Desperate Measures

by Fern Michaels

  Pete’s jaw dropped when he saw the way Maddie’s lips were trembling. If she gave her napkin one more twist, it would be in shreds. He felt like every kind of wretch for making his girl so upset. “Maddie, please, don’t be upset. I didn’t mean . . . we can ... I didn’t think ...”

  “I know,” Maddie said softly. “One child when we’re in a position to ... to give of our time . . . I don’t know exactly when that will be. If this is a problem, we should discuss it now. Having your baby is ... is ... Have I spoiled things now?” she cried wretchedly.

  “Oh, honey, of course not. We have time . . . so I was being selfish. You’re right, it is your body, and we ... we’ll go over this again when . . . when the time is right.”

  “Let’s get out of here into some warm sunshine,” Maddie said, standing up and reaching for his hand. She smiled. “If you only knew how very much I love you, Pete Sorenson. Telling you is one thing, but knowing it and feeling it is something else. Please, I don’t want us to be upset over this. Children, a child, are in our future. We both need to leave footprints, and what better way than a child of our love? I need you to understand, Pete.”

  Pete nodded because he didn’t trust himself to speak. Outside in the sunshine he looked around. It was the same sun in the same cloudless sky as when they entered, but it seemed less bright, less warm. In fact he felt chilled.

  “Where to now, oh fearless leader?” Maddie said lightly. She reached up to tweak his cheek before she favored him with a megawatt smile.

  “The Plaza. I thought . . . think it would be nice to have our reception there.”

  “The Plaza!” Maddie squealed. “Pete, really, we can have it at the Plaza?”

  He wanted to say, Didn’t I just say that? He was still smarting with Maddie’s decision. What do you have to say to that, Barney? The love of my life isn’t crazy to have my kids. He forced a smile to his lips. “Yes, we can have it at the Plaza. I knew you’d like that.”

  “I can hardly believe it. Come on, walk faster, Pete, I can’t wait to see and talk to them. Can I pick out anything or do we go for a package deal?”

  “Whatever you want, Maddie,” Pete said quietly.

  “I want, I want, I want.”

  In spite of himself, Pete laughed. She was like a child in a candy store with a pocket full of money. Either you loved unconditionally or you didn’t love at all. And he loved. God, how he loved.

  It was after eleven when a dazed Maddie, clinging to Pete’s arm, exited the Plaza. “I thought it might be expensive, but I didn’t think it would be that expensive. Maybe we should rethink this, Pete. Lord, I get weak in the knees just thinking about that deposit check you wrote out. You didn’t even blink. There are other places just as nice as the Plaza. I think we need to rethink this, Pete. It’s so much money. We’re basically paying for the name of the hotel.”

  “It’s a done deed, Maddie. I never go back on my word. We’re stuck with the Plaza. I think it’s what we both want.”

  “If you say so, but someplace else is okay too. What now?”

  “Now, we’re going to Bergdorf so we can pick out a wedding gown for you.”

  “No, no, I can’t let you do that. I have to pay for that. The girl pays for the gown, Pete.”

  “Even when the guy insists on it?” he said playfully.

  “Yes, I’m afraid so,” Maddie said wistfully. “It’s wonderful of you to offer. You could, if you don’t mind, pay for Janny’s dress. She’s on a pretty strict budget. Weddings are expensive for the maid of honor.”

  “My pleasure. It was always my understanding that the bride’s parents paid for the wedding. Since this bride doesn’t have a family, I decided to step in. It’s settled, Maddie.”

  “Well, if it’s settled, you can’t see it. I mean me in it. It might take a long time for me to pick out a gown. What will you do? This isn’t right.”

  “Of course it is. I’ll meander down to the men’s department and get some new socks. The washer eats mine. I’ll give you an hour and a half.”

  “How much . . . there are other stores, bridal stores . . . Bergdorf is frightfully expensive. I might be able to get a deal at Bloomingdale’s.”

  “Buy what you want. Everything you want and need. I want to do this for you, Maddie. I want to give you everything. Don’t be chintzy now. You get the best, the most beautiful gown they have. Okay?”

  “Okay. I promise I’ll be done in exactly an hour and a half. How should I ... ?”

