Keeping Her Baby's Secret Page 6

  “Oh, kitty, what am I going to do with you?” she said, smiling down at it. “I don’t need a kitten. I’m having a baby.”

  His immediate sense was that she’d said that as a reminder to him, and he took it to heart. He knew she was having a baby. That very fact made the way his feelings toward her were evolving all the more problematic.

  “What you do need,” he said to her, “living out here on your own, is a dog. Whatever happened to Max?”

  “Max?” She smiled, thinking of the golden retriever she’d grown up with. “Max died years ago. He was really a great dog, wasn’t he?”

  Cam nodded, remembering. There was a time when Max had been part of the whole picture, always bounding out to meet him when he came to fish or to see Diana. Realizing he was gone left an empty spot. Nothing lasted forever. Everything changed.

  Moving restlessly, he turned and looked around the room.

  “You know, I’ve never been in here before.”

  She looked surprised, then nodded. “No one was allowed in here while Jed was alive.”

  His mouth twisted as he remembered. “Your father was something of a barnyard dog around this place, wasn’t he?”

  “That he was.”

  He turned back to look at her. She hadn’t invited him to sit down. She hadn’t offered a drink or something to eat. She wanted him to go, didn’t she? He frowned. Funny, but he didn’t want to leave. Everything in him rebelled at the thought.

  “I came close once,” he pointed out. “I came over here full of righteous anger and tried to come in to talk to him.”

  She looked up, curious. “What about?”

  “You. I came to tell him to stop using you for a punching bag.”

  She flushed and shook her head. “I’m sure he agreed immediately, once you explained to him how naughty it was to beat up on your teenage daughter,” she said dryly.

  “He pulled out his shotgun.” Cam grinned, remembering. “I took off like a scalded cat.” He glanced down at the kitten, now wrapped around Diana’s ankles.

  “No offense intended, kitty,” he said glibly before raising his gaze to meet Diana’s. Their gazes caught and held for a beat too long, and then she pulled away and turned to pick up the kitten and carry it into the kitchen where she put down a tiny dish of milk from the refrigerator.

  He watched, thinking about that time he’d come looking for Jed. He’d called the older man out and told him if he hit her again, he’d take her away from here. She’d told him again and again not to do it, that it would only make things worse for her. But when he found her with bruises on her upper arms and a swollen knot below her blackened eye that day, he’d raged with anger. He’d had enough.

  “You do it one more time and I’ll take her with me,” he’d yelled at Jed. “You won’t see her again.”

  “Where do you think you’re going to take her?” Jed had jeered back at him. “Won’t nobody take her in.”

  “I’ll take her to my house. We’ll take care of her.”

  Jed had laughed in his face. “You can’t take her to your house. Your mother would die before she’d let a little white trash girl like my daughter in on her nice clean floor. Your mother has higher standards, son. You’re living in a dream world.”

  And that was when he’d come out with the shotgun.

  Cam had gone home. He told his mother his idea. Funny thing. He’d been so sure his mother would prove Jed wrong. But the man had turned out to have a keener understanding of how things really worked than he did. His mother had been horrified at the idea. She wanted no part of his crazy scheme. Her reaction had been part of what had motivated him to leave home.

  Strange how that had changed. Now Diana was one of his mother’s favorite people.

  She came back out of the little kitchen and looked at him questioningly, as though not really sure why he was still here. But Cam was still lost in the past, mulling over what had happened with her father in the old days.

  “When exactly did your dad die?” he asked her.

  She told him and he nodded. “Your dad had a grudge against the world and he set about trying to drink himself to death just to spite us all.”

  She looked troubled and he added, “I suppose your mother dying pretty much threw him for a loop at some point, didn’t it?”

  Her gaze rose to meet his again. “My mother didn’t die. She left when I was six years old.”

  That sent a shock through him. “I thought she died.”

  She nodded. Turning from him, she began to collect the towels. “That was what he wanted everyone to think. But the truth was, she couldn’t take it anymore and she headed out. Leaving me behind.”

  Cam felt a wave of sympathy. He could hear the barely concealed heartbreak in her voice. He started to reach for her, but the moment he made a move, he could see her back stiffen, so he dropped his hand back to his side.

  “Have you ever heard from her?”

  “No.” Her chin rose. “And I don’t want to.”

  “I would think you would want to reconnect, especially now with the baby coming.”

  She whirled, glaring at him. “You know what? My pregnancy is not up for discussion in any way.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  He frowned. His first impulse was to let her set the rules. After all, she was the one who was pregnant. Pregnant women needed extra care, extra tolerance, extra understanding, from what he’d heard. But the more he thought about it, the more he realized he was bending over backward a bit too much. This was getting a little perverse, wasn’t it? He turned back and faced her.

  “You mean I’m supposed to ignore your baby and pretend it doesn’t exist? Is that what you’re asking?”

  Her face was set as she went on folding the towels and she didn’t answer.

  Being purposefully defiant, he asked, “So how far along are you, anyway?”

  “Cam!” She glared at him, pressing the stack of towels to her chest. “I will not discuss this with you.”

