Desperate Measures (14 page)

Maddie reached up and kissed him lightly on the lips. “Pete, this was one of the nicest days of my life. Thank you for being you. Thank you for loving me, thank you for making me part of your life. And we're going to talk again, real soon, about babies and our future. I promise.”

Pete beamed. “That's good enough for me. Think about adopting too. I love kids, Maddie. You need to know that.”

“I know, Pete. See you at seven-thirty. I'll be the girl in the lobby with the smile in her eyes, on her lips, and in her heart. Will you recognize me?”

“Anywhere, anytime. I love you, Maddie.”

“I love you too, Pete.”

Did I step into it or what? was all Maddie could think about on the ride up to her apartment in the elevator.

 

It was ten-thirty when, arm in arm, Pete and Maddie left the restaurant. “Those prices were outrageous, Pete,” Maddie grumbled. “However, I loved every minute of it. That dessert was so sinful I'll need a week of penance. Listen, I have an idea, it's a gorgeous night, let's walk uptown to Fairy Tales. I know it's a hike, but we need to walk off that dinner. If my legs give out, we can hail a taxi. We really haven't meandered through the store together. You've been listening to me for so long going on and on about it that you must be curious by now.”

“I didn't want to ... interfere. It's your baby, Maddie.”

Maddie stopped dead in her tracks. “I don't believe I heard what I just heard. Without you there would be no Fairy Tales. It's
ours
, Pete.”

“No, Maddie, Fairy Tales is yours. I'm just the money man. I wanted to do it for you.”

“It's a dream, Pete, that I thought would never, ever happen. I've never owned anything in my life. It seems all I've done for years and years is to kick and scratch just to make it from one month to the next. Dreams are so important. Without them, you might as well pack it in. I'm so glad I didn't give up on mine. Thanks to you, it's all going to be a reality. I will never be able to thank you, Pete.”

“I don't need thanks. I want you to be a success.”

“I hope I can justify your faith in me. Pete, what if it doesn't work? What if I made mistakes, what if my suppliers don't come through for me? What if—”

“Nothing is going to happen, Maddie. Your biggest selling point when this was on the drawing board was your belief in yourself. You sold me, and trust me when I tell you I am a hard sell. There is no way this can fail. I feel it in my bones, just the way I feel it when I'm about to close a deal. It's that old gut feeling. It hasn't failed me yet.”

“I can't wait for you to see everything. It is a fairy tale come to life. I'm going to walk you through it. If you have the same kind of imagination I do, you'll be able to see it.” She squeezed his arm.

Pete's left arm shot out. A cab slid to the curb. “Then let's get there quicker so I can get a gander.”

Twenty minutes later they were standing by the door, the key in Maddie's hand. “Are you ready?” she demanded breathlessly. “Oh, Pete, every time I come here I get goose bumps and my heart starts to pound. You don't know how important this is to me. I tell you it is, but I don't have the right words to ... It's almost as if it's
my life
.”

Pete gripped her shoulders and turned her toward him. “Maddie, there's room here for me, isn't there? You are so intense when you talk about this. Sometimes you scare me. I mean it.”

“Oh, Pete, no. We're a team, you and me. This is what I'm going to be doing, it's not who I am. You will always be part of my life, that life we'll hold special at the end of the day. That will be our time. Long, wonderful Sundays, and after the store gets settled, I'll take Mondays off and we can have two-day weekends. Everything is going to be perfect for us—the business and our lives. Trust me, Pete, I'm going to work at it twenty-four hours a day. I don't ever want you to have regrets. That's so important to me, Pete. That you have no regrets.” She squeezed his arm and turned back to the door. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

“God, my very own key to my very own business,” Maddie chortled as she swung the door wide open. “So, what do you think?” she said, snapping on the light.

Pete looked around at Maddie's cluttered domain. She was right, it was her domain. Layers of sawdust swirled around his ankles. He saw hanging wires, exposed pipes with caps on the ends. As far as he could see, it was one huge room. “Nice,” he mumbled.

Maddie laughed. “It's not nice at all. Follow me and I'll mark off the sections with my shoe. I want to show you where everything is going to go. This is the Cinderella section, this is the magic section—Aladdin. That's going to be super. Here's Snow White and her buddies. See this cubby here, this small section, it's going to be my seasonal section. We're going to start off with Halloween. Listen to this, Pete,” she said, excitement ringing in her voice, “I'm getting sizes two, four, and six of every costume. By that I mean all the fairy-tale characters. Not a lot, because even though we have a few months, my ladies can't give me quantity, so it's going to be on a first-come basis. Next year I'll have hundreds of orders. I just know it. The costumes are so exquisite, I couldn't believe it when I saw them. Hand-stitched, everything is first-rate quality. None of that sleazy material the usual Halloween costumes are made of. We're also getting orange satin pumpkin treat bags in different sizes. They have a plastic insert and a cap that looks like a real pumpkin top. The stem is green satin. Fifty bucks a piece.”

