His Pretend Baby

by Theodora Taylor

  She came running back to the room, thinking Beau had fallen trying to get around by himself. But when she re-entered, she found him sitting at a now empty table, and the tray of food she’d made flipped over on the floor.

  “What happened?” she asked him.

  “Clean it up,” he said between clenched teeth. “And bring me some more.”

  Josie looked at the scene in horror. There was chili and sour cream all over the carpet. She’d have to drag out the steam cleaner if she didn’t want it to stain or smell like milk gone bad in here.

  He must have taken her horrified silence for defiance, because he bit out again, “If you want to keep this job, clean it up.”

  A chill ran down her back as a vision of Wayne pouring a glass of expired orange juice onto the kitchen floor, right in front of her feet, came back to her.

  “I work hard every day to put food on our table and keep this roof over our heads and this is how you repay me? Clean it up. Every drop, you ungrateful bitch!”

  Josie bit her lip and bent down to pick up as much of the scattered food as she could with the cloth napkin Beau had also thrown on the ground.

  She was going to be late for her Ruth’s House shift now. And Beau just sat there, like a king on his throne, while she cleaned up his mess.

  She bit her lip harder. Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry, she told herself, even as tears pooled in her eyes.

  It wasn’t really about the mess. She didn’t care about that. It was the fact that Beau had obviously done it on purpose. Wayne had done the exact same thing, purposefully creating messes whenever something wasn’t up to his standards, standards he seemed to change every other week to keep Josie on her toes.

  She could barely make her fingers work, she was shaking so hard with anger, but somehow she was able to get most of the mess cleared away with the napkin and a towel from Beau’s bathroom. Then she went back downstairs, ladled out more chili for him, and brought it back upstairs.

  But when she came back in with the unwieldy steam cleaner and started it up, he said, “I don’t want to hear that while I’m eating. You can wait until after I’m done.”

  Josie looked at the antique brass clock on the wall. She was supposed to be arriving for her shift at Ruth’s House in less than 15 minutes. But from the leisurely way Beau was spooning the chili into his mouth, she knew there was no way she’d make it within even a half hour of that.

  She called Sam from outside his door. “Hi, Sam, it’s me.”

  “Hey, girl,” Sam said. “Please tell me you’re on your way. The Crimson Tide lost and girl, why, why, why?”

  Josie immediately understood what Sam was trying to say. The Crimson Tide was the nickname for the University of Alabama’s football team, and it was a well-documented fact that domestic violence incidents went up whenever a popular local team lost. Her thoughts turned instantly to the Crimson Tide alum who was currently making her life hell and expelled a frustrated breath. “I’m stuck at work. I’m sorry. But I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “No, I know you’ve got to make your money, honey. Take your time.”

  “Believe me, I wish I was there with you instead.”

  “Don’t worry, all the domestic violence victims will still be here waiting for you,” Sam said with a laugh. “Now go on, take care of your business. I love you, sweetie.”

  “I love you, too.”

  She hung up with a sigh. Then she waited for her Beau to finish his dinner, her heart burning with anger.

  6

  On Saturday, Josie spent most of her lunch hour on the desktop in the Prescott’s wood-paneled study, looking up new grants for Ruth’s House and researching her education options. She decided returning to UAB would be her best bet. She only needed one more packed semester worth of college credits to finish her bachelor’s and improve her chances of never, ever having to work as the Prescott housekeeper again. But even if she saved every penny she made over the next few months, it still wouldn’t be enough to pay for her remaining credits and the trailer’s utilities.

  College, as it turned out, was prohibitively expensive when you weren’t a bright, shiny, straight-A honor student with all the potential in the world. There weren’t nearly as many scholarships available to a grown woman who had wasted her twenties on a bad marriage.

  But when her lunch hour had come and gone, and she still hadn’t figured out how to raise enough money to return to UAB any time in the near future, she decided to clear her mind with a trip to the grocery store to pick up healthier food options based on the recipes in the book Mac had given her that morning.

