“The thing is, I made the offer for the wrong reasons. Because I wanted—needed—this baby. Because I broke down looking at size newborn sleepers. I wasn’t being noble, or reasonable. It was all about me.” Finally, her frantic gaze connected with his. Her chest heaved. She had to be damn close to breaking down again.
As far as he was concerned, everything she’d said was nonsense. She’d been right; he’d been wrong. Keeping this baby—family—was best for all of them. But he didn’t put any of that into words yet.
Instead, he said, “That doesn’t explain why you didn’t say anything to me. Why you sprang it on me that way.”
“I was going to tell you. It didn’t occur to me that Trevor…” Her gaze slid away. “It should have, of course.”
“Why, Molly?” He wrapped his hand around the now-cool mug of tea. The fingers of his other hand flexed against his thigh.
“I made excuses.” She gave a self-deprecating smile that trembled. She seemed unconscious of the fact that she was now crying. Teardrops clung to her dark auburn eyelashes. “I convinced myself that there wasn’t any point in talking to you until I was sure what I wanted to do. But I’ve realized since that I knew you wouldn’t want the baby. I thought…I suppose I thought I could have my cake and eat it, too.” She made a face. “Horrible saying.” The tears now formed rivulets down her cheeks. She licked some off her lips but didn’t so much as lift a hand to swipe at them. “I didn’t know…well, what you meant when you said you loved me. Whether you were thinking about…about marriage or…”
“I was. Of course I was.” I am.
Molly nodded, looking hopeless. “I wanted you both. And I thought, I knew, if I talked to you, you’d say no. And then…and then I’d never have another baby. I would have lost this baby. Cait’s baby. And I’d be plunged back into mourning, and I didn’t know if I could help being so mad at you it would ruin everything.”
Somewhere in the middle of that speech, Richard had gone completely still. He’d have sworn even his heart quit beating as he absorbed the real meaning.
If he’d said, no, I love you, I want to marry you but I can’t start another family, she’d have let Cait’s baby go. Despite everything she’d told him, despite a need so primal even she admitted she didn’t understand it, she would have chosen him.
“God, I love you,” he said, shoving back his chair and rising to his feet.
Staring up at him in disbelief, her face tear-soaked, Molly stood, too. They reached for each other, stumbled into each other’s arms. She pressed her face against his neck, and he turned his mouth against her hair.
“How could you think…?” he mumbled. “I was an idiot, but I’m so damned in love with you, of course I would have listened! Of course I would have.”
“I didn’t think…” She wept.
“I love you.” He kept saying it, and finally she did, too. He rocked her and felt tears burn his own eyes. His down vest might need to go to the dry cleaners when she was done with it, but he’d never felt happiness so painful as he did when she sobbed out her fear against him, while she held on to him as tightly as she could.
It was a long time before her body began to relax against his. She hiccuped and laughed and snuffled and hiccuped again and finally mumbled, “I think I’d better do some cleanup.” Hic.
“Maybe I should scare you,” he murmured in her ear, and she giggled.
Another hiccup.
She stepped back. “You won’t leave?”
The simple fear in the words caused another spasm beneath his breastbone. He shook his head, and she fled.
By the time she came back, face scrubbed clean but pink and blotchy, eyes puffy and shy, hiccups apparently vanquished, he’d dumped out their untouched tea, dropped the bags in the trash can beneath the sink, rinsed the cups and put them in the dishwasher.
She hovered at the entrance to the kitchen, so much doubt in her expression he went swiftly to her and gripped her hands. “Now what are you worried about?”
“I trapped you into something you don’t want.”
Richard half laughed and shook his head. “Oh, sweetheart. I have a confession to make, too.”
“What?”
“You know I was panicked about the baby thing from the beginning.”
She scrunched up her nose. “Weren’t we all.”
Well, yeah. That was safe to say. His panic might have been the least of all theirs. Cait and Trevor had both been flat-out terrified.
“Can we go sit down?” he asked.