Текст книги "Lost and Found"

Автор книги: Kelly Jamieson

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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

Chapter Five

Krissa pushed a shaky hand through her hair. This could not be happening. What had happened to their perfect life? Their marriage, their friendship…their love.

“I don’t want you to,” he said, voice low and husky. “I love you, Krissa. I want you. But I want this done with. Let’s just get on with our lives.”

But…it was a choice. If he hadn’t said it, she would have thought it. She was thinking it now.

She stood. She stared out the window at the mountains, crisply outlined against the blue evening sky by the setting sun. “I…” She shook her head, turned and walked across the room in jerky steps. “I need to think.”

“Krissa.”

She couldn’t look at him, waved a hand, her throat clogged with tears and sorrow. She opened the door. “Go. With Nate.” It hurt when she swallowed.

She walked down the hall blindly, past the family room where Nate sat, saw him look at her and start to rise from the couch. She shook her head and kept going, through the sliding doors and out onto the deck.

She stood at the railing, the wood rough beneath her palms, the breeze off the ocean stroking her hair back from her face and cooling her wet cheeks. She closed her eyes, and turned her face up. Scalding tears dripped and she let them, made no effort to stop them, sobbed out her pain toward the ocean waves booming onto the sand.

Damn him. Damn him to hell. He didn’t get to make choices like that for her. This was her life, too. Helplessness and rage rolled through her.

She heard the sliding door open. Without turning around, not caring who it was, she said, “Go away.” Her voice sounded thick.

“Are you okay?” It was Nate.

“Do I look okay?” She turned to face him, knowing she looked like hell and not caring one bit. Her nose was running, her face was wet and her eyes had to be red and swollen. Even her lips felt swollen. She swiped her palms down each cheek.

“Can I do anything?”

“No. Just go away. You and Derek go and have your beer and have fun.”

His mouth turned down, and although his eyes were hidden behind the dark glasses, she sensed his discomfort. “I’m all right,” she assured him, choking on the words. “Don’t worry. Just go.”

He hovered there a moment, then did as she asked, sliding the door closed behind him. She stood alone on the deck again. She rubbed her bare arms. She wanted to walk down to the water. She loved the ocean. It was vast and mysterious—even scary. Deep. Unfathomable. But beautiful and wild.

She descended the wooden stairs to the beach, picked her way across the rocks dotting the sand, shivering in the cooling evening air.

Did she have to decide? Did she have to choose between having Derek and having a child? How much did she want a child?

She ached for a child. More than one child, but she wouldn’t get greedy. She wanted a family. She wanted to be a mother, more than anything she’d ever wanted in her life. Every nurturing, loving instinct in her ached to hold an infant in her arms, to know what it was like to have a baby feed from her breast, to guide and shape a little life into the best person he or she could be. It was the most important thing you could do.

She was never going to have a high-powered career. She’d changed jobs nine times in her life until she started this consulting business. She’d never quite found the right thing for her. And yeah, now she was doing well, but she just didn’t care that much. Well, she did care—she worked hard, did her best for her clients. Okay, she was even passionate about the issues she helped companies with. But that couldn’t compare to being a mother.

Oh, God. She sat down on a large flat rock, her favorite place to sit and stare out to sea. Wispy clouds hugged the horizon where ocean met sky, blurring the line. She bent her knees and wrapped her arms around her legs. The wind carried the briny scent of the ocean and the rhythmic whoosh of waves onto sand.

The tears had slowed, and she wiped one last one away, sniffled.

How much did she love Derek?

How bad was it that she even asked herself that question?

She closed her eyes, tipped her face up to the sky as if looking for divine guidance from above.

Perhaps the question should be, how much did Derek love her? If he wouldn’t even consider other ways for them to be parents, perhaps it was his love that was lacking.

Pain stabbed through her, physical, visceral.

She was never going to be a mother.

It was hard to talk in a place this loud. Nate wished they’d gone somewhere quieter because he was damn well going to find out what was going on with Derek and Krissa.

He stared hard at his friend across the small table where they sat perched on stools. He could barely see him through the dark glasses, but he’d tried removing them when they walked in. The dim lighting in the bar was still too hard on his eyes to forego them. Clinking glasses and the rumble of conversation and music swirled around them.