  He shook his head. “Sorry, Di, that’s not going to fly any longer. I need to know what’s going on with you and I need to know now.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “DIANA, tell me about your baby.”

  She stared up at him, holding his gaze with her own for a long moment, then she turned and began to march from the room.

  He caught up with her, took her by the shoulders and turned her back.

  “Come on, Di,” he said, carefully being as gentle as he could be, especially in his tone. “You can’t run away from it. Tell me.”

  “Why?” She looked up but her eyes looked more lost than angry. “There’s nothing to tell.”

  He shook his head and his hands caressed her shoulders. “You can’t do this. You can’t keep it all wrapped up inside you.”

  She looked almost tearful. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “That’s just it. I’m trying. But you’ve got to let me in.”

  She shook her head, her hair flying wildly around her face.

  “Come on, Diana. We’re friends. Remember? We need to stand together.”

  She looked up, still shaking her head, but slowly. “Cam…”

  “It’s me, Cam. You can count on me. But you’ve got to trust me first.”

  She sighed and he smiled, coaxing her.

  “What are you going to name your baby, Di? Have you picked anything out yet? Tell me. Please?”

  She swallowed hard and looked away. When you came right down to it, there was no one else in the world she trusted like she trusted Cam. That was just a fact of life and she couldn’t deny it.

  “I’m going to call her Mia,” she said softly. “My mother’s name was Mia.”

  At any other time, Cam would have been horrified to feel his own eyes stinging, but for once, he didn’t care. “Oh, Di,” he said with all the affection he had at his disposal. “Oh, sweetheart.” And he pulled her close against him. “That’s a beautiful name.”

  Her arms came up
, and for just a moment, she clung to him. He pressed a kiss into her hair and held her close. And then she pulled away, all stiff again, and took a step back.

  “When is Mia due?” he asked, hoping to keep the connection from breaking again.

  But she shook her head and looked as though she regretted what she’d already told him.

  “What are your plans? How are you doing physically? Diana, what can I do to help you?”

  She took another step away from him. “I’m fine,” she said shortly. “Just leave it at that, Cam. I’m doing fine.”

  He shook his head. “Don’t lock me out, Diana.”

  She stared at him for a long moment, then sighed and said, “Don’t you see? I have to lock you out. If I don’t…”

  “What?” He shook his head. He didn’t see at all. “What will happen if you don’t?”

  She swallowed hard, as though this was very difficult, but she held her shoulders high and went on quickly.

  “Here’s the deal, Cam. You were my savior when I was a kid. You defended me from the bullies. You made life seem worthwhile. I was going through a pretty rough time where it looked like the world was against me. And then you came.”

  She closed her eyes for a moment, remembering that day. “And suddenly I had a champion. It made a huge difference in my life and I thank you for it to this day. But…”

  He sighed. “Oh, yes, I thought I could sense a ‘but’ coming.”

  “In some ways you ruined me.”

  He stared at her, shocked. “Ruined you?”

  “This is how. My expectations in what a man should be, in what I wanted in a man to share my life, became unrealistic. You raised the bar so darn high, I couldn’t find a man who could clear it.”

  He looked at her in complete bewilderment and was close to laughing, but he knew that would be the kiss of death.

  “That’s nuts.”

  “No, it’s true. I’m serious.” She shrugged and sighed. “I don’t know if it was the real you or my enhanced imaginary you.”

  He groaned. “You make me sound like an action figure.”

  “But that image was hard for any man to overcome.” She bit her lip and then went on. “I tried. For years, I tried. But I couldn’t get you out of my mind.” She hesitated, wanting to leave it at that. Going any further would be getting a bit risky. But she knew there was a bit more that she had to say.

  “So I finally took some affirmative steps and moved forward. I had to. And now suddenly, here you are.” She shook her head and looked at him as though pleading for his understanding. “I can’t let myself slide back to being that dependent little girl I was in the past. I just can’t let that happen.”

  “I understand that,” he said, though it was only partly true. “I respect you for it.”

  She searched his eyes. “But do you understand that I can’t be around you? You distort my reality.”

  He hesitated, wishing he knew how best to deal with this. Bottom line, he didn’t want to take himself completely out of her life. He just couldn’t imagine that happening. And he still didn’t really believe in all this on a certain level. “That can be fixed.”

  “No, it can’t.” She took a step back away from him, as though she’d begun to realize he didn’t really understand at all. “I have a baby to think about now. She has to be my focus. Cam, I just can’t be around you. I can’t live my life hoping to see you smile, hoping to have a minute with you, watching as you go on with what you do. Don’t you see that?”

  She meant it. He could see it in her face. He rubbed his neck and frowned at her. “This is crazy.”

  “It only seems crazy to you because you haven’t thought about it like I have. Believe me, I’ve lived it for years. I think I have a better grasp of what I have going on inside, in my heart and soul, than you do. I know what I’m talking about.” She looked so earnest. “Please, Cam. Don’t come here anymore.”

  Now that was just too much. “What are you talking about?”

  “I need you to leave me alone.”

