Choices (A Woman's Life)

by Marie Ferrarella

  “Oh.” Reid’s smile vanished completely as if it had never existed and his eyes darkened as he continued looking at Shanna. He nodded formally. “Pleased to meet you, Ms. Brady.”

  The greeting had frost all over it. Why? She stared after Reid as Haggerty took him away and introduced him to another group of people in the next section.

  You would have had to be a dead person to miss the antagonism that had suddenly sprung up. “What’s the matter with him?” Shirley asked.

  “I haven’t got the slightest idea,” Shanna said slowly, then looked at Shirley. “But I sure as hell am going to find out.”

  If he was judging her for something, and it was more than obvious that he was, she had a right to know what. She stood in no one’s shadow anymore, not even her father’s.

  Shanna forced her attention to her work. There was time enough to find out the reason for Reid’s scowl. “After I get back from the printer. Hurry up with those graphs, will you, Shirley?”

  She hurried out the door.

  Chapter 19

  “I see you did get to take your final.” It wasn’t much of an opening line, Shanna thought as she came up behind Reid. But it was the best she could come up with in the half hour it had taken her to get to the printer and return.

  After the pertinent introductions had been made, Aaron Haggerty had left Reid’s further orientation to a junior aide who had been on staff a little more than a year, Bryan Jennings. Bryan had just begun to give Reid a more intensified view of office procedure when Shanna walked up. A slight young man with an even slighter chin, Bryan smiled brightly at Shanna. The smile was in sharp contrast to the somber expression Reid wore.

  Another spoiled brat, making it on her parents’ good graces and far-reaching influence. Reid couldn’t help the look of disdain that came over his face as he turned toward Shanna.

  The eyes that looked at her were not the ones she had drawn strength from that night a year ago when they had she would have thought had left a mark on both of them. It had on her. Those weren’t the eyes of a friend who had shared something precious with her. Those were the eyes of a stranger, judging her as if she were hateful and only partially human. Shanna felt both confusion and ire rising within her in response.

  “Yes, I did,” Reid answered coldly.

  The words just hung there, awkwardly strung out in the air like forgotten party streamers that had gotten wet in the rain.

  Temper took a larger bite out of her. Well, if that’s the way he wanted it, fine. The last thing in the world she wanted was to deal with a boorish male who was devoid of manners. She turned to leave.

  But something kept Shanna standing where she was, stuck to the floor as if flypaper had trapped her shoes. All right, she’d give it one more try. Maybe he was just experiencing a first-class case of nerves. Or he was intimidated because she was Brady’s daughter. She had encountered that situation before. Once upon a time, Shanna remembered, she had been intimidated by that fact herself.

  “I’m having a birthday party for Jessica tonight.” She smiled, though the expression felt a little forced at the edges. “You’re welcome to come, seeing as how you were the first person to ever see her.”

  She saw Bryan listening to all this and felt awkward at having the scene played out in front of a third party. But the very fact that she was talking in front of someone else should’ve shown Reid that there wasn’t a basis for his feelings toward her, whatever the cause might have been. She had done nothing and had absolutely nothing to hide, certainly nothing worth condemning her for.

  For a moment Reid was tempted to accept. It would be interesting to see the tiny child he had held in his hands that night again, to see how she had grown. And perhaps recapture some of the awe he had felt at life’s simplest, yet greatest miracle.

  And there was no denying the physical attraction he felt for the child’s mother. But there were other things he felt, things that materialized from his past to haunt him. Feelings that had been burned into his soul the night he had held Judy as she had taken her last breath. A rich man’s son had robbed him of her twice, once when she had jilted him and once when she had taken her life. He had little use for the offspring of the rich. “If you don’t mind, I’ll pass.”

  Shanna felt the iciness in Reid’s reply as if it had taken actual form in shards of cold steel hurled in her direction. Bryan looked down at his desk, embarrassed at being a witness to what was transpiring. He liked Shanna far too well to see her humiliated this way.

