Marie Ferrarella - An Abundance of Babies

What were the first words out of your mouth when you saw, after seven years, the man who broke your heart and set fire to your dreams? Did you rant? Did you ignore him? What? she thought in utter frustration. Emily Post and her cohorts didn’t cover this in their books on proper etiquette.

Maybe because proper ladies didn’t get dumped, Stephanie thought ruefully. Proper ladies didn’t pour out their hearts and let the man they loved know they loved him. There had been no mystery between Sebastian and her. Except the ultimate one—why he had left.

There it was, her car. One aisle over.

Because it was too far away to reach without passing him, she summoned all the years of training her father had tried to drum into her head—“So that I will never have reason to be ashamed of you”—and pasted a meaningless, distant smile on her face.

“Hello, Sebastian. How are you?”

The frost in her voice hit him like the steep, sleek side of an iceberg. He should have just kept driving, Sebastian told himself. But he’d had to see her up close. Had to look at her, even though she belonged to some other man now.

There’d been no choice on his part.

He wasn’t that strong, hadn’t had the time, since arriving yesterday, to reinforce his shield against the only woman he’d ever allowed himself to love. He wanted to look into her eyes just one more time.

Maybe, if he was lucky, there’d be nothing there. For either of them.

“I’m all right.” Never really talkative, he knew his reply sounded more stilted than even he could bear. Without thinking, he took her hand, to shake it.

To touch her.

“You look good.” His eyes swept over her swollen form and he forced himself to smile. “I think the proper term is glowing.”

“That’s the heat,” she answered dismissively.

Damn you, Sebastian, why did you walk out on me? Why did you leave me, wondering where you were? And why in the name of heaven are you back now?

But he was back and she had to deal with it. Like a soldier, Stephanie squared her shoulders. “Are you back for a visit?”

The slight smile on his lips turned enigmatic. “It’s a little more complicated than that,” he told her.

God, but you look good, Stevi. Too good.

Sebastian felt old urges rising up, as if they’d never faded away. Maybe they never had.

He had no business feeling that for her now.

He glanced over her head. There was a small, trendy coffee shop with half a dozen tables for two scattered out before it. New, he thought. Everything was new except for the way he felt about her.

Leave it alone. Say goodbye and go, he told himself.

He took a chance, knowing he shouldn’t. “Maybe we could step out of the sun somewhere, have a cup of coffee for old times’ sake and I—”

There is no “old times’ sake,” Sebastian, she wanted to yell at him. Instead, she looked at him with a coolness that belied the churning emotions scrambling through her. With a snap of her wrist, Stephanie pulled her hand free as if it were being scalded.

“I don’t think that would be very wise.”

Well, what had he expected? Still, disappointment shredded the veneer he was attempting to construct around himself.

“Sure, I understand. Jealous husband, eh?” He had no idea why he’d even said that.

Deep blue eyes, eyes he’d loved to get lost in, cut him dead. “You lost the right to ask questions like that a long time ago, Sebastian.”

With that, she turned away, knowing if she didn’t, she’d probably do something stupid, like throw her arms around him. Or demand to know why he’d hurt her the way he had. It would have been a humiliating waste of breath for her.

In seven years, Sebastian had never once seen fit to write to her, to call her, to get in contact some way and tell her why he had done what he had. She had no intentions of lowering herself now to ask. There was no reason for it. She knew the reason he’d left. Without her money—because her father would have cut her off without a dime—Sebastian hadn’t wanted her and she’d accepted that, accepted it no matter how much it had hurt.

Her head held high, Stephanie walked to her car with as much dignity as she could gather. There was absolutely nothing to be gained by staying and talking to him, she argued with herself. If she remained too long, Sebastian would see that there was a part of her that still, stupidly, cared for him. A part that had never let go, no matter how much she pretended that she had.

Numbly, quietly, he watched her. Watched her get into her car and start it up. As he stared after her, he vaguely noticed the vehicle’s color, make and license number like peripheral details of a dream he was trying to shake off.

There was no point to this, Sebastian told himself. He’d just been passing through the small strip mall. There were a couple of videos his mother had requested sitting on the passenger side of the old car he’d driven here all the way from Seattle, Washington. He glanced at them now. If he didn’t get going, they were going to melt into the upholstery.

Damn, but seeing her had jarred his heart.

He didn’t need things like that. His life had been jarred enough. He had things to see to. He didn’t need this trip down a path he hadn’t been allowed to take.

Like everything else, he thought, he’d find a way to deal with it. It was just going to take some time, that was all.

Just as he opened the driver’s side of his car, Sebastian heard the screech of tires in the distance behind him. Instinct had him swinging around to look back in Stephanie’s direction.

He’d turned just in time to see a large black sport utility vehicle trying to swerve to avoid hitting Stephanie’s car.

The maneuver was not successful.

The SUV’s blunt nose clipped Stephanie’s left front, sending it spinning as metal met metal. The two vehicles groaned from the impact.

She was hurt.

The thought throbbed in his brain.

Hardly aware of shoving his car keys into his pocket, Sebastian grabbed his medical bag and was running toward Stephanie’s car before the image of the actual crash had a chance to completely sink in.

People, drawn by the sound of the crash, were beginning to gather in a large circle around the two vehicles that had wound up crushed nose to nose. Clearly shaken but apparently unhurt, the fortyish driver of the SUV got out, a dazed expression beneath the day-old stubble on his face.

His eyes widened in fear when he saw that there was no movement in the front seat of the other, much smaller car. “I didn’t see her,” he cried to no one in particular. “I swear I didn’t see her pulling out.”

A murmur of voices debated the visibility that had been afforded between the two vehicles as Sebastian pushed his way through the crowd, using his medical bag as a shield.

“Let me through,” he ordered, fighting a sick feeling as his heart lodged itself in his throat. “I’m a doctor.”

Exercising sheer determination, he forced himself not to react to the situation in any other manner except strictly professional. He was afraid to allow his fears free rein. They would only impede what might need to be done.

He didn’t like what he saw.

Stephanie’s eyes were shut when he yanked open the door on the driver’s side, and there was blood mingling with her blond hair from a cut on her forehead. The thought of internal injuries had his gut tightening in cold anticipation.

“Stephanie, can you hear me?” he demanded roughly.

The voice reached out to her across a bridgeless chasm, pulling at her. Drawing her across.

It felt as if each of her eyelids weighed in at ten pounds each as she struggled to open them. She found that it took a concentrated effort to form words. Effort to cut through the pain that was tightening around her like a sharp-toothed vise, stealing her breath away. Stephanie had to push the words out.