The Child Who Changed Them, page 8
“What about your job in LA?”
“I’ll call tomorrow. Tell them I’ve had a change of plans.”
Shaking her head, she couldn’t believe how quickly he was moving—changing his entire career plan.
“So, then what are you going to do?”
“Last I heard they hadn’t found anyone for the permanent ED position at Oceanfront. If it’s still open, I’ll take it.” He didn’t sound all that concerned about it, though. And figured he probably didn’t need to be. Assuming that...
“If the position has been filled, you may have to go back to internal medicine...” If he stayed. Emergency medicine had become a calling for him. That was something she did know.
They’d talked about work all the time.
That golden glint in his green eyes seemed to become luminescent as he met her gaze. “I’m a doctor,” he told her. “Medicine completes me. Yes, I fit emergency medicine well. But I was a good internist. I enjoyed the work. And I’d sweep floors if that’s what I have to do to be a part of my child’s life.”
So there was that.
And even more compellingly, she understood. Those years she’d been doing medical technician work while Peter was in medical school, the years she’d put off her own aspirations, she’d still been happy. Peter had spoiled her rotten. And she’d soaked up his adoration.
Delaying her own career goals hadn’t become a problem until Peter had wanted to delay them more permanently... That was when he’d quit serving her needs. Had quit spoiling her. And she’d no longer felt adored...
“Where did you go just now?” Greg’s odd, softly caring tone brought her back to him. His “bedside manner” was definitely well honed.
With a quick shake of her head, she grabbed her glass of water. Took a sip.
“What about your apartment?” She got them quickly back on track. “You said you gave notice.”
“I did.”
“You think you can take it back?”
“I know I can’t. I’ve already made arrangements to be out so the next occupant can get in before she starts a new job.”
“Do you think she’d be willing to find someplace else? Since she hasn’t moved in yet?”
“I’ve never met the woman, but I don’t think so. Her daughter lives in my complex, too, and they want to be close. My unit was the only one available. The leasing agent set it all up.” He sounded as though he was only then coming into awareness of the problem. It wasn’t as though luxury places were a dime a dozen in Marie Cove.
There were other local places to rent, maybe a beach cottage or something. He could look for a place to buy. But he should have his career situation figured out before making such a big investment. What if he ended up with an ED position in Mission Viejo? That would be close enough for them to work out some kind of commute for school and day care...
None of which was her concern right now.
But...she was supposed to be thinking about his needs. Making them an equal in her equation. Not because they were a couple, or even parents, but because that was the course for every relationship she had—work, personal, family...all of them. She’d spent too long in an insular world of coping with her own needs and they’d somehow superseded her awareness of others. Especially those closest to her.
Wood.
Her heart ached every time she thought about the years her brother-in-law had spent tending to her, when he should have been living his own life. The years she’d convinced herself that Wood was happy just living in the same house with her. Because they were family and needed each other.
And...she stared at Greg.
“Wood’s suite...it’s empty,” she said. She and Wood had shared space, details of physical life that would definitely include pregnancy, without any intimate relationship. Elaina had been sleeping with Greg for months and Wood hadn’t even known he existed. “Maybe...while we both adjust to a pregnancy neither of us expected or planned for...while you figure out the next steps in your career life...you could...stay there. It’s not furnished, though. Wood made all of his furniture and took it with him...”
Was she insane?
Or worse, falling back into her old ways and crafting a way to have Greg step into Wood’s shoes? Giving her someone to lean on, to use, while she faced the scary steps of finding her future once again?
“It would give us time to figure out how we coexist in the real world, rather than in bed or at work. To figure out co-parenting plans. And give you the prenatal time with the baby that you need.”
The plan was logical. Practical.
But she didn’t have to like the idea quite so much.
“On one hand, it sounds perfect,” Greg said, clearly hesitant, even while he didn’t immediately negate the option she’d given him.
“And on the other?”
He sighed. Looked out at a room where patrons had come and gone.
She’d never seen such a deadly serious look in his eyes as she did when he trained them back on her. Her stomach knotted and she clutched the napkin in her lap into her fist.
“I cannot consider this option unless it is one hundred percent clear, openly and on the table, that I cannot be in a relationship with you.”
Pain sliced through her. The emotional kind that made her suck in her breath and tighten her abdominal muscles against tears that needed release. And in the next breath, she nodded.
Started to think. And to relax.
His not wanting anything personal between them made the plan that much more doable. It also allowed Elaina to safeguard herself against her tendency to lean on a man in her life.
Before she could tell him so, he continued, “I have a history of jumping headfirst and way too soon into relationships with women who need me, or who I feel need me, and everyone ends up getting hurt. This situation is ripe for a history repeat and I just can’t make that mistake another time. Especially not with a child involved who would continue to need both of us, even if we got together and then broke because we came together for the wrong reasons.” His wry grin made a bit of an exaggeration of his words, brought her heart back out of hiding, and yet...she heard a truth that calmed her, too.
