Firefly Lane (26 page)

She didn't understand. "Me? You must be joking. No one has ever thought I was dangerous."

"I do."

"Why?"

He didn't answer; instead, he leaned forward just enough to kiss her. She closed her eyes, waiting for it. She wasn't sure, but maybe, just before his lips touched hers, he said, "Because you're the kind of girl a guy could fall in love with."

He didn't sound particularly happy as he said it.

Outside her front door, Kate paused. Only moments before she'd been flying high, reveling in the night spent in Johnny's arms, but now she was back in the real world, where she'd just slept with a man her best friend had slept with first.

What would Tully say?

She opened the door and went inside. On this gray, rainy morning, the apartment was surprisingly quiet. She tossed her purse on the kitchen table and made herself a cup of tea.

"Where the hell have you been?"

She turned, flinched.

Tully stood there, her hair dripping wet, wearing nothing but a towel. "I almost called the cops last night. Where—You're wearing the suit from yesterday." A slow, knowing smile crept across her face. "Did you spend the night with someone? Oh, my
God,
you did. You're blushing." Tully laughed. "And I thought you were going to die a virgin." She grabbed Kate's arm and dragged her over to the sofa. "Talk."

Kate stared at her best friend, wishing she'd come home after Tully had left for work. This needed thought, planning. Tully could ruin it all with a word, a look.
He's mine,
her friend could say, and what would Kate do?

"Talk," Tully said again, bumping her.

Kate took a deep breath. "I'm in love."

"Whoa there, Penelope Pitstop. Love? After one night?"

It was now or never, and though never sounded good, there was no point in putting off the inevitable. "No," she said. "I've loved him for years."

"Who?"

"Johnny."

"
Our
Johnny?"

Kate refused to let the pronoun wound her. "Yes. Last night—"

"He slept with me, what? A few months ago, then wouldn't stop calling. He's on the rebound, Katie. He can't be in love with you."

Kate tried not to let the word
rebound
find purchase, but it did. "I knew you'd make it about you."

"But . . . he's your boss, for God's sake."

"I quit. I'm starting a job in advertising in two weeks."

"Oh, great. Now you're giving up your career for a guy."

"We both know I'm not good enough to make it at the networks. That's your dream, Tully. It always was." She could see that her friend wanted to argue the point; she saw, too, that any argument would be a lie. "I'm in love with him, Tully," she said finally. "I have been for years."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I was scared."

"Of what?"

Katie couldn't answer.

Tully stared at her. In those dark, expressive eyes, she saw everything: fear, worry, and jealousy. "This has disaster written all over it."

"I didn't trust Chad all those years ago, remember? But I put it aside because you needed me to."

"Speaking of love disasters."

"Can you be happy for me?"

Tully stared at her, and though she finally smiled, it wasn't the real thing and both of them knew it. "I'll try."

Rebound
. The word, like the image it represented, kept springing into Kate's mind.

He slept with me, what? A few months ago
. . .

. . . can't be in love with you . . .

As soon as Tully left the apartment, Kate called in sick to work and crawled into bed. She hadn't been there more than twenty minutes when a knock at the front door startled her out of her thoughts. "Damn it, Tully," she muttered, pulling on her pink velour robe and slipping into her bunny slippers. "Can't you ever remember your key?" She opened the door.

Johnny stood there. "You don't look sick."

"Liar. I look terrible."

He reached forward, untied the belt, and pushed the robe off her shoulders. It fell around her feet in a poufy pink puddle. "A flannel nightgown. How sexy." He closed the door behind them.

She tried not to think about her conversation with Tully—

rebound

can't love you

—but the words chased one another across her mind, tripping every now and then over his:
. . . don't want to hurt you
.

She saw now, suddenly, the danger she'd accepted so naïvely. He could shatter her heart and there was no way to protect herself.

"I thought you'd be happy to see me," he said.

"I told Tully about us."

"Oh. And was there a problem?"

"She thinks I'm a rebound girl."

"She does, does she?"

Kate swallowed hard. "Do you love her?"

