“Yes.”
“All right. But tell him what’s going on, I’ll get in touch with you later this week when he leaves, and we’ll figure out what to do next.”
“I’m not telling Brett anything. He’ll be with me. I’ll be fine. I don’t need handling by you. You have enough to handle with Vanessa. Why complicate your life more?” She turned and headed back into the tent.
He stared after her. He’d messed up everything with her tonight, because he was tied in knots over her, and he’d yet to figure out why.
He’d thought about grabbing her and simply kissing her on the moonlit beach, surrounded by the soft glow of the party behind them. Kiss her and then what? He didn’t want to do what he normally did with dates. And that’s what had him so bothered. He wanted more than that. Way more, he was starting to think. He kicked at the sand near his toe. It crusted over the black tip of his leather dress shoe. He flung the dark sand off.
Too bad his secrets made that impossible. And perhaps that’s what had him so pissed off. He had commitments he couldn’t change, not for anything or anyone, even Sarah, and those secrets were precisely what Sarah would end up hating him for.
Brett stayed for several days and Sarah found it more of a nuisance than anything. He slept on the couch after his one failed attempt at sleeping with her. She’d firmly explained they were nothing but friends. He was shocked to be turned down. But she couldn’t do it. There was no way she could be with him when she couldn’t focus her head on him long enough to listen to him finish a sentence. There was no chemistry. There should be, but she didn’t feel it. She felt mild interest in him, nothing more. Other things occupied her thoughts; like Scott, Vanessa, Angie, and her stalker. She was glad Brett was around but only for the protection he provided.
But then again, she’d heard nothing more from her would-be stalker, and she was starting think maybe the bastard had moved on from her, or that it had all been a mean prank.
She hoped at least.
When Brett left, she saw him off with little more than a wave good-bye. What was wrong with her? He was a movie star, and she waved him off because why? Why the sudden lack of interest? Why didn’t she mess around with him just for the fun of it? But no. Her libido failed to even notice that Brett was even a man.
But she certainly noticed Scott Delano was.
Angie worked faithfully, but she had her driver’s license back, so Scott didn’t come pick her up after work anymore. Was she glad? No. No she missed seeing him every day. She missed that terribly.
Still, so what? She had other things to do and worry about.
Scott called after Brett left to see where she was staying. She told him not to worry about her. Scott would feel a sense of responsibility toward her, and suddenly that’s the last thing she wanted. She would not become another of his responsibilities or commitments. No, thank you. What did she want to be with Scott? Friends? No. She knew what a friend felt like, and it wasn’t this. But becoming another of Scott’s one-night stands?
No, thank you
. So staying clear of him was the best strategy.
However completely unsatisfying it felt.
It was several days after the wedding and Sarah had heard nothing from her almost stalker. She heard little from Scott either. It was as if neither had entered her life. It was, however, two things she thought about every day completely puzzled by it all. That was it? She had gone from the extreme of confusion and fears over her few stalking incidents to this sudden, strong attraction to Scott. And now…nothing from either. It left her feeling somehow bereft. Which puzzled her. Of course, she was glad there were no more spooky calls, notes or pictures, but then who had done it? She hadn’t imagined it. Someone had taken the time to creep her out. Why? Who? What did they want? And why did they stop?
It was so unsatisfying that it left her suddenly grouchy and discontented with her life. She was snippy for no reason, and annoyed at people who came into her shop. She even got in an argument with another business owner over the proposal they were submitting to the city council about the suggested beautification for Main Street’s exterior. Sarah couldn’t find her usual diplomatic and compromising ways, so she got in a heated argument with the owner of the shop that dealt in moped and dune buggy rentals.
She was glad when Kelly, now Kelly Tyler, got home from her honeymoon. That helped. Someone to chitchat with, fill the days with more than her work. Still, none of it was enough. None of it made up for the fact that she suddenly found her days, her goals, her missions, unfulfilling. She was unsatisfied now, with a life she felt very satisfied with a few weeks before. And she had a bad feeling that satisfaction had fled with the disappearance of Scott Delano.
****
“I’m going to give her up for adoption.”
