“You okay?” Sliding his arms around her from behind, Michael kissed the side of her face.
Resting the back of her head against his chest, Susan nodded. “Just tired.”
“Heyâ” he let her go “âthe house looks great!”
She nodded again. She felt chilled, needed a sweater.
“What are you going to do with it?”
Susan busied herself with the last of the dishes. “Give it to Annie.” Actually, she'd decided to call Seth's friend Brady. The disadvantaged kids in his care wouldn't mind that the house was a month late.
“Who's Annie?”
“Ed Halliday's dog,” she reminded him. “Tricia still brings her to work every day.”
“I thought you didn't like that dog. You always complained that she sheds.”
Shrugging, she put away the frosting utensils. She'd complained about Annie a time or two when she'd first gone to work at Halliday Headgear. A dog at the office hadn't seemed quite professional.
“Annie grows on you,” she finally said. “I've actually been thinking about getting one.”
“An Annie?”
“A dog, or maybe a cat.”
She turned in time to see Michael shaking his head, as though he didn't know her at all.
“I've thought about it myself,” he shocked her by saying. “I'm just not home enough.” Taking a seat at the kitchen table, Michael started munching on the gumdrops lining the side of the house. For someone who was heading out, he was doing it slowly.
“We had a dog when I was growing up,” he continued.
Susan joined him at the table. “You never told me that.”
“Haven't thought about it in years.”
“What was his name?” They'd never been allowed pets when she was growing up. Too much commotion.
“Her.” Michael grinned. “Samson.”
“Samson was a girl?”
“What did I know? I was only six.” He grabbed another gumdrop. “Besides, she was a mutt. She didn't care.”
She'd known Michael for almost twenty years, and
she was seeing a part of him she'd never known. A part that mattered, somehow. “How long did you have her?”
“Until I left home.”
“What happened to her?”
“She was old.” He shrugged, pushed the house a little farther away.
“She got sick?”
“Not really. She just sort of...stopped wanting to live.”
He wasn't making any sense. “She must have missed you an awful lot.”
“Yeah.” Michael glanced up at her and then away.
Suddenly she understood. The dog had died of a broken heart. And Michael still felt the sting of not being there for her.
“I'd best get going.” He stood up and stretched. “I still have to turn in the rental.”
Nodding, Susan followed him as he collected the satchel he'd brought. His things were already packed.
“Wellâ” he gave her a quick peck on the lips “âtake care....”
Susan nodded, feeling a little bereft. “Michael?”
Michael stopped on his way out, one hand on the doorknob. She'd sounded almost...needy. Susan was never needy. On the contrary, she always thought she could handle anything, better than she probably could most of the time. Except that eventually she always seemed to manage.
“Do you want to know?”
No! He didn't want to know about it, think about it or talk about it. He turned, satchel in hand, not knowing what to say.
“Whether or not it worked, I mean,” she clarified.
“Uh, sure.” That seemed to be the answer she was hoping for. “I guess I need to, don't I, in case we have to try again?”
Nodding, Susan grinnedâthe emptiest grin he'd ever seen. “I hadn't thought of that.”
He'd thought of little else. And reached his limit. “See ya,” he said, dropping one last kiss on her cheek.
He'd never in his life felt such a strong need to escape.
Â
THE FOLLOWING Saturday night, Seth was once again hell-bent on escape. He spent the evening wiping the barroom floor with one of his closest buddies, who'd dared to challenge him to a round of darts.
“Good God, Carmichael, you missed one yet tonight?” Brady Smith muttered as he laid another five-dollar bill in Seth's outstretched palm.
“Nope.” Seth grinned at the other man. He turned the five-dollar bill into a couple more beers at the bar and brought one back to Brady. “You want another go?”
“I guess,” Brady grumbled good-naturedly. “Might as well enjoy the beer as long as I'm buying.”
Resetting the electronic dart board for another game of 501, Seth motioned for his buddy to go first.
Brady hit a bull's-eye, and then one twice. “Fifty-two.” He cursed eloquently as he finished reciting his score.
