The No Sex Clause

by Glenys O'Connell

  “Sure as God made little apples, it really is Anna! Come in girl, come in – Sofia, don’t leave her standing there, the pair of you will get pneumonia!”

  Mrs. Adams seemed to shake herself out of her stupor. “Come in and get warm, Anna – what on earth are you doing outside in those clothes? Is this what bestselling authors do in big cities – not have enough sense to dress for the weather?”

  Anna’s stomach clenched. Apparently nothing had changed – still the same old carping, criticism from her foster mother, even after all this time.

  “If that was so, Sofia, the streets of New York would be littered with frozen writers each winter.” Mr. Adams flashed a quick smile at Anna, resting his hand on his wife’s shoulders. “No, I think Anna was in the middle of a big New York business meeting when she suddenly remembered her roots and came rushing home.”

  And Anna realized just how true this was. She’d felt even more of a fake than usual in the fine hotels and formal dinners that Alex, her publicity manager, had insisted she go to.

  “Anna, you’re shivering – my, your clothes are all wet. Go up to your room and change!”

  How often had she heard those words – usually when she was wearing something that her foster parents, in their old-fashioned and tight laced view, considered unsuitable or inappropriate.

  Obediently, her feet found the remembered way through the hallway and up the steep and narrow stairs of the old house, into the room that had been hers, at the very end of the hall. The interior was sparkling clean and sweet smelling – she remembered Sofia’s habit of opening all the windows in the house, even in the winter, to bring in fresh air.

  The room was tidier than when she’d left it, swearing that she would never return to Knotting Grove, in what seemed like an eternity ago. But all the things she’d left behind were still here – the rock group posters on the wall that the Adams had so disapproved off but never made her take down, the CD player they had bought for her one Christmas, the battered teddy bear she’d brought with her when social services had fostered her out to the Adams.

  It all came back to her – the shell-shocked feeling of finding herself so suddenly an orphan – it seemed like her parents were there one minute, and the next they had vanished like humming birds migrating. Except that, unlike hummingbirds, her parents didn’t return the next spring. Or ever.

  And she’d come to the Adams’ home, an angry, resentful little girl, hugging her grief and her tattered teddy bear.

  She shook the memories away and opened the closet – the hinges still squeaked on the right hand door – and gasped with surprise. Her clothes still hung there, albeit a lot tidier than when she’d left them. Sweaters and jeans, a couple of Sunday go-to-church dresses and skirts, and the skimpy skirts and revealing tops that had caused so many rows in the household. Her clothes – the ones she’d left behind when setting off on her big adventure to go to university. These clothes had not been good enough for the cool student she intended to become.

  She had reinvented herself at college, and again when she went to England and took up a graduate teaching position in Yorkshire while she worked on her thesis. Now she was re-inventing herself as Ms. Bestselling Author.

  She realized now that none of these new skins had ever fit her properly. That was why her subconscious mind had prompted her to come back to the Adams when she felt so disorientated in her new persona. Despite her rejection of them as too strict, too Bible thumping, too old-fashioned, the Adams had provided a solid, predictable home.

  They’d treated her as their daughter, and she’d given them nothing but grief.

  Anna pulled a big wooly sweater and a pair of ancient jeans out of her closet and pulled them on. They felt just right, so much better than the extravagant evening gown and the sodden, wet, elegant Italian leather boots.

  She sat on the bed and cried.

  * * *

  He was going out of his mind. He couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep. He was spending most of his waking hours, hours that he would normally have had no trouble dedicating to the growth of his media empire, to finding one elusive young woman.

  But Anna Findlay seemed to have disappeared into thin air.

  Jed did manage to trace the taxi cab that Anna had been in – the cab he’d chased after. His mouth set in a grim line when he thought of how Anna had looked him right in the eye from the back seat of the vehicle and deliberately ignored his shouts. Not that he could blame her. He wasn’t sure he’d have wanted to talk to himself, either, after all that had happened between them.

