by Tina Beckett
“Thanks. I’m getting off in a few minutes. When does your shift end?”
“Same time, actually.” He hesitated. “Mom is watching Molly at my apartment today, though, or I’d ask you to come back for dinner.”
“My place is free.”
“I thought you had three other people living there.”
She laughed. “I do, but Caren has already left for her mission, remember? So that leaves two. And I think the only one off today is Sam. So if we tiptoe past his door, we might be able to sneak in unseen.”
His finger hooked around hers. “But what about all that noise you’ll be making.”
“Wow, that sure of yourself, are you?”
“No. That sure of you.”
Her brows went up. “Oh, now you’ve just throw down a gauntlet I can’t resist. I bet you tickets to the ball game of your choice that I’m as quiet as a church mouse.”
“You’re on, Tess. But just in case, I think you’d better turn the speakers on your MP3 player way up.”
Tessa fell back onto the bed, her breath heaving from her lungs, the strains of jazz still blaring in the room. She laid a hand on her bare stomach and stared up at the ceiling, trying to get her racing heart back under control. “Okay, so maybe the church mice were throwing a party today.”
Clay rolled onto his stomach and bracketed his arms on either side of her shoulders. “That must have been some party, with all that shouting they were doing.”
“God. You don’t think Sam heard anything, do you?”
“Does it matter if he did?”
She punched him in the chest. “Only if I want to be able to look him in the face again.”
“He didn’t see me come in. He’ll probably assume it was a show on TV.”
“Jazz punctuated by moments of moaning and crying. I see how that could become a whole new trend.”
Gripping her waist, he flipped back over, dragging her on top of him. “Don’t knock it until you try it.”
“I just did.”
“And did you like it?”
She slid up his body until she was perched on a certain part of him. “So much that I’m thinking about repeating the experience.”
“Hell, woman, you’re going to kill me.”
Only it didn’t feel as if she was killing him. In fact, if what was happening beneath her was any indication, she’d say that he was up to the challenge.
Forty minutes later, dressed back in her street clothes, she headed out to the kitchen to get them both a glass of wine. Stuck beneath a magnet on the door of the huge stainless-steel refrigerator was a note penned in a decidedly masculine hand.
Interesting choice in music. Headed to the hospital, so don’t bother sneaking him out.
She grabbed the note and scrunched her nose. Gads! And you can’t have wine, ninny. You still haven’t had your period.
Another little something she was going to have to deal with at some point.
Making her way back to her unit with one glass of wine and one bottle of water, she was slightly disappointed that Clay had also gotten dressed while she’d been getting their drinks. She set them on the scarf across her dresser and waved the note under his nose. “I blame this on you. You can’t get me all sexed up like that in front of people.”
He glanced at the words then wrapped his hands around her waist and reeled her in. “It was hardly in front of him. But if that’s the kind of thing you like…”
“Stop it. I’m already going to have a hard time not turning beet red the next time I see him.”
“I’d like to be there to see that.” He glanced at the drinks with a slight frown. “It’s been almost a week. And since we just had sex, I’m assuming you still haven’t seen any sign of activity.”
“Not that kind of activity, no.” She pulled away and sat on the bed. “My emotions are all mixed up about it right now.”
“So you’re still planning on keeping it?”
“That’s the plan.” But beyond that she had no idea what she was going to do.
He uncapped the water bottle and handed it to her then took a big sip of his wine before sitting down next to her. He slid his hand across her belly, sending a shiver through her. “I don’t mind telling you, I’m already starting to think of this as a reality.”
Pressing his hand against her, she linked fingers with him. “This isn’t at all what I’d planned on. But now that it might be a possibility… She shrugged. “A million things have been going through my head, like names and whether it might be a boy or a girl.”
“A girl.” He leaned over and kissed her temple. “One who has red hair and is as proud as her mama.”
“Or a boy, with a big heart like his daddy.”
Clay’s thumb rubbed across her stomach. “I want to talk to you about something.”
Everything in her tensed up. Please, don’t ask me to marry you, Clay. Not like this. Not for this reason.
She was being stupid. Of course he wasn’t going to do that. They didn’t even know for sure if she was pregnant. And he had a daughter of his own to think about.
“Okay, what is it?”
He didn’t look at her or get down on one knee, so a part of her relaxed.
“I know it’s still early and this could all be a false alarm, but I’ve been thinking. You don’t want any financial support, right?”
Her jaw tightened. “We’ve already been over this.”
“And I’m willing to respect that. But this baby will be mine as well, and I want to make sure he or she is provided for. What if I set up a college fund that would be used just by the child?”
Tessa’s heart turned to ice in her chest. “You mean pay for everything? Kind of like your parents did for me?”
She hadn’t meant the words to come out with the harsh edge they had, but there was no way she could call them back now. Not when all the walls she’d just let down started to go back up, block by block. She knew him well enough to know that he would just keep pushing, trying different angles in order to get his way. She wouldn’t accept his financial help, so he would just bypass her and give it to their child instead.
