Special Deliveries: A Baby With Her Best Friend. Maureen Child

“So that’s it?” he demanded. “Now that you’re not pregnant, you don’t need me anymore, that it? Find someone richer?”

       Stunned, she could only look at him. She had never cared a damn about his money. She’d loved him for as long as she could remember. And she’d convinced herself that he cared for her, too. Even though he’d never actually said the words. Now she could see she’d been living in a dream world. “How can you say that?”

       “Oh, I’m not done,” he told her flatly. “You said you lost the baby, but that’s not the whole story, is it?”

      Amanda stared up at him. She had expected him to be supportive. To share the pain that was still tearing through her. The loss of the baby, her hopes, her dreams for the future. They were all gone now.

      She’d needed Nathan so badly. Now that he was here, she only wanted him gone.

      “I don’t know what you mean,” she said finally.

       “Yeah, I think you do.” He stalked around the perimeter of her tiny Midland apartment. “Hell, you hated the thought of marrying me so much you got rid of my baby?”

       “What?” Shock held her in place. Outrage made her want to scream. Pain held her in such a tight grip she could hardly breathe. “You think—”

      “Thought I wouldn’t find out, didn’t you?” he asked, his voice dripping with ice.

       “There was nothing to find out, Nathan.” Through her pain, anger began to blossom like a black rose. She gave it free rein. “I lost the baby. I had a miscarriage. I told you.”

       He scrubbed one hand across the top of his head. “Yeah, that’s what you told me. Others told me something different.”

       “And you’d believe them? Believe that I could do something like that to our child?”

       His eyes were hard, his expression distant, remote. “Why would anyone say that if it wasn’t true?”

       Good question, but that was for later. Right now, the most important question on her mind was how could he think for even a second that it was true?

       “How do I know?”

       “Exactly,” he said. “How do I know what to believe, either?”

      “I guess you have to trust me,” she said, knowing he didn’t. Knowing he wouldn’t.

      “Yeah.” His eyes were as cold as the moon. Suddenly he looked like a stranger to her and Amanda knew she wouldn’t be able to reach him because he didn’t want to be reached.

      So much lost, all in a blink of time. She swayed with the impact of what was happening.

       He turned and walked to the door. There, he stopped and looked back at her. “You’re right about one thing, though. The wedding’s off. I was only marrying you because of the baby. With the reason gone, there’s no point, is there?”

      The fact that his words echoed what she had thought herself only moments before just made the pain that much deeper. Sharper. When Nathan left, the quiet click of the door shutting behind him sounded like a gunshot. It seemed to echo in the empty room long after he’d left her. Long after Amanda had curled up on the couch to cry herself to sleep.

      Shaking her head as if she could somehow dislodge the painful memories, Amanda looked up at him through eyes that were no longer starry with love for a man who refused to love her back. She wasn’t young and foolish anymore. If she still loved Nathan, that was her problem and she’d find a way to get over it. But he would never know that he still had so much power over her heart.

      “You walked out, Nathan,” she reminded him in a voice that was low and throbbing with remembered hurt.

      “Yeah,” he admitted, “I did. But you were the one to end things between us. Hell, I walked in the door and you handed me the ring.”

      “You agreed with me about calling off the wedding,” she reminded him.

      “Damn straight, I did. You weren’t pregnant. You’d already handed me the ring—”

      “You wouldn’t talk to me,” she said.

      “You didn’t give me a chance to say anything and even if you had, what the hell could I say?” he countered. “It was done. The baby was gone and your ring was in my fist. What do you think I should have said, for God’s sake?”

      “That you believed me.” That was the one thing that had always stung. He had known her better than anyone else—or so she had thought. And he’d taken the word of malicious gossips over her.

      How was she supposed to forget that?

      He scrubbed both hands across his face as memories crowded so close he could hardly draw a breath. The rumors had driven him crazy when he couldn’t get to her. At first, she was in the hospital and then when she was out, he was confined to the academy. Couldn’t even talk to her. Couldn’t look into her eyes and see for himself truth from lies. But by the time he finally reached her side, the crazy had taken over. The doubts. The disappointment and fury had him so tangled into knots it was all he could do to hold it together.

      Hell, he prided himself on control. On being in charge of every damn thing around him. He had his own personal rules of conduct. And he’d blown them all on that long-ago night. Duty. Honor. They’d both gone out the window when anger made him blind to common sense.

      Blowing out a breath, he stared up at the sky for a long minute, then lowered his gaze to hers. Doubts still gnawed at the edges of his heart, but being with her, looking into her eyes, clouded with hurt, he could see the truth that had eluded him for so long. “I do believe you.”

      The moment he said it, he knew it was right. Back then, he’d been young and stupid. He’d wanted her to rush into his arms looking for comfort. He’d wanted her to cry and mourn their lost child so he would know that she hadn’t ended her pregnancy. Instead, she’d handed him the ring he’d given her and told him, more or less, to move on.

      So his own self-assurance took a hit and then delivered one right back. Hurt, he’d made sure that she hurt, too. He wasn’t saying he was right. He was only saying—screw it.

      A sheen of tears filmed the brilliant green of her eyes, but before he could panic or kick his own ass for making her cry, she blinked them back. She took a breath, steadied herself and said, “Thanks for that, anyway. Better late than never, huh?”

      “I guess,” he said, but this conversation still felt unfinished.

      She hitched her bag higher on her shoulder. “Now, I’ve got to go.”

      “Damn it, Amanda—don’t walk away.”

      “What else is there to talk about, Nathan? We’re over and done, and standing here in the park together is only going to fire up the gossip train you hate.”

      True.

      He did hate knowing that, but there didn’t seem to be much he could do about it. For days now, he’d lived with everyone in town watching his every move. With having people drop by the jailhouse for a “friendly chat” when what they were really looking for was more grist for the rumor mill. They wanted exclusive news about Nathan and Amanda so they could be the ones to spill the next part of the story.

      Hell, he was actually getting used to it.

      He’d come here today, knowing the gossips were chewing on them, knowing that meeting her like this would only make things worse. But this was his plan. Talk with her, bed her, then move on and—damn it—he was going to stick to it. It was a good plan, even if it had gotten more involved than he’d originally thought it would.