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Authors: Ruth Wind

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BOOK: Her Ideal Man
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Tyler looked green. “What happened to her?”
“She was fine. It was her fourth baby, and he was born in two hours, but she liked screaming. My mother said some women curse, some scream, some just get completely vacant, like they aren't there.” She raised an eyebrow. “Were you there when Curtis was born?”
He gave her an ironic smile. “Yeah. But Kara would never have allowed anyone to think she wasn't the ultimate earth mother. She had no drugs, and had music on headphones, and I was supposed to rub her feet, but I have to tell you, Anna, I didn't like being in there. I know it's old-fashioned, but it doesn't seem like any man has any business in there.”
“I'm so glad you said that.” Anna smiled. “I'd much rather you didn't come in. I don't want you looking at me all sweaty and piggy and crazed—I mean, what if I'm one of those women who scream expletives?”
A genuine smile broke the dimness of his expression. “I find that very hard to imagine.” The smile turned into a chuckle. “Very hard.”
She shrugged. “You never know. I'd just rather you let me do my business with other women. Maybe your mother will come, and Ramona will deliver it. She's about a month ahead of me, so she should be ready by then.”
He went suddenly rigid again. “She might not be the one to deliver the baby?”
“Tyler, she's pregnant. If she goes over, she won't be ready to plunge into work that fast.”
“Damn. I don't want anyone else to do it.”
Anna held out her hand. “Tyler, please sit down. You're giving me a crick in my neck.”
He ignored her hand, but perched on the chair across from her, sullenness back.
“If you worry like this all the way through, you will be no earthly help at all when the baby is born.”
“I know.” He swallowed. “It was just so awful, Anna. Losing her like that. I felt so guilty.”
She'd leave that alone for the moment. “Tyler, I'm not Kara.”
He had the grace to look ashamed. “I know.” His mouth tightened. “But you're so small, Anna. How can it be possible for you to have a baby? Will Ramona do a C-section or something?”
“No.” She grinned. “I only look small, Tyler. Where it counts, I have plenty of room.” To illustrate, she put her hands on her body. “I'm made for this. Hips, pelvis. The women in my family have babies very easily. Every one of my sisters were walking around in an hour, and fixing meals three days later.”
“Really?” Cautious hope shone in his eyes.
Anna smiled. “Really.” She stood up and put one hand on either side of her hips. “Look at that spread.”
He reached for her, and put his hands on top of hers, very seriously examining the space between their hands. “This is what matters?”
“One of the biggies. I'm also quite healthy, in case you haven't noticed by my appetite. Having babies is very natural for ninety-five percent of us.”
He raised his eyes. “I don't think I could face it again, Anna.”
A strange pang struck her heart. Did that mean he might be growing to love her? “Everything will be fine, Tyler. Trust me.”
He moved his big palm over the low round of her belly. “Is she moving now?”
As if to accommodate him. the baby fluttered against his hand, and Tyler went completely still. Looking down at him, at his shining crown and his strong hand over her stomach, Anna found herself stricken with shattering love. She ached to put her hand against his hair, to touch his face, to kiss his sober, beautiful mouth, but she didn't. She simply let the emotion wash through her, sweet and sad and yearning, and let him greet the baby they had made.
When her throat was not quite so tight, she teasingly said, “Why do you call it a she? Curtis is sure he's having a brother.”
“I don't know,” he said, looking up at her as he moved his hand around, seeking the faint flutters again. “I think I'd like that, to have a daughter.”
“Do you have any ideas about names?”
“Maybe.” He let her go, and Anna sat back down on the couch across from him, mainly so that she wouldn't be tempted to simply leap on him, and probably humiliate herself again. If anyone was to make a move, it had to come from Tyler. Anna had tried twice and been rebuffed. “Do you?”
“I haven't thought about it much yet,” she said.
“Well, I thought about Ramona, because it's a pretty name, but also because she saved my brother's life.” He cleared his throat and looked away. “She was also Kara's doctor. If it wasn't for her, we probably would have lost Curtis, too.”
“It is a pretty name. I might go for that, but I'm not willing to commit myself yet. What about boys?”
“That I don't know.”
“Maybe something very old and honored, like Michael.”
He considered. “That might work. I guess we have time.”
“Yes, plenty.” Anna folded her hands. “There is something we need to discuss that hasn't come up yet, however. I was waiting for you to bring it up again.”
He frowned. “What?”
