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“Huh?”
“You said we could take the tree out and plant it in the spring. I want to know what you meant by that.”
“I…well, hell, I don’t know.”
“Do you plan to be here in the spring, Caleb?”
She said it as if she were issuing a challenge. He decided to rise to it. “Are you and my children going to be here in the spring?” he asked her.
“Well, of course we are.”
“Then…then so am I.” He didn’t know what the hell made him blurt those words. Had he lost his freaking mind?
“Hot damn,” Kara said from the back seat. “You go, Caleb!”
“Shut up, Kara,” Maya growled. Caleb glanced at Kara in the mirror and sent her a wink. She smiled, and her eyes sparkled. He shifted his gaze to Selene, whose eyes were knowing, wise beyond their years. She gave him a very slight nod of approval, but the look she sent him said she had known it all along.
Caleb was worried. He’d said something he had no intention of saying. He had no idea if he could be around here in the spring. He would visit, of course, but that wasn’t the way his statement had sounded. And now it was said. It was out there. And he couldn’t take it back.
CHAPTERTEN
The truck and the van were parked side by side in the tree farm’s driveway, and Maya was following the farmer up a hill, surrounded by her sisters, her mother and Caleb Montgomery. She didn’t know why he’d said what he had. That he would be here in the spring. He couldn’t have meant it. He couldn’t have. She wouldn’t believe him. After all, he’d told her one night, eight and a half months ago, that he would still be here in the morning. But in the morning, he’d been gone. He hadn’t so much as mentioned that to her or offered an apology, much less an explanation. And she would be damned if she would stoop low enough to ask for either of those things. Far be it from Maya Brand to let a man think his presence or absence mattered that much to her.
It didn’t. And it wouldn’t. Not now, not ever.
She remembered the nights of her childhood…the soft sounds of her beautiful mother crying alone in her room. She’d felt her mother’s heartache as if it were her own, no matter how Vidalia had tried to hide it from her.
No. She wasn’t going to let any man hurt her like that. And she would die before she’d subject her children to that kind of pain.
Besides, he couldn’t very well run for the U.S. Senate from Big Falls, Oklahoma. He couldn’t serve from here if he won. He was lying. Just plain lying. And all this concern for her, for the babies, all this pampering and coddling and chivalry—putting on her shoes, for God’s sake—it was just an act. Joking with her sisters, respecting her mother. It was false. She didn’t know what the hell he wanted from her—maybe just to win her over so he could then convince her to keep quiet about his illegitimate babies. Whatever it was, it didn’t matter. She wasn’t falling for it. He wouldn’t be here when the chips were down, when she really needed him. He wouldn’t, because in her experience, men never were.
A twinge of pressure tightened around her belly and made her lower back howl in protest. She stopped walking, her hiking shoes ankle deep in the snow. Beside her, sharp as a tack and twice as irritating, Caleb grabbed her arm. “Maya? You okay?”
She blinked slowly, took a breath, and took stock. Nothing. “Fine,” she said. “Just a twinge. Not the least bit uncommon.”
They were twenty feet from the van, and there were twenty more to go, up the side of a steep little hillock, to the field of perfectly shaped little trees. And in spite of herself, Maya sniffed the Christmassy scent of them, and felt her spirits rise.
“Smells good, doesn’t it?” Caleb asked.
“Smells like a memory in the making,” she said, not knowing why. Her mother was always saying things like that. But not her. It was a sappy, sentimental thing to say. She turned to look at Caleb, at the wisps of snow falling on his shoulders and dusting his hair. He was staring into her eyes and looking confused, maybe a little emotional. Hell, it was that time of year. Everyone was emotional.
“A memory in the making,” he repeated. “I’ve never heard that before.”
She gave her head a shake. “Maybe I’ll go back to the truck. Sit this one out.”
“Now what kind of a memory would that be?” He moved closer, brushed the snow from her hair. “Come on, before they pick a tree without us.”
Without warning, he scooped her into his arms, right off her feet, and started up the hill with her.
“Caleb! You’re out of your mind! Put me down!”
“No way.”
“I weigh a ton! You’ll kill yourself.”
“Hey, there are three of you here! And you’ve been carrying these two kids of ours around for nine months. I think I can handle it for a minute or two.”
Ours. She didn’t like the way the word sounded on his lips, or on the air, and she liked even less the way her tummy tightened in response to the sound of it.