“Fifty bucks!” he said. “Kids carry pillowcases to put their candy in. I saw that on the news one year when they were doing a Halloween special of some kind. Fifty bucks,” he repeated, his voice tinged with awe. “How much is your cost?”

“It takes an hour and a half to stitch one up. That's five fifty-five. Ten cents for the insert, a dollar and a half for the material and shipping. Roughly nine bucks.”

“Jesus. What about the costumes?”

“Take a deep breath, Pete. Remember, they're one of a kind. Handmade. Full of detail and extras that make the costume. Two hundred dollars. In some cases, depending on the costume, more. Believe it or not, the more outrageous the cost, the more people think they have to have it.” She shrugged. “There won't be any left. What I need and will have trouble getting is more women to sew.”

“Pay them more, Maddie. Jesus, maybe you do have a gold mine here.”

“I keep telling you that, Pete. I'm going to pay more after I get my first delivery. It's all taken care of. You should see what I have planned for Christmas. Priceless items. The shopping bags are works of art. Savers, if you know what I mean. Come January you'll see women carrying them all over the city. They aren't throwaways. Isn't it exciting, Pete? I swear to God, I've never been this happy. And I owe it all to you.”

“Do you think you'll be this happy the day we get married?”

“Hmmm. What'd you say, Pete?” Maddie asked as she ducked under a gaggle of hanging wires to head toward the back of the store, where the supply room and kitchen were partially partitioned off.

“I said I'm glad you're so happy,” Pete said gruffly.

“There's nothing in the world to compare to this, Pete. Nothing.”

Pete sneezed, once, twice, three times. “Time to leave, Maddie.”

“You're right. Thanks for coming with me, Pete. I wish I could sleep here. I wish I could be here every minute of the day. I think I will sleep here the night before the grand opening. I won't sleep at home because I'll be too excited.”

“How about the night before our wedding?”

“Same thing,” Maddie said breezily.

He didn't think it was the same thing at all. He was about to say as much, then thought better of it. “I'm ready if you are.”

Pete watched as Maddie locked the double Dutch doors. Her long, slender fingers caressed the shiny brass lock and door handle. It was almost as if she were caressing part of his body. Somehow . . . he felt cheated.

“Shit,” he said, and stomped his feet to rid them of the Sheetrock dust.

“
Forty-five days is a long time, Pete. I'm really going
to miss you,” Maddie murmured sleepily.

“That's the downside, Maddie. Think about the upside. Fifty-one days from today we'll be married.” His voice was just as sleepy sounding as Maddie's.

“Umm. You'll call regularly, won't you?” Maddie said, wrapping her legs around his. “Someday, I want the two of us to travel to all those places you go to on business. I want to see it all with you.”

“Ha! Before you know it, you'll be traveling as much as I do. Once you open Fairy Tales, you'll be big-time and a frequent flyer. Then, Miss Big-Time, I want you to tell me how much sightseeing you do when you're on a business trip. As I see it, we'll be ships passing in the night.” His voice changed, became worried, sounding pensive.

Maddie bolted upright. “Don't say that, Pete. I'll never let that happen. I'll be able to juggle being a wife and a fledgling entrepreneur. It's going to take a year, maybe two, for the business to get off the ground. Are you having second thoughts? Do you think I'm making a mistake?”

“Of course not. You're going to be a huge success. You are, after all, one of Bloomingdales' head buyers. I feel it in my gut.”

Maddie stroked Pete's arm. She smiled when he shivered. God, how she loved this man. “If I am a success, it's because of you and what you've done. Half rent on Madison Avenue. All those contacts you have. But most important, you believe in me. I hope I don't disappoint you, Pete. Lord, what if I fail, what if I'm wrong and this city doesn't need a pricey, top-of-the-line children's store? What if ... what if ...”

“Too late now. Your rent is paid for three months, the renovations are under way, your stock is ordered. You can't back out. Trust me, honey, New York is ready for Fairy Tales. I've got your publicity locked up tight. Maddie Stern, I don't want to hear another word about this. Kiss me now or forever hold your peace.”

“You are delicious, Pete. You taste better than a root beer stick.” They tussled and the worrisome moment was over. “I just hope you have enough stock,” Pete said, sliding out of bed.

“I have more than enough, Pete. I wish you didn't have to leave. This is perfect. Do you think you might be able to speed up your return?”

“If you moved in with me or I moved in with you, I wouldn't have to leave right now.” He held up a wagging finger. “You said we both needed our space. I'll do my best to expedite business. I'd hate like hell to miss your grand opening. I'll call every chance I get.”

“Forty-five days sounds like forever. You'd better hurry or you'll be late.”

