Double trouble

by Boswell, Barbara

  But Matt was akeady heading rapidly toward the door, as though he couldn't get out of there—and away from her?— fast enough. He turned, pausing long enough to bid a polite goodbye to Kristina and her friends. He didn't bother to even glance in Kayla's direction.

  Kayla mumbled something about finishing her packing and hurried from the room, refusing invitations from the three other women to join them for dinner. She was out of the apartment and heading back to D.C. in record time.

  And now here she was, driving in the rain on the dark interstate highway, a melancholy song about lost love playing softly on the radio. Scowling, Kayla turned it off and put in an audiocassette, a reading of a horrific, hair-raising murder mystery. It certainly fit her mood better than a love song. Love was a mystery she had to beware of and sex was a danger she didn't care to risk. As for Matt Minteer...

  Kayla gulped. He seemed to personify it all, love and sex, mystery and danger. She'd made the vow before, but she made it again with determined fervor. She would not see him again, and if by some unfortunate coincidence, their paths happened to cross, she would not speak to him. She would certainly not come within touching distance of him or allow herself to be alone with him. She didn't dare take the chance.

  It was a humiliating admission to have to make about a man who so patently loathed her, but Kayla faced it. As she often told her clients, one's weak points must be recognized and acknowledged before they could be modified or preferably, eradicated. For some cruel reason, fate had chosen Matt Minteer to be her weak point. Well, she had recog-

  nized it, she'd acknowledged it. Now she would eliminate him from her consciousness and from her life.

  The month of March began with a raging snowstorm, inspiring weathermen everywhere to utter the ''in hke a lion'' cliche. In keeping with the old conventional wisdom, they predicted the month would "go out like a lamb," with warm, pleasant weather. But that promise was no comfort to citizens experiencing a blizzard that dumped three feet of snow along most of the East Coast. Washington, D.C. was not spared.

  Aimed with a shovel and a few other essentials, Kayla wearily trudged outside to dig her car out of the parking lot.. .and fainted dead away in the middle of the job. When she came to a few woozy minutes later, she found herself sitting slumped in the snow, the ice scraper beside her.

  She drew up her knees and laid her head against them. There was no reason to worry, she soothed herself. She'd been working strenuously in the snow for the better part of twenty minutes on an anpty stomach. She'd been in a hurry to get the job done and hadn't bothered to eat anything that morning.

  Yet another possible reason for her faint leaped to mind, as well. A nasty twenty-four-hour virus that was sweeping the city. Her assistant, Jolene, had caught it three days earlier and had returned to the office with a daunting tale of dizziness and nausea. Brightening, Kayla decided that she might have caught the bug from Jolene, because she certainly felt dizzy, and if not nauseated, then rather queasy.

  It was one of those two conditions, either overexertion or sickness, that was the reason why she had fainted for the first time in her life. It had to be! Certainly, it had nothing to do with the fact that her period was a week late—for the first time in her life. A wild wave of panic assailed her. She couldn 7 be pregnant!

  An image, clear and sharp, flashed in her mind's eye: Kayla saw herself sitting in her apartment after that crazy, abandoned and unprotected night of sex with Matt Min-teer. Nature wilhng, she'd forget that night had ever happened, she had vowed to herself.

  Well, she hadn't forgotten. She'd thought of Matt every day since, though he hadn't contacted her since his abrupt departure from Kristina's apartment that night several weeks earlier. Since her mind was unwilling to forget, suppose nature was unwilling to forget, as well? Suppose nature had conspired—conceived/—io leave a lasting reminder of that night? A gurgling, wiggling little bundle whose arrival could be dated nine months from that passionate night.

  Kayla moaned aloud. A baby! What was she going to do if she was pregnant? She'd vowed never to speak to Matt Minteer again, and he had certainly made it easy for her to keep that pledge.

  She had been in Harrisburg several times during the past month, and her presence in the city had been no secret. Twice she and Kristina had seen Luke Minteer and had exchanged perfunctory hellos, but there had been no attempts by Matt to see her or call her. Indeed, why should there be? He wanted nothing to do with her; he'd even made that special trip to Kristina's apartment to tell Kayla so— that same trip that had resulted in their passionate clinch on the floor!