  She squared her shoulders, her tone formal. The look she gave Reid cut him dead from the knees on up. “Sure. It was just an idea.” She turned and started to walk toward her office.

  No, damn it, she wasn’t going to retreat like a whipped dog with her tail between her legs because someone had scowled at her. That was the old Shanna, the Shanna whom Jordan had used with her unwitting permission. She wasn’t going to let anyone hurt her again in any manner, shape, or form. That included this big oaf.

  She turned and retraced her steps to Reid’s desk and tapped him on the shoulder, her finger poking hard against the ridge of muscle. Bryan chose that moment to investigate something in one of the hanging files located in the back of the office. It was still close enough to hear, but far enough to remove him from immediate view.

  Reid looked up at Shanna. He half expected her to snap out something to the effect of did he realize who he was dealing with and that she could have him fired immediately. If she could, if the senator was swayed so easily by the demands of a spoiled brat, Reid knew he didn’t want the job. “Yeah?”

  Insides trembling, Shanna nonetheless planted both feet on the floor, her hands on her hips. “What’s your problem?” she demanded, her voice low. There was no way to keep her temper at the same level. It was there, in her eyes, flashing.

  She looked magnificent, he thought, finding himself stirred despite his feelings about her. He had to focus himself on exactly how he felt about people like her. “Excuse me?”

  “Your problem,” she repeated, biting off the word. “What is it? You’re obviously judging me and I want to know why.”

  Next, she’d undoubtedly be throwing a tantrum. The best way to answer her was to be blunt and be done with it. If there were consequences, well, he couldn’t help that. He had no time to put up with people who hadn’t gotten to where they were by virtue of the sweat of their own brows. “Maybe I just don’t like spoiled rich kids.”

  His words were like a heartless slap in the face. She drew herself up and glared at Reid. How dare he? She’d spent a year and a half trying to establish herself as her own person. A year and a half and he had dismissed it all with a careless phrase. He hadn’t the right. He hadn’t the slightest idea who or what she was.

  “And maybe you’re just a big jerk. If you’ll excuse me, I thought you were somebody I knew. Obviously I was mistaken.” With every scrap of haughty dignity she could gather, Shanna turned and walked away.

  Bryan took his cue and returned, the hanging file to the drawer left open as he took his seat next to Reid. He frowned in disapproval, his chin disappearing completely.

  “Pretty stupid of you, mouthing off at the boss’s daughter.”

  The boss’s daughter. He wondered if she enjoyed throwing her weight around. Did the others work with an eye out to pleasing her for fear of losing their jobs? He thought of Tyler Poole and bile rose in his mouth. It had a bitter taste. Tyler had been that kind of a bully, flaunting his money, his position, and what he could do to people who didn’t see things “his way.”

  Reid shrugged, unaffected by Bryan’s meaning. If he lost this job, there’d be another. The political arena was large and he’d find his place in it eventually. He greatly admired Brady, but things didn’t always work out the way one planned. He’d learned that early in life.

  “Yeah, well, I’ve done stupid things before. This won’t be the last time.”

  He started to read through the pamphlet Bryan had given him, but the wor
ds remained just words, unconnected with any sort of meaning. She was on his mind even though he didn’t want her to be. He glanced at Bryan, who was still looking at him dubiously. “What does she do around here, anyway?”

  “Shanna?” Bryan grinned at Reid like a lovesick puppy. The aide’s greatest fantasies all included Shanna in various stages of undress and willingness. “Work her tail off, mostly.”

  Bryan looked serious, but Reid didn’t know the man well enough to be sure. “That a joke?”

  “No.” Bryan pushed his wire-rim glasses up the bridge of his short nose. “An observation. She started working here right after her marriage to Calhoun fell apart.”

  Reid’s eyes narrowed. “That wouldn’t be Jordan Calhoun, would it?”

  The phrasing struck Bryan as odd. “Why wouldn’t it?”

