“We might not turn this into a nursery.”
“You want to put the baby in our room?” she asked, perplexed.
Plumping a pillow in back of him, he sat up. “I received an overnight letter today and a follow-up phone call. A firm in New York wants to bring me in as a partner as soon as I’m finished at Barrington. The founder of the firm is flying in to meet with me next week.”
Olivia slowly sat up beside him. “Is this the same firm that offered you a job before?”
“Only Rex and Whitcomb knew about that,” Lucas said, irritated that his private business had been discussed openly. “And I doubt very much if you heard it from Rex.”
She blushed and pushed her hair away from her forehead. “Stanley mentioned it. But he said you’d turned it down.”
Obviously Olivia and Stanley had discussed him. Why? “Am I often a topic between you and Stanley Whitcomb?”
“No! It’s just...he was telling me you might not stay at Barrington very long...because you had other offers.”
“And he felt you needed to know this because...”
When she faced him, she answered, “Because he knows how I feel about Phoenix and Barrington.”
“Clue me in, Olivia. How do you feel?”
She evaded his gaze for a moment, and he realized Whitcomb probably knew more about his wife than he did! He didn’t like the feeling, and it was even more reason to seriously consider the partnership in New York. He’d get Olivia away from Whitcomb and any lingering feelings she might still have for him.
“We haven’t talked about my father very much,” she said softly.
“What does he have to do with this?”
“Everything.” She sighed.
“I don’t understand. Whenever the subject comes up, you tell me you’re not in touch often. Isn’t that true?” He couldn’t believe Olivia would intentionally keep something from him.
“It’s true. It just hurts a lot to talk about Dad.”
His relief came out as a long breath. Laying his hand on her thigh he requested, “Tell me.”
“There’s not much to tell. We’d moved to ten different cities by the time I was eight. Once I started school, Mom would put applications in for teaching positions but we never stayed in one place long enough for her to be hired. I always felt like the odd kid out. I’d make friends, then have to say goodbye. It was always so hard starting over....” Her voice caught.
“Why did you move so much?”
“Dad never had a regular job. He’d be in sales for one company, quit and start somewhere else. Or he’d start his own business.” She sighed and shook her head. “Debts mounted up. Mom worked wherever she could in day care or as a teacher’s aide, hardly making enough to pay basic expenses. Dad chased his dreams while she took responsibility for us. When I was nine, she’d had enough. She heard of a teaching position in Tucson. When the board hired her, she filed for divorce.”
“And your dad?”
“Is still moving from place to place looking for the deal that will set him up for life. The last time he called he was in L.A.! Lucas, I don’t want to move. I like my job at Barrington, and I can have a career there. I’ve made good friends. I want to put down roots—for myself but most of all for our child.”
He sat up straighter, not liking the resolution he heard in her voice. “Look, Olivia. I understand how you feel. But this offer is too sweet not to consider. You would never have to worry about working....”
“I want to work. I trained all these years to be a lawyer and I will be one. And don’t tell me you understand because you couldn’t unless you moved around like we did. I need a home, Lucas. A place that I know will always be there.”
“We can’t have that in New York?”
Her eyes widened. “New York? With its crime and traffic?”
Sliding his legs over the side of the bed, he said, “I’m not going to argue with you about the merits of New York.”
“What I think doesn’t matter?”
“Oh, what you think definitely matters. But I wonder if you’re being honest with yourself about why you want to stay, why you’d want to give up certain financial security for...friends.” One “friend” in particular. One friend who would be a nice long distance away if they moved to New York.
Olivia swung her legs to the other side of the bed. “Financial security isn’t everything, Lucas. You of all people should realize that. You once told me you didn’t have any family. That’s not true. Mim and Wyatt are your family. They gave you a home and loved you for all these years and will until they die. That’s more important than any financial security.”
“Don’t tell me what Mim and Wyatt gave me. I know how much I owe them.”
She questioned him over her shoulder. “Owe them? You think they look at it that way?”
Standing, he picked up his clothes. “I don’t know, but I look at it that way.” When she remained silent, he informed her, “We’ll have to drive to the ranch on Saturday instead of tomorrow night. I have to fly to Santa Fe again in the morning. I already called Mim.”
He’d reached the door when Olivia asked, “Are you still going to consider the partnership in New York?”
“No matter what you think, Olivia, I want what’s best for both of us. After the meeting next week, I’ll decide.”
“A marriage is a partnership, too, Lucas, and if you can’t see it that way, we have a problem.”
The way he saw it, they might have more than one problem. Without answering, he went to their bedroom to change and think.
After dinner Lucas did something he hadn’t done in a while. He opened his laptop and tried to shut out everything around him. Mostly he was shutting out the absence of conversation that had marked dinner with his wife. She looked upset. Well, so was he. If he couldn’t pry her away from Phoenix, they might not have a future. That thought was as startling as it was obvious. He still believed her attachment to Phoenix had more to do with Whitcomb than anything else.
Finished at his computer about midnight, he went upstairs not knowing what to expect. In the guest room he was relieved to only find catalogs and samples stacked in a neat pile on the bed. She’d looked so pleased and excited earlier to be planning for the baby.
