Maybe Baby

by Elaine Fox

  “Emily? That’s her name?” Jack’s eyes seemed to pin her where she sat.

  She nodded, then grabbed up her purse to paw through it for her wallet.

  “That’s nice, a pretty name,” he said. She looked back up at him. His lashes dropped and he gazed into his coffee cup. “Emily…What’s your husband’s name?”

  Her stomach clenched. “My husband? Why?”

  He frowned, no doubt at her tone. “Just curious. He wasn’t on the lease, so I was wondering…”

  Suspicion, Delaney thought. Good God, he’s checked the lease. She quickly looked back into her purse. What was his name? She picked up her coffee. Joe, she thought. No, that was the name of one of the old men. Jim. Yes, Jim. James.

  “James,” she said then, firmly.

  He nodded slowly. “James. He go by Jim?”

  She lifted one shoulder and nodded mutely.

  “Jim Poole,” he said, almost to himself.

  “Uh,” her mind spun. Poole? Or something else? Should she be a modern woman and have kept her own name? Or would that perhaps alienate her from the people of this town? Should she worry about that? Why hadn’t she thought of all this for the divorce scenario? Oh hell, she should make it something other than Poole, shouldn’t she?

  But the moment was lost, she’d already appeared to have acquiesced.

  “So was Jim planning to be up here for the move? Because if moving in early’s going to leave you on your own, I can help you.”

  No! her mind screamed, and she opened her mouth to say it. But she certainly couldn’t put off a move based on the arrival of a man who didn’t exist. She should accept his help; otherwise, he’d be looking for Joe—no, Jim—Poole to show up.

  “That would be nice of you. But I’m sure I can hire someone.” She exhaled. This was ridiculous. She was starting to get a headache.

  “No need for that. I’ll help. How much stuff have you got?”

  “Not much, really. I could probably do it myself. The place is partially furnished, right? Mostly what I have are books and, and personal stuff. A couple chairs. And Emily’s things, of course. Her crib, and stuff…”

  His eyes were on her, bronze and intense, like piping-hot ingots. “You can’t do that yourself. Besides, you’ll have Emily to look after at the same time. I’ll help, just let me know what time.”

  Hearing Emily’s name on his lips gave her a jolt. What was she doing? She couldn’t move in next door to this man.

  She looked down at her watch. “Oh my goodness! I’ve got to go.” Delaney stood. “Have a good day, Mr. Shepard.”

  He watched her, bemusement in his eyes. “You too. I’ll see you tomorrow. I should be home most of the day. Just knock on the door when you get there.”

  She stopped. “No, really. There’s no need.”

  But he just smiled and shook his head, his gaze calmly amused. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Dr. Poole.”

  It wasn’t until she’d arrived at her office that she realized she’d never paid her check.

  “Jack, you’re gettin’ awful friendly with that one,” a voice behind him piped up. “You fixin’ to ask her out or what?”

  Jack turned on the stool, coffee cup in hand, and gave Sam an amused look.

  “Now Sam, you know me better than that. When have I ever gone after a married woman?”

  “Aw, hell.” Sam scowled. “She’s married? Well, ain’t that a crime.”

  Jack nodded ruefully. “It sure is. So I’m just helping her move, that’s all. Seems the least I can do, seeing as how we’re going to be neighbors. She’s moving into the carriage house.”

  Sam let out a whoop, then a delighted laugh. “You mean to tell me you’re going to be living right next door to a pretty girl like that and not do anything about it?”

  Jack laughed. “I can’t, Sam. I told you she’s married.”

  But what I can do, he thought, is see just how married she is. After all, things had been rocky enough for her to turn to him once. If things got rocky again, maybe she’d decide she had to leave the guy. And there Jack would be. The nice guy right next door, who even helped her move.

  “Well,” Sam said, after much shaking of his head. “Don’t give up. Maybe she’s got a sister.”

  Chapter 5

  Ten minutes after she’d arrived at the clinic, Delaney stood on the threshold of Kim McQuade’s office, knocking softly on the open door. “Excuse me, Kim. You needed to see me?”

