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“He’d be a good father.” There was no question about that. “But...why not adopt?”
“That comes with as many risks.”
“True, but—”
“Anyway, I’m not opposed to it. I could see us adopting at some point. I just need Dylan to believe he gave me one.”
“To salvage all that male pride?”
“It’s the way he is,” she said defensively. “And I wouldn’t change him even if I could. Pride’s one of the things that carried him through the hard times, that gave him the determination he needed to soldier on. It’s—”
“You want to do this,” Presley broke in, going straight to the bottom line.
“If it’ll make Dylan feel better, I do. But I’m scared, too.”
Now that she wasn’t so shocked by the idea, Presley tried to be more open-minded. In a way, it did seem like a technicality that it wouldn’t be Dylan’s sperm. She’d want to save her husband the humiliation and anguish, too, if she had a husband like Dylan and that husband had a brother like Aaron. “I guess you wouldn’t be the first person to use a known donor.”
“People do it all the time.”
More knowledge gleaned from the internet? “Without the consent of their spouse? I still think that’s asking for trouble.”
“It’s not like I intend to sleep with Aaron, Pres. I won’t be cheating. Is it really that terrible to use, with the donor’s permission, some DNA that’s very similar to my husband’s? What Dylan doesn’t know can’t hurt him.”
Presley sat on the edge of the couch and massaged her forehead. She’d used almost the same logic. Which led to the same conclusion. “Unless he finds out.”
“He won’t,” Cheyenne argued. “Who’s going to tell him? Me? You? Aaron? None of us! It doesn’t have to be a big deal unless we make it a big deal.”
“If you do this, we’ll both have children by Aaron.” She chuckled, although it wasn’t funny.
“Maybe it’s time to tell him about Wyatt, since that could figure into his decision.”
“No. Absolutely not.” Cheyenne wanted to end the anxiety that keeping her secret created. But Presley wasn’t ready, wasn’t willing to trade a release of anxiety for what could happen if Aaron found out. “Not yet.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. Wyatt’s too little. Maybe when he gets older, when he’s capable of making his own choices.”
“Okay, but...if I go to Aaron about this...donation, do you think he’ll demand we tell Dylan?”
“My bet? He’d rather Dylan not know. That way, it can’t get awkward between them.” The Aaron she knew wouldn’t want or need the credit. He was like that. Bighearted, magnanimous and sensitive to the delicate balance that made it possible to continue having a relationship with Dylan. Some people took home stray dogs or cats. Aaron took home stray people. She had a feeling he’d only befriended her initially because she’d been so isolated from the rest of Whiskey Creek. The night he’d sought her out at Sexy Sadie’s she’d been sitting in a corner alone. He’d walked over and said something about being her neighbor before inviting her to his table.
“I should talk to him, then?” Cheyenne asked.
“If you’re really convinced it’ll make things better for Dylan.”
“You wouldn’t mind if...if I also had a child by Aaron?”
“You felt you had to ask me?”
“Because of Wyatt I thought I should.”
“I have no claim on Aaron.” Wyatt and her baby would be half brothers instead of cousins, but why would that matter? “Our children can grow up together here in Whiskey Creek.”
“It’ll be a far nicer childhood than ours was.”
“No kidding,” Presley agreed with a weak laugh. She especially felt sorry for Cheyenne. She would’ve had a very different life if Anita hadn’t stolen her from her birth family. At least Anita was Presley’s real mother. “So when are you going to approach him?”
“I have to do it soon, before Dylan works up the nerve to go to the doctor, or there’ll be no point.”
Presley tried to picture her sister asking Aaron to donate his sperm. “That should be a very interesting conversation.”
6
Riley wasn’t there when Presley returned. Presley considered that a lucky break. Although she’d baked two apple pies, one for each of her helpers as a thank-you, it would be a lot easier to talk to Aaron if they had a few minutes alone.
Now she had that. Because she’d walked Wyatt over to Cheyenne’s before loading the pies in his stroller, she didn’t have the challenge of trying to restrain her son.
This is the perfect opportunity. Aaron’s just a regular man.
Except that wasn’t true. He meant the world to her....
Reminding herself that that was before and not now, she summoned her courage, swung open the door and leaned against it so she could wheel the pies inside. Aaron was wearing headphones, listening to music on his iPod while he painted, but her movements must’ve caught his eye. He turned and pulled the buds from his ears.
“You’re back,” he said as he climbed off the ladder.
Would he be glad to get the pie? It was the one thing she used to make for him. But Ruthie at Just Like Mom’s served good apple pie, too, so he probably hadn’t missed it any more than he’d missed her. “Where’s Riley?”
“He went to take care of something with his kid.”
The smile he flashed her reminded her that they were alone together on a Saturday night for the first time in twenty-six months. It also made her feel like she was clinging to a rock as the ocean tried to drag her out to sea.
Just hang on...
“Sorry I’ve been gone all day.” It was almost eight o’clock. She’d fallen asleep when Wyatt napped and slept for three hours. Then it’d taken longer to make the pies than she’d expected, since she’d had to scrap her first attempt. She rarely ate sugar these days, was rusty in the kitchen. And once she got the pies out of the oven she was further delayed while deciding what to wear. She’d tried on four different outfits and, for the first time since leaving Whiskey Creek, she even vacillated over her selection of panties, eventually settling on the sheer black bra and thong her friend Roger gave her for her last birthday (while he tried to talk her into “living again”).
Wearing lingerie was silly, since no one was going to see it. But what was the point of letting such beauty languish in the back of her drawer? Aaron made her feel sexy and young again—even if she couldn’t act on the desire he aroused.
