As if sensing her mood, Morgan took her hand. “You really don’t have to do this. I can book you on a return flight and you won’t even have to leave the airport.”
She laced her fingers through his and looked at him as the plane taxied in. Although she wanted to be there for him, she was feeling a little queasy at the idea of going to the apartment tonight and facing all those reminders of Arielle. It had been a long day, and her energy wasn’t very high. She kept forgetting that she didn’t have the stamina she used to have before she became pregnant.
Besides that, she wondered if Morgan had thought about how he’d feel staying with her in the apartment for the next two nights. Would he be offended if she slept in the guest room? She didn’t know about him, but climbing into the bed he’d shared with Arielle would totally creep her out. And having him spend the night in the guest bed with her sounded pretty tacky, too. In the rush of making arrangements to leave, she hadn’t considered whether they would make love on this trip, but the answer seemed to be no.
“Seriously,” Morgan said. “I was crazy to agree to bring you. I think you should go back. This isn’t good for you or the baby.” Morgan didn’t look so chipper himself. The closer they’d come to their destination, the more weariness and anxiety had settled into his expression.
She couldn’t desert him at a time like this. “I’m not leaving,” she said.
“You’re right,” he said immediately. “I don’t know what I was thinking. You shouldn’t make the flight again so soon. I’ll book you into a hotel for tonight and you can go back first thing in the morning.”
“That’s silly. I can certainly—” Then she paused as a crazy idea came to her. “Morgan, let’s both stay in a hotel. I know it’s ridiculous and more expensive, but who says we have to sleep in the apartment? We can go there in the light of day to take care of things, can’t we?”
His expression brightened immediately. “Would you be suggesting we stay in the same hotel?” he said with a tiny smile.
“I was hoping we’d be staying in the same hotel room,” she said.
His smile widened. “Mary Jane Potter, you are a brilliant woman.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
MORGAN CALLED from the airport and was lucky enough to locate a room at a decent hotel in midtown Manhattan not too far from the apartment. Booking a hotel room in his hometown felt extremely weird, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized how fitting it was. From the moment Arielle had died in the crash, New York had ceased to be his hometown.
Knowing he wouldn’t have to spend another night in the apartment brought him tremendous relief, and Mary Jane was a real genius for thinking of the hotel idea. He’d stay there even after Mary Jane left, until he could find another apartment. Now that he was leaving the place for good, he could admit that he’d never liked it.
Lifting Mary Jane’s small suitcase, he took her arm and guided her to the taxi stand. His next hurdle would be riding past the spot where Arielle had been killed. He’d done it once when he’d taken a taxi to the airport the night he’d flown to Austin, but he’d been numb at that point. He was no longer numb.
He took comfort in the knowledge that at the end of this taxi ride would be an anonymous hotel room, not the apartment he’d fled in a panic. And he’d have Mary Jane to hold on to. He trembled to think what this return trip would have been like without her, and he tried not to think about how drab his life would be when she left on Sunday.
Giving the taxi driver the hotel’s name, he helped Mary Jane into the cab and climbed in after her. She snuggled against him, and he wrapped an arm around her with a sense of gratitude. Mary Jane would help keep the goblins away.
“We have to go past the place where she died, don’t we?” she murmured as the cab left the airport.
“Yes.”
“I want you to show me.”
His arm tightened and he glanced into her shadowed face. “Are you sure?”
She nodded.
“There’s nothing there, nothing much to see,” he said. “Just the road and a field next to it.”
“But you’ll never forget the way it looks, will you?”
He wished he could, but it still haunted his dreams. “No, I’ll never forget it.”
She touched his cheek. “That’s why I want to see. I want to share that with you.”
He covered her hand with his and turned his head to place a kiss in her palm. Thank God for the dark interior of the cab, which hid the tears gathering in his eyes. In his life he’d never had trouble finding people who wanted to share his successes, but he’d never found someone who was willing to share his pain.
As the cab approached the curve in the road where Arielle had skidded out of control, Morgan asked the driver to slow down.
Beside him, Mary Jane tensed.
“There.” Stomach churning, he pointed across the road to the spot where the car had gone off the pavement. The guardrail hadn’t been replaced yet, and it remained a twisted reminder of the accident. He’d never forget the sight of Arielle’s convertible lying upside down in a ditch, the canvas top flattened. “She was going too fast, apparently, and skidded on a slick spot. The car flipped.”
Mary Jane stared into the darkness and shivered. “So nobody else was in the accident? I never thought to ask.”
His throat felt very tight. “Nobody else.”
As the cab continued down the highway, Mary Jane turned to look out the back window. Her voice was unsteady. “She must have been going really fast.”
Morgan swallowed. “The cops said she was definitely speeding. And talking on her car phone.”
“She did love that thing.” Mary Jane shook her head. “And she was always in a hurry, too.”
“Yeah, she was.” When he’d first met Arielle he’d been attracted to all that energy, but over the years he’d found the pace she set exhausting. There had been no time to talk, let alone to sit quietly without talking. He’d begun to suspect that just being with him hadn’t been enough for Arielle, because she’d avoided it so carefully.
