Found: One Secret Baby

The cheesecake was perfect. And after an awkward moment or two, the conversation flowed from topic to topic, light and amusing, although afterwards she couldn’t remember exactly what they talked about.

What she did remember was how happy it made her just to be with Morgan, to have him smile at her as if they shared some wonderful secret. Not that they agreed on everything they talked about, but even arguing playfully with him was a joy.

The mood shifted as they lingered over a last cup of espresso.

“Tell me about your mother,” Morgan said.

Rosalie closed her eyes and smiled. “She was a free spirit. She loved flowers.”

“No surprise there.” He chuckled.

“And she loved me.” That love had been Rosalie’s rock through everything that happened, but the simple words brought a dark shadow to Morgan’s face.

“Did she look like you?”

“She was tall, slender, fair. I look more like the women on my father’s side of the family.”

Morgan’s voice was gentle as he asked, “When did he die?”

She stared at the dark liquid in her cup. “He didn’t. The day the wheelchair arrived, he left.”

Morgan tensed, then let out a long breath. “How long was your mother ill?”

“About fifteen years. That’s pretty average for the progressive form of MS she had.”

“It must have been hard.”

Rosalie shrugged. “We got by. I had to live at home while I was in college and law school, but she made sure my studies came first. We managed pretty well, until …” She cleared the tears from her throat. “Until we didn’t. I hated it when she had to move to a care facility. She loved her flower garden so much. But she made the best of it. She made the best of everything.”

Her tone must have told him she didn’t want to go any further down that road, because he let a long silence fall.

As they’d talked, their bodies had shifted until they sat so close together their shoulders touched. Rosalie didn’t quite know when during their conversation Morgan had put his hand on her knee, perhaps to emphasize a point he was making, but the weight and warmth of it felt right, as if it belonged there. Being with him, sharing her memories with him, felt right, as if she belonged there.

Then he turned more toward her and the hand moved a few inches up her leg. Closeness became intimacy, warmth became heat, heat became need. Her face almost touching his, she became aware that they were alone in their corner of the dining room.

Something inside her melted. It had been so long since she’d allowed a man to hold her, kiss her … Her hands flowed of their own accord to his shoulders and her mind emptied of everything except the hope that he wanted to kiss her as much as she wanted to kiss him.

Morgan was mesmerized by the woman beside him and the sad story she’d told. This woman might understand the sadness that haunted him. More, she had the heart to care about that sadness. He looked into her eyes, surprised to discover the little specks of brown were gone, leaving a pure sea-green a man could drown in.

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