off the serving machine and headed straight for him, looking more than eager to talk.
“Darling Matt, it’s been too long,” she’d said, allowing him to kiss her cheek. The woman was a marvel. Seventy if she was a day, and looking fifty. Acting thirty. Being the best grandmother any three kids could have hoped for: hip, a real friend, and yet still very definitely the person in charge, the person who taught them both love and respect. And not looking at all ridiculous while doing any of it.
“I’m sorry I haven’t visited sooner, Allie,” he’d answered, offering her his arm as they walked back to the house. “It was probably that No Trespassing sign Jessica put up on the front lawn that kept me away.”
“And you should be ashamed of yourself for listening to her,” Almira countered, giving his forearm a squeeze as she leaned against him. “But, obedient as you are, you have your limits. That’s nice to know, not that I didn’t know all along. I have great faith in you, Matt. So, did Ryan tell you where she is? And then let slip that I told him to tell you?”
Matt smiled, shook his head. “I’ll assume those were rhetorical questions. I am here, Allie, aren’t I?”
“It was that obvious?” Almira frowned, carefully, so that she didn’t crease her smooth forehead. “I must be slipping. Either that, or Ryan considers himself to be one step ahead of me. I’ll have to teach him differently. But we’ll leave that for another time. For now, I’m supposing you want to know what I know.”
“It would help,” Matt admitted as Almira let go of his arm, sat herself down in a shiny, black wrought iron chair as he remained standing. “It would most especially help to know if she’s just angry, or if she’d like to see me run off a cliff.”
“A little of both, actually,” Almira said, accepting a glass of lemonade from Mrs. Ballantine, who then just stood there, her hands folded in front of her, glaring at Matt. He considered asking for a glass for himself, but then thought better of it. The way the woman was eyeing him, he’d be afraid to drink it.
“Oh, just tell him, why don’t you. It will be obvious soon enough,” Mrs. Ballantine growled, then shrugged her shoulders as Almira smiled up at her. “I’ll be inside, running your bath. After all, this shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.”
“Such a lovely woman, for a piranha,” Almira said after the housekeeper had gone inside. “Now,” she said, putting down her glass, “let’s talk, shall we? Did you never hear of the word protection, Matthew?”
Protection?
What in hell—?
Oh boy. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.
Or girl…
Matt leaned forward from the waist, his heart pounding, his eyes all but popping out of his head as he croaked out, “Jessie’s pregnant?”
“Bingo! Please select a prize from the bottom shelf. Unless you wish to play our game again and go for a larger prize?”
“Allie, that’s not funny, damn it,” Matt said, beginning to pace. Was this the greatest news he’d ever gotten in his life, or the worst? That Jessica was pregnant, carrying his child, was wonderful. Great. Even terrific. But now? Was now so terrific?
Timing. Everything was timing. And he couldn’t help believing that his timing had been off, way off. No wonder Jessica had run from him. “How…”
“Oh, please,” Almira cut in, rising from her chair. “I think we both know how. The question is what. What are you going to do about it? Knowing that you can’t possibly tell her you know. You do realize that, don’t you? I mean, I’m not going to have to hold your hand through every step of this, am I? I’m still recovering from leading Maddy about by the nose until she finally saw what was just under it.”
Closing his mind to the rest of that short, embarrassing conversation with Jessica’s grandmother, Matt left Ninth Street, turned left at the beginning of the beach block, and headed north, on the way to Brighton Place and the Chandler summer house.
Almira had been right, of course. He couldn’t tell Jessica he knew she was pregnant. Just as he shouldn’t have apologized for making love with her.
And he couldn’t possibly confess that he’d been in love with her for months…for years.
She wouldn’t believe him for one thing, and, for another, he couldn’t blame her. He’d made mistakes. He’d made some real whoppers. And now he’d gotten her pregnant—not a solo exercise by any stretch of the imagination—but certainly a result Jessica, the born career woman, couldn’t be doing handsprings about, overjoyed.
So, without telling her he’d be there for her, without asking her to marry him, without so much as hinting that he knew she was pregnant, he was here, in Ocean City, without a plan, without a prayer, and with only his stupid, apologetic speech to protect him.
He might as well be going into battle carrying an anchor.
Is anybody else feeling some sort of excitement in the pit of their bellies? Something’s coming. Someone’s coming. Something’s about to change.
Maybe everything is about to change.
And I’m feeling good, feeling really good. Must be some good stuff coming at me now, something sweet and cool that seems to be making Mom’s belly happy. Wish I could taste it.
She’s doing all the right things. Eating a lot, sleeping a lot. Getting plenty of exercise and fresh air. But still crying too much, and now even talking to herself.
She should talk to me. I am here, right? Yeah, she should be talking to me. I could tell her. Everything is going to be all right. She’ll see. I’ll take care of her….
Chapter Three
J essica heard a car pulling into the driveway and held her breath, waiting for it to back out again. The only drawback to living on the beach block was that it was a necessary dead end against the boardwalk, so that lost drivers were forever turning around in the driveway.
She was silly to be worried about a car, silly to think that this car had anything to do with her, that anyone in that car had anything to do with her.
But that was how she’d been, how she continued to be. Jumpy. Sometimes even a little irrational. About as far from her usual unflappable, reasonable, sensible self as possible. Wasn’t it enough that she was pregnant? Did she have to lose her mind, become nothing more than a supersensitive bundle of over-active hormones and an imagination to match?
It was just a car. Nothing to set off alarms in her head, set her ridiculously sensitive stomach to doing flips.
Only this car didn’t pull out, then head back up the street. She heard the engine die even as her heart leaped into a quick double-time beat. A car door slammed shut.
That couldn’t be a good sign, could it?
Maddy? She and Joe were back from their honeymoon, after all. It would be natural for her sister to ignore her plea to be left alone and come crashing in on her solitude.
The solitude that had seemed such a good idea at the start, but that was now rapidly driving her crazy.
It
