She pushed her hand through her long, dark hair. “Oh, please,” she pleaded. “I could see it after church. Nobody said anything, but it was there. It’s hopeless between you and them. The way it’s always been.”
“And the way it’ll always be?” he said, a bite in his voice.
“I suppose,” she said and stared past him.
She would never leave them. He knew that. They had laid the perfect trap for her. They needed her. She was the strongest of them, the smartest, the most giving. She was the one who held everything together for them, including their finances.
He took a deep breath and set his jaw. “Now you want to tell them we had a fling, I got you pregnant, then went on my merry way again.”
Her head jerked so that she met his eyes square on. “I’d never say that.”
“It doesn’t matter what you say. It’s how they’ll see it. They’ll hate my guts even more than they do now.”
“They don’t hate you,” she hedged. “They just—”
He cut her off. “Don’t dodge it. It’s a real issue. It’ll affect my relationship with Nealie. And with—the new one.”
For once she didn’t have a fast answer for him. She jammed her hands into her pockets and looked stubborn. All she said was, “I won’t let that happen. I promise.”
“You can’t promise,” he argued. “You can’t promise how other people are going to feel. Nealie, for instance. What’s she going to think? What will other people say to her? That I came back here, knocked you up—”
“Don’t be crude.” Her eyes flashed again.
“I can be a lot cruder than that,” he warned. “They’ll say I knocked you up, then left you. What kind of man will she think I am?”
She tossed her head. “She knows what kind of man you are. She adores you. She’d never turn against you.”
“Oh, Briana. What an idealist you are. What a scheming, lying, hypocritical little idealist.”
Her hands flew out of her pockets, clenched into fists. “Schemer? Liar? All I’m trying to do is save my child’s life. If you want to call me names, go ahead. I’ll do what I damn well have to.”
Beneath his crossed arms he felt the brutal hammering of his heart. But he kept his calm facade. “And exactly how are you going to explain all this to her? What lies have you cooked up especially for her?”
Briana’s eyes narrowed, and she set her fists on the countertop, like someone getting ready to fight. “I’ll tell her the truth—mostly. That I got pregnant and that though you and I both love her and love the baby, we knew getting married again would never work. But we wanted the baby—both of us did—and we decided this way was best.”
“In short, a very complicated lie. Hard for a child to understand. Even one as bright as Nealie.”
Briana leaned toward him, her fists on the counter, her stance militant. “You apparently didn’t hear me. I will do this. My child is in danger. If I have to bend the truth, or if everyone gossips about me, I don’t care.”
“I wasn’t talking about you, Joan of Arc. I was talking about my daughter.”
“I will make her understand and accept it,” Briana said emphatically.
“Yeah, yeah,” he sighed cynically. “And next you’ll be out in the radish patch shaking your fist at the sky and crying, ‘With God as my witness.’ From Joan of Arc to Scarlett O’Hara in ten seconds. Speedy.”
“Ooh,” she said from between clenched teeth. “You are the most impossible man—”
“Put on earth, obviously, to deal with you, the most impossible woman. Briana, you don’t have to put the truth through all these contortions. You don’t have to run this gauntlet. There’s a simpler way. This morning I made you a proposition—”
“A proposition.” She hissed the word. “You have an interesting way of putting things yourself.”
“All I’m saying is marry me. We don’t have to live together. We can live the way we live now. You stay here with your precious family—”
“It’s no sin to love your family,” she interjected.
He ignored her. “—and I make my living the only way I know how. I’ll come to see Nealie and the baby as often as I can. It won’t be a conventional marriage, but at least your family can’t object to a baby if we’re married. Nobody can say things to Nealie that are mean—or at least too mean. And you—you’re saved from living in a jungle of lies.”
She straightened and put her hands on her hips. “Except for the marriage, of course. That’s a complete lie.”
“Better a simple lie than a complicated one.” He smiled.
“Didn’t you hear a word of that sermon this morning?” she challenged. “About the importance of marriage? About husbands and wives committing to each other? About the sanctity of the union?”