  Kim was the administrator who handled most of the financial and accounting aspects of the clinic. From the moment Delaney met her she’d thought Kim was strikingly out of place in Harp Cove. First of all, she was dressed in a way that screamed New York chic. Second of all—or second, third, and fourth of all—she was young, beautiful, and smart, with the look of a woman whose career aspirations would outstrip Harp Cove’s potential in days, if not minutes.

  She also had a sharp sense of humor that skewered small-town life in a way that made Delaney, a city native struggling with feeling out of place, feel better about the time it would take her to break into the community. Kim was the first person in town—with the uncomfortable exception of Jack—with whom Delaney felt a connection.

  Kim looked up from her paperwork and pushed her wire-rimmed glasses to the end of her nose. Despite the librarian-like pose and the jumbled mass of hair piled on top of her head with a clip, Kim still looked pretty and stylish to Delaney.

  “Oh Delaney, hi. Yeah…” She paused and straightened in her chair, re-collecting her thoughts. “This is a little awkward but”—she gave a small laugh—“it’s, ah, come to my attention that you—you’re married…? Is that right?” Kim’s perfectly arched brows rose.

  Delaney took a deep breath and let it out slowly. So this was how small the town was; she could make up a husband one day and have him come back at her the next. She glanced out the office door behind her. “Do you mind if I close this?” she asked, hand on the doorknob.

  Kim shrugged agreeably and motioned her in. “Not at all. Come on in. I don’t mean to pry, of course, but if it’s true there are a couple of things in your paperwork that need to be corrected.”

  Delaney closed the door and sat in the chair across the desk from Kim. A blush burned her cheeks. “Really? I’m sorry. Did I fill something out wrong?”

  Kim shuffled through some papers on her desk. “Well, you checked ’Single’ on your W-4. Hope that wasn’t wishful thinking.”

  Delaney forced a chuckle. “No. Well, sort of, maybe. I—it’s—well, this is kind of embarrassing. You see, I thought I would be divorced by the time I moved here and it—he—wouldn’t be an issue. We’d been having problems, you see, and it looked like we were heading that way, you know, toward divorce, but we’ve sort of decided to put that on hold.”

  Hopefully, Kim wouldn’t wonder when this “hold” decision came to be because she’d only just filled out the paperwork a couple weeks ago.

  “I see.” Kim regarded her sympathetically. “I don’t know if I should say I’m sorry you’ve had trouble or I’m happy you’re working it out. I guess I should say both.”

  Delaney smiled, the comment putting her a little more at ease. “To be honest, I’m not sure either, but we’ll see.”

  Kim nodded for a thoughtful moment. Then she turned, pushed her chair over to a file cabinet, put her pen between her teeth and began to rummage through some papers in a drawer. Delaney noticed she wore a short skirt with dark, sheer stockings. Her high, spiked heels, the kind Delaney never wore, showed off perfectly shaped legs.

  “I do need you to redo your tax forms, though,” Kim said through the pen.

  “My tax forms?” Delaney clasped her sweating palms in her lap.

  “Yeah, the W-4 and all that.”

  “But Joe and I are going to file our taxes separately, that’s why I checked ’Single.’ And I did put Emily as my dependent…”

  Kim pulled out several sheets, took the pen from her mouth and rolled back behind the desk. “I thi
nk you did, yes. But you’ll need to check the box that says ’Married, filing separately,’ instead of the ’Single’ box. You did that at your last job, didn’t you?”

  Delaney froze. Good God, now she had to lie to the IRS? How could she get out of this?

  She could come clean to Kim, tell her the whole story. But who knew if Kim could be trusted? And what kind of flake would Delaney appear to be, coming out with such an outlandish story her second day on the job? Not to mention the fact that she would, in essence, then be asking the woman to lie for her.

  God, what a mess.

  Maybe she could clear it up later. After all, wasn’t there a “marriage penalty”? So she’d in fact be paying too much tax, which wouldn’t get her in any trouble, and she could straighten it out with the IRS later. Surely she wouldn’t be the first person to have “accidentally” checked the wrong box. At least she wasn’t claiming more dependents than she had. That was the kind of thing that got people in trouble. Wasn’t it?

