Читать книгу Fletcher's Baby! - Anne McAllister, Anne McAllister - Страница 8

CHAPTER TWO

OH, WAY to go, Josie congratulated herself. Such tact. Such subtlety.

But it was hard to be subtle when you were as big as a rhinoceros.

Carefully, deliberately, she suppressed a sigh and strove to look as indifferent as she could. It wasn’t easy. It was, in fact, even harder than she’d imagined.

For the last six months—ever since she’d realized that the night she’d spent with Sam Fletcher last September was going to have lasting repercussions of a more than emotional kind—she’d known this moment was coming. She’d put it off, resisting Hattie’s continual exhortations to tell him, instead preferring to “stick her head in the sand,” as Hattie called it.

Josie called it self-preservation.

What else would you call facing a man with the news that he was going to be a father when he was obviously unhappy about facing her at all?

Their night of intimacy had been “the whiskey talking.” Hadn’t he just said so? Of course he had. She’d known it at the time. She’d just been powerless to resist.

Josie Nolan had loved Sam Fletcher unrequitedly and hopelessly since she was fifteen years old.

A realist, Josie had never expected a drop-dead gorgeous millionaire jet-setter to fall madly in love with the foster-daughter of his aunt’s next door neighbor. She might now be Hattie’s protégée and innkeeper, but she’d started out as her cleaning girl. Josie had read Cinderella, but that didn’t mean she was a fool.

But something must have.

Because when Sam Fletcher had appeared at her door the night of her twenty-fifth birthday, all misery, commiseration and gentleness, she’d been powerless to shut it in his face.

And so she’d spent the last six months trying to figure out how to tell him about the results of that night.

There had seemed no good way. Only ways that would have him think of her as a scheming hussy out to trap him into a marriage he didn’t want.

At times—in the dead of night, for example, when she was remembering the tenderness of his touch, the urgency of his need, the firm persuasiveness of his lips—she tried to delude herself that there really had been something between them, that he’d welcome the news, that when he’d gone back to New York he’d missed her as much as she missed him.

In the clear light of day she knew that was so much hogwash.

But as long as he didn’t show up and say it had been a mistake, she’d dared to hold on to a tiny ray of hope.

Not any longer.

“I never meant for what happened to...to happen,” he’d said.

Neither had she.

But it had. And now they were going to have a child.

She stood now, waiting for him to ring a peal over her. To yell at her as Kurt had done. To turn bright red and point his finger at her, as Kurt had done. To say, “Well, what are you going to do about it?” in a hard, cold voice as Kurt had done.

“Mine?” Sam echoed. He wasn’t red. He was dead white under his jet-setter tan. And his voice wasn’t cold. It was hollow.

Still, he wasn’t yelling. His tone was quiet The quietness was momentarily reassuring. But looking at him wasn’t. He just stood there, looking as if a bomb had gone off at his feet.

Josie supposed, to his way of thinking, it had. He’d come prepared to deal with the inn and the animals, not this.

“Yes,” she said.

“You’re sure?”

Her spine stiffened again, and the pang of concern she’d felt for him vanished in a flash. Color burned in her cheeks. “Yes, I’m sure. Despite the impression I may have given, I do not ordinarily sleep around!”

“I didn’t mean—” he began quickly, then stopped, looked dismayed, then sighed and rubbed a hand over his short sun-bleached hair. “Oh, hell, maybe I did. But just because it was a shock. Sorry.” This last was muttered.

He didn’t look her in the eye. He couldn’t seem to stop slanting glances in the direction of her belly.

Josie took the apology in the spirit in which it had been muttered—grudgingly. She picked up two more vases and turned toward the cart. She wasn’t just going to stand there and let him gawk! And she didn’t want to watch the wheels turn in his head.

She would have liked to turn tail and run, but she was damned if she was going to do that, either.

So she stayed, aware of the silence, aware of the foot-shifting, aware of the eventual clearing of his throat.

“So...were you ever going to tell me?” His tone was conversational now, almost casual, but she could hear the strain in it and knew what control he was exerting.

