The Boss and the Baby

by Leigh Michaels

  “That’s impossible.”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened—two kids fooling around, never quite going the whole way but getting plenty excited. I actually thought once of going on the speaking circuit—talking to teenagers as a living example of why keeping all their clothes on and both feet on the floor is such a good idea. Showing them the impossible baby” Molly knew she sounded bitter, and she was afraid he’d misunderstand the source of that feeling. “Bailey’s a blessing, the best thing that ever happened to me. But coming to terms with how it happened was a different matter altogether.”

  Luke shook his head.

  She had known, of course, that he wasn’t likely to believe her. She’d had enough trouble in the beginning accepting it herself. But seeing his doubt, feeling the waves of disbelief, infuriated her. “If you want blood tests, Luke, we’re all right here in the hospital—and they already have plenty of Bailey’s, no doubt.”

  He seemed not to have heard her. “What about your husband?”

  Molly sighed. “There never was one. Mother couldn’t bear the idea of me having a baby without a wedding ring, so when I was in Chicago she kept up the fiction of a marriage, and after a while a divorce. Then when I came home and her friends started wondering rather loudly why Bailey’s father didn’t help support her—as if it was any of their business—she killed him off.”

  “And you played along with it.”

  “I didn’t even know she’d manufactured a story till I got home. And then what was I supposed to do about it? Announce to the world that my mother had created the whole scenario in order to save face with her friends? Call her a liar while my daughter and I are living in her house, eating her food, wearing clothes she laundered? Besides, that’s hardly the point just now, is it?”

  “No,” he agreed. “It’s the other incredible story that’s the problem.”

  Molly faced him squarely. “Suit yourself.” Her voice was almost lifeless. “Forget it. I never said a word, all right?”

  “Molly—”

  “Now just go away,” she said, “and leave me and my daughter alone.”

  Once, when he’d been just a kid and learning to ride, Luke had been kicked squarely in the stomach by a horse. It was the only time in his life he’d felt anything like the blow Molly had dealt him tonight.

  She looked like an angry Madonna as she bent over the hospital bed, tucking the blankets closer around...

  His daughter?

  No, he told himself. It was completely, absolutely impossible. For some incomprehensible reason, she’d decided to try out an incredible scam.

  As he walked down the long hallway toward the emergency room exit, he stumbled over nothing but air. An aide coming toward him gave him a suspicious look. She probably thinks I’m intoxicated, Luke thought. And she’s right—only the poison in my system is accusations, not alcohol.

  He walked unseeing through the waiting room, and he was at the door when a woman approached. He turned away, unwilling to attempt to be polite to a stranger wanting the time, much less a staff member wanting information.

  “Luke!” Megan Bannister grabbed his arm. “You look awful. Is she... Has she—?”

  He shook his head to clear it. “Bailey’s fine. She’s asleep, and Molly’s with her.”

  Megan’s face had gone ashen, and she swayed. Quickly, Luke guided her to the nearest chair. “Put your head down,” he ordered.

  “I’m not going to faint. I just thought for a moment...” She shuddered. “If I had to go tell my parents that their granddaughter was gone...”

  Luke put his arm around her. “Don’t torment yourself, Meg. She’s all right. She can probably go home in a few hours.”

  She turned her face against his shoulder. “Oh, Luke, what would I do without you?”

  “A better question is what you’re doing here when you should be home with your feet up.”

  Megan shook her head. “If I hadn’t come, Mother would have—and I think Molly would much rather have me. That’s not saying a whole lot, as I’m sure my little sister can function quite well without me. But after some of the run-ins they’ve had over—” She stopped awkwardly, and her color came back in a embarrassed flood.

  “Over the late and not lamented ex-husband?”

  Megan wouldn’t look at him. “That’s part of it. Look, I don’t know what happened to my presence of mind, but I shouldn’t have said—”

  “Why not? Friends tell friends what they need to know.”

