Honeymoon for One (10 page)

"Just in time." A bright smile took over her face. "I hope you like waffles.”

"Waffles?" Judging from the wonderful smells attacking his senses, he was pretty sure Corrie wasn't referring to the boxed, frozen variety.

Leading the way, she waved him into the kitchen, then dropped into a chair and held up a sample of her sister's culinary achievement. "Sunday special.”

Michelle scooped more batter into the piece of kitchen electronics. Glancing at him over her shoulder, she lifted her chin toward the table. "Take a seat.”

"Thank you." His gaze followed her about the kitchen, rinsing spoons, putting away ingredients. Some in the cabinets, some in the fridge. She reminded him of Laura Petrie from
The Dick Van Dyke Show
. With the grace of a dancer, she made being a housewife look awfully damn sexy. The way Michelle's slacks hugged her bottom was enough to make a dead man salivate. What the hell had Steven the Rat Bastard been thinking?

"Here you go. Corrie, pass Kirk the sausage and the syrup." Michelle took a seat between him and her sister, and served herself a mound of waffles.

"Hungry?"

She flashed him a toothy grin that made her eyes sparkle. "Starved.”

If he didn't know better, he would have sworn she was taunting him about last night. But the Michelle Bradford he'd come to know since arriving in Bluffview wouldn't do that. Not with her sister at the same table. Would she?

He had to admit this wasn't the Michelle Bradford who came to work every day at the paper. In her sexy pants and cropped top, she looked more like the Micki Bradford he'd known on the ship.

"Where do you go after you're done working here?" Corrie shoved a forkful into her mouth. Michelle coughed, swallowing hard.

"I'm hoping Cairo.”

Corrie's eyes rounded. "Egypt?"

Taking another bite, he nodded.

"Wow. How cool is that?”

"I don't know if I'll get the assignment yet. But, yeah, how cool is that?" He reached into his pocket and pulled out a card case. "Here's my contact info. Send me an email when you get a chance, and I'll try and share the fun side of my trip."

Her eyes beamed with delight. "Will do. How long will you be gone?"

"Don't know. Maybe six months. Nine on the outside. Depends on what I find when I get there."

"It must be fun traveling all over the world for work."

"I like it." His gaze caught Michelle's and held. How was he going to tell her?

A horn sounded outside.

Corrie shoved his card in her backpack, pushed away from the table, and leaned over to give her sister a kiss on the cheek. "I'll be home by suppertime.”

Michelle bobbed her head. Her eyes following her sister all the way down the hall. Not till the door latched closed behind her did Michelle turn back to her food.

"She's a good kid." He suppressed the urge to reach out and fold her free hand in his.

"Usually. Yeah. I worry a little. Most kids have a mother and a father. Some even have a couple of spares. All she has is me.”

"Don't sell yourself short. You've done a good job raising her. It couldn't have been easy.”

"I'll admit there were times I didn't have a clue what I was doing. But I had Beth, and Steven." She stood, a dish in each hand.

"I'm sorry.”

She shook her head at him. "Don't be. I realized something yesterday. When Steven broke it off, he told me that I didn't really want to marry him. That I was in love with idea of being in love. Getting married. Having a family again." She set the plates in the sink and turned to face him. "He was right. I was upset that my
happily ever after
was gone. That my best friend was gone. That my fiancé was gone. But I didn't feel much about losing Steven.”

He wanted to reach out and pull her into his arms. Kiss that spot at the back of her ear that made her squirm with delight. But that wasn't what she needed. Not now. Instead, he picked up a few more dishes from the table and handed them to her.

"Thanks." She turned on the water and began rinsing the plates. "I hadn't really thought about it before, but I don't think I could have been with you so soon after the breakup if I had really cared about Steven. You know what I mean?"

He nodded. Micki may have been his for a little while, but Michelle was a forever kind of woman. "It must have been especially tough, him marrying your best friend.”

"That part still hurts. But if I look at it honestly, I have to take some of the blame. Until I stopped to think about it, I hadn't realized just how often I'd put Steven off and had asked Beth to stand in for me.”

