by Joy Nash
“I’ll be here.”
“Jesus,” Nick said after he’d gone. “Do you have to encourage him?”
Doris tucked a strand of gray hair behind her ear. “Johnny’s following his heart, Nick. You can’t fault him for that. As wound up as the boy is today, he would have made a mess of the meeting with Mr. Peterson.”
Nick sighed as he thumbed through his phone messages. He refused to set up voice mail, preferring to have Doris screen his calls.
“You’re probably right about Johnny,” he told Doris. “At least I can sweet-talk Peterson into pushing back our start date without coming off like a stand-up comic on his day job.” Which was exactly what Johnny was.
He checked his watch before heading for his office. “Buzz me in half an hour. I don’t want to be late for this one.”
“Oh, Nick, wait—I almost forgot.” Doris ripped another message slip off her pad. “Victoria Morgan just called. Such a nice girl.”
Nick turned back to the reception desk. A nice girl. Not the first phrase that sprang to mind when Nick thought of Tori Morgan. And if he was going to be honest with himself, he had been thinking of her. He couldn’t seem to get her out of his mind.
He put Tori’s message on top of the others. “What did she want?”
“She didn’t say. Are we taking her job?”
“We can’t fit it into the schedule.”
Doris frowned at him over the top of her glasses.
“All right, all right. If you have to know, it’s not that much work, so I told her I’d help her out myself, after hours. Don’t bother opening a file on it.”
Doris beamed at him. “I knew you’d do it. You’re a true knight.”
Nick snorted. “Yeah, well, don’t start polishing my armor just yet.” He frowned at Tori’s phone number as if it were a hidden code he should know how to read, but didn’t. “Do you know her?”
Doris looked up from her computer screen. “Victoria?”
“Yeah.”
“Her aunt Millie was one of my mother’s closest friends. She took the poor girl in when she was orphaned.”
“When was that?”
Doris glanced at the ceiling, brows drawing together. “It would be almost twenty years ago now. Victoria was ten or eleven at the time. She was such a pale, quiet little thing. She would jump if you said ‘boo.’ ”
Nick had a hard time picturing it. “She’s changed.”
“Victoria lived with Millie for two years until the old dear had a stroke. Millie had to go to a nursing home. Since there weren’t any other relatives to care for Victoria, the court took her.” Doris’s forehead wrinkled into a frown. “That would have been the year you graduated high school, I believe.”
Right. That summer. The one between high school and what should have been Nick’s freshman year at Notre Dame. The summer Cindy dropped the pregnancy bomb and shattered Nick’s future. Sounded like that summer had been even worse for Tori.
“So she went into foster care at what, twelve, thirteen years old?” he asked Doris.
“About that. Bounced around quite a bit, from what I understand.” Doris made a tsking sound. “Poor thing.”
“What did she do when she got out?”
“I understand she worked for a tour company. Traveled all over the country. Millie loved to show off the postcards she sent. Victoria would visit when she could, of course. The poor dear was quite distressed at Millie’s funeral. I gave her my number. When she called asking about a contractor to fix up Millie’s old house, I knew you’d want to help.”
Nick headed for his office. Help?
He could think of any number of things he wanted to do for Tori Morgan. But he doubted Doris would file any of them under the heading of help.
Chapter Five
Modern families come in many unexpected varieties.
Suddenly, babies were everywhere.
On the sidewalks, in the bank, at the grocery store. Apparently the entire state of New Jersey was bent on reckless reproduction. Tori couldn’t walk twenty yards without bumping into a cooing newborn or a giggly toddler.
So when she walked into Healthy Eats and Treats, she really shouldn’t have been surprised to see another one.
Eats was a health food store not far from Aunt Millie’s. Tori had stopped in the week before and had been surprised to find out the owner was an old friend. Chelsea Froelich hadn’t been afraid to be a little different, even in middle school. So it wasn’t too much of a shock when Chelsea introduced her business partner and significant other, a tall, spiky-haired woman named Mags.
