“Why did you come back then?” she questioned.
“It just sort of happened. Old Dr. Stewart was retiring and I took over his practice.”
She nodded. She wanted to ask about Roger’s marital status, whether he was still single, engaged or married to someone she might or might not know, but her own precarious position in that area stopped her. She played with the stem of her water glass and tried to come up with another topic.
“You’re looking well,” he said, his brown eyes steady.
Raine nodded stiffly. Here it comes! she thought. As an active businessman in Tyler, Roger had to have heard the gossip.
“Would you rather not talk about it?” he asked quietly.
A pensive smile flickered across her mouth. “I can’t seem to do anything else. It’s all everyone wants to discuss.”
“Then we won’t,” he decided.
She shook her head. “No. It doesn’t matter. Not really. And of everyone in town, I’d rather talk to you.”
The soup they’d ordered was served, but Roger ignored it. He leaned forward to take her hand and repeated what he’d heard. “You and Gabe are married. And there’s a baby on the way.”
Raine nodded. Technically, Roger was a member of her immediate family, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell him the entire truth. She didn’t want to burden him with it.
“So what’s the problem?” he asked.
She glanced around at the people who still watched them. She sensed their interest in Roger’s attention to her, as well as their building disapproval. She withdrew her hand from his and slipped it under the table. “No one expected it. Don’t tell me you don’t find it a little surprising as well.”
“It was sudden, but things happen that way sometime,” he said.
“It was more than sudden,” she contradicted.
He frowned, his gaze moving to the people covertly and not so covertly watching them.
“Folks here like a good gossip.”
“And Gabe and I are giving it to them.”
“I have to admit,” he said honestly, “I was a little surprised. But you and he always were close.”
Raine laughed hollowly.
Roger’s frown deepened. “Raine—”
Someone bumped against the table, hitting it hard enough to almost spill the soup.
“Hey! Watch it!” Roger reacted sharply.
A nice-looking man in his late thirties, dressed in tan pants, a flannel shirt and a multipocketed tan vest covered with emblems, immediately apologized. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to... I was looking for some friends and wasn’t watching where I—” He broke off when he got a better look at Raine’s table companion. “Roger?”
Roger smiled and got to his feet. “I hardly recognized you,” he said, extending his hand.
The intruder accepted it enthusiastically. “That’s because I’m here on important business.”
Roger raised a skeptical eyebrow, then introduced Raine. “Paul, this is Raine Peterson...er, Atwood. Raine...Paul Chambers, the newest member of our medical community. His specialty is pediatrics. In fact, you might—”
“I’ve heard a lot about you,” she said, offering her hand as well.
Paul Chambers smiled. “Only good things, I hope.”
“Of course.” She slipped her hand back under the table.
“What’s going on?” Roger asked, sitting down again. “What kind of important business? Fishing?”
Paul grinned. “The best pastime known to mankind—fly-fishing.” The lodge is hosting a conference later this month and I’m here, at tremendous sacrifice to myself, mind you, to meet with some of the conference committee members and help them preview the area. Sheila Lawson set it up.”
Roger smiled. “Yes, it looks like a tremendous sacrifice.”
“Taking the afternoon off, being forced to commune with nature, possibly catching a few fish...” He sighed. “Will this torture never end?”
Roger made a show of replacing his napkin. “I truly feel sorry for you,” he said dryly.
“Believe me,” Paul said, growing serious, “I know how lucky I am.” He turned to Raine with a smile. “Nice to meet you.” Then, spotting the people he was supposed to meet, he excused himself and made his way over to a table in the corner, where two men and a woman, all dressed similarly to him, waited.
“I was going to say, you might like to consider him as your baby’s pediatrician. He comes highly recommended,” Roger said.
“Your father has already recommended him.”
“Oh.”
Raine toyed with her soup. “What about you?” she asked eventually, returning to her earlier unasked question. “Are you married yet, or engaged?”
“Still as free as the birds in the trees.”
“Not for want of looking, though,” she guessed.
“No, I look. I just haven’t found what I want yet.”
“What do you want?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” he said with a laugh. “But I’m sure I’ll know when I find it...or rather, her. Right now my best girl is a golden retriever named Serra. She was abused and abandoned, and I’m doing my best to find her a good home. Say, would you be interested in—”
“No, we have a fish, thank you. That’s enough at the moment.”
The main course was served and they started to eat, purposely keeping their conversation light. Both refused dessert, and soon they were strolling through the hotel’s main doors to the parking area.
Roger’s Saturn was parked close to Gabe’s Explorer.
“This was nice,” he said. “Let’s don’t let it be so long before we do it again.”
“Yes,” Raine agreed. Then on impulse, she gave him a hug. Only to find when she drew away that one or two of the people who had been most interested in herself and Roger in the restaurant were passing by.
Roger followed her gaze. “Maybe we’d better be sure to invite Gabe next time,” he murmured, teasing.
