by Jo Goodman
Thea gave him a look of mock disgust, but the kick in the shin was real enough. She danced out of his reach before Gina entered the kitchen. “Coffee?” she asked. “Or I can make tea.”
“Coffee’s fine.” Gina was wearing a silky emerald green robe. On Thea it would have been fingertip length. On Gina the hem brushed her knees and the sleeves had to be rolled up three turns. “I found this on a hook in the guest bathroom. I hope you don’t mind.”
“No. I put it there for you. I don’t think I’ve ever worn it.”
Mitch gave Gina an appreciative once-over, then looked pointedly at Thea’s ratty chenille robe. He just shook his head.
“What?” Thea said. “That was a Christmas present from Mother three years ago and it’s not at all my thing.”
“Did I say a word?” asked Mitch. He looked at Gina for support. “Did you hear me say a word?”
Gina held up her hands. The silky sleeves pooled around her elbows. “I know I’m not getting in this.” She nudged a chair out with her bare foot and sat down. “Mornin’, Mitch.”
He smiled. “Good morning. How are you feeling?”
“Not too bad.” She no sooner said it than she blanched as her stomach did a twist and heave. “Thea? Do you have some soda crackers?”
“They might be stale.”
Mitch looked at Gina’s pale face. “I don’t think her stomach cares about stale.”
Thea found the crackers in the pantry and put them on the table, along with Gina’s coffee. “You should think about decaf,” she said.
“I do think about it,” Gina said. “I just won’t drink it. I am a one-cup-in-the-morning girl now. Do you have cream?”
“Sure do.” Thea pulled the carton out of the refrigerator while Gina opened a stack of crackers. “Here. Use lots of it.”
Gina nibbled on a cracker with one hand and poured with the other. She set the carton down and looked at Mitch. “I suppose Thea’s told you why I’m here.”
It was Thea who answered. “You know, I’m not certain I ever did get that far.”
Mitch lifted his coffee cup. “She didn’t,” he told Gina dryly. “Apparently Thea had a little confusion about paternity.”
Gina looked from Mitch to Thea, her eyes widening. “What?”
Thea shrugged. “You never really said who the father was. I thought it was Mitch.”
“Mitch!” Gina’s jaw actually went slack. “You’re kidding.”
“Oh, no, she’s not,” Mitch said.
“Well,” Thea began defensively, “how was I supposed to know?”
Gina shook her head, her mouth pulling in a wry twist. “Because Mitch never forgets to wear a condom.”
Mitch nearly blew a mouthful of coffee across the table. Thea stepped behind him and pounded his back—hard.
“You okay, Mitch?” asked Gina. “Your face is red.”
He made a strangled noise, part cough, part wheeze. Thea gave him another hearty slap between his shoulder blades. “He’ll be fine,” she assured Gina. “I think the coffee just went down the wrong pipe. Isn’t that right, Mitch?”
He didn’t try to talk this time. He simply nodded.
“See? He’s fine.” Thea turned away, retrieved her half-eaten cereal from the counter, and sat down at the table. “Can I get you anything?”
Gina nibbled on her cracker. “This is fine. I might be able to eat in an hour or so.” She regarded Thea consideringly. “You do know who the father is, don’t you?”
She nodded. “I figured that out as soon as I realized it wasn’t Mitch. There wouldn’t have been a mistake at all if someone had told me you were seeing Joel.”
That gave Gina pause. “Joel never told you?”
Thea shook her head. “He was pretty secretive about the woman he was seeing.” She saw Gina’s shoulders slump and her eyes well with tears before she ducked her head. “Oh no, don’t misunderstand,” she said quickly. “The relationship was very special to him. I think it made him uncomfortable to talk about it casually.”
“Yeah,” Gina said mockingly, “right. He’s ashamed by what he feels and embarrassed to be seen with me.”
Mitch cocked an eyebrow, patently skeptical. “The Joel Strahern I met was not embarrassed by your attentions, Gina. Quite the opposite. He was flattered. In a big way.”
