by Joan Kilby
He shook his head. “Not a chance.”
“But…but…I can’t be pregnant,” she wailed as the full impact hit her. “I have too much to do with my life.”
She fell back on the table and put her hands over her face. Pregnant! Periods aside, she’d never experienced a day of morning sickness in her life, and she’d been too busy to notice other, more subtle changes in her body. This was a disaster.
Dr. Johnson peeled off his latex gloves and disposed of them in the wastebasket. “Max will be pleased,” he went on cheerfully. “I recall him telling me when the twins were born that he wanted more children.”
Kelly moaned. Max wouldn’t merely be pleased; he’d be ecstatic. Unless, perhaps, the baby was born a girl. In spite of his protestations, she was sure he was hoping for a boy next time. If there was a next time. “I knew I should have had my tubes tied after the twins.”
Dr. Johnson frowned thoughtfully. “I take it you don’t welcome the news. There’s no medical reason you can’t deliver a child. But of course, the decision to go ahead with the pregnancy is one only you and Max can make.”
Unless she didn’t tell Max. Prickles of cold sweat popped out across her hairline. “When is the baby due?”
“Let’s see. Say the first day of your last period was the first week of May, then—” he consulted a chart matching conception dates with due dates “—you should be due on February 5 next year. Or thereabouts.”
February. A time when she should be getting ready for the spring surge in real estate listings and poring over seed catalogs, not changing diapers and breast-feeding. She sighed. Somehow she would just have to manage to do it all. Damn. Why hadn’t she and Max been more careful at the lodge?
“You’re a natural mother, Kelly.” Dr. Johnson placed a comforting hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “Once you’re over the initial surprise I’m sure you’ll see this pregnancy in a more positive light.”
Kelly managed a grim smile. She wished she could be so sure of that. At the moment all she could feel was outrage at the loss of her independence.
“You can get dressed now.” Dr. Johnson moved toward the door. “Before you leave, make an appointment with my receptionist for three weeks from now. We’ll do an ultrasound to confirm the due date and make sure everything’s okay.”
He was about to close the door when she called, “Oh, Doctor. If you happen to see Max, don’t tell him about the baby. I’d like to do that.”
“Of course.”
“I FEEL LIKE CINDERELLA before the big ball.” Kelly twirled in front of the full-length mirror on the back of the closet door. She wore only a slip, but already she was imagining herself the object of Max’s adoring gaze. Tonight she absolutely refused to spoil her evening by thinking about her pregnancy.
Erin and Geena were with her in her old room at Gran’s house, helping her get ready for Max’s award night.
“Only, instead of mean, ugly stepsisters you have beautiful, kind, generous sisters,” said Erin, tongue firmly in cheek. She picked up a brush. “Come here and I’ll do your hair.”
“Witty, charming, adorable sisters,” Geena agreed. She pushed Kelly onto the stool in front of the vanity. “I’ll do your makeup.”
“Bossy, fussy, annoying sisters,” Kelly grumbled, succumbing to their wishes. She met their gazes in the mirror and gave a rueful grin. “But thanks. If it wasn’t for you two I’d go looking like the poor housemaid.”
“Prince Charming would still recognize your princess-like qualities.” Erin ran the brush through Kelly’s glossy chestnut hair. “How do you want it styled?”
“I don’t know. Something simple.” In the mirror she saw Geena and Erin exchange glances and realized she was in for a special hairstyle to match her dress.
“What time is Max picking you up?” Erin began sweeping Kelly’s hair off her forehead in a series of tiny bunches, which twisted together in an intricate pattern.
“He’s not.” Kelly tilted her chin while Geena applied foundation with swift light strokes of her fingertips. “He has to go in early to meet with a client before the awards so I’m taking my car. But it’s okay. This way I’m my own boss.”
“From the way you two were smooching in the kitchen at the barbecue I thought you’d sorted yourselves out,” Geena said.
Kelly rolled her eyes. “Did everyone see us kissing?”
“I don’t know about everyone. I was bringing Sonja out and happened to catch a glimpse.” Geena smiled. “Before I beat a hasty retreat.”
