A Date on Cloud Nine (20 page)

“We both knew they’re manipulative.”

“Now there’s an understatement.” He cocked his head and studied her intently. “He really loved you, you know. And for good reason.” His thumb absently traced circles on the back of her hand, holding the connection between them even as Lilly felt the topic shift. “Can I tell you something?”

“Maybe.” If it was anything like
we need to slow down
—maybe caring for her was scaring him—she’d better be ovulating, like
now
.

“I don’t want to scare you…”

Too late
.

“I know we met years ago, but we’ve really only known each other a few weeks.”

Just under, by her count. She held her breath, hoping this wasn’t
We’re moving too fast
or
We should take a break
. She wanted a baby, yes, but more than that, she wanted the whole package. She wanted Jake, marriage, happily ever after; her limited window of opportunity made her impatient.

“And I don’t expect you to feel the same way yet,” he said, “but it’s all the time I need. Lilly, I love you.” He caressed her hand between both of his, squeezed it, drew it to his lips. He nuzzled her knuckles, keeping a little space between them while he pinned her with his gaze and finished what he’d begun. “It’s fast, I know—a real whirlwind—but there’s not a single doubt in my heart.”

She couldn’t believe her ears. Oh, she’d felt it last night; she knew he was in love with her. She just didn’t know
he
knew it.

“That’s great! Jake, I lo—”

He pressed his fingers against her lips, cutting off her reply. “No, don’t. You don’t have to say it just because I did. This is a long-standing tradition in my family, love at first sight. I expected it. Damn, I probably should’ve been more romantic and sprinkled camellia petals on the sheets and lit candles, right?” He grinned crookedly, then. “But as much as you enjoy food, French toast and powdered sugar was probably better.”

She mumbled, “But, Jake,” against his fingertips.

“Wait, there’s more. You should know I’ve loved you since the day we met.”

She tugged his hand away from her mouth. “But I
want
to—Oh.”

“Yeah. Your wedding day.” He shook his head ruefully. “Don’t think that didn’t make me feel like a heel, falling for my best friend’s bride.”

So many things made sense now; the anger, the running away, the guilt. “That’s why you left town so fast.”

“Yes.”

“And stayed away.” She groaned, not sure he hadn’t delivered the bomb yet. “You’re not going to tell me we can’t do this anymore, are you? I couldn’t stand it if you do.”

“No.” The teasing light she was so used to returned to his eyes. “I held out as long as I could, though. And even if you don’t love me yet, you’ll catch up.”

“You’re not going to believe me, are you? I love you, you think it’s too fast, and therefore you’re not going to believe me.” He, who had so much trouble with beliefs.

“It hasn’t been as long for you.”

“Ah. And you’re a ‘hard data’ kind of guy.”

“True.”

She framed his face with her hands this time, said, “Then analyze this,” and placed her lips on his, softly, tenderly pledging her love in a language she hoped he could connect with. Tumbling him onto his back, they shared a long, lascivious kiss that surely spoke to all his senses, inside and out, and told him she, too, had no doubts. She segued into planting slow, feather-light kisses over his chin, down his neck, down his chest.

“Would you do something for me?” He gasped as she pushed his robe aside and flicked her tongue over a nipple.

“Something wicked, I hope.”

“Look, uh…” He seemed to have trouble forming a coherent thought as she worked her way lower. “While I appreciate the thought, you know, about the
ah
—About the insurance, the fact is, there’s only one way I could collect. You’d have to—” He cleared his throat. “And uh—Geez, wait, just let me say—”

Struggling for words, he pulled her on top of him, into the circle of his arms, where he framed her face with his big hands in the tender, protective way she’d come to identify with him and only him, the way she loved him to touch her. He looked her straight in the eyes, making her feel like the only woman in his universe, as if the house could fall down around their ears and he wouldn’t even notice as long as she was right there in front of him.

“I lost you once before when you married Brady, but I understood that I was too late then. Now I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“You won’t have to find out. Jake, I love you. I’m here to stay. That’ll be your hard data. Every morning when you wake up and see me sleeping beside you, you’ll know. I promise.” She sat up on him, unwrapped her towel slowly, and tossed it aside. “Now, where was I?”

Lilly made a stab at cooking the next meal for Jake. She wasn’t quite sure where this domestic streak had come from, but if there was anyone she wanted to cook for, it was he. She’d opened a can of broth, dumped in rice and frozen vegetables, and was watching carefully to keep the
soup from boiling over when Elizabeth suddenly appeared in the middle of the kitchen.