“Oh, come off it, Mitch.” She swiped her eyes with the sleeve of her robe. “I was dressed hot that night. The Pope would have given me a second look.”
“She’s right about that,” Thea said. “She was pretty hot.”
“Thank you,” said Gina.
“I don’t get it,” Mitch said. “He was engaged to you, Thea. And Gina’s only ten years younger.”
Gina bit off another corner of her cracker. “Nine. I’m twenty-three now. Anyway, Thea’s a lot older than her birth certificate. No offense, Thea.”
“None taken.”
“You know what I mean, Mitch?”
“Oh no,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re not going to get me to say anything like that.”
Thea smiled to herself and took another bite of soggy cereal. “You know, Gina, you were wrong about some things you said last night. I didn’t really question them because I thought you were talking about Mitch, but since you weren’t, you need to know you’re dead wrong. Joel is my friend and I think he genuinely cares about my happiness, but there’s no special sense of obligation on his part. No need to protect me. I know he knows that. He doesn’t have feelings for me beyond friendship.”
“How can you know that?”
“Because I know what it feels like to be loved. And it’s nothing like what Joel felt for me.”
Gina’s eyes darted between Thea and Mitch. A smiled edged the corners of her mouth upward. “Okay. Well, that’s good.”
“Yes,” Thea said, sliding Mitch a glance, “it is.” She watched the tips of his ears start to redden, and he looked as if he wanted to be magically transported to a duck blind with five camouflaged buddies, sucking back beers and loading a really big gun. Thea patted his forearm lightly and turned back to Gina. “I know what Joel said about the woman he was seeing, and I know what it meant. He told me it was like it had been with Nancy—only better. He loves you, Gina. I have no doubt about that. The issue here isn’t entirely about your age. It’s about the baby. Joel was clear with me that he didn’t want children and that suited me back then. It’s probably true that if Gabe and Kathy hadn’t been killed, Joel and I would be married—” Thea looked over her shoulder at the calendar on the refrigerator. “Today, actually. How about that? We would be going through the ceremony, not entirely happy, but probably not realizing it. Each of us settling for what we had. We would have been comfortable. Stable. Easy with each other. And bored.”
Thea’s eyes narrowed as she studied Gina’s still features. “You better be damn sure you love him, Regina, because I’m thinking Joel is a whole lot less certain of you than he is of himself.”
Gina nodded slowly. “I do know it, Thea. I do.”
Thea said nothing for moment. Gina wasn’t wearing her heart on her sleeve. It was in her eyes. “All right,” she said finally. “I’ll talk to Joel.”
Mitch, who had been tipped back on the chair again, dropped it hard to the floor. “Whoa. That’s what you wanted, Gina? For Thea to talk to him?”
“Yes. Why? Is there a problem?”
“Problem? Not yet. Right now you have a situation, not a problem. Once she talks to him, then you’ll have a problem. You don’t want Thea in there.”
Both of Thea’s brows shot up. “Oh? You have another idea?”
“Yeah. This should be between Gina and Joel.”
The cracker in Gina’s hand snapped. “He won’t listen to me, Mitch. I need to get his attention.”
“Fine. Then let me beat the shit out of him.”
Gina and Thea exchanged glances. “I don’t know,” Gina said. “What do you think?”
“Could work,” said Thea. “Sure, why not?�
� She turned to Mitch. “Okay. You can beat the shit out of him.”
“Ha-ha.” He took a swallow of coffee. “I should—just to show you how it works—but I’ll give diplomacy a shot first.”
“Oh, goodie,” Thea said dryly.
Gina was more enthusiastic. “Really? You’d do that for me? But what will you tell him? Do you know what to say?”
“I know what not to say,” Mitch said. “I’m not, for instance, going to tell him that Thea thought I might be the father of your baby.” He regarded his companions pointedly. “Unless you ladies don’t mind if he beats the shit out of me.”
