Finding Perfect

by Susan Mallery

  “Be honest. Is it too sweet?”

  Pia took a sip. The liquid was icy cold and tasted of peppermint. It was more refreshing than sweet, with a hint of something she couldn’t place. Honey? Almond?

  “Dangerously good,” she admitted. “And I’m driving.”

  “You can walk home and get your car in the morning,” Jo told her. Her gaze sharpened. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” Pia took another taste of her drink. “Just feeling kind of strange. Giving up Jake and all.”

  “I’m sorry,” Jo said. “I didn’t mean to steal your cat.”

  “You didn’t. He’s not my cat. I thought we were getting along great, but you’ve had more contact with him in the past five minutes than I’ve had in the last month. I don’t think he likes me.”

  “Cats can be funny.”

  As if to prove Jo’s point, Jake jumped up on the back of the sofa. He stared at Pia for a moment, then turned his back on her. He dropped gracefully to the seat cushion, stepped onto Jo’s lap, curled up and closed his eyes. As he lay there, he began to purr.

  Pia found herself feeling snubbed, which hurt a whole lot more than she would have guessed.

  “He never purred for me.”

  Jo had begun stroking the cat. Her hand froze. “Did you want to keep him?”

  “No. I would say he hates me, but I don’t think he put that much energy into it. I just never thought of myself as giving off the anti-cat vibration.”

  “You weren’t raised with pets.”

  “I guess.”

  Apparently Crystal had made the right choice in leaving her cat with Jo. The only question was why her friend hadn’t given Jo the cat from the start. No, she reminded herself. That wasn’t the only question.

  She felt a slight burning in her eyes. Before she could figure out what was going on, tears blurred her vision. She set down her drink and looked away.

  “Pia?”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “You’re crying.”

  Pia fought for control, then sniffed and wiped her cheeks. “Sorry. I don’t mean to. I’m feeling all twisted inside.”

  “You really can have Jake back. I’m sorry to have upset you.”

  Jo sounded earnest and caring, which Pia appreciated. She gulped in a breath. “It’s not the cat. Okay, yes, part of it is he obviously thinks I’m an idiot. It’s just…”

  The embryos. She knew that’s what it was. That if she couldn’t get Crystal’s cat to like her, what hope did she have with actual children? Every time she thought of giving birth to her friend’s babies, she started to freak.

  She was totally the wrong person. She had no experience, no support system, no nurturing abilities. She couldn’t even bond with a cat.

  But she wasn’t ready to talk about that. Not until she’d made up her mind about what to do.

  “I miss her,” she said instead, mostly because it was true. “I miss Crystal.”

  “Me, too,” Jo said, sliding toward her.

  They hugged.

  Pia gave in to her tears. Jo held on, patting her back, not saying anything—just being a friend. Oddly enough, Jake stayed where he was, as well. His warm body and the vibration of his purring offered their own kind of comfort.

  Pia allowed the caring to heal her, just a little. But even as she started to feel better, somewhere deep inside, she heard the call of three yet-to-be-born children.

  CHAPTER THREE

  PIA STOOD ON THE SIDEWALK, trying to breathe. The sense of panic was becoming familiar, as was the blurring of the world around her. Determined not to faint, she drew in deep, slow breaths, supporting herself by putting a hand on the brick building.

  Think about something else, she commanded herself. Cookies. Brownies. Ice cream.

  Chocolate-chip brownie ice cream.

  After a few seconds, her vision cleared and she no longer had the sense that she was going to collapse—or run screaming into the bright, warm afternoon. Everything was fine, she told herself. And if it wasn’t, well, she would fake it until it was.

  She straightened, determined to return to her normal professional self. She had a meeting and this time she was going to get through it without doing anything to embarrass herself. No one would know that she’d just—

  “You okay?”

  She looked up into Raoul’s warm, dark eyes. He stood by an open side door she hadn’t noticed. His expression was both wary and concerned, despite which he looked plenty handsome. Which was pretty rude of him, if you asked her. The least he could do was be forgettable. Especially when she was feeling vulnerable.

