by Shirley Jump
She had what she needed? All those keys were there? Yet, it all still felt like a confusing jumble, especially now that Alex was following down the same path as her mother had, with a baby on the way, no husband and a house that was a mess.
“How?” Alex asked. “How do I do that?”
“Easy. Do what authors do. Start at the beginning. Then just go from Once Upon a Time to The End.” Willow reached for a bright-red heart-shaped vase on the shelf. She picked it up and put it into Alex’s hands. “Your happy ending is just waiting for you to find it.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Renee’s jaw nearly hit the restaurant table. “Oh, my God, Alex.”
“I know. That’s what I said, too.” Alex sipped at an iced tea—about the only thing she could stomach—and then fiddled with the straw. It had been a full twenty-four hours since she’d seen the pink lines, and still she couldn’t believe they were real. She’d managed to avoid Mack, by going in early to work, because his mother-hen concern had started to get on her nerves. Then the appointment with Willow Clark, followed by an after-work doctor’s appointment and, finally, an emergency dinner with Renee. Somewhere in there, she hoped to come up with an answer, because despite everything that Willow had said, she’d yet to find any ending to her personal story. “I suppose I should be happy.”
“And are you?”
“Are you kidding me? This is the last thing I want in my life right now. The whole time I’m sitting in the gynecologist’s office, I kept thinking they’d come back and tell me that their test would be negative, that those stupid store-brand tests would be wrong, but no, they weren’t. And here’s everyone congratulating me like this is a great thing.”
“Most people do think babies are a great thing.”
“Not Edward. I called him and told him about the baby.”
“What did he say?”
“That he and his wife got back together, and that he’d send me some money, but that’s all he’d do.” Alex shook her head, anger and frustration mingling with hot tears. What had she ever seen in him? “He didn’t want his own child. He didn’t even want me, Renee.”
Renee reached out and clasped Alex’s hand. “He was an idiot. A complete and total idiot. You are better off without him.”
“True.”
“And you don’t need an idiot raising your kid. It’ll only turn your kid into an idiot.” Renee smiled. “See? A bright side.”
“You’re reaching.”
“Okay, I was. The baby is the bright side, Alex.”
“Renee, I’m totally not mother material.” She couldn’t repeat her mother’s mistakes, couldn’t step into those same shoes. She fiddled with her silverware. “It’s not a great thing at all,” she repeated.
“I’m sure you’ll work it out. And whatever you decide, I’ll be right behind you.”
“Thanks.” Alex worked a smile to her face, forced herself to feign happiness so that Renee would quit trying to cheer her up. “Now, can we order, and change the subject? Like, to your life?”
Renee picked up her menu. “I thought you wanted to stay away from nauseating topics.”
“Things still not better with Tony?”
“Do you mean is he still living with his brother? Still acting like he’s single? No and yes. He moved back home, but things still suck.” Renee let out a sigh and put her menu to the side. Tears pooled in her eyes, and she drew in a deep breath. “I wasn’t going to tell you. I wasn’t going to tell anyone. But I’m filing for divorce.”
The seven-letter word hit Alex like a blast of ice. Divorced? Renee and Tony?
“Oh, God, Renee, I’m so sorry.” Now it was Alex’s turn to give Renee a little mano a mano support. “Things are that bad? I thought…”
“Thought we were getting back together? We’ve done that, Alex. It never works. I’m tired. I don’t want to try anymore.” She sat back in her chair and ran a hand through her hair. Exhaustion shaded the space beneath her eyes, sadness drooped her face.
“You’re giving up?”
“I’m not giving up. I’m accepting the inevitable.” Renee dabbed her eyes with her napkin. “And I think it’s time Tony and I just stopped beating this dead horse.”
Alex had known Renee and Tony for almost twelve years. Been their maid of honor, for God’s sake. Stood right across from Tony and seen him pledge forever to Renee, a huge, goofy grin on his face. The last thing she’d ever imagined was the two of them splitting up. Ending the fairy tale.
Sure, they’d fought, but they’d always made up. They’d seemed to have the typical American marriage. What chance did Alex—whose only long-term relationship had been with a bigamist—have of making a relationship work if Renee and Tony couldn’t? They had kids, a life together. Everything to stay together for. And still, it had all fallen apart.
Alex signaled to the waiter for two more drinks. Already she envied Renee her margarita, and wished her empty glass of tea had a splash or two of rum. But until she made up her mind about what to do about her…situation, she’d do the right thing and avoid alcohol. “You can’t give up so easily.”
“Marriage is harder than it looks. Add in kids and credit cards, and you might as well be pushing a train up Mount Everest.” Renee shook her head. “Let’s not dwell on all the ways that my life went down the wrong path. Let’s celebrate your news instead.”
A burst of nearly manic laughter escaped Alex. She covered her mouth and bit it back. “What’s to celebrate? I’m single, pregnant, up to my eyeballs trying to fix the house from hell, and I have yet to finish the one story I promised my boss was a sure thing. I don’t think there are any other ways left to screw up my life.”
Renee tipped her margarita toward Alex. “You didn’t marry a bigamist, remember?”
