by Dianne Drake
“But I would have testified. If you’d asked I would have.”
“I know you would, but this distance between us…it shows. People can see it, see the tension. And I was afraid the judge might wonder why the woman Tyler and I are living with would appear so standoffish. So I couldn’t risk it.” Mentally, he braced himself not to step forward, not to cross that invisible barrier she had up around herself. “Sometimes, Fallon, it’s not about you. I’m sorry, but I was afraid you could hurt my chances.”
Tears immediately sprang to her eyes. “You’re right,” she said, turning back to the car. “It’s not about me.”
Damn, he hated himself. Hated this situation. Hated it that he couldn’t risk pulling her into his arms to shield her from the world she feared. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, his voice nearly breaking with agony. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
Still facing the car, she said, “I know you didn’t. I’m the one who hurts you, the one who should be apologizing.”
What kind of man would let the woman he loved hurt so badly and simply stand there and watch it? The worst kind. The answer sat bitterly in his heart. The worst kind. He was at breaking point. “Fallon,” he said, his voice turning rough. “Turn around, look at me.”
She didn’t. So he stepped around and physically wedged himself between her and the car door, and when she started to back away from him, he took hold of her arm, stopped her. Then, when she started to pull back the way he knew she would do, started to tilt her head toward the ground, he stopped her. Placed his hand under her chin and tipped her face toward his, fully expecting her to pull away, to literally run away.
But, she didn’t, and that surprised him. Fallon stood there, meeting him eye to eye, and allowed him everything he needed for the first moments. But it wasn’t enough. He knew that, so did she. Then as if some gusty mountain wind blew her right into his arms, she was there, her arms snaked around his neck, her body pressed so close to his he felt every one of her curves, even through her bulky winter clothing. It didn’t take but a second for him to respond to the need tearing at him, right there in the public parking lot of the White Elk Town Hall, so aroused he couldn’t think straight. It didn’t take but another second for his lips to claim hers…hard, demanding. They’d always been vigorous in their passion, and this kiss was no exception. But it was her tongue forcing its way into his mouth now, her tongue exploring the warm, sensitive contours, her tongue causing him to groan like no man had a right to groan in a public place.
Had the chill wind not been blowing swirls of snow around their ankles, he would have thought he was hallucinating. But as the cold crept up his leg and joined with the fire she was igniting in him, he was snapped into the realization that he couldn’t do this. This time he was the one who had to pull away because if he didn’t, Fallon would retreat and, perhaps, this time she might never come back because he was, indeed, moving on. Besides, what he wanted from her was so much more than a feverish kiss in a wintry parking lot. So he broke loose, pulled back, hated doing it. Dear God, he hated doing it. But what choice did he have? It wasn’t the little campaigns he wanted to win with her.
“I…I shouldn’t have done that,” she stammered, raising her hand to her lips.
Already they were red and swollen from the encounter. And so inviting it was all he could do to keep himself from claiming them once more. “You’re right,” he said, backing away from her. “We shouldn’t have. Look, I’ve got to go back inside and get Tyler. Why don’t we meet at the mercantile and do that shopping you’ve been promising him then we can go put up the tree?” Unless she didn’t want them in her house any more. That was the question that hung in the air between them for the next moment.
“What we did shouldn’t ruin his holiday,” she said. “I know you’re getting ready to move, but I think you should stay until after Christmas so he can have some sense of belonging. It’s only for a few more days, and…” She paused, grappled for the right words. “And we won’t do that again. For Tyler’s sake, we can’t. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” he said. Agreed, but not sorry about what he’d done.
Fallon forced a difficult smile. “Good. Then I’ll meet you at the mercantile in a while.”
Which she did. Fighting with herself every step of the way. Why had she kissed him like that? And there was no mistaking what had happened. He’d approached and she’d taken full advantage. Like a woman possessed. Well, it was a good thing they’d be gone after the holidays because it was clear that the best intentions meant nothing. Where James was concerned, the only way to deal with him the way she needed to was to completely remove him from her life. Otherwise… She cringed, thinking about what tagged along on the end of that otherwise. She was so close to the edge and ready to topple. Make no mistake, she was the one standing right there, ready to give herself the shove that would send her plummeting. And all it would take was such a little shove.
“The star goes at the top,” she said, handing it up to James, who was balanced precariously on a wobbly stepladder. Tyler was busy below, hanging the several dozen ornaments he’d chosen. No theme to this tree other than fun. Tyler definitely showed a preference for cartoon-character ornaments, while her taste ran more to snowmen and Santas and angels. James didn’t have a preference, so he concentrated on the lights and chose strands of all different colors, lights that twinkled. All in all, it was turning out to be a rather amazing mix of gaiety, and after the first hour of stringing up decorations, the trio put the project on pause long enough to take advantage of the fresh snow outside, where James instructed Fallon and Tyler in the fine art of snowman-building.
Naturally, they all had their own variations on a theme, Fallon making more of a snow princess, adorned in an old sequined shawl she hadn’t worn in years, while Tyler definitely went for something more in his own image and size. James, on the other hand, had a secret project going, and insisted that Fallon and Tyler were not to come around to the south end of the cabin until he called them.
