Playing for Keeps (45 page)

"Sure."

She handed them to him one at a time. "This is my baby Stacie, she's one. And this is Sam, he's two."

"Jesus. How old was he when you got pregnant again?"

"Two months." Maddie grinned.

Nick shook his head, and continued looking at the pictures. "They're cute. The little one looks like you."

"Sam looks like his daddy. Here's Sophie, Rob's seven year old. She's a doll. We get along great."

"Cute.," Nick nodded. "Where's her mama?"

"Close by us. She's a lawyer in the city, and she's got a busy schedule, so we have custody of Sophie full time."

He looked at her. "A lawyer, eh? Wasn't that your major in college?"

Maddie laughed. "Uh, no. I think
you
were my major in college."

He nodded. "I'd have to agree with that."

Maddie went back to the pictures. "Oh, here's one of Rob and me." She handed it over.

"Jesus, Maddie! He's a mini-me!"

"Excuse me?" She looked at the picture and back at Nick. "He looks nothing like you."

"Shaggy blond hair hanging in his face. Scruffy three-day beard. Blue eyes, and a great physique." He looked at her again. "What about that does not scream
Nick
?"

Maddie
laughed. "Okay, okay, you make him sound like you, but really, he's not."

He tapped the picture on the counter and looked at her.

"Well, he's a little like you."

He tapped the picture again and Maddie grabbed his hand. "Stop! Okay, there are similarities. But Rob is Rob, and you are you. Both special in your own ways."

He nodded. "I'll accept that." He looked at the last picture of Maddie by herself. "Now this is nice. You really did turn out pretty, baby doll. I like the hair, especially."

She chuckled as he set the pictures down on his desk. "Rob liked my hair long. So when we had this big ol' fight and he left me to go back to Sophie's mom, I took the scissors and chopped off my braid one night."

"You did not!".

"I swear I did. Then I called a girlfriend to come fix it for me. Fortunately it turned out okay."

"I'd say it did. I want to hear more about this fight, but I'm thirsty. Would you like a soda?"

"We call it 'pop' in the Midwest."

He snorted. "Pop is the guy that drinks all my beer when he comes to visit." He grabbed two cans from the refrigerator in the back and handed her one. "I guess I should have asked you what kind. That still your brand?"

"Yep." She nodded. "You remembered."

"I remember a lot of things, baby doll. Now, tell me about this fight. Why did Bob leave you for his first wife?"

She popped open the soda and gave him a look. "His name is Rob, and he was never married before me."

"But he got a kid with this lawyer chick somehow."

"I didn't say they didn't sleep together. I just said they were never married."

"Sleep together," he repeated. "What a stupid euphemism."

Maddie laughed. "Okay, okay. They were together for nine years so they probably did some major canoodling in that amount of time. Better?"

He shrugged. "Whatever you prefer. I just call 'em like I see 'em."

Maddie sipped her drink. "Rob asked if you were the only guy I slept with at college. I said yes, and we didn't do
that much
sleeping."

He laughed. "Now that was an honest answer! God, I missed your sense of humor!"

She rolled her eyes at him. "Anyway, when we met, he wasn't quite over Dionne. He still had hopes they could be a family."

"But he got you in the sack, in the meantime."

"Well, yeah," she admitted.

"And you got your heart broken. Again."

"Well, yeah. But I had to give it a shot! I was crazy about him, and as you might remember, I am not a woman who is destined to live without a man in her life."

"Oh, I remember." He took a big drink of his soda and then shook his head. "It took me a long, long time to forget. And I never really did."

"I never forgot a moment with you, either," she said softly. "You were my first true love."

He sat back and looked at her. "You may have been my first true love as well, Maddie. I spent a lot of time with a lot of different women, but nobody quite like you."

She smiled. "I like that. It makes me feel good, somehow." She looked down, and then back up at him. "I wanted to feel good about us again. I've felt lousy and miserable for so long now. I was really hoping I could make peace with you."

He shook his head. "There's no need to make peace. I've never harbored any bad feelings toward you, Maddie. I knew things were going to end badly between us. I told you that right at the beginning. I just didn't realize how hard I was going to fall for you. I thought you'd be the one to get hurt, but it seems we both did."

She nodded. "I just wish I'd been stronger, back then. I should have stood up to my parents."

"That was never going to happen. The way you were raised, you could do nothing but what you did. I never expected things to go any differently."

"But we talked about being together! Remember, that last night? I was going to tell my parents about us."

He shook his head and interrupted. "They would never have let you be with me. Think about it, knowing what you know now. They'd have had me arrested before they'd have seen me with their little girl."

"If you felt that way, why didn't you tell me? Why did you let me go on with my fantasies of us being together?"

He
smiled. "Because I was weak, Maddie, or maybe just lazy. It was easier to let you believe what you wanted to believe. If someone had to dash your dreams, I was going to let it be your old man, not me. I wanted him to be the bad guy."

"He was definitely the bad guy." Maddie nodded. "There's something I haven't told you yet. The reason I never contacted you when I finally came back to college."

They heard a noise and looked at the garage door. A man in a suit stepped inside. The sun was behind him, glaring in, and Maddie couldn't see his face.

"Can I help you?" Nick asked.

"I was looking for my wife," he said softly.

"Oh my God!" Maddie stood up and went to him. "What are you doing here?"

Rob smiled at her. "Looking for you, of course. I hope I'm not interrupting."