“There is that.” Alex laughed.
Renee reached into the bread basket, withdrew a cheddar biscuit and slathered it with butter. “So, have you decided what you’re going to do?”
“No.” She sighed. “I have time, though.”
“How did Mack take the news?”
“I didn’t tell him.”
“What?” Renee arched a brow. “Why?”
“Because he’d want to rush in and do something to make it right. You know how he is. And I don’t need that right now. I need time to…” She drew in a breath, let it out. “Think. Mack makes it very hard to do that.”
Renee popped a piece of biscuit into her mouth, chewed, then fiddled with her knife. “I can imagine he would. If only he was the settling-down kind, you could solve all your problems at once.”
“Or maybe Prince Charming will come along tomorrow and sweep me off my feet and we’ll go live in a castle on a hill.” Alex grinned.
“Don’t go holding your breath.” Renee took another sip of her margarita and chuckled. “That’s why they call them fairy tales. Because they’re make-believe.”
Alex’s hand strayed to her stomach, then to her empty left hand. “Maybe you and I need to start reading different books.”
Renee took a long sip of her drink, the disappointment of her marriage clear in her face. “Either that, or start expecting a different ending than happily ever after. Because that only seems to happen when there are dwarves or mice involved.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Alex had never been courted with such determination before. The vases of roses multiplied. Cards piled up on her doorstep. Text messages appeared on her cell phone at all hours. And then there were the dinners at fancy restaurants, the dancing at intimate jazz clubs in Boston.
Steve exhausted her with all his attention. She should have been glad, but instead she found herself wishing for a break.
What was wrong with her? She finally had what she thought she wanted—the perfect gentleman, one who made it clear he was falling in love—but all she wanted was for him to leave her alone.
Nor had she managed to tell him yet that she was pregnant. Every time she opened her mouth to say the words, they got
lodged in her throat. Maybe Willow Clark had been right. She was building walls between herself and other people faster than she could tear them down.
“Steve, you really don’t have to go to all this trouble,” Alex said, staring at two tickets to a Broadway show at the Wang Center that she’d mentioned in passing she wanted to see.
He grinned. “It’s no trouble at all. Really.”
“Honest, I’m content to sit at home, pop some popcorn and rent a movie. I don’t need all this…” She waved a hand over her dress, his suit, the bouquet of roses sitting on her lap.
Steve glanced over at her, then back at the road as he drove toward yet another restaurant, this one newly opened by a former television actor. Steve had worked for a week solid to get reservations for opening night, something he’d surprised Alex with that afternoon.
She’d called Mack to tell him she wouldn’t be home for dinner that night, but her call had gone straight to voice mail. Lately, he’d been more and more unavailable, almost as if he was avoiding her. She saw him at the house, of course, but there he talked only about the construction and very little about their personal lives. Ever since that night in the pool, Mack had gone grumpy and silent, which was completely not like him.
There’d been no more flirting, no kissing, no sexual contact whatsoever. Exactly what she wanted—except…
She missed him.
The distance stung, but Alex had no idea what to do to close the gap. In all the years she’d known Mack, they’d never exchanged a cross word. Whenever she tried to get him to talk to her, he clammed up and went back to work.
Could he be avoiding her? Did he regret that night in the pool, as she did?
But did she really regret it? A part of her, a very vocal part, especially late at night, wanted to go back and make love to Mack all over again. And again. Every time she looked at him or thought about him, she pictured that heated encounter. It had to be the pregnancy hormones. Yeah, that was it.
“You might not need all these things,” Steve said, drawing her back to their conversation, “but a woman like you deserves it.”
She shifted in her seat. “But don’t you want to do something casual?”
“Like…what?”
“Just hang out. Walk on the beach. Play some basketball.” The kinds of things she and Mack always did. Of course, that was because he usually treated her more like one of his buddies than like a girlfriend, but still, she found those days fun.
And even better, none of those activities required panty hose.
Was Mack doing any of those things with Deidre right now? Was he taking her to dinner? Kissing her? Or was he…taking her to bed, sliding his hands down her—
“That’s not a date,” Steve said, laughing and interrupting her torturous thoughts. “I don’t know what kind of guys have been taking you out, Alex, but they have seriously undertreated you.” He leaned over and placed a quick kiss on her cheek. “Let me spoil you.”
She sat back in her seat and watched the I-93 traffic whiz by in a blur of white lights. A light rain began to fall, the droplets blurring her view like a melted painting. Alex traced a finger in the condensation on her window and told herself she should be delighted. Steve was everything any woman would want. Attentive, charming, devoted. Whatever she wanted, she got—to the nth degree.
But over the last few dates, it had all become too much. To the point where his eagerness to please her had begun to grate on her nerves.
Maybe Grandma was right, maybe the problem lay not with the men she was dating, but with herself. She glanced over at Steve. He was exactly what she had asked Mack to find for her, as if she’d placed a cosmic order and it had been delivered on a silver platter.
She reached out and clasped Steve’s free hand, resting on the gearshift. He shot her a smile, the kind that broke like sunshine on the horizon, and made guilt rocket through Alex. She should be happy to have a guy like him catering to her.