“We're going to need more room. At least a bedroom. The loft will be too cold for the baby, and I don't like that thought much, anyway.”
He nodded. “You're right. That was why I added Curtis's room. But there will be four of us. Maybe I'll talk to Lance and see about getting some plans drawn. You have any ideas about what you'd want?”
So polite. Everything was always so blessedly polite. Anna suddenly couldn't bear it. “No, I'll leave it to you. I think I'm going to take a shower and get some sleep.”
Tyler only nodded. “I think I'll read for a while.”
 
 
Tyler waited until Anna was sound asleep, then donned his coat and boots and went outside with his dog. It was a cold, crisp night, the sky full of stars. He looked up at them in appreciation. So often, when people came from the city, the thing they could not believe was that there were so many stars they'd never seen. The sky was thick with them, but city lights obscured a lot of them, just as even faint pollution dulled the daytime blue.
With Charley close by, Tyler set out walking. In the deep darkness, he stuck to the road, simply walking in the night, trying to chase away his demons.
For Anna's sake, he'd submerged some of the feelings Curtis's misgivings had roused in him, but the truth was, tonight he missed Kara with a more piercing and painful grief than he'd felt in years. He didn't want to be having a baby with another woman. He didn't want to think about names. He wanted not to be here in this present, but back in the past, where Kara still lived.
Since marrying Anna, he had not allowed himself the maudlin luxury of speaking aloud to his dead wife, but alone now, and under cover of night, he did. “This is so strange,” he said. “I hope I haven't made a big mistake. We were together for so long that getting married was natural, and Anna can never take your place.” His booted feet crunched against the gravel. “I do like her, though. If it had to be anyone, I'm glad it was Anna. She genuinely loves Curtis, and she's easy to be around.”
A cutoff from the main road led into the trees, and Tyler realized where his feet and heart had led him. To Kara's house.
In the bright night, he could see it clearly, a long, rambling single-story house with a deeply peaked roof. The external walls were made of long split logs, the blank windows were framed with golden pine, the door was worked with an alternating diagonal pattern of light gold pine, and grayish aged pine, and the whole was varnished and carved. Approaching it, Tyler was amazed at what beautiful work he'd done. “I really did love this. It turned out exactly right.”
Charley wagged his tail.
Kara, inspired by a man in the southern Colorado mountains, had wanted to build a castle from the ground up. Tyler was much more practical, and had convinced her that a modern house, designed with the environment in mind, would be a far better idea.
Together they had scoured back issues of
Mother Earth News,
and
The Farmer's Almanac
and any other back-to-nature publication they could find for the latest in earth-friendly building. Tyler owned nearly five hundred acres up here, and they had scoured every inch of it, as well, to find the perfect home site.
A site, Tyler thought, rounding the house, that was incredibly beautiful. Sitting in a wide meadow protected on the north and west by thick forest, it would weather winter storms and summer heat with equal aplomb. A flat of land to the south would provide some vegetables. There was no danger of erosion, or flooding, or even avalanche.
Below, down a gentle slope dotted with trees and pink granite boulders that glittered with mica, lay Red Creek. Most of the lights were out at this late hour, but Tyler could see a few streetlights, and the red of a traffic light, and even the faint pinpoints of a moving car's headlights. The daytime view made the town look like a quaint Swiss village.
Slowly, he turned and headed to the house itself. From below a rock near the back door, he took a key, then climbed the steps to the wooden deck that was placed to take advantage of winter sunshine and summer shade. It gave him a glow of pride to remember how carefully he'd planned every detail.
Just inside, he paused, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the thicker darkness. The last time he was here, Kara had been with him, just a few days before she went into labor too early.
She had not been feeling well that day. Tyler had worked on the flooring in the kitchen while she sat in a patch of sunlight, her blond hair caught in a knot at the nape of her neck, her makeupless face extraordinarily pale. That afternoon, she had kept her hand over her belly, and by her expression, Tyler had known she was a million miles away. Twice he had asked her if she was all right, if she thought they should drive into town—or maybe even into Denver.
Both times, she had simply shaken her head and looked back into whatever interior landscape so occupied her. At the end of the day, they had walked very slowly back to the cabin, both silent with the strain that had marked their relationship since he told her about his vasectomy. Finally, winded, Kara had stopped at the meadow that surrounded the cabin. “Tyler,” she had said, “try to understand that this is the thing I've most wanted in my life.”
But even then, sick with worry, he'd been unable to totally forgive her for risking her life. Instead of granting the absolution she was asking, Tyler had simply looked at the house and said, “I think we can move in within a couple of months.”
