Tempting Fate

by Lisa Mondello

  A lump formed in her throat that she couldn't swallow down. “That's so sad.”

  Jonah nodded in agreement. “It does have a happy ending though. I kept in touch with him and as soon as I was able, I started a foundation for streets kids just like him. It was because of the work with the Haven House for Young Wanderers that I was ultimately recognized by the Queen and knighted. It has given a tremendous amount of exposure to the cause.”

  “You must feel so proud.”

  “It's an honor. But I'm most proud of the people who work for the Foundation and the work they accomplish. They're making a difference in the lives of those they help.”

  “Whatever happened to the boy?”

  Admiration filled Jonah's expression. “He's all grown up now and works right alongside me.”

  Her eyes widened, suddenly seeing the connection. “Cam?”

  “Yes, it was Cameron. He and his father had some pretty rough times, but they worked out their problems, and got through the pain of losing his mother. Now Cam gives back every day what was given to him when he was a boy.”

  A tear rolled down her cheek, followed by another. Jonah reached over and brushed the moisture away with his fingers. He slid next to her and drew her into his arms.

  Maggie sniffed, sinking into his warm embrace. She didn't want to be in his arms, she told herself. She had no place there if she had any chance of keeping her distance. She didn't want to need him or find comfort in him like she had with Keith. But she found herself doing it anyway.

  “I never would have told you the story if I thought it would make you cry.”

  “They're happy tears. For Cameron. For you. I could tell you had a special relationship. I'm glad you told me the story.”

  “If that's all it takes to keep you happy, I'll be telling you lots of stories for the next year.”

  # # #

  Chapter Nine

  It had been a long time since Maggie allowed herself the pleasure of sleeping late into the morning. But Virginia had seemed just as excited about “the date” as Maggie had been and insisted Maggie take the day off. It was a good excuse to have her fourteen year old granddaughter come help out at the shop, Virginia had told Maggie. Thinking back on her own cherished memories helping her grandmother, how could Maggie resist?

  The clock on the nightstand said 9:30. She hadn't slept this late since she was in high school. No, probably before that. She'd begun helping out at the Coffee Drop on weekends when she was scarcely twelve.

  Rather than indulge too long in luxury, she hoisted her feet off the side of the bed and to the floor, bracing herself in case nausea hit. Nothing. Good, maybe now that she was past her morning sickness, she could actually function like a human being again.

  Padding across the carpeted floor to the dresser, she yanked at the drawers, and grabbed a fresh pair of underwear, a pair of loose fitting black shorts and an oversized white T-shirt she purposely bought extra-large to last her a few months into her pregnancy. In a week or two she'd have no choice but to do some serious maternity clothes shopping.

  Twenty minutes later, Maggie crept down the wide stairway, listening for sounds of activity. She could almost hear her bare feet on the marble floor as she walked, the house was so quiet. None of the staff was lurking about. She'd heard the kitchen door close earlier when she was upstairs getting dressed and had taken a peek behind the shade in time to see Mary walking out to the back yard towards the garden, her straw sun hat propped on her head and a large wicker basket in her gloved hands.

  Pushing through the kitchen door, she found it empty. Part of her was expecting him, but Jonah was nowhere to be found.

  The office. That's where he'd probably gone. He'd said last night's charity was a success, and he probably wanted to delve into the paperwork to get things moving. He was driven that way. That much she'd seen in him. In the few weeks she'd been living in his home, he'd come home late most evenings. That left very little time to get to know the intriguing man she'd married.

  Last night in the limousine was one of the first times she'd really gotten a glimpse of the real man. He wasn't just driven in his quest for the Foundation and for Wiltshire. He really cared about people.

  She pulled a stoneware bowl from the cabinet and poured herself some Corn Flakes, topping it off with cold milk. The house was oddly quiet, magnifying each move she made; the creak of her stool when she shifted her weight, the clank of the spoon in the empty bowl, and then again as she carefully placed the bowl in the porcelain sink.

