Chapter 20
DEACON WAS BACK IN the morning at nine o’clock on the dot. He leaned against her kitchen counter, wearing jeans and a steel-gray sweater. His hair was still damp from a shower, and she knew his freshly shaven jaw would feel silky smooth under her hand. She still couldn’t believe he was here, standing in her kitchen, a barely-there smile on his face, more in the eyes than the mouth. She’d almost forgotten how he took her breath away. Had tried to forget.
Meanwhile, she wore a baggy T-shirt and pajama pants, looked like she’d just given birth to twins, and was running on three hours of sleep.
“Did you get everything on the menu?” she asked, noting the three paper bags he’d set on the counter.
“A few different kinds of bagels. I wanted you to have a choice.”
“I’m not picky, and I’m always starving.”
“I wasn’t sure about drinks. I would have texted you but I still don’t have your number. We should probably fix that,” he said and smiled.
She laughed softly. “Yeah, we should.” Too bad they hadn’t done so nine months ago. “I’ve got drinks. Do you want something now? Coffee? Water? Soda?”
“Water’s fine.”
“Okay.” She turned, grateful for something to do with her hands. “I just fed them. They dozed off.” She gestured to the crib in the adjoining room.
He went over and stood for a long moment, just looking at them, before coming back. “How was your night?”
“It was good. How was yours?”
“Good.” He laughed softly, leaning back against the counter, hands in his pockets. “Honestly, I didn’t sleep much.”
He took up a lot of room in her tiny kitchen. Not just physically, but the memories, too. She’d been attracted to him months ago. It had been exciting then, a stomach-fluttering, heart-racing exhilaration. Now she felt uncomfortably out of breath.
She came back with two glasses of ice water and handed one to him.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” And weren’t they just so polite and civilized? Nervous and walking on eggshells with each other. Would it have been like this anyway? The first time they visited after saying goodbye. It might have been. Or she might have run to him, jumped in his arms, unafraid or self-conscious to say and show how much she’d missed him.
“My mom’s dying to get her hands on the babies.”
She choked on the sip of water she’d just taken. “You told your mom?”
“I called to check on the girls. She asked how things were going. It was kind of hard to leave out.”
His mom. Of course he’d told her. Of course his mother wanted to meet her grandchildren. Her children’s grandmother. A stranger who’d want to see them and hold them and—
“The girls will be ecstatic. They haven’t been around babies much. Or at all, now that I think about it.”
While Deacon spoke calmly, Clare felt a wave of hysteria growing inside her. She moved away from him to the sink and braced her hands on the edge, struggling for a deep breath. Deacon was here. In her home, just feet away from her babies. Her babies that were half his. She wasn’t ready for this. She’d been getting ready, but… This isn’t what I expected. Not how I planned it.
It was supposed to be a phone call. There was supposed to be some distance. She would drop the bomb about the babies, then he would stumble and stutter and make excuses before saying he needed some time and would call her back. On another call, she would tell him he could keep his wife and his family and that she didn’t expect—or want—anything from him.
But now there was no wife. He wasn’t a liar or a cheater. This man who’d tasted every inch of her body, who for months had been looking for her while she’d assumed he’d lied to her, deceived her. While she’d had his babies and not even told him she was pregnant.
Everything was happening way too fast. She needed just a minute. Just a minute for her mind to catch up to her life. Her nerves and emotions were already frayed and fried from childbirth and lack of sleep. Now she felt like she was unraveling.
She hadn’t considered any of this, including sharing her babies. Would he want to take them home? Would the rest of his family want time with them? A wave of nausea hit her so violently that she was dizzy. Her heart raced, and her fingers trembled where they gripped the edge of the sink. She turned on the faucet and let the cold water run over the inside of her wrist.
“Clare? Hey.”
She heard him move over the pulsing in her ears. And without him even touching her, she felt him behind her.
“Clare.” He said her name just like she remembered. Just like he had when he’d been her friend and lover. A lot had happened since then. She’d been pregnant and given birth. She was a mother now. It was a lifetime ago.
“I’m sorry.” His strong hands came down on her shoulders, and her insides trembled under his touch. “That was a lot to dump on you. Forget all that if it’s too much right now. Shit. Of course it’s too much. I’m an idiot.”
“No. It’s okay. I’m just trying to catch up.”
“So am I.”
Right. Because he hadn’t known, because she hadn’t told him.
