Sarah's Child

by Linda Howard

She jerked and looked at him wildly. “What?”

  In that moment, he knew that she hadn’t thought of the solution to the problem, hadn’t even considered it, and something cold touched him. He moved away from her, his eyes black with his inner hell. “I don’t want you to have this baby,” he said rawly. “I don’t want it. I don’t want any baby, ever.”

  Sarah felt as if she’d received a huge blow to the chest; she tried to suck in air, and couldn’t. Blindly she stared at him, afraid she’d faint; then she finally managed to pull some oxygen into her constricted chest. “Rome, it’s your baby too! How can you want—”

  “No,” he interrupted, his voice harsh with pain. “I buried my children. I stood by their graves and watched the dirt cover them up. I can’t go through that again. I can’t accept another child, so don’t…don’t ask me to try. I’ve learned to live without them, without my boys, but no other child can ever—ever!—replace them.” His face twisted with agony, and he was gasping for breath too, as if it were almost impossible for him to continue. He fought for control and gained it, though sweat had broken out on his brow from the effort. “I love you,” he said, more quietly. “Sarah, I love you. That’s more than I ever thought I’d have again. Loving you, having you, has given me a reason to live again, something to look forward to every day. But another baby…no. I can’t do it. Don’t have the baby. If you love me, don’t…don’t have the baby.”

  She staggered, then brought herself upright only by sheer bone-crunching determination. No woman should ever have to hear this, she thought dimly. No woman should ever be faced with this decision. She loved him, and because she loved him, she had to love his child. She understood the strain he was under; she’d seen his face when he’d stood by the graves of his sons, and known that he would have lain down and died with them, if he could. But knowing, and understanding, didn’t make it any easier for her.

  He looked at her with pure screaming hell in his eyes, and suddenly his eyes and his cheeks were wet. “Please,” he begged shakily.

  Sarah bit her lip until her teeth went through flesh and brought blood. “I can’t,” she said.

  CHAPTER TEN

  She faced him across the study, her slender body braced under a burden she wasn’t certain she could carry. “I’d do anything for you that you asked,” she said in a slow, careful voice. “Except that. I love you so much that I could never harm any part of you, and this baby is a part of you. I’ve loved you for years, not just for the past few months, since we’ve been married. I loved you before you married or even met Diane, and after. I loved Justin and Shane because they were yours.” She shook her head a little blindly. “I don’t expect I’ll stop loving you, no matter what you do. If you can’t, absolutely can’t, accept this baby, that’s your decision. But I can’t destroy it.”

  Rome turned away, his movements slow, like an old man carrying too many years. “What now?” he asked in a leaden voice.

  “It’s your decision,” she repeated. She couldn’t believe her voice was so calm, but her back was to the wall and she knew it. “If you want to go, rather than live with me, I’ll understand, and I won’t stop loving you, ever. If you stay, I’ll try—” Her voice broke suddenly and she stopped, breathing heavily for a moment before she could trust herself to speak again. “I’ll try to keep the baby away from you, out of your way. I’ll never ask you to care for it, or hold it. I swear, Rome, you’ll never even have to know its name if you don’t want to! For all intents and purposes, you won’t be a father!”

  “I don’t know,” he said lifelessly. “I’m sorry, but I just don’t know.”

  He walked past her, and after a moment Sarah managed to control her legs enough to follow him. He paused on his way out of the apartment, his dark head bent. Without looking at her, he said, “I do love you. More than you know. I wish I’d told you before now, but….” He made a helpless motion with his hand. “Something died in me when they died. They were so little, and they always looked to me for protection. I was their daddy, and there wasn’t anything I couldn’t do, in their eyes. But when they really needed me, I couldn’t do anything to help them. All I could do…was hold them…when it was too damned late!” His mouth twisted with pain, and he rubbed his eyes, rubbed away the tears for his two little boys. “I have to go. I have to be alone for a while. I’ll be in touch, one way or the other. Take care of yourself.” At last he looked at her, and what she saw in his eyes made her clench her fists to keep from crying out.

