She looked up from the bowl, some sugary apples slipping through her fingers. “An epiphany?”
He leaned back against the edge of the counter, crossing his arms, his expression distant. “I was in Bolivia hiking the salt flats. We left late in the day and ended up having to spend the night in this little village, if you can even call it that, across the border in Chile. There was no hotel, no nothing. We stayed with locals, in a hut. They cooked the most amazing food, and the stars that night? You’ve never seen anything like it.”
No, she hadn’t, and probably never would. Bolivia held no interest for her. Which was why they were so wrong for each other.
“The next morning,” he continued, “just before sunrise, I saw the woman who lived in our hut—a girl, really, barely twenty—outside nursing her baby.” He gave her an expectant stare, like she should react to the monumental power of his story.
She didn’t. “And?”
“The moment was suspended in time, like God’s tableau. A young mother, her black hair falling over her face, her breast giving sustenance to an infant who clung to her with two tiny hands.” He held up his own hands as though clutching a breast, which struck her as melodramatic and bizarre, but Lacey just listened.
“And it hit me, Lacey. This girl was just about your age when you had Ashley. That thought just speared me in the gut like nothing I’ve ever felt before.”
She layered the apple mixture over the baking pan, furious that her hands shook a little. But how could they not? It had taken him fourteen years to figure all this out?
“What exactly got you, David? The fact that you ditched me for sheep in Argentina or the fact that the last time you saw your own daughter she was a year old?”
Putting his hands on her shoulders, he turned her from the apples to face him. “The raw power of procreation.”
She wiggled out of his touch, an old fury bubbling up. Little late to figure that out, Daddio. “It is powerful.”
“No, no, Lacey, it’s everything. It’s all that matters. It’s the reason we are alive, not to see the seven or seventy wonders of the world. Every single person on this earth is a wonder, and what we need to do—what I need to do—is… is…” He balled up his fists like he was grabbing something. “Seize the life we made. That’s why I came here.”
“To seize Ashley?” Her heart skipped. “You can’t take her.”
“I don’t want to take her, Lace,” he assured her, putting his hands on her shoulders again, too tight for her to escape. “I want to be with her, near her, to have a father-daughter relationship with her. You never said I couldn’t.”
No, she hadn’t. But she never thought there was a remote possibility of it happening, either.
“When I looked at that young mother, so connected and alive because of the life she created, I knew that what I’m doing with my life is meaningless. Even the chef’s work, which I love, doesn’t fill a hole in me. Everything is meaningless without that connection to another human that is part of you.”
“I was just thinking that,” she admitted. “Although not quite so eloquently.”
“Of course you were, because family is all there is, Lacey.” He pounded his fist on the counter with each word, making the pronouncement like he’d invented the concept. “Nothing else matters. Nothing.”
So now he wanted her family? No, not happening. “Family is important,” she said, choosing each word carefully. “So why don’t you go see yours in New York? They matter, too.” Plus, added benefit, they’re a thousand miles away.
He gripped her shoulders again, doing his damnedest to inch her closer. “Anyway, I’m not talking about that family. I’m talking about our family.”
Our. That word again. “We don’t have a family, David. We have a child and two separate lives.”
“But why?”
“Why?” Was he serious? “Because you had to go to Patagonia. And Namibia. And Botswana. And—”
“Shhh.” He put his fingers over her lips, another intimate breach of personal space.
“Don’t shush me,” she ordered. And don’t touch lips that hours ago were kissing another man.
“Then don’t say things that don’t matter anymore. I went. I’m done. I’m back. Why can’t it be that simple?”
“Because it isn’t simple at all. For one thing, you can’t come ‘back’ to a place where you’ve never lived or spent more than a week. This is my home, not yours. And she’s…” My daughter.
But she couldn’t say that. She was his daughter, too. Biologically, anyway.
“I had another epiphany in that little village, watching that girl.”
Watching that girl’s breast, more likely. “Which was?”
