Читать книгу Falling for the Mum-to-Be - Lynne Marshall - Страница 9

Chapter Two

“Ellen?” Leif rolled over in bed, mostly asleep. “Ellen?” No flash of a dream came back to him like usual. What had driven him out of deep sleep thinking of his dead wife? And what time was it? He looked at the bedside clock—quarter to five. Almost time to get up anyway.

Leif sat up, gave a quick shake of his head and pulled on his jeans for the short walk to the hall bathroom. Another inconvenience of having a woman in the house. As he woke he understood he must have been dreaming about Ellen, but usually when he did he remembered it. He didn’t remember anything about this dream. If that was what it was.

He heard a sound and stopped. It was very faint but undeniably a sound he remembered.

He stood quiet and listened harder. There it was again.

Retching.

The old and familiar heaving from when Ellen had suffered through chemotherapy came rushing back. He must have heard that unmistakable sound in his sleep.

Retching? What was up?

He squinted and listened. It had gone quiet again, but the puking sound had come from Marta’s room. Had she gotten food poisoning from what little she’d eaten last night? Damn, that would be horrible. He felt fine, so why would she get sick?

After he finished his quick pit stop and washed his hands he heard more retching and fought off a wave of terrible memories. Oh, God, Ellen, what you went through. He strode to the end of the hall, not wanting to be nosy but unable to let this lie. It was quiet again.

Marta was curvy—not ultrathin like anorexics or bulimics tended to be. What a crazy thought to even entertain, that she might have an eating disorder. That couldn’t be it. But she’d picked at her meal and looked queasy during dinner, even said her stomach had been giving her fits.

She’d also refused alcohol.

A lot of people didn’t drink. But a warning thought planted inside his brain and made him back off as he heard one more round of intense dry heaves. He wanted to help her out, but it could prove embarrassing for her, and that wasn’t his intent. She needed—deserved—privacy. If she was sick, he’d gladly take care of her, but not without an invitation. She was a grown woman and he assumed she wouldn’t hesitate to ask for help. Unless she was one of those superproud ladies who couldn’t ask for anything.

He ran his hand through his hair, torn. Let it be, Andersen. He listened to his intuition stemmed from the fact she’d refused any wine last night. A troubling thought of what a woman throwing up first thing in the morning usually meant made him step away from the door, then he headed back to his bathroom for a shower.

* * *

Later, Leif had eaten and was feeding the dogs, having decided to take them with him over to the job for the day. He’d promised to finish the add-on to Gunnar Norling’s house in six weeks, and Gunnar had offered to help as much as possible. That meant today, before the sergeant’s shift at Heartlandia PD, they’d install the triple-paned windows that had arrived yesterday. Even though he’d been driving his crew hard on this project, no way would Leif ask them to work on Sunday. The guys needed at least one day off. He and Gunnar could handle it.

After both dogs took a quick whiz, he whistled for them to jump into the bed of the truck. He’d removed the cover and had thrown in his window installation tools. Just as he finished closing the tailgate, he noticed Marta standing in the kitchen doorway in a robe that looked like a Native American blanket. With her hair parted down the middle and not brushed, it tumbled over her shoulders in a wild mess. The vision moved him in ways he hadn’t felt in years. It also bothered him to react so viscerally to a near stranger. She might be pregnant, for crying out loud.

“Where are you going?” Curiosity knit her brows.

“I’ve got a job today. I left you a note in the kitchen. Sorry, but I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“Oh, okay.” She folded her arms. “That’s all right, then. I’ll wait to talk to you later.”

“Is there anything you need?” He thought back to the noises emanating from her suite earlier.

“Besides a good night’s sleep and peace of mind?” She offered a wan smile. Her pained look made him want to wrap his arms around her and tell her everything would be okay, and what was up with that impulse? But other than having a pretty solid hunch, Leif didn’t know what her problem was. He really didn’t have a clue if things were okay in her world or not. Obviously, something had robbed her peace of mind.

“Do you want me to stick around? Take you anywhere?”

She shook her head. “No. I’ll be fine. I’ll work on the grid.” She glanced down at her slippers, then quickly back up. “I would like to talk to you about something when you get home, though.”

“If it’s urgent, I’m all ears.”

