’d been with her until the last point. “What the hell makes you think you know anything about me and Stacey?” he demanded. “Because your many successful marriages make you an expert?”

  “I’m giving you one opinion,” she said. “I’m sure you’ll ignore it. But here’s the thing. Getting lost in the past is a breeze. The dead have a way of not making demands. The living are a lot more messy. I have expectations, Josh. Complicated, life-changing, interrupting, badly timed expectations. You wouldn’t like that. You like your relationships from a distance. You give a hundred percent to your kids. You’re practically a god to their parents, but it’s in little doses. You’re not there when the kids go home. You don’t pick up the pieces. You sweep in with the big gesture. That’s how it was with Stacey.”

  “I don’t have to listen to this crap,” he said, and walked out of the kitchen.

  Rage filled him. She didn’t know anything about him or Stacey. She was nothing like his late wife. On her best day she couldn’t begin to understand the love they’d shared.

  “It’s not just me,” Crissy said as she followed him. “The baby is going to be the same way. Our child is going to expect you to hang in there, no matter what. What are you going to do then? You say you’re ready for the responsibility. I’m sure you’re thinking you’ll do great through anything that goes wrong. I know you’re right about that. You’re the go-to guy in a crisis. The place you can’t deal is where everything is just fine. What are you going to do if nothing’s wrong?”

  He walked out her front door and crossed to his car. When he’d driven two blocks, he pulled over. The anger was a wild, living animal inside of him. He wanted to lash out at someone, anyone. He wanted to fight and hit and crush. He wanted to destroy. He wanted...

  Damn her all to hell. Why couldn’t she understand that he was... He was...

  The past returned, sucking him in and drawing him down. Stacey had chosen to die at home. She’d asked for hospice care, but Josh had been there for her at the end. He’d known what to do, how to give her the drugs that would ease the excruciating pain.

  Those last days had torn him apart as he’d watched her suffering. She’d hated for him to leave her room, even for a few minutes. She’d needed him so much.

  “Promise me you’ll love me forever,” she whispered, barely able to speak. “You can’t love anyone other than me.”

  “I won’t,” he’d said, stroking her cheek.

  “Not even different,” she’d told him. “You can’t love someone different and say it’s not the same. Promise!”

  He’d promised because it had been what he’d believed. How could he ever love again?

  But later, while trying to catch a few minutes of sleep in the chair in the corner of her room, he’d thought about her words and wondered why she’d wanted to make sure he couldn’t be with anyone else. If he’d been the one dying, he would have wanted her to find happiness, to be in a relationship. Or maybe that was just one of those intellectual arguments. Maybe he couldn’t know how it felt to be dying and leaving loved ones behind.

  “She wasn’t wrong,” he said now, aloud in the car. “She wasn’t.”

  He closed his mind to the questions, even as other memories came to him. Their arguments about adopting. How she’d insisted it was wrong to take in a child only to have him or her lose her a few years later. He’d disagreed. She’d always ended their fights by crying that if he loved her he wouldn’t talk about it anymore.

  He remembered how she always got sick whenever there was something she didn’t want to do. How she’d sometimes made it impossible to see Pete and Abbey.

  He climbed out of his car and stood by the side of the road. No! He wasn’t going there. Stacey wasn’t wrong. She wasn’t a bad person. She had been lovely and strong and brave and he’d loved her with an intensity he couldn’t possibly match again. She was everything.

  She’d also been a bitch on wheels when she didn’t get her way.

  He swore silently and pushed at the disloyal thought. Stacey was... Not perfect, he admitted to himself. Not evil. Just a person, with good points and flaws.

  Not a startling thought, yet one he’d never allowed himself. To him, she’d been an angel in disguise.

  But if he made her something she couldn’t possibly be, did that rob her of being who she was? His wife. His friend. Someone he would always love. He was grateful she had been in his life. Knowing what he knew now, he would still happily marry her and hope they had forever. But did that mean he had to sacrifice the time he had left because she’d gone first?

  He returned to his car and got back inside. Crissy’s words echoed around him. He’d thought her expectations, as she’d called them, were unreasonable. Yet weren’t they so much less than Stacey had ever asked?

  He thought about what Crissy had said about playing it safe. Did he do that? Somewhere along the way had he learned it was better not to lead with his heart? He’d given himself fully to Stacey, but he’d always known their time was limited. He might have told her they could have forty years, but his medical training had known otherwise. She had always been destined to die young.

  Had that really been part of her appeal? He hated to think that of himself, but maybe it was true. Crissy was wrong about his commitment to his patients, but there was a possibility she was right about a lot of other things.

  His gut had always told him what his mind refused to believe. It had been wrong of Stacey to tell him to never love anyone else. Crissy wouldn’t do that to him. She would probably tell him to wait a decent amount of time and to mourn the hell out of her. Then she would tell him to get his ass out there and find someone.

  He felt himself smile. Knowing her as he did, she would probably point out that she would be a tough act to follow, but he was welcome to see if someone else could.

  Crissy. She’d been a miracle of light in his dark cold world. He knew what she wanted, what she expected, what she needed. Was it possible? Could he do that? Was there a way to reconcile past and present? And if he could find it, did he still have a chance with Crissy or had that bond been broken forever?

  * * *

  “SHE’S BEAUTIFUL,” CRISSY said as she held baby Mindy in her arms and stared into big blue eyes. “Possibly the
most beautiful little girl ever.”

  Mindy blinked at her.

  “So precious,” Crissy whispered, then looked at Noelle who lay on the chaise in her bedroom. “Am I holding her too long? Do you want me to give her back?”

  Noelle gave her a weary smile. “I’m so exhausted, I appreciate just lying here. Hold and rock away. I doubt she’ll start to cry. She’s been really calm.”

  “It’s only been a week,” Crissy told the baby. “You’re getting so much attention. What is there to cry about?”

  Noelle laughed. “You have a point. My mom is staying with me another week. My dad’s here every day. Dev’s dad is in and out all the time. My sisters adore her, you and Rachel come pretending to visit me but I know you’re really here to see the baby. She doesn’t have very much to complain about.”

  Crissy settled in the rocking chair. “What about you? Are you happy?”

  Noelle sank back in the cushions and sighed. “I’m past happy—I’m in bliss!”

  “Good for you. And Mindy’s doing okay, healthwise?”

  Noelle and Dev had had a scare during the first few months of Noelle’s pregnancy. Further testing had shown that everything was fine with the baby, but until Mindy had been born, neither of them had been totally convinced.

  “Her pediatrician says she’s thriving. So we’ve let our worries go. We’ve been blessed with an amazing baby. Lucky us.”

  Crissy kissed Mindy’s soft cheek. “I agree. Lucky you.”

  Noelle looked at her. “You’re not feeling so lucky. You seem... I don’t know. Sad, maybe. Is it Josh?”

  Crissy nodded. “We’re going to have to agree to disagree on just about everything. I want him to be emotionally engaged—he thinks that would betray his late wife. I want him to be a father who’s excited about having a child. He’s willing to be responsible and do the right thing.”