Claudine nodded as if what Rebecca had said aloud made some kind of sense. “He tells me you’re pregnant.”
“Oh!” Another wave of awkwardness flooded over her. She’d just tried to pull off the happily married-couple thing when all along Trent’s assistant knew the truth. “Well, I…we…”
Claudine leaned over to pat her hand. “I came of age in the sixties, Rebecca. I’ve heard of premarital sex.”
Maybe Trent’s assistant didn’t know the truth. “I’m just a couple of months along.”
“And that can be the hardest time of all in a pregnancy,” Claudine asserted. “You’re tired. You’re hungry. You’re not hungry. You’re still tired. And though you don’t look any different, you’re starting to feel very, very different.”
Rebecca relaxed against the pillows. “I take it you’re a mother?”
“Four boys. Men now. But you don’t forget how it is to be pregnant, especially that first time. It can be frightening, like finding yourself on a train that not only never slows down, but has no stops, either.”
“Yes,” Rebecca said, smiling. “I feel that way, not just about the pregnancy, but about…” Her voice trailed away as she realized what she was about to say.
“About the marriage?” Claudine prompted. “That’s natural, too. I’d known my husband all my life, but I remember looking at him across the table on the second day of our honeymoon and thinking he was a stranger. A complete, total stranger. I wanted to run home to my mother.”
Rebecca laughed. “And did you?”
Claudine shook her head. “My head might have seen a stranger but my heart still knew who he was.”
My heart knew who he was. The words echoed inside of Rebecca. She didn’t want her heart involved in her marriage. She didn’t.
“That’s why Trent called me, you know.”
Rebecca blinked. “What?”
“He thought you might be missing your mother right about now. He said she’d passed away, but he hoped that another woman, an older one, might be able to give you some comfort.”
The corners of Rebecca’s eyes stung. “He did? He said that?” Her nose was tingling and she had to rub it. “That’s so sweet.”
“I thought so myself,” Claudine said. “I also thought it was testament to his feelings for you. This is a man who lives and breathes his business, but he’s been coming up for air, real air, since he married you.”
Yes, but Trent doesn’t have any feelings for me, Rebecca thought. At least not the warm, fuzzy kind. But she couldn’t say that, of course. Her eyes stung again. “He’s going to be a good father.”
Claudine nodded. “He is. He takes his responsibilities very seriously. Even some responsibilities that aren’t his.”
“Robbie Logan,” Rebecca murmured. “And his brother Danny’s little boy.”
The other woman nodded again. “There are so many who see Trent as heartless, while I think it’s that big heart of his that he’s always desperate to keep well-protected.”
Even though she doubted the assertion, Rebecca was mortified to feel a tear roll down her cheek. “Hormones,” she said, laughing as she wiped it away.
Then Trent was in the doorway again, a brown paper bag in his arms. “Damn it, Claudine. I didn’t bring you over here to make my wife cry.”
The older woman smiled at Rebecca but didn’t let a beat go by. “It’s because I just told her the amount of my measly salary, you ungrateful tightwad.” She got to her feet. “Now it’s time for me to go home and search the want ads for a second job so I can keep up with inflation.”
“I heard the Portland Playhouse is holding auditions for The Wizard of Oz. You could try out for the Wicked Witch of the West.”
She sailed toward him, her chin high. “Cad.”
“Shrew.”
“Brute.”
“Crone.”
She smiled as she past him. “Malefactor.”
Trent froze. “Okay, fine,” he said, his voice sulky. “That point’s yours.”
Claudine sent Rebecca a triumphant look over her shoulder. “They always are. Good night, Rebecca!”
With her pulse racing and her stomach feeling as if she was on a long elevator fall, it was all Rebecca could do to give a little wave. Then, clasping her hands tightly together, she paid careful attention to Trent, who sat himself down on the other side of the bed.
Don’t give yourself away, she thought as she watched him rummaging in his bag. His short hair was a bit mussed, as if he’d scraped his hands through its earlier perfect order.
He tossed a couple of magazines on her lap. “I didn’t know if you were a Cosmo or a Vogue girl, so I got them both.”