  She could never live with all this...quiet. Her family's tenement was two blocks from the turnpike. The neighborhood was always alive with activity. Even when the world inside was asleep, there was noise outside.

  As if it had a will of its own, her hand moved to her rounded belly. In a few months, she wouldn't have to worry about quiet no matter where she was living, she thought as a smile tugged at her lips. Her baby would make sure there was plenty of noise to keep her company.

  But today, she had nothing to do.

  A mystery book. Maggie couldn't remember the last time she'd curled up on the sofa on a Sunday afternoon and read a good book cover to cover. She had seen a library in the other wing when she'd been given the grand tour the day after their wedding, but she usually only ventured into the few of the rooms she felt comfortable in, the kitchen and her bedroom.

  The library felt warmer than she remembered. Bookcases lined the walls of the long room on all sides except the wall dominated by the fieldstone fireplace. Characteristically it seemed almost out of place with the rest of the house with its casual pillow back sofa and wing chairs angled toward the empty fireplace. She wondered now why she'd chosen to stay away from this room.

  Her mind ventured forward to the upcoming winter when snow would fall and the bitter cold would hold them captive inside. Her baby would be here then. She pictured Jonah sitting in the wing-back chair by the roaring fire, lovingly cradling their baby in the crook of his arms.

  No! she silently reprimanded herself. That wasn't the way it was going to be. Her arrangement with Jonah had nothing to do with him loving her baby. At least, not that way. How could a man who had such strong ties to his bloodline, a man who would marry a total stranger just to keep his birthright, love a child that didn't share his blood?

  She couldn't make the mistake of daydreaming Jonah would become a real father to her child. She'd only disappoint herself and it would be totally unfair to Jonah. She'd told him she had no illusions that their arrangement would be permanent and she meant it. She'd have to make doubly sure she remembered that.

  Standing in the center of the room, her heavy sigh was absorbed by the stacks of hardback books on the shelf. Maggie spun on her heels and padded to the bookcase, pausing in the center of the room at the grand piano commanding her attention. She let her fingers glide over the polished wood surface, then tickle across the ivory keys, feeling them sink slightly beneath her touch.

  “Do you play?”

  Maggie practically jumped out of her skin and took two full steps back, clutching her hands to her hammering heart.

  “Jonah!” she gasped, relieved and suddenly full of...something. She didn't know what, but she was having some kind of unknown reaction that had nothing to do with fear. She'd felt it last night in the limousine. In fact, she'd been feeling it a lot whenever she was with Jonah.

  He stood in the doorway, filling it almost completely with his height, holding a towel that he'd wrapped around his broad shoulders with both hands. He'd been working out. That much was evident by the way his strong muscles along his chest and arms were pumped full. Maggie let her eyes trail down the length of him, from his washboard stomach to his rock hard thighs.

  She swallowed hard. “I didn't think you were home.”

  His smile faltered. “I don't always work.”

  “Working out?”

  “I have a small gym at the end of the hall. You're more than welcome to use it whenever you like.”

&
nbsp; Maggie tossed him a wry grin, gesturing to her figure. “I'm not exactly in the condition for pumping iron. But maybe after the baby is born.”

  He nodded, his blue eyes staring at her in a way that made her inside spark to life. He'd looked at her that way last night when she descended the stairway in her evening gown, and then again in the limousine.

  She brushed off the feelings. It wasn't good for her to delve deep to find a hidden meaning in everything Jonah did or said. It wouldn't change the fact that at the end of the year, she would be on her own again.

  “Do you?” he asked, staring at her again. His eyes quickly darted to the piano, then back to her face.

  “Oh, I don't play. I'm what you'd call a hacker.”

  His eyebrows stretched high on his forehead. “What's a hacker?”

  “Someone who always wanted to play but never quite learned the proper way.”

  Awareness dawned on him. “I could teach you a thing or two if you'd like.”

