Matchmaking Baby

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  “Let’s sit down over here.” Patting her arm reassuringly, Joanie guided Phoebe to one of the stone benches in the center of the garden.

  “Dennis is furious with me for keeping something from him.”

  Here it was, Joanie thought, the chance she’d been waiting for. “Maybe it’s time you started leveling with everyone,” Joanie said.

  Phoebe tugged her sundress over her knees and then dug in her purse for a tissue. “What do you mean?”

  “Maybe you should tell Steve what you’ve done before someone else does.”

  Phoebe peered at Joanie in confusion. Her lashes were drenched with tears. “Why would he care?”

  Phoebe, Phoebe, you have so much to learn. “I think you’re underestimating him,” Joanie pushed on calmly. Phoebe dabbed her eyes with the tissue as Joanie persisted, “I think Steve has a right to know what you’ve been up to the past couple of years.”

  Phoebe looked confused. Finally she drew a quavering breath and asked, “What does Steve have to do with the Republican Party?”

  It was Joanie’s turn to blink.

  Phoebe leaned forward confidentially, her hand to her heart. “Dennis is mad at me because he just found out that after two years of seriously and secretly flirting with the idea I’ve joined the Republican Party.”

  Joanie was so stunned by the revelation she nearly fell off the bench, but it was clear Phoebe was dead serious. “That’s it? That…that’s all?” Joanie stammered. “That’s what you’ve been hiding?”

  Phoebe nodded soberly.

  Joanie didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Phoebe, surely a person’s politics are rather trivial in the greater scheme of things.”

  “Not to Dennis,” Phoebe said bleakly as she fished in her purse for another tissue. “Dennis’s father is a senator and a member of the Democrat Party. His father is up for reelection next fall. I was offered the job as the youth coordinator for Senator Wright’s Republican opponent. Now do you get it?”

  “Oh, my,” Joanie said.

  “It gets worse,” Phoebe went on. “Dennis is heading up the youth campaign for his father. Which means if I took the job we’d be pitted against each other and wouldn’t be able to see each other at all, not without being branded traitors and spies by our own bosses and political parties.”

  “Which would make things even more miserable for the two of you.”

  “Right. It’d be adding injury to insult. Anyway, I was supposed to help Dennis this summer, and I even thought about giving up my own opportunity for the sake of our romance, but the bottom line is that I don’t believe in Dennis’s father’s politics, so I can’t do it.” Phoebe heaved a weary sigh.

  “Which is why you were contemplating working at Bride’s Bay this summer,” Joanie said, relieved as everything began to fall into place.

  Phoebe lifted her shoulders in an aimless shrug. “It seemed like a good idea—for about five minutes. Because then I would’ve been able to save my romance with Dennis. But then I thought about it and I talked to Steve about it, and I realized that I had my own goals and dreams to pursue, my own convictions to follow. If I give up this job, I know I’ll always regret it. And besides, this job I want to take is something I believe in passionately. Getting college-age kids to register and vote is important, Ms. Griffin.”

  Yes, Joanie thought, it was. “Maybe when Dennis calms down he’ll understand that,” Joanie said.

  “No.” Phoebe shook her head, her mood dismal. “As far as Dennis is concerned, I’m already the enemy.”

  Joanie could see that was true, too. “What about Steve? Where does he fit into all this?”

  “Dennis is just jealous of Steve, although he has no reason to be. There’s never been anything remotely personal between us. I just think Steve’s a wonderful guy, a role model for us younger people, because he’s accomplished so much in his own life. Which is why I went to him for advice—he’s one guy who seems to have it all together.”

  Phoebe glanced at her watch. “I need to get back.”

  Joanie knew Steve was waiting for her, too. She stood reluctantly. Her heart went out to Phoebe. Being in love with someone at any age was not easy. “If you need anything, please let me know,” Joanie offered.

  Phoebe smiled tightly. “Thanks, but there’s nothing you or anyone can do,” she said softly, looking thoroughly dejected as she moved off.

