by Lisa Plumley
He took hold of her wrist, eased her arm downward, and shoved the juice into her hand. “How about if you just call up Bruno instead?” he suggested, straightening his glasses. “Maybe the letter isn’t such a good idea.”
It sure wasn’t doing them any favors today.
She sniffed. “You’re avoiding the issue.”
Nick’s head started to throb.
“No,” he said with an excess of patience, “you’re avoiding the—”
“Being pregnant,” Chloe interrupted, turning toward him at last, “is not just some fairy-tale attitude of mine.”
Though her cheeks looked blotchy and her eyes looked a little red-rimmed, her gaze met his steadily. She put down her juice, then he felt her hand touch his clenched fist. She lifted it toward her, easing her fingers inside to open his hand.
“And neither is this baby,” she said, smoothing his open palm over her rounded belly. “This baby’s real, Nick.”
He felt her shirt’s smooth, cool silk beneath his fingers, sensed the warmth of her skin penetrating the fabric. Chloe pressed his hand closer, closed her eyes … and her belly suddenly … bumped at him.
He jerked in surprise. She held his hand in place, smiling faintly.
“Real enough to kick,” he said, feeling ridiculously like laughing as he realized what that funny little bulge in her belly had been. A tiny head or foot … hell, for all he knew, it was a miniature fist waving at the big bully who’d been pestering his mama.
Nick grinned.
“Real enough to love,” Chloe murmured.
And by the time the next kick came, he knew she was right. All of a sudden, her baby was real to him, real enough to love, and there’d be no going back now.
Nick was a goner.
Chapter Nine
Power walking, Chloe discovered when her eighth month of pregnancy rolled around, was pretty near impossible when your belly preceded the rest of you around the block by a good step or two.
Still, she and Larry kept it up—minus poor Curly, whose over-exuberance kept rolling him into mud puddles, various cacti, and the occasional ‘doggie surprise.’ With Shep perched on her shoulder and Moe slinking along beside, she and Larry walked, rain or shine, every day that passed between the writing of the Bruno-gram and her eighth-month obstetrician appointment. If nothing else, it helped burn off her frustration from that nitwit Griggs’ continued refusals to grant her the pet shop loan she needed.
Now, rounding the corner that led to her and Nick’s side-by-side houses, Chloe thought of the Bruno letter they’d collaborated on and sighed. She’d never mailed it, of course. There was no one to mail it to. Even if there had been … well, she wanted Nick and that was all there was to it. No other man would do.
She’d tried to give him space, to let him work on the inventions that were so important to him. But no matter what she did, there he was. At her doorstep with four ‘extra’ cartons of milk that had somehow hopped into his shopping cart when he wasn’t looking. In the baby’s room assembling the new, brightly-painted crib and hanging a fairy-tale wallpaper border to match. On her sofa with peppermint foot massage lotion at the ready and an opened book of baby names to read while he massaged her poor pregnant feet at the end of the day.
You’d think he was the father or something.
Ha.
The way she longed for all that affection and extra closeness to continue was scary. Especially considering that she’d done all she could to make sure it wouldn’t continue. Why, oh why, had she ever invented Bruno?
“Hey!” Nick called from his front porch. “Hiya, blondie.” Grinning, he came down the steps with a handful of mail and stopped in front of her, then leaned down to pat Larry’s head.
“Are you feeling all right?” Chloe asked, watching him murmur something into Larry’s floppy beagle ears.
“Sure, why?”
“You’re actually being affectionate with one of my pets.”
He smiled wider and went on patting, looking good enough to eat in a pair of well-worn blue jeans and a thick knitted sweater the color of the autumn Arizona sky. In defiance of the cooler weather, he’d pushed up his sleeves. His forearms flexed as Nick put his hands on his thighs and pushed upright again.
“They can’t be all bad,” he said. “You love ‘em, right?”
Larry thumped his tail at the teasing warmth in his voice, then nosed his way beneath Nick’s palm. His big brown eyes closed in doggie ecstasy as he was rewarded with more petting. By the time Moe crept up and started winding himself between Nick’s legs and Shep began to moonwalk on her shoulder, seeking an opening so he could join the fun, Chloe was feeling wildly left out.
