What Mattered Most (16 page)

“Lanie?” John’s voice drifted through her consciousness. She smiled and reached for him. Her hands brushed the reality of warm skin and brought her awake in an instant.

John leaned over the bed, his face close to hers. Her hands, wrapped around his forearms, tingled with the contact. She jerked away and sat up. “I’m awake.”

Strands of her hair clung to her face, and he brushed them behind her ear. “Lisa’s downstairs. Do you want me to ask her to come back?”

She shook her head, ignoring the slight ache along her incision. “No. I’ll be right down. I just need a couple minutes to freshen up.”

He nodded, straightening, his face mask devoid of expression. “Okay. She’s oohing over Sonny Buck anyway. I’ll let her know you’ll be down in a little while.”

“Thanks.” She waited until he left to leave the bed. In the bathroom, she avoided looking at her reflection. There was little she could do to improve her appearance at this point. After brushing her teeth, she exchanged her pajamas for a velour track suit. The pain at her Cesarean scar had faded to a weird numbness, but she still couldn’t zip up any of her jeans.

Barefoot, she went downstairs. The soft sounds of John and Lisa’s conversation drifted from the living room. John had the baby in his arms, and he rose when she entered the room. Smiling, Lisa jumped to her feet and ran to hug her. “Oh, Lanie! It’s so good to see you.”

Uncomfortable with the physical contact, Lanie pulled back. She smiled to cover her discomfort. “You, too. You look wonderful.”

“So do you,” Lisa said, holding Lanie’s hand.

Liar. That was one thing she swore she’d never do again—lie to a recuperating person about their looks. She let Lisa lead her to the couch. Lisa swept her long blonde hair over one shoulder. “The baby is beautiful. You must be so thrilled.”

“Of course.” Her gaze met John’s. He watched with cynical eyes before rising to his feet.

“I’m going to check the mail, so you two can do the girltalk thing.” He settled Sonny into her arms. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Lisa’s bright green gaze followed him from the room. “Oh my God, he’s different.”

Lanie frowned and shifted the drowsy baby to a more comfortable angle. “What do you mean?”

Lisa shrugged, an expression of mild discomfort crossing her face. “Well, before, he was like ‘what baby?’ You wouldn’t have thought he knew you were pregnant. Now, it’s all the man talks about. Casey called him the other night about a case and got a play-by-play of the kid’s sleeping habits.”

Imagining Casey’s glazed expression, Lanie giggled. “He did not. When it comes to the job, John’s the most focused guy I know.”

“I didn’t believe it, either.” Shaking her head, Lisa laughed. “Until I walked in here and couldn’t get him to shut up about the baby. Obviously, you’ve birthed a prodigy, girl.”

“He’s just…a proud father.” The reality of the words made her heart kick. There were no other words to describe John’s attitude toward their child. He was proud. Loving. Involved. The father she’d hoped he would be.

“Hey.” Lisa waved a hand in front of Lanie’s eyes. “Where’d you go?”

Lanie smiled, trying to collect her scattered thoughts and deal with the implications. “Sorry. I was thinking.”

“Ready for that six weeks’ exam, aren’t you?”

“What are you talking about?”

Lisa nudged her arm. “You know. The one where the doctor clears you to have sex again.”

Flustered, Lanie slid her hair behind her ear. “Lisa, believe me, sex is the farthest thing from my mind.”

“Yeah, right.” Her friend looked less than convinced. “I’ve seen y’all when it looked like you wouldn’t even make it off the dance floor.”

Heat burned along Lanie’s cheekbones. Unwilling, she remembered a few of the nights Lisa alluded to. The baby in her arms had been conceived after one of those nights. They’d made it off the dance floor, but not past their foyer. She swallowed hard. “Things are different now.”

Lisa sighed. “I gathered that from the way John looked at you.”

Lanie shot a quick glance in her direction. “What do you mean?”

“Listen, the way he looked at you before was hot, like he was always planning your next lovemaking session. Now…it’s still hot, but it’s different. I guess it’s that whole ‘mother of his child’ thing.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” A curious sense of despondency settled over her.

Lisa didn’t seem to notice. “I mean, before you could tell by the way he watched you that he lusted after you. Now, you can tell by the way he looks at you that he loves you.”

When Lanie reached a seated position at the foot of the exam table, Alexandra Shaw smiled. “Everything looks great. Your recovery is textbook perfect, which I think is wonderful, considering the circumstances.”

