A Second Chance (15 page)

So many reasons raced through Carlos’s
head. But the main one stuck. He wondered if Matt had ever really
loved Madeline, or if he’d just taken her in as a sign to Carlos
that he too could have what Carlos had. He’d always been that way
when it had come to Carlos’s family. “I don’t know.”

“
But it’s like she didn’t
even care anyway. I don’t even think it upset her. She was more
upset when we told her you were getting married.”

The twisting in his gut was back. Just
when everything should have been falling into place, it was falling
apart.

“
You’d better get some
sleep. I love you.”

“
I love you too,
Dad.”

Carlos turned off the light and
trudged toward his own room and the wrath he assumed was waiting
for him.

Kathy was in the bathroom, and he
could hear her going through her nightly ritual with a little more
zeal than usual. Containers clanked and water ran on high. After a
thud came a string of curses. She must’ve hit her hand on a
drawer.

He undressed and slipped on his pajama
bottoms. He climbed into bed and waited.

When she opened the door and stepped
out, he saw it in her eyes. If he got any sleep he’d be
lucky.

She didn’t say a word, which was
worse. She crawled into bed, turned off the lights, and pulled the
covers up high.

Carlos lay sill in the silence of the
room. She wasn’t going to yell at him? She wasn’t going to throw
shoes? Maddie would at least have thrown her shoes at him. He
smiled at the thought. Three black eyes, he remembered. Three.
Maddie was a shoe thrower, and if you tried to intercept it, you’d
get hit in the eye, because her aim sucked. It had taken him three
times to learn it was always a better idea to stand still, you
wouldn’t get hit.

He rolled to his side and scooted
closer to Kathy, wrapping his arm around her and kissing her on the
head.

She snapped back the sheets and stood
up. She glared down at Carlos as she turned on the
light.

“
Don’t you get that close to
me.” She pulled the pillow from the bed, grabbed a quilt from the
quilt rack, and bolted for the door. “I’ll sleep on the damn
couch.”

“
Kathy, wait.” He scrambled
from the sheets, threw his feet over the side of the bed, and
nearly tripped as he hurried to her.

“
Wait? Wait?” She dropped
the pillow and quilt and stomped back toward the bed. “That’s all I
do is wait. I wait for you to call. I wait for you to come home.
I’ll be waiting for your Goddamned hair to be coming back in before
we do the Goddamned pictures I had scheduled.”

Carlos dropped his head. He’d
forgotten about the pictures.

“
Kathy, I’m sorry about the
pictures. I forgot.”

“
You seem to forget a lot of
things when it comes to me. At dinner the other night, I could have
sworn you all forgot I was in the room.”

He dropped his shoulders. “What does
that mean?”

“
It means you were all so
damn concerned about her and so into watching her hold Tyler that
you didn’t even consider that I was there. You never took your eyes
off of her.” She tensed her arms as though looking for strength to
keep going. And she did. “It was a reunion, and no one gave any
thought to how I felt sitting there having you all talk about when
you and Madeline were married. What Ed looked like when you brought
him home. How young she was when she had him.”

“
Kathy…”

“
You know we haven’t even
talked about having kids. You’ve never mentioned it.”

“
I have kids.”

“
But I don’t. I’m thirty. I
planned that when I got married to the man I loved, I would have
kids.”

“
Then we’ll talk about it. I
just don’t remember you ever mentioning it before
tonight.”

“
You can’t seem to remember
a lot of things,” she said again, as if the fight was starting all
over. “You can’t seem to remember that you asked me to marry you
and we’re planning a wedding. You don’t care about colors,
location, guests.” She sucked in a breath. “I’m surprised when you
can remember to drive to work in the morning.”

“
C’mon.” He stood and walked
toward her. “Listen, I’m sorry that I haven’t been as attentive to
you as I should be. I do remember that I asked you to marry me, and
I wouldn’t have if I didn’t love you. And I said I was sorry about
our hair and ruining your pictures. It’ll grow back
quickly.”

“
You look
stupid.”

“
Really? I thought it wasn’t
too bad.”

“
Don’t you joke with me.
This isn’t a joke!” She reached for the pillow again and Carlos
stopped her, placing his hands on her arms.

“
I know it’s not a joke. We
did it to support her. She was really upset about losing her
hair.”

“
Damnit! That’s all you do
is support her! How about supporting me!”

“
I do support you. I love
you.”

Her chest heaved with the breaths that
came quickly as her anger rose. “I’m not so sure about
that.”

“
I wouldn’t say it if I
didn’t mean it.”

Kathy lifted her head and pushed back
her shoulders. Her eyes had grown dark and she seared him with
their glare. “Then stop seeing Madeline.”

It was as if the air had been sucked
out of the room.

“
I can’t stop seeing her,”
he said, shaking his head.

“
Why?”

“
I have to see her. We share
the kids.”

Her lips tightened and she shook her
head. “That’s not what I mean, and you know it. I don’t want you
going by there everyday. I don’t want you taking her to the doctor
or taking her things from the drugstore. You don’t need to be
there.”

“
She needs me.”

“
She had her chance with
you. You’re mine now.”

His jaw tensed. “Kathy, you’re being
petty.”

Her eyes flew open and she pushed
against his chest. “Petty? Petty?” She spun from him, dragging her
fingers through her long, blonde hair. “I think I’m being pretty
fair!”

He was never good at this part of the
relationship. When a woman was in his face, he needed to recollect
himself before he lost everything that was dear to him.

“
You’re right.” He moved
toward her again. “You’ve been nothing but kind and compassionate.
I’m sorry.”