“We were smooching,” Kelly admitted. “And it felt pretty darn good, too.”
“Has Max apologized?” Erin asked.
“Well, no, not as such…”
Erin slid a clip into the knot of hair atop Kelly’s head. “Has he agreed to counseling?”
“Not exactly…”
Erin stopped what she was doing and fixed Kelly with a stern gaze, silently demanding to know why she’d let down her standards.
“Oh, for God’s sake!” Kelly cried. “I miss him!”
“Of course you do, sweetie,” Geena said, glaring at Erin. “Kiss and make up. Then sort out your problems.”
Erin stared at Geena. “You’ve sure changed your tune.” She shook her head, divesting herself of responsibility. “You lose power when you give in so easily,” she said to Kelly around a mouthful of bobby pins. “Power you’ll never get back.”
“Do you and Nick engage in power struggles in your relationship?” Geena demanded.
“Well, no…” Erin looked sheepish. “I guess I was thinking of John,” she said, referring to her former fiancé.
“Didn’t think you were talking about Nick.” Geena chose a dark brown eyeliner from her cosmetic case and proceeded to smudge it below Kelly’s eyes. “Follow your heart, Kel. If you want to make up with Max it’s your business.”
“Of course it is,” Erin conceded. “I’m sure he’d be thrilled.”
“I hope so.” Kelly’s reflected expression turned a little anxious. He would be thrilled if she told him about the baby— Stop! She wasn’t going to think about that.
“You don’t believe he’ll welcome you back?” Erin gave a scoffing snort of laughter. “He’ll jump for joy.”
“I don’t know about that. It’s been weeks since he asked me to come home. Maybe he doesn’t want me back anymore.”
Erin and Geena were silent a moment, digesting this. Then they both began to talk at once.
“It means nothing.”
“He loves you.”
“He needs you.”
Kelly looked from one sister to the other. They sounded confident, but then, they didn’t know about the added complication of the baby. She wanted desperately to confide in them, but she knew if she did, she’d start crying and ruin not only Geena’s makeup job but also her mood for the rest of the evening.
“You’re probably right.” She faced the mirror and forced herself to smile. Immediately she felt braver.
Thirty minutes later, Erin and Geena pronounced her “done.” Geena went to the closet and tore away the dry-cleaning plastic from the Schiaparelli gown. She held it out for Kelly to step into.
“Turn around and breathe in, sweetie, while I do up the zipper.”
Kelly stood before the mirror and viewed the unfamiliar yet undeniably gorgeous woman in the antique dress. No doubt about it. Max was going to be mightily impressed.
“Absolutely stunning,” Erin pronounced, then searched the closet for the slingbacks.
Kelly grimaced at the designer shoes. “They’re so high. And pointy. My toes will be killing me by the end of the evening.”
“All the more reason for Max to sweep you off your feet and into the bedroom,” Geena replied. “Don’t be a baby. Put them on.”
Kelly slipped her feet into the sparkly fuchsia slingbacks and clicked her high heels together. “There’s no place like home.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
MAX PACED THE GLITTERING lobby of the Alexis Hotel
and for the hundredth time that evening glanced at the row of clocks over the reception desk. If they were in Honolulu the awards dinner wouldn’t start for hours. But this was Seattle and Kelly was forty minutes late!
Couples in evening dress had been steadily filing from the bar into the dining room for the past half hour, their cocktail-lubricated laughter a jarring counterpoint to Max’s edgy nerves.
She wasn’t coming. She’d had second thoughts and decided she had no wish to celebrate the success of a man who put his long-lost son before his wife.
No, he thought, turning at the elaborate floral arrangement in the center of the lobby and heading back toward the entrance. Kelly wouldn’t back out, not when she knew how much this night meant to him. Besides, she had to be here. He had it fixed in his head that if she came, he would win the Stonington. Conversely, since he felt so sure of winning, it stood to reason she must be coming.
Something must have happened to her on the way to the hotel. He tried her cell phone again. She still wasn’t answering. Was she hurt? Lost?