"That's what this is about?" He swept her up into his arms, carrying her toward her bedroom as if she weighed nothing at all. Once they were in bed, he began unbuttoning her nightgown, planting kisses along the way. "It doesn't matter," he whispered against her bare skin. "She didn't love me."

She closed her eyes and let him rock her world again, but when it was over and she was curled against him again, the uncertainty returned. She might not be the most experienced girl in the world, but neither was she the most naïve, and there was one thing of which she was sure: it mattered whether Johnny had loved Tully.

It mattered very much.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Falling in love was everything Kate had dreamed it would be. By the time spring came again, painting the landscape with vibrant color, she and Johnny were an honest-to-God couple; they spent most of their weekends together and as many weeknights as possible. In March she'd brought him home to meet the parents and they'd been ecstatic. A nice Irish Catholic boy with a great career and a good sense of humor who liked to play board games and cards. Dad called him a "good egg" and Mom declared him to be perfect. "Definitely worth waiting for," she'd whispered at the end of the first meeting.

For his part, Johnny had fit into the Mularkey clan as if he'd been born into it. He'd never admitted it, but Kate was certain that he liked being part of a family again after so many solitary years. Although they didn't talk about the future, they enjoyed every minute of the present.

But that was all about to change.

Now she was in bed, staring up at the ceiling. Beside her, Johnny lay sleeping. It was just past four o'clock in the morning and already she'd thrown up twice. There was no point in putting off the inevitable any longer.

She peeled the covers back gently, careful not to wake him, and got out of bed. Barefoot, she crossed the thick pad of carpet and went into his bathroom, closing the door behind her.

Opening her purse, she dug through the clutter and withdrew the package she'd purchased yesterday. Then she opened the package and followed the directions.

Slightly less than two hours later, she had an answer: pink for pregnant.

She stared down at it. Her first ridiculous thought was that for a girl who'd dreamed of becoming a mother, she was damned close to crying.

Johnny wouldn't be happy about this. He was nowhere near ready for fatherhood. He hadn't even said he loved her yet.

She loved him so much, and everything had been so great for the past few months. Still, she couldn't shake the feeling that it was fragile, this relationship of theirs, that the balance was tenuous. A baby could ruin them.

She hid the package and indicator back in her purse—the extraordinary thing mixed in the ordinary debris of her life—and took a long hot shower. By the time she was dressed and ready for work, the alarm was going off. She went to the bed and sat beside him, stroking his hair as he woke up.

He smiled up at her, said, "Hey," sleepily.

She wanted to say simply,
I'm pregnant,
but the admission wouldn't come. Instead, she said, "I've got to go in early today. The Red Robin account."

He looped a hand around the back of her neck and pulled her down for a kiss. When it was over, she meant to ease away. "I love you," she whispered.

He kissed her again. "And that makes me the luckiest guy in the world."

She said goodbye as if this were just another in the string of mornings they'd woken up together, and went to work. In her office, she slammed her door shut and stood there, trying not to cry.

"I'm pregnant," she said to the ad-covered walls.

Now, if only she could say it to Johnny. She ought to be able to say anything to him, wasn't that how love was supposed to work? God knew she loved him enough, maybe even more than enough. She could no longer imagine a life without him. She loved the routine of their lives, the way they often had breakfast together in the kitchen of his houseboat, standing side by side in front of the sink, or the way they sat in bed at night, snuggled together, watching Arsenio Hall. When he kissed her, whether it was a quiet goodnight kiss or a passionate let's-start-something one, her heart always kicked into high gear. They talked all the time, about anything and everything; until today, she would have said there were no words she couldn't say to him.

For most of the day, she moved forward on autopilot, but somewhere around four o'clock, her will failed her. Picking up the phone, she dialed the familiar number and waited impatiently.

"Hello?" Tully said.

"It's me. I'm having a crisis."

"I'll be there in twenty," Tully said without hesitation.

For the first time all day, Kate smiled. Just being with Tully would help; it always had. Fifteen minutes later, she tidied up her already neat desk, grabbed her purse, and left her office.