  Gordon’s was still the only grocery store in the affluent suburb. It had been there under the same ownership as long as Josie could remember and it still conducted business the old-fashioned way. The Prescotts had an account there, so there was no need to use the credit card Mrs. Prescott had authorized her accountant mail to Josie for household expenses. But it also didn’t carry all of the healthy staples on her list, which meant some guesswork on Josie’s part.

  She was trying to decide if green onions were an acceptable substitute for leeks, when someone behind her said, “Josie? Josie Witherspoon? Is that you?!”

  Even after all these years, she recognized the strawberry bubblegum voice. She tossed the green onions back, and rapidly pushed her cart towards another part of the store in the hopes that the woman would decide it was a case of mistaken identity. But sure enough, she heard the click-click of running heels behind her and before she could clear the corner, her pursuer had caught up with her.

  “It is you!” Mindy cried triumphantly, stepping in front of Josie’s grocery cart.

  “I was just buying some champagne and I saw you over here and I said to myself, ‘Is that Josie Witherspoon? No, it couldn’t be!’ But it’s you! Josie Witherspoon, as I live and breathe… you’ve even got the same glasses!”

  Josie touched the frames of the old cat-eyes Beau had brought her. She’d worn contacts when she’d been married to Wayne, but contacts cost money, so when her dailies finally ran out, it was back to the same glasses she’d had before meeting her “Prince Charming”.

  “Cat-eyes never seem to go out of style,” she said, trying to sell it.

  Mindy batted her pretty blue eyes. “Oh, I wouldn’t know about that. My eyesight’s still twenty-twenty.”

  Of course it was. “Well, it was nice seeing you, Mindy,” she said, trying to work her cart around the petite blond.

  But Mindy sidestepped her, saying, “You can’t go yet! We haven’t caught up. I’m assuming you’re back in town because you’re taking care of the Prescotts like your mama did?”

  How Josie wanted to tell her that wasn’t the case, but it was, so… “You guessed it.”

  Mindy clapped her hands like she’d won something. “So it’s true, then? Beau is really back in Forest Brook, recovering from his football injury? Eliza Hill said she saw a limo driving onto the Prescott estate. And everybody knows Kitty only uses Nolan’s town car service on the rare occasion she’s in town these days. But back to Beau—they said he was blind on SportsCenter. Is that right?”

  “I can’t really say… ”

  “Of course you can’t,” Mindy said in a sympathetic tone. Then she leaned closer and half-whispered, “I heard from Chelsea Mannis, who heard from Darryl Winters, that Beau made all his people sign confidentiality agreements, so no one can say anything, which is why no one’s really sure if he’s blind or not. But that NFL Scandals site says he’s only been seen in sunglasses since his accident and that the Suns should be announcing they’re dropping him any day now.”

  Josie was impressed. For someone who didn’t seem terribly bright, Mindy had managed to dig up more dirt on Beau than Josie had, and she was living with him.

  “Just tell me this,” Mindy said, edging even closer. “Does he still have those dreamy silver eyes of his or are they all bloodshot and gross now?”

  Josie was not only offended on behalf of a
ny visually impaired person who didn’t have what Mindy would deem as acceptable eyes, but also a little stymied because she really had no idea how to answer that question. Beau kept his sunglasses on at all times, maybe even when he was sleeping, and she hadn’t seen his eyes in real life… well, since her mother’s funeral.

  Mindy continued, “Because if they’re still dreamy, I could totally come over and cheer him up. But if they’re gross, well, have you heard from Colin lately?”

  Josie’s mind was spinning at this point. “Wait, are we talking about Colin Fairgood now?”

  “Did you see him at the CMAs?” Mindy rolled her eyes in obvious pleasure. “Talk about hot! I see his mama all the time, since he bought her a house right across from Mike Lancer’s—can you believe it?” Mindy’s eyes widened at the apparently scandalous prospect of Mike’s former housekeeper living across from her old employer. “But he always manages to slip in and out without me seeing him. I don’t suppose you’ve heard from him lately?”

