The next morning I woke with a start, realizing that I’d agreed to take an early shift at the cafeteria on campus; I’d been counting on leaving the reception once Jess and Grant went off on their honeymoon, and making it somewhat of an early night, and I’d wanted the extra money. My head was pounding from a champagne hangover that only got worse as I sat up in bed with Bobby still dead asleep next to me. This is going to be an awful time, I’d thought, my stomach giving a lurch inside of me at the mere idea of being around bacon and eggs. I would get through it--it wasn’t the first time I’d gone to my campus job a bit hungover--but I was not going to enjoy it.
I’d scrambled around the room, looking for my clothes, and checked the time: it was earlier than I’d thought, and while I was exhausted and aching from the lack of sleep, I’d realized that at least I would be able to make it to the cafeteria on time, even with the bus system being what it was. I’d found my bra and dress, and then had to search a bit to locate my panties, which turned out to have found their way underneath the bed, somehow. I got dressed and shook my head at myself. At least there’s no one here who knows me, I’d thought, though the walk of shame was definitely bad enough even with strangers. Bobby had still been asleep in the hotel bed and I had looked at him for a few moments, thinking about the great night I’d had with him. He was at Harvard, but that didn’t mean that it was impossible for there to be something more between us--did it?
I found a notepad and a pen next to the phone, and quickly scribbled down a note. Hey, I had a great time last night! So much so that I totally forgot that I had to be somewhere early this morning. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Maybe we could talk some more? My number is 832-555-4567. Give me a call, I guess? I’d ripped the sheet from the pad and folded it up and put it in the bathroom, where I thought that Bobby would be fairly certain to find it, and I’d grabbed my purse and hustled out of the room.
I’d thought that the issue of my cafeteria shift was the thing I’d forgotten to think about the night before, and as I got on the bus to head back into town, to get to my car and maybe get a change of clothes at the dorms before going into work, it didn’t even enter my mind to think that there was anything else I’d failed to think about the night before. I figured that maybe Bobby and I would chat for a bit, and when summer came around we might get a chance to visit each other and see if there was more to the situation than just a random wedding hookup.
When a day or so went by without hearing from him, I’d figured that maybe Bobby was busy, or just had some kind of complications getting back home--he’d mentioned he had an early flight back to Boston. But it hadn’t worried me. When a week went by and he didn’t text or call, I’d figured that he just hadn’t been as into me as I’d been him, or that he just hadn’t been looking at all for more than a hookup for the night. I told myself it was fair enough, that plenty of people just hooked up and had a one-night stand and called it done.
But then about two weeks later, I’d been late for my period. And I had no way to even contact him; I’d never even found out his last name. I couldn’t ask Jessica, because I had to deal with a whole lot of extra complications in my life and I didn’t want to bring her into the drama any more than I had to. Plus, I was ashamed; I wouldn’t have been in that mess if I’d remembered that one, tiny little detail. And that was the last one-night stand I’d ever had.
Chapter 7
“Wow,” Sienna said, and I sort of snapped back to myself. “You are kind of the last person I expected to see...ever.”
“Yeah, I guess I would say the same except that I sort of guess I didn’t even have you on the list at all,” I admitted, and immediately felt like shit for the way I’d phrased that. “What I mean is, I just sort of…”
“Forgot you even met me?” Sienna smiled slightly and I somehow felt better and worse about what I’d said all at the same time.
“That makes it totally better, right?” I looked around, grateful that there was only one person, for the moment at least, to see how awkward I was being.
“So, what brings you here?” Sienna crossed her arms over her chest and I took a moment to appreciate the fact that even five years later, wearing nurse’s scrubs, she was still gorgeous. Her hair was pulled back, but a few little wisps of it fell around her face, one curling around one of her ears.
“Well, I met the most charming little girl this morning,” I explained. “And she told me about her mother, who works--apparently--incredibly hard, long hours, and so on.” Sienna smiled at that and I could see the gleam in her eyes.
“Ah, I see,” she said, letting me continue on my own. I wondered just how far I was cramming my foot into my mouth. Any minute now, it’ll start getting dissolved by my stomach acid. Metaphorically speaking.
