Chapter Sixteen
There’s no reason to be nervous, Wyatt told himself. Even if it was the first time he’d asked a woman to marry him. A woman he was in love with, anyway. A woman he honestly wanted to marry. Which took Loretta out of the equation on all counts.
You’re nervous because Mia’s been acting weird. For the life of him he couldn’t figure out why. And she wouldn’t tell him. He remembered the white-hot sex they’d had last night when he’d tried to get her to talk. Not that he minded hot sex, of course. He’d have to be crazy to object to being seduced by a single-minded, beautiful, desirable woman.
Everyone had gone, leaving Mia and Wyatt alone, sitting in front of the fire with the Christmas tree lights twinkling. Dylan had gone off to the annual Christmas night poker game one of his friends always threw. Jack and his family and Glory and Billy had gone home long before.
Mia stood in front of the tree with her back to him. She had on a green, fuzzy sweater and blue jeans. He went over and slipped his arms around her. “What are you thinking?” he asked her.
She sighed and leaned back against him. “It was a wonderful Christmas. You have a great family, Wyatt.”
“They’re okay,” he said, surprising a laugh out of her. “Yeah, they are pretty great. Most of the time.” He paused and added, “They like you. Jack and Maya think you’re amazing. They were still talking about where to hang the picture once it’s framed. What made you decide to paint a portrait again? Last I heard you were done with those.”
“I couldn’t resist the picture Carmen and Gina made with Will between them. They’re beautiful children,” she said, sounding wistful.
“You couldn’t have picked anything they’d like more. How did you find time to paint something for everyone?” She’d chosen to paint Honey’s horse, Halo, from a photograph and left it for when Honey and Sean returned from their honeymoon. She gave Dylan a watercolor of one of his horses, and Glory a painting of a field of flowers, just emerging from the snow.
She moved away from him and shrugged. “I painted a lot when you were working.”
“How did you know what to paint for Glory?”
She turned around to stare at him. “Haven’t you heard her raving about her favorite time of year?”
“No. Does she?” She stared at him incredulously. He laughed. “I’ve known Glory since I was born. I’ve only heard that maybe a million times. But I didn’t know you had.”
“I imagine anyone who knows Glory knows her favorite time of year.”
“Probably so.”
“I haven’t given you your present yet,” Mia said.
“I haven’t given you yours.”
“Let me go first. I’ll be back in a minute.”
She wasn’t gone long. When she reentered the room she held a large painting, turned so that he could only see the back. “Merry Christmas, Wyatt.” Propping it up against the back of the couch, she stepped away to let him see.
It was the landscape she’d started weeks ago. A painting of the creek and waterfall in the midst of snow, with the hawk circling overhead. She had finished it, done something subtly different to it. Something that made it seem brighter, more defined. He was no artist so he didn’t know what that was. But he knew talent and he knew love and he saw both coming from the painting.
“It’s—I don’t have words. It’s amazing, Mia. I’m there. I can feel the cold, hear the water rushing in the creek and the cry of the hawk.” He tore his eyes from the painting to look at her. “Thank you.”
“You seemed to like it. I wasn’t sure—” She shrugged. “I hoped you’d like it.”
He pulled her into his arms and smiled down at her. “Like is far too weak of a word. So is love, for that matter.” He kissed her lips, then picked up her painting hand and kissed it. “I knew you were talented. I’ve seen your work, after all. But this”—he looked at the painting again—“this is beyond words.”
“I don’t know about that, but I’m glad you like it.”
“How could I not?” He kissed her, then set her aside. “I’ll be right back.”
He went to his room and picked up the jeweler’s ring box from one of his drawers. The box wasn’t new. The velvet on both the outside and inside was worn. The ring wasn’t new either, having belonged to his grandmother, his mother’s mother. It was a beautiful, old-fashioned ring, a single round diamond surrounded by smaller diamonds in a platinum setting. Wyatt thought it suited Mia. It had been in a safety deposit box and marked with Wyatt’s name. Their father had opened it when Jack and Brianna, Jack’s first wife, got engaged. There were numerous pieces from both sides of the family, each marked with one of the brothers’ or Glenna’s name.
He stuffed the ring in his pocket and went back downstairs. Mia sat on the couch, staring into the fire. Wyatt sat beside her and held her hands. She looked at him quizzically, her expression turning to alarm when he got down on one knee.
“Mia, I love you.” He let go of her hands to pull the ring out of his pocket. “Will you—”
Mia jumped up, interrupting him mid-sentence. “Don’t, Wyatt. Please, don’t.”
He stared at her, wondering if he’d heard right. “Don’t what? I’m trying to ask you to marry me.”
“I can’t. Oh, God, I can’t.” Her eyes filled with tears and she ran out of the room.
Leaving him down on one knee, holding his grandmother’s ring and feeling like the biggest fool who’d ever lived.
Mia lay face down on her bed in abject misery. God, she was an idiot. Why hadn’t she told him before this? She should never have let it get this far. But no, she’d put off telling him about the baby she’d lost just like she’d put off telling him she was pregnant in the first place.
