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“Fine, now that you’re here,” Tory said.
Dr. Anderson glanced up, smiled at the couple and went silently and efficiently back to work.
“I’m so sorry, love. I should’ve been here.”
Tory’s eyes filled with fresh tears. “You were,” she said softly. “In my heart, you were here every second.”
“Would you like to see your daughter, sir?” a nurse interrupted. She was holding Phyllis Christine, wrapped in a blanket with a tiny pastel-colored cap on her head.
Ben turned toward her, then stopped abruptly. Phyllis found herself crying again as she witnessed Ben’s first glimpse of his new daughter. She’d never seen such a look before. Masculine, strong, vigilant—and completely vulnerable at the same time.
Phyllis Christine had a slave for life. One who was going to provide for her, protect her and cherish her in the way only a father could.
Something Phyllis’s baby was never going to have.
For the first time, she considered the full ramifications of what she was doing. Simply by the circumstance of her baby’s conception and birth, he or she was going to come into the world at a disadvantage.
Her baby wouldn’t ever know a father’s protection. A father’s adoration. Would never have that wealth of unconditional love a good man naturally gave his child.
Choking on the sobs that she could no longer hold back, Phyllis hurried from the room.
WHERE THE HELL was she? Tossing his portable phone on the kitchen counter, Matt looked down at the shining hardwood floors he’d treated that morning, reminding himself that Phyllis Langford was a responsible, capable adult. He should be watching the football game on television, drinking a beer, getting online to place bets with the anonymous friends he’d spent the past couple of years “watching” Sunday afternoon football with. Friends he’d never met.
Instead, he grabbed the keys to his Blazer and locked up the house. He’d helped build the place a couple of years before on the acreage he’d bought just outside Shelter Valley. He headed back into town, back to Phyllis’s house. He’d told Phyllis he’d be over when she got home from church; he planned to d
o anything that needed doing to help her get ready for the coming week. After Saturday, when they’d known that Friday night’s cleaning had been too much for her, she’d easily agreed to his offer.
When he’d arrived at her home a couple of hours before, she hadn’t been home. And she hadn’t answered her phone since.
Sweating by the time he turned onto Phyllis’s street—in spite of the fifty-degree weather and the fact that he hadn’t turned on the heat in the Blazer—Matt concentrated on separating himself from the situation, stepping outside it. A technique he’d learned during the long days of a court battle that he, a poor young man from a family of convicts, hadn’t had a hope of winning.
Phyllis was fine. She would’ve called if there was a problem. And if there was a problem and she hadn’t called…well, it was none of his business, anyway. She was nothing to him but an obligation; serving her was simply paying off a debt. Paying what he owed her…
And the baby. He didn’t think about that.
Still, though he tried to hide it from himself, the relief Matt felt when he saw Phyllis’s car in her drive eased every muscle in his body.
He knocked, impatient when there was no immediate answer. He’d called just a few minutes ago. She couldn’t have been home long.
He knocked again, more loudly.
The door opened, but only a crack.
“Oh, Matt, hi,” she said, her voice froggy, as though she’d been sleeping. Or crying. “Sorry, I forgot you were coming over.”
Good thing he had nothing invested here.
“Did I wake you?” he asked, shrugging off her apology.
“No.”
He pulled open the screen door she never locked. “If you’ll just open that door a little wider, I’ll be able to slide through and get to the trash.” He tried for a grin, but was too tense to pull it off. She was acting so out of character….
And then it hit him. Maybe she had a man in there.
Heat sliding up his body, he stepped back as far as he could without actually letting go of the screen door. “Unless you’d rather I came back later…” What a fool he was. No wonder she hadn’t answered her door.
And it wasn’t as if she owed him any explanation or needed to inform him when she was entertaining.
