“That’s not true. You made that up. I never played doctor with you.”
“Andy, why would I make up something like that? Hell, we were little more than babies. I honestly don’t recall how we even figured out that our bodies were different, but it apparently happened and innocent little beings that we were, we were curious about the differences.”
Andrea was unwilling to admit to something she couldn’t recall at all. “I don’t believe it,” she said stiffly.
Keith laughed. “Fine, don’t believe it. It’s not important anyhow.”
But it was. It was one more shared event—even funny when she really thought about it—and further proof that their life on the same cosmic plane had begun over thirty years ago.
He turned his head to peer at her; she was close enough for him to see the flecks of black in her blue, blue eyes. He also saw a mist of tears and an alarming intensity.
“Let’s not blow this out of proportion,” he said quietly, hoping to soothe her. Why a simple little memory from their childhood would bother her to this degree escaped him, but her agitation was obvious. After moving the album back to the stack, he put his arm around her and gently urged her head down to his shoulder. “It can’t be that bad,” he said softly.
“It…it’s not bad,” she whispered, “just disturbing.”
She began crying, and her flood of tears soaked Keith’s shirt in seconds. He was dismayed by so much emotion over a perfectly normal childhood incident, but he sat there, held her and let her have her cry while he gently stroked her hair. He hoped that this might be that beginning he’d deemed necessary for their relationship to progress, but he wasn’t impatient about it.
Then, without warning, Andrea got up, mumbled “I’ll be back,” and left the room. Keith got to his feet and frowned at the vacant doorway. What had that trip down memory lane done to Andy? The only thing it had done to him was to give him a few laughs, but she hadn’t laughed over it, she had cried.
Andrea walked in with a box of tissues. Her eyes were red from weeping and the tip of her nose was pink, but she was much calmer, and she sat in a chair and asked him to please sit down again. “I have something to tell you,” she said.
Wary and more than a little concerned, Keith slowly sank to the sofa again. Something told him he’d been right. This was either a new beginning or an irreversible ending for them. He hesitated to speak at all, but she seemed to want to hear from him.
“Is something wrong?” he asked slowly, cautiously.
She thought a moment, then said, “Maybe something’s right, but right now I don’t know.”
He frowned at her. “You’re worrying me, Andy.”
“I know.” She dove in, head-first. “Keith…I…I’m pregnant.”
Keith froze solid. His mouth would hardly form words. “You’re what?” he finally got out.
“I’m pregnant,” she repeated. She could see his throat bob up and down as he swallowed. While she’d expected some show of surprise, she had not anticipated an almost fatal case of panic. Was he wondering if he should get out of there and run like hell? That was what he looked like. She had finally faced the truth of her own feelings for him and decided that she couldn’t possibly withhold the existence of his child from him, and he was reacting as she had expected. She was never going to learn, was she?
“You can…uh, know that this soon?” he mumbled.
The damage was done. As much as she wished it, she couldn’t take it back. She squared her shoulders, looked him right in the eyes and said coldly, “I’ve taken several tests, seen an obstetrician and there’s no doubt.”
Life was beginning to return to Keith’s benumbed system. She was pregnant. They were going to have a baby! My God, this was a miracle. Shocking, yes, but definitely a miracle.
He got up and walked over to her. “When did you know?”
She sank deeper into her chair because she didn’t want him getting too close. “I knew it was a possibility after our night in the park. I knew for certain once I took the tests.”
He was so tall, and he was looming over her. She knew he was beginning to guess it all, and rather than let him flounder for a while longer, she decided to give it to him straight.
“I wasn’t going to tell you at all.” The fire in her eyes dared him to say something insolent or insulting.
His dark tan became noticeably lighter by several shades, right before those blazing eyes of hers. “You’re not serious?”
She was not going to back down on this, or cower and act all weepy and wrong. From the look of him, as though she’d just taken away his very last toy and now he would have to grow up, she never should have even hinted at her condition.
“I’m very serious,” she snapped. “Why should I want to tell you? You ran away like a scared little boy after seducing me!”
He recoiled as though physically struck. “Andy, that’s not what happened.”
Andrea watched him move around the room, feeling as though her heart weighed a ton. He wasn’t happy about the baby, and why had she gotten maudlin over some old memories and decided he should know about his impending fatherhood? No, that hadn’t been it. It had been that realization that she had never really stopped loving him. Oh, the flames had dimmed for a while, no question about it, but they’d always been lurking somewhere in her system.
He finally stopped pacing and looked at her. “I’ve never ever done anything right with you, have I?”
She could lie and agree with him, but she was through with lies and pretense. “Of course you have.”
“In college?”
“Well…no…but…” She hesitated, but only for a second. This was something else that had to be said. “I always blamed you for our breakup in college. You were cruel.” Oddly the one thing she’d really wanted to say to him for weeks—for years, actually—didn’t do a thing for her. It was all so long ago, and what did it signify now? She’d been much too unforgiving—a foolish, naive, unforgiving young girl. Even maturity hadn’t softened her judgment, she had clung to the hurt for years, steadfastly believing that she had been wronged.
