“I haven’t seen them, but yes, the porch is off the kitchen.” She waved him away, making it clear she had more urgent problems to contend with. “Check if you want.”
He took a step, then stopped. “By the way,” he whispered. “What’s your name?”
She blinked as though being dragged back from some dark place. “What?”
“Your name?”
“Oh—Sally—Sally Johnson.”
He was surprised she was single, but he supposed he shouldn’t be. He’d seen a lot of single mothers in his practice. It was only that, knowing Sam and how smart and logical he was, Noah wouldn’t have thought his sister would be quite so uncircumspect. “Well, good luck, Sally.”
She pressed her fingertips to her temples and closed her eyes, exhaling. When Noah faced the fact she either hadn’t heard him or didn’t intend to respond, he went in search of the goggles.
Five minutes of searching around, under and behind a platform glider, stacked scraps of metal, a bike, gardening tools, flower pots and a potting bench, finally brought success. Noah returned to the foyer, the goggles jutting from his hip pocket. Nobody was in the entry, but he heard voices in the parlor. When he looked in to say goodbye he was met by those blasted shimmery eyes, another silent plea hitting him full force.
“Everything okay?” he found himself asking.
She motioned him inside. “Uh—honey—could you take grandfather up to my—er—our room? He and grandmother will be staying.”
Noah felt a hitch in his chest at her use of the endearment. For a moment, he’d forgotten their charade. He gave his watch a quick, worried look. “Well—sure.”
“This is ridiculous,” Mrs. Vanderkellen said. “You never wanted to go on the walking tour of the pyramids! I should have known you’d—”
Hubert’s loud moan cut off his wife’s tirade. He clutched at his lower back. “Oh, the pain!”
“He took a pretty bad fall,” Noah interjected.
Mrs. Vanderkellen slid Noah a dubious look, as though he were part of some demonic conspiracy, but didn’t voice her suspicions. “It will take an outrageous tip to get that cabbie to move the bags in off the drive,” she muttered. “Noah, handle that.”
After taking care of the driver, Noah trudged up the stairs with his spindly burden, depositing Hubert in Sally’s sunny room on a patchwork quilt decorating a pine four-poster. “After he gets some medication, I’ll help you get him into bed.”
Mrs. Vanderkellen rummaged in her purse and didn’t immediately answer. When she turned around she held a canister of some sort. Instead of responding to his offer, she began to fog the air with what smelled like disinfectant.
Ducking under the reeking jet, he left the room and nearly crashed into Sally, lurking in the hall, wringing her hands.
“So, you’re letting them stay after all,” he said. “That’s nice.”
“Nice?” she echoed, clearly miserable. “They told me their house in Boston is being completely redecorated. They think all but a handful of hotels are filthy places teeming with the germs of a thousand strangers. And not surprisingly, not one of those adequate hotels is in this country. Oh, and they wouldn’t consider imposing on friends. Can you believe that? They don’t want to impose on friends! But, me, they can impose on.”
“They’re family—”
“Look, Dr. Garrett,” she cut in. “I’m sure you have a warm and fuzzy relationship with your grandparents, and I’m sure they’re as sweet as teddy bears. But not everybody is that lucky.”
He didn’t have time to get into a discussion about his family dynamics, though he had a feeling she’d be surprised about a few details if he did. So he merely corrected, “It’s Barrett.”
“What?”
He shook his head. “Never mind. It was interesting to meet you, Sally.” He loped down the stairs, racing the clock.
“Oh—wait! Please!”
His plan to make a swift exit was thwarted by his hostess’s entreaty. When he turned, she was lumbering down the stairs, a protective hand on her stomach. Her descent was precariously rapid and he automatically headed in her direction.
“Don’t—you’ll fall.” He jogged up several steps and took her arm. “What’s so important?”
“You—can’t go!” she said, short of breath. Pulling him into the parlor, she added, “What do I tell them?”
Noah was confused. “About what?”
“About us—being deliriously happy!”
He stared at her, not believing this. Their playacting had been amusing for a few minutes, but now it was just strange. “Look—Sally was it?” He separated her desperate, clutching fingers from his shirt front and took off the wedding ring she’d given him. “I don’t care what you tell them.” Plunking it into her hand, he went on. “I’ve been looking forward to a vacation for three years. Three years,” he repeated. “My flight leaves in forty-five minutes. Tell your grandparents whatever you want. Tell them I had to go to a medical convention. Or aliens beamed me up to the mother ship. I don’t care.” He closed her fingers over the wedding band, and squeezed as a parting gesture. “Have a good life.”
She made a pained face. “I’ll pay you!”
“I don’t want your money.”
“What do you want? I’ll do anything!” she cried. “Don’t you see? They think I’m inferior. They think my mother married beneath her, that my dad was some kind of inferior subspecies just because he was a firefighter from Texas and not old money from Boston. If they find out I’m having a baby and I’m not married—well, they’ll be convinced I’m the riffraff they predicted.”
“Riffraff?” Noah was astonished by such a crazy statement. “I doubt that. I’d have to agree raising a child without a stable, two-parent family is hardly ideal, but I’m sure you’re making more out of their reaction than—”
“I’m not! You don’t know me or my grandparents, so you can keep your opinions to yourself! Doctors!” she scoffed. “Insufferable know-it-alls, every last one of you.” She eyed him angrily. “Why I’m having this baby is my business, not my grandparents’ or yours.”
“If you’ll recall, you dragged me into it.”
“That was my mistake,” she said. “But I’m not making a mistake about my grandparents’ attitude. They’re the world’s most self-righteous, narrow-minded, class-conscious, stuffy snobs!” She pressed her fists against her temples. “I won’t let them blame any decisions I’ve made on inferior Johnson genes. I couldn’t stand seeing their revolted expressions if they knew the father of my baby came from a freezer in a sperm bank, and a glorified turkey baster played cupid!”
Noah was startled to hear there was no man in the picture. She was pretty enough to have her pick of daddies for her child. He wondered