Her throat was too dry to thank him. He didn’t know if she was a Cosmo or a Vogue girl. But it didn’t seem to matter, because she was dizzy with this terrible thing that was happening to her.
Out of Trent’s bag came two pints of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. “Phish Phood for you, Chubby Hubby for me.”
She managed to find her voice. Maybe she could will this moment into normalcy, maybe she could will away this horrible, calamitous, dangerous disaster that was happening to her. “What if I want the Chubby Hubby?”
He grinned at her. “Then you’ll have him, if I eat many pints of this stuff.”
It wasn’t going away. She couldn’t will it away.
He set the ice cream aside and then he swung his long legs onto the bed. Reaching behind him, he adjusted the pillows so that he was propped up beside her. Rebecca breathed in, smelling Trent’s lime-soap scent, the June evening air, a whiff of mingled perfumes from the inserts in the magazines on her lap. They filled her head like the notes of a song and she knew it was music she’d never forget.
The bag rattled as Trent slid his hand inside again. “I thought we could have some fun with this tonight.” He held up a book. Baby Names: The Good, the Bad and the Out-and-Out Ugly.
And if she hadn’t already fallen, that would have shoved her over. Why? Because the attractive, intense man who’d driven her home earlier tonight had had sex on his mind. But now, the tender protector who was stretched out beside her was willing to spend the evening with her playing Name that Baby.
But the fact was she already had fallen. Sometime between the minestrone and the music sounding in her head. Maybe when she’d found out he’d wanted to give her a mother in the guise of his assistant. But, no. “It was the malefactor that did it,” she murmured.
He frowned. “What?”
That look on his face when Claudine had bested him. Crestfallen, little-boy sulky, yet still man enough to acknowledge some other winner. Maybe it was silly. Maybe it was a secret she’d always keep. Maybe she’d never be able to tell her grandchildren the moment she’d fallen in love with their grandfather.
But that was it.
“I want to know when I’m going to meet this wife of yours,” Trent’s mother said. “Why didn’t you bring her to dinner tonight?”
“Because she had a long day at work and I thought she’d rather stay home and rest.” Not that he’d asked Rebecca. He’d told her he had a business dinner and that he’d be home late. All his dinners with his mother ran late, because it took hours to get her complaints out of her system.
“Maybe I should call her and have her meet me for lunch at the country club.”
Trent didn’t look up from his prime rib. If he showed alarm, then his mother would make sure she did that very thing. “I’d rather you wouldn’t, Mom,” he said in a mild tone.
“Are you ashamed of me?” Sheila demanded.
“Of course not.” He lifted his gaze, taking in the beauty that a plastic surgeon was paid a fortune to preserve. Injections vanquished the lines of discontent on her face. Creams softened her skin and bleached away the marks of age. Her neck was as smooth as the blade of a scalpel. Shame wasn’t the emotion his mother brought out in him.
“Are you ashamed of Rachel, then?”
“Rebecca,” Trent corrected with an in
ward shake of his head. “Her name is Rebecca, and I’m not ashamed of her, either.”
“But a nurse, Trent. Couldn’t you have found yourself someone more…stylish?”
“Maybe you could do something about that for me, Mom. Talk to the administrators at the hospital and see if they can bring on board Stella McCartney to design the scrubs the staff wear.”
“Scrubs.” Nose wrinkling, his mother lifted her wineglass and took a sip of the triple-digit bottle of pinot grigio she’d ordered because he’d be paying for it. “That very word makes my point.”
Trent mentally tightened the armor he donned before any encounter with his mother and let the asinine comment run off his back. Katie had questioned him about why he put himself through these meetings with their mother, but she didn’t understand.
First, she was their mother. As the oldest, the oldest son, he couldn’t shake off the sense of duty that he felt toward her.
Second, she’d found out about his marriage. Flown from her home in Palm Springs, or so she said, just to offer her congratulations. If he hadn’t agreed to have dinner with her, her curiosity would have led her to contact Rebecca for sure. This way, he hoped to put his mother off that idea. Sheila wasn’t really interested in Trent’s wife, only in how his marriage would affect her.
