My Babies and Me

“You been in?” he asked, pointing toward the pool.

“A couple of times. The water’s nice.”

If he got any hotter, he was going to have to go in, too. Or give himself away. He’d loved Susan again the night before, but frequency didn’t seem to have any more quelling effect on his libido than abstinence did. He watched a couple of kids playing water tag at the other end of the pool.

“How’d the work go?”

“Hmm?” He glanced over at her again. “Oh. Fine.”

“This deal’s certainly taking longer than you originally figured. Is the family hesitant?”

“Not really.” Michael took a sip of his tea. The combination of icy liquid and hot sun was pleasant. “They’ve made the decision to sign whenever I tell them to.”

“So what’s holding you up?”

“Nothing particularly valid, I’m afraid.”

Sipping her tea, Susan frowned. “That doesn’t sound like you.”

He looked away. “Miller Insulation

isn’t just a way for this family to support themselves. I’m paying them millions, and the money isn’t that important to them.”

“Surely they were excited by making that kind of money so quickly.”

“At first, of course.” He met her gaze, searching for understanding, for confirmation of something he was only beginning to understand himself. “But it doesn’t seem to hold much allure anymore. The company seems to represent some kind of bond for them, probably because they all sacrificed together to start it. Now it’s something that holds them together.”

“Kind of like Halliday Headgear, a family venture. Or like Halliday’s will be when Tricia’s sons are grown.”

“Maybe.” Probably. “Could you ever have pictured Ed Halliday being happy doing anything other than running Halliday’s?”

“Of course not,” Susan said without hesitation. “He loved every minute he spent there. Leaving would have killed him before the heart attack did.”

Michael nodded, his chest heavy. “Miller Insulation gives that family reason to get up in the morning. Running the company fulfills them. When I buy them out, I take away one of their major reasons for living.”

He hated sounding melodramatic, but he was afraid there was complete truth in what he was saying.

“Have they given you any indication that they want to back out of the deal?”

“None.” Michael shook his head. “That’s the damnedest part. They’re going to go through with this as soon as I give the word.”

“How does that make you feel?”

No one but Susan could get away with asking him a question like that. No one but Susan would get an answer.

“Like a damn criminal.”

He glanced over at her, not at all surprised to see her nodding. “So what are you going to do about that?” she asked.

“I don’t know, smarty-pants,” he mocked her. Then, just in case, he asked, “Do you?”

Shaking her head, she shrugged, sent him an impudent grin. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out, whatever it is.”

Michael set down his glass. “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” he said, rising. “I think.” With that, he dove headfirst into the pool.

HE MADE LOVE to her every night that next week. Driven by something he didn’t understand, or maybe something he did understand and wasn’t ready to acknowledge, he loved her with an urgency he’d never known before. Not even when their divorce had become inevitable, the final court date imminent, had he been filled with such a sense of energized desperation.

One way or another, his time at Miller Insulation was coming to a close. His time in Cincinnati was coming to an end. And, as that day drew near, he found he didn’t have any plans not to go. He wanted to tell Susan that he’d stay, that he’d be the perfect father to her children. But he couldn’t. He just didn’t have any confidence in his ability to do so. He was afraid he’d suffocate within a week of the declaration. And he couldn’t lie to her.