TWO DAYS LATER Pete was still waiting for his mom to tell him she was going to have a baby.
Although J.D. seemed ready to ignore or forget everything they’d overheard that night, Pete had been unable to think of anything else. He didn’t understand why she hadn’t told them yet. Grampa Will and his uncles didn’t count. He was the man of the family now that his dad wasn’t around, and he had to do something to make things easier on his mother.
Especially after last night.
He’d come into the bathroom and found her sitting on the side of the bathtub, crying. She’d pretended she wasn’t and begun rushing around, acting like getting their bathwater just right was the most important thing she’d ever done. But Pete could tell by her red eyes and cheeks that she was upset, and he couldn’t think of anything they’d done recently to cause it. So it had to be the baby.
He didn’t know what to say or do. It scared him a little to see her this sad, so he hadn’t argued when she insisted that they wash their hair and clean their ears. And later, when J.D. started whining about which pajamas he wanted to wear, he shut his brother up with a whispered threat that he’d never see his space cannon again if he didn’t stop being such a baby. Threats like that always worked with J.D.
Then this morning, by accident, Pete had the answer to the whole baby problem.
Mom was in her closet, picking out something to wear to the office. Pete had come into her bedroom to ask if he could have last night’s cold pizza for breakfast, instead of cereal. He sat on the edge of her bed, running his hands over the bedspread, waiting for just the right moment.
There was a file folder on the bed, and when Pete peeked inside, he saw the pictures of the men Mom had talked about interviewing for work. He pulled them out, setting them out on the bedspread.
His reading was good, but he couldn’t make out a lot of the words. The pictures were cool, though. Most of the guys were surrounded by lots of cool things like horses and planes and boats.
“Are you gonna talk to all these guys, Mom?” he asked. “I thought you were done.”
His mother stuck her head out of the closet. “No, unfortunately. In a weak moment I let your aunt Vic talk me into trying again with another one of them.” She watched him lift the pictures for a second, then added, “Don’t mess those up, Petey. I have to take that file back to work.”
The first page in the file was all writing, and he held it up. “What’s this word?”
She sat down beside him. She’d recently taken her morning shower and smelled like flowers. It was a smell he liked, and if he hadn’t been too old, he would have snuggled against her and filled his nose with it.
“Eligible,” she said, then pointed out the words one at a time. “The South’s Ten Most Eligible Bachelors. That was the name of the article.”
“What does…el-elible…mean?”
“Eligible,” she repeated slowly. “In this case it means available. To get married.” She sighed and fluttered her eyelashes at him so that he knew what she was going to say wasn’t really serious. “If only we poor, foolish women were smart enough to catch one of them.”
“You could catch one of these guys, Mom,” he said, wanting to make her feel good. “You’re smart.”
He got a sudden idea. The men in the pictures were obviously all rich, and they looked like movie stars. The kind girls got all goofy over. They might make good daddys. He scrunched his face up, trying to see his mother from their eyes. She wasn’t like a movie star, but she was still pretty.
“Not so smart, Petey,” his mother said with a sad little smile and a shake of her head. “At least, not lately.” She rose suddenly. “Now scoot. I’m running late, and I need to get dressed. And no, you can’t have leftover pizza for breakfast.”
Pete made a shocked, disappointed sound. “I didn’t even ask yet!”
“You didn’t have to. I know everything that goes on in that devious little mind of yours.”
But later, after she’d left for work, and he and J.D. were waiting for Grampa to take them to school, he realized she didn’t have the folder with her. When he went back upstairs and peeked into her bedroom, he saw that it was still on the bed.
His mom was right—she did almost always know what he was thinking. But for the first time ever, he thought that maybe she didn’t know everything.
That afternoon Pete could hardly wait for Mrs. Weatherby, the baby-sitter who watched them after school, to drop them off at home. He’d already told J.D. his plan. Now all they had to do was wait for the right time.
Grampa Will liked to mess around in the garage in the afternoon. Once he started on his latest woodworking project, he wouldn’t stop for anything. Pete and J.D. could get to work on fixing Mom’s problem.
They finished their after-school snack—still no leftover pizza—and he and J.D. charged up the stairs, pretending they wanted to play in their room. A few moments later, they slipped into their mother’s bedroom. In another hour, their mom would be home from work, so they couldn’t waste time. Pete went quickly to the bed.