“Coming in, Max?” Ross Webster, the chairman of the Architects’ Association, paused on his way to the dining room.
“Soon. Just waiting for my wife.” He smiled casually, as if she were in the ladies’ room and would be out in a second.
“Don’t wait too long. The ceremony will be starting momentarily. Can’t have our star nominee miss the show.” Ross clapped him on the back and moved off to join the crowd filtering through the doorway.
“She’ll be here,” Max muttered as if it were a mantra, and resumed pacing. “She’ll be—”
“Max!”
He spun toward the revolving door. A tall, beautiful woman with upswept dark hair, in a dress that was at once sexy and elegant, entered the lobby. A beautiful woman who looked strangely like his wife. “Kelly?”
She tottered forward and collapsed in his arms. “Thank God, I made it. I’m just about dead.”
“What happened? Where are you hurt?” He searched her for cuts or bruises.
“My feet.” Leaning on him, she pulled a foot out of one elegant shoe and rubbed the reddened toes. “I was in such a hurry to get here I didn’t take time to fill up on gas. I ran out fourteen blocks away on Bell Street and Third Avenue. Fourteen blocks in four-inch heels.”
“That sounds like a country-and-western song,” Max said, amused.
She punched him in the cummerbund. “Don’t you dare laugh. Could I get a cab?” she went on, speaking rhetorically. “Not for love nor money. Although one inebriated clown asked if I gave love for money—or words to that effect—but I passed.” Finally stopping for breath, she looked him up and down. “Maxwell Walker, you are one fine specimen of a man in that tuxedo. I didn’t realize I was married to such a good-looking guy.”
“And you resemble a 1920s movie star. I hardly knew you when you walked in.” Even now, he felt he was escorting a strange-and-exotic creature, someone he’d met for the first time tonight. The thought was intriguing. “Did Geena take you shopping?”
“She loaned me this dress. And I will never wear it again, not if it means putting on these torture chambers called high-fashion shoes. I don’t know how Geena and Erin do it.”
“They don’t have your good sense. But I have to admit, you look wonderful tonight, Kel. You do me proud.” He tucked her arm through his. “We’d better go in. Can you walk?”
“Through coals if necessary.” Tilting her face, she smiled her engaging smile up at him. “I want to see you win.”
“Cross your fingers, then.”
“Hey, these shoes are so tight my toes are crossed.”
In the dining room they were seated at a round table with four other couples, two of whom Max knew. Although a bottle of pinot noir and one of chardonnay were supplied, Max bought a magnum of Dom Pérignon and ordered it to be served to everyone at their table.
“Max!” Kelly chastised him under her breath. “A magnum?” To the waiter she said, “Just half a glass, please.”
Max took her hand and touched her knuckles to his lips. “Kelly, my love, it’s not every day I get nominated for the top award on the West Coast. I’m going to enjoy it to the ‘max.’ Pardon the pun.”
A corner of Kelly’s mouth lifted in an indulgent smile. “You’re already drunk—on excitement.”
Appetizers arrived, followed by a salad, then the main course. Wine flowed, conversation bubbled, laughter came easily. Despite Max’s fears that waiting for the awards portion of the evening would make dinner seem interminable, the meal passed quickly enough. Champagne and fresh salmon helped, as did the knowledge that Kelly was at his side, where she belonged. He ate with his left hand and kept his right firmly wrapped around Kelly’s.
Once dessert was served, the emcee tapped a microphone and all heads turned to the stage.
“This is it!” Kelly whispered excitedly, and squeezed Max’s hand beneath the table.
First there were the speeches. Then the honorary awards. And more speeches. Finally, the awards themselves. Kelly consulted her program every two minutes, even though Max had told her many times his category was last.
“Patience,” he admonished Kelly under his breath when she fidgeted throughout the early-award categories.
“I never was good at being patient,” she muttered. “I wish I’d gotten a chance to look at the entries of the other finalists.”
She was referring to the display set up in another room with photographs of the nominees’ finished designs. “We can look later,” he assured her.
