“Pleased to meet you.” It was easy to smile as he imagined her making a similar archeological find.
“You and Jamie have the same beautiful smile.”
Her handshake was surprisingly firm, and he remembered she was a successful businesswoman, the decorator who had earned a substantial payday turning Jamie’s penthouse into a masculine sanctuary. He wondered how soon the feminine touches would start showing up, or if his brother would be paying for a complete decorating makeover.
“C’mon, we were just going to throw some lunch together.” Jamie reached for Pamela’s hand and pulled her behind him toward the kitchen. Jake trailed after them, already feeling extraneous. Soon, maybe before she left today, she’d be evaluating him the same way she’d examine the sofa cushions and drapes. Stay, or go? Sorry, the brother has to go, he doesn’t match the decor.
The lunch they were “throwing together” had obviously been purchased at an expensive deli. Pamela pulled trays of rich delicacies from the refrigerator, including smoked salmon, pâté, and caviar. He avoided the meat and seafood and filled a plate with marinated baby vegetables, hummus, and over-processed bread with all its nutrition removed. Was this the sort of food Violet would feed Daisy after she weaned her from the breast? He shuddered, and he wasn’t sure which thought had caused it — Daisy eating a bad Western diet or Violet’s breast.
“Your brother told me you’re a vegetarian, but you’ll eat some salmon and caviar, right?” Pamela reached past him for the bread and gave him a good view of her own cleavage, suspiciously cavernous for such a slight woman.
Why did Americans have to tweak everything? From the food they ate and the places they lived to their very flesh, nothing was left natural. He pictured Violet opening her door to him the other day in her milk-stained cotton robe, her glossy dark hair pulled back and her face free of make-up. He’d never seen anything as beautiful, despite his anger at her, and he’d seen a lot of amazing sights.
“Maybe later,” he told Pamela. He’d learned it was best not to challenge the natives about their eating habits.
“Join me in a beer?” Jamie poured the glass before Jake could answer, so he accepted it without comment. “So, what’s your big news?”
“News?” He was eyeing the beer, which was the same dark amber as Daisy’s eyes, and thinking it would be refreshing to take a nice, long swallow. Not to mention a good delaying tactic. So he did. When he set the glass back down on the table, with the rich, bitter taste lingering on his tongue, he saw Jamie and Pamela were both waiting for him to speak. He finally had his brother’s full attention, but something made him hold back from making his announcement in Pamela’s presence.
“Oh, no big deal. My publisher called to tell me they ordered another printing of the last book, and he expects the next one to outsell all the others.”
Jamie shot him a questioning look, perfect eyebrows raised, probably because Jake rarely discussed his finances or his career successes. He reached across the table to slap him a high-five when Jake didn’t say anything more. “Mom and Dad would have been really proud of you, bro!”
“It sounds like you’ll be able to get your own penthouse.” Pamela’s smile was all innocence. “I can recommend a great decorator.”
Nice touch. Get rid of the brother, and make a big commission at the same time.
“I’m not interested in owning any property.” Because he wasn’t used to alcohol, the beer was already starting to spread warmth to his extremities and soften the hard edges of things, but he could see more would be needed to get through this lunch. He tipped the glass up while Jamie explained him to Pamela.
“Jake’s the kind of guy who keeps his boots by the door and his carry-on packed, and he always has been. He just rents my guest room for a few months once a year or so.”
Before he could tell Jamie he was planning to make other living arrangements, his brother brought up a new subject.
“Honey, I forgot to tell you my brother knows that anchorwoman, the one named after a flower. Verbena?”
“Violet,” he corrected.
Pamela turned her too-white smile on him. He’d been fighting the impulse to stare at people’s teeth ever since he returned from Tibet; apparently a new craze had everyone bleaching their teeth to blinding brightness.
“You know Violet Gallagher? I was hired by her station to decorate her townhouse when she first moved to Boston, but it didn’t work out.” The laughter she tacked on to the end of every statement was starting to annoy him. Hadn’t Jamie noticed it?
He shrugged. “As I told Jamie, I just met her once at a party.” He shot his brother a warning glance, which he ignored. As usual.
