A Second Chance Page 9

  Kathy nodded. “Go see her.”

  He moved to her and placed his hands on her cheeks. “Are you okay with this?”

  “Yes.”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  Carlos kissed her softly and then went in search of Madeline.

  Chaos enveloped the room where everyone he loved sat watching the greatest football game of the year. But in the corner, the mother of his children rocked his tiny nephew, gazing down upon him. She was beautiful.

  The thought hit him hard. He tried to shake it away, but it lodged there. He remembered her holding Eduardo just as she held Tyler. She’d been twenty-one and just had their first child. Most people at that age would have been panicking about everything, but not Madeline. She took it all in stride and had patience he’d never seen in any other woman. Not even his mother had patience like his wife’s. Ex-wife, he had to remind himself.

  “Park your butt or go somewhere else,” Alan said to him, and he realized he was standing in plain sight of everyone, gazing at Madeline.

  She looked up at him and smiled. He walked toward her and knelt down by the chair.

  “He is so precious,” she murmured as Carlos touched Tyler’s soft cheek.

  “He really is, isn’t he?”

  “I’m so glad I came. I needed this so much. Maybe on my bad days I’ll just go over to Regan’s house.”

  “She’d love that.” He looked up at her and caught the love and patience that radiated from her eyes. She looked much better than she had earlier that week.

  “Dinner is ready.” Kathy’s voice filled the room, but Carlos heard the tension in it, and when he looked up he saw the pain in her eyes again. But she smiled and stepped aside as his family filtered through the house toward the dining room.

  “Good, my team is losing,” Alan protested as Eduardo helped him up from his chair.

  Zach reached out his hands to take Tyler from Madeline. “I’ll take him.”

  “Would I be horribly out of line if I asked to hold him during dinner? You have no idea how much this is helping me.”

  “I think that would be fine,” Zach said, smiling down at her as Regan placed her hand on her husband’s shoulder.

  Carlos helped her up and walked with her to the dining room. He kept to her side, a hand on the low of her back to steady her. She wasn’t weak, but it felt necessary to guide her with such a small and wonderful gift sleeping in her arms.

  He pulled her chair out, and as she sat, he looked for the next open chair. A sharp pain pierced his chest when he realized his empty chair was across the table, next to his fiancée.

  Kathy’s eyes were lowered and the pain increased. He was hurting her, and yet he couldn’t help it.

  Dinner around the Keller table was as she always remembered it. It was noisy, full of discussions of work, school, and news of Arianna’s latest adventures in New York. Curtis had been the last to arrive, just as they’d all sat down at the table. Madeline sat between her sons and across from her daughter, who sat next to her father and he next to his fiancée. She knew she should feel out of place, but she didn’t. She wished she’d taken them up on dinner offers sooner.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to take him from you?” Regan asked as Madeline struggled to lift her fork to her mouth without dropping food on Tyler.

  “Please, leave him. This has been the very best therapy.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “How is your recovery going?” Emily asked in her calm, motherly manner.

  “I think it’s going well. The doctor gave me some medicine to help my blood count and to keep me from getting sick.” She cut another piece of ham and managed it into her mouth.

  “I’m glad you’re getting better.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Look.” Eduardo smiled at her. “She’s eating.”

  Madeline looked down at her plate and realized she’d eaten half the food on it while she cooed over the baby in her arms.

  “I guess I am.”

  “Good, you’re getting too skinny,” Carlos added.

  “Oh, I don’t think there will ever be a day I think that.”

  “You never would. You’re too hard on yourself.”

  “Maybe.” She managed another fork of food to her mouth.

  “You are such a natural,” Zach added his opinion. “Did you always manage to be so calm around babies?”

  “She was always good with babies and kids. I don’t think she was sick a day when she was pregnant,” Carlos offered.

  “And that wives’ tale about having heartburn if you child had a lot of hair didn’t apply to me. Ed had more hair than most full-grown men.” She gazed at her son, who shook his head as he drank down his milk.

  “Oh, he was hairy like a monkey,” Regan reminisced.

  “C’mon, that’s gross,” Eduardo piped up and they all laughed.

  “Oh, and you were enormous!”

  “Dad!”

  “You were. You were fat and round. I don’t know how you’re mother managed to carry you for an extra four days.”

  “He was nine pounds.” She laughed as she said it. “Talk about being all baby.”

  “And you carried him all up front. To look at you from behind, you wouldn’t even have noticed she was pregnant,” Curtis added to the conversation.

  Carlos threw his napkin at his brother. “What were you doing looking at her from the back?”

  “I was nineteen. I looked at every woman from the back.”

  The family laughed. Everyone but Kathy, who looked at her plate as she ate.

  After dinner was finished and the men had returned to the football game, Madeline walked into the kitchen, where Emily and Kathy sat at the table with cups of coffee. “Thank you for a wonderful evening.”

  Emily stood and kissed her on the cheeks. “I’m so glad you finally came.”

  “So am I.” She turned toward Kathy, who had stood too. “Thank you so much for being so kind and letting me join you all. It means the world to me that you’re so kindhearted and let me be such a big part of Carlos’ life. I know I’ve been a real pain lately.”

