Love Game (17 page)

Audrey had responded with such open affection that, despite her pique, Chris had been a little amazed. Her child was usually reserved with people she didn’t know, especially men, and her ready acceptance of Greg was both extraordinary and disconcerting for a mother who thought she knew best.

But did she?
He had been so good with Audrey that day. Chris saw that now, looking back with the clarity of distance. Could it be, she wondered, that he had some latent paternal qualities emerging to which she had shut her eyes, her focus narrowed to old, stubbornly held parameters?

A soft kiss on Audrey’s cheek, a pat of the giraffe, and Chris went to her own lonely bedroom. For being so empty it felt awfully crowded. The walls closed in and she confronted the conflicts she could no longer ignore.

The answers she’d been feeding herself lacked the substance of truth. “No more lies,” she whispered. “The simple fact is he’s under your skin and has a hold on your heart. You made a mistake, Chris. A really big mistake. So, what are you going to do about it now?”

Marriage was
a possibility, she decided. But they needed more time together, the three of them, to make such a binding commitment. Time was the answer. The distance between them would make things more difficult, but anything worth having was worth working for. Good marriages took work; they could think of it as a proving ground, a test of their mettle.

Chris felt as if a thousand-pound weight had been lifted from her shoulders, blinders lifted from her eyes. Elation and a lilting hope swept through her. She wanted to share it with Greg. Tell him how wrong she had been, ask his forgiveness for the wounds she had inflicted.

That, too, would be a test. True love forgave, and as with the birth of a baby, the pain was forgotten once a beautiful new life was cradled in one’s arms.

And how she did want to be in his arms right now! The thought sent her heart soaring.

Chris cut her gaze to the bedside clock. Eleven here, it was midnight in D.C. Even if Greg was sleeping, surely he wouldn’t mind if she woke him up to ask when was the soonest they could meet.

Rummaging in her purse for the card he had given her with home and work numbers on it, she grasped it with tremulous hands. Excitement rising, she dialed. Breath held, an immediate apology on her tongue, she heard his receiver lift.

“Hello?” It was a woman’s voice. Into Chris’s stunned silence, the woman said, “Major Reynolds’ residence. Hello?”

“W
HO WAS THAT
?” Greg asked, looking up from the hamburgers he turned on the stove.

“They hung
up. Wrong number, I guess.”

Just in case it wasn’t, he grabbed the phone and dialed. Better for Chris to hang up on him than to think he’d been in the sack with Eileen. Their relationship was too complex to explain easily, but he’d explain her away somehow if Chris had called.

Which apparently she hadn’t. Ten rings, no answer. After midnight and she wasn’t home.
Who was she with?
And who was baby-sitting Audrey, or was she at a friend’s house while her mother was out on the town…or elsewhere?

Greg returned to the stove and slapped the hamburgers onto a plate, hard. Eileen scratched softly at his back.

“I take it she wasn’t there?” she said sympathetically.

“You take it right.” He shoved the plate her way. “Here, eat both of them. I just lost my appetite.”

“Even for—”

“Yeah, even for that, Eileen. Like I told you earlier, I appreciate the offer, but I just can’t cheat on her.”

“It’s not like you’re married,” she reminded. Again.

“No one knows better than us that there’s a lot more to marriage than a legal paper. It’s the ‘lot more’ between me and Chris that’s keeping me out of a bed with you to try to forget her.” At Eileen’s expression of slight hurt and definite disappointment, he softened his rejection. “If anyone could tempt me that way, it would be you. But the fact is, no one’s worth that kind of damage. Even if she didn’t know, I would. And I couldn’t live with that between us.”

“I don’t believe it,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief. “It’s finally, really happened to you, hasn’t it?”

“God, has it. I’m crazy about her, Eileen. And I’m just as crazy about her little girl.”

“Lucky them,” she
said wistfully. “I wish it could have been that way for us. But I suppose we should be glad that we’ve been able to stay friends and occasionally enjoy the best thing we had in our marriage.”

“That part of it was good,” he agreed. Spicy as their love life had been, though, it had lacked the depth and meaning that defined his intimate bond with Chris. Too private to share and better left unspoken to an old lover and ex-wife.

“I’m going to miss our little frolics down memory lane.”

“Yeah, but you sure as hell won’t miss the rest of the garbage that went along with our ‘I do.’”

“Isn’t that the truth,” she admitted with a laugh. “Once the honeymoon was over and the domestic stuff got in the way of the bed…Well, I guess it’s not too surprising we thought it best to keep the bed and forget the rest. Maybe I’ll be lucky and meet a man one day who loves me as much as you obviously love her. Not that I’m in any hurry, mind you.”