Jealous of her pets, of all things. Geez, she was pathetic with a capital “P.”
“Sure,” she said, tugging a little at Larry’s leash. “And I’d love to get them home and get myself into a shower about now, too.”
His gaze took in her red extra-extra large Arizona Wildcats sweatshirt, blue plaid leggings, and sneakers. “Nah, you look good sweaty,” Nick said. “Must be that ‘glow’ thing you pregnant women are always going on about.”
“Gee, thanks. Maybe I should skip showers altogether and really rack up the dates.”
“Speaking of dates,” he said, smiling into her eyes, “have you heard from Bruno yet?”
Ugh. She should’ve seen that one coming.
“No,” Chloe said, trying to dredge up an expression of disappointment. “I, ummm, guess I should’ve heard something by now.”
“Especially with the videotape message we made—” Nick ducked to peel Moe away from his legs, but the cat dug his claws into the denim and hung on. “—and the … ouch, let go, you big furball! … photos we put in the last letter.”
He pulled a little harder. Moe didn’t budge, only arched outward like a bow.
“Chloe, call off your cat, will ya’?”
Gladly. Anything to avoid discussing their various Bruno contact methods. None of which she’d actually followed through with.
All of which had only buried her deeper in the lie.
Much to her regret.
Stupid, stupid Kahlúa and coffee and sympathy.
“Come on, Moe,” she said, slipping her hands under Moe’s silky belly and catching hold. The cat yowled and reluctantly came free. At the same moment, Larry abandoned the ecstasy of being petted in favor of trying to lick the indigo dye out of Nick’s jeans.
“Hey!” Nick squirmed out of the way. Larry, licking his chops with a sort of ‘giant milkbone’ gleam in his eyes, pursued him.
Shep, apparently spotting the perfect moment to strike, flapped toward Nick’s head.
“Shep! Come back!” Chloe yelled.
Nick backed up, holding his mail on top of his head. It formed sort of an envelope runway just as Shep swooped in for a landing. Moe jumped gracefully down from her arms and slipped between the tangled length of Larry’s leash to rub against Nick’s legs again. The cat-hair coating he’d begun to lay down earlier glommed on extra well, Chloe noticed, now that Larry had been at work on the jeans, too.
“Larry, come on!” Grunting with effort, she managed to drag her dog away from the love-in. She reeled in the leash and locked it in place. “What’s the matter with you?”
“I think I know,” Nick said, lifting his mail—and Shep—from his head. “They probably smell the ingredients I’ve been using for my latest invention.”
“Eau de pet chow?”
“Something like that,” he said. “It’s a sports drink. Beef and tuna-flavored—”
“Pet Gatorade!” Chloe interrupted. “You really made it!” She couldn’t believe he’d remembered. And taken time away from his growth accelerator work to do it. “Can I put some in Red’s shop? It’ll be a mega-seller, you’ll see.”
“Before you come up with a multi-level marketing scheme, maybe you’d better come check it out for yourself.” He grinned and aimed her bird toward her, letting Shep click-click his way across a
sweepstakes envelope and onto her shoulder again. “You want to?”
“Hmmm.”
“Hmmm?”
“Hmmm, I hope you weren’t planning to enter that,” Chloe replied, leaning forward to examine the Shep surprise on the envelope.
Nick leaned forward, too. “But I’m already a winner!”
She grinned and batted her eyelashes at him. “You were always a winner with us, Nick.”
“Cute. Anyway, come on inside, and I’ll show you what’s got your menagerie all riled up.”
“I’d better take these guys home first,” Chloe said, taking Moe from his new perch around Nick’s shoulders. “Next thing you know, Shep will decide you’re his new lovebird companion and things will get really interesting.”
Nick shuddered. “I don’t even want to know what you mean by that.”
“Nope, you probably don’t. See you in a few minutes!”
Chloe’s ‘few minutes’ stretched into a half-hour before Nick heard her coming up his front walk. Female standard time, he thought as he opened his front door and watched her approach. It was a whole other dimension.