And now it was too late. For anything.
“Mia.” He knocked on the door. “I’m coming in.”
She sat up, trying, with no success, to get hold of herself. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have run out.”
“Mia, what the hell is going on?”
A fair question. “I can’t marry you.”
“Interesting. Since I haven’t managed to actually ask you. Speaking hypothetically, why can’t you marry me? Do you still think I’m on the rebound?”
“No, I don’t think that.”
“Do you love me?”
“You know I do.”
“Then why were you so freaked out at the thought of me asking you to marry me?”
“Because I’ve been lying to you.”
He looked surprised. “Lying about what?” He shut the door, then walked to the bed and sat down. He didn’t look angry, just surprised.
But then, she hadn’t told him exactly what she had lied about. “I didn’t want to tell you until after Christmas. Hell, I didn’t want to tell you at all, but I knew I’d have to.”
Gently, he said, “When I said there was nothing you could tell me that would change my feelings about you, I meant it. Just tell me.”
“I’ve been in love with you for years,” she said bluntly. “But the timing was always bad, so I believed nothing would ever come of it. Especially when you told me you were marrying Loretta. Then, the night you found out the truth about her, you came to me. And we made love.”
“I remember,” he said, with the hint of a smile.
“I didn’t know what would happen but I hoped we could build something lasting. But nothing more happened. I didn’t even talk to you until—”
“Until I told you I was moving.”
She nodded.
He shoved a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, Mia. I should never have treated you that way. It was a shitty thing to do.”
She shrugged, as if it didn’t matter. Yet it did. It had hurt, badly. It still hurt.
“I was pretty fucked up over Loretta and what she did.”
“I know. I understood that. But it didn’t matter. It didn’t help.” She looked at him then, wanting, but dreading to see his reaction. “The night we spent together I got pregnant.”
Pregnant? Mia was pregnant? Wyatt couldn’t wrap his mind around any of this. Except she was very obviously not pregnant now. “You didn’t tell me.”
“I was going to. The night you told me you were moving, I had planned to tell you. But you were determined to leave. If I’d told you then—” She paused, then said, “I was afraid you’d think I was trying to trap you.”
“How long had you known?”
“Not long. Just a couple of days.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? When you found out, why not tell me?”
Mia got off the bed and started to pace. “For God’s sake, Wyatt! It wasn’t that long since you found out that you’d been—”
“Suckered?”
“Lied to. Would you have believed me if I’d told you? Oh, by the way, Wyatt, I’m pregnant and this time it really is your baby.”
Would he have believed her? “Yes, I’d have believed you.”
“You say that now, but at the time you were, as you put it, still fucked up about Loretta. We used birth control. You’d never have believed that I was pregnant with your baby, or if I was, that I hadn’t done it on purpose.”
“I trusted you. I’d have believed you if you’d told me, but you didn’t.” He looked at her, not wanting to know, but he had to ask. “You’re not pregnant now.”
“No.” Her eyes glistened with tears.
“Did you have an abortion?”
“No.” A tear tracked slowly down her cheek. “I had a miscarriage.”
“Convenient. No baby, no need to tell me anything.”
The tears were falling faster now. She looked stricken, miserable. He felt like a jerk, but shit, she’d lied to him. For months. She’d been pregnant with his baby. His baby.
“I knew I had to tell you. I was looking to book a flight to Bozeman when I started cramping. But I waited too long. I miscarried that night.”
This was Mia. The woman he’d fallen in love with. The woman he had never imagined would lie to him, much less lie about something of this magnitude.
“Why should I believe you?” he asked harshly. “You’ve been lying to me for months.”
“Why would I tell you anything at all if it wasn’t the truth? I didn’t want to tell you. I knew what it would do to you. To us.”
“Why are you telling me now? Why didn’t you tell me when you got here?”
“I didn’t want to make things harder on you. I came because you asked me to. Because I thought you needed me. When would you have had me tell you? When I got off the plane? I should have said, ‘Hi, Wyatt. I know the wedding and the baby are going to be hard for you, but hey, let me pile on.’”
“You should have told me.”
“Yes, we’ve established that. But I didn’t. I’ve made a huge mess of it because I didn’t tell you from the first.”
“Why are you telling me now?” he asked again.
“Why do you think? You were about to ask me to marry you. Besides, I was going to tell you tomorrow anyway. I was waiting until after the wedding. And then I waited because I... I wanted Christmas with you.”
“That worked out great, didn’t it?”
“Everything is happening exactly like I thought it would. Like I feared it would. I knew this would be the end for us. I knew you’d hate me for lying to you.”
“Goddamn it, Mia! I don’t hate you. I’m still in love with you! I can’t just turn my feelings on and off. I wish I could.”
“There’s one other thing I should tell you. Although I can’t imagine why it would matter to you now.”
“Another bombshell?”
“To me it is,” she said simply. “I can’t have children.”
“What do you mean you can’t have children? You were pregnant.”
“After the miscarriage, my doctor said it was a miracle I’d ever gotten pregnant and that there’s almost no chance I’ll ever get pregnant again.”