Accidentally in Love with the Pilot

by Teri Anne Stanley

  “It was…different,” he said.

  “I can’t believe you’d never heard of them.” Who hadn’t heard of the Blue Man Group? That was like…not knowing Mickey Mouse.

  “Pop culture isn’t my thing,” he admitted. “I wouldn’t recognize many celebrities, either.”

  She needed to remember not everyone lived in the Land of a Billion Entertainment Venues. But still. “Wow, Grandpa. We’ve got to get you out more. Maybe we should do something fancy now like stop and grab some supper. I hear Denny’s is quite the sophisticated, happening place these days.”

  He laughed. “Denny’s might be too wild for me. I like staying in these days,” he told her, raising an eyebrow in her direction.

  She caught his meaning, and heat pooled low in her belly. “You know…I do remember bringing home a couple of tubs of ice cream a few nights ago. We could have dessert for dinner.” Besides. Bless his heart, he’d brought her a shirt from her pile of folded dirty laundry, and she really wanted to go home and find a clean shirt. She made a mental note to get the rest of that basket into the actual washer soon. “So. Home? Or Denny’s?”

  His gaze grew heated. “Life is short,” he said. “Dessert first sounds really good.”

  “Then let’s move it.” She stepped up her pace. His hand at the small of her back was both arousing and comforting, and she wanted to get both of his hands all over her as soon as possible.

  “Hey! Hey, Meg!”

  Megan turned to see her dad, brothers, and Beth’s husband jogging across the plaza toward them. Oh, for crying out loud. So much for Ben’s Shuttlekrump-free night. “Hey, guys. What’s going on?”

  “Guys’ night out!” Craig announced. “We’re going to Caesar’s to play poker, drink beer, and smoke cigars. Probably fart a couple of times.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Paul said. “I toot.”

  Craig ignored him. “We tried to call to see if Ben wanted to come, but you didn’t answer your phone.”

  “Oh, well, gee, guys,” she said, shooting Ben a glance to see how he was taking this idea. He was silent—not anything unusual when her male family members were around—but he was looking at Megan with a vaguely alarmed expression. Given how much she knew he loved her brothers—not—it wasn’t too hard to say, “You know, we’ve kind of got plans.”

  “Oh my God, seriously?” Paul asked. “You live together. Can’t you do that anytime? Let the poor man out of your sight for a few hours. We promise not to let him stray.”

  “Come on, Ben,” Craig pleaded. “Come play with us?”

  Ben’s mouth opened, and he looked at Megan again, but didn’t say anything. He obviously didn’t want to be rude to her brothers, so she said, “Seriously, guys. You all have fun. We’ll see you tomorrow at dinner.”

  With a chorus of good-natured insults, the men departed, and Megan and Ben, holding hands, continued on their way to the parking garage.

  “I’m sorry they put you on the spot like that,” she said. “They can be a little much.”

  He shrugged. “They’re fine.”

  She stopped. “What? You don’t have to pretend with me. I know you don’t like them.”

  “No, that’s not—” He shook his head. “Never mind.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” He put his arm around her and tucked her against his body, bending to nuzzle her ear. “I’d rather have dessert with you than almost anything else.”

  Sure he would. Until it was time for him to fly off in his fancy jet, or he ran because essential parts of her life pushed him over the edge of sanity, whichever came first. But that was okay. Family was forever. Lovers were not.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Monday morning arrived with a headache. Megan woke up early—way earlier than she needed to, considering this was supposed to be her day off. She was exactly where she’d been every morning of the past two weeks…tucked up snugly against Ben, her back to his front, his arm around her.

  But today, her face and head felt like they were going to burst away from her body at any moment. She swallowed, and the pain in her throat nearly made her cry.

  Oh no.

  She couldn’t be sick. Not now.

  Moving slowly and carefully, she slid out from beneath Ben’s arm.

  “You okay?”

  Why did she bother trying to sneak away from him? He always woke up when she did. She should be annoyed his biorhythms had aligned with hers so quickly, but today she just wanted to crawl back under the covers and stay there, with his big hot body, for the rest of the day.

