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“You didn’t turn out so bad,” she said softly.
“Neither did you, Cath. Honestly, I never disliked you. Can you trust me about that, at least?” She considered him warily from across the room. “Humor me, okay? Get dressed. Let me feed you. Then, if you still want me out of here, I’ll go.”
“Promise?”
He frowned. “Do I have to promise?”
“Matt!”
“Okay.” That was a lie. He felt absolutely no guilt in telling it, not now that she needed him. It had always been her and her family doing so much for him, and him thinking he had nothing to give them in return.
Not that he’d ever have wished a situation like this on her. But still, the situation was what it was. She needed help, and he could give it to her.
“I know it’s hard,” he said. “To be in trouble and let someone help you. I’ve always wondered—why’d you do that for me? Why didn’t you give up on me and leave me alone?”
“I just couldn’t.”
He nodded, understanding exactly. “Do me a favor, Cath. Don’t make it as hard for me to help you as I made it for you to help me.”
She was quiet for a long time. It left him feeling edgy, like he might just do something crazy before he got out of here. She’d always made him a little crazy.
“Why did you come here this morning?” she asked finally.
Neatly trapped and unwilling to lie about this, he confessed. “I came to offer you money.”
She looked hurt. “It’s not that simple.”
“I know.” Too late, he saw that writing a check just wasn’t going to cut it.
Chapter Three
Cathie hid in her bathroom for what had to be the longest shower on record, finally emerging in a cloud of steam. In her tiny bedroom, she tugged on a pair of jeans and a white blouse. While she was buttoning her blouse, she found herself staring at the Box, which now sat on her dresser.
What is he doing here?
She’d slept with her arms wrapped around that Box, filled with so many little slips of paper with his name on them. Maybe someone had gotten confused again. Cathie’s handwriting had always been atrocious. Maybe she had a guardian angel who needed glasses or something.
The Matt notes are old notes. I don’t worry about him that much anymore. I try not to even think about him.
The Box remained stoically silent, reverently housing all her secret hopes and dreams, including one, new, desperate plea she’d written that morning, right before he’d shown up, again.
I asked for help. Not him. He’s fine now. Okay, maybe not fine. I’m afraid he’s lonely, and that he’ll never really let anyone love him. But he’s not miserable. He always wanted money and a nice house of his own. I know all that really means to him is a sense of security, which he never had before, but he’s got all that now.
Of course, she didn’t think those things made a person particularly happy. They would help her, in the shape she was in, but she didn’t think happiness was found in a big bank account and a nice house. Matt loved his work. She knew he was well-respected and keenly intelligent, and having people recognize those things meant something to him. If she ever asked for anything else for Matt, it would be that he let down his guard enough to let someone love him, but she wasn’t sure if he had it in him to love someone back. He’d always held himself apart from everyone else. Those were walls she feared would never come down.
She glanced back at the box, because there wasn’t anyone else to talk to at the moment. What do I do now?
If she’d expected a lightning bolt or a booming voice coming out of nowhere, it didn’t happen.
She just kept getting Matt at her door.
She supposed she had to go out there and let him make whatever offer he wanted, while she tried not to argue. He was right—he had made it terribly hard for her to help him, fighting all the way and nearly frustrating her to death. So, she would try not to do that to him. She’d try to just take what he offered, if her pride would let her.
Cathie found him in the kitchen wielding a knife covered with peanut butter. He’d made toast with peanut butter and jam.
“Wasn’t much to choose from,” he said. “And I knew you liked this.”
She’d made it for him ages ago. It had been one of her favorite treats as a child, and it sounded pretty good to her now. Bland, but filling.
“Thanks,” she said, having learned the hard way that she did not want to let her stomach stay empty for long, even if she didn’t feel like eating.
She sat down and nibbled gingerly. Matt sat and watched her.
“Better?” he asked, when she pushed her plate away.
“Yes.”
“So, you saw the guy?”
“Talked to him. He’s, uh…away for the weekend.” That’s what she’d believed. She’d never even doubted it. Was he such a good liar? Or was she just a fool? “Let’s just say I can’t believe I was that stupid.”
“Oh, Cathie. I’m sorry. He’s an ass. Lots of men are.”
She nodded, still having trouble believing how wrong she was. “He seemed so charming, and he was good-looking and all grown-up and sounded so sincere, and I fell for it completely. I believed everything he said, and he didn’t mean any of it.”
“And the baby? Is this boy—”
“He’s not a boy, Matt. He’s a grown man. One of my professors, actually.”
He swore roundly.
“It gets worse.” Cathie turned away, as angry at herself as she was at Tim. “He’s, uh…he’s married. I didn’t know. I swear. I never would have had anything to do with him, if I’d known. I guess they’ve been having some problems and were separated. Or maybe that was a lie, too. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter, anyway. She’s been away, but she’s back now and wants to get back together. He offered me money, Matt. To have an abortion. I couldn’t do that.”
