Читать книгу One Wild Night - Heidi Rice - Страница 11

WELL, THAT WAS UNPLEASANT. Not the best way to start a Monday, either. Ally leaned on the sink and took a deep breath. Then she grabbed the toothbrush she’d learned to bring to work with her and brushed her teeth. Wiping the moisture from the corners of her eyes, she was glad she’d switched to waterproof mascara last week.

“Look, Kiddo, I’ll make you a deal. You let me keep my breakfast and I’ll give you a new car when you turn sixteen, okay?” Another wave of nausea had her leaning against the bathroom door taking shallow breaths until it passed. “No deal, huh? Your loss.”

Turning off the light, she opened the door to the office she shared with her friend and business partner. Molly stood waiting with a peppermint and a bottle of water.

“Seriously, now. How much longer is this going to go on?”

Ally took both offerings gratefully. The peppermint helped settle her stomach these days. “According to all the books, about six more weeks if I’m really lucky.” She sank into her desk chair and rested her head on her hands.

“You’re kidding me, right? Six more weeks of listening to you yak up your toenails every morning?” Molly’s pixie face wrinkled in an amusing mixture of concern and disgust.

Ally sipped at her water cautiously, but the nausea had gone as quickly as it had come. “So sorry to inconvenience you, Molls.”

“It’s not that. I’m just worried.”

Ally sighed. Snapping at Molly made her feel as if she’d kicked a puppy. “I know, and I’m sorry to be so witchy this morning. Dr. Barton says this is normal. Unpleasant, but still well within the range.”

It was Molly’s turn to sigh. “‘Unpleasant’ is an understatement.”

“You’re not wrong about that.” Six weeks to go? Between the sickness in the mornings and the unbelievable fatigue that set in around three o’clock, this first trimester wasn’t going well at all.

“Can I get you anything? Crackers? A soda?”

“Just help me find the Miller paperwork. I swear, this baby has stolen all my brain cells.”

Molly casually tapped a folder sitting just left of Ally’s elbow. “By the way, I talked to the landlord. He said we can have that storeroom for just a little more each month. I thought you could move your desk back there along with the baby’s stuff, and we’ll put a conference table out here to meet with clients.”

Tears gathered in Ally’s eyes. After the initial shock of Ally’s announcement had passed, Molly had gone into “prep mode,” never once questioning her decision to keep the baby, focusing instead on how they’d work out the logistics. Ally sniffed and reached for a tissue. Seemed she could check “overly emotional” on her list of symptoms, as well.

Thank goodness for Molly. She’d be a wreck without her. Her mom had flipped at the news, seemingly shocked that anyone accidentally ended up pregnant in this day and age. Ally had had to bite her tongue not to bring up her brother’s pregnant girlfriend, Diane—no one seemed overly surprised about that baby. Molly had been the voice of reason then, too. Her family was just too used to Ally being the sensible, smart, reliable one, she’d argued. In a rare moment of snark—showing how truly angry Molly was with the lot of them—she’d postulated that the real reason the family was upset over the news was that Ally’s attention would be focused somewhere else in the future. God forbid her family might actually have to take care of their own problems and not be able to run to her to sort them out.

Molly frowned. “You’re leaking again.”

Ally fanned her face. “No, I’m not. Just something in my eye.”

“Hey, I’d cry, too, if I went on my honeymoon alone and still managed to wind up pregnant.” Molly tossed the comment over her shoulder as she returned to her own desk.

“Yes, yes, I’m aware of the irony.” Right after she’d recovered from the shock of seeing a positive result on the pregnancy test and had realized she’d somehow ended up in the two-percent failure rate of the Pill, that irony had hit her right between the eyes.

It would almost be funny if it were someone else.

Molly’s keyboard clicked as she went back to work, and Ally tried to focus on the books from Miller’s Printing Company. She had to get their payroll data entered and their checks printed before the need for her afternoon nap hit, but she was having trouble concentrating.

From the moment her plane had taken off from San Juan, she’d tried to put Chris out of her mind. She knew she needed to forget him, to just let him and their hours together fade into a dim memory. But it hadn’t worked. She’d felt like a different version of herself, as though she’d been on the verge of something only to have been jerked back by her family responsibilities.

