by Wendy Wax
Walking through the room’s Jack and Jill bathroom he came to another bedroom. This, too, was empty, but without the signs of recent furniture removal. It had mint green walls and bright white moldings and a Humpty Dumpty border that ran around the room just above the chair rail. Blake stood there for a long moment imagining the anticipation with which that border had probably been hung. He could still remember the joy of bringing Andie home from the hospital and the excitement with which they’d prepared her nursery. The abandoned air of the unfinished room saddened him and he closed its door gently behind him as he left it.
Down the hall Blake came to the master bedroom. Brushing by the king-size bed with only a few wayward thoughts, he began opening dresser drawers. Miranda’s underthings were there, but almost half the drawers were empty and there was no sign of Tom or his possessions anywhere in the room.
By the time he stepped into the walk-in closet Blake knew Tom Smith wasn’t planning to come back anytime soon. And he knew without question that Miranda knew it, too.
Given his proficiency with tissue paper, he could stretch the flower making out all week and broaden the investigation at the same time. He’d place calls to the airlines and to Interpol because of the Far East connection, first thing in the morning. Then he’d rattle Miranda’s cage a little harder.
On Tuesday Miranda’s mother insisted on lunch at the club. They met at a table in a far back corner, and Miranda’s inquiries about her father were met with terse reassurances. But the worst sign of all was that Gran wasn’t there, a clear indication her mother felt the need to divide and conquer.
There were no smiles or air kisses as Miranda took her seat. When her mother didn’t even bother to put on her game face for the waitress, Miranda knew things were very grim indeed.
“What in the world is going on?” Joan Ballantyne Harper asked without preamble.
“I’m sorry?” Miranda countered.
“Have you lost your mind?”
“I beg your pardon?” Miranda winced as she realized both of her last questions had sounded like apologies.
“I understand that Tom is . . . away.” Her mother’s eyes and voice got vague on that last word. “But as far as this town is concerned, you are still a married woman.”
Miranda had no argument there. “And?”
“You should be acting like one.”
The waitress brought their drinks. Her mother got her requested glass of Chardonnay. Miranda got a glass of . . . milk?
“Sarah, I didn’t order this,” Miranda said. “I ordered a glass of wine.”
“Yes, well, I wasn’t sure if you knew about fetal alcohol syndrome. Milk is a much better choice for you right now.”
“But I’m not . . .” Miranda began, but Sarah was already on her way to another table.
“You see what I mean?” her mother hissed. “Tom has been gone for two months and yet the whole town thinks you’re pregnant. You insist on going to work every day, and you entertain the chief of police in your home to all hours of the night. The divorced chief of police.”
“Mother.” Miranda set the glass of milk away from her. “I am not pregnant, and I was not entertaining the chief of police. Blake and his daughter came over for some . . . discussion about Andie’s commitment for the ball.”
“Oh, really, Miranda,” her mother scoffed, “next thing you’ll be telling me the three of you were making paper flowers.”
Sarah came back to take their orders and really wanted the “mother to be” to have the liver and onions.
“Sarah,” Miranda said as calmly as she could. “I am not pregnant. And if you bring me liver and onions I’m going to have to send it back.”
“Oh.”
The waitress looked so disappointed that Miranda didn’t have the heart to return the milk.
When Sarah had gone, Miranda nibbled on a piece of cornbread and tried to turn the topic, but her mother wasn’t finished. Miranda began to wish the waitress would return. An extra shot of calcium and unwanted prenatal advice would be preferable to the rant her mother was on.
“We have a reputation to maintain in this community, Miranda,” she said. “It’s bad enough that Tom’s been gone for so long and you’re actually working at the plant. You’re giving those gossip mongers way too much ammunition.”
“Mother,” Miranda said, her calm disappearing as she realized that once again her mother’s primary concern was for the opinion of others. “I am not fooling around. And as I’ve already told you, I am not, unfortunately, pregnant. But if I’m ever lucky enough to have a child, I hope to God I’ll have more faith in her than you have ever had in me.”
Her mother’s lips tightened and her body stilled.
“I’m working at the plant because Tom isn’t and, although you seem unwilling to accept this, Ballantyne can’t actually run itself.”
She looked into her mother’s eyes and wished, for the trillionth time, that this woman would just once look at her and see her strengths instead of trying to fix her weaknesses.
“I’m not stupid, Miranda,” her mother snapped. “But you must be careful, and you absolutely have to find a way to resolve all of this before the Guild Ball.”
The Guild Ball. What was it with her mother and the damned Guild Ball?
Miranda felt the familiar weight of her mother’s disappointment and disapproval, but for once it was nothing compared to her own. She was thirty-eight years old and still unable to please her mother. She was sick to death of trying.
Miranda balled up her napkin and dropped it on the table. “You and Daddy taught me to accept my responsibilities and make the most of the hand I was dealt. That’s exactly what I’m trying to do. A little acceptance and support would go a long way.”
Her entire body shook as she stood. “And if you can’t manage that, I hope you’ll show up at the board meeting and at least pretend you think I have a brain in my head.”
