Harlequin Superromance January 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: Everywhere She GoesA Promise for the BabyThat Summer at the Shore

by Janice Kay Johnson

  “If he showed up at my door tomorrow, what would you do?”

  “I’d turn him away.” She didn’t have to look at Karl to know he didn’t believe her. She sighed. “I’d let him in and make him dinner. He’s my father.” And she would remember how he’d turned the experience of buying her first maxi pads into a spy game so she forgot her embarrassment. How they’d started their time in each new house by searching for secret passages, though they’d never found one. And how he’d never laughed at her for believing a wardrobe could take her to Narnia.

  Karl put his hand on her shoulder. Vivian supposed it was meant to be supportive, but it felt holier-than-thou. “Just because he’s family, doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be subject to the same rules as the rest of us.”

  She swatted his hand away with the spatula. “It’s easier to preach when you don’t have to practice.”

  “How do you know I haven’t practiced what I preach?”

  “Because if you did, you’d at least have a little sympathy for how hard it would be to shut the door in my father’s face.” She set the spatula down on the counter, sick of this conversation. “I’m going to get dressed. You can finish the pancakes.”

  * * *

  KARL DIDN’T SEEM to get any less suspicious as they cleaned up breakfast and he got ready to spend his Saturday at work, while Vivian got ready to do very little with her day.

  With her hours upon hours of free time last week, she’d applied for thirty different jobs and was waiting until new positions were posted on Monday. And waiting for people to call her back—hopefully—and waiting for the proper amount of time to pass before she could call and check up on her applications. Or wait to hear nothing and decide it was time to rework her résumé. Into what, she didn’t know.

  Not to mention that she wanted a job before she started showing. Employers weren’t supposed to refuse to hire a pregnant woman, but she had little faith that someone would give the woman who waddled into their office a fair shake. If she could only get hired, it would be much harder to fire her when her belly started to show.

  As if she needed another worry on her shoulders.

  Hearing the front door shut she got her tennis shoes out of the closet. Staying cooped up in Karl’s apartment—even if the view was beautiful—was driving her crazy. So she’d gotten into a new habit lately. After Karl left for the day and Vivian had completed what few chores she had, she would put on her shoes and winter coat and take a walk around the city. Surrounded by public art and grand buildings, the sticky situation she found herself in seemed less important.

  She slipped out of the apartment building before the doorman saw her. He was nicer to her these days, but his obsequiousness was just as insulting as his previous rudeness. She was nothing to him but Karl Milek’s wife, when she only wished to be treated as a person.

  Once she escaped the protection of the building’s awning, snowflakes danced in the air before dying on her neck, and she took the time to readjust her scarf and hat. Whatever winter resilience she’d gained during her high school years in northern Nevada had been ruined by her years in Las Vegas. A couple of blocks and turns later and she was on Michigan Avenue, headed north and bent a little forward into the wind. Slush seeping through her tennis shoes sent chills up her spine. Even bundled in her Karl-bought winter coat, scarf and hat, she shivered.

  Today she was hoping the snow and ice would freeze one problem in particular.

  Keeping her pregnancy a secret wasn’t just about superstition—it was also about shame. A little over a month ago she had been moderately successful with a job she didn’t hate, a nice apartment and some security safeguarded in the bank.

  Now, she was the woman who got married and pregnant while drunk, topping any scheme her father could have come up with—and it had been an accident. More damaging to her pride, she couldn’t even claim to have quit her job to be at home with her child; she’d been fired. Even if Karl shared responsibility for the baby, he couldn’t share how trapped she presently felt here in Chicago. His family would probably expect her to be happy about the baby growing inside her—when the only thing she could feel right now was terror. Holding on to the idea of a baby being real wasn’t the same thing as being excited about the child.

  Until she had a job—income of her own—she was vulnerable and the baby meant her vulnerability risked more than just her own life. And if Karl decided he didn’t trust her anymore, or couldn’t forgive the reason she’d been forced to leave Las Vegas, she and Jelly Bean would be out on the street.

  Stopping in front of the Art Institute, she dug some cash out of her pocket—more of Karl’s largesse—and bought herself a Streetwise, the Chicago weekly produced mostly by the homeless and formerly homeless. It wasn’t a new issue, despite the claims of the man selling it, but she didn’t care. When she gave the vendor a couple of bucks of someone else’s money, it seemed like an investment against her own homelessness.

  Only she had a home to go to, and especially with the baby, she was fully aware that she’d throw herself into whatever scheme her father was cooking up before she would live on the street. But the knowledge of a bed, welcoming or not, didn’t make the feeling of being entangled by her mistakes any easier to shake.

  Instead of walking to the river and watching the water flow under the DuSable Bridge, she stopped at the ice rink to watch a few intrepid families skate in the snow. In another life, with different choices made, she could have been a part of those families.

  She brushed the snow off her coat, wishing her despondent mood was as easy to brush away. Karl wouldn’t let her live on the streets. No matter how he felt about her, Jelly Bean was his responsibility and he took care of his own as naturally as he breathed.