Chapter 15
Mitch had no difficulty spotting Joel Strahern in the booth at the back of the downtown tavern. He would have preferred sitting at the bar himself. A good bar fight never started in a booth. The tables were secured to the floor and the wall, for one thing. No one could tip them over. Mitch allowed the place was a little too upscale for a fight anyway, which was probably why Thea had suggested it. He didn’t know if she didn’t trust him or Joel. She made noises on the phone earlier that morning about being in touch with a bail bondsman. Ha-ha, he had said.
Mitch arranged the meeting himself. He refused offers from Gina and Thea to set it up. It didn’t have to be so complicated, he told them. This was just two guys getting together for a beer. They had rolled their eyes. Apparently neither one of them thought of Joel as a guy. A lot they knew. Every man was just a guy at heart. Joel Strahern dressed better, was all.
Mitch slipped into the booth and extended his hand on his way down. “Strahern.”
Joel accepted it and shook it briefly and firmly. “Baker.”
Mitch grinned. “That’s about the extent of my macho posturing. Call me Mitch.”
“Joel.”
“Good. You order yet?”
“No, I just arrived. I didn’t know this place existed.”
“You’re on the other side of town. They have some good deli sandwiches. The Reubens are terrific.” Mitch waved to the waitress and asked Joel, “What’ll you have to drink?”
“Heineken.”
“Okay.” He held up two fingers to the waitress. “Heinekens.” She nodded, gave them both menus, and left. Mitch flipped his open but he didn’t look at it. “Look, Joel, you might as well know that I had this idea of just beating the shit out of you. Thea and Gina talked me out of it.”
Joel Strahern hadn’t gotten where he was by being moved by threats. He didn’t so much as blink. “Lucky for you,” he said without inflection.
One of Mitch’s brows lifted ever so slightly. “Good one.”
“I wasn’t kidding.”
“Yeah? Well, neither was I.” They stared each other down across a table that Superman would have had a hard time tossing. Luckily the waitress brought their beers and distracted them. Mitch took a swallow. “How much time do you have?”
“As much as I need. You?”
“I turned my stuff in to my editor this morning. I’m free.”
“I’ve seen today’s cartoon. I take it you’re not happy with the Supreme Court’s latest ruling on gun control.”
“Automatic weapons specifically,” Mitch clarified. “Those were assault rifles the justices were packing.”
Joel nodded thoughtfully and took a drink of his beer. The waitress reappeared asking for their orders. He got the turkey club. Mitch had the Reuben. “So,” he said after the waitress left, “you weren’t clear on the phone about why we should have lunch together.”
“But you came anyway.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. I was curious.”
“Whatever works,” Mitch said, shrugging. He lifted his bottle, took another swallow. “It’s about Gina.”
Joel nodded, expecting it. “Regina told you that we’ve been seeing each other.”
Mitch cocked an eyebrow. “She told me a little more than that. She says you have not practiced responsible birth control and that just won’t do. I know you grew up thinking women would handle that, but the times, Joel, they have a-changed.”
“I’d rather you beat the shit out of me,” he said dryly, “than murder Dylan again.”
“Deal.” Mitch gave Joel a small salute with his beer bottle, then he became serious again, getting to the heart of the matter. “Look, I don’t know you at all, and I don’t know what you’re thinking or feeling about what’s happened. Personally, I think it’s between you and Gina to work out, but she says she can’t get your attention. She thinks that maybe you’re still feeling something for Thea.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Joel said. “Where did she get that idea?”
“Who knows? My guess would be it has something to with you not wanting to marry her.” Mitch watched Joel’s knuckles whiten as he gripped his Heineken. “But that’s just a guess.”
Joel grunted softly.
“I also hear you suggested that she not have the baby.”
He didn’t try to deny it. “It seemed like a reasonable solution until I heard it come out of my mouth.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. It’s hard for girls to get over that, though. That kind of thing sticks. Especially since you followed up with the adoption suggestion.”
Joel’s gunmetal gray eyes narrowed and his chin jutted forward. “Goddammit, is there anything she didn’t tell you?”
“Probably not. She was pretty upset when she first talked to me. Things just kept falling out of her mouth. Then she showed me a house last Friday morning. She was doing okay for most of the tour but when we got to the room that had been used as a nursery ...” Mitch simply shook his head. “Well, you can use your imagination. What I didn’t know before, I learned on that round.”
