Beside a Dreamswept Sea (12 page)

She reveled in the feel of the crisp wind ruffling through her hair, teasing her eyelids; in the feel of Bryce curling his arm around her shoulder in a way that using her as support didn’t require. He
wanted
to touch her. God, but it’d been so long since she’d known a man wanted to touch her. And not knowing what to do with all the feelings that knowing conjured, she buried them.

To the sounds of the ocean and birds chirping, they walked south on Main Street to the village. The Blue Moon Cafe was still busy, though it was after nine P.M.

“Want to stop for a snack?” Bryce asked. “I hear Lucy Baker makes a mean blueberry pie.”

“No, thanks—unless you need to rest your knee.”

“It’s fine. The stiffness is working out—but don’t tell Miss Hattie she was right. There’ll be no living with the woman.”

A smile tugged at Cally’s lips. “She seems to have an amazing knack for knowing what a person needs.”

“Mmm, I hadn’t thought about it, but you’re right. She does.” A glint of mischief flickered in his eye.. “Maybe that’s the Seascape magic.”

“Maybe so.” Cally refused to rise to the bait, but she saw now where his children got their mischievous streaks. She liked that about Bryce, too. And she didn’t like liking it any better than the rest of things she liked about him.

On the stony path beside the road, they walked on past the pristine church with its stained-glass window and high steeple, then turned back toward the inn. When they neared the gravel drive, Cally held her breath, sure Bryce would turn in and their walk would be over. But he didn’t. Instead, they walked on, toward the lighthouse which sat on a jutted point its keeper, Hatch, had called Land’s End. A shame the Coast Guard had automated the lighthouses and his wasn’t operating anymore. Chiseled against the midnight sky, its dark silhouette looked lonely. Cally knew exactly how it felt. And she sensed Bryce did, too. Amazing how different their situations were and yet how much they had in common.

“Cally.” He broke their pleasant silence. “May I ask you something?”

The last thing she wanted was to answer questions. Especially ones from Bryce when he sounded more like an attorney than a father or a man. The father, the man, she enjoyed, but she’d had about all of attorneys she could handle. She glanced over to tell him so, but the moonlight shining softly on his face conspired with his earnest look, and her reluctance withered. “Sure.”

“Why didn’t you want the divorce?” Bryce semigrimaced, pausing at a clump of chickweed next to a mighty oak on the edge of the sand-dusted asphalt where the street met the path to the lighthouse. “I mean, knowing Gregory was seeing Joleen—”

Cally looked away, out to the ocean, and inwardly groaned. Salt-tinged air breezed over her skin and the sounds of the waves crashing against the shore pounded in her ears. If she told the truth, she would look like the fool she’d been. She really didn’t want to look like a fool—not to Bryce. But she couldn’t lie to him, either. Not without again becoming Caline, and she was quickly growing more peaceful as Cally. Cally was desirable, at least a little, and she was looked at with warmth and tenderness, with smiles that touched the eyes. Caline wasn’t. “I didn’t know he was seeing Joleen.” Cally fixed her gaze on the lighthouse tower. “I had no idea.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.” Leaning on her, he walked on. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“It’s okay.” She shrugged, and sidestepped an unruly juniper intruding onto the path.

Midway on the upward slope, Bryce stopped near a clump of bayberry. The wind whistled through its winter-barren branches, and a bird cooed. Sounded like a barn owl, though he couldn’t spot it in the trees. “Upsetting you isn’t okay. Not with me.”

So conservative. So reserved. And yet so much passion in his eyes and in his voice. Meriam had been a lucky woman. “I didn’t want the divorce because, fool that I was, I loved the man.”

Bryce moved to face her, then stopped under an ancient oak. The tip of his cane sank into the pebbly sand and grains sprayed over the toe of his loafer, tapping against the leather. “I don’t think loving a man is foolish. Especially not when that man is your husband.”

Bitterness? Is that what she’d heard in his voice? Why would Bryce sound bitter? “When that man’s Gregory Tate, loving him is worse than foolish. It’s a recipe for self-destruction.”

Bryce touched her face, his fingers cool, his eyes tender. “There had to be some good in him. If there wasn’t, you’d never have fallen in love with him..”

“You don’t understand.” She didn’t understand herself. No. No, that wasn’t true. She understood. She only wished she didn’t.

Bryce rubbed his thumb along her cheek. “Explain it to me then, so I do understand.”

She couldn’t meet his eyes. She wanted to, tried to, but she just couldn’t do it. Instead, she focused on his tie. “I loved Gregory from the moment I saw him. His parents said it was lust, but it wasn’t. I truly fell in love with him at first sight. He was so . . . perfect. Everything I wanted in a man. And, as hard as it is to believe now, then he loved me, too.”

“I’m sure he did.”

Bryce’s of-course tone had her smiling. He had a way of making her feel lovable. Not that she was, or ever could be again. But the fleeting feeling was nice. “Gregory was a med student then. We couldn’t wait to get married, to be together.”

“His family opposed.”

“Boy, did they.” She shrugged off a memory of the ugly scene. The accusations of her using pregnancy to trap their son. She’d explained she wasn’t pregnant, but it hadn’t mattered. Only time had proven her truthful on the issue. Considering the way things had turned out, with them unable to have a child, divorced, Gregory remarried, it all seemed rather unimportant anymore. Yet it still hurt. So much . . . still hurt.

“But you married anyway. And you were happy.”

