A Mother's Homecoming(53)

She gestured graciously toward the new sofa. “Have a seat. Want a bottle of water? Afraid I’m pretty limited in my refreshment options.”

“No, thanks. I’m good. Did I catch you at a bad time? If you have a few minutes to take a break, I thought maybe we could talk.” He patted the cushion next to him.

Pam’s self-preservation instincts murmured that she should ignore the patting and take the beanbag chair, but that was ridiculous. She didn’t want to sit at his feet, looking up at him like a child at story time, and there was plenty of room on the couch. She’d survived sitting right next to him in his living room the other day. We were chaperoned then.

They hadn’t been alone in a dark house, in the exact room where they’d first made love. She brushed her hands over the denim cutoffs she wore, trying to dust away the memories with the grit. Staying as close to the opposite edge as possible, she sat with him.

“I probably don’t smell so good,” she said bluntly. “I’ve been working hard since two o’clock this afternoon.”

Nick laughed. “You smell fine, but thanks for the warning.”

Curiosity was eating at her. “If you’re not here because of Faith,” she wondered, “what was so important that you drove out after dark instead of just picking up the phone?”

“Because I thought what I had to say, you deserved to hear in person.” He drew a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”

She frowned. “Is this still about losing your temper on the phone earlier in the week? That’s behind us.”

“No, this is about our marriage.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “You’re sorry about our marriage?” Not that she blamed him—she’d be sorry if she married her, too—but she was still surprised that it had merited a middle-of-the-night visit.

“I’m sorry I screwed it up so badly and didn’t do more to protect you. You have to understand, my mom loves me a lot. My dad did, too, so I got to see the occasional kinder, gentler sides of them. But I’m aware that she can be a dragon lady to people she …”

“Hates?” Pam suggested cheerfully.

“Doesn’t understand, I was going to say.”

He made it sound as if they were two small nations who’d suffered from cultural miscommunications. “Dude, I’m pretty sure she wanted me dead. If I hadn’t been carrying her grandchild, she would have put a hit out on me.”

Nick snickered but tried to cover it by running his hand over his face.

“This is one of those ‘funny because it’s true moments,’ isn’t it?” she asked drily.

“Well, it’s just interesting that you should mention my mother in the context of a hit-man contract. I told her the other night that she had to stop acting like a mafia don.”

“You did not.” Pam tried to imagine Nick standing up to his mother; based on her experiences during their marriage, she couldn’t do it. “To her face?”

He sobered, the traces of shared humor fading from his expression. “Yeah. And I should have done it years ago. This is my point, that I let her make my wife feel so unwanted in our family.”

As Pam had done at his house during their talk with Faith, she reached out unthinkingly, squeezing his hand for moral support. But this time, he flipped his hand over, lacing his fingers between hers.

“You were just a kid,” she said, absolving him. “You weren’t ready for marriage and the politics of balancing between your wife and family, much less a baby on the way.” Very subtly she tried to wiggle her fingers free. She supposed she could just yank out of his grasp—it wasn’t as if he was going to hold her hand against her will—but she was hoping the withdraw might go unnoticed.

The knowing grin he gave her made it clear she wasn’t nearly covert enough. He leaned even closer. “I know it’s not fair to put you on the spot, all these years later, and play the what-if game, but I can’t help it. If I’d stood up to my parents, showed you more clearly that you were loved, do you think you might have stayed?”

She wanted to squeeze her eyes shut against the hope in his gaze. It was like staring into the sun with a skull-splitting hangover. “No.” She pulled her hand back, subtlety be damned. “I wouldn’t have stayed, Nick. Nothing you could have done or said would have changed that, so you can let it go. You’re absolved.”

The hope vanished, replaced by irritation. “Explain it to me,” he demanded. “After the years we had together, you owe me that much, Pam. I thought that, after all this time, it wouldn’t matter anymore. Seeing you again, it does.”