  “Here,” Pete said, holding out his charge card. “There’s no limit on it, so use it till it melts.”

  “You are the most wonderful, the sweetest, the kindest man I have ever met. I love you.”

  He must really be all those things, Pete thought. An nie had said the same thing to him hundreds of times. She’d also said he was stubborn, lazy, and a know-it-all.

  Maddie was sipping a cup of tea when Pete walked into the bridal salon nearly an hour and a half later. “I’m finished. Ten minutes early.”

  “And . . .”

  “I got the most beautiful, the most gorgeous, the most exquisite gown. It was frightfully expensive,” she said quietly.

  “Okay,” Pete said, signing his name with a flourish. His eyes widened slightly at the total amount on the charge slip. “Let’s go, pretty lady, we’re doing lunch at Lutèce. I made a reservation. By the way, I bought two dozen pairs of socks.”

  “Really?” Maddie giggled. “What color?”

  “Black.”

  Maddie gasped. “All twenty-four pairs?”

  “Yep. The washer eats them every week. This way I don’t have to worry about matching them. Don’t women do the same thing when they buy stockings?”

  “I guess you could. I wear panty hose, so it doesn’t exactly work that way. Thank you, Pete, for everything. You are being so generous. I don’t quite know what to say.”

  “Thank you is enough. I love doing things for you, Maddie, because I love you, and when you love someone you want them to be happy. You do whatever it is that makes them happy. Come on now, Lutèce awaits us and our appetites.”

  The rest of the day passed in a happy blur. It was six o’clock when Pete dropped Maddie off at her apartment building to shower and dress for dinner at Bouley. He handed over the fuzzy yellow blanket they’d bought at Bloomingdale’s. “I’ll pick you up at seven-thirty.”

  Maddie reached up and kissed him lightly on the lips. “Pete, this was one of the nicest days of my life. Thank you for being you. Thank you for loving me, thank you for making me part of your life. And we’re going to talk again, real soon, about babies and our future. I promise.”

  Pete beamed. “That’s good enough for me. Think about adopting too. I love kids, Maddie. You need to know that.”

  “I know, Pete. See you at seven-thirty. I’ll be the girl in the lobby with the smile in her eyes, on her lips, and in her heart. Will you recognize me?”

  “Anywhere, anytime. I love you, Maddie.”

  “I love you too, Pete.”

  Did I step into it or what? was all Maddie could think about on the ride up to her apartment in the elevator.

  It was ten-thirty when, arm in arm, Pete and Maddie left the restaurant. “Those prices were outrageous, Pete,” Maddie grumbled. “However, I loved every minute of it. That dessert was so sinful I’ll need a week of penance. Listen, I have an idea, it’s a gorgeous night, let’s walk uptown to Fairy Tales. I know it’s a hike, but we need to walk off that dinner. If my legs give out, we can hail a taxi. We really haven’t meandered through the store together. You’ve been listening to me for so long going on and on about it that you must be curious by now.”

  “I didn’t want to ... interfere. It’s your baby, Maddie.”

  Maddie stopped dead in her tracks. “I don’t believe I heard what I just heard. Without you there would be no Fairy Tales. It’s ours, Pete.”

  “No, Maddie, Fairy Tales is yours. I’m just the money man. I wanted to do it for you.”

  �
�It’s a dream, Pete, that I thought would never, ever happen. I’ve never owned anything in my life. It seems all I’ve done for years and years is to kick and scratch just to make it from one month to the next. Dreams are so important. Without them, you might as well pack it in. I’m so glad I didn’t give up on mine. Thanks to you, it’s all going to be a reality. I will never be able to thank you, Pete.”

  “I don’t need thanks. I want you to be a success.”

  “I hope I can justify your faith in me. Pete, what if it doesn’t work? What if I made mistakes, what if my suppliers don’t come through for me? What if—”

  “Nothing is going to happen, Maddie. Your biggest selling point when this was on the drawing board was your belief in yourself. You sold me, and trust me when I tell you I am a hard sell. There is no way this can fail. I feel it in my bones, just the way I feel it when I’m about to close a deal. It’s that old gut feeling. It hasn’t failed me yet.”