Pete turned and leaned over the bed. “Maddie, I love you more than life itself. It's trips like this one coming up that made it possible for me to help you open your own business.”

“I know, Pete. Take your shower and I'll make coffee.”

“Okay, Mrs.-soon-to-be Peter Sorenson. You gonna grind the beans?” he said, smacking her rump on his way to the shower.

“You bet. Genuine cream to go with it. A bran muffin with lots of butter. A real cholesterol killer. When we're married, you aren't going to eat like that anymore. You get tofu for breakfast and seaweed for lunch.”

“I know this great divorce lawyer . . .”

He sang lustily, his voice booming out of the steaming bathroom, a ditty about love and commitment whose words he made up as he went along. Jesus, he was happy. He'd finally found the woman of his dreams, and miracle of miracles, she'd agreed to marry him.

World-traveled, he'd met all kinds of women, but none of them made him feel the way Maddie did. She loved unconditionally. She was warm and gentle, and when she looked at him, he saw the love in her eyes. They were going to have a house in Connecticut, a summer place in the Hamptons, a dozen kids and two dozen grandchildren. They were going to grow old together and rock in wicker chairs on a big old front porch. He'd get one of those tractor lawn mowers so Maddie could sit on it with him when he mowed the grass on weekends. He was finally going to belong to someone.

Of course, he hadn't discussed this at any great length with Maddie. He assumed because he wanted it the same way Annie wanted it, that all women basically wanted the same thing, and Maddie fell into the category of all women. Maddie had said yes, children were on her road map; she hadn't said when, though. He'd give her a year, maybe a year and a half, and she'd be ready for what he referred to as “the works.”

All he needed was the time, the hour, magic. That's what he needed, a goddamn bushel basket full of magic. In order to have all that, he was going to have to work his ass off; not that he wasn't doing that right now. Jesus, maybe he'd have to work harder, put in more hours. The children would have to be miracle births if he didn't put a clamp on his business travel.

Until he met Maddie Stern, he'd been a workaholic, spending more time abroad than he did at home. Annie was becoming a stranger to him. He frowned. He couldn't let that happen. Being an acquisitions attorney meant he had to move when his clients said move. He hated the beeper he wore, hated the cellular phone in his car, hated leaving Maddie's phone number with his clients.

He was about to complete the Windsor knot in his tie when he stopped and looked at his reflection in the mirror. He leaned closer. “Is that disillusionment I see in your face, Sorenson?” he asked his reflection. “Because if it is, think about your bank balance, think about the Rover you own outright along with the Beemer, think about the deposit on the Stamford house, think about Fairy Tales, think about those custom-made suits and shoes you wear, think about the expensive presents you lavish on Maddie. Think about
that
, Sorenson, and wipe that look off your face.

“Maddie,” he bellowed.

She was a whirlwind coming through the door, the coffee cup in her hand. She offered it to him as though it were a prize, and in a way it was. She made wonderful coffee. Pete loved it. “What is it, what's wrong?”

“Maddie, would you still love and marry me if I was a plumber or a trash collector?”

“Pete Sorenson,” Maddie said in an awed voice, “of course. I love
you
. If you don't believe that, then there's no hope for us. You do ... believe me, don't you?”

Maddie stared hard at the man who would one day be her husband. He was far from handsome, more on the plain side, well-built, with the clearest gray eyes she'd ever seen. So often she told him they were the color of mourning doves. His sandy hair was thinning on top, to his dismay. He said his nose was too beaked to go with his angular face, his jaw jutted forward too much, he fretted, and his ears could stand to be pinned back. She loved every inch of him. Now, she said so, again.

Pete smiled. “Maddie, I will always love you. Into eternity, and if that sounds corny, I'm sorry.”

“It doesn't sound corny at all. I feel the same way. Are you going to give me your itinerary?” she said briskly.

“No can do, honey. I'm going to be on the move. These guys like to play host and put me up at different places, sometimes in apartments and condos they own. I can tell you pretty much what city I'm going to be in. I'll call every chance I get.”

“I get nervous, Pete, not knowing how to reach you when you're away. I can handle two weeks, but forty-five days . . .”

“You're going to be so busy with Fairy Tales,” Pete said gulping at his coffee, “you won't have time to miss me. Don't forget, if you have time, buzz up to Stamford and take a look at the house. If you like it and can see us living in it, give them a check to bind it. I have the down-payment money set aside.”

“Oooh, imagine me ... us, living with all those rich people in Stamford. We'll fit in, won't we Pete?”

“I'm sure we will. I think it's a Maddie house. The master bedroom has a fireplace, and the master bath has a Jacuzzi. It's us, honey. The kitchen is great, the kind you said you always wanted. Lots of windows, a free-hanging exhaust system, cedar beams, real brick on the floor, with crocks of flowers. You're gonna love it, Maddie.”

“It's outrageously expensive.” She frowned.