She could plan in New York.
As he entered their bedroom, he saw her propped up and reading.
“I thought you’d be asleep,” he said gruffly as he unzipped his jeans.
“I wanted to say good-night. I didn’t want to go to sleep with so much unsettled between us.”
“We’re not going to settle anything tonight unless you’ve changed your mind.”
“Or unless you’ve changed yours,” she added.
The silence between them was as awkward as it had been over supper. When he slid into bed beside her, she laid her book on the nightstand and switched off the light. Darkness exacerbated the lack of words between them as well as the space between their bodies. Ever since their honeymoon, they’d been touching in this bed, or entwined in sleep. He wanted to reach out to her....
Olivia turned away from him.
He forced himself to close his eyes and keep his arms by his sides.
As Olivia exited the elevator late Friday, a stack of folders in her arms, she glanced to the left to Lucas’s office. Tears came to her eyes. He’d left this morning with barely a goodbye. It was five o’clock, and she didn’t know if he’d return to Barrington or go directly home. Maybe she should leave him a note... tell him what was in her heart because it seemed so hard to do in the face of his determination to dismiss her feelings. After he’d left this morning, she’d realized she was opposed to the move to New York, not simply because she didn’t want to leave Phoenix, but because she was afraid if she moved with him this time, it wouldn’t be the last.
And she didn’t want to repeat her mother’s life.
If she poured out her feelings on paper, told him how much she loved him, how much she wanted a life with him...
O
nce she delivered the folders to her desk, she’d write a letter, slip it under his office door and hope at least he’d be more open to talking after he read it.
In her hurry to put all her thoughts and feelings in some kind of order, she saw the flash of an orange placard to her right, but the Wet Floor sign didn’t register until she felt her high heel slip on the tile and her leg buckle. With the stack of folders in her arms, she couldn’t break her fall and she landed hard, her ankle turned under her. A stabbing pain jolted up her leg as folders and contracts flew everywhere.
Suddenly the door to Stanley’s office suite opened and she wondered if she’d called out as she’d fallen.
“Olivia!” Stanley rushed out, June beside him.
She tried to untangle her legs, but her hip and ankle hurt.
Crouching down beside her, Stanley said, “Don’t try to move anything too fast. Tell me what hurts.”
“I landed on my hip and twisted my ankle. But I’m scared because...”
Stanley caught her hesitation with June standing over her. “June, could you get Olivia a glass of water?”
“Should I call 911?” the secretary asked.
Olivia shook her head.
When June went into the office, Olivia straightened her leg and blinked back tears, not only from the pain but from her fear. “I’m pregnant, Stanley. I’m afraid I hurt the baby—” His astonished expression stopped her.
Quickly recovering, he asked, “Does Lucas know?”
With her hand protectively covering her tummy, she nodded.
“He would be out of town today. Do you want me to call him?”
Bracing herself on her hand, she pushed to her knees, took a deep breath, then attempted to stand. But she tottered when she tried to put weight on her foot and pain shot through her leg.
Stanley caught her around the waist. “I’m taking you to the emergency room. Should I try to get hold of Lucas?”
Remembering last night, their argument, their uncertain future, she finally answered, “He’s probably on his way home. And if he’s not, I don’t want to alarm him.”
She was worried enough for both of them.
The drive from the airport to Barrington seemed to take forever, but Lucas had called Rex from the airport and found him still in his office. Better to talk over all the details from his meeting now while they were fresh. He’d write up a report over the weekend while they were at the ranch. If Olivia still wanted to go with him to Flagstaff.
When he got home tonight, they’d have to lay all their cards on the table. And he’d find out just how important their marriage was to her...and the vows they’d said in haste.
Standing at the elevator, waiting to speed up to the executive offices, he checked his watch. He should probably call Olivia and tell her he was back.
The doors slid open and Molly Doyle stepped out. When she saw him, she asked, “How’s Olivia?” Her expression was serious.
“What do you mean How’s Olivia? Wasn’t she feeling well?”
“I thought maybe she contacted you somehow....” Molly began.
His heart thudded. “What happened?”
“She fell. June said she hurt her ankle. Stanley took her to the emergency room.”
Not waiting for more details, he left Molly standing at the elevator and rushed to his car. Presuming Whitcomb took Olivia to the closest hospital, Lucas sped there, unmindful of the speed limit. If a cop stopped him for speeding, he could damn well give him an escort!
Chapter Ten
He had missed them by half an hour.
His heart pounding, Lucas raced up the steps to his town house. Once he’d arrived at the hospital, convinced the nurse he was Olivia’s husband and managed to talk to the doctor who’d taken care of her, he’d learned his wife had been discharged. The physician had told Lucas that she was essentially fine, that she’d be on crutches a few days for the sprain, that she’d been most worried about her baby.
Their baby.
Inserting the key into the door to his town house, he found it unlocked. And when he opened it...
All of his fear and worry and uncertainty coalesced into an almost blinding rage as he walked into his own living room and saw Stanley Whitcomb sitting by Olivia’s side on the sofa as he handed her a cup of tea.
