And Then Came You (29 page)

Then he left.

While he still could.

Jo spotted her first. A gorgeous blonde in a designer suit, wearing three-inch pink high heels for God’s sake, was hard to miss on a job site. Her stomach took a nosedive as she realized who Barbie in Pink had to be. “Psst! Mike!”

She kept her voice down, despite the clamor of electric tools rising from the yard below and waited until her younger sister turned to snarl at her.

“If you want help on this stinking roof, then let me lay the stupid paper so I can get back to my damn sinks.”

Jo ignored the temper. Just part of Mike’s charm. “Look,” she said, pointing with the business end of her hammer.

“What?”
Mike shot a glance at the yard, then whistled low and long. “Uh-oh.”

“It’s her, isn’t it?”

“Oh yeah. Has to be. Weasel-dog’s new babe.” She shifted a look in the direction the blonde was walking. “And headed right for Sam.”

“Think we should go down there?”

Mike’s instinct was to do just that. But she didn’t move. “No. This is Sam’s shit. Besides, when has a Marconi needed help to do battle?”

“True,” Jo said, watching as the cool blonde picked her way daintily across the yard. “But I don’t think Sam’s got the kind of weapons that chick uses.”

Sam looked up as Cynthia approached and instantly felt heat rush up her neck to flood her face with color she hoped would pass as sunburn. Dear Lord. She
was
the other woman. And now she had to look Cynthia dead in the eye and pretend she
hadn’t
had sex with Jeff the night before. Sure. No problem.

“Hello again.” Cynthia smiled and held out a beautifully manicured hand.

Wincing slightly, Sam wiped her own paint-stained palm on her jeans, then took Cynthia’s in a firm, fast shake. “Hi.” She paused, then glanced at Grace, standing patiently in the shade. “Sorry. Grace Van Horn, Cynthia Fairwood. Cynthia, Grace.”

“So nice to meet you.” Cynthia smiled and her perfect, pearly-white teeth were displayed to, well . . .
perfection
.

“Hello. I’ve so enjoyed getting to know Jeff and Emma. She’s a lovely child.” Grace shifted a look from one woman to the other.

“Isn’t she, though?” Cynthia agreed. “I can’t tell you what she means to me. Well to
us
, Jeff and me.”

Sam winced.

“Of course,” Grace said smoothly, then turning to Sam, she said, “Why don’t I go and keep Emma busy with her grandpa while you and Cynthia visit?”

Just what Sam wanted to do, she thought. Go have a nice long visit with her husband’s fiancée. Good times.

“I can’t imagine how you do this kind of work,”
Cynthia said with a quiet chuckle. “I would just be hopeless at it.” She smiled. “I don’t think I’ve ever even
held
a hammer.”

Well, Sam thought, didn’t she feel dainty.

Cynthia squeaked as one of the goats strolled up to touch the back of her knee with a whiskered snout.

“Sorry, sorry.” Sam grabbed one of the goat’s twisted horns and gave it a pull. “They won’t hurt you.”

Cynthia laughed shortly, uneasily, and kept a wary eye on the hairy beast still trying to snuffle at her hem. “If you say so,” she said, clearly unconvinced. “But if you don’t mind, could we take a walk away from it? I’d really like to talk to you. Woman to woman.”

That couldn’t be good. But Sam figured she owed it to the woman since she had spent most of the night before bouncing on her fiancé. Oh God.

“Sure, just head back the way you came, I’ll catch up.” She gave the goat a deliberate push in the opposite direction, then quickly followed in Cynthia’s mincing footsteps.

“How do you stand the noise?” Cynthia asked with a careful shake of her head.

“You get used to it,” Sam said, keeping her steps small, since Cynthia was tottering across the rocky ground on sky-high heels.

A few minutes later, they were out on the wide front lawn where the wind danced through the trees and ruffled Cynthia’s perfectly cut hair before dropping it back into place.

Sam felt like the ugly stepsister in Cinderella’s fairy tale. Cynthia’s soft pink linen suit was spotless, and her matching bag and shoes screamed money and good taste. Alongside the blonde, Sam looked like a
“before” picture in a magazine article about extreme makeovers. Torn jeans, paint-spattered T-shirt, and a ratty ponytail tucked through a baseball cap with a battered bill. All she really needed was a bright red letter
A
sewn to her chest and the picture would be complete.