  “And you need to know about Molly’s ex?”

  He nodded. He felt almost as if he was going behind Molly’s back to ask. But that was stupid. He had every right in the world to check out her story in any way he could. “And Bailey’s father.” The words tasted funny on his tongue.

  Megan laughed. “You sound as if they were two different people.”

  “Weren’t they?” There was no amusement in his voice.

  She bit her lip. “Okay, Luke—I’ll tell you what I know. But it isn’t much, all right? So don’t expect the encyclopedia. There never was a husband. And Molly would never tell anyone who Bailey’s father was.”

  Molly would never tell. That wasn’t the same as saying Megan didn’t know. “You must have an idea.”

  “How? I went away to college, Molly stayed here. And we never did confide much in each other. We certainly didn’t share insights on our men of the moment. She could have been dating every man at the university.”

  “Or somebody else altogether.”

  Megan nodded. “All I know is, she was fighting morning sickness at my wedding.”

  The wedding had been at Christmastime, Luke remembered. He’d been an usher, Molly the maid of honor. She’d been very pale that day in her dark green velvet gown, and just a little shaky. The guests had probably thought it was nerves. Luke had assumed—a bit vainly, perhaps—it was because she was seeing him for the first time since he’d given her the lecture of her life.

  But if she’d been ill at Megan’s wedding...

  “She didn’t tell anyone,” Megan went on. “In fact, she waited till after my honeymoon was over, and then she called a family meeting and announced that she was expecting a baby.”

  “I bet that went over well,” Luke said dryly.

  Megan rolled her eyes. “Mother exploded and demanded a name...and Molly refused. I’ve never seen anyone with so much dignity. Little Molly—who would have believed it?”

  I would, he thought. Because she displayed it for me, too.

  “It was like she was sealed inside a plastic cube,” Megan said, “where nothing could reach her. I don’t think she’d have talked under torture because—let’s face it—my mother tried. So Molly went off to Chicago to finish school and make a life for herself and her baby. The whole thing makes my problems look kind of small, doesn’t it?”

  Luke gave her a hug. “Feeling any better?”

  “No. But I’ve resigned myself. There’s no reason my baby shouldn’t be all right, and that’s the important thing.”

  “You’re important, too,” he reminded.

  She smiled at that, but he didn’t think she really believed it. “Where’s Bailey’s room? Which way do I go?”

  “How about home?”

  Megan shook her head. “You all got here without a car, and if Bailey’s released how are you going to get her home?”

  “Taxis are a wonderful invention.” But he relented and gave her the room number. “I’ll see you tomorrow, probably.”

  “You’re leaving? Oh, of course—you’re still squishing around in wet shoes yourself.”

  He waited till Megan was out of sight down the long hall before he called a cab, and he went into the bracing cold of the evening to wait, hardly feeling the wind against his damp jeans.

  A chilly evening. It had been cold that October night in the treehouse, too. He’d been miserable, shattered at the news that his mother, who two weeks before had seemed perfectly healthy, had—at most—days to li
ve. He didn’t remember climbing the tree. He’d automatically fled to the security of his childhood. And he’d sat there in the dark and cold, feeling the finality of the darkness and coldness that was creeping over his mother.

  That was when Molly had appeared.

  She hadn’t asked his permission to join him. She’d seemed to know he’d tell her to go away. She’d let herself into the treehouse, turned on the electric heater and sat beside him on the bunk. Without a word she reached for his hands and held them between hers, rubbing gently till the chill was gone.

  And then she’d talked—not in the platitudes so many others had tried to feed him, but with gentle understanding. And she’d listened while he poured out his feelings, spilled fears that were so deeply entrenched he’d been almost incoherent. And yet she had understood.

  He’d been spent, finally, and relaxed for the first time in days, and he’d turned to her in silent gratitude.

