Nameless Series Boxed Set (60 page)

“No. Of course,
you can see them. We won’t be far away. You can come down as often as you like
to spend time with them. I hope you do. They need you. They’re your daughters,
Seth. I’m never going to try to take them away from you. They’ll always be in
your life.”

Seth slowly
raised his eyes to meet hers, as if they’d been too heavy to lift. He murmured
hoarsely, “And you?”

Erin started
sobbing again, her present pain coupled with pain that was years old. Hated
herself for being so weak, but she couldn’t possibly stop. “I just need a
couple of weeks. Then we’ll go from there.”

He lowered his
head again, as if he were accepting the stroke of his doom. And Erin saw he
wasn’t going to argue anymore.

So, still
sobbing, she went back into the closet to get her shoes.

She had been
wrong. She’d thought Seth had done all the arguing and pleading he was willing
to do. He'd always been a proud man, and there was only so far he would lower
himself. But when she returned to the bedroom, he was waiting for her. He
reached out to grip her upper arms. “Erin,” he said thickly. “Baby, please
don’t leave me.”

“I’m not
leaving for good,” she gasped, the tears overflowing in her eyes again so that
his urgent face blurred in front of her. “Just for a couple of weeks.”

“That’s what
always happens,” he insisted, his eyes as naked as she’d ever seen them.
“You’ll leave for a week or two. Then you’ll want a trial separation. Then
you’ll be calling your divorce attorney. Erin, I don’t deserve you. And I
haven’t treated you and the girls as I should. But please don’t leave me.”

Her sobs were
loud and raspy now, and it felt like they were tearing her apart. She exerted
all the control she had remaining to subdue the sound so she wouldn’t wake up
the girls. “Seth, I don’t want a divorce. I promise. I just want a couple of
weeks.”

He didn’t say
anything. Just held onto her arms in a grip of silent desperation and stared at
her pleadingly.

Finally, Erin
couldn’t stand it anymore. She loved this man so much, and she was starting to
wonder why she had ever wanted to leave him.

Gently, she
pulled out of his grasp. “We’ll leave in the morning. Please, come down to see
the girls at my dad’s as often as you can. And—if necessary—we’ll work out a
way to get them back up here, maybe next weekend.”

“How long—”

“I don’t know.
A couple of weeks. Long enough for me to figure things out.”

Seth’s
expression broke for just a moment. “Erin, are you sure you’re doing the right
thing?”

She shook her
head. Wiped the rest of her tears away. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I have
no idea if this is right. Maybe this is the worst thing I could do. But it’s
the only thing I can think of.”

***

The next morning, Erin sat on
Mackenzie’s bed and Seth on Anna’s, as they told them they were going to visit
their grandfather with their mommy for a week or two.

Anna had been
excited when she heard she was going to visit Grandpa, and she’d scrambled off
her bed with her favorite stuffed puppy so she could go and start packing her
toys.

She must have
taken her pajama bottoms off during the night, because she was wearing just the
blue and white top and her pink panties.

Seth, who was
fully dressed in a suit and tie, grabbed Anna before she could scurry toward
the hallway. He pulled her up and settled her on his lap.

Erin had wanted
to be close to Mackenzie, since she knew that the older girl would understand
more of what was really going on. Her face was tense and suspicious, and—when
Erin put an arm around the slender shoulders—her daughter jerked away from her.

“You’re not
coming too?” Mackenzie asked, meeting Seth’s gaze with matching eyes.

He shook his
head. “I’m going to stay here.”

Anna fidgeted
in his lap until she was peering up at him. “Daddy isn’t coming to Grandpa’s?”

Seth stroked
the tangles of blond hair. His touch and gaze were so tender it nearly broke
Erin’s heart. “I have to stay here and work, but I’ll come to visit you there.”

This seemed to
satisfy Anna, who snuggled against him and played with his tie.

Erin was
anxiously watching Mackenzie’s tight face. The pretty little features twisted
almost imperceptibly.

“Are you and
Mommy getting a divorce?” she asked, sitting stiffly upright in her bed and
still looking at Seth accusingly.

Shaking his
head soberly, he said, “No. We're not. You’re just going to visit your grandpa
for a couple of weeks.”