  Even after the door had closed and minutes had ticked past, Sarah stood there, staring at the blank expanse of wood, because she could do nothing else. She’d known it would be difficult, but never had she guessed his reaction would be so strong, or his pain so raw. She felt his agony like a knife cutting into her own flesh.

  He’d said he loved her. How awful to have heaven offered to her with one hand and taken away with the other!

  She groped her way into the living room and sat down, her entire body numb with shock, but slowly she began to come alive again. If he loved her, perhaps he’d stay. One miracle had already happened; was it so unreasonable to ask for another one? And if he stayed, perhaps in time the wound left by the loss of his sons would heal enough for him to love another child, her child. She’d keep her word though. If he stayed, she wouldn’t try to force the child on him.

  Rome didn’t come home that night. Sarah lay in the bed she’d shared with him every night he’d been home since she’d had the flu, and she cried until she couldn’t cry any longer.

  She got up the next morning without having slept and went to the store as usual. Erica noticed her pale face and tear-swollen eyes but discreetly didn’t mention them. Tactfully, she waited on most of the customers, while Sarah remained in the office and brought all the books up-to-date. Even that was painful, because everything reminded her of Rome. He’d set up the books, helped her choose her computer system, worked in here every Saturday, and possibly gotten her pregnant on the very desk she sat at.

  Erica wouldn’t ask, but when Derek came in that afternoon and saw her, he reached out to help if he could. “What is it?” he asked. “Can I help?”

  Sarah felt a surge of love for him. How any sixteen-year-old boy could be so wonderful was beyond her. For Derek, she could smile, and she did. “I’m pregnant,” she said.

  He drew up the one other chair in the tiny office and folded his muscular body into it. “Is that bad?”

  “I think it’s wonderful,” she said shakily. “The problem is that Rome doesn’t want it. He was married before, and he had two beautiful little boys. They were killed in a car accident almost three years ago, and he can’t bear being around children since then. It’s still too painful for him.”

  Derek’s beautiful eyes were sober, and endlessly kind. “Don’t give up. He won’t really know how he feels until the baby is born and he can see it. Babies are pretty special, you know.”

  “Yes, I know. So are you,” she said.

  He smiled his lovely, utterly peaceful smile, and got up to do his chores.

  Another night came and went without word from Rome, but that night Sarah slept, exhausted from the lack of sleep the night before and the demands pregnancy was making on her body. Fatalistically, she realized that there was nothing more she could do, that they were both bound by the people they were and the circumstances of their lives. All her life she’d wanted a stable home, a husband and children to love, and she simply couldn’t give up. As long as there was a chance, she had to hope, and she had to try.

  As she drove home the next night she became abruptly aware that spring had arrived. It was still brisk, but not really cold, and trees were putting out tender, budding leaves. Late last summer she’d sat in her office, seeing the passing of summer as the passing of her life, fading into autumn and then winter, with no future and no love, only an empty road spiraling down for the rest of her years. Now she knew that after winter came spring. The winter had brought love into her life; with this spring,
there was new life, inside her as well as springing forth from the earth. She felt suddenly more peaceful; the sense of continuity in life itself calmed her.

  Rome’s car was in his parking slot.

  On shaking legs, she went up to the apartment. Was he back to stay, or was he inside packing to leave? Knowing that the next few minutes were crucial to her happiness for the rest of her life, she opened the door.

  A delicious, spicy odor greeted her.

  Rome appeared in the kitchen doorway. He looked oddly thinner, though it had been only two days since she’d seen him, and his face was lined with strain. But he was cleanly shaven and still dressed in the trousers from one of his suits, as well as a pale blue dress shirt, and she knew he’d been going to the office as usual. “Spaghetti,” he said quietly, indicating the kitchen. “If you can’t eat it, I’ll dump it out and we’ll go somewhere for dinner.”

  “I can eat it,” she said, her voice as quiet as his. “I haven’t been sick yet.”