  Quickly, Kayla put that scene from her mind. She was successful in keeping thoughts of Matt at bay during the day. It was at night, when her defenses were weaker, that images of him slipped through, making her toss and turn, filling with a longing for som.ething, for someone

  Kayla swiftly blocked those lonely nighttime yearnings, too. If only she could be as successful blocking them during the long, cold nights.

  By the third week in March, Kayla noticed other subtle symptoms that couldn't be explained away by breakfastless

  exercise or convenient viruses. Her heart was in her throat as she slipped a pregnancy-testing kit into her shopping basket at the drugstore along with a few *'cover" items. Back at home, she found that she didn't have the courage to even open the box of that fateful test, let alone make use of its contents.

  Kay la ruefully recalled that she had been tagged the "independent twin," the braver, stronger sister, while she and Kristina were growing up. But right now, the independent, brave, strong Kay la, felt anything but. She needed someone she could trust and depend on, someone she could lean on.

  A phone call to Kristina on a dismally overcast Sunday morning brought the twins together that same day. With Kristina's bolstering presence, Kay la administered the test.

  ''Oh, Kayla!" Kristina stared at the results, her eyes anxious and concerned. She read the instructions again, looked at the results again and exclaimed, "Oh, Kayla," several more times. Somehow, her genuine dismay helped. Already, Kayla felt less alone, stronger and braver. More like herself.

  "Are you going to have it?" Kristina asked quietly, gripping Kayla's hand.

  "Yes." Kayla blinked back the rush of tears that suddenly filled her eyes. "Even though part of me is scared to death, another part of me, a bigger part, is excited about having a baby. My own child! It'll be Mom and Dad's grandchild, a part of them living on all these years after they've gone."

  "And you've always loved children," Kristina said thoughtfully. "I remember all those baby-sitting jobs you took as a teenager. I used to think that baby-sitting was a hideous form of torture but you never turned down a chance to do it."

  "I know I can be a good mother, Kristina. I know I can handle a child mentally and emotionally and physi-

  cally.. .it's financially that I'm worried about. My agency is taking in barely enough to cover my salary and Jolene's plus the overhead expenses. There's nothing left for advertising to promote the agency to draw in more clients, so I don't have any real hopes of expanding the business in the near future."

  ''Remember what Penny always said?" Kristina stared into space. '"A pregnant woman is a dependent woman and no woman should depend on the capricious whims of a man for support.'"

  Kayla grimaced. ''Well, I don't need a man to support me and my baby. I'll do it myself. I'll manage on my own, Kristina."

  "You don't have to, Kayla. You can depend on me—and Boyd, too. Move to Atlanta next month with me. After the wedding, you can live with us and have the baby and we'll all be one happy family."

  "It's sweet of you to offer, but Boyd isn't going to want his pregnant sister-in-law living with him and his bride. Newly weds need time alone, Kristina. Marriage is risky enough without starting out with an extra responsibility! Anyway, I do have a business to run here."

  "Please think about it, Kayla, You know you'll always be welcome to stay with me."

  "No matter how Boyd
feels about it?"

  "If he doesn't want to help my sister, then he's not the man I think he is and certainly not the man for me."

  There, it was beginning already, Kayla thought grimly. Herself as a wedge between Kristina and Boyd. It wasn't fair! She would not let her own carelessness wreck her sister's chance at happiness.

  "I won't change my mind. I'll be fine here in Washington, and we can visit back and forth." Because her sister looked so worried, Kayla hugged her and managed a wide, confident smile. "It's going to be all right, Kristina. If I painted too gloomy a scene, it's just because I'm. ..well, I'm

  Still not quite used to the idea yet. But I will be. I'm not the first woman this has happened to and I won't be the last. The baby and I will manage. We'll even be happy, I promise. And I insist that you and Boyd be happy, too."

  Kristina eyed her thoughtfully. "What about Matt Min-teer?"

  "What about him?" Kayla asked faintly.