  Joanie returned to her quarters and slipped inside. Emily was cuddled on Steve’s lap, sleeping soundly, her halo of curls pressed against his chest, her cherubic face bearing blissful contentment, even in her sleep. Steve looked equally happy. Joanie wished it could always be that way.

  He gestured toward Joanie’s bedroom, silently asking her to assist him in putting Emily down for her afternoon nap. She went in and lowered the side of the crib. He carried Emily in and laid her gently on the mattress. Joanie put her teddy bear in next to her and covered her with her blanket.

  Steve looped an arm around Joanie’s shoulders, and as they stood together watching Emily sleep, Joanie felt a rush of tenderness. If only the three of them were a family, she thought yearningly. If only she didn’t have to worry about losing Emily and Steve both, should Emily’s mother appear and want Emily back.

  Mistaking the reason behind Joanie’s worried expression, Steve took her hand and led her out into the living room. He shut the bedroom door, so their voices wouldn’t disturb Emily.

  “What happened out there?” he asked, inclining his head toward the window.

  Briefly Joanie explained Phoebe’s deception. “You seem awfully relieved,” Steve remarked after a pause.

  “That’s because I thought maybe Phoebe was Emily’s mother. She was acting so strange, and the two of you had known each other before…”

  Steve released a long sigh. “…and you jumped to one conclusion and came up with five,” Steve finished for her.

  Joanie shivered at the hurt she saw in his eyes. She took an involuntary step back. “I’m sorry, Steve,” she said, holding his gaze. “I let my imagination run away with me in thinking the two of you might have had a one-night stand.”

  Steve frowned. “I won’t say I’m happy you jumped to conclusions again. It was your jumping to conclusions that separated us before, if you recall,” he reminded her.

  Joanie was filled with guilt. She knew she’d severely misjudged the situation and him. She wished there was a way to make it up to him. “I promise not to do it again,” she said.

  He drew her to him, and wrapped his arms tightly around her, his erratic heartbeat pressed against her own. “I’m going to hold you to that promise, Joanie.”

  He kissed her and the kiss felt like a commitment, like a bridge to their future. And Joanie knew if they made love again, things between them would be changed irrevocably. There would be no going back, no pretending it was all a mistake, made out of haste. She was giving him her heart this time. She was giving him her soul and taking his in return.

  “Tell me you want me.” His splayed fingertips tantalized the pebble-hard tips of her breasts.

  Already trembling with need, she threaded her fingers through his hair. “I want you.”

  “Tell me you need me.” Undressing her, he lowered her to the floor.

  “I need you.”

  He stretched out beside her and drew her into his arms, then urged hoarsely, “Tell me you won’t ever leave me again.”

  Tears sparkled in her eyes. She forced back the rising lump in her throat and, along with that, how close she’d just come to losing him again. “I won’t leave you,” she promised.

  His arms tightened around her possessively, and his expression showed both fierce satisfaction and wonderment. He touched a finger to her face, trailing it from cheekbone to chin.

  Joanie needed to touch him, too. To make sure that this was all real, that the notion of them as a couple wasn’t going away. Ever so gently, her palms smoothed up his back, down again, worked beneath the hem of his shirt. Then she traced the
shape of his arousal inside his slacks.

  “I want to please you,” she whispered. “So very much.”

  He kissed her, hard and sweet, knowing that she pleased him just by being. “You do,” he said.

  “No.” She shook her head, reminding him that she had never been the aggressor with him, the way he sensed she could be, maybe even wanted to be. “But I will,” she promised.

  She looked so beautiful in her passion, he thought, as she finished undressing herself and started disrobing him. So wanton, with her cheeks flushed, her hair flowing down around her shoulders, that he felt himself responding wildly. “Joanie—”

  She silenced him with a finger to his lips. “Let me,” she said, trailing her fingertips over him, teasing his hard masculine flesh.

  “I’m not sure…” He groaned as she straddled him. They’d barely started and he was near climax already. “…that I…” He drew a ragged breath as she moved enticingly over him. “…can wait.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Shifting lower, she dropped kisses in an evocative circle around his navel, the inside of her thighs brushing the outside of his with warm, featherlike touches.