She’d caught a cab directly from the airport to the hospital, expecting to find her brother barely clinging to life. Instead, Steven was slightly battered from flipping his dirt bike, but awake, lucid and not near death at all—a situation she’d been tempted to remedy when he’d shown no remorse at all for ruining her vacation. After all, as her mother had added, Steven needed someone to deal with the hospital billing department and transfer money from his small trust to pay bills with.

The bitterness of missing out on more delightful days with Chris because of her family…well, she’d almost been over it by the time she’d missed her period, but any hope of forgetting about him had vanished at that point.

She was carrying his baby—a permanent reminder of those two wonderful days. How long would it take for her not to remember him every time she looked at their child? Her child, she corrected. This baby was hers alone.

Chris climbed the stairs to his office on OWD’s second floor two at a time. His mornings had taken on a pattern these days—an hour at the gym, a few hours on the Circe’s renovations, lunch, then into the office. Today, though, he came straight from the yard, bypassed his assistant’s desk without stopping for messages and went straight for his computer.

The damage to the Circe’s keel was greater than expected, and he’d contacted a friend for suggestions when he and Jack had clashed over the best course of action. He’d snapped a few quick photos with his phone, but couldn’t get them to send properly for some reason.

He dug the USB cable out of its drawer and waited for the files to download onto his computer. A few clicks later, and the photos and measurements were off to Pete. Aesthetically, Circe’s rehab was going well, but structurally they kept finding new issues to deal with. He’d barely gotten her home—the constant problems had stretched his trip to almost four weeks, much to Victor’s and Mickey’s amusement and Pops’s dismay.

Hopefully, this problem with the keel would be the last.

With the photos sent, Chris closed his e-mail account. The window open on his screen, though, showed another file had been in the download. That’s odd.

He clicked it open, and Ally filled his screen. Something heavy landed in his stomach at the sight of that cheeky smile. He’d forgotten he’d taken it. They’d been almost ready to sail back when his phone had fallen out of his kit bag. She’d caught it before it went overboard and handed it to him, saying something about…what was it? Boys and their toys, he remembered. In response, he’d snapped a quick photo of her. She’d protested, grabbed the phone away, and distracted him with a kiss.

It had been another hour before they’d set off.

Ally.

He didn’t need to look behind him at the bulletin board on the wall to know that Ally’s note with her name and phone number scribbled on the back was still there. A hundred bucks slipped to the desk clerk had gotten her contact info from the computer, but after the initial shock and anger at her abrupt departure had abated—and the struggle to get the Circe home in one piece had helped distract him nicely—he’d never followed up on his knee-jerk reaction to want to find her.

He’d put her from his mind, if not his dreams, and gone back to his life, even if the blithe way she’d dismissed him had left a bitter taste in his mouth.

Mickey had taken his life in his hands once to tease him about it—shortly after he’d returned to the Circe instead of sailing off with Ally on the Siren—telling him it was a fair turnaround considering his own love-’em-and-leave-’em past. That was the closest he’d ever come to hitting a crewmate.

He wasn’t sure why he’d even kept her note and number, much less pinned it on the board with the photos of him and his crew in various races over the years.

“Chris?” Marge, Pops’s secretary, stuck her head around his office door. “I brought you a sandwich.”

After thirty years with the company, Marge was more family than employee, and she’d mothered Chris shamelessly since day one. She was well past retirement age, but had said the place would fall apart without her and claimed they’d have to carry her out of there in a box. He and Pops certainly weren’t arguing with her or forcing her out of the door.

Crossing to Chris’s desk, she laid the sandwich on the blotter and ruffled his hair. “Jack said you two had a disagreement about the Circe.”

The sandwich smelled delicious, and his stomach growled at the reminder he’d skipped lunch when the keel had distracted him. “Jack always comes running to you, the tattletale. She’s not his boat.”

“And I’m sure you’re right about the keel. Just don’t forget to eat. Who’s she?” Marge was peering at the picture of Ally, still open on his desktop.

“Just someone I met on Tortola.” He closed the picture.

“And you took her sailing? You never take anyone sailing. She must’ve been some girl.”With a confidence not every employee would have, Marge clicked the photo open again and studied it carefully. “She’s pretty, but not what I’d call your usual type.”

He closed it again and unwrapped the sandwich. His favorite. Marge was too good to him. “Well, Ally was an aberration.”

One of Marge’s penciled eyebrows went up. “Ally is it? Ally of the mystery phone number, perhaps?”

He nearly choked on the large bite of roast beef but managed to swallow it painfully instead. “Is there anything you don’t know?”