Seth hit a bull's-eye as well. And then two triple
twenties. He collected his darts silently, celebrating with a long swallow of beer.
“A hundred and seventy,” Brady said, his voice filled with reluctant awe. “How do you do that, man?”
Seth just shrugged. Truth was, he had no idea. He'd never known how he came to be so good at sports. He just was. At every sport he'd ever tried.
“You still coaching that soccer team?” Brady asked later as the two men abandoned darts to give more serious attention to the beers they were consuming.
“Nah.”
“I thought you liked it.” Brady finished his last beer, wiping the foam off his mouth with the back of his hand.
“I did.”
“You ever looking to volunteer some more, let me know,” the other man said, pulling his keys from the pocket of his jeans. “I can put you to work in a second.”
Brady ran a local detention home for troubled youths. “I'll think about it,” Seth said. Maybe he wouldâif he was unlucky enough to remember this conversation in the morning. “You okay to drive?” he asked his friend.
“Yep. Only had two,” Brady reported, patting Seth on the back as he headed out. “Marge was baking cookies when I left. They should be done just about now.”
“Tell her I said hi.” Seth ordered another beer. He'd had more than two. But he wasn't ready to stop yet.
“You could always come tell her yourself,” Brady offered. “Those cookies'll be mighty good.”
“Some other time,” Seth said, shaking his head. He'd been shying away from family situations these past few months. They just seemed to make him cantankerous.
“Sure,” Brady called over his shoulder as he made for the door. “I hear ya.”
Brady sounded kind of offended. Seth was sorry about that. And he had a feeling he was going to remember every damn word of their conversation in the morning. He was sorry about that, too.
Â
“JILL, GET ME Joe Burniker on the line.”
Though she suspected her assistant was trying to escape, at least for lunch, Susan continued to push. Both of them. She'd been doing little else in the week since she'd seen Michael.
She jotted notes while she waited for her phone to buzz back, Jill's mission accomplished, and picked up on the first ring when it did.
“Joe? Susan Kennedy.”
“Susan, how the hell are you?”
She said something noncommittal, then asked about his wife. She told him she was sorry when he explained that they'd split about six months ago. They commiserated only long enough for her to figure out that Joe, every bit the playboy he'd always been, was really quite relieved by his personal situation. And then she got down to business.
“I need a favor, Joe.” She picked up the McArthur file. The boy was from Tennessee. And so, coincidentally, was Joe.
“I certainly owe you one after saving my butt in the Crone case last year.”
She'd given him a little piece of research she'd unearthed in a similar case the year before. It had been no big deal. But she was calling in the favor, anyway.
“I have a case I need you to take, no guarantee you'll ever get paid.”
“I'm sure there's a good reason you aren't doing it yourself.”
“I am.”
“And you need
my
help?”
“I'll be opposing you.”
Joe laughed. “I don't know whether to be insulted or flattered.”
“Why's that?” Susan sat back, starting to relax. Joe always made her feel better.
“Either you're asking because you want to ensure a win and think I'm a guaranteed loss, or because you're bored, want a good challenge, and I'm it.”
Laughing, she tossed the McArthur file back on her desk. “Wrong on both counts. Actuallyâ” sobering, Susan leaned forward. “I'm pretty sure I can win, just not sure I want to.”
“Curiouser and curiouser.”
“I need to know that if I
do
win, I should have, Joe. And in order to do that, I need the best attorney I can find to fight the other side.”
Which all sounded great, except that Joe didn't have a hope in hell unless he unearthed the one vital piece of information that Susan ethically, as Halliday's attorney, couldn't give him. She was gambling
on the fact that Joe was no less thorough than he'd been in college.
“What are we fighting for?” he asked, suddenly as serious as she.
“A boy's life.”
Â
“How IS SHE?”
“You know you could always call her yourself and find out.”
“Yeah.”
