HER IDEAL MAN Read online

  Anna thought he'd probably hidden his feelings even from himself, but the conversation with Curtis had dragged everything into the open. His expression had been one of panic.

  Taking a breath, she crossed the room to sit down beside him, and put a hand on his back. "Are you all right?"

  His head fell forward, as if weighted by dark thoughts. "No."

  Instinctively, Anna simply rubbed the long muscles in his back, over and over. "Do you want to talk about it?"

  He jumped up, pulling away from her, and put one arm on the mantel. "I don't think I can do this, Anna. I can't stand it. I can't stand to think about it."

  A breathless panic dripped from the words. Anna had pegged it right. Still, she wasn't quite sure how to respond. Did he really mean he couldn't face it at all, or was this just the first, brutal realization of the fact that he was going to be facing another pregnancy and birth? She frowned. "Tyler, come sit down, please."

  He shook his head, his jaw hard. "Please, it's not you. I just can't breathe."

  "Okay. Can you listen?"

  "Yeah."

  "I mean really listen."

  With visible effort, he straightened and looked at her. Anna wanted to weep at the expression she saw there—a combination of panic and sorrow and genuine confusion. "Yeah."

  "I'm not sure what's scaring you the most, but I'm guessing you're just now realizing that I have to have the baby sometime."

  A curt nod. "It's not rational. I know that. But it doesn't seem to matter. It makes me feel sick to my stomach."

  "Given what you've been through, that's not surprising. And we both know there are no guarantees. I wish there were." She gave him a rueful smile. "If you think it's scary from your side, you should be in my shoes."

  "Are you afraid?" He asked the question as if the possibility had never occurred to him.

  Anna laughed. "Well, of course I am. All new mothers are. It's normal. You hear stories." She rolled her eyes. "When my female relatives got together after one of them had a baby, you would not believe the birth stories they told. I remember I was in a hospital waiting for my sister Catherine's baby to be born, and there was some woman screaming bloody murder at the top of her voice the whole time. I was sure she was dying, but my mother just sat there next to me, reading the newspaper like it was nothing."

  Tyler looked green. "What happened to her?"

  "She was fine. It was her fourth baby, and he was born in two hours, but she liked screaming. My mother said some women curse, some scream, some just get completely vacant, like they aren't there." She raised an eyebrow. "Were you there when Curtis was born?"

  He gave her an ironic smile. "Yeah. But Kara would never have allowed anyone to think she wasn't the ultimate earth mother. She had no drugs, and had music on headphones, and I was supposed to rub her feet, but I have to tell you, Anna, I didn't like being in there. I know it's old-fashioned, but it doesn't seem like any man has any business in there."

  "I'm so glad you said that." Anna smiled. "I'd much rather you didn't come in. I don't want you looking at me all sweaty and piggy and crazed—I mean, what if I'm one of those women who scream expletives?"

  A genuine smile broke the dimness of his expression. "I find that very hard to imagine." The smile turned into a chuckle. "Very hard."

  She shrugged. "You never know. I'd just rather you let me do my business with other women. Maybe your mother will come, and Ramona will deliver it. She's about a month ahead of me, so she should be ready by then."

  He went suddenly rigid again. "She might not be the one to deliver the baby?"

  "Tyler, she's pregnant. If she goes over, she won't be ready to plunge into work that fast."

  "Damn. I don't want anyone else to do it."

  Anna held out her hand. "Tyler, please sit down. You're giving me a crick in my neck."

  He ignored her hand, but perched on the chair across from her, sullenness back.

  "If you worry like this all the way through, you will be no earthly help at all when the baby is born."

  "I know." He swallowed. "It was just so awful, Anna. Losing her like that. I felt so guilty."

  She'd leave that alone for the moment. "Tyler, I'm not Kara."

  He had the grace to look ashamed. "I know." His mouth tightened. "But you're so small, Anna. How can it be possible for you to have a baby? Will Ramona do a C-section or something?"