“It’s right there.” Marge pointed. “It’s not like I had to go looking or anything. Eat.”

Dutifully, he took another bite.

“That’s a Savannah area code. Have you called her?”

Oh, good Lord. “No. And I doubt I will. Too much going on.”

“Piffle.” Marge waved the excuse away. “You just don’t want to. I hope the poor girl isn’t pining away waiting for your call.”

“I doubt it.” She would have had to have left a phone number.

With a shrug, Marge walked back to the door. “That’s a pity. Oh, and your grandfather wants an update on Dagny when you have a minute.”

No, Pops wanted to try to talk him out of it again. Finding fault with the Dagny’s progress was only his newest tactic.

Once Marge left, Chris ate and debated with himself as he stared at the icon on the desktop that would open Ally’s picture if he clicked on it again.

What the hell. He probably should have called her already, just to be sure that her brother was okay. It would have been the right thing to do, after all.

He closed his office door, then dialed.

“AMI Accounting Services. This is Molly.”

A business? Did he even have the right number? “I’m looking for Ally Smith.”

“She’s, um, away from her desk at the moment. Can I take a message?”

This was actually good. He’d salve his conscience and avoid further meddling from Marge by putting the ball in Ally’s court. He’d called. Done his part. “Sure. This is Chris—”

“The contractor?” Molly interrupted, but didn’t give him a chance to answer. “Great. Ally said you’d be calling. Actually, I can give you the information since she’s busy.”

“I’ll just—” he started again, only to be interrupted with another torrent of words.

“We just need an estimate right now, but we don’t need to start work right away. We’ve got until March to get it ready, after all.” Molly laughed, but then hurried on before he could say anything. “We need to finish out the storeroom into an office for Ally—did she mention the lighting? She’ll need to be able to darken the back half of the room where the crib will go. She doesn’t think it will be a problem, but I think we should go ahead and have the electrics for that done while y’all are finishing out the walls. Don’t you agree?”

One word out of the flood stopped him cold. “Excuse me, did you say crib?”

“Oh, it won’t be a huge crib—I don’t want you to think the space is that big.” There was that laugh again, but he was still stuck on crib. “It’s really just a cubbyhole for Ally and the baby.”

Ally and the baby. And Molly said they had until March. A quick count backward meant that if Ally was pregnant, she’d conceived the baby in June. They were on Tortola in June. She’d told him she’d broken up with her ex months before, which meant she’d gotten pregnant on Tortola.

Adrenaline surged through his system.

“What time do you close today?”

“Oh, we’ll be here until at least five-thirty or so. Can you come this afternoon?”

Without a doubt. “And your address?”

“Four seventeen West Jefferson, suite C. We’ll—”

Chris hung up.

Ally was pregnant. There was a strong possibility the baby was his. Not only had she fled Tortola without saying goodbye, she hadn’t bothered to try to find him and let him know she was carrying his child? Maybe she’d tried to, but…no, he wasn’t that hard to find. Chris Wells might be a common enough name, but between knowing he was from Charleston and the sailing, she’d have found him quickly enough with one search on Google.

She had no intention of telling him. Unexpected anger coiled in his chest.

Keys. Phone. That was all he needed. He opened his office door to find Marge and his assistant in the outer office.

Without slowing his pace, he talked as he passed them. “Good. You’re both here. That saves me time. Marge, tell Pops I’ll talk to him about the Dagny tomorrow. Grace, I’m gone for the rest of the day.”

Marge recovered first. “Where are you going?” she called after him.

“Savannah, damn it.”

Okay, this was getting ridiculous. Morning sickness was for mornings. If she was going to start losing both her breakfast and her lunch every day, she and the baby were going to starve to death long before they made it out of this phase.

She brushed her teeth for the third time that day and went back to her desk where the rest of her lunch awaited her. One look at the guacamole on her taco salad caused her stomach to heave in protest.

“What now?” Molly asked around a mouthful of burrito.

“Can you get that off my desk? Just get it away from me, please. The guacamole is—ugh.”

Molly, bless her heart, moved quickly, closing the box and carrying it outside without question. Once the offensive condiment was out of sight, her stomach felt much better.

Molly brought her the peppermints once she returned. “That’s so sad. You love guacamole and it’s so good for you.”

“But the baby doesn’t love it, obviously, and I’m willing to give in on this.”

“Since you’re the color of guacamole right now, that’s probably a wise choice. Tortilla chip?”

