Steve swore inwardly. “It’s a different note,” he explained.
Joanie blinked. “A different…” Her eyes widening, she looked up at him in confusion. “When did you get it?”
“When do you think? Just now.”
“What does it say?”
He exhaled impatiently. “Read it and find out.”
Joanie did as instructed and read aloud:
“Dear Steve,
Love is like wildflowers. It’s often found in the most unlikely places. Please do right by her because Emily is your child.”
Joanie’s mouth dropped open and she gaped up at Steve in astonishment. “How is this possible?” she demanded in a hoarse, shaken voice.
“I think you know—Fiona.” Steve wasn’t the least bit amused as he addressed her by her alter ego. He knew he should’ve seen this coming.
Joanie’s slender shoulders stiffened. “I am not Fiona.”
Steve nodded grimly and moved closer. “Oh, really?”
Joanie flushed, obviously recognizing danger when she saw it. She moved away. “Look, I don’t know who left this note or who Fiona is, but if Emily is your child—” abruptly Joanie looked as if she was going to cry “—and I guess she is, then I think you should do right by her, too.”
“For the record, Joanie, I would never desert my own child, wife or family, the way my father deserted my mother and me when I was six, no matter what the situation.” Nor would he ever have lied and deceived Emily’s mother the way she had deceived him.
But Joanie wasn’t thinking about that as she addressed him. “I’m glad to hear that,” she murmured, reining in her feelings.
Steve stared at her, still shaken to the core. “Is that all you have to say?” he asked incredulously.
Joanie shrugged. “Well, I guess we could move the crib over to your place, although that might upset Emily.” Joanie shot a troubled look at her closed bedroom door and bit her lower lip. “She’s gotten used to staying here.”
“Don’t tell me you’re still denying we have a child together,” Steve said with deceptive calm. It was all he could do not to shake some sense into her.
Joanie’s chin took on a stubborn tilt. She folded her arms on her chest and held them there like a shield. She glared at him a long moment, then said, “I’m not even going to answer that.”
“Why not?” Steve baited her. “Afraid?”
“Confused,” Joanie corrected.
“Well, that makes two of us. Unless, of course,” Steve taunted, “you intend to let me in on your plans.”
Joanie threw up her hands in frustration and stalked away from him. “What plans?”
Steve followed, hard on her heels. “Your hopelessly misguided attempt to bogusly introduce Emily to the community as an orphan who needs your love.”
“Why would I want to do that?” Joanie whirled around so suddenly she almost ran into him.
Steve shrugged. This situation had stopped making sense to him two days ago when Emily had first been found. “Maybe because the Jermains had enough scandal when their son Rafe was branded a traitor to his country and lost at sea,” he said. “Maybe because they refuse to have anything else the least bit scandalous connected to Bride’s Bay, and you’re afraid of losing your job if they find out you and I had a child out of wedlock.”
Joanie raked both hands through her hair, pushing the wildly curling mane off her face.
They glared at each other in silence, their emotions raw as the truth unfolded. Eventually Joanie blew out a weary breath. She shook her head in abject misery. “The fact remains Emily was apparently left with me by mistake,” she stated flatly. “Fiona was probably the woman in the trench coat I saw trying to break into your quarters that day by removing a window screen. She probably just parked Emily’s stroller in front of my door to keep her out of view while she opened up your place. Only I scared her away. Because Emily was still in front of my door, instead of yours, everyone jumped to the wrong conclusions.”
Steve felt the kind of pain he hadn’t felt since the day his dad had abandoned him. As much as he hated to admit it, Joanie’s theory made sense. If it was true, it meant Emily wasn’t their child. Only his. And that fact could drive them apart as easily as it had once brought them together.
“At any rate, if she is your baby,” Joanie continued numbly, “then you must know who the mother is, or at least who the biological possibilities are.”
How much easier it would have been for him if he could have told her there was no one else. He turned away from her as regret washed over him. He paused for a long moment. “There’s only one. Irene Martin, a sports reporter for Swimmers’ World magazine. She interviewed me over Christmas break the winter I met you.”
“So it was just a couple of weeks…” Joanie whispered, looking stricken as she put it all together.
“Before we met, yes,” Steve finished grimly, when she didn’t go on.
“I see.” Joanie’s voice was dull with hurt, and she turned away.
Suddenly Steve was desperate to explain. He caught her arm and swung her back around to face him. “While Irene was in Connecticut interviewing me, she got word that her parents had just been killed in a car crash in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where they lived.” He paused, remembering the horror of that night and how it had rekindled his own feelings of loss where a parent was concerned. Looking deep into Joanie’s eyes, he went on, “Irene couldn’t get a flight back to Michigan until the following morning. And she was devastated, as you might well imagine. I didn’t know what else to do, so I stayed with her all through the night, and I made sure she got to the airport the next morning. During that time, I comforted her as best I could.”
Joanie regarded him in silence for a moment, then said, “By making love to her?” Her words were icy with disdain.
“She was crazy with grief, Joanie.” Steve knew that it sounded like a lame excuse, and yet, given the same situation, he knew he would do what he had again. Irene had needed him, and on some level he had needed her. They had both been single, consenting adults, with no commitments to anyone else. And in the end it had only been a way to survive. He wondered if Joanie would ever understand that. He wondered if Joanie would ever let herself understand that.
