A Baby on the Way

by Salonen, Debra

  “There’s a view no guy would ever get tired of seeing,” a male voice said from behind her.

  Nathan’s low, suggestive chuckle sent a shiver of anticipation through her. She scooped up the paper clips and returned to an upright position. “Are you poking fun at my granny robe?” she asked, turning to face him.

  “Didn’t see the robe. Only the perfect body under it.”

  She adored his lies. With a happy snicker, she stood up and opened her hand to drop the paper clips back into the box. Something quite obviously not a looped piece of wire winked at her. An earring. Three pretty colored beads, gold chain and an artsy piece of wire told her this was not a cheap piece that the previous renter might have left behind. Nor did the lovely item of jewelry belong to Casey.

  “Look at this,” she said, turning just as he reached for her. “Any idea where it came from? Or who it belongs to?”

  His low curse told her she wasn’t going to like his answer.

  “I think it must be Gwyneth’s.”

  A silvery chill—the kind she associated with bad news of any kind—passed through her body.

  “She was here the other night. When Kirby stayed over,” he quickly added. “She’d been on a date from hell and dropped by for a beer.”

  “You bought that selection in the fridge for her?”

  “No. I didn’t even know she drank beer. I got it for Kirby, but she had a couple before I fixed her a cup of coffee and put her in a cab.”

  Casey examined the earring a bit more closely. A wire, not a post. In theory, it could have come out accidentally, but Casey’d pierced her ears at fourteen and she had never lost one without knowing it.

  “That was her on the phone, right? Did she ask if you’d run across a lost earring? These are nice stones. Not cheap.”

  He shook his head. “She’s got a water leak in the condo. She wasn’t sure who to call.”

  So she called my husband, who wouldn’t know a plumber’s wrench from a…a… She didn’t know what. She held out her hand. “Here. Give it back when you rush off to the poor girl’s aid. I’m going to bed. Suddenly, I don’t feel all that sexy.”

  Nathan looked at the little gold earring in his palm and silently cursed. Did he stay and reassure his wife that there was nothing going on between him and Gwyneth or did he dash over to the company suite where an atypically hysterical Gwyneth seemed convinced the floor was going to fall through if something wasn’t done.

  “I’m the boss, Casey. I have to go. But this isn’t about Gwyneth. Nothing is going on between us. You know that.”

  She crossed her arms. “There isn’t much going on between us, either, if you get my drift. Roz told me she and Eric go on monthly dates. Just them. No kids. No work. When was the last time we even ate together?”

  “Things are hectic right now. As much for you as me, but you have a point. We could get Dim Sum in the morning. Gwyn said there’s a great place in Chinatown. I’ll ask her—”

  “Did you see that lighthouse we passed on the way back to the marina today? Roz said it’s a B and B. Very romantic and totally inaccessible. Like Alcatraz only high-end.”

  He smiled. “And you want to go there.”

  “Yeah. I do. No work. No Red. No phones.”

  No Gwyneth. She didn’t say the words. She didn’t need to. He knew what she was thinking.

  “Great. Book it.”

  “When?”

  “Anytime.”

  “Anytime?”

  He nodded, hoping like hell he wasn’t going to regret his impulsive gesture.

  She scrambled off the bed and grabbed her laptop. “I’ll go online right now and see what’s available. Might take us a couple of weeks, even months, to get in, but I’ll put our name on a waiting list if there is one.” She looked up. “I’m serious about this, Nathan. We are on shaky ground, and I’m not talking earthquakes.”

  He agreed. And the only way he knew to shore up that foundation—sitting down face-to-face and talking—wasn’t an option at the moment. Not only was Gwyneth panicky, she’d threatened to call the home office if he didn’t fix things. “So, you’re okay with me running over to the condo?”

  Before she could answer, the phone rang. Casey snatched it up. “Hello?”

  Her aggressive demeanor changed. “Oh, hi, Sarah. What’s up? You’re not in labor, are you?”

  As she listened, the color drained from her cheeks. “D…did you call Doc?”

  Nathan had turned away to reach for his running shoes, but he froze in place when he heard Casey say, “Which hospital? If I leave now, I can be there in a couple of hours.”

