Bundle of Joy (15 page)

Charlie had the feeling Bill O'Rourke had finally realized the way things were and had quietly gotten the word out to the regulars. Scotty had looked at him with a mixture of curiosity and disappointment and at that moment Charlie wished he were fending off some more misguided advice on how to keep a wife happy.

He supposed he should be grateful that he didn't have to pretend to be the lusty and satisfied bridegroom but somehow he found he missed the good-natured banter. Who would've figured it? He'd counted on Caroline's presence in her fancy apartment to help keep the strangeness of their situation at bay. He'd sure as hell never counted on the silence that had accompanied their marriage. Before they'd married, they'd enjoyed an adversarial relationship second to none. She was the one woman who could toss back one-liners as fast as he could dish out the set-ups. While he hadn't exactly liked her, he'd liked the way his adrenaline started humming whenever she showed up at the bar in one of her ridiculous beaded dresses and flirted her way from table to table.

Funny thing, though. Looking back he realized she'd made a point of flirting men eligible for social security. Anyone born after 1950 was treated to an icy glare that quite clearly said, "Don't come near me." He'd dismissed her as a world-class flirt but had never paid that much attention to exactly who was reaping the benefit of her flirting. Sure, he'd noticed the way she doted on Scotty and his pals, but he'd assumed the golden agers at O'Rourke's were only a warm-up for the real thing.

Well, it seemed as if there
was
no real thing. At least, not if her silent telephone was any indication. He'd been prepared to break the news of their marriage to at least a score of Caroline's admirers and, truth to tell, he would've enjoyed doing so. However, in the past four weeks only one man had called and he had accepted the news with both surprise and good grace.

Her social life was the stuff of legend. He'd heard Sam and Murphy laughing about Caroline's endless round of society parties, country club dances, and intimate soirees for three hundred. Was it possible that she'd kept her dates at a distance, the way she did Charlie now that they were married?

"Leaving early?" asked Bill as Charlie tossed his apron down on the counter.

"Thought I'd try seeing my wife before she falls asleep," said Charlie. "Okay with you?"

Bill shrugged. "Far be it from me to deny a man his conjugal rights."

Charlie glared at his boss and headed for the door. Dangerous territory, that remark. He wasn't about to touch it with a ten foot pole.

The roads were empty. He honked at Sam's cousin Teddy, a local cop, at a traffic light and Teddy waved back. He liked being part of a neighborhood. Especially a neighborhood of real people. He wondered how Caroline could stand the homogenized blandness of her condo community.

Her car was in the parking lot and he swung into the spot next to hers. There was something nice about seeing her sports car tucked away each night. It wasn't that he worried about her actively, but a part of him relaxed when he pulled in at night and saw that she was safely home. He glanced at the clock on his dashboard. Only a little after eleven. The lights were on in the living room.

With a little luck she'd be awake and maybe in the mood to talk. Making love was too much to hope for. Conversation, however, seemed a definite possibility.

"Caroline!" he called out as he opened the front door. "I told Bill I was cutting out early. I thought maybe we could--"

He stopped cold. There, curled up in the big chair in the far corner of the living room, was his wife, a small bundle of silk-clad woman with golden hair. Quietly he crossed the room, hearing the soft sound of her breathing. Dark circles shadowed her eyes and those circles touched his heart in a way few things did. He placed a hand on her shoulder, expecting her to spring awake immediately, but she merely shifted position and drifted more deeply into slumber.

"My wife." He tried out the words. They sounded strange to him, almost foreign. He'd never imagined himself with a wife--or a child on the way, for that matter. It wasn't that he'd been against either prospect but somehow life had taken him along a different road, one that ran counter to domesticity.

Not that this was domestic bliss exactly. There were times he wondered why he'd been so adamant about living together. For all they saw of each other they might as well have been living on separate continents.

He reached out and fingered a lock of pale blonde hair, mesmerized by the way it drifted between his fingers like spun gold. She was easily the most beautiful woman he'd ever known and she was his wife, the mother of his child, and he didn't know a damn thing about her. Grinning, he took note of the red-and-white striped socks on her slender legs. Like why in hell she was wearing those for starters.

She shifted position, a small frown furrowing the space between her brows. How comfortable could she be, curled up in that chair? She was pregnant. She needed her sleep. The least he could do was see her safely to her room.

He hesitated only a moment then, carefully he scooped her up into his arms and carried her back to the master bedroom where he laid her down on her bed. Gently he eased her robe off her slender frame and an ache grew in his belly at the sight of her breasts, round and full and tempting, barely confined by the delicate top of her nightgown. Even those stupid, incongruous, candy-cane striped knee socks did something to him. She was so small, so finely made, that his breath caught as he tried to imagine her further into the pregnancy. It almost hurt to think of that slight frame grown huge with their child and a feeling not unlike tenderness flooded him. It was an odd combination, tenderness and desire, and that combination was the toughest thing Charlie Donohue ever had to fight. All of her carefully structured defenses were down. Asleep she was helpless, at his mercy. If he wanted to, and he did, he could lean forward and cup her breasts in his hands, savor their weight and taste with his tongue. He could strip off his clothes and, easing the nightgown up over her hips, take pleasure from her body.

She was his wife. He had the right to share her bed.

But, damn it, if and when they ever again made love, it had to be because they both wanted it. Anything less was wrong, no matter how you looked at it--and no matter how much it hurt to turn away.

#

Caroline's first "official" pre-natal visit to her doctor was scheduled for the Thursday evening before Labor Day. There was absolutely no reason to be nervous about it--the visit was as routine as it could be--but still she found herself dressing with a ridiculous amount of care.