Guilt, fresh and new, pumped through her and forced her to smile when she wanted to scream. “If you’re looking for Jeff, he went back to the city this morning.”
Right after he climbed out of my bed
.

“I know. He called me.” Cynthia walked a little farther so that she could stand beneath one of the tall shade trees marching in formation around the perimeter of Grace’s lawn. “That’s why I’m here.”

Uh-oh
.

“I thought the two of us should have a chat—with Jeff out of the way.”

Great. “Okay.”

Cynthia smiled again and Sam couldn’t help thinking that she’d be great in a toothpaste commercial.

“This is difficult for all of us,” the blonde began. “Knowing what to do, how to act.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Sam said. She hadn’t known last night, either. Not until Jeff had touched her, then she’d been certain of what to do. Although this morning, things were a little fuzzy again.

“I know what you’re feeling.”

Sam’s gaze snapped up to hers. “You do?”

“Of course.” Cynthia reached out and laid one hand on Sam’s arm briefly. When she pulled her hand back, she rubbed her fingers, just in case she’d picked up some stray dirt. “This situation is difficult, at best. I understand how you feel about Emma. I love her, too. But
I think as adults, we have to decide what’s in her best interests.”

Irritation bristled inside Sam, but she fought it down. Temper wouldn’t do any good, and besides, Cynthia was right. They
should
be thinking about Emma. Still, it stung to have someone else—
anyone
else—tell her what was best for
her
daughter. “I agree. And I think Jeff does, too.”

“Of course he does. He’s a wonderful father.” Cynthia’s teeth worried her bottom lip gently as if she were weighing her next words. “Samantha,” she said finally, “I think, as women, we need to be honest with each other.”

“Okay . . .” Guilt again. Sharp. Hot. Uncomfortable. It exploded inside Sam and made her shoulder blades twitch.

“Jeff and I are building a structured, safe environment for Emma. Until a couple of weeks ago, she was happy. Secure.” Cynthia smiled again, softly, kindly. “She needs stability in her life, Samantha. And I believe I was giving her that. Until . . .”

Sam swallowed hard. “Until
me
.”

“Frankly? Yes.” Tucking her pink clutch bag beneath her left arm, Cynthia folded her hands at her waist. “Your . . .
reluctance
to let go of the past is making all of this more difficult than it has to be.”

Was it? She turned and looked back over her shoulder to where she knew Emma was, playing with her aunts and her grandfather and the goats. Was Sam really making all of this worse? Harder on Emma?

“I’m sure you have some residual feelings for Jeff. He’s a wonderful man, why wouldn’t you?”

Residual. That put her neatly in her place, didn’t it?

“Jeff’s heritage, his business, his
world
, is in San Francisco. Yours is . . .” She waved a hand and looked worriedly at another goat as it wandered across the lawn.
“Here.”

True again. What had she been thinking? That Jeff would resign from his job, his career, and move to Chandler? Or could she really see herself giving up her life and becoming a corporate wife in San Francisco? God, no.

Sam breathed deeply and blew out the air on a sigh. Everything Cynthia said was absolutely true. Oh, she knew Emma was happy now. But she’d been happy before, too. And there was no doubt at all that Sam had thrown a monkey wrench into her daughter’s life, messing things up until no one knew which side was up anymore.

She didn’t want Emma to be unhappy. Torn between her father and mother. Hell, she didn’t want
Jeff
to be unhappy either, if it came down to it.

But what about last night? What was that all about if he was thinking of her as an awkward intrusion from his past? Had last night been a courtesy fling? A fond farewell? A sort of “bon voyage” present to Sam?

Temper spurted to life inside her and began throttling all of the doubts and insecurities. Had Jeff just been looking for a way to get Sam out of his system? Or had it been more devious than that? Was he trying to soften her up so she’d sign the damn papers and get soft on the custody thing? Had he really hopped from Cynthia’s bed to hers and then back again?

Was he really the weasel-dog Mike had always called him?

Dammit
.

Thoughts, fears, suspicions, crashed noisily inside her mind, caroming off each other like scattered billiard balls on a pool table. Then Cynthia started talking again and Sam told herself to pay attention.

“Don’t you see? You’re a part of his past, Samantha, not his future.” The woman’s voice was a velvet-covered fist pounding at the foundations of everything she’d been feeling lately. “I know this is hard. Jeff and I have talked at great length about the
awkwardness
of the situation.”