Hands clenched in her sheet-draped lap, Lanie forced a smile. “Great.”

“According to your neurologist, your scans look good, too. Still having trouble with numbers?” Alexandra looked up from scribbling on Lanie’s chart.

Lanie nodded. “Yes, and some short-term memory issues. I walk into a room and can’t remember why. Put things down and forget them. The therapist tells me I can relearn the math and that the memory problems usually correct themselves in a few months.” She hoped so anyway. She hated the forgetfulness, the struggles with numbers.

“Would it help to tell you I do the same thing sometimes?” Alexandra placed the chart on the counter. “The memory issues bother you, don’t they?”

“Well, yeah.” Lanie’s laugh was harsh. “What if I go to the grocery story and forget to take the baby out of the basket? Or put his car seat on top of the car and forget to put him in the backseat?”

A wry smile curved Alexandra’s mouth. “You wouldn’t believe how often I hear the same thing from new mothers who haven’t been through what you have. Those are really normal worries, you know.”

Sure they were, but how many new mothers had to have someone else prepare bottles because she couldn’t keep the measurements straight? John never said a word, just prepared twenty-four hours’ worth of bottles every morning. Over the last three weeks, she’d slowly taken on more of the baby’s care, spent more time with him, surrendered more of her heart to him. Maybe that explained why her fears and insecurities had increased.

“Do you have any other questions?” Alexandra made another note in the file.

“No.” Lanie twisted her fingers together.

“Well, you’re clear to resume all of your regular activities. I think you’re wise to take the extended leave from work, but around the house, as long as you’re careful, nothing is off limits.” She smiled. “And that includes intercourse. What method of birth control are you interested in?”

Lanie swallowed. “That’s really not an issue. Sex is the last thing on my mind, believe me.”

Alexandra laughed. “Now where have I heard that before? Yes, taking care of a newborn is exhausting, but you will want to have sex again one day. Make sure you use some type of birth control, Lanie. A lot of women experience an increase in fertility following the birth of a baby.”

And she’d gotten pregnant this time despite the extreme care she and John had taken. Good thing she had no plans to sleep with him again. Alexandra didn’t need to know that, though. She murmured some reply that seemed to placate the doctor, and finally she was free to go.

She paused in the doorway to the waiting room. John, his long frame folded into a chair, garnered more than his share of attention. Although she’d been forced to have him drive her to the appointment, she’d drawn the line at having him in the exam room. Now he flipped through an outdated Cosmo magazine, Sonny Buck asleep in the carrier at his feet. Aware of the envious looks the other women in the room sent her way, Lanie crossed to stand before him. She wanted to tell them they had no reason to envy her. “Ready to go?”

He glanced up, a ready smile on his face as he put the magazine aside. “Everything okay?”

Under his white buttondown, the muscles in his back rippled when he bent to pick up the baby. Lanie averted her gaze, focusing on her son’s sleeping face. “Perfect. I have a clean bill of health.”

“That’s great.” He held the office door for her with his spare hand. “You have anything else you want to do before we head home? Shopping? Lunch?”

The simple domesticity of the conversation clutched at her heart, and she covered the yearning with cool irritation. “Just take me home.”

His mouth tightened. “Whatever you want.”

What she wanted was the six feet three inches of pure male sliding into the driver’s seat. Damn it, she wasn’t supposed to think about sex, and she sure wasn’t supposed to think about sex with him. She was a new mother, one who’d gone through two major surgeries—she should be too weak and exhausted to remember what being with him was like. If she had to forget things, why couldn’t she forget that?

Instead memories sprang to life at the oddest times. She watched him lift Sonny Buck with those long-fingered hands and remembered his touch on her skin. He smiled at the baby, and her body tingled with the recollection of his kisses. He napped with his son on his chest, skin to skin, and she recalled sprawling on his chest after they’d exhausted themselves making love.

She stared out the window, the Gulf shore whizzing by. Everyday, with the baby sleeping and the two of them alone in the house, the lingering attraction grew harder to ignore. Forgetting Lisa’s words, her implication that John loved her, was impossible, as was resisting the man who cared for her and her child with such tender dependability. Did she really want to resist him any longer? More important, could she handle the repercussions if she didn’t?

John slowed to pull into the parking lot of the convenience store around the corner from the house. “We’re out of milk. You want anything?”

