Out of the corner of his eye he saw a scrapbook on the bedside table. Without too much movement, he reached for it. Then he took his chances and gently scooted her over and sat up to see the book.
His heart squeezed with a dull pain as he saw Janet and Kurt holding Lacy as a baby. He saw baby Lacy in the sink getting a bath. There she was in the back yard playing in a tiny swimming pool. He flipped pages and watched her grow from toddler into the cute, pixyish eight-year-old he’d seen the other night. It didn’t make sense, but a sensation of loss surged through him so powerfully that it brought tears to his eyes. In his time away from Janet, even though he’d dated “the cheerleader,” he hadn’t thought too much about children. He’d been focused on controlling his business and on making money. Once every blue moon he’d found himself quietly sitting in front of his fireplace in his home in California, and thoughts of his own father would bring up thoughts of a son. But those thoughts never stuck around for long.
He flipped to the last page and saw two pictures. One was of Janet with what looked like a purple scarf draped around her head. The pit of his stomach sunk. If he thought she was skinny now, the pictures showed just how skinny she could be. The other was of her and Kevin sitting together in the hospital.
Painful emotion hit him. Shame. Guilt. Anger. Sorrow. They’d thought she would die. This was Lacy’s memory book. This was the book that would have been her link to her dead mother.
He closed the book quickly and set it aside as if it was haunted by death
“It’s gross, isn’t it?”
Michael jerked to look at her, unaware that she was awake.
Janet let out a soft sigh then sat up and propped the pillow behind her, taking the album and putting it back on the table. “I left two of those pictures to remind me of how grateful I am for the fact that I am alive.” Her lips tugged into a smile. “I guess I haven’t seemed very grateful lately.”
Michael tried to remove whatever expression Janet had seen on his face a second ago. “It’s all right.”
Softly, she put her hand on his. “No, it’s not.” She reached for her water, took a sip, and then put it back. “Michael, I want you to know that I am grateful for you. I’m grateful you stayed here and…” She looked embarrassed, “for staying with me last night.”
Even though he didn’t know if she wanted him to or not, he draped his arm around her shoulders. “Like I told you, we’re friends.”
She seemed to relax. Her lip quivered, and she motioned to the scrapbook. “You can see why I don’t need complications in my life. With Lacy, I just want her to have no more drama.” Her head bent to the side. “Well, at least as little drama as possible considering how her father is. I need to be the solid one.”
Michael considered. “I guess I can see where you’re coming from.”
She pulled back from him. “What day is it?”
“Saturday.”
“So you’re leaving today?”
He thought of his flight out of Billings that night. “Do you want me to?”
Her eyes held his for a second. “Do you want to stay?”
Michael gently pulled his fingers through her hair and considered his next words carefully. He paused. “Janet, I need to tell you something.”
“Okay.”
“When my mom died, it was fast.”
She swallowed. Her face turned somber. “I know.”
He continued to play with her hair. More tears filled his eyes, and he didn’t like all this emotion. He blinked. “I loved her with every part of me. It had always been mom and me for all of those years. Dad was gone, and with the constant moving, I didn’t have a home. I didn’t have a town. All I had was her.”
Janet blinked. “I can see that.”
He sucked in a breath. “What I’m saying is…drama happens. Life happens.” He stopped playing with her hair and stared into her pale, green eyes. “People get cancer. People recover from cancer, but you can’t protect yourself or Lacy from ever having drama in your lives.” He nodded, feeling more certain now. “I get it. I tried to do that. I shut you out. I didn’t have meaningful relationships because they left me vulnerable. I shut my father out.” More emotion filled him. He paused. “I don’t want to shut people out anymore because that’s not living.”
Tears spilled down her cheeks. “Michael, you don’t know what you’re saying.”
Firmly, he took her hand. “I’m saying that I know I said I could be friends, but I want more. I want you. I...” he broke off for a second. “I looked at those pictures of Lacy and found myself wishing that she was my daughter. That she was our daughter. That I hadn’t messed up all those years ago. That I had been there the day she was born.”
Janet shook her head. “Michael…”
“Hear me out, ten years ago, it wasn’t just that I was in a dark place…when I would think about you and your life here and your family all I could think about was what I couldn’t give you. I mean, here I was…this guy without roots, without money, and I wanted to be with you. It was only when I got my scholarship to college that I decided I had enough potential to ask you to marry me.”
Janet studied him.
He let out a hard laugh. “It’s stupid, but I think part of building my business was to prove that I had something.” He sighed. “I had to go out and build you…something.”
“A rainbow?” She grinned.
He let himself smile. “I think I’ve been trying to be good enough for you all these years.”
Janet shook her head. “If you had only known that I was like this.” Her voice was sarcastic.
“What are you talking about?”
Her eyes widened. “Deficient. Full of cancer. Dying.” She shrugged.
“Stop it.” He growled, not liking the fact she clearly thought she was worth less because of cancer.
She slowly shook her head. “It doesn’t matter, Michael.”
“Janet, look at how we are. Can you feel it? Can you feel this?” He stared at her intently.
