Читать книгу The Baby Agenda - Janice Johnson Kay - Страница 7

EVEN THOUGH THE GALA was part of a professional conference, it looked as though almost everyone had arrived two-by-two. Moira Cullen had known they would, and decided to come anyway. So what if this, like most social occasions, had too much in common with Noah’s ark? She was supposed to have been half of a couple tonight, too, until she’d gotten the email this afternoon from Bruce.

I’m sorry, Moira, but I won’t be able to escort you tonight after all. Something has come up. I know you hadn’t planned to attend until I asked you, so I hope it won’t be too big a disappointment.

He’d signed off with “Bruce.” Plain and simple. No “Love, Bruce,” or “I’ll think of you tonight and wish we were dancing together,” or even “I’ll call tomorrow and explain.”

She still had no idea what could have happened since this morning, when they’d parted after a conference session. She and Bruce Girard both had been attending the conference held in Redmond, across Lake Washington from Seattle, for members of the building trade. He was a real estate attorney, she was an architect. They’d been dating for nearly six weeks, and she’d decided that tonight was a fitting time to invite him into her bedroom for the first time.

And she’d bought the most beautiful dress!

In a spirit of defiance, she’d decided to come to the gala anyway. Lots of attendees were from out of town and had come without significant others. A single woman would surely be asked to dance. It could be fun, she had decided, surprising herself with her determination. Bruce was probably disappointed, too, and would undoubtedly be in touch. They’d have other nights. She had no reason to feel hurt.

She hesitated only momentarily in the lobby, then walked toward the ballroom, telling herself she looked voluptuous in her new dress, not fat.

Repeat after me: I am not fat.

She knew she wasn’t. Believing, though, that could be another story.

Right by the open doors, she saw a man she knew. She’d worked with Stan Wells on a job a couple of years ago. He appeared to be by himself.

He turned, looked her up and down, and said, “Well, hello,” then did a double take. “Moira?” He sounded stunned.

Stan had never once looked at her as if he’d noticed she was a woman when they had worked together.

She smiled pleasantly and said, “Hello, Stan,” then strolled past him, enjoying the knowledge that he’d swiveled on his heel to watch her walk away. The dress must be as flattering as she’d imagined it to be.

It was also form-fitting, which meant that she scanned the buffet table with a wistful eye but didn’t dare partake. So what. She wasn’t here to eat.

Moira made her way around the outskirts of the ballroom, pausing to chat a couple of times and to promise a dance once the musicians started to play. She’d been right to think she’d have fun—it was nice to come to a party where she actually knew many of the people.

Then her roving gaze stopped on a tall, handsome man with sandy hair and a lopsided grin. Bruce Girard, wearing a well-cut suit, had his head bent as he talked to a beautiful, slender woman in a fire-engine red dress cut short to bare long legs. Moira stared in shock. She wouldn’t have dared wear a dress that short, because she didn’t have legs like that. On her, the razor-sharp, chin-length bob wouldn’t have emphasized sculpted cheekbones, because she didn’t have those, either. And—oh, God—if she’d worn a red dress, never mind the slash of scarlet lipstick, her hair and freckles would have looked orange. They were orange.

She had to quit staring. Moira knew that, in some distant part of her mind. It would be humiliating if Bruce were to happen to glance her way and catch her gaping.

Maybe, at the last minute, his plans had changed and he’d come on the chance that she would be here. If he’d tried calling her at home, and thought that because she didn’t answer…

He laid his hand on the brunette’s lower back. Really, almost, on her butt. The way his hand was splayed there was unmistakably proprietary and…sexual. Recognizing it, the woman smiled and tilted her head so that it, very briefly, rested against his upper arm.

Pain squeezed Moira’s chest. Surely he hadn’t been seeing someone else all this time. Or was even married? They had several mutual acquaintances who knew they were dating each other. Wouldn’t someone have said something?

And—face it—why would he have dated her at all if he had a wife or a lover who looked like that?

The backs of her eyes burned, and she suddenly felt homely and fat. Probably Stan Wells had turned in incredulity at the amount of flesh she’d squeezed into this damn dress.

Breathe, she told herself, and couldn’t.

She couldn’t seem to make herself move, either. She was frozen between one step and the next, excruciatingly self-conscious. What she’d convinced herself were curves were really bulges. And no one thought a woman whose skin was spotted was sexy. With self-loathing, she wondered who she had been kidding.