“Think we should sneak around there and see if we can have a peek?” she whispered to Tyler.
“Maybe he’ll get mad at me,” Tyler said, on the verge of turning sullen after a long afternoon filled with so many fun things.
Poor child. He deserved time to be carefree, time to be a little boy who didn’t have such deep worries on his mind. “Why would that make him angry?” she asked.
“I have to do what he says. That’s the way it is.”
“What happens if you don’t? What do you think he might do?”
Big tears started to roll down Tyler’s face. “Make me go live with someone else.”
“Like your mother made you come live with James when you didn’t know him?”
He nodded.
“Do you want to stay here?”
He nodded again.
“Well, your dad…James wants you to stay here.”
“Do you, too?”
“Of course I do. I want us to be best friends.”
“You’re not going to be my mom?”
This was getting too complicated. And she truly didn’t know what to say because Tyler would see just how broken up she was about this, and she didn’t want him to feel like it was his fault that he and James would be moving out. Thankfully, James interrupted at just the right moment.
“You two about ready for the big unveiling?” James shouted from the other side of the house.
She held out her hand to take Tyler’s, and he grabbed hold and clung like she was his lifeline. “Remember how big heads on snowmen are what makes them fall over?”
“Un-huh.”
“Think this one will have a big head?”
The answer to that awaited them just around the corner, where James had constructed a large snowman, with a huge head. One he was fighting to keep on top.
“It’s going to fall!” Tyler squealed, breaking away from Fallon and running straight to James. Actually, more like straight into James. Which sent James falling b
ackwards, causing one huge snowman head to fall on top of both of them.
“Want me to show you how to make a better one?” Tyler asked innocently, as he poked his head out of the snow.
A better snowman, a better life…Tyler had so many things to show them, if either of them were open enough to learn the lessons of a child.
“That’s what he said?”
Fallon nodded. Settling into the couch, with a mug of hot chocolate in hand, she tucked her feet up under herself and stared at the Christmas tree. It was a mess, and it was also the most beautiful tree she’d ever seen. “He wanted to know if I was going to be his mom.”
“And you said?”
“Nothing. I didn’t know what to say. I think it’s pretty clear he doesn’t want to go back to his real mom, though. Probably not even for visitation, if the court decided to allow that.”
James shut his eyes, dropped his head back against the chair. “It’s always going to be in his mind, isn’t it? Even if he never goes back to her, if he stays here with me until he’s an adult, and lives a normal life, he’s never going to get over what she’s done to him.”
“But you can help him deal with it. It’s not easy, but you can teach him to be a strong little boy. And, James, he’ll learn to trust you. Once he’s certain of consistency in his life, something he knows he can count on, he’ll trust you.”
“Did anybody ever help you learn to deal with it?”
She shook her head, too close to tears to speak.
“Talk to me, Fallon. Tell me what I need to know, what you need to say. It’s driving me crazy. I see it there, see it in your eyes, and don’t understand it. And I want to.”
“What I need to say? Like, I was thrown away just like Tyler was? To be honest, James, that’s all there is to say. It hurts, and you never stop wondering why the ones who should love you the most don’t.” She drew in a ragged breath, swiped away a tear. “But you can help him get past that. And that’s what he needs the most. Someone fighting for him, someone who loves him so much he’ll never give up.”
“The way I love you, Fallon. The way I won’t give up, even though you keep trying to push me away?”
She thrust out her hand to stop him. “Don’t, James. I keep telling you, over and over, that I can’t deal with it any more.”
“Why?” he asked. “You owe me that much. Tell me why, Fallon. The truth… I deserve to know what’s keeping us apart. Because, I can’t, for the life of me, figure it out, and I want to. And I won’t move on until I know.”
She laid her hands across her belly, could almost feel the barrenness under her fingertips. There was no fight left in her any more. James was right. “I guess you do deserve that closure, don’t you?” She drew in a deep breath, braced herself. Felt surprisingly calm about it. Now that the moment had arrived, it seemed surreal, finally knowing that this would end it…end the relationship, end them, end the dreams. Permanently. But she loved this man more than anything she’d ever known, and she owed him this one, final truth. “I suppose the simple answer would be that one of my surgeries was a hysterectomy. I can’t have children. Can’t give you all those children we’d planned on having.”
He arched his eyebrows in surprise, but didn’t get overly emotional. “And you didn’t tell me?”
“No. Because I…because I…” The words were so difficult to find. She’d rehearsed them a million times all these months, known exactly what she would say when the time came. But now she couldn’t find them. “I was afraid, I suppose.”
“A hysterectomy doesn’t matter, Fallon. We can deal with that! If we want children, we can adopt. Or concentrate on raising the one I hope we’re about to get custody of.”
“I know that, and for a while that’s what I told myself. Tell James about the hysterectomy and leave it at that. But the hysterectomy is the simple part, James. It’s what came before.” She wouldn’t look at him for this. Couldn’t look at what she knew she would see on his face. “Before we…before the plane crash…I discovered I was pregnant.”