His fingers wrapped around the icy beer glass, slick with condensation.

“Krissa was pretty upset,” he said, marveling at his understatement. Seeing her like that had pulled at something inside him that had been dormant for a long time. The impulse to stride across the deck and tug her into her arms, tuck her against him and try to comfort her shocked him, unsettled him.

Derek met his stare and returned it. “You blame me.”

Nate tipped his head. “Is there someone else to blame?”

“How about her?”

What the fuck? Was Krissa cheating? “What are you saying?” He stared at Derek.

Derek sighed. “She won’t let things go when she gets an idea in her head. And she’s so emotional.”

Nate nodded. That was true. “What is it, Derek? I asked you before, but I’m asking again—are you fucking around on her?”

“No! Jesus. That’s not it.”

“Then what is it? I feel like I walked into the middle of a soap opera. It’s goddamn uncomfortable with all that tension snapping.”

Derek opened his mouth, then closed it. He rubbed his face. “Look I’m sorry, man. This is just really bad timing. Here’s the deal.” He lowered his eyes and stared into his beer glass. “Krissa and I have been trying to have a baby.”

Whoa. Nate’s mind raced ahead. If Krissa was that upset there must be serious problems. “Fuck. Don’t tell me. She can’t get pregnant.”

“Well. That’s what we thought. We’ve both been through a shitload of tests. Turns out it’s me.” He huffed out a short laugh. “Got no swimmers.”

Ah, hell. Nate said nothing. What could he say?

“We just found out yesterday. Got the good news from the doc.” Derek lifted his head and gave Nate a morbid grin. “At least now we know.”

That was shitty news. No man wanted to hear that. “Well. That really sucks, buddy.”

“Yeah. So that’s why I was out getting wasted last night. I know Krissa was pissed, but hell. I just felt like getting wasted.”

“I guess.”

Derek groaned, put his head in his hands, elbows on the table. “You have no idea, man. We’ve been trying for almost two years. The first year wasn’t bad—lots of fucking, anyway. Then it started to get tense. I felt all this…pressure. Felt like a goddamn loser.” He paused. “Like I wasn’t man enough to knock up my own wife. And Krissa…”

“What?”

He turned his head side to side in his hands. “Well, if it wasn’t for her wanting this baby so much, I wouldn’t have…wouldn’t have…fuck.” He lifted his head and reached for his drink.

Silence fell between them, in the middle of the crowded, boisterous bar. A group of women winding their way through the tables paused beside them. “Hi, guys,” said one of them with an “I’m available” smile. She was cute, a California blonde with a tan and big hooters. Nate gave her an “I’m not interested” half-smile. Derek looked her up and down and smiled, too.

“Hi,” he said. Nate scowled at him. The blonde caught the look and they all moved on.

“What the hell?” Nate growled. “You’re married, asshole.”

“I just said hi.” His eyes followed blondie. “She’s cute.”

“You have a fucking gorgeous wife who loves you at home, crying her eyes out.”

“Yeah.” Derek swiveled his gaze back to Nate. “I know.”

“So why’s she crying tonight? You guys were supposed to be talking things over.”

“She wants to adopt a baby.”

“Ah.” Nate sipped his beer, cold, bitter, biting. “There you go. Adoption.”

“No way.” Derek shook his head vigorously. “I don’t want to adopt. Doesn’t work for me.” He gave Nate a condensed version of the discussion, including the artificial insemination option and his reasons for not wanting either of those.

No wonder Krissa was sad.

“You get it, don’t you?” Derek leaned forward, a crease between his dark blond eyebrows.

“You’d rather break your wife’s heart and never have a family than adopt or have artificial insemination.”

“Well…yeah. Hey, her heart’s not broken. She’ll get over it. She always does. Krissa just likes to keep things peaceful.”

Nate studied his buddy. How much did she let Derek get away with? He frowned at his beer.

“How would you feel, man? If it was you.”

Nate’s mind wandered back in time and his stomach rolled over. The past was all tangled up in betrayal and lies and heartache. Trying to put himself in Derek’s shoes was a bad idea.

“I don’t know,” he said with a hitch of a shoulder. He stared at a drop of water on the table. “Doesn’t matter how I’d feel.”