“I was afraid my little bro was the father of her child.”
Jake drained the rest of his beer while the other two laughed at Jamie’s comment, and jumped up to get another one from the refrigerator.
“No,” Pamela said. “I know who the father is.”
“How would you know that?” Jake asked without thinking.
She was oblivious to the reproach in his voice and continued blithely on, her eyes sparkling in a way they hadn’t until now. He added gossiping to the growing list of her faults.
“Well, she wanted to do her own decorating, and I can only imagine how it turned out! But I went to her townhouse for two consultations, and both times there was a man staying with her. He said he lived in California, and I heard him on the phone talking to his wife. One of those bicoastal guys. I suspected she was pregnant even then, and of course a couple months later it was public knowledge. I got a good laugh out of that trumped-up story about a sperm donor.”
Jake returned the unopened beer to Jamie’s fridge. He’d need something much higher octane than beer to tolerate Pamela.
“Tell me, did the lawyer from California look a lot like Violet?”
She appeared to think about it, but instead of her brow wrinkling in concentration like a normal person’s, her eyes just got wider. Botox?
“They both had the same really dark hair, I guess, and blue eyes. Why?”
“Because that was her brother. Not the father of her child.” He headed for the hallway, and turned around when he reached the doorway. “And one more thing. Her townhouse looks great.”
He was almost to the elevator when he heard his brother behind him.
“Jake? What just happened? Where are you going?”
He’d like to go back to Tibet. That might be just about far enough away from Pamela, and people like her. But he’d miss the chance to get to know Daisy, to hold her chubby hand while she learned to walk, and hear her say “dada” for the first time. But he was going to miss all those things anyway. He’d be — where? He couldn’t even remember. Someplace with beautiful scenery, where he’d take pictures of native women holding their babies and be haunted by visions of Violet and Daisy.
“Just grabbing my boots. They’re right here by the door.”
• • •
Jake had said he’d arrive midmorning on Sunday so he’d have plenty of time to set up the cameras before Carrie came home, but this time Violet didn’t stress about pastries, Daisy’s schedule, or what to wear. She might have to share her child with Jake Macintyre, but she didn’t have to act like a foolish schoolgirl in his presence. Until she opened the door and saw him. His tousled curly hair and sleepy-looking eyes made her think he’d just gotten out of bed. “Jake” and “bed” in the same thought made heat rise to her face.
“I hope you have coffee.” Oblivious to her flushed face, he dumped a stack of boxes in her foyer and headed for the kitchen. He took a mug from the cupboard as casually as if he’d lived there for years.
“Help yourself.” Her teasing was good natured. She still couldn’t take her eyes off him as he reached for the cup and poured the coffee, his muscles rippling visibly under his wrinkled white T-shirt. “Did you have a rough night?”
He sipped the steaming brew, finally peering at her over the brim of the cup. “Ah, I needed that. I slept in an unfamiliar bed. You know how that can be.”
More sarcastic remarks came to mind, none of them good natured now. But if Jake Macintyre had spent last night in another woman’s bed, what was it to her? “With all the traveling you do, I’d think you’d get used to that.”
He’d probably slept with women in strange beds all over the world in the past twelve months, while she grew to the size of a circus fat lady with his child inside her. The thought had not escaped her while she was pushing what felt like a small car out of her body.
“I do, but only after a few days. Say, where’s my girl?”
“Napping. She won’t be up for another forty-five minutes.” She poured herself a cup of coffee too, although it would be her third of the morning. “We were up at six. I’m sure I’d have no trouble at all sleeping in a strange bed, or even on a rock.”
“Done it,” he said, flashing his twinkling smile. “I’ll get started down here. I have two cameras for the nursery and one for the living room.”
“Can I help?” She followed him back to the front hall, where he pulled a couple boxes off the pile.
“Do you have a set of tools?”
“Just the basics. I bought safety latches to install on my cabinets and I was planning to have Seth or Richard install them for me.” She opened the front closet and took out the still-unopened toolbox.
“These will do. I can do the childproofing stuff too, but I might have to stay for lunch. I saw an Indian place down the street where I can get takeout. Do you like curry?”
