His Miracle Baby

by Karen Sandler

  In that moment, she felt exhausted, the past two months of stress coupled with surging emotions from the hormone injections piling up on her. As the pregnancy progressed—assuming nothing went amiss—she would be even more worn out. She’d better get her rest now while she could.

  His jaw worked, mouth compressing. “Another time, then. I’m taking a red-eye to New York tomorrow night. It’s a trip I couldn’t get out of. Mrs. Singh will be here to take care of you.”

  She would have reminded him she didn’t need taking care of, but didn’t want to risk another confrontation. “I’ll see you when you get back, then.”

  He gave her a curt nod. “Let me show you how the alarm system works. I want you to set it before you go to bed at night and every time you leave.”

  She moved up beside him, keeping as much space between them as she could and still see the small control box. He rattled off the activation code, had her repeat it back to him. Then after demonstrating the proper sequence to activate the alarm, he stood over her and watched her copy his actions.

  Finally satisfied she understood the system, he turned and walked out, shutting the door behind him. Shani shivered at the memory of him holding her outside her bedroom, at the way he’d said her name. She’d seen a message in his eyes, an intriguing puzzle she burned to solve.

  She should have been grateful he would be gone for a day or two. With everything in her life topsy-turvy, she wouldn’t have the added complication of Logan’s presence.

  Instead she felt unaccountably lonely.

  Chapter Four

  Ten days later, as Shani finished her breakfast of juice and one of Mrs. Singh’s cranberry muffins, she spotted Logan walking past the cottage window. Taking a last bite, she opened the door for him.

  “I only have a minute,” she said as she turned back to clear the table. “I have to stop at the clinic before I head to school.”

  Glancing back over her shoulder, she caught him staring at her. She wondered if she’d buttoned her Hawaiian shirt wrong, or if she hadn’t quite tamed the morning’s bed hair.

  “How have you been doing?” he asked.

  She’d barely seen him these past several days and only from afar. Sometimes, as she left for school, he was out on his front porch. In the evening, as she ate her dinner, she’d see his car pull into the driveway.

  So his presence this morning surprised her. She set her plate and glass in the dishwasher and swiped crumbs from the counter into the sink.

  “I’m fine. I’m visiting the vampire this morning.” She’d jokingly called the phlebotomist that during the first blood draw and the woman had been delighted with the nickname. “They’ll call you later with the results.” Shani was grateful this third test of her hormone levels was the last.

  “There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

  “Not about quitting working, I hope.”

  He looked away. “You made yourself clear on that point.”

  She reached for her backpack, but he hefted it out of her reach. “I told you before, I don’t like you carrying anything this heavy.”

  “It weighs twenty pounds,” she told him. “I tested it on the bathroom scale.”

  She held her hand out for her backpack, but he didn’t relinquish it. Snatching up her purse, she hurried from the cottage. He followed her out to the car, opening the door for her and tossing her backpack on the passenger seat.

  “I really don’t have the time for lectures right now. After the clinic, I’m meeting my adviser about my senior thesis.”

  He stood by the car door, close enough that she’d have to brush against him to get in the car. “Are you free for dinner?”

  She waited a moment, hoping he would back away. He didn’t move, so she squeezed her slim body between him and the doorjamb. “I was planning to study.”

  He leaned down to eye level. “I’ll order dinner and we can eat here. I won’t take much of your time. I can let you know about the pregnancy test, as well.”

  The urgency to leave battled with the temptation to lift her face to his. But why? To have him kiss her? That made no sense. It must be the early-morning hour, coupled with caffeine deprivation.

  “Fine,” she said. “Dinner. Six-thirty.”

  He stepped back and shut her door. She could still feel his gaze on her, as tangible as his touch might have been, until she drove down the steep driveway and out of sight.

  When she returned home after her industrial organization class, exhausted from the day and with barely twenty minutes before Logan was due to arrive, she found a note taped to the door of the cottage. She recognized the handwriting as Mrs. Singh’s. Logan’s housekeeper occasionally left her notes to let her know when she’d be doing the shopping. Shani would write her grocery list on the back and leave the note taped to the door.

