057:

Melia had showered; Robert had gone down to his boat, a beautiful cruiser she could see now from her balcony window. Megan had left to go to Australia where she was working on an internship with a producer out of Sidney. This was Cousin Stevie's project while waiting for their project to come up. Her mother had checked her and proclaimed her ready for a day in bed or very close to it, and she'd felt a little relief. Taking care of the two babies was about all she felt she could handle today.

She turned around with a start as a throat cleared at her doorway.

One hand rose to her chest. "Hi, Robert!" She exclaimed as he came in, quirkily dressed, and began picking up books on her desk and examining them carefully.

"So, I was thinking." He said without preamble and she found she liked that about him. Melia went and sat in the rocker next to Abby's bed.

"Yeah?" She prompted with a smile, thinking that she really liked him, he was so funny, so goofy silly right now, dressed in deck shoes and striped shorts and an orange striped blouse over an orange and yellow t-shirt that read Kill Me Now and had a picture of a big red buck.

"Well, not too long ago you told me we would never be friends. I think the time has come to amend that statement. I think we have entered the friend zone." He still wouldn't look at her, and she watched him in silence, remembering that day in the mother's lounge when she'd told him, in regards to his very forward judgments on her state of mind in marrying Ryan, that they would never be friends.

"Okay. I'll admit that. We definitely have a friendship going." She agreed with a slight smile. No moment in time since then had even suggested that she meant those rude and cruel words.

He still wasn't looking at her, but had paced around the room to her nightstand and was handling the baby monitor that lay there not plugged in, that she had used for Hannah when she slept with Megan.

"I was a little too brash in telling you not to marry Ryan, but I did stand by as you did it." He informed her without batting an eye in her direction.

"Did you tell it to Ryan as well?" She swallowed, wondering if his and Ryan's friendship was such that they confided in each other.

He nodded, his very suave and trendy 'stache and goatee quirked at her, but his eyes remained fixed on the photograph she'd left there of Jared holding Hannah. He picked it up. Melia's eyes remained glued to that picture in his hands. She'd not meant for anyone to see it. That was so personal. She'd meant to put it inside the drawer there with other personal things.

He finally glanced over at her and dangled the picture from his fingers. "Hannah?"

She nodded, feeling uncomfortable with him looking at her most intimate things. He placed it back against her clock radio and turned. "How is your marriage with Ryan going?" That was point blank, and she remembered that very forthright ability he had... the one she had admired before.

"Okay." She said, knowing there was nothing else she could say. It wasn't okay, but he'd already seen the tabloids from two months ago, and they hadn't talked about it since then. She hadn't with Robert and no one had with Ryan.

"I don't believe you." He said calmly. "Ryan's been all over town, partying like the animal he is. I was thinking of asking you two to go camping with me and some friends in the next week or two."

"You just said he's a party animal, why would you want us to come with? It's like a set up for failure. If he's partying, which I don't know anything about, and I'm obviously not, then we will be at odds. It would wreck your little campout." Her heart was beating unhappily at the thought of Ryan out partying, mostly because that meant he had given up on the church. Or at the very least wasn't active anymore. Leaving his mission had been a bad thing for Ryan, maybe for both of them. She just couldn't see him in the same light as she once had. She wished they had waited until after the baby came to get married. That had been a pushed idea. But it had seemed right at the time, even with Robert's admonition to the contrary.

"You ignored the part about me not believing you?" He laughed and sat on the edge of her bed, now looking at her frankly, again setting her heart racing and her feelings in turmoil.

"You didn't think it would work out before it ever happened." She pointed out. "I assumed you didn't change your mind."

"Why isn't he here with you, Melia? If you guys are making a go of it, then that baby is his baby girl. Why wasn't he at your side? Did you kick him out?"

Melia swallowed uncomfortably. "No, I didn't kick him out; I just said I needed time."

Robert shook his head and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Time for what? You guys were so hell bent on getting hitched before she came along. And then you have this giant lovers spat in front of God and everybody and now you're separated."

"Why do you care?" She turned the questions back on him, overwhelmed with all the feelings his words were eliciting.

He leaned forward precariously, his knobby knees and well-muscled thighs pointed right at her. He steepled his fingers and pointed both index ones at her. "We established that we are friends. I care about you guys. I care a lot about you."

Those words were said with carefully measured precision. His dark eyes penetrated hers and kept her from looking away. Melia realized he did care, or he wouldn't have been here. He cared not just because they'd shared a monumental grief experience, or because they both had lost spouses, or because he worked with Ryan. He cared for another reason, and he was telling her that right now.

