Made for Marriage Page 17

  She shook her head, wanting to deny it because it sounded so incredibly callous.

  “I can see in your eyes that you want to negotiate,” he said. “And if I loved you less, Callie…maybe I could.”

  “Noah, I—”

  “I’ve been hammered in the past,” he said quietly and came around the bed. “And honestly, I didn’t think I’d ever want to take a chance at feeling this way. I didn’t think I’d ever want to share my life with someone again…or trust someone…or maybe get married again. But if I learned anything from those years with my ex-wife, it was that I intend on living the rest of my life true to myself. That’s what I’m trying to do here.” He took a deep breath. “And I can’t be your lover if that’s all it’s ever going to be.”

  Callie couldn’t move. “I don’t know what to say to you.”

  He stood barely feet in front of her. “Well, when you figure it out, maybe you can let me know.”

  “Don’t leave like this,” she said shakily. “Not after we’ve…” She looked at the bed and the rumpled bedclothes.

  “Sex isn’t enough for me,” he said. “Not even incredible sex.” He rattled his keys impatiently. “I told you I couldn’t and wouldn’t enter into something casual. My kids deserve better…and frankly, so do I.” He headed for the door and once there, turned back to face her. “And, Callie, so do you.”

  It took about thirty seconds for her feet to work. By then she’d already heard the front door close.

  I’m losing him.

  So do something.

  Callie pushed determination into her legs and followed him. When she swung the front screen door wide she saw two things—Lily’s bicycle left haphazardly at the bottom of the stairs and Lily standing by the bottom step, glaring up at her father who stood on the porch.

  She looked like thunder. “Great,” she said when she saw Callie. “This is just great.”

  “It’s nothing to do with you, Lily,” Noah said quietly.

  “Ha.” She rolled her green eyes. “It will be when it turns to crap. Adults can’t get anything right.” She crossed her arms. “It always turns to crap. Always. Look at Maddy’s stepfather. And my mother.” She made a pained, huffing sound. “She didn’t hang around.” She gave Callie a searing, accusing look. “And this will be the same.”

  Callie wanted to assure the teenager that it wouldn’t. But the words got stranded on the end of her tongue.

  “How about you move your bike to the truck and I’ll take you home?” Noah said.

  Lily’s mouth pursed. “I came to see Samson,” she said hotly. “See—it’s starting already. You guys had a fight and now I have to do what you want.”

  “We haven’t fought,” Callie heard herself deny.

  Lily’s brows snapped up. “Yeah, right.” She pointed to her father. “He comes out and slams the door and you come out after. That’s a fight. I’m not a little kid, you know. So go ahead and fight—see if I care.”

  She turned around and raced toward the stables. Noah took the steps to go after her but Callie called him back.

  “Let me go,” Callie offered. “I’ll talk with her. You know, girl to woman.” She pulled on her boots near the door and headed toward the stables.

  Callie found Lily by the fence in the yard behind the stables. Samson was with her, butting his whiskery chin against Lily’s hand as he searched for morsels of carrot. As she watched them together she saw the bond forming between the teenager and the lovable gelding. It made her remember the early days of her relationship with Indiana and how sixteen years later they were still together.

  “He’s very attached to you,” she said to Lily as she approached.

  Lily shrugged. “He’s a good horse.” She stroked his neck. “Maybe I’ll get to have a horse of my own one day.”

  Callie reached the fence and laid one boot on the bottom rung. “I’m sure you will. Lily, about your dad and me. I want to explain—”

  “I think my dad loves you,” Lily said unexpectedly.

  Callie blinked away the heat in her eyes. “I know he does.”

  Lily took a deep breath. “So…do you love him?”

  Callie felt the weight of admission grasp her shoulders with two hands. She wasn’t about to deny it. She wouldn’t dishonor what she had shared with Noah by doing that. “Yes…very much.”

  Lily’s jaw clenched with emotion. “But what if it doesn’t work out?”

  Callie put her arms around Lily’s thin shoulders and experienced a fierce burst of protectiveness inside her chest. “What if it does?”

  Lily swallowed hard and flashed defiant eyes at her as she pulled away. “You don’t know that. People leave all the time.”

  “Not all people,” Callie assured her.

  Lily shrugged but Callie wasn’t fooled. She was in tremendous pain.

  “Yeah, well, I know Dad said I could come back here for lessons, but I think I’ll stick with Janelle.” Lily lifted her chin, patted Samson one more time and pushed herself away from the fence. “She’s a pretty good teacher after all. And she’s got way better horses than you.”

  She took off and Callie gave her a lead of fifty feet before following. When she reached Noah, Lily was already tucked inside the truck with her bicycle in the back.

  Another car had turned into the driveway. Her four o’clock appointment.

  “I’ll call you,” he said quietly.

  “Sure. Noah…” Her words trailed and she waited for him to respond.

  He did. “I’m trying to give you space, Callie. I’m trying to understand everything you’ve been through and how hard it is for you to trust me, to trust us. But at some point you’re going to have to meet me halfway. When you’re ready for that, give me a call.”