And he knew she wasn’t. Fiercely ambitious, Eileen was married to her career. A lot like he had been before Chris and Audrey had come along and scrambled his priorities.

“Let’s eat those burgers,” he suggested.
Sonic burgers are my favorite.
He could hear her halting whisper in the elevator as if they were still there. The memory seized him in the groin and wrapped around his heart. Both belonged to Chris. All of him did. God, but he missed her.

“Tell you what, while we eat, give me an earful about this amazing woman who did the impossible.”

It was all the encouragement he needed. As they ate, he told her about Chris, about the blind spot she had that made her refuse to give him a chance to be Audrey’s daddy.

“I want them, Eileen,” he said as she nibbled at the burger he hadn’t touched. “More than anything I’ve ever wanted in my life, I want them both.”

“Hmm.” She
tapped her temple. “Know what I think? If you’re smart you’ll give her some space, show her you can be patient. It’s certainly not your strong suit, but if you can lay off the arm-wrestling tactics, she might start seeing you in a different way. I know that after tonight, I do.”

She gave him a quick kiss, then picked up her purse. “Call me if you want to talk…or anything else.”

“There won’t be ‘anything else,’” he said firmly.

“I know. But you can’t blame an ex-wife for trying.”

They laughed companionably as he walked her to the front door. There, he asked, “By the way, how do you see me now?”

“You’re not the man I married, Greg. But you’re showing some real signs of being the one I wish I had. If that woman has a brain in her head and a hormone in her body, she’ll come around. Just give her some time.”

A
S DAWN PEEKED THROUGH
the blinds, Chris huddled in the fetal position on the floor of her bedroom. Disbelief had given way to outrage, a wrath she’d taken out on the phone she jerked from the wall, the sheets she’d shorn with her scissors.

And then the tears had come, unending streams of them, each one filled with the hurt wrenching her apart and leaving her in so many pieces, scattered and fragmented, she would never find them all. But now, mercifully numb, Chris knew she had no choice but to pick up what was left of herself and what remains she could gather, and put them in place as best she could.

She had to do it for Audrey. She had to do it for herself. She couldn’t allow Greg to destroy her. All their memories
and her tattered emotions, she had to tuck them away in a sealed place of her mind where she must never venture.

To church she would go Sunday and with Jerry she would sit. And she would look at him with the veil of self-delusion lifted. As for comparisons, he would surely fare infinitely better than Greg after this.

And he did. So did Harvey, whom she didn’t hesitate to accept a date with the next weekend. Chris heard herself laughing at his corny jokes, struck by how natural she sounded when she felt so completely detached. She watched their interaction as if she were an onlooker, just as she went through her days at work and her time at home—with a sense of separation from everyone and everything.

Everyone except Audrey. Chris could feel herself clinging with such desperation it was enough to suffocate the poor child. She knew she had to stop it, and would as soon as she found a few more missing pieces. Rationally, Chris believed she was in shock—not unlike what she’d gone through when she had lost Mark. The symptoms were the same: going through the motions of living while inside she felt cold, dead.

Her period was nearly three weeks late, but that didn’t really surprise her, either. She had skipped one entirely after Mark’s death. Yes, she was a widow again, but she refused to grieve at the grave of lost dreams, lost hope.

It was only after the first week of February came and went without a sign of her menses that Chris became alarmed. Had she miscalculated? she wondered frantically, checking the last X on the previous year’s calendar.

But no, there it was and no matter how many times she counted the days, they didn’t miraculously diminish. One period she could miss and explain away but the only explanation for having missed a second was inescapable.

The calendar fell from
her nerveless fingers and her gaze riveted on her stomach. “Heaven help me,” she whispered. Her surroundings zoomed in and out and she thought she might faint. Slumping to the floor she put her head between her knees and breathed deep until the dizziness passed.

But as reality reasserted its hold she wished she had fainted.
What was she going to do?

Chris had no idea. She only knew that she was pregnant and the father-to-be would never know.

S
ITTING IN THE CLINIC’S
waiting
room, Chris’s heart stopped, then started again when the name called was not hers.

She was desperate for this to be over; desperate for it not to happen. But she had no choice, she sternly reminded herself as she closed her eyes and searched for some remnant of strength. She wanted to pray, but she’d been praying for two weeks and God hadn’t sent a miracle miscarriage her way.

She thought He would forgive her for what she was compelled to do if heaven’s unconditional love was true. But self-judgment was another matter and Chris wondered if she would ever be able to forgive herself.

She believed life was sacred. Only she had been thrust into an impossible situation where beliefs and existing responsibilities collided. She had examined the options and outcomes as rationally as she could. This had been the hardest, most painful decision of her life.

