“To want to spare her pain?”
“To want her to be a good person.”
“Every mother wants that.”
“Not every mother takes the care to see that it happens.”He hitched his chin toward Ariana.“She’s even-tempered, like you.”
“No, like you.I’m impulsive.”
“Cutter!” Ariana cried.
“Whooops, spoke too soon.”
Ariana was rushing toward him, looking crushed.“It broke.Won’t go anymore.”
Her disappointment made him ache.Reaching for her, he brought her between his legs and arms enveloping her, took hold of the music box.“It wound down,” he explained by her ear.“That’s all.You have to wind it up to get it going again.”Closing the lid, he turned the box over and showed her how to twist the key.Her small fingers were right there trying to help.“It’s kind of hard.Maybe you should have your mommy do it.”
“I can,” she said.Pulling his fingers away, she struggled with the key.In slow, ninety-degree increments, she turned it.After three turns, she stopped.
“More,” Cutter prompted.
She worked the key again, then again.What would have been a simple task for Cutter was painstaking—at least, as he had to sit there and watch Ariana do it.The nice thing was that during her struggles she was close tohim again.He suspected that if he ever had her to himself, really to himself, he would carry her everywhere.She was his child.He had helped create her.That she was a human being and growing more human by the day never ceased to amaze him.He only wished he saw her more.
Some of what he was feeling must have shown in his eyes, because when he looked up at Pam, she seemed wistful.As soon as Ariana had scampered off again, she said, “You’re so good with her.”
“Two of my partners have kids.I get practice.”
Pam shook her head.“What you do is natural.”She touched her heart.“It comes from here.”
“It should.I love her.”He sat back on the bench again, but he wasn’t as relaxed as he’d been.“There are times when I want to scream.Everything’s going my way in business.I’ve got good money, a respectable occupation, decent partners, and I’m cornin’ real close to getting back at John for all he did.”He let out a breath.“So when that’s done, where am I?I don’t have you, and I don’t have Ariana.”
Pam didn’t say anything, but he didn’t expect her to.He had his chance.He could have married her when she’d asked and bluffed things out with John.But he’d been full of pride then.He wanted to do things his own way.Now, watching Ariana play, he felt the hollowness of that pride.He also felt the same small but niggling fear he did from time to time, the fear that too much time had passed, that too many things had happened for him and Pam ever to be together the way he dreamed.
“There are times,” he said quietly, “when I feel like my life has been an endless stream of wanting.”His eyescaught Pam’s.“Most of the wanting has to do with you.”He stretched an arm along the back of the bench so that his fingers could touch her neck.“Since you came along, nothing’s been the same.I love you, Pam.”
For an instant, she closed her eyes and tipped her head back just the tiniest bit, as though to trap his fingers on her skin.But her eyes opened again soon after to direct a mother’s watchful gaze Ariana’s way.“It is ironic.”
“What?”
“What you were saying before about your success in business.The same is true here.Professionally, things are terrific.I have my team of craftsmen.I design on my own time and get the credit for it without having to put in hours at the shop.I don’t have to look at John’s face.The people I’m with look to me for direction, not him.It’s ideal.I have time for Brendan, time for Ariana, time for my mother,” she took a quick breath, “time for you.”
“I wish we had it now,” he said very quietly.
She made a helpless sound.
“I miss holding you.”
“Don’t, Cutter.”
“And kissing you.Touching you.”
She took a shaky breath and whispered, “Stop.”
But he only lowered his voice.“If we were alone I wouldn’t.I’d keep going until neither of us could move.”
“And you’re worried about turning forty?”she cried.
“I’ll be hard for you till the day I die.”