“And it really just kind of...I guess...stuck out in my head, of all the stuff I saw at the school I went to today,” I went on. “And so I wanted to bring that girl a giant teddy bear and sort of…”
“Sort of what?” Sienna raised an eyebrow at me.
“Could I come inside? This is pretty awkward, just standing out here like this,” I said. I could imagine the other apartment-dwellers on the ground floor listening to me through their doors. Probably the walls on the inside of Sienna’s apartment were pretty thin, and I couldn’t guarantee that other people wouldn’t overhear what I had to say, but at least I’d have some illusion of privacy if we went inside.
“I guess so,” Sienna said. “I should warn you, the living room isn’t all that neat; the hazards of having a five-year-old.” I chuckled at that and somehow the tension between us seemed to ease up a bit.
“I’m not expecting the MGM Grand,” I said.
“Well, step right into my humble abode, Mr. Clawson,” Sienna said, opening the door and gesturing for me to follow her in. Tanya sat in the living room, almost vibrating from what I could see, looking as if she very much wanted to run around and shout but knew that it would get her in trouble.
“Hello again, Tanya,” I said, holding out the teddy bear. “I thought you might like this fella.” Tanya’s eyes went as big as saucers and she lunged for the giant stuffed animal before her mother could say anything. I saw Sienna wasn’t exactly pleased with the gift, but she didn’t say Tanya couldn’t take it.
“What do you say to Mr. Clawson, Tanya?” The words left her in an almost sing-song rush, and I thought it was a question that Tanya heard from her mother pretty often.
“Thank you, Mr. Clawson,” Tanya chorused back.
“Why don’t you run off to the bedroom and admire your new toy there?” Tanya didn’t need to hear that suggestion twice; she dashed out of the living room and down a little hallway, leaving me alone with her mother.
“She’s pretty amazing, you know?” Sienna sat down in a beat-up looking wingback chair, and gestured for me to have a seat on the couch. The furniture in the living room looked worn out, but not dirty; the floor was commercial-grade carpet, the same kind of thing that cheap apartments everywhere in Houston seemed to have. I’d ended up at a girl’s apartment on the other end of town a week or so before, and that girl had had the same kind of carpet, in the same color.
“I think she’s pretty great, when she isn’t determined to misbehave,” Sienna said. “So, you were getting around to explaining what brought you here? Or was it just that you wanted to give my daughter a teddy bear almost as big as she is?” I couldn’t help but smile at that.
“No, that wasn’t all,” I admitted. “Tanya really sort of made me think about things a little differently.”
“That’s surprising,” Sienna said, blinking. “How so?”
“She sort of needled me about an excuse I made for not having a pet,” I said. “Among other things.” Sienna snickered a bit and I couldn’t really blame her for enjoying my obvious--if slight--discomfort.
“That does sound like her,” Sienna said.
“Anyway, one of the points she made, pretty strongly, was about how hard her Mama worked,” I ex
plained. “And I’d sort of come up with this idea in my head that one way I could sort of…” my thought process sounded so shallow as I said it out loud. “I wanted to offer Tanya’s mom--you, apparently--a day at the spa, and a four-star restaurant meal the same night.” Sienna stared at me for a long moment and I wondered if I would have had any better luck with a random woman I’d never met before.
“That’s quite an offer to make to someone,” Sienna said.
“Yeah, I mean--I’m not, like, trying to be skeezy or anything,” I said quickly.
“Oh! No, I didn’t think that,” Sienna said, almost before I’d finished my sentence. “It’s just that I don’t really know when I would have the free time to do something like that.”
“Surely even nurses have days off,” I pointed out. Sienna half-smiled wryly.
“Technically yes,” she said. “I just don’t know when I’ll have a day off that’s an actual day off, and not be on-call, or have to watch Tanya, or something like that.”
“Sienna, what’s going on?” An older woman came out of the kitchen, a few flowers in her hand, and saw me seated on the couch. Her eyes widened slightly and she glanced from me to Sienna and back again. “I see we have a guest.”
