Maureen Child - Little Secrets

“The baby.”

“Exactly. This wasn’t about us having lunch or dinner together,” he pointed out, but hadn’t stopped eating yet. “This isn’t about cozy nights at home, Rita, and you know it. It’s an arrangement with an expiration date.”

“Hmm. And, it wasn’t about you driving me to work every morning either and yet...” She shrugged again, a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

Well, he’d stepped right into that one.

“That’s different,” he argued. “You used to live above the bakery now you have to drive to work—”

“Six miles,” she threw in.

“This isn’t about the distance, it’s about safety.” He took a drink of water. “I’m not letting you drive through the city alone in the middle of the night when it’s just as easy for me to drive you.”

“So you’re worried about my safety. That doesn’t sound disinterested to me,” she mused, taking another bite.

“Being concerned doesn’t mean worried.” Though he was. Hell, the thought of her driving alone through the city in the middle of the night gave him chills. What if she got a flat tire? Or the car just died? Or something happened with the baby?

She took another bite and watched him as she chewed and swallowed. Sunlight filtered through the windows and made her dark hair shine with golden highlights. Just watching her chew had his body going on red alert. It was that mouth, he told himself. That full, generous, completely kissable mouth that was doing him in.

“You work so hard to pretend that you’re oblivious to me and your family, but it’s not working.”

His frown deepened and rather than argue, he took another bite of his lunch.

“Look it up in a dictionary, Jack. Concerned means worried. And that’s exactly what you are. Worried, I mean. Oh, don’t say anything,” she said, waving her chopsticks when he started to deny it, “I know it bothers you to be worried, so that’s almost the same as not being, unless you think about it carefully and then it’s exactly the same thing and you don’t want to recognize that, do you?”

Jack stared at her. “What?”

Shaking her head she took a sip of water, “Nothing, never mind. Doesn’t matter right now. I didn’t get the chance to tell you, but your sister came to the bakery to see me yesterday.”

His head snapped up. Suddenly, her conversation was taking several different paths at once and none of them were making sense. “Cass?”

“You have two sisters as well as two wives?” she asked, teasing.

“Funny.” That smile was really hard to resist and he was pretty sure she knew it since she kept flashing it at him.

“A little, maybe.” She shrugged again. “Anyway, Cass wanted to talk about you, big surprise.”

Well, there went the appetite. He set his plate aside, reached for his water and took a long drink. “That’s what this visit is about then,” he said. “What Cass had to say.”

“Nope.” She shook her head, sending those brown curls into a wild dance that made him want to spear his fingers through them. “I was coming to surprise you anyway. This just gives us more to talk about.”

“No, thanks.” He took another drink, half wishing it was a beer. “I’m not interested in conversations and besides, I have to get back to work.”

“No you don’t,” she said, setting her plate aside, too. “You’re just trying to get rid of me again.”

“Again?”

She sighed. “Jack, you avoid me every chance you get. The penthouse is big, but not so big that we shouldn’t run into each other more often. But you see to it that we don’t.” She ran one hand lovingly over her baby bump, but her gaze never left his. “Even when I trap you into breakfast in the morning, you just bolt it down and dodge every attempt at conversation.”

“Four thirty in the morning, not the best time for chats.”

“What’s your excuse then for dinner?” Still shaking her head, she said, “Usually, you grab an apple or something and disappear into your office. Or if you do sit down with me, we don’t talk. Heck, you hardly look at me directly.”

It was too damn hard to look at her. To want her so badly it was a constant, driving ache inside. He was paying, daily. His atonement continued and he could only hope that he survived it somehow.

“Rita...”

“Your family’s worried about you.”

He scraped both hands across his face, then stood up, unable to sit still any longer. “You don’t have to tell me about my own family.”

“Are you sure?” She stood up, too, and faced him, toe-to-toe. A part of him admired that spine of hers. He’d liked it right off, from the moment they met and she hadn’t been afraid. But right now, he wished she was more cautious, less ready for a confrontation.

“They want to help you and they don’t know how,” she said. “I don’t know how.”

“I didn’t ask for help,” he reminded her tautly. “I can deal with things my own way.”

“Not so far,” she countered and folded her arms across her middle.

His eyes narrowed on her. “You don’t know anything about it.”

“Then tell me,” she challenged, moving closer, tipping her head back to meet his eyes. “And if not me, Jack, tell someone.”

“Therapy?” He laughed, shook his head and shoved one hand through his hair. “Yeah, not needing a couch, or some stranger poking around in my head. No, thanks.”

“Tough marine doesn’t need anyone, is that it?”

He glanced at her, read frustration clearly in her eyes but there was nothing he could do about it. “Close enough.”

“Well, you’re wrong, Jack,” she said and this time when she moved closer, she laid one hand on his chest, right over his heart. Silently, he wondered if she felt the staccato beat beneath her palm. If she had the slightest clue what she did to him.

“Even marines are human, Jack. Even marines can’t fix everything solo.” She stared up into his eyes and he was unable to look away. “People need each other. That’s why we have families, Jack. Because we’re stronger together. Because we can count on each other when things get hard.”

He ground his teeth together and fought for patience. He knew she meant well. Hell, he knew they all meant well. But they couldn’t help unless he talked and he wasn’t going to talk about it. About any of it.

Through gritted teeth, he said softly, “I’m fine, Rita.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” she said. “That’s why you don’t have to set an alarm to get up at four a.m., because you can’t sleep but you’re fine.”

He jerked his head back to give her a glare. “How the hell do you know I can’t sleep?”

“I can hear you, moving around the apartment, going out onto the terrace...”

Apparently, he wasn’t as stealthy as he liked to think. And he had to ask himself, if he’d known she was awake, too, would he have gone to her? Tried to lose himself and the dreams that dogged him in the warmth of her embrace? Would he have given in to the insistent urge to take her, to find the heat and the welcome he’d once found in her arms? He didn’t know the answer and that worried him.

“Sorry,” he said tightly, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’ll be quieter.”

“Oh, Jack, that’s not what I meant at all,” she said and rested her hand on his forearm. “I’m right here. Let me in. Am I so scary you can’t talk to me?”

For the first time ever, he was tempted to do just that. To just start talking and in the talking, maybe the images in his head would start to fade. Looking down into those compelling eyes of hers, he could feel himself weakening, in spite of the promise he’d made to himself. That he would never talk about the past, because doing that kept it alive. Kept it vivid. But hadn’t it stayed alive despite his silence?