Raine tried to smile but found it difficult. Why did everything have to be so complicated? Couldn’t life be simple once in a while? A friend lunching with a friend!
She started to turn away, ready to fit the key into the door lock, when Roger stopped her. “Raine?” he said, once again serious. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do, okay?”
Raine nodded, unable to speak.
“And tell Gabe,” he continued, “tell Gabe he’s a very lucky man.”
* * *
GABE SAT AT the kitchen table, waiting. While he was helping Alyssa at least four people had rushed up to him with the news that Raine was having lunch with Roger Phelps at Timberlake Lodge. It was also there in her note. “I’m meeting Roger for lunch. Taking the car to the lodge. Raine.” He knew he shouldn’t be jealous, but he was.
They were acting very friendly, he’d been told. Holding hands...a kiss afterward.
Some years ago Roger had lived in New York, at the same time as Raine. They’d had frequent contact, Marge had told him, glad that her daughter had had someone from home to talk to occasionally. Two years ago Roger had come back to Tyler to practice veterinary medicine. But did that mean all contact between the two of them had ceased?
Could Roger be the baby’s father?
A car pulled into the driveway and stopped—the Explorer. Raine hopped out, walked to the kitchen door and let herself in.
Gabe didn’t move. He stayed at the table, trying to control his emotions.
/>
She broke into a bright smile when she saw him. “Gabe! You’re home! I thought maybe I...” She glanced at her watch to check the time.
“I came home early,” he said levelly. She had looked so happy coming into the house. Then upon seeing him—it might have been his imagination, he couldn’t be sure—she’d seemed to tighten up inside in spite of her smile.
“I was having lunch with Roger. Did you see my...” She glanced at the note lying crumpled on the table. She looked back at him.
Gabe knew he couldn’t continue to behave this way. He had no hold on her, either in the past or the present. They might be married, but the vows had no force. She didn’t know that he loved her, that the thought of her being with another man—especially now—cut into him like a knife.
“I heard. Several people made it their business to tell me. They thought it might be something more than a lunch.” He forced himself to loosen up, even smile. “I reminded them that you were stepbrother and sister...and if it didn’t bother me, why should it bother them?”
Her smile returned. “I knew we were being watched. It’s so disgusting when people put two and two together and come up with five. It was a simple lunch, that’s all. He’s a friend.”
“From your New York days.” The words leaped out of their own volition.
“I haven’t seen him for four years!”
“So he’s not the baby’s father?”
“Hardly!” She laughed, then noticed that he hadn’t. Her body stiffened—ever so slightly, but he was aware of it. She shook her head. “No, he’s not the baby’s father. Is that why you...” She motioned to the note.
A muscle jumped along his jawline. “I can’t be blamed for wondering,” he said.
Raine pulled a chair from its usual place at the side of the table and scooted it close to his. When she sat in it, their knees almost touched.
She had gone all out for this lunch with Roger, Gabe noted—hose, high heels, carefully applied makeup. She didn’t look like the “Tyler” Raine. She looked like “New York”—stylish, sophisticated, someone completely out of his sphere. But she was watching him carefully, as if what he thought made a huge difference to her, as if she dreaded his possible rejection.
“I’ll tell you if you really want to know,” she said quietly. “He’s someone I met while rehearsing for a musical. I was in the chorus, and he—”
Gabe stopped her. It was too much. At this particular moment, it was far too much! “No, I don’t want to know.”
“I’d have told you if it was Roger, Gabe,” she said sincerely. “I wouldn’t have expected you to meet him in town and not be aware that he was the father. Anyway, you two are friends, aren’t you?”
“To some degree. We played sports together in high school. But after that, he wasn’t here much.”
“It still would have been wrong for me not to tell you.”
Her green eyes held his, hopeful and pleading. When she looked at him like that, Gabe acknowledged, he could deny her nothing. He brought her head to rest lightly against his chest and held it there, his own eyes, hidden from her view, closing. If anything, he loved her more.
She stirred, but instead of pushing away, she wrapped her arms around his waist, securing their closeness.
“You’re still the same, aren’t you, Gabe?” she whispered tightly. “I need you to be the same. Not to have changed. You are comfortable with what we’ve done, aren’t you? And if—if it ever comes to be that you aren’t...you’ll tell me right away, won’t you? You won’t wait?”
“I promise,” Gabe said, and when she straightened she gave him a wavery smile.
When he was once again alone in the kitchen, Raine having gone to change into something more appropriate for hiking over the rolling hills beside Timber Lake, Gabe thought about the future. No firm date had been set for anything after the birth. How long would they stay together? And after they parted, would she and the baby eventually go back to New York? Other dancers had children, yet still found a way to work on the stage.
The baby. The growing child. What would his relationship with it be? Would he see it more than just the occasional time when Raine came back to Tyler to visit? Would the child know him only as Gabe, the nice man who lived next door?