  Slowly, she turned toward the glass windows next to her and held in a groan.

  “You saw that?” she asked cautiously.

  “The part where you clutched your chest, bent over and nearly passed out?”

  Oh, God. Heat burned her cheeks. “Um, that would be it.”

  “Yeah, I saw it.”

  She wanted to close her eyes and disappear. But that would violate her mature mandate. Instead she squared her shoulders, sucked in a breath and curved her lips into what she hoped was a smile.

  “Sorry. I was distracted.”

  He motioned for her to step into his office. “It seemed like more than that.”

  “It wasn’t,” she lied, firmly clutching her oversize handbag. “So, as you can see, I’m here and ready for our meeting. I have several ideas for linking the camp with existing festivals. Either with a booth, or as a sponsor. A nonpaying sponsor. We force our corporate friends to cough up the big bucks to get their names on a banner, but we’re more forgiving with the nonprofits.”

  “Good to know.”

  His office was large, with plenty of windows. There were four desks and lots of open space. She glanced around at the blank walls, the few boxes pushed next to a copy machine and the lone visitor chair.

  “I guess decorating isn’t in the budget,” she said.

  “We’re still settling. Currently, it’s just Dakota and me. We had more people working in the summer, but they were mostly up at the camp. I wanted room to expand.”

  “Apparently. It’s nice. I would have expected a few football posters on the wall.”

  “They’re not unpacked yet.”

  “When you do get them out, they’ll add plenty of color.”

  He motioned to a square folding table in the corner.

  Once they were seated on the plain chairs, she withdrew a file folder from her bag and set it on the table. She was aware of him sitting close to her but was willing to pretend she wasn’t. One crisis at a time, she told herself.

  “In case you haven’t heard,” she began, “Fool’s Gold is the festival capital of California. We have a major event every single month. By major I mean we draw in over five thousand people and we fill at least fifty percent of the hotel rooms. The result is a nice influx of cash for our city.”

  She paused. “Do you want this level of detail?”

  “Sure. Information is never bad.”

  She thought about some of the very tedious city council meetings she’d sat through—especially the budget ones—and knew he was wrong. But she kept that thought to herself.

  “Currently tourism is our largest source of income and employment. We’re working to change that. In addition to the existing hospital, we’ll soon have a new facility that will include a trauma center. We also have the university campus. Those three sectors provide a lot of employment, but in this town, service jobs rule. One of the long-term goals of the city is to bring in more high-paying manufacturing jobs, so we’re not constantly exchanging the same tired dollar, week after week. But until that happens, the festivals bring us both jobs and money.”

  She opened the folder she’d brought. “In addition to the major festivals, we have smaller events that draw a regional crowd. No ‘heads in beds,’ as the chamber of commerce likes to say. As in no one spends the night. That’s less money for the town, but also less work.”

  Raoul took the
list of festivals and scanned them. She’d marked the ones that would get the most family interest.

  “If we can come up with a good angle, say a famous football player headlines the right event, we can draw some media attention,” she said. “I’m guessing we can get TV here based on your celebrity, but it would be nice if we could find a good tie-in and maybe get on one of the morning shows.”

  “Bringing money to the town and donations and sponsorship to the camp?” he asked.

  “Exactly.”

  This was good. Focusing on work helped her stay calm. Because if she thought about that morning…

  Without warning, the trembling began again. Her chest got tight and she had to consciously deepen her breathing.

  Raoul glanced at her over the papers. “You okay?”

  She nodded because speaking seemed iffy at best.

  He dropped the sheets. “What’s going on?”

  “Could I have some water?” she managed.

  He stood and crossed to a small refrigerator. After collecting a bottle, he returned to the table and handed it to her.

  “Thanks.”

  “What’s going on?” he asked again as he settled across from her. He took her free hand in his and lightly pressed his fingers to the inside of her wrist.