Her cheeks blushed, and then her eyes flashed open. “Michael…” She coughed. Then she hesitated, obviously trying not to cough.
“I’m sorry.” He said immediately. He didn’t want to upset her. He scooted toward the end of the bed. “I guess I’m not good for your health.” He let out a self-deprecating laugh.
“Wait.”
He stood but turned back.
Her face looked so sad. “Michael, you don’t understand all of it.” She paused.
“Okay.” He pressed.
“Michael, my health is part of why it’s hard for me to think about a relationship, but Lacy is a bigger part. I just couldn’t stand bringing someone into her life and then having them…leave.”
“I’ve already seen you when you’re tired or worked up. I know the risks. I’m not leaving.”
“No.” Janet took in a long breath. “Michael, part of the reason that I can’t…with all the chemo I had and all the medications I’ve taken, my body…I don’t know if I can have more children.”
Michael tensed. “Is that what you think of me, Janet? That I just look at you as a baby maker, and if you can’t do that…then I wouldn’t want you?”
Chapter 21
Janet honestly didn’t know how to feel as she watched Michael storm out of the room. Of course she followed him, her body unexpectedly alive and racing with adrenaline. “You don’t get to walk out on me.”
He stood in front of the fridge and began pulling food out she didn’t even know she had in there. The look on his face told her he would not accept a tongue-lashing from her. “Of course I would walk out, right? Cause you think I’m some Neanderthal from the seventeenth century that only wants a woman that can have his baby.” He started opening cupboards and rummaging. He found a pan and put it on the stove, turning it on.
“Michael…”
He shook his head and ripped open the bacon with his teeth. “Woman, I’m hungry. There’s no time for talking. In fact, why aren’t you
cooking for me?” In what appeared to be a crazed frenzy, he pulled the bacon out and slapped it on the stove. Then he pulled out another pan and cracked eggs.
“Michael, I’m not…”
Michael paused and looked up at her. “Not what?”
She didn’t want to say it.
“What?” He pushed.
“Normal!” She shouted. “I can’t do normal things. I can’t be a normal wife. I have limitations.”
“I know.” His voice was curt. “I don’t care.”
“You don’t know.” She felt herself shaking. “If you think the last two days were bad, that was a picnic compared to what it could be.”
He looked miserable. “Janet.”
She shook her head, everything becoming clearer to her. “Michael, I get that you had to go out and prove something. Build your business, build a rainbow.” She hesitated. “But what you don’t understand is that…if I am the pot at the end of your rainbow…it’s empty.”
The look on his face changed from anger to misery. “That is not true.”
She put her hand up and tears filled her eyes. All the emotions from ten years ago rushed through her. “I know it’s stupid…I get that. But while you were building a rainbow…I was dying.” She gulped for air and steadied herself next to the counter. “And I was watching this beautiful little girl watch me die, and it was…horrible. Awful. For everyone. My parents. Kevin.”
He reached for her. “Janet.”
She stepped back. “No, wait. Let me get this out. Michael…to be on the edge of death and come back from that, knowing you are deficient in every way is hard. But to think about bringing someone else into the mess…is impossible.”
“You’re not deficient. And I’m not just somebody.” He insisted.
“I have someone else to think about. What if things don’t work out, and we end up divorced?”
“That wouldn’t happen.”
She kept going. “I’m not moving to L.A., I can’t leave my parents, my brother, this town.”
“Your support system.”
“That’s right.”
“What if I could be your support system?”
This floored her. “You would want me to leave Snow Valley?”
He frowned. “I didn’t say that.”
“Then you would move here?” She couldn’t believe they were even talking about this.
“I didn’t say that, either.”
“Then what are you saying?”
He put his hand next to hers on the counter and faced her. “I’m saying I love you, and I want to be with you. We can work this all out.”
She eyed him up and down. “And what about the baby issue?”
He shrugged. “It’s not an issue.”
“You say that now.” Two months ago she had started her period again. She’d been completely freaked out, and when she’d gone in for a checkup, Doctor Taggart had only told her that anything might be possible. But she didn’t deal in the realm of what ifs any longer.
His chocolate eyes were sad. “Janet, is it so hard for you to have faith that we could make this work?”
Her hand started to tremble, and she pulled it away. “There is nothing to make work. It was only four days. Four uncomplicated days.”
He didn’t speak for a second, emotions flitted across his face. Then he sighed. “Janet, I guess the only thing to say is I love you, and I am willing to wait and work through whatever we need to work through.”
After not speaking for a few seconds, she turned away from him. He would never get it. “You need to leave.”
Michael held perfectly still. “I’m not leaving.”
Her next words were deliberately sharp. “I’m sorry, Michael. I can’t…trust you.”
Chapter 22
Three days later, Janet sat on her parent’s porch and stared at the old tree house. Her parents were due to arrive any minute. She had a pan of cinnamon rolls in the oven and fresh lilies on the small, round table in front of her. Her mother loved lilies. After Michael left, she’d gone back to work the next day. Her health had quickly improved. She pulled in a long breath. There seemed to be no trace of the previous inflammation. Doctor Taggart had checked her out this morning and commented that she sounded better than ever.
