Second Chance Pass

He pulled a clean handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. “I mean, a man who is standing by. Supporting you. Ready to take his share of responsibility.”



“’Fraid not,” she said, accepting the hankie and dabbing her eyes.



He ran the back of his finger along her cheek, wiping away a tear. “Is that why you told me it was mine?”



She turned liquid eyes up to him. “Partly,” she said quietly. “There’s more to it than that.…”



“Was it about money?” he asked.



She laughed without humor. “No,” she said. “It was because neither of us had anyone in our lives—at least that’s what you said. It was because of the way you are—telling me that story about how you were with your best friend’s wife when her baby came, and it tore you up but it was the most beautiful thing you’d ever seen. It was the way I felt when I was with you.” She shrugged. “I thought you’d be a good father. A good…Never mind.”



“We weren’t together very much,” Paul said, shaking his head.



“I know. It was stupid. But I thought if you grew to love me…” She leaned against him and let the tears flow. “If you thought I was having your baby, maybe we’d be together more. And if we were together, maybe…” She wiped at her eyes. “I thought I’d…I thought we’d be safe with you. I felt a lot more for you than you did for me. But what I did…It was wrong. I’m sorry.”



He put an arm around her and held her. “Terri—you had to know I’d find out eventually…”



She shrugged and sniffed. “Maybe not. At least not until we’d had some time together. And if you got attached, if there were more children…It was a stupid risk, I really don’t know if I’d have been able to go through with it.” She looked up at him. “I’m not a dishonest person. I probably would have told you the truth before…” She took a breath. “It took me a while to accept that you just weren’t into me,” she said. “You didn’t call, you left town all the time. You were right—there wasn’t much between us. But that didn’t keep me from wishing there was.”



He put a large hand over her barely swollen middle. “And this little one’s father?”



“Not interested, either,” she said.



“Does he know?”



“I told him. He could care less. He told me I’d have to sue him to—Well, it didn’t take me long to decide I was better off.”



“Loser,” Paul muttered under his breath. “How did this happen?” he asked.



“I’ve always been bad about those pills. Missing them, forgetting. And he didn’t use anything. It’s my screwup. All mine. I’m pretty lucky a baby is all I got from him.” Her eyes were large and round. “The condom didn’t fail, Paul, and I was tested at my first appointment. I didn’t give you anything.”



He didn’t share that he already knew that. Acting on Jack’s advice, he’d been checked out. “Are you going to be all right?” he asked her.



“I’ll manage,” she said, wiping her tears away.



He lifted her chin. “Is there anything I can do to help you now?”



“You’re off the hook, Paul. You don’t have to do anything.”



“Do you still have that card I gave you? With the phone numbers?”



“Yeah. Somewhere.”



“You can find me easily. I work for a family company headquartered in Grants Pass. My family. If I’m not here, they can reach me. If you ever need anything…”



“Paul,” she said, laughing through tears. “I lied to you. You don’t have to…”



“Terri,” he said sweetly. “It’s true we’re not a couple. That we never were. But I don’t go to bed with women I don’t have any feelings for. God, I’m not that bad. Even if we weren’t in love, I thought of us as friends, at least. We had a real important connection. You were good to me. I tried to be good to you.”



“God, you’re incredible…After what I tried to do to you!”



He smiled at her. “I was wrong to call you when I got back to Grants Pass. It set up a series of events that were unfair to you. But I remember it so damn well—I was in a lot of pain. It was a bad, bad time for me. That night, I was a pretty miserable, desperate guy and you got me through a rough spot. You were kind to me. Sympathetic and sweet. Loving. At the time, I was very grateful. I wouldn’t be a gentleman if I didn’t tell you that.”



She leaned against him, the tears dry now, and he put his arms around her in comfort. She sighed. “I thought I loved you, that I could make you happy if I had a chance,” she said. “I didn’t lie about that.” She lifted her head and looked up at him. “You’re an easy man to fall for.”



He tightened his arms a bit. He knew something about love now. It filled him up inside, made him feel like the luckiest man on the planet to have Vanessa. He would do anything for her, and if she had come to him with another man’s baby and asked him to take her with that burden inside her, he wouldn’t even have to think about it.



“Is there anything you need?”



“Yeah,” Terri said with a sad little laugh. “I need to find a man like you. Then I’ll be set.”



He sat with her for a long while, his arms around her, giving what small comfort he could. He dropped a tender kiss on the top of her head. “You’ll find the right man,” he said. “And you’ll be a good mother. This will work out.”



“Paul, I’m sorry if I hurt you, if I complicated your life. It was so selfish of me.…”



“We’ll get past that, no problem. Desperate times sometimes bring out desperate measures—I’m not angry. And I know a really good pediatrician, if you’re looking for one…”



Eleven



V anessa had just finished nursing the baby when the doorbell at Paul’s house rang. Holding the baby, she went and glanced out the window beside the door. There stood Carol, looking every bit the chic and sophisticated businesswoman she always did. Vanni opened the door somewhat reluctantly.



