Wanting What She Can't Have(25)

So Alexis did. She pushed aside her fears about how Catherine would  react to what she had to say-after all, hadn't Alexis just been sleeping  with Catherine's dead daughter's husband? It was a relief to off-load  to someone, especially someone who had known her as long as Catherine  had, someone who had been as much of a mother figure as her own had  been. Catherine just listened, her arm tightening around Alexis from  time to time, lending her more comfort, more silent strength. When  Alexis finished she realized her cheeks were wet. Catherine pressed a  freshly laundered handkerchief into her hands.

"You poor dear," she said after Alexis had blown her nose and wiped her tears away. "You love him, don't you?"

Alexis nodded, then gathered the threads of her fraying thoughts together. "You-you're not mad at me?"

"Why would I be?" Catherine asked in astonishment.

"Because of Bree. Because it hasn't even been a year and here I was throwing myself at him."

Catherine laughed. "Oh, my dear girl. You? Throw yourself at Raoul?  Hardly. Besides, he's not the kind of man a woman throws herself at  without expecting to slide straight off that granite exterior of his."  She patted Alexis on the leg. "Look, I love my son-in-law dearly and I  know that he and Bree were ecstatically happy together when they weren't  at complete loggerheads. We've all suffered for her loss. But I'm a  realist. She is gone. As hard as that has been to bear we've all had to  go on with living. Raoul...well, he's just been existing. When you came,  something sparked to life in him again. You gave him something to fight  against."

"Fight against? I don't understand."

"He'd shut himself down, put his feelings where no one could touch  them. Not even Ruby. I still remember seeing him standing in the  neonatal intensive-care unit, staring at her in her incubator. No  emotion on his face, not even a flicker. I knew then that she would need  help-they both would.

"Looking after Ruby helped me come to terms with losing Bree. It would  have helped him, too, but with her being sick for that first month of  her life, it only served to push him further away."

"I still can't understand how he did that," Alexis said, shaking her head.

She'd seen photos of Ruby in the NICU. They'd raised every protective  instinct in her body. She'd wanted to reach right into the pictures and  cuddle the precious baby back to health. How could Raoul not have felt  the same way about his own daughter?

"He's a strong man with powerful emotions. Sometimes emotions like that  can get to be too much, even for someone like Raoul," Catherine said.  "Bree's father was like that, too. I'm sure she was drawn to that  strength the same way I was with her father. But we had our troubles  through the years, just as I know Bree had fights with Raoul, over the  way that both men thought being strong meant shutting out anything that  might make them vulnerable."

Ruby had stopped playing and had gotten to her feet and walked over to her grandmother who happily lifted her onto her lap.

"The sad thing is, he doesn't even realize what he's been missing out on. Or maybe he didn't, until you came along."

"Whatever good I might have done has been destroyed now," Alexis said ruefully.

"Maybe, maybe not. I think he needs a bit of time to come to terms with things."

"Well, if, as you say, he's looking for a new nanny, then my time is definitely running out."

Catherine gave Ruby a kiss and popped her back on the floor. "Don't  give up, Alexis. If he's worth fighting for, then you have to fight."                       
       
           



       

She left soon after that, promising to call by again the next day. As  Alexis and Ruby waved her off at the front door Alexis weighed  Catherine's words in her mind. Could she do it? Could she fight for  Raoul? Would he even let her?

* * *

He hated to admit it, but he missed being with Alexis. That said, he'd made up his mind. She had to go.

Obviously that left him with a problem. Catherine wasn't fit enough yet  to take Ruby back on full-time so he had to find someone who would fill  in for the short term.

In the meantime, he kept a surreptitious eye on Alexis. Watching like a  hawk for telltale signs that she was overdoing things. He hated the  thought of her leaving and yet he couldn't wait for her to be gone-for  things to go back to the way they were before she arrived here. He tried  to tell himself, over and over, that he'd be able to forget her, to put  her from his heart and his mind. He only hoped it was true. He never  even let himself think about the child-his child. Their child.

Raoul walked into the house and braced himself. Today he would tell her  that she had to go as soon as he'd found a replacement. He wasn't  looking forward to it. He went to his bathroom and turned on the shower,  then stripped off his clothes and dived under the hot stinging spray.  It had been cold out in the vineyard today where he'd begun cane pruning  the vines. The work was slow but methodical and had unfortunately  allowed him far too much time to think.

He closed his eyes and dropped his head to take the full brunt of the  shower stream, blindly reaching for a bottle of shampoo. The instant he  opened it he knew he'd taken the wrong one-his senses immediately filled  with that fresh floral scent he always identified with Alexis. His body  felt an unwelcome stirring of desire, his flesh growing semihard. He  snapped the lid closed and threw the bottle to the bottom of the shower  with a clatter.

She was everywhere. In his thoughts, in his dreams, in his bathroom. He  finished his shower as quickly as possible. Determined to get facing  her and telling her what he'd done over with as quickly and as  painlessly as possible.

He could hear her in the kitchen with Ruby as he made his way down the  hall and through the house. Could hear the love in her voice as she  coaxed the little girl into eating her vegetables. It made something  twist inside him, but he forged on.

"Hi," she said matter-of-factly as he entered the kitchen.

Ruby squealed her delight at seeing him, banging on her tray with a  spoon. From the look of her, she'd been attempting to feed herself, and  not very successfully if the mush all over her face and hair was  anything to go by.

"I need to talk to you tonight. When's a good time?"

"What? You need to make an appointment to speak with me now?" Alexis's  eyes looked bruised underneath, as if she was sleeping just as poorly as  he was himself.

"I'd prefer to have your full attention. It's important," he said stiffly.

"If it's about hiring a new nanny, don't worry. Catherine already told me yesterday. So, have you found someone?"

She caught him on a back foot. "There have already been a few applicants."

"That's good," she replied, rinsing a muslin cloth at the kitchen sink  and then coming over to wipe Ruby's face and hands before giving her a  couple of slices of apple to occupy herself with. "I've been thinking,  out of fairness to Ruby, it might be best if we have a two-week  transitional period with both me and the new nanny here."

"You do?"

"It makes sense, don't you think? It wouldn't be good for the new nanny  or Ruby if my leaving disrupted her too much. She's more aware of  strangers now than she was when I arrived, less open to trust them."

"Right."

"Ruby's going to need you more, too."

"More?" God, he needed to stop with the monosyllabic replies.

"Of course, you'll be her touchstone. Her constant. She needs stability."

"She's going back to Catherine's soon."

"Yes, I know. Catherine said. Are you seriously going to do that? Send her back to her grandmother?"

"Of course. She can't stay here."                       
       
           



       

Alexis looked at him fair and square. "Why not?"

"Because it's not feasible, that's why not."

Saying the words caused a sharp hitch in his breathing. He'd mulled it  over time and time again. As much as he was bonding with Ruby every day,  he had to take a giant step back. It was the only way to stop the  chance of being hurt.

"If she has a nanny, or even a rotation of nannies together with  Catherine, I don't see why you have to turf her out of her home."

"I..."

The words he was going to say dried on his tongue. He'd been about to  refute that it was Ruby's home but as he looked around him and saw the  detritus that she spread about the place every day, he found he couldn't  bring himself to utter the words. Nor could he honestly say he didn't  want her here anymore. Sure, the idea of being solely responsible for  her care still scared him witless, but for as long as she had a reliable  nanny, or rotation of nannies as Alexis had suggested, then maybe it  could work out.