Then, to complete her misery, Bruce’s head turned and their eyes met. His face went still. Knowing a riptide of red was sweeping up her neck to her cheeks, Moira forced herself into motion. With her redhead’s skin, she didn’t blush, she flamed. Even from a distance, he would see.

Her eye fastened desperately on a bar ahead. She could pretend she’d been looking for a drink. That gave her a goal. Made her feel as if she was less pathetically, obviously alone.

Except, of course, that she was.

There was a short line. The couple ahead of her were strangers and paid no attention to her. She wished someone else would join the queue, someone she could hide behind. Unfortunately, in her peripheral vision she could still see Bruce and the woman. He spoke to her, then left her watching him speculatively and approached Moira.

If only she could cool her cheeks, she might be able to handle him with savoir faire. A surprised glance, an, “Oh, you made it after all?” If only she had any actual confidence.

“Moira.” He was here, at her side.

She tilted her chin up and, somehow, smiled. “Bruce. I didn’t expect to see you.”

“I didn’t think I’d see you, either.”

Anger was her salvation, or maybe it would embarrass her, she didn’t know which. She went with it anyway.

With raised eyebrows, she glanced toward his date. “Yes, that’s obvious.”

“Ah…I’m sorry about this. I should have told you.”

“That we weren’t dating each other exclusively?” She was proud of her level tone.

“It’s not like that.” He frowned at her. “We were. I was. It’s just that I ran into Graziella and…” Bruce spread his hands and shrugged. “We’d broken it off, but as soon as we saw each other again we both knew we’d made a mistake.”

In other words, Moira realized, he’d been in love with another woman the entire time he’d dated her. No wonder he’d been so patient. He’d been filling time with her. Licking his wounds. She couldn’t even flatter herself that he’d been on the rebound. He hadn’t been interested enough in her for their relationship to qualify.

It hurt. Her heart or her pride, she wasn’t sure which, but either way, it did hurt.

The couple in front of her stepped up to the bar. She moved forward.

“Honesty would have been nice.”

“I didn’t lie—”

“Yes, you did. If only by omission.” Anger was still carrying her along, thank goodness. “I didn’t understand that I wasn’t supposed to come tonight. You’ve embarrassed me. That wasn’t necessary, Bruce.” Drinks in hand, the couple stepped away. To Bruce, Moira said, “Please excuse me,” and turned to the bartender. “A martini, please.”

By the time she’d paid, Bruce was gone, striding across the ballroom toward his Graziella, whose name was as exotic as her looks.

Moira took a huge gulp of the martini and wished she could go home. But if she did that, the jerk would know that she wasn’t just embarrassed, she was humiliated and wounded. And she refused to give him that satisfaction.

She’d dance, and maybe even get a little bit drunk. She would clutch at her pride, because that’s all she had. And she wouldn’t let herself think until she got home about the fact that Bruce Girard hadn’t wanted her, not really.

Men never did.

WILL BECKER LEANED AGAINST the railing, his back to the view of dark woods that somehow still existed within a stone’s throw of the Redmond Town Center mall and the surrounding upscale hotels and restaurants. Instead, nursing a drink he didn’t really want, he looked through the floor-to-ceiling glass at the ballroom where other people seemed to be having a fine time.

Him, he hated affairs like this. He was content lurking outside, glass separating him from the gaiety within.

Circumstances being different, he wouldn’t be here at all. As it was, he and Clay had attended a few conference sessions together, but the real point of the weekend had been for Will to introduce his brother to everyone he knew. This had been a four day long changing of the guard, so to speak.

“Yes,” he’d said dozens of times, “Clay will be taking over Becker Construction. He knows the business. Hell, better than I did when I stepped in for my father.” Got stuck, was what he really meant. “I have confidence in Clay.”

That was the important part: to convey to everyone that he believed Clay could replace him without one of the county’s biggest construction companies suffering even a minor hiccup.

“I have plans,” he’d said vaguely when asked what he’d be doing. Only to a select few had he admitted that a week from tomorrow he was flying to Zimbabwe to begin a two-year commitment to build medical clinics. He only knew how to do one thing—build—but at least he’d be having an adventure. That, and doing good, instead of adding another minimall where it wasn’t needed.

Now, he was lying low. He’d done his duty this evening and would have left if Clay didn’t still seem to be having a good time.

Music spilled from the crowded ballroom, and he idly watched the dancers. Not for the first time, Will found his gaze following a redheaded woman whose lush body was poured into a high-necked forest-green dress that might have been demure on someone else—someone who didn’t have a small waist, a glorious ass and breasts that would overflow a man’s hands, even hands as large as his.