  Calhoun? What kind of a woman would have married Jordan Calhoun? The man was all flash and promises, but very little substance. It was a proven fact, as seen in the last election, that he could draw voters like bees to honey, but there was an emptiness behind the smile. There was a self-serving, calculating ego there, if Reid wasn’t mistaken. Only a woman of the same ilk would consent to be his wife. It told Reid that he hadn’t been wrong about his judgment of her just now. There was a great deal of truth in the “birds of a feather” adage.

  “No reason. Go on, you were saying,” Reid urged Bryan on.

  Bryan shrugged, apparently not knowing what Reid was fishing for. If it was something disparaging about Shanna, he wasn’t going to get it from him. Bryan thought she was nothing short of terrific.

  “She started out doing what you’re doing, more or less. Junior office aide.” Bryan waved a vague hand at the material spread out on the desk. “The senator’s got her working on the homeless project, as well as half a dozen other things now. She worked her way up to that. Earned it. Dunno how she manages. I sure as hell couldn’t work in the fast-forward mode all the time. It’s almost, you know, like she’s got something to prove, doing all this.” Bryan warmed to his subject, exploring the theory. “Like she’s got to prove that she’s good enough to be working here or something.” The young man grinned. “She doesn’t have to prove a thing to me.”

  “Is she seeing anyone special?” The question had absolutely nothing to do with anything that concerned him, Reid thought stubbornly. Yet it was there, just the same, begging for an answer.

  Btyan shook his head. “No, unless she’s got something going with a pilot. She’s always flying back to Illinois for the senator, to get more statistics, do more research, canvass the area for him. Like I said, I don’t know where she gets the time, or the energy, but I sure wish I could get her to spend some of it on me.”

  “I heard her say she was taking off early today.” Reid pointed out the contradiction to the man’s assessment. Workaholics didn’t take off early.

  “That’s ‘cause it’s her daughter’s birthday. You know, the party she invited you to.” Bryan looked at him pointedly. “The kid gets top priority over everything. Cute kid. Shanna’s brought her in a couple of times, just to show her off. Now there’s a real mother for you.” Bryan’s expression sobered slightly. “Mine was always serving us frozen dinners and rushing off to meetings.”

  The description didn’t match the portrait of Shanna Reid had just been trying to paint for himself. It did, however, match what he had felt, looking at the woman who had ridden in the back of his taxicab that night a year ago.

  Reid stared off thoughtfully in the direction Shanna had taken.

  She wasn’t going to let it bother her, Shanna swore under her breath, again. What some throwback Neanderthal type thought of her wasn’t going to bother her. Not in the slightest. She was past that, past caring what men thought of her. What people thought of her. She had spent so much time and energy carefully building herself up in her own eyes. As well as building a wall around herself so that remarks like this wouldn’t hurt. So that she’d never again be prey for or vulnerable to men like Jordan again.

  Dear God, she had wanted to kill herself then.

  Shanna carefully picked her way through the noonday traffic, heading to her apartment, the wide birthday cake safely strapped into the backseat with a seat belt. The idea still astounded her when she thought of it. She had actually considered killing herself that night because of Jordan. What an incredible waste that would have been. She would have snuffed out two lives without even knowing it. Hers and Jessica’s. All because she had been heartsick over the fact that her husband didn’t think enough of her to be faithful.

  Driving off blindly into the night during a storm had been a stupid, stupid choice on her part. It wouldn’t have played that way if the same set of circumstances had happened today. She might not be able to control what other people thought of her, but she could certainly control her own reactions.

  So why did it hurt now? she thought irritably as she parked beneath her building. Why had that cold look in Reid Kincannon’s green eyes cut her in half that way? She didn’t even know the man, for God’s sake. She’d only been in his company an hour, an hour and fifteen minutes tops, if she counted both occasions. What was an hour measured against a lifetime? Nothing. Boring speeches went on for longer than that.