  “Oh, no. You’re very important to him. You’re part of our family,” Kathy said with a smile that reminded Madeline just how kind a person she really was, but also with a tightness to her lips that let Madeline know that as welcome as she’d felt in her presence, it wasn’t more than a one-time deal.

  “I’m going to talk to the kids about going back to our normal schedule. I know he misses them, and I have to start back to work in a week or so. It’s helped me having them around, but they need to be with you both too.”

  “Well, if you wouldn’t mind, could we have them next week? I’ve planned for pictures. Engagement pictures, actually, but I’m not marrying just him, so I want the kids in the pictures too.”

  The thought gnawed at her. Kathy was right. She wasn’t marrying just Carlos. She was marrying the whole family. Madeline swallowed back the pain of the thought and smiled. “I think that sounds nice.”

  “I’m glad you’re feeling better. I know how he worries about you.”

  “Well, I think things are looking up. Hopefully by next Christmas I’ll be cancer free and I’ll be able to go to the company Christmas party in a strappy number and show off my new cleavage.” She laughed, but it was forced because no matter what her hair or body looked like, she wouldn’t be on the arm of the man she loved, and that hurt even worse.

  Chapter Six

  Kathy had sagged in the passenger seat of Carlos’s car like a deflated balloon when the kids went home with Madeline. The fewer people she had around her, the better off she would be.

  She sat with her hands clenched in her lap, listening to Carlos go on and on about how good he thought Madeline looked and how wonderful it was to have her at dinner.

  He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel to the beat of the song on the radio. “I think I’ll have to make sure Regan goes by a few times
and takes Tyler to see her. I think that was the best part. She looked so comfortable with him in her arms.”

  He was positively ecstatic about the evening, and the very sound of his happy voice was raking across her nerves. The moment they pulled into the driveway, Kathy grabbed her purse and headed into the house while Carlos grabbed the bags of leftover ice cream from the trunk and put them away in the freezer. By the time he’d made it to their bedroom she’d gotten her pajamas on and brushed through her hair.

  “Turning in early?”

  She pulled back the sheets. “It’s nine o’clock. I have an early meeting in the morning.”

  “I have some papers to grade. I’ll come to bed in just a little bit,” he said, moving toward her and kissing her. She couldn’t help but flinch when his lips touched her.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” She meant for it to sound sincere, but it came out snappy. She looked away and swung her feet under the sheets. “Please turn off the light when you walk out.”

  When she heard the door to his office close, she began to sob. Jealousy was ugly when it reared its nasty head. Jealousy on her was worse. But she couldn’t help it. Did he know how he looked at Madeline? Did he know how he spoke of her? Kathy had sat by him all evening, but did he even notice as he sat and looked at his ex-wife?

  If he’d noticed all of that, he would have stopped. He wasn’t the kind of man to ignore the woman he loved. But that hit her too. Perhaps she wasn’t the woman he loved after all.

  She pounded her fist into the pillow and then dropped her head onto it. They were getting married. Madeline was doing better. She had to fight the ugliness of jealousy and make it go away. She’d hate herself if she didn’t, and she’d hate him too.

  Madeline woke to a glorious sunrise. She sucked in a breath and let it out slow. She hadn’t felt so good in months. Dinner at the Kellers’ was just what she had needed—and holding little Tyler, well, that had made her night.

  The sounds of her children moving about the house made her even happier. She pulled on her robe, slipped her feet into her slippers, and headed to the kitchen.

  Eduardo handed her a piece of toast and kissed her cheek. “Mom, I think you’re glowing.”

  “What are you making?”

  “I made some eggs. They just wanted cereal.”

  “Can you make me some too?”

  He turned to her and studied her close. “Really?”

  The other sets of eyes at the table looked up at her.

  Madeline smiled at each of them. “Yes, really. Today I feel like eating.”

  “Then I will make you eggs.” He moved back to the refrigerator and took out the carton as she sat down and enjoyed the morning with her family.

  Once they’d left for school, Madeline used the energy she had and changed her bedding, vacuumed the living room, and ran a load of laundry. Within an hour, she’d used every ounce of adrenaline she had and decided it was time for a shower.

  She wasn’t sure she’d ever get used to seeing herself naked. They’d taken out the stitches, and now she was left with only scars where her breasts had been. The best idea was just to not look down, but it was hard to divert her eyes as she ran soap over her body.

  She poured shampoo in her hand and worked it through her hair. But it felt different. She massaged the shampoo on her head, and when she pulled her hands back, the amount of hair still stuck to her fingers was more than ever before.

  She quickly rinsed off, climbed out of the shower, and wrapped her robe around her, leaving the tangle of hair clogging the tub drain. She took a deep breath and faced the mirror. It was then that she saw what she’d wanted to pretend hadn’t been happening. Her hair had thinned to the point that she could see right through it. It made her look even sicker. It made her feel sicker too.

  At one in the afternoon, Carlos called to check on her. When she couldn’t hide the tears in her voice, he said he’d be over as soon as he could.

  “Carlos, don’t you dare. I’m fine. I’m just being a little vain.” She rubbed her scalp because now it itched, and the urge to pull at the hair that was left was overwhelming.

