Brides and Grooms Box Set: Marriage WantedBride WantedGroom Wanted

by Debbie Macomber

  It was while he was passing a large parked van that he glanced at the side mirror—and caught the reflection of a man in a beige raincoat behind him. He’d seen this same man in the library. Alek wondered. It would be foolish to believe he was being followed. Then again, he’d lived in a country where it wasn’t uncommon for citizens to disappear and never be heard from again.

  He stepped into an alley and waited. The man casually strolled past and continued down the walkway. Alek expelled his breath, thinking he’d become fanciful. Then again, it wouldn’t be beneath Stanhope to hire someone to injure him.

  No, he decided, Stanhope was just the type to have someone else do his dirty work for him.

  Alek walked for several blocks until he reached the Seattle waterfront, which had become one of his favorite places. The fish and chips were excellent and there was a covered eating space along the pier. It was late afternoon, and he hadn’t eaten since breakfast, so he purchased a double order and carried it onto the farthest end of the dock. Here he could look out over the water; he enjoyed viewing the nautical activity on Puget Sound. He claimed a picnic table and sat down to enjoy his dinner.

  He was lost in thought, apparently, because he didn’t notice the man in the raincoat until he was directly in front of him.

  “I guess I’d better sit down and introduce myself,” the man said. He held out his hand. “Rich Peck.”

  Alek stood and they exchanged handshakes. “Hello. Alek Berinski.”

  “You figured out I was following you, didn’t you?” Un-invited, Peck sat down at the table, across from Alek.

  Alek shrugged. “I had my suspicions.”

  “Huh,” Peck muttered, “I must be getting sloppy.”

  “There was a reason you’ve been tracking my movements?”

  Peck grinned, that cocky grin Alek often saw in American men. “There generally is a reason. And it usually involves someone paying me. Rather handsomely, I might add.”

  Alek looked at him, confused. “Are you saying Roger Stanhope paid you to follow me?”

  “Stanhope? Don’t bet on it. The man hasn’t got two dimes to rub together. Oh, by the way, I heard about your little skirmish with him. Provoking him into taking the first swing was smart. I heard he tried to hit you from behind. The man’s a sleaze. Are you pressing assault charges against him?”

  “No, I decided I’d punished him enough. I know one thing for sure. He’ll stay out of Julia’s life now. He knows what will happen to him if he doesn’t.”

  “Listen, Stanhope’s got more problems than you know,” Peck went on to say. “He’ll be happy to stay away from anything to do with Conrad Industries for the next fifteen years. If he lives that long, which I personally doubt. He borrowed money from the wrong kind of people, if you know what I mean.”

  “You know a lot about this…slimeball.” That was an American expression Alek found particularly fitting.

  Peck shrugged. “I was paid to learn what I could. The guy’s an open book. You, on the other hand, weren’t so easy to track down. Your sister wouldn’t tell me a thing. She pretended she didn’t understand English.”

  “Who hired you to follow me?” Alek was growing bored with this detailed speech.

  “Sorry, but that’s privileged information.”

  “Julia?” His heart pounded hard with excitement.

  “Nope. My lips are sealed. But I can tell you it isn’t her. She doesn’t know anything about this, although what I’m supposed to tell you concerns her.”

  Alek was beginning to think he didn’t like Peck as much as he initially had. “Then tell me.”

  Peck arched his brows at Alek’s less than patient tone. “First, let me ask you a couple of questions.”

  “I don’t have time for this.” Alek surged to his feet and stalked away. He half expected Peck to follow him, but when the investigator didn’t get up, he slowed his pace.

  Alek had gone a block before he recognized his mistake. His impatience had cost him what he’d wanted most, information about Julia. He turned back, walking at a fast clip. He need not have worried; Peck was sitting at the table, enjoying the fish-and-chips dinner Alek had hastily left behind.

  Alek stood over him and Peck licked his fingers. “I thought you might have a change of heart.”

  “Tell me.”