Sarah turned from the rack of clothes she’d been rearranging at the sound of Angie’s voice behind her.
“You have?”
“Yes. We looked into it, and I feel like it’s the best thing for me, and probably for the baby.”
Sarah hung the dress back on the rank and turned fully toward Angie. Angie stood before her staring at her toes. “You’re sure about this, Angie?”
“I think so. As sure as I can be. I just wish—”
“What do you wish?”
“That I could make sure I knew she was being raised right. You know? Like be involved but not her mother. I don’t know what I mean. It’s impossible. This whole stupid thing is impossible.”
Angie’s hair was pulled over the side of her face, and her gaze was glued on the floor. Sarah’s heart swelled for the girl. She couldn’t resist, she embraced Angie, feeling the now large lump of the baby straining against her middle.
“It is impossible. But you’re doing good with it, kiddo. You’re handling it like an adult. I’m proud of you.”
Angie flipped her head up, her hair falling back off her face. “Do you mean that?”
“I mean that.”
“Thanks, Sarah. You’re like, I don’t know, you’re really great to me. Like not my mother, but—”
“How about like your friend. You have a mother.” Sarah refrained from adding any more about Vanessa. It was hard not to, but that was not in anyone’s best interest, especially Angie’s.
“Yeah. I like that. Thanks, Sarah.”
“What does your mom say about all this?”
“Well, she’s, you know, kind of whatever about it. She’s still mad at me.”
Sarah restrained a sigh.
“But Uncle Scott’s been cool. He thinks this is the right decision for me. But he keeps reassuring me if I change my mind that’s fine too, and he’ll help me make it work either way.”
“You do realize you’re very lucky to have someone like Scott in your life.”
Angie tilted her head and smiled strangely at Sarah. “Funny, he says the same thing about you, whenever I tell him things you say.”
“You tell him things I say?”
“Well, sure. I see you every day, and we talk. So it gets passed along sometimes. Do you care or something?”
“No. No, of course not. I just haven’t seen your uncle around.”
“Oh, yeah, he’s busy all the time. You know work, and working on one of his current car projects. Plus, he’s always off playing sports and stuff on rec-leagues. Or, you know, going out,” Angie said, as she turned to help a customer who had just walked in. Sarah restrained from following Angie and asking her more about Scott. Angie didn’t notice how she grabbed at the snippets of information that Angie dropped about him. So he liked the advice she gave Angie? That was something, wasn’t it? Anyways, did she really want to know that he was busy from “going out”?
The rest of the week, Sarah couldn’t get Angie and the baby out of her head. Would this adoption harm Angie’s future, or her self-esteem?
Finally, she figured out why it mattered so much; she just might have an answer to Angie’s life, but she was terrified to interfere. Scott’s anger at her for suggesting he needed to do something with his talent rang through her head. Did she do that? Did she control and interfere too much with people, about things she thought should be her way? About things she thought needed to be done. Would she mess things up? Or piss off all involved? But shouldn’t she at least try? For Angie’s sake?
Because what she had in mind had the ability to be life changing for all involved.
****
“So, what’s up? Why do you look so nervous? Sarah, it’s me, you need not be nervous with me. Say what you need to say,” Kelly said, as Sarah nervously fluttered around her desk after having seated Kelly and Luke. They came over directly after work for this discussion at Sarah’s prompting. She glanced with trepidation at Kelly, and then Luke.
“I might not have the right but there is something I want to discuss with you. I want you to have this choice.”
“All right. You must tell us now. We get you’re nervous. But it’s us. Right, Luke?”
“Sure. This is in complete confidence.”
“Okay, here it goes. You know Angie Peters don’t you, Luke?”
“Sure. She was in my geometry class this year. Sophomore. Quiet girl, always has her hair in her face to hide from everyone. Why?”
Kelly’s eyes widened. She probably had guessed where Sarah was going with this odd conversation. “Of course, we know Angie. She’s kind of afraid of me but sweet as can be about it.”
“Not afraid, in awe of you. Anyway, you know she’s pregnant. Not a secret by now.”