"Somehow I doubt marrying him was what you had in mind." He handed her some silverware from the table.

She let out a dry chuckle. "No. But I didn't really give the relationship my all, the way I should have. I think Beth and Steven spent more time together than Steven and I did. I can't tell you how many parties I left early, telling Steven and Beth to stay. The bank galas I couldn't attend. The banquets I'd talk Beth into going to so I could go to a PTA meeting or a teacher conference.

“I didn't want to give Corrie the wrong impression about love and dating, so I followed the rules as though I were also a teenager. Always home by eleven o’clock at the latest. Didn't drink, except maybe New Year’s. The list gets really long.”

"You sound awfully understanding.”

"Yeah, well. I wasn't a few weeks ago.”

"And now?"

"It still hurts. But not quite so much.”

All the plates and utensils rinsed and loaded in the dishwasher, Kirk fumbled for a way to bring up work. Instead, he trimmed the overgrown hedges, replaced the hinge on a caddy-wampus gate, and adjusted the chain on a leaky toilet. He was all set to replace the screws on a broken pantry shelf when Michelle leaned over to pick up a stray screw from the floor, and all conscious thought bled out his ears.

Thirty minutes later they were cocooned in her bed and he still hadn't told her about her job.

"Is that your phone?" she murmured into his chest.

Somewhere between the top of the stairs and the bedroom door, she'd relieved him of his pants. His phone was in the front pocket. "I probably should see who it is."

"Mm, probably.”

The cell phone stopped, and Kirk rolled her onto her back. Hovering over her, he leaned in for a tongue-tangling kiss. And Ravel's “
Boléro”
sounded again.

"Persistent whoever it is." Michelle patted him on his chest and nudged him away.

Stomping down the hall, buck naked, Kirk had the fleeting thought that this could be extremely embarrassing if Corrie came home early. Snatching the phone out of his pocket, he marched back to the bedroom. "Hello.”

"Kirk?" The timid voice sounded young and nervous.

"Corrie?"

"Shh. Don't let Michelle know it's me.”

He turned about in the doorway. "What's the matter?”

"Nothing really, I mean, well—"

"Spit it out. What's wrong?"

"I'm in jail.”

"I don't get it. Why did she call you?" Michelle scrambled, throwing on her clothes.

Kirk tucked his shirt into his slacks. "She doesn't think you'll understand.”

She waved a shoe at him. "And you will?"

"I'm not her mother.”

"Neither am I." Michelle slipped on her other shoe.

"But you are her parental figure.”

"I still don't get why she called you. She barely knows you." Michelle slung her purse over her shoulder and hurried down the stairs.

"I'll drive." Kirk was only a few steps behind her.

She whirled around. "I can drive.”

Putting his palms up in a self-defense gesture, he took a step back. There was a time to stand your ground and time to back off. And judging from the look on Michelle's face, he'd be safer backing off. "Fine. You can drive.”

He circled around to the passenger side, while Michelle slid into her seat and started the engine. "What else did she say?”

"Very little." Kirk snapped the seat belt in place. "Some kid named Billy—"

"Webb?"

"She didn't say. Only that he brought a bottle and was too plastered to drive. They were just figuring who was going to take Billy home when the cops turned up and hauled them all off to the station.”

"God, I hate this." Michelle's grip strangled the steering wheel. "Why were they drinking in the middle of a Sunday afternoon, in the middle of an empty field, in the middle of winter?"

"A party is a party. Especially when you're young. Surely you must remember what it was like, that frustrating age between childhood and adulthood? You don't really need mama's apron strings, but the law says you do."

"I didn't go drinking in fields when I was in high school. Mom always said if you need drugs or alcohol to have a good time, you're in the wrong place with the wrong people. I believed her."

By the time they parked in front of the police station, Michelle had worked herself into a good old-fashioned snit. She was in full overprotective Siszilla mode.

"I'm here for Corrine Bradford." Michelle stood at the front counter.

"Bradford," the officer repeated. "Here we are. Drag racing and underage drinking."

Michelle's face, already etched with worry, went suddenly pale.