Was that what she wanted? For herself? For the baby?
As if sensing her thoughts, Clay pulled his hand from her stomach and stared straight ahead. Then he took a drink of his wine. Then another.
He stood to his feet and set the glass back on the dresser.
Just when she thought he was going to leave without saying another word, he turned to her. “If you think I’m just going to sit back and not participate in my child’s life, you’re wrong, Tessa. You can’t expect me to help Molly get an education someday and do nothing for this child.”
“But it’s different with Molly—”
“No. It’s not.” He sent her an angry glare. “Even if she lived with her mother on a full-time basis, I would still want to contribute—to have some say—in what happens to her. It’s the same for any child you and I might have. I would want to take care of him or her. How can you not see that?”
I want to take care of him or her.
At those words, all the anger from the past bubbled out of the compartment she’d built for it and tainted everything they’d shared over the past couple of weeks. His constant need to take care of her years ago—to give her things—had become a point of friction, rubbing at her until she was raw. Well, she could read the writing on the wall. He was about to start doing it all over again, and if she gave in on this point he would start pressing her to give in on other areas.
“That’s not your choice to make, though. I think I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself and any child I might have.”
His face closed, turning to stone. “That might be true, but you can’t stop me from setting up a fund like the one I have for Molly. Neither can you stop the child from using it once he or she comes of legal age.”
Horror went through her. Would he actually go against her wishes like that?
“Don’t draw this line
, Clay. Please.” All her hopes for making things work between them shriveled in an instant. Nothing had changed. Nothing.
“I’m not the one drawing the line. You are. And if you think I won’t step over it, you’re wrong. I just did.”
With that, Clay picked up his wallet from the nightstand and shoved it in his back pocket. Out came his car keys. And without another look in her direction he let himself out of the door and, very probably, out of her life.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
TESSA STOOD IN the circle of capoeiristas without a partner.
Clay had not shown up for practice. Not that she could blame him after the bitter words they’d hurled at each other. Fifteen minutes had gone by and Marcos was beyond frantic.
“What did you say to him?”
Her? Why did he assume she was to blame?
Maybe because she was. She’d reacted badly to Clay’s words, throwing them away before she’d had time to sift through them rationally.
Of course he’d want to provide for any child he had. For her to expect that he’d be hands-on with everything except his money was ridiculous. But she wasn’t exactly sure how to fix it. Or even if she should.
It could be this was the confirmation she needed that she and Clay were never meant to be together.
Except the problem had always been much more on her side than on his. He was a caring, generous man. He always had been. And she’d hurled it back in his face time and time again.
Over two bags of hand-me-down clothes?
People all over the world would have been happy to have gotten those clothes. So why not her? Did she see herself as so much better than everyone else?
Hadn’t she gathered her own bags of clothes over the years and put them in the receptacle of a homeless shelter just down the road?
Yes. She had.
But right now she had more immediate issues to think about. Like what she was going to do about the match. It was possible she’d just ruined things for everyone, including all those people at the hospital who were expecting to see her go head to head with Clay.
Well, she already had.
And she’d come out the loser.
Maybe it was time to change that. She wasn’t sure how. But she’d figure it out after this practice.
“I don’t know where he is, but we should come up with a plan B, just in case.”
She cringed, realizing that was the common name for the morning-after pill. The one she’d thought about taking after their first night together.
Only she hadn’t been able to bring herself to do it.
Marcos let out a long wounded sigh and let off a string of Portuguese words that probably had his mother rolling over in her grave. “I’ll be your partner. It’s the only way.”
But if Clay didn’t show up, Marcos was holding her personally responsible. He’d left the words unsaid, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to hear the subtext coming through loud and clear. She had no doubt he would try to call Clay after they were done tonight.
That thought made her stomach churn.
They went through the motions, and they were actually better partners than she and Clay had ever been, since they were closer in skill level. But she knew right away that the fire and passion that had punctuated her sessions with Clay were missing. Marcos did his best to cover for her, but her moves were lifeless caricatures of what good capoeira should look like. Even the people keeping time with the drum and instruments seemed to sense it and it came through in their playing.
If this match was ruined, it was her fault.
Unless she did something about it.
But what?
The idea came to her just as Marcos made his next move. She spun away, the energy she’d been looking for coming back with a vengeance.
It had worked once before, maybe it would work again. At least she could try.
This might be her only chance to fix the mistakes of the past—and of the present. With a little luck and a whole lot of praying.
She just hoped it worked.
It had taken Tessa two days to get up the courage to send out the gold-foiled invitation. And she’d gotten no response. At all. As the week before the festival went by in a whirlwind of activity and patients, Tessa’s days began to run together in an endless stream, punctuated by a definite lack of sleep.
