Whose Baby?

by Janice Kay Johnson

  Jenny would have matured if she’d had the chance. He didn’t want to compare her to Lynn. It wasn’t fair. If nothing else, circumstances had been different. Jenny hadn’t needed to take a crash course in her husband’s interests and character. She knew him. Except, a disquieting voice murmured in his ear, for the facets of him that didn’t interest her.

  She never suggested he change jobs, Adam argued with himself.

  She liked the money.

  She just didn’t want to be bored by a blow-by-blow account of his day at the dinner table every evening. So what?

  Shouldn’t she have loved the whole man? whispered that insidious voice.

  Maybe, Adam thought, beginning to be irritated. But he didn’t love her any less because she was possibly a little self-absorbed. She’d been spoiled as a kid. When he met and married his Jenny, she was young, beautiful and sexy, the center of a crowd at every party. Motherhood would have changed and enriched her, just as loving Rose had irrevocably changed him.

  He’d be willing to bet Lynn had been considerably more frivolous before she’d had a child, too.

  Hard to picture.

  Adam shut the door on any further debate.

  It figured, however, that as if to make a point tonight Lynn brought the book on investing when he and she carried their cups of coffee into the living room.

  Which meant only that she wanted to know who the hell she’d married, Adam countered the voice before it could break the silence. Just as he did.

  “Learning anything?” he asked, nodding at the book.

  Lynn wrinkled her nose. “I think I’m getting more confused. All these formulas. P/E ratios.” Sounding honestly puzzled, she asked, “Why not just stick to investing in companies whose products you like? Or stores that are well run and clearly busy? Avoid the stores you hate because merchandise is cheap or clerks are always slow or that you hear people grumbling about? I mean, doesn’t common sense work?”

  “Yeah, to some extent,” Adam agreed. “For the individual investor, that’s exactly the advice I’d give.”

  She looked pleased.

  “However,” he continued, “remember how many of the corporations on the stock market make products that are invisible to the average consumer. Operating software for computers, or a circuit board in airplane navigation systems, or whatever. Also, because a local store is well run and popular doesn’t always mean the whole chain is. Haven’t you had a place you really liked suddenly go out of business? Maybe go bankrupt?”

  Lynn nodded thoughtfully.

  “Could be the problem wasn’t even with that chain of appliance stores or whatever. They might be owned by a giant retailer who has been sucking them dry to plug a drain in another branch of their empire. Maybe this other branch makes jeans, and they haven’t kept up with the youth market. How are you going to know this?”

  “I’m not?”

  “Probably not,” Adam agreed. “Our job is to know well ahead of time when problems are going to cause a corporation to retrench or go belly-up. So our clients don’t take a bath. It’s no different than you making informed decisions on what books to carry. Sometimes I imagine you just flat out love a book. Mostly, you’ve learned what your customers will buy. Or won’t buy. I’ll bet you carry stuff you personally despise because you know it sells.”

  “Sure I do.” She gave a gusty sigh and with an air of dogged resolve flipped open the book. “You’ve convinced me.”

  “Are you planning to start investing?” he asked, trying to sound careless.

  “Oh, sure. As soon as I franchise.” Her cheeks turned a little pink. “I just thought it might be a good idea if I knew what you were talking about when you have a good day, or a bad one.”

  “Ah.” A sense of warm satisfaction filled him. When she had said she would give this marriage her best, she’d meant it.

  The evening was typical. They read, she asked questions that spurred brief, sometimes spirited, discussions, and finally she reached for her bookmark and said in that ultracasual way she had for this particular pronouncement, “I’m off to bed. If only the girls would sleep in.”

  Usually he didn’t try to hold her, but tonight, for reasons obscure to him, he hated the idea of her disappearing upstairs.

  He set down his newspaper. “Before you go. I’ve been thinking. When do you go back to having the store open more than four days a week?”

  “Usually April.” She closed her book and looked inquiring. “Why?”

  “What the hell are we going to do then?”

  “Go back to weekends?” Lynn said tentatively. “And Mondays and Tuesdays? I’m always closed on Mondays and can hire someone to cover the store on Tuesdays. Or stay closed.”

