Beloved Stranger (3 page)

But she knew, too, deep in her soul, that she would not have an abortion. It would solve all problems except one. She would have to live with the knowledge of what she had done.

She remembered then having seen an advertisement in the Bridgeport Post for an organization called Birthright. It was a group set up to help girls like herself. Susan got up off her bed and washed her face. She would get the number from information and call Birthright, she thought. She’d make an appointment and go home this weekend. It was time to slop bemoaning her fate and do something about it.

* * * *

Susan relaxed gratefully in the cool air conditioning of the small restaurant and sipped her iced tea. Outside the downtown Hartford street shimmered in the heat of August, but inside it was pleasantly cool and uncrowded. It was two-thirty in the afternoon, well past the regular lunch hour. Once she had finished her drink she could go home.

Home. Well, it was home, she thought, for two more months at least. She could only feel gratitude toward the middle-aged single woman who had provided a shelter home for her for the duration of her pregnancy. The people at Birthright had found her the home and a part-time job that enabled her to give Elaine something toward her board and room.

The baby inside her gave a kick and she shifted a little on her chair. She glanced up as the door opened and then froze in her seat. There was no mistaking that tall, lean figure, that shock of very dark brown hair. Almost instantly she bent her head and gazed furiously at the table, trying to hide her face. Consequently she didn’t see the man notice her, frown and then start a leisurely but purposeful approach toward her table.

“Susan?” said a low, deep, mellow voice that was unnervingly familiar. And she had to raise her head.

“Yes,” she said. “Ricardo. What a surprise to find you here.” She was surprised to hear how composed she sounded.

“I had to see someone in the immigration office about a friend of mine.” He gestured. “May I sit down?”

“I suppose so.” She made her voice distinctly unenthusiastic but he didn’t appear to notice. He pulled the chair out opposite her and sat. She stared resolutely at the saltshaker. She didn’t have to look to know that those shrewd brown eyes were assessing the bulkiness of her stomach, if it had been winter, if she were wearing a coat, then she thought she might have hidden it. But in a light cotton dress she didn’t have a chance.

He reached out and caught her left hand as it moved restlessly on the table. They both stared for a long minute at the slender, delicate hand, so conspicuously bare of rings. He raised his eyes to her face. “Is it mine?” he asked tensely.

She bit her lip. “Yes.”

“Bios! I told you to let me know if this happened. I knew there was a chance of it.”

His hand was still grasping hers and she tried to draw away. He didn’t let go and she stared once again at the strong tan fingers that were gripping her wrist so efficiently, remembering the last time they had touched her. “There was really nothing you could do for me, Ricardo,” she said, she hoped calmly. “I’m managing quite well on my own, thank you. There is no need to concern yourself about me.”

He smiled at her words and it was not a smile of good humor. “How are you managing,
querida
?” he asked.

She pulled her hand again and this time he let it go. She flattened her back and said evenly, “I went to an organization called Birthright. I didn’t want to tell my mother what had happened. She would have been terribly upset.” She put her hand up, from long habit, to push back her hair but it was already neatly tied at the nape of her neck. She let her hand fall again. “My older sister Sara was killed last year in a car accident,” she explained flatly, “and Daddy died of a heart attack three years ago. So, you see, I’m the only one Mother has left. I’ve never been as bright as Sara, or as pretty and vivacious, but still I’m all Mother has left now, I just couldn’t come home pregnant.”

“Your mother would have been angry?” he asked noncommittally.

“No. Not angry. She would have been marvelous. But, underneath, she would have been so disappointed.”

“You would be a failure in her eyes.”

Startled, she looked up at him. Those remarkable brown eyes had a very understanding look to them. She put her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her hands. “I suppose so,” she said ruefully. “I suppose it wasn’t just Mother’s feelings I was sparing.”

“So you went to this Birthright,” he said. “Why did you not get an abortion?”

“I just couldn’t.”

He nodded. “And so?”