She waved, hurrying with surprising pregnant-bellied grace between the white oleander bushes bordering his walk and front porch. Her sneakered feet clomped quickly over the porch floorboards.
“Look!” she shouted, waving a huge, ripped-open express mail package. “This was waiting on my doorstep when I got home.”
She bounded inside, powered by excitement and something else Nick couldn’t define. He shut the door and turned to find her jiving across his living room, hugging the package to her chest. This time, that ‘glow’ of hers was no joke, and it this time it didn’t come from a workout or her pregnancy. It came from whatever was in that package.
Hell.
It could only be one thing, Nick figured. And even though he’d known it would come someday, the reality still felt like a sucker-punch to the gut.
“So, when’s Bruno coming back?” he asked.
Chloe’s head came up. Her fingers froze on the package. Somehow, he’d liked it better when she’d been hugging the damned thing. At least then, she’d looked happy.
Well, he’d be damned if he’d make her miserable now. Wasn’t this what they’d both worked toward for so many weeks? Bruno was coming back. Nick would be able to concentrate full-time on work again for a change. They should both be ecstatic, dammit!
Or at least one of them could be.
“I mean,” he went on, forcing the words past his suddenly-aching throat, “you must be wanting to go get things ready for him. You know, to meet him at the airport, or—” Why wasn’t she moving? “—or the harbor, I guess. What’s the preferred marine mode of travel anyway?”
His voice cracked on the joke. Swearing under his breath, Nick stared toward the test tubes he’d arrayed in their holders on the coffee table, all set up to show Chloe the different varieties of pet sports drinks he’d come up with. For some reason, the samples looked smaller than he’d remembered.
“Oh, you mean this!” she cried, waving the package. “Nick, it’s the—”
“Yeah. Good news, huh?”
She beamed. Hell, next she’d probably want to read him the damned thing.
“Let me put these back in my office and we’ll—”
“Nick, wait.” Her voice came hesitantly from across the room. “I’m sorry. Your invention … awww, Nick, I was too excited to think straight. I should’ve—”
“No apologies necessary.” Striding toward the table, he swept the tubes into his arms. They clinked against each other, sounding hollow as his heart felt. “I can show you these another time.”
“No, wait,” Chloe said. “It’s just been so long since I’ve heard from my dad, that I couldn’t wait to—”
She kept on talking, but Nick’s brain stuttered on the word ‘dad,’ and refused to catch up. The package wasn’t from Bruno?
Her hand touched his shoulder. “Why don’t you show me what’s got Larry and Moe all crazy over you today, and then we’ll do this,” she said, nodding toward the envelope and shaking it a little in her excitement. “Okay?”
Only one thought zinged through his head, replaying itself like a record stuck on one really well-played groove: The Package Wasn’t From Bruno song.
“Okay?” she prompted.
Nick shook his head to clear it and focused on Chloe. It wasn’t an easy task, considering the way she was bouncing in place.
“Are you kidding?” he asked. “I’ll show you this later. It’s not every day you get a supersize express mail from your father.”
“It’s never, actually,” she admitted, raising the package and turning it to read the addresses on the front. “He’s very busy.” She frowned briefly, then her gaze zipped to Nick. “Are you sure?”
Nodding, he arranged the test tubes on the coffee table. As long as it wasn’t a letter from Bruno in that package, he’d listen to just about anything.
“Okay!” She jigged toward him, all excitement restored. Her smile brightened as she put her hand in the envelope. The flexible waterproof packaging bulged outward as she rummaged inside, talking non-stop.
“He must have gotten my letter about the baby,” she said breathlessly. “I wasn’t sure whether I should send it to his vacation house in Florida or his new apartment in Manhattan. You know, he’s always, ummm, on the move.”
She withdrew a small bubble-wrapped bundle and an embossed ivory card, hugged the items to her chest, then all-but threw them toward him in her excitement. “Look!”
“Okay!” he squealed, mimicking her high-octane delivery, grinning despite himself as he caught everything. Her enthusiasm was impossible to resist.