  “But you’re upset.”

  She gripped the phone tighter. “And I’ll be upset tomorrow about something else.”

  “Well, guess what. I haven’t listened to you since this all started and I’m not going to listen to you now. I had meetings today, so I’m done early. I’m on my way,” he said, and the phone line went dead.

  True to his word, he was there within a half hour.

  She heard his car and pulled open the door.

  The moment he reached the door, he held out his arms, and she fell into them and sobbed. His hand rubbed small circles on her back. “What’s wrong?”

  She stepped back and looked at him. “Look at me. In that last two days it’s all but completely fallen out.”

  “Sweetheart, it’s okay.” He wiped a tear from her cheek. “What do you want to do about it?”

  “I’m going to just have to shave it off. What the hell else am I going to do?”

  “I’ll tell you what. Why don’t we take care of it. I’ll cut it off, and tomorrow we’ll go buy you some wigs.”

  “A wig?”

  “No, I said wigs.” The crooked smile on his lips made her laugh, and she wrapped her arms around him as though it were the most natural thing to do.

  When she stepped back and looked at him, the brown of his eyes had grown deeper, which was what happened when he was full of passion for something—or someone. Madeline bit back the joyful sob that lodged in her throat. “You’ve been planning this?”

  “I was prepared for the day. I’ve looked up some shops that specialize in people who’ve lost their hair to cancer treatments. There are a million options, Maddie. If you want to feel good about yourself, there are people out there who want to help you, and I’m one of them.”

  She let out a sigh, and her heartbeat vibrated in her chest. It raced as it had when she was fifteen and looked at that face for the first time. He might be marrying someone else, but he loved her in his own special way, and that made it feel as though everything was going to be okay. “Thank you.”

  “Well, don’t thank me yet. You might hate me when we’re done. Are you ready?”

  “For?”

  “Let’s do this. Let’s cut off your hair.”

  Madeline sucked in a breath, held it, and then dropped her shoulders as she let it out. It was time to let go of another part of her appearance. Really, with a flat chest, scarred and ugly, what did it matter if she had hair on her head or not? This was the next step. And if she was going to do something so drastic, there was no one in the world she wanted with her more than Carlos.

  Carlos took her hand and gave it a squeeze, and they walked to the bathroom together.

  “Where do you keep the clippers for Ed’s hair?” he asked.

  “Second drawer.” She wrapped a towel around her neck and sat backward on the toilet seat.

  He plugged in the clippers and took off the guard she kept on for doing the boys’ hair. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

  “Okay. Go.”

  He stood behind her with the clippers buzzing in his hand. “You’re going to keep your eyes shut?”

  “Yes, until I have a wig on my head.”

  “Chicken,” he squawked and she shot her eyes open. “I knew that would do the trick.”

  He started at the top of her head. The clippers vibrated through her scalp. Madeline gritted her teeth to keep them from clattering. He drew them through her hair. Long strands fell to the floor.

  “Oh, God!” Her lip quivered and she bit it to keep steady.

  “If you cry, I’ll carve my initials in it.”

  That made her laugh.

  It only took a few passes, and her head was free of the dark hair that had graced her head since she was born.

  She stared in the mirror that covered the length of the bathroom wall, no longer crying
. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t her.

  “I can’t believe we just did that,” she said, running her hand over the soft, tiny remnants of prickly hair on her head. “This is just crazy.”

  “You know what?” He smiled at her in the mirror. “You really don’t look that bad.”

  The scars on her chest pained when he said that. Madeline smiled, looked in the mirror at how ridiculous she looked, and then looked back at Carlos and laughed. “What part?” “Every part,” he said, but he wasn’t laughing.

  Madeline swallowed hard. “Thank you.”

  “Okay, get up.”

  She stood up and brushed the loose hairs from her shoulders.

  Carlos sat down and wrapped the towel around his shoulders. “My turn.”

  “Are you kidding me?” She laughed harder. Maybe he’d been drinking, but she wasn’t gong to cut off his beautiful, thick, black handfuls of hair. “Stop. I’m fine.”

  “I’m not kidding.” He turned and looked at her as he handed her the clippers. “Go.”

  “Carlos, I am not shaving your head.”

  “Fine. Then I’ll do it.” He took the clippers from her, turned them on, and made a pass down the middle of his head.

  Madeline gasped and covered her mouth.

  He examined the hairless patch in the mirror. “Now that really looks dumb.”

  “Oh my God, Carlos. What are you doing?” Her fingers shook at her lips as she watched him examine what he’d done. Astonishment swirled in her head, humor in her belly, and love in her heart for the man she should never have given away.

  “Shaving my head because you won’t.”

  Madeline dropped her hands and shook her head at him. “You shouldn’t do this.”

  “Too late. If you’re going to do it, so am I.” He held the clippers up as if to hand them to her. “Now are you going to help me?”

  She started with a giggle, looking at him. The realization of what he’d done and how silly he looked turned that into a full-blown laugh as she took the clippers from him. Timidly she took the first pass and watched as his dark, full hair fell to the ground.