Buster perked up, hearing the passion in his mistress’s voice. The droopy-eyed hound looked from Tad to Sadie to Abby and then back again, then sank back down, looking more mournful than ever.
“Then we’re going to have to fix that,” Tad told his aunt firmly.
“How?” Sadie returned glumly. She clearly saw no solution.
“By making use of your talents,” Tad told her, moving forward to wrap his arm about Sadie’s shoulders just the way Abby had. “I’m expanding the newspaper. I’m going to need someone else to help proofread all the copy, and I can’t think of anyone who’d be better at it than you, Aunt Sadie.”
Tad caught Abby’s confused look and explained, “Aunt Sadie taught high-school English lit for thirty-nine years.”
Abby smiled, impressed. “Wow. You did have a long career.”
“And a very distinguished one,” Tad added.
“You’re sure I wouldn’t be in the way?” Sadie asked, her blue eyes narrowing in concern.
Tad shook his head. “The only problem is limited budget. Until I can increase revenues at the newspaper, I’m not going to be able to pay you much more than minimum wage.”
The diminutive Sadie waved off his concern. “Don’t worry about that.” She stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “It’ll be a pleasure just to be active again.”
THAT SETTLED, the three of them quickly set out to make dinner in earnest “So, Abby, tell me a little about yourself,” Sadie said as she slid floured chicken into the frying pan while Tad and Abby worked together on the salad. “How did you end up working as a home-and-garden editor for Trend magazine?” Sadie asked as she moved the sizzling pieces of chicken around with a long-handled fork.
“I majored in English when I was in college,” Abby replied. Still standing shoulder to shoulder with Tad, Abby lined up the carrots on the cutting board and began to julienne them. “Between my sophomore and junior year I got a job as a summer intern for a home-decorating magazine. Which was probably the last place I ever expected to be working, since neither of my parents were really into decorating. My mother’s a fashion photographer and my father’s a documentary-film producer. They divorced when I was a baby and agreed to split custody, so I shuttled back and forth between the two. Anyway, they moved around a lot and went wherever the work was.” Abby smiled. “And they both really loved their work—still do. So we lived in hotels and rented houses and little efficiency apartments, none of which were decorated in anything but hotel chic.”
Finished cleaning the lettuce, Tad paused to regard Abby affectionately. “Sounds like a challenging life,” he said.
Reminding Abby that although they might be husband and wife and expecting a baby together, they still knew very little about each other. If they were going to coparent a child successfully, Abby knew that would have to change.
“It was.” Abby paused, remembering what it was like, going to a new school nearly every semester. “Anyway, I’d always been fascinated by the little touches that made a house a home, so working as a gofer for renowned interior designers was really exciting. When I went back to college in the fall, I added interior design and gardening courses to my course load. And when I graduated, I got hired at a magazine in the home-and-garden department.” Abby tried but could not discount the respect she saw in Tad’s eyes.
“Did you always work for Trend?” Sadie asked as Abby checked the potatoes and found them fork-tender.
“Oh, no.” Abby grabbed a couple of pot holders and carried the steaming pan over to the sink. With Tad’s help, she poured the potatoes into the colander to drain. “I worked for half-a-dozen magazines before landing there. But it was at Trend that I really found my niche and was given the responsibility to lead a department on my own. Only now I’ve been fired.” Abby set the empty pan aside.
“Oh, dear.” Sadie clucked sympathetically as she got out the electric mixer and handed it to Abby.
“Everyone else was, too. Hostile takeover.”
“Well, you’ll land on your feet,” Sadie soothed.
“Actually she’s going to help me at the newspaper,” Tad told his aunt as Abby began to mash the potatoes, “by creating a Lifestyle section for the paper.”
“Oh, my. That sounds exciting.”
It was a challenging proposition. One Abby looked forward to tackling. “And Tad’s going to give me free rein,” Abby said, tongue in cheek, as she measured milk, butter, salt and pepper into the mixing bowl.
Tad’s eyes glimmered with humor, too, as he gave her a look reminding her exactly who was editor-in-chief of the new and improved Blossom Weekly News. “Oh, I am, am I?”
Abby nodded, grinning and continuing in a light but completely serious manner. “’Cause he knows that’s the only way I’ll take the position.” Even temporarily. She was used to calling her own shots. She was going to continue to call her own shots. Temporarily still married or not.
“See that, Buster? Those are sparks in their eyes. All newlyweds should have them,” Sadie murmured.
“So what do your parents think of Tad?” Sadie asked Abby as they sat down at the table minutes later.
As they began to add generous portions of southern fried chicken to their plates, Abby looked at Tad uncomfortably before answering his aunt. “Um, they haven’t met him yet. They’re both rather inaccessible at the moment Mother’s in Europe compiling photos for a book on reigning royal families. Father’s in Tibet, beginning work on a new documentary.”
“But they do know you’re married,” Sadie questioned as she added gravy to her mashed potatoes.
Abby nodded, doing her best to keep her expression neutral. “I dropped them both a line.”
“And they were happy about your marriage?”