Luke nodded. “It was hard for her at school the last month before we got out. I caught a couple of kids teasing her one day. She thanked me for stopping them, and then she wouldn’t look me in the eye the rest of the year.”
“She’s very sensitive. Look, the thing is the baby is a girl, and she’s planning on giving it up for adoption.”
They froze together and separate of each other, straightening in their chairs. They exchanged a look.
“What are you asking us, Sarah?”
“Will you consider being the baby’s adoptive parents? You know that Kelly told me that you can’t have kids. I’m sorry to even mention this, believe me, I never dreamed in any realm you and I would sit here and discuss this. But I felt like I should tell you this. I know you both have discussed adoption at some point in the future. But Angie is in need of it now. Like six weeks from now. And she really wants to know the parents, and where the baby will be raised.”
Luke froze while Kelly sat up at attention.
“A baby? Six weeks? Oh my God, are you for real, Sarah?”
“I know it’s crazy timing. You just got married. But I thought there might be a chance you’d want to do this. I care about Angie, and I’d like to see her fears eased over who the baby will end up with. And I couldn’t think of better parents to ease Angie’s fears.”
“Parents?” Kelly breathed the word out, as if it was a foreign word on her tongue. “God, I’ve never really gotten that far with my thought process of picturing me as a parent.”
Luke was perfectly still and stiff. This was agonizing for him. She regretted causing Luke this stress. Luke’s first wife had died in a car accident while she’d been pregnant. Sarah hadn’t learned until recently that Luke was sterile. He and his first wife had undergone fertility treatment for years before ending up with a sperm donor. Luke had still been paying the fertility clinic when his wife and baby died.
Kelly glanced at Luke. She grabbed his hand. “We don’t have to do this. We don’t even have to talk about it.”
Luke was quiet. He finally shook himself out of his trance as he concentrated on Kelly. His eyes focused back on her face as if realizing he was married to Kelly now, not his first wife. “Yeah, we do. We have to talk about it. Maybe it’s a good idea. One we should consider.”
Kelly looked as if someone had punched her. Sarah could see the raw hope in Luke’s eyes, and now in Kelly’s expression. She was glad she’d at least approached them.
“Look, I haven’t said anything to Angie or her family. Just talk about it. If you’re interested we could talk to them then.”
“You should talk with Scott first,” Luke said, suddenly all business. His tone somehow stronger. “Scott has final say with Angie, more than Vanessa. Her mother is a mess and looks to Scott for any real decisions.”
Luke would know, being Angie’s teacher. “Are you saying you want me to discuss it with them?”
Luke glanced at Kelly who nodded at his silent question. “You can talk with Scott. We’ll all think about it, and if we agree, get together with Angie. Yeah, I think it would be best feeling it out through Scott.”
“And you want me to talk to Scott?” Sarah clarified shocked with Luke’s request.
“Yeah. Aren’t you two close?”
“I’ll talk with him.”
“Thank you, Sarah,” Kelly said later as she hugged Sarah. “This could be—”
“Everything.”
“Yes, truly, everything we ever wanted.”
Sarah waited a few days before working up the courage to call Scott’s house. She was disgruntled when Vanessa answered and she was forced to set up a meeting with Vanessa for when Angie was out of the house. She suggested Vanessa and Scott come her way, but Vanessa had refused. She inwardly sighed and then reminded herself she was getting involved for Angie’s sake, and Kelly’s sake. Not for any reason of wanting to see Scott.
Sarah knocked on their front door on Sunday morning at nine o’clock sharp as Vanessa had specified, because Angie was staying the night at a girlfriend’s. She had taken way too much time getting ready, all in preparation for seeing Scott, since he thought her wardrobe so overdone. She’d ended up with jeans, ironed of course, but jeans still, and a loose fitting blouse that was stylish and feminine looking. She’d left her hair down around her face, trying out her new hair style. She had shorter, sleek hair, just below her chin, and deep bangs framing her face. She reminded herself as she knocked on their front door, that she didn’t care what Scott thought of her.
Finally, the door was opened by Vanessa, wearing her too short robe, bare legged and bare foot. She had good legs, with no cellulite, and the robe rode up high on her thighs. Should she really believe Scott didn’t notice this?