A week later, she'd been gone. And Tyler had never given the absolution. Not even when he held her hand in the hospital, with the knowledge of her impending death hanging over them.
Walking from room to room in the dark house, Tyler felt the old sorrow pounding in his veins like a virus. A virus, he thought, that had no cure. “I'm so sorry, Kara. I wish somehow I could make it up to you.” He looked around him, seeing what should have been—the softly woven carpets and the pictures on the walls, and Kara and Curtis reading a bedtime story on furniture he'd made.
Sinking to the floor, he buried his face in his hands, aching for all that was lost. All that should have been and had been lost to him in foolish, arrogant pride. His heart felt like a black hole, so empty that the emptiness sucked everything else into it.
How could he bear to continue this masquerade?
But how could he halt it?
Impossible. The whole thing was impossible.
Weary at last, Tyler relocked the door and went back to the cabin where his new wife slept. In the darkness, he undressed and, careful not to disturb her, he climbed into bed, somehow grateful for the warmth she provided.
As if she sensed him, Anna turned over and curled against his arm, her hair brushing his shoulder, her soft, round breasts close against his rib cage, her knee just touching his thigh. After two months of sharing a bed with her, he'd thought he'd finally grown used to the discipline he needed to keep his hands to himself, but tonight, her nearness assaulted him anew.
Clenching his fist, he moved slowly away from her, turning his back to the ripeness of her warm, sleepy body. If he loved her, this furious lust would be an appropriate expression of that love. As things stood, his visions were physical, carnal manifestations, and he didn't think it was fair or right to indulge them.
Not when Anna was in love with him, and she would be making love.
Gripping the pillow close to his chest, Tyler hugged the edge of the bed and willed his arousal to subside, and finally, he fell into merciful sleep.
Chapter 16
H
e dreamed he was back in Kara's house, in die daylight. It was summer, and the windows were thrown open to let in the fresh, cool mountain breezes. Somehow there were rugs in place, and something cooking on the stove, and, bewildered, Tyler called out, “Hello?”
From around the corner came Kara herself. She smiled. “Hi, Tyler.”
Confused, he said, “You're dead. How can you be here?”
With a gentle smile, she said, “They let me come back for a day.”
Stunned, he stared at her, wonder and joy swelling in his chest. “Can I touch you?” he asked, ashamed that his need showed in such busky wildness in his voice.
“Oh, yes,” she whispered.
Tyler reached for her, and somehow, in the way of dreams, they were in a bed in the sunny room that was going to be their bedroom, close together under thick quilts. She curled against him, spoon-position, and he put his hand over her breast, sighing at the texture, that heavy softness, the nudge of an aroused nipple against the heart of his palm. “I can't even tell you how good that feels,” he said, and rubbed the tip lightly, hearing a soft groan of pleasure come from her throat.
She wore a simple white gown made of something he thought was silk, and Tyler felt a little confused for a moment. Kara only liked cotton or flannel, disdaining silky things as unnecessary luxury.
But the lure of her sweet flesh swept away his confusion. Eagerly he slid his hands below the fabric. Her thick hair brushed his face, and he groaned at the freshness against his nose. He closed his hands around her naked breasts, the fulsome softness filling his hands exactly, sending an agony of arousal through him. He kissed her neck, suckling hard at the tender place, and she shuddered in approval, turning to him, offering herself.
Tyler opened his eyes slightly, only enough to guide himself to his destination. He bent his face to her breasts, brushing his mouth, then his hungry tongue, over the swells of satiny flesh. He shifted to take his weight on his elbows, and gathered her breasts into both hands so that he could kiss and tease and please her. He felt her hands in his hair, heard her small sounds of pleasure, felt her arch into him, nestling herself against his erection. At last he took one pert nipple all the way into his mouth, and the sensation went through both of them like a thunderbolt, and his low moan mixed with her womanly one, a melding of notes in perfect harmony.
With effort, Tyler tried to rein in his urgent hunger, and moved to the other side, tugging and suckling until she writhed against him in an agony of need that matched his own.
She gripped her hands in his hair almost painfully, and whispered his name.
Tyler shattered awake to find it was no dream. He had burrowed under the covers and taken away her nightgown, and his mouth was filled with the deliciousness of aroused breast, and his organ was heatedly cradled at the juncture of her thighs.