If he continued his duty dinners when necessary, then he hoped she’d otherwise stay out of his life.
His mother took another sip from her glass. “I always liked your first wife, Mara. What happened?”
“Mara left me, Mom, remember?”
“That’s right.” She nodded. “Because you didn’t have time for her. Too wrapped up in the business, just like your-father-the-bastard.”
And last but not least, Trent had to admit that he’d agreed to this dinner in order to remind himself what his mother was like, what Mara was like, what women could be like. What could happen when you made the mistake of exposing your underbelly to the female half of the world.
He was a pessimist. So sue him.
“By the way, how is your-father-the bastard and that bimbo he married?”
“Dad’s well, Mom, and Toni, too. I’ll tell them you asked.” Trent forced himself to cut another bite of his meal, put it in his mouth and chew.
“Don’t you do any such thing, Trent Crosby. I wouldn’t care if that man was going in for a quadruple bypass tomorrow, not after the way he’s treated me!”
“Boy, it’s sure great to see you, Mom,” Trent said, picking up his glass and toasting her. “It’s as if no time has passed at all.”
She narrowed her eyes. Sheila was selfish but not stupid. “Don’t take that tone of voice with me, Trent. Danny is bad enough.”
Trent froze, then carefully set down his knife and fork. “You’ve been talking to Danny?” His little brother didn’t need any more grief in his life. “I wish you wouldn’t, Mom.”
She speared a bite of her squab. “You wish I wouldn’t meet your new wife, and you wish I wouldn’t talk to your brother. My very own son! You don’t always get what you wish for, Trent.”
“Don’t I know it,” he muttered. He lifted his water glass and tried to swallow back the headache that was beginning to drum at the back of his neck. If he could get what he wished for, his mother would be tucked away in Palm Springs and he would be tucked away in his house with Rebecca—in bed. But since she’d fainted the week before, he’d kept his distance. He stayed at work late, coming home long after she was asleep—in his room. He told her he’d been sleeping in the guest bed so that he wouldn’t disturb her.
He’d been sleeping in the guest bed because she disturbed him.
“Trent?”
His gaze jerked up. “Excuse me, Mom. What did you say?”
“I asked you about the Summer Solstice dance at the country club Saturday night. Are you going?”
Still distracted by thoughts of Rebecca, Trent’s mind drifted away. “Hmm? Yeah. Sure. I bought a table.” The night before, he’d been tempted to wake his wife when he’d finally wandered home in the dead of night. Seventeen straight hours at his desk hadn’t dampened his desire for her.
He remembered every detail of her body from their one night together—the sleek warmth of her skin, the weighty surprise of her breasts, the clinging sweetness of her wavy hair. He’d wanted to anchor his hands in it, twine his fingers with it and hold her against the pillow to take his kiss, wakening Sleeping Beauty to all that he wanted to softly, gently, tenderly give her.
But that was the danger. All that softness, gentleness, tenderness. Giving her that would mean first dropping the protection—the breastplate, the chain mail—that had kept him invulnerable since Robbie had gone missing. Since Danny’s Noah had been kidnapped. Since Mara had left him with nothing more than a vial of empty dreams.
Until Rebecca.
But he’d promised himself, promised her, that their marriage would be based on strength. On the strength of the notion that love was too nebulous to build a marriage upon. He couldn’t go back to her now and say he’d been wrong. That he’d made a mistake.
For God’s sake, he wasn’t mistaken about love.
Katie and Ivy seemed happy enough, but that was the girls. Maybe they were smarter than he was. Hell, braver.
Believing in the unbelievable.
Taking chances on faith.
Risking hurt, risking hearts, when all signs pointed to the fact that love didn’t last. That it died. That it didn’t, in fact, exist at all.
The rest of the meal with his mother went well enough. He parried when he had to. Threw up a shield when it was necessary. Stood between Sheila and his sisters as he’d done all his life. Not that Ivy’s King Max or Katie’s Peter would let their mother-in-law do her damage any longer, Plus, he supposed the girls could do fine on their own.
