If she had any sad, delusional school-girl fantasies of happy ever after with Ethan, she was mistaken. He was distinctly not in love with her. He was disinterested in being a father to their baby. She was an inconvenience, an unplanned mistake. Again.
Lightning had struck him twice.
She could almost feel sorry for him. Poor Ethan. Twice he’d coupled carelessly and gotten pregnant. But neither of them were foolish kids.
God. How had she let this happen? Her arm implants must have run out of the hormones. She was a month late in seeing the gynecologist. Or more. How long had that condom been in Ethan’s wallet? The wrapper had looked worn and creased. Did they have an expiration date? Had they even used one the third or fourth time that night?
Sam groaned. Ethan’s touch. The memory shot arrows of flame along her skin.
***
As her sister Jami sipped on a glass of wine, Sam poked a mini-marshmallow floating in her cocoa and dangled her feet over the arm of Jami’s charcoal microsuede couch. The TV was muted as an episode of a murder mystery series played out.
She had poured out her heart to Jami over dinner about her crazy infatuation with Ethan. About jumping into bed with him at the first chance. And about consequences. Like a surprise bun in the oven type of consequences.
Jami had squealed with delight at the prospect of a new niece or nephew and then had turned serious as they debated Sam’s options, and how she’d handle being a single mom.
“What’s the timer say?” Jami asked as she twirled the merlot in a playful spiral in the glass.
Sam leaned forward and spotted the digital timer on the coffee table. “Three more minutes until the cookies are ready.”
“Good. There’s nothing that a batch of double chocolate chip cookies can’t cure.”
“Are you trying to fatten me up?”
“You won’t get fat. You’ll be a beautiful pregnant lady.”
“I’m probably doomed to gain sixty pounds and develop cankles and a double chin.”
“One or two sweets won’t kill you.” Jami snagged the timer and added, “We can go for a walk while we eat the cookies.”
“It’s supposed to snow any minute. I’ll stay inside with my hot chocolate.”
“I thought you’d say that.” Jami busied herself in the kitchen but came back with two plates loaded with barely cooled cookies.
Sam bit into the sinful delight and groaned. “All my problems are solved.”
“Can I ask you a question?” Jami popped the last bite of her first sweet into her mouth.
“Sure.”
“I don’t understand why you are so quick to give up on Ethan. He did ask you to marry him.”
“He didn’t mean it. It was just a knee-jerk reaction.”
“I wonder. He’s known you most of your life.”
“I can’t get married because he feels honor bound.”
“Why can’t you two fall in love? You feel pretty strongly about him.”
“I don’t know. I’m not his type.”
“Are you just giving up without a fight? I seem to remember you preaching to me back on Santa Tarita at Anna’s wedding that I shouldn’t give up on love. You never give up. You always dust yourself off and try again.”
“I think that’s my problem. I quit too soon. I run away from any problem.”
“A fresh start with a clean slate.”
“Exactly. A new beginning with no troubles in it. It’s all hope and expectation. I haven’t screwed anything up or been let down.”
“Don’t be so harsh. I’ve seen the guys you’ve been dating. It’s mostly their fault.”
“I think I’m to blame that Jeremy dumped me.”
“Jeremy was ages ago. I’m not sure it matters anymore. He was not your soul mate. Besides, you were only twenty.”
There was a long list of former love interests. She’d had a new boyfriend every few months. She had been chasing them off or giving them reasons to dump her. Jeremy had been too nerdy. Chase hadn’t been reliable and was never on time. Carsten hadn’t thought she was sophisticated enough, and he’d moved to Seattle.
Should she have let them go? Ethan’s luscious, bare, muscled chest popped into her mind, and a tightness clenched between her thighs. Not a single one of them compared to Ethan. He was a thousand times better than all them rolled into one.
“I—I don’t know what to do.” Sam picked up another cookie, made a face, and put it back on the plate.
“Can I share something with you about Beck?”
“Of course. I much prefer your happy ever after than my dreary alone and knocked up.”