She stared down at her phone and the picture Lacy had texted of her, Kurt, and Tina shopping at the mall. They were making silly faces. At least this stay with her father had turned out better than Janet had expected. It relieved her to know that Lacy was happy and having fun. She hoped Kurt would finally gain a real relationship with her daughter. Janet knew that Lacy craved it. Needed it.
She looked at the tree house. The memory of building that tree house flashed through her mind. She distinctly remembered the way Michael’s hand felt in hers as they talked about what they would do. Then how every part of her felt alive when he would brush by her. How he smelled of shampoo and a light aftershave. Thoughts of the past few days washed over her. His smell had changed. It was a deeper musk he wore. The lower pit of her stomach pulsed with butterflies. He smelled even better now. The feel of his lips on hers, his hand gently stroking her hair. She closed her eyes and tried to block it all out. Michael Hamilton had gone back to his life and his company in L.A., and she was here.
Pain coursed through her as she thought of his face when she’d told him she couldn’t trust him. That wasn’t the truth. The past few days had shown her that he was trustworthy. The truth was that Janet wasn’t sure she could trust herself. She hadn’t ever dealt with the emotional damage of the cancer. Of this feeling that nothing was certain.
But being away from Michael, after being so close the last few days, had felt like a knife had been pushed into an open wound and dug in deeper. It hurt. Dang it, it really hurt.
At the sound of tires on gravel, Janet stood to watch her parents’ car pull up the long drive. She forced all thoughts of Michael Hamilton out of her mind. It would not do to worry about things that couldn’t be. He was there, and she and Lacy would be here. Lacy needed stability. She didn’t need Janet flitting here and there because of some notion that her first love from ten years ago could be something more than what it was—a first love.
Her mother got out of the car and jogged toward her. The way her short A-line cut, the same as Janet’s, and her slim figure moved made Janet think of how her mother had always looked so young and lively. “Janet.”
They embraced, and Janet loved the way her mother always did that. Made her feel secure and grounded. “I missed you guys.” Janet pulled back and put on a grin. “But you look amazing. Did you have fun?”
Her mother held a soft hand to her forehead. The creases between her brows deepened for a second, and her eyes peered deeply into Janet’s. She was checking her physically and spiritually as mothers do. “You’re okay?”
Janet nodded. “Right as rain.”
Her mother laughed. “We would have helicoptered home if you had needed us. When I called from port and you didn’t answer, I immediately called Doctor Taggart. He told me you were fine, but I was worried sick.”
“I’m fine, Mom.” She didn’t want to relive it.
Her eyebrow lifted. “And Michael was with you?”
Janet hadn’t been expecting this question. “Yes, he stayed with me, but he’s gone now.”
Her mom paused then pulled back her hand and sucked in a long breath, her eyes falling on the vase. “Oh, you brought me lilies?”
“Of course.”
Her dad moved up the stairs, holding a bag over his shoulder and one in each hand. “Hey, Flower Girl, how are you?”
Janet leaned over and gave him a soft kiss on his cheek. Warmth filled her. Her father had called her Flower Girl for as long as she could remember, and they laughed about it now that she owned the shop. “Hey, Daddy.”
He smiled and held her eyes for a second. “You okay?”
It was no wonder that both of her parents worried so much. They’d had a daughter that had needed them a l
ot over the last four years.
“I’m great.” She grinned and took one of the bags. “I made your favorite.”
The way his eyebrows lifted and he inhaled deeply made her laugh. “Your famous cinnamon rolls?”
“Yep.” She opened the screen door and took the bag in, hefting it up the stairs.
Her father followed her. “Ah, it smells so good. Honey, wait, you don’t have to carry the bag. I could have gotten it.”
They got to the top and Janet moved toward her parents’ room. She’d always loved their home. It was bigger then they really needed considering they only had two children. Her mother had wanted more, but it hadn’t worked out. Maybe one day she’d have to ask her how she came to terms with that because the idea of having Michael’s child stirred a motherly instinct that was hard to ignore.
She placed the bag on the bed. “Daddy, I’m fine. Really.”
He put the other bags down, and the edges of his eyes creased. He moved to her and put both hands on her shoulders. “Okay, after I heard that you were fine. I let it go. I didn’t call and check and get details about you and Michael, but I want to know.”
Her mom walked in. “I want to know, too.”
She knew her cheeks were turning red. “There’s nothing to know.”
“Oh no.” Her father backed up and shook his finger. “I caught you making out, remember?”
If there was one thing her parents were horrible at, it was meddling. There would be none of that. She was going to nip it in the bud. “I’ll tell you the truth. We had a great couple of days, and then he went back to L.A. End of story.”
Her mother stood shoulder to shoulder with her father. She lifted an eyebrow. “End of story?”
“End of story.”
Her mother leaned forward and fluffed her hair. “Are you okay, baby?”
The way her mother asked, almost made her emotional wall shatter, but she held on tight. “What if I moved away?”
Summer in Snow Valley (Snow Valley Romance Anthologies Book 2) Page 42