  He walked off. There was no touch. No kiss. Only the sound of his truck disappearing over the gravel as he drove off.

  Halfway. She was still thinking about his words the following afternoon. And trust. It didn’t take a genius to figure the two things went hand in hand. Callie left Joe in charge of bedding the horses down for the night and headed into Bellandale. She stopped at a popular Mexican restaurant and ordered takeout, then drove back toward Crystal Point. By the time she pulled up outside Noah’s house it was past five o’clock. An unfamiliar flashy-looking blue car was out front, parked next to Noah’s truck.

  Harry came off his usual spot on the porch and ambled toward her as she unloaded the plastic carry bags containing the food. She was a few steps from the porch when the front opened and Officer Cameron Jakowski stepped outside.

  He flashed a too-brilliant smile when he saw her. “Hey, Callie.”

  “Hi. Is Noah—”

  “On the phone,” he supplied, rattling his keys. “Hey, I was going to call you.”

  He was? For what? “Really?”

  “I have some news about your recent entanglement with the law.” He was smiling and she relaxed.

  Apparently the men who’d rammed her trailer had pleaded guilty and were due for a hearing in front of the local magistrate. Cameron suspected they’d get a suspended sentence, but Callie hoped it would at least be enough to stop them from doing anything that stupid again. She told him her insurance had covered the repairs to her trailer.

  She said goodbye to Cameron and waited until he’d driven off before she headed inside the house. She could hear Noah’s voice and followed the sound until she reached the kitchen. He stood by the counter and had his back to her, the telephone cradled against his ear. He still wore his work clothes and the perfectly tailored chinos did little to disguise the body beneath. Callie’s heart hammered behind her ribs just thinking about it.

  He turned immediately and looked surprised to find her in his kitchen. He quickly ended the call. “I didn’t expect
to see you tonight.”

  She held the bags in front of her. “I brought dinner,” she said and placed the bags and her tote on the granite top.

  “Don’t you have a competition tomorrow?”

  Callie nodded. “I do. But I thought dinner might be a good idea.” She tried to sound cheerful. “Where are the kids?”

  “With my mother.”

  Callie looked at the large quantity of food she’d bought. “Oh.”

  “They’ll be home in an hour.”

  “And Lily?”

  He didn’t move. He didn’t break eye contact. “At Maddy’s, as usual.”

  Callie was concerned for his daughter. “Is she okay?”

  “She’s quiet,” he replied. “But Lily gets like that.”

  Callie took a couple of steps toward him. “She was upset the other day. I tried to talk with her…but I don’t know if I got through. She said she didn’t want to come back to Sandhills.”

  “Lily doesn’t know what she wants.” He pushed himself away from the counter. “She likes you but doesn’t want to admit it.”

  The irony in his words weren’t missed. Hadn’t he said the same thing about their relationship only yesterday? She’d come to his house to talk, to explain. It was time to open up.

  She pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. “Halfway.”

  “What?”

  “That’s why I’m here. Yesterday you said I needed to meet you halfway. So, I’m here.” She drew in a breath. “Halfway.”

  “Callie, I—”

  “You know, all my life I’ve pretty much done what I wanted,” she said quietly. “I left school at seventeen—I didn’t even finish senior year. I wanted to ride. I wanted to be with Craig. And nothing could have stopped me from realizing my dream. Looking back, I was quite self-indulgent. But then I got pregnant and my life changed. Suddenly it wasn’t just about me.”

  “Kids do change your priorities.”

  Callie nodded. “And I wanted the baby. Having Ryan was the most incredible gift. Even though he only lived for two days I will treasure those moments forever.”

  “You should, Callie,” he said, with such gentleness. “You should celebrate his life.”

  “And get on with my own, is that what you mean?” She sighed heavily. “I want to. And I am trying. Despite how it might seem, I have accepted the fact I’ll probably never have children. I know people can live full and meaningful lives without having kids.”

  “But?”

  Moisture sprang into her eyes. “But I met you. And you have these incredible children who look at me with such…hope.” Tears hovered on her lashes. “I know what they want. I know what they need. And I certainly know what they deserve. But because of Ryan…because I feel so much hurt…I don’t know if I could ever give it to them. I don’t know if I could ever feel what they would need me to feel.”

  He looked at her in that way no one else ever had. “Because you didn’t carry them? Because you didn’t give birth to them?”

  She nodded, ashamed of her feelings but unable to deny the truth of them. “Partly, yes.”

  He stepped closer, bridging the gap. “Do you really think genetics make a parent, Callie?”

  She shrugged, without words, without voice.

  “What about all the adopted kids out there, the fostered kids, the babies born to a surrogate—do you think their parents love them less because they carry different blood?” His eyes never left hers. “Blood doesn’t make you a parent.”

  “I know it sounds…selfish. It sounds self-absorbed and I’m ashamed to have these kinds of feelings. But, Noah, you have four children who—”

  “One,” he said quietly, silencing her immediately. “I have one child.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Noah saw her shock and felt the heaviness of his admittance crush right down between his shoulder blades.