The guy she was dancing with kept trying to pull her closer, and she was refusing to relax into him. She sure as hell had no intention of melting against the guy, which seemed to be frustrating him no end.

When the music ended, he said something to her, his hand still resting against her waist. She shook her head and walked away, straight to the bar.

Will had noticed that, too. The beautiful redhead was putting away the drinks. Not enough yet to have her tanked, but more than was wise if she intended to drive home. And he guessed she’d need to, because he hadn’t seen any sign she was here with anybody, friend or date. In fact, for all the dancing she was doing, she didn’t look like she was having a very good time. Maybe a mistaken impression, but…he didn’t think so.

She took her fresh drink and this time headed for the doors that stood open to the terrace where he currently lurked. Just like he had, the redhead went straight for the dark perimeter where light from the ballroom didn’t reach. She didn’t realize she wasn’t alone until she was almost on top of him.

When she started, Will said, “Hey,” making his voice soothing. Even if he hadn’t been standing in the dark, his size tended to alarm lone women. “Want to hide out here with me?”

She blinked owlishly. “I didn’t see you.”

“I know. That’s okay, I wouldn’t mind some company.” Hers, anyway. To himself, he could admit that he’d been humming with a low level of arousal since he’d first set eyes on her. He didn’t like bony women, and this one had the most luscious body he’d seen in longer than he could remember.

He wished he could make out what color her eyes were. He knew she had a pretty face and a mouth made for smiling. But her eyes, he hadn’t been sure of from a distance. Brown? Didn’t most redheads have brown eyes?

“I don’t want to intrude,” she said after a minute.

Will shook his head. “You’re not. I was watching you dance.”

Her head tilted his way. “You were?”

Some undertone in her voice puzzled him. She sounded surprised. Or even disbelieving.

“You’re beautiful,” he said simply.

His mystery redhead snorted. “Yeah, right. That’s me.”

Oh, yeah. Definitely disbelieving.

He grinned at her. “You think I’m full of hot air.”

The pretty mouth was mulish and not smiling. “I know what I look like.”

He was tempted to end the argument by kissing her, but he didn’t make a habit of grabbing women he hardly knew. And anyway…she wasn’t being coy. The words had been pained, as if pushed through a throat that was raw.

“Did somebody insult you?” Will asked gently.

She took a long swallow of her drink, swayed and clunked it down on the railing beside his. Liquid splashed.

“You could say that,” she said in a small, tight voice.

He was hardly aware of his hands tightening into fists. Partly to keep them off her, and partly because he wanted to slug the bastard who’d hurt her feelings. “Who?”

She blinked at him again.

“Who?” he repeated.

“Oh, it was my own stupid fault,” she said finally. “I guess I was supposed to get the message when he let me know he wouldn’t be bringing me tonight.” She heaved a sigh. “The part I missed was that he was bringing someone else.”

“He thought you wouldn’t come.”

“Bingo.”

Will’s eyes narrowed. “So he’s here.”

“Yes. With Graziella.” She grimaced. “Of course she couldn’t have a name like Ethel.”

Not many women in their twenties or thirties were named Ethel, Will thought with a trace of amusement. But he liked the way she said it, and the way she spit out Graziella.

“I’ll bet you’re nothing as plain as Ethel, either.”

“No,” she mumbled, “I’m Moira.”

“As Irish as your hair.”

She reached up and touched the skillfully tumbled mass of red curls atop her head as if to remind herself what was up there. “I suppose.”

“I’m Will,” he said, and held out his hand. “Will Becker.”

She laid hers in it and they shook with an odd sort of solemnity. “Good to meet you, Will Becker.”

She sounded as if the booze was starting to go to her head, as if she was having to form words carefully. He hoped she’d forget she still had most of a drink.

“Having a good time anyway?” he asked.

Moira sighed. “Not especially. You?”

“No. I’m not a real social guy.”

She stirred. “You probably wish I’d leave you alone.”

“No.” He clasped her wrist loosely. “No. Don’t go.”

After a moment she said, “Okay.” She didn’t seem to notice he was holding on to her. “I kind of wish I could go home, ’cept…except I don’t want him to catch me slinking out. You know?”

“Is he really worth the heartburn?”

“I thought so,” she said sadly.