She ran her tongue over her lips and shrugged in her own attempt at casual control. “Eventually I imagine I’d have had to.”

“You’d have had to?” So much for casual. “You don’t think maybe I’d have wanted to know?”

“To be honest, no.”

He stared at her, jaw slack. Then, as if he realized it, he snapped it shut. His eyes never left hers.

Defiantly Josie stared back. “Well, under the circumstances, this isn’t exactly a Hallmark moment, is it?”

A muscle in Sam’s jaw worked. “Are you saying you don’t want it?”

Josie pressed her hands protectively against her abdomen. “No, I am damned well not saying that! I want this child.”

That was the one thing she was sure of. The daughter of indifferent, incompetent parents, she’d been abandoned, then passed from foster home to foster home since she was six. She wasn’t having any such thing happen to her child. She was keeping it and taking care of it and loving it—and that was that.

“But I hardly imagine you do,” she said frankly. “Do you?” she asked him, with the same bluntness he’d inflicted on her earlier.

He didn’t answer for a moment.

She gave a satisfied nod, then turned on her heel and, pushing the cart toward the dining room, walked out the door.

Very little rattled Sam Fletcher.

Was he not a world-traveling entrepreneur of the highest caliber? Had he not negotiated with the pasha of a tiny west Asian kingdom with armed guards all around for the exclusive rights to a line of furnishings that his competitors would give their eye teeth for? Did he not routinely cope with multi-million dollar decisions upon which the fate of many peoples’ livelihoods—not the least his own—depended? Had he not kept a calm demeanor when his fiancée was throwing him over for another man?

Yes, yes, yes, and yes again.

But being told you were the father of a woman’s child when you could barely remember bedding her—well, that might ruffle the calmest of men.

Sam was beyond ruffled. He was moulting.

He stifled his first inclination, which was to tell Josie Nolan that she had rocks in her head, that there was no way he would be so irresponsible as to father a child on a woman he wasn’t married to! He knew his lack of memory of what precisely had happened that evening proved just how irresponsible he had been.

His second inclination was to run. To turn tail, head out the door and never come back.

But Sam Fletcher did not run. He’d never run in his life.

From the time he was a boy he’d been groomed to face his responsibilities, to take charge, to exert leadership, to do what was right.

He’d come to Dubuque today expecting to do what was right. He’d expected to have to cope with the mare’s nest that usually comprised Hattie’s affairs. He’d expected to have to find a buyer for the inn and even—because Hattie wished it—to find homes for three cats, a dog and a bird.

He’d envisioned showing up and, once the awkwardness of his apology was out of the way, laughing with Josie about Hattie’s having left him a woman.

It didn’t seem funny at all now.

He hadn’t expected a child.

The will had clearly been Hattie’s way of doing what Josie had not done—of bringing him back and making him aware of the facts.

He supposed he ought to thank her for that. He would, if he weren’t so rattled.

He was going to be a father?

That was rattling enough. What was worse was the idea that, without Hattie’s will, he might never have known.

It was like waiting for the other shoe to drop.

All the while Josie was putting flowers in the rooms, checking in the guests, delivering champagne to the newlyweds, making dinner reservations and answering questions about local attractions, she was looking over her shoulder, expecting Sam to appear.

He hadn’t been in the kitchen when she got back.

“Left,” Cletus had said.

“Poleaxed ’im, did you?” Benjamin had said.

Josie had denied it, but she’d seen the look on his face. She wondered if they had seen the last of him. But, no. His rental car still sat by the curb. So, wherever he’d gone, he’d walked. She remembered he’d used to walk down to the yacht basin or along the river whenever he’d come here to think before.

“He needs space,” Hattie had explained to her. “Perspective. He has to step back to understand his responsibilities.”

Was that what he was doing now?

Whatever he was doing, Josie wished it didn’t involve her.

She didn’t know whether she wanted him to come back so they could get it over with—or whether she wished he’d stay away so she could pretend he never would.

Probably the former, she decided, unless he agreed to do the latter for the rest of her life!

