Reunited...With Child (12 page)

“Thank you for sharing your past with me, Tomas.”

“You are very welcome. And good luck to you with your design. I hope that you create the one that captures everything the Mercado can be.”

“Me, too,” she admitted. She gathered up her papers and notes and walked out of the grocery store.

Cam was talking to a construction worker while holding Ty. They all had hard hats on, including Ty.

She blinked and then turned away, needing a moment to gather her emotions before she went over to them. Cam was exactly the kind of man she'd always hoped to find. He was sexy and dashing and charming. But more than that, he was a man who put family at the top of his priority list.

She'd had no idea he was that kind of man when they'd been involved two years ago. That was her own fault because she'd been embarrassed to be having an affair with one of Russell's friends. She'd tried to keep him a secret. So they hadn't really had a chance to know each other outside of the bedroom.

Her biggest regret was that she'd cheated both of them out of years they could have spent together with their son. And she could only hope that she hadn't cost them their future, as well.

 

Cam's cell phone rang as Becca came over to him. He handed Ty over to her and then glanced at the caller ID. “It's Nate, give me a minute.”

She nodded, and he stepped aside to take the call. She seemed tired and a bit unsure as he walked away.

“Hey, Nate, what's up?”

“Not much. Jen and I are done early at the club and are having her nephew over for dinner. We wanted you and Becca and Ty to join us.”

He glanced over at Becca. He wanted time alone with her yet he didn't. He needed time to figure out just how he was going to handle the intense emotional and physical rush he felt every time she was near him.

“Yeah, let me check with Becca and call you back.”

“Yes. Definitely.”

He hung up and walked over to Becca, who was making baby talk with Ty. They were so cute together. He stood there for a moment just watching the mother and child bond and feeling a little bit envious that his mother had never cuddled him close the way that Becca did with Ty.

“Is everything okay?” she asked when he approached her.

No, he thought. She had a way of finding empty pieces inside of him that he'd never been aware of.

“Yes, fine. Nate invited us over to dinner. What do you think?”

“I…I was hoping to talk to you alone tonight,” she said.

“I want that, too,” he said. “We will be alone when we get home. Nate will help you with your designs, too. You can get his insights into the Mercado, as well.”

Becca looked up at him. She'd pushed her sunglasses
up on the top of her head, and he could see her pretty eyes. She was very serious. “I think I have enough insight. What's this really about?”

He rubbed the back of his neck. He hated not feeling sure of himself, and for some reason that was how she made him feel. “I want you to get to know my brothers better, and I want Ty to have a real relationship with his uncles.”

She studied him for a long minute, and then she nodded. “Okay. Then I'd be happy to go to dinner at his house. I know how important family is to you,” she said.

“You and Ty are important to me, too,” he said. “I wish we hadn't lost so much time together.”

He'd replayed their first relationship in his head a dozen times, and he didn't see any way for it to have gone differently. He had been a man driven to keep his eye on business back then. And she had been the same way. Just two workaholics scratching an itch, and he wished they would have been able to see into the future and this moment. Maybe things would be different now.

“You didn't want me to stay.”

“I know,” he said.

It was odd that they were having this conversation in the middle of a parking lot, yet somehow fitting. With Becca the most inconspicuous moments turned into the most monumental.

“You made me forget about everything except being together with you. That's not any way to live your life.
I would have lost myself, and I think that would have destroyed me and whatever we had between us.”

Cam considered her for a long moment. He would have enjoyed having Becca lost in him. But she had a point that eventually it would have wrung them both out, and they would have broken up any way.

“You'll know when you're ready to meet someone who can be everything to you.”

“Am I everything to you?” she asked. “Do you think I could be?”

“Yes, you are.” And in that moment, Cam realized he was telling God's honest truth.

“I'm flattered,” she said. “You are the first man that has made me feel this way, Cam.”

“I'm glad to hear that,” he said. He wanted to be the only man she thought of from this point forward.

She shook her head. “You confuse me sometimes. It's one thing to think of you as my lover but something else to think of you as Ty's father. The other night when we had that fever…you were really there for me, and I don't want to make that into something more than it was to you.”

He reached over and hugged her with one arm. “It was nice for me. I don't think anyone other than my brothers has trusted me when they needed something. I mean outside of business.”

She tipped her head back to look up at him. “I trust you.”

“Let me call Nate back and then we can head over to his house.”

“Okay,” she said.