“Not really urgent. I’ll talk to you later.” She started to back away from the door.

“Okay, then.” Leif opened the cab door and started to get inside.

“Oh, hey, what time will you be home?”

“Gunnar’s got to be at work at three, so I’ll see you before then.” It felt eerie having a woman ask when he’d be coming home after all these years. “Do you want me to bring some lunch or anything?” Saltine crackers?

“You’ve got plenty of food here. Thanks. We’ll talk later.” With that, the beautiful, straight-out-of-bed vision disappeared from the door.

As he backed out the truck, Leif was certain Marta was going to tell him she was pregnant, and he chided himself for having already developed a little crush on her.

On a pregnant lady. How desperate is that?

* * *

Seven hours later, Leif returned home and put the dogs in the gated backyard and pool area. He went in the back door, took his dirty shoes off in the laundry room, then headed to the kitchen. The house was quiet enough to hear a drip of water in the sink. As he turned the faucet completely off, he noticed a bowl in the sink. She must have eaten cereal, so at least that was something.

He headed up the stairs in his stocking feet. Not wanting to come off as a sneaky surprise, he cleared his throat and made a fake cough, preparing to hear her news—I’m pregnant.

“Marta?” he said, taking a turn for the studio.

“I’m in here.”

He entered the bright white room, thinking maybe he’d overdone it with three skylight panels, but Ellen had always loved it, saying it was the perfect natural lighting for intricate stitchery. Maybe Marta would like that, too.

She was hunched over a table, a long piece of white paper spread along the entire length. A second piece of paper was laid out on the other worktable.

“Come here and have a look,” she said. “Tell me what you think so far.” She glanced up, her hair pulled back into a low single braid, though a few wavy tendrils had broken free around her face. He fought the urge to tuck one behind her ear. She wore a teal-colored plaid flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up and holey old jeans. He couldn’t help but notice she still wore her slippers.

“You could have turned the heater on, you know,” he said, worried she’d been cold all day.

“I’ve been fine. The skylights bring in a lot of warmth.”

Good to know. He stepped closer, her dark eyes and olive skin quickly reminding him he was still a man. She used a graphite pencil and a yardstick to draw the final sections of grid over her mural sample.

“This is the tedious part,” she said, then stood. “Come and look at this. Let me know what you think.”

Long sections of Heartlandia history were sketched and laid out before him, beautifully depicted with her natural and flowing artistic style.

“Notice something?”

How beautiful you are?

Actually, something besides the fact she smelled like cinnamon and ginger did draw his attention. He pointed to a blank area at the beginning of the mural. “That?”

“I’ve been concerned about this project from the start. All the information the college provided me was exceptionally helpful, but when I began my sketches, I kept feeling blocked right here.” She pointed to the beginning.

“I wound up having to work backward because this strange sense of darkness stopped me from advancing. I got the Chinook and fisherman part just fine, but something—pardon me for sounding overly dramatic, but forbidding is the only word I can use to describe it—tugged at me to start even before then. Yet no one sent any information about before that point.”

Ah, jeez. Was this woman a psychic? Were artists more in tune with secrets?

For the past few months a private panel had been meeting at city hall to discuss this exact matter. Sleepy little Heartlandia hadn’t been founded by the Scandinavian fisherman with the help of the native peoples—the Chinook—as they’d always assumed, but by a scurrilous pirate captain named Nathaniel Prince, also known as the Prince of Doom.

The perfect little tourist town had been thrown into a dither over this newly discovered fact, in no small part thanks to Leif. While breaking ground for the new college, he’d dug up an ancient trunk filled with journals. The pirate captain’s journals. After authenticating the captain’s accounts and having Elke Norling, the town historian, decipher them, their worst fears had proved true. There had been a concerted effort somewhere back in time by the people of Heartlandia to suppress the truth, and now it was time to come clean.

Plans were in place for a town meeting, where the information would be revealed by mayor pro tem Gerda Rask, with Elke by her side. And Lilly Matsuda, the new journalist at the Heartlandia Herald, had agreed to run the entire historic findings in a three-part story. But that only solved the first problem; the second was even worse. Captain Prince had alluded to a second trunk filled with gold coins and jewels...buried at the Ringmuren. Which happened to be sacred burial ground for the Chinook. Even now, the thought of dealing with this town-wide problem made his head want to explode, and because he was the guy who’d kicked off the whole mess and he’d been on the secret panel from the start, he couldn’t avoid the predicament or the fallout.