Tori thought Chelsea might have some advice about herbs or something she could take for her newly diagnosed condition. But when she saw her friend, all thoughts of alternative medicine flew right out of Tori’s head.
Chelsea was holding a baby.
“Sitter didn’t show,” she explained, patting the little girl on her shoulder. The child kicked and twisted, making sounds halfway between a cry and a whine.
“She’s yours?” Tori asked.
“Yeah. Lily’s mine and Mag’s.”
“How old?”
“Six months. She’s not normally this fussy. She’s getting a tooth.”
Tori gave the baby a sympathetic smile. Lily crammed her entire tiny fist into her mouth. Chelsea shifted her to the other shoulder and grimaced. “I’m lucky the store hasn’t been too busy today.”
“Where’s Mags?”
“Running some errands. She’ll be back soon. Did you stop by just to chat? Or can I get you something?”
Tori explained her problem. Chelsea turned thoughtful; then, bouncing Lily on her hip, she threaded her way through the store, pointing out items.
“Vitamin B is really important. Raspberry tea will tone your uterus. And yoga—”
“I already do tai chi,” Tori said.
“That’s good, too. But you know what’ll really help? A vegan diet.”
“You mean like no meat or dairy?”
“Yeah. And no refined crap, either. Like sugar or white flour. Cut out all that pollution, and your body will heal naturally.”
Lily’s whimpering worsened. Chelsea patted her back and sighed. “I just nursed her. I don’t know what else to do. It’s too early for her nap.”
A woman came into the store, approaching Chelsea with a question about organic fruit. Lily opened her mouth and let out a screech, cutting off Chelsea’s reply.
Chelsea sent Tori a pleading look. “Can you take her, Tori? Just for a couple minutes?” Before Tori could answer, she found Lily in her arms.
She froze. Lily must have been as startled as Tori was, because the baby’s fussing abruptly stopped. The little girl looked up at Tori with huge brown eyes.
Tori’s stomach tightened. Lily smelled like baby powder and freshly washed clothes. Tori walked with her toward the front of the store, away from Chelsea and her customer. Lily opened her mouth, and for a moment Tori was afraid she was gathering strength for another screech. Instead, the baby let out a big burp, then gave a wide grin.
It felt as if someone had tied a string around Tori’s heart and started tugging. Lily settled her round cheek on Tori’s shoulder and let out a sweet sigh. Tori’s arms tightened around her. Her little body was soft and warm, and more solid than Tori had expected. Tori nuzzled her fuzzy hair and inhaled deeply. For a few precious seconds, she pretended the baby was the child she’d lost.
Tears crowded her eyes. The doctor’s dire warning rang in her ears. Endometriosis often leads to infertility. The only natural treatment is pregnancy. But how could Tori get pregnant? She was manless.
But then again, so was Chelsea.
She looked down at Lily. Was she adopted? No, that couldn’t be right. Chelsea had said she was nursing.
Chelsea, finished at last with her customer, hurried over. “Oh!” she said, smiling at her sleeping daughter. “She crashed. That’s fantastic. Here, let me take her.”
Tori relinquished the child. “She’s
an angel.”
“Especially when she’s sleeping,” Chelsea said with a laugh. She eased Lily into a portable crib tucked behind the sales counter.
Tori hesitated. “Do you mind if I ask a personal question?”
Chelsea straightened and smiled. “No need. I’ll ask it for you. You want to know who Lily’s father is, right?”
“Unless you don’t want to tell me.”
“No, I don’t mind. Everyone wants to know. It’s simple. Mags and I used a donor.”
“A sperm donor, you mean?”
“Exactly. There’s a clinic not too far from here. We looked at all the profiles and picked the donor we thought we had the most in common with. Then we bought his sperm.”
“And a doctor did the insemination?”
“No. Actually, we did it ourselves, at home. It wasn’t hard.”
Tori left Chelsea’s in a daze. A baby. Without a man. Or at least without one who dumped all his dirty laundry and emotional baggage on your head. What a concept.
