Becca's Baby

Dark hair tousled, she lay in the middle of their king-size bed, completely open to his gaze, completely nude except for the tiny scrap of lace panties.

“Becca…” He didn’t know what to say. Couldn’t think for the desire burning through him. God, he needed to sink himself so deeply inside her that he consumed her. And she him.

He could tell by the seriousness of her gaze that she understood his doubts. He suspected she had some major doubts of her own.

“Making love might help,” she said softly.

She was so open, so trusting, as she lay there exposed to him, while he stood above her, a stiff-necked prig in a suit and tie.

And yet…

“What I want right now has nothing to do with love.” He had to be honest with her.

He could sense the impact of his words as they slammed into her, almost as though he’d actually struck her. Sitting up, she hugged her knees to her breasts, pulling up the covers—as closed to him now as she’d been open a moment before.

“You don’t love me?” she whispered, dry-eyed but trembling.

How did he explain something he didn’t understand himself?

“I—”

“Tell me, dammit!” she cried. “Has the love completely died?”

“I don’t know.”

“Uuuoooo.” The pained sound, almost an animal’s howl, sliced through him.

The pool of tears gathering in Becca’s eyes began to fall silently down her face, forcing Will into action.

“I don’t know what I feel, Becca.” He tried to be clear when nothing was clear at all. “I don’t know what I’ve ever felt.”

He’d hoped to comfort her in a way, to let her know that this wasn’t just about the abortion. The words only seemed to make her feel worse. She stared at him wordlessly, pain written on her face.

“I’ve never before asked myself what I felt. I just knew from junior high that I was going to marry you and so I did.”

“I know our parents encouraged our relationship, but there was no shotgun involved, Will,” Becca said bitterly. “You make it sound like we live in some medieval age with arranged marriages.”

“Of course I don’t mean it like that,” he said, frustrated, hurting, sorry beyond anything else that he was hurting her.

“It wasn’t like you had to marry me to get me into bed,” she reminded him. Will’s body flared again at the memory. He and Becca had been far too young when they’d first explored their powerful desire for each other. But after keeping constant company since they were twelve years old, seventeen had seemed ancient.

Wiping Becca’s tears, Will held her head gently between his hands. “I never had to make a choice, either, Bec. I never tested what I felt for you. Never examined it. Never questioned myself about it.”

She stared up at him, her blue eyes searching. “Your feelings for me are being tested now, aren’t they.”

Determined to be honest with her, he nodded slowly.

Becca climbed out of bed and gathered her bra and other things. “Just be aware that inside, where it counts, I am the same woman now that I’ve always been, Will.” Telling him she’d be ready in five minutes, she slipped into their bathroom and shut the door.

Will stood there, hands in his pockets, wishing he could take some comfort from her words. As he looked back over their years together, the memories fading with the pain of the present, he wondered if he’d ever known the woman Becca was inside. Or had he merely seen what he’d expected to see and looked no further?

“THEY’VE HAD A LEAD on Tory,” Christine Evans told Phyllis Langford as her friend arrived at her apartment on the first Saturday in May. The two women lived in the same complex and had taken to having their weekend meals together.

Dropping the bag of Mexican takeout on the table, Phyllis grabbed both of Christine’s hands. “Where is she?” she asked. And then immediately, “Is she okay?”

Christine, with tears in her eyes, pulled her hands away as imperceptibly as she could and nodded. “She was seen a couple of weeks ago in Florida.”

“Was she alone?”