“Ah--yes, Mom, this is Bobby Clawson, he’s the nice man who’s donating all that money at Tanya’s school,” Sienna said. “Bobby, this is my mother, Jenny.”
“Pleased to meet you, Jenny,” I said, getting up to shake the older woman’s hand. Up close I could see where Sienna’s beauty had come from; her mother was still good-looking, even as an older woman. Her dark hair was flecked with gray, but it looked neat and lovely, twisted into a French braid. She shook my hand, and something about the older woman, with flowers in one hand, looking me up and down speculatively, reminded me almost too much of the night I’d met Sienna. Jenny didn’t look at me as if she was trying to decide if she wanted to take me home; instead she looked at me as if she was trying to decide if she should take me seriously.
“So how exactly did you get to decide you wanted to drop a million dollars on a school, Mr. Clawson?” I took my hand back and Jenny perched herself on the arm of the chair that Sienna had taken. Suddenly I was under the gaze of two pairs of eyes that were not as impressed with me as I’d like them to be--although Jenny’s eyes, at least, seemed to have some amusement in them.
“Actually, my mother was a public school teacher,” I explained, sitting down on the couch once more. “She insisted on me getting a public school education, and that made me decide that I wanted to use the privilege of the wealth I inherited from my uncle to make a difference there.”
“I assume you’ll also be lobbying for reforms to property taxes, so that the wealthy will be paying their fair share and that money will get to the least-served schools?” I looked at Sienna, wondering if her mother was really serious in the question she’d asked me.
“That’s definitely an idea,” I said, at a loss.
“I mean, I’m sure we’re all grateful for your donation to J.D. MacCallister, and to any other school you decide to endow--don’t get me wrong on that score,” Jenny said. “It’s just that it seems to me the bigger issue is that the least-funded schools just aren’t getting the right distribution of money in the first place.” She beamed at my discomfort. “But I’m just a florist’s assistant, what do I know about taxes and politics?”
“You sound like you know enough to be running for School Board, at least,” I said. Jenny laughed.
“Ah, they’d never vote for someone like me, I’m not even a cog in the machine,” Jenny said.
“Mom has some pretty strong opinions about things,” Sienna informed me.
“So I see,” I said, feeling a bit at a loss. “That seems to run in the family.”
“Would you like to stay for dinner, Mr. Clawson? We’re having chilli and cornbread, and I have some leftover peach pie that’ll do for dessert.”
“No, thank you very much for the offer, but I really just came by to bring Tanya a present, and to meet her mother,” I said. “Tanya spoke so strongly about how hard her mother works that I wanted to meet the woman for myself, congratulate her on raising such a bright and charming little girl.”
“That seems like a lot of trouble to go to,” Jenny said. “You should really get something out of coming all the way out here.”
“I appreciate it, but I actually have dinner plans,” I told the older woman.
“Bobby also offered to pay for a day at the spa for me, and a dinner afterwards,” Sienna told her mother. That, at least, left Jenny looking a little impressed; and I felt a little less pathetic and creepy.
“The offer still stands,” I said to Sienna. “I know you said that it was rare for you to have a day off for something like that, but if you need me to arrange child care, or anything like that, I’d be happy to.”
“If Sienna can have a nice long, relaxing day at the spa I think that I can take care of Tanya for it,” Jenny said, and I saw the look Sienna gave her mother; I grinned at the older woman, silently thanking her for taking my side.
“I’ll see if I can figure out a good day for it, if I can get the time off,” Sienna said, though I was pretty sure she was just saying it to close the topic. “Are you sure you can’t stay, Bobby?”
“Oh, yeah, I need to meet with some...associates,” I said, rising to my feet. “One of those things, you know?” Tanya ran out from the hallway then, looking as if someone had dosed her with about a pound of sugar.
“Mama I love my bear! I love him so much!” Two of the women in the family approve of me, at least, I thought.
“Why don’t you go show Grandma the bear that Mr. Clawson got you?” Tanya nodded eagerly, grabbing at her grandmother’s free hand, and I couldn’t help but smile.