“
Holy mother of
—Swear to me you’ll never show up when we’re making love.”

“Mm, sorry,” Elizabeth said with a sly grin. “I’m pretty sure swearing is against the rules.”

Lilly winced, equally sure she’d messed up there. “I’m
trying
to clean up my act.” She rooted through a cabinet, found a jar of dried basil, sniffed it, then dumped a spoonful into the soup.

“Your attempt has been less than stellar.”

“But you’re not here about that.”

Elizabeth’s grin disappeared.

“What? Shit, you’re not here to take me back. You can’t be. I’m doing everything you said—”

“Yes, well, about that. I had so much to tell you, and I had a feeling I’d forgotten something very important.”

“Oh no. No no no, we had a deal. You gave me the rules. I agreed. Quit pacing, goddammit, and talk to me.”

Elizabeth pulled a chair out from the table, and way too quietly said, “You’d better sit down.”

Lilly backed against the counter. “I’m not going.”

“Well, yes, eventually you are.”

“Eventually.” Lilly sighed with relief. “Minus the five years you just scared me out of. I’m in love with Jake. That’s good, right? I can marry him and have the family I’ve always—
What?
”

Elizabeth, still pacing, had her face buried in her hands and was shaking her head slowly. Regretfully.

Feeling cold, as if all the blood suddenly drained out of her body, Lilly closed her eyes and whispered, “Just tell me.”

“Remember how I said you’d died too early?”

Lilly nodded.

Elizabeth faced her then and took a deep breath. “You weren’t supposed to die before your next birthday. But, Lilly, I never meant you to believe you’d live
past
your next birthday either. I just didn’t think to say it.”

L
illy sank to the kitchen floor, her back against the wall. Literally and proverbially. She was alone.

Grant me serenity
.

She’d blown that concept all to hell, and no, she wasn’t concerned about a little more cussing at this point—what difference did it make now?

How had this happened? It had all seemed so easy in Transition. Go back, get pregnant, get poor—well, that last part hadn’t seemed easy, but then it wasn’t the part weighing on her mind right now, either.

She was still going to die.

No matter that she really wanted babies to love and raise and do a better job of it than her mother had. To hug and cuddle and do PTA and carpooling, attend Little League and soccer games, go trick-or-treating, the whole nine yards. To watch her firstborn grow into a man, strong and caring like his father.

But
nooo
, she had to give birth and abandon her infant
practically in the same day. Maybe even the same day, for all she knew. She hadn’t asked.

God, grant me courage
to deal with this.

Besides being unfair to her son, this was so beyond unfair to Jake that she didn’t even have a word for it. He’d be a single father. Not that he wouldn’t have lots of support—he was on the phone with at least one sister every day—but he’d refuse to be anything but a hands-on dad, when what he needed was the time to reestablish himself and his business.

She’d been on the losing end when Brady had died, and before that, when she’d miscarried. She knew how hard it was to be left behind to grieve. Jake didn’t deserve such pain, such sorrow.

This was just too awful. Lilly heard Jake in his basement office, heard his chair squeak as he moved. She wanted to run to him, curl up on his lap, tuck her head beneath his chin, and let him make it all better, but he couldn’t. She needed space, time to be alone with her thoughts and see if it was possible to make peace with this. Time to figure out what to do about it. She postponed most of her appointments for that day, hoping Jake would jump at the opportunity to be on his own and go somewhere.

No such luck, so she had him drop her at the mall.

“What’re you doing?” she asked, when he pulled into a slot.

“Parking.”

“But I’ll be here for hours. I’ll call you when I’m done.”

“Lilly, it might help to talk.”

It didn’t surprise her that he knew something was
amiss, but it wouldn’t help her to discuss it until she had a better handle on it. It certainly wouldn’t help him. “I’m meeting Betsy.”

“I like Betsy.”

No way she could be objective with Jake beside her; she needed time alone.
Grant me wisdom
.

“We’ll be doing girl stuff, Jake.”

“Oh.” Then a more enlightened, “Ohhh.”

Though his brow puckered, he didn’t ask what kind of girl things two grown women did in a public mall. Growing up with sisters apparently had bestowed some wisdom about when to keep his mouth shut. And so he dropped her at the mall entrance, promising to return in a few hours, sooner if she called.

She wasn’t meeting Betsy, of course, because she really did need to be by herself. Lunch at Bread Company; totally alone in a crowd. Strolling both levels of the mall; completely ignored by everyone, even when she became so engrossed in her thoughts that she stopped walking and shoppers had to split into smaller groups to ripple around her. Especially when she kept sniffling and wiping tears away.