Mary Jane turned to him. The light from oncoming headlights sparkled in her tear-glazed eyes. “I hate that it happened.”
“I know.” He cupped her cheek with his hand. “Me, too.”
“But…” She sighed and closed her eyes. “No, I can’t say that. It’s too horrible.”
“You can say anything to me.” And he had a good idea what she was thinking, because he was thinking it, too.
She opened her eyes and looked at him for a long time. “If Arielle hadn’t died, I wouldn’t have had this time with you. There, I’ve said it. And I’m probably a terrible person for even thinking such a selfish thing.”
He stroked her cheek with his thumb. “Then that makes two of us.”
MARY JANE hadn’t spent much time in hotel rooms. The senior class trip to Disneyworld had been pretty much the extent of it. Checking into this elegant little hotel in Manhattan was a far cry from sharing a double-double at the Disney Hotel with three high school girlfriends.
The desk clerk didn’t know quite how to take Morgan, which made Mary Jane grin. In his Austin-bought duds he looked like a cowboy, but he had the sophisticated moves of a New Yorker. He’d handed her suitcase right over to somebody the minute they’d been helped out of the cab.
She never expected to see it again, but sure enough, soon after they let themselves into the room, someone knocked on the door and, presto, there was her little suitcase. The person who brought it even offered to hang up her stuff.
“No!” she said quickly. “I mean, no, thank you.” She couldn’t imagine having a stranger rummaging through her belongings.
Morgan slipped the man a couple of bills as he was heading out the door.
“That was a complete waste of money,” Mary Jane said as the door closed after the guy. “I could have carried that suitcase, considering we came up here in an elevator.” She took off her light jacket and hung it in the closet. “Next time l
et me carry it, okay?”
“Nope.” Morgan smiled at her. “Bellmen have to make a living, too. Are you hungry? We could order up something.”
“You mean room service?” She couldn’t imagine something so decadent, and he was acting totally casual about it. “At this time of night?”
“Sure.” He set his hat brim-side-up on the dresser. Someone, probably Garrett, had taught him how to handle a Stetson. Then he picked up a leather-bound folder and began leafing through it. “We didn’t have much on the plane. What are you hungry for?”
“Chocolate cake.”
He glanced at her with amusement. “Fresh fruit would be better.”
“If we’re going to make someone go to all the trouble of bringing us food, it is definitely not going to be fresh fruit.”
Morgan laughed and picked up the phone. “Maybe you’re right.” He punched in a number and ordered one piece of chocolate mousse torte and an assortment of herbal teas.
Mary Jane stood next to him and peered over his shoulder at the room service menu. “Yikes! Is that what it costs?”
He hung up the phone and closed the menu before turning to her. “You’re worth it.”
“Morgan, at Austin Eats you could order an entire dinner plus chocolate cake for what one piece of chocolate mousse torte costs at this place.”
He took her gently by the shoulders. “You’re in New York now. Everything’s more expensive. It’s a shock to you, but I’m used to it. To be honest, that torte doesn’t cost as much as I’ve paid at a couple of restaurants I could name.”
She thought about that. If prices were that much higher, then wages must be higher, too. Arielle hadn’t made a lot of money at the art gallery. That meant Morgan had been pulling down a hefty income for them to be able to afford to live here.
She gazed at him. “Are you sure you should consider giving up your practice? I’ll bet Ellie can’t pay you anything close to what you’re making here.”
“No, she can’t.” He grinned. “But as you just pointed out, I wouldn’t pay as much for chocolate cake.” His grin faded. “Or are you trying to tell me you’d rather I didn’t move to Austin after the baby’s born?”
“Are you crazy?” She moved closer and cradled his face in both hands. “I want you to move to Austin next week. But I don’t want you to commit financial suicide, either.”
He took her into his arms and pulled her close. “I’m only going to say this once, because it’s not very pleasant. Arielle cared a lot about how much money I made. Getting ahead financially consumed her, and I fell into that pattern, too. Now that she’s gone, I’ll never let money have that much control over me again.”
She started to protest what he’d said about her best friend. “She didn’t really—”
“I didn’t think you’d like hearing that,” he said. “I’m not even asking you to believe it. But it’s true.”
Mary Jane thought back over recent conversations she’d had with Arielle, and she had to admit a lot of them had centered around money. Arielle had said many times that Morgan was doing very well financially. She’d talked about when they’d be able to buy an apartment on Park Avenue West and a country home in Connecticut.
“Maybe it was because she had to struggle so much as a kid,” Mary Jane said.
“That’s what I thought, too. I figured once we reached a certain level, that fear of poverty would go away.” Morgan rubbed the small of her back. “But her need for money and prestige seemed to grow the more I made and the higher we climbed socially. I don’t know if I ever would have made enough or been important enough to satisfy her.”
Mary Jane’s heart was wrenched. She’d always thought of Arielle as having it all. Instead she’d had so little self-confidence that she’d needed all sorts of props to feel good about herself. “Poor Arielle,” she whispered, looking into Morgan’s warm brown eyes. “She wasn’t happy.”
“No. And I didn’t know how to make her happy.”