  The contact was light, yet warm. She felt something. A little tingly sensation. Right. Because she had time for that now.

  “Your pulse is way too fast,” he announced. “You’re upset about something.”

  The tingling disappeared. She snatched back her hand and opened the water.

  “I’m fine. It’s nothing.”

  He didn’t look convinced. “Is it about the embryos?”

  She closed her eyes and nodded. “I went to see them this morning.”

  “How?”

  “I drove to the lab and asked if I could see them.” She opened her eyes and sighed. “They said no.”

  “Did that surprise you?”

  “A little. I knew they were small but I thought maybe I could peek at them through a microscope or something.” She shifted in her seat, trying not to remember the incredulous look the lab guy had given her. As if she were an idiot.

  “Apparently that’s not possible without thawing them. And if they’re thawed without being implanted, they die.” She drew in a breath. “When I explained why I wanted to see them, he gave me a bunch of info on IVF.”

  “You told him about your friend?”

  “Uh-huh. Then I read the material.” She pressed a hand to her stomach, hoping to ward off another wave of nausea. “Apparently the body has to be prepared.” She set the bottle on the table and used her fingers to indicate air quotes. “Which takes a whole lot more than a stern talking-to. An assortment of hormones are sent into my body. After that, there’s the implantation procedure.” She swallowed. “I won’t get into detail.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  She managed a slight smile. “Then you wait. Or I wait. In two weeks, I take a pregnancy test. With luck, there are babies.”

  She felt the panic surging inside of her again. “I don’t understand. Why would she trust me with her children? Do you know that Jake can purr? He gets all fluffy and relaxed and purrs.”

  “Jake’s a cat?” Raoul asked cautiously.

  “Yes. I’ve had him over two months. He never purred for me. He barely even looked at me. Then he goes to Jo’s and purrs like his life depended on it. Which maybe to him it did.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t get it. Crystal wanted those kids more than anything. After her husband was deployed to Iraq, she talked about getting pregnant when he got home. I went shopping with her and we looked at nursery furniture. She was so excited. After Keith died, she was still determined to be a mother. But that didn’t happen. Now I’m supposed to raise her children? And the whole in vitro thing. It’s not a hundred percent. Some or all of the embryos might not take. Which is a polite way of saying they’ll die. What if that’s my fault? What if there’s something wrong with me? What if they’re the same as Jake and they just plain don’t like me enough to hang on?”

  She could feel herself slipping past panic and into full-on terror. She glanced at Raoul to see if he’d completely freaked out, only to find him staring at her. Intense staring, she thought, feeling a little awkward and exposed.

  “TMI?” she asked softly. “Too much information?”

  “You said Keith and Crystal.”

  She nodded.

  “Keith Westland?”

  Now it was her turn to stare. “Yes. How did you know?”

  He stood and walked the length of the office, then returned to stand in front of her. He was tall enough that it was uncomfortable to stare up at him. She stood.

  “Raoul, what’s going on?”

  “I know him,” he said flatly. “Knew him. Keith is a pretty common name, but he talked about his wife, Crystal. He talked about this town. That’s why I came here in the first place. He’s the reason I agreed to play in the celebrity golf tournament last year. I wanted to see where he’d grown up.”

  “Wait a minute. How could you know Keith? Crystal never said anything.” Pia was reasonably confident that her friend would have mentioned being friends with someone like Raoul Moreno.

  He looked out the window, as if he was remembering a long-ago event. “I was in Iraq. A few players go in the off-season. Just to hang with the troops. Help morale. That kind of thing. We were all assigned a soldier to keep us out of trouble. Keith was mine. We traveled all around the country, to the different bases. We bunked together, got shot at a few times. He saved my ass.”

  Raoul rubbed his hands over his face. “That last day, we were heading for the airport. It was a big convoy. The players, a few VIPs, some politicians. There was an ambush. IEDs in the road, a couple of snipers in the hills. Keith was shot.” He shook his head. “I held him while he died. He couldn’t talk, couldn’t do anything but gasp for air. And then he was gone.”