“And she talked to Thea, too?”
“Yep. She had some insane idea that Thea should talk to you. If it turns out that I have to kick your butt, remember I saved it in the first place.”
Joel Strahern swore softly. He finished his beer and got the waitress’s attention to order two more. “You want one?” he asked Mitch.
Mitch chuckled. “Sure.”
“Three,” Joel called to the waitress. Out of the corner of his eye he caught Mitch’s look of surprise. “I’m kidding,” he said. Then he changed his order back to two. “I can get a cab back to the office, but I really need to drive home.”
The cold beers arrived quickly and the sandwiches came a few minutes later. Mitch pulled the toothpick out of one half of his Reuben and dropped it on his plate. He picked up the sandwich in two hands. “Thea thinks that maybe this isn’t about whether you love Gina. She says you do. She thinks it could be that you’re not sure what Gina feels for you.” Over the top of his dark rye bread, Mitch saw Joel Strahern flinch. On the money, he thought. Thea was on the money. “But that’s just her opinion.”
Joel pushed his plate a few inches away and picked up his beer. He tipped it back and drank, then he regarded Mitch frankly. “What would you do?”
Mitch shook his head. “No way I’m answering that.”
“All right. Then what do you think I should do?”
Mitch didn’t say anything immediately. He put his sandwich down, wiped his fingers on his napkin, and took a swallow of beer. “Is it your plan to ignore your child?”
“Hell, no.”
“I’m not talking about sending a monthly check, Joel. Gina doesn’t need your money anyway. I’m talking about spending time with your kid. Ball games. Dance lessons. Diapers. Whatever it takes.”
Joel’s jaw tightened and a muscle jumped in his cheek. “I don’t need lessons from you about raising children. You’ve been in charge of runny noses and bedtime stories for six months. I have grown kids. I have grandkids. I know something about what it takes.”
“Then maybe the question is: Do you have what it takes to do it again?”
“You mean do I want to?”
“No, that isn’t what I mean. Frankly, I don’t give a shit if you want to. Gina doesn’t want to be a single mother, but she’ll do it b
ecause the alternatives don’t work for her. You do it because it’s the right thing to do. Period.” He paused and when he spoke his voice was low and a little rough with emotion. “Then, if you’re damned lucky, you’ll find you want to.”
Joel stared at him. After a while he asked, “Is that what happened to you?”
“Pretty much. You have an advantage, Joel. Emilie, Case, and Grant weren’t mine.”
“But they are now?”
“Oh yeah. In every way that counts. I had a family transplant that took.”
“Thea?”
“I can’t speak for her, but yes, I’m guessing she feels the same way about them that I do.”
Joel set his beer down and turned the bottle slowly. “Are you going to marry her?”
“Not because of the kids.”
“No?”
“No. There’s only one reason I’m going to ask her to marry me—and only one reason I’m hoping she’ll say yes.”
“Let me guess,” Joel said, his mouth lifting in a wry twist. “It’s the same reason I should propose to Regina.”
“You said it.”
Joel’s cynical smile faded slowly. “I don’t know if it’s enough,” he said quietly. “I’m older than her parents. There will be talk. She doesn’t deserve to be subjected to that.”
“No, but you can’t control what other people will say. And shouldn’t she have some part of that decision? Anyway, do you really care what people think? You’ll be happy. So will she.” Mitch gave him a dead-on look, the kind that closed deals in Joel Strahern’s world. “Isn’t that the best revenge?”
Thea swiveled in her chair to face the door to her office. It swung open and she looked up expectantly. Mitch stood on the threshold. His features didn’t give anything away. Her eyes narrowed, looking for bruises.
“Nobody beat up anybody,” he said, stepping inside. He shut the door behind him and leaned against it. “Are you disappointed? I thought that’s what you wanted.”
“It was.” She paused for effect. “Mostly.”
“You know, I wish you had been clearer, because there was a moment that I really wanted to smash his face.”
“What happened?”
