A Little Bit of Déjà Vu (30 page)

“Are you assholes really that hard up for a free peep show?” He forced a bravado-laden laugh past the shame clogging his throat and yelled, “Get the fuck outta here! Can’t you see we’re busy?”

~~~

On Wednesday, Maggie finally forced herself to get dressed. Being heartsick wasn’t quite the same as being physically ill. She couldn’t cancel Simon’s tutoring again, not when the boy had finally gotten motivated.

After spending an hour listening to him read, she shook her head in shock. “I can’t believe how far you’ve come.”

He flashed an abashed smile at her. “The coach asked Tina Sutton to help me.”

Ah-ha
, Simon wanted to impress a girl. Probably a very pretty one judging from the pink tinge in his cheeks.

“Sutton? Is she related to the girl who was killed in that awful crash last winter?”

“Leah was her sister. Coach told me I’d be helping Tina, too, if I let her tutor me, ‘cause she needs something to get her mind off what happened.”

Jake’s instincts with the kids never ceased to amaze Margie. Why couldn’t he be that insightful with her?

“I didn’t think I could ever read. But you and Tina made me believe if I just kept working at it....” Simon shrugged his broad shoulders. “I guess I’m in a hurry now.”

“I’m so glad. If you’re going to work this hard on your own, I think we can cut our sessions back to just Mondays and Fridays. Bring Tina with you one day, and I’ll show her some ways she can help you even more.”

After Simon left, Margie wandered into the bedroom and threw herself down on the summer-weight quilt to wallow in her misery. She had to stop dwelling on Jake. The week since she’d seen him had seemed more like a month. What she needed was to get out of the house.

She called Emma and invited her to the mall, but Alex was leaving work early so he could go with her to the doctor’s for her prenatal visit.

An hour later, while sorting through the sale racks in Macy’s, another wave of nausea and dizziness swept over Margie. She hadn’t eaten a decent meal in a week.

She wandered around the mall’s food court, deciding what to have, and froze as Jake stepped into her path. They stared at each other for several seconds. He looked nearly as tired as she felt. “What are you doing here?” she whispered, unable to force herself to look away. “And don’t even try to tell me this is a coincidence.”

Raising his eyebrows, he smirked at her. “Maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t.”

“You know darn well it isn’t.” She glared at him. “You were there when I called Emma, weren’t you?” The world spun again, and she swayed as she put her hand to her head.

“Are you okay?” He peered into her face. “You look pale. Do you need to sit down?”

“I think I’d better. I didn’t eat much today.”

He tipped his head and studied her. “Is that why you’ve lost weight? You’re not eating?”

“My stomach hasn’t been right. When I finally get hungry, I’m too tired to fix anything more elaborate than a sandwich.”

“All that could mean you’re pregnant, Rosebud.” He led her over to an empty table in the food court. “Have you had your period since the wedding?”

“Pregnant?” She stared at him, her mouth hanging open as she sank into the seat.

“Yes, pregnant. P-R-E-G-N—”

“I know how to spell it!”

“I didn’t use a condom the night the kids got married.”

She’d never thought about it. Dan and she had wanted another child so much that birth control hadn’t been an issue since Emma turned five. “If you recall, I was a little tipsy that night. How could
you
, of all people, not use anything?”

“
How
? You were no drunker than I was, Baby-cakes.” He cocked an eyebrow at her as he sank into the seat across from her. “And do you by any chance remember what you were doing to me right before we....
consummated
?”

Her cheeks flamed.

“Yes.” He smiled tightly. “I see you do. You’ll have to excuse me that, between the champagne and what your mouth was doing, I wasn’t thinking very clearly.” He laid his hand over hers on the table. “When was you’re period due?”

With all the upheaval in her life, she hadn’t given it much thought. “Uhh—let me think. The last time I got it was the night after the kids told us Emma was pregnant.”

“You mean the day before you told me off for accusing you of having PMS?”

“Okay, so you were right.”

“That was exactly two weeks before we slept together.” He peered into her face. “Nineteen years ago, you told me you were irregular. Dare I hope you still are?”

The few occasions she’d been more than two days late for her period were the same times she’d been pregnant and miscarried sometime between seven and nine weeks later.

“Since I had Emma, my body’s run like a clock.”

She didn’t want to acknowledge she might be carrying Jake’s child. Not when she would most likely lose it like all the rest of her babies.

He scrubbed his face with his hand. “Then I guess we can safely assume you’re three and a half weeks pregn—”

“Actually, doctors count from a woman’s last period, so it’s more like five and a half.”

His face turned parchment white as he stared over her shoulder. “Oh, shit.”

“What’s the matter?” She spun around to face a woman smiling at them like a tabloid reporter at a UFO sighting. Obviously the woman had overheard their conversation. Margie turned back to Jake, who’d risen from his seat, and whispered, “Who is that?”

“Debbie Carmichael.” He pursed his lips, helped Margie to her feet, and led her out of range of the woman’s hearing. “As I told you, the board wants a few questions answered before the executive session to decide on my tenure. The board meeting is tomorrow night.”

“I know. I’m submitting a proposal for the school to fund a parents’ book club, and it’s being put on the agenda tomorrow night. So I have to go, too.”

“Well, Petrillo called me yesterday and told me Carmichael is now claiming I lied on my employment application.”

“About what?”

“He didn’t say. I don’t know what the bastard’s planning to use against me.” Jake glanced over his shoulder back at Mrs. Carmichael. “But I think I just gave his wife a few more nails for my coffin.”

“I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing I can do about it now. So let’s get back to our situation. I suggest we get married.”

Obviously, he wanted to avoid a scandal just as he had the last time, and once again, he was prepared to martyr himself.

She squeezed her eyes shut a moment and summoned up the strength to turn down the man she’d stupidly fallen in love with—
again
. “You must think I’m completely loony. Nineteen years ago, you convinced me the press would have a feeding frenzy on you if I didn’t marry you. Well, I’m not saying
I do
just to save your stinking job that you plan to quit in a few years, anyway.”

“Maggie, I didn’t ask you to marry me back then just to protect my ass, nor am I asking you to do that now. I simply used that argument so I could be a father to my child—just like I want to today.”

She blinked back the tears welling in her eyes. She had to get out of there before she lost it. “Forget it.” She stomped away and called back over her shoulder as she headed toward the escalator. “If things go the way I expect them to, in another few weeks there won’t be any baby to worry about.”

