Pregnant by Morning(33)

His arms tightened around her, holding her close, calming her. He was calming her. “Is that what happened? You had the center of your existence ripped away?”

“Yeah. I did.” Her chin trembled.

“You don’t talk about it.”

Just like he didn’t talk about Amber. “No voice. It kind of puts a crimp in the talking thing.”

“That’s a cop-out. Especially with me. Should I tell you again how sexy I think your voice is?”

She sighed. Transparency was one of the many things she couldn’t avoid with Matt. It went hand in hand with the vibe between them. And it went both ways. He’d veered away from Amber on purpose, maybe to avoid talking about her. Or maybe to find some straw he could grasp from her own experiences. They were both fighting their way out of the valley.

He was so compassionate and decent and didn’t want anything from her but her company. She should honor that.

“I lost everything.” She shut her eyes. “Not just my career. I sang my whole life, from as early as I can remember. Back then, my voice was the one thing that belonged to me and no one else. Singing was a coping mechanism.”

“What were you coping with?” he asked gently.

“You know, stuff. My home life.” She hadn’t thought about it in years. But that had been the genesis of using her voice to express all the things going on inside.

“My dad, he was a hockey player for Detroit. A seagull who swooped in, got my mom pregnant and never called her again. She tracked him down, got child support. She moved to the U.S. so he could know his daughter. Guess how many times I heard from him?”

“Evangeline...” Matt nearly pulled her on top of him in a fierce hug, lips buried in her hair.

“It’s fine. I’m over it.”

“I don’t think so,” he murmured and softened the contradiction with a light kiss. “You started to say you had family in Detroit. When we were dancing.”

God, she had. How did he remember that? “He’s not my family. He lost that chance. But, I...have a...sister.”

“Are you and your sister close?”

Evangeline laughed but it came out broken. “She worships me. Not like in a million-screaming-fans way. Because she wants to sing.”

Lisa texted her all the time asking for career advice. Evangeline still didn’t know why she’d ever answered. No one had helped her. But before the surgery, she hadn’t been able to stop herself from pathetically responding each and every time. Once, she flew Lisa and three friends to London for a concert for Lisa’s fifteenth birthday. It was the last time she’d seen her sister.

After the surgery, Evangeline went into a hole and stopped responding to the texts. One of these days, Lisa’s name on her caller-ID wasn’t going to cause such deep-seated anguish. She hoped. It wasn’t Lisa’s fault their father was a bastard.

“Is she any good?” Matt asked.

She shrugged. “I’ve never heard her sing. Too busy, I guess.”

“You’ve got time now,” he pointed out quietly, but his words reverberated in her head like the boom of a cannon.

“Yeah. I should call her.” She wouldn’t. What would she say? They had no relationship, had only ever connected over their mutual interest in singing. Now they had nothing in common other than a few strands of DNA. “Armadillo.”

She was done with midnight confessions. Lisa was a corner she couldn’t stand being backed into.

“I should call my brother. I haven’t talked to him in a month.” Matt rolled away and she missed his warmth. Had she hurt his feelings?

A sick niggle in her stomach unearthed the realization that she’d set up the code word as a way for him get out of difficult subjects, but only she used it.

“Is a month a long time?” she asked.

“We saw each other every day. His office was next to mine. We went to the same college, played basketball with some guys once a week. And you know. He’s my brother. It’s my job to make sure he stays out of trouble.”

“You miss him.”

It wasn’t a question. She could hear it in his voice and didn’t have to ask if they were close. Could Evangeline have a similar relationship with Lisa if she tried harder?

No. Evangeline wasn’t cut out for family relationships. Didn’t want to be. It hurt too much.

“That was before. When Amber was alive. After, I drifted through everything, disengaging until everyone stopped trying. I kept thinking something would happen to snap me out of it. Then my grandfather died and I realized. I had to snap me out of it. So I dumped my entire life in Lucas’s lap and left.” He chuckled derisively. “I even sold him my house. He’s in my house with a wife he’s gaga over, making new memories, about to deliver my parents their first grandchild. I should be there, living that life.”