He laughed. He shook his head. “Briana, you’re hopeless. You’re both the most conventional woman I’ve ever known—and the least. You’d tell a thousand improbable lies that will only hurt you and everyone else. But you reject the plausible one that’s best for us all.”
“I don’t want a sham marriage,” she said, squaring her shoulders. “Or for you to marry me out of pity or because it’s the right thing.”
“Either way you play it, your life will be a sham, won’t it?” he said, raising one eyebrow. “Why not a respectable marriage that’s a lie instead of a misguided affair that’s a lie? I don’t ask that you be faithful. If you want someone else, fine. I couldn’t care less.”
She looked more stricken than angry. He played his trump card. “And one more thing, Briana.”
She looked at him, her eyes full of uneasy questions.
“This is the only way our baby won’t be a bastard. You’re not the only one who’d have to live with that. So would he. So would Nealie and your family.”
He let the words sink in, and he could tell he’d made a point she couldn’t counter. At last she said, “I don’t want you to be noble. It’s so unlike you.”
“I’m not being noble. I’m being stone-cold practical. I don’t want to marry anybody else. So I might as well marry you again. If I find somebody else someday—or you do—we’ll deal with it then. One problem at a time. Okay?”
She raked her hand through her hair again, a gesture of weary frustration. All she said was, “You make my head spin.”
“Likewise,” he said.
They were silent for a long moment. He thought of going to her, of taking her in his arms, of saying he wanted to be married to her again because he loved her and would do so until he was in his grave.
But Nealie’s voice cried out from upstairs, startling them both. She sounded confused and alarmed. “Mommy! Come help me! My nose is bleeding—bad!”
NEALIE SAT QUIETLY in Josh’s arms, her head resting against his shoulder. He held his finger against her nostril, applying pressure to stop the bleeding.
Briana came upstairs with a cold compress—ice cubes wrapped in a washcloth. Josh took it from her and put it over the bridge of Nealie’s nose.
Nealie looked pale but no longer frightened, and she seemed to feel safe in her father’s embrace. Briana knelt and began to clean Nealie’s hands with a second washcloth. She gave Josh a troubled glance.
After church he had taken off his sweater and tie. His white shirt was spotted with blood. “Your shirt—” she said.
“It’s not big deal,” Josh said and smoothed Nealie’s hair.
“I messed up everything,” Nealie said unhappily. “The pillowcase, my good sweater—”
“Shh,” Briana said, “I can get them clean again.”
“Even Daddy’s shirt?”
“Sure she can,” Josh said. “She’s Supermom. You know that. Now be quiet. I think the bleeding’s stopped.”
Nealie sighed and settled even closer to him. “The nosebleed woke me up,” she complained, then yawned. “I was dreaming about white mice. They could talk.”
“Close your eyes,” Josh said. “Maybe they’ll come back. Here, we’ll just lea
n against the backboard and be quiet.”
“Can I take off my sweater?”
“If you’re careful,” he said.
“I’ll help,” said Briana. She unbuttoned the brown cardigan, then helped ease Nealie out of it and her undershirt. She dressed her in a pajama top and let her sink back against Josh.
“Shhh,” he said. “Be still.”
“Will you tell me a mouse story?” Nealie asked in a croaky little voice.
“Yes,” said Josh, “but first close your eyes.”
“I’ll get a clean pillow,” Briana said. She and Josh exchanged looks that spoke the silent language of parents.
He was saying, I’ll stay with her and try to get her back to sleep.
She was saying, I’m scared, Josh.
So am I. But we can’t let it show. And we’re going to take good care of her. I promise you this.
He turned to Nealie. In a meditative voice, he said, “Once upon a time there was a white mouse named Wilberforce. He lived with his mother and father and seventeen brothers and sisters in a cheese factory….”
Briana kept her face immobile, picked up the stained pillow and sweater and took them downstairs to the laundry nook. She went back upstairs and got a fresh pillow and pillowcase from the linen closet.
