Cathy Thacker - The Texas Christmas Gift

Her caution made him smile and search her eyes. “And you think that’s weird.”

Eve wanted to deny it. But she sensed if she was less than honest, she would lose him as a client. She shifted so they were no longer in danger of touching, and leaned back in her seat. “I think it’s commendable.”

He waited, still studying her.

Eve gulped some water, aware she was going to have to open up even more. “And...unusual,” she said finally.

She lowered her eyes to the strong column of his throat and the tufts of springy, dark brown hair beneath his collarbone, then quickly looked back up. Clearing her throat, Eve tried for diplomacy. “I’m not married. Never have been. But from what I’ve seen, sharing custody can be really challenging.”

He lifted a brow. “You mean ugly.”

“Or just plain difficult.” She shrugged, still feeling as if she were walking through a minefield, courtesy of Derek McCabe. “Given that there are so many emotions involved in these kinds of situations...”

His gaze drifted over her face slowly, before returning to her eyes. “You’re wondering why I’m okay with my wife remarrying.”

Was she that easy to read? And why did she, a consummate professional who made a point these days to keep her personal feelings out of every business situation, really want to know? Telling herself it would help her find the right home for him if she knew more about the overall situation, she shifted a little closer. “Are you?”

He nodded, then rose and walked back to the room service table where several desserts sat untouched. He picked up a plate and gestured for her to have at it, too. “Maybe if Carleen and I had been head over heels in love, I’d feel differently.”

He’d chosen the slice of coconut cake garnished with berries. Eve picked up the crème brûlée.

He settled himself on the sofa. She selected an adjacent wingback chair and spread a napkin over her lap. “But you weren’t in love?” This was getting more interesting by the moment.

Derek exhaled, regret sharpening his handsome features. “We were really great friends from the moment we met at Harvard Business School. We both worked in the financial sector, and wanted the same things, including high-powered careers—and kids. And we figured if you were going to have a family, you should be married.”

“So you tied the knot.”

Savoring another bite of cake, he nodded. “For the first couple of years it was great. We moved back to Texas, where our families were from. We had work and each other. And then Carleen and I met Craig. One of Carleen’s coworkers, he had recently lost his wife to cancer. Needless to say, our hearts went out to him. We started helping him with his brood of kids whenever we could. But I was traveling a lot with my job then, so Carleen spent more time over there.” There was a long silence. “The experience made her really want children, so we started working on a family of our own. She had just found out she was pregnant when I walked in one day and saw the way they looked at each other.”

Eve’s heart stilled. She paused, her spoon halfway through the sugary crust on her crème brûlée. “They were having an affair?” She couldn’t fathom that, remembering the two people she’d met earlier.

Putting his empty plate aside, Derek exhaled roughly and clamped a hand to the back of his neck. “No, they were both too principled for that. But it was clear to me that Carleen was in love with Craig, the way she never had been with me.” He paused, rubbing the tense muscles.

Eve watched Derek rummage around for a coffee cup. Finding one, he filled it from the decanter on the room service tray. “You must have been devastated,” she said.

The look on his face said he had been. “I thought about ignoring it,” he confided quietly, coming back to sit on the sofa. “Just hoping and praying whatever it was they were obviously feeling would fade.”

Eve remembered that they had separated early in Carleen’s pregnancy. “But you didn’t do that.”

He shrugged and turned his eyes back to hers, a mixture of remorse and acceptance visible there. “I realized I couldn’t live a lie for the rest of my life. So I asked Carleen about it, and she finally admitted what I had already observed. That, in an ideal world, she probably would have ended up with Craig...but she was married to me, and she intended to stay married to me.”

“You disagreed?”

He gestured with a weariness that seemed to come from deep in his soul. “Pretending feelings don’t exist doesn’t mean they aren’t there. I wanted Carleen to be happy. And I knew she belonged with Craig.”

That was gallant. But... “You weren’t the least bit jealous?”

He rubbed his jaw in a rueful manner, then drawled, “Let’s just say I wanted what they were having for myself.”

That made sense, Eve thought. Everyone was entitled to the love of a lifetime. Whether or not a person ever actually achieved that was a different matter entirely.

“So, the two of us split up,” Derek continued. “I stayed involved with the pregnancy and was there for the birth. For propriety’s sake, we waited to finalize our divorce until Tiffany was six months old. A short engagement followed. And then Craig and Carleen got married in late October and relocated from Houston to Dallas—so that Carleen could have a job with greater flexibility. I made arrangements to follow suit.”

Eve studied the attractive man sitting opposite her. He really was one of the most honorable men she had ever met. But she couldn’t help but wonder if all that selflessness came with a price.

* * *

DEREK WASN’T SURE why he was talking about any of this. He certainly didn’t need to tell Eve about his broken marriage in order for her to find him a suitable home. And yet there was something about the way she looked at him, as if she wanted to understand—not just the situation, but get to know him in a way few did—that had started him talking, and kept him talking when he should have stopped.

“This is the point where you tell me I should have made the most of my ex’s foibles and fought for full custody of my kid,” he said cavalierly, wanting to see her gut reaction to his situation. To find out if she was as skeptical and disapproving as his family and friends had been. Emotional affairs, many had pointed out to him, were a lot more destructive than sex with someone outside the marriage. For that alone he was owed full custody.

Eve looked puzzled. “How would that have benefited Tiffany? She needs a mommy and a daddy, doesn’t she?”

Glad to see she wasn’t the vengeful type, Derek nodded gratefully.

“And you work full-time. And probably still travel,” Eve continued.

“Although less than I did before,” he said.

She compressed her lips, then took her last bite of crème brûlée and set the dish aside. “Having parents who rue each other’s very existence is no help to anyone, believe me.”

As interested in Eve as she apparently was in him, Derek sat back in his chair and sipped his coffee. “And you know that because...?”

She got up and poured herself a cup of coffee, too. “My father wanted nothing to do with me, not when I was a kid or after I grew up.”

Derek winced. “Wow. That’s harsh.”

Eve added cream, then sprinkled in a packet of sugar. She stirred the coffee, tasted it, then went back and sat down at the other end of the couch. “You get used to it. For a lot of years, I wished my mother and my biological father had gotten along. Then I began to accept that if they had no use for each other, it was really better that we never saw him. You, on the other hand, have managed to stay friends with your ex and her new husband. The fact you do get along can only benefit all seven of the kids involved.”