“
Then you’ll stop seeing
her?”

It squeezed at his heart. How could he
possibly promise her that? “I need to support her.”

“
The kids support her. You
don’t need to be there all the time. Why the hell do you care so
much?”

“
She’s my wife.”

The moment the words were out of his
mouth he’d wished he’d never spoken. He wished he’d just let her go
to sleep and he’d never touched her.

Her hand came across his
face.

“
Bastard!”

“
Kathy, I’m so sorry.” The
sting of the slap made his eyes water. “I didn’t mean
that.”

“
Yes, you did! You can’t
seem to get it through that thick, stupid head of yours. You
divorced her! You asked me to marry you!”

Tears were streaming down her face. He
wanted to gather her up and hold her tight. How could he have been
so stupid?

“
Kathy, I’m
sorry.”

“
Are you having an affair
with her?”

“
What? No. Kathy, it’s not
like that.”

She wrapped her arms around herself.
“It feels like that.”

“
No. I’m just helping the
mother of my children get through the hardest time of her life.” He
reached for her arms again. “Honey, I’m sorry this has hurt
you.”

She pulled back slightly. Her body
shook under his hands. “It hurts so much.”

“
I never meant for it to. I
love you.”

“
Then keep your distance
from her.” She turned and seared a look at him that made it
perfectly clear the ultimatum if he didn’t. “Please, do this for
me.”

He looked into Kathy’s tear-filled
eyes. He looked down at his chest. It felt as though she’d pushed a
knife through his heart. How could he not take care of Maddie? How
could he just walk away?

The thought of the kiss he’d shared
with Madeline raced through his head. What was he doing? But he had
to be honest with himself. He’d let Madeline go years ago. This was
his chance to be the husband he should have been then. Carlos
nodded. “Okay. I’ll step back.”

Chapter Seven

Carlos’s hand fidgeted over the phone
as he sat at his desk. The students had long left the building, and
his own kids were home waiting for him to arrive. But he couldn’t
move. He couldn’t leave until he called Madeline and made sure she
was all right.

A phone call wouldn’t break his
promise to Kathy. A phone call wouldn’t hurt.

He finally dialed her number and
waited for her to answer.

“
Hello.” Her voice was soft
and gentle. That was Madeline. Soft and gentle.

“
Maddie.”

“
Carlos!” Her voice rose,
and he could hear her smile. “I almost didn’t recognize myself this
morning. I have to tell you. I laughed right out loud when I saw
myself in the mirror.”

Warmth spread through his body. “I’ll
bet you still look great.”

“
Thank you.”

She was laughing. She was fine. He
could hang up and know that she’d be okay.

“
Hey, I just wanted to check
on you. It doesn’t look like I’m going to be able to make it to go
shopping for a few days.”

“
Oh, that’s okay. I’m
getting this scarf thing down pretty well. They don’t look too
bad.”

“
Good.” A lump formed in his
throat.

“
Arianna called me this
morning. She’s going to be here a few weeks between shows and to
throw your fiancée a bridal shower. She’s got a few wigs from
performances cluttering up her closet. She’s going to bring them
down for me.”

“
That’s nice.” His voice
cracked and he swallowed that lump of raw emotion—deception for
making the phone call—that had lodged in his throat.

“
Carlos, is something wrong?
You don’t sound all right.”

“
No. I’m fine,” he lied, and
the palm of his hand sweated against the phone. “I’ve just got a
lot on my plate and I’m trying to find time for it all.”

“
Well, if you’d stop fussing
over me, you’d have more time,” she offered.

He picked up a pencil that lay on his
desk and snapped it in two with his thumb. “I’m not
fussing.”

“
You’re a good man, do you
know that?”

He shook his head. He didn’t feel like
a good man, not when he was sneaking phone calls to his ex-wife
when his fiancée asked him to keep clear of her.

“
Call me if you need
anything. I’ll have the kids take the bus to your house on Monday,
and they can stay with you next week.”

“
I miss them already. Isn’t
that crazy? It’s not like they weren’t here just
yesterday.”

“
No, I understand it.” He
pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’ll talk to you
later.”

He ended the call and dropped his head
in his hands. God, he didn’t know trying not to care for someone
could be as hard as caring too much.

Kathy had decided to get married on a
Saturday morning in April in the backyard of his sister’s house
among a small group of friends and family. It was February already,
and Carlos knew that the eight weeks before the wedding were going
to be a combat zone wrapped in pink.

“
I need you to make me a
list of people you want to invite. I think I know everyone, but
just in case I miss someone.” Kathy handed him a notebook and a
pen.

“
How many people are we
going to be able to get into Regan’s rose garden?” he asked as he
looked at pages that she’d titled CARLOS’S FRIENDS.

“
I think we could get
seventy-five people in there.”

“
Seventy-five?”

“
Well, you have to think,
with your family alone that’s. .” She began calculating. “That’s
twelve if you count spouses, dates, and kids.”

“
Not to mention my long list
of dearest friends.” He shook his head.

“
Shut up and make your
list.” She gave him a wink as she went back about making her own
list.

He couldn’t help but think of the
people he was putting on his list. It felt odd to put people down
who had been there to see him marry Madeline. Most of them were
relatives. He’d never kept too many friends. Matt Carson had been
his closest friend in the world. He stood next to Curtis at the
altar with him the day he married Madeline. He never would have
guessed then he’d have lost his wife to the man he’d thought of as
a brother.

Carlos shook his head. Sometimes you
were blinded by friendship and love, and you never could see the
wolf lurking in the person’s clothing.