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“We agreed I’d do this on my own.” Her voice had a definite edge to it.
“I know.”
“But you’re reneging on that?”
“No.” He thought about the past weeks, wondered how he could possibly explain them to her. To himself. Wondered why he even wanted to try.
“So you’re going to let me do this alone, but you’d like to be a father to the baby?” She’d lost some of her edge but was still hugging herself tightly. He thought she might be cold, in spite of the thick velour sweater she was wearing.
The air was definitely cooler now that the sun was losing its intensity.
It really wouldn’t be good for her to catch a chill.
“I can’t be a father.”
He hadn’t meant the words to come out like that. Wasn’t sure he’d meant them to come out at all. Somehow, over the years of observing rather than living, he’d forgotten how to communicate.
“What do you mean, can’t?” she challenged. “Don’t you mean won’t? That you don’t want to?”
No, that wasn’t what he’d intended. It had been so long since his wanting had played a part in anything that he no longer even asked himself what he wanted.
“You’re just going to have to trust me on this one.” He bit down hard, controlling the tension gripping him. “I’m not father material! Wouldn’t be good for a child.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Phyllis said, apparently not having heard his admonition about trust. Or perhaps it was the fact that he hadn’t done anything to earn her trust that had her arguing an inarguable point with him. “You’re great with your students,” she continued. “Patient, firm. It’s obvious they adore you.”
No one adored him. No one got that close. He made certain of that. “I control the grade book.”
He could feel her eyes on him again. “You really believe that’s all it is?”
“Of course.” That was all it could be. “I have a past, Phyllis,” he told her, sounding a little too adamant. They had to get over this once and for all so they need never visit it again. “I’ve made mistakes that would inevitably reflect on anyone closely associated with me.”
“Everyone reaching our age has made mistakes. Either that or they haven’t lived.”
“I can’t be a father to that child.”
He’d grown up the child of a convict. Knew how that fact insidiously wore away at a boy’s self-esteem, his confidence. His sense of who he was. Coming from a family of cons did something to a kid, made him something he might not otherwise have been, convinced him of things he didn’t even recognize until it was too late.
Matt might not be guilty of the crime of which he was convicted, might even have won his acquittal, but only because the evidence hadn’t been strong enough the second time around to pass the “beyond reasonable doubt” provision. No one really knew—except Matt himself—what had happened between him and Shelley Monroe. Shelley wasn’t certain herself, although Matt knew full well what she wanted to believe, what she chose to believe. She thought Matt had slept with her that day in his office when she’d been too drugged to remember what had happened. It was what she needed to think.
He understood that now.
Understood, too, that a lot of what had happened between them was his own damn fault. Shelley had longed for love and acceptance. At fourteen she’d already been conditioned by the life she led, the choices she’d made, to take her validation, her self-worth, from her body. Because of that, she’d needed badly to believe that Matt found her body worthy, that he considered her attractive. And so, like an idiot, he’d given her the verbal praise she’d seemed so desperately to require.
He hadn’t even been able to ease his guilt with the knowledge that he’d never ever thought about Shelley as a female. The idea of having sex with a fourteen-year-old girl, no matter how much older than her years, hadn’t entered his mind for even a second. But, he had, perhaps, fallen just a little in love with the woman he knew she could someday become.
Which was one of the reasons he sent her a support check every month. He might not be the father of her child, but he wasn’t completely free of responsibility for what had happened. Besides, then and now, he saw her potential—a potential she was well on her way to achieving.
Shelley was one of those rare people who had grit and talent, wit and compassion and that ability to see a bit deeper, go a bit farther, than most people.
Phyllis let out a heavy sigh, bringing Matt back from the hell he’d visited less and less over the past four years—and almost hourly, it seemed, during the past month. She’d stopped rocking. Rested her head on her pulled-up knees.
“What exactly do you want, then?” He could feel her gaze on him, but didn’t turn to meet it.