Dress? Suit? Summer slacks and top? Her closets bulged with beautiful outfits but not a one satisfied. Truth was, she was counting the hours until she was back in her apartment, curled up in her bed asleep. All she thought of these days was sleep. She craved it the way an addict craved his narcotic of choice. She napped in her office. She napped over fajitas at Martita's Cantina. She had even napped during Mel Gibson's latest movie, something Sam had previously claimed was biologically impossible for any normal red-blooded American woman.

Dressed only in bra and panties, she stood in the middle of her bedroom with a pile of discarded clothes about her feet and started to laugh. "You're losing it," she told her reflection in the mirror. The one thing she'd always been able to do was dress herself with style. Now she was having trouble choosing a basic outfit. Another few months and she'd be reduced to a shadow of her former self, wandering the streets in polyester stretch pants and an old shirt.

She took another, closer look at her reflection. A shadow? Not very likely. There was a decided roundness to her belly, a roundness that hadn't been visible just a few short days ago. Her flesh seemed more generous, straining the lace-trimmed elastic on her bikini panties. She frankly stared at her torso, amazed by the sight. She'd grown accustomed to her swollen breasts, but this was something entirely different. This was the real thing.

Gently she ran her fingers across her navel, laying her palms flat
against her flesh, as if to cradle the baby forming within. Loneliness, deep and aching, stole her breath away. If only she felt something other than fear and bewilderment. Where were the deep maternal feelings that had flooded Sam from the very first moment she'd known she was carrying both Patty and James? Caroline felt like an alien adrift in a hostile world, as if all the things that had made her unique had been stripped away from her that night in the fur vault, turning her into a stranger even to herself. She'd conjured Caroline Bradley up from whole cloth: style and personality and ambition had all been crafted to create the perfect life.

A life that had never once included a husband or a baby.

She jumped at the sound of the front door slamming shut, then the boom of a deep voice calling her name. She grabbed for her silky robe and slipped it on just in time for she turned to find Donohue standing in the doorway.

"What are you doing here?" she asked by way of greeting. "It's only six o'clock
.
"
You don't usually get in until ten minutes after two in the morning.
Not that she'd paid much attention to his comings and goings, mind you....

#

Charlie was about to say something flip and funny when it dawned on him that his wife wasn't wearing many clothes--and what few clothes she
was
wearing didn't cover all of her assets. His words died in his throat as he caught tantalizing glimpses of rounded woman peeking out from the unbelted blue robe. This was a lot different from a sleeping Caroline in dishabille. This was infinitely more dangerous.

"I--uhh, I had the day off. I thought I'd stop by and--" He grinned, tearing his gaze from the swell of her breasts. "Hell. I saw your car in the parking lot and I thought maybe we could go out to dinner tonight." There. That wasn't so hard, was it?

"You're kidding."

"Do I look like I'm kidding?"

A smile flickered at the corners of her luscious mouth. "You always look like you're kidding, Charles. That's why they love you so much at the bar."

He took a deep breath. Might as well go for broke. "I was driving around down by the shore and I realized we haven't had a meal together since our wedding night."

"I know," said Caroline, tugging at the sides of her robe. "I realized that the other day."

"Damn stupid, wouldn't you say?"

She hesitated. "Well, it seems to me we've both been quite good at maintaining our agreement."

"What agreement?" asked Charlie, running his hand through his hair. "We got married. We didn't sign an 'agreement.'"

"The point of our marriage was to give our child a name and a foundation. We never talked about having a relationship."

Charlie squared his shoulders. Why did he feel like he was facing off against a flank of opposing linebackers instead of one beautiful, pregnant woman? "Maybe we were wrong."

She said nothing, just watched him, her big blue eyes wide and calm.

"Let's go to dinner, Caroline, and try to sort this whole thing out. I think we owe it to each other."

"Thanks, but I can't."

He'd been doing so good at keeping his cool but that calm indifference of hers was getting to him. "Why can't you?"

"I have another engagement."

"Break it."

That elusive smile of hers was back, twitching at the corners of her mouth. It infuriated him. "Not this one."

"Who is he?"
You're giving away the farm, Donohue. You sound jealous.

"His name is Stephen. Stephen Burkheit."

"Do I know him?"

She started to laugh. "Oh, somehow I doubt it."

"Give me his phone number. I'll call and tell him you have a date with your husband." Dating. They'd talked about everything but dating. Wouldn't you think she'd have known married women don't date?

"Charles," she said, placing a hand on his forearm, "Stephen Burkheit is my doctor."

vii

A couple of months ago, Caroline would have enjoyed having the last word on Charlie Donohue.

A couple of months ago, she would have delighted in putting him in his place as neatly as she had moments ago.

Why, then, wasn't she enjoying her victory? Instead of throwing back her head and laughing in triumph, she felt like crying.

"Your doctor?" asked Charlie.

"My doctor," said Caroline. "Obstetrician, actually. Now if you'll get out of here and let me get dressed...."

She forced a smile as a wave of melancholy swooped in out of nowhere and enveloped her in a moody grey fog.

She stared at the skirts and slacks and tops scattered on every available surface in the room.
I can't do it,
she thought bursting into irrational tears. Choosing one outfit over another was beyond her capabilities. Putting one foot before the other was taxing her intellect to its outer limits. Why hadn't someone told her pregnancy was dangerous to the brain cells?

Donohue tapped on the door. "You okay in there? I don't hear anything."