“Okay. Forget about him. The guy doesn’t deserve you or your baby.”
“I know.”
None of which changed the fact that she was going to have the man’s baby.
Cathie cleared the table and started cleaning the tiny kitchen, just to have something to do. It was so horrible. She was so ashamed.
“So, what are you going to do?” Matt asked finally, when she couldn’t find anything else to do to keep her from facing him.
“Have a baby, I guess.”
“And then what, Cathie?”
“I don’t know.”
A part of her wanted to run home to her mother and father, but she was about to become a mother herself. Surely that meant she couldn’t go running home to her own mom and dad, expecting them to fix everything.
“I’m really worried about my father,” she admitted. “He’s had a lot of medical tests lately, and no one’s saying why. But I know that means something’s up. With transplants, there are so many things that can go wrong, even after all this time. We’re not supposed to worry him, and he’s going to be so worried. I love him so much, and I’m afraid of what this might do to him, Matt.”
“Yeah, he’s going to worry. What about school? How much do you have left?”
“Year and a half. If I’m lucky, I might make it through spring semester, which would only leave a year, but still…” A whole year left, with a brand-new baby. “I think I really should consider giving this baby up for adoption.”
“Could you do it?”
“I don’t know. But there are people who can’t have children any other way, nice people who love each other and are married and have good jobs. I’m barely getting by. School is so expensive, and if I quit before I graduate, what kind of job will I be able to get? How could I take care of myself and a baby like that?”
“Cathie, I know you. If you give up this child, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. This would break your heart.”
“I know,” she cried. “But what else am I going to do?”
“Let’s deal with one thing at a time, okay? You want to keep this baby, right?”
“Yes,” she whispered. It was a part of her, and as upset as she was at the timing, she’d always known she wanted to be a mother. Her own mother had told her quite seriously that having children was both the hardest thing she’d ever done and the greatest joy of her life.
“You need to finish school,” Matt said. “But that all takes time and money. Time won’t be easy to come by with a baby, but money helps there, too, and let’s take money off the table right now, okay? It’s silly to let that stand in your way when I have more than I’ll ever need, and I’d give you anything you need.”
“Matt—”
“It’s mostly because of your family that I have what I do today. Don’t tell me I don’t get to give something back now,” he insisted. “Your father’s always talking about that, isn’t he? Giving something back?”
She nodded. He had her there.
“So, this is how I get to give you back a little of what your family gave me.”
“Okay, but still—”
“I’m not done. You’re worried that this will bring a lot of stress to your father and put his health in danger?”
“Yes.”
“What else?” he asked.
“I’m worried about this baby growing up without a father.”
“You don’t know this baby won’t have a father. You could find someone you love, someone you trust, and marry him. He could be a great father to this baby. And even if you were married right now, it’s no guarantee that you always would be. The guy could walk away. He could get hit by a bus. Anything could happen.”
“I’m still worried. Your father was never around, right?”
“Right.”
“And how was that?”
“It wasn’t that unusual where I came from. I mean, it’s definitely not the best of circumstances, but lots of kids don’t have fathers.”
“You never knew him?”
“Barely. He died when I was four or five. Got into a fight in a bar. Just a stupid, little thing, but then he was always into some kind of trouble like that.”
“Matt—”
“It’s nothing to me,” he insisted.
“A father shouldn’t be nothing to his child.”
“No, he shouldn’t.”
“Do you ever hear from your mother?”
“Sure. Any time she needs money. She saw something in the paper about my company a year and a half ago and came running with her hand out.”
“Were she and your father married?”
“No.”
“So…did the other kids give you a hard time about that? Did they call you…”
“A bastard?” He grinned and shook his head. “I’ve been called every name in the book, but not necessarily because my parents never married.”
“Still, it’s a big, bad world out there.”
“Yeah,” he admitted. “Look, I don’t know how things are these days, with so many single parents and divorced parents and all that, but twenty-five years ago when I was old enough to hear it and to ask what it meant, it wasn’t a lot of fun the first time it happened. But it’s far from being the worst thing life ever threw at me.”
“So, that’s not a big consideration, I guess.”
“Well, not necessarily. You’d feel better if you were married?”
“Of course.”
He nodded. “And your father wouldn’t worry so much.”
“No, but that’s not going to happen. Tim’s not going to marry me—”
“I wasn’t talking about that jerk.” He took her hand and held on tight. “Oh, hell, I was thinking… Look, I know it sounds crazy, but…I was talking about me. I think you should marry me, Cathie.”
She gaped at him. “You?”
He nodded. “For the baby.”
Cathie’s heart lurched painfully. For the baby. Of course. She tried not to let him see how this both touched her and hurt her, tried to keep it light. “That would be a bit drastic, don’t you think?”
“Give it a minute. It could work,” he claimed. “We could get married right away. Everyone would assume I was the father of your baby. For all intents and purposes, I would be.”
“What?”