“I’m still in love with you.” His voice was husky. “In fact I never stopped—”
“Well, stop now.” She put up both hands in the international sign for shut-the-hell-up. “You aren’t in love with me. You don’t even know me anymore.”
He gave her a patient smile. “And I’m here to rectify that. And I know this: I loved you once.” The words, a direct hit at her heart, left her speechless. “And I think—I think—I could love you again.”
She stared at him. He reached for her, but she grabbed the baking sheet and whipped around to the oven.
He was next to her in a second, opening the oven door for her. “I believe that deep down, in your heart of hearts, you feel the same.”
She stuffed the sheet onto the rack. “Then you’d be wrong.”
“Now I am, maybe. But if I’m here long enough, you might change your mind.”
How he could he not get this? She felt nothing for him. But there was no way to convince him of that right now. Instead, she closed the oven door and stepped away from him.
“However long you’re here, David, I don’t want you to make promises to Ashley. Do you understand? I will not have her getting hurt.”
“And what about promises to you?”
“You can’t hurt me anymore, David,” she said simply. “But I admit you can annoy the hell out of me.”
“That’s a start.”
How could he be so dense? No, he wasn’t dense. He was David. And he’d never had any trouble with her in the past; she’d gone along with his every idea except that she terminate her pregnancy. That one, thank God, she’d stood her ground on.
And she would with this, too.
“Look, this is my life and my family and my dreams, and, I’m sorry, but you are fourteen years too late and not invited to be part of it. Can I make myself any clearer, Fox?”
“You’re clear,” he said with a soft chuckle. “Perhaps you’re forgetting how I love a challenge. I live for a challenge. I can climb Kilimanjaro and I can change your mind.”
No, he couldn’t. She started to wipe the counter with long, sure swipes. “I’m going to read while the dough chills and these apples cook.”
“We could watch the movie,” he suggested.
No, they couldn’t. “I’ll pass. You should go to bed. Surely you have jet lag or something.”
He just laughed. “All right. But I have to tell you one more thing because I believe in total honesty and having all my cards showing.”
She gathered a palmful of crumbs. “Yes?”
“Lacey, I want to have another baby.”
A baby? He didn’t want the child he had. “Well, good luck with that.”
“I want to have another baby with you.”
Tiny little flour crumblets slipped through her fingers and fluttered to the floor. She stared at the dusting on the tile, unable even to look at him. “Why would you even say something like that?”
“Because you’re a wonderful mother, a lifelong friend, and we make beautiful children together.”
She brushed off her hands, let more crumbs hit the floor, and finally lifted her head to check the clock. Because never in her life had she needed to beat out her misery with a rolling pin more.
Of course she’d always wanted another child.
Just not with him.
Chapter 14
Another baby?” Zoe actually spewed her coffee, splattering a few drops on the glass table at the Ritz-Carlton poolside restaurant.
Tessa and Jocelyn’s response was slightly more in keeping with the posh surroundings: silent, gaping mouths of utter disbelief.
“What did you tell him?” Tessa finally asked.
“I told him he’s crazy.” Lacey picked up her napkin and dabbed at the coffee droplets.
“You don’t want another baby?” Tessa asked, a little accusation in her voice. Tessa and Lacey had talked about this, and Lacey had long ago admitted she’d like another baby someday.
Lacey looked up and met her friend’s eyes, seeing the battle scars of Tessa’s long fight with infertility. “Not bad enough to hook up with David Fox,” she said. “I do, but I haven’t met the right guy.” A thought of Clay flit through her mind. “Definitely haven’t met the right guy.”
Jocelyn leaned forward. “David’s an alpha dog, Lacey. Always has been, always wanted control over you. When he couldn’t control you, and force you to have an abortion, he ran. He sees you as a mountain he couldn’t climb, a thrill he couldn’t conquer.”
“Easy, Sigmund,” Tessa said. “I suppose there is a possibility the guy’s legit.”
“And maybe pigs can get airborne,” Zoe shot back.