“Hey.” His voice was gentle as he turned her to face him. He studied her for several seconds then brushed one finger under her eye. “You look tired.”
“Thanks a lot.”
He gave her a small smile. “You’re beautiful, but I don’t like seeing these bruises under your eyes.”
“Goes with the territory, I guess.” Even with her eyes firmly focused on his shirt, she could feel him looking at her.
“I remember. You must really hate me.”
“What?” She looked up at him then. “No.” She’d tried but never quite gotten there. “I hated myself at first—well, not hated, but was disappointed. That wasn’t my usual, going to bed with someone I barely knew.”
“I know.”
She wondered how he knew, but there were so many questions bombarding her, that one got pushed aside. “Do you hate me? For not telling you?”
“No. I wish I’d known. Wish I’d been there for you, been there when they were born.”
“I’m sorry.” Did she wish he’d been there? In the delivery room? A part of her did. “I was going to tell you, I swear. But you had another family—I thought—and it made more sense to wait until they were born. Then after, I kept thinking, ‘It’ll get easier—’”
A sob built in her chest and continued up into her throat. She told herself it was normal for pregnant women’s emotions to run hot and wild and right on the surface. But she didn’t want to break in front of Deacon. “I’m a little overwhelmed, to say the least. I—” She held her palms out at a loss. “I don’t know what I’m doing half the time.”
Muttering another apology, Deacon pulled her against his chest. She started to resist, but it felt so good, she gave herself a second. Just one, she thought, closing her eyes.
“You’re doing great,” he said, holding her tightly.
“This is the first time I’ve gotten dressed in a week. Please tell me you weren’t performing intricate surgery on Fluffy during that time.” She forced herself out of his arms.
“No.” He laughed. “Absolutely not. I was a zombie. And I like the shirt,” he said, grinning.
She looked down at herself. It was her I’m Nacho Father T-shirt. “Thanks.” Drawing in a shaky breath, she forced her eyes up to his. A baby let out an unhappy wail—Parker, she was pretty sure. At least she was getting better at that. “I was going to bathe them.”
“I can help. I want to,” he added, maybe expecting her to object.
Moments later, they stood shoulder to shoulder in the tiny bathroom, his big hands holding her babies. Of course Connor had held them but just briefly and only when they were wrapped up like burritos and carefully placed in his arms.
Deacon’s big hands expertly cradled; his low crooning voice calmed. The babies, though, not her. His voice and large body so close to hers were anything but calming. His size and scent filled the small room.
“There you go,” he said to Parker. “There now. Oh, no. Don’t make that face. Almost done.”
Deacon wiped a baby washcloth over Parker as he held the tiny body in the warm water with a hand under the baby’s head and neck. His movements were quick but careful and sure. He was good at this. Really good. Better than she was.
“You make it look easy,” she said wistfully.
“I wasn’t at first. You should’ve seen me trying to change my first diaper. I was scared to death. Scared to bathe them. Scared to dress them. My mom and sister were great. My mom would change or diaper one while I tried to follow her motions with the other. I was so bad, I alternated which baby I took so I didn’t do either of them too much damage.”
Clare smiled. “I’m sure you didn’t damage them.”
It was his turn to smile. “Thanks. They’re… Everything. Or they were.”
Because now he had two more.
“Gradually, my mom started stepping back to let me figure out how to handle both of them on my own.” They switched off, and she cuddled Parker as he bathed Patrick. “Do you have any help?”
“My mom came up when they were born and stayed a week. She had to get back to Florida. My dad’s having some tests done.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. He went through chemo a year ago. He’s in remission, but the doctors are worried about a scan he just had.”
“Hopefully, it’s nothing.”
“Yeah.”
He repeated the motions with Patrick, washing his body and head. As he finished, Patrick scrunched his face in protest, and Deacon wrapped him quickly then held him to his chest. “There now. Don’t like to be cold, do you?”
He followed her to the nursery, and she got out two sleepers—one white and one pale blue.
Deacon laid Patrick in the crib and began skillfully putting on a tiny diaper. “Just like riding a bike, huh? Never thought I’d miss changing diapers.”
She dressed one baby while he dressed the other, talking to them the entire time. She watched Deacon’s confident, competent hands wrapping and folding next to her own. She imagined him with his own daughters as babies. A man alone trying to figure things out.