“Mr. Clawson is leaving, Tanya,” Jenny told the little girl. “Why don’t you thank him again for thinking of you and then you can show me the bear?”
“Thank-you-mister-Clawson,” Tanya said, making it as close as possible to all one word.
“Have you decided on a name for him?” I hunkered down a bit to get closer to Tanya’s level.
“Yes!” Sienna pressed her lips together and I wondered what she was on the verge of laughing about.
“What did you choose?”
“Bearamy!” Tanya’s wit had her giggling, almost unable to get the name out, and I chuckled so that she would know that I got the joke.
“I think he needs a last name, too, don’t you?” Tanya’s eyes widened; clearly she had never thought of that.
“He does!” She tugged on her grandmother’s hand. “What should his last name be?”
“Well, he’s a pretty big bear,” I pointed out. “Maybe….Bearamy Giganticus?” Tanya considered that and screwed her face into a disapproving expression.
“Bearamy Enormous?” Tanya scowled at her mother.
“Enormous isn’t a last name,” she said.
“It can be,” Sienna countered. “Especially for a bear.”
“I know!” Tanya hopped up and down for a moment. “I know what his last name will be!”
“What is his last name going to be?” I grinned at Sienna.
“The Great! Because sometimes Great means big and sometimes it means nice,” Tanya explained. “So he is Bearamy the Great.”
“That sounds like the perfect name,” I told her. Tanya grabbed at her grandmother’s hand once more and ushered Jenny off to the bedroom to show off her bear.
“You’re totally sure you don’t want to stay for supper?” I shook my head in response to Sienna’s question.
“I’d love to, actually--but, like I said, I have plans already,” I explained.
“Well I’ll let you know about that spa day, I guess. Thank you for Tanya’s new bear.” I held out my hand to shake Sienna’s but it seemed a little weird, considering the fact that the last time we’d seen each other we’d had sex.
“Oh--let me leave you my number, then,” I suggested. I took a busin
ess card out of my wallet and handed it to Sienna, and sort of incorporated the handshake into that.
“I’ll be in touch, then,” Sienna said, and I let her walk me to the door.
“It was good seeing you again,” I told her awkwardly. “I hope you can get the time off to enjoy the spa.” And then I was out of the apartment, breathing a sigh of relief, but at the same time I kind of wished I’d had the nerve to stay for dinner.
Chapter 8
I didn’t even really take Bobby’s offer for a spa day and dinner out at a nice restaurant all that seriously; not because I didn’t think he meant it, but because it just seemed like too much of an opening for something I didn’t want. I figured that it was likely that Bobby had just wanted a chance at an ‘in’ with whoever he thought my daughter’s mother was, and obviously he’d recognized me when he got there. By the time I got up to get ready and go to work the next day, I could almost look at it with a sense of humor, including how awkward things had been between us.
Mom had commented on the bear that Bobby had gotten for my daughter, and that it couldn’t have cost the man less than $50, but I’d countered that if he was a billionaire, $50 was about the same to him as 50 cents. He certainly wouldn’t miss it any more than that; hell, he’d miss it less than either Mom or I would have missed 50 cents.
The car managed to behave itself on the way to Tanya’s school, and I said a little mental prayer of thanks as it only stalled once--and came right back up--on my way from the school to the hospital. It was going to be a double shift for me, and Mom had promised to bring dinner to me, along with a good-night visit from Tanya, since by the time I got home she would hopefully be long asleep.
I chuckled to myself, thinking of the fact that Bobby had actually been pretty good with Tanya, all things considered. Certainly, he’d been less awkward with her than he had been with me or even my mother--but then Mom had made some pointed comments in his direction, not having any real idea of who he was other than the billionaire who wanted to send an entire school to a water park after paying the school a million dollars. I put my stuff away in my locker and went to clock in, thinking that it would be a few weeks and the field trip would come and go, and then I would never really have to think about Bobby Clawson again.
Reunited: A Billionaire Secret Baby Romance (Lost Love Book 2) Page 5