“And so the people at Birthright were absolutely marvelous. I couldn’t stay around home, for obvious reasons. They found me a shelter home here in Hartford. I came here after graduation.” She smiled a little painfully. “I made it through graduation all right. I didn’t start to really show that much until the fifth month. After graduation I told Mother I had an opportunity to go to Europe with a family as a combination nurse-tutor for two children. That’s where she thinks I am. A friend of mine, who is in Europe, is periodically mailing postcards I wrote in advance. So there it is.”

“Not quite.” He looked at her levelly. The lines of his cheek and jaw looked suddenly very hard. “What are you planning to do with the baby?”

This was the hard part. A look of strain crept across her face, tightening the skin, making her nose look more prominent. She was very pale. “I’m going to give him up for adoption,” she said in a very low voice.

There was a long silence during which she refused to look at him. Then, “Why?” he asked in a clipped kind of voice.

“Because it will be the best thing for the baby. It may not be the best thing for me, but it’s not my interest I’ve got to look out for in this.” Now she did look at him. “My best friend in high school was adopted. Her parents were two of the greatest people I’ve ever known. It is not possible to love a child more than they loved her—and her two adopted brothers as well. A child needs a stable loving family. He needs a mother and a father—not a full-time day-care center, which is all I could offer him. The agency I’m going through has a list as long as your arm of couples who are just longing for a baby.” She compressed her lips. “I’ve thought about this long and hard, Ricardo, and it hasn’t been an easy decision, but I know it’s the right one. I’m going to give him up for adoption.”

“You keep saying ‘him.’ Do you know it is a boy?”

“Yes, actually I do. I had an ultrasound and the way the picture came out you could tell.”

He leaned across the table toward her and took her hand once more in his. “Susan.” No one else, she thought, made her name sound as it did when Ricardo said it. “If you could keep the baby,” he was going on, “would you?”

“Of course I would,” she answered instantly. “I don’t want to give him away, you know.”

“Then marry me,” he said.

Her eyes flew wide open in shock. She stared at his face. It looked perfectly serious. “What?” she said.

“You heard me. Marry me. Surely it is the obvious solution.”

“To you, maybe, but not to me,” she got out. “I hardly know you.”

He laughed, a sound of genuine amusement. “You know me well enough,” he said, and she felt herself flushing furiously.

“Don’t be clever,” she muttered. “You know what I mean.”

“Listen,
querida
,” he said patiently. He was very obviously the reasonable, intelligent male dealing with an unreasonable and very silly woman. “You said yourself that it is not your interest that concerns you. It is the welfare of the child. Well, I am the child’s father. I am wealthy. I will take good care of him.” He stared into her eyes and his own were suddenly commanding. “I do not want my son to be brought up by another man.”

She felt the force of his will, of his personality, bearing down on her and, instinctively, she resisted. “I don’t know,” she said.

He sat back a little in his chair. “I could simply take the child and let my mother raise him,” he said. “She would be delighted to have a grandchild to live with her. And, unlike your mother, she would not think I had disappointed her.” His dark stare was unwavering, almost inimical. “Would you prefer that?”

She stared back, her own eyes clearly reflecting her confusion and her hurt. She couldn’t answer him. Quite suddenly he smiled and his whole face was transformed. “Listen,
querida
,” and now his voice was gentle, “I know this has been a very hard time for you. I am as much responsible as you and yet you have had to bear all the worry, all the pain. Let me take care of you now. I know you will be a good mother and, who knows, you may even come to like being a wife.” His eyes sparkled. “I am not so bad, you know. Now what do you say? Do you want to keep this baby?”

Of course she wanted to keep her baby, more than anything else in the world. But what would the final price be? “Yes,” she said. Her widely spaced gray eyes searched his worriedly. “What—what kind of marriage did you have in mind?”

He looked surprised. “Marriage is marriage,” he said. “I didn’t know there were different brands.”

She could feel herself flushing. “I meant—did you expect it would be permanent?”

“Permanent?” he echoed. And then his eyes narrowed as comprehension struck him. “Do you mean would I expect to divorce you after the baby is born?”

“Well,” said Susan. “Yes.”

