Expecting the Boss’s Baby (15 page)

Marnie was the first to speak. “Zoe, this is wonderful news. I know you're going to be an excellent mom.”

“I'll second that,” said Corrine. “You will do great. And we're all here to help in any way we can.”

And then her dad said, “What can I tell you, Zoe? I think you're capable of tackling just about any task you set your mind to. I love you and I want only the best for you. Congratulations.”

Zoe peered at him intently, looking for a catch. But it didn't appear that there was one.

Her mom smiled her most loving smile. “We support you, honey. And we are right here whenever you need us.”

“Yes, we are.” Her dad spoke roughly, with considerable emotion. Zoe could see the love in his green eyes. And more. She saw admiration in his gaze, as well. And that meant so much.

Now, three evenings later, standing at her front window, planning to put some lighted wire reindeer on her tiny square of lawn, Zoe only wished that dealing with Dax could be one half as simple as breaking the news to her family had been.

 

The next day, Thursday, Dax called Aleta.

He asked her if he might have a word with her and Davis.

She invited him over for dinner that night.

Zoe's parents were warm and welcoming. Aleta hugged him. Davis shook his hand.

Gingerly, once they sat down to eat, he tried to feel them out, to discover before he said too much if Zoe might have already told them about the baby.

“I…don't know if you were aware that Zoe and I have been having some problems lately.”

Aleta smiled her dazzling smile. “Last Sunday, she told us all that you two are having a baby.
And
that you have asked her to marry you and she turned you down. Also, she mentioned to me that you two are only speaking when you're at the office.”

She hasn't lost the baby. The baby
—our baby—
is all right.

Sweet relief poured through him at the news. Dax set down his fork. “I had a feeling you knew
something.
I just wasn't sure how much.”

Davis cut right to the heart of the matter. “You're hoping we can help you change her mind, is that it?”

Gratitude warmed him—for their kindness. For their understanding. “I am, yes. I sincerely want to marry your daughter, and to…be a real dad to our child.”

Davis chuckled then.

Dax frowned. It hardly seemed a chuckle-worthy moment to him. “What?”

The older man shook his head. “Sorry, son. It's not that we don't want the same things for you—and for Zoe, and especially for our grandchild.”

“We do,” Aleta chimed in with feeling. “Very much.”

Davis said, “We're on your side, believe me.”

“But she made us promise—” Aleta shared a tender glance with her husband “—not to interfere.”

Davis told him, “I think if you want our daughter, if you
really
want her, you're going to have to start talking to her. You're going to have to find a way to get past whatever's come between you.”

“And…I should do this how?”

Davis and Aleta shared another fond look. And then Davis said, “If I had a clue, I would tell you. But then again, is that really my job? I don't think so. I think it's yours, Dax. I think you've got some serious convincing to do. I wish you all the best with that. I hope you succeed. I think you and my little girl are good together. I would love to have you in the family. But I can't make that happen. Only
you
can—you and Zoe, together.”

 

The next morning, when Dax got off the elevator at
Great Escapes,
Zoe was there, as she was every morning, sitting behind her desk, her red hair shining, so pretty it almost hurt to look at her.

He thought about holding her. He thought about kissing her. He thought about the way the two of them used to stay awake half the night, whispering to each other in the dark.

She glanced up from her computer monitor and gave him a cool smile. “Good morning, Dax.”

He smiled back, a
real
smile. “Zoe.”

She looked slightly shocked, but then she stood and handed him his coffee. “Here you go.”

He took off the lid and sipped, forgoing for once the big pretence of sniffing it first. He asked, really hoping for an answer, “How are you feeling?”

“I'm doing well.”

“The baby?”

She stiffened and her eyes narrowed. He wasn't surprised. After all, he was blatantly breaking the rules, to bring up the baby here, at the office, where they were supposed to keep it strictly professional.

Well, screw the rules. The baby was more important than any damn rule.

After a few strained seconds, she visibly relaxed. Her hand slipped down to rest on her stomach, and for the first time, he thought he detected a slight roundness there.

Something strange moved through him at the sight. This really was happening. To her. To him.

A new life was coming. He would have another chance to step up and be the dad he hadn't known how to be with his first child, the child lost before she had ever had a chance to live.

He saw it all now. Saw that this moment was everything. This was his chance to begin to make things right. He was not going to blow it.

“The baby is fine,” she said softly. “No worries.”

“Good. I'm glad. I
was
worried.”

A wobbly smile tried to form on her lips. She didn't let it. “Well, don't be. I'm all right and the baby is, too.” She sat back down at her desk, put her hands on the keyboard, started typing again—and then stopped. She waited. And then finally, when he didn't go away, she dropped her hands to her lap and slanted him a dismissing look. “Anything else?”

