Keeping Caroline

When Caroline came downstairs, the coffee was ready. He had a mug waiting for her. “Jeb okay?”

“Sound asleep. After asking a million questions about what was wrong with Gem and repeating every bad word she said at least twice, just to make sure he’d heard right. And he still wants to pet Alf.”

“We’ll see,” Matt hedged.

Caroline sipped her coffee and took a seat on the couch. “I figured you’d be gone.”

“You’re the one prone to walking out in the rough spots.”

Her cup froze midway to her lips.

Matt rolled his head back. “Damn, I’m sorry. I don’t know where that came from.”

Arms moving stiffly, she set her cup on the end table. “That’s all right. At least you’re being honest for once.”

After an uncomfortable silence, Matt tried to get the conversation going again. “So what’s the story with Gem?”

“Not much to tell. Gem was removed from her parents’ home for neglect. She went into foster care, but by then she was already pregnant. She’d been picked up for shop-lifting a few times. Nothing major, she’d just gotten in with a bad crowd. She really wants to keep her babies.”

“You think that’s the best thing for them?”

Caroline considered a long time. “I don’t think it’s my decision.”

“But if you could, you’d take care of those kids yourself. And their mother.”

She didn’t deny it. In fact, she smiled.

He shook his head. “You always did take in every stray in the neighborhood.”

“They’re children, not strays.”

“Okay, poor choice of words. But nobody gives a damn about them but you.”

“That’s not true. Savannah cares. And the foster family Gem and her girls are staying with. And the owner of the diner where she works. I’m just one of a dozen people—”

He held up his hand. “I get the point.”

“No.” She lurched to her feet and walked toward him until they were face-to-face. Her eyes shone, fiercely bright with maternal protectiveness. “I don’t think you do.”

“Caroline…” He took a step back. She pursued.

“You’ve forgotten how to care about anyone except yourself and your hostage takers anymore. Forgotten what it’s like to love, and be loved.”

“I haven’t forgotten, Caro,” he said softly.

“Then why don’t you ever show it?” She was nearly shouting.

“Because I just don’t have it in me anymore. I don’t have the heart to watch these kids fall down and scrape their knees and cry when they lose their favorite toy and—”

“And get sick and die?”

He clamped his mouth shut. Took one slow breath through his nose. “I was going to say, ‘and let total strangers pick them up and take them to bars.”’

She turned away. “Sure you were.”

Reaching out, he threaded his fingers through the heavy curtain of hair at her nape to the satin flesh underneath. Her muscles jumped beneath his touch as he massaged out the lumps of tension.

Watching her struggle for control, he realized how much he’d taken away from Caroline over the past few years. And how little he’d given. He’d been selfish to hold on to her so long. Mothering was as natural to her as breathing. It was what she did, who she was. Because of his choices, his fears, she was living a life without the one thing she wanted most—a child.

Seeing her with Jeb and the twins and Gem, it had finally sunk in. If he couldn’t, wouldn’t, give her a child, then he had to let her find someone who would.

The thought of Caroline with another man curdled whatever had been in his stomach. A wave of nausea brought the taste of stale beer to his mouth, but he straightened his shoulders. “I’m a bastard, I know. And I never deserved you. Now I deserve you even less.”

She turned, but he couldn’t bear to break the contact, so he let his hand slide around her neck as she moved.

“What brought that on?” she asked.

“I know you care about the kids you’re taking care of. But it’s not too late for you, you know?”

“Too late for what?”

He rubbed circles with his thumb over the spot where her flesh barely contained her pounding pulse, relishing the feel of life in her. Knowing what he was doing was right, even if it tore him apart. “To have a child of your own.”

“Are you offering your…services?”

“No. I’m too old to raise another baby.”

“You’re thirty-nine. That’s hardly ready for the old folks’ home.”

“You’ve lost track of time. I turned forty two months ago.”

“No excuse. Just admit it. You’re afraid to have a baby.”

Though he had to talk around a lump the size of Baltimore in his throat, he finally admitted the truth. “Yes. I’m afraid to have a baby. After everything we went through with Brad, with the things I see on the street every day, I’m not willing to risk it. But you’ve got time. You could find someone else.”

The suggestion hit her like forty-kiloton blast. The woman she used to be curled inside her, scorched. Devastated. “Is that why you’re really ending this now? So I can have what I want? Or are you just trying to ease your own conscience?”

“I haven’t lost track of time. You’ll be thirty-seven in a few months. Even now you’d be in a high-risk category if you got pregnant. If you don’t find someone soon, it will be too late.”

“How do you know I haven’t found someone already?” The tone was supposed to be jaunty, but it sounded pathetic instead.

“I’ve known you all your life, remember? You wouldn’t break your marriage vows, no matter what I’ve done to you.”

“So you’re letting me go for my own good? So I can go find some young stud to give me what I want.” She laughed shakily. “Maybe I’m too old to raise another husband.”

He smiled. It was a little wan, but it was a smile. “Who says you have to marry the guy?”

“Matt!”