That seemed safe enough. It was the craving for something salty and spicy that had led her to suggest they order Mexican for lunch in the first place. She would just omit the guacamole for the foreseeable future.

“By the way, one of the Kriss brothers called while you were indisposed.”

The peppermint actually tasted quite nice with the salsa. “Really? That was fast. Their office manager said they were out of town until tomorrow.”

Molly shrugged. “I think they’re going to come by this afternoon and give us the estimate.” Her brow wrinkled. “He was kinda rude on the phone, though. Are you sure this is the company you want to go with?”

“Michael Kriss did that work for my mom last year. She raves about him.”

“Your mom raves about a lot of things.”

“Yes, but when it comes to updating or decorating the Dingbat Cave, she is remarkably focused.”

“Then I’ll withhold judgment until we meet them and get the estimate.”

Ally nibbled on another chip. “Speaking of judgment, Erin kicked me out of the wedding last night.”

“She didn’t! Why?”

“Because I’ll be seven months pregnant and she doesn’t want my big belly drawing attention away from her on her ‘special day.’”

The picture of outrage, Molly nearly sputtered. “That’s insane. What did your mother say?”

“Oh, she’s on board, but it all kind of got lost in the melee after Steven made his big announcement.”

“Do I even want to know?”

It was a good thing Molly understood her family. “My brother is now a Scientologist.”

Molly spat her water across the desk. “Just like that? He woke up one morning and decided he was converting?”

“Pretty much. My grandmother swears she’s seconds from a heart attack at the news, Mom is convinced she’ll never make it into the Junior League now, and Erin claims Steven is just seeking attention since he’s recovered from the accident.” Leaning back in her chair, Ally propped her feet on her desk and crunched another chip.

“And your dad?”

“Dad went fishing, so he hasn’t weighed in yet.”

“Erin just wants all the attention on her and the wedding.”

“You got it.”

“I’m so glad you passed the edict they were no longer allowed to call here unless someone was bleeding.”

“Me, too. I finally took the phone off the hook last night and went to sleep around eight. I was just too exhausted to deal with any of them.”

“Good for you. Can I slap Erin next time I see her?”

Bless Molly and her loyalty. “At least I don’t have to wear that ugly green dress now.”

“Small favors.” Molly trailed off into her usual mutterings about Ally’s clan, but was thankfully distracted by the phone before she worked up too big a head of steam on Ally’s behalf. Once Molly got wound up it was hard to calm her back down.

Ally entered the last few numbers into the computer file, waited for the screen to update, then hit Print. Payroll for other companies was AMI’s bread and butter, and she normally found the process boring. Today, though, the monotony of folding and stuffing checks was just what her mind needed. Between her own problems, her family, and the brain-numbness the baby caused, the simple, repetitive action felt soothing.

Two hours later she had all the checks for all four of their biggest clients ready. She took a few minutes to log on to her mother’s bank account and pay the bills before she logged on to her e-mail account. Four e-mails from her sister. Ugh. She did not want to deal with that right now.

She eyeballed the stack of checks. Molly normally took care of delivery, but the prospect of getting out of the office for a little while was tempting. Two businesses were within walking distance, and a walk in the August sunshine would be good for the baby. And she could stop for a smoothie on the way back.

The sunshine helped clear the cobwebs from her head and being out in the neighborhood improved her mood. She loved the entire City Market district with its variety of restaurants, interesting stores and true community feel. The rent on the office was high, but worth every penny. Ally dropped off both sets of checks, then dawdled in Franklin Square for a little while to enjoy the afternoon. Next year she could bring the baby here when they needed a break from the office.

She shouldn’t delay getting back any longer. After a quick stop at the vegan deli for a banana smoothie for herself and a mango one for Molly, she rounded the last corner.

A very sleek red sports car like the kind James Bond would probably drive was parked in front of their building. As she approached, the driver’s side door opened and a tall blond man got out. There was something vaguely familiar about the man…

Recognition hit a split second before he turned around. Her pulse jumped briefly in excitement before reality hit and her heart dropped like a stone into her stomach.

Casually, as though he had every reason in the world to be right outside her office, Chris leaned against the car and crossed his arms across his chest, eerily reminiscent of that first day on the dock weeks ago. Only last time he’d seemed relaxed, open and approachable. Today he looked like he’d been carved from stone, and his jaw was tight. In a tone that could easily cut glass he simply said, “How are you, Ally?”