  “No, I’m sorry to say we fell out of touch.”

  “Of course you did,” Mindy said, slapping her forehead with her perfectly manicured hand. “I mean, Colin is such a big superstar now, and you’re…”

  She scanned Josie’s outfit, a plaid button-up paired with an old pair of blue jeans and tennis shoes. She smiled brightly. “Well, you’re still the same old Josie. I swear except for the hair you haven’t changed a bit!” Mindy tilted her head to the side. “What made you decide to get such a drastic haircut? Is it popular wherever you were staying all these years?”

  Josie reached up and self-consciously touched her hair. It was short at the sides, leaving her kinky corkscrews to fall where they may. Wayne had preferred her hair straight and down her back, the same kind of hair worn by the wives and girlfriends of most of his law firm colleagues. So before leaving Atlanta, she’d gotten her hair cut into a style she knew her former husband would have despised and had kept the sides short ever since.

  But the way Mindy was looking at her, she felt less like a free woman and more like an unfashionable freak. “I was ready for something a little different.”

  Mindy patted her arm, like she was an unfortunate mental patient. “Well, good for you. I say, whatever makes you happy!” She plastered on one of those fake Southern smiles, one thing Josie hadn’t missed during her cloistered marriage. “Well, Josie, it was just so great to see you. I’m going to tell everybody we know you’re back in town helping out poor Beau. Right where you belong.”

  Then she walked away, leaving Josie rooted to the spot with embarrassment for herself and her situation.

  Right where you belong.

  The words followed her home and echoed in her ears as she unloaded the groceries. Beau had his appointment with the neurosurgeon next week, and who knew how long he’d need her services after that? She had to figure out how to get more money.

  An idea popped into her head then. Granted, a rather unappetizing one, but it was better than anything she’d been able to come up with so far that day.

  She pulled out her cell phone and reluctantly tapped in the number Beau’s mother had last called her from.

  7

  Josie was avoiding him. That much was obvious. In the last twenty-four hours, she hadn’t come into his room unless it was to bring him his dinner or if he wasn’t there. He’d come back from his workout session with Mac to the smell of cleaning products lingering in the air.

  This should have made him happy. After overhearing her profess her love to some guy named Sam outside his room the night before, he’d felt worse than pathetic. She’d already moved on to a new boyfriend and here he was, still pining after some girl who had rejected him years ago. The last thing he should want were unnecessary encounters with Josie.

  But even though they hadn’t been in the same room since he overturned his tray the night before, he was still deeply aware of her presence in his house. He could smell the sandalwood scent she wore in the hallway outside his room. He could taste her personality in the down-home touches she put on the healthy meals she’d been making him. A few times, he’d heard Mac talking in another room with her. Once she’d even she laughed at something he said, and the sound, which he knew well but hadn’t heard in a while, not only hit him straight in the heart, it filled him with jealousy.

  “You got a thing for Josie?” he asked Mac late that afternoon while they were setting up for his first series of bench presses.

  Mac chuckled. “Nah, man. Josie’s cute, but I’ve been married over thirty years to my high school sweetheart. Do you know how much alimony that woman would get if she caught me stepping out?”

  Beau forced a laugh. Then he wondered if he’d ever get used to not knowing the physical details of the people he spoke with. He’d guessed, incorrectly, that Mac was younger than a thirty-year marriage would suggest.

  “Sorry, man,” he said, trying to play it off. “I just thought she might like you. I heard her laughing at one of your jokes earlier and the truth is, you aren’t all that funny.”

  Mac guffawed. “Living with you, I suspect that girl’s just happy to hear any joke. She almost seems scared to be in the same room with you. You could stand to lighten up around her, you know.”

  Yeah, he knew all right, but he couldn’t seem to lighten up or even stop obsessing over her.