  “Hospital?”

  Phone tucked between her ear and shoulder, she hopped off the bed and dashed to the highboy dresser. As she yanked clothes from a drawer, she said, “Sounds good. I’ll have my cell on. Call if anything changes.”

  She tossed the receiver toward the bed. “That was Sarah. Red is passing blood. It scared him enough to call Doc, who said he needed to get to the emergency room. Jimmy made a delivery to L.A. today and isn’t back. Sarah’s going to drive him. I have to go.”

  “Now?”

  “I have to.”

  “Casey, stop a minute. What would you be doing if we were in Boston? You’d pace and fret, but you wouldn’t hop a plane. Sarah seems pretty capable. She can handle this.”

  “If you’re worried about me driving there alone, then come, too. Gwyneth is an adult. A healthy, young adult. Property damage is one thing, a human life is another. I have to be there, Nathan. He’s my father.”

  And I’m your husband.

  She zipped up her jeans and looked at him. “Listen. This probably isn’t the best time to bring this up, but there’s something else you should know. Jimmy moved back in with Sarah. They’re not calling this reconciliation, but she hasn’t been sleeping well and that’s taking a toll on her health, so he’s agreed to move home. That means Dad’s little house will be empty. I’m thinking about moving the stuff in storage down there. That way I don’t have to stay at Red’s. When you visit, you won’t have to sleep in my little girl bedroom, and, best of all, we won’t have to pay to store our furniture.”

  Nathan felt as if she’d just socked him in the gut. “When did you decide this?”

  She shrugged and reached for a bulky sweatshirt. “Makes sense, doesn’t it? And the place has a fenced yard.”

  “For your dog.”

  She heaved a long sigh and said, “I have to go. Are you coming with me or not?”

  He thought about the case files waiting for him in the morning. The calls from home office that would track him down and demand to know why he hadn’t handled Gwyneth’s problems. And the hurt that came from hearing his wife was planning to move into a second home without running the idea past him first.

  “I can’t.”

  She took the keys from the brass bowl on the dresser. “I had a feeling you were going to say that. Don’t forget to give Gwyneth her earring. ’Bye.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “OH, HELL, who called you?”

  Casey marched straight to Red’s hospital bed. Seeing the man she was certain would never die in a cotton hospital gown was almost enough to make her knees give out, but she refused to show any weakness.

  “Who do you think? Someone who cares about me more than you must.”

  He looked wounded. “I cared enough not to pull you out of bed in the middle of the night. Good cripes, are you alone? What’s that husband of yours thinking letting you drive here by yourself?”

  “Let me?” She didn’t have to fake her outrage. “He’s my husband, not my parole officer. Now, forget about me. What is going on here? Blood in your urine. What’s the doctor say?”

  Red tried to turn toward the wall but was hampered by the IV in his arm.

  Jimmy, whom Casey had talked to on the phone when he arrived to relieve Sarah, stood up. “He’s going to be fine, Case. The catheter and IV is emergency room policy. Turns out he has a raging urinary t
ract infection. The nurse said she had no idea how he stood the pain, but you know your dad.”

  Did she? The only time she’d suffered a UTI, she’d nearly passed out before the medicine took effect.

  “Are they keeping him overnight?”

  “I’m right here, you know. You can ask me. It’s my damn body. Even if it is falling apart,” Red added with a low grumble that nearly broke Casey’s heart.

  “When can you go home?”

  “As soon as that bag is empty,” a voice said from behind her.

  She spun around. The woman who had entered undetected—a doctor, Casey gathered by her white coat and stethoscope, flipped open a chart and made a few notes before looking at Casey. “You’re his daughter.”

  Casey nodded and introduced herself.

  “Nice to meet you. Your father told me you’re a lawyer.”

  “Not practicing at the moment. I just moved from the east coast.”

  “Too bad. I have a patient who is being forced out of the home she’s lived in for forty-four years because a development company wants her few acres for a parking lot. They’ve convinced the powers that be to invoke eminent domain. Poor Tessy probably has less than a year left before she’ll be in hospice care, but they don’t care. We need someone to help us fight the greed.”

