by LAURA GALE
Rachel had learned to turn inward, to keep to herself whatever she was feeling. Releasing her grip wouldn’t be natural. It wouldn’t be quick. She could see that already.
She hadn’t been involved with anyone since Lucas, although she’d had opportunities. She had simply been unable to participate in a relationship that headed in a physically—or emotionally—intimate direction.
How could being together again be so easy for him? Had Lucas actually been unhappy in their marriage? He’d never said so. He’d apparently been content, having his cake and eating it, too, as the saying went. That would explain why the transition back to seeing each other was simple for him. He was capable of things she couldn’t do.
Even his touch threatened her. It threatened to stir emotions that she couldn’t allow to be disturbed. For Rachel, it was a form of survival. Lucas would have to respect that.
But right now, Rachel couldn’t sleep. All this craziness was keeping her awake.
Joy was there, joy at Michaela’s best chance. Hesitant joy, now that the initial rush had worn off and Rachel knew what lay ahead. Michaela’s next experiences would likely be even worse than the ones she’d had so far. Could any mother ignore that? Rachel knew she couldn’t, even though she understood better than most that this really was, all things considered, Michaela’s best chance.
About Lucas as a father—well, Rachel could tell that his joy and relief for Michaela were genuine. Rachel had no doubts about his desire to help Michaela—or about his sincerity in wanting to be a real father to her.
But Rachel had locked away so much when things had ended with Lucas. It had taken all her strength to admit defeat in their marriage. She had suffered in her decision to hope for the best when things began going wrong, and she had suffered when she finally knew she couldn’t tolerate it anymore. That realization, that decision, had been as much for her unborn child as it had been for herself. Certainly, she had known that she wanted better for her child than what Lucas was offering then.
She had wanted what Lucas was offering now. For Michaela.
Images of Lucas and Michaela—a recovered Michaela—together, doing father-daughter things both thrilled and tormented Rachel. Of course she wanted a normal father-daughter life for Michaela. She was secure enough in her relationship with her daughter that she didn’t fear Michaela would somehow prefer Lucas to her—although she knew how charming Lucas could be and he certainly didn’t have the financial restrictions Rachel had. That was another detail that would have to be addressed.
What worried Rachel was that it would be so easy to pretend they were a normal family, doing normal family things. So easy to believe it. And she must not. She couldn’t risk her emotions—her heart—in that way.
It wasn’t a game. At least, not to Rachel. Marriage—her marriage to Lucas—it meant something to her.
A floating feeling was back in her stomach.
Sort of like feathers, blowing around inside me, stirring and rippling, she decided, then laughed aloud.
Dios mio, Rachel, you’re describing excitement and it sounds like you’re describing nausea. You are sometimes too much of a nurse.
But the feeling continued and so did her thoughts. Could she handle Lucas in her life, somehow live with it for Michaela’s sake?
“But then, maybe Lucas doesn’t have that in mind,” she muttered, even though her conscience prodded her for such uncharitable thinking. For now she needed to let herself continue in that vein. “For Lucas, ‘being there’ for Michaela could mean handing money to me, then taking her out for grand adventures in the tradition of good-time daddies who share nothing in the daily responsibility of their children.”
She bit her lip. Lucas wouldn’t do that sort of thing. That was her old pain, her old disappointment, her very serious problem with trusting Lucas, rearing its head. That reaction protected her against the vision of the three of them playing happy family. Sharing decisions, good times—not just tough times—with their daughter. She knew it couldn’t be like that.
They’d been living separate lives for five years. If she hadn’t shown up at his office, they would still be living separate lives. Nothing would have changed. That he seemed attracted to her physically meant nothing. Especially to him.
A thought came to Rachel: What if there’s someone else in his life? Didn’t he ask me, first thing, if I was ready for a divorce? Dios mio, what if he is ready?
Rachel didn’t care to examine that question. Glaring at her clock, she considered calling someone—someone who could help her get out of the funk she was in. Mamá? Her brother? Tanisha?
