Something About Joe (20 page)

She longed to fling herself into his arms
and beg Joe to love Mitchell, to love her. But she steeled herself
to stop. He’d told Mitchell he couldn’t be his daddy.

She tried to
don the composure she put on like a coat when she had to manage
boardroom deals, but it was strangely elusive. Love wasn’t as easy
to manage as a corporate deal. “It’s just not going to work out for
us.” Her voice wasn’t as steady as she’d hoped.

The
colo
r flooded back into Joe’s face and he
jumped up from the chair. “What the hell’s going on here, Allison?
One minute you’re on and the next you’re not.”

Allison
flushed. She knew he was thinking about her passionate response on
the beach, how only a short time ago she had told him she was
looking forward to making love with him again.

But how could she possibly explain the
complexity of her feelings so he would understand? He’d never had
to endure the pain of being unwanted. His family wanted him. All
she wanted was the same for her son. No matter the cost to
herself.

Joe took a
stride toward
her. He gripped her by the
shoulders so she was forced to look upward. “I don’t get you,” he
said. “What gives?”

She shook
her head. “I just want to finish it. There’s no point
in—”

At that
moment the doctor returned to the ward. Allison stepped back from
Joe, shaking his hands from her shoulders. She found herself
rubbing the palm of her left hand with her right thumb so hard it
hurt, something she always did when she was particularly
stressed.

The doctor
examined Mitchell and took his temperature again, then smiled at
Allison. “Mitchell’s temperature is quite normal now,” she said.
“You can take him home to his own bed—and you to yours.”

T
he doctor walked away and Joe
was left with Allison and Mitchell. Allison’s hair was a tangled
mess and her eyes were smudged with makeup. She looked like she’d
been crying. Why? But her mouth was set in a tight, stubborn line
and she wouldn’t meet his eyes.

What was her
problem? A wave of frustration rushed through him. One minute she
was hot and passionate, the next icy and pushing him away from her.
Did a relationship with Allison mean never knowing where he stood?
No matter how he loved her, could he live his life like
that?

She spoke
again in a tight, clipped voice. “Thanks for being here, Joe. I’ll
be all right to take Mitchell home now.”

Joe stared
at her. She was dismissing him the way she’d dismissed Katie. What
would the boss lady do next? Phone for a cab? Pack him off home
like a good little nanny?

He’d had enough.

Joe reached into his pocket and pulled
Allison’s car keys from his pocket. He tossed them to her.
Startled, she missed the catch and fumbled for them on the floor.
He bent down to pick them up for her. She reached for the keys at
the same time as he did and their hands grazed. She snatched hers
back, as if she didn’t want to be contaminated by his touch. His
heart hardened.

“
You want to
break up? That’s fine by me. I’m out of here,” he said. He turned
on his heel and marched out of the hospital ward. He didn’t look
back.

A
llison watched him go.
Joe
, she
called in her heart,
Joe!
She wanted desperately to
run after him and call him back to beg him to stay with her, to
stay with her forever.

But what was
the point? Continuing a relationship with Joe would only lead to
more heartbreak. Heartbreak for herself and, more importantly,
heartbreak and pain for Mitchell.

Allison
picked Mitchell up from the cot and hugged him close. She nestled
into Joe’s jacket, breathing in the warm, familiar smell of
him.

She loved
Joe. She hadn’t known him long, but she knew she loved him as
surely as if she’d known him for years. This was a forever kind of
love.

But she
couldn’t have him. Pain seared through her heart as she truly
recognized the depth and breath of her loss, and she sobbed out his
name.

CHAPTER TEN

Late
morning sunshine slanting
through Mitchell’s undrawn curtains shone on Allison’s face. She
woke up, stiff and uncomfortable, in the small folding bed she’d
dragged into her son’s room so she could sleep beside his
cot.

Something else had woken her up too. A loud,
insistent banging on her front door.

Joe!

Sudden joy
flooded her heart. He’d come to see her. Despite all her resolves
of the night before, her heart sang at the thought of being with
him. It had been like that from the start—her fighting her
attraction to him, but unable to resist when she saw
him.

She’d been
so tired and emotional last night. Surely he must care about
Mitchell—and about her. Maybe she’d made a tremendous
mistake.

She didn’t
bother to pull on her dressing gown. Her nightie revealed less than
the dress she’d worn the night before. Even if it didn’t, she
wouldn’t have covered herself before him. Not any more.

Mitchell
still slept, out to the count with exhaustion. In bare feet,
Allison ran down the stairs and flung open the door. Only to gasp
in disbelief.

It wasn’t
Joe standing in the doorway almost dwarfed by the enormous stuffed
elephant he was carrying.

It was her ex-husband, Peter.

Peter stood
there, tall and
lean, dressed in neatly
pressed chinos and an ice-blue polo shirt the same shade as his
eyes. Reeling with shock, all Allison could do was stare at him,
her mind blank. She was unable to comprehend that her ex-husband
was standing there on her doorstep, when he had never before come
to this house.

“Aren’t you going to invite me in?” Peter
asked, already stepping over the threshold, the large plush toy
held awkwardly in front of him like a shield. He looked past her
and into the house. “Have you got company?”

“
No,” said
Allison, annoyed at his presumption he could march into her home
with such ease, but too confounded by his presence to express
it.

She felt
vulnerable in her nightdress and she crossed her arms across her
chest. “What are you doing here?”

“Visiting my son. And his mother. If that’s
okay with you, of course.”

With his
ginger hair and sharp, restless face it wasn’t the first time that
her ex-husband had reminded Allison of a fox. An attractive,
intelligent fox. It was his intellect that had attracted her when
they’d first started working together.