“No problem. I’ve been busy, anyway.” He gestured at the work he’d done. “What do you think?”
She’d been rehearsing what she planned to say, had been so focused on it that she hadn’t looked at what he’d accomplished in her absence. But now that he’d drawn her attention to the walls, she was so impressed she couldn’t possibly start in on her “I forgive you, you didn’t owe me anything” speech. Not immediately.
“It’s beautiful!” she breathed, and meant it. She’d picked out a buttery yellow, one that reminded her of the sun. She’d wanted her studio to be uplifting and soothing, since both of her businesses dealt with stress relief. But he’d added a new element. The walls were the yellow she’d requested, but he’d painted the trim black—the baseboards, the doorframes and the window casings. It looked so stylish she almost couldn’t believe this was the same drab space she’d rented.
“I knew it would be nice,” he said, standing back to survey the effect.
She left the stroller in the middle of the room and moved closer to the wet paint. “Someone told you it wouldn’t?”
“Harvey down at the hardware store was pushing me to call you. He thought you should go with white trim, until I showed him the picture.”
“What picture?”
“The one I found in a magazine while I was waiting for him to help me.”
“What magazine? Martha Stewart Living?”
“A Ralph Lauren paint brochure.”
She pivoted to face him. “You bought designer paint? But...there’s no way I gave you enough money for that.”
“It came close,” he said with a shrug. “I’m not worried about the difference. I wanted it to make a statement, and it does.”
“I would’ve been happy with something much simpler. You’re already donating the labor. Why go to the added expense?”
He held her gaze. “It’s my way of telling you I’m sorry, Presley.”
So she’d guessed right. Apparently, she knew him as well as she thought she did, and since he’d brought up the subject himself, she no longer had to search for a way to approach it. “I don’t hold you responsible for anything, Aaron. How could I? You never made me any promises.”
“But the last night I saw you...”
“Don’t mention that night.” She shook her head. “I don’t even want to think of it.”
His expression grew even more sympathetic. “It was that bad?”
The days she’d spent with the man who’d provided her with drugs in Arizona were mostly a blur, and she was grateful for that. She could hardly believe she’d been through the degradation she did remember. “It’s over. There’s no reason to dwell on it.”
“I feel like it’s my fault.”
“Because you didn’t love me? You can’t make yourself love someone.”
Lines formed on his forehead. “It’s not as if I didn’t care about you. And your mother had just died....”
“That was my problem, not yours.” But she was lucky she’d survived those first few days after leaving Whiskey Creek, lucky that what she’d done hadn’t damaged Wyatt. Only after she’d decided to keep him had she found the will to fight for a better life, to look after herself for his sake. Without him, she might never have changed.
“Maybe if I’d reacted differently, you wouldn’t have taken off.”
She would’ve had to do something. “You reacted honestly. That’s more important. And you were right. I had no business bothering you in the middle of the night.”
He grimaced. “Except that when your world falls apart, you should be able to wake someone you’ve been...intimate with.”
“No. I understood the rules.”
“The rules?” he repeated.
“How you really felt about me. Moving on had to happen one way or another. How else could our...arrangement have ended?”
“More gently.”
He seemed to feel sincere regret, so she smiled in an effort to ease his conscience. “I’m okay,” she said. “Stronger than ever.”
With a jerk of his head, he indicated all the tools Riley had left behind. “And with prospects.”
“I’ve finally arrived,” she teased.
“So...are you going to date him?”
“I think so.”
“Really.”
“Is there some reason I shouldn’t?”
He raised his hands. “Of course not. Riley’s the best Whiskey Creek has to offer.”
She didn’t join in his sarcasm; she didn’t feel it was fair to Riley, who’d also done a lot to help her today. The reception desk was only partly finished, but she could tell it was going to be far nicer than anything she could’ve built. “Did he say when he’d be back?”
“Tomorrow. He’s bringing Jacob to help him finish up.”
“I’ll have to put his pie in the fridge, then. Or maybe drop it off at his house—if Cheyenne will let me borrow her car.”
“I’d let you take mine, but I don’t really care if he gets a pie.”
“You don’t like Riley? Since when?”
“He’s fine,” he said, but she couldn’t tell if his indifference was real or feigned.
She pulled the stroller closer. “I made you a pie, too. It’s not much but...I wanted to thank you for painting.”
When she tried to hand it to him, he made no move to accept it. He just stared at her as if he was still hoping to tear off the polite mask she was trying so hard to keep in place. “You used to like my apple pie,” she added lamely.
“I liked a lot more about you than your pies, Pres.”
Suddenly, she was no longer grateful they were alone. The same privacy that allowed them to talk without being overheard made other things possible, as well. The spike in her pulse suggested several alternatives—all of them physical—and she knew that would only enslave her again.
“That’s nice of you to say,” she responded.
“Quit being so damned courteous,” he snapped. “I’m not just stroking your ego!”
He was getting irritated, and she understood why. He didn’t see any reason they couldn’t resume the relationship they’d had before. But that was impossible. Even if she didn’t have Wyatt, why would she settle for someone who couldn’t love her?
She’d rather spend the rest of her life alone. “I should explain something.”
He placed both hands on his lean hips—the very picture of a disgruntled male. “What?”
“I know why you befriended me in the first place. I saw it on your face when you came up to me at Sexy Sadie’s. You deserve credit for that.”
“Credit for what?”
“For reaching out to someone who had no one else. My mother had cancer. Cheyenne was wrapped up in her friends. It was...a dark time for me, and I think you could sense that.”