“But if you couldn’t have a baby—would you adopt?” Derek’s eyebrows rose, then lowered again into a frown.

“Sure. Maybe.”

“Bullshit.”

“Lots of people do it. Even people who can have kids adopt. How about a baby from China? I know people who’ve done that.”

“Uh…don’t think so.”

“Why not? It’s a good thing to do.”

“Well, yeah, but…I don’t know. I guess I’m not very good at explaining this.”

“Never mind.” Nate didn’t care. “It’s your decision. Well, yours and Krissa’s.”

“It’s my decision. I’m the one shooting blanks.”

“It’s not just your decision! You two are a couple! What if it was Krissa? What if she couldn’t get pregnant and she wanted to adopt? Then what would you do?” Nate shook his head.

Derek turned his head and gazed across the bar. He tipped his beer glass up and drained it into his mouth, rapped it down on the table. “I’d consider it.”

Nate’s jaw dropped. “What the…? How could that possibly make a difference?”

Derek turned a cool gaze back to Nate. “You don’t get it. I can’t get my wife pregnant. I don’t want the whole world to know that. If we adopt, everyone will know. I’ll be…” he stopped, as if he couldn’t even say the words.

“That’s not right. People don’t think like that.”

“I do.”

And by the firm set of his lips and the narrowing of his eyes, Nate knew that Derek had made his decision and his logic made perfect sense to him, if to no one else.

This tension between them had never been there before. They’d been friends since high school, when they’d met on the school triathlon team. They’d shared a similar athletic talent, similar goals, had competed for the attention the school’s star athlete would get…until the race where Derek had stepped into a hole while running, tripped and sprained his ankle only minutes from the finish. The two of them were far in the lead and Nate could have left him and easily won. But he’d stayed to help his team mate and they’d crossed the finish line together, Nate holding Derek up as he limped along.

Now, things felt different, and Nate couldn’t quite put his finger on it. People change in two years, and he supposed it served him right if his relationship with his friend suffered because he’d disappeared. Derek’s problems made him a different man, no doubt, and—Nate had to be honest—he himself was a different man than the one who had left two years ago.

“You want to talk about being a failure. How about a photographer who can’t see? You wanna see humiliation? What the hell am I going to do, Derek? If I can never take these goddamn glasses off. How about my career?”

Derek’s shoulders dropped. “Fuck. I’m sorry, man. With all this shit going on, I totally forgot.”

Nate gave a mirthless laugh. “Yeah. That’s why I’m sitting here in a dark bar wearing sunglasses. People probably think I’m a cocaine addict.”

He saw the look on Derek’s face.

“I’m not.” He, too, finished his beer.

“I know that. Geez. So, tell me what happened.”

Nate told his pathetic story, about his Costa Rican adventure gone all to hell, ending with a hospital stay and damaged eyes. He hated to sound pathetic, but what the hell. Derek had told him his sad story. Might as well have a big pity party right there at the Shark Club on State Street.

Chapter Six

Once again, Nate found Krissa in the kitchen in the morning, reading the paper and drinking coffee. She looked like she’d just come from a funeral. Or had a really bad cold. Still gorgeous though, luminous green eyes surrounded by long thick eyelashes, glossy dark hair falling over her shoulders and down her back.

She wore plaid flannel shorts and a gray T-shirt. Pretty ugly clothes. Bare toes tipped with pink polish rested on the rung of the stool and the way they curved around it fascinated him, made him ache with tenderness. Her small toes almost looked like a child’s and reminded him of the reason for her unhappiness.

“Good morning.” She looked up, then quickly away, as if she was embarrassed.

“Morning.” He knew where the coffee mugs were now and helped himself. “You okay?”

She nodded. “I’m really sorry about last night, Nate.”

She was apologizing—to him! “No need,” he said curtly, not looking at her.

“Yes. I was rude. I was just…”

“I know. Derek told me.”

“He did?” Her eyes widened and her lips parted. “Oh.”

“You sound surprised.”

“Well…he…yeah.”

“He’s my friend.”

“I know.” She folded up the newspaper and pushed it over to him. He found the sports section, but it was damn hard to read the small print with dark glasses on. He gave up.