  She slammed the car door and it echoed throughout the parking structure. The birthday cake was large, requiring two hands to hold. And her attention, she reminded herself. She had a party to get under way and a daughter to dote on. She had absolutely no place in her life or in her head for the likes of one Reid Kincannon and his groundless, obviously prejudiced, stupid remarks.

  Shanna leaned in the doorway of her kitchen, utterly exhausted and completely pleased with herself. She took a deep breath before taking another step into the room. It was incredible how so many people had managed to fit into her apartment tonight. A warm, satisfied glow emanated from her. It had been a terrific party, just the way she had planned it.

  Jessica wouldn’t remember, but it was all recorded by a camcorder for her to look at when she grew older, thanks to the combined efforts of Haggerty and that sweet-faced office aide, Bryan. For four solid hours, Shanna’s apartment had been a hub of activity with countless people passing through if not actually staying for the duration. It had been a comfortable mixture of her old world and her new one: people she had known while growing up, such as Senator Whitney and his wife, and people from the office, like Shirley and her husband.

  Her mother had initially cast a disapproving eye at the mixed “pedigree” of the people who were at the party. But she had stayed throughout, for once not even arriving fashionably late. It had touched Shanna deeply to see her parents arriving together for a change. Rheena Brady, consummate socialite, had wound up in a corner, talking to Shirley and finding common ground, of all things.

  Yes, Shanna thought as she moved about the kitchen, wondering where to start first, tonight was an unqualified success.

  If there was just the tiniest bit of a hollow feeling within her, well, that would pass.

  She bit her lower lip. It was late, but she didn’t think she could sleep, exhausted though she was. Her mind was too keyed up. Maybe if she addressed the mountain of dishes tonight instead of hiring a cleaning service to take care of the mess in the morning, she could get through this slight bit of agitation she was feeling. She was glad that Jane had long since retired to her room. She wanted to be alone with her thoughts.

  Alone.

  As she was a great deal of the time, she mused, then pushed the feeling aside. Hot dishwater was undoubtedly the cure for this kind of self-pitying, maudlin mood. Reid had brought it on, she thought, roundly cursing his soul for having shown up in her life again this way.

  She had just begun stacking dishes in the sink when she heard the doorbell. Frowning, she wiped her hands on a towel and crossed to the threshold. It was almost eleven. She had no idea who would be stopping by this late. She had specified that the party was at six.

  Shanna glanced around the living room as s
he passed it to get to the front door. It was pretty much in a state of turmoil. Maybe someone had left something behind.

  “Who is it?” she asked cheerfully. Her smile froze when she heard the answer.

  “It’s Reid Kincannon.”

  Chapter 20

  Shanna opened the door a crack and kept her hand firmly on the doorknob. She resisted the urge to slam the door in Reid’s face. If she did, she’d never know what prompted the man to show up on her doorstep at this hour of the night, and she wanted to know, if for no other reason than to satisfy her own curiosity.

  She frowned at Reid, making no effort to conceal her displeasure at seeing him standing there. “What are you doing here?”

  “Haggerty told me where you live.” He wasn’t good at apologies, and this one burned on his tongue. Reid looked past Shanna’s head, inside the apartment. “Mind if I come in?”

  “Yes, I do mind.” She was annoyed with him and with herself for caring. Yet if she didn’t hear him out, she’d be no better than he. She relented, stepped back, and opened the door further. “And just why would Haggerty do that?”

  “Because I asked him.” He walked in. It wasn’t what he had expected. This was no palatial residence, ostentatiously crammed with obvious signs of wealth. It was an apartment. A rather messy apartment from what he could see, but an unpretentious one. “I guess he thought I was coming to your party.”

  She felt herself tensing, as if for battle. Her heartbeat quickened. She could feel each beat in her throat. She suddenly questioned her judgment. This man was basically a stranger and she was letting him into her apartment. A wave of anxiety washed over her, but faded as she remembered the look on his face when he had handed her daughter to her.

  Another look, the one he had worn this morning, came to her. “But you really just wanted to come and continue our scintillating conversation from this morning, is that it?” she asked sarcastically.