Outside, the sun was a pale white ball in a washed-out blue sky. A few hardy tourists walked up and down Pioneer Square. Across the street, the homeless people who lived in Occidental Park lay sprawled out on the cobblestoned ground and the ironwork benches, huddled beneath filthy blankets and old sleeping bags. The trees around them were in full bloom.

Kate buttoned up her coat just as Tully pulled up in her brand-new metallic-blue Corvette convertible.

As always, the car made Kate both shake her head and smile. It was so damned . . . phallic, and yet somehow Tully fit it perfectly. Her wool pants and silk blouse were even the same color blue as the car.

Kate hurried around to the passenger side and got in.

"Where do you want to go?"

"Surprise me," Kate answered.

"You got it."

In no time at all, they'd snaked through the downtown traffic, rocketed over the West Seattle Bridge, and arrived at a restaurant on Alki Beach. On this faded spring day the place was empty, and they were seated instantly at a table overlooking the steely Sound.

"Thank God you called," Tully said. "This was the week from hell. They've had me traveling to every armpit town in the state. Last week I interviewed a guy in Cheney who's built a truck that runs on wood. I kid you not. He has a stove in the bed that's the size of an aircraft carrier and it takes a half a cord a week. I could barely see the damn truck through the black smoke it belched out, and he wanted me to report that he'd discovered the future. Tomorrow I'm supposed to go to Lyn-den to interview some Hutterite chick who won thirty-two blue ribbons at the fair. Yippee. Oh, and last week—"

"I'm pregnant."

Tully's mouth dropped open. "Are you kidding me?"

"Do I look like I'm kidding?"

"Holy shit . . ." Tully leaned back in her seat, looking stunned. "I thought you were on the pill."

"I am. And I've never missed one."

"Pregnant. Wow. What did Johnny say?"

"I haven't told him yet."

"What are you going to do?" The question was heavy, weighed down as it was by the unspoken option.

"I don't know." Kate looked up, met Tully's gaze. "But I know what I'm not going to do."

Tully stared at her for a long time, saying nothing. In those amazingly expressive dark eyes, Kate saw a parade of emotions—disbelief, fear, sadness, worry, and finally, love. "You'll be a great mother, Katie."

She felt the start of tears. It was what she wanted; now, here, for the first time she dared to admit it to herself. That was what a best friend did: hold up a mirror and show you your heart. "He's never said he loved me, Tully."

"Oh. Well . . . You know Johnny."

With that, Kate felt the past rear up between them. She knew Tully was feeling it, too, this thing they tried so hard to forget: their shared knowledge of John Ryan. "You're like him," she finally said. "How will he feel when he finds out?"

"Trapped."

It was exactly what Kate had told herself. "So what do I do?"

"You're asking me? The woman who can't keep a goldfish alive for more than a week?" Tully laughed; it sounded only the tiniest bit bitter. "You go home and tell the man you love that he's going to be a dad."

"You make it sound so easy."

Tully reached across the table, taking her hand. "Trust him, Katie."

She knew it was the best advice she could get. "Thanks."

"Now let's talk about the important shit, like names. You don't have to name her after me. Tallulah sort of sucks. No wonder dopehead picked it, but my middle name is Rose. That's not so bad . . ."

The rest of the afternoon passed in quiet conversation. They avoided talk of the baby and focused on inconsequential things. By the time they'd left the restaurant and driven back to town, Kate's desperation had eased. It wasn't gone, but having a plan of action helped.

When Tully parked behind the houseboat, Kate gave her friend a fierce hug and said goodbye.

Alone in Johnny's house, she changed into a pair of sweats and an old T-shirt, then went into the living room to wait for him.

As she sat there, knees pressed together (too late for that), her hands clasped, she listened to the ordinary sounds of this life she'd grown accustomed to—the slap of the waves on the pilings around her, the squawking of seagulls, the ever-present chug of a motorboat going past. It had never felt quite so fragile before, or so bittersweet. All her life she'd imagined love as a durable thing, a polyester emotion that could handle the wear and tear of everyday action, but now she saw how dangerous that perception was. It lulled you, put you at risk.