A Bachelor and a Baby

Or thought he had until he’d seen her last night, her body filled out with the signs of another man’s claim on her.

He turned and looked out on the harbor again. The sky was darkening, even though it was only two in the afternoon. There was a storm coming. Unusual for April. Boats were beginning to leave. “I went by your house this morning.”

Her house. Her poor house. Joanna held her breath. “And?”

There was no way to sugarcoat this, but he did his best. “It was only half destroyed by the fire.” Rick turned to look at her. “But it’s not habitable.” He saw the hopeful light go out of her eyes.

“Damn, now what am I going to do?”

He approached the matter practically. “Well, it’s not a total loss. It might take some time to rebuild—you do have coverage, right?”

Yes, she had coverage, but that wasn’t why she was upset. Fighting back tears, she sighed. “That’s not the point. I was going to take out a home loan on it.” The appointment had been postponed from last week. She fervently wished she’d been able to keep it. Now it was too late. “Nobody gives you a loan on the remains of a bonfire.” Joanna struggled against the feeling that life had just run her over with a Mack truck. She’d been counting on the money to see her and the baby through the next few months until she could go back to work and start building their future. “Now I don’t have the loan or a place to live.”

Rick studied her face for a long moment. And then he said the last thing that she expected him to say. The last thing he must have expected himself to say.

“You can come and stay with me.”

Three

She stared at Rick, momentarily speechless.

As far as she knew, prenatal vitamins did not fall under the heading of hallucinogenic drugs and she’d had nothing else to throw her brain out of alignment. Why, then was she hearing Rick make an offer she knew he couldn’t possibly have made?

“What did you say?”

Her eyes were even bluer than he remembered, bluer and more compelling. He had to struggle not to get lost in them, the way he used to.

“I said, you can come and stay with me—until you get on your feet again,” he qualified after a beat, feeling that the offer begged for a coda. This wasn’t meant to be a permanent arrangement by any means. He was just temporarily helping a friend. For old times’ sake.

If she could have, Joanna would have walked away. As it was, all she could manage was a pugnacious lift of her head.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t take charity.”

He felt as if she’d insulted him, insulted the memory of what had once been between them. Or had that only been in his own mind? Right at this moment, the chasm that existed between them seemed a hundred yards wide. Sometimes, it was hard to remember how it had gotten this way.

“It would have been charity if I’d just put a wad of bills in your hand and told you not to pay it back.” He shrugged, struggling to rein in anger that had materialized out of nowhere. “This is just putting a couple of empty rooms to use.”

She assumed by his offer that he was staying at the estate. It was the last place she wanted to be. Not with the past vividly rising up before her. “I really don’t think your father would exactly welcome the invasion with open arms.”

“One woman and an infant are hardly an invasion—or an intrusion,” Rick added before she could revise her words. He guessed at part of the problem. His parents had never treated her with the respect that he’d felt, at the time, that she deserved. His mother was gone now, but there was still his father. “And my father is Florida on vacation.” An extended one, he thought. His father hadn’t been back to California for several months, actually.

A vacation meant that the man was returning. “So, what’s that, a week, two?”

“More like three months or more.” With things like teleconferencing, there was not as much need to appear in the flesh anymore, Rick thought. He couldn’t say that he disliked the arrangement. The less he saw of his father, the better.

Her mouth curved with a cynicism that was ordinarily foreign to her. “Oh yes, I forgot, the rich are different from you and me—” She glanced up at him. “Well, from me at any rate.”

He heard the bitterness in her voice. Was that directed at him? Why? He hadn’t said anything to trigger it. But then, as his father had once pointed out, he really didn’t know Joanna at all.

Something within him made him push on when another man would have just shrugged and walked away. He wasn’t even sure why.

Maybe because, despite the bravado, she looked as if she needed him. Or at least, someone. “Mrs. Rutledge is still there.”

At the mention of the woman’s name, Joanna’s face softened. She and his parents’ housekeeper had gotten on very well during the days when he had invited her to his house.

“How is Mrs. Rutledge?”