“We’re not supposed to play in Mom’s room,” J.D. whispered, hanging back. “We’ll get in trouble.”
“So? We’ve been in trouble before.” Pete was feeling excited now. All day he’d been practicing in his mind, and it was finally here. “And we’re not gonna play. This is business.”
“I don’t like it. If Grampa catches us—”
“Grampa’s not gonna catch us. He’s gone to the garage, and he thinks we’re playing.”
“Suppose he comes upstairs to check on us? Or goes to the bathroom?”
Pete had retrieved the file and put the pictures out on the bedspread. Over his shoulder he gave his brother one of his mother’s stern looks. “That’s why you’re gonna keep an eye on the door while I make the call. Stop being such a goof. Do you want to help Mom get a husband or not?”
J.D. clamped his jaw tight, like an old turtle. “I don’t see how getting Mom a husband is gonna help.”
“Look at these guys, J.D.,” Pete said. He pointed to the pictures, knowing that his little brother just needed to see what kind of man their mom could end up with. “They look like movie stars, and they’ve got money and cars and…and everything. They can make Mom happy and help her with the new baby. Mom needs someone like that.”
“Why don’t we just get her a baby-sitter? Like Mrs. Weatherby.”
“Because what Mom needs right now is a man.”
“How do you know?”
“Remember what Grampa said about the baby needing a father? Well, one of these guys has to be someone Mom would like. We just have to let them know she’s not married.”
J.D. swung his head back and forth, looking over the photographs that Pete had spread out in two neat rows. “What if they don’t like her?”
That question made Pete scowl. “Why wouldn’t they? She’s pretty, and she’s a good cook, and she smells nice. We don’t have to tell any of them she gets mad if you don’t pick up your stuff.”
“We shouldn’t tell them she doesn’t like wrestling.”
Pete nodded quickly. “So which one do we call?”
J.D. finally pointed to the one Pete had known would be his little brother’s choice. A blond guy with a space rocket behind him on a launchpad. Probably an astronaut. “Him,” he said. “He has good teeth. Mom likes that.”
Pete slid the picture away, pointing, instead, to a smiling man in a cowboy hat. Next to Spiderman, Pete liked cowboys best. “What about this one?” he asked, trying not to sound like it mattered that much. “He’s probably a rancher. We could ride horses and have campfires.”
J.D. looked at his brother suspiciously. “I thought we were trying to find a husband for Mom. She doesn’t care about horses. You do.”
“That’s true, but doesn’t she always say that if we’re happy, she’s happy? And think about it, J.D. A space guy is gonna be on a rocket most of the time. Not with Mom and the baby. So how does that help?”
“I guess it doesn’t,” J.D. agreed with a sigh. “All right. Call him.”
Hiding his excitement, Pete snatched up the bedroom phone and the cowboy’s picture. He wasn’t bad with telephone numbers. His mom had made both him and J.D. practice phone calls in case they ever got lost. He dialed the number on the back of the cowboy’s photograph and sounded out his name. It wasn’t too hard. John Simm-ons. John Simmons.
The phone rang a couple of times. Then it was answered by a woman who sounded a lot like the lady who answered Mom’s telephone at work. Pete was disappointed. He wanted it to be a ranch, maybe with horses neighing in the distance. Not what sounded like a plain old, boring office.
“May I speak to John Simmons, please?” he asked in his most grown-up voice.
“I’m sorry. Mr. Simmons is not available.”
Pete had listened to adult conversations a lot. He knew what came next. “Do you know when he comes back?”
“I’m afraid Mr. Simmons won’t be back in the office for several weeks. He’s on a business trip to Australia. If this is an emergency…”
“Yes. I mean…no!”
Pete punched the off button.
The phone call had not been what he’d hoped. J.D. was waiting for an explanation, and when Pete gave it to him, his brother lifted the pictures, pulling out the astronaut again.
“Now try him,” J.D. said.
Pete wasn’t willing to give up on the rancher so quickly. “Why can’t we just wait a few weeks? We can call him again when he comes home.”
“I thought we were trying to fix it for Mom now. We can’t wait. Call him.”