“No, thanks.” She watched him saunter into the store, jeans hugging his lean hips. A frisson of awareness slid over her nerves. She wanted him, and he’d always wanted her. Lanie rested her cheek on her hand and eyed him through the window. He pulled his wallet from his pocket, flashed the clerk a smile and handed over a bill. She shivered.

A transaction. That’s what their affair had always been. Each had something the other wanted. He lived with her for mutual convenience. Other than the baby, they had no strings between them. No real emotion until she’d gotten pregnant and stupidly allowed herself to fall in love with him. Even dumber was believing he loved her, too. If she’d followed her own rules about not getting emotionally involved, his feelings for Beth wouldn’t have seemed like such a betrayal.

But now her eyes were open. Wanting him was one thing—letting herself have him was quite another. If she took him now, knowing how he felt about the other woman, she had no one else to blame when she got hurt again.

The wind rippled his hair as he walked back to the car. That little curl of desire sent tentacles through her stomach again, but she ignored it. When he smiled at her, she turned her head. She couldn’t break the rules again. The risk was too great.

Once home, she took the sleeping baby from him. With his easy-going nature, Sonny Buck maintained a predictable routine. He woke early, wanting to be fed and changed. He took a long morning nap, woke for lunch, took a second nap, then was alert and playful most of the afternoon and evening. His nighttime feedings had gone from four to two. Soon, Lanie thought, placing the baby in his crib. Soon, she wouldn’t need John in the house anymore. The torment of his presence would be gone.

She’d be safe.

Fidgety, she wandered downstairs and found John in the kitchen, putting away clean dishes. The drapes were open, sunlight bouncing off the waves and into the living areas. She paused, staring at the hallway wall. In the intense light, the paint color seemed off, the texture different. She ran her hand over the wall. “John? Did you repaint this?”

He turned, his brows jerking together. Anguish darkened his eyes. “I had it done. I guess the guy didn’t get an exact match on the paint. It’s where your other bullet went wild and hit the wall.”

“Oh.” Her fingertips slid over the surface, feeling the invisible bumps and ridges of the drywall patch. The horrible sensation of touching wet human skin in the dark rose in her memory, remembered panic choking her.

“Don’t.” John’s hand covered hers, pulling her fingers from the wall. “Don’t think about it.”

Surprised by the strain in his voice, she glanced up at him. He stared at her, his jaw tight, tormented guilt etched into the lines of his face. She’d wanted him to hurt, wanted him to suffer for betraying her, but seeing the raw emotion in his eyes brought no satisfaction. Lanie shook her head. “I have to face it sometime. I’m not going to be a prisoner in my own home. I can’t walk into that bathroom, but I will someday. He took enough from me. I’m not letting him take my home, too.”

Face pale, John flinched. “I’m sorry I put you in that situation. Falconetti was right. I should have known sooner or later he’d come back, that he’d want to get back at me. Touching you was the worst thing I could have done.”

The words stung, and she backed up a step. Her anger directed at Mitchell for the first time, she didn’t quite understand the urge to offer John absolution. “You couldn’t have known—”

“Couldn’t I?” he snarled. “Don’t men like him always end up destroying someone? I saw it happen with my mother. I should have known what Mitchell would do.”

His mother? Struck by how little she really knew of this man, the father of her child, she reached for his arm. “John, what do you mean—”

“I’ve got to get out of here for a while.” He stepped away, her hand falling between them. “I’m going for a walk on the beach. Will you be all right?”

“Yes, but—”

“I won’t be long.” Moving as though pursued by Furies, he left, the glass door sliding closed behind him with a soft hiss.

True to his promise, he stayed gone less than fifteen minutes. Lanie, drawn to the bedroom window, watched him walk back up the beach. His head bent, shoulders hunched, his posture screamed of dejection and pain.

Mitchell had hurt him, too.

She didn’t want to admit it, but John had suffered at Mitchell’s hands, been a victim as well. He’d been placed in the untenable position of choosing between the woman he loved and the woman he felt responsible for, the one carrying his child. Lanie closed her eyes against a spurt of agony. At least the entry team had spared him actually making that decision and spared her the knowledge that he would have chosen Beth over her.

God, she was tired. In the nursery, the baby still slept. She opened her eyes. Outside the glass doors, John climbed the stairs to the deck, moving like an elderly man. He was home, so she could rest without worry. If Sonny needed anything, John would be there.