Her Best Friend's Baby

by Vicki Lewis Thompson, Stephanie Bond

  Or maybe it was the way she was leaning back against the end of the boat, her elbows on the rail, her knees slightly apart. Or his new black cowboy hat on her head. When he’d nearly lost it in the lake they’d decided that whoever wasn’t rowing should wear the hat, so they could keep one hand on it if the wind picked up.

  So they’d traded, and he now wore her wire-rimmed sunglasses to shade his eyes and she wore the hat, pulling it low over her brow the way a desperado might. She looked so damn cute in that hat. The breeze was tangling her hair, which she’d left loose around her shoulders, and the sun was reflecting off the curls that escaped from the shade of the hat.

  She clapped a hand over the crown and tilted her head to let a little sun fall directly on her face. “I spend too much time under artificial light,” she said. “It’s the only thing I regret about my job.”

  “I know what you mean. I’ve often wished I could set up a booth in Central Park and see my patients there.”

  She glanced at him with a smile. “Wouldn’t that be cool? I’ll bet kids wouldn’t mind coming to the doctor’s office so much if they didn’t have to sit in those scary little waiting rooms. You could call yourself the Doc in the Park. I think you should try it.”

  “I’m pretty sure my insurance agent would have a heart attack.”

  She waved a hand. “Minor detail. I’ll bet you could revolutionize pediatrics with a gig like that.” She sat up straighter. “Okay, my turn to row again.”

  He didn’t want to give up the oars. For one thing, it kept his hands busy. “It can’t be. I just got started.”

  “You’ve been rowing for at least fifteen minutes, and I admit you’re better at it than I thought you’d be, considering you’re such a city boy.”

  “I keep telling you I was on the rowing team in college.”

  “Yeah, yeah, but that doesn’t give you special privileges. Come on. Trade places with me. The rowing’s the fun part.”

  “Another five minutes. Then we’ll switch.” He’d quickly discovered that physical exercise was exactly what he needed. Besides, rowing the boat across a section of water gave him a sense of accomplishment and control. Apparently he’d needed that, too.

  Of course, Mary Jane needed and wanted those rewards as much as he did. He’d figured out right away that she wasn’t the type to sit in the boat and let the guy take the oars, no matter how many rowing medals he had stashed in his closet at home. She’d gone so far as to push back the sleeve of her T-shirt and flex her muscles for him to prove that she was capable of rowing them across the lake.

  He’d never had a woman insist on doing her share of the manual labor, and he’d tried to talk her out of it, even using her pregnancy as a reason. She’d laughed and mentioned the heavy trays she carried at work every day. Finally he’d run out of arguments and had let her take the first turn at the oars, much to her delight.

  Watching her row had proved to be its own special torture. Each time she’d pulled on the oars her breasts had thrust against the fabric of her T-shirt. By now he was pretty sure that Longhorns logo was burned permanently into his retina.

  “Wasn’t this the greatest idea?” she asked.

  “Yes.” He couldn’t believe how something so simple was so cleansing. He wasn’t really in shape for rowing, but the slight ache in his shoulders felt great. While he worked up a mild sweat and listened to the rhythm of the oars clunking against the oarlocks, he enjoyed the lush green of the trees surrounding the lake, the familiar dank scent of the water, the white clouds scudding across the sky and the sun warming his back. “It makes you feel glad to be a—” He brought the sentence to a screeching halt and stared at Mary Jane in horror at what he’d been about to say.

  She leaned forward and put a hand on each of his knees. “We are alive,” she said, looking hard at him as she gripped his knees. “And, Morgan, that’s not our fault. We shouldn’t feel guilty about that.”

  “I guess not.” But he had plenty of other things to feel guilty about, and topping the list was the selfish, wild pleasure he felt whenever she touched him. They’d rowed into a fairly secluded inlet, and nobody seemed to be around on this week day. If he had no conscience… But he did have a conscience, and fortunately it still worked. “You can have the oars now,” he said.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  IN SPITE OF what she’d told Morgan, Mary Jane found herself battling feelings of guilt as the afternoon continued to be more fun than two grieving people should be having. After the rowboat ride, she’d driven him outside the city, cruising past Garrett Lord’s place because she remembered Lana telling her that the bluebonnets were still looking good on her brother’s property. Sure enough, the wildflowers were doing their thing in an open meadow.