“I didn’t mean to be,” Keith said. “I thought you understood. That you wanted a business partnership just like I did. I guess I figured you’d know that eventually, when we became financially secure, which I was positive would happen, we’d get married.”
“You never said that.”
“I should have. I was so boiling over with ideas, plans and ambition. Regardless of all that, I did love you, Andy.” He walked another circle around the room, then stopped directly in front of her, leaned over, put his hands on the arms of the chair and said, “I still do.”
She swallowed. His face was close to hers and there was no avoiding his eyes. “I loved you, too,” she said huskily. “Back then.”
“But not now?”
She was afraid of giving too much too soon. “How can I know for sure what I feel? You weren’t always so certain, either, or you wouldn’t have hightailed it to Mexico to figure it out.”
“Everything’s different now. Andy, I want my baby.”
“Which could be the reason you’re talking about still loving me. Keith, it’s not your baby until I say it is.”
He frowned. “Wait a minute. Are you saying…?”
She broke in. “No! It’s your baby, but that doesn’t mean you can have it.”
“What does it mean, then? If you intended to withhold our child from me, why did you tell me about it?”
“I got sentimental.”
“And now you’re sorry you did?”
“I don’t know what I am!”
“Well, maybe you should figure it out!”
“Don’t you dare yell at me!”
To preserve his own sanity and self-control, Keith walked away from her. Again he paced the room, thinking, remembering. They had more intertwined memories at thirty-eight than a lot of couples had at sixty. And he did love her, but she was so damn stubborn, and if she had it in her h
ead that he’d only told her he loved her because of the baby, it would be almost impossible to change her mind.
He had to try, though. “Andy, how were you going to explain a baby without a husband?”
“There are lots of ways. Sperm banks, for one. Women don’t need a man to have a baby these days, Keith.”
“That’s just great,” he muttered darkly.
She felt awful. They should be rejoicing together, laughing, crying, making plans. Instead they were still fighting, still on different roads. Not even that, actually. Same road, different lanes was more like it, she thought sadly.
She thought of the baby then and laid her hand on her lower abdomen. It was so new, just beginning to form, but in her mind it was a fully developed infant. That was how she would always think of it till the day of its birth. Until that momentous day, she and nature would be its protectors, but then, didn’t her precious son or daughter deserve to have both parents?
She could tell how hurt Keith was, and she could certainly feel her own pain. But she still loved him and it was possible that he hadn’t said he loved her just to be part of his child’s life.
She took a shaky breath. “Maybe…maybe we should try something.”
Keith stopped and looked at her. “Try what?”
“To…to stop bickering and maybe…make it work…between us.”
“Even though you don’t love me?”
“Keith, that’s not fair.”
“But is it accurate?” He rushed over to her chair and knelt at her knees. “Andy, you’ve denied my existence for eighteen years. Was I really that terrible in college?”
She was having trouble meeting his eyes. “No, but I thought you were.”
“You still thought it the night of the ball, didn’t you?”
“I was afraid of you.”
“Because I made you feel things you didn’t want to feel?”
“Possibly.” After a second she added, “Probably.”
“Look at me.” He put his hands on her face, one on each side, and repeated softly, “Look at me, Andy.” When she finally did, he said, “I think you do love me. What do you propose we do to try and make it work between us?”
She was losing her nerve again. “How about designing a board indicating all possible choices and then throwing darts at it?”
“I thought you were serious.” He got up. “Maybe we should sleep on it and talk again tomorrow.”
It was Andrea’s turn to panic. She got to her feet. “No, don’t go. I’m thinking that we might have been married to each other for years and already have had children. Instead, because of our fight and our own blindness, we went our separate ways. We’re going to have a baby. I already love this child and you said you want it. Do you love it, too, or do you merely want to preserve the Owens dynasty?” She held up a hand to stop him from speaking. “Let me finish. I think I do love you, and if you can honestly say that you love me and the baby, then…”
Thunderstruck, Keith couldn’t remain silent a moment longer. “Then we should get married!” He pulled her into his arms and began kissing her forehead, her cheeks and her lips. None lingered in any one spot, and she closed her eyes and savored the delicious sensation of his lips wandering and exploring her face. For the first time since the ball she felt loved.
“I truly adore you,” he said huskily. “I mean it. I love you, I love you, I love you. I always have. I love the baby, and I swear to be the best father ever. I admit I ran off to think. I admit loving you so much scared me, but that was mostly because I wasn’t sure of your feelings. Even making love with me wasn’t proof of love, sweetheart. So there it is. I love everything about you, every single thing, and now I want you to say it.”
“Are we playing another game?” she whispered, for truly, his speech had stunned her.
“Not this time.”
She dampened her lips with her tongue and sucked in a breath. “All right, I’ll say it. I adore you,” she whispered as tears gathered in her eyes. “Keith, I’m so weary of all the pulling and pushing we did. I just want to be happy.”
“With me and our child.”
