only man I ever wanted. Do you really think it’s so easy to forget—”
Suddenly it struck her.
Oh, God. She was as dizzy as if she’d been caught in a cyclone. She hadn’t forgotten her wedding vows. But maybe Matt’s memory wasn’t so particular. He said they both needed to move on. Had he already taken the first step? Found someone else?
A potent cocktail of fear, jealousy and anger—no, rage—seethed inside her. Hardened her somehow, like blowing sand fused to solid glass.
“Hey.” His grip on her tightened. “You okay?”
The concern in his voice mocked her fury. She fumbled his hand away. The watershed in her eyes clogged her throat. Words were beyond her. The best she could manage as she rushed past him was an undignified snort.
In her tiny office Caroline whisked stacks of waiting bills off the desk, out of the drawers, searching for the papers, a pen. Her hands shook so badly her name was barely legible at the bottom of the divorce decree, next to Matt’s, when she was done.
Blindly she ran up stairs, groping for the handrail. Her toe caught on the edge of a step. Righting herself without slowing, she pounded to the landing and turned right.
There was only one place for her now. Let Matt go looking for his future; she’d already found hers. She fell through the door into the nursery and against the railing of the crib.
Hailey, her sweet Hailey. Her light. Her life. Her baby. Scooping Hailey up, she pressed a kiss to her daughter’s velvet cheek. Despite her attempts to choke them back, the tears broke free. Jagged sobs tore at her throat, left a trail of fire behind in her chest. Tears dampened Hailey’s blanket. When the baby began to fuss, Caroline realized she was holding her too tight.
She loosened her grasp, but too late. Awake now, and picking up on her mother’s distress, the baby let out a thin, sleepy cry.
“Shh,” Caroline murmured, carrying her to the window. Behind her she heard Matt’s slow footsteps in the hall. Desperately, she rocked the simpering baby. “Shh, now.”
As he stepped in the doorway, blocking the hall light, Caroline felt the darkness fall over her shoulder like a physical weight.
“Caroline? Are you all right?”
Shoulders shaking, she fixed her gaze on the night sky. But her focus kept coming back to his reflection in the glass. He stood in the hall outside the nursery, as if the threshold was some fiery impasse.
“I signed your damn papers. They’re downstairs on the desk.”
“You can’t just sign,” he said quietly. “It has to be before a notary.”
She made a strangled sound. “Then we’ll go into town tomorrow. Get them notarized.”
“Caro…” he said, that infuriating concerned sound in his voice. Damn it, he didn’t care about her. Why did he sound as if he did?
He took a step toward her.
“Don’t,” she said. “You don’t have the right. Not anymore.”
In the glass, she watched him come up behind her anyway.
“I’m sorry. I never meant—”
“I don’t want your pity.”
“Hear me out, damn it!”
She flinched at the violence in his voice. The anguish on his face. Standing in the shaft of light angling in from the hallway, he looked like a Roman god. Golden. Righteous.
And ruined.
“I’m sorry I can’t give you what you want. Sorry I can’t be the man you want me to be.”
His apology lit her up like a short fuse. Shifting a fussy Hailey in her arms, Caroline turned to face him.
Confusion washed over his features as he took in the bundle in her arms. “What’s she doing here so late?”
“She lives here.”
His wheaten eyebrows drew together. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. Hailey nuzzled against Caroline, whimpering.
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