He nodded.
“I see.” His normally unflappable housekeeper looked as if she was having trouble controlling her tears.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “She wanted to leave, and I couldn’t make her stay.”
“Of course you could.” Ula practically spit the words at him. “There’s always a choice. But this was easier, wasn’t it?”
He felt as if she’d slapped him. “Cathy deserves better than me,” he said lamely.
Ula rolled her eyes. “We all know that, but for some reason, you’re the one she wants. She loves you, Stone Ward. She is perfect for you, but you’re too stubborn and too caught up in the past to see that.”
He touched his face, his fingers sliding over the familiar pattern of scars. “I have nothing to offer her. She can’t want me like this.”
“Then change. Make it right. I loved Miss Evelyn as if she were my own daughter. I know the two of you had troubles. You were wrong in some of it, but so was she. Let it go. Let her go. Keep the good memories in your heart and release the rest. If you continue to live like this, then you might as well have died in that car accident.” Her anger and frustration were tangible. She was shaking as she stood in front of him.
“Don’t you dare abuse the gift of life you’ve been given,” she ordered him. “Don’t you dare. You’ve wasted too much time already. You’ll never get those days back. You can be happy for the rest of the time you have, or you can die a miserable old man. For once in your life, don’t be an ass.”
She spun on her heel and walked out.
Stone rose as if to follow her, then sank back into his chair. Was Ula right? Was Cathy right? Had he been a fool, a coward hiding behind guilt? Was he afraid of risking it all just because he was afraid? Was he willing to lose someone as wonderful as Cathy just because there was some risk involved?
Was he, as Ula had so eloquently told him, an ass?
* * *
Cathy pulled into the driveway of her house in North Hollywood. It had been two weeks, and this place still didn’t feel like home. She wondered if it ever would.
She collected her groceries and went inside. When she’d first come back, she’d spent four days giving the house a thorough cleaning. She’d gone through much of what her mother had left behind, a task she’d been putting off for years. Then she’d sewn new curtains for the kitchen, bought an inexpensive comforter for her bed and a window box for the front window. She figured she and the baby would both like looking out onto fresh blooming flowers every day. Then she’d gone back to her old job.
Cathy walked into the kitchen and started putting away the groceries. Her body felt thick, as if she were moving through water. The world appeared to be in black and white now, instead of the color she was used to.
“Time,” she reminded herself as she stored the half gallon of milk in the refrigerator. “It will take a little time. Then I’ll get over Stone. Eventually I’ll feel like my old self again.” She thought for a second, then smiled. “Okay, not too much like my old self.”
She didn’t want to go back to that empty life she’d had before. It had been too horrible. She’d been given a second chance and she was going to take it. But sometimes it was so hard.
When she finished with the groceries, she sat at the small table and pulled out the college catalog. She was too late to enroll officially, but the college had a special program that allowed returning adults to go to the first day of class. If there was enough room for the professor to allow them into the class, then all they had to do was pay a fee and they were officially a returning student. Cathy had already picked out three classes she wanted to take. They started that afternoon.
She’d worked out a schedule. She had her old job at the answering service, working evenings, but she got off at midnight. She would be home and asleep by one in the morning, then get up at nine. If she got the classes she wanted, she would be in school three days a week, from noon to three, and that gave her just enough time to get to work by four. She would have her mornings and weekends to study. Unfortunately, because of the baby, she would have to skip next semester, but she would start back up in the fall.
In the meantime, she would get going on her degree. She had some savings, decent health insurance and the house was paid for. All in all, she was very fortunate.
She only had one thing left to do.
Cathy stared at the phone. She’d already put it off too long, she thought. And she didn’t want to admit the reason, not even to herself. She hadn’t called Stone to tell him about the baby because she’d been hoping he would contact her.
“Foolish dreams,” she said sadly. But they’d beenherdreams, and she’d clung to them like a drowning man clinging to a life preserver. Every night she’d come home hoping to find her answering-machine light blinking. She’d even thought he might call her at the answering service. But it had been fourteen days and Stone hadn’t tried to contact her once.
He’d let her go so completely, she wondered if she’d ever mattered to him at all.
She drew in a deep breath. It was time to put the fantasy to rest. She had to put the past and her feelings behind her and get on with reality. She had to tell him the truth.
“No time like the present,” she said as she glanced at the clock above the clean but ancient stove. It was barely ten in the morning. She could call Stone and still easily make it to her first class.
She punched in the number, trying to ignore the way her hands trembled and the knot of fear in her stomach. She had no idea what she was going to say to him. There was only so much chitchat she could hide behind before she got to the truth.
“Ward residence.”
Despite her terror, she smiled. “Hi, Ula. It’s Cathy.”