"Ryan and I had a rough start." She said slowly, not looking at him. "It wasn't what either of us expected apparently." She didn't want to tell him the whole thing in great detail. That felt somehow disloyal. Up until a few minutes ago Robert had just been a very sad and heartsick acquaintance, but the way he'd looked at her, the way he'd said those last words... it opened up a thought she'd not encountered previously. She didn't know what to think.

"Are you getting a divorce?"

"Wouldn't need to. We- we aren't intimate. We could simply get it annulled." She admitted.

Robert sat up straight as if she'd jabbed him with a proverbial pin. "Why the hell aren't you intimate?"

Melia reared back, staring at him aghast; this was a conversation that had exceeded its bounds a long time ago. Why was he asking her these things? Why did he pursue it? Why did she feel compelled to answer?

"Was it the baby?" He asked, standing up in agitation and coming quickly to the cradle, he lifted Abby's now stretching body out and cuddled her close as he began to pace.

"Yes." She quipped rather angrily, but watched him in astonishment. He held Abby the exact way Jared had held Hannah. "Yes and No."

His face swiveled around to stare at her with those dark eyes under those heavy and very pragmatic brows. He really was gorgeous to look at, she thought irreverently, taking herself and her angry thoughts by distracted surprise. "I mean, no, we could have been--- been intimate, it wasn't the baby for that reason. Ryan just had a—a hang up with it being Jared's baby. It doesn't matter." She shook her head vehemently, wanting to get past this part of the conversation. "He's coming out today to discuss it."

"He left or you kicked him out?"

She looked away and he came to stand close to her, commanding with his presence that she address him. "We decided that it would be better.... Actually he kept leaving me to go out with friends, he talked on the phone with other girls constantly that whole first week, and when I came down to visit with you and Karen the day of the awards show, I never even saw him to tell him I had to leave. So I just left and decided to have the baby out here, and give it a little time. He had an objection to the baby and he was treating me very weird, so I left him. He says he wants me back, but I don't know. The question is why? Why does he want me back? If he doesn't like---"

"The girls..." Robert finished for her, thoughtfully stroking that chin again. "If he has a hang up with the children then he has to get over that before you two can be.... Anything."

"I know." She said morosely, and he interpreted it that she was upset about his rejection and wanted to make it good.

He eyed her critically. Well, if that was her wish, he could talk to Ryan, find out what was going on in his head, and give him some advice. He could do it when they went camping.

"You can come camping with us, can't you? It's just a weekend, two weekends from now. You'll be feeling well? I'll make sure you don't overdo it. I'm not in a project for awhile. Everything is on hold till... indefinitely." He cocked his head to the side at her and then squatted down in front of her. "If you want your marriage to work, I'll see that...."

"You'll see that what, Robert? You aren't a part of my marriage. This conversation is very strange." She screwed up her face trying to even make sense of his concern about it.

He held Abby expertly, close in to his chest, and up high as he squatted in front of her, his full lips under the 'stache drawing her attention. She felt encroached upon, as if he was too close... well, hadn't she given him that? She'd always allowed him to be close. What about last night? She'd slept, albeit the soundest she'd slept in a long time, on his shoulder. He still held Abby the way Jared had held Hannah. It made her want to cry again.

And she'd once told him she couldn't cry with him. Now he was the only person she could cry with.

He drew in his breath sharply. "I'm treating you with too much familiarity? I'm sorry." He scooted back a half an inch. "I'll talk to Ryan, and see if you two can come camping."

"Why the camping thing? I'll have to let you know how I'm feeling." She said, wishing he would back up farther so she wasn't so close to those lips... what was it about him? He was making her think things she hadn't been thinking in months... in a year.... It was hormonal, she told herself raggedly, still staring at him.

He'd noticed that she was staring at him now. His lips turned up a tad in a slightly knowing smile. "You do that." He said and leaned forward just a breath as if... and watched her reaction.... Her eyes followed exactly where they should have if she'd wanted him to kiss her. His gut reaction was to follow through... he wanted to, he was honest enough for that, and man enough to withdraw completely in the face of her status.

And his.

Bad time.

Not the thing.

Why the hell hadn't they been intimate?

She was too lovely... too insecure... too sweetly confused....

He sat back, breathing carefully; looking into Abby's scrunched up little face. Her hair was light brown, what little there was of it, not even a hint of red like her mother, much more reminiscent of blonde. Her winged brows and tiny lashes were exact replicas of Melia's though, and the button nose, and rose lips, the pale almost translucent cheeks, and fingers.... He didn't want to let her go, wasn't ready. Felt attached to Karen's namesake.

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