She took them into Nealie’s room. Nealie, eyes closed, rested against her father’s chest. In a low droning voice, he said, “The mother mouse said, ‘What kind of cheese do you want for supper tonight, dear? American, Swiss, Cheddar, Monterey Jack, Gouda, Edam, Roquefort, Stilton, Parmesan, mozzarella, provolone or Liederkranz?’
“And the father mouse said, ‘Excuse me, my dear, I was reading the paper. Did you say something?’
“And the mother mouse sighed and said, ‘I asked what sort of cheese you wanted for supper. American, Swiss, Cheddar, Monterey Jack, Gouda, Edam, Roquefort, Stilton, Parmesan, mozzarella, provolone or Liederkranz?’
“‘Let me see if I have this straight,’ said the father. ‘The choices are American, Swiss, Cheddar…’”
Briana laid the clean pillow on the bed and smiled at him in spite of herself. He was clearly trying to lull the child to sleep. She turned and left him reciting his hypnotic lists.
He was a good father, a wonderful father. But to marry him again? A marriage in name only was repellent. To try a real marriage would never work, she told herself, never. She couldn’t face the thought of losing him a second time. It would kill her.
HE CAME DOWNSTAIRS when she was soaking Nealie’s cardigan in the kitchen sink. Since the nosebleeds had begun, she kept a special bottle of soap for removing the stains. She was determined to save the sweater, which was one of Nealie’s favorites.
He moved beside her, and his nearness, as always, made her skin prickle and her blood flow too fast. He said, “She’s asleep. I think she’ll be out for a while.” She felt the warmth of his breath on the side of her neck.
Briana cast him a quick sideways look. “I never heard of cheese used as a lullaby.”
“I nearly put myself asleep,” he admitted. He nodded at the sweater, which she was still scrubbing. “Can you get it clean?”
“I think so. I’ve had enough practice. Too much practice.”
He shook his head. “It’s one thing to hear about her nose bleeding. It’s another to see it. I felt my heart stall. It just quit beating for a minute.”
“I know the feeling,” she said, keeping her gaze on the sweater.
“We’ll get her through this, Briana. We will if it’s humanly possible.” He put his hand on her shoulder, not erotically, not possessively, but as a friend would. Yet his touch still set a tremor through her.
She said, “Your shirt—I’ll try to clean it.”
“I don’t have another one here.”
“I’ll find something for you,” she said. “Please take it off. It’ll upset Nealie to see you in it. And she’ll want to know she didn’t ruin it.”
“She probably did. It doesn’t matter. I’ve got other shirts. I’ll tell her it all came out. She won’t be able to tell the difference.”
She took a deep breath. “Weren’t you just criticizing me for lying?”
“Touché,” he said.
It becomes a habit, she wanted to say. It becomes easy. Pretend this. Lie about that. Leave out this bit of truth. Twist that one. It becomes second nature.
Instead she dried her hands and said, “I’ll find you a shirt.”
She went upstairs. quietly so as not to wake Nealie. She looked in the least used drawer of the least used bureau in her room. She knew she had a few old sweatshirts and T-shirts stored there, work clothes.
Rummaging, she found, near the bottom, something she had not expected. One of his old sweatshirts—Josh’s. A pang of memory shot through her. She lifted the shirt from the drawer.
It was a souvenir of one of his travels, long past. It was faded blue, from Canada, and had a picture of a white wolf on it. Almost reluctantly she ran her fingers over the fabric, remembering its feel.
When he had first gone away, sometimes she’d missed him so much she’d gotten out of bed and changed her nightgown for this shirt, just to be touching something that had touched his body. She had been hurt and angry at his going, but she’d still believed he’d come back to her to stay.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered, remembering. How long had the shirt been lying there forgotten? Six years at least, six long years.
But she squared her shoulders, carried it downstairs and thrust it at him. “Here,” she said brusquely.
He looked at it in disbelief. “You saved this? All these years? Remember? I loaned it to you one chilly night and you liked it so much, I told you to keep it.”
