The Child Who Changed Them, page 15
That had to be clear. Period. They didn’t have to like his choices, but he expected their acceptance of the terms.
And as they hung up, his parents made it very clear to him that he had their complete support. And a fervent desire to visit him and meet Elaina. He put them off with a promise that he’d talk to Elaina about a possible trip to Nevada sometime in the near future. And hoped that would be enough to get them to stay put for a bit. Things were still so new with him and Elaina, felt too fragile, to think about having company just yet.
Kind of like having a newborn, he figured as he finally pulled into his reserved parking spot at work. You wanted everyone to love your baby. You wanted your child to know everyone who cared about it. You just didn’t want everyone descending on you the first day you brought that new fragile life home from the hospital. It needed time to grow, to gain some weight, build an immune system and antibodies, before being exposed to the outside world.
Shaking his head at the somewhat goofy thought, Greg was smiling as he walked into work.
He wasn’t smiling a few hours later as he closed the door of his office with his phone at his ear.
He’d been about to head to the cafeteria to pick up some lunch when he’d seen an incoming call. He hadn’t recognized the number, but he’d known the exchange—it had been his for most of his life. Someone was calling from his rather small hometown.
Not his parents. Or anyone else who’d come up on his speed dial.
“Hello?” he asked, having spent the morning dealing with the emergencies that had befallen other people. Some serious. Some not so much so.
“Greg?”
Glad that he was behind his closed office door as he recognized the voice, Greg strode to the window. “Wendy?” The ocean beckoned. Reminding him that life ebbed and flowed. Even when relationships and dreams died.
“I just ran into your mom at the store,” she said. “She told me you’re going to be a father!”
He hadn’t known Wendy had moved back to his hometown. Hadn’t asked. Hadn’t cared.
Last he’d known, she was working maternity at a hospital in Vegas, having quit her job at the hospital where they’d met after the divorce. Maybe she was just visiting...
“I am.” He didn’t see that it was any business of hers. But maybe it felt good for her to know that though she’d deemed him broken and therefore of no use to her, he was all in one piece after all.
“Listen, Greg, I’ve been meaning to call you for some time. I think about it, and you, a lot. I just...kept hoping you’d come home and I could, you know, do it in person.”
Do what? Remind him what a fool he’d been, giving her and their marriage his total focus, his heart and soul, all of his energy, only to be told that he wasn’t enough to make her happy?
She had to have biological children of her own to be happy, she’d said. All she’d ever wanted was to feel her own baby growing inside her. To birth it and be a mother.
And she hadn’t been open to considering donor sperm and fertilization options. The idea of another man’s child growing inside her hadn’t thrilled Greg, but he’d been willing to deal with it, to give her what she’d needed. And he’d have taken on that child as his own in all ways. He had no doubts about that.
“This is really hard...” She paused as her voice dropped. In years past, he’d have softened at that tone, knelt down in front of her if she’d been seated, taken her hand, pledged to her that he’d do whatever he could...no way he could see himself doing that with Elaina. She’d never allow that. Not from him, or anyone.
“I...made a huge mistake, Greg,” she said, and started to cry. “I’m...s-so sorry. This is what I didn’t want...to do.” The words came out partly as a soft wail.
Compassion came, hung there, didn’t entirely possess him. “You’re fine,” he told her. She had no reason to apologize for tears. Or for anything else that had happened, either, he realized as he stood there. She’d been honest with him. Had needed something different from what he could give.
He was the one who’d been so determined to push for what he thought was best—saving their marriage at all costs. And as he stood there, he wasn’t even sure why he’d pushed so hard. It wasn’t like he’d missed Wendy horribly after she’d left. He’d missed being married. He’d missed having his future stretching before him in the way he’d envisioned.
He hadn’t missed feeling like he was damaged goods.
And if she’d loved him, really loved him, wouldn’t she have done something about that? At least tried to help him feel better about his infertility, rather than making it all about her?
“I...never should have left you, Greg. I was immature, thinking only of myself... I hate that I did that.”
“It’s good that you did,” he said, his brow clearing as he looked out at the body of water that carried massive energy to and from the shore every day. “We were traveling in separate directions and you saw that first.”
“No, that’s just it. It’s you I still love, Greg. I’ve been out there, seen what there is to see. I’ve dated some great guys. Heck, I’ve been married and had a child. But... I couldn’t make it work. He’s not you.”
Right. Him, now that she knew he could father a child?
“I might be too late, now that you’re having a child with someone else, but I swear, Greg, I was going to call six months ago, when I transferred back here. It’s why I came home. I didn’t know you’d moved on.”
She could have checked the hospital roster, though it sounded as though she’d only missed him by a matter of months.
“I heard about that woman who died...”
He nodded. Thought of Brooklyn, who he’d heard was doing better now that her mother understood that she had to take the medication. That it wasn’t a choice.
