All her life Becca, who’d been a straight-A student up through college, had had recurring nightmares of failing tests. They’d only served as incentive to work harder. But this test was out of her control.
As she took the parking garage elevator into the lobby of the Macintyre Enterprises building, she took a deep breath and tried to get in touch with her rational mind, which still seemed to be fast asleep this morning.
Her foolish, emotional, battered heart was not only wide-awake and beating like a cymbal-banging monkey, it had been making her do crazy things like check her email every fifteen minutes since five-thirty this morning. If her rational mind cared to show up, it would convince her that, much like pressing an elevator button repeatedly when waiting for a slow car, refreshing her email browser every fifteen minutes before the workaday world had poured their first cup of coffee was fruitless.
But sometimes exercises in futility were therapeutic.
She stepped off the garage elevator into the lobby and turned toward the bank of elevators that would carry her up to her office on the top floor of the building.
The Macintyre Foundation was housed in a twenty-five-story glass-and-chrome building in the heart of downtown Dallas. The Macintyre Family Foundation shared office space with Macintyre Enterprises, which belonged to Kate’s brother, Rob Macintyre. The foundation mostly served the community of Celebration, Texas, which was located about twenty minutes outside of downtown Dallas. But since Rob Macintyre owned the Dallas-based building, they couldn’t beat the cost of rent.
Every time Becca stepped into the massive glass-enclosed lobby, she looked up. She couldn’t help herself, even after all these years. The ceiling seemed to stretch miles above her head, reaching toward the heavens. All around a gentle green-tinted light filtered in. Even in the soft morning sunshine, it reflected off the chrome furniture, fixtures and giant fountain in the center of the atrium.
Everything about the space was sleek and polished, and this morning it felt particularly cold and fed her anxious nerves, which just proved she needed a hot beverage to warm her up, because there wasn’t anything cold about the Macintyre family. They did a lot of good for the Celebration community.
Becca tightened her cashmere scarf and turned up the collar on her red wool coat to stave off the chill that had worked its way into her bones. She’d worn her favorite gray tweed skirt and ivory cashmere sweater to bolster herself against the emotional day. The ensemble was soft and warm, a comfort outfit, if there was such a thing, even if it was fitting a little snug these days.
She took off her hat, smoothed her hair into place and waved good morning to Violet, the receptionist who tended the lobby concierge desk. Even though Violet was small, young and pretty and very feminine, she was the gatekeeper, and she took her job seriously. No one got past her unless they had an appointment or possessed a preapproved security badge. Nobody wanted to tangle with Violet.
The heels of Becca’s boots tapped a cadence on the marble floors. The sound seemed to carry and echo in the cavernous lobby. Today, all of her senses were heightened. Even so, she tried to walk a little more carefully to muffle the noise.
When Becca finally reached the twenty-fifth floor, the office was quiet. Kate, Rob and his wife, Pepper, who was in charge of the foundation’s community relations department, obviously hadn’t gotten to work yet. Becca was so early even their receptionist, Lisa, wasn’t there.
After Becca turned on the office lights, she made her way to the kitchenette, where she started a pot of coffee for the office and brewed herself a cup of herbal tea.
God, the coffee smelled good. It took every ounce of strength she possessed not to toss the tea—a spicy, fruity blend that Kate had brought in for Becca after she’d learned about the pregnancy and Becca’s subsequent caffeine sacrifice.
Caffeine wasn’t good for the baby. That was the only incentive she needed to fortify her willpower. She grabbed her caffeine-free infusion and headed straight to her office away from temptation. At least the insipid liquid was hot and had begun to take the edge off the chill she’d experienced as she drove into work.
Fall was one of Becca’s favorite seasons. She loved everything about it, from the pumpkins and the autumn leaves as they shrugged off the last vestiges of summer green and donned glorious harvest colors, to the nip in the air and the way the community seemed to come together even more at football games and festivals. Becca had decorated her office to set a festive mood. A garland of leaves and straw artfully woven together festooned her office door, and she had brought in her pumpkin-spice-scented candle. Before she sat down at her desk, she turned on her electric candle warmer.
She had a long to-do list to plow through today, lots to accomplish to make sure Celebration’s fourth annual Central Park tree-lighting ceremony, an event the foundation sponsored the day after Thanksgiving, went off perfectly. The event had become a beloved tradition for the Celebration community, and if Becca had it her way, she’d do her part to make it better and better every year.
But even that had to wait. Because the first thing she did after she booted up her computer was check her email to see if there was any word from the lab.
The tech had given her a password and told her that after she received the email alerting her that her test results were ready, she was to go to a website, enter the password and retrieve her exoneration.
He’d called it results, of course, not exoneration, but that’s how she’d come to think of it.
Of course, since it wasn’t even nine o’clock, the email hadn’t yet arrived. She took a fortifying sip of tea and uttered a silent prayer that they wouldn’t make her wait until the end of the day.
But wait—what if she’d miscalculated? Was today considered day two? Or was that tomorrow? The cymbal monkey kicked in again, and her heart virtually rattled at the thought. She didn’t know if she could bear to wait another twenty-four hours.
She minimized the screen of her inbox and pulled up the file for the tree-lighting ceremony. She had so much to do today that, really, she should have enough to keep her mind occupied. But as she read the bids from the professional tree decorators, her mind invariably drifted to Nick.
How would he act once he had proof positive that he was the baby’s father? Would he choose to be part of his child’s life? Would he believe that despite their night together she didn’t sleep around? Whatever he did, Becca fully intended to play the I-told-you-so card once she had the results in hand.
Nice. That’ll entice him to stay. It’ll make you very pleasant to be around.
She shook away the thought, clicked on her inbox and refreshed her browser again.
Still nothing.
So she picked up a red file folder that contained her notes for the ceremony.
“Good morning.” Becca looked up to see Kate, dressed in a smart black pantsuit, holding a cup of coffee and standing in the doorway of her office.
“Hey,” she said.
“Dare I ask?” Kate grimaced as if she were bracing for Becca to throw something at her. “Any news yet?”
Great. As if she needed any more nervous encouragement, but she knew Kate meant well. Becca didn’t have the heart to sigh and tell her to go away. And to take her coffee with her.
Instead, she mustered her sweetest smile.
“Not yet.”
Kate nodded, then took a sip from her mug. “Good coffee. You really are a saint for having it ready. Since you can’t drink it, you really don’t have to do that.”
Becca closed the red folder. “I don’t mind.” She sipped her tea as if to prove she didn’t need the high-octane fuel, and the fruity, spicy stuff served her much better.
“Come in for a minute.” Becca pointed toward the