To bear this child would be to subject Audrey to a fate she did not deserve. The taunts from her peers and inevitable snubbing they both would receive would only be a single thread in their unraveling lives. The structure that supported them was frighteningly fragile, Chris had come to realize. This was a moral community and her position in it would suffer a great fall. Her teaching contract was due to be renewed for next year and the school budget had been cut.

She could hear the clip of her job already. An unmarried home-ec teacher with her stomach out to there would incite an uproar among those parents who felt she was no example for their children to follow. Gone would be the income and gone would be the existing fabric of their lives.

To do that to
Audrey was unthinkable. And so was climbing into bed with another man who might or might not marry her, even if she was able to convince him of a desperate lie.

Desperation had driven her here, where she shrank into her chair, into herself, while another name was called.

So desperate she’d been, she had actually considered calling Greg and insisting he marry her, take her and Audrey in until the baby was born. And after that they could divorce, she could return to Lubbock with both children and bear only the brunt of bad judgment for being swept off her feet by an old flame and jumping into a marriage that hadn’t worked out.

It was really the most logical thing to do. But Chris didn’t think she could survive living with Greg and the equal measures of love and hate she grappled with even now. Lord, how she wanted to hate him, completely and passionately. Yet there was a weakness inside her, making her wake up and wonder why he wasn’t in bed with her. How weak she was, longing so much for his touch that she pretended it was him, the traitor whose name she called when she came. And then damned as she cried into her pillow, cursing him for the hold he still claimed over her body and soul.

Yes, she still wanted him despite the brutal damage he had done. And it was that want which advised her to stay far away because she would fall for him all over again and then he would tear out the remains of her heart.

“Mrs. Nicholson?” The call of her name was close, too close,
and Chris started at the tap on her shoulder. The neatly dressed woman looked down at her quizzically. “I called your name twice but you didn’t seem to hear. Is something wrong? The nurse is waiting with your prep shot.”

Chris glanced from the woman to the open door leading to a nurse who would dope her up, to a room where she would lie on a table while her womb gave up the life inside it. And once that was done she would go home without the baby in the belly she protectively stroked, home in a cab rather than the car she had come in and would have to pick up later.

The car she was leaving in now.

“I can’t do it,” she said haltingly. “I’m sorry if I messed up your schedule but I just can’t—can’t do this.”

The woman nodded sympathetically. “If you can’t, then don’t. After all, the only thing to be sorry for is going through with a decision you can’t take back and regret once it’s made. I’m sure that yours is the right one for you.”

And it was, Chris knew as she claimed the haven of her car and carefully drove home. Home with the child she hadn’t been able to sacrifice for the sake of her other one.

She would have a lot of explaining to do. Why Mama was having a baby but didn’t have a daddy to offer in the bargain. And why it was best that they move away after the school year was over and find a new home, new friends, a new job.

But she’d sweeten the deal and tell Audrey what a team they would be and wherever they lived it would smell lots better when they swung on the porch, sharing jelly beans, lullabies and lemonade.

E
IGHT IN THE MORNING
and he hadn’t slept a wink all night. His plane was due to leave in a few hours and Greg was still debating whether or not to call first. He was having a lot of trouble making decisions lately; had been for the past
three months. Good thing he wasn’t running a war since he would have had a mutiny on his hands by now.

He was ineffective on the job and had been strongly advised that whatever his personal problem might be, he needed to get it straightened out. Hell, he hadn’t needed the general to tell him that—all he had to do was look in the mirror for a reality check. Twenty pounds lighter, his eyes dull and sunken, on good days he looked like a zombie in a horror flick.

Maybe Chris would take one glance at him and have some pity. Only, he didn’t want her pity. He wanted
her.
On any terms. It had come down to a matter of survival.

Only an hour remained before he drove to the airport. If he called, she might make herself scarce. Then again, if he didn’t, she might have Saturday-afternoon company when he arrived, as in male, and given the state he was in, Greg didn’t trust himself farther than he could spit. If he made a scene, he’d blow what little chance he had for a reconciliation. Knowing that, he laid aside the mitten he’d rubbed a hole in from months of stroking, took a deep breath and made the call.

“Hello-wo,” piped the pip-squeak voice trying to sound grown up. It was the most wonderful sound Greg had heard in what seemed forever.

“Audrey,” he exclaimed with genuine delight. “Guess who this is.”

“Uncle Greg!”

“That’s right. How’s my special girl?”

With a mischievous little giggle, she said, “Which one? Me or Mommy?”

“Both. But you first.”

“I got a tooth in but lost two more and the Tooth Fairy only left three quarters under my pillow. Just ’tween us, I think Mommy’s the fairy, but don’t tell her I said so.”

