The door swung open.
Annie fled inside. Pulse racing, cheeks burning, she crossed to the battered old highboy set against the wall to the right. She dropped her car keys and pocketbook next to the diminutive chiming clock that had been her mother’s and switched on a small ginger jar lamp. Then she hurried across the room and turned on the larger lamp that sat on the end table next to her yellow-and-white sofa and the bentwood rocker—as if the light could banish the specters of her past.
All the while she was acutely aware of Gavin, who stood in the shadows inside the entry, silent and watchful.
Panic welled inside her. She couldn’t do this, she thought wildly. She’d been a fool to ever think she could match his calm, his control, his icy lack of emotion—
Stop it. With a slight shudder, she clamped down on the flow of negative thoughts and instinctively fell back on the endless drills in deportment that had filled her teenage years. While the Brook School for Girls hadn’t taught the proper etiquette for dealing with an estranged husband who’d broken one’s heart, Miss Kesson had repeated countless times that good manners were always a lady’s best line of defense.
Annie was no longer certain she qualified as a lady, but the reminder served to steady her. “Why—why don’t you come in and sit down?”
He didn’t move. “You live here?”
The disbelief in his voice puzzled her, and then she understood. The little house was certainly nothing like her father’s sprawling Denver compound, or even the deluxe town house she and Gavin had shared in the ritzy suburb of Bretton Hills. There was just the one room, with a pair of doors on one side that opened into her and Sam’s bedrooms, a bank of windows on the other side, and an archway at the back that led to the kitchen and bathroom.
Still, in many ways it was the first real home she’d ever known. And except for the handful of months that had comprised her marriage, the time she’d lived here since Sam was born had been the happiest period of her life.
She stood a little straighter and retreated further into formality. “Yes, I live here. Please, sit down, Gavin. I need to make a phone call, and then I’ll be right with you.” With that she escaped into the kitchen to call work.
Annie punched in the number she knew by heart, then braced herself.
A woman’s brassy contralto answered at the other end of the line. “Yo?” she said irreverently.
Annie sagged with relief. “Nina? It’s me.”
There was a pregnant silence. “Shoot. Don’t tell me. Your car broke down again. I’m going to personally murder that son of mine—”
“No, no. The car’s fine. Really. It’s just—something’s come up. Can you tell Clia I may be a few minutes late?”
“Well, I can try. But I’ve gotta warn you, she’s on a real tear tonight. Unless you’re being held hostage by terrorists—which, by the way, would be considerably less scary than making her angry—you’d better get your fanny in here ASAP.”
Annie’s stomach sank. “Okay. I’ll do my best.”
“Good. I’ll see you shortly. Oops—gotta run. The Wicked Witch is coming this way.”
The line buzzed in Annie’s ear. She replaced the receiver, trying not to think about how much she needed her job as she walked back into the living room.
There was no relief to be found there. On the contrary; it was like going from the frying pan into the fire. Gavin stood in Sam’s darkened bedroom doorway, a small, slightly shabby teddy bear clutched in his hands. The look on his face stopped her in her tracks.
“The boy—your son…his name is Sam?” he said carefully.
She swallowed. “Yes.”
“How old is he?”
“He was two on January the second.” It was a year to the day after they’d been married; less than seven months after the Colson gates had slammed shut, destroying their marriage.
“So…” He glanced down at the stuffed animal. “He is mine, isn’t he, Annie?”
He didn’t mean the teddy bear, and she knew it. Just as she suddenly understood that, despite the stillness of his posture, the blankness of his expression, the lack of inflection in his voice, he wasn’t nearly as indifferent as she’d supposed.
Yet it never occurred to her to lie. Not because she still cared about him, she was quick to reassure herself. Other than a knee-jerk response to his undeniable physical attractiveness, she didn’t have any feelings left for him at all. Not after what he’d done…
No; she was doing this for Sam.
No matter what she felt, her child deserved a chance to know his father.
“Yes, Gavin.” Outside, the breeze had died down; her voice seemed to hang in the sudden silence. “Sam is your son.”
His head jerked up. A tremor went through him. Something flashed in his eyes, something fierce and primitive. In the next instant his control disappeared like smoke in a hurricane. “Why? Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” he. demanded harshly. He closed the distance between them in two explosive strides, not stopping until the toes of his boots struck the ends of her tennis shoes. “What were you trying to do—pay me back for calling it quits?”
“No!” He was so close she had to crane her neck to look up at him. “No, of course not!”
“Then what?”
She told him the only part of the truth she could. “You made it clear you didn’t want a wife. I didn’t think you’d want to be bothered with a child!”
“Yeah?” His face worked as he stared down at her. “Well, you thought wrong! Dammit, Annie, if I’d known you were pregnant, it would’ve changed everything!”
Even though it was what she’d expected he’d say, it hurt.
Yet it was a survivable pain, she realized slowly. Three years ago it would have destroyed her, but not now—not after everything else she’d been through.
She lifted her chin and gave an eloquent shrug. “I’m sorry.”
“Damn you.” Gavin wheeled away and stalked over to one of the windows, where he braced a hand against the sash and stood staring out at the deepening twilight.
She sighed, but her voice when it came was level. “I didn’t do it to hurt you.” To be honest, she hadn’t known she could hurt him. “All I can say is that it’s in the past. We have to go on from here.”
The cotton-covered muscles in his back flexed. “Yeah? That’s easy for you to say. You haven’t missed out on your kid’s entire life.”
A half dozen retorts trembled on her tongue, chief among them a pointed reminder of where he’d been the past few years. But she swallowed it and the others, afraid to tread any deeper into the past. This was hard enough as it was. “So what is it you want?”
He