It had been three weeks since Michael's weekend with Susan. Three weeks since he'd cashed in their tickets to Hawaii, exchanging them for a couple of trips to Denver and several to Atlanta. Three weeks since he'd spoken to Susan. And in spite of the fact that she seemed to be on his mind twenty-four hours a day, he still couldn't bring himself to call. Seth would have to do. For the fifth time in three weeks.
“She's fine,” his ex-brother-in-law finally answered him. “Working her ass off as usual.”
“Yeah.” He'd expected that.
“How's the new job?” Seth asked.
“Great.” A lot. of work: A lot of hotel rooms. But he'd never been happier.
“You ever planning to tell Susan about it?”
Someday. Maybe. But when he told Susan he'd have to tell her all of it. That was how they did things. He couldn't give her only the basics, like he'd done with Seth. No, he'd spill it all. And when he did, she'd see right inside him, know how much the promotion meant to him, share his deepest feelings. He wouldn't be able to accept her congratulations casually,
either. He'd feel her happiness for him clear to his bones. And he wasn't ready to get that close.
Without answering Seth, he asked, “She's looking good?” Picking up the complimentary pad of paper and pen next to the phone, he drew a stick figure sitting on a bench.
“Fine.”
“The same?” If Michael hadn't known what a good friend he had in Seth, he'd be doubting that the other man cared anything for him at all. Seth was making him work too damn hard for every scrap of information.
“Last time I saw her.”
“She's eating?”
“How the hell should I know? I'm out of town.”
Right. He knew that. He'd called Seth's hotel room in Washington from his own hotel room in Burbank. “You're home weekends.” Which was more than
he
'd been.
“I didn't eat with her last weekend.”
“Seth...”
“Look, man, this is between you and her, okay? And Iâ” He stopped abruptly.
“...want no part of it,” Michael finished the sentence for his friend. Michael could sympathize. He wanted no part of it, either.
CHAPTER SIX
S
HE'D MISSED HER PERIOD.
“Susan, do you want me to fill out these forms for Ronnie McArthur or send them to his mother?”
This might be the start of the most momentous event of her life, and nobody knew. “Let me see them.” She held out her hand for the forms.
Annie raised her head as Jill approached Susan's desk. Reaching down instinctively, Susan gave the dog a reassuring pat, perusing the forms at the same time.
“Why don't we fill in the argument section, then send them on for his mother to finish,” she said, frowning. “They really should come from her.”
Jill took the forms back, but didn't move from Susan's desk. “Aren't you the least bit worried that Ms. Halliday's going to hear about this?”
Susan was worried, all right. But not about her boss. In moments of excitement, of happiness, she wanted to scream from the top of Cincinnati's tallest high-rise, tell the whole world her secret. But in moments of despair, which were occurring with far more frequency, she wanted to run so far her body would never find her.
“All I'm doing is a little private charity work,” she told her assistant. “There's nothing wrong in my
arranging for funds through a children's charity I happen to be involved with. The child needs surgery and his parents can't afford it.”
Her brows disappearing beneath her fringe of dark bangs, Jill said, “I suppose not.”
“Besides...” Susan shot a glance outside her window, to the tepid March day. She could empathize with the weak ray of sun trying to burn its way through the haze. “It's not enough, anyway. The surgery will solve part of his problem. But he won't have a life without physical therapy and there are no funds for that.”
“This is really getting to you, isn't it?” Jill asked, still standing in front of Susan's desk.
“Yeah.” Along with everything else. For once in her life, Susan wondered if she'd taken on more than she could handle.
So she rationalized. Her period was late because she was tense. She hadn't gone this long without talking to Michael since the first year after their divorce. And she'd been late then, too. Of course, that could have been because she'd gone off birth control pills and her cycle was messed up.
However, not having seen or heard from Michael in six weeks, she knew she couldn't stall any longer. She was well and truly on her own. Or rather, well and truly without Michael. It was time to find out if she was alone or notâa single woman or a mother-to-be.
She'd bought the home pregnancy test weeks ago. The time had come to use it.
