Chelsea felt her throat tighten, reducing the escaping words to little more than a pleading whisper. “I don’t want a house up there. Let’s not fight about it, Dad.”
“Well, it’s the problem. That’s what didn’t work between you and Carl. You’re obsessed with that place.”
She shook her head. “Not true.”
“You’re buying a business there.”
“It’s an investment.”
“And a pretty poor one, from what Carl tells me. He says that’s all you talk about.”
“Not true at all,” she declared. “I make a point not to talk about it with Carl. I don’t know why he told you that.” She put a quick hand on Kevin’s arm. “This is an investment. He chose not to join me in it, so I’m doing it alone. The deal is for a year. It’s something new and exciting for me, just like your retirement is something new and exciting for you. Aren’t I entitled to that, too?”
“You have a profession here.”
“I need more.”
“You always did. That’s the trouble.”
“Maybe, but, if so, it’s the way I am, and if, after all this time, Carl decides he doesn’t like it, that’s his problem.”
“It’s your problem, too. You lose out.”
She shook her head. “I’m okay. I’m okay.”
Kevin studied her—sadly, she thought, and wanted to cry—for another while before sighing. “I wish I could believe that. But I worry, Chelsea.”
“Don’t. Please. I’m okay.”
“If your mother were alive, she’d be able to talk some sense into you.”
“I’m okay. Really I am. What I’m doing makes perfect sense to me. I wish I could make you understand.”
But she couldn’t. Things hadn’t been the same between her father and her since Abby had died. Maybe they had never been what she had wanted to think they were. As with the Mahlers, Abby had been the link, the buffer, the interpreter of feelings and motivations. With Abby gone, Kevin had no patience with Chelsea. There were times when she felt he was distancing himself from everything that reminded him of Abby, including her. At those times she felt abandoned.
She tried to explain it to Cydra the next morning. They were running in the rain; she was feeling correspondingly gloomy. “It’s like the house money is a bribe to buy his freedom. Like if he gives it to me he won’t feel guilty traveling all the time. I told him I didn’t want the money. I told him I wouldn’t take it. So he said if I didn’t, he’d give it to the Mahlers. It was the one thing he knew I couldn’t bear.”
Cydra chuckled, pulled her soggy baseball cap lower on her forehead, and ran on.
“Did I tell you they made me an offer for the ring?” Chelsea asked. “It was absurdly high.” A payoff, pure and simple.
“Are you selling?”
“No way. That was my mother’s ring.” After several strides she said, “If I was perverse, I’d take their money and use it to buy the granite company, slap them in the face with my birthplace.”
Cydra grinned. “It’d be poetic justice.”
“Except that I really do want the ring. It has priceless sentimental value.”
“Will they accept that?”
“I hope so—“ She broke off when a car sped through a puddle and drenched them. They stopped running, Cydra swearing a blue streak at the disappearing car, Chelsea looking in dismay at her mud-soaked self. “What a jerk.” Cydra continued to swear until Chelsea gave her arm a wet squeeze. “He’s gone. Don’t waste your breath.”
“Why couldn’t he stop and apologize?”
Chelsea twisted rainwater from her ponytail, which hung from the hole in the back of her own baseball cap. “Maybe he didn’t realize what he’d done.”
Cydra wrung out the hem of her singlet. “You’re too forgiving.”
Chelsea brushed at her shorts. “No. I’m just picking and choosing my fights. A nobody driving a car isn’t worth the effort of anger when there’s so much else going on in my life. My whole system is screwed up. See this?” She pointed to her chin. “I can’t tell you when I last had a pimple.”
Cydra looked closer. “I don’t see any pimple.”
“It’s there. Believe me.”
“You’re imagining it.”
“Am I imagining waking up five times every night? Or being late for my period? The rhythm of my body is off.” She tossed her head toward the road.
Cydra set off beside her. When the slap of their wet running shoes was once again in syncopation, she said, “I wake up at night, too. I lie in bed wanting a big warm male body and feeling sorry for myself that it isn’t there. It’s hell.”
Chelsea thought of Judd Streeter and nearly told Cydra about him. Then she caught herself. Judd was a myth, embarrassing, the more she thought of it.
“So what do you think of in the middle of the night?” Cydra asked.
“Carl. The library I’ve designed. Norwich Notch. My dad, my mom, the house. Plum Granite. And the key, I think about the key. Did I tell you I took it to an expert?”
Cydra darted her a surprised look. “Learn anything new?”
“Just that it’s probably one of a kind. She guessed it was Italian-made, but she couldn’t be sure.”
After running in silence for a minute, Cydra said, “Advertise.”
“Hmm?”
“In publications that reach Norwich Notch. You could put in a picture. See if anyone comes forward.”
Chelsea had thought of that. Something in the local newspaper might be lost in the rush of the daily read, but there were monthlies, magazines that catered to people who had lost family members, or found artifacts that they wanted identified, or had oddities to trade. The key was indeed an oddity.
“Uh, Chels?”
“Hmm?”
“About the other.”
“What other?”
“Your period. How late are you?”