  Casey felt all eyes on her. “I…um…I wish I could help, but I never took the California bar. I honestly never expected to be living here again.”

  The doctor cocked her head. “Really? But Willow Creek is so beautiful. I’ve driven past the ranch hundreds of times. And I buy all my Christmas gifts from the nut company. You must have a heck of a great life wherever you live not to want to come back to this.”

  “Actually, I’m going to be staying here for a while, but I hadn’t decided about petitioning the Bar for temporary privileges.”

  Red scooted back on the bed to a more inclined position. “Judge Miller would help. He owes me big-time. Remember when his durned bull hopped the fence and went courting that herd of fancy heifers over on the Burdick place?” he asked Jimmy.

  “Still got the scars to remind me,” Jimmy said.

  “Is it too late to call him?”

  “Yes,” three voices said in unison.

  Red chuckled and lay back. “Well, as long as we’re agreed on something. In the morning, I’ll call the judge. Once he gets Casey squared away, she can do something about your patient.”

  Casey would have argued the point, but what was the point? Was she too busy to help an old woman? Did she want developers to run rampant over this valley that she once called home?

  She quite honestly didn’t know what she wanted any more. The only thing she knew for certain was she wasn’t ready to let her father die, and seeing him in a hospital bed had changed the playing field. She was home—in body, if not in spirit.

  “DOESN’T MATTER who’s right and who’s wrong when it comes to a marriage. What you have to ask yourself is, ‘What can I do to get my wife to like me again?’”

  Nathan looked across the table at the restaurant in Pier 39. His mother had called that morning, waking him out of a sound sleep—the kind that came at the tail end of a restless, crummy night of tossing and turning. The kind of restless crummy night prompted by fending off the blatant advances of a woman who didn’t take no for an answer.

  “This would be just between us, Nathan. No strings. I promise. I don’t like to admit it, but I freak out when things beyond my control start to fall apart. I just talked to my father and…well…suffice to say I need some creature comfort tonight. Stay. Please.”

  The “please” had nearly done him in. Casey was gone. Gwyn, who had never shown the least bit of vulnerability in all the years that he’d known her, needed him. But, in the end, he’d paid a gazillion dollars in overtime to watch a plumber replace a leaky valve under the vanity, then he’d returned home to his empty bed in an apartment his wife obviously hated.

  “Thanks for the advice, Mom, but Casey and I like each other. Our current problems are more a matter of time and distance. She’s helping her dad, and I have to be here. We’re both too busy for our own good.”

  Joan looked skeptical but she didn’t say anything.

  “Tell me again why this sudden decision to come to town?”

  “Christine and I come to the city about once a month. Today, I thought I’d get out of my rut and have lunch with my handsome son, and I’d hoped, my daughter-in-law.”

  Nathan sighed and looked out the window, which afforded a really stellar view of Alcatraz. Joan had made the reservation, claiming this was one of her favorite places to dine, despite the fact that it was popular with tourists, as well.

  “I’m sure she’s sorry to keep missing you, but as I told you on the phone, her dad had to go into the hospital. He’s home now, but she has some other things to take care of and won’t be back until Thursday or Friday.” Apparently, the ever-resourceful Jimmy had connections with a moving company.

  He hadn’t mentioned Casey’s idea of creating a home-away-from-home to anyone. His gut said “Bad idea.” But he knew Casey hadn’t been crazy about their apartment from the beginning. He’d talked her into signing the lease by promising that once she made it her own, she’d feel right at home. Unfortunately, most of her treasured belongings—antiques that had belonged to her aunt—didn’t fit in the small, ultramodern apartment.

  Impulsively, he decided to ask for his mother’s advice.

  “I don’t blame Casey for wanting her things around her,” his mother said after listening to his take on the subject. “Ever since I decided to sell the house, I’ve had more than a few sleepless nights trying to decide what to keep and what to sell. If your father was alive, he’d put the whole lot out in a yard sale and buy new. It’s different for women, but your problem isn’t about where Casey stores her antiques. It really comes down to how much do you love your wife?”

  Nathan sat back in shock. “Me? Casey’s the one who wants to move.”