The bigger question, right this moment, was how much should he tell Marta. And how crazy was it that she’d sensed a problem without knowing about Heartlandia’s dark side? One thing he did know—he’d wait a bit, feel things out more, before saying a word to her.

“The problem is—” Marta watched him as she spoke. Was she trying to read his reaction? He went still, willing his face not to give anything away, afraid he already had. “The problem is Elke gave me scant information before this shipwreck where the Scandinavian fisherman first arrived in these parts. I think that’s the issue. What about the native people, the Chinook? I need more information to do the mural justice.”

He inhaled, not having a clue what to say or how to handle things right this instant.

“I hope you don’t think I’m crazy. I assure you I’m not a woo-woo type at all. It’s just this dark feeling I keep getting has clouded my vision of the project from the start. Once I’m past this initial area, I’m fine.” She pointed to the beginning, the blank part of the mural, tapping her finger. “But this part right here, well, something isn’t right.”

“I’m sure there’s a logical reason, and we’ll find it while you’re here.” A cop-out for sure, but the best I can do right now.

The only thing Leif could think of at the moment was to distract her. Because he sure as hell couldn’t give her a truthful answer, not before the mayor made her official announcement about this very thing to the people of Heartlandia. And not before all hell broke loose. Man, maybe he should give her a heads-up first.

“So is this why you’ve been all keyed up? Not able to eat? I think I heard you throwing up this morning.” May as well come clean.

She took a quick surprised inhale, then nailed Leif with open, honest eyes. “I see I’m not the only one gifted with intuition.” She smiled. “Look, since you’re being direct, I will be, too. I’m pregnant. Eight weeks. Sick as a dog most mornings. Can’t wait for this first trimester to pass. It’s my first pregnancy, so all I can do is believe the books.”

Leif had been right, but hearing the words from her mouth took his breath away and made him suddenly want a drink. He strode to the sink, opened a cupboard and found a glass, filled it with filtered water, gulped a few swallows. “Would you like some water?”

She nodded, probably more to be polite than for any other reason. He filled a second glass for her, handed it over, then engaged her eyes. He saw questions in hers, and realized this moment would speak volumes about his character.

“You want to talk about it?”

Marta took a sip of water, apparently thinking, then sighed quietly. The expression on her face seemed to communicate, I may as well. “I’ve recently broken up with a man I’d been involved with for five years.” She looked resigned, not brokenhearted.

Leif was already stuck on the first sentence. Didn’t people usually get together when they got pregnant, not break up? Was she waiting for this guy to show up and take her home?

“I wasn’t trying to trap him or anything. The pregnancy was definitely an accident. But when I told him, I thought maybe he’d ask me to marry him.” She put the glass on the counter, folded her arms, paced toward one of the windows and gazed outside. “He wasn’t exactly happy with my news, but at least he didn’t say he didn’t want me to have it or anything.” She glanced at Leif over her shoulder, then back outside. “I got the feeling he just didn’t give a damn. ‘Things don’t have to change’ was all he said.” She swung around, suddenly animated, an accusing expression on her face, as if Leif was a representative for all of the lousy men in the world. “What was that supposed to mean? Of course things would change. Everything had already changed. We’d be parents.” Out of nowhere she’d found a tiny cuticle on her index finger to bite and went for it with gusto. “I’d given him five years of my life. I’d given him everything I had. And now I’m pregnant and he isn’t particularly interested in that part.” She used the back of her hand to brush the air. “‘Just take care of it,’ he said. ‘Get this pregnant part over with, then things will be back to us again.’ How selfish of him. How foolish of me to think he’d ever want to marry me.” Rather than say more, she curled her bottom lip inward and bit it.

At least she wasn’t crying. He wouldn’t know what to do if she started sobbing.

Leif had been right. He’d recognized a fellow traveler on the broken and hurting road. Turned out he wasn’t the only person in this house whose spirit needed some mending.

“I’m very sorry to hear this. Uh, not that you’re pregnant, but about your breakup. That things didn’t work out for you.”

“I understand. Thanks. I guess that’s life, right?” She lifted her chin.