  But overly responsible Karl and her under-responsible father didn’t have to be her only family. Aunt Kitty was probably still alive, and maybe Vivian could find her. Having another relative in the world might make being alone in Chicago a little less scary.

  * * *

  “WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?” Karl asked when she walked through the door, before she had a chance to remove her shoes.

  “Out.” She unwound the scarf and set it, dripping, on the table in the entry, refusing to acknowledge Karl as she walked past him into her bedroom to get Xìnyùn.

  Of course he followed her into the bedroom. He wasn’t a man used to being ignored. “Where is it that you had to go?”

  “If you had cared before, you might know the answer to that question.” She said her words in a sweet, singsong voice so she didn’t scare the bird. The saccharine tone probably had the added benefit of irritating Karl. Xìnyùn hopped onto her finger, whistling his approval—probably his approval at Karl’s presence as much as getting out of his cage.

  “I’ve asked, and you said you didn’t have a job.” He looked more confused than irritated, which wasn’t the effect she’d wanted at all. But she hadn’t wanted to be interrogated when she got home, either.

  “Out walking, Karl. Remember, I go out walking. Like Xìnyùn—” she put the bird on his shoulder, ignoring the possible damage to the fine cotton of his shirt by the bird’s nails “—I need to get out of my cage.”

  Karl looked at the bird hopping back and forth on his shoulder, then back to Vivian. “Shit, Vivian, you’re right, and I’m sorry. It’s even worse because I promised myself I would be a better partner, and I told you I would be a better friend. Then, this morning, I left for work and didn’t think of you past the moment I stepped out the front door.”

  The truth of his statement made her feel colder than all the ice and slush of Chicago winters ever could. “Of course you didn’t. Why should you? If you’re lucky, the only change Jelly Bean will bring to your life is a roommate for a couple months and money out of your pocketbook for eighteen years. Maybe through college. A steep price for you, but sometimes it feels like a life s
entence for me.”

  Vivian wanted to be happy about the baby. She wanted to be one of those glowing expectant mothers accepting pastel-wrapped gifts at an office baby shower. But her friends were in Las Vegas, where she could never get a job again, and she was in Chicago, dependent on a man she barely knew. Self-pity consumed her, even as she reminded herself that children had been brought into the world in worse situations. Hollow praise, indeed.

  “Hit me,” Xìnyùn whistled.

  This time the look Karl gave the bird was full of amused irritation. “Does he know what to say to make your point strike an artery, or is he just lucky?”

  She went to the kitchen for a glass of water, not bothering to answer. He didn’t deserve one. He deserved more than her scarf dripping on his expensive furniture, but right now she didn’t have the energy for anything other than a drink.

  After Karl slipped onto one of the bar stools, Xìnyùn hopped down his arm to the counter and over to his miniature gym. If the tension in the room bothered the little bird, he didn’t show it.

  “You’re right, of course.” Vivian and Xìnyùn both looked up in surprise when Karl’s voice broke the silence. “I can come up with a million excuses for my behavior, but I don’t accept excuses from the people around me and I shouldn’t accept them from myself. I keep thinking my world should return to normal, but the truth is you are a life-altering event. The sooner I act like it, the better off we both will be.”

  She eyed him over the rim of her water glass as she lowered it.

  “If I were you, I wouldn’t believe me either,” Karl said.

  “Hit me,” the bird said and Karl laughed. He had a surprisingly hearty laugh that she expected didn’t get much use.

  “I swear that bird knows what he’s doing. No matter how much you claim he prefers men, I think he only prefers to put men in their place.” He chuckled. “And if I can be put in my place by a tiny parrot who whistles as much as speaks, I deserve all the criticism he can dish out.”

  Vivian’s irritation deflated. “This isn’t about punishing you or you changing your life, but this apartment could become a trap for me, if I let it. Not getting a job could become a trap for me. Even Jelly Bean could become a trap for me. But I won’t let that happen.” She blinked back tears. She wasn’t a crier. She had never been a crier—she was a doer. This was the pregnancy crying.

  She didn’t see him hop off his stool and come around to give her a hug. The cotton of his crisp white shirt was cool on her cheek, but his arms were warm around her shoulders and she didn’t want to think too hard about why he was giving her a hug. Karl did what a person in any situation was supposed to do, and right now that meant hug his crying wife. She wanted comfort and would take what she could get. It’s not as though she had a lot of options.

  “I’m scared.” His arms swallowed her words, but not fast enough that he didn’t hear them.

  “I’m scared, too. This wasn’t how either of us imagined marriage or pregnancy. We don’t have to be scared alone.”

  Her tears had dampened his dress shirt through to his undershirt, so that the fabric adhered to his chest where she pressed against him and nodded. When she pulled away and looked up at him, his face had softened. “I still don’t understand why you can’t tell your father what happened. Make him face the consequences of his actions.”

  “I can’t. Not yet.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’ll only make the situation worse.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  TRUE TO HIS promise to be a better partner and friend, Karl came home after the gym to eat breakfast with Vivian. She made congee—the one food her father had known how to cook—and they sat at the table with their rice porridge and coffee. Xìnyùn made a morning of it by climbing on his gym and showing off for Karl, whistling and ringing his bell. Karl ate his breakfast as if the noise was the calming sound of waves hitting the beach, instead of an attention-hungry parrot. Only when he was done eating and had washed his bowl did Karl pay Xìnyùn any mind. Karl got out a small wad of paper and a cup, and played basketball with the little bird until he had to leave for work.

