Anything for Her(45)

Until they discovered what it felt like not to be alone.

After wandering out to the kitchen for the third time to dump out coffee that had cooled too much to be drinkable and pour another cup that would probably go cold, too, he reached for the phone and carried it to the living room. He hadn’t talked to his sister in a while.

Despite the greater age gap between them, he was closer to Anna than he was to Jed. Because of what they had in common? he wondered uncomfortably, but reminded himself that Allie was right—he and his sister had yet one more thing in common.

Not until recently had he thought of himself as an artist, but that was the direction he increasingly saw himself going. Most days, working on commissioned countertops, fountains and the like, he itched to get back to his own piece. He’d feel an almost physical tug toward that corner of the workshop. He could see a day in the future when he could command prices high enough to allow him to sculpt for a living. If that’s what he wanted. If he didn’t lose the pleasure in it because it had become his job.

He’d talk to Allie about it. She’d taken that route, in a way. If nothing else, she’d listen, and understand the push/pull he felt.

About to drop into his easy chair, Nolan went still. How things change. Once he’d have told himself a change of direction in his career was something to think about. It would never have occurred to him to talk it out, nor to have felt so comforted at the idea that he could. Allie was getting under his skin.

And the only alarm he felt at the idea was worry that his feelings for her weren’t entirely reciprocated.

He was frowning when he scrolled for his sister’s phone number and touched the send button.

“Nolan,” she said. “I was thinking about you today.”

“Were you.” He sat down and with one hand unlaced his boots.

“Mmm.” He heard water running momentarily. “Sorry, I was just cleaning the kitchen.”

“This a bad time?” he asked.

“No, I’m putting a cup of tea in the microwave. The lazy woman’s way.”

“Aren’t we all lazy these days?” He stacked his stockinged feet on the coffee table and wriggled his toes, enjoying the freedom from the heavy safety boots.

“You?” Anna snorted. “You never do anything the fast way if you can do it more deliberately.”

Except fall in love. The thought was...maybe not as startling as it should have been.

“Apparently I wanted the quick route to fatherhood,” he pointed out. “Why grow ’em yourself when you don’t have to?”

His sister laughed, as he’d expected. Only then she said, “Why grow ’em at all, if you don’t have to?”

He went quiet inside, oddly startled and dismayed. “You don’t plan to have children?”

“Do you?” she said sharply. “Aside from taking in this boy?”

They’d never talked about this subject. He hadn’t given it much—any—thought before, but now he discovered a yearning inside himself he hadn’t suspected was there.

Because of Allie.

“Yeah.” He sounded scratchy. “Yeah,” he said more strongly. “I think I do.”

“Why?”

He took his feet back off the coffee table, sat up and rested his elbows on his knees. “Most people do. Selfishly, there’s a lot of pleasure in seeing the world anew.”

Anna didn’t say anything.

“Is it that you don’t like kids?” he asked, feeling his way. “Or that you have trouble with the idea of having a permanent partner?”

All he could hear was her breathing, for what had to be a minute. “I don’t know if I could trust anyone that much,” she finally admitted. “God, Nolan. How can either of us?”

“I was telling someone today about Mom and Dad,” he heard himself say. Was this why he’d called her? “It got me thinking. We could have been worse off, you know. Whatever you can say about them, they both love us. Dad— I’ll never understand why he stuck with her, but he did. You know, what I’m choking on is how damn trustworthy he was.”

She made a sound somewhere between another snort and a Gah!

“I can’t even begin to understand their marriage.”

“I used to think he might be impotent, and if she wanted sex at all she had to get it elsewhere,” Anna offered.

“I used to hide my head under my pillow when their bed started squeaking. Sometimes it got lively enough, the headboard whacked the wall.”