After visiting with Chelsea, Tori fell into an uncharacteristic funk. Holding Lily had felt so right. Now that Tori’s arms were empty, they ached. She wanted a baby so badly, but the obstacles to her goal seemed like a high brick wall she would never scale. Tori wanted her baby to have the family she’d never had—a mother and a father, at the least. But there was no father in sight. Did she have the guts to go the route Chelsea had? Alone? After all, Chelsea wasn’t alone; she had Mags. If Tori used a donor, she’d be a single mother. Just as her own mother had been.
That thought only deepened her depression. The mood lasted the entire weekend. At night, she was plagued by strange, vivid dreams. Finally, on Monday, she decided to search once again through her candle magic spell kits. Black was the color of reversal; the black bag contained a spell to counteract negativity.
Just what she needed.
The Cajun witch had included a black candle, a small mirror, and a vial of something called “banishing oil” in the kit. Bemused, Tori followed the instructions for anointing the candle with the oil, then lit the flame. After a brief meditation, she snuffed the candle while looking at the flame in the mirror, and sat back.
She didn’t feel any different.
With a sigh, she went to the kitchen to make a cup of the raspberry tea Chelsea had recommended. As the water boiled, she contemplated the telephone. She’d called Nick Santangelo’s office once last Friday and three times this morning, but he hadn’t called back. Which meant he’d probably show up at five thirty, as scheduled.
What would he say when she told him she’d given her job to another contractor?
When it rained it poured, apparently. Friday morning, one of the dozen contractors who had turned her down the week before had called to say he’d had a prospect fall through, and he’d be happy to do Tori’s job after all. In broad daylight, no less. The man’s price had been a bit high, and he wouldn’t get her open by the solstice. On the other hand, he was everything Tori thought a contractor should be: middle-aged, balding, paunchy. Not exactly baby-daddy material. Not like Nick Santangelo.
So she’d called Nick’s office right away to tell him he was off the hook. Because Nick definitely was baby-daddy material, especially in the eyes of a woman who wanted a baby as badly as Tori did.
But Nick hadn’t called her back. Which had to explain the dreams she’d been having of him all weekend. She didn’t normally dream of having sex with guys she barely knew. But now—whew! Her dreams about Nick Santangelo had been so raw, so hot—so completely mind-blowing—that Tori had awakened gasping and so turned on that her heart hadn’t stopped pounding for a good ten minutes.
And then, in the light of day, she started thinking about going to bed with Nick just to get pregnant.
And that had scared her to death. Tori wanted a baby, yes, but she wasn’t into casual sex, and she hoped she wasn’t desperate enough to jump the bones of a man she barely knew, no matter that, judging from the hot looks he’d given her the other day, he was probably ready and willing. And even if she did sleep with her contractor, and conveniently wound up pregnant, what then? At first glance, Nick Santangelo didn’t strike her as a casual-sperm-donor kind of guy. What if he decided he wanted custody? She could wind up in court fighting for her baby, and God knew she didn’t have that kind of money. Of course, she could solve that problem by just not telling him about any pregnancy. But that notion struck her as the worst kind of deception. In fact, there was just no way to look at the situation without seeing bad karma written all over it. She was appalled she was even considering the idea, however hypothetically.
No, she could never trick a guy into getting her pregnant. That just wouldn’t be right. Better to avoid temptation in the first place.
She’d forgotten to get Nick’s cell phone number, and his office phone went over to voice mail on the weekend. So she’d called his office again first thing this morning. Doris told her he was out, and that he’d call her back when he got in. He hadn’t. She’d called again, twice. He’d been in, Doris said, but had gone out for a meeting and couldn’t be disturbed. Doris assured her he’d call back. He hadn’t.
Didn’t the man ever return his calls? Apparently not. Now he was due to arrive in an hour.
The screen door slammed.
Tori jumped, heart pounding. What the…? She looked at the clock. It wasn’t even five yet.
