No Longer Forbidden(48)

Rowan’s heart, ravaged by all that had happened in the last week, finished rending in two. She ached to offer him one of those ragged halves, the one beating at a panicky pace, but doubted he’d take it. No wonder he held himself at such a distance. Distance was all he’d been taught.

There weren’t any platitudes that could make up for what had been done to him, so she tried to offer perspective.

“What other choice did she have?” she asked gently. “She already had your sister and the boys.”

“One boy. She was pregnant with the other,” he admitted, one hand rasping his stubbled jaw as though he wanted to wipe away having started this conversation.

“There you go. How does a woman with three children and about to give birth to a fourth hold down a job? Who nurses that baby while she’s at work? It sounds like her choices came down to destroying the lives of all her children or just one. I’m not saying she made the right choice, but I don’t think she had any good ones. It was an awful position to be in.”

“She could have chosen not to get into that position. She married knowing I was on the way.” His eyes were so dark they were nearly black. “She could have broken her engagement and asked Olief to support her. For that matter, given they were both committed elsewhere, they never should have made me in the first place!”

Suppressing a stark pang of protest against his never being born, Rowan only said, “Because every pregnancy is planned?” She choked that off, appalled she’d started to go there. She only wanted him to see everyone was human. “It happens, Nic,” she rushed on, fixing her gaze blindly on the blurred pattern of the curtains. “Sometimes the choices you’re left with are tough ones. Judging by your reaction to my efforts toward you, you’re not interested in having a family, so what would you do?” she challenged with a spurt of courage. “Marry me anyway?”

It was a less than subtle plea for him to qualify his feelings toward her. He’d been so solicitous, holding her close all night. It made her heart well with hope that something deeper between them was possible.

He’d hardened into something utterly rigid, utterly unyielding. When he spoke, his voice was coated in broken glass. “The greater question is what would you do?”

His chilly withdrawal made her insides shrink. She wasn’t sure how to interpret his grim question, but his quiet ferocity gave her a shiver of preternatural apprehension. She was convinced he didn’t want her to be pregnant, so was he hoping to hear she wouldn’t go through with it? He would be vastly disappointed! Her heart hardened like a shield inside her. Nothing would make her give up her baby.

“It would be beyond a miracle if I got pregnant so I’d keep it, of course. But don’t worry,” she charged with barely restrained enmity. “I wouldn’t ask you to marry me. My mother’s shotgun marriage ruined her life. I’ll never repeat that mistake.”

She threw off the blankets and locked herself in the bathroom, shaken to the bone. She tried to regain control by reminding herself they were arguing about something that couldn’t even happen, but when she stood in the shower a few minutes later her hand went to her abdomen where a hollow pang of if only throbbed.

“I’d keep it, of course.”

There was no “of course” about it, but Nic was reassured that Rowan had said it. Which was crazy. The thought of making a baby with her should be putting him into a cold sweat.

He shifted in the back of the car. He had decided years ago not to have children. Partly it stemmed from spending years in Third World countries. After seeing children savaged by war and famine, their parents helpless to protect or provide for them, he’d concluded that reproducing was irresponsible.

An even deeper resistance came from his certainty that he wasn’t built for family life. Every time he’d had the hint of one it had been stripped away—most recently when Olief had flown into that storm. Nic didn’t buy into fate, but it really didn’t seem he was meant to lead the life of a domesticated man. He’d always been comfortable in that belief. What kind of father would he make anyway, incapable as he was of emotional intimacy?

Rowan would be a good mother, though. Her view of pregnancy was a bit romantic, but it thawed the frozen places inside him. He was reassured. Rowan would show him the way. She was affectionate and playful and knew how to love. His baby would be in good hands because she would love her child even if it was his.

The thought caught him by the heart and squeezed. It was such a tiny lifeline, thrown down a well—something delicate and ephemeral in dark surroundings. He wasn’t completely sure he’d discerned it. He didn’t even have the emotional bravery to reach out and see if it was real. It might not hold. But he wanted to believe it was there.