  “Uh, yes. I mean, I guess I must have. I don’t really remember. I’m not very good at this kind of thing.”

  Delaney leaned forward and rubbed her damp palms together. In any case, she at least had to fill out the form the way Kim wanted it for the moment. She could decide what to do later.

  She plucked a pen from a holder on Kim’s desk as Kim handed her the papers. With a shaking hand, she checked the other box, filled out the rest of the form and signed at the bottom.

  “So who told you I was married?” Delaney asked as casually as she could manage, handing the papers back over the desk. But she let go too early and Kim grabbed too late. They fluttered to the desk in disarray. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what’s the matter with me, I’ve been clumsy all day.”

  “No problem.” Kim bent to retrieve a paper from under the desk. “Jack Shepard,” she said, reemerging from the floor.

  Delaney’s heart skipped a beat. “Oh?” Her brain was empty of anything intelligent to say, though she’d known it had to be him. “My landlord?”

  “Yeah. He’s a friend of mine and just happened to mention that you’d said you were married, which for some reason none of us thought you were. I guess because you rented the place yourself. I don’t even think Jack put together the fact that you were a woman. I think he just heard ‘doctor’ and assumed you were a man. Typical.” She chuckled cynically.

  Delaney laughed with her, her brain awash with what the word friend could mean. Were they in a relationship? No, they couldn’t be, not if Jack had just gotten beaned by Lisa yesterday. But if they weren’t in a relationship, why weren’t they? Kim was much prettier than Lisa, and obviously smarter. Older. Then again maybe Jack was the kind of guy who preferred bimbos…which didn’t say much for the mother of his child.

  Delaney shook herself. Why should she care if Jack was in a relationship with Kim or Lisa or any woman? He wasn’t in a relationship with her, and that was the important thing.

  “Yes, he did appear kind of surprised to see me,” Delaney said cautiously. After all, Jack could have confided a lot more to this woman. How close were they? Would he have mentioned that one-night stand? Another blush rose to her cheeks.

  “I imagine he did.” Kim smiled, looking speculatively at Delaney. “So how long have you been married?”

  Delaney waved a hand. “Oh I don’t know. Forever, it seems like.” She hoped to get around nailing down this detail but Kim still looked at her expectantly. “About five years, I guess.”

  “Five years, huh? And your daughter’s how old?”

  What had she told Maggie?

  “Four months.” Delaney’s palms moistened, and she clasped her hands together. For some reason, by altering the day Emily was born her Bad Mother Meter soared into the red. “How long have you known Jack?”

  Kim leaned back, as if situating herself for some girl talk. “We’ve been friends since I came here, about three years ago. At first he tried to hit on me”—she laughed—“until he found out I’ve got a boyfriend in New York. Still, I was flattered.”

  A lump of disgust rose in Delaney’s throat. Was there anyone in town Jack Shepard hadn’t hit on? “Flattered?”

  “Sure, he’s a great-looking guy. Don’t you think?”

  Delaney looked down at her hands, writhing in front of her like a couple of snakes. She pried them apart and moved them, palm down, to the tops of her knees. “I don’t know. I guess looks aren’t everything.”

  “Oh sure. But still, he’s got ’em. And he’s got this way of looking at you, when he’s interested, that…” Her gaze seemed to glance off Delaney’s shoulder. She chuckled again. “Well, anyway, it’s a good thing I’m pretty sure Chris is the one for me, or I’d have had some serious reconsidering to do.”

  “Really?” Delaney said. “Don’t you think he’s a little too, I don’t know, too much of a playboy? That’s what I’ve heard, anyway. I hardly know him myself. But I’ve heard it from a lot of people, and I’ve only been here a week.”

  Kim took off her glasses and set them on the desk, rubbing the bridge of her nose where they’d rested. “God, people love to talk, don’t they? Small towns, I’m telling you. I’ll be happy once I finish up at U of M and can join Chris in New York. People are especially bad around here.”

  “You’re in school?” Delaney asked. “Isn’t the university a long way away?”

  Kim shrugged. “A little over an hour, and I only go twice a week. But the good news is I’ll be finished next June and then I’ll be out of this gossip cauldron forever.”

