“Of course. I’ll be fine.” And she would. Already, the first shock of the news was passing and a small curl of excitement was fluttering to life inside her.
She was going to have a baby.
“Do you need to talk about anything?”
“What?” Maura’s gaze lifted to meet his. Kindness was stamped on his familiar features and she knew he was worried for her. And though she appreciated it, he needn’t be.
“No, Doctor,” she told him, scooting off the examination table. “I’m fine, really. It was a bit of a shock, but…” She stopped and smiled. “It’s happy news after all, isn’t it?”
“You’re a good girl, Maura, as I’ve always said.” He gave her a nod of approval and added, “I’d like to see you once a month now, just to keep a check on you and the baby. Make the appointment on your way out. And, Maura, no more heavy lifting, understand?”
When he left the room, she was alone with her news. Although…
“Not as alone as I was when I arrived, am I?” she whispered and dropped one hand to her flat belly.
Awe rose up inside her.
There was a child growing within her. A new life. A precious, innocent life that would be counting on her. But Maura was a woman used to responsibility, so that didn’t worry her. The fact that her child would grow up without a father was a bit of a hitch. When she’d imagined the day she would become a mother, she’d had hazy, blurry images of a faceless man standing at her side, rejoicing with her at the birth.
Never once had she considered being a single mother.
Heaven knew she hadn’t planned on this. Had, in fact been taking precautions—well, the over-the-counter precautions. It wasn’t as though she had sex often enough to warrant anything permanent.
Of course, she should have insisted Jefferson wear a condom, that would have been the intelligent thing to do. But neither of them had been thinking straight that night, she admitted silently. For herself, she’d been in such a hunger to have Jefferson over, under and in her, she hadn’t wanted to wait for anything.
Now, it seemed, there would be consequences.
But such wonderful consequences. All penances should be this happily paid.
A child.
She’d always wanted to be a mother.
Maura turned, looked out the window and watched as thick, pewter clouds raced across the sky. A storm was brewing, she thought, and wondered if it was a metaphor for what was about to happen to her life.
“We’ll be just fine, you and I,” she told her child, still keeping one hand tight to the womb where her baby slept. She would see to it that her child was safe and well and happy.
As soon as she got home, she’d call Jefferson. She’d keep the conversation brisk and as impersonal as she could, considering the situation. She’d tell him because it was right. But she’d also tell him she had no need for him to come rushing back. She wasn’t over him just yet and had no wish to see him again, stirring up things that had yet to settle down.
One phone call. Then they’d be done.
Two months later…
“Mr. King said there would be no problems.”
Maura glared at the little man standing on her porch. He was short, bald and looked as though a stiff wind off the lake might blow him into Galway city. She showed him no mercy. “Aye, your Mr. King says a lot of things, doesn’t he?”
He took a deep breath as if trying for patience. She understood that feeling very well as she’d been trying for weeks and still hadn’t found any.
“We do have a contract,” the man reminded her.
She looked past him out to the film crew setting up tents and trailers and cameras with banks of lights surrounding them. Somehow she hadn’t expected the whole mess to be quite so…intimidating. As it was, she had dozens of people trampling the grass in her front yard and the complaining bleats from the sheep were as sharp as nails against a chalkboard. Swallowing her irritation as best she could, she said, “We do indeed and I’ll stay to the very letter of the contract.”
“Meaning?” the little man asked, his small tight mouth flattening into a grim slash across his narrow face.
“Meaning, I said you could be on my property, but nowhere near the lambing sheds.”
“But Mr. King said…”
“If you’ve a problem with me,” Maura told him, “I suggest you phone your I’m-so-busy-I-can’t-bother-to-return-a-message King and deliver your complaints to him.” Just before she slammed the front door, she added, “And I wish you good luck getting him on the bleeding phone as I haven’t been able to manage that no-doubt miraculous feat in the last two months.”
Jefferson King was juggling what felt like thirty different projects at once. It helped to stay busy. Thankfully, his position at King Studios ensured that he remained that way.
There were currently three films under production and each of them presented different headaches. Dealing with producers, directors and, worst of all to his mind, the actors, was enough to make a man wonder what he’d first enjoyed about this business. He had deals rolling with agents, a couple of smaller studios he was looking to absorb and he was in the middle of buying the rights to a bestselling romance novel to turn it into what would be, he firmly believed, a blockbuster summer hit.
So yeah. Busy. But he preferred it that way. Busy meant his thoughts were too distracted to drift toward memories of Ireland that came only a dozen times a day now. Images of deep green fields, smoky, music-filled pubs and, mostly, thoughts of Maura Donohue.
Which was just as well because every time a picture of that blue-eyed woman rose up in his mind, he was filled with a wild mixture of emotions that were so tangled and twisted into knots inside him it was impossible to figure out which had prominence.
He tossed his pen onto the desktop and scowled at the wall opposite him. Of course he remembered the passion. The chemistry between them that had built slowly and inexorably until it had finally exploded on their last night together.
Yet he also recalled clearly the calm, cool look in her eye as she walked him to the door that last morning. He gritted his teeth as he saw her face in his mind. Clear blue eyes, luscious mouth curved in a half smile. She hadn’t cried. Hadn’t asked him to stay. Had, in fact, acted as if he were nothing more than an annoying guest keeping her from her work.
Fresh aggravation rose inside him at the memory, so he pushed it away and grabbed his pen again. Thumb flicking madly at the pen top, he told himself it wasn’t that he really cared, it was the principle of the thing. Women didn’t walk away from Jefferson King. No matter the situation, it was he who did the walking. Always. But she’d thrown him off. Caught him off balance and kept him that way and a part of him wondered if that hadn’t been her plan all along.
Had she been teasing him, leading him along sexually until she got the offer just the way she wanted it, and then took him to bed to seal the deal? Was she that manipulative and he simply hadn’t seen it? He’d hate to think that. Went against the grain to consider it, but why else had she been so casual about a night that had damn well hit him harder than he had expected it to?
What kind of woman spent the night with a man and then turned him loose the next morning so easily?
And why the hell was he still thinking about her? The deal was done; it was time to move on. “Well past time,” he muttered, since there was no one else in his office to overhear him.
“That’s perfect,” he added under his breath, “now she’s got me talking to myself and the woman probably hasn’t given me a single thought.”
Which