Something Unexpected (8 page)

Daphne laughed. “Well, then your choice is clear—either you set a new precedent or you bite his head off.”

Rosemary produced a watery laugh. “Can I think that over and get back to you?”

R
osemary had allowed Dean Kingsley to call the shots at their last meeting. In the two days since, she had arrived at a couple of critical decisions, and she was determined that their next meeting be on her terms. She intended to be reasonable, clear and calmly unmovable in her stance.

The best-laid plans…

“Oh, my God, what do you think you're doing?” she whispered fiercely when she came upon him in one of the library's nonfiction aisles—Women's Health, to be exact—holding a copy of
What to Expect When You're Expecting.

“Browsing,” he answered, a slow smile spreading over his face as he turned toward her. “You look great in pink.”

Nonplussed, she stared mutely for several seconds then came to and stabbed her finger at the book. “What are you doing with
that?
”

“I'm going to check it out.” He tapped the cover. “I hear it's essential reading for pregnancy.”

Darting her gaze around the immediate area, she grabbed Dean's arm and tugged him around the back end of the aisle. “Are you crazy? You cannot check that book out!”

“Is it on hold?”

“Very funny.” She held out her hand. “Give it to me.”

“Sorry, you'll have to get your own copy.” One chestnut brow rose. “Unless you want to read it together. I might be open to that.”

She thought at first that he was being glib, but the oceanic gaze that settled into hers was alarming in its authenticity, and a lightening bolt seemed to explode in her chest.

“You used to want a family like Vi wants to be CEO of Neiman Marcus,”
Daphne had reminded her before they'd hung up last night.

Her heart hammered unevenly. She didn't expect to have a
family
anymore, not in the traditional sense, and she was okay with that, or would be. That was one of the conclusions she'd come to last night.

Holding out her hand, she said, “Give me the book so I can check it out
privately,
and I'll bring it to you.”

“When?”

“Tonight.”

“Where?”

What were the chances he'd agree to meeting in Bend, an hour away?

“Try not to overthink this one, Rosie.”

She glanced around. “Would you please call me Rose
mary,
like everyone else?”

He narrowed his eyes, considering. “We can talk about it later. You
may
be able to persuade me. Time and place?”

“Seven o'clock. At…Tavern on the Highway,” she decided quickly.

“Sentimental.”

“We're less likely to be spotted there.”

“Practical
and
sentimental.”

“May I have your library card, please?”

He reached for his wallet. “Okay, but just so you know, I usually share this only with women who are serious about me. I'll make an exception in your case. This time.” He handed over the card. “Before I give it to you again, I'll need a definite commitment.”

 

He arrived at the tavern early since it was Saturday, and he wanted to scope out a table as far as possible from the music and the beer. Dean found her choice of meeting locations telling.

As he pushed toward the bar, wading through the noise and memories, his mood plunged to something dull and dark around the edges. For days, ever since he'd seen Rosie…Rosemary…again—and certainly since the discovery that she was pregnant—he'd expected to rediscover the woman he'd met here in December. He'd felt sure that somewhere beneath the distance and the denial, she still existed.

Now, before she even arrived, he felt hope waning. Being here afforded him a visceral reminder of the feelings he'd had that night. He remembered Rosie Jo in vivid detail.

Rosemary Jeffers appeared to be someone else altogether.

Wedging between the patrons at the bar, he placed his order. “Obsidian Stout and—” Damn, what would she want now that she couldn't have alcohol? “Scratch the stout. Orange juice on the rocks. Two.”

Waiting for the drinks, he let his gaze wander out to the dance floor. About fifteen people were line dancing, but in his mind he saw a slow dance, with two bodies moving in perfect unison, getting to know the feel of each other and the smell and the sweetness. He saw a woman with no reserve looking up at him, her lovely eyes deep and hazel and promising.

His body tightened with longing. He'd fallen for a one-night fantasy. He felt like a girl.

“Two OJs.” The bartender placed the drinks in front of him. “Sip slowly.”

