Not likely. And who knew what the right thing was in this case? He didn’t see any resolution that didn’t result in someone getting hurt.
It was just past six, so he punched in Drew’s number at the law firm on the chance he would still be at work. Voice mail answered after five rings, and Ross hung up.
He dialed Drew at home in Vancouver. Lucy picked up, as he’d anticipated, but still he heard her familiar soft voice and had to force himself to sound normal. He hated to know more about her life than she did.
“Hey, Luce.”
“Oh, hi,” she said.
“The baby doing well?”
She gave a small laugh. “As far as I can tell.”
He thought of how it had felt to cup Jennifer’s stomach, to feel her child move inside her. Incredible. And not an experience he would ever share with Lucy. They had certain lines they were careful not to cross now.
“Is Drew there?”
“His car just pulled into the drive. I’ll go get him.”
Ross picked up a pencil on his desk and tapped it against a yellow legal pad. Gazed distractedly around the study. Like the living room, it was missing its drapes.
Drew came on the line a minute later.
Ross did the small-talk thing, something he and his brother were good at, and then got down to business. “I need you to come over,” he said, keeping his tone casual.
“Now?”
“Yeah. That would be good.”
“Hey, I just got home.”
Ross didn’t feel too worried about his brother’s convenience. “I know. When can you make it?”
“Not right now. Lucy’s got plans.”
“Later tonight, then.”
“Maybe. What’s this about?”
“Nine o’clock?”
Drew covered the mouthpiece. Ross heard a murmur of conversation.
Drew came back on. “I can be there at nine. What’s so important?”
“Just something I want to get handled. In person.”
“A mystery, huh? Okay, big bro. See you in a few.”
Ross hung up. He closed his eyes and massaged his temples, momentarily giving in to the frustration that rose inside him. He would have liked not to deal with this. He would have liked… What? For Jennifer not to have come to him? For her to have struggled on her own, raised his niece or nephew in a lonely little apartment somewhere? Or for her and Drew not to have conceived the baby—for them not to have slept together in the first place?
Well, yes, definitely that, he admitted to himself.
But it couldn’t be changed. And feeling the baby move had elicited an aching tenderness in him—one that vied with the wish for her not to be pregnant with his brother’s child.
Ross reached for the phone again. He needed to call someone from the free clinic who’d invited him to see an action flick with a group of friends that night. “Sorry to do this, Barbara, but I have to beg off.”
The nurse practitioner made an indignant sound. “Again?”
“Something came up.”
“Huh. That’s pretty convincing.”
“Seriously. Something did. Family stuff.”
“It’s not your mom, is it?”
“No, she’s fine.”
Barbara let a moment of silence go by. “Oh, I see. Jackie told you, right?”
“Told me what?”
She sighed. “That I invited my sister-in-law to come along.”
“Barbara…” he said, trying to sound stern.
“I know, I know. But she’s really cute. You’d like her. I know you would.”
Judging from the two other women Barbara had set him up with, he probably would. They were both nice. Both attractive. But neither had done anything for him romantically.
Nevertheless, it was good to stay in circulation—something he’d found difficult after his divorce four years ago.
Ross sighed. “This isn’t about your sister-in-law,” he said. “Jackie didn’t tell me anything. I’d come out if I could, but I can’t.”
“Okay, okay. I believe you.” Her voice softened. “Good luck with whatever’s going on.”
When Ross walked back into the kitchen, he found Jennifer still sitting quietly at the table. Her feet were propped up on a chair now, clad only in white socks, her sneakers on the hardwood floor below.
“Nine o’clock,” he told her.
“He’ll see me?”
Ross selected an apple from the basket of fruit on the counter, washed it and took a paring knife from the drawer by the sink. “He doesn’t know it’s you.”
“Oh.”
“I thought it would be best that way.” He sliced the apple in half and then in half again before coring the quarters.
“Where are we meeting?”
“Here.”
“Okay…” Briefly she closed her eyes.
Ross arranged the apple slices on a plate and set it on the table within her reach. “Help yourself,” he said, taking a seat.
He ate and she ate, and while they chewed they didn’t make eye contact. His gaze passed over the swell of her belly. She was six months pregnant with no family and not much money. He couldn’t help but feel compassion. He saw the courage it must have taken to come here and the strength of purpose that kept her here despite what he’d told her about her baby’s father.
Jennifer turned her head, looking around the dining area. He saw her gaze settle on a formal portrait of his mother and father, taken several years earlier, which hung on the wall.
“How are your parents?”
A standard social question. Basic politeness. He would have loved to give the standard polite answer—that they were well, thank you. “My dad’s fine. Mom just had a double bypass.”
She looked as surprised as he’d felt the day they’d discovered the blockage in his mother’s arteries. “Did she have a heart attack?”
“Yeah. Right on the tennis court. Luckily the ambulance got to her quickly.”
Katherine Griffin had always been trim and active, but her diet hadn’t been the healthiest and she wasn’t the most relaxed person. Still, Ross hadn’t seen it coming. And should have. But he’d allowed his schedule to get too hectic this spring, and had only visited his parents once, briefly, during the month before Katherine’s attack.
“How long ago?”
“Four weeks. She’s been home about three.”
Jennifer frowned. “And…is she going to be okay?”
Ross raised his shoulders in a helpless shrug. These things were hard to predict. “She came through the surgery well. Her heart sustained some damage, though. How much is hard to tell at this point.”
She sat silently. Maybe thinking about his mother. Maybe about her own.
“I