She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly. "Of course not! Oh my God! Look at you!" She pulled back and touched his lapel and tie. "And you shaved!" She ran her hand over his smooth face.

"My going to a funeral look, we'll call it."

"Oh, you're so sweet." She hugged him again. "You came here to be with me."

"And when I got here, you were gone. Your mother told me where I could probably find you, and what you were driving. I hoped you were here, because when I saw the Lincoln, I sent the cab away."

"You took a cab from
Hartford?" Maddie asked in disbelief.

Rob shrugged. "I had no idea where I was going. I wasn't going to drive."

"Oh, lordy." She put her arm through his and led him inside. "Rob, I'd like you to meet Nick. Nick, this is my husband, Rob."

Nick stood up and extended his hand. "Pleased to meet you."

Rob shook hands. "Same here, I think."

Nick chuckled and went back to the fridge. "
I
think this calls for a beer. Join me, Rob?"

"Yeah, definitely."

"Sit down." Maddie pulled him down next to her on the sofa.

"You look cozy." He glanced at her shoes on the floor.

She gave him a look. "You know how I hate to wear heels. I'm lucky to still have my pantyhose on."

"You're damn lucky to still have those pantyhose on," he repeated.

She laughed.

Nick handed
Rob a beer and Maddie another soda. He sat in his chair and said, "We've been catching up." He motioned to the pictures of Rob and the kids, spread out on his desk. "You have a nice looking family."

"Yeah, we do. Thanks." Rob nodded, and took a drink.

"This is my boy, Tommy." Nick showed him the picture.

"Cute." Rob nodded again.

Maddie said, "You never told me, are you married?"

"Yeah." Nick looked down. "She insisted on it, with
Tommy and all."

Maddie laughed. "So you didn't go the traditional route either. That's okay. What's her name?"

"Sarah."

"That's pretty. We thought about that as a baby's name, remember?" She looked at Rob, who nodded again, and continued to drink his beer.

Nick said, "So what do you mean by not going the 'traditional route'? You told me you broke up for a while, how did you get back together?"

Rob
looked at Maddie with surprise, but she ignored him. "Well, Rob didn't know it, but I was pregnant when he left me. I had the baby, Sam, by myself. He was two months old when Rob finally got up the nerve to come looking for me."

"Maddie!"
Rob whispered to her.

She looked at him. "Rob, I came here to make peace and clear the air with Nick. I need to tell him some stuff, and you need to either be supportive or wait in the car."

Rob looked at Nick. "Was she always this bossy? Because I'm telling ya, sometimes I'd just like to—"

Nick laughed and saved
Rob from himself. "Oh yeah, man! It was her way or the highway all the time I knew her."

"Okay, so it's not just me," Rob said.

"Nah." Nick grinned and drank his beer.

"As I was saying," Maddie gave them each 'the look' and continued, "He finally worked up the nerve to come and find me—"

"Because you'd run off again?" Nick asked. He looked at Rob. "That seems to be another of her strong suits."

"Damn straight," he agreed.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," she muttered. "He asked me to marry him. We got pregnant again and then got married. That's my nontraditional story, which you're not even listening to anymore."

"I'm listening." Nick turned back to Rob. "Does she make you watch movies all damn night when you'd rather be watching a ballgame?"

Rob answered animatedly, "I'm not a TV person. I wouldn't even have one if it wasn't for her, and her love of movies. Now she's got the kids hooked on that damn Barney."

Nick laughed and nodded. "Tommy went through the
Barney stage. I thought I was gonna croak there for a while."

Maddie sipped her soda and rolled her eyes. "You two are a fucking barrel of laughs. Maybe you want me to scoot on out of here so you can compare notes on the good stuff."

Nick put a hand over his heart. "Nope, no thank you. That would be cruel and unusual punishment. I'll just say one thing, and we'll leave it at that." He looked at Rob. "You, are a lucky man."

Rob
smiled. "I'd say you were also a lucky man. Maddie hasn't told me much about you, but she did tell me that she loved you. And she said you were good to her."

Nick grinned at Maddie. "Yeah, well she was a good kid. I loved her, too. I have to admit, back then, I wished she was older."

"You were always so hung up on the numbers." She shook her head.

"It wasn't about the numbers, Maddie. It was more about maturity. If you'd been just a little more mature, do you think you would have let your old man walk all over you like he did?"

"I don't know." She threw her hands up. "He was pretty controlling back then."

"And now?" Nick asked.

"Now he's had one heart attack, and has lived without me in his life for a lot of years. He treads pretty lightly around me these days."

"He figures if he makes you mad, you might run off again." Nick said.

Maddie picked up Rob's hand and brought it into her lap. "At least he'd know where to find me this time. I don't generally stray very far from home these days. Not counting carpools, softball games and Brownie Scouts."

Rob squeezed her hand.

She beamed at him.

"Sounds nice," Nick told her.

She looked up. "I still have something to tell you." She gazed at Rob. "I'm glad you're here because you need to know this, too."

Nick said, "You were going to tell me why you never contacted me when you got back to school?"

She nodded, and took a deep breath. She held Rob's hand as she said, "My friend Alec was killed in a car accident on Thanksgiving weekend, nine years ago. I was supposed to be with him. My parents thought I was in the car. The police were actually looking for my body in the wreckage."

"Jesus,"
Rob whispered. "You obviously weren't with him."

"No, sweet girl that I was, I'd been using Alec all year as a cover so I could go out with Nick. My parents just
thought
I was with Alec."