  He nodded, then leaned his shoulder against the door frame as if he were very tired. “I don’t want to leave you, babe. I want to be with you, sleep with you, and look at that pretty face across the breakfast table from me. But I don’t want to know about the baby,” he said deliberately. “Don’t talk to me about it, and don’t involve me in it. I don’t want anything to do with it.”

  Sarah nodded, too shaken to say anything other than “all right.” Then she went to her bedroom to change clothes, leaving him leaning in the doorway.

  Dinner was quiet, strained. She didn’t ask him where he’d been, or why he’d made the decision he’d made, nor did he volunteer the information. He’d said he wanted to sleep with her, but when they went to bed, Sarah realized he’d probably meant in the rawer sense of the word, because he went to his own bedroom for the first time in a long while. She tried not to be disappointed, knowing what a shock he’d had, but she still missed him. Without him, she felt lost; the bed was far too big and cold. Moreover, pregnancy was having the curious side effect of intensifying her physical needs, as one of the booklets Dr. Easterwood had given her mentioned. She wanted Rome as her lover, not just her sleeping partner.

  Two days later Max came to see her at the store. “Have lunch with me,” he invited.

  Sarah glanced quickly at him, in time to see the concern in his eyes before he masked it. She nodded and called to Erica that she was going to lunch.

  Max took her to a small, quiet restaurant; as it was an early lunch, they were the only customers, except for a man in the back corner who was absorbed in his newspaper. They ordered their lunch; then when the waitress had left, Max gave Sarah a searching look. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, of course,” she replied, startled.

  “I wanted to reassure myself. You see, Rome spent two nights in my apartment, and he was the closest thing to a basket case I’ve ever seen.”

  So that was where he’d been. Sarah said “thank you” with deep open gratitude.

  Max’s crooked smile would have melted stones. “Dear girl, you know I’d slay dragons for you, if only there were any left to slay. Tell me what I can do.”

  “I suppose you know the entire story?”

  He nodded. “As I said, Rome was in shock. I tried pouring tea down him, but he wouldn’t have any, so I switched to Scotch. I couldn’t get him drunk,” he reflected, “not even on my favorite Scotch, but he stopped looking like walking death and finally began to talk. No one had ever mentioned his background; when he told me about his first wife, and his sons, it was almost more than I could bear in a civilized manner, and I’m not known as a particularly emotional man.” For once, there was no devilish gleam in his turquoise eyes. “That was all he’d tell me the first night. He worked the next day, as normal, though he wasn’t normal. On my solemn oath, it was a danger to even speak to the man. The second night he told me that you’re pregnant.”

  Sarah twisted her water glass around, her eyes sad. “Did he tell you—”

  “Yes.” He reached out and covered her hand. “I thought he was mad, or a fool, or both. If it were my child you were carrying, I’d be intolerable with pride. But then, I haven’t had his experiences.”

  “Diane was my best friend,” Sarah whispered. “I knew his babies. It was…awful.”

  “He told me of your ultimatum. Love, you have to be the most courageous woman I’ve ever met. You gambled everything, didn’t you? And you won.”

  “I haven’t won yet, not completely. I have a second chance, that’s all.”

  “He told me that he won’t have anything to do with the child, that he isn’t interested in it. If it works out like that, and you ever need anything, call me. I’d be honored to be a surrogate father. I’ll drive you to the hospital, hold your hand during labor, whatever you want. Do you realize,” he said thoughtfully, “what I’ve just committed myself to? Rome isn’t the only fool. I suppose I can always comfort myself with the thought that he’s too bloody sharp to let any other man stand in with his wife like that.”

  Sarah began to laugh, touched by his concern. “You poor dear. You were doing so well until you thought of childbirth, weren’t you?”

  He grinned. “I’ve always been extremely gallant, as far as my squeamishness will allow.”

  Their lunch arrived, and Sarah ate hers with a good appetite, the best she’d had in days. Max waved his fork at her. “I realize now why Rome was so determined to have exclusive rights to you. After the trauma of his past, he must have been desperate to make certain of you, to put some sort of stability back into his life. He didn’t know that you loved him, did he?”

