The Doctor's Secret Bride(113)
Erik’s heart danced as pleasant memories stirred deep inside him. He knew all those wonderful things about Michelle, and so much more than any of these people in this building realized. She was his sweet angel of mercy. He took a deep breath. “Speaking of Ms. Carter, why isn’t she here tonight? Is she ill?”
“You mean you don’t know?” The woman seemed deeply puzzled.
“Know what?”
“That she’s—”
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you, darling.”
Erik clenched his jaws as Bridget glided up to him and looped a possessive arm through his. He forced a bland smile.
“It was nice talking to you, Dr. LaCrosse. Thanks again for all your help. You should come by the center sometime. I’m sure Michelle would be happy to see you.” The woman threw Bridget a cynical stare then took off as if she’d brought the plague with her.
“What was that about?” Bridget walked beside Erik as he moved over to a table laden with goodies.
He picked up a carrot stick and chewed on it, absentmindedly. “She was about to tell me something about Michelle, but you scared her off.” He noticed that Bridget’s false lashes came down to shade her eyes from him. “Do you know something I don’t?” he asked.
“No.” She shook her head vehemently. “Whatever she was going to say was probably insignificant. You know how these people like to make something out of nothing.”
He didn’t like her tone or the connotation in her words. Michelle was one of these people and he still loved her with all his heart. He needed to see her. He needed to talk with her one last time before he moved to Granite Falls. She hadn’t responded to his letter, and he’d taken her silence to mean that it was over. He couldn’t leave it like that. He had to hear her tell him that she didn’t love him to his face. That she couldn’t forgive him for shutting her out of his life.
“I asked her to forgive me,” he said out loud. “I guess she can’t.”
A frown furrowed Bridget’s brow. “What did you do to her, Erik? It was her father who killed Cassie. Why would you be asking her forgiveness?”
He averted his eyes and walked from the crowd, out the door, into the dark July night, around to the back of the building. He leaned against the wall. The smell of recently fallen rain on the lush grass beneath his feet was pleasant in the air.
It was a night, just like this one, hot and humid, with fever racing through his veins that he’d kissed Michelle for the first time. His lips still tingled from the memory of that first intimate touch, and all the sweet moments of loving that followed. She had yielded, so softly and deliciously in his arms. He wasn’t aware that Bridget had followed him until she spoke.#p#分页标题#e#
“What did you do to her, Erik?”
His eyes burned with pain. His heart numbed with shame. He was grateful for the blanket of blackness. “I punished her. The night I found out that it was her father who’d killed Cassie, I went home, raging with a taste for revenge. Michelle was there. She was the perfect target. I wanted somebody to hurt as much as I was hurting. So I allowed my pain to blind me, and I unleashed it on the one person available, the one person I...”
“Love.” Bridget quietly finished when he hung his head in silence. Michelle was right. He did love her. He had been grieving for her all this time. This was a suffering far worse than death. At least he knew he could never have Cassie back. But Michelle? As long as Michelle was alive, he would never be over her.
Bridget finally understood what Michelle tried to tell her that day at the mall. As much as she wanted Erik, she could not settle to be second best to any woman. She deserved much more. What woman wanted to be with a man who could leave her some day? And she knew that someday would come when Erik discovered that Michelle had given birth to his child.
“Erik, Michelle is pregnant,” she said before she gave herself time to renege from doing the right thing. “She may have already given birth—I don’t know. I think that’s what that woman wanted to tell you.”
His head came up in slow motion, an acute pain in his chest. “What did you just say, Bridget?”
“I saw Michelle about five months ago. She was pregnant, Erik.”
He gripped her by the shoulders, a tormented, haggard expression in his eyes. “And you never told me?”
“She forbade me to tell you. She had her reasons. I was jealous of what the two of you shared and I said some nasty things to her,” Bridget added in a regretful tone.
“Like what?” He shook her. “What did you say to her?”