  “No problem. There’s something Jerry thought you’d like to know about his sister. She’s going to be a mother. If I understand correctly, that means you’re about to become a daddy.”

  Alek felt as if he’d had his legs knocked out from under him. He literally slumped onto the picnic table. “When?”

  “Don’t know. But I don’t think she’s very far along. A month, maybe two.”

  “Have you seen her? Is she healthy?”

  Peck shrugged. “The last time I did, she was a little green around the gills.”

  Another crazy American idiom, one that made no sense to him at all. “Green gills? What does that mean?”

  “You know, a little under the weather.”

  Alek’s confusion increased. “Say it in plain English, please.”

  “Okay, okay. She’s sick every afternoon. Jerry says it’s like watching Old Faithful. About three-fifteen her assistant leads her to the ladies’ room so she can lose her lunch. It’s perfectly normal from what I understand. Not that I know much about pregnant women.”

  Alek felt as if someone were sitting on his chest and the weight kept increasing. A baby. His baby. Julia was going to have his baby.

  He stood up again, frowning. He had a right to know, and the news shouldn’t have come from his brother-in-law, either. Julia should have told him herself.

  A low, burning anger simmered in his blood. He was angry, angrier than he’d been in a long time, and he wasn’t about to let this go.

  “You tell Jerry something for me,” Alek muttered.

  “Sure.”

  He paused. He didn’t have any cause to be angry with Jerry. His friend had taken the initiative and sent Peck to tell him what he should’ve been told from the beginning—by Julia. And he himself had been avoiding Jerry, at least for now—because of Julia.

  “You wanted me to pass something along to Jerry?” Peck pressed.

  “Yeah,” Alek said, feeling the beginnings of a smile. “Tell him I think he’s going to make a very good uncle.”

  * * *

  Julia took another bite of her celery stalk, then set it back on the plate. Her attention wavered from her book for only an instant while she reached for a slice of apple.

  The manual, one she’d recently picked up at a bookstore, described the stages of pregnancy week by exciting week. She kept the book hidden from Anna and brought it out in the evenings. By the time Junior was ready to be born, she’d practically have the whole three hundred pages memorized.

  She called the baby Junior, although she didn’t know yet if it was a boy or a girl. Funny, only a couple of weeks ago she hadn’t even known she was pregnant, and now it seemed as though the baby had always been a part of her.

  At night, she slept with her hand on her stomach. She talked to Junior, carrying on lengthy conversations with her unborn child.

  Jerry and Virginia had become ridiculously vigilant. Julia swore her assistant suffered more from her bouts of afternoon sickness than Julia did herself. And Jerry. She smiled as she thought about her brother and how solicitous he’d become. He was constantly asking after her health. He’d even gone so far as to contact Dr. Feldon about her daily bouts of afternoon sickness.

  She had been to see Dr. Brandt and liked the young, attractive woman very much. Thanks to her and the pregnancy book she’d recommended, Julia understood far better the changes that were taking place within her body.

  She tried not to think about Alek, tried not to dwell on how much she missed him. Or the mistakes she’d made in her brief marriage. Sooner or later she’d have to get in touch with him. She needed to tell him about the baby. And to thank him. Phoenix Paints had taken the mar
ket by storm. A national television network had called today wanting to do a news piece on the ideas behind the innovative paints.

  She owed Alek so much and she’d treated him so poorly.

  She hadn’t asked Anna his whereabouts since that first morning. His sister didn’t volunteer any information about Alek even when Julia asked. Julia didn’t think Anna had forgiven her yet for hurting her brother.

  She pressed her hand to her stomach and whispered, “Your daddy is a wonderful man, Junior. He’s going to love you so much.”

  She took another bite of the celery stalk and turned the page of her text. Labor and delivery. She’d read this chapter first, the same night she’d bought the book, wanting to learn everything she could on the subject.

  When she did deliver Junior, she hoped Alek would be there to coach her. From what she’d seen of Jerry, he wouldn’t last ten minutes in a delivery room. And Virginia wouldn’t be able to take watching her in pain, Julia was convinced of that.