“Oh, all right,” Pete said. An astronaut wasn’t horrible. And J.D. was right. He had good teeth.
Terry Boyd.
He called the number, and again a woman answered. This time, at least, it didn’t sound like he had called an office. In fact, he could hear music playing loud in the background and lots of laughing and splashing, like a pool party was going on.
“I’d like to speak to Terry Boyd, please.”
“Who’s calling?” the woman asked.
“Peter Rawlins.”
The woman must’ve placed a hand over the receiver because the background sounds Pete heard were muffled.
“What’s this call in reference to?” she asked eventually.
“Are you his mother?”
The woman laughed. “God, no! Are you kidding?”
“No, ma’am,” Pete said respectfully. The last thing he wanted to do was make anyone mad. “I’m sorry. Are you his daughter?”
“No, although some people think he’s robbing the cradle.” The woman laughed, then stopped and lowered her voice. “Listen, kid—I can tell you’re a kid—is there something specific you want? Because Terry isn’t getting his butt out of the hot tub just to play games with you. Not when he’s playing games with me, if you know what I mean.”
Pete didn’t know what she meant, but it didn’t seem important. “I was calling to ask him about my mother.”
“What about your mother?” she said in a suddenly sharper tone.
“I wanted to know if he would like to marry her.”
The phone line went dead in his hand.
Stunned, Pete stood and stared at the telephone for several long seconds. Then he explained to J.D. what had happened, although he wasn’t quite sure he understood what had made the lady mad enough to hang up. It wasn’t like he’d been rude.
“You did it all wrong,” J.D. complained, using the tip of his space cannon to scratch the side of his head. “Call him back and say you’re sorry.”
Pete was annoyed. “I’m not calling him back. He’s got a girlfriend.”
“So?”
“So he can’t have a girlfriend and be married to Mom, too.”
“Mrs. Weatherby’s husband had a girlfriend.”
“Which is why Mr. Weatherby doesn’t live at home anymore, stupid. You can’t have both.” A little upset because his plan to help his mom didn’t seem to be going very well, Pete shuffled through the remaining photographs. Eight left. “Let’s pick someone else.”
They settled on a dark-haired man surrounded by boats in the water. He had a really good suntan. Going to the beach all the time would be fun, they decided.
His name was harder. Pete had to sound it out several times before he could say it without stumbling.
Rick-y Cas-ten-ello. Ricky Castenello.
As he punched in the man’s telephone number, J.D. tugged on his sleeve. “Don’t tell him right away that Mom needs a husband. Say something cool. So he’ll like us.”
This time the phone was picked up quickly, barely before it had rung once.
“Yeah?” a man said impatiently.
Pete squirmed a little, not expecting the man to sound so…so gruff. “Is this Ricky Cast—”
“Yeah,” the man said again. “Who’s asking?”
Pete searched for something clever to say and came up empty. His hand was sweating, making the receiver slippery in his grasp. He spied the headline he’d asked his mother about this morning. Desperate now, he stuttered, “Are y-you one of the South’s m-most ill…el… Are you one of the South’s most ill-egal bachelors?”
“Who the hell is this?” the man snapped. “I told you people, I’m not talking to the press. You want to talk about fraudulent claims, you talk to my attorneys. Got it?”
The phone slammed down in Pete’s ear.
“What did he say?” J.D. asked when Pete just looked at him.
Bewildered, Pete shrugged. “I don’t know. He yelled. Something about a frog he lent someone. I don’t think he’d make a very good husband for Mom.”
“Now what?” J.D. asked.
Pete wasn’t sure. This wasn’t going the way he’d thought. They should have had it settled by now. But none of the really cool-looking guys were doing what they were supposed to. J.D. had on his I-told-you-this-wouldn’t-work face. To keep from looking stupid, Pete acted like it was no big deal and lifted the closest picture.
It was a dark-haired guy in a suit with nothing around him that looked even close to cool. Pete flipped the photograph over. After the last family vacation, J.D. had hung a poster in their room that showed Space Mountain at Disney World, and Pete had looked at it every day for almost a year. On the back of the file picture he recognized a familiar name from the poster. Orlando. The man lived in Orlando, Florida.
“Let’s try him,” he suggested.
J.D. made a face. “Why? He looks too serious.”