But the rest of the afternoon passed—the guests checked in, the flowers got delivered, the guests got settled, the questions got answered and the reservations made—and there was still no Sam.

Good, she thought. No. Not good.

Damn. She didn’t know what she wanted—except to tear her hair. She paced the front parlor. She peered out the windows. She even went out on the front porch and craned her neck to look down the road to see if she could see him, determined not to let him surprise her again.

But afternoon turned to evening and evening turned to dusk and eventually the cool of the mid-April evening made her retreat indoors. She paced some more in the parlor, then retreated to the kitchen, but the kitchen reminded her too much of their encounter this afternoon.

She headed down the steps to the basement laundry room. There were loads of towels and sheets to be folded. And if he came looking for her there, the stairs would creak and at least she’d hear him coming.

It was stupid to fret so much. Nothing was going to change even now that he knew. She would still be pregnant. Her love would still be unrequited.

She asked herself for the thousandth time why she couldn’t have been satisfied with Kurt? Certainly he was a little too righteous and unbending for her taste. Certainly he thought his mission was more important than a wife.

But was he wrong?

He hadn’t had to point out how foolish she’d been to taste forbidden fruit

She made her way down the basement steps carefully, hanging on to the handrail. She’d used to trip down them thoughtlessly, light and easy on her feet. But with her new bulk and unaccustomed center of gravity, she had to move more cautiously.

Pity she hadn’t moved more cautiously seven months ago.

She bent and fished a load of towels out of the bin, dumped them on the countertop and began to fold them. She made neat stacks and ran her hands over the soft terrycloth. It was mindless, mechanical work, soothing. She finished one stack, then bent to get another.

The baby kicked.

Josie smiled. Even when she was fretting most, this child could always make her smile. Perhaps it was silly to feel as if she had a confederate within, but she did. It was no longer Josie apart from the rest of the world. Now it was the two of them.

“Awake, are you?” she asked it softly. She set the towels down, rubbed a hand on her belly and was rewarded with another soft tap. She tapped back and smiled again. Sometimes she felt as if she was communicating in Morse code with this person who inhabited her body.

“Had a rough day?” she asked it. “I have. And it’s going to get worse,” she confided. She shook out a towel and gave it a snap before folding it.

The baby kicked again. Hard. So hard Josie winced.

“What’s wrong?”

She nearly jumped a foot. She knocked the pile of freshly folded towels onto the floor and spun around to stare with equal parts horror and consternation in the direction of the wine cellar at the far end of the basement. Sam stood in the shadows.

“Now look what you’ve done!”

“That appears to be the least of what I’ve done,” he said dryly as he stepped forward.

Instinctively Josie stepped back.

“What’s wrong?” he repeated. “Are you hurt?”

She shook her head numbly. “No. It...it kicked, that’s all.”

“Kicked?” He looked blank.

“The baby.”

He looked at her belly. She couldn’t read his expression. He opened his mouth, as if he was going to say something. But then he just ran his tongue over his lips and shook his head. He bent to pick up the towels.

Josie watched him, dry-mouthed and silent, and wished she could push him aside and do it herself. She couldn’t. There was too much baby between her and the ground. “What were you doing skulking in the wine cellar?” she demanded, indignant.

“I wasn’t getting another bottle, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Sam straightened and set the towels on the counter.

“You might as well put them in the wash again,” Josie said crossly. “I can’t use them now.”

Obediently he dumped them in the washing machine. Then he answered her question. “I was thinking.”

“In the wine cellar?”

“It seemed appropriate.”

Josie pressed her lips together. She turned away and closed the lid of the washing machine, then reached past him to add soap, taking her time to measure it precisely. She set the dial to the right program. She had nothing to say.

Sam didn’t move away. She continued to fuss with the dial, then opened the lid again and checked the balance of the towels in the machine.

“I came because Hattie left me the inn,” he said at last.

“I know.” She didn’t look at him.

“I’d thought she was going to leave it to you.”

Josie shut the lid and gave the start button a push. “Why should she? I’m not family.”