“Lunch?” She hadn’t expected him to stay more than a couple hours, and eating together seemed so … intimate. Then she realized she was back to her foolish thoughts and behavior of the previous day. She’d given birth to the man’s baby after having the best sex of her life with him, but they couldn’t share a meal from a cardboard container?
He grinned. “The meal between breakfast and dinner?”
“Curry would be great.” She didn’t tell him she had the restaurant’s number on her speed dial, assigned to the number three. Only because the pizza place was number two, and number one was assigned to her mother. She loved to cook, even just for herself, and dinner parties were her favorite way to entertain. But the last party she could remember had taken place in her Wickham apartment.
Jake set up the cameras while Violet cleaned in the kitchen and picked up baby clothes and toys. Even when he wasn’t in her immediate proximity she was constantly aware of him, and not sure how she felt about having this man in her house. She’d never lived with a man, but had imagined how it would be. Sometimes absorbed in his own interests, but with a spark of connection always between them — the way her mother and David Gallagher were together. She turned her head and their eyes caught and held for a moment before he returned to his task.
He was here because of Daisy, she knew that, but what about the attraction he’d felt to her last year? Was it completely gone? She caught sight of herself in the mirror over the mantel and almost laughed. The difference between her appearance the night of her party last June and now was like comparing Cinderella the night of the ball to one of her ugly stepsisters — or maybe even her step
mother
.
Less than an hour later they heard Daisy “talking” over the baby monitor and she went up to get her. When she reached the bottom of the stairs with the baby in her arms, Jake was removing a teddy bear with a big red bow from one of the boxes. Daisy started to kick and reach for the toy.
Jake laughed. “I’m sorry, sweetie, but this isn’t a present. It’s a special teddy bear designed to hold a spy camera. It will sit on a shelf in your bookcase and tell us all your secrets.”
“I plan to leave it there until she goes to college.” Violet distracted the baby with a bright pink teething ring, which Daisy got to her mouth on the third try.
“I do want to do something, though,” Jake said as he flattened the empty boxes, “but I need to speak to my lawyer first.”
Violet involuntarily tightened her hold on Daisy when she heard the word “lawyer,” making her whimper and drop her toy.
Jake reached for the baby, and she held out her dimpled arms to him. Violet, however, was physically unable to let her go. “Your lawyer?”
He sighed and let his arms drop to his sides. “Violet, I know you’d like me to just disappear, but that isn’t going to happen. I’m Daisy’s father, and that means something to me. The least I can do is make sure she’s taken care of financially. I’m going to talk to my lawyer about setting up a trust fund.”
“Daisy doesn’t need your money.”
“I know you have a high-paying career right now, but I want to be sure you and Daisy will always be taken care of, even if something unexpected happens.”
There was a time when Violet believed she could control her destiny, then a pink pregnancy test stick had changed her thinking. But when she decided to become a single mother, she’d vowed she would do it on her own.
Daisy was still flirting with Jake, and he wasn’t — at least right now — suing her for custody, so she handed the baby to him. She had to give him some credit for at least trying to do the right thing.
“Jake, my father, my biological father, was…”
“Monty McCall. Richard told me.”
“When I was a kid, we didn’t have any money. I didn’t have a father, either. Monty — he actually made us call him that, can you believe it? — popped in at odd times that never coincided with our birthday or holidays and showered us with gifts. Even when he started to make money, he never remembered to pay the child support, and my mother was too proud to force him. I had the world’s fanciest bride doll, but my shoes were too tight. Still, I’d have rather had a father in my life than comfortable shoes.”
The baby was starting to squirm, because Jake was ignoring her and frowning at her mother.
“Violet, I’m not Monty McCall. I want to be part of Daisy’s life. You’re the one telling me to go away.”
She realized her hands were clenched into fists. “A child should have stability. Can you give her that?”
He sighed. “I don’t know
what
I can give her yet. You’ve had a year to decide what kind of father I would or wouldn’t be, even though you know almost nothing about me. But because you thought it best to keep me in the dark, I’ve only had a few days to think about it.”