  “I’ve got to get something,” she croaked, and staggered away toward the bathroom. A couple of daytime cold caplets should take care of things and allow her to function.

  She flipped on the light and pulled open the second drawer, where she kept stuff like medicine. And a curling iron, a spilled box of Band-Aids, forty million lip balms, and… It was here, she knew it was.

  Meanwhile, her head throbbed in time with her heartbeat.

  Not here. Maybe it was underneath the sink, in that shoebox. She bent over to check—a huge mistake, because that throbbing intensified to thunder. But then she spied it. The orange box behind the mouthwash— Her vision wavered, and she felt her body sway.

  “Whoa there!” Ben caught her hips and kept her from pitching face-first onto the porcelain throne. He slid his arms around her and slowly helped her upright, taking the box she clutched and putting it on the edge of the sink, then lowering her to sit on the lid of the toilet. “What’s the matter?”

  “I’m fine,” she insisted, grabbing the box and sliding out the plastic-covered pills. She tore off a dose and shoved her thumbnail into the protective backing. “I have a little sinus headache—it must be throwing that thing in my ear out of whack.”

  “Your vestibular system?”

  “If you say so.” Of course he would know what it was called. He probably even knew how it worked. Success! The pills fell into her palm, and a glass of water miraculously appeared in front of her. “Thanks,” she told Ben, taking the glass and staring at the medicine. “Oh. I probably shouldn’t take this.” She looked up at him. “If there’s…you know.”

  “A baby.”

  “Yeah. That.” She dropped the pills in the trash. “Well, it’s not too bad,” she lied. “I’m sure I’ll be fine in a few minutes.”

  “If you’ve got what your nephew has, you should go back to bed.” His brow was furrowed, and she didn’t like seeing him frown, so she waved away his concern.

  “I’ll be fine. Really.” She hoped. Right before she sneezed.

  The glass in her hand was replaced with a tissue. Could this guy be any more perfect?

  “Okay, then take a shower. The steam might help. I’ll make orange juice.”

  Apparently he could get more perfect. “Orange juice sounds wonderful.” Her sore throat even agreed with that one.

  Fortunately, the hot shower did clear some of the congestion in her head, and she managed to get cleaned up and dressed just as Ben finished making not only fresh-squeezed orange juice, but the fluffiest scrambled eggs in history and toast smeared with butter and strawberry preserves.

  “Will you marry me?” she rasped, sliding into her chair at the table and picking up her napkin.

  After a brief pause that suggested her joke might not be as funny as she thought, he said, “I’ll consider it,” with his set-phasers-on-stun smile.

  “What do you want to do today?” she asked.

  Another hesitation, then, “I still have a couple of wedding chapels to visit.”

  “Which ones have you been to so far?”

  She was still kind of bleary, so she might have been mistaken, but she thought he flinched at her question.

  “I…I have a list in my glove box.” He laughed. “The names all run together. The Little Chapel of Love, the Love Chapel, the Big Love Chapel…”

  “I get your point.” She took a sip of orange juice, which went down fairly easily. “I�
�m sure you’ll find the right one at some point. I can come help you today,” she offered.

  But he shook his head. “Don’t you have sewing to do?”

  Oh yeah. That. She wanted to work on the jacket, she really did. But every time she pulled it out and looked at it, she lost any concept of what she wanted to do. She had a full-blown case of designer’s block. “I guess I should, shouldn’t I?”

  Her laugh sounded false to her own ears. Feeling the onset of this little cold made her fuzzy. She should get some food into her tummy. That always helped.

  She bent her attention to her breakfast. She took another long drink of orange juice. A bite of eggs went down pretty easily, too, so she shoveled in some more.

  The toast, not so much. Her taste buds loved it, but her throat barely let it past.

  They chatted about this, that, and nothing in particular, and then she said, “Don’t forget, since today’s Monday, we’ve got dinner at my parents’.”

  “Since you don’t feel great, maybe you should stay home.”