“And then what happened?” Joanie asked him, holding herself very, very still. “The morning after?”
Steve tensed at the disbelief her sarcastic tone implied. Keeping his expression carefully implacable, he pushed on matter-of-factly, “The next morning, we both knew it was a mistake, one we had no desire to repeat.” He held Joanie’s gaze as the world around them came to a complete and utter standstill. “I put her on the plane home. And with the exception of one postcard from Irene, thanking me for my kindness, and the sympathy card and flowers I sent to her via the magazine, we never communicated again.”
Joanie hesitated. Steve could see she wanted to believe him; she just wasn’t sure she should. And for that he damned her, too. “Then who is Fiona?” she whispered.
Steve wished he could say he didn’t know. He shrugged helplessly. “Fiona could be Irene. Or she could be a friend of Irene’s.” Steve sighed. “I just don’t know.”
Joanie turned away. He moved behind her, his hands lightly cupping her arms, his voice low and urgent as he said, “You’re upset with me, aren’t you?”
Upset? Try devastated, confused, disappointed. She blinked back the tears gathering in her eyes and tried not to lean into his embrace. “I won’t pretend that the thought of you with another woman, any woman, doesn’t upset me,” she replied, “because it does, Steve.” And he needed to know that, just as she needed to know it would never happen again—not if the two of them were going to be together.
“Joanie, that was in December.” Steve’s voice was gentle as he turned her to face him. “You and I didn’t even meet until January. I agree—making love with a virtual stranger isn’t the wisest thing I’ve ever done—but I repeat, I have nothing to feel guilty about.”
“But you’re still upset with me,” he guessed, stroking her hair.
“It’s more complicated than that,” she admitted. Just the fact Steve had been with Irene reminded Joanie of the night she’d found a groupie in his bed. She wanted to believe there was nothing to that. She wanted him to tell her that all those awful things she believed about him were not true.
“Tell me what you’re thinking.” Steve touched her arm, and when she didn’t resist, he drew her fully into his embrace.
“That I want Emily not to be your child, so another woman will not come between us.” Joanie leaned her head against his shoulder. The corduroy of his shirt was soft and warm against her face. “And yet, I don’t want to lose Emily, and if Emily isn’t your child—” Joanie drew back to look at him “—and I know she isn’t mine, then chances are we will lose her, Steve.” Sadly Joanie contemplated the future. Her eyes grew even more troubled. “Either way, it looks like there’s heartbreak for at least one of us at the end of the line.”
“Unless Emily has been permanently abandoned and just needs a home. In which case we could still give her one together,” Steve said.
Joanie considered that for a moment, her feelings in turmoil. She did not want to give Emily back to Fiona at this point any more than Steve apparently did, but that did not mean Emily was theirs to keep. Maybe she was just Steve’s child now. Or maybe she was Steve and Irene’s. Maybe Fiona was trying to help the three of them—Steve, Irene and Emily—become a family. What then?
Steve held her against him as he waited tensely for her reply. And Joanie knew she didn’t want to let Steve go any more than she wanted to let Emily go.
Finally she sighed. “The possibility of our keeping Emily with us permanently is a long shot, Steve. But you’re right,” she said softly. “Either way, we have to know the truth about who Emily’s parents are. The sooner the better.”
Chapter Nine
“I talked to the authorities,” Joanie said as she let herself into Steve’s quarters half an hour later. “I told them about the misunderstanding regarding the first note. They agreed to give us another three or four days to see what we can learn. What about you? Any luck?”
Steve nodded as he continued buttoning up the starched blue dress shirt he was planning to wear to the press reception that afternoon. “Swimmers’ World magazine said Irene quit her job there two years ago February. They have no idea where she ended up. At the time she left, she was planning to take some time off to recuperate from the loss of her parents and straighten out their estate, maybe do some free-lancing.”
Joanie sat on his sofa and watched Steve put on his tie. “Was Irene pregnant when she left?”
Steve sighed and sat down beside Joanie, stretching his legs out in front of him. “Not that her boss knew. In fact, he said she’d been losing weight that winter because she was under so much stress.”
Pregnant women usually gained weight, not lost it, Joanie thought. Were they chasing down a dead end? And why did it matter to Joanie if they were? She’d known all along that Emily wasn’t hers. Now Steve knew it, too. What Joanie hadn’t bargained on was the possibility that Emily was Steve’s child—with another woman yet!—or how shut out that made her feel. Soon Steve wouldn’t need her at all. Nor would Emily.
Joanie pushed the troubling thoughts away. The future would come soon enough. She needed to concentrate on the present, as did Steve. Their situation, Emily’s situation, had to be resolved. She faced Steve. “Now what?”
“I’ll keep looking for Irene of course.” Steve cupped her chin in his hand and studied her expression. “This bothers you, doesn’t it?”
Joanie shrugged while the question settled over her and then decided to speak her mind. “I can’t help but wonder what’s going to happen when you find Irene.”