“Come into my office, please. Come in now.”

 

Her heart going like a trip-hammer and her stomach suddenly roiling, Zoe went through the door behind Dax.

When they were both in the room, he stopped, reached around her and pushed the door shut. Then he just stood there, looking at her.

She hitched up her chin, forced herself to meet those wonderful dark eyes. “Yes? What is it?”

“I love you. You know that, right?”

It stole all the breath from her body, to hear him say it right out like that. “I…” She put her hands to her cheeks, which were flaming hot. Her palms, on the other hand, were like ice.

“Do you know that, Zoe?”

She dropped her hands, made herself nod, somehow managed to speak around the log that had lodged itself in her throat. “I…yes. I know. I do know.”

“And I do want to marry you. I want it with all my heart. I want you. And I want our baby.”

She couldn't keep looking at him. He was such a gorgeous man and he held her heart in his big, strong hands. She turned away, put her arms around herself, stared at a grouping of framed
Great Escapes
covers on the far wall.

He stepped closer behind her. Although he had the grace to not touch her, she could feel him there. Faintly, the wonderful, tempting scent of him teased at her.

He said so quietly, “You don't believe me. You don't believe I really do want to marry you.”

She still couldn't turn to him. Sharply, she shook her head.

“Well, all right,” he said, still quietly. And tenderly, too. “So what is it? What do you need from me? What will make you know that I'm telling you the truth?”

She turned to him then. “Oh, Dax…” But he was too close. He made her want to forget her doubts, to throw herself into his arms, to let him hold her, let him tell her again that he loved her.

He whispered her name. “Zoe…”

She made herself step back before her need for him got the better of her. “It's only that I… Well, how can I believe you?”

Quietly, he answered. “Because I say it. Because I mean it. Because you know me and you know that I'm not a liar.”

“But…everything comes so easily to you, Dax. You have it all and…it all simply comes to you. Money, beautiful things. Any woman you could possibly want. They chase you until you let them catch you. And you turn them away when you're tired of them. You do it kindly. Gently. But you do it. And then you wait for the next hopeful, pretty young thing to drop into your life. For you, Dax, the world is a banquet. You've never in your life been…hungry.”

“But I have been hungry, Zoe. I'm hungry now. For you. Only you.” His eyes made promises. And his voice was dark and deep as the Mexican rainforest in the middle of the night.

Oh, she did want to believe him. More than to draw her next breath, she wanted to believe him. But she just couldn't take that kind of chance. She had more than herself to think about now. “Three weeks, Dax. Since I said no when you proposed. Three weeks and you've barely spoken to me. It's not encouraging, you know?”

He swore, whirled on his heel, took two brisk steps away—and then turned back. “Look, I've been an ass and I get that I have. At first, I was waiting for you…to come around, see things my way. It took me a while—too long, I see that now—to admit that waiting for you to see the light wasn't working, not even close. I'm not as good as I should be at loving you. I'm new at this. But when I set my mind on a course, I learn fast.”

“Oh, I know you do. I love that about you.” She spoke with all the passion in her yearning heart.

“Zoe…” He reached out his arms.

She put up a hand. “No. Stop. Oh, Dax, can't you see? It's all just more proof of how you are. So full of grace. So effortless. You don't have to struggle, to fight, to…stick it out. In that, you're like I was before I realized I needed to change a few things. When it gets tedious or difficult, you just walk away.”

“I'm not walking away. I swear it. There has only been you since the jungle. Since before then. There's been no one else since I ended it with Faye. I'm sticking by you—with you—no matter how rough it gets.”

“In the long-run? Oh, I don't think so.”

He stood there, three steps and a thousand miles away. “Words just aren't cutting it, are they? Words aren't enough.”

She pressed her lips together, wrapped her arms tightly around her churning stomach and shook her head.

He spoke again. “Then I guess I need to figure out a way to show you. To make you see that I'm ready, Zoe. That I can be more than just the man you want. That I'm the kind of man you need.”

 

The rest of the day went by. And Friday.

Zoe and Dax were cordial colleagues at the office. They went their separate ways at night.

The weekend came.

And it went.

And the next week was a short week at the office.

Thursday was Thanksgiving. Zoe went to Bravo Ridge at eight in the morning and helped in the kitchen, together with the other women of her family. It was a good day. Brimming with love and family laughter. She told herself it was enough, to have reached some sort of peace with Dax, to have her family around her.