It was just that old habits died hard. Old fears, too.
They were sipping coffee and he was playing with a slice of cheesecake when Sheila brought up the Summer Solstice dance again. “Will your-father-the-bastard be there?”
Trent looked up. “We’re sitting together.”
“With the bimbo?”
“With Toni, yes.”
His mother nodded. “Then I must have a new dress.”
Trent set his fork down. “You’re going?”
“Of course. I told you that half an hour ago. Weren’t you listening?”
Apparently not. Apparently she’d mentioned it when he’d been fantasizing about Rebecca. “I don’t want a scene, Mom.” That jungle-drums headache was starting up again.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He couldn’t afford to leave it at that. Not when his father and his father’s wife were going to be there. Not when Katie and Peter would be in attendance. None of them needed the embarrassment of any tricks Sheila might be capable of producing. Rebecca’s second thoughts about their marriage would rise again. She’d tell him it was a mistake and he wouldn’t be able to deny it. “Mom, remember when we had that little talk about rumors and Children’s Connection? About how I’d revoke your membership at the club if you started any? Well, the same goes if you make a scene at the Summer Solstice dance.”
She tried a collagen-enhanced pout on him. “I don’t know why you’d say such a thing.”
His gaze was steady on hers. “I mean it, Mom. Don’t approach Dad.”
Her eyes dropped. “Oh, fine. But maybe I wanted to say hello. You know, for old times’ sake.”
“Right. Old times’ sake.” Trent didn’t bother excising the cynicism from his voice. “The old times were hell, Mom, and you know it.”
“It was what happened with that Robbie Logan,” she complained. “It put so much stress on your father and me.”
Trent sighed. “Whatever, Mom.”
“You think you know everything about the past, Trent. But I loved your father once. I loved him very much. And sometimes I wonder if…” A faraway look came into her eyes.
Trent’s jaw dropped. In
a hundred years, a thousand years, a million years, he wouldn’t have believed Sheila would ever have admitted to loving her husband at one time. And from the look on her face…Trent wondered if her bitterness and her complaints masked a hurt that he’d never guessed before.
His mother might not be a nice person. She certainly wasn’t an altruistic one. But she was human.
And…she’d loved? She’d loved. And maybe, buried deep beneath her own brand of armor, she still did.
If Trent could believe that, then maybe he also had to believe that love existed after all. Could that be possible?
No, damn it, no. Because love could risk all that he was building with Rebecca.
Something woke Rebecca out of a deep sleep. She opened her eyes, listening for the sound of Trent moving into the bedroom that had once been hers. But the noises weren’t upstairs noises. They didn’t sound like Trent noises either.
On his other late nights he’d always headed straight for the steps. Once at the top, he would stop in the entry of the master bedroom where she’d left the door ajar. She’d know he was there, watching her, and she’d squeeze her eyes shut as her heart squeezed in uncertainty.
And in that same moment, she wanted him, loved him, wanted to dance in delirious circles because love had fallen into her lap.
She wanted him, loved him, wanted to cry in a tantrum of despair because love had fallen into her lap.
After a few minutes of watching her faked sleep, he’d move on, into the other bedroom. And she’d press the one tear she allowed herself against the pillowcase.
But the noises, the non-Trent noises, weren’t moving up the stairs tonight. Fear flickered in her throat and she reached for the phone. It was the cordless kind, and she held it against her thumping heart.
The rustling downstairs didn’t abate.
Was it a vandal? Burglar? Serial killer in a hockey mask?
Or an idiot woman imagining things? She’d been reading that very spooky romantic suspense book right before turning out her light.
Still gripping the phone, Rebecca slipped out of bed. Then she tiptoed to the top of the stairs and listened. Rustling, all right. From the den, where there was not only the cardboard cottage she’d been making slow progress on, but also where Trent kept his big-screen TV, his stereo, his techie, rich-guy toys that she’d been so intimidated by that she left them solely to the housekeeper to dust.
Right by Her Side Page 13