  "Kayla, he's the baby's father. The very least he owes you is child support—for the next eighteen years. And he seems to be the kind of man who would pay it, too."

  "Oh yes, he's extremely honorable," Kayla said trenchantly. "I can attest to that."

  Kristina didn't pick up on the sarcasm. "Yes, I think so, too. He has a reputation for honesty that's all too rare in politics today." She managed a smile. "Your financial situation won't be as bleak as you think, not with Matt helping you,"

  "Kristina, the day the lost continent of Atlantis rises from the sea is the day I'll mention this baby to Matt Minteer. This is my child. As far as I'm concerned, he has no rights or responsibilities toward it. He wouldn't want them, anyway," she added grimly. "Matt Minteer would view a child born to a poUtical image-mak^ as something evilly akin to The Omen. Not to mention the fact that an illegitimate child could wreck his career."

  "Mmm, not to mention that." BCristina looked thoughtful. "But what if you're wrong, Kayla?" she pressed. "Suppose he puts the baby ahead of his political reputation and acknowledges his responsibility to it? Then what? Is it fair to deprive your baby of its father? We grew up without our father and we missed him terribly, remember?"

  "That was because we knew him and loved him until we were ten years old, Kristina. This baby won't know its father at all, and you can't miss what you've never had. You

  have to promise me you won't tell him, Kristina. You have to promise/''

  "Don't get so upset, it can't be good for you. I—I promise."

  ''Swear it! You will not tell Matt Minteer about this baby!"

  **I swear I won't tell Matt Minteer about the baby," Kristina repeated flatly.

  Kristina returned to Harrisburg later that evening after countless assurances from Kayla that she was all right, that she didn't mind being alone, that she would call the moment she wanted her sister by her side.

  The week passed slowly, with not much to do. Much of her work involved elections and none of her clients, except Elena, were running in the May and June primaries. Though she normally eschewed most of the industry socializing—all those dinners and small talk was Kristina's forte, not hers— Kayla did attend a broadcasting banquet that Thursday night. She wanted to hear the featured speaker, a legendary political speech writer, and he didn't disappoint his audience, entertaining them with stories and jokes for almost an hour.

  She returned home shortly after ten o'clock and was parking her car in the nearby lot when she ran into Arlene Gallagher, who lived in the apartment on the first floor. They walked into the building together. ''Kayla, I have the coffee I borrowed from you last week," said Arlene. "I'll run it up to you."

  "Anytime, Arlene. There's no hurry," Kayla assured her. She'd read somewhere that caffeine wasn't good for pregnant women.

  "I'll get the jar and be right up," promised Arlene. They joked about how their lives differed from those coffee commercials in which borrowing coffee led to romance. Not in this building, where there were only three unmarried men,

  two of them gay and living together, the third, a seventy-eight-year-old widower who kept steady company with a widowed lady friend.

  Inside her apartment, Kayla leafed through a magazine and waited for Arlene. When the knock sounded, she rushed to open the door.

  Arlene wasn't there with the proffered coffee.

  ''You!" Kayla gaped at Matt Minteer. He was wearing jeans and a navy sweatshirt and was leaning casually against the doorjamb. The navy color made his eyes look an even deeper, darker shade of blue.

  Kayla's knees felt weak, but she made no move to step aside to let him in.

  ''Yeah, it's me." Matt didn't wait for the invitation he knew would not be forthcoming. He barged inside, causing her to jump aside with an indignant exclamation. "I... uh... drove down to check out the city. Thought I ought to familiarize myself with it since I'll be living here when my congressional term begins in January."

  Kayla was nonplussed. "Isn't that a bit premature? It's only March, the primary hasn't been held yet and you haven't even won the nomination, let alone the election." She eyed him severely. "I've heard of confidence, in fact, I usually stress its importance in winning a campaign, but this is ridiculous!"

  Matt shrugged. "I'm optimistic. And since I'm going to be moving here, I thought I'd better start scouting out places to live."

  "You're not considering renting an apartment in this building?" Kayla was aghast at the notion, but swiftly masked her reaction. She was jumping to conclusions. It wasn't time to panic—yet.