  "No." She grinned. "I only look small, Tyler. Where it counts, I have plenty of room." To illustrate, she put her hands on her body. "I'm made for this. Hips, pelvis. The women in my family have babies very easily. Every one of my sisters were walking around in an hour, and fixing meals three days later."

  "Really?" Cautious hope shone in his eyes.

  Anna smiled. "Really." She stood up and put one hand on either side of her hips. "Look at that spread."

  He reached for her, and put his hands on top of hers, very seriously examining the space between their hands. "This is what matters?"

  "One of the biggies. I'm also quite healthy, in case you haven't noticed by my appetite. Having babies is very natural for ninety-five percent of us."

  He raised his eyes. "I don't think I could face it again, Anna."

  A strange pang struck her heart. Did that mean he might be growing to love her? "Everything will be fine, Tyler. Trust me."

  He moved his big palm over the low round of her belly. "Is she moving now?"

  As if to accommodate him, the baby fluttered against his hand, and Tyler went completely still. Looking down at him, at his shining crown and his strong hand over her stomach, Anna found herself stricken with shattering love. She ached to put her hand against his hair, to touch his face, to kiss his sober, beautiful mouth, but she didn't. She simply let the emotion wash through her, sweet and sad and yearning, and let him greet the baby they had made.

  When her throat was not quite so tight, she teasingly said, "Why do you call it a she? Curtis is sure he's having a brother."

  "I don't know," he said, looking up at her as he moved his hand around, seeking the faint flutters again. "I think I'd like that, to have a daughter."

  "Do you have any ideas about names?"

  "Maybe." He let her go, and Anna sat back down on the couch across from him, mainly so that she wouldn't be tempted to simply leap on him, and probably humiliate herself again. If anyone was to make a move, it had to come from Tyler. Anna had tried twice and been rebuffed. "Do you?"

  "I haven't thought about it much yet," she said.

  "Well, I thought about Ramona, because it's a pretty name, but also because she saved my brother's life." He cleared his throat and looked away. "She was also Kara's doctor. If it wasn't for her, we probably would have lost Curtis, too."

  "It is a pretty name. I might go for that, but I'm not willing to commit myself yet. What about boys?"

  "That I don't know."

  "Maybe something very old and honored, like Michael."

  He considered. "That might work. I guess we have time."

  "Yes, plenty." Anna folded her hands. "There is something we need to discuss that hasn't come up yet, however. I was waiting for you to bring it up again."

  He frowned. "What?"

  "We're going to need more room. At least a bedroom. The loft will be too cold for the baby, and I don't like that thought much, anyway."

  He nodded. "You're right. That was why I added Curtis's room. But there will be four of us. Maybe I'll talk to Lance and see about getting some plans drawn. You have any ideas about what you'd want?"

  So polite. Everything was always so blessedly polite. Anna suddenly couldn't bear it. "No, I'll leave it to you. I think I'm going to take a shower and get some sleep."

  Tyler only nodded. "I think I'll read for a while."

  * * *

  Tyler waited until Anna was sound asleep, then donned his coat and boots and went outside with his dog. It was a cold, crisp night, the sky full of stars. He looked up at them in appreciation. So often, when people came from the cit
y, the thing they could not believe was that there were so many stars they'd never seen. The sky was thick with them, but city lights obscured a lot of them, just as even faint pollution dulled the daytime blue.

  With Charley close by, Tyler set out walking. In the deep darkness, he stuck to the road, simply walking in the night, trying to chase away his demons.

  For Anna's sake, he'd submerged some of the feelings Curtis's misgivings had roused in him, but the truth was, tonight he missed Kara with a more piercing and painful grief than he'd felt in years. He didn't want to be having a baby with another woman. He didn't want to think about names. He wanted not to be here in this present, but back in the past, where Kara still lived.