“He lives in Orlando, J.D. Do you know how many times we could go to the theme parks and ride the rides?”
That settled it for J.D. With a short nod, he said, “Call him.”
Mark Bi-shop. Mark Bishop.
Pete pressed in the number. He hoped Mark Bishop would be the one. He was getting nervous and a little scared. If this guy wasn’t any good, Pete didn’t know what they’d do.
PROFESSIONALLY SPEAKING, it had been one of Mark’s more productive days.
After frustrating weeks of stalled negotiations, the Castleman Press acquisition was finally moving forward. The Boston office had settled its thorny personnel issues with the home-delivery drivers. The drumbeating auditors in the accounting department, claiming that the books in the Atlanta office weren’t jibing, had settled down at last after two grueling weeks of reviewing every file and statement.
Even Deb was looking happier these days.
Mark had strong-armed her husband into a man-to-man talk that had revealed Alan Goodson was not having an affair. He had lost his job and simply been too ashamed to tell his wife. Mark had been so relieved it wasn’t an extramarital fling that he’d hadn’t even minded when a grateful Deb threw herself into his arms and bawled for ten minutes straight. Now Alan was making the rounds, looking for employment—hardly an ideal situation, but at least Deb was fully involved, right by his side. At least Mark had his assistant back.
He poured himself a glass of Scotch from the mini-bar in his office. It was hundred-year-old stuff, smooth as silk, and he saved it for days like this. Darkness had started its slow crawl up the sides of the office buildings. In a little while there’d be the usual stampede for the time clock.
Hands laced behind his head, he leaned back in his chair, thinking he would call Deb in to share a glass. Through the open office door, he could tell she was still fielding calls on the phone, sounding like the old Deb with a voice that managed to be warm and crisply professional at the same time.
He heard the sounds of the staff closing up shop—drawers closing, the rattle of car keys, workers bidding one another goodbye. In another five minutes there was only silence.
He realized he ought to go home, but he wasn’t tired. He felt almost energized. Maybe it was the potency of the Scotch.
“Deb!” he called through the open door. “You heading home?”
She came into his office, stuffing paperwork into her briefcase. “In a few minutes.”
“Want a drink before you go?”
She shook her head. “Alan and I are taking the kids to dinner and a movie. We’re splurging on a night out for the first time in weeks.”
“How’s the job hunt going?”
“You know how it is,” she said with a shrug. “At Alan’s level, jobs aren’t that plentiful, and the interviewing process takes forever. But he has some good prospects lined up for next week. I’m revising his résumé.” She gave him a smile that was all cheerful determination. “I guess we’ll just continue to work through it together.”
He didn’t doubt her for a moment. Deb was a nurturer. If there was anything she could do to help Alan get through this with his ego intact, she’d find a way to accomplish it. For just the tiniest moment Mark speculated on what it must be like to have that kind of helpmate. He couldn’t imagine it. His own parents had never been supportive of each other. If anything, they’d enjoyed tearing each other apart.
“How about you?” she asked. “Do you have plans for tonight?”
He took a sip from his glass. “Actually, Shel’s in town. I might see if she wants to have dinner.”
“Shelby Elaine?”
“Yep. Didn’t I tell you? We patched things up a couple of weeks ago.”
Deb looked stunned. “You’re back together?”
He chuckled, knowing he’d shocked her. “No. She wouldn’t take me back if I were the last marriageable man on earth. But at least she doesn’t think I’m the devil incarnate anymore.” From the corner of his desk, he lifted the pocket folder labeled “Shelby” and waved it toward Deb. “Besides, we still have joint ventures that have to be dissolved.”
“I suppose it would be difficult to remain business partners.”
“Probably not a good idea.”
“She is a little volatile,” Deb concurred. “Slapping you silly. Calling you—”
“Don’t remind me,” he said with a sour look. “I’m trying to forget that day.”
That wasn’t the only thing he wanted to forget about those few days in New York. Over the weeks he’d told himself that he could hardly remember what Jenna Rawlins looked like. They’d shared a few hours of great sex wrapped around interesting conversation, but nothing more. And certainly, for now, work kept him busy and satisfied.