Allison closed the door and followed Peter
into her living room, still trying to seek an explanation in her
befuddled brain as to why he was here. She shivered. Peter wasn’t a
person given to impulse.

She’d left a cardigan draped over a chair.
She put it on, buttoning it all the way up.

Peter looked
around the room, his eyes narrowed, as if calculating its worth.
“Nice place,” he said. He came to rest under the pretty watercolor
in its gilt frame that had pride of place on the wall. “You must
have paid top dollar for this.”

Anger pulsed
through her. “I bought it at a garage sale for next to nothing, if
you must know.”

He peered
closely at it.
“It looks valuable to me.
But then you always were resourceful.”

“
I’ve had to
be with all the debts you’ve left me,” she said.

If it
weren’t for her intense desire for Mitchell to know his father, she
would have asked Peter to leave. Right then.

Then Peter
laughed, and his face was transformed from foxy calculation to the
easy charm that had won her over in the first place, and had
blinded her to his manipulative and controlling nature.

“Aah, Allison, you’re not still holding that
against me, are you?”

“You’re damn right I am.”

“
C’mon,” he
cajoled her. “You know gambling is an illness. I couldn’t help
it.”

She gritted her teeth. “Peter, we’ve gone
over all this before. You lied to me and cheated me.”

Peter’s face
sobered and he looked disconcertingly humble. “I know all that, and
you’re right. But I’ve changed, Allison, that’s why I’m here. I’ve
joined Gamblers Anonymous. Those bad times are behind me
now.”

Allison was too shaken by his words to say
anything.

“I’ve made some terrible mistakes. I know
that now. And I want to make things up to you. To you and to our
son.”

Never before
had Allison heard Peter admit he was wrong. She shivered again.
Something was odd.

“
Give me a
chance. Surely even the worst criminal is given a chance when he
wants to reform.” His tone was pleading and yet there was a note to
his voice that didn’t ring true.

But the
expression in his pale blue eyes, fringed with almost colorless
lashes, seemed genuine enough. She remembered how nice Peter could
be. She’d loved him once.

“How did you know Mitchell was sick?”

“Sick? I didn’t know he was sick.” There was
a panicky edge to his voice that puzzled her.

“
Isn’t that
why you’ve come? Isn’t that why you brought this?” She indicated
the outsize elephant.

She hadn’t yet had a chance to phone Peter’s
parents and tell them about the trip to hospital. So he couldn’t
have found out from them.

“
I bought
the toy at the gas station on the way over. I saw it there and
thought the boy might like it. I didn’t know he was sick. How
serious is it?”

“
Not
serious. A high fever brought on a convulsion. But he’s okay now.
The doctor said he’d be right back to normal.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

The tension
in Peter’s voice surprised Allison. Was it concern for Mitchell?
Maybe, just maybe, her ex-husband was genuine. Perhaps he had
changed; people did when they went to groups like Gambler’s
Anonymous and AA.

Could it be that her prayers were at last
being answered? Maybe Mitchell’s father was finally taking notice
of his son. This was what she had longed for since she’d found out
she was pregnant.

So why wasn’t she turning cartwheels of joy
about it? Why was she still suspicious of his motives?

Peter put
the toy elephant on the sofa. “Allison, don’t you believe me?
Seeing you last night looking so spectacular made me realise
everything that I’d lost.”

Alarmed, Allison moved so the couch was
between them.

Peter
continued.
“I decided to come here to see
if I could get you to change your mind about me.”

“Change my mind? I don’t understand. I’ve
always wanted you to be involved with Mitchell.”

Peter’s pale eyebrows lifted. “Not just
Mitchell. I mean you. Us.”

She shuddered with distaste. “How can you
say that, after the way you treated me?”

“Allison, I told you, I’ve changed. I want
to make amends for past mistakes.”

“We’re divorced.”

“So?”

“
I don’t
know what you’re asking of me.”

“I’ve told you. A second chance. With you.
With Mitchell. Isn’t it best for him to have two parents? His two
natural parents?”

D
read crept around Allison’s
heart. Peter had always known how to get to her. She’d never shared
the details of her childhood as freely as she had with Joe. But
Peter knew how the loss of her own birth mother had affected her
and how far she’d go to protect Mitchell from the kind of pain
she’d endured.

Allison felt overwhelmed with longing for
Joe. For his honesty and forthrightness.

And
yet...
and yet Joe didn’t want to be a
father to Mitchell, and now Peter did.

Her mind was
whirling. “We...
we could consider some
kind of visitation agreement,” she managed to stammer.

Again she longed for Joe, for his strong
arms around her, for his comfort and reassurance.

Peter’s pale eyes were coolly assessing.
“What’s best for Mitchell is for him to be living with both his
parents.”

Peter
flashed an oh-so-charming smile at her that made Allison feel as
though her suspicions were a neurotic over-reaction. It was a
feeling familiar to her during her marriage, and nearly
forgotten.

“I’m not asking you to make a decision now,”
he said. “I’m asking you to think about it. For Mitchell’s
sake.”

She
hesitated. “I don’t know. I—”

“Think about it,” Peter said. “I’ll leave
you to consider what I’ve said.”

For an incredulous moment Allison thought he
was about to leave without seeing Mitchell.

“
Don’t you
want to see Mitchell?”

A frown crossed Peter’s features but was
gone so quickly she thought she must have imagined it. Surely he
hadn’t intended to leave without seeing his son?

“Of course,” he said. “I’ve been wondering
where the little tyke is.”

“Still asleep upstairs. He was very ill. He
was in hospital most of the night.”

Just
then,
a querulous little voice sounded
down the stairs. “Momma!”

“There he is now. Come on.”

Peter picked
up the elephant. He looked awkward holding it. “I hope he likes
this. I had a stuffed elephant when I was a kid, and I really loved
it.”