“You’re not alone, and you know it.” Jami shot her a fierce look.
“Okay. I won’t mope. Tell me about you guys.”
“It’s not so much about Beck, as the lesson that I’m learning.” Jami put her wineglass down and leaned closer. “Beck is a wonderful boost to my ego, but first and foremost, I have to trust myself. It doesn’t matter what anyone says. Or what they think. You have to love yourself. Warts and worries and all. We’re all made of from the dust and spark of the universe. We are worthwhile. Believe in what’s right here.” Jami poked an index finger above Sam’s breastbone.
“Why is it so hard for me to see that? To feel that?” Sam pressed her lips into a thin line.
“You are an amazing teacher. A stellar granddaughter. And one of my favorite three sisters.”
“Top three is pretty good.” They both smirked since they each had a grand total of three sisters.
“But, it’s irrelevant what I think,” Jami said. “You need to know it. Deep down. Believe that you are exactly as you need to be.”
Sam squeezed her eyes closed as if she could shut out the world. Her sister’s words sank in. She let them float through her chest and settle in her belly. There was a rightness to them.
Jami rubbed Sam’s arm. “Come on. Enough talk. Let’s pick a movie and snuggle under the afghan.” Her eyes held loving concern.
“You pick. I’m too tired to make a decision. No romantic comedy. I might cry.” They laughed.
“I’d say a good mystery thriller or a superhero flick. Can you ever go wrong with skimpy costumes and bulging biceps?”
As Jami scrolled through the options on the TV screen, Sam fluffed out the throw blanket and snagged the last cookie. She was eating for two, right?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
WITH HIS FREE hand, Ethan pushed the button for the garage door, and the mechanism creaked and clanked on its way down. He grabbed his briefcase, the two grocery sacks and then flipped open the passenger door to loop a thumb through his dry cleaning.
The garage door ground to a halt. Ethan found the matching button mounted next to the light switch on the wall and pushed. The light blinked on the unit. He pushed again. Nothing.
One of the grocery sacks ripped open. Bread fell out. One can of corn hit his knee, and the other smashed onto the soft loaf. He didn’t curse. It was par for the course for the day.
He’d had three canceled appointments and a ridiculously long committee meeting. He’d been thinking of different strategies to convince Mateo to open up to him about that essay.
Naturally, Mateo denied any real-life resemblance in the essay. He had assured Ethan that he saw stuff on TV and the movies and that he’d made it all up. Ethan wanted to believe, but he had a suspicion that he was getting stonewalled by a fourteen-year-old.
Ethan stuffed the busted sack inside the good one and picked up the scattered items. Who was he kidding. His real issue was Sam. And the baby. He’d done his best to avoid the problem, but Sam and the baby were insidious.
One moment, he imagined a scene of domestic bliss with a baby bouncing on his knee, and Sam helping Mateo with his homework. The next, he visualized divorce court and Sam suing for massive child support and all his retirement. Ha. She could have half of his school loans.
With full arms, he walked from the detached garage at the back of the house and unloc
ked the door to the side mudroom attached to the kitchen. The groceries landed on the counter, and the dry cleaning hooked on to the back of a chair.
“Mateo? I’m home,” Ethan called from the hallway.
Ethan propped his briefcase against the side of a file cabinet in his office, pulled a sheaf of mail from his pocket, and stacked the pile of bills and junk mail in the basket at the corner of his desk. The house was silent.
No backpack in the hall. No dirty sneakers. Ethan checked the kitchen and the backyard. No helpful sticky note stuck on the fridge. Maybe Mateo had gone on a walk with Copper. Halfway up the stairs, his phone buzzed. An incoming text from Sam.
Mateo’s over here. Can you come over?
Ethan’s internal alarms shrieked. I’ll be right there. He sprinted out of the house.
Ethan knocked, and Nana let him in. She greeted him and pointed him to the kitchen. She settled herself in her lounge chair with her judge TV on low and her crochet bag at her side.
In the kitchen, Sam had a bag of frozen peas in one hand and a folded, wet washcloth in the other. She hovered over Mateo.