“Maddie, I want you to have it, but if you can't see us growing as a family in it, if you don't like it, that's different. The finances are
my
concern. Now come on, give me a big kiss and I'm out of here.”

“I called downstairs. They're holding a cab for you,” Maddie said, leaning into him. She kissed him, mashing herself against him. She grinned when he groaned. “Call,” she said, shooing him out the door.

“Don't forget, you have a root canal appointment three weeks from today, and that crazy cat of yours has to go for her checkup next week.” He was still rattling off appointments she needed to keep when he sprinted out the door. She heard him say, as she slid the bolt home, “You are a total airhead when it comes to keeping appointments.” And he was right, she was.

She missed him already, and he was still in the elevator. She resisted the crazy urge to run after him, to beg him to stay.

This wasn't like her. She wasn't a clinger. If anything, she was more independent than most of her peers. Until she met Pete eight months ago, she was content to go through life as a career woman. Meeting Pete changed everything. God, all that money!

Back in her cozy red and white kitchen, Maddie poured the remains of her coffee into an oversize mug. She scraped the butter from Pete's muffin and munched contentedly. She sighed deeply. It was all so perfect, this life of hers. She really had it all these days, unlike so many of her friends, who were scrambling to get to the top of their chosen professions and to find a man who would take care of them. She'd really stepped into her own private pot of gold.

“Oooh, that tickles and feels soooo good.” Maddie laughed when her cat Tillie wrapped herself around her bare feet. “He's gone, Tillie. Need I remind you that you need to make more of an effort to get along with Pete. He's here to stay. He brings you fresh salmon. I only give you tuna and Meow Mix. Purr, Tillie, I love it when you do that.” She reached down to scratch the fat yellow cat behind its ears. She was rewarded with loud purring.

Maddie slid from the chair to her hands and knees. She scooped up the fur ball and held her close as Tillie purred. “I have this awful feeling, Tillie, that something is going to go wrong. Everything is so perfect, it can't be real. Sometimes I think I'm dreaming and I'll wake up and Fairy Tales is just that, a fairy tale. I've never felt this way before. Women's intuition. You know, like your cat sense.” Tillie continued to purr until warm tears touched her, then she leaped from Maddie's arms and parked herself by the refrigerator door.

“Okay, okay, I'm entitled to a good cry once in a while.” Maddie hiccuped. Tillie sat patiently by the refrigerator, waiting for her breakfast.

Maddie spooned so much salmon into the cat's dish it spilled over the sides. Tillie watched these strange goings-on as if to say, Don't think I'm eating off the floor. Besides, you're giving me too much. Maddie snorted at the finicky cat before she carried the remains of her coffee to the bathroom.

It was still warm and steamy from Pete's shower. She sniffed and smiled. The room smelled just like him, all woodsy and manly. She touched the thick towel hanging on the rack. Pete liked blue towels, the bath-sheet kind. She'd gotten six at Bloomingdale's with her thirty percent discount. She should have bought more, but washing them in her compact washer-dryer was an all-day job.

An hour later Maddie was back in the kitchen with her appointment book spread open in front of her. She looked at the miniature calendar at the top of the page. The forty-five days loomed ahead of her. It might be a good idea to call some friends now and set up some social evenings. She dialed, gave her friend Janice's extension, and sat back to wait. The moment she heard her friend's voice, she started to babble, ending with, “So how are my ten shares of Coca-Cola doing?”

“The same thing they were doing when you called last week. You sound funny, is something wrong?”

“No . . . yes. Not really. Pete left a little while ago. For forty-five days. I started to miss him before he was out the door.”

“Where'd he go this time? You need to put a leash on him, Maddie.” Janice laughed.

“He promised to cut his travel in half after we got married. By the way, the bridal shop called yesterday. They want you to go in for a fitting next Tuesday. I told them it would have to be on your lunch hour, and they said okay. Give them a call, okay? The other thing I called about is, how would you like to drive up to Stamford and look at a house this weekend? Pete gave me the keys to his car. The Beemer,” she crowed.

“The weekend starts tomorrow, Maddie. Do you mean tomorrow or Sunday? I thought we were going to paint the woodwork at Fairy Tales.”

Who but a lifelong friend would give up her weekend to paint woodwork? Maddie thought. “We can do that next weekend if you're free. Let's go tomorrow and make a day of it. I'll treat to dinner, and you can try and sell me some stock. How's it going?”

“Merrill Lynch isn't real fond of women brokers. I'm here on probation, thanks to a friend of a friend. I need some rich clients. Like Pete.”

“What about all the names I gave you from Bloomingdale's?”

“They're afraid to invest. I've been following this stock called Unitec. It's a bargain at two bucks.”

Maddie felt bad for her friend, and a moment later it occured to her that she might be able to help.

“So, what time tomorrow?”