  Steve’s lower half flamed like a raging inferno. “It does to me,” he said in a strangled voice.

  She placed a hand on the insides of his thighs, rubbed them up and down, covering all the erogenous zones. Except one.

  What she was doing was unprecedented and outrageous. Sensual almost beyond bearing. And far too compelling to stop. He yearned to be touched, the way he knew she would touch him—again. And going by the ardent mischief in her eyes, she knew it, too.

  “Joanie…” His voice carried a warning. He couldn’t take much more of this playing around. He wanted to make love to her now.

  “What?” she asked as she closed her hands around him in a safe and familiar way. Delicately she moved her fingertips over the tip. Heat flowed through him, fierce, unrelenting and as rawly emotional as the passion roiling within him. He cupped a hand behind her neck, wanting to feel all of her against all of him. “Come here again.”

  Watching him with bright, merry eyes, Joanie playfully ignored his summons and rested her hands on either side of him. “I am here,” she whispered, as if daring him to try to change things.

  Her capriciousness was something new. Steve liked it. He liked it a lot. As a matter of fact, it was filling him with ideas of his own. Two could play these games, and she was already intoxicating him more than she knew. He reached for her, sliding his hands across her waist, then down her hips. Ignoring her soft, sweet intake of breath, he stroked his way across the jutting peaks of her breasts to her shoulders.

  “Come here so I can kiss you,” he bargained softly, running his hands up and down her bare arms.

  Smiling, she leaned forward and studied his amused expression. Deciding apparently that it was safe to proceed ceed at whim, she first obligingly began, then deepened, the kiss. Steve was cooperative to be sure, but only to a point. He let her rest against him, but didn’t lift his body to better mesh with hers. He let her kiss him, but didn’t move to aid in the tangling of tongues and mouths in any way.

  Frowning against his lips, but not giving up, she strained upward slightly, seeking a better angle. And it was then that he made his move, clamping his arm around her middle, flipping her onto her back so that she lay flat beneath him.

  “No fair,” she complained breathlessly.

  Steve grinned. She didn’t look the least bit mad. Maybe it was the rogue-filled history of the island getting to him, but right now he felt a little like a pirate who’d just captured the feisty, fair maiden of his dreams. “All’s fair in love and war,” he teased, kissing her temple and knowing he couldn’t have won himself a better prize. “Remember?”

  “But this wasn’t in the plan,” Joanie protested on a ragged breath as he anchored her against him.

  “Ah, yes,” he said, kissing and caressing the curves of her breasts, “but the plan’s been changed, and for the better.”

  “Better?” Joanie echoed, keeping her voice deadpan with considerable effort. “I don’t know about…ahhh…that.” She gasped as his tongue found her center, teasing and tormenting until she fell apart in his arms.

  Pleasure swept through him, just as fierce.

  “I do,” Steve said, sliding back up and over her, his lips meeting hers as he slowly and completely filled her and let the passion take hold. And this time he knew they were going to do much more than simply make love to each other. This time they were going to pledge each other their futures. And very gently, very tenderly, he set about doing just that.

  “I DON’T KNOW if I should sit in on this meeting,” Joanie told Steve several hours later, shortly before the private investigator arrived.

  “I want you here with me,” Steve said, drawing her close.

  Minutes later they were getting down to business, while Emily—who’d awakened refreshed and happy after her afternoon nap—played quietly on the floor beside them.

  “Irene’s last job was at a Topeka, Kansas, newspaper,” the private investigator began. A young man in his twenties, he was well dressed, very sharp and not one to waste a second. “I spoke to the managing editor. Irene quit a little more than a year ago to move back to Kansas City to be near her grandmother. Just as you suspected, she had a baby daughter who was about six months old at the time.”

  “Which means Irene’s baby would be eighteen months old now,” Joanie concluded. “Emily’s age.”

  “Right.” The private investigator accepted the cup of coffee Joanie handed him.

  “Were you able to find a birth certificate?” Steve asked.