Steve dropped his hand. His lips thinned unhappily. “I’m not in love with her. I never was. I thought I’d made that clear.”
“What if mother and baby are a package deal?” Joanie was grateful her voice could sound so calm when her insides were knotted. “What if she wants you as Emily’s daddy?”
“I can be that without being married to her,” Steve said, taking her hand in his.
Joanie withdrew her hand from the tantalizing warmth of his. She was in too deep here, far too deep. “Are you sure?”
Silence fell between them as his confidence that everything would work out quickly and simply began to fade. He threaded his fingers through the rumpled layers of his burnished-gold hair and released an exasperated sigh.
“Look, let’s just take it one step at a time, okay?”
The longer Joanie looked into Steve’s eyes the more she knew he was right. There was no use borrowing trouble. If she was going to get her heart broken, that would happen soon enough.
“You’re right, of course,” Joanie said, drawing a deep, steadying breath. “Anyway, I was thinking if Irene did drop Emily off, or had a hand in it, she might be somewhere nearby. So I’m going to go up and check the central hotel reservation system for Irene Martin’s name, and then all the home rentals in the area, here and on the mainland.”
“What about Emily?” The chiseled contours of his face becoming more pronounced, he watched as she vaulted to her feet and began to pace.
“Liz agreed to come over and stay with her while she finishes her nap. She’s with her now.”
Steve nodded, stood and shrugged on a navy blue blazer. “I’m due over at the old schoolhouse for the press reception.” He caught her hand and turned it over in his. Slowly, inevitably, their eyes met, held. “So you know where to find me if anything comes up.”
Yes, she did. For now. But how long would that be the case if what he expected was true and he’d had a child with another woman?
THE PRESS RECEPTION went without a hitch. Recent graduates of the Charleston mentoring program and their parents, joined with the tutor/mentors in talking to the press. Cookies and punch were served while Steve autographed both posters of himself and copies of his biography, detailing his own struggle out of poverty, then posed for pictures with the kids invited to the celebration.
Once or twice, he saw Joanie dart in to check on how things were going, but he was so busy they didn’t have time to talk. Finally, though, the press had left and the party had moved down to the beach. Only he and Phoebe Claterberry were left, and they, too, would be gone as soon as Steve had finished straightening up.
“You know, we could leave this for the housekeeping staff,” Phoebe said, as Steve took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves.
“I don’t mind. Besides, it’ll only take a minute. But you go on ahead,” Steve said. “Join the others on the beach.”
“No, I’ll stay and help.” Phoebe began stacking punch cups as he gathered up empty book and poster boxes, and flattened them for recycling. She was wearing a long, floral-print dress that fell well past her knees. “Actually it’s, kind of good that we’re alone,” she said.
It was? Steve thought, wondering if there was something to Joanie’s jealousy, after all.
“Because I need to ask your advice,” Phoebe continued pragmatically, in a way that immediately put him at ease.
Since winning a gold medal, strangers approached him all the time, and that number had doubled and then quadrupled with the second medal and endorsement contracts. Steve didn’t know why people felt he, had all the answers, but they did. “You’re a swimmer then?” Finished with the boxes, Steve began rearranging the desks.
“No. I just need to talk to someone who really has it all together. Plus, I know you of all people must understand what it’s like to be ambitious almost to a fault.”
Steve grinned at Phoebe’s on-target assessment of him. “That I do.”
Phoebe came closer and, briefly forgetting all about cleaning up, sat down on the e
dge of a desk. Her feet dangled over the side in a way that made her look terribly young. “So here’s my problem,” she began, leaning forward earnestly. “I’ve had this dream for a long time, and I really, really want it come true. Unfortunately to fulfill this dream I’m probably going to have to leave someone I love behind.”
Steve studied her briefly, then continued rearranging the desks into neat orderly rows. “I can see where that would be upsetting,” he said.
Phoebe toyed with the ends of her long, blond hair. “With my graduation from college coming up next year, I’m going to have to make a decision about what to do with my future very soon.”
“And you’re torn about what this decision should be,” Steve guessed, having gone through some of the same turmoil himself both while in college and after his first and second Olympics.
“Yes.” Phoebe clasped her hands together in her lap. “You see, I want it all—husband, great job, a couple of kids. But there’s no room in my life for the career I want now and my pursuit of a family at the same time.”
Finished, Steve leaned against the chalkboard. He had worked with enough kids Phoebe’s age to know they were prone to exaggeration. “Are you sure about this?” he asked.
“Positive. And there’s a second problem, too,” Phoebe continued, her guileless blue eyes looking all the more distressed. “Someone I love is going to be very hurt if he finds out what I’ve been keeping from him. I mean, I’ve known all along that I should have told him about what was happening to me, but I just couldn’t. Not when he lives such a public life. I mean, if what I’ve been keeping from him the past two years, the way I’ve been kind of skulking around behind his back, came out, it could be a major scandal.”
Steve wondered if Phoebe was seeing another guy on the side, whom the “someone” she loved didn’t know about. She was talking so cryptically it was impossible to figure out what she meant, which was, he supposed with perplexed weariness, the way she wanted it.
Matchmaking Baby Page 14