“And last, but definitely not least,” the emcee announced, “the category that has the architectural community from San Diego to Bellingham abuzz— Best Luxury Domicile. Nominees are Thomas Shane, Sigrid Newstadt, Max Walker and Wallace Trenton.”
Max’s colleague leaned across the table. “You’re a shoe-in.”
Max shrugged and smiled, acknowledging the compliment. “It’s enough just to be nominated.”
Of course he didn’t really mean that. Winning was everything. Not that he was worried about the outcome of tonight’s awards. Champagne had given him a warm, euphoric feeling, and with it the certain knowledge that imminent victory was his. He had his acceptance speech in his pocket and he had it memorized cold.
A curvaceous blonde in an evening gown glided across the stage and handed the emcee an envelope. Max shifted to the edge of his seat, ready to get to his feet and walk the walk of fame.
“And the winner is…” The emcee tore open the envelope, scanned the contents, then leaned forward to the microphone. “Wallace Trenton, of Trenton Designs!”
Max started to rise to thunderous applause. He froze in midair as belatedly, the announcement sank in. He hadn’t won. Stunned, he ignominiously dropped back to his seat. How had this happened?
He glanced around for Kelly. She was here.
And she was looking at him with the most sympathetic expression imaginable in her dark brown eyes.
“Oh, Max,” she said, laying a hand on his arm. “I’m so sorry.”
“Doesn’t matter.” That gruff voice wasn’t his; it was that of a loser. Sorry, she’d said. Sorry. He didn’t want sympathy! He wanted adoration. Not from his peers; he didn’t care about them. He did care about Kelly and what she thought of him.
Most of all, his acceptance speech read, I’d like to thank my light, my life, my beautiful wife, Kelly, who has supported me and believed in me all these years. She is everything to me, and without her, I wouldn’t be standing here today.
If he’d had a chance to speak those words in his moment of triumph she’d have known just how much she meant to him. It would have, in a small way, paid her back for all she’d put up with for him to reach this point in his career, especially for placing her own dreams on hold. Heat pricked the backs of his eyes. He’d had his shot at the prize. And failed.
The same colleague who’d earlier told him he was a shoe-in threw him a commiserating grimace. “You were robbed.”
&nbs
p; Max shrugged again, his shoulders stiff with humiliation. “Wallace Trenton came up with a fantastic design. He deserves to win.”
All the nominees did, when it came down to it. But surely no one had wanted to win more than Max. Or felt his loss more keenly. Gripped by envy and regret, he watched Wallace Trenton accept the slender chrome statuette and warmly applauded the winner along with everyone else.
He slumped back in his chair. After all the buildup, the hype, the months of hard work and weeks of anticipation, it was over. Around him, diners drained their glasses, waiters cleared away dirty dishes, people rose and began to drift out of the room. Max sat where he was, feeling as flat as the dregs of morning-after champagne.
“Max, are you all right?” Kelly’s polished fingernails gleamed against the black fabric sleeve of his tux.
He gave her a brittle smile. “I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine. You look pale.”
Even worse than failing would be to act like a sore loser. From some unknown storehouse of inner strength Max summoned a nonchalant shrug.
Kelly didn’t appear convinced. “I guess you would have liked Randall to know you won the award,” she said, speaking carefully. “It would have been quite an achievement. Something to make him proud of you.”
Max stared at her. For someone who knew him so well, she sure had got it wrong. “Kelly, I—”
“You don’t have to worry.” She slid her hand down his arm to grip his hand, as if he were in danger of flying away. “The boy worships you. You couldn’t get any more perfect in his eyes.”
His throat thickened with love for her. In spite of her resentment of Randall, she cared enough to acknowledge the bond between his son and him. Max handed her the index card on which he’d written his acceptance speech.
She took it, eyeing him curiously, and as she read, a tear dropped onto the card, smearing the ink. When she glanced up, all the love he’d been longing for was in her eyes. She threw her arms around his neck. “Oh, Max, you idiot. You don’t need to prove anything to me.”
Max buried his face in her neck. Everything that was right and good in his life was in his arms. Why did he hurt her by wanting more? Why this deep-seated need for a son?