“Get away from her, Whitcomb. She’s my wife.”
“Lucas!” Olivia scolded.
“Did the doctor tell me the truth?” he demanded. “Is the baby all right?” He tried to ignore how pale she looked, how close Whitcomb still was to her on the sofa.
“The baby’s fine. They did an ultrasound. How did you find out?”
“I ran into Molly. She thought I knew. But there are a lot of things I don’t know, aren’t there, Olivia? Things like why you didn’t call me when this happened. Things like why you turned to Whitcomb instead of one of your other friends. Things like the feelings you have for your boss that didn’t disappear with an exchange of rings in Las Vegas. If you want Stanley Whitcomb by your side, we’d better rethink this marriage. But you just remember I’m this child’s father, and I’ll never give up rights to my son or daughter whether I live in Phoenix or I don’t.”
Stanley Whitcomb rose to his feet, a stunned expression on his face. “You have no right—”
“I have every right. I’m her husband. But if she can’t put her feelings for you in the past, we’ll never have a real marriage.” He felt like a time bomb ready to explode, and before he decked Olivia’s protector, he had to leave.
He couldn’t bear to look at his wife. He couldn’t bear to see that she depended on Whitcomb, and that all of his conclusions about the two of them were right on the mark. Wrenching open the door, he heard her call his name, but he kept going. They had nothing to say to each other as long as Stanley Whitcomb was in their house and their marriage.
The slamming door jarred Olivia as much as her fall and, to her dismay, she burst into tears.
“Olivia. Olivia, it will be all right,” Stanley assured her as he patted her shoulder.
“He’s wrong,” she sobbed. “I love him so much. But I think he only married me because of the baby—”
“That can’t be true.”
“I don’t know what’s true. Before Christmas Eve, I thought I had feelings for you. I thought you’d be the perfect husband. You’re so kind and dependable. But since I found out about the baby, since I got to know Lucas and felt so many needs and wants and desires with him that I want to be connected to him with my very soul, I’ve sorted everything out.”
“What did you sort out?” Stanley asked gently.
When she looked up at him, tears rolled down her cheeks. “You’ve been like the father I never had. I could depend on you. And trust you. And look up to you. And respect you. But I love Lucas. I’ve tried to show him but...” Her voice broke and she let the tears come because she couldn’t even walk, let alone go after Lucas, and she didn’t know what she was going to do.
Returning to his office at Barrington, Lucas called Rex and postponed their meeting until Monday morning. Then he paced. Some of the anger had dissipated, and in its place was a desolation that could easily destroy him. He didn’t understand it.
After he’d discovered Celeste’s true character, he’d ended their relationship, knowing he had no choice. He’d realized she wasn’t the type of woman he wanted to spend his life with. But he’d been more disappointed than angry. And he’d never felt this emptiness....
Sitting at his desk, he switched on the computer and stared at the blank screen.
He didn’t know how long he sat there that way, but when his office door opened, he expected to see Rex Barrington, not Stanley Whitcomb. “Get out,” he snapped.
But Stanley didn’t listen. Coming in, he stood in front of Lucas’s desk with a disapproving frown on his face. “Are you an absolute fool or just acting like one?”
“If you know what’s good for you—”
“What about what’s good for Olivia? Does
that matter to you?”
“It’s none of your business.”
“You’ve made it my business. That young lady is back at your town house crying her eyes out. I’m not sure you’re worth it!”
He was still in danger of punching out this guy’s lights, whether he was older or not. “Look, Whitcomb...”
“No, you look, because you’re not seeing clearly. Olivia made me leave because she didn’t want me to see her crying. She’s so damn independent. She wouldn’t let me call anyone for her, and she can’t even stand with that ankle—”
“You let her kick you out?” He didn’t know why, when Whitcomb had the opportunity he wanted, he didn’t take it.
“I don’t think you know your wife very well.”
“I know enough.”
“Arrogant SOB, aren’t you? Listen to me, Lucas. I’ve been Olivia’s mentor. And her friend. She just admitted to me that once she thought she and I could have more. But since Christmas Eve—and it’s pretty obvious from her pregnancy what happened that night—she’s realized I’ve taken the place of her father who left on a whim and couldn’t be bothered with the responsibility of a family.”
Lucas remembered what Olivia had said about it hurting to talk about her father, how not wanting to move was part of that, and he’d dismissed her feelings because he’d thought there were others.
“Do you know she thinks you married her just because of the baby?” Stanley pressed on. “That you want the baby and she’s simply part of the package?”
“That’s not true!”
“Then why does she insist it is? You’d better think about that, Lucas. She meant her wedding vows. And if you did, you’d better get back to your town house and tell her. Or she might not be there when you decide you want to go back home. On crutches or not, once she makes a decision, she’ll act on it.”
As Stanley strode out of his office, leaving the door open, Lucas leaned back in his leather chair and rubbed his hand across his forehead. He let the silence weave in and out of him until his thoughts became more clear.
The Night before Baby Page 14