She wasn’t the only one who had to fight weaknesses within.
It was nice. Knowing that.
It all made sense. Both of them on the same page. Probably why they’d worked as lovers with no strings attached for so long.
And so, to give back to him what he’d given to her, she said, “Not only do you have nothing to fear on that end, but I am as opposed to the two of us together as you are, for my own equally personal reasons.
“I...can’t get into the specifics...but...I can tell you that I have a habit of leaning on men for my own emotional security, without realizing that I’m not meeting their needs.”
“You’re speaking of Wood.”
Her brother-in-law’s name sounded foreign on Greg’s lips. Making her uncomfortable. As though she could no longer hide away from what she’d unknowingly become. Her gaze lowered, but she made herself look over at him, eye to eye.
“That man sacrificed years of his life to support me after the car accident that killed Peter. He married me, for practical reasons, but I didn’t love him in that way. And knowing that, I still allowed him to give up any chance he had to have a loving partnership, so he could give me what I needed. I let myself believe this situation made him happy. That I was giving him what he wanted.” She paused, teared up, but didn’t try to hide that from Greg. “I truly believed it, Greg...”
“Maybe you were.”
She shook her head. No. She was not letting herself off the hook again. Life was already too short for her to make up for the years she’d robbed him of. “We had an agreement, that if there ever came a time when our arrangement wasn’t working for one or the other of us, we’d tell the other. But he didn’t. He’d met the love of his life, was having a baby with her, and was still holding my hand.”
“Maybe that was his choice.”
“Of course it was his choice. He’s a grown man. But if I’d really cared for him as much as he deserves to be loved, rather than just selfishly accepting his support, I’d have seen what I was doing to him. And I didn’t.”
Probably because she hadn’t wanted to.
She’d wanted to hide out in Greg’s arms instead.
“It sounds like maybe we’re made for each other,” Greg said, serious and yet with an odd, quiet smile, as well. “What other woman could I have a baby with and not instantly propose marriage to, except one who is adamantly opposed to making another mistake as I am? One who has her own personal issues to tend to. As I do.”
That bedside manner again. Making everything sound like it was going to be okay.
And yet, he was right; in their own flawed ways, they were perfect for each other. Neither would threaten the other’s emotional well-being. Their individual weaknesses wouldn’t even get the chance to take control of them.
They both had personal battles to fight. And by staying apart, they were able to help each other fight their battles. Separateness put them in the same army.
She liked it.
“So you’re going to move into Wood’s suite? Just until everything gets figured out?”
“I should take a look at the space, see the rest of the house, and, assuming we both still think it’s a good idea, I’d very much like to be there with the baby.”
She smiled. Couldn’t help it. Just sat there grinning at him.
Solidifying that she would absolutely not be in a relationship with the father of her child shouldn’t have made her happy.
But there Elaina was. Unexpectedly, gloriously pregnant. And safely single.
Maybe life really was going to be good again.
Chapter Nine
Greg had done some stupid things in his time. Like staying with Heather even after knowing that she hadn’t been pregnant at all. That she’d used a fake pregnancy to try to get her ex-boyfriend jealous. He’d thought, after said boyfriend hadn’t cared about her plight, that he’d somehow step in and save the day, take care of her and earn her lifelong love, loyalty and fidelity for having done so.
He hoped to hell he wasn’t repeating a different rendition of the same mistake.
On Tuesday, he found his thoughts wandering to Elaina’s house. Seeing himself staying there. Admonishing himself to wait until he’d checked out the place before mentally moving in. And then thinking about what of his things would need to go in storage if all he was going to have was a bedroom.
He’d need a unit he could get to regularly, with belongings stored in an easily accessible manner. He could be at Elaina’s for months.
What the hell was he doing? Rushing ahead, as usual.
On the other hand—he had to be out of his apartment in less than two weeks. And he had a baby coming.
This was a whole new world. The child was his. Proven scientifically. Biologically his. DNA the same.
He needed to see the space—then decide whether or not he was going to move into it. And he continued on that way for most of that day—one that was relatively slow in terms of emergencies. Not good for his peace of mind, as it left him far too much time for personal contemplation. But good for the population of Marie Cove, which mattered more.
An hour after he’d left the hospital that evening, he was showered, in jeans and a lighter blue short-sleeved pullover, pulling onto the far side of Elaina’s driveway. Facing the closed garage door, he made a mental note to ask about programming the automatic opener button in his car. Bluebird, the name he’d given the possession he prized so heavily, needed covered parking.