“Oh, my God!” he whispered. The emotion was rising now. He wasn’t holding it back. “Fallon, I don’t…don’t know what to say…” Anguished words. So much pain in them already. The pain she’d never wanted to cause.
“It’s not what you need to say, James. It’s what I need to say, what I’ve needed to say for such a long time, and couldn’t. I knew about my pregnancy for a few weeks be fore the plane crash, and I kept it to myself. You were under so much stress at the time with your job, and I wanted to find the perfect time to tell you. I had these visions of what that perfect time would be like, but you were struggling so much, always on edge, that I kept putting it off, telling myself I’d tell you tomorrow, or the day after that. But it never seemed like the right time. I should have just come right out and told you, but in the back of my mind I saw something so nice. Not like what happened with my mother, who never even knew who my father was.
“Also, I was nervous because we really hadn’t been together very long. We’d had a couple of intense months and I knew we had deep feelings, but I think I was afraid that we might be mistaking physical passion for the real thing. Whatever the case, I kept it to myself, always thinking that we had tomorrow. And I’m so sorry I did.”
“So am I. I would have liked knowing. Liked to experience it with you. But I do understand your confusion.”
She turned her head to look at him. “See, that’s the thing. Maybe you think you understand right now, but what happens after it’s sunk in, after you’re not in shock? After you’ve had time to think about what I did…to you. James, I don’t want you being so nice to me. I don’t deserve it. Don’t want it!”
“You want me to be angry because you miscarried in the plane crash? It wasn’t your fault, Fallon! You’re right, I may be angry after I’ve absorbed that you weren’t ready to tell me, but I’d never blame you for how it turned out.”
“The thing is, James, I didn’t miscarry. I came through the crash, badly injured, with my pregnancy intact. Had so many surgeries afterwards. The surgeries, the anesthesia…”
“No,” he choked. “I don’t understand. You didn’t miscarry and you still didn’t tell me?”
Now she saw the anger. It was awful, she hated it, but this was the way it had to be. And every time he looked at her, she’d be the reminder of something bad, something filled with indescribable pain. The secret he couldn’t forgive. “How could I? I was fighting to stay alive, fighting to keep my baby alive, and you…”
“I was busy with Tyler.” With this his anger turned to agony. “I thought you were strong enough, took you for granted, and I wasn’t there the way you needed me to be.”
“Tyler needed you. I always understood that. You’d told me he was going through a hard time. And he was…was my baby’s brother. I couldn’t let you divide yourself!
“And, James, I really thought that I would tell you about our baby when my physical condition improved, when you weren’t fighting so many battles. But nothing got better. I had so many complications, and I knew that if you found out what I was going through, you’d be with me, stay with me, never leave my side. You couldn’t do that, though. Don’t you see? I couldn’t take you away from Tyler. He wasn’t part of me but he was part of you…part of our child. And I was a mother too. A mother fighting to save her baby…a mother with a baby inside her who needed her to fight for him the way you needed to fight for Tyler. That’s the way it had to be, James. You had to take care of Tyler, not me.”
“What happened?” he choked, his voice so hoarse the words barely came out. “To the…to our baby?”
“I had our baby…stillbirth. I was just over six months along.”
“Six months?” he gasped. “You were six months along and didn’t tell me? How could you do that, Fallon? I had the right to know.”
“You did. I always knew that, and felt so guilty. But the longer I didn’t tell you, the more I didn’t know how. And my lawyer… He checked in on
you, told me about your situation with Tyler. You had him, he was taken away. Then you got him again… And I was so…so confused. So hurt.” She drew in a steadying breath. “For the longest time I had this fantasy that our baby would be fine. That one day I’d call you to come visit us, and I’d introduce you to him. In retrospect, I know I was kidding myself about the outcome, because I did know how bad the situation was. But I’d fantasize that I’d get to the end of the pregnancy, give birth, then…
“But the other part of me, the pragmatist, knew that you were in such a dark place, and it hurt me. I truly didn’t want to burden you with more, and I’d convinced myself that not telling you was protecting you from even more pain.
“Then when my mind started to clear up, I felt so…guilty. Knew I should have told you even then. But it was too late. The doctor told me the odds of my baby surviving were overwhelmingly slim, and that my odds of survival were almost none if I somehow managed to go to term, or even close to it. Still, I wasn’t going to abort my baby, no matter what. I had to fight for him, and that’s why I left. Why I wouldn’t tell you where I was. Because if you knew…”
“You should have told me, Fallon. If your life was at risk…”
She shook her head, almost violently. “See, that’s what I knew you’d say. That’s what I knew I’d have to fight, and I just couldn’t fight anything else. You would have won, James. You would have connected with the nurse in me, and won. I always knew that, and that’s why I didn’t take your calls, wouldn’t let you come see me. I couldn’t let you win because if you won, if you’d have convinced me to save myself and not our baby… But in the end, none of it mattered. I lost our baby anyway. And when he died I just couldn’t face you. Because I know how wrong I’d been, leaving you out. You deserved to know him, to be part of him for that short time…”