He’d never be able to make up for the mistake of another, never be able to bring back that patient who’d died while trusting him to make her well. But he could spend his days saving lives.
And know that he’d done all he could do.
“I moved back ready to tell you that I’ll adopt, I’ll consider in vitro, whatever you want or need...”
Eighteen months ago he would probably have been heading to his car at those words, ready to drive across the desert. Ask her to meet him halfway, go to Vegas with him and retie the knot.
As he stood there in his office, all he felt was relief that he knew better. Knew more. Settling for the fantasy, the picture of what you thought you wanted, wasn’t living.
Finding what made your heart throb...deep inside, not just from blood coursing through it...figuring out a way to stay where it throbbed...no matter if it fitted your picture or not...walking into the unknown with anticipation... That was real life.
Wendy wanted to move to Marie Cove. To buy a house with him. To take on co-parenting with him during the times he had visitation. And having a child of their own, too. She went on about having his sperm paired with her eggs in a petri dish, as many times as it took, for one to swim on over. Or adopting if that didn’t work.
He listened because that was what he did. Listening, understanding, trying to do what he could to make another feel better...
It wasn’t him being used. Being too much.
It was the best part of him.
The trait that made him a good doctor. Would make him a good dad, too.
And maybe, if he got lucky, it would make him into a lifelong friend to the mother of his child.
A woman he loved.
His mother had said so. He should have known to heed her words.
He hadn’t, before now.
But talking to Wendy...to the woman he’d once thought he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, listening to her promise him everything he’d ever thought he wanted—even being willing to make a traditional home for him and the baby he had coming—he realized something he could no longer deny.
He already had what he wanted.
Maybe not in the way he’d write it if he was in charge of a script. But loving someone meant accepting them as they were.
He didn’t say as much to Wendy. Just let her know, as kindly as he could, that while he very much appreciated her call, he’d moved on.
And as they both hung up, he didn’t suggest that they stay in touch.
His time with her had taught him a lesson in his life. One that had, perhaps, prepared him to meet the love of his life.
Elaina wasn’t what he’d originally envisioned as his true love. A woman who apparently couldn’t allow herself to commit to a man other than her beloved Peter.
Greg would never be more than second best to him. A stand-in was the one thing he’d said he’d never be again.
She cared about Greg. He’d even go so far as to let himself believe that she loved him some. It might go somewhere someday.
Her ability to give intimate love might never fly again.
Either way, he wasn’t going anywhere.
By conscious choice, knowing the inherent dangers in opening up to her, he was finally right where he was going to stay.
For as long as he and she both wanted him there.
* * *
Elaina hurried out of her room Thursday night of the following week, Beldon trotting along happily beside her, as she headed toward Greg’s end of the house.
They’d driven into Mission Viejo to look at nursery furniture on Tuesday after work, in Greg’s car, meaning Elaina was a passenger. In a very small car. While she’d been fighting car accident anxiety most of the way there and back, she was pretty sure Greg hadn’t been aware of the struggle. She wasn’t ashamed of how she felt, someone who’d almost died in a car accident, who’d lost her husband in one, could be prone to bouts of riding anxiety in a small vehicle that felt as though it would be crushed to smithereens in a battle with most of the vehicles sharing the road with them. But Greg would want to do something to help, and the fight within her own mind was something only she could resolve.
He’d asked if she minded one more stop on the way back to the freeway, which, of course, she hadn’t, and she’d been more than a little moved that he’d wanted her to take a look at a new SUV he’d been looking at, wondering what she thought. When she’d told him she loved it, he’d made arrangements on the spot to trade in his little sportscar for the much larger, nine-passenger, midnight blue metallic luxury vehicle.
They were scheduled to shop for groceries together after work on Friday. Other than that, she’d seen him only at work. They’d had lunch together once, as they used to do back when they were coworkers with benefits. And the talk had remained as neutral as it had always been at the hospital. If anyone had anything to say about Elaina being pregnant and Greg staying in town, they were respectful enough not to say it to the two of them.
At that moment, as she turned on the light and sped up toward his door, she didn’t care what anyone thought about anymore.
She’d just come in from dinner with some friends she’d known since medical school. Had told them about the pregnancy she could still camouflage with loose clothing but didn’t want to hide. And her stomach was rumbling. But not with food.
“Greg!” She had to get to him. Didn’t know how much longer the sensation would last...
“What?” His door flew open before she’d connected her fist with the door and she almost fell into the room.
“Feel this!” Grabbing his hand, she placed it on her stomach, held it just above the lateral left portion of her bladder. Beldon lay down by the door as though used to owners who thought stomachs were amazing. With her hand covering his, she put a little pressure on her stomach and waited, looking at Greg’s face. Waiting to see his expression.
Hoping...
And realized, too late, that he was standing there in a pair of black cotton boxer briefs. And nothing else.
With his hand pressed to the fabric of the short silk nightie she’d just pulled over her head.
