Alan held back a relieved sigh. He felt as if he were luring a wild animal into a clearing. He didn’t want to scare Dan into running for cover. “Are you all right?”
Dan immediately thinned his smile. “I just hope Mom is. Soon.”
Alan hoped male stoicism didn’t run in his family, but he’d protected his own feelings long enough to recognize the steps his son was taking.
Close off. Look tough.
“Take it easy, son,” he said, wanting to hug his almost grown boy. “I’ll see you later.” He risked a quick pat on Dan’s shoulder and then crossed the black-and-burgundy dining room.
Hurrying back to his car, he checked his watch. He needed to talk to Caroline about her budgets for the medical building, but first he wanted to see his wife. Fifteen minutes took him to the hospital.
He parked in the lot and stared up at the skeletal, half-finished building that overshadowed the hospital. His work site, the new medical building.
Wind blew sand in his eyes, blurring his vision. He wiped a film of sweat off his neck as the early May sun soaked through his clothing. Work continued on the medical center despite the troubled turn his finances had taken. Thoughts of the money he’d owe his suppliers made him sweat some more.
He wanted to tell the suppliers, just as he’d wanted to tell Cate and their employees, about the damage their CPA had done. He hadn’t known how to tell Cate he’d failed her by letting Jim steal from them. The other businessmen Jim had duped had decided not to tell their employees until they knew the extent of the problem. He’d argued, but he’d finally agreed to hold off. Deciding to lie to Cate had been shamefully easy.
Maybe her injuries gave him a real reason to hide the truth. Getting acquainted with her family again would be hard enough. Maybe by the time she remembered everything, the police would have found Jim and the funds he’d stolen. Cate might not have to know.
Her accusations came back to him loud and clear and all too accurate. He’d always followed the same pattern, trying to fix business problems before he had to tell her about them.
He climbed the slight rise to the hospital entrance. Inside, he drank in the cooler air.
The guard who patrolled the lobby stepped forward. Alan knew him and the lavender-haired woman behind the information desk. Formerly kindergarten teacher to half the adults in Leith, in retirement, she volunteered at the hospital. After a curt nod to the guard and his ex-teacher, he evaded their sympathetic glances.
Their pity turned him back into the ten-year-old boy whose mother had deserted him. As his father had disintegrated in front of his eyes, Alan had cleaned and cooked and put on a “normal” face.
After he’d set the kitchen on fire for the third time, their neighbors had stepped in. A Southern staple, the casserole, had begun to show up in its endless varieties, in the hands of their well-meaning friends.
The food, he’d thanked them for. Their looks of commiseration he’d hated so much he’d begun to pretend no one was home at dinnertime. His makebelieve often became the truth once his father decided to drink away his sorrows at a bar instead of in front of Alan.
The elevator doors wheezed open, pulling him out of the past. He glanced at the number painted on the pale-blue wall. Cate’s floor.
At her door, he knocked lightly before he went inside. To his surprise, she was sitting up, reading a magazine. She looked up, stroking the dressing that bulged against the sheet on her thigh.
“Hey,” she said, her tone lush and deep, like the dark river that ran behind her aunt’s home.
“How do you feel?” Idiot, he thought. Idiotic question.
Cate set her magazine aside. “I want to talk to you about how I feel.”
She looked younger than thirty-eight. Far younger. He still saw her as she’d been the day she’d sat in a bed on the floor above this one and held their newborn out to him.
Her wary gaze intimated this wasn’t going to that kind of talk. He steeled himself. “Tell me now if something’s wrong.”
“You’re making me nervous. Can you sit down so we can talk eye to eye?”
Wondering how hard his heart could pound before it exploded, he dropped into the chair beside her bed. “How bad is it? Just tell me.”
Confronted with the threat of another injury she found hard to discuss, he realized once and for all how they’d changed. Not just because she couldn’t remember their past. They’d drifted apart before her accident.
He’d tried to fool himself. He hadn’t preserved their love for each other despite all his protection. He’d feared losing her for the same reasons he’d lost his mother. He’d shut Cate out, because he didn’t trust her to love the part of him that felt so afraid.
“Alan, I need to know you’re listening to me.”
Her demand surprised him. She sounded exactly as she had the day of the accident. “You’re still yourself, after all.”
“Am I?” Interest filled her blue eyes as she held out her hand. “Tell me how.”
“What you just said, that you needed me to listen. Just before you got hurt, you were trying to make me understand exactly what you—”
“We argued?”
“I’m afraid so.” If she’d given him time, he might have tried to paint a better picture of those last seconds. “It wasn’t important.”
“But you didn’t understand me?”
“We’ve been married a long time. We’ve learned a shorthand, but shorthand may not have covered the conversations we needed to have.” Jeez, he sounded like a talk show therapist. “What’s wrong with you, Cate?”
“It’s not serious—I’m not—Oh, I give up.” She pushed her hair behind both ears. “I’m trying to tell you gently because I’m not sure you’ll be pleased, but I’m pregnant.”
He heard but he didn’t hear. Alan leaned forward, seeing her as a stranger. Her watchful blue eyes couldn’t belong to his Cate. “How pregnant?”
“Sixteen weeks.” She spread the gown over her belly, and he saw why she’d begun to avoid his touch.
He’d trusted her with his life, but she’d kept his child a secret. Her betrayal cut deep. “I thought you didn’t even want me to make love to you any more.” The only time they’d still communicated.
“Why didn’t I tell you?” Cate asked.
Rage made him harsh. “Since you didn’t, I can’t explain.” She’d planned to leave, but her decision hadn’t been spur of the moment. She’d planned to take his child. His heart stuttered over a few beats. “I can’t talk any more.”
“But I need to know—”
With his own lie foremost in his mind, he met her tear-sharpened gaze. He didn’t trust her tears, but he’d been no paragon of honesty.
“Why are you crying?” he asked.
“Because I don’t understand. Were we unhappy?”
“I can’t guess how you felt. I remember the past twenty years. I remember when you told me about Dan.” They’d celebrated for nine months, until the real party started with his birth. “I would have been happy this time, too.”
“JUST PARK THE CAR. Don’t stop at the door, boy. I’m no invalid.” Uncle Ford’s orders bounced around the roof and doors of Dan’s car.
Ignoring his uncle, he braked beneath the canopy at the hospital’s front door. “I’m stopping