  Joan made a negating motion with her hand. “About a year ago, Chris and Doug were going through a rough patch. The therapist they saw cut through all the ‘He said this/she said thats’ to the core issue. They’d lost touch with each other.”

  “How?”

  “Life. Both working. Two young girls with hectic schedules. Too many irons in the fire, if you’ll forgive the cliché.”

  “What did they do?”

  “They went to Hawaii. The girls came to stay with me, and Doug and Chris had a second honeymoon. Maybe you and Casey should try that.”

  The same advice twice in one week, Nathan thought, smiling. “Maybe we should.” The red-roofed Victorian set atop a micro-island in the middle of the bay flashed to mind. Casey had been about to book a room there right before Sarah called. “I know just the place.”

  Joan picked up her coffee cup. “Good. Now, can we talk about my problems? Kirby wants to pay me for doing his laundry. My own son. Did you make him think I can’t afford a little laundry soap? It gives me something to do and gives him a reason to come see me. What’s wrong with that?”

  For the first time in days, Nathan laughed. “Nothing, but he’s a grown-up, Mom. He values your time—even if you don’t. How much do you charge, by the way?”

  Her smile made him glad he’d had his secretary rearrange his schedule. This had meant canceling a teleconference with Boston, but he was tired of having his every move micromanaged by the home office. If they wanted to know what was going on, they could ask their spies. He had reservations to make.

  “PUT THE SIDEBOARD in the dining nook and please be careful with it. My aunt claimed it once belonged to someone famous who fought in the Revolutionary War.”

  At one time, she’d known that person’s name. But today, she could barely remember her own. She was hot, dirty and exhausted, but her work here was almost done. This move had been a heck of a lot easier than the Boston to San Francisco leg. The movers were young men who didn’t dawdle. Jimmy had recommended t
hem and personally overseen their efforts. Casey had been shocked by his fluency in their language.

  “When did you learn Spanish?” she asked when he finally paused for a second.

  His shrug was so Jimmy. “I picked it up. Can’t work in the Valley and not know a little. Then, a couple of years ago your dad decided everyone in a managerial position needed to be fluent, so he sent me and Marcia—the lady who runs the pistachio production crew—to immersion school. I wasn’t crazy about the idea at first—you know me and school. But turns out I have an ear for languages.” He blushed. “Anyway, I’m glad I did it. Comes in handy.”

  “I bet. I took French. Nice to have when you’re ordering in a restaurant, but not much use around here, I’m thinking.”

  “Allí, Paquito,” he called, dashing off when a young man carrying two lamps started up the stairs. “First floor, man, not the bedroom.”

  Casey was charmed by her new home. Not overly large, but all of the rooms seemed bigger than they were. Probably because of the nine-foot ceilings and all the windows, she thought, walking into the kitchen. Warm, earthen-tone walls and trim. The brick-colored tile was ten-inch squares with tiny grout lines. The best thing was one didn’t get vertigo from looking at it.

  She and Sarah had made plans to go shopping at Bed Bath & Beyond in Fresno later to pick up some everyday dishes. Her aunt’s Spode was going into the hutch, but Casey’s wedding dishes were in San Francisco with Nathan.

  Was this what divorce felt like, she wondered? Dividing things up. He takes half the pots and pans. I take my share?

  The thought made her a little queasy. She didn’t want a divorce. She wanted the life she’d had before this move. Correction. She wanted the life she and Nathan had when they first got married. Playful, fun, passionate. Before her aunt’s cancer returned. Before they’d decided to get pregnant and learned that good sex didn’t necessarily produce babies.

  For a while there, they’d had a great marriage. A picture-perfect marriage.

  Or did such a beast really exist?

  Watching Jimmy and Sarah, who’d loved each other for years, attempt to salvage their relationship had proven a revelation—and made Casey question whether or not she and Nathan had any chance of making it. Jimmy and Sarah had a baby on the way, but they were still fighting. Jimmy seemed baffled by Sarah’s expectations and demands. Sarah, who admitted she was happy to have Jimmy home and could finally sleep at night, still complained that he remained “emotionally ambivalent.” According to Sarah, Jimmy hadn’t once touched her belly to feel the baby move.