  Vivian wondered if Karl would manage to be so patient with a four-year-old who had made a drum set out of pots and pans.

  All told, Karl was probably only home for forty-five minutes between the gym and work. But it was forty-five minutes during which Vivian wasn’t reliant on a bird for conversation—a bird who’d learned to speak from a gambler. And it was forty-five minutes when Vivian wasn’t facing the mess of her life alone. They had also arranged what time he would be home, even if he had to bring work home with him.

  When the door shut behind him, Vivian didn’t get out her shoes for another contemplative walk around Chicago. She decided that those walks had stopped being introspective and had become brooding. Instead, she got out the laptop, but not for another round of résumé edits and job applications. Vivian opened up her email and faced the messages from her friends. She’d let them sit unread for too long.

  They all knew why she’d been fired, but none of them knew the real reason she’d fled Las Vegas so quickly. She’d let her fear and her humiliation over the situation she’d found herself in stop her from letting them know she was okay.

  Maybe Karl was the only support she had in Chicago, but he wasn’t the only person she knew. Her friends could be supportive from Las Vegas, if she let them.

  She didn’t tell them all the details of her past couple weeks, but gave them a brief outline of where she was staying and that she was looking for work. She told her two closest friends about the pregnancy and trusted them to share the news—or not—with the others.

  That hurdle jumped, Vivian opened another browser window and began the process of looking for her aunt. It felt wrong to hope Aunt Kitty had never married, so Vivian just hoped her aunt hadn’t changed her name. The public librarian who answered Vivian’s first call of the day suggested a few databases that might help her track down her aunt, including finding out if she might have gotten married.

  Providence was on her side. The first database Vivian tried came up with one Katherine Chin in Reno. The clock showed it was noon there, which meant she couldn’t use the time as an excuse not to call. She took a deep breath and dialed.

  “Hello.” The voice that answered rang some distant memory in Vivian’s mind.

  “Is Kitty Chin available?” Maybe this wasn’t the right Katherine.

  “Yes?”

  Xìnyùn whistled, but Vivian didn’t believe in luck. “Did you have a sister named Tina, who married a Victor Yap?”

  “Who is this?” The woman’s voice wasn’t suspicious, more just full of wonder.

  “Aunt Kitty, this is Vivian.”

  Silence reverberated through the line. Vivian’s heart bounced up in her throat. Finally her aunt said, “My sister’s Vivian?”

  Vivian swallowed, but her heart still didn’t leave her throat. She scrubbed at her eyes with the heel of her palm. “Yes.”

  “My darling child.”

  “I’m—” Vivian’s voice stopped and she had to suck her breath in to say the rest of her sentence. “I’m sorry I didn’t call earlier.” Because she was. For all those years when her address had changed with regular irregularity, staying in contact with her aunt had been beyond her young knowledge. But when she was an adult in Las Vegas with the same apartment for years—Vivian really had no excuse for not tracking down her aunt over the past sixteen years.

  “Where...where are you?” The amazement in her aunt’s voice slowed her speech down such that Vivian heard the cadence of her childhood in each syllable.

  “I’m in Chicago. I’m married. I’m going to have a baby in seven months.” How do you sum up the past thirty years in one phone conversation? “I want my baby to know my family.” She wanted to know her family. She and
her father had been a unit until Vivian had left home. Now she only saw her father when he needed money. Jelly Bean would grow up knowing generations of Mileks and eating pierogies, but the child should know her mother had family, too.

  “And your father?”

  “He’s...” Vivian didn’t know what to say. “He’s fine.”

  Over the phone came a soft murmur of understanding. “Do you know why I left?”

  “No.”

  “I never liked your father. It’s a terrible thing to say to a child, but it’s true. Your mom swore he was a good man, be he always seemed unsatisfied with what he had.” There was a loud intake of air and Vivian realized her aunt was trying not to cry. “Except for your mom. He loved Tina with all his heart, but the little anchor he had to reality died with her. It started small, but the writing was on the wall.”

  Her aunt Kitty sniffed and the next words came out in a shudder. “I wasn’t able to get custody of you. I didn’t think he’d fight so hard for you, but you were all either of us had left of Tina, and he wouldn’t let you go. Eventually he said if I didn’t give up the custody fight, he’d disappear with you into the night.”

  “And we moved, anyway.” Vivian remembered her fear of their first move and how her father had made it into a make-believe game. In every move after that one, he’d come up with a ridiculous villain who was chasing them: monsters, aliens, pirates and once—when she was studying American history—the British were coming. Then, one move, Vivian had to leave her first best friend. From that day forward she refused to play along.

  “The truth is, Aunt Kitty, I don’t know where my dad is.” Vivian wiped her eyes.

  An hour later, they had stopped crying, and Vivian had told her aunt everything.

  “It really wasn’t a bad childhood.”