Lacey was definitely on Zoe’s side. “Still,” she told them. “He did say he worked in the kitchen of this huge five-star resort corporation. He knows how to run the kitchen of a resort. If I go with this idea of Clay’s, I’m going to need to talk to someone who’s done that.”
“Talking to someone is not bearing their child,” Zoe said.
“A lot of people have worked in resort kitchens,” Jocelyn added quickly. “And they aren’t the father of your child or the man who broke your heart.”
All three of them looked at her to underscore the warning.
“You guys, I am not interested in him, honestly.” In her purse her phone vibrated and she pulled it out, unable to avoid having Tessa read the name on the caller ID.
“Clay Walker texting,” Tessa said. “Aren’t you going to read it?”
“Later.” But she was itching to read what he’d written.
“C’mon,” Zoe said with a nudge. “Let’s hear what the hottie has to say.”
“I heard plenty last night.” Lacey folded her napkin and placed it on the table, over the phone, aware of their curious looks. “He showed up and laid his cards out on the table. Well, the hammock.”
“You were on the hammock with him?” Zoe sat up. “Did he lay anything else out?”
“A very ugly story,” Lacey said, and they all automatically leaned in closer.
She told them everything about the girlfriend who married the father, and got the expected responses. Tessa was disgusted. Jocelyn quoted Jungian psychology. Zoe said the old man must be hung like a horse.
They spent a good ten minutes imagining how something like that could have happened, how it felt, and what it did to a family.
“I don’t know about his family, but Clay’s scarred pretty badly,” Lacey said. “He’s not even going to pretend a relationship could be for any other reason but sex.”
“At least he’s honest,” Zoe said dryly. “ ’Cause some guys would take you for a major ride, believe me.”
“So what are you going to do?” Jocelyn asked.
Lacey shrugged. “I don’t know. I have one guy I don’t feel a thing for asking to share his life and have his baby, and one I’ve got the hots so bad for that I can’t think straight around him and all he wants is to get laid. What’s a girl to do?”
All three of them looked at her like she’d grown another head.
“What?” she asked. “You think I should? Get laid?”
“Why not?” Jocelyn asked.
Lacey frowned at her. “You’re not usually the one pushing casual sex, Joss.”
“Yeah, that’s my job,” Zoe said, dinging her spoon against her glass. “But thanks for the support. So let me repeat: Why the hell not, Lace?”
Lacey looked at Tessa, hoping for the voice of reason but getting a shrug. “I saw the guy. Put me in the why-the-hell-not camp.”
“Are you guys serious?” Lacey could barely keep her jaw from hitting the table. “You guys think I should…”
“Yes.” They answered in unison.
Lacey didn’t know whether to laugh or talk them out of this lunacy.
“Without any kind of relationship? Or, worse, with a working one? What if we have some messy breakup and have to—”
“You can’t technically break up if there are no strings attached,” Jocelyn said. “So I don’t see that as a problem.”
“What about the example I set for my daughter? Do you see that as a problem?”
Tessa took that one. “She’s not a baby, Lace. She wants you to be happy. You can be cool and not all in her face about it. You’ll be working with the guy. Working nights.”
“She wants me to be with David,” Lacey replied, each excuse sounding weaker even to her ears.
“You can’t let her control you like your mother did.”
“Whoa,” Zoe held up her hand for a high five to Jocelyn. “Sigmund’s on fire today.”
Jocelyn tapped palms, but her attention was directed to Lacey. “I’m serious, Lace. Maybe Ashley doesn’t spend every breath telling you what you’re doing wrong like your mom, but she does use her behavior to get you do what she wants you to do. It’s time to not give her that power.”
Lacey just blinked at her. “Well, then, I guess I…” Am running out of reasons why this affair was a bad idea.
“Are you out of excuses?” Tessa asked.