“What’s going on?” His voice was harsh even to his own ears.
Mateo started and twisted his head around. A splotchy red and bluish black mark encircled Mateo’s right eye and cheekbone.
“I got in a fight.”
“That’s not the whole story,” Sam said as she pressed the sack of peas to swollen cheek.
With a raised eyebrow, Ethan glanced from Mateo to Sam and glared. “Here. Let me see.”
“You’re a doctor, I suppose.” Sam grudgingly stepped away as she went to the sink to rinse the cloth.
Ethan pulled his keys out of his pocket and clicked on the slim flashlight attached to the keyring. He had Ethan stare straight ahead and checked his reactions. Pupils normal, same size, and equally reactive to the light.
“Okay. Now follow my finger.” Ethan moved his index finger from side to side and then closer and away. Mateo meekly maintained his focus. An ounce of tension eased between Ethan’s shoulders. “Do you have a headache?”
“Not really, but my cheekbone is achy, and I think my eye is going to fall out of the socket.”
Ethan picked up Mateo’s hand with the pea bag and placed them back over his eye. “You’ll live.”
Sam made a peculiar noise that managed to sound exasperated and relieved at the same time.
“What happened?” Ethan asked.
“I ran into a fist.”
“Fair enough.”
Mateo looked at Sam who nodded and mouthed, “Tell him.”
“Do you remember the essay I wrote about bullying?”
“I do.” Dumb question. Of course he did.
“I didn’t want to tell you about because it wasn’t about me. It was about Eddie Reese.”
“Do I know him?”
“No. We’re not really friends yet. He’s a ninth grader like me, but not too many people like him. I think he’s kind of autistic or something, but he gets good grades in many of his classes. I think that’s why some kids hate him.”
Sam started to interrupt, but Ethan shook his head.
“I ride the same bus that Eddie does,” Mateo continued, “and he gets off two stops before me. As he got off the bus, I saw three of the guys who tease him in school all the time. They looked like they were waiting for him. I got off the bus, too, and started walking with Eddie. A few minutes later, those kids started throwing rocks and then shoving Eddie. I stepped up and threw a punch. I missed, but Pete didn’t.” Mateo motioned to his face.
“How did you get away?”
“I swung my backpack at one of his friends. I got lucky, and my books smashed his nose. There was blood everywhere. A car driving by stopped to check on us. Pete ran, and so did his buddies.”
“By the time I got home,” Sam said, “Mateo was straggling down the street. I brought him over here. Nana and I got him cleaned up.”
“You’re not mad, are you?” Mateo’s deep brown eyes pleaded for understanding.
“I’m not mad.”
“See, I told you that he’d understand,” Sam said and smiled at both of the Cordero men.
“We’ll talk more about it later.”
“Okay, Dad. But I had to defend Eddie. They would have massacred him.”
“I like to think I would have done the same as you.” Ethan clapped a hand on Mat’s back.
“You were brave to help,” Sam said.
Mateo grinned. “Maybe I need some martial arts classes?”
“Self-defense only.”
“We should meet with the principal about this.” Sam handed Mateo the cold compress and tossed the veggies back into the freezer.
“Trust me,” Ethan said. “I’ll be making that phone call at eight a.m. sharp.”
“I’ll call her tonight and give her the basics and see if she can reach out to Eddie’s family and make sure he’s okay.”
“I think he only tore his pants when he got pushed down.”
Ethan draped his arm over Mateo’s shoulder and squeezed his arm. “Come on. Let’s head home and let Sam and Nana get on with their dinner.”
Sam crossed her arms. “You guys are welcome to stay.”
“No. We’ve already taken too much of your time.”
Sam pressed her lips together and picked at the top rung of the ladder-back chair. Mateo handed the washcloth back to Sam and instantly, she beamed a lovely, sympathetic smile down on Mateo.
“I’ll see you tomorrow in class, Rocky.”
“Rocky?”
“As in Balboa? You know. The movie, right?”