But she did miss him. So much. She tried not to hope that he'd meant what he said the week before in his office, about proving to her that he truly was ready to settle down. She tried simply to be in the moment and to be thankful for what she
did
have. For her job, which she looked forward to every day. For her family, who loved and supported her. For Dax's love, whether it was destined to last…or not.

And for the child who grew within her.

For all of the important things, Zoe was grateful on Thanksgiving Day.

On Friday, Zoe, Abilene, their mom, Corrine and Marnie met at Corrine's house at 4:00 a.m. They went shopping, did Black Friday in style.

To the endless, festive loops of carols in every store, they shopped till they dropped—with a long break for a leisurely all-girls lunch around noon.

Saturday, she met Lin and some of her other coworkers at the office. They decorated every available surface. They tacked up garland and put up three trees: one by the elevator, another in the far corner at the window overlooking a major intersection outside and the third in the main conference room.

On the way home in the afternoon, she stopped at Lowe's and bought those two light-strung wire reindeer she'd had her eye on. She put them out on her patch of lawn, plugged them into a timer switch on the front step, and then went inside and put up her tree.

Sunday, she went to church with Corrine and Matt. After the service, they collected the girls from the church nursery and went back to Corrine and Matt's house for lunch. She admired Corrine's tree and the gorgeous nativity scene on the mantel. After lunch, she held little Kathleen and played Candy Land with Kira.

She left Matt's at around four.

Corrine hugged her goodbye. “Remember, if you want to talk or hang out, or just need a little support—anytime—I'm here, you only have to say the word.”

Zoe thanked her and said she might be taking her up on her offer one of these days soon.

“Whenever. Just let me know.”

Zoe drove home in a kind of haze of family feeling. Even without Dax at her side, it had been such a great weekend. Christmas was coming and the holiday season always lifted her spirits, brought her focus around to the happy things, made her feel good about the world and her own place in it.

But then she turned the corner on her block and
caught sight of her building—or more specifically, of the little square of lawn in front of her condo.

What in the…?

No. It wasn't possible.

She blinked, looked again.

And found it was real. It was there.

Sharing the space with her two festive wire reindeer was a yellow tent identical to the one she and Dax had shared in the jungle.

D
ax sat in a camp chair in front of the tent, wearing hiking boots, jeans and a lightweight outdoor jacket. He was talking to Genevra Obermier, president of the condo association for the complex.

He waved as Zoe, gaping, drove past.

Genevra waved, too.

Zoe kept going. She pulled into the garage entrance and furiously punched the code into the keypad mounted there. When the steel door rolled up, she zipped in much too fast and squealed to a stop in her own numbered reserved space.

She slammed the door when she got out—childish behavior, yes, and she knew it. But she did it anyway.

In her condo, everything was as she'd left it. She turned on the tree lights and sat on the sofa and wondered why the sight of that yellow tent had made her want to cry.

It seemed…beyond wrong for him to do that. To show up where she lived with a yellow tent—a tent that somehow exemplified all they'd been through, all they'd survived.

Like a blade to the heart, she remembered it all. Eight days of hell.

And at the same time, at least in those final few days when Dax was over his fever and they were truly together, of heaven on earth.

The doorbell rang. It would be Dax, no doubt, ready to explain why he was camped out on her lawn in that damn tent that brought back way too many memories, every one of them difficult, painful—and yet, simultaneously, so achingly, gloriously sweet.

She jumped up, stalked to the door and threw it back, ready to tell him in no uncertain terms to fold up that damn tent and get it the hell off her property.

But it wasn't Dax. It was Mrs. Obermier. Zoe forced a smile. “Genevra. Hello.”

“Zoe, I wonder if I might have a word?” She took off her pointy-framed pink glasses with the little rhinestone flowers and let them hang against her flat bosom by their color-coordinated fuzzy pink cord.

Dax was still there, down the front step, in that camp chair. He waved at her again.

She studiously ignored him. She would deal with him in a few minutes. She focused another tight smile on Genevra. “Coffee?”

“I would love some.”

Zoe led the older woman to the kitchen. With the pod system Zoe had bought a few months back, it only took couple of minutes to brew a cup. “Milk or sugar?”

“Both would be perfect. Thank you.”

Zoe got the sugar down from the cupboard and put
some milk in a small pitcher. She slid into the chair opposite Genevra and waited while the older woman stirred in a drop of milk and a very large amount of sugar.

Finally, Genevra sipped. “Delicious. Just excellent. Now, about Dax…”

Dax. Already on a first-name basis, were they? Well, in this case, Dax's irresistible charm would get him nowhere. Genevra was a real stickler when it came to community rules. And pitching a tent on the grounds was not in the rule book.

