Having Gabriel's Baby. Kristin Morgan
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out at the sound of a female voice answering his telephone. After all, she was only assuming that he’d been telling her the truth in Acapulco when he’d said he was single and unattached.
Suddenly Joelle realized that there was always the possibility that the information that Gabriel Lafleur had told her about himself in Mexico was, in fact, a lie. Maybe he was married. Maybe he even had kids. The thought nearly paralyzed her and her mouth went dry.
“Who is this?” the woman asked, indignantly. “Is this some kind of a prank call? ’Cause if it is…”
Joelle swallowed. “No—this is not a prank call,” she finally said after finding her voice. “I’m sorry if I gave you that impression.”
“Then, who’s this?”
“I—I’m Joelle Ames.”
“Are you selling somethin’? ‘Cause if you are, I ain’t buyin’.”
“Uh—no. I’m not with a telemarketing service.”
“Hmm…Is that so? Then, who do you want to speak to?”
“W-well, actually…” Joelle said, stammering her words. The woman was certainly intimidating her. “I think I may have dialed the wrong number.”
“What number did you want?” the woman asked, briskly.
“Uh…” Shaken Joelle glanced down at the telephone number Gabriel had given her. With trembling fingers, she lifted the piece of paper and read off the ten-digit number, area code included.
“Well, you got the right number,” the older woman said. “So, if it ain’t me you want, then I guess it’s Gabe.”
Gabe? Short for Gabriel. Well, at least he’d given her his correct name and telephone number. Her stomach settled down—somewhat. Hopefully everything else he’d said about himself was true, too. Otherwise, she was going to hate herself even more for what she’d done with him.
Joelle cleared her throat. “As a matter of fact, I did call to speak to Gabriel,” Joelle replied.
“Well, he ain’t come in from the fields just yet. I’m Big Sadie, his housekeeper. I’ll tell him you called.”
Joelle already knew she’d made a mistake in phoning him and decided that this was her last chance to pull out.
“That’s quite all right. In fact, I’d prefer if you didn’t even tell him anything. Please, just forget that I called. I’m sorry to have disturbed you. Goodbye.”
“Now wait a minute, cher. I think I know who you are.”
“I doubt that,” Joelle replied.
“Well, let me see, now…I bet you, you’re that woman he met on vacation.”
Joelle’s grip on the receiver tightened. “He told you about me?” she asked, in truth, awed down to her toes that Gabriel would even do such a thing.
His housekeeper smirked. “Well, that ain’t exactly how it was. See, I saw them pictures he took of you, and he said that you were his tour partner—or somethin’ like that. Anyways, I ain’t never seen Gabe take so many pictures of anyone.”
Joelle frowned to herself. Funny, but she didn’t recall Gabriel taking any snapshots of her in Acapulco. Oh—well, yeah, maybe one or two that she’d noticed. Mostly she’d seen him taking pictures of the scenery. Sometimes that scenery may have been located behind her. Therefore, if by chance she ended up in any of those snapshots, then it was purely by accident.
“Oh—look—don’t hang up,” the housekeeper said. “I think I hear Gabe comin’ in now.” A fraction of a moment later and much too soon for Joelle to have stopped her, Joelle heard when the older woman laid the receiver down and said, “It’s for you, Gabe.”
Joelle’s insides froze.
“Who is it?” he asked.
“That woman?”
“What woman?” Joelle heard Gabriel ask.
“The one in the pictures.”
“Pictures?”
“The ones from your vacation.”
“Oh—those pictures.” There was a long pause and then finally Gabriel said, “I’ll take it in my study.”
Joelle’s heart began to pound once again.
She certainly had plenty of time to hang up and even thought of doing so. But then she realized it would only make her look like an even bigger fool, so she took a couple of deep breaths and waited anxiously for him to answer. Finally she heard him say, “Hello.”
Air rushed from her lungs. “Gabriel?”
There was a momentary pause. “Yes.”
“This is Joelle. Joelle Ames…” Actually there was always the chance that he wouldn’t remember her. Or, at least, her name. The sudden thought that he might not caused something in her to shrivel up like plastic wrapping in a hot oven.
“Hello, Joelle,” he said, his tone of voice even and unemotional. “I was beginning to wonder if I was ever going to hear from you, again.”
She tried swallowing down the lump in her throat.
“Look, maybe my calling you like this wasn’t such a good idea, after all,” Joelle replied. “I probably should’ve let my attorney do this.”
“But you called instead,” he said.
“Well-yes-but-”
“But, what?”
“Nothing,” Joelle replied, suddenly realizing that she was getting paranoid for nothing. Sure, if she were to tell him about the baby, he would probably freak out. But she wasn’t going to do that. She’d just called to talk to him…to hear his voice one more time. She didn’t plan to ever call him, again.
“Look,” he drawled, “I’ve been meaning to phone you. In fact, I was wondering if your attorney had turned up anything about—well, you know—about that night.”
Joelle took a deep, steadying breath. “Well, actually, that’s why I called.” Liar. “I wanted to let you know that he hasn’t been able to find anything, no documentation that we got married. No nothing. Lately he’s been saying that we might not ever know what really happened that night.”
“I see,” Gabriel replied, hesitantly. “In that case, what do you suggest we do?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “What do you think?”
“Well, it’s been well over a month now. If there is still no documentation to be found, I don’t see the point in either of us pursuing the matter. It looks to me like we obviously backed out of what we had planned when we left the cantina.”
Yeah, they’d just ended up in bed together, instead. And she had the proof of what they’d done growing inside of her.
“I think you’re probably right. I sure hope so,” Joelle said, coolly. But, in spite of her indifferent answer, her stomach sank to the floor.
“I hope so, too,” he replied. “Look, I think it’s time we just consider the whole incident dropped.”
“Sounds good to me,” Joelle said, forcing herself to sound as elated as he. “Besides, if a problem should result, I’ll have my attorney take care of it right away.”
For a long moment, Gabriel was silent. Finally, he cleared his throat. “Listen, now that I’ve had a moment to think about it, just to put both of our minds at ease, maybe we should sign some kind of an agreement, naming each other blameless for that night.”
Joelle stiffened. It wasn’t that she wanted anything from him, because she