~~~

Jake stared at Maggie’s back as she dashed into the crowd. She wouldn’t do it again, would she? A hard lump formed in the pit of his stomach. “Maggie, get back here!”

She rode down the escalator and ignored him. He’d be damned if he’d allow her to abort another of his children.

As intimidated as he was by the idea of becoming a father again at his age, he also couldn’t help but be pleased. He’d always wanted more kids. Somehow he had to convince Maggie to marry him.

Their lives might have been so different if only he’d had more time to strengthen the tenuous bond they’d begun to form nineteen years ago. He’d never understood how Maggie could let her mother push her into the abortion after that incredible weekend they’d spent together.

The pain twisted in his chest now with the same intensity as the day she’d called to tell him. He’d arrived home that Monday afternoon and found a note from his dad on the table telling him Roxanne’s return home had been delayed until Wednesday.

At nine-thirty that evening, Jake hung up from two lengthy phone calls—the first with the head coach of his new team and the second with Chris. Almost as soon as he replaced the receiver in its cradle, the phone rang again.

“Hello, this is Katherine Hunter. I’m sorry to call so late. May I speak with Jake?”

“This is Jake. Is something wrong with Maggie?”

“Could you hold for just a moment?”

His stomach churned while he paced the kitchen. Something was wrong. After several agonizing minutes, Maggie’s mother finally returned to the phone. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting. We’ve been trying to call you for quite a while. Margaret will be with you in just a minute. The sedative has made her a little woozy.”

He froze in his tracks. “What would possess you to let a pregnant woman take a sedative? You’re a nurse, damn it.”

“Well, that’s why I’m calling. My daughter had a change of heart and had an abortion this afternoon. The doctor gave her a prescription to help her sleep.”