“I’m not sure,” he answered honestly. Having come this far, he didn’t see that he could answer her in any other way. “I just feel I should be doing something. Watching out for you, if nothing else.”
She took a quick breath and he held up his hand to forestall the argument he knew was coming. “We hardly know each other,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “But at the moment, we share a very intimate problem and I can’t seem to forget that.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he continued when she didn’t have anything to say to that. “I’m honestly very glad that you’re doing so well with all of this, and I don’t want to make things more difficult for you. It just seems as though I’m getting off too easy here. Life doesn’t work that way.”
“I didn’t think of that.” Her voice was soft, compassionate, compelling him to meet her gaze. It was as warm as her voice had promised, and though he knew he should, Matt couldn’t look away. “What you’re saying makes perfect sense,” she went on slowly, still reaching inside him with that gentle, open look. “It might seem odd to admit this, considering the circumstances, but I guess I’ve been the selfish one here.”
He had to look away. Or drown. “I’d hardly say that.”
“I haven’t been fair to you, but I’m not sure how to remedy that.”
He wasn’t sure, either. And was finding it a little difficult to breathe. “Maybe we should just leave things as they are for the moment,” he said, stretching his legs in front of him in preparation for standing.
It was time to go.
“As long as you’re really okay…” he added.
“I’m fine,” she said, and sounded as if she meant it. She even met his eyes again, but somehow, though their eyes met, her gaze didn’t touch him as it had before. “But you—”
“Don’t worry about me. I’d say any discomfort I’m feeling is far less than I deserve.”
They stood together.
“You’ll call me if you need anything?” he asked, looking down at her, reluctant to leave her there—even while he couldn’t get away fast enough.
God, she was beautiful.
“I promise,” she told him, and he believed her.
And with that he was going to have to be satisfied.
IF PHYLLIS HADN’T LOVED Tory Sanders so much, she’d have skipped her younger friend’s baby shower the next day. She’d been nauseated almost every morning that previous week, though thankfully not at all during her time with Matt the day before, but nothing compared to the way she was feeling on Sunday afternoon. The taste of grape juice she’d had during communion at church had turned her stomach, and by two o’clock—the time for Tory’s shower—her traitorous insides had not yet righted themselves.
Because the shower was a double one, for Tory and for Randi Foster, both of whom were expecting their first babies within the next six weeks, they’d all decided to have it at Becca Parsons’s large home up on the mountain rather than in Phyllis’s little bungalow. As she gathered up the presents she’d wrapped the night before, Phyllis couldn’t help but be grateful for small blessings.
She’d have died for sure if she’d had to prepare food and tidy her house for the onslaught of all of her friends. As it was, when Cassie came by to pick her up, Phyllis had to make a mad dash from the car and back inside to her bathroom before she was ready to go.
What Cassie didn’t know was that the shower was a surprise for her, too. The entire town was turning out to celebrate with their golden girl.
“You have to tell them,” Cassie said softly when they were finally under way.
“I know, but not today.”
“Why not today?”
Cassie was radiant in her moss-green maternity top and matching slacks. She was wearing her long red hair down these days and looked younger than she had in years. Unlike Phyllis, Cassie was a woman who needed the man she loved beside her.
Thank God he’d decided to end his ten-year absence and return home to the family he’d left behind in Shelter Valley. Phyllis had hated Sam Montford when she’d first heard about him. But after months of getting to know the man, she had to admit she was as fond of him as everyone else in this town.
Cassie was a lucky woman. In so many ways.
“Today is for Tory and Randi,” Phyllis answered her friend belatedly. “I don’t want to spoil it for them.”
“I think a baby shower is a perfect time to tell your friends that you’re going to have a baby,” Cassie said. Phyllis recognized the tone in her friend’s voice. Cassie wasn’t planning to give up on this one easily.
And, Phyllis wasn’t certain she had the energy to fight her.
“Maybe,” she allowed, a partial concession.