With her mother’s huff of surprise ringing in her ears, Miranda turned her back on the table, just as Sarah returned with their lunches. At least, she thought, as she strode out of the dining room, she wasn’t going to have to finish her milk.
chapter 18
T he week passed in a flurry of activity as Miranda worked out the details of her alleged upcoming trip to meet Tom and the Ballantyne board meeting that would follow.
Each day she tried to tamp down her anticipation over seeing Blake that night, and each evening she raced home humming with excitement to freshen up and await the Summerses’ arrival.
With Andie as their audience and safety valve, they feinted and jabbed, sparring with each other over Andie and every other topic that presented itself. When Tom’s name came up, she turned the conversation, and by Thursday the sexual tension was thick enough to cut with a knife. Unaffected by the physical distances they kept between them, it hovered and simmered in the air until Miranda was convinced only Andie’s presence protected them from it . . . and themselves.
More alarming than the physical attraction was how much she enjoyed being with him. He was smart and quick-witted and, when it came to his daughter, endearingly old-fashioned. It was clear that if he could wrap Andie up in cotton wool and protect her from the world, he would.
As she had all week, Miranda raced home on Friday already looking forward to the evening ahead. After downing a ham-and-cheese sandwich, she showered and changed. In jeans and a tight-fitting turtleneck, she practically skipped downstairs to answer the doorbell. Blake stood on the threshold when she pulled the door open. Alone. Miranda poked her head out into the cold and looked behind him for Andie.
“She was running a temperature. I was going to call and cancel, but . . .”
“Don’t tell me. She cried.”
Blake nodded. “I know better, but I always feel so guilty that I’m all she’s got. If I hadn’t insisted on coming back to Truro to look after Gus, she might still have a mother. Of sorts.”
Miranda took his hand and pulled him inside. “She�
�s lucky to have a father so moved by his daughter’s tears—manufactured or not. When did you turn into such a softy?”
“I believe it happened in the delivery room, right about the time they put her in my arms. Her face was all scrunched up, and she was bald as a billiard ball. And she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.”
She dropped his hand as her heart twisted. Would she ever look down into the squalling face of a child of her own? Would Tom still be here if they had been able to create a new life between them?
She and Blake stood in the foyer contemplating each other.
“I shouldn’t have come.”
She looked up into his eyes. “No, you probably shouldn’t have.”
Heat shimmered off him and enveloped her. Her limbs felt heavy, and her blood thickened and pooled in places it had no business pooling. “But you might as well give me your coat.”
He shrugged out of the down-filled jacket, and she took it from him, turning to hang it in the foyer closet. Without further comment she led him into the great room, where they sank down on opposite ends of the couch, each clinging to a rolled arm as if the width of two cushions was enough to keep them away from each other.
She’d meant to offer wine but thought better of it. “Would you like a Coke?” She asked.
“No, I’m fine.”
“Good.”
More silence.
With clumsy fingers, Miranda picked up a sheet of tissue paper and began to mold it into shape. Several long heartbeats later, Blake followed her lead. For a while they worked in silence, with just the crackle of the fire and the crumple of tissue paper for background—a far cry from the steady stream of chatter Andie had generated.
Miranda’s pageant training had always enabled her to talk to anyone. Starting and maintaining a conversation had become second nature to her, but all of the things she was afraid of saying to Blake kept her silent.
The air between them throbbed with their awareness of each other, and a part of her—the abandoned, humiliated part—wanted to tell him that she was no longer married in any real sense of the word. A simple “Tom wears lace and he’s left me, and I’m planning to get a divorce as soon as I save Ballantyne and find his thong-wearing rear end” would certainly clear the way for all the things her body wanted his to do to hers right now.
But then she’d also have to admit that Ballantyne was in serious trouble, that she had no idea where Tom was, and that she’d been lying to everyone, including him, for the past two months. Whoever said the truth would set you free probably hadn’t been lusting after their chief of police.
With a sigh, she finished the flower she was working on and dropped it in the waiting vase. “You’re getting faster,” she commented.
Blake looked up, surprised.
“Not necessarily better, but faster.”
He held up the big red ball with the black leaves to the light. “You don’t think I have a future in tissue paper?”
“I wouldn’t give up my day job,” she said, trying for a flip tone. “But you’ve done a nice thing.” She nodded toward the vases of tissue-paper flowers that dotted the room. “There aren’t a lot of men who would risk this sort of humiliation for their child.”
“That’s parenthood for you. If it’s not your heart, it’s your ego. You’re always risking something.”
“What about Andie’s mother? Where’s she in all of this?”
He shook his head and settled back on the couch. “The kindest word I can come up with is ‘absent.’” He smiled, but there was no humor in it. “Not physically absent. She didn’t up and disappear like my mother did. We know where she lives, and if I work at it hard enough, Andie gets to visit with her in Atlanta once in a while. I’m taking her in next weekend, in fact. But Sandra refuses to set foot in this, I think her insult of choice is ‘one-horse town,’ and her daughter is pretty close to the bottom of a very long list of priorities.”
Miranda’s heart twisted for both Andie and Blake, and at the same time she wanted to rail at the injustice. Women who didn’t want them had children every day while she, who wanted one so desperately, had been denied that privilege.