Dying wouldn’t be so peaceful this time; it would hurt too bad to leave Jake. But the real kicker was: If it hurt this bad to leave him, think how he’d feel.

There should be a
grant me strength
part to that prayer.

He hadn’t asked for her to come back into his life, sleep with him, fill him with hope and thoughts of the future. He didn’t deserve to have his heart bruised and battered.

If she was this vested in Jake’s feelings after a matter of weeks, she couldn’t even imagine how she was going to feel
about leaving her son after being connected twenty-four/ seven for nine months. When her nanny had asked what her favorite toy was, she’d said her dolls because they were her babies and they needed her. When one of her boarding school teachers asked what she wanted to be when she grew up, she said a mommy. What an innocent she’d been.

Bringing any baby into the Marquette family would have been a mistake, especially one who was supposed to do great things. Why give the little guy a rocky start?

But Jake’s family—now there was a bunch of people who looked out for each other, stayed in touch daily. They obviously liked each other a lot, and each other’s kids, too. All the family photos, in the house, on the dash, provided a silent window into his world, which was just where she would’ve liked to raise her babies. Mommy and children get-togethers instead of nannies. Cousins in the same class instead of boarding school. Touch football on the lawn on Thanksgiving.

But it wasn’t to be. She couldn’t change what she’d agreed to; she had to take control of the time she had left. If she was lucky, she’d met the goal that would allow her to stay another nine months, because she
so
wanted all that time with Jake. She needed it, too, to prepare him for the inevitable. He needed it, even if he didn’t know it. But just in case, before she left the mall, she bought everything she needed to know on timing ovulation.

If she was going to go through with this and bring her son into a world without being there to guide him through the pitfalls, was it possible to eliminate some of them
now
? To shape his future
before
his birth? Jake was about as perfect as a man came, except for his annoying habit of writing off everything that didn’t have a basis in scientific fact.
Considering what had transpired with John and Elizabeth to conceive him in the first place, that was just wrong.

Lilly took the only route she had. She purchased the book Jake was going to read to pay off his bet and begin to open his mind. Hopefully. This book this month, another one next month, and who knew? Maybe, by the time she was called back, he’d come around.

Jake finally had reason to be grateful that he’d grown up at the mercy of all his sisters’ mysterious moods; otherwise, he wouldn’t have a clue what was up with Lilly when he picked her up at the mall.

“Feel better?”

“I’m fine,” she said. No teasing retort about how he could feel her and see for himself. No sassy bounce in her step. When her cell phone rang as they headed into the city, she checked caller ID and slammed the phone onto the seat. “Ha! Like I want to talk to Donna?”

“You, uh, given any thought to filing charges against the Marquettes?”

“Life’s too short. It’s not worth the headache.”

He wisely thought if he wanted to know more about that, he’d have a better chance of getting an answer later when she was more herself.

He tagged along on the one appointment she hadn’t canceled. He had no pressing business at the moment—just waiting on a call back, and he had his cell phone handy at all times. In half an hour, they were in and out of an organization that helped low-income parents with high utility bills. Lilly was a hundred thousand dollars lighter.

“I see you quit closing your eyes when you sign checks.”

“Yeah.” An infectious smile played at the corners of
her mouth as they returned to the car. “I pretend it’s Donna’s money. And Drew’s.”

“Good one.”

When they were home a while, and she’d mellowed him up with a glass of wine, Lilly cuddled up beside him on the sofa and handed him a numerology book.

“I knew you wouldn’t pick one out, so I did it for you.”

“Oh gee, you shouldn’t have.”

“No problem.” Her voice sparkled with mischief. “I told the clerk that you’re very scientific and analytical, so he recommended this.”

Jake flipped through the pages, pausing to peruse a couple. There were actually
rules
to this crap. He’d think twice before making any more bets with her.

“Scientific and analytical, huh?”

“Well, it was that or palmistry, and I didn’t think you had enough hands around to make a fair study of it. But names, everybody knows lots of names. Family, friends, people you went to school with. Geez, Jake, don’t look like it’s your last meal or something. I’m not saying you have to believe
everything
. Just open that big sexy brain of yours to other possibilities, okay?”

“You think brains are sexy, huh?” He was intrigued. His sisters had taken him aside and explained the brains-and-brawn concept the week he’d started high school.

“Some girls go for brawn,” Julie had said.

“Some go for brains,” Jessica added.

“And since you’ve been blessed with a double dose of both, little brother, you’re going to be beating them off with a stick.”