And what of Raine? When this sham of a marriage was over, would she drift back under the influence of the man who had impregnated her, then rejected her? Or would she move on to someone else?
What if instead... No! He shook his head, denying the thought. But it was so compelling, so tantalizing, that he couldn’t refute it altogether. Would it be possible...could it be possible...that Raine—after a time, after a long time—might come to love him? And if not fully love him, at least be willing to stay married to him, so that the child might have a caring, attentive father? In name, if not in blood?
The idea stayed with Gabe all through the afternoon as they tramped about the hills surrounding Timber Lake. If only there was a way he could make Raine see him as something other than her good buddy Gabe. She needed him now. She wanted him close. But that was as far as it went. He ached to hold her, to tell her of his love. But he held the emotion back. The quickest way to send her running was to reveal too much of himself. What she needed from him, trusted him to give her, was stability in an unsteady world. For the moment all he could do was continue to bide his time.
CHAPTER NINE
MARGE PAID A CALL shortly after they returned from the lake to ask them over for dinner that night.
“I don’t quite know how this happened,” she said briskly. “It’s not something I planned, but one thing led to another, and now dinner for four has turned into a crowd! And all of them want to see you! Britt and Jake, Nora and Byron, Susannah and Joe... I’m going to have to make a run to the diner for more food! I know it’s late notice,” Marge continued, sensing her daughter’s hesitation, “but if you can possibly do it, you should come. They’re your and Gabe’s friends, Raine. They’re not going to make impolite comments.”
Gabe waited for Raine to make the decision. “Sure. Why not?” she said, reluctantly agreeing.
Marge hurried to the door. “At seven. Okay?”
“Is there anything we can bring?” Raine asked.
“Not a thing,” Marge called over her shoulder as she stepped outside. “Just yourselves.”
Gabe checked the clock on the wall. “Not much time,” he said.
“The story of my day,” Raine murmured.
“You want to take first shower?”
“Maybe I’d better. It took six tries before I found something that fit comfortably for lunch!”
“You could wear that again,” he said. “It looked nice.”
Raine paused in the doorway. Men—they just didn’t have a clue. “I’ll find something else,” she assured him, smiling. “Don’t worry. I was exaggerating. I haven’t grown out of all my clothes...yet.”
“It won’t make any difference when you do. You’re going to be beautiful all the way through this.”
Raine thought of Joel, of the disparaging way he talked about dancers who took time out to have children. “Little better than cows!” he’d fumed. “Don’t they see what they’re doing to themselves?” His idea of beauty was diametrically opposed to Gabe’s....
Gabe frowned. “What’s the matter? You looked funny all of a sudden.”
She shook her head. Joel was out of her life, at least at the present. She didn’t have to think about him, consider his views. In the future...? “I was just thinking about what you said,” she answered honestly. “We’ll check ba
ck to see if you still feel that way in four or five months, when I start to resemble the Goodyear blimp!”
“I’ll still feel the same,” he said steadily.
She rolled her eyes before starting off down the hall.
“I will!” he called after her, then teased, “Remember those old models we used to make when we were kids? I’ve always had a fascination for blimps.”
“You’re hopeless, Gabe!” she retorted before shutting herself in the bathroom.
His answering chuckle carried down the hall.
* * *
RAINE HAD BEEN exaggerating, but she wasn’t too far off the mark when she’d said she was going to have a hard time finding something to wear. Last week her skirts and slacks had fit a little snugly. This week, the seams strained on all but a couple of choices: the skirt she’d worn for lunch, and a soft summery dress with a fashionably high waist and long floaty skirt that was designed for freedom of movement. She pulled the skirt of the summery dress taut over what had once been her flat tummy and saw the tiny bulge. There was nothing for it. It was only going to get bigger.
She turned sideways, still holding the dress taut, and looked at herself in the mirror. Raine Peterson, baby maker. It still didn’t feel real, just as being Gabe’s wife didn’t feel real. It was like the game she’d insisted on playing when they were children: mommy, daddy and baby. Only the doll they’d used had been replaced by a real baby she was busily creating. In a little more than six short months it would be here, and then... She let the dress fall back into place. And then she would be faced with the need to make even more decisions.
She heard the shower switch off and Gabe pad barefoot to his room. To save time, while he was getting dressed, she would brush her teeth and apply her makeup and surprise him by being ready when he was.
She opened the bedroom door, ready to step into the hall. At that exact same instant the door across the hall opened and Gabe, wearing only a towel draped loosely about his hips, stood facing her.
Raine’s gasp was instinctive. It had been years since she had seen him with so little on. Not since summers at the lake, when they and some of their friends had spent hours lolling about in the water and on the float just offshore from the old Timberlake Lodge. Swimsuits had been the dress of the day—Speedos for the boys and bikinis for the girls. The idea had been to wear as little as possible in order to show off their supple young bodies.
Daddy Next Door (Hometown Reunion) Page 11