  He shook his head, still avoiding the implications of her insistence. “So you’re telling me…”

  “I’m telling you I need space. This is a hard time for me right now and I need space away from you while I learn what I can do, and what I need.”

  He felt very much at sea. On one hand, he could understand that she might have had some problems. She was raised to have problems. How could she have avoided it? But he didn’t see why she was taking it all so seriously. The problems all seemed repairable to him. If he wasn’t around, if they were never together, how could these things be fixed? No, her insistence that he stay away didn’t seem reasonable.

  There was only one explanation he could think of, one factor that might make her so adamant about keeping him out of her life, and she wasn’t bringing it up at all. Turning slowly, he asked the pertinent question.

  “Is the baby’s father liable to show up anytime soon?” he asked.

  Something changed in her face. Turning on a dime, she strode to the door and threw it open.

  “Go,” she said.

  And there was just enough anger brewing in him by that time to do exactly what she said without another word.

  It was two days later before Diana saw Cam again.

  Thursday was her regular day to change the flower arrangements at the Van Kirk mansion. She usually went in the afternoon, but once she found out that Mrs. Van Kirk was going to a garden club lecture at 10:00 a.m., she slipped in early in hopes of missing her. The last thing she wanted was to have the woman try to pin her down on when she would be available to begin work on the “project.”

  From what Cam had told her, she assumed the project was as good as dead. Though she felt sorry for Cam’s mother, that did get her off the hook as far as having to come up with an excuse as to why she couldn’t participate. It just wasn’t clear when Cam would finally tell his mother the truth. She was going to have to have some sort of conversation about it sooner or later, but hopefully things would be settled down before that came about.

  She parked in her usual spot and saw none of the usual family cars. Good. That meant she had the house to herself—except for Rosa, of course. And then there was the grandfather.

  She’d never had a conversation with the old man, though she’d seen him out in the gazebo a time or two when she’d come to change the flowers. Funny, for a man who had been such an influence on the valley, and had made such an impression on Cam’s life, he was almost invisible these days. As far as she knew, he spent most of his time in his room in a far wing of the house. Even though she would be working in the house for the next hour or so, she didn’t expect to run into him.

  She replaced the sagging gladiolas in the library with a fresh assortment of spring flowers and moved on into the dining room where she began weeding out lackluster roses and replacing them with a huge glass bowl holding a mix of yellow tulips and deep purple Dutch irises. At the last minute, she pulled out a few extras and a couple of bud vases and headed for the stairs. She always liked to put a small arrangement in Mrs. Van Kirk’s sitting room, and while she was at it, she might as well surprise Cam with a small vase, too. Just because she didn’t want to meet him face-to-face didn’t mean she wasn’t thinking about him.

  Thinking about him—hah! She was obsessing on him and she knew it had to stop. But ignoring him when she was handing out flowers wasn’t going to fix that problem.

  She dropped off one vase in Mrs. Van Kirk’s room, then went down the hall to where she thought Cam’s room must be. The door was slightly ajar and she knocked softly, then pushed it open enough to confirm her assumption. There was a large bed and a bedside table and cabinets against one wall. Banners and sports items from ten years before filled the other wall. Nobody had made the bed yet and the covers were thrown back casually.

  “Naughty Cam,” she murmured to herself. What was he waiting for, maid service? He should make his own bed.

  She set the small vase with
one yellow tulip and one blue iris on the stand beside the bed, then stood back to admire it. Her gaze strayed to the bed itself, and she noted the impression on the pillow where his head had been, then groaned at the way it warmed her just to think of him asleep. She really was a sucker for romance—as long as Cam was the man in the fantasy.

  A noise from the hallway turned her head and in that same moment, the door to the attached bathroom opened and Cam came out wearing nothing but a very skimpy towel.

  She froze, mouth open, disbelief paralyzing her. In the split second it took to recognize him, he erased the distance between them with one long step, grabbed her and put a hand over her mouth. She gasped as he pulled her tight against him and nudged the door closed with his foot.

  “Shh,” he whispered against her ear. “Someone’s in the hall.”

  She only struggled for a second or two before she realized that he was just trying to keep her from speaking out loud and making it obvious to whomever was out there that she was in here with a nearly naked Cam. She nodded and then she sagged into his arms and he slipped his hand from her mouth and just held her. The voices went past the room slowly. She thought she recognized Janey’s voice, but not the woman with her.

  But it hardly mattered. By the time the voices faded, she was lost in a dream. She was in Cam’s arms. Hadn’t she always imagined it would feel this way? She looked up into Cam’s face. His eyes were brimming with laughter, but as she met his gaze, the humor evaporated quickly, as though he could see what she was feeling, and his arms tightened around her.

  She had to pull away, she had to stop this, but for some reason, she couldn’t. Every muscle she possessed was in rebellion. She felt like she was trying to move in honey—she couldn’t do it. Her body, her mind, her soul, all wanted to stay right there and be held by Cam.

  His eyes darkened and a sense of something new seemed to throb between them. And then he was bending closer and she gasped just before his mouth covered hers. At that point, she gave up trying. Her own lips parted and her body seemed to melt into his. She accepted him as though she’d been waiting for this all her life.