He stepped away to return the call but couldn't take his eyes off of Becca and Ty. No matter how unsettled he felt around her, he still wanted to spend all of his time with her.

“Hey, big bro,” Nate said as he answered his phone.

“Hey, little bro,” Cam said.

Nate laughed, and it was a good sound. Cam remembered how solemn Nate had been when he'd gotten injured and had been forced to give up baseball. Nate was a very different man today.

“So? Are you coming tonight?”

“Yes, what time?”

“An hour or thereabouts,” Nate said.

“What can I bring?” Cam asked.

“Nothing. I got it covered. I'm a married man now,” Nate said.

“Good. It's great to hear you so happy,” Cam said.

“I think so, too. I can't believe how much I love my wife,” Nate said.

Cam just chuckled. “That is good to know, but you should tell her.”

“I will. In fact I have to go and find her and tell her right now.”

Cam hung up the phone and walked back to Becca. “Is everything set?” she asked.

“Yes, it is. But I need ten more minutes on the site. I have to do some more negotiating with Tomas to get the sidewalk fixed in front of his grocery store, and he can be stubborn.”

“Can he be?”

“Yes. Normally I make Justin do this kind of thing
but since he's still flying back and forth from New York…”

“You have to do it. Can I help? Tomas and I got along pretty well.”

“Of course you did. You are a beautiful woman, something that Tomas can't resist,” he said. Which was a good argument for using her to help get Tomas to agree to close one door of the store early. “Actually, if you don't mind just standing next to me and smiling at him I think it would help.”

Becca laughed. “I'm arm candy?”

“Yes, you are, and very distracting arm candy, too,” he said, bending down to kiss her. He didn't want to admit it to himself but having Becca by his side made him happier than he'd ever been in his life.

B
ecca changed Ty into his cutest outfit and then sat on the bed. What the heck was she doing? She knew it was past time to tell Cam that she was tired of living in limbo and wanted to stay here with him forever.

Ty babbled his sweet baby talk at her and she looked down at him. The resemblance to Cam was striking.

“Hungee, mama.”

“Hungry,” she said, gently correcting him. She opened a package of baby carrots and handed him one to chew on. Then she finished getting his bag ready for their trip to Nate's house tonight.

When she was done, she smiled at Ty. “Are you ready to go?”

“Go,” he said, nodding at her.

She slung his bag over her shoulder and then bent
over to pick him up. She'd dressed carefully for tonight, wearing a pretty sundress and leaving her hair to hang around her shoulders in soft waves. She'd applied her makeup with the precision and care of a runway model. She wanted to look good for Cam.

In the hallway she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She looked the way she always did. Confident and average. Her son was cute as a button, though. In the mirror she didn't seem like the type of person that had always been alone and was afraid to spend the rest of her life that way. But did the mirror reflect her true self?

Cam had pulled the SUV up in the circular drive and waved when he saw them. He was on the phone, probably talking business. Was taking time out of his day for dinner with Nate going to mean he had to work later?

She hoped not. He'd promised her some time together alone. And she was going to insist that he keep that promise.

Yeah, right. That was never going to happen. She didn't have the kind of courage it would take to blurt out something like that. She'd told Cam she loved him before, and it had backfired…big time. She was going to just keep biding her time until she couldn't keep quiet any longer.

And it was torture. Because when Cam smiled at her, she hoped that he would always look at her that way. And realizing he might not hurt worse than anything she'd experienced since her mom died.

Once they'd strapped Ty into the car seat, Cam turned to her. “You okay?” he asked.

“Yes, why?”

“You looked sad just then,” he said.

“I was just thinking about my mom.”

He gave her a hug. “I'm sorry. Do you worry about leaving Ty alone?”

He had no idea how big a worry that was. “I…I really don't have any close friends.”

“You have me,” he said, gently stroking her cheek.

“We have to talk, Cam,” she said.

“I know that we do, but that was Nate telling me not to be late.”

“I guess family comes first,” she said.

“Yes, it does,” he replied. “Oh.”

“Becca?”

“Yes?”

“You and Ty are family, too.” He closed Ty's door and rested his arms on the SUV, trapping her between his body and the vehicle.

He leaned in and kissed her firmly on the mouth, his chest rubbing over hers. She shivered with awareness as his mouth moved to her ear.

“I can't wait until we are alone later tonight,” he said in his low, raspy voice.

“Me either,” she admitted. He kissed her again before opening her door and helping her into the car.

