stopped halfway to the door without turning around. “Yeah?”
“Don’t you even want to know about her?”
There was a long moment in which she held her breath. Then he turned around and in his eyes she saw a sadness so deep she couldn’t fathom what was wrong. Surely the existence of a child couldn’t be that terrible, could it? Maybe it reminded him of what he would never have with Melanie—
“No,” he finally said. “I don’t.”
“But—”
“What we did—after the funeral—meant something to me.”
And she had known it would. He’d had a sense of honor a mile wide as long as she’d known him. It was one of the reasons she had been so loath to tell him she was pregnant. Even after she’d gotten past the hurt and the anger that he’d never contacted her after what they’d shared, she’d feared his reaction. She knew Wade well. He would have felt obligated to ask her to marry him.
The last thing she wanted was a man who felt forced into a loveless marriage with his child’s mother. But dear Lord, if he’d asked her to marry him then…she wasn’t sure she’d have had the strength to turn him down.
“I assumed it meant something to you,” he added.
“It did!” He was the first and only man she’d ever been with. He couldn’t possibly know what that meant to her.
“But you’ve moved on.” He laughed, but it wasn’t a sound of humor. “You’ve moved on in a big way.”
She couldn’t follow…. “I didn’t have a choice,” she said.
“Is the father still in the picture? I presume you’re not married or you wouldn’t have gone out with me tonight. I hope,” he said coolly.
She blinked, completely thrown off stride. He thought she’d—he thought Bridget was—”No,” she said. “You don’t understand. There is no other man.”
“Maybe not now, but—”
“She’s yours.”
Three
Wade froze, his face a classic mask of disbelief. Finally, as if he were sure he hadn’t understood what language she was speaking, he said, “What?”
“She’s your child,” Phoebe said. She probably should have been angry at his initial assumption that there’d been another man, but he looked so totally poleaxed now that she couldn’t summon much outrage.
“Are you kidding me?” He sounded as shocked as he looked. “We only—that one time—”
She nodded sympathetically, understanding his shock. “That’s how I felt when I found out, too.”
“When you found out.” He pounced on that like a cat waiting for the mouse to come out just far enough, shock morphing into anger right before her eyes. “Just when in the hell did you find out? And why didn’t you bother to tell me?”
She forced herself not to stammer apologetically. Instead, she indicated the couch. “Would you like to sit down? I’ll explain it all.”
“Hell, no, I don’t want to sit down!” The words exploded with fury. “I just want to know why you didn’t tell me you were going to have a baby!”
She wanted to shrink into a little ball and hide beneath the furniture, exactly like a frightened mouse. The guilt she had lived with since his death flared to life. “I don’t know,” she said in a quiet voice. “At the time, it seemed like the thing to do. Now—for some time now—I’ve known it was wrong.”
“So why didn’t you look me up and tell me?”
“You were dead! At least, I thought you were.”
He fell silent, clearly taken aback. “I keep forgetting that,” he said in a slightly milder tone. Then his eyes narrowed. “But I wasn’t dead when you found out you were pregnant.”
She had to look away. “No,” she said, “you weren’t.”
Silence fell. She wrapped her arms around herself and turned away, feeling the rage crackling in the room behind her.
“I want to see her,” he said.
“All right.” She swallowed. “Tomorrow after school—”
“Now.” The word was a whip and she jumped as it lashed her ears.
“She’s asleep,” she said protectively. But Wade’s face was stony and unmoved when she looked back at him. “All right.” She blew out a breath of nerves and exasperation, realizing she’d been stupid to imagine she could tell Wade about his child without letting him see her for himself immediately. “I’ll take you up to see her if you promise not to wake her.”
There was another tense silence. Finally, Wade said, “So let’s go.”
She turned on her heel and walked to the stairs on shaking legs, leaving him to follow.
She was extremely aware of his large presence at her back as she went up the steps and down the hall. At the door of her daughter’s room, she paused. Her chest felt as if someone were sitting on it and she couldn’t get enough air. She’d swear she could feel Wade’s breath on the back of her neck and she didn’t have the courage to turn around. Over her shoulder, she whispered, “Her name is Bridget. She’s six months old.”
The door was open just a shred, and she grasped the knob and carefully pulled it wide, then stepped aside and gestured. “Go ahead.”
Wade nodded once, a sharp jerk of his head, and she watched from the doorway as he took slow, almost hesitant steps toward the crib against the far wall.
He stood there for a long, long time, looking down at the sleeping baby in the low light she’d switched on. He didn’t move to touch her, didn’t glance around the room at the charming wallpaper border with the red-and-blue alphabet-blocks motif she’d found, the gingham curtains or the shelves filled with board books, stuffed animals and toys to stimulate a growing baby. He just…stood.
Finally, she entered the room and went to his side.
“Is she really mine?” His low voice was wondering and she understood he wasn’t trying to offend her.
“She’s really yours,” she assured him softly. “You can touch her.” His big hands were still, grasping the rail of the crib. He made no move but Phoebe could practically feel the longing radiating from him. Finally, she couldn’t stand it. She took his hand, and when he didn’t resist, she lifted it and tugged him forward so his palm rested flat against Bridget’s small back.
Phoebe found she had a lump in her throat. Her daughter’s body looked so tiny and fragile with Wade’s hand covering her whole back.
Her own hand tingled where she’d touched his skin. It wasn’t fair. Even an innocent touch like that set her pulse racing. In the years before and after Wade,
