And then he saw her.
He’d almost missed her because she was down on her knees, sifting through charred ashes. Pulling up at the curb, Rick quickly shut off the ignition and jumped out of the car. Joanna gave no indication that she even knew he was there. Wrapped in her thoughts, she seemed to be completely oblivious to everything outside of the circle immediately around her.
For a moment, he thought of just leaving her with her thoughts and waiting until she rose and turned around.
But the sight of her form, so obviously enshrouded in grief even from the back, moved him so incredibly, he could feel tears of his own gathering in his eyes. She shouldn’t have to be going through this. No one should.
Very softly, he came up behind her, not wanting to intrude, not wanting her to go through this alone.
“Joanna?”
Startled, she turned and looked over her shoulder. Her face was stained with tears.
The hell with standing back and giving her room to grieve. He erased the last few steps between them as he hurried to her. Crouching, he took her into his arms and raised her to her feet.
“Oh God, Joanna, why did you come here?”
She wasn’t going to cry anymore, she wasn’t, she told herself fiercely.
“I had to.” She tried very hard to sound flippant. “I knew the mailbox had to be getting full.” She nodded toward the structure at the curb, a cheery-looking miniature of the house that had once been whole. The mailbox was completely untouched by the tragedy that was behind it. She’d had it made as a gift to her mother one Easter. “I never left a forwarding address for the mail carrier,” she explained with a slight shrug of her shoulder.
He framed her face with his hands and kissed her lightly. It had never even occurred to him to come by and check for mail, or to arrange for the mail to be delivered to his house. He’d see to it immediately. “I should have thought of that.”
She shook her head, drawing away. Part of her was rebelling, calling herself weak for not standing on her own two feet. For leaning on someone, even if it was Rick. She was supposed to be stronger than that. She had to be strong because life had a way of running you down if you weren’t.
“You’ve been thinking of everything else.” She looked at him almost defiantly. “You’re not responsible for me, Rick.”
He took her hand, stopping her from moving away. “But I want to be.”
She couldn’t give up her independence, even to him. “I’m not fragile, Rick. I can take care of myself.” And then she bit her lower lip as a fresh wave of tears came to her, threatening to undo everything she’d just said. “They’re all gone.”
He wasn’t sure he knew what she was referring to. “What’s all gone? Memories?” he guessed. “They’re still there in your head, Joey.” Lightly, he touched her temple. “They always will be.”
She pressed her lips together. He undid her resolve by calling her Joey. She blinked hard to keep the dam inside from bursting, to keep the tears from washing over her face again. She didn’t want to cry, she wanted to be strong. Had to be strong.
But so much had happened in her life this last year and a half. First her mother’s illness, then her death. Then the board politely telling her she was an embarrassment and letting her go. And now part of her house was taken away from her. It was as if she couldn’t be allowed to hold onto anything.
Was it always going to be that way? It made her afraid to rely on anything, least of all happiness.
“My photographs are all gone.” Her voice was shaky and she paused to gather her strength to her. “My mother’s albums were stored in the living room and I found those. But the ones of us…” She looked up at him, trying to remember him the way he was the first time she’d seen him. His hair was far more unruly and longer then. And there’d been a rebelliousness about him that time had taken away. “The ones of you…were in my bedroom closet.”
She looked back at what had once been the rear of the house. It was hard even to pinpoint where the closet had been. That half of the house was now just a blackened shell, its frame barely standing.
He didn’t know what to say, how to comfort her. He knew what photographs meant to her. When they’d begun going together, she’d insisted on snapping pictures almost constantly, capturing moments and freezing them for all time.
“Where are your mother’s albums?” he asked.
Rather than answer, she took him by the hand and led him into the house. It felt funny, being able to enter through what had once been the dining room.
Joanna stopped at a large maple hutch that had sustained some smoke damage, but for the most part, was untouched by the fire. She opened the bottom doors. There were at least fifteen albums nestled against one another, arranged by years.
Seeing them, Rick couldn’t help but smile. “She was a very orderly person.”
“Yes, she was.” Joanna’s voice caught in her throat. And then she saw him begin to remove the albums one by one. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to take them back with us. Bedford isn’t known for having looters, but you can never be too safe with something as precious as these.”
She knew he was saying that for her benefit, that he didn’t care about photographs himself. He’d told her he never kept any. She brushed a kiss against his cheek. “Thank you.”
It took three trips to move the albums from the hutch to the trunk of his car. He left the lid open. “Anything else?”
Joanna turned to look at the house. It reminded her of an illustration she’d once seen of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Half stately, half grotesque. “Everything,” she replied with a heavy sigh.
He wasn’t sure if she was kidding, but this was Joanna. He was willing to humor her. “We could come back with a truck.”
With a small laugh, she shook her head. “I wasn’t being serious, just sad. The photographs are the most important thing. That,” she turned toward the mailbox, her mouth curving with self depreciating humor, “and the bills.”