  Since marrying Anna, he had not allowed himself the maudlin luxury of speaking aloud to his dead wife, but alone now, and under cover of night, he did. "This is so strange," he said. "I hope I haven't made a big mistake. We were together for so long that getting married was natural, and Anna can never take your place." His booted feet crunched against the gravel. "I do like her, though. If it had to be anyone, I'm glad it was Anna. She genuinely loves Curtis, and she's easy to be around."

  A cutoff from the main road led into the trees, and Tyler realized where his feet and heart had led him. To Kara's house.

  In the bright night, he could see it clearly, a long, rambling single-story house with a deeply peaked roof. The external walls were made of long split logs, the blank windows were framed with golden pine, the door was worked with an alternating diagonal pattern of light gold pine, and grayish aged pine, and the whole was varnished and carved. Approaching it, Tyler was amazed at what beautiful work he'd done. "I really did love this. It turned out exactly right."

  Charley wagged his tail.

  Kara, inspired by a man in the southern Colorado mountains, had wanted to build a castle from the ground up. Tyler was much more practical, and had convinced her that a modern house, designed with the environment in mind, would be a far better idea.

  Together they had scoured back issues of Mother Earth News, and The Farmer's Almanac and any other back-to-nature publication they could find for the latest in earth-friendly building. Tyler owned nearly five hundred acres up here, and they had scoured every inch of it, as well, to find the perfect home site.

  A site, Tyler thought, rounding the house, that was incredibly beautiful. Sitting in a wide meadow protected on the north and west by thick forest, it would weather winter storms and summer heat with equal aplomb. A flat of land to the south would provide some vegetables. There was no danger of erosion, or flooding, or even avalanche.

  Below, down a gentle slope dotted with trees and pink granite boulders that glittered with mica, lay Red Creek. Most of the lights were out at this late hour, but Tyler could see a few streetlights, and the red of a traffic light, and even the faint pinpoints of a moving car's headlights. The daytime view made the town look like a quaint Swiss village.

  Slowly, he turned and headed to the house itself. From below a rock near the back door, he took a key, then climbed the steps to the wooden deck that was placed to take advantage of winter sunshine and summer shade. It gave him a glow of pride to remember how carefully he'd planned every detail.

  Just inside, he paused, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the thicker darkness. The last time he was here, Kara had been with him, just a few days before she went into labor too early.

  She had not been feeling well that day. Tyler had worked on the flooring in the kitchen while she sat in a patch of sunlight, her blond hair caught in a knot at the nape of her neck, her makeupless face extraordinarily pale. That afternoon, she had kept her hand over her belly, and by her expression, Tyler had known she was a million miles away. Twice he had asked her if she was all right, if she thought they should drive into town—or maybe even into Denver.

  Both times, she had simply shaken her head and looked back into whatever interior landscape so occupied her. At the end of the day, they had walked very slowly back to the cabin, both silent with the strain that had marked their relationship since he told her about his vasectomy. Finally, winded, Kara had stopped at the meadow that surrounded the cabin. "Tyler," she had said, "try to understand that this is the thing I've most wanted in my life."

  But even then, sick with worry, he'd been unable to totally forgive her for risking her life. Instead of granting the absolution she was asking, Tyler had simply looked at the house and said, "I think we can move in within a couple of months."

  A week later, she'd been gone. And Tyler had never given the absolution. Not even when he held her hand in the hospital, with the knowledge of her impending death hanging over them.

  Walking from room to room in the dark house, Tyler felt the old sorrow pounding in his veins like a virus. A virus, he thought, that had no cure. "I'm so sorry, Kara. I wish somehow I could make it up to you." He looked around him, seeing what should have been—the softly woven carpets and the pictures on the walls, and Kara and Curtis reading a bedtime story on furniture he'd made.

  Sinking to the floor, he buried his face in his hands, aching for all that was lost. All that should have been and had been lost to him in foolish, arrogant pride. His heart felt like a black hole, so empty that the emptiness sucked everything else into it.

  How could he bear to continue this masquerade?

  But how could he halt it?

  Impossible. The whole thing was impossible.