  But she was as generous in her kisses as she’d been in her compassionate silence, and he hadn’t wanted to stop. Neither had she. There was no question in his mind that Molly wanted him as much as he wanted her. And so they’d lain together on the bunk and explored each other and taken comfort in their closeness...

  We didn’t finish, Molly had said, but we’d certainly started.

  She was right. He’d told her once that another minute and he wouldn’t have been able to send her away. But it would be more accurate to say that it had been a matter of seconds.

  At the last possible moment, his mother’s face had flashed before him. He saw her eyes, racked with pain not only from her illness but from his conduct. He was disgusted with himself, and in his guilt he’d lashed out at Molly.

  His mother was dying. And here he was...

  He didn’t realize he’d said it aloud until the crudeness of the words had sent ugly color flaring into Molly’s face. But even then she hadn’t struck back. She’d looked at him levelly, and then she’d slid off the bunk and reached for her clothes, and before he’d found his voice she’d dressed and left.

  His mother had died the next day. After the funeral services, when the Hudsons’ friends, relatives and employees gathered at Oakwood, Molly had been among them, standing with her parents, holding an untouched cup of punch. He’d managed to get her alone without drawing anyone’s attention in the small sun room at the back of the house.

  He’d intended to apologize both for his words and for his conduct. But she didn’t seem to hear anything he said. She looked at him like a zombie—what was the comparison Megan had made tonight? Like she was sealed inside a plastic cube.

  He’d been afraid for her. Unintentionally, he had taken advantage of her warmth, her mexperience, her willingness. She didn’t seem to understand the danger she’d put herself in—or that another man might not hesitate to use her. She didn’t seem to see that her innocence invited that very sort of man.

  She’d let him talk, and then she’d said, “I only wanted you to feel better.”

  Luke had exploded. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about! And you can stop looking at me like that. It isn’t going to happen again—not ever. And for heaven’s sake don’t be stupid enough to take up with some jerk just because you’re trying to prove something to me.”

  She had said, “I love you, Luke. I’ll always love you.”

  “You aren’t old enough to know what love is,” he’d snapped. “You’re only infatuated, and you’d better get over it.” And in frustration, Luke had turned away. He’d done all he could. If she was naive enough to get herself involved in something worse, it wasn’t his fault.

  But he’d been wrong about what she might do. She hadn’t bounced straight to another man—there hadn’t been time. If she’d been suffering from morning sickness at Megan’s wedding, just two months later...

  “Hey, buddy,” the taxi driver called. “You the one that wants a ride? ’Cause I’m leaving one way or the other.”

  Luke directed the cabby to stop in front of Oakwood, paid his fare and walked slowly down the drive. But instead of the long rows of pine trees, he was seeing the wide aisle of the church where Megan and Rand had been married. Megan, excited and happy in her white satin with the marabou trim and the huge bouquet of white roses.

  And Molly, paler than ever against the forest green of her dress, clutching the dark fur muff that she carried instead of flowers. Pale, he’d thought, because she had to face him for the first time since he’d made it clear her infatuation wasn’t going to lead anywhere.

  But it had led somewhere—and Molly had known it. She’d known when she walked down that aisle in her dark green velvet, no doubt praying that she wouldn’t be sick in public, that she was carrying his child.

  And she hadn’t told him. Not till tonight, when he’d almost lost the daughter he’d never known he had.

  He’d expected that after their painful confrontation she’d try to get even with him for rejecting her. He’d just hoped she wouldn’t hurt herself in the process. She hadn’t done what he’d anticipated—but she’d gotten even, all right.

  She had deliberately cheated him of his daughter.

  For a long time after he walked out, Molly stood very still beside Bailey’s bed, elbows propped on the railing, face in her hands.

  What had she expected, anyway? That he’d throw his arms around her in delight at the news that he’d suddenly acquired a daughter? Rush straight out and buy cigars? Run through the hospital corridors shouting, “It’s a girl!”?

  You just blasted the man’s whole life, she told herself. Or at least, that was what she’d done if he believed her. And if he didn’t believe her... Well, she’d decided long ago that self-pity was a waste of time.