  Why had she come back to Alabama? And why had she agreed to take this job? Unlike the Josie he used to know, she just did everything he told her to do without a hint of her old sass.

  Truth be told, when he’d flipped his tray off the table the night before, it had been half jealousy on his part and half a test to see how she’d respond. But she hadn’t protested or even grumbled. Just quietly cleaned up the mess, a meek shell of the Josie he used to know.

  He couldn’t get a read on her and it was frustrating the hell out of him.

  Still, flipping the tray had been wrong, he admitted to himself when he was back at the bay window after Mac left for the day. Maybe if he was nicer to her she’d open up to him, or at least talk to him as easily as she’d talked to Mac earlier. Or maybe she’d…

  An image of Josie smiling at him in the glasses he’d brought her sprang to his mind, and his dick immediately swelled with the sweet pain of unfettered desire inside his jeans. Worse, he couldn’t stop the sequence once it started. The images came hard and fast, bombarding him: kissing her, tasting her, and finally moving inside her, watching her pretty face as she came, her eyes squeezed shut—

  The phone’s loud spoken ringtone shattered the remembered fantasy. “Incoming call from Kitty Prescott! Incoming call from Kitty Prescott!”

  Mac had said he left the phone on the nightstand, so Beau groped along the left side of the bed to guide his way to the nightstand. Only, he stubbed his toe against the thick, wooden bed post, and the sudden pain had him cursing and stumbling into a part of the room that had no furniture nearby with which to orient himself.

  The phone continued to chirp, “Incoming call from Kitty Prescott! Incoming call from Kitty Prescott!”

  Eventually he found his way to the nightstand, but it wasn’t pretty. He fell twice and knocked over a houseplant and something fragile (he heard it shatter into pieces when it hit the floor). But finally he had the phone in his hand.

  “Answer call.”

  “Hello, darling!” his mother sing-songed.

  “Mom,” he said. “How’s wherever you are this week?”

  “Oh, the Seychelles are beautiful, darling,” she answered. “If only your injury hadn’t been quite so dramatic, you could join us on our cruise.”

  Beau had learned over the years to ignore most of what came out of his self-involved mother’s mouth. Also, he’d rather deal with a million Josie’s than spend any amount of time trapped on a cruise ship with his mother and her boyfriend. So he just said, “Glad to hear you’re having fun, Mom.”

  “I am having a rather lovely time,” his mother answered. “Or perhaps I should say I was having a l
ovely time until Josie Witherspoon called here asking for a raise.”

  “What?”

  “She told me that you were a lot more work than she thought you would be and wondered if she might get more money.”

  His heart iced over. Josie had been complaining about him behind his back, to his mother of all people. “And what did you say?”

  “I reminded her I could get a Mexican to do her job for half the money.” His mother, who came from a long line of southern debutantes, answered in a voice ringing with entitled indignation. “But might I just say, I was very surprised she’d try to finagle a raise so soon. Josie has always been such a sweet girl. Never gave me a moment of trouble even in her teenage years, which is more than I can say about you. You were a little hellion from the age of four.”

  Beau rolled his eyes in spite of himself. Use your mom’s Miss Alabama sash to make a slingshot once, and you’re labeled a troublemaker for life.

  “What did she say when you said no?”

  He could almost hear the frown in his mother’s voice when she answered, “She said she was sorry to have bothered me and she got right off the phone, as well she should after overstepping like that. But she sounded sad.”

  “I’m sure she did,” he said, his voice flat. “Since working with me is such a hardship.”

  “I suspect she needs the money,” his mother said in an off-hand way. To the former beauty queen who had never lacked for anything in her life, money was one of those trivial things only the unsophisticated worried about. “But I’m calling to make sure her complaints are without merit. You were always so great with Loretta. You’re not giving her daughter any trouble, now are you?”

  “Don’t worry,” he answered. “Josie won’t be calling you anymore. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Now, Beau,” his mother said. “Don’t do anything rash…”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Beau repeated.