“You were closer to her than anyone. You were the granddaughter she and Walter never had. She loved you.” He made it almost sound like an accusation.

“I loved her, too,” Josie said fiercely, and turned her head to meet his gaze. “She was the mother—the grandmother—the family I never had. But I didn’t ever expect her to leave me the inn! She did enough for me. She set up a trust fund. Mr. Zupper can tell you about it if you want. One for me and...and one for the baby.”

“You were supposed to have the inn, too,” Sam insisted. “When I was out here last fall—when Izzy... when I...”

“I know when,” Josie said sharply. Did he think she’d forgotten?

Sam sucked in a sharp breath. “Okay, you know when. Well, back then she told me I wouldn’t have to worry about the inn when she was gone. And I told her she wasn’t going anywhere.” He paused and Josie heard the ache in his voice. It matched her own ache, but she wasn’t going to comfort him.

“You didn’t know she was going to die,” she said. “None of us did.”

“Hattie did. She said, ‘This old heart of mine could go any day. So I want you to know this.’ And then she told me she meant no disrespect to the family, but she was going to leave it to you.” He rubbed a hand against the back of his neck. “So when she left it—and you—to me, she was making a point.”

Josie’s head snapped around. “She left me to you?”

“I thought it was a joke.”

A hell of a joke, Josie thought. But, “It is,” she said firmly.

Sam shook his head. “No. She was right.” He shifted from one foot to the other. His hands were jammed into his pockets. He looked at the floor for a long moment. The dryer swirled, the tap dripped. He lifted his gaze and met Josie’s. “We’ll get married.”

As a proposal it left a lot to be desired.

In fact Josie felt as if he’d stabbed her in the heart.

We’ll get married. Just like that. As if it were a foregone conclusion, a business negotiation with only one possible outcome.

She supposed where Sam Fletcher was concerned most business deals had only one possible outcome—the one he wanted.

But he didn’t want this!

She knew he didn’t want it. She could see it in his face, in his eyes. She heard it in the resignation in his voice.

And why would he? He didn’t love her. He didn’t want their child.

He was doing it because Hattie had forced his hand. He was doing it because he was used to doing the right thing, the necessary thing.

Just as Hattie had known he would.

Just as Josie had feared he would. It was why she wouldn’t tell him about the baby.

“A child has a right to know its father,” Hattie had said in a tone far more gentle than the bracing one she usually used.

“I know that,” Josie had replied. “I just...can’t tell him. Not now.”

“When?”

“Sometime,” Josie said vaguely.

“A father has a right to know his child, too,” Hattie had gone on implacably.

“I’ll tell him,” Josie had promised. But she hadn’t said when. And she’d changed the subject whenever Hattie brought it up.

“You can tell him at Christmas,” Hattie had said eventually.

But Sam hadn’t come. Josie had seen Hattie’s disappointment when he hadn’t come. She’d seen the older woman watching her with worry and concern in her eyes. But Josie had steeled herself against that concern because she knew why Sam hadn’t come.

After that Hattie hadn’t brought it up again.

Josie had dared to think Hattie had given up.

Obviously, once the will had been read, she knew she’d thought wrong. Hattie had made sure Sam would know.

Now Sam did know—and had done the very thing Hattie had hoped—and Josie had dreaded—he might.

It wasn’t the way he’d imagined proposing marriage, standing in a laundry room, willing his prospective, very pregnant bride to look at him, his hands in his pockets, fists clenched.

It certainly wasn’t the way he’d proposed to Izzy. That had happened at a cozy dinner at a candlelit table in a restaurant on the top of Knob Hill. They had been laughing together, touching, and his suggestion that what they had was too good to waste on casual moments had been enough to make Izzy catch her breath, then turn a thousand-watt smile in his direction.

This time he was standing stiffly, touching no one, his head bent beneath the stone basement’s low ceiling. His voice was stiff and awkward. And, far from bestowing any thousand-watt smile, Josie was looking at him as if he’d just electrocuted her.