“For a while.” She let out a humorless laugh. “I guess I should be grateful it lasted as long as it did.”

“But you’re not.”

Too perceptive! “No. No, I’m not.”

“What happened to you two?” Bryce shifted his weight and winced.

His knee clearly was aching. He hadn’t wanted their walk to end either and, pleased by that, Cally clasped his arm, then sat down on the dew-damp ground. Even in his knife-creased dress slacks, he sank to the earth beside her, and she smiled again. “Everything was great. Gregory’s parents cut him off financially because he’d defied them and married me, so I quit college and worked designing window displays for a couple of department stores. Money was tight, but we got by.”

“So you put him through med school.”

“And his residency. And helped him repay school loans and set up his office. At times I thought we’d be in debt forever.” She plucked at a blade of brown, dead grass, then threaded it between her forefinger and thumb. It crackled. “I’m one of those unfashionable women who never wanted a career, Bryce. I only wanted a family.”
To be the sunshine of my home.
“So we postponed my dream to get Gregory’s. When he went into practice, then it was to be my turn.” She let out a self-deprecating laugh. “We were going to have lots of babies and a comfortable home, and live happily ever after.”

Bryce’s expression turned serious. “But you never got your dream.”

“We had to pay off the school loans, then the office setup loans, then save a nest egg. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But I finally got part of my dream—the home part.” She lifted a pointed finger. “The trouble started when I mentioned the babies part.” The wind caught a wisp of her hair, tangled it. She pushed it away from her face. “I wanted them then, and Gregory didn’t. He’d worked so hard for so long, he wanted some free time first.”

“So your dream had to wait—again.”

She nodded. “At first he just put me off. Then he got irritated if I brought up the subject. For a long time, I avoided talking about kids because I couldn’t take the upset it caused. Then
I
got irritated and, finally, I insisted.” A shaft of pain arrowed through her chest, and her voice softened. “That’s when we found out Gregory couldn’t have kids.”

“Did you still love him, then?”

What an odd question. “Of course.” A raccoon scampered across the path then ducked under a clump of bayberry. Cally grunted. “It was hard to accept that we’d remain childless, and I’d be lying if I denied it. But I worked through it, Bryce. I really did. And I accepted that part of my dream just wasn’t meant to be.”

He sandwiched her hand in his, his fingers strong, yet gentle. “What about adoption?”

“Gregory refused to discuss any alternatives.” Alternatives would occur to Bryce. Her chest went tight. But they hadn’t occurred to Gregory. How long had he stayed at the hospital the first time she mentioned adoption? Three days, or four?

Did it matter now? She looked up through a spruce’s wind-ruffled branches. “He wanted our children, or no children. When I pushed and insisted my wants should count, too, I became the ‘lousy, demanding, and ungrateful wife.’ ”

“I can’t imagine that,” Bryce said.

“Bless you for sounding as if you mean that.”

“I do mean it. You thanked me and asked for help with your luggage. That rules out demanding and ungrateful.”

“Ah, but I excelled at lousy.” She tossed down the grass blade, lifted a stone, then rubbed it between her forefinger and thumb. The grit of sand clinging to it felt good. Soothing.

“’Fraid not. Lousy women don’t protect. And you protected Jeremy from the battleaxe.”

“The battleaxe?” A little laugh escaped her throat. “Ah, the estimable Mrs. Wiggins.”

He bumped his cane with his knee; steadied it against the rough bark of the tree. “You don’t like her.”

“Truthfully?” Clouds scudded across the sky and the moonlight softened, then again grew bright.

He nodded. “Always.”

Cally liked the sound of that—and added honesty to the list of things she didn’t like liking about him. “The battleaxe grates at my nerves.”

“Mine, too.”

“Then why don’t you fire her?”

“I can’t make myself do it. Meriam hired her. We both worked long, weird hours—I still do. Mrs. Wiggins isn’t the greatest nanny in the world, but she is the only constant in my kids’ lives.”

Again putting the children’s needs above his own desires. And Meriam’s wishes, too. Another of his traits went on her list, and a stream of jealousy so fierce she feared she’d drown in it rushed through Cally’s chest. Even though she’d been dead for two years, Meriam’s wishes were given more consideration by Bryce than Gregory had given Cally’s wishes with her alive. And if that didn’t prove she’d been a lousy wife, she didn’t know what would.

“Besides,” Bryce went on, “I’m not a very good parent, Cally.”

“You’re a wonderful parent.”

“No, I’m not. I swear I try, but I just screw up left and right.” He grunted and stared into the night sky. “Once, Jeremy spilled milk on the kitchen floor and used the garden hose to clean it up.”

She smiled. “Very creative.”

“He flooded the kitchen.” Bryce laced his fingers with hers. “I put him in the corner, then cleaned up the mess. Afterward, I took a phone call, checked my e-mail, puttered in the yard. Suzie comes outside—it’d been a good hour—and says, ‘Daddy, aren’t you ever going to let Jeremy out of the corner?’” Bryce’s expression twisted. “I forgot him, Cally. I actually forgot him there.”

“And I’m sure you felt awful about it.”

“Of course I did, but that’s not the point. I forgot my son. That’s the point.”

“Hmm, how did Jeremy react?”

“I went inside and said, if he could behave, then he could get out of the corner. He looks up at me with these big eyes and tells me, ‘I think I’d better just stay here a while.’”

She laughed from the heart out, pressed her forehead against Bryce’s shoulder.