There was no movement from within her uterus.
“I felt the baby move...” She was looking up at him—couldn’t make herself pull her gaze away from the golden glint in those intelligent green eyes—and didn’t recognize herself at all. The composure, the discipline that had seen her through so many years...that had saved her life and dealt with the pain as her legs learned to walk again...where were they now?
“It was...soft, kind of tickly...nothing I’ve ever felt before...” Her throat dry, she wanted him to share in the experience, too. “Kind of like a bubble that popped, and then...more.”
His palm was hot on top of the thin piece of silk covering her. Radiating heat through her abdomen. And below.
The baby hadn’t moved since she’d entered the hallway. Elaina meant to drop her hand, to back up, but stood there instead, soaking up the intensity in his gaze.
He hadn’t said a word, though she was certain he’d cataloged every one of hers. And when she felt a nudge against the thigh that was almost leaning up against him, she couldn’t pretend that she didn’t know what was happening.
He wanted her.
She’d seen his arousal previously, but this time it was different. It wasn’t just the physical proof. It was a sense, a knowing. Prompted by physical evidence and confirmed by what she read in his slumberous eyes.
Her body responded, as it had quickly learned to do when she saw that look. It fired up, moistened instantly, readying for what she knew was coming—an appeasement to the great hunger he raised in her.
Her lips lifted, met with his, instinctively. Moving as they knew to do with him. Mating in the way their mouths had taught each other. Openly, wetly, tongue to tongue.
Whimpering at the ecstasy of fulfillment after so much unabated hunger, she leaned in, lifted her arms to drape them around his neck, clung to him.
Felt his answering passion, which was almost desperate, as his arms wrapped around her, holding her to him in an iron grasp. He devoured her lips and she took from him. He filled her up and she gave all she had.
It was different, holding, being held, in the home that was her sanctuary. And yet...it was heartbreakingly familiar, too.
She’d missed his touch. Too much.
Missed having the right to touch him, too.
He groaned and the aching sound flowed through her, finding an answering need inside of her that only he could raise. And she thought of the baby moving... She felt him slow down just as reality dawned on her. Whether Greg felt her withdrawal, or she’d been reacting to his, she didn’t know. He didn’t step away. Didn’t abandon her. She kept herself pushed up against him, her pelvis putting pressure against what had to be a seriously uncomfortable hardness, as she continued to hold him.
To ease them both back to the choices they’d made because they knew they were the right ones for their future.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered at his shoulder.
“Don’t be,” he replied, his head bent so that his chin lightly scraped the back of her neck as he spoke. “I’m not.”
She had to let go. And feared that when she did, he’d be gone. Honestly wanting him to leave if that was what he needed.
“We aren’t going to be able to make this work, are we?”
He straightened, still holding her, but moving his lower body away from hers. “I think we just did,” he said.
Hope flared in spite of her recognizing its foolishness.
“This baby needs you in its life as a full-time father,” she whispered, wishing she could wrap her long dark hair around her and hide. She also admitted, “And I can’t stand the thought of losing your friendship.”
“Neither of you are going to lose me,” he said, sounding so sure of himself as he took a gentle hold on her shoulders and bent until she was looking him in the eye. “And did you hear what you just said?”
He was smiling, so she thought back over her words. Repeated them...
“There...” he interrupted. “Friendship. You said friendship. You know what that means, don’t you?”
She knew what it meant to her, but had to stay silent to keep her tears from falling.
“We’re in a relationship!” he told her. “You and me. It might be platonic, and it’s not a marriage, but it’s a friendship. And when I think about everything I could have with you, friendship is number one, Elaina. It means that nothing else gets in the way of us having each other’s backs.”
So she’d been wrong. Staying silent hadn’t stopped the tears. They pooled and dropped to her cheeks as she stood there, smiling at him.
Wanting to believe him.
Wanting so badly to believe.
And determining that she’d try with all of her might.
For her baby’s sake. For Greg’s.
And for her own, too.
She was coming back to life.
Chapter Sixteen
Greg knew that the real problem preventing him and Elaina from ever having more than a friendship was the memory of Peter Alexander. Knew, too, that he’d never be able to compete with a dead man.
Didn’t even want to.
If he was going to go up against anyone for anything, he wanted all competitors present there of their own accord, and on an equal playing field.
He’d never been much of a competitor, anyway. He liked to read. To study. To figure out perplexing puzzles.
And he liked Elaina Alexander more than he’d ever liked anything or anyone in his life.
He hadn’t been sure she’d want to keep their grocery shopping plans for Friday after work, not after they’d nearly lost their minds in his room only hours before, but he was glad to see her car pull up the drive just a few minutes after he’d arrived home to change. Living with the admission that he was in love with her, he was relieved as hell, was more like it. He’d looked for her at work that day, but during the only break he’d had, she’d been with a patient.