But sometimes there were moments when he seemed to have no command of his thoughts. He would find himself back at the penthouse, watching the way the moonlight seemed to turn Jenna’s flesh to satin, enjoying the sight of that achingly sweet mouth as it quirked in a dozen different ways, all of them tantalizing. And the sex—God, he remembered every second of that. Hearing her breathing change when he touched her, feeling her tremble. Those were the kind of memories that got harder and harder to push away.
He glanced down at his calendar and realized that it had been six weeks. Maybe in another six he’d have put it all behind him. He hoped so.
“You’re incredible,” Deb said, drawing him out of the past. “Women will forgive you anything.”
He grimaced and swallowed more of the Scotch. It burned a path down to his stomach. “Not all of them,” he replied.
The telephone rang, and Deb returned to the outer office. Absently Mark rubbed the edge of his glass against his bottom lip while she picked up the call. After a few moments Deb put the caller on hold and stretched to catch his glance.
“It’s someone named Peter asking for you,” she told him. “Sounds like a kid.”
Mark frowned. “I don’t know any kids.”
“Shall I take a message?”
“No. I’ll take it.” He punched the blinking light on his phone. “This is Mark Bishop.”
“Hello, Mr. Bishop,” came a young boy’s voice. “I’m sorry to bother you, but I’d like to talk to you for a few minutes.”
Sometimes kids showed up at his door selling products to get more school computers or send students on a trip with their school band. But surely the schools hadn’t been forced to resort to phone solicitation, had they? “What about?” he asked tentatively.
“Well, first…do you…I mean, are you still one of the South’s most legible bachelors?”
The question made him smile. “I guess you could say that.”
“You were in a magazine story.”
“Yes. Quite a while back.”
“But you’re still not married?”
“No.”
“Or got a girlfriend?”
“Not right now.”
There was another voice in the background suddenly. Muffled, but insistent. Mark had to admit he was intrigued. What was this about?
“You’re not in trouble with the police?” the boy asked at last.
What the hell? As a kid, Mark had made his share of crank calls. But suddenly this didn’t sound like one. “Why are you asking me these questions?”
“Well…my brother and me, his name’s J.D., we were thinking that our mom might like to meet you. And maybe you’d like to be…not legible anymore. You know, like married?”
Debra Lee had come back to the doorway. He waved her away, silently mouthing to her that she should go home. On the other end of the telephone, he could hear the sound of breathing, as if the boy knew the magnitude of that proposal and wanted to give Mark a chance to absorb it.
“Let me get this straight,” Mark said finally, still feeling amused indulgence. “Are you asking me to marry your mother?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“Umm…she’s very pretty. And she takes baths every day.”
“That’s a plus.”
“She’s a good cook. We eat everything she makes. Well, not asparagus. Nobody likes that very much, no matter how hard she tries to cover it up with something else.”
Mark almost laughed aloud at that, but the boy’s attitude was so earnest he didn’t dare. “I’m with you there. I hate asparagus.”
“She likes animals, too. Except snakes. So you could have a pet if you wanted.”
Mark cleared his throat and adopted a more serious tone. “What about your father? Where is he?”
“Mom got a divorce. Grampa says Mom needs Dad like Custer needed more Indians. I don’t know who Custer is, but I think that means he’s not ever coming back to live with us.”
That information was delivered in a very matter-of-fact way, but something in the kid’s voice tugged at Mark’s heartstrings. He didn’t know what had made this boy and his brother suddenly decide to take matters into their own hands, but they were obviously very determined to resolve their mom’s marital woes.
“I’m sorry to hear that. It’s tough not to have a dad around the house,” Mark said, and meant it. He knew all about trying to get by in a home where all-out war had been declared and the dad had made himself scarce.
Again there was muffled conversation between the two boys. Mark waited, swirling the last of the Scotch in his glass. Eventually Peter said, “My brother wants to know if you live near Disney World.”
“Yep. Is that why you called me? Because of where I live?”
“Sort of,” the kid admitted. “First we called a bunch of others who have really cool stuff, but none of them would talk to me. So we picked you.”
“Gee, thanks,” Mark couldn’t resist saying. He wondered just how far down the “legible” list he’d been, then decided he didn’t really want to know. Before he could say anything more, the kid went back on the offensive.
“We wouldn’t want to go to the parks all the time,” Peter said quickly. “We’re not much trouble. Honest. And we wouldn’t mind having a new daddy.”