  Delaney paused, then had to ask, “So you don’t think it’s true, what they say about Jack?”

  “Who knows? Sometimes I swear Jack does stuff just to keep those old coots in the diner happy. Things get a little slow, Jack’ll let them know about some failed date he’s had, or he’ll ask out some old biddy right in front of them just to get them going. God knows what they’d find to talk about if Jack weren’t around.”

  “How altruistic,” Delaney murmured.

  Kim smiled and shrugged. “He has fun with it, I think. For some reason the gossip doesn’t bother him. I guess he’s been the butt of it for so long he’s used to it.”

  “You’d think he’d learn to tone down his behavior some. You know, just to maintain his own privacy.”

  “Actually, I think he has. He hasn’t really dated anyone in town—not that I know of, anyway—in the three years I’ve been here.”

  “No? What about Lisa Jacobson?”

  Kim snorted. “Well, that was a mistake. And I don’t know if you could call what they did ‘dating.’ She took him way too seriously, and he wasn’t thinking at all. But that only lasted a couple weeks, and I guess he’s paid for it now. I’m sure he’ll go back to his old policy.”

  “His old policy?”

  “Yeah. Used to be he’d only date summer girls, and I have to say it got him in a lot less trouble. But then, anyone could’ve seen the trouble with Lisa Jacobson a mile away. Anyone but him, that is.”

  “What do you mean, ‘summer girls’?”

  “Tourists. Girls who won’t be here when the music stops, if you know what I mean.”

  Oh boy, did she know what Kim meant. Summer girls. It made her sick to think about it. She was one of Jack’s “summer” girls. And he had no idea how loud that music got before it stopped.

  Anger shot through Delaney’s limbs, and she stood up abruptly. “I guess I’d better get to work.”

  Kim straightened in her chair. “Oh okay. Yeah, I guess I should too. Sorry I kept you so long. It’s just so nice to talk to someone from away, for a change.”

  “Yeah, thanks. I enjoyed it too.” Delaney hesitated, wanting to know so much more, so much that Kim could probably tell her, but she couldn’t ask. Not then, anyway. Not when she barely knew the woman. She turned on stiff legs to leave.

  “Oh, Delaney? One more thing.”

  Delaney turned, schooling her face to a neutral expression. She hoped.

  �
�I don’t know if Doc Jacobson’s mentioned it to you yet—my feeling is he hasn’t, since he’s barely been around the last week—but you’re committed to teach a couple health classes at Harp Cove High. They start in…” She shuffled through papers with one hand and pushed her glasses back on with her other. “About five or six weeks. Around the time school starts, I think. There are four different classes and you’ll visit each one twice during the semester. That amounts to about one every other week, last period of the day.”

  “Health classes? At the high school?” Where Jack Shepard works? Her overworked adrenal gland surged to life again.

  “Yeah. There’s a syllabus around here somewhere, I’ll get it to you. It’s pretty simple stuff, really. Since it’s high school, they already know about menstruation and erections and all that.” She flipped through a tall stack of papers on a far corner of the desk.

  “So…nutrition, that sort of thing?” Delaney’s heart sped up. Oh please don’t let it be a sex ed class, she pleaded silently. She was the last person on earth qualified to preach contraception.

  “Sure, but the regular teachers will cover a lot of that. Mostly they want you to handle some of the more awkward teenage stuff. Like there’s no such thing as blue balls and girls can get pregnant the first time. That sort of thing. I guess they think the kids will take it more seriously coming from an actual doctor.”

  Delaney’s heart sank. Then she felt an almost overwhelming urge to laugh. Maybe she was the best person on earth to teach that lesson. Certainly she had enough firsthand experience. “So, contraception.”

  Kim looked up over her glasses and gave her an exaggerated look of horror. “God, no. Not in this town. Here they preach abstinence. First, last, and always.”

  Delaney frowned. “That seems a little…unrealistic.”

  Kim pushed the hair from her face and gave a wry smile. “Girl, you’re in Harp Cove, Maine, now. The Way Life Should Be,” she added, referring to the state motto that was printed on everything from bumper stickers to the highway WELCOME TO MAINE signs.

  “What about The Way Life Is?” Delaney asked.