  Morgan insisted on stopping the car so he could get out and look at a bluebonnet up close. The spot he chose was not too far from the turnoff to Garrett’s place. If Lana’s brother happened to be out riding and caught a glimpse of Mary Jane with a man, word would be all over in no time.

  Crossing the road with Morgan to look at the field of wildflowers, Mary Jane hoped they wouldn’t be seen. She still felt very protective of their privacy.

  “I’ve heard of these things for ages,” Morgan said. “Thanks for humoring me. I’m a scientist. I want to examine one up close.”

  “Just don’t pick one,” she warned as he started into a field. “Or we’ll be arrested.”

  “Seriously?” He turned to her in surprise. “Arrested for picking wildflowers? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do with them?”

  “Not these. These are our state treasure. And they reseed themselves every year. If people went around gathering bouquets, they wouldn’t reseed and we wouldn’t have this.” She spread her arm to encompass the lavender-blue carpet of flowers.

  “Okay. Gotcha. No picking.” He crouched next to a single plant and touched the delicate cluster of small blue flowers that covered the slender stalk. “I like to see the detail that goes into the big picture.”

  She stood by the edge of the road and watched him, fascinated by the way he could focus his attention like a laser. Although she’d been in his office, she’d never seen him dealing with one of his small patients. If he devoted this much careful attention to them, he must be one hell of a doctor. And one hell of a lover. She pushed the thought away.

  “Incredible. I love the color.” At the gentle brush of his fingers, one small bloom dropped from the stalk. “Oops.” He drew his hand back. “What’s the penalty for that? Fifty lashes?”

  “You’re out west now, pardner. We string up varmints like you from the nearest tree.”

  He stood and walked toward her. “Gonna turn me in?”

  “Depends.” She could swear he’d developed an amble in his walk now that he wore jeans and boots. And that hat was a killer. She wondered if he’d have the nerve to wear it in New York. “You being from back east and all, you might have strange customs, like thinking pizza should have anchovies on it. If you’re going to make me eat anchovies on my pizza, I might have to report that bluebonnet crime of yours.”

  He grinned. “No anchovies.”

  “Then I’ll cover for you on this deal.” She glanced around. “Sun’s going down. We’d better head on back before the video store rents out all the decent movies. I have a specific one in mind.”

  “Such as?” He fell into step with her as they crossed the road to the car.

  “I was thinking Toy Story.”

  “But isn’t that a kids’—”

  “I knew it! You’ve never seen it, have you? No point in asking if you’ve seen Toy Story 2.” She shook a finger at him. “And you call yourself a father-to-be. We are going to remedy this serious gap in your education right away. Climb in. We’re making tracks for the video store.” She started to get in the car.

  “Wait!”

  She paused with one foot in the car. “What?”

  “Look at the hills. They’re…they’re purple.”

  “Oh, yeah
. They do that a lot when the sun goes down.”

  Morgan turned in a slow circle and took a deep breath. “Wow. A lot?”

  “Yep. In fact, Austin is known as the City of the Violet Crown for that very reason.” She got out of the car and stood looking at the hills that surrounded Austin like the rim of a bowl. Sure enough, the hills were putting on a show tonight. She was glad Morgan was able to see them at their best. “I guess I’ve started taking it for granted, which isn’t a good thing.”

  “Arielle must have, too,” he said. “She never told me about this.”

  Mary Jane noticed that the mention of Arielle’s name was now possible without both of them getting weepy. “I don’t think she would have made a very good member of the Chamber of Commerce. She once told me that after seeing New York City, she had no interest whatsoever in coming back to Austin to live.”