Parker turned his head, dark eyes intent on Deacon’s face. Clare stared in amazement, recalling what she’d read about babies and fathers’ voices.
“It’s like he knows who you are,” she said softly.
“You think so?” Deacon looked at her, his eyes bright with such wonder, wanting it to be true.
“I do.”
With both boys dressed and content for now, they sat on the couch, each holding one baby. Definitely a more manageable ratio.
“Oh, before I forget.” He got out his phone. “Your number?”
She gave it to him, and he sent her a text so she’d have his. “Do you want to see pictures of the girls?”
“Sure.” She was kind of dying to.
“I take a lot, mostly with my phone. That’s a recent picture.”
She stared at the picture of two little girls squatting in a flower bed next to a fat orange cat. They were absolutely identical, with light brown curls that framed cherub faces with rosy cheeks and eyes the same brown as Deacon’s.
Deacon’s girls that he hadn’t told her about. His girls with another woman. Who was she? Where was she?
“That’s Margo. And that’s Maci,” Deacon said, pointing.
“They’re adorable.” The kind of adorable that made strangers stop and stare.
He moved through a few more pictures.
“Which one was sick?”
“Maci.” He swiped to a picture of a beautiful woman holding both girls, and her heart stopped. It was the woman from the newspaper. “That’s—”
“My sister Allison. She moved to Maine for work not long ago, and—” He glanced up, caught the expression on her face.
“That’s the woman I saw in the paper.” She stared at the photo, working to reconcile what she’d felt for so long with what was. “It said your family. It said your wife.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too.”
He hadn’t been married, but still, he hadn’t told her about his girls. Hadn’t shared that essential part of himself. Because she hadn’t meant enough to him to share it with?
“But the girls? Their mother?” She looked up at him, waiting for him to answer the question that hung between them.
“Is not in their life. She never has been.”
“Oh.” She wanted to ask more, but his lips were pressed in a thin line, and when he spoke, his voice was low. There was no missing the anger in it.
He put the phone back in his pocket and took a long, steadying, maybe cleansing breath. He shifted the baby to his legs, laughed when he yawned.
Clare watched Deacon while he watched the baby. His eyes were full of love and wonder, like he’d never seen a baby before.
“I still can’t believe it,” he said. “It was only three years ago, but I forgot how small they are.”
“I can’t believe you have two sets of twins.”
He laughed softly and shook his head. “What are the odds?”
“On my side, pretty good, actually. Fraternal twins is kind of a family thing.” Clare explained her odds to Deacon. “Identical twins are more of a fluke. Something like seven out of one hundred. Could happen to anyone.”
“Right.”
A moment passed, and she wondered if he was thinking about the girls’ mother. He said not in their lives, so was she dead? He would have said so if that were the case, wouldn’t he? Was it a bad breakup? Had she left him? Did he still love her?
She didn’t want to ask, wasn’t sure she wanted to know. But she needed to know. “What about their mother? You said she wasn’t in their life.”
“She’s not.” He didn’t say more, and the look on his face was pained.
“Did she die?”
“No. She never wanted them. She had them and she left.”
“What? I can’t understand that.”
“Neither can I.” His mouth was drawn in a firm line.
There wasn’t just anger. There was hatred as well. Then the look was gone, and his expression changed.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the girls.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I don’t know,” he began, not taking his eyes from the baby. “At first there was your right-here, right-now rule, and it seemed like a lot to get into. Then it didn’t feel…appropriate isn’t quite the word, but I don’t make a habit of talking about them with people I don’t…”
“People you don’t know?” she finished for him.
“Maybe. And maybe I wanted to be just a man for a few days and not Daddy. I know that sounds bad, and I don’t mean it that way. They’re my life. Then I did know you, and I started to tell you, so many times, but I was embarrassed to say that I was choosing to stay away from them those extra days to be with you. Afraid of what you’d think of me. I wish I’d told you. Really wish I’d gotten your number. Things could have been different. I would have been here for you. I hope you know that.”
“That would have been kind of hard,” she said, not that she didn’t believe his sentiment, just pointing out the facts. “Two states, your work. Your life.”
“Hard, yes, but I still would have done it. As much as I could. I know it couldn’t have been easy for you.”
“Because I went on my honeymoon with no groom and came back pregnant? Yeah. Not the best. It was…” She laughed, though there was nothing funny about it. “Not exactly the picture of innocence. And I’m sure enough people thought I was the reason the wedding had been called off.