Crossing to it, she opened the small door, trying not to think of anything at all. She emptied the mailbox and placed the contents on the floor behind the passenger seat in the car. She didn’t bother sorting through the large pile. She’d deal with all that later.
Rick was right beside her. “Where’s the cab, by the way?”
“I sent the cab away. I didn’t know how long I was going to be here and I couldn’t afford to have the driver standing there with the meter running.”
That sounded almost flighty, especially for her. “How did you plan to get back?”
Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a cell phone and held it up. “Mrs. Rutledge gave me her phone so I thought I’d call a cab when I was done feeling sorry for myself.” She put it back in her pocket.
Rick slipped his arm around her shoulders, drawing her closer to him, mutely giving her support. It meant the world to her, even though she told herself not to become dependent on it.
“You weren’t feeling sorry for yourself, Joanna,” he told her. “You grew up in this house. You have every right to grieve because part of it was destroyed.”
For a moment, she let him protect her from everything. Let him make it all right. Turning her head against his arm, she looked up at him. “When did you get to be so sensitive?” The old Rick had been sweet and loving, but this was a level of compassion she wasn’t familiar with.
“There’s this program they have at work,” he teased. “They make me take it for my own good.” He brushed his lips against her forehead. “Ready to go home? Or do you need a little more time?”
She’d gotten everything she’d come for. “No, I don’t need more time. You’re right. What’s most important is in here,” she tapped her forehead the way he’d done earlier.
And in here, she added, thinking of her heart. A heart that was filled with love for her baby.
And for him.
But something kept her from voicing her feelings, a small, undefined fear that mad
e her believe that things were not the way they had once been. They couldn’t be. They weren’t the same people they’d been then and she had come to learn not to expect anything.
When you didn’t expect things, you weren’t disappointed.
Holding the passenger door open for her, Rick picked up his cell phone from the seat and helped her into the car. He rounded the hood and got in behind the steering wheel. Strapping in, he glanced at his watch. With his meeting pushed back, he had some time on his hands. Returning to the office held no appeal to him. The work could wait.
Inspiration came out of nowhere. It had been a long time since he’d done anything on the spur of the moment. Rick started the car and pulled away from the curb. “Do you feel like going shopping?”
She stopped watching the house get smaller in the side mirror. “What?”
He took a right turn at the end of the block. “I seem to remember an old saying or joke that went ‘Whenever I’m down in the dumps, I go shopping.’ I thought there might be a kernel of truth in it.” He was hoping that doing something familiar like that might cheer her up a little. “You do need more clothes, you know. Three outfits do not a wardrobe make.”
She knew he meant well, but this had to stop. She wasn’t his mistress, to be showered with gifts. He’d found her credit cards for her, but she was saving those for living expenses.
“I thought I told you not to buy me anything else.”
“You did,” he said matter-of-factly. Rick slanted her a look before making another right turn, this time onto a major street that led out of the development. “I take lousy instructions. Besides, I won’t be picking them out this time, you will be. How about it?” When she didn’t respond immediately, he asked, “Tired?”
“No, not at all.” She’d been feeling more energetic lately. The baby hadn’t learned how to sleep any longer, but she’d developed a pattern of being able to manage on less sleep herself. “But I really should be getting back to Rachel.”
If that was the only reason, they were in the clear. “Don’t worry about that. Mrs. Rutledge is having a ball with her. I’ll just call her and tell her that you’re all right and that we’ll be a couple of hours late. She called me. She was worried,” he explained, answering the silent question in her eyes.
“That explains what you were doing here.” She was seriously beginning to entertain the idea that he just materialized every time she needed him.
Shopping. Why not? Maybe something a little more normal might be in order after all. And this way, if she was there, she could keep a lid on the spending.
“All right,” Joanna agreed impulsively, leaning back in her seat, “let’s go shopping.”
She felt like Cinderella.
Or maybe it was Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman she was thinking of. Whatever the comparison, Rick was making her feel like a princess.
Warning her ahead of time that he would leave her stranded in the middle of Los Angeles National Forest if she uttered a single negative word about cost, Rick took her to several exclusive shops in Newport Beach. With an unfailing eye, he selected just the right clothes for her, both casual and elegant, turning a deaf ear to her protests that all she needed before she was on her own was perhaps just a couple more simple items.
Since money had never been an obstacle in his life, Rick spent it as if it meant nothing. Joanna couldn’t help thinking that he was every woman’s dream when it came to generosity.
When it came to other things as well, but she wasn’t going to allow herself to go there. If she didn’t dream, she insisted silently, she wouldn’t feel deprived when she woke up.
She had to all but drag him out of the third store before he bought her a complete wardrobe. The only thing that stopped him was that he had to be getting back to work.
Boxes and shopping bags had joined the pile of mail in the back seat, threatening to overflow into the front.
