Sarah's Child Read online

She jerked and looked at him wildly. “What?”

  In that moment, he knew that she hadn’t thought of the solution to the problem, hadn’t even considered it, and something cold touched him. He moved away from her, his eyes black with his inner hell. “I don’t want you to have this baby,” he said rawly. “I don’t want it. I don’t want any baby, ever.”

  Sarah felt as if she’d received a huge blow to the chest; she tried to suck in air, and couldn’t. Blindly she stared at him, afraid she’d faint; then she finally managed to pull some oxygen into her constricted chest. “Rome, it’s your baby too! How can you want—”

  “No,” he interrupted, his voice harsh with pain. “I buried my children. I stood by their graves and watched the dirt cover them up. I can’t go through that again. I can’t accept another child, so don’t…don’t ask me to try. I’ve learned to live without them, without my boys, but no other child can ever—ever!—replace them.” His face twisted with agony, and he was gasping for breath too, as if it were almost impossible for him to continue. He fought for control and gained it, though sweat had broken out on his brow from the effort. “I love you,” he said, more quietly. “Sarah, I love you. That’s more than I ever thought I’d have again. Loving you, having you, has given me a reason to live again, something to look forward to every day. But another baby…no. I can’t do it. Don’t have the baby. If you love me, don’t…don’t have the baby.”

  She staggered, then brought herself upright only by sheer bone-crunching determination. No woman should ever have to hear this, she thought dimly. No woman should ever be faced with this decision. She loved him, and because she loved him, she had to love his child. She understood the strain he was under; she’d seen his face when he’d stood by the graves of his sons, and known that he would have lain down and died with them, if he could. But knowing, and understanding, didn’t make it any easier for her.

  He looked at her with pure screaming hell in his eyes, and suddenly his eyes and his cheeks were wet. “Please,” he begged shakily.

  Sarah bit her lip until her teeth went through flesh and brought blood. “I can’t,” she said.

  CHAPTER TEN

  She faced him across the study, her slender body braced under a burden she wasn’t certain she could carry. “I’d do anything for you that you asked,” she said in a slow, careful voice. “Except that. I love you so much that I could never harm any part of you, and this baby is a part of you. I’ve loved you for years, not just for the past few months, since we’ve been married. I loved you before you married or even met Diane, and after. I loved Justin and Shane because they were yours.” She shook her head a little blindly. “I don’t expect I’ll stop loving you, no matter what you do. If you can’t, absolutely can’t, accept this baby, that’s your decision. But I can’t destroy it.”

  Rome turned away, his movements slow, like an old man carrying too many years. “What now?” he asked in a leaden voice.

  “It’s your decision,” she repeated. She couldn’t believe her voice was so calm, but her back was to the wall and she knew it. “If you want to go, rather than live with me, I’ll understand, and I won’t stop loving you, ever. If you stay, I’ll try—” Her voice broke suddenly and she stopped, breathing heavily for a moment before she could trust herself to speak again. “I’ll try to keep the baby away from you, out of your way. I’ll never ask you to care for it, or hold it. I swear, Rome, you’ll never even have to know its name if you don’t want to! For all intents and purposes, you won’t be a father!”

  “I don’t know,” he said lifelessly. “I’m sorry, but I just don’t know.”

  He walked past her, and after a moment Sarah managed to control her legs enough to follow him. He paused on his way out of the apartment, his dark head bent. Without looking at her, he said, “I do love you. More than you know. I wish I’d told you before now, but….” He made a helpless motion with his hand. “Something died in me when they died. They were so little, and they always looked to me for protection. I was their daddy, and there wasn’t anything I couldn’t do, in their eyes. But when they really needed me, I couldn’t do anything to help them. All I could do…was hold them…when it was too damned late!” His mouth twisted with pain, and he rubbed his eyes, rubbed away the tears for his two little boys. “I have to go. I have to be alone for a while. I’ll be in touch, one way or the other. Take care of yourself.” At last he looked at her, and what she saw in his eyes made her clench her fists to keep from crying out.

  Even after the door had closed and minutes had ticked past, Sarah stood there, staring at the blank expanse of wood, because she could do nothing else. She’d known it would be difficult, but never had she guessed his reaction would be so strong, or his pain so raw. She felt his agony like a knife cutting into her own flesh.

  He’d said he loved her. How awful to have heaven offered to her with one hand and taken away with the other!

  She groped her way into the living room and sat down, her entire body numb with shock, but slowly she began to come alive again. If he loved her, perhaps he’d stay. One miracle had already happened; was it so unreasonable to ask for another one? And if he stayed, perhaps in time the wound left by the loss of his sons would heal enough for him to love another child, her child. She’d keep her word though. If he stayed, she wouldn’t try to force the child on him.

  Rome didn’t come home that night. Sarah lay in the bed she’d shared with him every night he’d been home since she’d had the flu, and she cried until she couldn’t cry any longer.

  She got up the next morning without having slept and went to the store as usual. Erica noticed her pale face and tear-swollen eyes but discreetly didn’t mention them. Tactfully, she waited on most of the customers, while Sarah remained in the office and brought all the books up-to-date. Even that was painful, because everything reminded her of Rome. He’d set up the books, helped her choose her computer system, worked in here every Saturday, and possibly gotten her pregnant on the very desk she sat at.

  Erica wouldn’t ask, but when Derek came in that afternoon and saw her, he reached out to help if he could. “What is it?” he asked. “Can I help?”

  Sarah felt a surge of love for him. How any sixteen-year-old boy could be so wonderful was beyond her. For Derek, she could smile, and she did. “I’m pregnant,” she said.

  He drew up the one other chair in the tiny office and folded his muscular body into it. “Is that bad?”

  “I think it’s wonderful,” she said shakily. “The problem is that Rome doesn’t want it. He was married before, and he had two beautiful little boys. They were killed in a car accident almost three years ago, and he can’t bear being around children since then. It’s still too painful for him.”

  Derek’s beautiful eyes were sober, and endlessly kind. “Don’t give up. He won’t really know how he feels until the baby is born and he can see it. Babies are pretty special, you know.”

  “Yes, I know. So are you,” she said.

  He smiled his lovely, utterly peaceful smile, and got up to do his chores.

  Another night came and went without word from Rome, but that night Sarah slept, exhausted from the lack of sleep the night before and the demands pregnancy was making on her body. Fatalistically, she realized that there was nothing more she could do, that they were both bound by the people they were and the circumstances of their lives. All her life she’d wanted a stable home, a husband and children to love, and she simply couldn’t give up. As long as there was a chance, she had to hope, and she had to try.

  As she drove home the next night she became abruptly aware that spring had arrived. It was still brisk, but not really cold, and trees were putting out tender, budding leaves. Late last summer she’d sat in her office, seeing the passing of summer as the passing of her life, fading into autumn and then winter, with no future and no love, only an empty road spiraling down for the rest of her years. Now she knew that after winter came spring. The winter had brought love into her life; with this spring,