“It's all right, Genevra. I promise you. I was just going out to tell him he has to leave.”

“Well, yes. I understand that. Dax said you would try to get rid of him.”

“Uh. He did?”

Genevra beamed. “Yes. And please, if you could only let him remain there for a week or two…?”

“Excuse me? A
week
or two?”

“Yes, that would be so helpful.”

“It would?”

“So
very
helpful. He's paid some large fees to camp out there next to those so-festive reindeer of yours. Paid in advance.” Genevra sipped, leaned closer, pitched her voice to a confidential level. “Enormous fees. And you know how we've been discussing that new wing on the clubhouse? And the new weight room, the necessary pool repairs?”

About then, it all came blindingly clear. “He's paid you to let him pitch a tent on
my
lawn.”

“He's paid the
fees
he intends to incur, Zoe. In advance. With a generous extra bonus thrown in. To instill goodwill.”

Zoe repeated, blankly, “Goodwill.”

Genevra sipped and nodded. “I know it's an imposition. And I have no idea what the appeal could be for him to suddenly decide to live in a tent outside our complex. He's very wealthy, as you know.”

“I do, yes.”

“What's that they say? The rich are different.”

“Yes, well. I guess they are.”

“And it will mean so much to the complex, to all of us, to allow him to indulge his odd little whim. Sometimes the individual must be inconvenienced for the good of the whole. You can see that, I'm sure.”

What Zoe saw was the counterproductiveness of getting all up on Genevra, who only wanted the most she could get for the condo association. “Yes, all right. I do see what you're telling me.”

“You'll allow him to stay, then? You won't insist that he leave?”

What could she say? “I promise, no matter what happens as far as him staying out there in that tent, that I'll get his word he'll let the association keep the money he's paid.” She knew him well enough to know he wouldn't take the money back anyway. And it wasn't as if he was short on funds or anything. “How's that?”

“Thank you, Zoe. It's for the good of us all. You know that.”

Genevra left a few minutes later.

And once she was gone, Zoe found she didn't have the heart to go outside. She didn't want to confront Dax, didn't want to get into it over what he thought he was up to.

So she didn't. She left him alone. If he wanted to sit out there in a tent for two weeks, so be it. Let him sit.

She felt so tired suddenly. She took a nap.

It was dark when she woke. For a moment, still
groggy with sleep, she lay there, thinking about Dax. Wondering if he would still be there on her lawn the next time she looked out the front window.

Strangely, she wasn't sure now, whether she was angry at him for this ridiculous display of…only God knew what.

Or surprisingly hopeful, oddly moved.

She got up and went out to the living room. Her tree looked magical, the tiny lights shining in the dark. She couldn't resist sidling up to the window and peeking out.

The tent was still there, light glowing from within, Dax's shadow outlined in there, faintly. The wire reindeer, set on a timer, were on. They lit up the darkness, one turning its head from side to side, the other up and down, as if cropping the brown grass.

Even when he turned off his lantern in there, the reindeer would still be shining bright. He might have trouble sleeping.

But she wasn't going to think about that.

If he had trouble sleeping, he could just go home to his enormous mansion where his extensive staff was waiting to see to his every need.

She turned from the window and went to the kitchen and made herself some dinner. Yes, she thought of taking something out to Dax, too.

But she resisted such a move.

No, she would do precisely nothing. She wouldn't make him more comfortable. She wouldn't try to get him to leave. If Dax had a point to make, he could just go ahead and make it.

In the morning, the tent was still there. When she looked out the window, Dax was sitting in the camp
chair, drinking coffee from a Starbucks cup, an open laptop on his lap.

She ate breakfast; she showered and dressed and went to work. Her cell rang as she was firing up her computer.

“Good morning, Zoe.”

“How are you, Dax? Sleep well?”

“Great. Listen, I won't be coming into the office for a while.”

“Oh? How long?”

“I haven't decided yet.”

“I see.”

“Reach me here, at my cell. And forward my calls.”

“Well, Dax. You're the boss.”

“Yes, I am. I'm here if you need me. All you have to do is call.” He hung up while she was still trying to decide what to say next.

Zoe started work. About twenty minutes after he usually came in, he called again. They did the huddle on the phone.

She went back to work.

The day went by. She forwarded a large number of calls to him. She had no idea how he dealt with them, but no one ever called back to say they couldn't reach him, so she assumed he must be handling it all well enough.

She and Lin went to lunch.

Lin said Dax had called her and told her he was camping out at Zoe's place. “In an actual tent,” Lin added, disbelieving. “Is that true?”