Jake dropped into the nearest chair and held his hand over his mouth, stifling a sob. How could Maggie do that after everything they’d planned?

“Jacob, are you there? There seems to be a lot of static on the line. Did you understand what I said?”

“Yes, I understood perfectly what you said.”

Squeezing his eyes shut, he fought to hold back his tears. How had that bitch convinced Maggie to destroy their baby after the hours they’d spent holding and touching each other on Saturday night?

After she’d told him she
loved
him.

“So you see,” her mother continued, “there’s no reason for you to come back here. Margaret can go to the university in the fall like she’d planned.”

He struggled to swallow past the tightness in his throat. “Yes, I guess she can. That’ll be good for her.”

“I agree. Oh—here she is now.”

“Jake?” Maggie sniffled. “My mother told you about the baby?”

“Yeah, she told me all right.”

“I’m so sorry,” she sobbed.

“It’s over, Rosebud. Put it behind you.”

“I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“This is better for you in the long run, Maggie. I’m sorry I put you in the position I did.” The lump in his throat made his voice crack. “I gotta go. Take care of yourself.” He hung up and buried his face in his hands.

He’d felt so great on Sunday morning when the woman on the plane had congratulated him on Maggie’s pregnancy. He’d really begun to feel like an expectant father.

She must have had serious second thoughts about marrying him. First ones, too, for that matter. From the beginning, Maggie had been full of misgivings that her mother had undoubtedly fed once he’d left San Francisco.

He slammed his fist into the doorframe next to the phone and then stared at the blood oozing from his split knuckle. The ache in his heart completely eclipsed the pain in his hand, making him physically numb.

Terrific. He’d be lucky if he hadn’t broken it. His dad could be right. Maybe he really was subconsciously trying to screw up his career.

Maggie had argued with him when he’d first proposed, but it hadn’t seemed as if he’d been pushing her into something she hadn’t wanted. He’d taken the decision out of her hands, telling her they had no alternative but to get married, but in reality she’d had another option.

And regardless of what he or her mother had said to her, it was Maggie who’d ultimately made the choice.

~~~

Margie pulled up in front of her condo just before sunset. Jake swung into the parking space right next to her Camry and got out of his car. She climbed out of her vehicle and slammed its door. “Leave me alone.”

Jake pressed her back against the fender and tipped her chin up. “Marry me, Rosebud. Doesn’t the fact we still set each other on fire after all these years prove we belong together?”

“I told you once before, I’m not making the same mistake again of confusing—”

“Love for passion?” He rubbed his face in her hair and whispered, “Tell me something. Do you remember those two nights I snuck into your room at my home nineteen years ago? The ones when we didn’t have sex. When it was all about discovering each other?”

Did she remember? What an asinine question. What did Jake think had given her the silly notion he’d fallen for her? Did he really consider her so gullible she would believe he might care now, when she’d personally heard him tell Roxanne he loved her?

“What do you think confused me then and now?”

Jake dotted her face with kisses while he ran his fingers through her hair and murmured, “Sweetheart, we have the kind of passion most couples only fantasize about.”

She had no resistance to his tender seduction. Her mouth opened under his and their tongues began an intimate dance while he ran his palms up the back of her legs and under her skirt. Cupping her bottom, he pulled her tightly to his arousal and lifted her. He pressed her back against her car and ground himself into her, making her wish their clothes would simply disappear.

The sound of an engine penetrated her daze, followed by a loud cough. “That’s some talk you’re having with Emma’s mom.”

Jake recoiled from her as if he were spring-loaded.

Alex hung out the window of the Explorer and said in the same cynical tone his father had used with him six weeks before, “Maybe I ought to sell tickets. It could help support you when the school board fires you tomorrow night.”

Jake glowered at him.

“Don’t look at me like that.” Alex’s mouth twisted into self-satisfied smile. “Adults do not stand around parking lots swapping spit. If you can’t exercise some self-control, you should at least take it inside.”

Emma leaned across Alex and called, “Gee, it’s terrible when your words come back to haunt you, isn’t it, Mr. M? How’s it—”

“Don’t.” Alex put a hand on Emma’s shoulder to stop her.