  Two days here. Two there. Three apart.

  “We were unhappy when we were doing it, and we weren’t married then.” He didn’t give her a chance to respond. “What about when the girls start school? Does Rose go here and Shelly in Otter Beach?”

  “I don’t know!” Her fingers clenched the book in her lap. “Is this where you suggest again that I sell the store?”

  God. He hadn’t meant to walk this road at all tonight, or any time in the near future, even if he could foresee the potholes ahead. He’d only wanted to keep her from going off to bed.

  But maybe they should face the problems before they arose.

  “I want you to start thinking about the future,” he said evenly. “That’s all.”

  “Keeping the bookstore and my own home was part of the deal.” Her eyes were huge, beautiful and dark with apprehension. “You agreed.”

  He tossed the newspaper aside. “Maybe at the time, neither of us was thinking about this marriage as a long-term proposition. Now I am. And I’m asking that you do, too.”

  She sounded tart. “And why, all of a sudden, are you planning fifteen years ahead?”

  Evade, or tell the truth?

  Half the truth. “The kids are happy. Things are going well. Why not?”

  “Because we’re still strangers.”

  Why did that hurt? “I thought we were getting past that.”

  Her tongue touched her lips. “I feel as if I still know hardly anything about your past.”

  “You’ve met my parents. What else is there to say?”

  “Your marriage…”

  Wariness lent a hardness to his voice. “Jennifer has been dead for three-and-a-half years. She has nothing to do with us.”

  Lynn was silent for a long moment. He resisted the urge to shift under her probing gaze. At last she nodded. “Maybe you’re right.” Her tone was pleasant but distant. He’d lost her, somehow.

  “I’m not trying to pressure you.” Another lie.

  “I will think about the possibility of selling the store,” she said, as she set her book aside and stood. “I have been already, to tell you the truth. You know I love what I do, but I also recognize that you can’t practically move to Otter Beach, and I could find work over here.”

  “You could not work at all for a few years. I make plenty.”

  “But then I’d feel like a kept woman,” she said gently. “I know I shouldn’t. We’re married, after all, but…” An almost infinitesimal pause gave away what she was thinking: but I don’t feel married. “No,” she concluded, “I need to maintain some independence.”

  Adam wished he could be sure her fear was rooted in the failure of her first marriage, in the knowledge that sometimes a woman had to be able to take care of herself and her child, rather than in a lack of commitment to this marriage. He wanted to know she was in it for the long haul, too.

  When she gave herself to him, when she shared her bed, he would know.

  Until then, every waking moment would be uncertain.

  Was that what he wanted? Not so much her body as reassurance?

  Hell, no, he thought, letting his gaze sweep once over her, from that mane of unruly hair to slender bare feet. He wanted both. Her body beneath his, and her trust held out on an open palm.


  Neither could be coerced.

  “Okay.” Adam made his voice deliberately soothing. “You need to feel as if you’re earning your way. I don’t have a problem with that. And I’m really not trying to push you into anything. Until Shelly and Rose start kindergarten, we can probably go on this way. I’m just, uh, not looking forward to you and Shelly packing up Thursday. We feel like a family when we’re together.”

  Their eyes met and she smiled with dawning warmth, although her mouth was tremulous. “We do, don’t we?”

  Then come to me, he thought. Blush. Say, “I think it’s time we take the next step.”

  “Good night, Adam,” she murmured, and left the room.

  He had to grit his teeth to keep from stumbling to his feet and begging, Don’t go.

  Maybe he would have noticed her, if under completely different circumstances he’d wandered into her bookstore. Heard her soft laugh and been tempted by her hair before she turned to face him. Seen a blush turn her cheeks to wild roses as her lovely, cool eyes met his.

  Groaning, Adam tried to remember Jennifer, the way she’d looked up through her lashes, the coy tilt of her head, her throaty laugh, her sultry mouth, but it was all just words, fleeting impressions. Lynn was real, vivid, here.

  Jennifer was a long-lost dream.