Chelsea ran on, concentrating on the slap of her sneakers on the road. “A few days.”
“Oh,” Cydra said. “Okay. That’s nothing.”
Except that Chelsea was never late, and it wasn’t just a day or two, it was five. She had checked the calendar, had counted and recounted to make sure it wasn’t a miscalculation on her part. But she was truly five days late. When she stopped to think of why that might be, she started to shake.
“You’re not worried, are you?” Cydra asked.
“Of course not. It’s just a busy life. Lots on my mind.” She felt Cydra’s glance, then, after several more strides, felt it again.
“You’re worried.” It wasn’t a question this time. “Think you’re pregnant?”
Chelsea thought of her one not-so-spectacular night with Carl. She couldn’t imagine a pregnancy having come from that. She hadn’t felt anything special at all. The time of the month had been right for her to conceive, but she still couldn’t believe it. They’d done it once, just once. Then again, was it mere coincidence that she’d had sex for the first time in three years and was suddenly late for her period?
“I don’t know,” she finally said, but the answer was an admission that she and Carl had gone all the way.
“You finally did it,” Cydra breathed excitedly. “Damn it, why didn’t you tell me?”
“Damn it, because it wasn’t any of your business.”
Cydra grew quiet.
Moving closer, Chelsea touched her arm. “Hey, I’m sorry. I’m a little nervous about this.”
They ran on silently for a bit before a more subdued Cydra said, “It wasn’t great, I take it.”
“Nope.”
“I knew it wouldn’t be. You knew it wouldn’t be. That’s why you waited. If the chemistry had been right, you’d have done it ages ago. I tell you, letting it go for so long was a sign.”
Chelsea agreed.
“You’re not getting married.”
“Nope.”
“Not even if you’re pregnant?”
“Nope.” Marrying for the sake of a baby would be nearly
as big a mistake as marrying to please their parents.
“Chels?”
“Hmm?”
“How, uh . . .”
Without breaking stride, Chelsea shook rain from her hands. “Don’t ask.”
“You didn’t use anything?”
Chelsea scowled.
“But you’re so competent.”
Cydra might well have been the little voice inside Chelsea that had been scolding her all week. “We didn’t plan on doing it,” she said crossly. “We weren’t prepared.”
“But you’re responsible adults!”
“Even responsible adults blow it sometimes.”
Cydra made a sound of agreement. “Have you thought about what you’ll do?”
“I don’t think I’m pregnant.”
“Why don’t you do a test?”
They turned down the home stretch, approaching the health club. “Because I don’t think I’m pregnant.”
“How long will you wait to find out?”
“I could get my period tomorrow.”
“And if you don’t?”
“I’ll worry then.”
BY THE FIRST OF JUNE, THE PAPERS FOR THE PLUM GRANITE partnership were on Bob Mahoney’s desk. Oliver Plum, anxious for the money they promised, had already signed them. With Chelsea’s signature, the deal would be final.
What held her back wasn’t Carl’s opposition or Kevin’s, but her own private turmoil.
She was definitely pregnant. Her doctor had confirmed it. She didn’t feel or look any different than she had, but when she thought about the beginnings of the baby inside, her mind started to spin.
She didn’t know what to do about Carl. She didn’t know what to do about Kevin. She didn’t know what to do about Norwich Notch. Becoming pregnant hadn’t been in her plans.
An abortion was out of the question. As an adoptee, knowing she might well have been destroyed once, she couldn’t give it a thought. Nor did she consider adoption for long, because as the hours of agonizing progressed, one thing was clear. She wanted the baby. She hadn’t planned to have it, couldn’t think of a more awkward situation, given the flatness of her relationship with Carl, but she wanted the baby. It was flesh of her flesh. She wanted it.
“If you want it,” Cydra asked, coming to a dead halt and calling out so that her voice would carry forward, “what in the devil are you doing running?”
Chelsea, too, stopped.
“The doctor said it’s okay. Really. I asked.”
Cydra was skeptical. “Are you sure?”
“I want this baby. I wouldn’t do anything to harm it. But I need to run. It clears my head.” She tossed her chin toward the road and started off again.
After a block Cydra breathed out an awed, “Whew. A baby.”
Chelsea knew what she meant. For years, it seemed, her friends had been having babies, while she was the driven professional of the bunch, the “aunt” who brought gifts, snapped pictures, tickled tummies, then left. She hadn’t much imagined herself with a diaper bag over her shoulder. “Weird, huh?”
“Very.”
“But I can do it. I can raise it. Money isn’t an issue. Or job security.”
“Lousy timing, though, with the granite company and all.”
“I can handle it,” Chelsea vowed.
“What’ll they think when you start to show?”
“That I’m pregnant.”
“You know what I mean, Chelsea. From what you say, it’s a conservative place.”
“Then I’ll shock them, I guess.” Much as her birth mother may have shocked them, she mused. So history would repeat itself.
“You’ll shock your dad, too.”