  She sank back into her chair. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t know.” Crystal hadn’t known, either.

  “Reinforcements came and they helped us get home. When I got the invitation to the golf tournament, I came here. I guess to pay my respects to a place Keith had loved. I liked it, so I stayed.”

  Pia hadn’t thought there would be any more surprises, but she’d been wrong.

  He crouched in front of her. “I wanted to talk to Crystal, but I didn’t know what to say. I knew her husband all of two weeks and I was there when he died. Would that have comforted her?”

  She felt his pain and lightly touched his shoulder. “The man she loved had died. I don’t think there was any comfort to be had.”

  “I wondered if I’d taken the easy way out. I didn’t want to intrude or get involved.” He smiled faintly. “Now you’re responsible for Keith and Crystal’s babies.”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  He returned to his chair and stared at her. “You okay?”

  “Trying to recover from the latest bombshell.” She winced. “Sorry. Bad word choice. Hearing that you knew Keith, that you were there when he died, feels oddly cosmic. Like the universe wants to make sure I have these babies.”

  “You’re reading too much into it.”

  “Am I? Don’t you think it’s just a little strange that we’re even having this conversation?”

  “No. I moved to town because I met Keith. If he hadn’t been assigned to me, I never would have agreed to do the golf tournament and I wouldn’t be here, having this conversation with you.”

  He made sense, but Pia still felt as if she was being pushed into a decision she wasn’t ready to make.

  There was so much on the line. The three embryos meant she could have triplets. That was three babies. She had a tiny apartment. How could they all fit?

  She grasped the water and held on as if the act of squeezing would prevent her from slipping over the edge. But after hearing about Raoul and Keith, even questioning the act of hav
ing the children seemed monumentally selfish.

  “You don’t have to decide today,” he reminded her. “Or even this year.”

  “I suppose. When I start to freak, I tell myself that I’m focusing on the wrong thing. This isn’t about me. It’s about Crystal and Keith and their children. Who am I to question whether or not I should have their children? Doesn’t that make me a bad person? Shouldn’t I already be on the hormones, buying cribs and reading that Expecting book everyone says is so great? If I was a good person, I wouldn’t be hesitating.”

  Raoul stared into Pia’s hazel eyes, amazed by the kaleidoscope of emotions. She was possibly one of the most honest people he’d ever met. Crazy, but honest. Appealing, as well, but thinking she was hot wasn’t exactly appropriate.

  Slowly, he took the water from her hands and set it on the table. Then he pulled her to her feet and wrapped his arms around her.

  “It’s okay,” he told her.

  She stood rigid in his embrace. “No, it’s not.”

  He continued to hold on, moving one hand up and down her spine, enjoying the feel of her body next to his. Not that he was going to do anything about it. “Take a deep breath. In and out. Come on. Breathe.”

  She did as he requested. A little of the tension eased out of her.

  He couldn’t begin to imagine what she was going through. He was thrown by the fact that he’d known Crystal’s husband. For her, the connection was a thousand times more powerful.

  Moving his hands to her shoulders, he stepped back far enough to see her face.

  “You’re not a bad person,” he said firmly. “A bad person would walk away from the embryos without a second thought. As to taking your time to make the decision, why wouldn’t you? Having Crystal’s babies will change everything about your life. You’re allowed to have a plan.”

  “But she’s my friend. I should…”

  He shook his head. “No. Crystal didn’t give you a head’s up. This was dumped on you, Pia. Give yourself a break.”

  She drew in another breath. “Okay. Maybe.”

  Her eyes were large and filled with concern. Her mouth trembled. There was something vulnerable about her. Part of him wondered why Crystal hadn’t warned Pia in advance. Had it been the other woman’s advancing illness or something else? Had she not wanted to give Pia a choice?