Baby Love

  “Oh.”

  “You can smash all my Twinkies, honey. By the case, if you want. I’ll never lift a hand to you.” He folded his arms across his chest. “No matter how mad I get, when the smoke clears, there won’t be a hair on your head harmed. I promise you that.” He glanced over his shoulder. “There’s a Bible around here someplace. I’ll give my solemn oath on it, if you’d like.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” she said softly.

  “I know it’s probably not the best idea for me to talk a lot about Susan, and I apologize for doing it now. But would it help you to know that Susan and I had knockdown, drag-out fights sometimes, and I never once so much as slapped her?”

  “You loved her, though.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, I loved her. More than anything. I won’t lie to you about that. I adored her, worshiped her. But sometimes she still made me so mad I wanted to strangle her.” He smiled slightly. “Married people get angry with each other sometimes. Really angry. Any man worth the powder it’d take to blow him to hell doesn’t use his fists to settle the dispute. I’ll walk out and go cool off before I’ll ever hit you. I promise you that.”

  Maggie nodded, wanting with all her heart to believe him. Her father had never hit her mom. She knew on some level that men like Rafe described truly existed. She’d just spent so many years dodging Lonnie’s fists that it no longer seemed like a reality to her.

  Rafe dug his heel against the rug again, then traced the sculpture pattern with the toe of his boot. “On the subject of Susan and how much I loved her,” he went on. “That’s something else we need to talk about. A part of my heart will always belong to her and my kids.” His voice went husky. “I wouldn’t be much of a man, and my love wouldn’t be worth a damn if I could simply bury people I care about and forget them. But please, understand that my memories of them have nothing to do with how I feel about you and Jaimie. Susan’s gone, my kids are gone. Life goes on. A man can love and love deeply more than once.” Tenderness clouded his eyes as he studied her. “I love you like that now.”

  “You’re starting to love me?”

  “Starting?” He gave a self-deprecating laugh and ran a hand over his face. “I guess this seems sudden to you.”

  “A little. Actually, a lot.”

  “Do you think love has to conform to a mean and follow a time chart?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Or make sense?” He shrugged. “Nine times out of ten, it makes no apparent sense at all, except to the person who feels it. I can’t explain how it happened. Or exactly when. I didn’t want to care about you. It made me feel like I was betraying Susan. But the feeling blindsided me anyway.” He broke off and swallowed, avoiding her gaze for a moment. “You’re a very special person, Maggie. I don’t think you realize how special.” He looked deeply into her eyes again. “Remember telling me that you could never replace Susan? When you said that, I got the feeling you felt inferior somehow, that no matter how you tried, you’d never be able to measure up.”

  “You said yourself that she was really wonderful, and Becca talks about her like she was a saint.”

  “When people die, we tend to canonize them, I guess. Not to say she wasn’t wonderful. She was. But as much as I loved her, when it comes to measuring up, she’s the one who comes up short, Maggie, not you. And if she were here, she’d be the first person who’d tell you that.”

  “She would?”

  “Susan was a sweetheart, no question, but never once was she put to the test like you have been. At fourteen, she was a cheerleader. A little rich girl. For her sixteenth birthday, her daddy bought her a brand-new car.

  “When we got out of college and decided to get married, she worked at a hamburger joint to buy my wedding ring, which set her back about four grand. Every cent she earned went for that ring. Not for clothes. Her dad gave her a charge card for that, and anything she wanted or needed, she just went and bought. Her earnings never went to pay bills. She had none. She lived with her folks, and they paid for everything. She had no real responsibilities until we got married, and even then, I tried my best to provide well for her. I’m not knocking her for that or saying it isn’t the way it should be. I’m just pointing out that you’ve never had it that easy.”

  “No, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have jumped at the chance. In high school, I envied girls like that.”

