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Running her fingers through his hair, she tried to offer what solace she could. But she wouldn’t tell him she loved him. Not again. She knew it wouldn’t make any difference.
“Let’s go inside,” he whispered, taking her hand. But she didn’t want to. Inside, she’d be too conscious of what would happen in the morning. Out here, beneath a pale sliver of moon and a blanket of shiny stars, she could pretend that tonight would last forever.
“I want to make love in the Jacuzzi,” she said, and the next thing she knew, their swimsuits were gone, the hot water was rising and falling around them, and all she could think about, all she could feel, was Preston.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“MOMMY!”
Emma opened her eyes to find Max standing at her bedside.
“Preston’s gone.”
She already knew that. She’d felt him get up a few minutes earlier. He’d smoothed the hair out of her face and pressed a kiss to her temple. She could have awakened fully, but she hadn’t. She didn’t want to see him go. She wanted to hold last night close, just a little longer.
But it was gone. It had slipped away with him.
“Did he tell you goodbye?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“He woke you up?”
“No, I was up.”
Probably not. But at least Preston hadn’t simply disappeared. “Did he say anything else?”
“To be a good beast.”
“You are a good beast.”
Max frowned. “Isn’t he coming back, Mommy?”
“I’m not sure.”
“What about baseball? He’s my coach.”
Emma kissed her son’s soft cheek. For years she’d longed for a life that was just the two of them. Then why did she feel so incomplete without Preston? She was in Iowa now. She needed to search for a job, find a house, start her new life. Yet she could hardly summon the energy to get out of bed.
“Maybe his plans will change,” she said.
“Where did he go?”
Emma couldn’t face Max’s questions. Not while she felt so bereft. “Want to go swimming?” she asked to distract him.
He perked up immediately. “Yeah!”
“First we’ll have doughnuts for breakfast.”
His smile widened. “Is this a party?”
Sort of a consolation prize. “If you’re going swimming, you’ll need the extra energy, right?”
Clapping his hands, he ran for his swimsuit. While he was gone, Emma let her eyes wander around the room. No computer. No duffel bag. No cell phone—
Her gaze shifted back to the dresser. There was something there.
Dragging herself out of bed, she moved closer. It was a small bottle of perfume. A gift. And it was sitting on an envelope that contained five-thousand dollars. On the outside, Preston had written “Buy yourself a car.” Below that, he’d scribbled his telephone number.
She smiled as she held the perfume to her nose and breathed in the delicate scent. At least he’d given her a way to get hold of him.
She picked up the phone, wanting to hear his voice, even though he’d just left. But there was no dial tone. The motel didn’t have telephone service yet, but it would in a few days. Maybe goodbye wasn’t goodbye after all.
JOANIE HAD BEEN cool and distant on the phone but she’d agreed to meet Preston for breakfast. He thought he had a chance of getting her to talk. She probably still cared about Christy. But as he waited for her to join him at the coffee shop she’d suggested, he was thinking more about the recent past. Emma would be up by now giving Max his insulin—
“Preston?”
He glanced up to see a woman standing at his table. It was Joanie, but if she hadn’t spoken, he wouldn’t have recognized her. She’d gained at least a hundred pounds. Her hands and feet were swollen. Even her face…
“You’ve changed the color of your hair,” he said, to cover his surprise. He started to get up, but she waved him back into his seat.
“You don’t have to stand. I know we’re not friends anymore.”
Grimacing, she maneuvered herself into the opposite seat. “You had to get a booth?”
He hadn’t known she’d struggle to fit. “I—Would you rather move to a table?”
“No, we’ll make do. And you can’t hide your shock so don’t even try.”
“I’m just…”
“Wondering what the hell happened to me?”
Yes—to say the least. He cleared his throat. “Are you…ill?”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s called pregnancy, okay? Weight gain. Water retention. I’m borderline toxemic, which means I swell. Believe it or not, today is one of my better days.” She dabbed at a drop of sweat rolling down from her hairline. “God, I’ll be glad when it’s all over.”
He could see why. “Is it Vince’s baby?”
She gave him an odd look. “Of course.”
“When’s the baby due?”
“Six weeks.”
And now she was facing a divorce. “I thought you didn’t want children,” he said.
“Vince didn’t want children. He didn’t want anything to slow us down.” She made a noise of irritation. “God forbid we should have to miss a trip to Cancun every once in a while.”
Preston motioned toward her stomach. “He changed his mind, I see.”
She clasped her swollen hands together on the table. Preston noticed that she was no longer wearing her wedding ring—any rings. With all the swelling, she probably couldn’t. “Actually, he didn’t. This was my choice. I decided I wasn’t willing to give up being a mother just because he didn’t want to be a father, so I went off birth control. But—”
The waitress brought Joanie a glass of ice water and handed her a menu.
“You were saying…” Preston prompted as the waitress walked away.
“He nearly had me talked into an abortion. I was willing to do it to save my marriage. Until I caught him in the back room with his new receptionist. Then I decided I was tired of sacrificing my desires for his.”
“I take it the interaction between the two of them wasn’t exactly business-related.”
“You got it.”
“So you left him because he was cheating on you?”
“No. Cheating was a pretty common occurrence for Vince.”
Wanting a refill on his coffee, Preston pushed his cup to the edge of the table. “As far as I know, he didn’t run around on you when we were friends.”