  “I can’t wait for you to see everything. It is a fairy tale come to life. I’m going to walk you through it. If you have the same kind of imagination I do, you’ll be able to see it.” She squeezed his arm.

  Pete’s left arm shot out. A cab slid to the curb. “Then let’s get there quicker so I can get a gander.”

  Twenty minutes later they were standing by the door, the key in Maddie’s hand. “Are you ready?” she demanded breathlessly. “Oh, Pete, every time I come here I get goose bumps and my heart starts to pound. You don’t know how important this is to me. I tell you it is, but I don’t have the right words to ... It’s almost as if it’s my life.”

  Pete gripped her shoulders and turned her toward him. “Maddie, there’s room here for me, isn’t there? You are so intense when you talk about this. Sometimes you scare me. I mean it.”

  “Oh, Pete, no. We’re a team, you and me. This is what I’m going to be doing, it’s not who I am. You will always be part of my life, that life we’ll hold special at the end of the day. That will be our time. Long, wonderful Sundays, and after the store gets settled, I’ll take Mondays off and we can have two-day weekends. Everything is going to be perfect for us—the business and our lives. Trust me, Pete, I’m going to work at it twenty-four hours a day. I don’t ever want you to have regrets. That’s so important to me, Pete. That you have no regrets.” She squeezed his arm and turned back to the door. “Ready?”

  “Ready.”

  “God, my very own key to my very own business,” Maddie chortled as she swung the door wide open. “So, what do you think?” she said, snapping on the light.

  Pete looked around at Maddie’s cluttered domain. She was right, it was her domain. Layers of sawdust swirled around his ankles. He saw hanging wires, exposed pipes with caps on the ends. As far as he could see, it was one huge room. “Nice,” he mumbled.

  Maddie laughed. “It’s not nice at all. Follow me and I’ll mark off the sections with my shoe. I want to show you where everything is going to go. This is the Cinderella section, this is the magic section—Aladdin. That’s going to be super. Here’s Snow White and her buddies. See this cubby here, this small section, it’s going to be my seasonal section. We’re going to start off with Halloween. Listen to this, Pete,” she said, excitement ringing in her voice, “I’m getting sizes two, four, and six of every costume. By that I mean all the fairy-tale characters. Not a lot, because even though we have a few months, my ladies can’t give me quantity, so it’s going to be on a first-come basis. Next year I’ll have hundreds of orders. I just know it. The costumes are so exquisite, I couldn’t believe it when I saw them. Hand-stitched, everything is first-rate quality. None of that sleazy material the usual Halloween costumes are made of. We’re also getting orange satin pumpkin treat bags in different sizes. They have a plastic insert and a cap that looks like a real pumpkin top. The stem is green satin. Fifty bucks a piece.”

  “Fifty bucks!” he said. “Kids carry pillowcases to put their candy in. I saw that on the news one year when they were doing a Halloween special of some kind. Fifty bucks,” he repeated, his voice tinged with awe. “How much is your cost?”

  “It takes an hour and a half to stitch one up. That’s five fifty-five. Ten cents for the insert, a dollar and a half for the material and shipping. Roughly nine bucks.”

  “Jesus. What about the costumes?”

  “Take a deep breath, Pete. Remember, they’re one of a kind. Handmade. Full of detail and extras that make the costume. Two hundred dollars. In some cases, depending on the costume, more. Believe it or not, the more outrageous the cost, the more people think they have to have it.” She shrugged. “There won’t be any left. What I need and will have trouble getting is more women to sew.”

  “Pay them more, Maddie. Jesus, maybe you do have a gold mine here.”

  “I keep telling you that, Pete. I’m going to pay more after I get my first delivery. It’s all taken care of. You should see what I have planned for Christmas. Priceless items. The shopping bags are works of art. Savers, if you know what I mean. Come January you’ll see women carrying them all over the city. They aren’t throwaways. Isn’t it exciting, Pete? I swear to God, I’ve never been this happy. And I owe it all to you.”

  “Do you think you’ll be this happy the day we get married?”

  “Hmmm. What’d you say, Pete?” Maddie asked as she ducked under a gaggle of hanging wires to head toward the back of the store, where the supply room and kitchen were partially partitioned off.