She remembered. But she said, “Obviously I should clean out my drawers more often. I forgot it was there.”
He gave her a sardonic look. “For a moment I was flattered. I should have known better.”
He unbuttoned the shirt. “You’re sure you want to mess with this?”
“You’re the one who told her I’d get it clean.”
“Quite the little washerwoman, aren’t you? And pretty, to boot.”
He peeled off the shirt, and she sucked in her breath in shock.
He was still lean and muscular and she knew his body all too well. But there was something different—a scar. A crooked, purplish welt zigzagged across his left bicep and continued across his chest, stopping just under the left nipple.
“Good heavens,” she said. “What happened?”
“New Guinea,” he said without emotion.
“How?”
“A guy with a spear. We’d been staying in this village several days. He’d been fine. Then one morning he came out of his hut in a rage, holding this spear and threatening us.”
“But why?” she asked, unable to take her eyes from the scar.
Josh shrugged. “I don’t know. None of us knew. Maybe he’d had a bad dream. Maybe he just snapped.”
“He tried to kill you?” she said in disbelief.
“He tried to kill Lieberman, the writer. I was trying to talk to him, get between them. Ellison got behind him, grabbed him. He was already throwing the spear, but Ellison knocked his aim off. They finally wrestled him to the ground.”
She could not stop herself. She lifted her forefinger and ran it in dread over the scar. She had not felt the bare flesh of his body for years. The sight and feel of it were achingly familiar.
Yet the scar was not familiar. It was unlike any she’d ever seen. “You could have died,” she breathed, touching the part of it nearest his heart.
“It was mostly a flesh wound,” he said. “He nicked a few ribs.”
“B-but,” she stammered, laying her hand over the scar, “you could have got an infection or—”
He put his hand over hers, pressed it against his chest so she could feel the strong beating of his heart. “No,” he said gently. “Ellison patched me up, radioed for a plane, I got taken to a hospital at Moresby Port.
I was back on the job in a week.”
She stared at him as if he were a creature she could never fathom. She tried to draw her hand away. He kept it where it was, on the scar over his heart.
Her voice went ragged. “When did this happen?”
“A year and a half ago. Maybe a little more.”
She raised her dark eyebrows in hurt resentment. “You never told me. You never said a word.”
“I didn’t want to worry you. Or Nealie.”
“You shouldn’t hide the truth from us, either.”
“Ah,” he said. “Back to the issue of truth again, are we? Would you really feel so bad if I got killed?”
She wrenched away from him and snatched the bloody white shirt. “Get your clothes on,” she said, twisting the faucets to fill the sink. “Yes, I’d feel bad. I’d feel bad for Nealie. She worships you. She couldn’t stand it if you got yourself killed for some damn—picture.”
“You know,” he said, picking up the sweatshirt, “I think you’re a little jealous of the pictures.”
She shot him a look over her shoulder. “Of course, I am. They took you away from us. And half the time when you go, I wonder—I wonder if you’re ever coming back.”
He pulled the sweatshirt on. She was glad his torso was covered again. But it haunted her memory, and now she wanted to smooth his brown hair, which was mussed by pulling on the shirt.
“You’ve got it backward,” he said, leaning against the cupboard door. “I go to make a living, not to get killed. I’m careful.”
She concentrated on rubbing the shirt. “I’m afraid you’ll fall off a mountain or be eaten by sharks or trampled by a rhinoceros.”
He gave her a smile that was almost a smirk. “Beats dying of boredom on a tomato farm.”
How did we every get married? she asked herself miserably. Why? How did it last as long as it did?
His smile died, and he recognized he had made a mistake. He eased a bit closer to her. “I’m sorry,” he said, and he seemed to mean it. “I shouldn’t have said that. It was a stupid thing to say.”
“No,” she said, staring unseeing into the suds. “You’re right. This is my home, and you’d always be bored here. You’d always be going away, and I’d always resent it and be afraid. We both do what we have to do.”
The Baby Gift Page 8