“Yes, with you and our child.”
He hugged her so tightly she laughed. “Keith, I can’t breathe!”
Laughing, he loosened his hold on her and leaned his head back enough to look into her eyes. “You are so beautiful.”
“Keith, I’m not.”
“Fishing for more compliments, are we?” he teased. “Let me start with…”
“No! Stop that now. We need to talk.”
“Fine. We could get married as soon as Texas law permits, if that’s what you want, or we could fly to Las Vegas and do it tomorrow.”
“Let’s be sensible about this and not rush the…the wedding. I’d really like to spend some quality time together, now that we’re both out in the open with our feelings.”
“I guess that makes sense. All right, how about if we see each other every day and call each other at least three times a day. We should also go to every public place in town so everyone knows we are now a couple. I should meet your friends and you should meet mine. And we should make love at least once every day, no, make that twice a day. At least twice a day.”
Andrea was too breathlessly ecstatic to speak, for the dream she’d lived on in college was finally happening and it wasn’t easy to believe. Had she hoped or even suspected Keith might go this far when she finally admitted—out loud and to his face—her love?
“And when we’re ready…we’ll know when the time is right…we’ll get married,” Keith continued. “Did I hit the right choice on the dart board?” he asked with an adorably enchanting grin.
“You did…yes.”
Keith looked off across the room and after a few moments murmured, “It’s still raining, coming down in buckets, it sounds like.” Then he brought his gaze back to Andrea, who was by this time dangerously weak in the knees.
“Let’s go to bed, sweetheart,” he said, low and seductively.
“Yes,” she whispered. She could say nothing else.
Thirteen
Three days remained of Kiddie Kingdom’s spring term. On Monday, Andrea talked to Nancy Pringle, the principal, and asked if she could have a few more weeks to decide which term she wanted to take off this year. Her request surprised Nancy, and Andrea didn’t explain that she couldn’t go forward with either retirement or her normal summer-term break without a little more thought. Teaching had always meant so much to her, and she was finding it hard to imagine life without it. After all, she taught at a liberal preschool that permitted teacher-moms to bring their babies—and, of course, their toddlers—to class. If she wanted to continue teaching she would really only need to take off a month or so after the baby’s birth. She hadn’t yet discussed it with Keith, but she would.
Nancy said yes to her request, which pleased Andrea, but for a fact, nearly everything, even a simple “Good morning” from a stranger, pleased her now. Her mood was remarkably upbeat, there seemed to be a permanent smile on her face, and just thinking of Keith warmed her.
In truth she had never known the power and magic of the kind of love she felt from and for Keith. Her self-confidence soared because of it; her energy level rose because of it; the sky was bluer because of it. She was so glad and thrilled to be alive and in love, so thankful, and in gratitude for this miracle of fate or gift from above she would not let herself lament past mistakes and misjudgments, not her own, not Keith’s.
They spent every possible moment together. When she got home from school on Monday he was waiting for her. That afternoon he invited her to his house, and indeed it was a mansion, enormous, overly decorated and not at all the kind of home she admired. But she walked through the rooms with him and in one of the bedrooms—not the master suite, she noted—they made such sweet and tender love that she wept.
Then they talked. “When we’re married, where would you like to live?” Keith asked.
“Well…” She didn’t want
to say that she didn’t like his mansion, because he must like it or he wouldn’t be living in it.
“I opt for your house or a new one that we would plan and build together,” he said.
His sweet unselfishness moved her, and she kissed him with all the love in her heart. Later they discussed her teaching career, and he told her to do whatever she wanted. “You know you’ll never have to work a day of your life, but I know you love teaching, and now I even know why you do. It’s up to you, sweetheart.”
She thought that was sweet, as well.
They ate out that night, choosing Claire’s, Royal’s fine French restaurant. They saw people they knew and people they knew saw them. They smiled at each other because people would know they were a couple. It was what they wanted.
On Tuesday they went to Claire’s with some of the Cattleman’s Club members for dinner. Despite Andrea’s increased self-confidence, she felt a bit nervous about that. But Keith’s friends seemed genuinely pleased to meet her—she’d met some of them at the charity ball, though she hadn’t even tried to remember names and faces at the time—and the evening turned out to be great fun.
Wednesday was the last day of the spring term, and Andrea brought cookies to school as a special treat for her tiny students. She also invited Keith to the party, and when he arrived she asked him to read the “cluck-cluck” story to the class.
This time while he read she could not keep tears at bay. She was looking at such a beautiful, touching scene, her beloved reading aloud to ten adorable children, and it made her think of the tiny life she was carrying. Keith talked often of the baby—asking dozens of questions about how she felt and could she feel it inside her yet—and she now believed with all her heart that he was as elated with their impending parenthood as she was.
That night Andrea entertained her friends and introduced Keith to them. She saw a few surprised faces in the group, but all in all the evening went well and Keith was accepted. After everyone had gone home, he hugged Andrea and laughingly said, “I think I passed muster.”
The Bachelor Takes a Wife Page 16