  The PI handed over a photocopy. “Emily Fiona Martin. As you can see,” he noted, “there’s no father listed.”

  But, Steve thought, Emily was born almost nine months to the day after he and Irene had made love. That was pretty conclusive in and of itself, especially when combined with the fact that Irene was not the type of woman prone to casual affairs.

  “What about Irene’s grandmother?” Steve asked. “Is her first name Fiona?”

  “Can’t say. All I know for certain so far is that the grandmother lived in Kansas City.”

  Joanie leaned forward urgently. “Have you been able to locate any other next of kin?”

  “Not yet, although I’ve telephoned every Martin in the book. None professes to know Irene.”

  “And she didn’t write for the newspapers in Kansas City?” Steve queried, perplexed. He shot a glance at Emily, who was playing with her blocks nearby.

  “Not so much as one free-lance article.”

  “Maybe her grandmother was on her mother’s side of the family and had a different last name,” Joanie suggested.

  Good point, Steve thought. “Have you checked the obit for Irene’s parents in the Grand Rapids newspaper?”

  The PI nodded. “It simply says that Mr. and Mrs. Martin were survived by two people, their daughter, Irene, and Mrs. Martin’s mother, in Kansas City.”

  Which left them exactly nowhere, Steve thought, his frustration growing. “What about friends of Irene Martin’s parents in Grand Rapids?” Steve pressed.

  “I’m working on it.” The PI began putting notes back into his briefcase. He clicked it shut. “I should have an answer soon. Meanwhile, I still have to follow up on the physician, George Riley, who delivered Irene’s baby. It’s possible he’ll know something.”

  “All right,” Steve said.

  “I’ll get back to you as soon as I know something more,” the PI promised, getting up to leave.

  While Joanie showed him to the door, Steve picked up the phone and dialed information. “Topeka, Kansas, please. A Dr. George Riley.” He wrote down the number given him and dialed again. Told Dr. Riley was with a patient, he left his number for the doctor to call back.

  “You think Emily is yours and Irene’s now, don’t you?” Joanie asked quietly, returning to his side.

  Steve nodded. He hooked his
arm around Joanie’s waist. Drawing her near, he buried his face in the fragrant softness of her hair for a long, thoughtful moment. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you initially. I just wanted so badly for her to be our child.”

  Joanie turned to face him. Splaying her hands across his chest, she tilted her chin. She paused as tears welled up in her eyes. “And maybe it’s time we started facing that.”

  Steve knew a Dear John talk coming when he heard one. He tightened his fingers on her waist. “What do you mean?”

  Joanie drew a shaky breath. “Simply that when you find Irene, our situation may change.”

  Steve knew what Joanie was hinting at, but he was not going to let her go without a fight. He would do everything in his power to get her to stay. “I don’t love Irene. I never did.”

  She gazed up at him solemnly. “Nevertheless, the two of you have a child. It’s obvious Irene felt you needed to be a part of Emily’s life.”

  “And I will be,” Steve said firmly, his devotion to Emily unchanged. “That doesn’t mean things won’t work out between you and me,” he continued.

  Joanie shook her head sadly. “I think you’re being overly optimistic.”

  Maybe he was, Steve thought, but he didn’t know what else to do. Painfully aware of his need for her, of his love for her, he kissed Joanie’s temple. “Joanie, I love you.”

  “And I love you.” The tears that had welled up in her eyes brimmed over and fell down her cheeks. “But nothing can be decided until we find out what’s happened with Irene. What made her turn Emily over to you in such a potentially traumatic way.” Joanie looked at Emily, who had just put the last block on top of a very ambitious creation.

  Joanie gripped his arms. “You’re going to have to trust me on this, Steve,” she whispered, shaking her head miserably as she cast yet another adoring look at Emily. She stepped closer and wrapped her arms around his waist. “No mother would leave a toddler on a stranger’s doorstep under normal circumstances, even if that stranger was the father.”

  Steve frowned and took Joanie fully into his arms. He didn’t know how it had happened, but once again his life with Joanie was turning into a disaster waiting to happen. He stroked her hair and held back a sigh.