  “I’ll be damned. You mean to tell me you have an ignoble trait?” He arched an eyebrow. “I’ll bet you never once had the luxury of spending your wages on something as frivolous as a four-thousand-dollar ring. Or on anything else frivolous, for that matter. You just did what you had to, taking care of your mom and Heidi.”

  “I love my mom and Heidi, but even so, it wasn’t quite that simple. Sometimes I—well, to be honest, I resented both of them because I couldn’t be like other kids my age. I wished—” Maggie’s throat went dry. “Sometimes I wished I were someone else.”

  “Another ignoble streak?” He gave a low laugh. “My God, you’re riddled with them, aren’t you? Don’t tell me you feel guilty for that? Feeling resentful—honey, that was normal. You must have hated them sometimes. If you sit there and say you didn’t, it’s time to make you an appointment with a good shrink.”

  A scalding heat seared Maggie’s cheeks.

  “The point is that, despite those feelings, you didn’t shirk the responsibility.” He smiled and shook his head. “Measure up, Maggie? Think again. Compared to your life, Susan’s was a cakewalk. In high school, she never had to worry about supporting her family. And later, she never once had to worry about getting food for her babies. She sure as hell was never in a situation where she had to bargain with her body in order to get her hands on a bottle and formula. I’m not saying she wouldn’t have, if faced with the same circumstances. She was a wonderful mom. She just never had to prove her mettle. You have.”

  She couldn’t think what to say.

  “Do I need to list a few more reasons?” he asked softly.

  “Reasons for what?”

  “For loving you. Or maybe, to be more precise, to convince you that you deserve to be. I can go on, if you like. But in the end, Maggie, we’ll be right back where we started, with me saying I love you, and you not sure you believe it. I wish I could lay it all out for you in black and white and somehow justify my feelings. But that’s not how love works. It just happens.”

  “I never meant to make you think you had to justify anything.”

  “Good, because I probably can’t. The feeling hit me, fast and hard. Now it’s just there, and I’d rather die than lose you, which brings me to the rest of my apology.”

  He walked back to the bed and hunkered to look up at her. “There’s no excuse for the way I’ve handled all this. I’ve tried like hell to think of a good one, believe me. But the truth is, I screwed up. Screwed up royally.” His throat muscles convulsed, and his larynx bobbed. “Have you ever wanted something so bad—needed it so bad—that you went a little crazy?”

  “I almost stole a necklace once,” she admitted shakily.

  “A necklace?”

  “A gold locket. All the girls at school wore them.” She touched her throat. “You know—to carry pictures of their boyfriends. I, um…didn’t have a boyfriend and I felt—” She shrugged. “I don’t know. Left out, I guess. I thought if I wore a locket, I’d be more like everybody else, and people would think someone liked me. But the lockets cost fifteen dollars, and I couldn’t afford that. So I almost stole one.”

  She half-expected him to laugh. Instead he just looked sad, as if he knew exactly how she must have felt. After a moment, he said, “It’s not exactly on the same plane, but I guess that’s sort of how I feel about you. Only my character isn’t quite as sterling. I went ahead and took what I wanted.”

  While Maggie was trying to digest that, he went on to say, “Loving Susan and my kids like I did and then losing them…it nearly destroyed me. One day, I had the world by the tail, and the next, my wif
e and kids were dead. Worse, I blamed myself. When I met you, I was a drunk. I won’t color it pretty. I went from one bottle to the next, and that was all I cared about, staying drunk. I didn’t have a life. I didn’t want a life. Before I left the ranch, I considered shooting myself. For several nights, I sat in here in the dark with the nose of a revolver shoved against my temple, but I was too big a coward to pull the trigger.”

  Maggie had seen him take on four armed men with nothing but a whiskey bottle to protect himself. “You’re no coward.”