  But Mrs. Singh had just been to the supermarket the day before. Slinging her backpack over her shoulder, she tugged the note free of the door. Mr. Rafferty will be late, the note read. Please expect him at seven-thirty.

  A little annoyed that Logan had gotten the last word on when dinner would be, she was nevertheless relieved to have time for a shower and maybe even a quick nap. Slipping inside, she filled Seymour’s bowl, then undressed in the bedroom. She showered in record time, then pulled on panties and a bra before climbing into bed.

  As she snuggled under the covers, she fretted briefly over how her wet hair would dampen the pillowcase. But the comfortable bed coupled with the long day sent her almost immediately into a deep sleep.

  She dreamed she was at the university, walking into her principles of marketing class. There was no one else in the room and she thought in sudden panic she must be late. When she looked again, she saw babies on every desk, all of them hollering. At the front of the classroom, her professor had morphed from the dour-faced Dr. Maass into Logan. He shouted her name over the sound of the babies crying and pounded on the professor’s desk.

  She walked toward him, grabbing his hands so he’d stop making such a racket. His eyes blazing down at her, he leaned down, his mouth covering hers, his hands cradling her face….

  She jolted awake, the blankets falling from her as she sat up. Struggling to focus on the bedside clock, she saw it was a quarter to eight. Then she registered the sound of the front door opening.

  Her heart, already racing, skipped even faster as she leaped from the bed. Before she shut the bedroom door, she caught a glimpse of Logan entering the cottage, white plastic bags in his hands. She’d been so sound asleep, she didn’t hear his knock.

  “Be out in a minute,” she yelled through the door, then leaned against it to catch her breath. Images from her dream still whirled in her mind. She shook her head to clear it, then unearthed a pair of jeans and a sweater.

  A glance in the mirror informed her she never should have napped with damp hair, but she managed to tidy it somewhat. Scooting her feet into slippers, she left the safety of her bedroom.

  “Sorry. I fell asleep.”

  The sleeves of his pale blue dress shirt were rolled up, exposing the taut muscling of his arms. The feel of his hands on her face in the dream had been so real, she could almost feel the warmth lingering. A flush rose in her cheeks in reaction.

  He gave her a quick once-over, setting off even more heat. “Are you feeling okay?”

  “Sure. Just a little tired.”

  His gaze narrowed on her hair. “It’s sticking up.” Before she could move out of reach, he was stroking the side of her head, the real touch tangling with images from her dream. “That’s better.”

  She told herself she was imagining the huskiness of his voice, the way he seemed to be lingering over smoothing the stray lock. The moment he dropped his hand, a puzzling mix of relief and regret competed inside her.

  She redirected her attention to the white boxes on the table. “Chinese?” she asked. He’d already set out plates.

  “From Madam Fong’s. Sit. I’ll get you milk.”

  As hungr
y as she was, she wasn’t about to argue. She served up steaming plates of orange chicken and broccoli beef, then scooped some white rice beside them.

  Once he’d set down her milk and a glass of ice water for himself, Logan sat opposite her. “The pregnancy test was positive. The hormone levels look good.”

  She picked up a piece of beef with her chopsticks. “Now we only have to wait eight more months.”

  “Arianna lost the baby at six weeks.”

  The beef tasted like ashes in her mouth at the memory. If she started thinking about what-ifs, it would make her crazy.

  Better to change the subject.

  “All the years I knew Arianna, she never said much about how you met,” Shani said after a pause.

  “It’s not much of a story.”

  “That’s what she said. I’d like to hear it anyway.”

  “Her mother was a friend of my mother.”

  “I thought your mother died when you were young.”

  “When I was seven.” He pushed the orange chicken around on his plate but didn’t take a bite.

  “That must have been hard.” Shani’s mother was so important in her life, she couldn’t imagine growing up without her.