  Even Shelly no longer reminded him of her mother. He knew objectively that they looked alike, but his little girl had so much personality of her own that only her cheerful, endless chatter and her boldness recalled Jennifer. Perhaps when Shelly was a teenager she would bat her eyes and smile with deliberate, mysterious purpose. But for now…hell, for now she had Lynn’s directness and the sweetness of a much loved child.

  Not Jennifer’s hunger for attention.

  Now, where had that idea come from? he wondered, frowning, but knowing it was true. His Jenny had wanted always to be the center of attention. Her own company was never enough.

  Adam swore aloud. He’d loved his wife, and she was dead. Why all the analysis now?

  So he could justify letting Lynn walk into Jennifer’s place? Not just in his home and bed, but in his heart?

  No! he thought, on a shattering wave of remembrance too vivid. Suddenly he did see his Jenny, still and warm, but gone, her life an illusion given by machines.

  Adam buried his face in his hands and yanked at his hair. Remember her alive! he told himself fiercely. Remember her generous sensuality, her quirky sense of humor, her lively mind and effortless ability to make whatever she touched beautiful. Her flower arrangements—he seized on the memory. He used to think they were like her, careless and artful at the same time.

  He couldn’t let her go. Not so easily. Not so quickly.

  He could give Lynn everything but his heart.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  EVERY TIME SHE HEARD a car engine, Lynn went to the kitchen window. No Adam.

  For the first time, she’d left Shelly with Adam and Rose, coming home to open the bookstore all by herself. The quiet drive had been an unexpected pleasure. She was so rarely alone to let her thoughts drift aimlessly, to listen to Bizet’s Carmen instead of Sesame Street songs. But that was two days and a night ago. Now she missed her family terribly.

  She glanced at the clock for the twentieth time. Dark had come hours ago. Front and back porch lights were beacons in the night—the strong beam of a lighthouse calling them home, Lynn thought fancifully.

  Thursday evening she’d read a murder mystery, not had dinner until nine o’clock and then eaten an entire pint of mint-chocolate-chip ice cream, feeling decadent the whole time. Tonight she used her energy and anxiety to clean. Floors and sinks shone, and she’d moved every piece of furniture so that not even one dust bunny escaped her.

  At eight-thirty, half an hour after his usual time, she heard the deep, throaty murmur of Adam’s Lexus and the crunch of gravel under the tires.

  With a rush of pleasure, Lynn dropped a handful of forks—she’d been rearranging the silverware drawer—and hurried to the door. Footsteps clattered on the outside stairs. Little-girl voices called, “Mommy! We’re home!”

  Opening the door, Lynn scooped to snatch first Shelly, then Rose up into her arms for huge hugs. They felt so solid, smelled so sweet, and she didn’t know how she had been able to endure two days without them.

  Below, the car door slammed again in the darkness, and Adam came into the circle of porch light and started up the rickety staircase, burdened by a duffel bag and…was that a hula hoop? She hadn’t seen one in years.

  Shelly didn’t like the fact that Mommy’s attention had wandered for even a moment. Tugging on Lynn’s hand, she did a little dance. “Mommy, I went to school with Rose! We learned to write letters! Didn’t we, Rose? And how to count in…well, the way somebody else talks. I don’t remember who. You wanna hear me? Uno, dos, tres,” she enunciated with earnest care. “Rose knows how, too. Don’t you, Rose?”

  “Course I do,” Rose declared with the air of a big kid. “Uno, dos, tres. See? And Teacher said I know my colors. My shirt is orange. Isn’t it, Mommy?”

  “Mine is purple,” Shelly said importantly. “I know my colors, too, Mommy.”

  “I know you do, sweetie. And very well, too.”

  The hula hoop slung over Adam’s shoulder rolled off and bounced down the stairs. He mumbled something not meant for three-year-old ears, dropped the duffel bag on the landing and chased after the neon-green plastic hoop.

  The girls turned to watch, giggling in merriment. “Grandma gave us one a’ those,” Shelly explained. “A hoo…hoo…” Her lips pursed in a perfect circle. “Hoo…”

  “Hula hoop,” Lynn supplied.

