“I’m saying let’s take a little time to decide where we want to live.” She paused at the bathroom and glanced toward the door to the hall, frowning as Lynn’s wails went on and on. Cole knew how she felt. He wanted to stride down to the nursery room, take the baby and fix the problem, whatever it was.
“I thought you were ready to settle down.” Damn, that was gruffer than he’d meant to be, but the baby’s cries were really getting to him.
Sunshine looked almost guilty as she turned toward the bathroom again. “It’s almost Christmas, Cole. Let’s wait to figure things out until after the holidays.”
He wasn’t sure how to interpret that. Maybe he should give up the topic for tonight and try again tomorrow. He was tired. So was Sunshine. And the queen-sized bed looked all too inviting. Should he simply lead Sunshine over to it, undress her and celebrate their love the way they had so many times before?
Judging from her body language—and the screams down the hall—the answer was no. There wouldn’t be any lovemaking tonight.
“Something’s been bugging me,” he heard himself say. It was as if the baby’s screams were chiseling away at his common sense. This was no time for a serious conversation, but now he’d started, he didn’t know how to stop. “I saw the way you handled small village life. You were a trooper, and for a while I thought you fit in there pretty well. Then everything changed. Why was that?” It was something they should have discussed long before, but when Sunshine first dragged him to a city after their wilderness adventures, he’d been so busy enjoying hot showers and European cuisine, he hadn’t thought to ask. He’d thought it was going to be a brief change before they plunged into the grittier aspects of travel again, but it hadn’t been.
Sunshine shrugged. “I can deal with any hardship for a little while. Then it gets too much.”
Lynn let out a series of screams like a haywire teakettle. Cole lost his cool.
“Is that how you see Chance Creek? Like a hardship? Jesus, what is wrong with that kid?”
“Of course not.” She made a face. “Cole, she’s a baby. She’s overtired. Sometimes they have to scream it out.”
“Thank God we don’t have children.”
She recoiled and Cole stifled a curse. That wasn’t what he’d meant to say at all. He wanted kids. Someday. When they were ready for them. “I mean tonight. I don’t think I could handle that tonight.”
“With a baby you don’t get a choice about when you want to handle it.” She disappeared into the bathroom. Cole followed her and stopped her from shutting the door.
“Let’s get back to the real topic. I thought we were going to make a life here together.”
“I thought so, too.”
What the hell did that mean? Cole had lost all sense of the conversation and the baby’s screams weren’t helping. They’d had such a good time in this town together before they left on their trip. They’d been head over heels in love—
Cole’s thoughts skidded to a halt. Was that the problem? Had Sunshine fallen out of love with him? She’d been plotting something with Claire this afternoon. He’d thought it had to do with Christmas. Was he wrong?
“Look, Cole. I’d like to be by myself.” She indicated the bathroom door. “Do you mind?”
He retreated, the floor suddenly unsteady beneath his feet. Sunshine shut the door firmly—then locked it with a loud click.
Well, that sent a clear message. She didn’t want him around. Maybe she was sick of him.
As Lynn shrieked in a series of ear-splitting wails, Cole crossed the room in three steps, pulled open the door and left. If Sunshine wanted space, he’d give her space.
A whole lot of it.
Thank God we don’t have kids.
Cole’s words boomeranged around Sunshine’s brain as she paced the bathroom floor, trying to shut out Lynn’s wailing down the hall. Her brain told her Cole didn’t mean it. He was tired and angry, and Lynn’s screams would drive a saint to blasphemy. But her heart was as sore as if he’d stomped on it. She tried to remind herself of how good he’d been with the children they’d met on their travels. Like the night he’d played soccer barefoot with a straggling group of children in a tiny village on the edge of the Sahara Desert, or the way he’d created a bat out of a stick of wood and taught the children of a Nepalese settlement American baseball.
Cole shone with kids as long as the setting was bucolic, she realized. He’d avoided them like the plague once they’d hit the city centers of Europe.
Why?
The answer came all too easily, summed up in a statement he’d made one day in London as they passed a playground surrounded by chain link fence.
“Is that a school or a prison?” he’d asked.
“You know it’s a school,” she’d said, annoyed by the question.
“But do those kids?”
She wanted to rail against his words the way Lynn was protesting her bedtime, although Lynn seemed to be finally winding down, her cries lacking the volume they’d achieved previously. Cities weren’t so bad; Sunshine had grown up in one and she’d loved it. Pastures and horses weren’t required for a childhood.
Although they were nice.
As Lynn’s crying finally subsided, Sunshine admitted something she’d refused to think about since she’d taken the pregnancy test.
By choosing Cole—and parenthood—was she saying no to the career she’d always thought she had? Cole had made it all too clear he didn’t want to put his children into daycare, but where did that leave her? She’d always seen herself as a career woman. She’d gone on their round-the-world trip to become a better chef. Just because she was pregnant, did she have to give that up?
They’d never actually hashed out how they’d handle children, and if she was honest, that was one reason she been in no hurry to tell him about her pregnancy. Of course it was going to be fun to reveal it along with the ranch she’d bought on Christmas morning, but by waiting she’d also been able to put off the day they’d have to discuss the arrangements for after the baby was born.
She’d tried to believe she could be happy regardless of where they lived, or whether or not she worked. But if Cole didn’t even want children, all bets were off. She might as well take Carl’s money and run.
That triggered a whole new line of thinking. Should she accept Carl’s offer? Cole would never have to know she’d even bought the ranch in the first place. She could turn around, demand they move to Chicago and have the restaurant she’d always wanted. Why should she be the one to put off all her dreams?
When she exited the bathroom, she hadn’t decided anything, and Cole still hadn’t returned. She turned out the lights and climbed into bed, prepared to wait and question him. She wouldn’t tell him about her pregnancy, but she could find out where he stood on children—and on marriage in general.
She’d always thought that Cole was a man who could handle commitment, but Fran’s stories had shaken her to the core. Back in high school, at least, he’d been nothing but a good-time boy. When she’d met him he’d still been a confirmed bachelor.
Why did she think he’d change for her?