Mateo grinned, and then feinted left and then jabbed right. Sam laughed, and the merry sound followed Ethan all the way out to the front step.
As they walked back to their house, Ethan kept his arm around Mateo with a surge of fatherly pride and protection. He loved Mateo, so much that it was an ache to think of losing him.
He’d come so close in the accident that had claimed Felicia. He wasn’t about to let some idiot teenagers steal his son from him. Sam was also carrying his child. Ethan stumbled.
“Watch it, Dad. There’s a crack right there.”
“I didn’t see it.” The enormity of Sam’s pregnancy hit him. He had another child on the way. Another Mateo or a little girl who might look like Sam. Another life to protect and nurture.
“Don’t go quiet on me,” Mateo said as they stopped in the front entry. “You make me nervous.”
“No. Everything’s fine.” It was, and it wasn’t. “Now, tell me again what happened, but this time start at the beginning. Either with when you first met Eddie or something about the bullying.”
Mateo launched into a full history of his last few weeks in school and all the petty bullying and creeping abuse he’d witnessed. They discussed different strategies of communication, buddying up, ignoring the meanness, and how to tell a teacher about a problem. Ethan even convinced Mateo to find an online video about teen bullying.
“Thanks, Dad. My eye still hurts, but I feel better here.” Mateo tapped his chest.
Tears pricked, and Ethan cleared his throat.
“Mateo, I’m not mad or judging or anything, but why did you feel comfortable telling Sam about the fight and those kids bullying Eddie Reese?”
“And not you?”
Ethan shot his son a sheepish grin. “I guess that’s my real question. Am I hard to share things with? You do know that I love you, and you can tell me anything.”
“I know you do.” Mateo shifted in the chair. “But I hate to disappoint you. I should be able to handle my own problems.”
“Life is easier when we share the burdens. No one has to go it alone.” Ethan smiled. “I think we both need to learn that lesson. I’m not very good at asking for help either.”
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m glad I told you.”
“Me, too.” Ethan pulled Mateo into a rough bear of a hug. “I’m really
proud of you for standing up for your friend and for what you believe in.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
“How about we order pizza, and I challenge you to a few rounds of Super Mario?
“That’d be cool.”
***
The sun had passed the halfway point of the day and shadows were beginning to lengthen. There were still hours of sunlight left, but Sam couldn’t sit still.
Nana was off with her friends for a single ladies’ luncheon, and Jami had volunteered to spend the night so Sam could have some free time.
She’d driven up into the mountains and found snow on the ground, but she’d managed a breezy picnic by a crystal-blue lake. Spring was sprouting down in Barrett Ridge, but Old Man Winter was still king above five thousand feet.
Sam idled her car. She stared across the empty parking lot with its mounds of plowed snow. Not a soul in sight. A tear slipped down her cheek. She was alone.
A tiny life grew inside her, but she couldn’t see how any of it could work. She always had a plan and could see her way through to some finish line, but this eluded her. She’d thrown herself at Ethan, and her one night of carefree passion had crash-landed on a permanent commitment. Not to each other, but to a sweet infant.
She laid her palm against her abdomen. It was too soon for any flutters or kicks, but she swore she could almost feel its little pulse. She laughed at her silliness.
Ethan would be a good parent to their baby. Mateo was terrific. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to pretend that she accepted his proposal. She’d have his support, his help. He’d love their child. No divided time or joint custody or any messes.
But he didn’t love her. Could she survive a marriage of convenience? She imagined long Sunday brunches with Ethan and Mateo and the baby. Ethan would be kind, but distant to her. Formal. Maybe gently friendly.
Would he expect them to have sex? She doubted she could keep her hands off him. A sexual relationship with a man who liked her, but didn’t love her? A lifetime of that would destroy her self-worth. Her confidence. Her soul.
There was no clear path in front of her. All she could do was move forward. At some point, something was going to click. A piece of the puzzle would fall into place, and she’d start to have a direction.
Tempting Doctor Forever (Barrett Ridge Book 2) Page 9