  “Yeah,” he said huskily. “Yeah, I am, Maggie. I ran from the pain, tried to drown it in a bottle. There are all kinds of cowardice. For me, terror wasn’t in facing death, though I did draw the line at blowing my brains out. It was facing life without the people I loved.” He swiped his hand over his mouth. “I couldn’t handle it, so instead, I drank. Meeting you changed all that. You needed me. Knowing that gave me a reason to sober up. In a very real sense, you were a lifeline tossed to me as I went under for the last time. You know?”

  She recalled the wild-haired, scruffy bum she’d met on the boxcar. Was this even the same man? “I think I do, yes,” she said tightly.

  He rested his arms on his thighs and turned up his palms to examine the deeply etched lines there. “I think I started falling for you the first time I looked at you. I tried not to. I was so mixed up in the head at the time that I felt guilty, like I said. But that passed. Right before she died, Susan made me promise I’d find someone else to love if anything ever happened to her. I kept remembering that when I looked at you, and I couldn’t fight the feelings. I knew she wouldn’t have wanted me to. And once I accepted how I was coming to feel about you, I started to—” A shine came into his eyes, and he blinked. “I, um, felt scared.” He interlaced his spread fingers and popped his knuckles again. “That’s a hell of a thing for a man to admit, but there it is. I was afraid I might lose you, and I still am. Only now I’m getting my head on straight, and then I was just reacting. All I could think about was how to make sure you wouldn’t leave.”

  “I’m not going to leave. Where would I go? Lonnie would eventually find me, and when he did, I’d be back to square one. And now there’s Heidi to think of, too. It’d be a lot harder for me to get custody of her if I was working two jobs and living in a crummy apartment in a bad neighborhood, which is probably what I’d have to do to make ends meet. Where would that leave her?”

  “I know all that,” he said in a gravelly voice. “And to my shame, I used it to my advantage. I knew you were in a hell of a fix. To my credit, I did offer you a way out, but only one way out. There were alternatives. Hiring a team of lawyers for you. Giving you enough money that working two jobs and living in a crummy apartment never would have been in the game plan. There were lots of things I could have offered to do for you, Maggie, and I didn’t.”

  Once again, she couldn’t think what to say, so she said nothing.

  “Instead I offered to do those things for you only if you married me, and I knew when I made you the offer that you’d take me up on it, that you essentially had no choice.” The shine in his eyes became unmistakable wetness. “When a man robs a woman of her right to choose, something is way out of whack.

  “Now you’re mine. I got what I wanted. I wouldn’t undo any of it, not for the world, because I know what a hell of a mess you’d be in if I did. Not to mention what would happen to Heidi now that I’ve snatched her from Idaho and brought her here. For her sake, we have to push ahead and try to get temporary custody.”

  “I don’t want you to undo any of it.”

  “Because of Jaimie and Heidi. That’s a hell of a way to start a marriage. If not for that olive, I would have pressed you to make love. I feel like a heel, but there it is. Saved by an olive.” He passed a hand over his face again. “I know it’s asking a lot. But I’d like a second chance to do things right this time. Will you give it to me? Another chance, I mean?”

  Maggie’s throat tightened. She’d almost started to believe he meant to give her a reprieve. Stupid, Maggie. “I already told you, I’m perfectly willing,” she said thinly, pushing aside the blankets to make room on the bed beside her. “Just don’t hand me any wine this time.”

  He laughed and reached out to grasp her wrist. “No, no. That’s not what I mean. A second chance, from start to finish, honey. That’s what I’m asking for.” He drew the blankets back to where they had been and gave them a solid pat as if to stick them to the sheet. “Normally a man wins a woman’s heart before he tries to make love to her. Walks in the moonlight, kissing her until her knees go weak. Taking her out to dinner. You know, dating and—” He shrugged. “I need to run all the bases. Even if you can never love me, at least I can make the intimacies of this relationship a little easier for you.”

  Maggie smoothed her hand over the blanket as well. “We’re, um…married now. You don’t have to finagle your way into my bed. I’m supposed to fix dinner for you, not expect to be taken out on dates. And even if we went somewhere, we’d come home together. I don’t see how we can make dating work or why you’d even bother.”