Surely it wasn’t a surprise. She had to know what they had to do. It was the only responsible thing to do—though heaven knew if he could have thought of something else, he probably would have done it.

Besides, what did she expect? A profession of undying love? Hardly. Especially not after he’d already assured her just hours before that his actions that night had been a mistake.

It was enough that he was willing to do the right thing, he assured himself. He looked at her expectantly and waited for her to do the right thing, too.

She said, “No.”

Sam gaped. He wasn’t jet lagged this time, but he thought his hearing was going just the same. He checked. “No?”

“No. Thank you,” she added after a moment, but he didn’t think she sounded very grateful.

His jaw tightened. “Why the hell not?”

It wasn’t as if he’d wanted to marry her, for heaven’s sake! He was being a good sport, though, and making the offer. The least she could do, damn it all, was accept it!

“When I marry, I’m marrying for love,” she said simply.

He stared at her. He glanced around the tiny laundry room pointedly, then at her now bare ring finger. “Forgive me if I’m wrong,” he drawled, “but I don’t see your own true love clamoring for a wedding date any longer.”

Josie got a tight, pinched look on her face and he immediately felt like a heel. “No,” she admitted quietly, then blinked and looked down at her hands.

Oh, hell. It was like kicking a puppy.

“I didn’t mean...” he muttered at last, his voice gruff. He started to reach for her, to comfort her, then remembered where that had got him last time. He pulled back sharply. “Sorry.”

In fact, he wasn’t sorry at all. This might not be the reason her engagement ought to have been broken, but Kurt Masters didn’t deserve a woman as kind and generous and open and—well, hell—as loving as Josie. But he didn’t suppose she wanted to hear that right now.

“Kurt doesn’t matter,” she said after a moment.

Sam wouldn’t argue about that. “Glad to hear it,” he said brusquely. “Then why are you saying no?”

“I told you.”

“Because you want love.” He fairly spat the word. “And what about the baby? Don’t you want it to have love?”

Her nostrils flared. “Of course I do! What are you talking about?”

“You’re depriving it of a father’s love.”

“You don’t love it,” she said flatly.

“How the hell do you know?”

“You can’t.”

“Why not?” He was incensed now, breathing down her neck.

“Because in the ten years I’ve known you I’ve never heard you express any desire for children whatsoever!”

“So maybe I changed my mind.”

Josie rolled her eyes. “Give me a break.”

“No, you give me a break. You’re the one who’s had all the time to get used to this. I’ve just had it sprung on me—”

“There was nothing stopping you coming back any time in the last seven months,” Josie pointed out with saccharine politeness.

“I thought I was making both of us happy staying away!”

“You were.”

He heaved a harsh breath. “And now I’m not. But I am being responsible. I am ready to do the right thing and—”

“And you’re so sure you know what the right thing is?”

He opened his mouth. He hesitated.

The hesitation was all it took. Josie folded her arms across her breasts. “You don’t want to marry me, Sam. You don’t want a child. You want to sell the inn and get the hell out of here and you never want to look back. Isn’t that right? Isn’t that what you came for?”

“I came because Hattie left me holding the bag!”

“Exactly. And I’m telling you, you don’t have to hold it any longer. Hattie wanted you here. Not me. It was a mistake, like you said earlier today.” She started toward the stairs, then turned back and faced him squarely. “It was, as you said earlier, ‘the whiskey talking.’”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Yes, you did. You were honest. And now you’re lucky. I’m not holding you accountable for what you did under the influence of whiskey.”

“What if I want to be held accountable?”

Their eyes dueled once more.

Then, “Go to hell, Sam,” Josie said, and stalked up the stairs.

Footsteps came after her. “Don’t you walk out on me!”

Josie turned halfway up, color vivid on her cheeks. “Don’t you yell at me,” she said, in a voice quieter than his, but no less forceful. “Not if you want The Shields House to keep a good reputation.”

“The hell with The Shields House!”

Josie shrugged. “Well, suit yourself. It’s your house. Your business.”

“I offered to share it with you.”

