Keeping Caroline

“Single women raise babies by themselves all the time now.”

Her fingers had turned to ice. She picked up her coffee cup, desperate for the last of the heat from the untouched liquid within. “I can just see it. I put on my support bra and spandex girdle, color my hair platinum-blond and walk into some bar. In between choking on the smoke and wincing at the blaring music, I walk up to some young hottie with big muscles and say ‘Excuse me, but you look genetically sufficient. Would you like to father my child?”’

Matt shoved his hands into his pockets. “‘Genetically sufficient’?”

“You know…tall, broad-shouldered, good teeth.”

“Is that why you picked me? Because I was genetically sufficient?”

“No, I picked you for your hands.” Caroline reached for her husband’s hand. She’d always loved his hands. The long, thick fingers. The calluses on the undersides of his knuckles. The well of his palm that was as soft as Hailey’s behind.

“You have good hands, Matt. Strong and yet gentle. Like the rest of you.” She lifted his hand and hers to her cheek.

“Caroline.” The word shuddered in the dark.

“Stay with me tonight, Matt.” Her heart danced at her forwardness. And her foolishness.

“I can’t.” His shoulders hunched, the muscles hardening. “I have to get on with my life, Caro, before there’s nothing to get on with.”

Get on with his life. Without her. Damn it, it had been more than a year since they’d separated. It shouldn’t hurt so much to realize it was finally over.

Leaning close to her, his big, rough, maddeningly gentle hands stroked the underside of her jaw. Angled her chin up until she couldn’t avoid his gaze. “Caro, we both need to move on.”

“Am I supposed to thank you for cutting me loose?” Bitterness tainted the words even as sorrow filled her eyes with tears again. “For your chivalry, giving me permission to find another man. Hell, practically shoving me into his bed? You’re the only man I’ve ever been with, Matt. The only man I ever wanted. Do you really think it’s so easy to forget—”

Suddenly it struck her.

Oh, God. She was as dizzy as if she’d been caught in a cyclone. She hadn’t forgotten her wedding vows. But maybe Matt’s memory wasn’t so particular. He said they both needed to move on. Had he already taken the first step? Found someone else?

A potent cocktail of fear, jealousy and anger—no, rage—seethed inside her. Hardened her somehow, like blowing sand fused to solid glass.

“Hey.” His grip on her tightened. “You okay?”

The concern in his voice mocked her fury. She fumbled his hand away. The watershed in her eyes clogged her throat. Words were beyond her. The best she could manage as she rushed past him was an undignified snort.

In her tiny office Caroline whisked stacks of waiting bills off the desk, out of the drawers, searching for the papers, a pen. Her hands shook so badly her name was barely legible at the bottom of the divorce decree, next to Matt’s, when she was done.

Blindly she ran up stairs, groping for the handrail. Her toe caught on the edge of a step. Righting herself without slowing, she pounded to the landing and turned right.

There was only one place for her now. Let Matt go looking for his future; she’d already found hers. She fell through the door into the nursery and against the railing of the crib.

Hailey, her sweet Hailey. Her light. Her life. Her baby. Scooping Hailey up, she pressed a kiss to her daughter’s velvet cheek. Despite her attempts to choke them back, the tears broke free. Jagged sobs tore at her throat, left a trail of fire behind in her chest. Tears dampened Hailey’s blanket. When the baby began to fuss, Caroline realized she was holding her too tight.

She loosened her grasp, but too late. Awake now, and picking up on her mother’s distress, the baby let out a thin, sleepy cry.

“Shh,” Caroline murmured, carrying her to the window. Behind her she heard Matt’s slow footsteps in the hall. Desperately, she rocked the simpering baby. “Shh, now.”

As he stepped in the doorway, blocking the hall light, Caroline felt the darkness fall over her shoulder like a physical weight.

“Caroline? Are you all right?”

Shoulders shaking, she fixed her gaze on the night sky. But her focus kept coming back to his reflection in the glass. He stood in the hall outside the nursery, as if the threshold was some fiery impasse.

“I signed your damn papers. They’re downstairs on the desk.”

“You can’t just sign,” he said quietly. “It has to be before a notary.”

She made a strangled sound. “Then we’ll go into town tomorrow. Get them notarized.”

“Caro…” he said, that infuriating concerned sound in his voice. Damn it, he didn’t care about her. Why did he sound as if he did?

He took a step toward her.

“Don’t,” she said. “You don’t have the right. Not anymore.”

In the glass, she watched him come up behind her anyway.

“I’m sorry. I never meant—”

“I don’t want your pity.”

“Hear me out, damn it!”

She flinched at the violence in his voice. The anguish on his face. Standing in the shaft of light angling in from the hallway, he looked like a Roman god. Golden. Righteous.

And ruined.

“I’m sorry I can’t give you what you want. Sorry I can’t be the man you want me to be.”

His apology lit her up like a short fuse. Shifting a fussy Hailey in her arms, Caroline turned to face him.

Confusion washed over his features as he took in the bundle in her arms. “What’s she doing here so late?”

“She lives here.”

His wheaten eyebrows drew together. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. Hailey nuzzled against Caroline, whimpering.