  “Well, New York has lots of things to recommend it, but the hills definitely don’t turn purple at sunset.” He stood with his hands shoved in the back pockets of his jeans as he continued to gaze at the color washing the hillsides. “I’m beginning to understand why you turned down the job of being the baby’s nanny.”

  She took a deep breath. Rejecting Arielle’s plea that she move to New York and be a nanny to the baby had been the most difficult decision she’d ever made. “I know Arielle was upset about that.”

  “Yeah, she was, but I guess she had a tough time understanding why you wouldn’t want to move there. She probably figured if she loved it so much, you would, too.”

  “I would have loved being close to Arielle, because I missed her. But I know myself, and when I tried to picture being cooped up in your high-rise with all those artificial plants…oops.” She gave him an apologetic glance. “Sorry. It’s a gorgeous apartment.”

  “But sterile.”

  “Different strokes,” she said. “And it’s not only the living arrangements. I have a lot of good friends here, and I like my job at Austin Eats. Besides, I would miss…” She paused and smiled. “The Violet Crown, I guess, and the sunshine, and the wide-open sky, and the moonlight towers.”

  “Moonlight towers?” He glanced at her expectantly.

  “Gigantic streetlights.” She was glad to move away from an uncomfortable topic. Arielle’s reaction to her refusal of the nanny position had caused an argument between them, and at first Mary Jane had been afraid her grand gesture of having the baby for Arielle would be ruined because she hadn’t been willing to be a nanny, too. In fact, Mary Jane had figured that the topic had been set aside, not closed.

  “Tell me about the moonlight towers,” Morgan said.

  “I’ll show you one on the way to the video store. They were put up more than a hundred years ago, a whole bunch of them, to light the city. Before that I guess it was black as pitch once the sun went down. The type of light in the towers has changed, of course, but a lot of them are still up and working, even though they aren’t really needed anymore. It’s one of our claims to fame.”

  “I know another one.”

  “I’ll bet you’re going to say the National Wildflower Research Center. Lots of people have heard of that.”

  “Except me. You have such a thing?”

  “You bet. Around here we take our wildflowers seriously.”

  “So I’m learning. But that isn’t what I was going to say.”

  “Town Lake? The capitol building? UT?”

  He shook his head. “I was going to say that one of Austin’s biggest claims to fame is that Mary Jane Potter lives here,” he said quietly.

  The extravagant compliment caught her by surprise. Heat burned in her cheeks, and her heart started to race. “You only say that because I gave you an extra turn rowing the boat.”

  He gazed at her with the heart-melting smile that made mincemeat out of every defense she tried to throw up. “Yeah,” he said, his voice husky. “That’s what turned the trick, all right.”

  She swallowed. “Time to go get Toy Story.” She hopped into the car and started the engine. She hoped he hadn’t noticed that her hands were shaking.

  Once he was buckled up, she headed off, concentrating on the road and not the very appealing man sitting in the seat next to her. Her determination not to glance in his direction might have been why she noticed the For Sale sign on the gate of the small ranch adjoining Garrett’s place.

  Apparently his neighbors, the Slatterys, had finally decided to move closer to their children in California. Lana had told her the house was a real gem, solidly constructed and nestled away from the road. The property included a pecan orchard, a small pond and plenty of room for horses. It was more than Mary Jane ever expected to be able to afford, but maybe she’d go if they had an open house, just to dream a little.

  “You’re upset with me,” Morgan said.

  “No.” His gentle voice did things to her. Nice things. Dangerous things. She cleared her throat. “But you really shouldn’t pay me compliments like that.”

  “I know,” he said quietly. “But somebody should be saying them. You are a rare and wonderful woman, and somebody should be holding your hand, bringing you flowers, taking you dancing. When I think of how you’ve interrupted the natural flow of your life in order to have this baby, I’m humbled by your generosity and ashamed that I never saw it before as the incredible sacrifice that it is.”

  She shook her head. “You’re making me out to be more noble than I am. When Arielle proposed the idea of me being a surrogate mom, I remember being incredibly relieved.”

  “Relieved?”