His hand on hers, Kirk gave an encouraging squeeze.

"The owner of the land isn't pressing charges for trespassing. And Miss Bradford doesn't appear to have been one of the teens drinking.”

Michelle brought a hand to her stomach and nodded.

"If you'll take a seat over there, someone will bring Miss Bradford right out." The officer waved toward a row of wooden benches across the room.

With his hand at the small of her back, Kirk walked beside a still pale Michelle. "Are you feeling okay?"

"I've been better." She took a seat.

Corrie hadn't mentioned the drag racing on the phone. Of course, the conversation was pretty short. But this would explain why the kid didn't want her sister to know.

Staring blankly at the double doors near the front desk, Michelle mumbled,
"Corrie's all I have.”

"This is just part of growing up in a small town." At least he hoped so. Having grown up in suburban San Francisco, there hadn't been an abundance of empty fields to tempt restless teens.

"I don't know." Her hand fell to her stomach again.

Before he could offer to find her a glass of water or something to settle her nerves, a bruiser of a cop stepped up in front of them with a downcast Corrie at his side.

"I'm so sorry, sis.”

"As well you should be, young lady." Michelle stood up. "I thought we were past this. You promised me..."

In a split second, Michelle's eyes flew open wide. Shock and surprise covered her face. Sticking her arm out to push Corrie away, Michelle barfed all over the floor and the burly officer’s shiny shoes.

***

"I didn't mean to upset her so badly. But I have to admit, getting sick to her stomach sure took the pressure off me." Corrie dipped a tea bag in a mug of hot water.

"Don't think you're off the hook." Kirk leaned against the counter. "Once she gets over her embarrassment of throwing up on the policeman, she's going to want some answers from you."

Corrie blew out a deep sigh. "I know. But I wasn't
in
the races. Just watching.”

"And you weren't drinking, just watching your friends drink?"

She shrugged a shoulder and set the soaked tea bag aside.

"Corrie." He couldn't believe he of all people was about to lecture a teenager about caution. "How would you feel right now if, instead of the police taking you to the station for illegal drag racing, the police had to take you to the morgue to identify the burned body of a friend who lost control of his car at ninety miles an hour?"

"That's morbid." She stirred a teaspoon of sugar into the cup.

"That's life. Shit happens. But we don't have to increase the odds of it happening to us by being reckless."

"I told you, I wasn't in the car."

He shot her his best do-I-look-stupid glare.

Her shoulders slumped. All her bravado gone. "My life is so boring. I just wanted a little fun.”

"You have plenty of years ahead of you to have fun. Don't try to hurry it along so hard.”

Holding the cup of tea, Corrie looked up at him. "She's going to kill me, isn't she?”

"Tell her how you feel. You might be surprised. I'm betting she'll understand more than you think.”

"If you're wrong. I want them to play Chris Rice's ‘Cartoon Song’ at my funeral." Without waiting for his response, she turned on her heel and marched into enemy territory armed only with a cup of tea for a peace offering.

He really did like that kid.

Guilt pressed down on him. For the first time in his career, he hated his job.

Pushing away from the counter, he followed Corrie into the other room. Wet towel on her forehead, Michelle still looked much too pale. Now would most definitely not be the time to tell her about her impending unemployment. He could probably stall for a few days.

Not that losing your job on Wednesday was any better than losing it on Monday. But maybe between now and then he could come up with a miracle.

***

In her next lifetime Michelle was going to come back as a cat. Then she could sleep in on Monday mornings. Or maybe a sloth. Didn't they spend their entire lives loafing in trees? In warm countries?

Opening one eye, then the other, she spied the nearby alarm clock. She should have been up thirty minutes ago. Yesterday must have taken a heavier toll on her than she'd thought, because right now she felt as though she'd been run over by a Mack truck. Or two.

Corrie poked her head in the door. "Brittany is picking me up early. We've got a Spanish club meeting before first period."

Michelle sat up to answer and her stomach did a somersault.

"Hey." Corrie rushed into the room. "You okay?"

Head between her knees, Michelle nodded and mumbled, "Remind me next year not to blow off the flu shot.”