  Weary at last, Tyler relocked the door and went back to the cabin where his new wife slept. In the darkness, he undressed and, careful not to disturb her, he climbed into bed, somehow grateful for the warmth she provided.

  As if she sensed him, Anna turned over and curled against his arm, her hair brushing his shoulder, her soft, round breasts close against his rib cage, her knee just touching his thigh. After two months of sharing a bed with her, he'd thought he'd finally grown used to the discipline he needed to keep his hands to himself, but tonight, her nearness assaulted him anew.

  Clenching his fist, he moved slowly away from her, turning his back to the ripeness of her warm, sleepy body. If he loved her, this furious lust would be an appropriate expression of that love. As things stood, his visions were physical, carnal manifestations, and he didn't think it was fair or right to indulge them.

  Not when Anna was in love with him, and she would be making love.

  Gripping the pillow close to his chest, Tyler hugged the edge of the bed and willed his arousal to subside, and finally, he fell into merciful sleep.

  * * *

  Chapter 16

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  He dreamed he was back in Kara's house, in the daylight. It was summer, and the windows were thrown open to let in the fresh, cool mountain breezes. Somehow there were rugs in place, and something cooking on the stove, and, bewildered, Tyler called out, "Hello?"

  From around the corner came Kara herself. She smiled. "Hi, Tyler."

  Confused, he said, "You're dead. How can you be here?"

  With a gentle smile, she said, "They let me come back for a day."

  Stunned, he stared at her, wonder and joy swelling in his chest. "Can I touch you?" he asked, ashamed that his need showed in such husky wildness in his voice.

  "Oh, yes," she whispered.

  Tyler reached for her, and somehow, in the way of dreams, they were in a bed in the sunny room that was going to be their bedroom, close together under thick quilts. She curled against him, spoon-position, and he put his hand over her breast, sighing at the texture, that heavy softness, the nudge of an aroused nipple against the heart of his palm. "I can't even tell you how good that feels," he said, and rubbed the tip lightly, bearing a soft groan of pleasure come from her throat.

  She wore a simple white gown made of something he thought was silk, and Tyler felt a little confused for a moment. Kara only liked cotton or flannel, disdaining silky things as unnecessary luxury.

  But the lure of her sweet flesh swept away his confusion. Eagerly he slid his hands below the fabric. Her thick hai
r brushed his face, and he groaned at the freshness against his nose. He closed his hands around her naked breasts, the fulsome softness filling his hands exactly, sending an agony of arousal through him. He kissed her neck, suckling hard at the tender place, and she shuddered in approval, turning to him, offering herself.

  Tyler opened his eyes slightly, only enough to guide himself to his destination. He bent his face to her breasts, brushing his mouth, then his hungry tongue, over the swells of satiny flesh. He shifted to take his weight on his elbows, and gathered her breasts into both hands so that he could kiss and tease and please her. He felt her hands in his hair, heard her small sounds of pleasure, felt her arch into him, nestling herself against his erection. At last he took one pert nipple all the way into his mouth, and the sensation went through both of them like a thunderbolt, and his low moan mixed with her womanly one, a melding of notes in perfect harmony.

  With effort, Tyler tried to rein in his urgent hunger, and moved to the other side, tugging and suckling until she writhed against him in an agony of need that matched his own.

  She gripped her hands in his hair almost painfully, and whispered his name.

  Tyler shattered awake to find it was no dream. He had burrowed under the covers and taken away her nightgown, and his mouth was filled with the deliciousness of aroused breast, and his organ was heatedly cradled at the juncture of her thighs.

  But it was not Kara. It was Anna. Anna who felt so magnificent, who shivered with yearning, who arched with passion against him. A fierce joy pushed through him at that, a pointed hunger he could not have halted even if he had the will to try. It was not a dream. He had sweet Anna in his arms, her bare breasts against his mouth, her moist heat an irresistible invitation, and he thought in a disconnected way that he should have known it was Anna, because Kara had never responded like this to him, had never shivered or clung to him like this, had never allowed herself to fall apart like this.