“Oh, yes. It's true.”

“Has he gone crazy?”

Zoe decided not to voice an opinion on that one. “I have no idea.”

Lin shrugged. “They say the rich are different.”

“That's exactly what the president of my condo association said.”

Lin chuckled. “I never really understood
how
different until today.”

 

Dax was still there, in the camp chair with the reindeer and his tent, when Zoe got home. He waved at her as she drove past.

She did not wave back.

Genevra dropped in to thank her for letting Dax stay and thus guaranteeing that the association would get to keep the piles of money he'd paid them. She said he was using the pool house shower to clean up—for an extra, very generous fee. And that a black limousine came and went with food and any other items he might need.

“Has he always been an eccentric?” Genevra asked.

Zoe shook her head. “No, not really. Not until this.”

“It would be interesting to know what he's up to….”

Zoe arched an eyebrow. “I'm sure it will all become clear, as soon as he's ready to explain himself.”

But Dax didn't explain himself. And Zoe didn't approach him. Tuesday went by as Monday had. And Wednesday. And the rest of the week.

Reporters started showing up. Someone in the condo association must have told someone else that the famous adventurer and magazine publisher Dax Girard had lost his mind and pitched a tent outside one of the
units. Thursday, when Zoe got home from the office, there were six of them, taking pictures, asking him questions.

She went inside and spied on him through the front window. He must have been his usual incredibly charming self, because after an hour or so, they left him alone.

The next morning, he made the third page of the paper. And one of the interviews ended up on YouTube. He joked and laughed and said that you never knew where you might find your ultimate
Great Escape.

Surprisingly, things went well enough at work. He had his minions at the mansion bring him certain software for his laptop and he did the meetings with that, videoconferencing while sitting in his camp chair next to her reindeer.

The weekend came—the first weekend in December. Dax remained in his camp in front of her condo.

Friday night, she couldn't stand leaving him out there with all those bright reindeer lights keeping him awake the whole night long. Before she went to bed, she turned them off.

Saturday, Zoe did more Christmas shopping. Again, that night, she turned off the reindeer when she went to bed. Sunday, she went to Bravo Ridge early, to help decorate the big ranch house for the holidays. She stayed for the usual afternoon dinner.

When she got home, Dax was still there. As he was Monday. And Tuesday and Wednesday.

The week passed. Every night, she unplugged the reindeer at bedtime. Thursday, it rained all night. She tried not to worry about him. Friday morning, he seemed fine when she spied on him out the window.

That whole week was worse, somehow, than the first
week. Zoe knew it was not her fault that he had decided to sit out in front of her house in a tent for only he knew how long. That was his choice. It was…something he evidently felt he needed to do.

For no reason she could understand.

Yet, as the two-week mark of his campout on her lawn approached, she found she was less and less able to simply ignore him. Less able to tell herself he could leave anytime he wanted and his confining himself to a ten-foot-by-ten-foot square of brown grass, rain or shine, was not her problem.

God help her, she started to get what he was up to.

She started to think how he was sticking it out, putting himself at great inconvenience, getting by in a tent when he could be in a mansion—no, she didn't think he was suffering exactly. All he had to do was make a call and the black limo would arrive, bringing him whatever he'd just realized he couldn't do without.

But it wasn't convenient. It couldn't be easy. To just sit there, out in the open, day in and day out, in a camp chair or inside the tent, with his only moments of privacy when he walked over to the pool house to use the facilities there.

He was doing exactly what she had told him he had no idea how to do. He was fighting. For her. For the baby she carried. For the possibility that she might get past her locked-in idea of him and see him for the man he really was right now.

He wasn't going anywhere. He wasn't forgetting about her. He wasn't moving on to the next banquet in the endless feast that had always been his life. He had no eye out for the next pretty girl.

That broke her heart.

Broke it—and somehow also mended it again.

Saturday night, she stood in the window next to her Christmas tree and watched him for over an hour. She thought how she loved him. She thought how, if not for him, she never would have survived their time in the jungle.

If not for him, she wouldn't have a job she loved. If not for him, there would be no baby coming. If not for him, the richness, the very
rightness
of her life would be infinitely less so.

When she went to bed, she cried in great, gulping sobs. Until her pillow was so wet that she had to get up and change the pillowcase.

And then finally, she slept. Deeply and dreamlessly all through the night.

 

In the morning, she got up and put on her slippers and her thick, red winter robe and went outside, where Dax was already sitting in his camp chair, drinking his morning coffee.

He watched her approach. “Good morning, Zoe.”

“How about breakfast?”