Yeah, he knew about “that’s life.” It had kicked the spirit out of him, too.

“Maybe he’ll come to his senses while you’re here.”

“I no longer care if he does. It’s over.”

“What about the baby?”

“Look, I’m sorry to drag you into my problems,” she said.

His first response was to say, “That’s what friends are for,” but they were practically strangers. “For the record, I’m glad you opened up.”

She tossed a surprised glance his way. “Thank you.”

He needed to do something to change the mood, to move away from the heavy subject, to keep himself from walking over and taking her into his arms for a tight, long and comforting squeeze. He hardly knew her, yet he already felt the urge to protect her.

“I’ve got an idea,” he said, glancing at his watch. “It’s only two-thirty. Why don’t we get outside and take in some fresh air? I’ll show you the City College and where your mural walls are located. What do you say?”

She glanced back again, as if his idea wasn’t half bad.

“Who knows, maybe it will help you get unstuck.”

Her face brightened at the suggestion. “You’re on. Just let me change my shoes.”

* * *

Marta enjoyed the distraction of driving around the quaint and colorful city of Heartlandia. She looked out the window, taking it all in.

“We’re heading north past Heritage, the main street in our downtown section. That’s the Heritage Hotel, oldest building in town. Now we’re heading toward our hill that we like to call a mountain, Hjartalanda Peak. It’s not exactly Saddle Mountain, over there—” he pointed eastward toward a large pine-covered mountain range off in the distance “—but it’s good enough for us.” He smiled at her, and a weird fizzy feeling flitted through her chest. Those eyes. Must be those crystal eyes.

“Heartlandia City College is halfway up the hill between the Ringmuren wall and downtown, which took a lot of campaigning to approve clear-cutting a large section of our pines. In the end we agreed that we needed the jobs, the incentive for our kids to stay home to go to college instead of leaving the area and the influx of new blood the school would bring into town. Plus, I promised not to cut down one more tree than necessary and to plant a whole lot of other trees somewhere else.” He looked at her and smiled again. “I’m not going to lie—I’m very proud of the college.”

“Your company built the entire college?”

He nodded. “My father started his construction company fifty years ago from scratch. He built half of the bungalows and sloping-roof Scandinavian log houses you see scattered across the hills. When he was fifty and I was twenty he developed rheumatoid arthritis and asked me to take on more responsibility for when the time came he couldn’t do the hard work himself. I learned the business from the ground up for the next ten years, and when my dad moved to Arizona at sixty, I took over. I’m glad to say the business didn’t fall apart when I stepped in.” He flashed a smile she could only describe as charming, and there went that fizzy feeling again. “I’ve actually brought the company to a new level but only because of the foundation my father laid down for me. And the work ethic he instilled in me.”

“That’s very impressive,” she said, meaning it.

“Thanks.”

They pulled into a large lot and parked close to a long and low building to the left of the main three-story administration center and a cluster of other one-and two-story structures. They’d gone the clean, midcentury modern route with a definite Scandinavian influence in architecture.

He opened the door for her, and she followed him toward the long, low bungalows.

“This is the history quad,” he said. “We thought this would be the best place to put your mural. See those walls over there?”

She nodded and sped up her pace to keep up with him.

“Those are your walls.”

She liked the sound of that—her walls.

“The mural will be visible to everyone as they enter the campus. Pretty good, huh?”

“Fabulous. Now I’m getting excited but nervous, too.”

“No need. You’re very talented. I’d say quit stressing about your artist’s block. Things will work out in their own way. You may be surprised. Just keep getting your grid together.”

She walked ahead of him and followed the long twelve-foot-high walls, imagining what her mural would look like when she’d finished. “Wow, this is great. See, I’m getting goose bumps.”

He politely took a look at the raised hair on her arms. “I’ll get right to work prepping these walls for you. When you’re ready to start, nothing will hold you back. I guarantee.”

“I wish I had as much confidence as you do.” What if she couldn’t break through the mental block about the beginning of Heartlandia’s history? What would she do then? She’d been hired based on two reasons, and she was sure the first carried the most clout. Her great-great-grandfather had designed and built the town monument. Also, the mural committee liked her style of painting. She’d only done extralarge canvas paintings so far and they were much smaller than these walls, but the committee had chosen her once she’d submitted her preliminary vision for these walls. They must have seen something they liked.