  “No, not then. He does now.”

  “He loves you too. I realize that he didn’t when you got married, but he’s not an idiot, so he promptly recognized what a treasure he had. He’s still a barbarian, of course, but he’s bloody smart, and stupidity is really the only thing I can’t abide. It galls me, sometimes, to find that I like him as well as I do.”

  Max was priceless, using his casual, caustic wit to cheer her up and reassure her at the same time. He was sincere in his offer of help too. She was lucky in being surrounded by friends who cared for both her and Rome. Rome might feel as if his back were to the wall and he had to fight for his marriage, but in truth people cared about him and would do anything to help. Max had reassured Sarah of Rome’s whereabouts the two nights he’d been away from her, as much to help Rome as to relieve Sarah’s mind. He didn’t want Rome’s marriage in jeopardy over an erroneous conclusion.

  “You’re a marvelous man,” she told him, then had to tease, “What you need is a marvelous Texas girl to shake you out of your British reserve.”

  He gave her a long mocking look. “My British reserve is tossed out the window on certain occasions, love, and for your information, I’ve found a marvelous Texas woman. I would take her home to meet the family, but she wants taming first. I’m breaking her to the saddle, I believe is how you Texans would say it.”

  The idea of sophisticated Max with a fiery drawling woman was fascinating. She leaned forward, a multitude of questions bubbling to her lips, but he lifted a brow at her. “No, I do not kiss and tell,” he said gently. “Have you finished with your lunch?”

  Rome came to her bed that night and made love to her very gently. She clung to him, responding to him eagerly. Afterward, when he started to leave, she put her hand on his arm. “Please, not yet. Stay with me a while longer.”

  He hesitated, then lay back down and took her in his arms. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said into the darkness, his voice rough velvet. “I want you too much; if I stay, we’ll be making love again.”

  The way he’d thought of it had changed, she noticed. When they first married, he’d always avoided the phrase “making love.” She rubbed her cheek against the crisp curls on his chest, then tenderly bit his nipple. “I hope so,” she said, and there was a smile in her voice. “I’d like you to sleep with me again, for as long as you feel comfortable with me.”<
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  He tangled his fingers in her hair and tilted her head back. “Comfortable? This is how I feel with you,” he said, taking her hand and sliding it down his body. He was as eager for her as if they hadn’t already made love. “It’s not very comfortable, but that’s the way you affect me. If you’re not physically able to spend the night the way I’d like to, then you’d better let me go.”

  “I’m able,” she breathed, wiggling atop him. “I’m perfectly healthy.”

  He was careful with her, restraining his power and not letting her do too much. She knew his concern was solely for her, not for the baby, but still it warmed her. In the darkness he told her he loved her, and when they finally slept, he held her clasped to his side. Pregnancy forced her to get up several times during the night; every time she returned to bed, it was to find him awake. Without a word he’d draw her back into his arms.

  When she went in for her biweekly examination, Dr. Easterwood checked her thoroughly, then gave her the thumbs-up sign. “Perfect,” she pronounced. “Any morning sickness, or spotting?”

  “Nothing,” Sarah reported happily.

  “Good. Let’s keep it that way.”

  “Why are you seeing me every two weeks?”

  “Your age, and the fact that it’s your first child. I’m being overly cautious, I’m certain, but I want to deliver that baby in November. Take your vitamins, and every two hours, I want you to take a thirty-minute break, with your feet up. No exceptions.”

  Taking a thirty-minute break at the store was an iffy thing, until the customers found out that she was pregnant. She told Erica what Dr. Easterwood had said, and soon, promptly at eleven o’clock in the morning, Erica or someone in the store would say, “It’s time for your rest.” The baby was becoming a community project. Marcie got in the habit of dropping by at least once a day, Max came by at unexpected times, Erica and the customers rigidly supervised her rest, and Derek oversaw the entire operation. If she lifted anything, Derek somehow found out about it, and a gentle scolding from him had the power to make her feel as if lightning could strike her at any moment.