“Have you been seeing him long?” Will didn’t actually want to know; he didn’t want to talk about the scumbag at all. But he also didn’t want her to go back in, and he couldn’t think of anything else to talk about. Sure as hell not the local building trade, since as of Monday morning he was no longer president of Becker Construction.

“I don’t know,” she said in answer to his question. “A month or six weeks.”

Will slid his hand down and laced his fingers with hers. It was almost more intimate than a kiss, he thought, looking at their clasped hands. There was something about being palm to palm.

She didn’t seem to notice that they were holding hands now.

“I just want to forget about him,” she declared. “And Graziella.”

There it was again, the name as abomination.

Will laughed. “Definitely forget them. Talk to me. Did you grow up around here?”

She turned to look at him instead of the ballroom. “Uh-uh. Montana. Missoula. You?”

“I’m a local boy.”

“So your family is here?” She seemed bemused by the idea.

“Yeah. Not my parents, they’re gone. My mother when I was a kid, and then my dad and stepmom in a plane crash when I was twenty. One of those freak things, a sightseeing flight—” He stopped. Sharing long past tragedy wasn’t the way to get the girl.

Not that he was trying to get her. Not when he’d be winging to Africa a week from now. He just wanted to enjoy her for a little longer.

“But I have two brothers and a sister,” he continued.

“From Dad’s second marriage.”

She nodded her understanding.

“The youngest just graduated from college. My sister, Sophie. She’ll be going to grad school come fall.” He smiled. “And that’s more than you wanted to know, I bet. Do you have sisters or brothers?”

Moira shook her head. “There was only me and my mom. I didn’t really even know my dad. My parents split up when I was two.”

And her father was a jackass who hadn’t bothered to make time for his daughter, Will diagnosed. He really, really wished he could see her face better. Once again, she sounded a little sad, but he might be imagining things. He was surprised to realize that, for the second time tonight, he was feeling protective and angry on her behalf. He thought he’d worn out all those instincts getting his siblings safely raised.

“Have you ever been river rafting?” he asked, at random, determined to lighten the conversation.

She made a little gurgle of amusement. “I can’t swim. So no.”

“You can’t swim?” Will repeated. “How is that possible? Doesn’t every kid take lessons?”

“Not this one.” She opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it. “And I’m not about to start now,” she finished with a hint of defiance.

“So, is taking the ferry across the Sound your worst nightmare?”

“No, the ferry is okay. I keep a close eye on the lifeboats. Now, those I wouldn’t like, but it’s a comfort that they’re there. My worst nightmare…hmm. Sailing cross the Atlantic.”

“The Perfect Storm wasn’t your favorite movie?”

“I never have liked horror movies.”

He found himself smiling at the description. Standing here this way felt good. Somehow they’d come to be closer together than they had started. His much larger hand enveloped hers. Their voices were low, as if they were lovers murmuring secrets to each other.

“What’s your worst nightmare?” she asked.

Will had to think about that. He didn’t have any phobias, per se. He guessed he might be a little claustrophobic; he’d had a construction site injury once and when the doctor sent him for an MRI he’d found the experience hellish. Given the breadth of his shoulders, he’d been crammed in that damn tunnel as if it were the skin of a sausage and he was the innards. And he’d had to lie there for an aeon. Yeah, being buried alive wouldn’t be high on his list. But it wasn’t the worst thing, although it was oddly akin.

“Being trapped,” he finally said quietly. “Any freedom of choice taken away from me. Spending my entire life doing what I have to do, no matter how desperately I chafe at it.”

Now where had that come from? It was true, every word of it, but he didn’t think he’d ever spoken the words aloud. God help him, that’s what his life had been like since the day he’d taken the phone call in his college dorm telling him his parents were dead. He hadn’t known what he wanted to do with his life yet, but it wasn’t going to be construction. He’d worked summers for his dad for the past five years, and that was enough.

Until all choice had been yanked from him when he realized his brothers and sister had no one else.

He couldn’t regret the decisions he’d made then. He loved Clay, Jack and Sophie. But these past couple weeks, knowing the end was in sight, he’d felt like a kid who’d suffered through his school years looking toward high school graduation.

Free at last.

He felt Moira’s scrutiny. Finally she nodded, but said softly, “Life’s made up of obligations, though, isn’t it?”

“But we ought to be able to choose the ones we take on, don’t you think?”

Her head tilted, reminding him of a curious bird. Perhaps the owl he’d likened her to earlier, with downy, unruly feathers around the enormous, unblinking eyes.