No word on whether Clay had even received her request. All she could do was hope he’d remember the invitation she’d sent at the beginning of their relationship and see this for the olive branch it was.
She loved the man, she now realized. Wanted a second chance.
Only the festival was here, and time had run out.
As she changed into her white outfit and cinched the purple and green capoeira cord around her waist, she wondered if he’d ever forgive her for being so intractable and arrogant.
And if he didn’t? What did she do then?
She had no idea. And a tiny wave of nausea had hit her this morning, similar to the one she’d felt during practice the other night. It hadn’t lasted long, and at first she’d attributed it to nerves over the match today and what had happened with Clay. But now she wasn’t so sure. Her period was still nowhere to be seen, and her doubts about everything turning out okay were growing by the second.
Marcos, already suited up and ready, came back to the dressing area and found her. “Pronta?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never had to do the top match before.” During their other demonstrations her spot had always been tucked somewhere in the middle.
Her old friend laid a hand on her arm. “It’s not going to be any different, querida. You’ll be surrounded by friends, enclosed in our circle.” He moved on to more practical issues. “The match area has been moved down the hill a bit so that people will be able to see into the circle.”
“Okay.” She took a couple of deep breaths and then blew them back out. “Do you want to run through anything before we go out there? Practice?”
One of the other players came over to where they were standing, and Marcos held up a finger to tell him to wait. “We’re not going to practice any more. We don’t need to.”
Since when did the capoeira master not want to practice? Never, that Tessa could remember. Maybe he was responding to her nerves and didn’t want to make them worse. Or maybe he was worried about his epilepsy showing up again. He hadn’t said anything about that attack, and Tessa had gotten the feeling he didn’t want to talk about it.
He tapped her under the chin. “I’ll see you over on the field in ten minutes.”
“Okay.”
His epilepsy wasn’t the only thing Marcos had failed to mention. He hadn’t talked about Clay, either, so she guessed he hadn’t called to confront him after all. What was going to happen with all those collection cups? Or to Clay’s job, for that matter, since they’d given the administrator their word that they’d put on this match? And the hospital trustees had approved matching the money in the winning jar.
Well, she and Clay had tried. And it hadn’t worked out any better this time than it had the last time.
All because of her.
She checked her appearance once more before walking out of the space and down the hill, following other members of the capoeira studio as they grouped by the staging area.
Trying to shake the nervous energy from her hands by wiggling them at her sides, she joined the roda of participants as they waited for the signal that would send the first pair into the ring. She and Clay were supposed to be the last to perform, the whole exhibition taking about thirty minutes. She glanced around the area. Spectators were already starting to gather in the designated spot, which was just as Marcos had said, high enough that they’d be able to see into the circle. It really was a smart move on his part, because the action would be hard to see otherwise.
She caught sight of her housemates standing together at the front of the crowd. She sent them a quick wave. Caren had already gone, but Holly and Sam were there, along with a woman she di
dn’t recognize. She tilted her head. Was that Kimberlyn? She was supposed to arrive today, and from the picture that Caren had left of her… yes, she thought it might be. It was nice of her to come out, although, knowing Holly, she probably hadn’t had much of a choice. She made a note to herself to help the new arrival get settled in.
Marcos caught her eye and gave a slight nod.
They were ready to start.
The tambourines began setting up the basic rhythm, while the third man with a long curved berimbau added the deeper bass notes, using the single string stretched from end to end along with the shoop-shoop made by pebbles in the gourd at the base of the instrument. A minute went by while everyone absorbed the acoustics and then joined in with claps and a lilting chant they used for every match. Soon Tessa would feel the kind of euphoric state that drove the participants forward. It was all natural, powerful and earthy.
The first two capoeiristas entered the ring, their sinuous weaving steps carrying them forward and back, arms sweeping in wide arcs that carried their whole bodies along with them. Each bout was programmed to last two minutes, except for Tessa’s, which was fifteen, so they didn’t have much time to demonstrate their skill. The pair was doing a phenomenal job, however, both going into joint handstands, their legs bent at the knees, bodies perfectly still for several beats before coming back down at the same time.
They transitioned smoothly into their next group of moves, their cords swinging at their waists. Each pair of fighters had been geared to highlight different skill sets, moving from beginners and going up the ranks to advanced—with like cord colors entering the roda together.
Tessa and Clay were to have been the exception. Her cord was two steps below Marcos’s, so they were closer in skill than she and Clay.
Not that it mattered. Her heart ached as pairs of capoeiristas entered and exited the circle, getting closer and closer to her turn.
There was nothing to do but go through with it and act as if it was all part of the plan. Then afterward?
Well, first she was going to have a good cry. All by herself.
Next, she was going to hunt down Clayton Matthews and plead her case in person. Maybe sending an invitation hadn’t been such a good idea. Men didn’t take hints, right? Well, she would just have to be more direct the next time around: she would accept whatever help he wanted to give her.