  To be honest, she kind of wanted to stay home on the couch, but no one ever missed family dinner day. “You don’t have to go, if you don’t want to,” she said.

  “I want to go,” he told her, but didn’t meet her eyes.

  “Okay, then.” She wouldn’t make him stay home. “You can change your mind at any time.”

  “I know,” he said. “It’ll be fun.”

  She nodded dubiously.

  “But first, I’ll look for our chapel. I’ll start with an Elvis one and then try to find Wayne Newton. Then the gambling-themed places.” He rose and carried their plates to the sink. Turning to glance at her over his shoulder, he said, “You’ll stay here and be creative, right?”

  “Right,” she said, scowling at the sewing box, wishing it held a crazy Vegas genie that could give her an idea. The extra fabric she’d bought last week sparkled and taunted her. Sure. She’d sit here sniffling and feeling indecisive, while Ben went looking for Elvis and Wayne Newton.

  And suddenly, Ben’s words flashed in her mind. Elvis and Wayne Newton. Her mind took them, swirled them around, and with a tiny burst of energy, she said, “Yes. I’m gonna be sewing.” And sewing, and sewing…

  …

  Ben actually did go to a wedding chapel after he left Megan’s place that morning. He went to three. He’d chosen the one farthest away to start with, deciding to work his way in toward the more likely places, the ones nearer the Masquerade, where he’d had a room that night. But none of the three had any record of them. Oh well. He’d hit more tomorrow.

  He made it back to her apartment about thirty minutes before they should leave for her parents’ house, but Megan wasn’t ready. As a matter of fact, she didn’t look like she should be anywhere near other people. She huddled on the couch, that hideous afghan around her shoulders, as she bent over something sparkly and colorful. A mountain of tissues overflowed from the trash can she’d placed next to the coffee table.

  “Hey,” he said. “Do you want me to call your parents and tell them we’re not coming?”

  She looked up, frowning. “What? No. I can go. I have to go over the new promotion options with Mom and Dad and make sure the guys have their lines rehearsed for the new opening.” Her expression softened. “But you don’t have to go.”

  “I don’t mind going,” he said. “But you’re sick.”

  “I’m fine,” she protested, throwing the blanket from around her shoulders and standing. And then she wobbled and sank back to the couch. “Okay. Maybe we should stay home.”

  …

  As it turned out, Ben’s assumption that sick people should stay home and be allowed to rest wasn’t held by Megan’s family. The minute she hung up from telling her parents they wouldn’t be at dinner, her phone started to blow up.

  “Meg, can you still make sure the kids get to Daddy and Me music class tomorrow?”

  “Will you pick up my suit from the dry cleaner?”

  “Megan, do you remember where you put those glittery hula hoops? I need them for this week’s special show.”

  Instead of telling everyone to pound salt, Megan just smiled and wrote down everything they asked of her. “Sure,” she said, although it came out more like “Durr.”

  …

  “Babe, why don’t you lie down?” Ben suggested after she hung up from another phone call.

  “I’m fine,” she insisted, trying not to sway. Honestly, she wasn’t feeling all that great, but she still had to double-check some measurements for Beth’s newest costume. There was something else she needed to deal with about…something else. What was it?

  Ben’s lips were pressed tightly together, but he clearly had something to say. Here it came. He was done with her family. Done with her. He’d said he’d stay until they found out if there was a baby, but it was better that he went now, anyway.

  Well, fine. “It’s okay. I understand. I’ll let you know when I know.”

  “What?” He tilted his head as though she wasn’t making sense.

  A bead of sweat dripped down her hairline, and she wiped it away with a tissue. At the same time, a wave of cold racked her bones.

  “Geezus,” he muttered, stepping closer to her. The thing was, the closer to he got, the farther away he seemed to be.

  Weird.

  She finally managed to latch on to his arm. At least, she was pretty sure it was him, as he had the brownest skin in the house. He moved so that his arm was wrapped around her. Why was he holding her up like that? She decided to let him think she needed his help. Frankly, her joints were a little achy.