  When she’d finished her snack, Julia moved into the living room to exercise. She turned on the television and inserted the low-impact prenatal aerobics DVD. Ten minutes later she was huffing and puffing and sweating enough to dampen the gray T-shirt she wore.

  “I hope you appreciate this,” she told the baby.

  After a full thirty minutes, she went into the kitchen, got a glass from the cupboard and gulped down some water. After that, she grabbed a pencil and marked the schedule posted on the refrigerator. Anna thought it was a diet sheet and it was. Sort of. Julia listed the food she ate, plus her water intake. Eight glasses a day, no excuses.

  That was another interesting aspect of her condition. Her life was now ruled by how long it would take her to reach a bathroom. She’d considered having one installed in her office because it was so disruptive to hurry down the hall every hour, and sometimes more often. The eight glasses of water didn’t help matters.

  She was feeling better, though, and for that Julia was grateful. The first couple of weeks after Alek had moved out she’d felt as if she were living in a nightmare. She did what needed to be done, performed her duties, ate, worked and slept, but did it all with a low-grade sense of dejection—and with an air of expectancy. She couldn’t seem to let go of the idea that Alek would come into her office one day the way he used to. It was the hope of seeing him again, of telling him about the baby, that had kept her going. That and, of course, her happiness about the baby.

  The doorbell rang and Julia ripped the sweatband from her forehead. It was probably Jerry, who’d taken to checking up on her in the evenings.

  But it wasn’t. When she opened the door, Alek stood before her, looking more furious than she’d ever seen him.

  Thirteen

  “Alek.” Julia couldn’t say anything more. He looked wonderful, while she must have resembled a towel that had been sitting at the bottom of the dirty-clothes hamper.

  “I just heard you’re pregnant. Is that true?” His eyes were hard as granite. He was furious with her and didn’t bother to disguise it.

  “It’s true.”

  “You might have told me. I played an important role in this event.”

  “Yes, I know, it’s just that…” She realized she’d left him standing in the hallway outside the condo. Opening the door wider, she said, “Come inside, please.”

  “You weren’t going to tell me about the baby?” He was frowning.

  “Of course I intended to tell you!”

  “When?”

  “Would you care to sit down?”

  “No, just answer the question.”

  Julia ignored the demand in his voice. “Would you like something to drink?”

  “Just answer the question!”

  “There’s no reason to yell. I was going to tell you, how could I not? This baby is as much a part of you as of me. How could I keep something this important from you?” She hoped that would appease him.

  “That’s my question exactly.” Alek’s hands were knotted into fists at his sides. Julia wanted to think that meant he was restraining himself from holding her—not simply expressing his frustration.

  She started to walk into the kitchen. He hesitated, then followed her. She poured a glass of water for him and then one for herself and set them down on the kitchen table.

  “Anna knew?”

  “No. I couldn’t tell her. I was afraid she’d say something to you.” Her explanation didn’t satisfy him; if anything, his scowl darkened.

  Julia pulled out a chair and sat. Alek did, too. Avoiding his probing eyes, she lowered her gaze to her water glass. “I’m drinking two quarts of water every day now. Eight full glasses… I’m keeping track of my intake on that sheet on the fridge.”

  “The baby needs water?”

  “In a manner of speaking, I guess, but actually it’s me the doctor’s concerned about.”

  “Why is the doctor concerned?”

  She hadn’t said this to alarm Alek. It was just conversation, a way to ease the tension between them. “I’m perfectly healthy, Alek. Don’t look so worried.”

  “Then why is your doctor concerned?”

  “That’s her job. She keeps a close eye on my health and the baby’s. So far I’m having a perfectly normal pregnancy. That’s what my doctor says. So does the book.” She reached across the table for the manual she’d read from cover to cover three times over. “Junior’s doing just great.”

  “Junior?”

  “That’s what I call him…or her.”

  The anger had faded and in its place Julia saw a love and devotion so deep it wounded her. To think she’d abused that love and mistrusted his word. Her throat grew thick. Tears filled her eyes.

