Instant Dad. Raye Morgan
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just caught me off guard.”
That wasn’t it and he knew it, too. He watched her, still wondering.
“The good doctor assured me he wasn’t making judgments, but I would think you’d better correct the record at some point. Your husband might not be so understanding.”
Her face seemed to change when he mentioned her husband, as though a cloud had come over her thoughts. “Never mind that,” she said crisply. “I’ll handle my reputation. In the meantime, the best way you can disprove the rumors would be to go. Right now.”
She said it as though she expected him to jump up and run for the door, but he didn’t move a muscle. Instead, he leaned back and looked at her through narrowed eyes.
“Well, this is your house,” he said slowly, “and it is up to you. I’ll go if you really want me to. But someone has to be here.” A devilish light glittered in his eyes. “I can’t in all conscience leave you without anyone. I’ll have to call Dr. Bracken and let him know you’re alone.” He held back his amusement a moment longer. “I suppose he’ll send his wife Peggy over and—”
She threw back her head, groaning and half laughing at the same time. “So, you play dirty, do you?” she accused him.
His grin was slow and his eyes were knowing, as though he could read her mind and knew he was going to be one step ahead of her. “If I have to.”
“Well, I can play dirty, too,” she declared, but when she tossed her head to emphasize her defiance, she set off a flash of pain that shot through her skull and the room swam before her. “Ouch,” she said, closing her eyes and swaying against the counter.
Drey reacted without hesitation. “That does it,” he said as he came down off the bar stool and stepped around the counter and took hold of her. “Come on. You’re going to go lie down.”
“No,” she protested weakly. “No, I can’t.”
He swung her up into his arms without waiting to hear the rest of her speech and started for the stairs.
“I don’t believe this,” she murmured resentfully. “You can’t just carry me around. I’m not a little girl.”
“You’re right,” he said, taking the stairs easily. “You’re a big, obstinate woman.”
She wanted to fuss at him some more, but the pain in her head was disconcerting and her cheek felt so comfortable against his shoulder, she stayed quiet instead, closing her eyes and letting him take over. There was certainly an advantage in having a big strong man around. She felt protected and secure and that was nice—and so unusual for her.
When he gently laid her down on her bed, she almost regretted having to leave the warmth of his arms.
But he didn’t seem to regret letting go. He backed away unceremoniously and glanced around the room.
“Do you have a radio in here?” he asked.
She looked up at him in surprise, shading her eyes from the light with her hand. “Yes. That’s a clock radio on the bedside table.”
“Good.” He flicked it on and searched the stations until he found someone talking instead of music. “Listen to this,” he advised. “Rest. You can even cover your eyes. But don’t let yourself fall asleep.”
“Okay,” she said dutifully, feeling limp. “What are you going to be doing?”
“I’m going to fix us something to eat.”
“You?” He didn’t look like the sort of man who could be found adding basil to the vinaigrette, or even donning an apron and wielding a barbecue fork at the old gas grill. “You don’t cook,” she informed him skeptically.
“Don’t I?” He favored her with a lopsided grin. “You just wait and see.”
He left the room and she closed her eyes for a moment, resting her head, ignoring the voice on the radio and trying to think. She was actually very glad she was lying down, very glad Drey had taken over the way he had. He was right, and so was the doctor. She needed someone. The accident with the pool seemed to have sapped all her strength and had left her very shaken. She was grateful Drey wanted to stay. She would use this time to rest—and to think.
She’d been avoiding doing much thinking over the past few weeks. She’d been busy tying up the loose ends at her import company, fixing things so that she could take time off and get to know the new baby once it came. And she’d been frantically preparing for this baby shower she was having next week. All in all, thinking had been relegated to the sidelines. It was probably time to let it back into the game, at least for a few minutes.
It was odd how twisted her life had become lately. She’d had everything under control once. If she didn’t watch out, things would fall apart and she would end up back where she’d been.
Her eyes popped open. Back where she’d been. Keeping away from that place was the driving force behind everything she did. She’d had a chaotic childhood. She would do everything she could to make sure she never went back there again.
On the outside, her life had probably looked idyllic. Her parents had plenty of money. What they didn’t have was love, or any sense of what went into making a family. She still cringed remembering the late-night fights with people shrieking and racing through the house throwing things, her mother’s boozy mornings, her father’s affairs. As a little girl, she had hidden away from the pandemonium. She had a secret place in her closet with a little lamp and her special books, and she would go there and hide, making up a private world that the rest of her family knew nothing about. As an adult, she’d made that secret place her reality as much as she possibly could and for many years it seemed to work for her.
But little by little, things had begun to fall apart. First her marriage had become a sham, then it had evaporated completely. She’d tried hard to make it work and had built her business to take its place, but things just hadn’t come together the way she needed them to. Then Jenny had told her about the pregnancy and she’d decided to adopt Jenny’s baby. She knew she was taking a risk, but it was something she had to do. And she had to do it right.
“I’m in control,” she muttered to herself. “Everything’s going to be perfect.”
Everything was going to be perfect. After all, she’d tamed the turmoil once before. She would do it again. All you needed was a strong mind and you could set up your own reality. That was what it was all about.
But her reality was a little cockeyed at the moment. It would need some shoring up. First, instead of the perfect and ideal family she’d always thought she would have, she was about to be the single mother of her sister’s child.
If that wasn’t bizarre enough, she’d fallen into her pool and been rescued by her carpenter, who had stripped her naked without a second thought and was now downstairs fixing dinner.
Odd. Very odd. She was going to have to work to get things back on an even keel. And adopting Jenny’s baby was going to be the first step, actually. It was a step she’d been working up to, a step she wanted very badly to take. If she couldn’t have the perfect marriage, at least she would have the perfect baby.
When he left Sara in her bedroom, Drey started for the kitchen, but in the upper hallway he hesitated and instead turned toward the room where he’d found her husband’s clothes. Something was nagging at him, something he hadn’t been able to fit into the puzzle that was Sara.
Sara had told Dr. Bracken her husband was still on a trip to China, and the doctor seemed to accept that. There was really no reason Drey should question it. And, yet, something wasn’t right.
He turned into the bedroom and looked at the neatly made bed, the dresser with its picture of Sara and its neatly placed, silver-backed brush-and-comb set. There was a static quality to the room, as though it were a set for a play, not a place where real people lived. He wasn’t sure why, but something felt wrong.