Just The Way You Are(82)

"Of course not."

"Do you like me?"

"Yes, I do. Very much," Tessa said, wondering where the questions were coming from.

"How come you never came to see me before?"

Tessa licked her lips. "Well, I've been traveling around the world. I just never got back to Tucker's Landing, but that doesn't mean I don't like you."

"I heard Mrs. Conroy tell Mommy that you stayed away because Mommy had me. And you didn't like me."

Tessa stared at Megan in horror, hating the rejected look in Megan's eyes, hating the fact that somehow, however inadvertently, she'd been the one to put it there.

"That's just not true," Tessa said firmly. "I left home to become a model, because that's my job. That's what I do. My staying away had nothing to do with you."#p#分页标题#e#

"But you don't like Mommy," Megan said.

"We're sisters. Sometimes sisters fight, just like friends fight. I bet you argue with your friends sometimes."

"Then we make up." Megan put her hands on Tessa's face, and Tessa had to stop herself from flinching. This mothering stuff was dirty business. "You and Mommy have to make up."

"We will someday," Tessa lied, because she didn't know what else to say.

Megan studied her for a long moment. "All right, then." She turned her attention to the nearby television and squirmed around in Tessa's lap until she could lean back against Tessa and watch in comfort.

Tessa tightened her arms around the little girl, realizing she was starting to enjoy the contact. She wondered what it would be like to have a child of her own. It wasn't something she'd thought much about, especially after Sam's departure from her life.

After that, she'd been consumed with staying thin and looking beautiful and getting magazine covers. But she knew that her career wouldn't last forever, not in the business she'd chosen. And then what would she have? Scrapbooks full of photos, clippings of hundreds of parties, two apartments and not one home, not one man?

Did she want children? Did she want a husband? The white picket fence, the carpools, the peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches? Right now, holding Megan, she could see some definite advantages to having a child. She'd have someone to love her, someone to belong to her. Maybe that's what Alli had been looking for, she thought suddenly, her gaze traveling to the counter where Alli was finishing up the admittance procedures.

Jimmy didn't think she looked at Alli, and maybe he was right. Because the woman she saw standing in the emergency room was nothing like the pesky little sister she remembered. Alli had grown up. Well, so had she. That didn't solve their problems, but it did add some distance, maybe some perspective.

Jimmy sat down next to her. "How's it going?"

Tessa took the ice pack off the side of Megan's face. "Looks better, don't you think?"

"Yeah, you've got guts, kid."

Megan smiled like every other female who came under Jimmy's charm. "Mommy said I was very brave."

"You were very brave," he agreed. "If I ever have a little girl, I hope she'll be just like you."

"Are you planning to have children?" Tessa asked him.

"I'd like to."

"Really?"

"Why so surprised?"

"Children would tie you down."

"I've been pretty much everywhere I wanted to go, sometimes twice. The world isn't that big."

"I'm still not sure I can see you changing a dirty diaper. You're not exactly prone to manual labor."

"My wife will take care of the diapers."

"You are such a chauvinist."

"What's a chauvinist?" Megan asked.

"It's a man who lets his wife change diapers."

"Daddy says he used to change my diaper."

"Now why doesn't that surprise me?" Jimmy said dryly. "Okay, what about you? Any kids in your future, Tessa?"

"Yesterday I would have said probably not."

"But today your biological clock started ticking?"

"Something like that," she said, smoothing down a piece of Megan's hair.

Jimmy followed her movement with his eyes and they softened when he gazed at her. "You look good doing that. Can you believe I actually left my camera in the car?"#p#分页标题#e#

"It's about time. You know, it occurs to me that you're so busy taking our pictures, you don't really participate, you just watch."

He shrugged. "Someone has to be the recorder."

"I don't think that's a rule."

"You like having your picture taken."

"I also like doing stuff with you. So it's okay with me if once in a while you come to me barehanded."

"I'll remember that."

"Good."