She watched him walk around to the driver's side. The bond between them was growing much stronger,
and she couldn't help but hope that this time Cam was going to be hers forever.

Being with Cam felt like home. It was a warm feeling, and she hadn't experienced anything this wonderful since she'd given birth to Ty.

 

Dinner was a lot of fun and kind of relaxing. They'd ended up playing Dance Dance Revolution. Which may not have been fair, considering that Jen was a professional dancer. But it had been a riot watching Nate, a former baseball player, trying to keep up with his wife and, surprisingly, with Cam. Jen shouldn't have been surprised that Cam knew how to move his body, but she was. She kept learning more about him, and sometimes it made her feel a little silly that she'd told him she loved him back before she'd had Ty when it was so clear now that she'd never known him.

Jen and Nate waved goodbye to Cam and Becca as they walked down the circle drive to their car. Ty was nestled on her shoulder, happily sleeping. He'd played hard with Riley, Jen's nephew, until Ty suddenly just sat down next to the couch and fell asleep.

She rubbed her hand over her little boy's sleeping head as Cam opened the back door for her to put him in his car seat. The last thing she wanted was to set him in the seat, but she knew safety came first.

She buckled him in and then turned to look at Cam. The resemblance between him and Nate was uncanny, but more than that the bond between the brothers was very strong. Family was such a huge part of who these men were.

And tonight had brought into sharp relief how selfish she'd been to keep Ty to herself for so long. But when Nate had held her little boy, she knew that he was happy to have Ty as his nephew, and that she would be forgiven.

A warm spring breeze stirred the air as Cam gave her a hug. “Thank you for a great night.”

“It was pretty special for me, too. Riley was so good with Ty. I was worried about that.”

“Me, too,” Cam admitted. “I think I watched them like hawks for the first hour we were there before I finally relaxed.”

“Cam, there is something I have to tell you.”

“Good, because there is something I want to ask you. I hope we are on the same track,” he said.

Becca wrapped her arms around his lean waist and rested her head over his heart for a really long minute. She wanted to stay right here in his arms for the rest of her life. Too bad that wasn't a possibility.

She inhaled deeply so that the masculine scent of him was imbedded in her senses and then stepped back. “I can't wait to hear what you have to say. I think that you and I are so much stronger this time.”

“Me, too,” he said. He closed Ty's door and opened hers. “We can talk more when we get home.”

Home. She hadn't felt that way about anyplace but Garden City before, and now she was coming to realize that Ty and Cam were her home.

She sighed.

If everything worked out the way she secretly hoped, one day soon she'd be sharing major decisions with Cam
about everything, not just Ty. And if it didn't—well, she'd continue moving along making choices. Some of them would be really good ones and others would be mistakes. And some of the mistakes, she thought, glancing back to make sure Ty was okay, would turn out to be the best choices she ever could have made.

“That was a big sigh,” Cam said. “Are you worried because you didn't keep up with me during the game?”

“Not at all,” she said. “I'm worried about where we are heading.”

“Why?” he asked. “We're getting on well. Ty is adjusting. I think things are fine the way they are.”

She shrugged, then realized he couldn't see her gesture, since he was driving. She had to respond but what would she say? “The more stuff we do together as a family…the more I wish we were a real one.”

“We are a real one. You're Ty's mom and I'm his dad. Doesn't get more real than that,” Cam said.

“That's not what I meant,” she said. “I want us to be more than that. I think I told you I never knew my dad, but I created this image in my head of what would be the perfect family.”

“What was it like?” he asked.

Like us,
she thought, but didn't say that out loud. “It was a mom and dad who cared about each other and who loved me.”

“I wanted that, too.”

“Didn't you have it?” she asked.

“Not from my mom. She might have loved me, but I always felt that I was wanting in her eyes.”

“I'm sorry, Cam.”

“Don't be. Childhood isn't perfect for anyone. Haven't you found that out?”

She nodded. “But I want to do whatever I can to make sure that Ty's is.”

He glanced over at her. “Me, too.”

“I think you are a very good mother,” he said, smiling over at her. He pulled into the garage at their home. He parked the car and got Ty out of the back. He was sleeping as usual, and Becca followed behind Cam as he took Ty inside and put him to bed.

She was glad he thought she was a good mom but realized she wanted him to think about her as a woman.

She went into the kitchen and took down two snifters from the shelf. She put in a couple of ice cubes and filled them with Baileys before heading back into the living room.