“What do you want to know?” She dragged the paper back to herself. “Baseball? Dodgers?”

He stared at her. She flipped open the paper and her eyes moved up and down. “Dodgers five, Marlins two.”

“How’d you know…?”

“I remember. You were a big baseball fan. Remember when the four of us drove to L.A. for a game?” She smiled wistfully. “That was fun.”

He said nothing. He remembered. It had only been a couple of weeks before Lauren’s car crash. It had been fun—two happy couples, carefree and innocent. He and Lauren had just found out they were going to be parents. A surprise, but a good one. They hadn’t even told anyone.

“Thanks.” His voice came out scratchy and he cleared his throat.

“I really liked Lauren,” Krissa continued. “She was a sweetheart. So funny and kind. So loyal.”

Nate choked on his coffee. “Yeah, right.”

She gave him a funny look.

“How about the Angels? Did they win? I think they played Tampa Bay.”

She turned her attention back to the newspaper. “Lost. Eight-six.”

“Damn.” He sipped more coffee. “Don’t you ever work?”

“Yes. I work from home. I have some things to do for a presentation I’m doing next week. But I should be able to get that done this morning. After lunch, I need to go shopping.”

“Ah.”

“For groceries.” She smiled.

“Oh. Can I come?”

She lifted a brow. “You want to come grocery shopping?”

“Yeah. I like food.”

“Okay. Sure.” She shook her head. “Derek won’t set foot in the grocery store.”

“I’ll cook dinner for you two one night,” Nate offered. “I don’t want you to feel like you’re doing extra because I’m here. I don’t want to be any trouble. I know I showed up at a bad time.”

Her mouth twisted. “Kind of bad, yeah.” She hitched a small shoulder. “It’s okay, though.”

He studied her. “What are you going to do?”

“What do you mean?” She tipped her head to one side.

“Sounds like Derek’s pretty firm on not adopting.”

“Or having me impregnated with another man’s sperm.”

“Uh…yeah.” He shifted on his stool. “So…? You’re okay with that?”

Her full lips pushed out. “No. I’m not okay with that.” She swiped up a drop of coffee off the granite counter with a fingertip. “I don’t think Derek understands how much I want children.”

Children. Plural. One baby from China wasn’t going to do it.

“Why?”

She frowned at him.

“Why is it so important? And why doesn’t Derek get it?”

“It’s the most important thing in the world,” she said slowly. “It’s what I’m supposed to be doing. I feel like …” she hesitated, looked around the room. “I feel like I have all this love in me.” She put a hand over her chest, drawing his attention to her breasts beneath the grey cotton. He couldn’t help but notice she wore no bra, pointy little nipples poking through as she pressed the fabric to her chest. “I have to…share it. I need to. I want to bring a new life into the world and…love it and look after it.” Her eyes glistened.

Ah, shit, she was going to start crying again. He glanced around for a box of tissues, but saw none.

“Do you know what I mean?”

He recalled the emotions that had chased through him at the news he was going to be a father. Excitement. Awe. Fear. Because, like she said, it was so important. Screwing up was not an option. He nodded. “I guess so.”

“Derek doesn’t. And now I feel so betrayed. I thought he understood, I thought he felt the same until last night. We’ve talked about what we’d do if we couldn’t have children of our own. But…” She hesitated.

“What?”

“Derek always believed it was my fault.”

“It’s not anybody’s fault.” He couldn’t let that go. There seemed to be a lot of blame flying. “It isn’t something you can control. If you weren’t able to get pregnant for some medical reason, he couldn’t blame you.”

“But that’s how I felt. Like he was blaming me for all the shit we were going through. And I do feel responsible. Even now…when we know it’s him.”

“Again, not his fault.”

“I didn’t say that,” she snapped. Then she sighed. “Sorry. I don’t blame him, Nate. I still feel like it’s all my fault, because I’m the one who wants a baby so badly.”

“He doesn’t?” That didn’t make sense.

“Not the same way. He wants a baby because that’s what you do. People get married, have kids. But he doesn’t agonize over it like I do. So even though I’m sure he’s devastated by knowing he can’t have children, he’d be fine without.”

“You can’t blame yourself.”