“I didn’t know if you’d be here,” Carol said. “I didn’t want to call. I wanted to see you and I wasn’t sure you’d agree.”



Vanessa opened the door. “I haven’t been in touch, Carol, because I thought we could use some time to think things through. Both of us.” Vanni held the door open. “Come in, since you’re here.”



“Is Paul at home?” she asked, stepping across the threshold.



“Not at the moment.” She looked at her watch. “I guess he should be coming soon.”



“I’m sorry, Vanessa,” Carol said uncomfortably. “Lance is furious with me. Terrified we won’t see much of the baby because of what I did.”



“Come in and sit down,” Vanni said, leading the way to the dining room. She put Mattie in his bouncy seat on the table and pulled out a chair. “So,” she said bravely. “Lance didn’t like that little meeting you tried to arrange?”



Carol was caught looking around at Paul’s house. By the rather surprised expression on her face, maybe she wasn’t expecting anything quite so beautiful, so tasteful. Maybe she thought Paul made his home in a construction trailer?



“Carol?” Vanni asked.



She shook her head. “No,” she said. “Not from the beginning. He blustered about it, but I didn’t think I was doing anything harmful. You know we care about Paul for many reasons, but after getting to know Cameron, I just thought the world of him. And…Oh hell,” Carol said. “I didn’t know about you and Paul.”



“That’s exactly why you should make it a policy to ask if your plans are acceptable. Had you asked me in the first place if I’d like you to invite a single man to dinner, I would have asked you to wait on that. I was missing Paul, wanting to see him. Cameron’s a great guy, but I’m not interested in him romantically,” Vanni said. “In the end, both men were hurt. You have to stop doing things like that.”



“I always think I’m helping,” she said. “I always feel like I have the perfect solution. Really—I wouldn’t…” Her voice trailed off. “You and Paul…?”



“That’s right. We’re getting married. I love him. He’ll be a wonderful father to Mattie. You can’t imagine how much he adores this baby. How grateful he is that there’s a little piece left of his best friend.”



“And you’re happy?” Carol asked, her brow furrowed. “This is what you want?”



Vanni reached out a hand to touch Carol’s. “When we lost Matt, the pain was so great for both me and Paul—for everyone—I didn’t know if I could ever be happy again. I imagine there were times you felt the same way.”



“Sometimes I miss him so much,” she said, and her eyes glistened. She reached for the baby. “May I?”



“Sure. Go ahead.”



Carol picked up the baby and held him against her, her eyes wet. “You have no idea how fast the time goes, and how much goes with it.”



“When Matt had that videoconference before his death, Paul was at the house. God, Matt was so happy to see his face, to talk to him. I think he was as happy to see Paul as me. Carol, this would make Matt happy.”



Carol laughed through some tears. “Oh, I’m sure that’s true. Matt and Paul always spent more time at the Haggerty house than ours. A whole crowd of messy boys with big smelly feet never threw Marianne. She somehow knew just what food to toss at them. Our house was too sterile. I was strict about neatness.”



“Well, I guess if you have three of them, one more hardly matters,” Vanni said.



“They were just boys,” Carol said. “Who can blame them. They weren’t interested in how hard I had to work to buy a certain lamp or how much trouble it was to keep up the landscaping. Before the Haggertys built that big house, while the boys were young, they could barely keep grass in the yard.” She smiled a bit forlornly. “All the boys played soccer.”



Whew, Vanni thought. It wasn’t just that Carol thought Cameron was a better choice for her. She didn’t want to compete with Marianne and her mother-earth qualities. “I suppose Marianne always had cookies when they got home from school, too,” Vanni said, testing out her theory.



“I’m sure. A trampoline, drum set, all kinds of stuff. They let the boys set up a kind of band in the garage—electric piano, guitars, the whole bit. Noisy enough to split your skull.” She laughed a little. “Not one of them had a lick of talent, thank God. Or else they’d all be tattooed rock stars.”



With his usual fabulous timing, little Mattie barfed curdled milk right down Carol’s back and predictably she said, “Ewww.”



“Oh no!” Vanni shot to her feet, a diaper she used as a burping cloth in her hand. She reached for the baby.



“No, please don’t take him,” Carol said. “Just put that over my shoulder.”



“Carol, it’s silk!”



“Oh the hell with it. There are dry cleaners, you know.”



Vanni wiped her off as well as she could, then draped a clean diaper over Carol’s shoulder. She was pretty stunned that Carol didn’t fling the baby away from her, but she held him close, snuggled him.



Vanni chewed her lip for a second. Carol’s afraid of another generation that belonged to her by blood preferring the Haggerty family. Because she’s rigid, not warm and fuzzy, and she knows it. Then Vanni said, “Each one of those Haggerty men turned out to be successful and hardworking. Someone in that house must have insisted on study.”