“I'm glad you got us drinks.”

“No problem. I have something I want to talk to you about,” she said.

“Okay. I wanted to speak to you, too.”

She took a deep breath and a big sip of her drink. It burned because she'd swallowed too much, and she felt like an idiot when she started coughing.

Cam patted her on the back. “Are you okay?”

“Yes. I am okay. In fact, I'm better than okay. Cam, I…”

She put her glass down and then put her hand on his knee. “I love you and I want us to live together as man and wife.”

 

Cam didn't know what to say. Love. Of course she'd have to say the one thing that he couldn't give her. She couldn't ask for diamonds or pearls or priceless works of art. She had to ask for something ephemeral.

“I'm flattered, Becca. I think this time you really do love me,” he said.

“I do, too,” she said. “I've known it for a while now.”

“I'm so glad. I think we are making a very fine family with you and me and Ty. I was planning to ask you to make this move permanent and to live with me for the rest of our lives.”

“I think it's a sign of how close we've become that we were on the same page,” she said. Her smile was so bright that he almost didn't want to correct her. But he knew he wasn't going to marry her, and she needed to know that.

“Almost the same page, Becca. I'm not talking about marriage. It's not really for me. My dad was trapped in a loveless match with my mother, and I don't want to mess up what we have by making the same mistake as he did.”

“What?”

“We both know you heard me. I'm not sure of us, Becca. Few people know this, but my parents married because my mom was pregnant with me. Having me and my brothers didn't make them any happier together. I don't want to repeat my dad's mistakes.”

“I'm not sure what you want from me,” she said.

“I want you to move into the master bedroom with me and I want us to raise Ty together.”

She shook her head. “I don't think that will work for me.”

“Why not?”

“I want more kids, Cam. I want Ty to have siblings. Plus your brothers are both married. I don't want to be the only live-in lover. I want to be your wife.”

“I'm not going to get married to please you, Becca. I know myself well enough—”

“I don't think you do. I've never met a man more ready for marriage than you. You are just being stubborn because you are afraid to change your personal life.”

“I am not.”

“You are too. You are so foolish you can't even see that it's already been changed by me and Ty.”

“I have already realized that. Why else do you think I offered…it doesn't matter,” he said. “I take it your answer is no?”

She shook her head as tears started to roll down her face. “What was the question?”

“Live with me as we have been but move into my bedroom.”

“How is this different from being your mistress?”

“We have a son,” he said.

“Which is all the more reason I should be your wife, not your mistress. So I guess my answer
is
no.”

“That's it, then. Nothing more to say.”

He stood up and walked out of the house. She just watched him leave, knowing that she was out of words.
She couldn't talk him into loving her—not two years ago and certainly not now.

Becca watched Cam walk away and tried to keep from sobbing out loud. She tried to tell herself that it was for the best. That they would never have been able to work as a couple. But she couldn't help remembering the flowers he'd sent her. And the sweet way he'd taken Ty with him so she could work.

It was the warmth of her tears on her own cheeks that made her realize that she was crying. She hadn't meant to. She never thought she'd cry over Cam. She hadn't the first time they'd parted.

She wrapped both arms around her waist and sank down on the couch. It was amazing to her that she'd lost Cam in the same way she had before. She'd been searching for someone to be the missing link in her family. And she knew she'd found the right man in Cam. Was it because of Ty and the circumstances of his birth that Cam couldn't accept that they were meant to be together? She thought Cam had forgiven her for keeping the child a secret.

Perhaps it was something he'd never forgive. She tried to equate it with something that Cam had done to her, but could find nothing. Maybe he'd never really be able to forgive her.

She wished she could go back in time and let him know about Ty, but there was no use wishing for a chance to redo the past. That would never happen. She knew she had to move on. But she loved Cam. So walking away from him wasn't an option. Or was it?
She was always going to love him and she was going to be in his life as Ty's mom until she died.

If Cam had wanted to make her pay for keeping Ty a secret for eighteen months of his life, he couldn't have designed a better punishment than this. Having to see the man she loved and to know that she couldn't ever have him.

She got to her feet and went into Ty's bedroom. She stood over Ty's bed and remembered seeing Cam do the same thing when he'd realized that Ty was his son.

She tried to make excuses for Cam because she didn't want to spend the rest of her life without him. She hoped he was simply overwhelmed. She'd had nine months, give or take, to get used to the idea of being a mom. He'd had a couple weeks.