  “What?”

  “I have one biological child,” he said with emphasis. “I have two who I know definitely aren’t mine, another who might not be.”

  “But Lily—”

  “Is mine,” he said. “The twins, no…Jamie, I’m not sure.”

  She looked staggered by his admission and he couldn’t blame her. “But you love them so much,” she whispered incredulously.

  He nodded and fought the lump of emotion that suddenly formed in his throat. “Of course I do. They are mine, Callie, despite how they were conceived. That’s what I’m trying to say to you—it doesn’t matter how they came into the world. What matters is how they are raised, nurtured, loved.”

  She nodded and he hoped she believed him. He loved her so much and wanted to share his life with her and marry her as soon as she was ready. He wanted to ask her now. He wanted to drop to his knees and worship her and beg her to become his wife. But he knew they could only have that if she was prepared to accept his children as her own.

  “And you’re sure the twins aren’t yours?”

  “Yeah. Margaret took off to Paris to visit her mother and when she came back announced she was pregnant with twins. I knew straight away they weren’t mine.”

  “You did?”

  “I’d stopped sleeping with her a long time before. When I suspected she was cheating,” he admitted, “I stuck it out for as long as I could for the kids. But I knew the day would come when we’d split. Margaret’s moods were unpredictable. Looking back I’m certain she suffered from some kind of depression.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I said I wanted a divorce. I was prepared to let her have the house, but I demanded joint custody.” He moved to the table and pulled out a chair. “But instead she walked out after the twins were born. I think she knew, on some level, that leaving them was the best thing she could do for them. She just didn’t want them.”

  “And Jamie?”

  He sat down. “She told me the morning she left. That she wasn’t sure if he was my son.”

  “You must have been devastated.” Callie grabbed his hand and held on tight.

  He nodded, remembering the shock and disbelief he’d experienced. “For about ten seconds I thought I’d been robbed of my son. But that feeling didn’t last. He’s my child in every way that counts. Just as the twins are.”

  “Does anyone know?”

  “Cameron knows. My parents. Evie. And you.”

  “Do you think you’ll ever tell them?”

  He shrugged. “I’m not sure. Perhaps when they’re older and can comprehend what it means.”

  He’d thought about it. Wondered how he would ever broach the subject with them.

  “They’ll understand,” she said softly. “They love you.”

  “And that’s really all it takes, Callie.”

  Callie knew he was right. And when the kids returned home a little while later and raced toward her with hugs full of unbridled excitement she couldn’t control the urge to hug them back. Noah’s parents stayed for dinner of reheated fajitas, enchiladas and refried beans, and it was such a delightfully animated and loving evening Callie was tempted to ask Noah to go and collect Lily so she could be part of it.

  He was an amazing man. He cherished children that weren’t his own. But Craig hadn’t wanted his own child.

  How could I have loved two men who were so very different?

  Callie knew she had to let go of her hurt over Craig. And strangely, as though she’d willed it from sheer thought, her anger, the bitterness she’d clung onto, drifted off.

  I don’t hate Craig anymore.

  It felt good to release all the bad feelings that had been weighing her down. And to know she could love again…to know she did love again…filled her with an extraordinary sense of peace. But Callie knew she had
one more thing to do. One more hurdle to take. The hardest thing of all was ahead of her. It was something she had to do before she could completely let herself love and be loved.

  I have to say goodbye to Ryan.

  And the only place she could do that was in California.

  The following day Callie called her mother, booked her flight for Wednesday evening, and arranged for Joe to stay at the farm for the time she would be away.

  She hadn’t stayed at Noah’s the previous night. Instead, she’d gone home and stared at the ceiling. She hadn’t told him of her plans. She was going to his home on Monday night and she would explain it to him. And she prayed he would understand.

  On Monday afternoon Angela Spears arrived with Maddy. The young girl flew from the Lexus with lightning speed and showed Callie her cast. There was no lesson for Maddy, but she wanted to pet Sunshine and spend time with the horses.

  Both women were surprised to see Noah’s truck pull into the driveway and park beside Angela’s Lexus.

  The kids jumped out, headed straight for Callie and hugged her tightly. Hayley grabbed her hand and Angela didn’t miss a thing.

  “Goodness, you’re popular,” she said good-humoredly and looked toward Noah. “With everyone.”

  Callie blushed and turned her attention to the man who stood smiling. “I didn’t expect you this afternoon. Are we still on for tonight?”

  He nodded. “Of course. I’m here to pick up Lily,” he said. “Is she with that horse?”

  Callie shook her head. “Lily’s not here.”

  He frowned. “What do you mean, she’s not here?” His gaze snapped toward Angela. “She told me this morning that you’d bring her here this afternoon so I could pick her up.”

  Angela’s face prickled with concern. “I haven’t seen Lily since yesterday.”

  Callie looked at Noah. She saw the alarm in his eyes. “I’m sure she’s somewhere close,” Callie said quickly. “Perhaps she’s with Evie.”