  He finally tracked the cab driver down and met up with her. Eileen was a tired looking but pretty blonde who eyed him suspiciously. He told her he was searching for the woman she’d given a ride to, and named the date and place.

  Eileen raised an eyebrow and said it was confidential information. If Anna – the cab driver knew her name? - had wanted him to know where she was going, then she’d have told him. If she hadn’t then he could go whistle before he’d get the information from her.

  “What is this? Some sort of women’s lib conspiracy?” hed muttered under his breath.

  Eileen had sharp ears and didn’t think that was funny

  “Look, Mister Whatever-Your- Name- Is – women leave their men without a forwarding address for many different reasons. All of them bad. Far as I’m concerned, most of those reasons involve some macho character who thinks it’s okay to knock his woman around. So, if Anna wants to stay hidden, I’m damned if I’m going to hand her over to you.” Eileen stood with hands on her hips and glared at him.

  Jed gaped. My god, did this woman actually think he’d have hurt Anna? Well, maybe he had, his conscience niggled, but not like that…

  “There’s nothing like that between Anna and me – damn it all, we’ve only just met!”

  “Is that why you gave the poor woman such a hard time on your TV show?” Jed’s jaw dropped. “Oh, yes, I know who you are, and I know who she is, and as far as I’m concerned, if she’s ever fool enough to see you again, it’s up to her.”

  “Look, I’ll pay you whatever you want if you’ll just take me to wherever you took Anna.” Eileen’s scowl grew darker at his words. “You can even chaperone me, see what she says about seeing me….” He was close to begging. What was happening to him?

  “You people – you think you can buy anything and anyone. Well, I don’t want your money.” And she turned on her heels and walked away without even a backward glance, leaving Jed standing there looking like a fool.

  Which seemed to be how he felt all too often these days.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Anna was sitting quietly in her foster parents’ living room, a brightly colored Afghan wrapped around her shoulders. She remembered how Sofia worked, using multi-colored scraps of wool, to make afghans and even blankets. With cooking, baking, canning, sewing, and knitting, the woman’s hands had never been still.

  And she had never tolerated laziness or waste in Anna or any of the other children she and Dan had fostered on a shorter term basis. Sofia had often said that people who knew how to do for themselves never needed to worry about going without.

  Now Sofia came back into the room bearing a bowl of her home made borscht, created no doubt from the cabbages and other vegetables Dan grew in their huge yard.

  How I used to hate having to weed those flowers and vegetables! And all the chopping and dicing and mixing for soups and stews and canned goods!

  Yet the soup was delicious – better than anything she’d tasted at the dinners and special events she had been to on her book tour – and certainly better than Felicity Freyer’s $500 a head dinner!

  “Would you believe I was at a dinner the other night – it cost $500 per person, to raise money for charity, and none of it tasted as good as your soup, Mrs. Adams,” she told her foster mother.

  The older woman smiled, and her face had a little glow of pride. “I cannot believe that anyone would pay that kind of money for a dinner – wouldn’t i
t be more practical if they just handed the $500 from each person over to a charity that needs it, rather than eating a large chunk of it?” Ever practical, Sofia had hit on a thought that Anna herself had had while watching all the conspicuous wealth at the Freyer dinner dance.

  “Hey, Dan,” Sofia said as her husband came into the room. “Our little Anna got to go to a dinner which cost hundreds of dollars per person, and she says the food wasn’t as good as my borscht!”

  Dan grinned and wagged a finger. “Don’t go giving your mother ideas, now. Her cooking’s good and plain, and I don’t want her thinking she can start getting fancy.”

  Your Mother. Once upon a time that would have sent Anna off into a diatribe about how the Adams weren’t her parents, they were just her foster parents, and they would never be anything like her real parents.

  How that must have hurt them. Anna realized now, as if a layer of ice was falling from around her heart, that the Adams had done their best to be her parents. In reality, they had looked after her and loved her as much as any parent could. But it’s hard to compete with the dead.

