A Home of Her Own

by Brenda Novak

  And yet the thought of carrying Mike’s baby made her feel a strange, yearning sensation. If she was pregnant, she’d definitely keep the child. She’d love and cherish a baby with all her heart.

  She glanced at her watch. Fifty seconds and counting…Fifty-five…Sixty…

  Nothing. She wasn’t pregnant. The condoms they’d used had done their job. Another two minutes would confirm it.

  Relief and disappointment swirled inside her while she waited. Sixty more seconds…Seventy…

  The digital letters appeared, faintly at first, slowly growing blacker and more distinct. Lucky expected to see two words: Not pregnant. But it didn’t look like two words to her. She blinked disbelievingly, then held the indicator closer to the light. Sure enough, there it was, clear as day. Only one word: Pregnant.

  “MIKE, IT’S Senator Holbrook.”

  Mike swiveled slightly away from Josh, who was sitting across from him at the conference table going over some layouts for their new brochure. “Hello, Senator,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

  “Is it true that Lucky’s left town?”

  “Yes.”

  “Could you give me her telephone number, please?”

  Mike felt his eyebrows shoot up. “I’m afraid I don’t have it.”

  “Do you know anyone who does?”

  “No.”

  “What about her family, her brothers?”

  “I’ve already called them. No luck.”

  “So you don’t know where she’s gone.”

  “No.” Mike had hired a private investigator to track her down, to ease his worry, if nothing else. But he couldn’t admit that in front of Josh. Mike hadn’t heard from his mother or father since he’d admitted how he felt about Lucky while talking to Barbara on the phone over a week ago. They hadn’t even invited him to Sunday dinner.

  Holbrook seemed unsure of how to proceed.

  “Is there something you’d like me to tell her if I happen to hear from her?” Mike asked, wondering why the senator was trying to reach Lucky.

  There was a long pause. “Please tell her I’m ready to take the test,” he said and hung up.

  Mike stared at the handset. The test? The paternity test? But what about Gabe and Reenie and—

  “What’d Holbrook want?” Josh asked.

  Quickly pulling himself together, Mike hung up and made a halfhearted attempt to come up with a lie. But nothing, except the truth, presented itself quickly enough.

  “What?” Josh pressed.

  “He wants the same thing I want,” Mike admitted.

  “And that is…”

  “To find Lucky.”

  LOS ANGELES WAS as good a place as any to start a new life, Lucky decided as she wandered through the small blue house for sale. The mild weather appealed to her. So did the sandy beaches only a block away. She liked sitting and watching the waves tumble over themselves as they crashed against the shore. She even liked what most other people complained about—the miles upon miles of concrete and teeming masses. Probably because nothing in L.A. reminded her of a small town tucked into the mountains north of Boise, where she’d briefly spent time with the handsome cowboy who still owned her heart.

  “What do you think?” The real estate agent stood at the door, frowning impatiently at her watch. “As I said, these properties don’t become available very often. If you want it, we’ll have to move fast.”

  Lucky turned away from the window, and the voices and laughter drifting in from outside. The living room was situated above a small garage. This little house, with its fresh paint and hardwood floors, was more than forty years old and had only two small bedrooms and one bath. But the view, in addition to the quaint, clean neighborhood, made it special. Lucky knew she should probably rent an apartment before buying any real estate, get a feel for the city, make sure she was going to like it here. Except, if she could move on easily, she was afraid she would. This time she intended to put down roots. For her baby. Her son or daughter might grow up without a father, as she had, but Lucky was determined to give her child more than her own mother had been emotionally capable of giving her—stability, direction, a strong self-image.

  That was going to start with a permanent home.

  “I’ll take it,” she said. “But my offer will have to be contingent upon selling the house I own in Idaho.”

  “What?” The sour expression that crossed the Realtor’s face revealed how unwelcome she found this news, but Lucky couldn’t do anything without selling the Victorian first. The beach house was going to cost everything she could conceivably get from the sale of the property she’d inherited. Small in L.A. certainly didn’t mean cheap. Without her monthly check from the trust Lucky couldn’t even make a rental deposit. She had barely a hundred bucks left in her bank account. She’d been holding out as long as possible, trying to put a buffer between her and Mike before she had to deal with him again.

  But time had just run out.

  “You didn’t tell me you had to sell your own house first,” Priscilla Hathaway said.

  “It won’t be a problem,” Lucky assured her. “I have an eager buyer who definitely has the money. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of weeks to close escrow.”

  Her face instantly brightened. “Oh, well…Let’s go ahead and write up the paperwork, then.”

  Lucky took a deep breath and nodded. This was the right thing to do. She’d get a job, work, somehow become the kind of mother she’d never had.

  But she didn’t have the nerve to call Mike. She couldn’t bear to hear his voice. So she called Josh instead.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “MIKE, I FINALLY heard from her.”

  Mike jumped as Josh flung open the door to his office and let it crash against the inside wall. But what his brother was saying made an even greater impact. Mike knew Josh was talking about Lucky even though he hadn’t said her name.

  “When?”

  “Just now.”

  Mike stood and glanced anxiously down at the buttons on his phone. Two of them were lit. “Which line?”