“No. Yes.” Chelsea had spent hours envisioning Kevin’s reaction. “I’ll disappoint him. He knows I’m capable of doing the unexpected, so he won’t be shocked, and once he knows it’s Carl’s baby, he won’t be angry. Then when I tell him there’s no marriage in the offing . . .” Her voice trailed off. Kevin would be heartsick, but as much as that upset her, she couldn’t change it. When she thought of marrying Carl, she felt tied down. Having a baby should have made her feel the same way, but it didn’t. A baby would be hers. It could go where she went, do what she did. Hailey Smart wasn’t far off the mark in that sense.
“So what’ll you tell Carl?” Cydra asked.
“That I won’t marry him.”
“What if he wants the baby?”
“He can see the baby.”
“What if he wants joint custody?”
“He can see the baby as much as he wants.”
“That’s not the same as joint custody.”
“I don’t want joint custody,” Chelsea declared. “I want the baby to be all mine.”
“The blood relative you never had?”
“Uh-huh.”
Running close, Cydra said, “There is a message in this, y’know.”
“Oh?”
“My colleagues would say that your subconscious self wanted to get pregnant.”
It was an interesting hypothesis. Chelsea didn’t think it was true, but she couldn’t rule it out. Having transcended the initial jolt, she wasn’t a bit upset about being pregnant.
“What would you say?” she asked.
“I’d say you ought to get that talk with Carl out of the way so you can concentrate on being radiant.”
CHELSEA SOUGHT CARL OUT FIRST THING THAT MORNING TO see if they could go somewhere after work.
“Bad time,” he said. “Tonight’s my dinner meeting with J. D. Henderson. I don’t know how long it will take, but I don’t want to rush him. He’s one of the few developers who’s oblivious of the economy.”
He had mentioned the meeting to her before, but she’d forgotten about it. Had she been another sort, she’d have suggested breakfast. But she wasn’t a morning person in the best of times, and lately she’d been feeling particularly woozy. “Tomorrow night, then?”
“Sure.”
So it was settled, or so Chelsea thought. But she was uneasy all day, wanting to talk with him and get it done. She knew he would return to the office after his meeting with Henderson; he always returned after meetings to make notes or sketches so that he wouldn’t forget even the smallest detail of what had been said. She went there at nine, hoping to catch him at work, planning to wait if he hadn’t yet come. She had plenty to keep her busy.
From the top of the hall, she saw the light on in his office. Heart pounding in anticipation of what she had to say, she walked quietly down to his door, only to stop on the threshold with that pounding heart suddenly in her mouth. Carl was there with Hailey, neither of them fully clothed.
Stunned, she backed away, but he had seen her.
“Jesus,” she heard him say as she tucked her hands under her arms and pressed herself against the wall. There were several other low oaths, the sound of hurried movement, then Carl rushing through the door and skidding to a halt at the sight of her. His shirt had been hastily buttoned, but the tails hung out. His face was red with guilt.
In all the years she had known him, Chelsea had never seen him looking that way. He was a stranger, and that compounded her shock.
He held up his hands to ward off her fury. When it didn’t come in the fit he had expected, he turned the gesture into a shrug and let his arms fall to his sides. His eyes held the apology that his mouth wouldn’t form.
“You rat,” Chelsea whispered. She felt betrayed. “You rat.”
He shot an uncomfortable look back toward the office. Facing her again, he snaked his hands into the pockets of his slacks.
She felt a churning in the pit of her stomach. “How long—“ she began unsteadily, cleared her throat, and tried again. “How long have you been seeing her?”
“A while. You knew I was.”
“I thought it was over.”
“It was. Kind of.”
Kind of. She thought of the night they’d made love and swallowed down a vague sense of nausea. “What does that mean?”
>
“I didn’t think she was right for me. I thought you were. But there was always something missing between you and me. Something she has.”
Chelsea felt as though she’d been hit in the stomach. No matter that she knew something was missing and that she’d come to say that very thing to Carl. No matter that she didn’t want to marry him, and that finding him with Hailey made that particular confession moot. She still loved Carl as a friend. And she was carrying his child. Knowing that he had been involved with another woman at the same time that he’d been involved with her made her feel dirty.
Turning on her heel, she half ran up the hall, but by the time she reached the reception area she realized the folly of fleeing. She was in the right. She had been faithful to Carl during the entire time they’d been trying to make a go of their relationship. Since he hadn’t, he wouldn’t be in any position to make demands when she told him about the baby.
He came up behind her. “I’m sorry, Chels. I didn’t mean for you to find out that way. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
She turned to face him with protective arms wrapped around her waist and a reproachful look in her eye.
“I didn’t,” he insisted. “I meant everything I said after your mother died about wanting us to get together, and I meant everything I said in the months between then and now. I do love you, Chelsea, but you were right the first time I mentioned it when you said that you didn’t know if we were in love and that there was a difference. I didn’t want to accept it then, because, damn it, there were so many reasons why we should have been married. There still are. But they’re not the right ones.”
Chelsea knew all those reasons, but she remained silent. He was squirming. Given the awful way she’d learned the truth, she found perverse satisfaction in that.
The Passions of Chelsea Kane Page 10