“Cross my heart, I won’t.”

“Does that mean
you can keep another secret?” she asked in a confidential whisper.

“You know I can.” Unable to resist, he asked, “Remember our secret at the toy store?”

“Sure do, but I was ’fraid you forgot.”

“Nope,” he assured her. “I think about it all the time. So, Audrey, tell me your secret before I talk to your mom.”

“She’s kinda the secret and I don’t think she can talk right now ’cause she’s throwin’ up again.”

Everything seemed to come to a stop. His heartbeat, his lungs, even his ability to speak. And then they came back all at once, faster than fast, the room spinning like a top.

Struggling to remain calm, Greg said very slowly, “This is really important, Audrey, so think hard before you answer. Does your mother have the flu?”

“I don’t think so, ’less it’s a real weird kind and lasts a long time. Mostly she’s just sick in the mornin’s and eats crackers in bed a lot.”

Symptoms, other symptoms. Jesus, he couldn’t think. “Uh…what about sleeping? Is she sleeping a lot, too?”

“Almost as much as she cries. I’m worried about her and that’s my secret, Uncle Greg. She keeps tellin’ me everything’s gonna be all right but it sure doesn’t seem like it. ’Specially since she said we were gonna move away after school’s over and after that she has a surprise.”

A surprise?
Fourth of July fireworks and Mardi Gras in New Orleans exploding at his feet couldn’t compete with this!

“Listen, sweetheart, don’t you worry your pretty little head a second longer. I’m on my way and I’m not leaving without you and your mama.”

“Is that a promise?” she asked with such hope it assured him he had a formidable ally in Audrey.

“You bet it’s a promise, no matter what it takes for me
to make it come true. Between the two of us, we’ll make our toy-store secret happen. You’ll be calling me something besides Uncle Greg real soon.”

After swearing Audrey to silence and making her a fellow conspirator in a hasty plan, Greg threw on his new suit, picked out a power tie, and took off with the frayed mitten in his pocket for luck. Galvanized into action, he made two stops on the way to the airport and boarded, out of breath, his checking account considerably lighter.

A while later, arsenal in hand, he got out of the car he’d rented and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Audrey posted at her station, right on time.

She ran into his arms and gave him a great big hug, the best hug he’d ever gotten in his life, almost crushing the foil-wrapped roses between them. He pulled one out and gave it to her with a warning, “Careful, it’s got stickers on it.”

“Can I call you Daddy yet?” she whispered in his ear.

“Not yet, but it won’t be long,” he whispered back. “Did your mother swallow the bait?”

“The bait?”

Oops. Still had some work to do on kid lingo. But he’d get it down, just like the rest he still had to learn. And this time he’d do it right. “Is your mama inside?”

“Uh-huh. She’s still lookin’ for her keys. I hid ’em in the garbage can.”

“Good going, sweetheart. Now give me a high five and scoot over to that friend’s house you said you could go to.”

“How long am I ’sposed to play with Lizabeth?”

“Think her mom will let you stay till dinner?” Audrey assured him she did that “lots lately since Mama’s such a grouch.”

Greg was a little sorry to see Audrey take off. Now who was the one hiding behind a child, he asked himself wryly as he let himself in the unlocked door. He didn’t want to scare Chris, but even less did he want the door slammed in his face.

Shutting it softly
behind him, he knew a sweet thrill at the sound of her voice, cursing profusely from the direction of her bedroom.

Divine intervention? What better place for a showdown; an even better place to kiss and make up.

Deciding the flowers would meet a kinder fate after the kiss and make-up part, he placed them on the piano bench. And then, his gaze lifting to the wedding picture atop the upright, he did something extremely difficult, but necessary.

He laid the roses beside the picture. In their time apart he had come to realize many things, and this was a symbol of his acceptance of the whole of her life. Just as Chris would have to accept his for them to make a good life together.

Treading quietly to her open bedroom, he watched from the doorway, devouring the sight of her dressed in a chambray shirt and faded jeans. Chris had never looked so good to him, her hair a mess, barefoot and pregnant, banging shut a drawer and yelling, “Damn! Damn, where the hell are those keys?”

Greg dug into his pocket, and lifting his own, jangled them. They sounded like bells and he could only think one kiss from Chris and oh, how they would ring.

“Audrey, you found them!” she said, whirling around. The smile on her face froze. And then she fell back against the dresser. One hand clutching at it, her other went to her stomach. But as his gaze hungrily followed the movement, she quickly jerked her palm from her belly.

“Audrey’s gone to play so her mother and I can put our games away.” He shut the door and locked it. “Hello, Chris.”