“Cool,” he said, more than ready for his share.

“But our girlfriends go to that high school, too.”

“Treat them right—all of them—or you’ll answer to us.”

With four sisters, he’d learned fast, and those lessons put him in a good position now as Lilly tapped her index finger on the text, and said, “Just think of it as entertainment.”

He could tell it was important to her, and since he didn’t want to set off any female land mines, he humored her with a nod, albeit a grave one.

Lilly dashed outdoors most evenings to help Susannah take advantage of the nice weather and clear last year’s growth out of her flower gardens, which really seemed to refresh her mood. He read the damned book. He even experimented with names and numbers during the hours she spent doing her philanthropy thing.

“Any validity to numerology?” she asked after donating money to a program to keep kids in school.

Just the opportunity he’d been waiting for. He whipped the taxi over to the curb, plucked the hissing cat off Lilly’s lap, and tossed her the book. “I marked some of the pages.”

“So you can go back and read them, I hope.”

“To share. Read what it says about me. I followed all the rules, used my middle name. Go on, read. Page fifty.”

“You’re baiting me, aren’t you?” She flipped through pages dotted with sticky notes, found the passage he’d nearly obliterated with scores of questions and exclamation points, and spent a minute reading.

“See?”

“I see engineers take the same penmanship class as doctors.”

Oh, she couldn’t distract him that easily. “Admit it, doesn’t sound like me, does it?”

“‘You have a keen sense of perfection. You like to ana
lyze and examine things from all angles.’ What part of that isn’t you?”

“It says I meditate. I don’t meditate. And there’s more, read on.”

“‘You love libraries.’ Hm, who was so protective of Brady’s collection?”

“Skip that part.”

“‘You’re intellectual, scientific, dedicated, loyal, honest—’”

He roared with frustration and snatched the book out of her hands, ignoring her bubbling laughter. “‘The world is better off because of your meticulous attention to detail.’ Give me a break.” He tossed it back onto her lap.

She shrugged, a silent
Who’s to say?

“It’s crap.”

“Maybe you need to do someone you can be more objective about.”

“I’d like to do you,” he said with a wicked grin.

“Don’t try to change the subject. How about one of your neighbors?”

“I don’t know any of their middle names and I damn well am not going to ask.”

“Brady, then.”

He processed that. “Can
you
be objective about him?”

“I think so.”

He reached for the book, but she shielded it with her body and turned toward her door.

“You’re driving, I think I’ll do a little reading between stops. Ooh, this looks interesting. ‘You’re disciplined and focused—’”

“If you quit, I’ll do some work over at Susannah’s tonight.”

“‘You’re thrifty, responsible, and orderly.’”

“Then you’ll have a pan of Chocolate Orgasms by morning.”

“All to myself.” It wasn’t a question.

“All to yourself.”

Resigned to her fate—what was the use of fighting it? Elizabeth had all the power—Lilly was determined to think positively, to move forward. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t ovulated yet, but maybe the stress of getting blown up had thrown her system way out of whack. At least that’s what her GYN said when Lilly’d called her. Surely it would happen any day. Surely her time here wouldn’t run out so soon.

She still missed the solace of puttering about in her atrium, but it helped a lot to take advantage of the early-spring weather and labor in Susannah’s garden. They were clearing it and laying border bricks to expand into a new area.

Lilly’d been right about Jake’s being a sucker for women in distress. All Susannah had to do was pick up a brick and look as if it hurt her back, and he’d started lugging the rest of them over from the stockpile beside his garage.

Tsk
, poor guy got so hot working in the sun, he had to peel off his shirt.

The only way she could keep her hands off him until they were alone was by working herself half to death. It was nothing less than a darned shame to let all that testosterone—

“Lilly, sugar, those are my daffodils,” Susannah complained.

“Oh, sorry, I was, uh…”

“Distracted, yes, I know. If I were forty years younger,
I’d be distracted, too.” Susannah shook her head. “Land sakes, what am I saying? Five years.”

Lilly sighed wistfully. “There’s just something about a man in boots and jeans and nothing else.”

Had to be the way Jake’s muscles rippled and bulged as he stacked bricks in his arms.

He dropped another load at their feet, handy to where they were digging them in all nice and neat. Lilly suspected he knew exactly what he was doing to her because he could use a wheelbarrow if he wanted to. There was one in the garage, she’d pointed out, but he claimed he needed the exercise.

Yeah, right.
As if she hadn’t heard the weights clacking up and down in the gym every other morning.

“Hey, Jake, how about taking some pictures?”