  Tears rose to Anna’s eyes as she realized how her ingratitude and coldness must have hurt the only two people who had stepped forward to offer her a home after her parents died. It wasn’t easy to find foster homes for older children, and usually it was only for a short time. The Adams had looked after her for years – they had loved her through adolescence and all the turmoil that that had brought about. For that, alone, they deserved sainthood.

  Anna pulled the thick, hand knitted blanket around herself.

  It seemed she had a lot of rethinking to do about her life.

  * * *

  He thought about her soft skin, the gentle curve of her breasts. Images of her lying naked with him would suddenly pop into his mind in meetings, and he’d find himself growing hard at the most embarrassing of times.

  Like right now.

  Outside his office door he could hear his secretary and one of his producers, Aaron Green, talking.

  “Is Jed all right? He seems awful distracted,” Aran said.

  “It’s true – he didn’t even squawk when there was that glitch in programming….” Kathryn replied.

  “What’s wrong with him? I don’t like to ask him, but he really doesn’t seem himself.”

  “Shhh! Don’t ask – he’ll snarl. You know what? I think our Media Playboy has been smitten – by that writer he interviewed the other day.”

  “The one who wrote the sex book? That would explain why he gave her such a hard time! Tell you something, I wouldn’t mind a few hours with her myself – learning about her subject, that is!”

  “You and every other guy in the station!”

  Their laughter grated on Jed’s nerves, and the suggestion in their jokes flamed hot rage through him. He rose from the desk, about to charge through and deliver a snappy lecture, when his phone rang.

  “Is that Jed Walker?” a soft female voice asked.

  For a moment Jed thought it was Anna, and his heart did a little happy dance in his chest. Then he realised the slight English accent was missing. This voice, though sexy, was all-American.

  “Mr Walker, this is Alex Peterson. I work with Anna Findlay’s publisher; I’m her publicist.”

  The happy heartbeat dance changed into something sinister and pounding.

  “Has something happened to Anna?” He could barely force the words out through the obstruction in his throat.

  “Well, no – I don’t think so. It’s just that – well, she’s usually very good at staying in touch. Anna’s kind of shy and doesn’t go wandering far from her hotel room without reason – yet I haven’t been able to contact her for a couple of days now.”

  “I’m sorry, I haven’t seen her – I didn’t really expect to. “

  “I’m asking because she was at the Freyer’s charity party, and I saw you go after her when she left. And, of course, there was that magazine article….I thought perhaps she might have said something to you…”

  Jed drew in a shaky breath. Anna was missing…no-one had seen her for the past two days?

  “You read that article?”

  “Mr Walker, everyone in New York read that article. I know there’s no such thing as bad publicity, but I know Anna had taken a liking to you and, well, I’m wondering if you know where she is now?”

  “I…Anna had hurt her ankle and I took her to the hospital, and then back to her hotel…that’s why I was carrying her when the photographer…” Oh, hell. Sweat was beading on his brow as he chattered on to this woman. Her response to his excuses was silence. He swallowed hard, and added.: “I did try to find her the next morning, you know, to apologise and explain things…But she was getting into a taxi outside her hotel and she drove away before I could get her attention.” It was far too humiliating to recount that moment when Anna had looked right at him and made no attempt to stop the taxi.

  “Oh, dear, you were my last hope.” The woman sounded truly worried. Jed’s anxiety climbed up a few notches. Anna, alone in New York…wondering the streets in a severe winter storm, alone, lost…

  He pulled himself together. Anna wasn’t a child.

  “Do you have any idea where she might have gone? Perhaps visiting old friends?” Or lovers from her book research…Jed felt his neck muscles tensing even more.

  “Well, as you know, she went to her old high school reunion…maybe she has family still living in wherever Knotting Grove is.”