But it was not Kara. It was Anna. Anna who felt so magnificent, who shivered with yearning, who arched with passion against him. A fierce joy pushed through him at that, a pointed hunger he could not have halted even if he had the will to try. It was not a dream. He had sweet Anna in his arms, her bare breasts against his mouth, her moist heat an irresistible invitation, and he thought in a disconnected way that he should have known it was Anna, because Kara had never responded like this to him, had never shivered or clung to him like this, had never allowed herself to fall apart like this.
In fierce longing, he moved to kiss her neck, to bite her a little and elicit that sobbing cry, and then took her lips with all the force he had denied these long, long weeks, and he felt Anna respond with the same gusto, her teeth against his lip. Her breasts pushed into his bare chest, and he reached below the covers to push away the clothes that stood between them.
“Good morning!” came a voice, then the
thunk
of a small boy's body landing on the foot of the bed. “The sun is shining. Maybe flowers will come up today.”
They froze. For an instant, Tyler looked down into Anna's eyes and saw there his own rueful smile. Softly, he kissed her once more. “Later,” he whispered.
Wickedly, she touched him as he shifted away. “Please.”
With a regretful sigh, he moved away from Anna, feeling her slip the nightgown back upon her shoulders under the covers, as Curtis scooted up to lie down next to his dad. “Will flowerth come up today, Daddy?”
“Not quite yet,” he said. “Not much longer.”
 
 
Anna had to go to work that morning. As spring neared, she had to try to focus more on work in order to prepare for the annual Spring Festival, which drew tourists—and their money—by the droves into Red Creek. Often the festival brought in more than three-quarters of the funds the museum was able to raise throughout the year.
It was pleasant enough in her office. The optimistic sound of snow melting in drips lifted her spirits, and she hummed quietly as she added figures and typed up tentative plans to present to the Friends of the Museum. Every so often, she remembered the feeling of Tyler around her this morning, the husky, needy sound of his voice, and a shiver of anticipation went through her.
Just after lunch, Louise appeared at the office door. “Anna?”
“Hmmm?” She punched a number into the calculator and scribbled it on a spreadsheet.
“Ah, you have a visitor.”
Still Anna had no presentiment that her world was about to turn upside down. “Oh?” She looked up.
And froze. For one long moment, all she could do was stare in dumbfounded shock at the familiar face, unable to place it so far out of context. A woman in her early sixties, with thick salt-and-pepper hair cut into an elegant and flattering style, her face remarkably unlined for her age. The green wool suit had traveled well, of course.
“Mama!”
“Surprise!” the woman cried, holding out her arms as she came into the office. Behind her came others, her father and her little brother Tony and her brother Jack, who gave her a sympathetic look as they trooped in.
Anna gaped at them, unable to act, while her mind raced in a frenzy. The moment she stood up, they would see that she was pregnant. The four-month mound of her belly was not instantly obvious to the rest of the world, but on her small frame, it showed. And her family would notice.
Caught in panic, Anna looked to Louise, who simply smiled at them all, proudly. It occurred to Anna that Louise simply assumed Anna had told them all. It was only natural that she would, of course.
Of course. Except she hadn't. The time had never seemed right. How did you break something like that, for heaven's sake? “Mama, I just thought I'd let you know I'm married and there will be a baby in the fall.”
Looking from one of them to the other, Anna realized the moment had arrived.
“Anna, aren't you happy to see us?” Hurt showed in her mother's black eyes. “We thought it would be such a nice surprise.”
“It is!” Damn the consequences, she thought, and rounded the desk, hoping the hustle and bustle in the crowded office would help put off the inevitable for at least a few moments. She hugged her mother, smelling the familiar cologne and hairspray. Anna tried to keep her belly apart, but no such luck. Her mother made a soft, shocked noise and pulled back, looking down.
“What's this?”
Her father moved forward, frowning. “You're pregnant, Anna?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“And you didn't tell us?
“Who is the creep?”
“A baby!”
“How long have you known?” her mother asked.
“When were you planning to give us the news?” her father demanded.
“I knew it!” exclaimed her brother.
A bright, loud whistle cut through the exclamations, and they all turned toward Louise in surprise. “Let's take things one step at a time, shall we?” she said, and stuck out her hand. “Hi. I'm Louise Forrest, Anna's mother-in-law. I gather you are Mr. Passanante.”
“Mother-in-law?” he echoed, shaking her hand. “Anna, you‘re—”
“Married,” she said, and clasped her hands nervously.
“Thank you, Mary!” her mother breathed, crossing herself dramatically.