With that tilt of the head, enough light touched her face that he thought, green. Her eyes were green.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m a big fan of free choice.” Her fingers wriggled in his, and she glanced down in apparent puzzlement.

So she’d finally noticed that they had been holding hands for the past ten minutes. Although reluctant, he released hers.

“If you’ll excuse me, my feet are killing me and I think I had too much to drink. I’m about to conk out.”

“You’re not planning to drive, are you?”

She shook her head. “I think I’ll get a room.”

Will smiled at her. “I’ll walk you down.”

“You don’t have to—”

“It would be my pleasure,” he said with a formality unusual to him.

After a moment, she murmured, “Then, thank you.” She started toward the open doors, and he strolled at her side.

When they reached the ballroom, he could hardly tear his eyes from her face. She was indeed pretty, but in a way that contrasted with her curvaceous, seductive body. Her cheeks were round, her forehead high, giving her an unexpected look of vulnerability, and her milk-pale skin was dusted with pale gold freckles. Her eyes were green, but flecked with gold, too. And her eyebrows, like the hair on her head, were the pure color of copper.

She looked…innocent, which made him feel guilty for wondering if the rest of her body was freckled, too, if the nipples crowning her generous breasts were pink or dusky brown, whether her pubic hair was copper bright, too.

He almost groaned. Yes, of course it was. And, damn it, he had no business thinking this way when he couldn’t start anything with her. He was tying up the last strands of this part of his life, not opening any new packages. However enticing this one was.

Moira greeted a couple of people, and he did the same. They even had a few mutual acquaintances, none of whom seemed to think anything of the fact that they knew each other. He wondered what she did for a living, but decided he didn’t want to know. He’d prefer to remember her as his mysterious redhead.

Then she stiffened. Raising his eyebrows, Will saw the couple directly in front of them. Good-looking guy, beautiful woman if you liked hip bones sharp enough to draw blood and thought counting ribs was an excellent postcoital activity.

The scumbag, clearly, and Graziella. Feeling Moira’s tension, Will wasn’t nearly as amused as he’d been when she last said the name.

“Bruce,” she said coolly.

Some instinct made Will lay his hand on Moira’s back in a way any other man would recognize. Mine. He nodded, making plain his disinterest, and steered her around the other couple.

“Aren’t you Will Becker?” the other guy said.

Will nodded. “Yes.” And kept going.

Moira gave another of those little gurgles of laughter that sounded like a small brook tumbling over rocks.

“Well, that was rude.”

“Yeah, and I enjoyed it,” he said truthfully.

She turned that laughing face up to him, her eyes sparkling, and said, “Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome.” He kept his hand on her until they reached the front desk, at which point he stood back and let her take a credit card from the small, sparkly bag she’d carried over her shoulder. When eventually she turned around, he asked, “All set?”

“Yes. You don’t have to walk me up, Will.”

“Yes, I do.”

She bit her lip and studied him for a moment, her eyes curiously vulnerable in a way that gave him a pang.

Twice now he’d thought of her as such, which had to mean something.

He knew what that something was. His gut was telling him to say good-night to her outside her hotel room door and leave. Don’t kiss her. Don’t step over the threshold. She wasn’t a one-night stand kind of woman, and he wasn’t interested in anything but.

Moira nodded and let him walk beside her to the elevators. One opened as soon as she pushed the button, and they rode upward in silence, side by side. He heard the soft sigh of a breath from her, caught an elusive scent that seemed old-fashioned. He had a flash of standing on the deep front porch of his family home, the sky purple with twilight, and that scent filling his nostrils.

Lilac.

The elevator opened and he said, “What’s your room number?”

She stumbled, stepping out, and he wrapped a hand around her arm to catch her. “Um…” She looked at the small folder she held. “Two-eighteen.”

Will nodded and directed her to the right. The hall was broad, the plush charcoal-gray carpet inset with maroon. He stopped in front of 218 and watched as she fumbled with the card, finally getting it into the slot correctly and turning the knob when the green light flashed.

“I should say good-night now,” he said hoarsely.

Holding the door open, she met his eyes. “Did you mean it, when you said…” She seemed to lose courage.

“Said…?” His heart was hammering.

She whispered, “That you think I’m beautiful.”

“I meant it.” He lifted a hand, hesitated, then only grazed her round, plush cheek with his knuckles. “You are.”

Her tongue touched her lips; she took a deep breath. “Then will you stay?”