“Seriously, Lace,” Jocelyn said. “When was the last time you did something just for fun? For you? For the pure pleasure of feeling…”
“His magic drafting tool,” Zoe said, getting a loud burst of laughter that drew a few harsh looks from the other Ritz patrons.
Jocelyn slid the leather bill folder to the side of the table. “Let’s take this inside or down to the beach, ladies,” she said. “I don’t think the Ritz can handle the Fearsome Foursome of Tolbert Hall.”
“Ah, the good ol’ days,” Zoe said as they pushed back their chairs and gathered their bags. “When we had nothing but a few finals and frat boys to worry about.”
“You had frat boys,” Tessa said. “I had agriculture-major nerds.”
“And I had the good luck to meet David Fox.”
Zoe put an arm around Lacey. “I believe I tried to talk you out of Asian Cultures that semester.”
“No, you tried to talk me into a linguistic class on Elvish.”
“I was in my Lord of the Rings phase.” She squeezed Lacey’s shoulder and indicated the phone. “I’m dying here. Read the text, Lacey.”
“All right.”
“Out loud,” Zoe insisted.
Lacey clicked on Clay’s name, really wishing that simple act didn’t make her heart ratchet up. But it did. “Heard there’s a secret Mexican restaurant on this island. Need a local to get a table. Dinner tonight? I have something I want to tell you.”
“Mexican?” Zoe did a little dance, shouldering Lacey across the lobby into the apothecary shop. “Someone’s getting the whole enchilada.”
“Stop it, Zoe,” Lacey said, but nothing could stop the smile that had started just by reading his name on her phone.
“We’ll get you all ready,” Zoe said, ignoring the order. “Clothes, hair, makeup.” She snapped her fingers as if a light bulb had gone on in her head. “And I do believe I saw a condom display in that cute little apothecary in the lobby.” She grinned, delighted. “We’ll pop right in there and pick something perfect.”
She pulled Lacey toward the shop. “Lacey needs to grab something in here,” she said to the others. “We’ll meet you up in the room, okay? And, Joss, can you throw your weight around and get my friend here an appointment for a w
ax? I’m thinking the whole shebang, huh?”
“Absolutely,” Jocelyn said. “How about a pedicure, too?”
“You guys.” But Lacey knew her protests were falling on deaf ears.
“What are you wearing?” Tessa asked.
“Whatever Zoe picks for me,” she said, any chance of a fight gone. Besides, she didn’t want to go home and dress for a date with Clay while David and Ashley looked on.
“Tell him yes,” Zoe prodded, pointing to the phone. “C’mon, before you find some reason not to.”
Lacy looked at the phone, typed “Sure,” and hit Send before she could do exactly that. “Done.”
“Safety first.” Zoe guided Lacey into the store, past displays of gifts and toiletries, all the way to the back. “Really, you should see the selection.”
“When I was younger, there was only one brand,” Lacey said. “Trojan.”
“In three sizes. There was Color Me Happy Large, This Will Have to Do Medium, and Oh Isn’t That Thing Cute Small. Here we go.” They arrived at the condom rack.
Lacey grabbed the first one she saw. “What’s this? A warming condom?”
“Oh, they’re nice,” Zoe said. “Thinner and they get kind of hot. I like these, too, the Pleasure Shaped.”
“Do you know all of this from firsthand experience?”
“I read a lot.” Zoe flipped the box over. “Stimulates nerve endings and heightens sensitivity. Oooh. Lovely.”
“Put that back,” Lacey said, giving a nervous glance as a couple entered the little store. “My nerve endings are stimulated enough just by being in the same room with Clay. Are you sure I need these? I think we’re jumping the—”
“Here’s Durex Tingling Pleasure with a spearmint lubricant.” She slipped the box off the wire hook. “Tasty and safe.”
“Shhh,” Lacey warned. “Just pick one. Large. No, extra large.”
Zoe gave a soft whoop of approval, flipping through some more boxes. “Oh, my God, French ticklers!” She struggled to get the box off the hook as the man separated from the woman, looking at them, then taking a few steps closer.