Another Man's Child. Tara Quinn Taylor
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make him feel better. It usually did.
He stopped by her office on his way home from his volunteer shift at the hospital. He’d been taking a stint every week since Barbara had died, having found during his wife’s prolonged illness how badly the hospital was in need of volunteers. Helping other people who were suffering as she had made him feel a little closer to Barbara. But lately he’d been looking in on Beth on a fairly regular basis, as well.
Her office door was open and she was sitting behind her desk engrossed in a textbook that looked as big as his law tomes.
He tapped lightly on the door. “Am I interrupting something?”
“Oliver!” Her head shot up, her studious expression replaced with a welcoming grin. “I was wondering if you were going to stop by. How were things on the ward this afternoon?”
It pleased him that she remembered his schedule. “Rosie Gardner’s back in. She’s developed an infection at her dialysis sight, but they’ve got it under control.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of the tweed jacket he wore even in the heat. “I, uh, wanted to talk to you about something. Do you mind if I sit down?”
“Of course not. Have a seat.” She came around the desk and joined him. “What’s up?”
“I’m more than a little concerned about Lisa and Marcus. The last time we had dinner together, all three of us, was two months ago. They’re both working themselves to death.”
Beth grimaced, her round features serious. “I know.”
“The thing is, I know what the loss of a child, or the loss of the ability to have a child, can do to a marriage.” It chilled him even to think about that time in his life.
“I know you do.” Her eyes brimmed with sympathy.
“Eighty percent of the marriages that go through it fail afterward, did you know that?”
“I didn’t, but I’m not surprised. I also don’t think Lisa and Marcus are in that eighty percent.”
Oliver smiled, feeling better already. “Somehow I didn’t think you would. And I remember John saying that once you’d made your mind up about something, everyone involved may just as well accept it as fact.”
Though Beth’s husband had been several years his junior, he’d enjoyed his conversations with his younger colleague. It was through Oliver’s connection with John that Beth and Lisa had first met. During one of her mother’s bad spells, Lisa had accompanied Oliver to a university function where John and Beth were in attendance. Lisa had just started her residency at Thornton Memorial Hospital at the time, and Beth had immediately taken her under her wing.
“So, are we going to have dinner or do you have to hurry off?” Beth asked. Her plump cheeks had a way of dimpling when she smiled that made him feel like smiling, too.
“Dinner, most definitely,” Oliver replied, offering her his arm. He refused to dwell on the twinge of unease he felt as he escorted Beth out to his car. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the friendship he and Beth had developed over the past year. Neither of them was looking for passion; each respected that the other had already had that once-in-a-lifetime privilege. But neither had mentioned the friendship to Lisa, either. Oliver wasn’t sure how his daughter would feel about his befriending a woman almost young enough to be his daughter.
Almost, but not quite, Oliver reminded himself as he sat across from Beth at their favorite Chinese restaurant. At fifty-three, he still had a lot of years ahead of him. And if dinner once a week with a woman who made him smile made those years happier ones, where was the harm in that?
“I GOT ALL THE FIGURES you needed, Mr. Cartwright. A couple of the properties look promising for Cartwright warehouses. The rest I’d leave alone.”
Marcus glanced up from the report he’d been studying to find his long-haired executive assistant at the door to his office. “Thanks, Ron. Leave them there on the table, will you please?” He returned his attention to his report.
“Yes, sir.” Ron Campbell did as he asked and then hesitated by the door.
Marcus looked up again. “Was there something else?”
“Not really, sir. It’s just that, I hope you don’t mind my asking, but you and Mrs. Cartwright aren’t planning on moving, are you, sir? That property you had me check in Chicago is residential.”
Marcus swore silently, tired to the bone. He should have done that investigating himself. He knew how thorough Ron was, too thorough to simply call for terms as Marcus had asked him to. Which was the reason Ron had reached such an elevated position within Cartwright Enterprises at the tender age of twenty-five, in spite of his ponytail.
“We’re doing a lot more business in the Midwest. I thought it might be beneficial to have a home there,” he said. “Even the nicest hotels get old after a while.”
Ron nodded and left, not looking completely satisfied, and Marcus couldn’t really blame him. He traveled to Chicago once, maybe twice, a year. Certainly not enough to warrant a home as nice as the one he’d had Ron check on. But Ron didn’t need to know that Marcus wanted the house so that he’d have a place to go when he gave Lisa her freedom. A man of action, he wasn’t sure he was going to be able to exist in their current stalemate much longer. More importantly, he didn’t think Lisa could, either.
LISA COULDN’T SLEEP. She’d been restless ever since she’d stopped by Beth’s office earlier that day, but the restlessness solidified into guilt as soon as she climbed into bed and turned out the light. Rolling over to Marcus’s empty side of the bed, she flipped on his bedside lamp and flopped back down to hug his pillow to her breasts. She kept thinking about page forty-nine, and every time she caught her mind dwelling on that anonymous specimen, she felt as if she was being unfaithful to her husband.
Where was Marcus, anyway? It was almost one o’clock in the morning. She needed his arms around her to chase away the uneasiness of the day, to surround her with his love and convince her they weren’t falling apart.
Beth and John had overcome childlessness quite successfully, happily, even. Surely the love she and Marcus shared was every bit as strong. Still clutching Marcus’s pillow, she rolled over and looked around their room. Elegant to the core, it could have been showcased in House & Garden magazine, and probably had been when Marcus’s parents were still alive.
But her gaze didn’t fall on the matching Queen Anne furnishings or the professionally decorated walls and floor. She glanced, instead, at the little gold jewelry box Marcus had bought for her at an antique fair on their honeymoon, at the Norman Rockwell original she’d surprised him with for his thirtieth birthday, at the numerous photos on her dresser and his. At the his and hers rocking chairs they’d laughingly picked out together when they’d gotten engaged. They’d planned to rock their babies in those chairs—and grow old in them together.
But there weren’t any babies to rock. And Lisa wasn’t putting much stock in their growing old together, either. Not lately.
The light was still on and Lisa was lying awake in their bed when Marcus finally came in, pulling off his tie, almost an hour later.
“Hard night?” she asked softly.
“This dragging George Blake into the nineties—I don’t know who it’s hurting more, him or me,” Marcus said with a self-derisive chuckle, sitting down to untie his shoes.
“He’s still fighting you on things?” Marcus looked like he’d aged ten years in the past twelve months. There were new lines on his forehead and around his eyes.
“Sometimes. But it’s even worse when he doesn’t. Today he was as docile as a lamb, and I hated to see it. The man built an empire from a single five-anddime store. He didn’t do that by sitting back and taking whatever comes. And every time I have to tell him that his way won’t work anymore, every time he nods and gives