  “I barely remember her. Arianna and I played together as children, but we lost touch. She contacted me not long after I started Good Sport.”

  Shani knew that Good Sport, a designer and manufacturer of upscale sporting goods equipment, had been in existence for twelve years. The company had just been taking off seven years ago when Shani met Arianna. Then three years ago Logan had locked up contracts for custom equipment for the NHL and NFL, and Good Sport had flown into the stratosphere.

  Two years later, Arianna was dead. She’d gotten such a brief taste of Logan’s success.

  “What about your father?” Shani asked.

  The barest flicker of a reaction flashed across his face, a trace of anger at the mention of his father. “Lives in the Bay Area. Your family’s all still in Iowa?”

  “Most of them. My mother and my sister. My grandmother. Some aunts and uncles and cousins.”

  “Have you told your mother yet?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “I’ll tell her in another month. We’ll be more certain then.”

  He scooped up some rice. “What about your father?”

  “He left my mother when I was twelve.” The bitterness she felt at his betrayal had faded over the years, but she couldn’t quite squelch it entirely. “We haven’t heard from him since.”

  “Then we have that in common,” Logan said. “Absent parents.”

  He looked around him at the cozy living area adjacent to the tiny kitchen table. “You’ve settled in, I see.”

  Over the weekend she’d gone back to the apartment to pick up a few things—colorful pillows for the small sofa, an old quilt her grandmother had made in the fifties when she’d been a new bride, a few photographs of her sister and mother. The portrait of Arianna hung in a place of pride over the sofa.

  She’d never known Arianna as a child, but seeing that sweet, smiling face never failed to lift Shani’s spirits. “I wanted it to feel a little more like home.”

  Logan’s gaze fixed on the portrait. “Arianna always liked it here. When she and I…” He shrugged. “She’d come over here, spend a few hours alone.”

  Shani’s heart ached at the thought of her friend’s loneliness. “You had something you wanted to talk to me about.”

  Logan set down his chopsticks. “First, I want you to hear me out before you refuse.”

  “Is this about me working? I thought we’d settled that.”

  “There’s an opportunity for you to come work at Good Sport as a paid intern.”

  She narrowed her gaze on him suspiciously. “Doing what?”

  “We have an incubator of sorts set up, an offshoot of Good Sport’s R and D department. Clint Ferguson, one of the business analysts in the unit, has been budgeted for an assistant but hasn’t had the time to hire anyone.”

  In spite of herself, she was intrigued. “How many hours a week?”

  “Twenty instead of the thirty-two you’re working now. But the pay will be greater to make up for the decreased hours.” He fidgeted with the chopsticks. “In addition, Clint’s been planning a set of substantial studies that would probably dovetail nicely into a senior thesis.”

  Talk about an offer she couldn’t possibly refuse. Although she enjoyed the library work and her time at the print shop, neither would look as good on her résumé as a stint as an intern at Good Sport. “This isn’t your way of easing me out of working entirely, is it? You won’t snatch this out from under me after I’ve quit my other jobs?”

  He seemed offended. “I wouldn’t do that.”

  Could she trust him? Arianna had complained so many times of broken promises. Would he keep his word?

  Of even more concern, Shani didn’t like being so beholden to him, didn’t like him intruding on yet another aspect of her life. She was living under his roof, she was carrying his babies, now she’d be employed by his company. How tightly could she let him be woven into her life before she lost the sense of who she was?

  As she hesitated, Logan lifted his water for a sip. She could hear the ice rattle as his hand shook ever so slightly. The realization that his self-assurance wasn’t as complete as he let on surprised Shani.

  “Won’t it look a little odd having me working for your company?” she asked. “Once people figure out who I am, the gossip could get ugly.”

  “Clint’s unit is self-contained, a small office off-site in Folsom. Only about a half-dozen employees. I’m sure there’ll be some talk—there’s no avoiding it. But you’ve got the bona fides. You’re quite qualified for the job.”