That brought to mind what Tanisha had said about working things out, how she and Wayne had done right by their daughter. What were her words? I had to give him up. Or something like that. That had been the key for them. Maybe it was the key for Rachel also.
Tanisha had admitted to herself that love wasn’t what their marriage had been about, and once she’d let go of that notion, she’d become friends with her husband. Ex-husband. And they’d worked things out. This all sounded very good, like a reasonable blueprint to follow. Except for one thing. Rachel couldn’t say her marriage hadn’t been about love, because it had been. And she was very afraid that for her it might still be.
Rachel fluffed up her pillow and lay down again. She had only three hours before she needed to get ready for her shift. She shut her eyes, knowing she had little hope of sleeping during that time.
Chapter 7
Easing his sore hip onto the couch, Lucas slowly dropped into a semireclined position. The site where they had taken the bone marrow was sore. No doubt about it.
They had warned him that the discomfort—hell, the pain—would be worst when the full effects of the epidural had worn off. He figured that had happened by now. Hopefully the pain wouldn’t get worse than this.
The procedure had been conducted early in the morning and gone pretty much according to the textbook descriptions he’d received. He’d been given the option of staying the night, but had decided against it, eventually taking a taxi home. Once his legs had been able to function, he had looked in on Michaela and then taken a moment to tell Rachel it had been done.
Wincing as he stretched his leg, he reached over to pick up the pills Dr. Campbell had prescribed, eyeing them suspiciously. Lucas held a deep distrust of painkillers—his partying had never gone in that direction.
Discarding the pills, he reached instead toward the case of beer he had placed on the table, ripping it open and selecting a can. At least with alcohol he knew what to expect. Opening the can, he took a long sip of the cold beverage and automatically reached for the package of cigars lying next to the beer. Smoking when he drank had become a habit for him, one he hadn’t noticed until this moment. And at this moment he didn’t want a cigar. Not at all. In fact, he realized, he hadn’t wanted a cigar since the morning Rachel arrived at his office. This was the first pack he’d bought since then.
He tossed the unopened package back onto the table and drank again from the can. He sincerely hoped this approach to painkilling would take the edge off the throbbing in his hip.
Michaela’s treatment was going according to plan, her pre-BMT chemotherapy having been completed and her body nearly ready to receive the transplant. The doctors and Rachel seemed pleased with her progress, but Lucas was deeply shocked by what he had seen.
Michaela looked horrible, he thought. He remembered his reaction when he had first seen Michaela’s catheter, the little device piercing the delicate skin of her chest and semipermanently attached to her body. His horror had been total. He understood the catheter’s role now, that everything Michaela needed—including the chemotherapy drugs—could be administered through it, providing some relief from frequent needle pokes.
But at the time he had been overwhelmed. Rachel had grabbed his arm and pushed him into the corridor with a strength that had stunned him. She had been furious, a rare occurrence. Even more rare, she had touched him, albeit in anger.
�
��Don’t ever let her see you react like that, Lucas,” she had spat at him, never mind that she was whispering. “I warned you that things could get ugly. The doctors and the information packets said the same thing. Michaela can handle everything if she knows everyone around her can handle it. We have to be matter-of-fact, even if we don’t feel it. We have to be strong for her. If you can’t cope, stay away.”
She had thrown his arm back at him and stalked back toward Michaela’s room, the tension visibly leaving her body as she crossed the threshold. That had been a test for Lucas. He had composed himself and returned to his daughter’s bedside. He desperately hoped nothing else would tempt him to react in a similar way. Strength was taking on a new meaning.
Chemotherapy really did produce side effects, and those side effects could be brutal. He was seeing this firsthand, for the first time. Michaela, who had been thin to begin with, seemed to have lost more weight. She was paler than she should be. And, of course, she was bald. She didn’t even have eyelashes or eyebrows. Lucas hadn’t expected that. This change—the hairlessness—had seemed instantaneous to him. Literally, that one day, her hair was simply gone, although he couldn’t be sure if it had really happened like that.