Even as he had the thought, the garage door opened and Elaina, in skinny black pants, a white, tapered button-down shirt with lace trim, and black flip-flops with silver embellishment along the straps, came walking out to meet him.
“You know you won’t be able to drive a child around in that thing, don’t you?” she asked, motioning toward his car.
Glancing at the vehicle, a purchase he took pride and pleasure in, he assessed the situation from her point of view.
Children had to be in car restraints in the back seat until they were eight, and in a rear-facing child restraint seat until they weighed forty pounds or were forty inches in height. He knew this California law because he sometimes had to release children from the ER. Nothing he’d ever given a second thought to when it came to his personal life. On the contrary, he’d purposely wiped all of that kind of thinking out of his mind once his divorce was final.
His back seat wasn’t full-size.
“I’ll get a new car.” Problem solved. But... “Will it be possible for me to program the garage code so that I can park inside?” No matter what vehicle he bought, he’d want covered parking. And judging by the huge and pristine garage that wasn’t even half filled with Elaina’s vehicle, he figured it should be possible.
She nodded. “As long as you know how to do it,” she said. “Wood programmed mine.” And then added, “No, wait. I’ll figure it out.”
He knew how to do it. But didn’t say so. Elaina was one of the smartest, most capable and independent people he’d ever met, but if she needed a boost to her personal power, he certainly wasn’t going to stand in her way.
“That’s my entrance,” she said, pointing toward one of two matching solid doors, as she led him through the other into the kitchen.
The galley kitchen was large enough for two people to work in without running into each other, and also pristinely clean. The cleanliness didn’t surprise him—Elaina was a doctor who worked with nuclear materials, so she’d be a stickler.
And so was he.
Not all medical professionals were. But he was glad that she was. Wendy had been more of a free-fall type of decorator. Where it fell, it was free to lie. Not a problem, though. She hadn’t minded when he picked up behind her. It used to drive his mother nuts.
His mother—he had to let his folks know that he was going to be a father...but only when he was ready to have his parents descend on him. Still in Nevada, in the small town where he’d grown up an only child, where they both had siblings with grown or nearly grown children, they usually preferred him to come to them, but for a grandchild...
Nevertheless, until he knew what exact role he was going to be playing in the child’s life—and where he was going to live on a permanent basis—best wait to make any announcements.
“I don’t use that area much,” Elaina was saying as they passed a dining table with seating for six and he could see a step-down living room off to his right. He noted the state-of-the-art entertainment center and a television with a massive screen before she pointed further to the right. “That door there leads into my suite,” she said. Off the living room. Around the corner from the kitchen.
She started down the hall off the other end of the dining area. “This is the office,” she said, indicating a half-empty room with a computer placed on an organized, oversize wood desk. “You’re welcome to move a desk in here if you’d like.” She waved toward the vacant portion of the room. “Wood built that partition so we could work without disturbing each other.”
He’d never seen someone go to so much trouble to live with someone—and yet stay out of their way.
“This is the guest room,” she said, taking him further down the hall. Furnished with a queen-size bed, dresser, nightstands and a small work desk, he figured the room for being as big as the whole living area in his apartment.
And wondered who usually visited the room. “How often is it occupied?” he asked. If he was going to be sharing a hallway—and presumably he was, as she was supposed to lead him to the suite she had available—he should know with whom and how often.
“What?” She glanced over her shoulder at him, saving him from having to work diligently to keep his gaze off the backside outlined so attractively in those tight pants.
“The guest room. How often is it occupied?”
“Oh, never,” she said. “At least not in all the years Wood and I have been here.”
Never.
A room that size, all decked out, and it wasn’t used?
So why have it?
He kept the question to himself. Barely.
As she pointed out the guest bathroom—presumably to go with the guest bedroom across the hall—a quote from an old movie came to him. A favorite of his father’s about building a baseball diamond for a team. The line that stuck with him... “If you build it, they will come”...or some close rendition thereof.
Maybe Elaina didn’t want to be as alone as she was.
But then, if that was the case, why was she? People flocked to her, as far as he could see at work. And he knew she hung out with some of them after hours sometimes. He’d just never been invited to accompany them.
“And here’s your suite,” she said, then quickly added, “if you choose to take it.”
The room was easily as big as his current living space and bedroom combined, minus the walls that held furniture. He could easily fit his bedroom set along two of the walls. His recliner and an end table would fit in the corner with plenty of room to spare. The entertainment center would need to go into storage; his dressers would take up the remaining free wall space. Half of the third wall was taken up by the double doors leading into an equally large bathroom, with a separate jetted tub and tiled walk-in shower.
The walk-in closet was big for his needs, too. “This whole suite looks freshly painted,” he said, telling himself not to like it so much he’d like to own one just like it.