  His praise added icing to an already tempting cake. “Are you ever in that office?” she asked.

  “Would you rather I wasn’t?”

  She’d rather she didn’t feel such a confusion of emotions when she was around Logan. “It would make things simpler for me.”

  If he took offense at her request, she couldn’t see it in his face. “I’ll schedule meetings when you’re not there.”

  “Then I accept your offer. I know I’ll enjoy the work.”

  He rose abruptly from the table with his plate. “I told Clint you’d start Monday.”

  She gaped at him. “You didn’t even know I’d say yes.”

  “Is there a problem with starting Monday?”

  “I have to give notice.”

  He scraped the remains of his dinner into the trash. “The university president is an acquaintance of mine. I’m sure the short notice at the library wouldn’t be a problem. You can work another weekend at the print shop if necessary. I’ll notify Clint that he’s to adjust your hours accordingly.”

  The dinner she’d just eaten sat heavily in her stomach. “This isn’t fair.”

  “What?” He seemed surprised.

  “You shouldn’t be organizing my life. I have a brain. I can think these things through on my own.”

  He took her plate, then turned toward the sink. “Can you start work on Monday or not?”

  “I’ll have to talk to my supervisor at the library. Meanwhile, I don’t want you arranging anything with anybody.”

  He returned to the table and closed the boxes of leftover food. “I’ll leave these with you.”

  She started to rise. “I can help you.”

  “Don’t. I’ll do it.”

  She sat back down. In five silent minutes he had the white boxes in the refrigerator, the dishes in the dishwasher and the table wiped. Finished with the cleanup, Logan headed for the door, then hesitated there as if he had something else to say. His jaw worked as he looked her way. She didn’t know if he was considering an apology or wanted to vent the anger that seemed to be brewing inside him.

  In the end, he walked out without a word, leaving Shani grappling with the aftermath of a whirlwind.

  As he strode from the cottage, Logan felt too agi
tated to return to the house. Instead, he circled behind it to the thick cover of trees in the rear. He stopped beside a mammoth oak, its first stout branch a dozen feet up—the perfect place to tie a rope swing. When he’d first visited the house and checked out the forested acreage in the rear, the tree had been like a fantasy from his youth. He could see the swing, could imagine his son or daughter playing there.

  Now he leaned against the black oak, his expensive dress shoes crunching in the leaves at his feet, the rough bark scratchy through the thin fabric of his shirt. The Indian summer warmth of mid-October had chilled with the sunset, the night air raising gooseflesh as it brushed against his bare arms. He welcomed the coolness, wished it was colder still. Snow, an impossibility in the Sacramento area in October, would be welcome right about now.

  He’d behaved like an ass with Shani, all but telling her what she would and would not do, as if she didn’t have a mind to think for herself. That had been his father’s modus operandi, treating women as if they were brainless pieces of furniture. Colin Rafferty had liked them pretty, compliant and uncomplaining.

  Logan had sworn he’d never be like dear old Dad. And yet he’d married Arianna, a woman so compliant that at times he’d wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake some spine into her. Whatever he gave her, whether it was a night out with him or jewelry or this house, she professed it to be perfect, exactly what she wanted. Except nothing he gave her had ever seemed to make her happy.

  Shani was anything but compliant. He doubted she’d leave him guessing as to what she wanted as he’d so often had to do with Arianna. If he hadn’t made sure the job he’d offered Shani was irresistible, that it fit her to a T, she would have turned him down. If he gave her a gift for her birthday, he’d better make sure he knew exactly what she liked and didn’t like. Just as he would if he touched her, if he made love to her.

  Pushing off from the tree to wander through his backyard forest, he drove that notion from his mind. He’d tried to steer clear of Shani these past several days, to give himself a chance to break the cycle of fantasies he’d fallen into. But while he could school his conscious mind to stop thinking of the way she would feel under his hands, the sounds she would make if he stroked her, dreams were another matter entirely. During the night, there was no bridling his unconscious mind’s creativity.