In response, he was thinking about shaving his head. He didn’t know if this would call unwanted attention to Michaela’s state, or if it would demonstrate solidarity to her. “Maybe I should ask Rachel about it,” he pondered aloud.
His thoughts drifted to the encounter he’d had with his brother-in-law. Lucas had tried to shake it off, but parts came back to him and wouldn’t leave him alone.
The hell of it was that Rick was right, at least partly. Lucas had never put any value on how Rachel felt about his behavior or how other people might view it. Mostly because Lucas himself had never really thought about it. He had just done what was expected. Or, at least, what was expected by his parents. Certainly not what was expected by Rachel.
Lucas reached for another can of beer.
Voices in the corridor outside his apartment caught his attention. Moving to sit up, he immediately fell back to the couch, his head fuzzy and his hip throbbing. Glancing at the table, he realized he had already made his way through more cans of beer than he’d thought, and had consumed very little food to supplement it.
The voices in the hall made him look up again, just in time to see his parents walk into his condo. Cursing the day he’d given them a key, he smiled and said, “Good evening, Mother, Dad. What brings you here?”
“Are you drunk, Lucas?” Although she didn’t add it verbally, Lucas could hear the tsk-tsk in his mother’s voice.
“No, just a little fuzzy.”
By way of response, she hmphed at him. Eyeing him critically, taking in his condition, she said, “We’re here to get some straight answers from you, Lucas, so if you’re in no shape to give them, say so now.”
“Straight answers?” Good God, what’s on their agenda tonight? Lucas could only wonder.
“Yes, son,” his father’s voice boomed at him. Arnold Neuman had already grabbed a beer for himself and was opening the package of cigars Lucas had discarded earlier. “You’ve not been yourself lately, what with missing work, this ‘personal leave’ thing, questioning my decisions in front of the rest of the staff—”
“Not to mention Rachel having the gall to show up at the office,” his mother said. “I can’t imagine what possessed her to do that.” She shuddered. “And then finding you here, like this—” she wrinkled her nose “—when you should have been at the office today. Yes, Lucas, we want to know what’s going on. It’s time for some explanations.”
“Well, Mother, Dad,” Lucas said, “if you want to ask questions, go ahead. I’ll answer if I can or—” he paused, surprised to realize that he was challenging them “—or if I want to.”
“Well, you see, Lucas,” his father resumed, “we’ve been having you followed.”
Lucas’s eyes narrowed but he said nothing.
“Yes, we felt it was our responsibility. We needed to come here with as much information as we could gather—ammunition, if you like—so that you wouldn’t be able to lie to us.”
“I’ve never been in the habit of lying, Dad. As I said, if I can see where what you want to know is any of your business, I’ll tell you.”
“Well, Lucas, let’s start by saying that we know you’ve been going to the hospital. We want to know why.”
Inwardly Lucas groaned, briefly acknowledging that his father hadn’t been bluffing.
“Are you ill, Lucas?” Something in his mother’s voice made him meet her eyes. She was standing still, keeping her distance from both Lucas and his father. Lucas caught a glimpse of something in her face—was it fear? Whatever it was, for an instant she did not look like the cool, cultured, distant woman he knew as his mother. Lines of concern, of worry, showed on her face. Despite the efforts of one of Phoenix’s best plastic surgeons to remove any trace of age from Sophie Neuman’s face, it had briefly shown.
Deciding to go for the truth, Lucas said, “I have a child.”
For a second both parents were stunned. They were speechless. His father released a long plume of cigar smoke, then went remarkably pale. Clearly, this answer had not been anticipated.
Various emotions warred with each other on his mother’s face. Lucas suspected real emotions were in conflict with the emotionless persona she had learned to wear.
“A child!” she finally breathed, clasping her hands in front of her. “How perfectly delightful! Did you hear that, Arnold? I’m a grandmother. Finally!”