“I’m keeping a tally on this, you know,” she informed him as she got into the car. She pulled her seatbelt around her, buckling up. “And at this rate, I’m going to have to turn over my next three years’ salary to you.”
Provided she could talk the board into taking her back now that her rounded abdomen was no longer a source of embarrassment to them, she thought.
He didn’t want to hear about payback. “Joanna, let me make you a present of them.”
It was too much and he knew it. “There’s a difference between getting a present and buying a whole person,” she pointed out.
He smiled as he guided the car back onto MacArthur Boulevard. “If you’re determined to make some kind of payment,” he glanced at her, “we could work it out in the barter system.”
Tiny pinpricks of anticipation traveled through her. “What kind of barter system?”
His smile broadened considerably. “I’ll think of something.”
That they were going to make love was a foregone conclusion. But that had nothing to do with her owing him for all these things that he had insisted on doing for her. She prided herself on always paying her own way.
“It’s going to be nothing less than cash and carry,” she informed him.
He winked at her before looking back at the road. “We’ll talk.”
She knew they’d be doing more than that.
Eight
It felt good to take control of things again and not just drift, not just let life move her around as if she were a chess piece on some giant board. A pawn with no say in what was happening to her.
With each day that passed, Joanna felt a little stronger, a little more confident about herself as a mother, a little more confident about the direction her life was going to be taking.
At least in the practical sense.
She’d been to her gynecologist and gotten a clean bill of health. All systems were go, and her body had bounced back to where it had been nine months ago. She’d gone to see her home insurance agent—alone over Rick’s protests—and filled out all the necessary paperwork in order to get the rebuilding on her house going.
She’d even been in contact with the head of the local school board.
That was where she had gone this afternoon, to see Amanda Raleigh, the head of the school board. Though she’d arrived at the local unified school district building with a considerable number of butterflies flapping madly in her stomach, the meeting had gone extremely well. Better than she’d anticipated. She hadn’t had to wage a verbal war to get her old job back. Mrs. Raleigh had been very cordial, very accommodating. Not a bit like she’d been four months earlier when the woman had all but volunteered to sew a scarlet A on her dress.
But all that was behind her now. Two minutes into their meeting, Mrs. Raleigh had informed her that a position at a new high school would be waiting for her in the fall.
That just meant she had to get through the spring and summer somehow.
Joanna was already making plans. There were temporary agencies she could turn to during that time. Someone had to be able to make use of her abilities until she was teaching again in the fall.
All in all, she thought as she drove her car up the winding path to Rick’s estate and into the garage, she was feeling pretty good about herself.
There was only one area that still resounded with question marks. An area that neither she nor Rick were willing or ready to broach.
Just where did they stand beyond the moment?
Before his parents had successfully conspired to pull them apart, she and Rick had been ready to face the future together for all time. With the confidence of the very young, they had made plans to get married in the spring.
Would that be in the future again? Would they get married? Would they even have a relationship once she left the confines of his estate?
She didn’t know.
She did know that any thoughts about the future, other than the practical ones about providing for herself and Rachel, left her with an unsettled feeling. It was the same nervous feeling that had caused her to shy away
from the myriad of men with whom her friends insisted on setting her up. Over the last few years, one of her friends was always touting someone “who’s just right for you.”
How many times had she heard that phrase? Too many to count.
But despite accolades to the contrary, the “someone” was never right. There was always some flaw that pushed her away before a second date could come about. Joanna knew damn well that she was probably not being fair to any of the men she’d gone out with, but she just couldn’t help it.
Fear was a powerful deterring factor and while she thought herself fearless in so many aspects of life, she knew herself well enough to admit that she was afraid of getting hurt again.
So afraid that she didn’t even want to venture into the field again.
So afraid that even now that her “perfect someone” had materialized in her life again, she didn’t know if she had the courage to tread over the same terrain with her heart exposed to the elements.
It had been all she could do to pull herself together the first time. The only reason she’d succeeded was because she’d had her mother to lean on. Rachel Prescott was the strongest, bravest person she knew. Her mother understood what it meant to pull yourself upright after love had all but disintegrated your heart. Though her mother had never once spoken ill of him, Joanna knew that her father had broken her mother’s heart. He’d left her abruptly the moment he’d found out that she was pregnant, virtually disappearing from the scene.
Her grandfather, a strict disciplinarian, had thrown her mother out because she’d refused both of his ultimatums: abort her baby or give it up for adoption when it was born.
Her mother had been all about love, and because of her, because of her unwavering support, Joanna had found her own courage to go on after she had left Rick and he had left town.
Without her mother in her life, Joanna didn’t know if she could do it a second time, if she could recover if things didn’t go right. Under the circumstances, it was best not to test her at this point in her life. Her own daughter needed her and the baby came first.
A Bachelor and a Baby Page 9