Mary Jane felt her loyalty shifting. Morgan had been trying so hard to please Arielle and he’d been getting nothing but more demands. “I can’t imagine why she didn’t appreciate you more.”
Morgan’s gaze warmed another notch. “You’re going to get yourself in trouble, talking like that.”
“I’m already in trouble.”
His head lowered. “Yeah, me, too.”
Pleasure zipped from her head to her toes at the thought of another one of Morgan’s kisses.
But a knock at the door came at the exact wrong time. With a light brush of his lips over hers, he released her. “There’s our chocolate cake.”
Room service might not be such a wonderful idea, after all, she thought in frustration, if the servers had no better sense of timing than that. But when she caught a glimpse of the linen-draped cart being wheeled in with a rose in a bud vase, a silver teapot and delicate china, she was enchanted.
Morgan signed for the food while she walked around the little cart in wonder. She could learn something from the presentation, she thought. She wondered how they made the chocolate curls decorating the frosting, and if she should add that to her hot fudge sundae preparation. The way they’d swirled chocolate and cherry sauce together on the plate was a work of art. Of course, any food looked better on china so fragile you could almost see through it.
“Are you planning to eat that or look at it?”
She glanced up and met Morgan’s grin with one of her own. “I’m not used to this, so bear with me,” she said. “I’m trying to figure out how they made this design in the sauce. Professional curiosity.” She studied the torte again.
“When you’re finished ogling the food, may I make a suggestion?”
“Suggest away.” The trick was to swirl the white chocolate sauce on the plate first, she decided, and then drop some cherry sauce on top, and maybe use a toothpick or a thin knife to—
“Let’s eat the cake in bed.”
That got her attention. She looked up and discovered he’d taken his shirt off and was reaching for the buckle of his belt. Her heart began to pound, and she lost all interest in sauce design. “That’s an idea,” she said, totally absorbed in the subtle movement of his pecs as he unzipped his jeans.
“Naked.”
She kicked off her shoes and started on the buttons of her blouse. “That’s an even better idea.”
MORGAN VOWED to forget about everything but Mary Jane for the rest of the night. He discovered that naked was his favorite way to eat chocolate cake and that Mary Jane had some very interesting ideas for ways to enjoy the chocolate mousse filling. They played and made love far into the night, and slept late the next morning.
Between room service and the charms of Mary Jane, he would have been content to stay in bed for the rest of the day, but Mary Jane finally made him see that the sooner they went to the apartment, the sooner they could come back to their temporary love nest. Still, it was nearly noon before they hailed a taxi to take them to the apartment building.
They held hands, and at first Morgan tried to make conversation. At least the weather was good, he thought, the sky blue and the air warm. He wasn’t sure he could have endured a rainy day. Still, the memories worked on him the closer they came to the apartment, and he ran out of cheerful things to say.
Finally traffic noise and the radio station the cabdriver had on were the only sounds inside the car. Morgan wasn’t really listening to the radio, but then the DJ said something that made him pay attention.
Okay, guys, tomorrow’s the big day. Mother’s Day. Time to get your act together for those special women in your lives.
Mother’s Day. He’d never put much effort into the holiday before. At an early age he’d learned that his mother hated sentimental displays, so now he ordered flowers and let it go at that. If he missed this year he had a good excuse. But his mother wasn’t the only one to be considered. Tomorrow he needed to honor Mary Jane.
She wasn’t flying to Austin until the middle of the afternoon, so
he’d have the whole morning to celebrate with her. His mood lifted as he started thinking of possibilities. Central Park. A carriage ride. He might be too late to get brunch reservations, but he could put together a picnic they could eat on the grass. Mary Jane would like that better, anyway. They could feed the ducks, maybe even fly a kite. She would love the—
“Morgan, we’re here.”
He snapped out of his nice little daydream to discover the cab had pulled up in front of his apartment building. His gut tensed. Reality time.
After paying the driver, he climbed out of the cab and gave a hand to Mary Jane. She gripped it as if she never intended to let go. They held on to each other as they walked toward the building.
“I have to keep reminding myself she’s not up there,” Mary Jane said.
“I know.” He felt as if he’d swallowed a chunk of hot asphalt. “This isn’t going to be much fun.” He hadn’t spent more than an hour here during the short time he’d stayed in New York after the accident. One good thing about this city—there were lots of places to hang out if you didn’t want to go home.
He opened the front door with his key and went into the hallway. Fortunately at this hour the apartment building was quiet, with most of the tenants hard at work somewhere in the city. They weren’t likely to meet anyone. Automatically he glanced at the wall lined with brass window mailboxes. The one labeled Tate, M and A was jammed with mail. He took a deep breath. “Maybe I should get the—”
“Later.” Mary Jane tugged him toward the elevator. “Let’s go upstairs before we lose our nerve.”
“All right.” His former way of life closed in on him as he went through the familiar motions of punching the elevator button and stepping inside the walnut-paneled unit. He no longer wanted to live in a building that required him to use elevators. He wanted to open a door and walk into his own house, a house with a big fireplace and a shady backyard.
“Maybe we should have a game plan,” Mary Jane said.
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