“Are you kidding? You’re a fantastic artist. Listen, if it will help I’ll arrange with the school librarian and the history department chair to get you more books and photographs from our town. We have a great Maritime Museum with loads of old pictures, but it’s undergoing renovations after a recent fire. There’s all kinds of stuff for you to look at right here.”

“That’s really nice of you. Thanks.” It meant a lot to her to hear Leif praise her work.

“I want to help in any way I can. I built this college and I want to see it at its full potential. Your mural will make all the difference in the world.”

If she could only believe in herself half as much as he did. She couldn’t let her personal circumstances and disappointment hold her back on this project, or let the insecurity of not being wanted by the father of her child spread to her art, and she silently vowed to make this mural her best work yet. She needed the job for financial security and the recognition it would bring for her and the baby’s future.

“So what will you need?”

Lost in her thoughts, she glanced at him blankly.

“For painting,” he said.

“You mean paints?”

“Yeah, and brushes and drop cloths and any other supplies.”

“Acrylic mural paints are a must, and I’ll be needing gallons and gallons of the colors. It might be tough on the city budget.”

“Do you have a list of your colors yet?”

“I have a good idea what I’ll need.”

“Then, let’s go shopping.”

“Are you serious?”

“Dead serious. It’s four o’clock, so we better hurry because our hardware and paint store closes at six on Sundays.”

With that they rushed back to the truck and hopped inside. Marta hadn’t felt this excited and full of energy in weeks.

“Tell me about your family,” she said as they drove, deeply curious about the man, a near stranger, who had so much faith in her abilities.

“My people came here in the 1800s. They were fisherman, like most of the other Scandinavians in this area. I think my first relative might have been an indentured servant on a fishing boat from Denmark. I’m Danish, by the way. Well, I’m actually an American of Danish descent. I guess you’d say that is more accurate.”

She understood. “My ancestors are from Argentina, but like you, I think of myself as American with Latino roots.” Her mother had always been too traditional for her taste, and overprotective, but that was to be expected and it was her way of showing she loved Marta. But they’d argued constantly about her free-living lifestyle, and it had driven her away. Now she wished with all of her heart she could have mended their differences before her mother had died. Family had taken on a whole new meaning eight weeks ago.

Leif ran down his brief genealogy chart while they headed for the paint store, then he suddenly hit a bumpy patch in the story. “My father died eight years ago, so we moved my mother back here from Arizona where they’d retired. I’d originally built the guesthouse for both of them to come and visit whenever they wanted. Five years ago, Mom had a massive stroke and died on the way to the hospital.”

“I lost my mother last year and can only imagine how tough it must be to lose both parents.”

“Yeah, I guess that makes me an orphan.”

“I believe you’re right.” So who had he built that big gorgeous house for? “Were you ever married?”

“Yes.”

Of course he was a traditional kind of guy. The kind of man she’d never run into while living her sophisticated artist’s life.

“I built my future wife’s dream house as a wedding gift. I had to do something to get that woman to marry me.” He worked at a smile, but it came off as wistful and far from his eyes. “My wife was Norwegian, since we’re talking about Scandinavian ancestry.”

“Are you divorced?”

“No.” He grew quiet for a moment. “She died from ovarian cancer three years ago.”

Things suddenly added up—why he’d offered her the master bedroom and studio, why he hadn’t slept in that room for three years, why he stayed in the big house by himself rather than sell it. “I see. I’m very sorry to hear that.” Not only was he an orphan, but he also was a widower and had lost everyone he loved. “That’s a lot of people to lose in a very short time.”

“You’re telling me.” He inhaled as he parked and cut the engine. “But losing my wife was the hardest thing I’ve ever been through in my life.” He gazed solemnly out the windshield. “Ellen... She was the one who suffered the most.”

The thought sent a chill through her. “You don’t have children?” She turned toward him rather than move to get out of the car.

He faced her, too. “That’s how we found out about her cancer. We wanted to be a family. A big family. Decided to have a bunch of kids. We tried for that first baby for a couple of years and finally decided to go the fertility clinic route, first checking out my plumbing, then hers. That’s when they found her cancer. Already too late.”