  He lowered her back to the couch and lifted her sewing from where it had fallen. “I’ll put this on the table,” he told her. “Where’s your phone?”

  Her phone? She had no idea. That was bad. She always had her phone. It was her job, her life. “I don’t know.”

  She searched around frantically, reaching between cushions and—fortunately it rang from where it had fallen, just under the edge of the couch.

  Ben grabbed it because it was taking her a verrrrry long time to lean that direction. “Hello?”

  He listened.

  “Yeah, it’s Ben… No, Beth, I don’t think she’s going anywhere for a while… I don’t know about tomorrow…I’ll let you know as soon as I know… I will… You, too, thanks.”

  Ben guided her into a reclining position—he even lifted her feet to the couch—and covered her with an afghan.

  “You know, maybe I could take a little nap and we could go over for dessert later,” she mumbled.

  “We’ll see,” he said, smiling in a way that made her tummy feel warm and cozy.

  Things got a little fuzzy after that.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Megan began shivering a few minutes after Ben tucked her under the blanket, but when he put his hand on her forehead, she was burning up.

  “Do you have a thermometer?” he asked.

  “No. I don’t get sick,” she said hoarsely.

  “Well, you might be sick now,” he told her, trying not to laugh. Even though he was a little worried, he did admire her persistence.

  “I don’t want you to get sick, too,” she said. “You should never have kissed me.”

  He chuckled. “It would be worth the risk, though I get enough vaccines to keep me safe from germs that haven’t been invented yet. But I don’t like your fever.”

  “I can’t have a fever, I’m freezing. Will…you…warm me up?” she asked between chattering teeth.

  “I’ll be back in a minute.”

  She was shaking so much, he was in fear for the stability of the couch frame, but he needed to make a phone call.

  “Twice in one week? I thought you were on vacation.” His mother’s voice held laughter and a bit of puzzlement. He didn’t call often, it was true. But his mother was a nurse, and he trusted her more than the internet. He had to figure out how to ask this so she didn’t get on the next plane to Nevada.

  “I
have a random question,” he started.

  “Okay…”

  “So my friend’s writing a book, and one of the characters might be pregnant.”

  Silence.

  He barreled ahead. “And she has, ah, she’s been infected with a bioterrorist strain of flu. She’s going to live, we think, but she’s still pretty sick. What medicine can she take for her fever?”

  “Is this book a romance, by any chance?” Mom asked dubiously.

  He wondered if she felt the heat in his ears from Tennessee. “More of a thriller.”

  “What’s this character’s name?” She totally didn’t believe him.

  “I don’t know. Hold on. Hey, David, what’s this character’s name?” he pretended to ask his imaginary writer friend. “Me— Melanie. Her name’s Melanie. What does that have to do with it?” he asked Mom.

  “Nothing. I was just wondering.” Oh, she was skeptical, all right. “Who’s the hero?”

  “I don’t think the hero’s part of the story.”

  He felt bad for lying, but he wasn’t in a position to talk to her about this right now. Not until Megan knew for sure. In the meantime, she was sick, and he had to take care of her.

  “Hmm. It’s a good thing this is fiction, because if there’s a real girl who might be pregnant, and you know who the daddy is, you’d damn well better be making sure that girl’s taken care of.”

  “I do know that.” And how. Between his mother and grandmother, he’d heard more than once—more than a million times—that if he ever got a girl pregnant, he’d better plan to take responsibility. He waited.

  “She should be able to take Tylenol,” Mom said. “That’ll help with the fever. I’d get her to a doctor if she needs anything more than that, or if her temperature doesn’t go down. In the meantime, she should drink a lot of liquids and try to rest.”

  “Okay. Tylenol. Got it. Um, David says ‘Thanks.’”

  “Let me know how it turns out?”

  “Oh, we’ll get you a copy of the book with your name in the acknowledgments.”

  “Mm-hmm. Okay, baby. I love you.”

  “I love you, too, Mom. Kiss Nana for me.”