“It’s okay,” she said, reading his concerned expression. “No one that mattered. I was in Chicago when I found out. I’d taken a new job there, teaching kindergarten. That was the plan—to move there after the wedding.”
“You’re a teacher? I didn’t know that.” He moved Patrick to his shoulder, rocking his little body up and down with a gentle, rhythmic patting on his bottom.
“Yeah. I’d taught fifth grade before that. Anyway, I was let go when they found out I was pregnant.”
“What? They can’t do that.”
She appreciated his outrage on her behalf. “They can, and they did. It was a private school with certain personal standards and a broadly worded bit about moral conduct in my contract. I understood it. I signed it. Never expected to break it.” She shrugged. “Anyway, neither the school nor the parents wanted to explain to their young, impressionable children why or how Ms. Franklin was having a baby when she wasn’t married. And that fact was well known since I walked into class on my first day to a ‘congratulations on your wedding’ party.”
He winced. “That’s awkward.”
“Yeah. It was.” She smiled, surprised she could. But then she’d always been able to smile with Deacon. “Your name’s on the birth certificate,” she blurted, suddenly wanting him to know.
His attention jerked from the baby to her. “Thank you. I mean it, Clare. Thank you.”
Parker started to fuss. “He’s probably hungry. My little piglet. I fed him right before you got here.”
“Then he’s not hungry. Why don’t you grab a bagel while I’m here to help?” He held out his arm to take Parker from her, his other hand never missing a beat.
“Go on, eat,” he said when she only stared. “I can hold them off a bit. I remember how rare it is to sit and eat at a table.”
She did, and Parker quieted until there was only the sound of her chewing and the soothing rhythm of Deacon’s patting hand.
When the time came for him to leave, Clare stood in the nursery doorway. She’d waited in the kitchen for several minutes, listening to him talk to the boys on the baby monitor. Soft and sweet, he told them about their sisters, telling them to be good and give their mama a break.
She wasn’t sure how to feel about him leaving. She could feel the pull at his heart in the way he looked at them. It was different than how her mom or Jess or Connor looked at them. She thought it must be the way she looked—inexplicable, immeasurable love. She couldn’t be sorry he was here. Would never be sorry her boys had that love. She would never deny them or Deacon that bond. But at the same time, she had to keep herself apart.
She watched as he picked up Patrick and cradled him to his chest, then kissed his little face. He repeated the process with Parker. Then he stood over them, tall and strong, a protector of his children as a father should be and struggling to leave them. He placed his hand on each of their chests, and she could imagine he was whispering a silent goodbye.
The damned hormones hit her again, and she sniffed, giving her presence away.
“It’s hard to leave them,” Deacon said, not looking up.
Since she couldn’t imagine ever leaving them, her heart ached for him. It ached even more when he started toward her then stopped to look back at them one last time.
“I wish I could stay longer,” he said as they moved through the kitchen to the front door. “But I have the girls, and work.”
“I understand.”
“Of course I hadn’t planned on this,” he added with a smile.
She couldn’t help wondering what he’d thought would happen with her in one night. He’d looked for her, he’d said, to explain why he’d left the way he did. But now what? Would the girls always come first? Would Deacon always have to juggle his time and feelings? She hated that things were this way. Hated that they had these beautiful babies who were such a gift and a miracle and that everything else couldn’t be as miraculous and magical.
She didn’t expect him to pick up and move and leave everything behind, nor would she be okay with leaving her family, her friend, her safety.
He was a father, and as a good father, he’d rushed off exactly as he should have. But she’d talked so much about herself, private details and hopes and dreams and her inner desires. And now she knew there’d been nothing he needed to lie about. He’d just chosen not to share his failed relationship and the children that were the center of his life.
She walked him to the door, and they stared at each other for a long moment. What would their goodbye in the Dominican have looked like if they’d had a goodbye?
“I’ll call you. We’ll talk.”
“Okay.” Her fingers worried the bottom of her shirt. It had all been so easy and natural between them before. Until it hadn’t been anything anymore. “You know, I don’t expect you to…”
“To what?”
“I don’t know. Anything,” she said, trying to keep her voice even, trying to sound light when she felt anything but. “I’m okay.”
He looked at her a long time. Was he angry?
“I’ll call you,” he repeated then leaned in, chastely kissed her cheek.
She barely had time to catch his scent before he was gone.