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“More kids aren’t in the plan,” Mark said. “After Timothy died, some well-meaning relatives like my mother-in-law told me I’d have more children and that everything would be okay. But I knew more kids wouldn’t make everything okay.”
“I remember my sister telling me that after my miscarriage. It stings.” Laura sounded sad, hollow even.
“Yeah. It does. Because loving a new child seems like it takes love away from Timothy.” He sighed and took a deep breath, his chest pressing against Laura’s bare back. “I don’t want another baby. I want Timothy. I want him back, but since I can’t have him, then I’m just going to honor his memory.”
“But…Timothy would want you to be happy,” Laura argued, flipping around to look at him.
“My job is to remember him. To focus on him. I’m the only one who can. Elle isn’t… I mean her memory is foggy at best with all the pills, and now that she’ll have a new baby, she’ll forget him all the sooner. I’m all that Timothy has.”
“Mark.” Laura said his name like a sigh, sadness lingering in the single syllable. “So that’s the reason you won’t…”
She didn’t have to say come inside me. Mark knew what she meant.
“The first time was a crazy accident,” Mark said. “It can’t happen again.”
“Oh.” Laura sighed, and he got the feeling there was more she wanted to say. But he also knew that he wasn’t in the mood to hear it.
Yes, he loved her, and he wanted to make her happy. Yet things with them were far from settled. The race, then his plans to sail around the world…was he ready to invite her into that? He wasn’t sure. Hell, he didn’t even know if he wanted to sail around the world now. Laura had turned everything in his life upside down, and he didn’t know what to do, but he knew that some part of him, a big part, liked it. But, having children? That was something he couldn’t even begin to think about. Not now. Not when he still felt like his heart needed to grieve.
“But…” Laura tried once more.
“Let’s not talk about it,” Mark said, squeezing Laura tightly to him. She fell silent then, and he hugged her to him as his eyelids grew heavy and he drifted off into a dreamless sleep.
* * *
LAURA LAY AGAINST MARK, wide-awake, her mind going a million miles a minute. He didn’t want children. Not now…not ever. Oops, too late, she thought bitterly. She gingerly touched her abdomen. She could almost imagine a little tickle inside her, the baby growing at a rapid rate. A girl? A boy? Who knew? Mark didn’t want a baby. Just like Dean didn’t want a baby…at least, not hers.
The sadness hit her harder than the high winds outside. How could she possibly tell Mark now that he would be a father? She’d heard the pain in his voice, the determination as well. Laura felt like the baby was a second chance, a way of starting over, a miracle really. If she could hold on to the baby, that is. But she’d do her best.
Except Mark didn’t want any part of it. He only wanted to be a father to a boy who’d died, not one who might live.
Laura felt a mix of emotions, each one hitting her in waves. Anger, of course—why couldn’t he see that starting anew, having another baby, wouldn’t tarnish Timothy’s memory, not in the least? Fear—if Mark knew about her pregnancy, would he ask her to end it? Like Dean? She loved Mark, and if he told her to end the pregnancy, she knew she couldn’t. Wouldn’t. She’d leave the island without him and have her baby in San Francisco. Alone.
Outside, the wind howled, ripping shingles off the condo roof and battering the walls even as her own thoughts swirled in her head. No matter how she imagined it, telling Mark now about the baby would be the worst possible thing she could do.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE STORM ROARED OUTSIDE, and the two of them watched news reports until the power blinked out.
“This happens even in a bad thunderstorm,” Mark assured her. “We’ll be okay.”
He had brought in the generator from his workshop, and they used it to power a hot plate and their phones, scanning news as they could. In a day, the storm moved through, leaving just a light rain. Eventually, even that stopped as Mark and Laura went out to inspect the damage. Palm leaves were scattered across the beach, lawn furniture was upturned in the sand and a few windows were broken in some of the condos on the second floor.
“It did some damage,” Laura said, glancing at the debris on the beach as she grabbed a broom to sweep up the glinting glass shards that had toppled down to Mark’s patio. Together, they’d both taken off the boards off his patio door so they could once again move in and out easily. She cleaned and Mark went to inspect his workshop, which amazingly had stayed intact, not a board out of place. The news said the entire island would be out of power for at least another day or two but that the damage from the storm could’ve been far worse. Still, some islanders had lost their homes, crushed under the wind or flooded in the rains.