Mackenzie turned
toward Erin questioningly, and Erin—a sharp pang in her chest—nodded at her
encouragingly. “It’s just a visit, pumpkin. Nothing for you to worry about.”

The girl didn’t
look convinced. She pushed her long red hair behind her ears and glared coolly
at her father. “Is this because you were kissing that lady in the picture?”

Erin gasped.
“No! Of course, not.”

But Mackenzie
was still waiting for Seth’s reply.

His face
remained mild and gentle when he replied, “Your mommy knows that the blog was
just making up a story. It has nothing to do with your visit to your grandpa.”

Anna had been
contentedly amusing herself by flapping Seth’s tie around, but at this she
started to frown. “Why was daddy kissing that lady?”

“Yeah,”
Mackenzie agreed, much more pointedly. “Why were you?”

Erin could see
him swallow, but his expression never wavered. “You know how I sometimes kiss
your Aunt Stella on the cheek when I say goodbye? I was doing the same thing
with that lady. She was sad about something, and I was being nice to her.”

Seth had
explained the situation to Erin the previous morning, and Erin knew he was
telling the truth. It hadn't made it any less mortifying, however, for her
husband to be gossiped about in the tabloids.

Mackenzie was
still frowning.

Seth seemed to
notice this too. “Who is the most beautiful woman in the world?” he asked
seriously.

“Mommy!” Anna
happily burst out.

Mackenzie’s
answer was mumbled, but she said, “Mommy,” too.

“And who do I
love more than anyone else in the world?”

 “Us and
Mommy!” Anna declared.

Seth nodded,
and then gave Mackenzie a half-smile. “So why would I want to kiss anyone
else?”

Mackenzie’s
face relaxed just a little, and Erin couldn’t resist giving her shoulders a
comforting squeeze. This time, Mackenzie didn’t pull away.

But Erin and
Seth’s older daughter was just as stubborn as both of her parents. And she was
just as deep and driven as Seth. She wasn’t ready to let go of this subject
yet.

“Is this
because Mommy is mad at you for being gone so long?”

Six years old,
and already so intuitive. Erin’s heart ached for the girl, and she grieved that
she couldn’t protect her for any longer from the truth of the world.

“Mommy wouldn’t
leave just because she’s mad at me. She’s taking you and Anna for a visit.
Don’t you want to see your Grandpa?”

He should have
known Mackenzie wouldn’t be distracted so easily. “Is it because you yelled at
her last night?”

Seth grew very
still.

“No,” Erin
insisted in an urgent rush. “Daddy didn’t yell at me.”

“He did so. I
heard him.”

Erin was afraid
she would strangle on the lump in her throat—at the knowledge that their
impassioned argument had been overheard, at least in part—but this was too
important. “He was just talking loudly. He wasn’t yelling at me, pumpkin.”

Mackenzie was
so tense now she was shaking with it, and her eyes never left Seth’s face. “You
made Mommy cry. I heard.”

Erin was about
to cry again, and more so as she saw the brief, shattered expression in Seth’s
eyes as he gazed at his daughter.

Then it got
worse. Anna gasped, “Mommy was crying?” She wiggled until Seth let her down off
his lap. She ran over to cling to Erin’s leg. “Mommy is sad?”

“Mommy isn’t
sad,” Erin lied, feeling tears burning in her eyes again. “I’m fine, sweetie.”
She pulled Anna up into a quick hug, wanting to comfort and cherish her baby as
much as she could.

But now Seth
was sitting by himself on the other bed, as if both of their daughters had
sided with Erin against him.

He looked
handsome and sophisticated, sitting incongruously on a child’s messy bed. But
he also looked so lonely.

The way he’d
looked before they’d become a family.

She almost
couldn’t do it. Couldn’t leave him. Couldn’t take the girls with her. Even
though she knew it was something she needed to do.

But, as she
held her daughters, she remembered them crying together because their daddy
hadn’t come home like he'd promised, and that gave her enough determination to
say, a little shakily, “Daddy has to leave for work before we get all packed to
leave. So you need to say goodbye to him now.”

Erin eased Anna
back down to the floor. “Can you give him a kiss goodbye?”

Anna eagerly
ran over to be picked up and hugged tightly in her father’s arms. Seth held the
girl much longer than usual—his dark suit an odd contrast to Anna’s pajama top
and pink panties—and Erin could only imagine how much he must be hurting.