  The question seemed to cast a pall over Josh’s excitement. “Um…she’s not on the phone anymore.”

  “Why not?” Mike asked. “I told you I wanted to talk to her. Did you get her number? Somewhere I can get hold of her?”

  “I have a fax number.” Josh shrugged helplessly. “That was all she’d give me.”

  “A fax number?”

  “She asked for an offer on the house. I told her I had to talk to you about it. She said to fax it to her when we were ready and hung up.”

  “That’s it?” Mike tried not to feel stung that she hadn’t called him, that she wouldn’t even speak to him.

  “Just about, other than the fact that she asked me to act quickly.”

  Mike sank back in his seat. “Why the rush?” he asked, his initial excitement turning into a variety of other emotions.

  “She didn’t explain. I think she needs the money.”

  Of course she did. She should’ve called long before now. “Did you tell her Senator Holbrook is trying to reach her?”

  “No. She was all business, quick and to the point, and I was too busy trying to get her to slow down so you’d be able to talk to her.” He hesitated. “What does Holbrook want with her, anyway? You never did tell me.”

  “I can’t say.”

  Mike thought Josh might push him, but he didn’t. “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  “Are we going to fax her an offer?”

  Lucky…What did she want? he wondered. Was she happier without him? Was that the message she was trying to send?

  He hoped not.

  “Yeah, we’ll fax her an offer,” Mike said at last.

  “How much?”

  Considering what was at stake, he had to go for broke. “Whatever it takes.”

  LUCKY SAT primly in the Beach Front Realty office, awaiting Josh’s fax. She’d asked him to respond right away and felt quite confident th
at he would. The Hill brothers had waited too long to get their hands on Morris’s house to be unresponsive now.

  Priscilla, the Realtor she’d been working with, caught her eye while talking animatedly on the phone and smiled. Lucky knew it was simply a professional courtesy, an automatic reflex, which was too bad. She felt she could use a real friend at this moment. Her palms were sweating, and she was finding it difficult to breathe. She was letting go at last, taking a stand for her future, moving on with her life. She was saying goodbye to Dundee and Mike Hill—forever.

  Hoping to calm the butterflies in her stomach, she willed away the sense of loss and regret “goodbye” engendered, along with the terrible questions that had haunted her since she’d found out about the baby. Should she tell Mike? If so, when? How?

  She pictured his friends and family, the town. Everyone admired him. Surely, if he knew about the baby, he’d feel even more split between her and the rest of his life.

  She wouldn’t tell him now, she decided. Maybe not ever. He had everything he needed, everything he wanted. She had only this.

  As the fax machine in the corner began to spew out paper, apprehension tightened every nerve. When Josh had asked her how much she’d like for the Victorian, she’d given him the minimum amount she absolutely had to have in order to buy the beach house. She wasn’t after Mike’s money. She wanted as little of it as possible. But she owed it to her baby to make sure they had a good start, and that meant she needed a decent roof over their heads. Besides, she’d set the price low enough that she felt fairly confident she could get that amount from someone else. She just didn’t have time to go through the motions of marketing a piece of real estate.

  Lucky watched the fax machine until the light turned off and the humming stopped. She was tempted to get up and retrieve the fax herself. But this was a busy real estate office, and several faxes had come in over the past thirty minutes. There was no guarantee this one was hers.

  She waited instead for Priscilla to get off the phone and do the honors, but with every second her anxiety grew. Although Mike and his family had wanted the house for years, she suddenly feared that they wouldn’t come through in her hour of need.

  Finally, Priscilla finished her conversation and hung up.

  “I think my fax arrived,” Lucky said.

  “Something’s here.” Priscilla crossed the room and shuffled through whatever it was that had come in. But a deep frown creased her forehead as she walked slowly back to Lucky.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m not sure what this is….”

  Lucky’s heart fell. It wasn’t what she needed, then. Maybe Josh and Mike hadn’t agreed on how much they’d be willing to pay. Maybe—

  “Hmm…I guess it’s an offer, after all,” Priscilla said, straightening the papers. “Just not the kind I was expecting.”

  “Who’s it for?”

  “You.” She passed her the fax, then propped her hands on her hips.

  Lucky stared down at the cover sheet. It was from High Hill Ranch, all right. Only it wasn’t from Josh. It was from Mike. She spotted his name on the “sender” line and couldn’t help running a finger over the ink. The message read: Attached please find my best offer.

  His best offer? What did that mean? That he wasn’t open to negotiation?

  Lucky removed the top sheet and studied the first page. Now she understood why Priscilla had had difficulty figuring out what she was looking at. It took Lucky a moment, too, but eventually she realized she was holding a picture of a ring. A diamond ring.

  Why would Mike be sending her a picture of this?

  She turned to the next page—and then she knew. It said: I don’t want the house. I want you. Marry me.

  Lucky couldn’t believe it. She glanced up in astonishment to see the hardened, career-woman Priscilla-the-Realtor grinning like a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl. “I’m single, so I’m not a specialist in this area, but from the size of that diamond, I’m guessing it’s not a bad offer.”