  “Well, it won’t be the normal kind of dating. That’s true.” He ran his knuckles along the edge of the mattress cording that showed through the fitted sheet. “But allowing you some time to get used to me isn’t impossible.” He gave her a slow smile. “Before I make love to you, it’d be nice if my touch didn’t make you so nervous that you douse us both with cabernet. Don’t you think? The least we can do is work on being good friends before we become lovers.”

  “Friends?” she echoed.

  “You think a husband can’t be your friend? I’d like to be your best friend, honey. I can’t promise you fireworks and bells ringing when I make love to you. You’ll have to love me—a lot—for that to be possible, or anything even close. But friendship is attainable. I can be the person in your life you know will always be there for you. Someone who cares about your feelings. Who’ll listen and try to help. And I think we can have fun together if I can coax you into relaxing around me.” He held her gaze for a long, searching moment. “Well? What do you say? Do you want to give it a try?”

  Maggie circled the offer. Why did he want to do this? They were married. He had every right to demand that she surrender her body to him. “Are you saying we aren’t going to—well, you know, have a wedding night?”

  “Sure we’ll have a wedding night. Only a very different kind.”

  “What kind, exactly?”

  He laughed. “You don’t trust easily, do you?” He shrugged and glanced around. “A walk in the moonlight is out for another three days. How about making eyes at each other over a game of chess? I’ll fix a new tray. We can drink a little wine. Have some fun. And then when we’re tired, we’ll crash. We’ll save the lovemaking for when you’re ready.”

  Maggie stared at him, half-expecting him to suddenly throw back his head, guffaw, and say, Gotcha! Only he didn’t. He just kept searching her gaze, as if waiting for her response. Finally, she said, “Are you serious?”

  “Of course I’m serious. Tell me you’re willing to start over with a clean slate, and you’ve got a deal.”

  “Until I’m ready?” she repeated incredulously.

  He nodded. “That’s the whole point, waiting until you’re ready.” That mischievous glint returned to his eyes. “It’s not like we need to wait until I am.”

  “And what’s the catch?”

  “There isn’t one. Unless it’s that I’m counting mighty heavily on my ability to win you over. But that’s my problem, right? And my gamble.”

  “And what if—”

  “What?” he asked gently. “Don’t be afraid to speak your mind. What’s worrying you?”

  “What if I’m never ready?” she blurted. “I, um…think it’s only fair to tell you that I don’t like it very well.”

  “Lovemaking, you mean?”

  “Yes,” she admitted faintly.

  “When did you try it?”

&nb
sp; “When?”

  He caught her chin on the crook of his finger. “Maggie, don’t write it off as something you don’t like until you’ve tried it with the right guy. It’ll be nice for you when it happens. And if I can manage it, it’ll be far, far better than just nice. Fantastic, maybe.”

  Looking down at him, Maggie could almost believe that anything was possible, even that. He wanted to spend their wedding night playing chess? When she thought of all the things she’d envisioned that he might demand of her tonight, she got tears in her eyes.

  “What?” he asked.

  Maggie shook her head, unable to speak for the sudden thickness in her throat. The moment she’d been dreading had arrived. She was his wife. He had staked a paternal claim to Jaimie that he could easily use as leverage against her, and Heidi’s well-being depended totally upon his benevolence as well. She was completely alone in this huge house with him, miles from the closest town, and she wasn’t even certain where that town might be. He had absolute control over her and the situation. Anything he wanted from her, he could simply take. But instead he was offering to spend the evening playing board games?

  “Honey, what? Talk to me.”

  Maggie shook her head again, trying frantically to blink back the tears. But a sob was locked in her chest. She thought of all the countless times when she’d been at Lonnie’s mercy and wished he knew the meaning of the word.

  Why that made her want to cry, she didn’t know. But it did. An awful, horrible ache crawled up her throat as she attempted to hold back the tears.