  “Julia.”

  She looked away. “Don’t worry, it’s all part of this pregnancy thing. I’m very emotional. The other night I started crying over a TV ad.” She didn’t tell him it was the one for Phoenix Paints. The tears had come because she’d realized how much she missed her husband.

  Alek passed her his handkerchief.

  “Thanks.” She dabbed her eyes. “Look on page fifty-three. It explains why a woman’s more likely to cry when she’s pregnant.”

  Alek flipped through the pages until he found the one she’d mentioned. He scanned the text and nodded.

  “How have you been feeling?”

  She shrugged. “All right, I guess. I don’t get sick in the mornings the way most women do. I usually get nauseous around three-thirty in the afternoon. I don’t know why I bother with lunch since it comes right back up again.”

  “Have you had any other problems?”

  “No,” she was quick to assure him. “Actually, I’ve been feeling great. And the nausea should be over soon.” She smiled. “You’ll be proud of me. I’ve been eating well, with lots of fresh fruit and vegetables.” She stopped when she noticed the way he was staring at her. “Is something wrong?”

  Alek’s eyes left hers and he shook his head. “Never mind.”

  “No, tell me, please.”

  He hesitated and Julia felt a jolt of fear. She’d read about this, in the very book that rested on the table between her and Alek. Some men were turned off by their wives during pregnancy.

  “You are more beautiful than ever,” Alek whispered.

  Julia bit her lower lip and a sigh trembled through her.

  “That disappoints you?”

  “I’m not beautiful, Alek. Judging by the way Jerry and my assistant are constantly fussing over me, I must look awful.”

  Emotion produced a second quivering sigh. “I’ve missed you so much,” she admitted. “I wanted to tell you about the baby right away.… I learned I was pregnant the afternoon you moved out. I came home from the doctor’s office to find you packing.”

  “And you didn’t tell me then?” he bellowed.

  “Would it have changed anything if I had told you?” she asked calmly.

  “Yes,” he answered, then lowered his gaze. “I don’t know.”

  “I�
�d hurt you and was hurting so badly myself. If I’d told you about Junior then, I was afraid it might sound like blackmail.”

  “You realize now that I would never betray you?”

  “I knew it then, I always knew it…in my heart. I just did a poor job of showing you. I couldn’t get past my own fears.” A tear ran from the corner of her eye. “No words can ever express how sorry I am for the pain I caused you. When we got married, I didn’t expect to fall in love with you. I’d steeled myself against it. I’d been in love once before and, as you know, the experience cost me and others dearly.

  “A green-card marriage seemed workable. I was determined not to involve my heart, but day after day you treated me with love and affection, chipping away at my defenses no matter how much I fortified them.

  “When Ruth died… I don’t think I would’ve survived that time without you. Your comfort and love meant the world to me. I’ll always treasure our day at the beach.”

  She stopped to catch her breath and to keep her voice from cracking. “This much is a fact—I love you, Alek, and I’m deeply sorry for the pain I caused you. I swear I’ll never doubt you again.” Tears fell unheeded from her eyes.

  “Don’t cry, Julia.”

  She noticed he didn’t call her my love the way he so often had in the past. Covering her face with her hands, she wiped away the moisture, expelled a sigh and forced herself to smile. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but could you ever find it in your heart to forgive me for contacting Roger?”

  “If you can forgive me for letting my pride stand in the way.”

  “Your pride? Oh, Alek, I trampled over it a hundred times, and still you loved me. I didn’t know how to deal with love and I made so many mistakes.”

  “I made my own mistakes.”

  “I asked Anna about you countless times, but she refuses to talk about you. I don’t think she’s forgiven me for hurting you.”

  “Ah, my sister,” Alek said slowly. “She played the same game with me. I asked her about you so often, she finally told me that if I was so curious, I should go ask you myself.”

  “She was right, you know. Neither of us had any business putting her in the middle, pumping her for information about the other.”