“Awkward?” He hadn’t seemed awkward last night, she reminded herself, even as Cynthia’s words chipped away at what was left of those fantasy castles she’d indulged in so briefly. Had she really been kidding herself? Had she really allowed herself to fall for him . . .
again
?

The blonde put one delicate hand to her abdomen and inhaled sharply.

“Are you okay?” Sam stepped forward instinctively, not sure if the other woman needed help or—

“Fine, thank you.” Then taking another deep breath, Cynthia confided, “The morning sickness hasn’t passed completely, that’s all. I’m sure you remember how awful it was and—”

Morning sickness?

Sam’s brain reeled and her heart took a direct hit.
Oh God
. Cynthia was
pregnant
?

She swayed on her feet, feeling the world tip and shake around her. Her stomach twisted and turned and she had to swallow hard to bite back the nausea roiling within. Cynthia was
pregnant
?

“You didn’t know.”

“No.” Didn’t know. Never considered it. Didn’t know what to do about it. Pain splintered through Sam’s body until it felt as though hundreds of thousands of tiny needles were jabbing at her and she wondered how she was able to stand under the assault.

“This is terrible,” Cynthia muttered and looked around frantically, as if to reassure herself that no one was close enough to overhear. “I’m
so
sorry. I really am. I never should have—” She paused in her misery and gave Sam a halfhearted smile. “I thought Jeff would have told you by now, but I should have known he wouldn’t.” Her hand stayed atop her abdomen as if protecting the child within from hearing anything it shouldn’t. “We wanted to wait until after the wedding to tell Emma, and—”

Cynthia’s voice was a buzzing in Sam’s ears. She knew the woman was talking, but she couldn’t quite make out all the words over the hammering of her own heart. Pregnant. Jeff and Cynthia were going to have a child. Together.

She swayed again, then locked her knees to keep herself upright. Oh God. Images of the night before flashed in her brain and she resolutely wiped them out only to see them rise up vividly, over and over.

“I didn’t mean to upset you with all of this, you must believe me.” Cynthia took a hesitant step forward and looked deeply into Sam’s eyes. “I know how hard this situation must be for you, really I do.”

“I don’t think you can,” Sam said, and wondered if her voice sounded as distant to Cynthia as it did to her.

The blonde nodded slowly. “Maybe not,” she admitted. “But as one mother to another,” she confided, “I
felt as though I had to tell you what Jeff’s been too much of a gentleman to say.” She paused, then continued. “He wants to put all of this behind him so the three of us—” she paused to smile again, “four now—can go on with our lives.”

“Of course.” How could there be more pain? she thought. How could it keep coming? Keep piling up inside her head, her heart?

“He feels very bad about his mother’s machinations—and he doesn’t want to hurt you again. But Sam.” She paused and gently finished, “He’s moved on. And he wants that for his daughter—his
children
—as well.”

Children
. Sam’s stomach spun wildly. All she could think was that Jeff really had been bouncing between her bed and Cynthia’s. How could he? How could he have made love to her, made her remember all the warmth and passion they’d once known—when all the time he
knew
Cynthia was pregnant with his child?

What had he been thinking?

What had he been planning?

Was he now going to walk away from Cynthia and
this
child as he had from Sam and Emma? Was he expecting to be able to keep Sam on the side for fun and games while he lived his life with Polly Perfection? Was he just using Sam before moving on?

Rage bubbled inside Sam, swamping the misery and nearly choking her.

Cynthia checked the slim gold watch on her left wrist and clucked her tongue. “I really have to be going. I’m meeting Jeff in the city for a late lunch.” Conspiratorially, she leaned in close and added, “I’m hoping my tummy will have settled by then, since I’m absolutely
ravenous
. Eating for two does have its advantages, doesn’t it? We get to eat just anything we like.”

“Yeah.” Sam choked the word out. “Sure.”

The blonde shook her hair back from her face and smiled. “After lunch of course, we’ve got more meetings with the wedding planner and—then I’m going to have to see the dressmaker and get her to let the waist out just a tiny bit. Honestly, if the wedding wasn’t coming so quickly now, I don’t think I’d be able to keep my little ‘surprise’ from anyone—” She caught herself mid-sentence. “I’m sure you don’t care about the last-minute details of our wedding.”