  I'll bet. “Do you play?”

  “You didn't think this monstrosity was just for show now, did you?”

  She shrugged. “I'm envious. When I was real young, we had an old upright piano in our apartment. I use to get yelled at a lot back then for banging on it. I was the only one who ever paid it any mind, but I never learned to play. It was old and mostly in the way. We needed the room so my grandmother had it dismantled and hauled away.”

  “That's a shame.”

  She nodded as a bittersweet tug of emotion rose in the center of her chest.

  “Come here,” he said. Pulling out the bench, he sat down and pat the smooth leather seat next to him.

  “You're going to teach me...now?”

  “Unless you have something else planned.”

  “No. I was just going to read a...never mind. I'd love to learn how to play a song, maybe something simply to play for the baby. Do you know anything?”

  Jonah pulled the towel from his neck and placed it on the hardwood floor beside the bench as she saddled up beside him. He smelled of sweat, but not offensively so.

  “I know a few, mostly classics.” His fingers were long and lean, she noticed as he began to play and music graced the quiet room.

  “You play beautifully,” she said softly.

  “Do you have any favorites?”

  “I don't know much about classical music.”

  Jonah's fingers danced on the keyboard, fiddling with a tune that seemed to go nowhere before he finally settled on a song that sounded oddly familiar to her. He sat straight and tall next to her on the bench, almost completely engrossed in each note as he played, lost in the music.

  “I've heard this song before. I can't remember...” Maggie let her voice trail off, not wanting to break into the spell of the song.

  Jonah didn't stop playing. “It's a lullaby by a famous American composer, Aaron Copeland.”

  “I don't know any composers,” she said, slightly abashed.

  Jonah was so worldly, not that knowing about music made him worldly. It was just one more thing about the two of them that made them completely different. He'd seen so much of life and the world. She had never even left New England.

  “Olivia Newton John sang it on one of her CD's.”

  “Oh, that's right.”

  That's where she'd heard it before. She knew next to nothing about classical music and had never heard of the American composer Jonah mentioned. But she knew the song was a lullaby called All the Pretty Little Horses, one that she loved.

  Excitement flared inside her. “Can you teach me to play this for the baby?”

  “Can you read sheet music?”

  Maggie's shoulders sank slightly.

  As if feeling her sudden disappointment, Jonah said, “I'm not asking you if you can play Rhapsody in Blue. If you can read sheet music, it will make it easier for me to teach you.”

  She shook her head, disappointment invading her momentary excitement. “I told you, I'm a hacker. I mostly played by ear.”

  He puffed out a breath and ceased playing. “This may be more involved than I anticipated. How about if I set up some piano lessons for you, have someone come out to the house to teach you on a regular basis? That way you'll learn to play the correct way and you can learn all the songs you'd like.”

  His lips lifted to a slow sexy grin that suddenly made her abandon thoughts of learning to play the piano. She could hear her heart thumping wildly in her chest like a timpani and wondered if Jonah could hear it too.

  “If I sit here next to you day after day I'm liable to get distracted.”

  And so would I.

  Maggie couldn't help it, but she actually felt heat creep up from her toes to the top of her hairline. Her heart pounded wildly against her ribs. “You don't have to go through all that trouble. It's not like I'm going to have the opportunity to practice once the baby is born. And like I said, the piano is gone at the tenement.”

  A gray cloud masked Jonah's expression. He still held his smile, but there was a tightness around the corners of his mouth that made Maggie think it was forced, as if what she'd said bothered him and he didn't want to show it.

  “Then you can take the piano with you, along with the gift of a visiting instructor who'll teach you how to play whatever songs you'd like. Even rock and roll.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “You can't just give me the piano.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because...because then you won't have one for the times you want to play?”

  Lame excuse. Jonah probably had more money than the US Treasury Department, or close to it anyway. He could buy a whole symphony of instruments without putting the slightest dent in his bank account, including replacing the one he was offering to give her as a gift.