"Aw, sis." Corrie felt Michelle's forehead. "You don't feel warm. Maybe it's only something you ate. I'll make you a quick cup of chamomile. That'll make you feel better.”

"You'll be late for your meeting."

"It takes two minutes to nuke tea. The Spanish club can wait a lousy two minutes." And she was out the door.

If Michelle didn't feel so crummy, she would laugh. Worried all weekend about Corrie, and now it's Corrie mothering Michelle. Maybe she did need to let go. At least a little.

Rising to her feet, she took in a deep calming breath and waited. The tide rolling back and forth in her stomach seemed to have settled. If the world was on her side, whatever had her tossing her cookies yesterday, and waking up queasy today, would hurry up and run its course. Her job was already on the line. This would not be a good time to call in sick.

"Here you go." Corrie handed her sister the cup. "You look better already."

"Thanks." Taking the tea, she waved her sister off. "Get going. You don't want to be late."

"Don't push yourself. If you don't feel good, stay home."

"Yes, Mother.”

Corrie rolled her eyes and darted out the door.

Starting today Michelle was going to give that butterfly a little more room to spread her wings. It only took one sip of the warm brew to send Michelle racing into the bathroom. What little was left in her stomach made its way back up. "Damn it. This is no time to get sick.”

The only thing worse than morning breath was vomit breath. She let go of the toilet and opened the cabinet under the sink in search of mouthwash. Soap, Q-tips, baby oil, tampons, shampoo. Where the hell was the mouthwash? Panty shields, nail polish remover, cotton balls, another box of tampons. How many boxes of tampons did a girl need?

Like a flagpole in a lightning storm, reality smacked her back on her ass.
Holy shit
.

***

If there was anything more uncomfortable than sitting alone in a ten-by-ten room, wearing nothing but a flimsy robe, knowing you were soon going to be flat on your back with your feet up in stirrups, Michelle didn't know what it was.

So far the only thing that had worked in her favor today was Mrs. Gillimore canceling her eleven o'clock appointment with Dr. Simms. Not that Michelle didn't believe the home pregnancy test she took in the drugstore bathroom, but somehow nothing was truly official until it had your gynecologist’s seal of approval.

"Well this is a surprise." Dr. Janet Simms closed the door behind her.

A short, stout woman, she reminded Michelle of Mrs. Klaus without the red suit.

"I certainly didn't expect to see you back this soon after the honeymoon.”

She was also probably the only woman in town who hadn't heard about Michelle's solo honeymoon. Though she
was
going to be the first to find out the honeymoon wasn't all that solo after all.

"You're right. The test is positive. You are definitely pregnant.”

For the first time in her life Michelle truly understood the old cliché about not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

"I'll want to schedule you for a sonogram right away."

Part of her
happily ever after
plan had included children.

"That will help us determine your due date more accurately."

Someday.

"I'm sure I don't have to tell you the importance of a good diet."

But not today.

"You can pick up a prescription for some prenatal vitamins from the front desk."

And not without a father.

"So. Shall we take a look?”

Dr. Simms might as well have been talking in Greek. After twenty minutes, Michelle had a plastic bag filled with everything the new mother needs to know, and absolutely no memory of a single word the woman had uttered after "You are definitely pregnant."

"Here's your prescription." The clerk handed Michelle a piece of paper. "It's very important you take the vitamins every day, as Dr. Simms explained.”

Michelle nodded and smiled. At least she thought she smiled. From the surprised look on the woman's face, she might have sneered.

"Your co-pay will be twenty-five dollars.”

Co-pay. Insurance.
Good grief
. If she lost her job, she'd lose her insurance. How much did it cost to have a baby without insurance?

Have a baby
. Wow. A baby. Her hand fell to her stomach, and a huge grin took over her face until she thought her cheeks would crack. "I'm having a baby.”

The nurse on the other side smiled politely. "Yes, you are.”

Suddenly overjoyed, Michelle spun around and repeated to the woman approaching the nurse to pay. "I'm having a ba..."

"Yes." Beth Williams nodded. "I heard.”