Not exactly, Abby thought, as she ladled succotash onto her plate. “After five divorces, Mother no longer feels marriage per se is a valid institution. Father just thinks I should have waited till I was a little older, say fifty or sixty, before taking such a big step. He’s been divorced six times.” Abby’s lips curved wryly as Tad passed her the bowl of tossed green salad. “Both have vowed never to marry again, and frankly I think that’s wise. The ability to stay married just isn’t in their genes.” Each time her parents had gotten hitched, they’d thought they were marrying The One. Each time they’d come out of the failed union more disillusioned than ever.
Sadie looked at Tad. “Goodness!” she exclaimed. “You’re lucky you talked Abby into matrimony at all.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” Tad drawled, looking at Abby in a way that made her think he intended to stay married to her come what may.
Sadie turned back to Abby. “What do they think about the baby?” she prodded.
Abby flushed uncomfortably. She watched Tad break open a fluffy golden biscuit. “I haven’t had a chance to tell them yet.”
Sadie gently patted the back of Abby’s hand. “You should tell them as soon as possible, dear. I’m sure they’ll both be very excited.”
About being grandparents? Not bloody likely, Abby thought. Nevertheless, she promised, “I’ll write them tonight.” As far as the rest went, she and Tad might have made a child together, but there was so much she still did not know about him. Like how he’d chosen his career.
It was time she’d found out. “How did you end up covering the international beat?” she asked Tad casually as they began to eat. “You never said.”
Tad’s shoulders tensed. “I moved around a lot as a kid, too.”
A tinge of almost unbearable sadness and compassion entered Sadie’s eyes. “Especially after Houston and—”
Tad cut his aunt off with a look that warned her to say no more. A curious silence fell. Tension still flowing between Tad and Sadie, Tad turned back to Abby and continued explaining matter-of-factly, “That was when my dad started taking on international assignments. He was a geologist. He worked for an oil company.”
What didn’t Tad want her to know? Abby wondered. Until now she hadn’t bee
n aware of any deliberate secrets between them. But this clearly was one. “Where all did you live?” Abby asked casually, determined to find out more.
“All over the Middle East, Alaska, Central and South America. We were never in any one place for more than four or five months.”
“That sounds rough.” And a lot like her own childhood, Abby thought.
“It was. But it was good for me, too,” Tad said, smiling reminiscently. “It made me more adaptable. And it’s what first fostered my intense interest in the news.”
Sadie shook her head in silent admiration. “I never saw a child insist on reading so many different newspapers every day!”
Tad shrugged off the compliment. “That’s how I caught up with all the news on the places I’d been and acclimated myself to whatever city or country I was in. I read the newspapers.”
“So you knew when you entered college that you wanted to be a reporter,” Abby guessed, admiring his single-minded ambition, so like her own.
Tad nodded as his dazzling blue eyes met and held hers. “Once I got my first job, I was a natural for the international beat.”
“And he’s been traveling nonstop ever since,” Sadie recounted proudly. “Which is why I’m so glad he’s settling down here. Sad and difficult as it was, it’s high time he got over it,” Sadie said firmly. “And moved on with his life.”
High time Tad got over what? Abby wondered, putting clues to his past unhappiness together, an unhappiness she’d heretofore known nothing about. What had happened to Tad and his family in Houston?
“Anyone else want coffee?” Tad asked. Abruptly leaving the table, he headed for the kitchen. “Sadie, why don’t you help me in here for a minute?” Tad commanded from the adjacent room.
Her curiosity mounting, Abby started to rise.
Her expression concerned with something a lot more important than coffee, Sadie shook her head and lay her hand across Abby’s wrist. “No, dear, you stay. I’ll take care of this.”
Sadie exited the room.
Abby looked down at Buster, who was reclining next to the sideboard. Face on paws, he looked as mournful as ever. “They’re hiding something from me, aren’t they?” Abby murmured. It was up to her to find out what.
Unfortunately Tad was not going to make her fact-finding mission easy.
As soon as they got back to the white-elephant house where she and Tad would be living as long as they were in Blossom, Tad carried in her suitcase.
“You must be tired,” he said.
Not too tired to ask a few questions.
“Tad?” Abby followed him upstairs to the master bedroom, not sure where to begin, just knowing she was going to, come hell or high water.
“Hm?” He set her suitcase down on the narrow double bed and turned to face her.
“What happened in Houston? What are you not over yet?”
Chapter Four
“Look, Abby,” Tad said tiredly, the reflection of a thousand sleepless nights in his eyes, “the time my family spent in Houston was not a happy time for us. Beyond that, I don’t care to discuss it.” A muscle clenching in his jaw, he brushed by her brusquely. “So if you’ve got everything you need for tonight...”
Everything except a few moments of intimacy with you. How were they ever going to really get to know each other, Abby wondered in mounting frustration, if he kept pushing her away? Didn’t he realize it was situations just like this that would doom their marriage for even the short time they planned to stay together? “That’s it?” she asked, propping her hands on her slender hips and mocking his abrupt tone to a T. “That’s all you’re going to tell me?”
“Like I said.” Tad turned around to face her and pushed the words through clenched teeth. He gave her the once-over, making no effort at all to hide his impatience with her. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Maybe you should.”