Dean set off to locate a table, but hadn't taken more than a couple of steps when he heard an familiar, accent-laced, “Hey,
compadre.
”

“Alberto.” Balancing the tumblers of juice on one palm, Dean clasped his friend's hand. “I haven't seen you in a couple of months. Where've you been?”

“I was in Medford, working with
un hombre muy rico
—” he laughed “—to renovate a building.” Alberto's black eyes glowed with the quiet humor that was characteristic of him. “Old brick and exposed pipes, like your building. I learned a lot that will help us.” Holding a drink Dean knew was non-alcoholic, he elbowed his old friend. “I hear you're engaged now. In the nick of time.
Sí?
” he asked, his interest keen. “So the building is guaranteed.”

Discomfort engulfed Dean. Alberto knew about the will Dean's father had left and about the marriage codicil that gave Dean ownership of half a block of storefronts on Honeyford's Main Street, as long as he married within the specified period of time and remained so for two years.

Alberto wanted Dean to acquire ownership of the property as much as Dean wanted it.

“When do we get started?”

Alberto's skin was the color of fine leather, lined with more care than a forty-year-old man should have confronted.

Dean met the Flores family eight years ago, when Alberto came to the pharmacy, inquiring about medicine for his daughter, Adelina. The girl had been ill for several days, treated only with home remedies due to the family's financial circumstances and a lack of education regarding health care and the state health-care system.

After listening to Alberto's nervous recitation of the young girl's symptoms, Dean insisted that his father visit the Flores family at their home. Victor Kingsley hospitalized Adelina for pneumonia immediately, but the medical intervention occurred too late.

Accompanying his father to the Flores home, Dean watched the beautiful cinnamon-skinned girl, her ribbons of ebony hair dampened with perspiration, full lips parted with the effort to breathe while her mother whispered to her in Spanish. The walls of the Flores house were cracked, patched, he had later learned, again and again by Alberto himself when he could afford the materials. The girl lay in the family's only bed; Alberto had been sleeping on the floor. Dean had felt a sharp, furious frustration as he realized the Flores family and their neighbors availed themselves of medical care only at the last possible moment—and even then, generally only for their children.

At Dr. Victor Kingsley's stoic insistence, Adelina was transported to the pediatric unit of a medical center in Bend, where she died before her tenth birthday. The Flores family was destroyed.

Alberto began drinking. Eventually his wife sought her solace with family in Mexico, and Dean found the gentle man living on the street.

“Let's have lunch this week, and I'll tell you what's going on,” Dean prevaricated, hoping that by the end of the week he might have some ideas about how to salvage his plans to put a low-cost, bilingual health-care clinic in the building his father had owned.

Dean had driven Alberto to his first AA meeting. In the following months, they had spoken frequently. The idea for Clinica Adelina Community Health Care was born in these conversations and out of Alberto's desperate need to deal with what he perceived as his terrible failure.

“It looks as if another grant is going to come through.” Dean watched pleasure spark in Alberto's eyes and felt some guilt about not disclosing the demise of his engagement, a crucial component in making the dream of a clinic come true. Perhaps they could find some other venue, someone willing to donate the space….

The music changed, and Alberto grinned. “Time for line dancing.” He gestured to the glasses in Dean's hand. “You here with your
novia?
”

After some hesitation, Dean answered, “No. I'm expecting a friend.”

They agreed to be in touch the following week, and Alberto moved on. Dean found a table far from the dance floor and waited. Precisely at 7:00 p.m., Rosie walked in.

She wore a camel-hair coat over the same skirt and sweater outfit she'd had on earlier. Curls the color of coffee beans framed her face and bounced thickly on her shoulders. She took several steps into the tavern then stopped and looked around, searching for him.

Dean's hand came halfway up then stopped. Every time he saw her, a smile rose from his chest, but she appeared as tight-laced and miserable as she had since December, and his optimism fell another notch.