  “I owed her so much. She got me through those years after my mom died and my dad became a zombie. But as a kid, even as a teenager, what could I ever do to pay her back? And then she handed me the one way I could. I knew that if I could produce a healthy baby and give it to her, I’d finally have settled the score.”

  “I’m sure Arielle never expected you to settle any score.”

  “Of course she didn’t,” Mary Jane said quickly. “I didn’t mean that she expected repayment. Far from it. Still, I was very aware of my debt.”

  “But now…”

  “Arielle’s death hasn’t made me regret my decision about this pregnancy. I’m glad I’m doing this.” She switched on the headlights. “Maybe more than ever.”

  “Because you still want to settle the debt? I’ve already told you she wasn’t the one who really wanted this. I realize now the baby was my attempt to break through, to get to the real Arielle underneath the protective shell, to get some emotional depth into our marriage.”

  Mary Jane gripped the wheel. His honesty helped her be more honest with herself. “Maybe my reasons weren’t so different from yours, now that you lay it out like that. Arielle never seemed to need anything from me, while I needed everything from her. She was like a goddess. But here, at last, was something I could do that she couldn’t do. I thought it would make us…closer to equals, I guess, maybe even break down the wall that always existed between us. I never realized how much I longed for that.”

  He met her comment with a long moment of silence. “Okay. I’m probably the one person in the world who totally understands that reasoning. But that still leaves us both at the same place. The reason to have this baby is gone.”

  “No,” Mary Jane said. “Not gone. Changed.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’s real, this baby. She’s a person to me now. No matter what the reasons were before, she’s become her own reason.” She thought about the tiny life growing within her, and her chest grew tight with unspoken love. “Morgan, this is going to be one awesome kid.”

  MORGAN LOVED TOY STORY. Or maybe it wasn’t the movie so much as sitting on the floor in front of the coffee table, eating pizza right out of the box while they watched the video. Maybe it was the fun of dribbling strings of cheese without worrying about an expensive Oriental carpet, and drinking cola straight from the can. Maybe it was glancing up to see cheerful prints of bright flowers on the walls instead of original
abstract art.

  Or maybe it was Mary Jane, sitting cross-legged beside him, scarfing up pizza and giggling like a little kid at the antics of Woody and Buzz Lightyear. She was completely relaxed with him, and he felt the knots inside his stomach loosen.

  He didn’t remember her being this open when she’d come to New York for the wedding, or more recently when she’d spent a few days to complete the medical procedure that had resulted in her pregnancy. She’d been much more hesitant then, as if waiting for cues from Arielle before she said or did anything, the way a child behaved around a powerful parent.

  He sensed that the bubbly person sitting next to him on the floor was the real Mary Jane. Being around Arielle had sent that person into hiding. That explained why he’d never truly noticed her. It didn’t excuse his willingness to throw a monkey wrench into her life with this baby, but he knew if he’d come to know her then as he was beginning to know her now, he would never have allowed Arielle to ask this favor.

  By the time the movie ended, the pizza box was empty. And they’d ordered an extra large because that was what she’d had a coupon for. Morgan stared at the remaining crumbs with some surprise. “We ate it all.”

  “Yeah.” She smiled at him. “It’s a good sign that we could polish off a pizza. Did you taste it, or were you just eating to be polite?”

  “I tasted it.” He drank the last of his cola and set the empty can on the coffee table. “It was good.”

  “I thought so, too. Of course, this is a primo pizza parlor. The dough recipe is a well-kept secret, but if we were still in bad shape, we could have eaten this pizza and not tasted a thing.”

  “That’s pretty much the way I’ve been eating—just going through the motions. This is the first thing I’ve had that I actually tasted.”

  She nodded. “Good. We’re getting better, Morgan. I’m not saying we’re not going to have bad spells, but maybe the worst is over.”

  “Maybe.” He couldn’t say her eyes were exactly the color of the bluebonnets, but they had that shade in them, along with flecks of gray and gold. He’d been impressed with the bluebonnets, but he could imagine eventually getting bored gazing at them. He’d never get tired of looking into Mary Jane’s eyes.