  If Luke wanted to pursue the blood tests she’d mentioned, of course she’d cooperate. She could understand if he needed to be certain. It was a quaint little story, after all.

  As a matter of fact, in order to prove she was telling the truth, she could demand that he go through with the tests. But she wouldn’t force the issue. Under the circumstances, being dubious—feeling doubts—was a sensible sort of reaction. But to flatly deny the possibility...

  A man who had to be coerced even to admit that he might have fathered a child wasn’t much of a father. Bailey deserved better than that. In fact, having no father at all would be worlds better than having a reluctant one.

  You should have kept your mouth shut, Molly told herself.

  Two scalding tears rolled down her cheeks just as a tap sounded on the door, and she turned away to wipe her face.

  “Hi,” Megan said. “I ran into Luke in the lobby, and he filled me in.”

  Luke had filled her in? In the frame of mind he’d been in, he might have said anything. Just short of panic, Molly faced her sister. But there seemed to be nothing in Megan’s expression except concern for Molly and tenderness when she moved to the side of the bed and looked at Bailey.

  Molly breathed a little easier.

  “So I stopped to phone Mother and Dad with a report before I came on back here. I hope you don’t mind me interfering?”

  Molly shook her head. “Of course not. I hadn’t even thought about calling. I wonder if anyone’s talked to Warren?”

  “I broke the news to him as gently as I could after you found her, and Mrs. Ekberg was sitting with him when I left. Besides, Luke’s going straight home, isn’t he? He’ll take care of the rest, I’m sure.”

  Molly wouldn’t bet any money on Luke’s destination. And she wondered, even if he did go to Oakwood, exactly what he would tell his father. Part of her would love to be a mouse in that corner. The rest of her shuddered away from the very idea.

  “You haven’t actually been here that long, anyway,” Megan pointed out. “Even though I’ll bet it feels like all night.”

  No, Molly thought. It feels more like a whole lifetime.

  “So give me all the details. Remember, I was stuck on the sidelines with Warren while all the excitement was going on. I couldn�
��t even shout downstairs for an update.”

  Briefly, Molly told her. Her voice shook when she relived the brief space between Luke’s leap off the seawall and the moment she once more had her baby—frighteningly cold, but breathing and conscious enough to want her mother—in her arms.

  “Luke was quite the hero tonight, wasn’t he?” Megan said. Her tone was careless, but Molly knew better than to take it at face value.

  “Straight out of legend,” she said dryly. “Silver armor and all.”

  Bailey stirred, and Megan looked at her. “I got the notion—foolish, I suppose—that he’s thinking of trying out for a new role.” She glanced at Molly. “As Bailey’s stepfather.”

  She sounded amused, Molly thought, and bewilderment tugged at her. Megan didn’t know the truth, that was plain, for her comment would have been deliberately cruel, and that wasn’t like Megan. So was she using humor as a shield to feel out an unwelcome suspicion that Luke might be developing an interest in someone else? Or was she being absolutely straightforward? Totally wrong, of course—but with good intentions nonetheless?

  Molly decided that a comment as ambiguous as that deserved a painfully direct question in return. “Do you object?”

  “Me?” Megan’s eyebrows arched. “Of course not. Go for it, darling.”

  Too late, Molly realized that she’d snared herself in the trap she’d set for Megan. “No,” she said hastily. “That’s not at all what I meant. He’s not...and I wouldn’t... It’s just that...” She stammered to a halt; she could hardly say, I only wanted to know if you’re having an affair with him.

  Megan’s smile was tolerant. “Of course,” she said gently. “I’ll forget the whole thing, I promise, now that you’ve assured me there’s nothing to it. Oh, did I mention that Mother wants to talk to you? I told her you were pretty busy at the moment and you’d probably just wait till you got home.”

  Molly managed a smile. “Thanks, Meg.”