Afraid she was
going to break down completely, Erin pulled herself to her feet. Cleared her
throat and surreptitiously wiped her eyes when Mackenzie wasn’t looking.

Anna’s mouth
was wobbly again when she pulled back to look at Seth’s face. “Why can’t Daddy
come to Grandpa’s too?”

“I have to stay
here, but I’ll come to visit you soon.”

This news
relieved Anna again, and she seemed basically content when Seth lowered her to
the floor.

While Anna ran
back over to Erin, Seth stood up from the bed too.

“Your turn,
pumpkin,” Erin murmured, when Mackenzie hadn’t moved from where she sat in her
bed. “Say goodbye to Daddy.”

Mackenzie’s
lips were trembling, but she jerked her head to the side and hugged her arms against
her chest in protective gesture.

“Pumpkin?” Erin
breathed.

Seth took a
step over to the bed. “Won’t you say goodbye to me?”

Mackenzie shook
her head, her shoulders already starting to shake. She was so much younger than
Seth. Couldn’t hide her emotions nearly as well. “Why should I?”

Seth gazed down
on Mackenzie, and Erin remembered the first time he’d ever looked at his
daughter. How utterly vulnerable he’d been in the face of his feelings for her.
How he’d had to leave the room, just after she’d been born, because he couldn’t
deal with the way the emotions had leveled him.

“Because I love
you,” he replied softly, the texture evident in his voice. “And because—even if
you’re mad at me right now—I’m still your daddy.”

Mackenzie lost
the fight against her feelings. She sobbed in choked little gasps, and she held
her arms out almost pleadingly. “Daddy.”

Seth gathered
her in, held her, cradled her against him.

Anna was
whimpering, so Erin knelt down to comfort her. But her eyes never left Seth
hugging Mackenzie, the depth of his love evident in the desperate way he held
onto her.

Erin would have
been crying, but the ache inside her had grown too intense for tears.

When Seth
finally pulled away, he stood in the middle of the room blankly, as if he
couldn’t see, as if he had no idea what he was supposed to do.

Giving Anna one
more kiss, Erin stood up. “We can talk to Daddy tonight on the phone,” she
said, pitching her voice as optimistically as she could. “And he'll visit us at
Grandpa's soon. Say goodbye before he has to leave for work.”

Anna and
Mackenzie said goodbye once more, and Erin put a hand on Seth’s back,
propelling him forward.

He could barely
walk. He seemed to be in some sort of stunned daze. But she managed to get him
out of the girls’ room and down the hallway.

“Seth,” she
murmured, unable to keep her hands from cupping his face tenderly as she faced
him in front of the main door of the apartment. “I know this is terrible, and
if I could think of anything else, I would do it. But I don’t know what else to
do.”

Seth raised his
hands to cover hers on his face. His palms were warm against her cold hands.
“Erin,” he murmured hoarsely, his eyes naked, devouring her. “Erin, baby,
please come back to me.”

She gasped,
trying to suck down enough air to keep standing. “I will. I promise. I just
need a couple of weeks.”

She didn’t know
if he believed her.

But he took one
of her hands off his face. Turned his head so he could press a tender kiss into
her palm.

Then he left,
and Erin stared at the closed door behind her.

Wondered if she
was doing the right thing. The best thing. The only thing there was to do.

Wondered if
doing it would end up hurting them all more than it would help.

***

The heavy awareness in her gut
she'd been experiencing for weeks made it clear that this was something she
needed to do. Despite this underlying knowledge, however, that night Erin was
lying in bed alone, still wondering whether she'd made the right choice.

The day had
gotten better after the heartbreaking morning. The girls were excited about
seeing their grandfather, and the change in scenery did a lot to distract them.
Even Mackenzie had unwound and had fun trying to catch lightning bugs in the
huge yard with Anna.

Her father’s
house, in a small town outside of Atlanta, was warm and welcoming, and Erin
felt the well-worn surroundings comfort her with the sense of familiarity. The
distraction had helped her too, as had her father’s unquestioning, supportive
presence, and she felt something unclench in her gut that hadn’t been unclenched
for weeks.

She still felt
just as sad and confused, but it wasn't quite so unbearable.