Like a fighter returning to his corner between rounds, Rick gravitated toward the neutral topic. “Still refusing to retire. Still thinking that she knows what’s best for everyone.”

Joanna smiled, remembering. “She always reminded me of my mother.”

More neutral territory. Rachel Prescott had been the woman he’d secretly wished his mother could have been. He’d spent a great deal of time at Joanna’s house over the three years that they went together. He’d half expected to find her in Joanna’s room when he came to visit. “How is your mother?”

“My mother died last year.” Joanna looked down at her hands, feeling suddenly hollow. Thirteen months wasn’t nearly enough time to grieve.

The news hit him with the force of a bullet. “Oh, I’m sorry.” What did a person say at a time like this? How did he begin to express the regret he felt? The world was a sadder place for the loss. He looked at Joanna, his hand covering hers in a mute sympathy be couldn’t begin to articulate. “She was a very nice woman.”

“Yes, she was.” Joanna fought the temptation to stop this awkward waltz they were dancing and throw herself into his arms, to tell him that she’d really needed him those last few months when she had stood by her mother’s side, watching the woman who had been her whole world slip away from her. Instead, she looked up at him and said, “I read about your mother in the paper. I’m sorry.”

Rick shrugged, letting the perfunctory offer of sympathy pass. It was sad, but he really didn’t feel the need for sympathy. He’d never been close to his mother, not even as a child, and consequently, hadn’t felt that bitter sting of loss when she died. He’d returned for the funeral like a dutiful son, remaining only long enough for the service to be concluded before flying out again. The entire stay had been less than six hours.

In part, he supposed, he’d left so quickly because he’d wanted to be sure he wouldn’t weaken and do exactly what he’d done last night. Drive by Joanna’s house. Looking for her.

Joanna tried to fathom the strange expression on his face. She had almost gone to his mother’s funeral service at the church, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. But somehow, that had seemed too needy. So instead, she’d shored up her resolve and remained strong, deliberately keeping herself occupied and staying away.

There was another reason she’d kept away. To come to the service would have been to display a measure of respect and she had none for the deceased woman, none for her or her husband. Not since the two had joined forces that August day and come to her bearing a sizable check with her name on it.

All she had to do to earn it was to get out of their son’s life, they’d said. To sweeten the pot, they’d appealed to her sense of fair play, to her love for Rick. Between the two of them, they’d projected the future and what it would be like for Rick if he married her. They were adamant that he would grow to despise her. He belonged, they maintained, with his own kind. With a woman from his social world, with his background and his tastes. Someone who could be an asset to him, not a liability. They’d even had someone picked out. A woman she knew by sight.

They argued so well that she’d finally had to agree. She hated them for that, for making her see how much better off Rick would be without her.

“Actually,” Rick commented on her original protest, “if there is any charity being dispensed, you’d be the one doing it.”

He always was good with words, she thought. But he had lost her this time. “Come again? I think I pushed out my hearing along with the baby.”

The laugh was soft. He began to feel a little more comfortable. Despite the hurt feelings that existed between them like a third, viable entity, Joanna had always had the knack of being able to make him relax.

“If Mrs. Rutledge finds out that you’re homeless,” he explained, “and that I knew about it, she’ll have me filleted.”

“I’m not homeless,” she protested. “Just temporarily unhoused.”

It was an offer, she supposed in all honesty, that she couldn’t refuse. She knew she could probably crash on any one of a number of sofas, but she would also be bringing her baby and that was an imposition she wasn’t willing to make. Babies made noise, they took getting used to. It was an unfair strain to place on any friendship. Rick had the only house where the cries of a child wouldn’t echo throughout the entire dwelling. Where she wouldn’t be in the way as she struggled to find her footing in this new world of motherhood.

Joanna chewed on her lip, vacillating. “You’re sure your father’s away?”

For a moment, Rick was transported back through time, sitting in math class, watching her puzzle out an equation. He smiled, fervently wishing he could somehow go back and relive that period of his life.

But all he had available to him was the present.