His mouth thinned. “No,” he said flatly. “I would expect you to be my wife.” He looked at her assessingly and she was terribly conscious of her bulky figure. “What are you afraid of?”

She closed her eyes for a minute. “Everything.” Her voice was barely audible.

When she opened her eyes again his face had softened. “You are afraid to trust your future to me,” he said very gently. “Don’t worry, little one. I will take good care of you.” He reached out and touched her cheek lightly. “We will have a son—the son we made together.” He picked up her hand and kissed the inside of her wrist. “You did not find me so disagreeable once. It will be like that again.”

The touch of his fingers, his mouth, brought back disturbing memories. “We really don’t know each other. Do—do you still think we could make it work?” she asked uncertainly.

“Of course. Why ever should we not?”

Why ever? Susan thought blankly. And, really, what was her alternative? She looked up into his dark eyes. “Well—all right,” she said.

He smiled at her and she felt the corners of her mouth lifting in response. “Good girl,” he said. “We will do very well together. And now, why don’t we go along to your shelter home and collect your things? You might as well come back to Stamford with me now.” He signaled the waitress for her check.

Susan was a little nonplussed. She had been making her own decisions for so long now, it was a little bewildering to have someone move in so efficiently. It was also, she thought a little wryly as he paid her bill and pulled out her chair, rather pleasant. She wouldn’t at all mind being bossed about for a while. She was very weary of managing on her own. Nevertheless, she said firmly, as they stepped out into the heat of the city street, “I have to go talk to the people in the agency first. They’ve been very good to me.”

“Do you want to go now?”

“Yes.”

“Very well,” he said, and, putting a hand on her back, guided her toward a forest-green Mercedes. “I’ll come with you. I don’t want anyone trying to change your mind.”

God, Susan thought, what were they going to think at the agency when she turned up with Rick Montoya? It really would be easier if he stayed in the car. She glanced sideways at the set of his mouth and decided not to argue. She didn’t have the energy. “What is the address?” he asked, and she gave it to him.

Chapter Three

The following week was one of the most stressful and unsettling times in Susan’s entire life. It started with the ride to Stamford in Ricardo’s car. They had left Susan’s old Volkswagen behind; Ricardo assured her easily that he would have someone pick it up.

“What are we going to tell people?” she asked him as she sat back against the comfortable beige upholstery of the Mercedes.

He flicked a glance at her before he went back to watching the road. “What do you mean?”

She felt horribly embarrassed. “I don’t want people to know the truth,” she said unhappily. “Couldn’t we say we’ve known each other for a while?”

“Oh, I see.” A faint smile touched his mouth. “I don’t see why we couldn’t say that,
querida
. We’ll say we met in the autumn and quarreled in January. All the rest can be the truth—your keeping the news of your pregnancy secret and so forth.”

“Yes, I suppose that would do.” She felt her cheeks grow hot. “What are people going to think of me?”

He chuckled. “People will think very well of us. After all, we’re doing the proper thing.”

“They will think well of you for making an honest woman of me. They won’t think so well of me, I’m afraid.”

He shrugged. “It is not important what other people think.” He glanced at her again, his eyes warm and bright in the late sunshine. “I know what kind of woman you are,
querida
. That is all that matters.”

Susan felt a sudden flash of gratitude. After all, he had never even questioned whether or not this baby was his. She wondered how many other men would have behaved so gracefully under the present circumstances. She sighed a little and he reached out to cover her small hand with his strong, warm one. “Don’t worry,” he said easily. “It will all work out.”

* * * *

They were married four days later in Stamford. Joe Hutchinson, the second baseman on Ricardo’s team, and Maggie Ellis, Susan’s closest friend, stood up for them. It was accomplished very quietly, with absolutely no press leaks, and the only other person present in the church was Mrs. Morgan.

Susan had been extremely apprehensive about breaking the news to her mother, but the reality had not proved as dreadful as her imagination had predicted. Mrs. Morgan was visibly shocked by the sight of her pregnant daughter, but Ricardo had taken charge, and almost before she realized what was happening, Susan found herself sitting on the porch while her mother served them lemonade.