Arnold Neuman grunted, his facial color returning only as two red splotches on his cheeks. Sophie Neuman was now wringing her hands, but Lucas had to admit that she seemed genuinely pleased. Like a child who’d just been allowed to buy cotton candy at the circus.
Sophie began to chatter. “Well, Lucas, who is she? Who is the child’s mother? There’s no reason you shouldn’t marry her, you know. In fact, it’s so important that you do. It’s simply the best thing. We don’t need months of planning to present an appropriate wedding, under the circumstances. After all, your first marriage was the big ‘do.’ A second marriage, well, it’s simply tacky to make that into the grand event that a first marriage requires. Although, of course, Pauline Hendrickson did that for her daughter. But, really, it was just awful. Pauline acted like the first wedding had never occurred, like Marilyn was a blushing bride who deserved to wear white—and everyone there knew she’d only been divorced a few weeks and that her first wedding had been less than a year before. Why, Alice Johnstone said some of the gifts from the first wedding weren’t even out of the boxes yet—not to mention that her new groom had been the best man at the first wedding.” She shuddered for dramatic emphasis. “No, I wouldn’t want to do anything so classless, but we could do something small and tasteful, maybe even at home. And then have a large reception, down at the club, Arnold, and introduce the child and the new bride to everyone—”
“Mother.” Lucas cut her off, not wanting to hear any more babble about weddings. “Mother, I’d have to get a divorce from the first wife before I take a second wife.” He paused, watching as his words took effect. “And since Rachel is the child’s mother, and the marriage still stands, I don’t see the need to do anything.”
Silence again dropped over the room.
“Are you saying that you’re still married to Rachel?” his mother whispered.
Lucas nodded.
“So you are saying that you and Rachel have a child?”
Again Lucas nodded.
Getting to his feet, Arnold Neuman approached Lucas, his fury bursting from every red pore, his black eyes boring holes into Lucas’s soul. “Now listen here, boy,” he began, stabbing his finger in Lucas’s face, “I know that when Rachel came to the office the other day, that was the first time you’d seen her in many years. I know that.”
“How do you know that?” Lucas wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answer.
“I
keep up on your activities,” his father stated unabashedly. “I know you like a pretty face and a well-cut body from time to time. Or at least you used to. Beginning to wonder what’s wrong with you in that department. Don’t see you with women much these days—” He stopped, apparently realizing that his audience wasn’t interested in that line of discussion. “But more to the point, I know that Rachel hasn’t been in your bed since she walked out. God only knows who she’s been with—not too careful about where they get it, those kind—but I know she hasn’t been with you. You haven’t been with her. I’d have put a stop to that in a hurry, yessirree. I’d have got her away from you. Just like I did before. So, if she’s turned up with a baby, we both know the kid can’t possibly be yours. She knows it, too. You haven’t been with her in years, boy. So, we can fight her with every legal angle we can come up with, something to force her down where she belongs, something to make her realize that she shouldn’t have crossed swords with me, that she should have accepted her place, accepted what was offered to her all those years ago.”
His black eyes were gleaming. He obviously relished his plans. “She never did get it. But neither did you. She wasn’t for you. You could have kept her around, in luxury if she wanted. You could have had her and Alana both—you just married the wrong one. That’d’ve been a great setup for you. I bet that little Rachel’s something—”
“That’s enough, Dad.” Lucas cut in, hearing for the first time the strange mixture of contempt and desire in his father’s voice when he talked about Rachel, wondering if his mother could hear it, too, wondering if Rachel had ever heard it. “You’re assuming she’s presented me with a baby, which she hasn’t. The little girl is four. There is simply no question that she is mine.”
Recovering quickly, his father said, “Then we’ll hit Rachel with every possible legality to get custody of the kid—”
“No, Dad, we won’t. We will not threaten Rachel, with legalities or otherwise. She is the mother of my child and will be treated with respect. By both of you. As will the child.” He felt protective of both of them and saw no reason for things to go down an ugly path.