  “I said I’m glad you’re so happy,” Pete said gruffly.

  “There’s nothing in the world to compare to this, Pete. Nothing.”

  Pete sneezed, once, twice, three times. “Time to leave, Maddie.”

  “You’re right. Thanks for coming with me, Pete. I wish I could sleep here. I wish I could be here every minute of the day. I think I will sleep here the night before the grand opening. I won’t sleep at home because I’ll be too excited.”

  “How about the night before our wedding?”

  “Same thing,” Maddie said breezily.

  He didn’t think it was the same thing at all. He was about to say as much, then thought better of it. “I’m ready if you are.”

  Pete watched as Maddie locked the double Dutch doors. Her long, slender fingers caressed the shiny brass lock and door handle. It was almost as if she were caressing part of his body. Somehow . . . he felt cheated.

  “Shit,” he said, and stomped his feet to rid them of the Sheetrock dust.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “Forty-five days is a long time, Pete. I’m really going to miss you,” Maddie murmured sleepily.

  “That’s the downside, Maddie. Think about the upside. Fifty-one days from today we’ll be married.” His voice was just as sleepy sounding as Maddie’s.

  “Umm. You’ll call regularly, won’t you?” Maddie said, wrapping her legs around his. “Someday, I want the two of us to travel to all those places you go to on business. I want to see it all with you.”

  “Ha! Before you know it, you’ll be traveling as much as I do. Once you open Fairy Tales, you’ll be big-time and a frequent flyer. Then, Miss Big-Time, I want you to tell me how much sightseeing you do when you’re on a business trip. As I see it, we’ll be ships passing in the night.” His voice changed, became worried, sounding pensive.

  Maddie bolted upright. “Don’t say that, Pete. I’ll never let that happen. I’ll be able to juggle being a wife and a fledgling entrepreneur. It’s going to take a year, maybe two, for the business to get off the ground. Are you having second thoughts? Do you think I’m making a mistake?”

  “Of course not. You’re going to be a huge success. You are, after all, one of Bloomingdales’ head buyers. I feel it in my gut.”

  Maddie stroked Pete’s arm. She smiled when he shivered. God, how she loved this man. “If I am a success, it’s because of you and what you’ve done. Half rent on Madison Avenue. All those contacts you have. But most important, you believe in me. I hope I don’t disappoint you, Pete. Lord, what if I fa
il, what if I’m wrong and this city doesn’t need a pricey, top-of-the-line children’s store? What if ... what if ...”

  “Too late now. Your rent is paid for three months, the renovations are under way, your stock is ordered. You can’t back out. Trust me, honey, New York is ready for Fairy Tales. I’ve got your publicity locked up tight. Maddie Stern, I don’t want to hear another word about this. Kiss me now or forever hold your peace.”

  “You are delicious, Pete. You taste better than a root beer stick.” They tussled and the worrisome moment was over. “I just hope you have enough stock,” Pete said, sliding out of bed.

  “I have more than enough, Pete. I wish you didn’t have to leave. This is perfect. Do you think you might be able to speed up your return?”

  “If you moved in with me or I moved in with you, I wouldn’t have to leave right now.” He held up a wagging finger. “You said we both needed our space. I’ll do my best to expedite business. I’d hate like hell to miss your grand opening. I’ll call every chance I get.”

  “Forty-five days sounds like forever. You’d better hurry or you’ll be late.”

  Pete turned and leaned over the bed. “Maddie, I love you more than life itself. It’s trips like this one coming up that made it possible for me to help you open your own business.”

  “I know, Pete. Take your shower and I’ll make coffee.”

  “Okay, Mrs.-soon-to-be Peter Sorenson. You gonna grind the beans?” he said, smacking her rump on his way to the shower.

  “You bet. Genuine cream to go with it. A bran muffin with lots of butter. A real cholesterol killer. When we’re married, you aren’t going to eat like that anymore. You get tofu for breakfast and seaweed for lunch.”

  “I know this great divorce lawyer . . .”

  He sang lustily, his voice booming out of the steaming bathroom, a ditty about love and commitment whose words he made up as he went along. Jesus, he was happy. He’d finally found the woman of his dreams, and miracle of miracles, she’d agreed to marry him.