If nothing else, she rationalized as she drove home from work, once she knew, she'd have an excuse to
call Michael. Maybe even get him to make love to her once more...
She remained calm until she actually had to go and see the test result. Trembling, she started to cry even before she was in the bathroom door. Either way, the news was terrible.
Either way, she needed to find out.
She'd give
anything
to know she could have Michael back, return to the way things had been.
And she'd give just as much to know that she did indeed have a baby, one she and Michael had created together, growing right there inside her.
Like a child fighting the inevitable, she shut her eyes the second she stepped through the door. But not before she'd seen. Shaking, moving a little closer in her self-imposed darkness, she counted to three and quickly flashed her eyes open, then shut them again.
The result was the same. She didn't need to look a third time. Tears squeezed out of her tightly closed lids, slid down her cheeks and off her chin. Susan sank weakly to the floor, her legs no longer capable of supporting her.
And yet, as she sat there, propped against the bathroom door, a small burst of joy exploded within her, spreading until it touched her face, her lips. She was grinning like an idiot. And crying, too.
She was pregnant.
Â
“HELLO?” Home for the first time in weeks, Michael had a premonition as soon as he heard the telephone ring.
“Michael?”
He knew he shouldn't have answered the damn
thing. “Hello, Susan.” What else was there to say?
I've been waiting to hear from you?
He'd been avoiding her like the plague.
It's good to hear your voice?
It wasn't. He felt panicked.
“How are you?” He asked the innocuous question only when the silence had dragged on so long he couldn't stand that, either.
“Pregnant.”
Oh. God. She wasn't supposed to just blurt it out like that!
“Well, goodbye...” she saidâand hung up.
Stunned, Michael pulled the phone away from his ear, looked at it a moment before dropping it back in its cradle. She'd never given him a chance to think, let alone speak.
He'd been on his way out to buy some groceries, but took off his jacket and threw it on the couch instead. Pouring himself a drink, he downed it in one gulp. Then, for want of anything else to do, he poured another. And paced. His living room. His kitchen. His office. The bedroom. And when he ran out of rooms, he took a hike around the complex.
Everything looked exactly the same as it had when he'd arrived a couple of hours before. Hell, it all looked exactly as he'd left it two weeks ago, when he'd made a quick trip home to pay some bills.
Why, suddenly did it all feel so different? Nothing had changed. His life was no different from the way it had been an hour before, a year before,
five
years before. He was single. Married to his job. He lived alone. Was responsible for no one. Not even a pet.
Nothing had changed.
“There's absolutely no reason to go,” he told himself as he rounded the corner of his building.
“What was that, Mr. Kennedy?” the elderly widow who lived next door to him called out.
She was pruning her rose bushesâand his, too.
“Nothing, Mrs. Leets.”
“It's good to have you home,” she offered with a friendly smile.
“It's good to be home.” He stopped to watch her carefully pull off a couple of dead leaves. “How's your back?”
“Better.” She smiled at him again. “I never did thank you properly for helping me move that couch.” She'd been rearranging her living room the last time he was home. Said the sun was fading the fabric on her couch.
“No problem.” He was glad he'd been there when she needed him. Chances weren't in favor of that. “You want anything else moved, you just let me know.”
“I will.”
He had things to do here. Laundry to send out and pick up. Mail to get through. He'd scheduled himself home for the entire week, intending to spend a good fifty hours or more at the Smythe and Westbourne office.
But he packed anyway. Just an overnight bag. And drove himself to the airport. Pulling out his credit card, he paid for a flight to Cincinnati, then sat down waiting for it to be called. He had no idea what he was doing. Or why.
Â
OKAY. He knew why he was here. He had to see her.
She was his friend, for God's sake. He could spare
a few hours to make sure she was all right.
To congratulate her. Swerving into a small plaza on the corner by her condo, Michael jumped out and grabbed a bottle of champagne. Dom Perignon. Her favorite.
He was back in the rental before he realized she probably couldn't even drink the damn stuff.