  Lucky couldn’t seem to find her voice. Mike wanted her to marry him? To be Mrs. Mike Hill? To live with him and sleep with him and…

  Their baby! She felt her chest constrict. They could raise their child together.

  But what about his family? The town? The big fuss he liked to make about his age? Could they love each other enough to compensate for all that?

  “There’s one more page.” Priscilla helped Lucky bring it to the top. This one looked curiously like a contract. A fancy heading read: Offer. Below that was one line of text: Everything I have. Everything I am. A signature block, where Mike had signed his name and even scrawled the date, made it all seem very official.

  Now she knew why he’d said it was his best offer. There wasn’t anything more he could give.

  The Realtor was positively beaming now. “God, if you don’t accept this, I think I will.”

  He was willing to stand against everyone he knew—for her? Tears filled Lucky’s eyes, but she tried to laugh through them.

  “As your agent, it’s my job to respond.” Priscilla cocked a playful eyebrow at her. “What should we fax back to him?”

  MIKE STOOD next to his fax machine, waiting, his heart racing with anticipation. Would she accept? She’d once told him she loved him, but with Lucky, he wasn’t sure love was enough. She’d been through a lot in Dundee. Maybe she’d had all she could tolerate and wasn’t willing to come back. Maybe loving him was too simple a motivation to get her to settle down in one place….

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so nervous,” Josh said.

  Mike didn’t respond. Since the day Josh was born, he’d shared almost everything with his brother. He supposed it was fitting that he’d included Josh in this moment, too, since it was one of the most terrifying of his life. But he was more than a little worried about how he might handle his disappointment if she said no. He’d never committed himself before, never been in this position.

  “I know she loves you,” Josh said as if trying to convince them both. “I could tell that day I was talking to her in the barn. She didn’t even bother to deny it. She—”

  Mike interrupted to shut him up. He was stressed enough without Josh’s anxiety adding to his own. “If you’re really so sure she’s going to say yes, quit wearing a hole in the damn carpet.”

  “Actually, I don’t think I’m worried about her saying no. Yes might be worse.”

  Mike stabbed a hand through his hair. “Mom and Dad?”

  “And Uncle Bunk and Aunt Cori and all the others.” Josh shrugged and pivoted for another pass. “Oh, well, maybe I’ll get to be the family favorite for a while.”

  “You’re the baby of the family. You’ve always been the favorite.”

  “Well, I guess it doesn’t hurt to solidify my position.” Josh checked his watch.

  “How long’s it been?” Mike asked.

  “Fifteen minutes.”

  “Seems like longer.”

  “I know. The wait’s killing me. You’d think I was the one who’d just proposed.”

  Mike started to chuckle but fell silent the second the fax machine whirred to life. “Here it is,” he breathed.

  Josh came to stand next to him. They both watched the papers slide smoothly into the receptacle, then Mike retrieved what Lucky had sent.

  The cover sheet indicated it came from some real estate company in Los Angeles. But her location was no surprise to them now. They’d already called information to check the area code on the fax number and knew she was in southern California. Mike just wasn’t sure she’d be willing to return to his little corner of the world. L.A. was a far cry from Dundee.

  Shooting a quick “here goes” glance at Josh, he flipped to the second page. It looked like some kind of magazine clipping of a—he held it closer—a…baby?

  “What’s that?” Josh asked, his eyebrows gathering in confusion.

  “A baby, I think,” Mike said.

  “But what does it mean?”

&
nbsp; Mike had no clue. There wasn’t any writing on the page. He moved on to find that the last sheet had only one line of text. Does your offer still stand?

  Mike met his brother’s eyes.

  “I’m lost,” Josh said. “What’s going on?”

  Mike couldn’t imagine. He—

  Suddenly the realization of what Lucky was trying to tell him began to sink in. The fax fluttered to the floor as shock stole his strength. A baby…A…baby. His baby!

  “Whoa,” he said and grabbed the nearest table for support.

  Josh’s eyes cut back to the picture Mike had just dropped. Then his mouth formed an O. “She’s not saying…”

  “I think she is.” Mike bent over, drawing several deep breaths to ward off the dizziness. He’d almost lost Lucky and his baby. If she hadn’t contacted Josh about the house—

  Anger swirled through him, and he shot back upright.

  “Are you okay?” Josh asked.

  “How could she leave without telling me?” Mike cried. “How could she leave without even saying goodbye?” He took up pacing in Josh’s place. “Do you suppose she was ever going to tell me? She called you, for Pete’s sake. What about me?”

  A sheepish expression claimed Josh’s face, but Mike was so busy ranting and pacing that it took him a moment to recognize that his brother knew more than he was saying. “What?” he said insistently. “Did you know? Did you threaten her to leave or something?”

  Josh looked offended. “I wouldn’t do that. But…” He stretched his neck, acting as though he wasn’t sure whether or not to proceed.

  “Tell me everything,” Mike said darkly. “Now.”

  Josh grabbed the picture of the baby and gazed down at it. “Okay. Remember the day we couldn’t find Mom?”

  “Yes…”

  “And I was already at the house when she got home and you were with her?”

  “Yes…”

  “I’d quit looking because…”

  “Because…”