His distant glance over her shoulder was tinged with agony. It nearly broke her already raw heart.

Overcome with compassion and respect for this man who’d lost everything he’d loved, making her own situation pale in comparison, Marta leaned across the bucket seat, reached for his forearm and squeezed. “You suffered, too, Leif. I can only imagine.”

Their eyes locked for a couple of moments. New understanding passed between them. He studied her as if he was trying to figure out if he appreciated her concern, or if he resented the pity. It wasn’t pity, as far as she was concerned. This connection was an honest desire to offer him comfort. She wondered how he’d managed to survive losing his entire family. How lost he must be all by himself. In such a short time, she’d already figured out he deserved much more than this lot in life. And she had nothing to complain about. She had her health, a baby on board and a profession she loved. She almost had everything...except a man.

“If it wasn’t for the business, I think I would have gone nuts.”

“You’re a survivor. A person can tell that about you right off.” She started to remove her hand, but he reached for it and squeezed, holding tight for a moment before releasing her. His warm touch surprised her. In twenty-four hours it had already changed from their initial mechanical handshake.

“What do you say we go shopping?” He’d obviously had enough of this heavy conversation. His story was probably the last part of Heartlandia history he’d wanted to dig up today, but she was glad he had. It helped put so many things in perspective.

“Let’s do it.” She smiled and he returned it, in obvious relief. They’d come to a realization—they’d both been knocked in the teeth by life. The major difference was his love had died, and though she’d broken off with the person she once thought was the love of her life, she had a new life growing inside her. She wasn’t about to complain about that, especially when all Leif had been left with was an empty house.

With masks firmly back in place, they got out of the cab and she followed him into the store for some major distraction.

* * *

An hour and a half later, ten minutes shy of the hardware closing time, they rolled two shopping carts filled to overflowing to the checkout. Gallon after gallon of top-quality mural paints in a dozen different colors plus protective clear varnish to ward off the effects of weather. Primer, which Leif would apply after preparing the walls for her. Every size and shape brush she could possibly need, drop cloths and plastic basins for mixing colors. Thinners. Thickeners. On and on and on the supplies piled up on the counter.

“Oh, we can’t forget these,” Marta said adding several packages of paint odor valved respirators to the pile.

When the total rang up, Leif didn’t blink. Marta tried to not look but noticed anyway and was surprised by the total. “Put it on my account,” he said.

Both pushing a cart back to his truck, she couldn’t ignore where her thoughts had been heading since they’d walked into the store. “So you’re the town benefactor for this project?”

He tried to look surprised but did a poor job of it and immediately came clean. “I made a bundle building that college,” he said while opening the tailgate and beginning to unload the supplies. “When the topic came up about the mural, the committee balked at the expense. I volunteered to see it through. That’s all.”

“I’m being paid very well. You must be a rich man.”

“Like I said, I’ve been blessed with a successful family business.”

“That you’ve obviously grown into a mega business.”

He nodded, playing down the blood, sweat and tears that must have gone into the process. “True.”

She tapped his chest. “You’re far too humble, Leif Andersen.”

He laughed. “Not that humble. Truth is, I want this mural to be a kind of legacy for my family. For my father, who added so much to this community, and my mother, who’d always been a patron of the arts. And for my wife, who believed in the community college from the start, when everyone said it was a crazy idea.”

“Like I said, you’re too humble.” As she handed him another can of paint, their gazes clicked with perception and they finished unloading in silence.

One more unsettling thought occurred to Marta as they emptied the carts. There was a huge similarity to his position of benefactor and her recent personal history with Lawrence. Hadn’t she vowed to never let that happen again? The difference was, this was a job. She’d been hired. There was nothing personal between them. Though they’d definitely reached a new understanding this afternoon. She’d opened up to him, and he’d opened up to her. They’d shared a special moment in the car.

Something had come over her after hearing his heart-wrenching story, and she couldn’t help herself. She’d reached out for him in the parking lot and they’d connected. Spending the afternoon with Leif had been the highlight of her day, and how crazy was that for a pregnant woman?

She was in Heartlandia for a job, and though the city had hired her, Leif was writing the paychecks. No matter how appealing he was, she’d keep everything between her and Leif from here on out strictly professional.

She had no choice.