She laughed. “Oh yes I can. And Derek…well, never mind. Want some breakfast?”

“Just some toast, maybe.”

They talked while she toasted bread, spread peanut butter, poured more coffee. He ate six slices of toast. Could have eaten two more. His appetite had returned with a vengeance.

He listened to her as she talked about her best friend Cameron’s children, her three-month-old baby, her three-year-old twins. How envious Krissa was. How she hadn’t even told Cameron they’d been trying to have a baby.

“Why not?”

“Because she doesn’t think I should have kids.”

He shook his head. “Huh? She has three but she doesn’t think you should have any?”

Her lips quirked. “Not because I’d be a bad mother or anything. She’s just overwhelmed right now. Kids are a lot of work.”

“Well, yeah, but…”

She laughed. “I know, I know. So it’s easier if I just don’t say anything about it. I don’t want to get in a big discussion about the pros and cons of being a parent. According to her, it’s all cons. And I know that’s not true but if I try to tell her that, she just says I don’t know what I’m talking about because I don’t have kids. So it’s just easier.”

He nodded.

“I’m going to get some work done.” She hesitated. “I feel bad just leaving you…”

“I told you, I’m not here to be entertained. I’ll go for a walk on the beach or something.” He squinted out the window at the bright sky. “I forgot how it never rains here in the summer. All this sun is killing me.”

“I love the sun.”

“Normally, me too. Any chance I could get to be outside, taking pictures…especially water.”

“I know. Your photographs are beautiful, Nate.”

“I saw you have one. In the family room.”

“Yes. We bought it on-line.”

“I’d have given it to you, if you’d asked.”

“Don’t be silly. That’s how you earn your living. I looked at all the ones on your website and I picked that one. It was hard though, they’re all so…serene. Soulful.”

“Yeah.”

“There was an article about you in the newspaper—local boy makes good kind of story.”

“Oh, yeah. I forgot about that.” The reporter had interviewed him by phone. He sighed, not liking the reminder of what he couldn’t do.

Krissa disappeared and he took his walk, sat and stared at the ocean until his eyes burned from the brightness despite the glasses and he was forced back into the house.

He ran into Krissa in the hall, still dressed in her ugly shorts, although the legs they revealed were spectacular. His eyes were streaming water, but he could still make out an attractive pair of legs.

“Are you okay?” Concern edged her voice.

“Yeah.” Embarrassed, he wiped his face. “The sun was getting to my eyes.”

“Oh, God. What can you do…just sit in the dark?”

“I have some drops the eye doctor gave me.” He grimaced. “I just hate putting them in.”

She blinked. “Why?

“I can’t stand anything in my eyes.” He shuddered.

“Go get the drops,” she said. “I have no problem touching eyeballs.”

“Nobody is touching my eyeballs.”

She laughed. “Okay, I won’t touch them. But I can put the drops in for you.”

“Uh…that’s okay.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, don’t be such a baby. Get the drops.”

He hesitated, then went into his room and returned, holding up a small bottle.

She took the bottle from him. “Come and lay down on the couch.”

They went into the family room. “Lean your head back.” She gave the bottle a shake then unscrewed the cap. He did as she asked, removing the sunglasses as he rested his head on the soft cushion, his body tightened in preparation for the torture she was about to deliver.

Krissa gazed down at Nate’s closed eyelids, dark lashes fanning on his high cheekbones. He was…incredibly beautiful.

Her heart skipped a beat, then started thudding unreasonably in her chest. The fingers holding the tiny bottle trembled. She touched a fingertip beside his left eye. “Can you open this eye?” Her voice came out in a whisper.

He opened the eye and stared at the ceiling. His eyes were a beautiful aquamarine color, like a Caribbean cove. Clear and translucent. She compressed the bottle and a drop fell into his eye. He immediately squeezed it shut and hissed.

“Does that hurt?” She sank her teeth into her bottom lip. She didn’t want to hurt him.

“Like a bitch,” he muttered.

She waited before doing the other eye, then capped the bottle, watching him screw up his face. Still gorgeous.

He lay there for long moments, the house quiet, until he huffed out a breath and blinked his eyes open.

“Better?” she whispered. Tenderness expanded in her chest.

He looked up at her and their eyes met. And held.