plans to leave. He had some ideas there—a way to redeem himself, to rebuild trust. But he had to be at the office to present them.
Closing the door as softly as he could, he hurried to the driver’s seat, adjusted the rearview mirror so he could see enough of the baby to know she was there and started the engine. Not ready to go anywhere. To begin this new life.
He glanced in the mirror again. Sitting forward so he could see the child more clearly. Other than the little chest rising and falling with each breath, she hadn’t moved.
But was moving him to the point of panic. And tears, too. He wasn’t alone anymore.
“Welcome home, Diamond Rose,” he whispered.
And put the car in Drive.
“Dad, seriously, tell me what’s going on.” Tamara Owens faced her father, not the least bit intimidated by the massive cherry desk separating him from her. Or the elegantly imposing décor throughout her father’s office.
She’d seen him at home, unshaved, walking around their equally elegant five-thousand-square-foot home in boxers and a T-shirt. In a bathrobe, sick with the flu. And, also in a bathrobe, holding her hair while she’d thrown up, sick with the same flu. Her mom, the doctor in the family, had been at the hospital that night.
“You didn’t put pressure on me to move home just because you and Mom are getting older and I’m your only child.” It was the story they’d given her when they’d bombarded her with their “do what you need to do, but at least think about it” requests. Then her father, in a conversation alone with her, had given Tamara a second choice, an “at least take a month off and stay for a real visit” that had made the final decision for her. She’d gotten the feeling that he needed her home. She’d already been contemplating leaving the East Coast, where she’d fled two years earlier after having lived in San Diego her entire life. Her reputation as an efficiency consultant was solid enough to allow her to branch out independently, rather than work through a firm without fear of going backward. Truth be told, in those two years, she’d missed her folks as much as they’d missed her, in spite of their frequent trips across the country to see each other.
She’d lived by the ocean in Boston, but she missed Southern California. The sunshine and year-round warmth. The two-year lease renting out her place by the beach, not far from the home she’d grown up in, had ended and the time seemed right to make the move back home.
“And you didn’t ask me down here to have lunch with you just to catch up, either,” she told him. Though his thick hair was mostly gray, her father, at six-two, with football shoulders that had absolutely no slump to them, was a commanding figure. She respected him. But he’d never, ever, made her feel afraid of him.
Or afraid to speak up to him, either.
Her parents, both remarkably successful, independent career people, had raised her to be just as independent.
“I wanted to check in—you know, just the two of us—to see how you’re really doing.”
Watching him, she tried to decide whether she could take him at face value. There’d been times, during her growing-up years, when she’d asked him for private conversations because her mother’s ability to jump too completely into her skin had bothered her. And times when he’d wanted the same. This didn’t feel like one of those times.
But...
“I’m totally over Steve, if that’s what you want to know,” she told him. “We’ve been talking for about six months now. Ever since he called to tell me he was getting married. I spoke with him a couple of weeks ago to tell him I was moving home. I care about him as a friend, but there are truly no regrets about our decision to divorce.”
The passion between them had died long before the marriage had.
“I was wondering more about the...other areas of your life.”
Some of those were permanently broken. She had an “inhospitable” uterus. Nothing anyone could do about that.
“I’ve come to terms with never having a baby, if that’s what you mean.” After she’d lost the fourth one, she’d known she couldn’t let herself try again. What she’d felt for those babies, even when they’d been little more than blips in an ultrasound, had been the most incredible thing ever. But the devastation when she’d lost them...that had almost killed her. Every single time.
She couldn’t do that again.
“There are other ways, Tam.”
She shook her head.
“Adoption, for instance.”
Another vigorous shake of her head was meant to stop his words.
“Down the road, I mean. When you meet someone, want to have a family...”
She was still shaking her head.
“Just give it some time.”
She’d given it two years. Her feelings hadn’t changed. Not in the slightest. “Knowing how badly it hurts to lose a child... It’s not something I’m going to risk again. Not just because I’m afraid I’d miscarry if I got pregnant again, although it’s pretty much assured that I would. But even without that, I can’t have children. Whether I lost a child through miscarriage or some other way, just knowing it could happen... I can’t take that chance. The last time, I hit a wall. I just don’t—I’ve made my peace with life and I’m happy.”
A lot of days she was getting there. Had moments when she was there. And felt fully confident she’d be completely there. Soon.
“But you aren’t dating.”
Leaning forward, she said, “I just got back to town a week ago! Give me time!”
He didn’t even blink. “What about Boston? Didn’t you meet anyone there?”
“I was hardly ever home long enough to meet anyone,” she reminded him. “Traveling all over the country, making a name for myself, took practically every second I had.”
The move to Boston had been prompted by an offer she’d had to join a nationally reputed efficiency company. She’d been given the opportunity to build a reputation for herself. To collect an impressive database of statistical proof from more than two dozen assignments that showed she could save a company far more money per year, in many departments, than they’d pay for her one-time services. Her father had seen the results. He’d been keeping his own running tally of her successes.
“You did an incredible job, Tam, I’m not disputing that. I’m impressed. And proud of you, too.”
The warmth in those blue eyes comforted her as much now as when she’d been a little kid and fallen off her bike the first time he’d taken off the training wheels. She hadn’t even skinned her knee, but she’d been scared and he’d scooped her up, made her look him in the eye and see that she was just fine.
“I guess it’s a little hard for me to believe that emotionally you’re really doing as well as you say, because