The bubble wrap crinkled as Nick juggled everything to get the card on top. He rubbed his thumb over the monogrammed initials on the front of the card. Ritzy. But then, if he remembered correctly, Chloe’s father was some sort of big corporate executive for an international consulting firm. He could undoubtedly afford something nicer than a drugstore note card, especially for his own daughter.
Beside him, Chloe hugged his arm excitedly. “Go ahead,” she told him, giving his biceps a vise-grip squeeze. “Read what it says!”
Resisting the urge to flex, Nick flipped open the folded note card. A business card fluttered out. He caught it with his thumb just before it slipped to the floor, and turned it to read the words beside the tasteful logo. Sloan, Hinkle, Hinkle-Sloan, and Carmichal: Consultants.
“Whoa,” he murmured. “Consultants too exclusive to reveal what they’re supposed to be consulted about. Ritzy.”
“I guess,” she said, shrugging as she read over his shoulder. “I’ve never visited his company, but it keeps him pretty busy.”
Not too busy to advertise for more business from his own daughter, Nick noticed. What kind of guy slipped a business card into his family mail?
Chloe tapped it with one tapered, red fingernail. “Hinkle-Sloan is my father’s second wife,” she explained. “Remember, the one I told you about?”
“The wedding where you wore your Brownie uniform instead of the flower girl dress they gave you, and staged a sit-down strike in the middle of the church aisle?”
She gave him a mischievous grin. “I was seven years old,” she said, making a show of examining her manicure with inch-thick innocence. “What did I know about weddings?”
“Enough to know you didn’t want your dad to re-marry, I guess.”
“They managed to squeeze past me and do it anyway,” Chloe told him, resting her hand on her middle and stroking gently. “And anyway, it wasn’t just me. The ring bearer helped, too.”
“See? Even then you could wrap a guy around your little finger.”
“Fun-ny.”
“He wasn’t wearing a Brownie uniform, I take it.”
“No, he thought his knees looked too knobby in the little skirt.”
Nick laughed as she snuggled nearer. Her belly nestled companionably against his hip, fam
iliarly warm and round beneath her sweatshirt. Chloe hadn’t been this close to him since their patio-table encounter, Nick realized. Over the intervening weeks, she’d kept her distance from him. Now, if he hadn’t had his hands full already, he’d have pulled her even closer.
“Since the wedding, it’s really been Hinkle-Sloan-Carmichal,” she went on, wrinkling her nose, “but Tabitha doesn’t think that looks nice on a business card.”
“Aww, poor Tabitha.” He grinned. “I hate it when multi-marriages wreck my business cards. Sooo inconvenient.”
“Be nice,” she ordered. And pinched him.
“Youch!” he yelped, rubbing his elbow against his side. “Be nice yourself, you big bully.”
“Sorry.” She jabbed him in the ribs. “Hurry up and look at everything!”
Nick gave her a sideways glance and realized she was probably oblivious to all the Three Stooges poking and jabbing she was doing. In fact, she wasn’t even looking at him anymore. Instead, she squished up closer to his arm and stared at the things in his hands, twirling her hair against her cheek.
Insecurity clue number one. Messing up that immaculate hairstyle of hers. He wondered what was bugging her. Maybe she’d thought the package was from Bruno, too, and was disappointed it wasn’t.
Grrr. He resisted the urge to rip open the bubble wrap, and scanned the message on the card instead. Congratulations, Chloe, it read in neat laser-printed type. Tabitha and I—
He quit reading and looked up. “Chloe, this message is printed. As in, computer-generated and printed.”
Her forehead wrinkled as she glanced at the card. Yup, it’s still the same one, her expression said. “Of course it is. Catch up, Nick! This is the nineties. Secretaries don’t handwrite things these days.”
“Secretaries?”
“My dad suggested I route my correspondence through one of his secretaries,” she said on another shrug. “It’s more expedient.”
His jaw dropped.
And snapped shut when Chloe laughed.
“I know, I know,” she said with an ignore-those-pesky-concerns kind of wave. “You’re thinking my dad must be some big old stuffy corporate muckety-muck, having secretaries at his beck and call like he does, right? But—”