She wove through the boxes in what had once been Aunt Millie’s dining room, and paused in the doorway leading to the front room. Nick Santangelo—looking too, too good in his white golf shirt, cargo shorts, and scuffed work boots—was standing in the front doorway, fiddling with the screen door.
Her dream replayed in vivid detail. Her breasts started tingling.
Then she remembered he hadn’t had the decency to return any of her calls.
She scowled at him. “Don’t you believe in knocking?”
He didn’t look at her. “Don’t you believe in locking your door?”
“Not during the day.”
“Well, you should. Anyone could walk in without your knowing.”
“I don’t need to lock it. The door slams.”
He didn’t seem to catch her sarcasm. “That’s because the closer’s broken.”
He fiddled some more, then shook his head. “Can’t fix it; I’ll have to pick up a new closer. Or better yet, a whole new door. Look, hold it for me, will you? I got a lot of stuff to bring in.”
She crossed her arms. “What are you doing here?”
He gave her an odd look. “Starting your job, like I said. You’re in a hurry, aren’t you?”
“But…you weren’t supposed to be here until five thirty.”
“I left work early,” he said with a shrug.
“I called you on Friday and three times again today. You didn’t even call back.”
“Yeah. Sorry about that. Had a rough few days. I have a job running overtime, and I was on site all weekend. Barely had time to breathe.”
He walked out the door. The screen slammed behind him. Tori moved to the door. She couldn’t help staring at his butt as he strode across the porch and down the three steps to his monstrous white pickup.
God, he looked good. No man had the right to be that sexy. It simply was not fair.
He turned as he banged the tailgate open. “What’d you want to tell me?”
He heaved a couple of two-by-fours out of the truck. Underneath, there was more lumber, several boxes, and a neat stack of wallboard.
She stepped out on the porch. “Wait a minute.”
He paused at the bottom of the steps and frowned up at her, lumber balanced in his hands.
“What?”
“If you’d bothered to return my calls, you’d know that I no longer need your services.”
“Why not?”
“I found someone else.”
His dark eyes registered his surprise. “Like hell you did.”
“It’s true. And what’s it matter to you, anyw
ay? You didn’t really want the job.”
“Tori. Half of Home Depot is in my truck. Do I look like a guy who doesn’t want your job?”
She couldn’t meet his gaze. “You shouldn’t have to work evenings.”
“Aw, don’t worry about that. I’m at the office most nights anyway. At least here I’ll be working with my hands instead of shuffling paper.” He shifted his grip on the studs. “You want to get that door?”
“No, I don’t. I’m trying to tell you—I gave the job to another contractor.”
His brows rose. “You couldn’t have.”
“Well, I did. Morrison Builders. I called them last week. Mr. Morrison called Friday and said he could fit me in.”
“Andy Morrison? Forget it. He’ll rob you blind. Open the door, Tori.”
She didn’t appreciate the caveman routine. Her hands went to her hips. “How do you know that? You have no idea what price we agreed on.”
Nick lowered the leading end of his two-by-fours to the top step and heaved what could only be described as a long-suffering sigh.
“Okay, then. Let me guess.”
She could almost see the numbers adding up in his head.
He named a figure. “Am I close?”
She gaped at him. “Almost exactly! How did you know?”
“Easy. I priced your job, and I know Andy’s markup. I also happen to know he’s as busy as I am. I can’t believe he can get you open by the twenty-first.”
“Well…no. He can’t even start for a couple weeks.”
“So why the big switch? I’ll get you open on time, and you’ll save money in the bargain.”
The dream replayed in her mind. She stared at Nick’s big hands, still wrapped around the end of the two-by-fours, and a wave of heat cascaded through her body. Her palms started to sweat, and she began to get desperate.
“You said you didn’t even want the job when you first showed up. Why are you so anxious to do the work now?”
Nick caught Tori’s gaze and held it a couple of heartbeats too long before he let it go. His lips twitched. “Let’s just say I want to please the client.”
“Oh.” She felt as if she were on one of those boardwalk rides that lifted you a hundred feet into the air and dropped you into a free fall. “You do?”