It was time, Mark decided, to put an end to this as gently as he could. He hated to burst this boy’s bubble, but he wasn’t looking for a wife. Certainly not one with kids. “Look, Peter,” he began, “I’d like to help you out, but don’t you think you should leave it to your mom to pick out a new husband?”
“She’ll never do it,” the boy said, sounding anxious now. “Grampa says getting Mom to do something she doesn’t really want to do is as hard as scratching your ear with your elbow. She’s too picky. And she works really hard. She doesn’t have time to look. That’s why we’re helping her.”
Mark wished suddenly that he’d never taken the call. How was he going to let these kids down easy? “What kind of work does your mother do?”
“Counting.”
“You mean, accounting?”
“Yeah. And she helps Aunt Vicky and Aunt Lauren with the magazine.”
“What magazine?”
“It’s about weddings. Stuff brides like.”
Mark scowled, draining the last of his drink. “Fairy Tale Weddings?”
“Uh-huh.”
His heart suddenly beat a lot faster. “What’s your mom’s name, Peter?”
“Mom.”
“No, her given name. The name other people call her.”
“Jenna.”
Mark sat upright in his chair so fast that the ice in his glass sloshed over the rim onto his lap. He was so stunned he hardly noticed its chilly discomfort. “You’re Jenna Rawlins’s son?” he managed to get out.
“Uh-huh. So is J.D.”
Blinking like a man just coming out of a trance, Mark set his empty glass down on his desk and began plucking ice cubes off his lap absently. In a million years he couldn’t have imagined Jenna’s boys tracking him down this way. They must have come across the magazine article somehow. Or had Jenna mentioned his name to them?
That seemed unlikely. Regardless, if she knew they were playing matchmaker, she’d probably ground them for a month. No, if she knew they’d called him, the poor little guys were looking at a life sentence.
He squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose. This was getting tougher by the moment. “Listen, Peter, it’s nice of you two to try to help your mom, but I don’t think she’d be interested in me as a husband. Maybe you’d better talk this idea over with her before you call anyone else.”
“We can’t talk to her,” Peter said, a note of annoyance in his voice. “I told you, she’s too busy right now.”
“Doing what?”
“Getting ready for the new baby.”
“What!” If his heart had been racing before, it almost burst out of his chest with that bit of news. “What new baby?”
“Hers. Our little brother or sister. She’s gonna have a baby.”
“That’s impossible!” he said sharply. No way. Not a chance in bloody hell. These kids were making crank calls, after all.
“It’s not impossible,” the boy argued back. “Grampa says—”
“Never mind what Grampa says.” Damn, he wanted to jam the old coot and his homespun truisms straight down a well. There were things Mark needed to know immediately, and still feeling stunned, he voiced his thoughts aloud. “How can your mother be pregnant?”
Some of his shock must have communicated itself to Peter, because when he spoke, the boy’s voice was rushed. “I don’t know how. No one tells us anything.”
“Okay,” Mark said more slowly. “Okay.” He scrubbed a hand over his face, trying to keep his voice calm, trying to hang on to some illusion of control. Whatever the true situation was or wasn’t, there was no point in scaring the hell out of these two boys. “I’m sorry,” he added when he could finally speak again. “When is your mother due, Peter?”
“Due for what?”
He ground his teeth. Patience. “When is she supposed to have the baby?”
“We don’t know that, either. She hasn’t even told us about it yet. But I heard Grampa say that by the Super-bowl she’s gonna look like she swallowed a football.”
Mark did a quick mental calculation. Oh, hell. It can’t be.
He heard a few seconds of whispered confusion between the two boys, words Mark couldn’t make out, in spite of straining to hear them. Then Peter said quickly, “I gotta go. I guess the answer’s no, huh?”
“Wait a minute,” Mark shot back, suddenly afraid the kid was going to hang up. “I didn’t say no. I need to think about it.”
“We can’t wait too long.”
“You won’t have to. I promise. Just don’t call anyone else right now. All right?”
“I guess,” the boy agreed. “You should meet Mom. Do you think you’ll want to come and see her?”
Mark took a deep breath, trying to hear over the pulse thrumming in his ears. “Peter,” he said, “there isn’t anything I’d like to do more.”