But instead she found her mind wandering again back to Mack. What had gotten into him lately? Why was her best friend avoiding her as if she’d picked up some contagious fatal disease?
And why, when she had everything she had ever wanted within her grasp, did she suddenly stop wanting it?
“This is too much commitment, Mack.” Alex backed away, shaking her head.
They’d been standing in the store for an hour, debating one choice after another. Mack had dreaded the trip with Alex. The thought of spending all this time alone with her, especially after last week, had made him as antsy as the last lobster in the tank at an all-you-can-eat seafood festival.
But after sixty minutes of forced proximity, they had eased back into their usual closeness. The tension eased from Mack’s shoulders for the first time in days.
“I don’t know,” Alex said, tapping her lip with a finger.
“Alex, you’re not cementing anything for a lifetime here. Just pick a pattern and we can go home.”
Back to my house. To a night alone.
Even if it would be another mistake, it was one he was willing to make. He knew she had no plans tonight, and he’d already canceled his date with Deidre. Going out with Deidre was like inhaling helium when he really craved oxygen.
“Yeah, but what if my choice isn’t what anybody else wants?” Alex asked. “What if the next person hates it?”
He came up behind her, his tall frame nearly dwarfing Alex. He caught the sweet scent of her shampoo. “Quit worrying about what the next person wants. Tell me which cabinets you’d put in your kitchen if this was going to be your house. If you were staying there. If you were going to be making me pancakes in the morning—”
She turned in his arms. “Making you pancakes?”
He’d done it again. Stepped into territory he’d had no intention of treading on, moving down the path he’d meant to avoid. So he turned on a grin and forced a joke into his voice. “Hey, I might as well get something out of the deal, if I’m doing all this work.”
But did he really want just one breakfast in Alex’s kitchen? A couple buttermilk pancakes with a side of bacon?
No. He didn’t. Ever since they’d made love, and he’d awakened with her beside him, he’d had this constant pang in his chest, an aching that ran deep into his veins, his gut. The feeling was so foreign, so new, something he hadn’t felt even when he’d married Samantha, but now, as he looked at Alex and the ache rose anew, Mack realized the feeling.
He wanted more. What that more was, Mack wasn’t sure, but it definitely wasn’t just sex. Every time she left with Steve, or talked to him on the phone, Mack wanted to rip out a wall or tear apart a concrete patio with his bare hands. Yet, he kept silent, because Steve was offering Alex what Mack couldn’t—
Forever, on a golden platter, and with a white picket fence. So Mack kept doing what he had always done, and put Alex’s needs ahead of his own.
“The maple cabinets,” Alex said, drawing Mack back to reality. “I like the simplicity of them. And,” she laughed, “the price.”
“Maple’s…perfect,” Mack said. “And the countertops?”
She turned and tipped her face toward him. Her cheeks were flushed, her lips full and lush. Her breath seemed to come a little faster, and Mack had to wonder if it was because he was close—if it was because she was thinking, as he was, about everything but the building project. Was she thinking instead about what was building between them?
“What do you think?” Alex asked. “Laminate? Granite? That…what is it called…? Solid surface stuff?”
“The last two choices have permanence. Durability.”
“That’s good. Right?”
He ached to trace the line of her jaw, to capture her mouth with his. To bring her body against his own, and feel her heat imprint its hourglass pattern. The desire coiled even tighter this time, because he’d already tasted her skin, already felt her body beneath his. He shook off the thoughts. A home improvement store wasn’t exactly the best place to get cozy. “Yes, that’s g
ood.”
Alex nibbled on her bottom lip. Mack bit back a groan. “Those options are probably really expensive.”
“Sometimes the benefits outweigh the price you’ll pay.” Was he even still talking about cabinets? Countertops?
She hesitated, her green eyes wide, luminous. She exhaled a long, slow breath. “I don’t know if I can make this decision, Mack. I had no idea it would be this difficult.”
“There are a lot of colors and stones to choose between, so if you want to take some samples with you—”
“That’s not it.” She shook her head and stepped back, dropping into a nearby chair. Alex pressed the back of her hand against her forehead. Beads of sweat had broken out on her skin.
“Are you okay?”
“Actually, no.” She brushed her hand against her temples again, then pressed her palms against her cheeks. “I don’t feel well. Can we go home?”
“Sure, sure.” He put out his hand and helped her to her feet. They headed out of the store, Alex’s face paling more with every step.
Way to go, Romeo. Disappointment whistled through Mack with the bitter cold of a winter wind. Here he’d been thinking she’d had some hot and heavy thoughts for him, when actually she’d been sick. Talk about crossed signals. He couldn’t have been more off base if he’d been running Fenway Park backward.
Just when he thought he had this all figured out—
He didn’t.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“When were you going to tell me?”
Alex sat across from Grandma Kenner on Friday afternoon, in the sunny kitchen of Grandma’s condo, and gave her an update on the progress of the Dorchester house. She’d spread out a fan of paint chips on the laminate kitchen table. “Tell you what, Grandma? That I secretly loved the color seafoam green?” Alex grinned.