“You must be Mrs. Passanante,” Louise said agreeably.
“Oh, call me Olive, please. My husband is Salvatore, after his father.” She pointed to the others. “That is my son Tony, and Jack, who came with us to run away from his life.” She seemed to run out of steam, and looked back to Anna. “Oh, Anna,” she said sadly. “I told them they were wrong. That you'd be okay out here. That you were a much more sensible girl than they thought.”
Anna opened her mouth, then closed it. This was what she had most dreaded, the disappointment in her mother's eyes. Bleakly, she simply looked at her. “I'm sony.”
Olive shook her head slowly. “And you didn't even tell us! Who made your dress? Who fixed your hair? How could you leave us out like that?”
“I'm sorry,” she said again.
Her father touched his wife's shoulder. “I'm very disappointed in you, Anna.”
Anna bowed her head, brushing a lock of hair from her cheek, her face burning with shame. “I know.”
Jack stepped in. “Time enough for all this later,” he said with false cheer, and hugged her. “Boy, kid, you don't mess around, do you?”
Anna clung to him. The brother closest to her in age, he had always had more in common with her than any of the others. Like Anna, he'd longed for more than the horizons he'd been given, but he'd never been able to focus on how to get it, and he moved from one spot of trouble to the next. As Anna hugged him, she breathed in the spicy scent of his aftershave, and the scent of wool and silk. “I'm glad you're here,” she said.
He chuckled. Anna felt it rather than heard it, and when he pulled back, she saw the twinkle in his eyes. “I bet you are.” With a wink, he let her go.
Louise clapped her hands together. “Well, I think I'll call around and find some volunteers to man the museum for the day, and then we can all go up to my house for a nice get-to-know-you visit. Why don't you all sit down and let me steal Anna for a minute?”
Olive and Salvatore nodded. Anna knew from long experience that this was simply the calm before the storm, and she kissed each one. “I'm so glad to see you,” she said. “I'll be right back.”
But if she thought she was escaping, it was only from a bed of thorns to a bed of nails. Louise walked silently to the front of the museum, and abruptly turned the corner to go upstairs. “What are you doing?” Anna asked, confused.
“Come on.”
In one of the bedrooms, Louise closed the doors, then turned to face Anna. It was only then that she saw the rare, dangerous fury in the older woman's eyes. “Honestly, child, if you weren't pregnant, I'd whip you within an inch of your life. What were you thinkin'? Did you think they'd never know? Were you planning to cut yourself off from them completely?”
Anna bowed her head. “I don't know.”
“Well, I know you're in big trouble. Oh, Anna. How could you do this? Everything was working out so well, and now this.”
“You see them, Louise. I didn't know how to break it to them. I mean, pregnant, then married? And not only that, he's not Italian, or even Catholic. You haven't even begun to see what a mess this is. Trust me.”
“I'm not real worried about you at the moment, you'll forgive me.” Her blue eyes blazed, and she crossed her arms over her ample bosom. “I've spent the past few years wondering if I'd ever get my Tyler back. He was so lost, and you've brought him back. I really didn't know if it would happen, Anna. And it did.”
Anna felt bewildered. “I'm not going to leave him just because they showed up, Louise. I mean, they'll be mad, and there will be endless lectures until they go back home, but nothing else has changed.”
“That's where you're wrong, darlin'.” Agitated, Louise paced toward the window. “Think about how this is going to look from Tyler's perspective. He isn't going to trust you to go around the block after this, and I don't blame him. It really looks like you hedged on the commitment you made there in that courthouse.”
Anna frowned. “I don't think he'll take it that way. I didn't mean it that way.”
But, with a sinking feeling, Anna realized that she had. She hadn't told her family because she hadn't been sure it would work out and there was no point to them knowing if she and Tyler parted ways.
Winded, she sat gingerly on a rocking chair. “Louise, you know I love him.”
“Funny way of showing it.”
“That's not fair. I didn't want to show it. I didn't want him to feel obligated to me. I wanted to see if he could fall in love with me on his own. And I didn't want to humiliate myself with my family.” A jolt moved in her middle as she realized anew that they were waiting for her. “And this isn't even the tip of the iceberg. They'll all be out here before we're finished with this, examining everything, making judgments on the way I live, scolding me, teasing me, acting like I don't have a single brain in my head.” She gave a low moan and buried her face in her hands. “I love my family, Louise, but they are a serious pain in the neck.”
BOOK: Her Ideal Man
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