  “I can try and find out…”

  “Mr Walker – Anna told me that you had accompanied her to that reunion….she was very embarrassed about the way she treated you. She had hired an escort – we laughed over the No Sex Clause in the contract – and mistook you for him when you arrived at her hotel. “

  So that’s what Anna had been trying to explain. And a No Sex Clause? He wanted to laugh as he remembered the night in the shabby little hotel in Knotting Grove, the night he’d spent with Anna. Guess it depends on how you interpret ‘no sex’….

  “I’ll see what I can find out about family. And Ms..Alex…would you let me know if you hear from her?”

  “Ditto, Mr Walker – I was going to ask her to join myself and my family for Christmas – her flight back to England was cancelled and I tried to rebook for her but there was no seat available until after the holiday. It’s not nice to be alone at this time of the year.”

  That’s when Jed realised that today it was Christmas Eve.

  Normally, Christmas was just another day in the life of the media corporation he owned. The show must go on, and all that.

  A vision of himself holding a toddler up to place the star on the top of the tree, Anna beside him holding the ornaments, all three of them laughing, suddenly appeared in his brain. Normally he’d have been horrified at such a notion. Yet this one vision brought tears to his eyes.

  He hadn’t realised how lonely he was, playing the Most Eligible Bachelor.

  He pulled out his wallet and rummaged through it. Ah, here was the business card the would be country singing star – what was her name? – Maria Wilson – had given him at Anna’s high school reunion.

  He pulled his desk phone towards him and punched in her number.

  It’s not nice to be alone at this time of the year.

  * * *

  Anna had fallen asleep, tucked in the warmth of Sofia’s knitted Afghan blanket. She stirred when Jed put his hand on her shoulder, and wriggled with delight when he pulled her into his arms and kissed her – a deep, masterful kiss that betrayed his longing for her. His love….

  Strange little fireworks were going off inside her as she responded to his touch.

  Wait a minute – his love? Jed Walker loves me?

  But the hand on her shoulder was shaking her steadily now, and she opened her eyes to see Sofia, standing over her with a suspicious expression on her face.

  “Wake up, Anna – I think you were dreaming.” Sofia’s accent still betrayed her Russian roots, and Anna sud
denly realised that words she’d thought were harsh were actually coloured by that accent. Maybe Sofia had been speaking kindly many times and she’d misinterpreted. Maybe misinterpreted deliberately in keeping with the idea of her evil foster parents.

  “Anna, please wake up!” There was an edge of panic in the voice now, and Anna shook herself awake.

  “I think that you were dreaming – a nice dream, yes?” And Sofia’s wrinkled face was wreathed in smiles.

  Anna coloured – surely her foster mother couldn’t guess what she’d been dreaming about?

  “There is a young man at the door, he wants to see you. You didn’t tell us you already had a date for tonight.”

  Anna’s heart leaped. Had Jed found her here? She remembered with a touch of shame the way she’d told Eileen, the cab driver, to drive away and leave Jed standing in the snowy street. Here she was, bedraggled, probably sporting bedhead hair, and wearing clothes she’d last worn when she was sixteen….but the door was already opening.

  And standing there, with a big loopy grin on his face and clutching a huge poinsettia plant in his arms, was Joey Henderson.

  “Anna – I was so happy to hear that you were back in Knotting Grove – back home. I couldn’t wait to see you and catch up on things.”

  Jed Walker loves me? Only in my dreams. She smiled at Joey to try to cover her disappointment, and a little voice in her head reminded her that once upon a time she’d have felt like the princess in a fairy tale if the high school football hero had arrived on her doorstep.

  * * *

  Maria was thrilled to get a call from Jed Walker himself. To think this rich, important and influential man had singled her out, remembered her from the school reunion and the chat they’d had at the bar – and then he’d actually called her! She could have sworn she’d never hear from him, even though she’d handed him her business card – Maria Wilson, Singer/Songwriter, Available for Your Special Event!