  "You wouldn't like it here," she assured him. "There are PR types all over the building—media coaches, political handlers, communications consultants on every floor." It

  no DOUBLE TROUBLE

  was a slight exaggeration—well, a large one—but certainly justified under the circumstances.

  He raised his dark eyebrows. '^Sounds like you're trying to discourage me from moving in."

  What game was he playing? "What do you want, Matt?" she demanded. Her stomach roiled, her palms already moist from tension. Calm down, Kayla scolded herself. He doesn't know; he couldn't. He was in town for political reasons and as she was such a ready target for his contempt, he had impulsively dropped by to hurl some more insults at her. Well, she'd let him and then he would be on his way, her secret still safe within her.

  Matt hooked his thumbs into the belt of his jeans and looked at her. *'Suppose I told you I'm here for some of your image-making expertise?"

  Yes, he was definitely gearing up to insult her and her profession; that's all there was to it. Inordinately relieved, Kayla couldn't resist egging him on a bit. '*You could benefit by it. I believe I told you that the national political scene, the one you'll be entering when you're a congressman on Capitol Hill, is different from local and state politics."

  "Yes, you did tell me that. On the night we met, when you were pretending to be a lobbyist instead of a poHtical communications consultant or handler or whatever it is you call yourself." He didn't take his eyes from her, and the piercing intensity glittering there made him look very dangerous indeed.

  Kayla gulped. Suddenly she wasn't quite as sure of herself. But she rallied her defenses. This was her time and her territory and she wasn't going to meekly let him intimidate her. "Look, save yourself the effort of insulting me, I'm already well aware of your low opinion of me. You believe I have all the ethics of Dracula."

  Matt firmed his lips into a tight, straight line. "I didn't come here to insult you, Kayla."

  '*I believe that as much as I believe that you actually came here seeking advice from me/' she countered caustically.

  There was a light knock. **Kayla? Here's your coffee/' Arlene Gallagher called through the door.

  Kayla went to get it. Fate was having a good laugh at her expense, she decided glumly. She'd never opened the door to anyone without first asking who was there, not until earlier tonight, when she hadn't had any doubt that it would be Arlene. And it had been Matt Minteer. Wasn't it Penny who said **Never trust a sure thing"? She was so
right.

  Kayla took the jar from her neighbor and closing the door, turned resignedly to Matt. "I was expecting Arlene in the first place," she said tartly. ''If I'd known it was you, I wouldn't have opened the door."

  Matt heaved a sigh. ''Look, can we call a temporary cease-fire?"

  "Why?" Kayla asked suspiciously.

  "May I sit down?" Without waiting for an answer, he dropped down onto her blue-and-gray-striped love seat. "Kayla, I was thinking, you might be right about national pohtics diff^ing from local and state politics," he said slowly, as if he was carefully choosing every word. He was watching her, his deep blue eyes fixed on her.

  He was making her nervous, Kayla conceded. Very nervous indeed. "Exactly what is it you're trying to say, Matt?" she blurted out.

  "There is one thing that remains the same in all levels of politics, though," Matt continued, ignoring her impatient interruption. "And that is the moral behavior and standards of the elected official. They must be beyond reproach."

  "Or at least appear that way," Kayla said snidely. "Isn't that what we nasty image-makers aie hired for? To cover up the sins of all those less-than-perfect politicians out there who want to dupe the unsuspecting public?"

  Matt Stood up. '*You're not making this easy, Kayla," he gritted out.

  "Oh, I'm so sorry," she replied with an exaggerated apologetic air. '*If you'll tell me exactly what this idiocy is all about I'll try to be more accommodating... that is, as much as my devious, dishonest nature will permit, of course."

  Matt took a deep breath, then let it out. **I know you're pregnant, Kay la."

  Kay la gaped at him, immobilized by shock and horror. His revelation was so unexpected, a bolt out of the blue. Her mind reeling, she placed her hand against the wall to steady herself. ''H-how—" she started to ask, then gasped the answer herself. '*Kristina! She's the only other person who knew."