“It’d be good to do it with everyone together.” Cassie turned onto the road that wound up the mountain to Becca and Will’s home—the same road that continued on up to Montford Mansion, the home Cassie’s husband would one day inherit.
“Maybe I should wait and tell Will first,” Phyllis said, frowning. “I’m not sure I should drop a bomb like this on my boss in a room full of people.”
Will Parsons was the president of Montford University. He’d been the one who’d hired Phyllis away from her Boston College the year before.
“You’re afraid he’s going to ask too many questions,” Cassie said.
She wasn’t letting Phyllis get away with anything. “There is that.”
“All the better to make the announcement today, then. There’ll be so many people talking at once, he won’t have a chance to say a word.”
“Maybe he won’t be there.”
“Are you kidding? Randi’s his baby sister. He’s watching her like a hawk. Besides, other guys are going to be there. Ben. And Zack.”
“And Sam,” Phyllis said, grinning at her friend. The guys were all coming over after a round of golf. They were going to grill steaks that evening.
Just the thought of it made Phyllis’ stomach start to churn again.
“You need me to pull over?” Cassie asked, her quick gaze filled with sympathy as she noticed Phyllis sliding down in her seat, head in her hands.
“Not yet,” Phyllis said, trying to concentrate on cool breezes and sheets and showers and anything else that was cool and nonedible. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me today. It hasn’t been nearly as bad as this…until today.”
“It happens like that sometimes,” Cassie said, a pregnancy pro now that she was all the way into her sixth month. “The good news is it can go as quickly as it comes.”
“Thank God for that.”
“So, you still coming over for Thanksgiving?”
“Of course.” Phyllis smiled. Hard to believe the holiday was only five days away. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Cassie, Tory, their families. It was what life was all about.
“I called you a couple of times yesterday,” Cassie said as she maneuvered her Taurus slowly up the hill.
“I was gone.”
“For hours.”
“You checking up on me, Mom?”
“Maybe.”
“Matt and I went to Tortilla Flat for lunch.”
“Oh?”
“It wasn’t like that.” Phyllis eyed her black leather boots, deciding they complemented the beige hip-huggers she was wearing with her leopard blouse and black leather vest. She might not be wearing the slacks or top for long, but the boots would still fit in a couple of months, wouldn’t they?
“How was it, then?” Cassie asked. If she’d been trying for casual, she failed.
“He just thought we should get together once, share medical information, stuff like that.”
“Did he tell you anything about his family? About his life before Shelter Valley?”
“A little.”
“And?”
“I don’t think he’s the cold fish you think he is, Cass,” Phyllis said, sitting up. “He had a rough time growing up, and I’m pretty sure there’s been some serious stuff since then, but he’s a good man. Fair. Conscientious.”
Cassie pulled into the Parsons’s circular drive, parking the car behind three others already there.
“I’m not telling them today,” Phyllis said, looking at the beautiful home that belonged to her very first friends in Shelter Valley. “I’m still early in my term—I need a little more time.”
Cassie’s expression relaxed as she nodded. “About Matt Sheffield, you’re going to be okay, aren’t you?” she asked softly.
“You mean I’m not going to do something stupid like fall for him?”
“Okay, maybe.”
“Don’t worry,” Phyllis said, her stomach heaving again. “There’s no chance of that at all.”
“I’d just hate to see you get hurt.”
“I know,” Phyllis said, squeezing Cassie’s hand. “I don’t intend to.”
Phyllis knew that not every woman was meant to share her life with a man. She was one of those women. She could handle relationships with men as friends, but that was it.
The ground was too uneven, too treacherous, for a lifetime of one-on-one. Maybe she was too much of a threat. Or perhaps being around her all the time just got old.
Which was fine by her. She’d already tried love and marriage and had no intention of taking those risks again. The one and only time she’d ever come close to losing her grasp on reality had been when she’d been emotionally involved with a man.
Cassie didn’t have anything to worry about.
Matt Sheffield couldn’t hurt her. Because he wouldn’t get the chance.
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