“And I said no. Thank you,” she added, the polite afterthought as damnably annoying as her refusal. “Don’t slam the door when you leave.” She turned then, and left him standing there.

Sam glared at her back until she went around the corner. Then he stomped into the kitchen, flung open the door to the entry hall and stalked out. He managed—barely—not to snarl at the guests in the parlor. But that was as far as his good behavior went.

There was no way, he thought as he banged out furiously, that you could have a satisfying argument if you couldn’t even slam a door!

It had been every bit as bad as she’d feared it would be.

Worse.

He’d asked her to marry him. Because he was a gentleman. A responsible man. A kind man.

All the things she wanted in a husband—and couldn’t have.

Because he didn’t love her.

And he was honest enough not to lie and say he did. That was what made it worse.

Josie stood behind the curtain and stared out across the lawn. She could see Sam now, standing on the edge of the bluff that overlooked the city, his shoulders hunched, his hands jammed in the pockets of his jeans. The wind ruffled his short hair. He looked miserable.

He ought to be rejoicing.

She’d told him no, hadn’t she?

Maybe it hadn’t sunk in yet. When it did, he’d be glad.

Even then, though, he’d still feel responsible. He’d want to make things right. It was the way Sam was. The way he’d always been. Hadn’t he come to console her the night Kurt had stood her up?

She shoved the thought away. She had done nothing but think about it for seven months. She’d hoped...she’d dreamed...she’d wished...she’d been the fool she’d promised herself she would never be. She had not been able to squelch the hope that he might have fallen in love with her.

He hadn’t. And now it was over.

Tomorrow would be better for both of them. He would still try to do the right thing, of course, but it would be a reasonable right thing this time. He would offer child support, acknowledgement, a trust fund, perhaps. Her child would be weighted down with trust funds, she thought with a rueful smile.

Being Sam, he might ask for two weeks in the summer when he could see their child.

She wouldn’t argue. It was his right. She would be polite and properly grateful. And he would be concerned and secretly relieved at having escaped the need to follow through on his proposal, but far too polite to let it show. It would all be very civilized.

And she would be tied to Sam Fletcher for the rest of her life.

It would be hard, but she would do it—for her child.

“Not for yourself?” she mocked herself now as she rocked back on her heels and looked down at the only man she had ever really loved.

If she was going to be scrupulously honest—she would admit that she didn’t dislike the idea of having Sam still a part of her life.

It wasn’t the same as marrying him. She didn’t want any part of forcing him into a relationship which ought to be based on love.

But to know how he was, where he was, what he was doing...

Just to know...

She’d said no?

No?

Sam still couldn’t believe it.

Or maybe he could. Women seemed to be developing a history of not wanting to marry him. First Izzy, now Josie. Was it getting to be a trend?

His jaw was clenched so tight he had a headache. He forced himself to take a deep breath. But he didn’t relax. He paced along the bluff overlooking the downtown and didn’t see any of it. He saw only the disaster the evening, the day—no, his whole damn life—had become.

He didn’t think he was that hard to get along with. He certainly could keep any wife in the manner to which she’d never yet become accustomed. He wasn’t all that bad-looking.

Was he?

No, damn it, he wasn’t.

So what was the problem?

“‘I want to marry for love,”’ he muttered in a falsetto mockery of Josie’s tone as he kicked a rock against the limestone wall that edged the bluff. “Well, hell, sweetheart, so do I. So did I.”

But there was a child to think about now. His child. Her child.

Their child.

That child might owe its existence to circumstances that had been fogged by a little too much whiskey. But their lovemaking hadn’t been a mindless, soulless coupling. He might not remember all that had happened that night, but his body had known, his emotions had known. He had responded to Josie and she had responded to him.

He was willing to bet she would still respond to him!

He looked over his shoulder at the house. On the upstairs landing, a curtain twitched. His jaw set, his eyes narrowed.

“You think the answer is no, Josie Nolan?” he told the woman he was sure was standing behind that curtain.

Well, Sam Fletcher never backed down from a challenge.