The Swallow's Nest. Emilie Richards
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give you a brother or sister.” She didn’t go on. She knew she didn’t have to.
After a loud burp Toby settled back to his bottle and opened his eyes to stare at her. She smiled at him. He smiled back, and the nipple fell out of his mouth. He wrinkled his little face to cry, but she slid it back in.
“He smiled at me!”
“Aren’t you the lucky one.” Graham didn’t sound quite as cynical as he had.
“I feel lucky. A baby’s smile is magic.” She looked at her son, although pulling her gaze from her grandson was hard. “This is going to get better. His nervous system is going to mature. Pretty soon he’s going to seem like a real person to you.”
He surprised her. “How can I blame you for having me after what I’ve done?”
She didn’t know how to answer, but Graham’s question almost sounded like absolution, like he might actually forgive her for being such a distant figure in his life. In the end she shook her head. “I wish I could do more.”
“I don’t want help. I’ll manage.”
“And Lilia? Is there any way you can make this up to her?”
“Can you think of a way?”
He didn’t expect an answer; she knew that. But she gave him one anyway. “You know I never really approved of your marriage.”
“Yes, for some reason you didn’t think Lilia was good enough for me. When the opposite was clearly true.”
She knew better than to address that since whatever she said would make her sound racist and undemocratic, although she was sure she was neither. Instead she moved the discussion sideways. “I can’t help you with that. I’ve never felt close to her, and I probably never will. I felt I lost you for good once you found her.”
“What exactly did you lose?”
“And I’ve always felt she prodded you into confronting your father the way you did. He gave you a job, a future at Randolph Group, and instead of listening to him and following his lead, you went out on your own and brought a stain on all of us.”
“I took the truth to the places where something could be done about it.”
“Your father doesn’t forgive easily.”
“I knew that when I did what I had to.”
She wondered, with Lilia out of the picture, if a miracle might happen. “This could be a time, Graham, when Douglas might soften a little. If you tell him you made a mistake and you’re sorry, he might be willing to let bygones be bygones. Toby is his grandson, perhaps the only grandchild he’ll ever have, and even your father has a sentimental streak.”
“I’m not sorry, and I didn’t make a mistake. Not that time, at least.”
“Is it beyond you to say so, even if it’s not precisely true? Is it beyond you to say it to assure this baby’s future?”
Graham was silent so long she thought he might be mulling over the idea. But when he spoke she realized how wrong she had been.
“I hope my son has a long, happy future with me guiding his steps. And if she can ever forgive me, I hope he’ll have a future with Lilia as his mother.” His voice hardened. “But I would apply for food stamps, Mother, I would stand in bread lines before I would allow my father to sink his talons into anybody in my family, especially Toby. I will never humble myself in front of a man without an ounce of humility or goodwill in his soul.”
As if his own words had spurred him to action, he got up and held out his arms for the baby. “Feel free to tell him I said so.”
Blake’s “villa” overlooked a golf course, which didn’t surprise Marina. The day they’d met waiting in line at a popular restaurant downtown, he had been dressed in a bright blue polo shirt with the Pebble Beach logo. Three months into a pregnancy she regretted, she had started an idle conversation with the attractive older man who had lost none of his graying dark hair and held himself like a soldier. They’d cut their mutual wait time by taking a table together, and she’d learned that Blake was adjusting to being a widower. He had seemed lonely, in spite of admitting to a new romantic interest. Before parting, they’d exchanged phone numbers. “Just to chat.”
In the following months they had chatted occasionally, talking about everything, except her pregnancy. She hadn’t told him about the baby, preferring to pretend to herself, as well as to him, that she was carefree and single. After all, who did it hurt? But a month after Toby’s birth, he had invited her to dinner. The new girlfriend was out of his life, and by then, Graham was definitely out of hers.
The community where he lived was divided into villages sprawling over land where a vineyard and winery once stood, and his village was near tennis courts and the clubhouse restaurant. The villa, while small, was still three times larger than Marina’s apartment, with every possible amenity.
Blake fell into the amenity category.
This morning Marina woke slowly and saw the sun was high in the sky. She could hardly remember days when she had slept until she was ready to wake up, but she was rapidly getting used to it. Even before the baby she’d needed to be at her job early, and weekends had been filled with shopping and cleaning or helping Deedee with some project she couldn’t complete on her own. But this morning no alarm had awakened her, and now Blake stood beside the bed they’d shared for a week with a cup of steaming coffee in his hands.
“Sleeping Beauty,” he said fondly.
She slid up to a sitting position and pulled the top sheet over her breasts before taking the cup. On the evening she had volunteered to meet him here, Blake had invited her to stay the night, and she had never gone home. Although he had taken her on a surprise shopping trip during her second day in residence, she hadn’t bothered with a nightgown.
She took her first sip and realized he’d added cream, exactly the way she liked it. She tried to remember when a man had remembered even the important details about her, much less what she put in her coffee.
“This is such a lovely treat. Thank you.” She lifted the cup to her lips. “How long have you been up?”
He smiled, teeth white against tanned skin. “I had a little work to do, so I got up at seven.”
Blake was semiretired from a company that had something to do with network processors. He’d started the business himself, and his two sons—one of whom was a year older than Marina—were now in charge. Blake still went to his headquarters occasionally and worked each morning on a laptop in the kitchen dining nook. If he thought about work when they were together, he never let on.
Cream in her coffee was just one example of the attention he had lavished on her.
She patted the place beside her, and he sat. He was wearing khaki slacks and one of his endless supply of polo shirts. His cheeks were ruddy from shaving, and his brown eyes sparkled. He smelled like soap and aftershave, and she wasn’t at all sorry to wake in his bed.
“I have to go back to work on Monday,” she said, “so I’ll need to go home this afternoon and get all my things ready. But haven’t we had a good time?”
“You’re sure you have to go?”
She pursed her lips seductively. “I’m a working girl.”
“How well do you like your job?”
From the beginning he’d seemed interested, so she’d already told him a little about her position with a building materials supplier, about the way she facilitated sales and analyzed data, about the endless trips to construction sites with promotional items and a ready smile.
She answered truthfully. “I like putting together sales presentations.