LITMIR.BIZ

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even halfway acceptable for an infant.

      She’d been raised with other people’s babies. Cousins, nieces and nephews, neighbors. As a teenager, she’d been in demand as a babysitter because she always seemed to know what to do. Yet she had no inclination to rock this one in her arms, to snuggle him against her shoulder or pat his tiny back. She was so angry that every ounce of goodness inside her had already been summoned. She was struggling just to remember that no matter the circumstances of little Toby’s birth, he had not asked for this moment any more than she.

      But quite likely his father had.

      She knew then what she had to do. Suddenly it seemed simple. She held the infant against her shoulder so she could open the door with her other hand and walk inside, walk through the house she and Graham had so lovingly renovated together, walk through the kitchen where Regan was piling her carefully marinated chicken wings on a platter.

      Her friend looked up and smiled. “Hey, who’s that?”

      “Where’s Graham, do you know?”

      They’d been friends so long that Lilia’s tone wilted Regan’s smile. “Still out back, I think. Mingling. But—”

      “He may be calling on you tonight for help. Say no.”

      “Lilia, what—”

      She stalked into the sunroom and threw open the door to the patio. The music was so loud that even the baby’s screams were muffled. She was aware enough of her own feelings to be sorry that was true. Everybody should get the full benefit of Toby’s misery.

      At first she didn’t see her husband, but somehow a path cleared. Friends who had smiled at the sight of her with the baby quickly sensed all was not well and stepped away. She wasn’t surprised. She had learned to cover her despair in the past year, but fury was a different matter. Since she’d never been this angry, not in her entire life, she made no attempt to hide it.

      Graham was in the far corner of their yard. He’d set up a dartboard against their tiny garage, and he, Carrick and several others, including Carrick’s date, were playing. She should have gloried in the sight, one that at times, she had worried she would never see again. At the moment her husband was up, darts in hand, and carefully, one after the other, he was aiming at the board. She watched as he scored a bull’s-eye.

      Carrick moved to join her, but she waved him away. He paused. “Whose baby is that?” He looked completely baffled, and she wondered if Graham had kept Toby’s presence in the world a secret, not just from her, but from his best friend and attorney, too. Carrick usually saved his acting skills for the courtroom, but until now, she’d never had reason to doubt her husband, either.

      She watched as Carrick floundered toward the truth. At that moment Graham finished his turn and turned away from the board. His smile of satisfaction died. His gaze flicked to the baby screaming against her chest, and suddenly, he looked as unwell and frightened as he had during the worst moments of his illness.

      If she’d had lingering doubts that Marina had been telling the truth, they fled forever. She expelled a long, harsh breath, and then she lowered Toby until he rested in the crook of her arm, moved closer and held him out to Graham.

      “All your best friends are here. I’m sure they want to meet your son, and they’ll want all the juicy details. I suggest you practice telling the truth for once and explain how this happened. They’ll be dying to know.”

      When he didn’t step forward, she did, until there was nothing between them except one wailing infant.

      “Lilia—”

      “Don’t even try to explain. Take your son.”

      He was frozen in place, as if the horror of the moment had stripped him of the ability to move.

      She spoke through gritted teeth, and only for his ears. “I have managed to carry this baby all the way through the house, but if you don’t take him right this minute, I can’t say that either of you are going to survive unscathed.”

      He reached out and grabbed Toby, holding him awkwardly.

      “Just confirm Marina’s story,” she said. “This is your son? And all the months I was taking care of you, working to support us and doing everything I could to make sure you survived, another woman was pregnant with your child? Were you just waiting to tell me until you didn’t need my help anymore?”

      “It wasn’t like that.”

      “He’s yours?”

      Graham looked down. If possible Toby was screaming louder, his tiny face screwed up in misery. “Yes.”

      “Then I suggest you get used to taking care of him. His mother left and didn’t look back. She doesn’t want him, and as you probably figured out a year ago, neither do I.”

      Then she turned and walked back through a parting Red Sea of guests who looked as if they would rather be slaves in Pharaoh’s Egypt than at this party to celebrate Graham’s good fortune.

       4

      From the master bedroom addition over the sunroom Lilia listened as the last of the guests fled. At first she had simply trembled with her back to the door and stared out the windows. But by the time someone called her name from the hallway she had positioned a carry-on suitcase on the Hawaiian appliqué quilt her mother had given her on her wedding day and begun to pack. She didn’t answer, but the door opened, and Carrick appeared in the doorway.

      He was the first to speak. “Regan has an extra bed at her place. And you know I have a spare bedroom.”

      She glanced over her shoulder. “You should be with your date.”

      “We drove separately. Julie’s gone.”

      “Thanks for the offer, but I’m going home.” She was torn between continuing to pack so she could leave faster, or asking him the question she hadn’t outside. The question won. She faced him.

      “Did you know, Carrick? About Toby? I hope to God you weren’t keeping Graham’s secret, too.”

      “I had no idea.”

      She studied his expression. Carrick looked both furious and wounded, but she knew her question wasn’t the cause of either. “Okay.”

      “He knew what I would say if he’d told me. Maybe he was trying to use every bit of strength just to stay alive.”

      “Don’t make excuses for him!”

      “I’m not.”

      “He was your best friend before I even met you. I’m not going to ask you to choose. I’ll make it easy. I won’t be here.”

      When she turned away he joined her at the bedside where she had begun packing again. He perched on the edge, long denim-clad legs stretched out in front of him, but his posture wasn’t relaxed. Carrick was holding himself like a man walking a tightrope.

      “Lilia, these past awful months I’ve been right there with you. I know what you’ve gone through. Days, even nights at the hospital, then home to change clothes and go out to design appointments, or work on the website, or head out to your storage unit to be sure The Swallow’s Nest orders were being processed correctly. Dealing with your employees and doing whatever you could with Graham’s. You hardly ate or slept. Nobody could have done more to keep everything going until Graham recovered. If he did.”

      She remembered an evening when Carrick had asked if she was experiencing sympathy lymphoma. He’d offered to shave her head if she wanted to enhance the effect. Then he’d marched her out of Graham’s hospital room for fish tacos and a chopped salad and sat with her to make sure she ate every bite.

      Her hands hovered over the suitcase, but she couldn’t force herself to fold the T-shirt she was holding. “How could he have done this to me? To us?”

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