One night and a baby did not turn two strangers into a couple. As much as he wanted to rediscover the woman who had smiled like the sun and whose starry eyes had sparkled with humor, it was time to admit that he may have been mistaken about her. It wouldn't be the first time that a man in his family had fallen for the wrong woman.

Was he like his father? Victor had been three-times unlucky in love. By most accounts, he had loved Dean's mother, but she had passed on when her marriage was still young and her son a mere child. There was no telling whether that marriage would have lasted. Dean barely remembered his mother, but
he knew that emotional availability had not been his father's greatest gift.

Victor's second marriage, to Fletcher's mother, could only be termed a tragedy, though it had begun with the anticipation of rebuilding a family. Jule Kingsley had been more mercurial than the Oregon weather. A delight one moment, incomprehensibly distraught the next, she had harbored pain and secrets that had nearly destroyed them.

Dean studied Rosie in the subdued tavern light. Had he, like his father, fallen for a woman inherently incapable of—or chronically unwilling to—conduct a relationship in a positive, open, constructive manner?

His mood threatened to tumble further, but he pulled it up with firm resolve, setting aside his own interests. Rosie didn't want him; that was clear. Badgering her would not help matters. No matter what, his child would be raised amid respect and courtesy, with two parents who worked together to create a stable environment. A loving environment…even if they didn't love each other.

Maybe if he backed off, she'd open up. Smile more. Knock a hole or two in the wall she'd erected around herself.

Rising, Dean started toward her, promising himself that his only agenda from now on was to establish a calm cordiality between them and to formulate a sane plan for cooperatively raising the child they'd created.

 

Rosemary looked around Tavern on the Highway, trying to ascertain whether Dean was already there. She turned her head in choppy motions, like a bird feeling vulnerable in an open field.

After spending the rest of her workday utterly distracted by thoughts that had nothing to do with work, she had come to a firm conclusion.

Well, pretty firm….

Sort of firm….

Not really firm at all. But she believed she was making the least crummy decision she could in a really difficult situation. The thought of sharing that decision with Dean was making her a nervous wreck, however, and she wanted to get it over with quickly.

“Rosemary.”

The deep voice cut smoothly through the music and talking.

Dean wore a handsome sweater in cowboy tan, an attractive complement to his blue eyes and nut-brown hair. His shoulders appeared broader out of the white lab coat, and he looked relaxed and very, very…hot.

Rosie felt a dizzying sense of déjà vu, almost as if they were about to reenact the night they'd met. Except that he'd just called her Rosemary—instead of
Rosie
—for the first time.

“I've got a table away from the noise,” he said, reaching automatically to put a guiding hand beneath her elbow. Before he connected with her, however, he stopped himself, letting his hand drop back to his side.

Nodding, she followed him, aware of the feminine smiles and lingering glances of appreciation he drew along the way.

When they reached the table, she plopped her large shoulder bag onto one of the four available chairs. As she sat, she noted the drinks waiting for them.

“I ordered for us,” he acknowledged. “If you'd like something else, I'll head back to the bar.”

Recalling the drinks he'd sent to the table the night they'd met, she frowned. “Is it a mixed drink? I'm not having any alcohol.”

“It's orange juice.”

She looked at the two tall tumblers. “Which one?”

“Both.”

She looked up, remembering that he was a connoisseur of Pacific Northwest microbrews. “Orange juice over beer?”

He shrugged. “You can't drink. I'm fine with orange juice.”

“That's nice of you.” Her ex wouldn't have put himself out that way. Dean sat down, and Rosemary cleared her throat, wondering how to begin.

“Are you hungry?” Dean asked, drawing her attention to the Tavern's minibuffet.

“I'm ravenous at night, but…I'm a little nervous right now. I'd like to talk first.”

His brows rose, but quickly fell again, his expression a handsome mask that hid his thoughts. He was different tonight, more subdued and…neutral. No hunger in his eyes, no humor lurking at the edges of his mouth. Rosemary told herself that a dispassionate Dean would be far easier to approach regarding the topic at hand.