Tad closed the distance between them, not stopping until they stood toe-to-toe. Tilting his head down at her, he gave her a smile edged with a weariness that seemed to come straight from his soul. “So now what? You want to be my shrink, is that it?”
Abby tried not to think how much she liked the tantalizing scent of his aftershave. “I want to understand you,” she said quietly but emphatically.
He shrugged and slid his hands into his back pockets. His eyes connected with hers and held for a breath-stealing moment. “You do understand me.”
“Not enough.”
Grinning devilishly, Tad wrapped his arms around her and urged her close with the flat of his hand, until their bodies fit together with the smooth familiarity of a lock and key. She could feel his arousal and remembered without wanting to what a demanding and yet fantastically giving lover he was. With an unrepentant grin, he whispered playfully in her ear, “Oh, I think you know enough.”
Abby burned everywhere they touched. Her breasts were tingling. Her thighs were fluid, her knees weak. Abby pulled away from the evidence of his virility. “Oh, no. You are not going to distract me that way.” No matter how long it had been since they’d made love.
Tad slid his palm from her shoulder to her wrist, eliciting even more tingles of awareness. He smiled at her wickedly. “How would you like to be distracted, then?”
“Not—” the fluttering in her tummy slipped a little lower “—the way you’re thinking.”
Tad sighed regretfully and made no effort to hide his disappointment. “Then we both lose out, don’t we?”
Heat started low in her body and welled up through her chest, neck and into her face. He wanted to lose himself in lovemaking, forget the things that should be discussed, things keeping them apart. When he knew—had to know—that it was their hasty foray into bed, before they had learned all they should have learned about each other, that had gotten them into this situation in the first place.
“You’re infuriating,” Abby said, still angry he wouldn’t confide in her. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, Tad was shutting her out of the most intimate revealing details of his life, letting her get only so close. And Abby wanted no part of that kind of man.
Tad studied the resolve in her eyes, showing her in an instant he was as frustrated by their situation as she was. Finally he shrugged and stepped away. “Yeah, well, as much as I’d like to stand here chatting with you about things I have no intention of ever sharing with you—or anyone else for that matter—I’ve got things to do.”
“Like what?” Abby demanded.
“Like the editorial meeting I’ve set up for first thing tomorrow morning,” he announced glibly as he headed out into the hall, his strides long and confident.
Abby let out an exasperated breath. Tad turned. Their glances meshed.
Since they’d known each other, they’d covered the range of emotions. Now, for the first time, it seemed to Abby that a wall had gone up between them, one he wasn’t about to let her scale, now or ever.
“Get some sleep, Abby,” Tad advised, his expression gentling slightly. “You and the baby both need it.” He disappeared from view, continuing on down the stairs.
What she needed more, Abby thought moodily, was the straight scoop from Tad. Sadie had hinted that whatever was haunting Tad was something he’d been running from for many years.
Common sense told Abby Tad needed to explore his feelings on whatever had happened in the past. Maybe, with time, and a lot more trust on his part, she’d be able to help him do that.
She dug out paper and pen from her suitcase. She’d promised Sadie she would write to her parents about the baby tonight, so she might as well get started on that, difficult as it was going to be.
“EVERYONE, I’D LIKE YOU to meet my wife, Abby. She’s going to be the editor of the paper’s new Lifestyle section and will feature our own house renovation as her first series,” Tad began the next morning, as all six people—himself included—gathered around the conference table for the first official meeting of the entire newspaper staff.
“Most of you alre
ady know my aunt, Sadie McFarlane,” Tad continued, after Abby had greeted everyone. “She’s going to be doing all our proofreading.”
Sadie smiled and said hello to everyone, too.
“Raymond Burke is going to run our printing press. He’s just moved here from Charlotte.”
Everyone sent the older man with the amiable grin and salt-and-pepper buzz cut a smile and soft hello.
Tad nodded at a slim young woman in denim overalls and an appliquéd T-shirt. She had short curly red hair and dangling blue-and-white earrings shaped like a Tarheel footprint. “Cindy just graduated from Chapel Hill,” Tad told the group. “She’s going to be in charge of the classifieds and head up a major drive for new advertisers.”
Tad gestured at a preppy blond kid not much older than Cindy. “And last but not least, I’d like to introduce Sonny to everyone. He’s our roving reporter and photographer rolled into one. He’s the lone old hand among us, since he’s worked here off and on since high school. He just graduated from North Carolina State.”
“It’s nice to meet all of you,” Abby said.
Cindy grinned enthusiastically. “We’re glad to meet you, too. Ever since Tad took over a couple of weeks ago, he’s been hoping you’d agree to work on the newspaper with us.”
Yet he’d only just now mentioned it to her, Abby thought.
“We didn’t know the two of you were married until the day before yesterday when he called to let us know you were coming back with him,” Sonny chimed in.
Abby knew exactly why Tad hadn’t said anything about the two of them being married. He hadn’t known if they were even going to give their whirlwind relationship another chance.
Sensing some explanation was required of them, Abby said, “It all happened rather suddenly.”
Make Room for Baby Page 4