Her condo looked the same as always. Same yard. Same trees. Same Infiniti parked in the drive. So why did everything
feel
different? As though he'd stepped into someone else's life.
Hurrying up the walk, he rang the bell, giving himself no time to reconsiderâto run.
“Congratulations!” He forced the hearty greeting as soon as she opened her door, handing over the bottle. “Guess you'll have to wait until later to drink it.”
“Michael?” She took the champagne. Of course, he'd given her little choice, shoving it into her arms that way.
She looked the same, too. Sort of. She didn't look like a mother or anything.
“Well, see ya,” he said, turned and headed down the walk again, toward the car.
“Michael Kennedy, get back here!”
He stopped but didn't turn. He'd done what he came to do. Now he had to run.
“If you've ever cared for me a stitch in your life, you won't just leave it like this.”
Damn her.
“Like what?” He played stupid. Except that he wasn't playing. Glancing at her, he shook his head.
He was moving through some surreal version of his world. He had no idea what was happening.
“You can't just walk out of my life and pretend I didn't even exist,” she told him.
Sure he could. They were divorced. He was footloose and fancy-free. Wasn't that the point?
Hands in the pockets of his jeans, he turned again and followed her into the condo they'd purchased together all those years ago.
“So, what'd you want to talk about?” He stood in the living room, defensive as all hell.
“Us.” She was also standing, looking way too good in those designer jeans. Her hands on her hips told him she meant business.
Fine. Business was what he did best. “What about âus'?”
“That's what I want to know.”
“We're divorced.” He said the only thing he was sure of.
“That was years ago. I'm talking about
now
.”
“I didn't know divorces expired.”
“Why are you doing this, Michael?” She actually stomped her foot. “Are you trying to tell me we aren't even friends anymore? Is that it?”
Staring down at his feet, he said quietly, “I don't know.”
“Don't know if we're friends?”
He couldn't look at her, was afraid he might see the tears he heard in her voice. “I don't know why I'm doing this. Any of it.”
“Can we talk about it?” Her voice softened as she grabbed his hand, pulled him gently toward the couch.
“If I knew what to say, we'd have talked weeks ago.”
She was so beautiful sitting there, her hair tumbling in stylish layers about her face. “Can't you at least tell me a little of what you're feeling?” she asked.
“Trapped.”
“By what?” Her eyes were clouded with worryâand hurt. “Me?”
“No.” He wished he could give her what she wanted, wished he knew what that was. “I don't know.”
“Are you angry with me?”
“No!” He almost wished he was. Anger he knew what to do with.
“Do you hate me?”
Reaching out, Michael ran his hand along her face, loving the softness of her skin. “Of course not,” he said.
“You've never gone six weeks without calling.”
“I know.”
She waited, obviously needing more. He could only give her what he had to give.
“I missed you.” She continued to hold his gaze bravely.
“I missed you, too.” He had, he realized. Desperately.
“Does it have to be this way now? Not keeping in touch?” Her voice broke and she looked away.
“I don't know, Sus.” His answer was straight from the heart.
She nodded. Stood. Moved away from him.
“I have a new job.” He hadn't meant to blurt out the words. He wasn't sure he'd meant to tell her at
all. But being there with her, he couldn't keep the news to himself any longer.
She spun around. “You do?” Surprise replaced the pain in her eyes.
“A promotion, really.”
“With Smythe and Westboume?” She frowned. “I thought you were already as high as you could go with them.”
“I was.” He wished she'd sit back down. “But I had a meeting with Coppel in Atlanta a couple of months ago.”
“A couple of
months
ago?” She sank down to the couch.
Michael nodded. In the old days, this would have been good news. “I've been promoted to vice president of finance for Coppel Industries.”
“My gosh!” She smiled, her eyes round. “Congratulations!” She even leaned over and planted a quick kiss on his lips before she remembered herself.
“So...” She was frowning again. “You're moving to Atlanta?”
“No.” Michael shrugged. He wasn't sure what he was going to do. One place was the same as another when he was mostly away in hotel rooms. “I'll probably keep my condo for now.”