  Grinning ruefully, Adam started back up the stairs.

  “Hoo-hoop. She said she played with one when she was a girl. She wriggled. Like this.” Shelly swiveled her hips so hard she fell down laughing.

  Rose, of course, had to demonstrate and tumble theatrically amid more giggles.

  “Grandma must have looked very funny,” Lynn said, trying to imagine the petite, elegant woman waggling her hips like a Hawaiian dancer. Now, that she would have liked to see.

  A small cloud stilled Shelly’s laughter. “I can’t make the hoo-hoop work.”

  “Daddy says we don’t got no hips,” Rose agreed.

  “Have any,” Lynn corrected automatically.

  Daddy rolled the hula hoop into the house. “Here it stays,” he said firmly.

  Losing interest in it and Mom, Shelly popped to her feet. “Let’s go play,” she commanded.

  “Okay,” Rose said happily.

  They raced down the hall, rattling pictures on the wall, and flung open the door to their bedroom.

  Lynn frowned, a new worry niggling. “I hope Rose doesn’t get too used to going along with Shelly. Does it seem to you as if…”

  Flowers appeared under her nose. “Happy anniversary,” Adam said huskily.

  Her wondering eyes took in roses and huge fragrant lilies and a scattering of tiny white bridal wreath. She breathed in the glorious scent and then looked up in astonishment at her husband’s face. “Anniversary?”

  “One month,” he said gravely. “Today.”

  The paper cone crackled as she took the bouquet from him and cradled it. “Thank you.” She sounded—and felt—absurdly shy.

  “A kiss might be appropriate.” He wasn’t smiling, to suggest that he was kidding; he just stood there squarely less than a foot away and waited.

  Did he mean it? Heat blossomed in her cheeks and her pulse sprinted. She’d known this was coming. She’d seen in his eyes that he was thinking about her that way. As a woman. She wanted him to. She’d just had no idea in the world how to hint that she wouldn’t mind if he did kiss her.

  But did he have to leave it up to her?

  Maybe he was trying to give her an out, if she really detested the idea. He was being a gentleman.

  As stuffily as Miss Manners, Lynn admitted, “A kiss would be one polite way to thank you.”

 
; “Then?”

  Taking a breath and hugging the flowers to her breast, she rose on tiptoe to give him a quick peck.

  It didn’t work that way. He bent his head to meet her halfway. Their mouths touched and a shiver skidded down her spine. Somehow he came to be gripping her upper arms. The heavy scent of lilies rose from between them, thickening the air. His lips teased hers apart, then hardened. She heard a groan and the kiss deepened, but…

  “Mommy!” Feet thundered down the short hall behind her.

  Lynn jerked away, her heart hammering and her face so hot it must be the color of a lobster. “Yes? What is it?”

  “Mommy, where’s flower blankie?” Shelly asked with a hint of anxiety.

  The faded, warn flannel crib blanket was rarely far from Shelly.

  Her mind cloudy, Lynn couldn’t look at Adam. “Did you take it to Adam’s house?”

  Shelly’s brown eyes widened and her mouth formed an O. “I forgot it,” she whispered, and then her face scrunched miserably as tears formed. “I want my flower blankie!” she wailed.

  Lynn crouched to hug her. “It’s not in the bag?”

  “This is all clothes,” Adam said. “I’m sorry. It’s my fault. I should have checked.”

  “You know, your blanket is fine in your bedroom at Adam’s house. It’ll be waiting for you Sunday night.”

  “I want it now!” Shelly screamed. “Daddy can go get my blankie.”

  “Honey, it would take him all night.” Lynn knew darn well that reason wouldn’t forestall what was coming. But she had to try, didn’t she? “You can do without it for three days.”

  Sobbing, the three-year-old flung herself onto the floor and drummed her heels. Lynn sighed, remembering last night’s peace and quiet. Ah, well. She was glad Shelly was home, even if she was screaming and turning purple.

  Rose never threw temper tantrums. She stood now halfway down the hall, her thumb in her mouth and her face a study in worry and perplexity.