Another Man's Child

“That one’s easy. My husband. He’s my best friend. I can’t imagine a life without Marcus.”

Beth stood up, nodding. “Then you’ll find your answer, Lis.”

“Even though there’s a part of me, a part that’s been there as long as I can remember, who needs to be a mother, too?” Lisa asked the question softly, almost afraid even to say the words out loud.

Beth’s eyes warmed with concern. Lisa knew how much her friend was pulling for her and Marcus. The three of them had formed an unshakable bond that first year after Beth’s husband had been shot waiting in line at a fast-food restaurant. She and Marcus had insisted that Beth move in with them, and for six months they’d both taken turns sitting up with their friend on those nights when the demons had become too fierce for her to face alone. That had been more than five years ago.

“I understand your reluctance, Lis,” Beth said now, “but you need to talk to him again. Have him come visit me. Maybe if he sees how much he’ll be involved in the process, if he understands how scientific everything is, he’ll come around.”

Lisa smiled and nodded as her friend left, but she knew she wouldn’t do as Beth suggested. She’d never known Marcus to look so beaten as he had the night she’d tried to talk to him about giving him a child through artificial insemination. She’d never seen him so angry. Or so hurt. No, she couldn’t do that to him again.

TWO DAYS LATER when she unpacked Marcus’s suitcase and found the shirt rolled in with his other dirty clothes, she was tempted to change her mind. She picked up the shirt slowly, staring blankly at the lipstick-stained collar for a moment, her mind masked with disbelief. It couldn’t be.

Standing there, unable to move, to look away, she felt frightened—and stupid. Had Marcus…? Surely he hadn’t…No. Of course not. He wouldn’t. Not ever.

And then she remembered his phone call from New Jersey. Not only had he not called when he’d promised, he’d been strangely evasive.

She blinked, surprised when a tear splashed onto the incriminating collar. Had they come to this, then? Had they really come to this? Were their ties of friendship, their loyalties to each other, in jeopardy? Was the love she’d cherished for more than a decade going to slip through her fingers right along with her dream of having a child? She dropped the shirt as if she’d been burned.

And then just as suddenly picked it up again. The lipstick was still there. She could see it through the blur of her tears. She just couldn’t believe it. And didn’t know what to do about it. This happened to other women, other couples. Not to her and Marcus.

“Nothing happened.”

Lisa jumped. She hadn’t heard Marcus come upstairs.

“Something apparently did,” she said, throwing his shirt in his face. It was too much. To lose Marcus on top of everything else was just too much.

He grabbed her arm as she pushed by him. “Nothing happened, Lisa.”

She looked up at him, this man of her dreams, and even blinded by tears of anger and disappointment, she knew she still loved him. After ten years of marriage, after eighteen months of anguish, even after finding another woman’s makeup on his clothes, she felt the impact of him clear to her soul. “Her lipstick’s on your collar.”

Marcus dropped her arm and bowed his head. “We had dinner—and one dance. That’s all.”

It was enough. She knew him that well. Wrapping her arms around her middle, she warded off the darkness that threatened to consume her. “You wanted her.”

“She wanted me. And yes, I guess part of me wanted her, too, wanted to be with a woman who didn’t know I could only do half the job.”

A sob broke through the constriction in Lisa’s throat, and she backed away from him.

“Who was she?” She willed herself to speak calmly.

Marcus swore and strode over to her, grabbing her arms, forcing her to look at him. “Nobody. She was nobody, Lis. Just a woman. Any woman who’d looked at me the way she did would probably have had the same effect. Which, in the end, was no effect at all. Because she wasn’t you.”

“Was she pretty?” Lisa couldn’t let it go.

“She was pretty, sure, but so are you. And you’re the one I want to be with. You’re my best friend, Lis.”

She studied his face, his blue unblinking eyes. “Are you sure about that?”

“Absolutely.”

His gaze bore into her, telling her things mere words couldn’t, and suddenly some of the tension that had held her rigid, barely able to breathe, drained away, leaving her feeling weak and helpless. She sank against his chest.

He held her silently, his hand rubbing the back of her head soothingly as she soaked the front of his shirt with her tears. He was still wearing his business suit, and Lisa burrowed her arms beneath his jacket, taking comfort in his lean hard strength, letting his love console her, just as it had done for well over a decade. She needed him more than life itself. And she felt it all slipping away.

“I love you, Lis.” His voice was thick through the whispered words.

“I love you, too.”