She invited him into the kitchen, and as she bustled around making coffee, she thought of all the times she’d wished her own mother would leave her alone or butt out of her life; perhaps it was time to appreciate the love and attention, however judgmental, she’d always received.
They drank coffee and ate big helpings of a chocolate cake Miranda had brought from the Dogwood. Their conversation turned to more casual things, as both of them pulled back from the sexual precipice they’d teetered on earlier, and when they went back to work on the flowers, Miranda was reminded all over again that Blake Summers was good company, surprisingly well read and interested in what was going on in the world beyond Truro.
The exciting bad boy of twenty years ago had turned into a man who appeared completely comfortable with his place in the world. And if he regretted choices he’d made along the way, he was making the best of them and not looking for a means of escape. Unlike Tom, he made her feel as if her company was more than enough to fill an evening. And she was willing to bet big money he didn’t need to parade around in women’s underwear or cheat on his wife to keep things interesting.
“I can’t believe it’s already eleven.” Blake looked down at his watch and stood, giving her a crooked smile. “What’s our total?”
She looked down at the pad in front of her, then stood and moved toward him. “We have eighty-five. Only fifteen flowers to go.”
They were standing much too close to each other. If she wasn’t careful, they’d be close enough to . . .
“Maybe I should take the supplies with me and finish up at home. I’m sure I can browbeat Gus into doing a few.”
She felt a brief stab of disappointment, when what she should have been feeling was relief. “If all else fails, you can get Andie to shed some motivational tears. And I can extend her deadline a few extra days. We won’t decorate the hall until just before the ball.”
It was time for him to leave, but neither of them moved. She could feel the warmth of his breath on her hair and then on her cheek. Reluctantly, she leaned down and gathered a pile of tissue paper and wire and tucked them into a shopping bag, which she held out to him. He took it but still didn’t move. If she didn’t do something soon he was going to kiss her. And then where would she be?
She took a giant step backward and tilted her chin in the air. Then she was walking with him to the foyer and pulling his coat out of the closet. It hurt to watch him shrug it on.
“Thanks for all the help,” he finally said. “Are you okay with turning the flowers in, or do you want me to come back and—”
“No, I’ll do it.” Normally she would have reached past him to open the front door, but she was afraid to get that close.
When she was perilously near breaking down and wrapping her arms around him and planting her lips on his, he reached for the knob and pulled open the front door, letting in a blast of unspringlike air.
“So, I guess I’ll see you around,” he said, not moving.
“Yes.” She stared up at him as the cold reached in and found them. “Tell Andie I hope she feels better.”
“Will do.” He stared down into her eyes for another long moment, and then he was gone.
Miranda stood in the open doorway watching him get in his car and back down the driveway. And then she waited some more for the cool night air to bring her body temperature down.
Saturday morning’s “Truro Tattles” headline read QUEEN PREGNANT! WHERE’S KING? and spiraled downward from there. Miranda spent most of the weekend alternately trying to keep herself from threatening to drop-kick Clara Bartlett into orbit and mooning after Blake Summers, and neither activity put her in a particularly sunny frame of mind.
When she woke Monday to an impossibly beautiful sky, a glowing sun, and temperatures hovering in the low sixties, Miranda was totally pissed off.
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When you had cramps, a business and town you had to save, a gossip columnist who was out to get you and now believed you were pregnant, a mother who was barely talking to you, plus strong and totally inappropriate feelings for the chief of police—which made you completely and unfulfillably horny—the Universe owed you dark and dreary.
Backing the car out of the drive, Miranda roared toward town trying to ignore the sparkle of sun on the ice now melting off tree branches and the thin trickle of water slipping down the hard rock face of the mountain. The air was crisp, and the sky so blue and clear that she could see a lone hawk circling above Ballantyne Bald. Spring was practically here, and she felt like a Grinch looking for a Christmas to steal.
How could her world look so clean and shiny when the weight of it hung so heavily on her shoulders? And how could she be lusting after Blake Summers when that world could come crashing down at any minute?
In town, she screeched to a halt in front of the Dogwood and raced in to pick up a cup of coffee and two chocolate doughnuts, which looked like the closest thing to sexual satisfaction she was likely to get.
The place fell silent, and twenty-some pairs of eyes bored into her back as she took the bag from Jewel. When she turned slowly to face them, those eyes dropped to her stomach.
“I am NOT pregnant, and my personal life does NOT belong in the Truro Gazette.”
No one blinked, and nobody spoke.
“Fine,” she said. “Have a nice day.” Dropping a five on the counter, Miranda squared her shoulders, stomped out the door, and roared through town in her BMW, hoping someone would be stupid enough to try to give her a ticket.
By the time she reached Ballantyne, her angst and sexual frustration had reached epic proportions. Helen St. James pulled into the parking lot right behind her, and as they crossed toward the building, Miranda waited for the bookkeeper to say something—anything—she could take exception to. The woman remained infuriatingly quiet.
Outside the front entrance Miranda rounded on her. “Don’t mess with me today, Helen.”