  “Think of it as an early gift for the baby.”

  She dipped her gaze. “It's very thoughtful of you, but I really can't accept it.”

  Jonah's heart sank deep into the pit of his stomach. He liked it when Maggie laughed and smiled. Only moments ago, she'd been just like a child when he said he'd teach her how to play the piano. Her eyes had grown impossibly wide, sparkling with light, like a child sitting on a park bench watching a fireworks display.

  He'd offered the simple gift without thinking. Why it suddenly hurt so that she wouldn't accept this little piece of him to take with her after their time together was over, he didn't know. But it did.

  “Are you going to fight me on all the gifts I give you?”

  She shook her head, cocking it to one side. She spoke on a whisper. “Jonah, I love that you want to give me such a beautiful present, but I don't have any room for it back at the tenement. Once the baby is born, we'll need the extra space for his bedroom.”

  Jonah drew in a deep breath, relief filling him completely. It shouldn't matter, but he was suddenly extremely happy Maggie wasn't rejecting the gift he offered because it was a gift from him, only that it was impractical. That much his ego could handle.

  “Then we'll go pick out a new upright piano that will fit neatly in the corner of his room.”

  “Great, then your son can blame you every time I make him practice.”

  Her laugh was quick, but just as fast she seemed to catch herself.

  She'd called her baby his son. In the past month they'd been together she'd never once referred to the baby she was carrying as his child. It was her child. He was just a stand in dad to temporarily replace the father who wanted nothing to do with him. He wasn't going to be a long term part of this child's life or Maggie's. Hearing Maggie refer to him that way sent sparks of panic through Jonah.

  When he'd first agreed to claim Maggie's child as his own, he reasoned his role in the child's life would be that of a long lost uncle, someone who dropped in every now and then to make sure the two of them were getting along and then he would breeze out until it was time for another visit. He never really thought that this child would think of him as a real daddy.

  He began to play the piano again, some ol
d tune he knew from memory and had forgotten the name of. He played, mostly to drown out the words echoing over and over in his head. Your son can blame you...blame you.

  He didn't want any child of his to blame him the way he'd blame his parents for always leaving him alone at school. Every time he'd gotten the news from Mary that his parents were detained in Egypt or Hong Kong or Madrid, he'd blamed them.

  Maggie said that she would eventually explain the truth to her baby when the time was right. Even so, it was his face that would show up at the door and it was him that this child would blame, not his natural father. Or would he blame Maggie for entering into such a farce of a marriage? What had they done?

  Maggie. He turned and found her peering up at him, her eyes wide and gray with sadness. As if she'd been caught, her gaze dipped to the ivory keys. But not before he caught the sheen of moisture glistening in her dark eyes.

  “Let me show you what I can do,” she said suddenly, waving his hands away from the keyboard.

  “I thought you said you didn't play?”

  “I said I was a hacker. There's a big difference, you know.”

  He eased back on the bench to give her ample room over the keys. The heat from her bare thighs seeped into his, and he found himself wondering if the hairs on his legs would tickle against her silky smooth skin if they were entangled together. Desire surged straight to his groin with the thought of Maggie locked in his embrace.

  She rubbed her hands together and flitted her gaze to him devilishly before looking back down and placing her hands on the keyboard. She mimicked him by straightening her spine and leaning forward, carefully holding her expression serious. Yet, Jonah could tell she was anything but.

  Her fingers hammered into the keys, and he burst into laughter.

  “See? I told you I could play,” she said laughing.

  “Heart and Soul?”

  “A hacker's dream song. Come on, play it with me. I can only do the rhythm.”

  He leaned into Maggie, becoming dangerously close, peering over her rich brown hair to see the keyboard. Immediately he was invaded by the magic that was sheer Maggie. Ten years of piano lessons and never once had he had this much fun just fiddling with a song. As she pounded out the rhythm, he improvised, having a little fun with a bluesy tag.