Once Around (10 page)

Her hands cupped her belly in what had become her default gesture. She wished she had a suit of armor to protect her from grins like that.
"I can't sell the house without a deck."

"
You're selling the house?"

"
I'm thinking about it."

"
Too big for you?"

"
That's part of it." Too big. Too expensive. Too filled with broken dreams.

"
When?"

"
I don't know exactly. After the baby arrives, I would think." She arched a brow in his direction. "You've asked me a half dozen questions in thirty seconds. That's more than you've asked me in the last three weeks."

"
When I need information, I ask. When I don't, I shut up."

"
Obviously you're not from New York," she observed.

His grin grew more pronounced. She took note of the crinkles around his dark b
lue eyes and the vertical slash of a dimple in his lean right cheeky "Montana." One word, uttered with a slightly ironic spin.

"
Montana!" She found herself smiling back at him. A cowboy! That explained a lot. "I've never met anyone from Montana before."

"
So will you quit worrying about the deck?" he asked. "It'll be long done before the baby comes."

She had to force herself back to the issue at hand. The notion of a Montana cowboy in her own backyard was more interesting than a deck.
"Unless you have your own lumberyard, I don't see how."

"
I have a stack of pressure-treated lumber in my shed."

"
You have a shed?"

He nodded.

"Does that mean you have a house?" She'd imagined him living in a small apartment somewhere. Maybe in Philly or, down near Trenton.

"
A fixer-upper," he said, prying up another one of the two-by-fours.

"
Where?"

"
Up near Stockton."

"
On the river?" The Delaware wound its way between New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Stockton was on the New Jersey side. Once upon another lifetime, she and Robert had spent a weekend at a B&B near Stockton. He'd studied for the bar exam while she wandered the town alone.

"
Close enough to flood."

"
What's your house like?"

"
Nothing like yours."

"
I'll bet you can afford your house. That's more than I can say."

"
Did you tell your lawyer you need help?"

She felt her face redden.
"Of course I told Spencer. I tell him everything."

"
So what did Spencer say?"

She hesitated.
"He said I shouldn't worry."

Rafe grunted. She wasn
't sure if it was a commentary or he'd bumped himself.

"
There isn't much he can do for me right now," she explained, eager to keep Spencer in a good light. "He's asked Robert's attorneys to take care of my bills, but they're dragging their feet."

"
Hand me a screwdriver, would you?"

She reached for one in the huge metal tool chest on the ground next to her and tossed it to him.

"I need a Phillips."

"
Why didn't you say so?"

"
I figured you knew."

"
I didn't," she said, plucking a Phillips from the jumble of tools. He caught it in his left hand.

"
How bad are your finances?" he asked.

She decided not to pull her punches.
"Terrible," she said. "I can last another month and then I'm out of luck."

He rocked back on his heels and met her eyes.
"And you're willing to wait for your lawyer to make things better."

"
I don't see where I have a choice."

"
If you don't see that you have a choice, you've got a bigger problem than not being able to pay your bills."

He turned back to what he was doing
, leaving her standing there with a firestorm of snotty responses burning up her brain. Better to keep her mouth closed until he fixed the deck,

She stalked back into the
house and prowled around the kitchen. Soup sounded terrible. She was sick to death of peanut butter sandwiches, and if she ate another egg she'd turn into a chicken herself. Nothing appealed to her. She couldn't settle down. For a second, she considered picking up the telephone to call Spencer, then decided against it.

She hated to admit it
, but Rafe was right. This was her choice, not Spencer's. Taking in a boarder wasn't a perfect solution, but right now it was the only one.

Chapter Five

By the time she was halfway through her first week of residency
, Jessy Wyatt knew she'd made the biggest mistake of her life by coming to Princeton. Most of her colleagues were Ivy League—educated children of privilege whose lineages could be traced all the way back to Plymouth Rock. She could hold her own in the hospital, where medicine was the common tongue, but once she stepped outside, she was lost. She didn't understand their references or their jokes. And she could tell they didn't understand what she was doing there, which made them even because, at this point, neither did she.

There were times when she felt she
'd be more comfortable on Neptune than she was there in the heart of central New Jersey. Not even her internship in Dallas had prepared her for this, and Dallas had been a major culture shock for her at the. time.

At least in Dallas
she'd had someone to talk to.

"
We're going over to. Marita's Cantina," one of the other residents said, poking her head into the doctors' lounge, where Jessy was slumped over a cup of coffee. "Why don't you join us, Jessy?"

Jessy pretended to stifle a yawn.
"I'm going to nap," she said, trying to look tired. "But y'all have fun."

The resident
, a light-skinned black woman, grinned. "Y'all? This is New Jersey, girl. Better work on that."

That and everything else
, Jessy thought as the woman went off to join the others. She didn't dress right, talk right, fix her hair right. Everything about her was as wrong as it could possibly be. Her exhaustion wasn't helping matters either. She'd been sleeping in the doctors' lounge, using their bathroom and shower when nobody was around. Nobody had prepared her for the prices in Princeton. The used car she'd bought at a lot near Trenton had almost depleted her savings. Rents were outrageously expensive. It would take months until she could afford a place of her own, but she had the feeling that no longer mattered. If anyone found out she was living at the hospital because she was too poor to live anywhere else, her fate would be sealed.

Two silver-haired male doctors strode into the lounge. They wore standard-issue white coats
, but there was nothing else standard-issue about them. They were both tall and lean, the kind of men you'd find on a country club golf course or tennis court. If they noticed her sitting there at the table, they gave no indication. She was part of the furniture to them. Surgeons, she thought, watching the way they used their hands in conversation. God-complexed, life-giving surgeons who viewed the world from Mount Olympus.

She wondered what they
would think if she emerged from the bathroom in her favorite pale blue nightgown and terry scuffs. Would they notice her if she curled up on one of the vinyl bench seats near the coffee machine? Would they lower their voices when she lowered the lights and tenderly cover her with a privacy drape?

She gathered up her things and
, with a nod to the two men, left the lounge to find a new place to live.

#

"You really don't have to do this," Molly said to Spencer for the fourth or fifth time that hour. "This is service above and beyond.''

"
You know my feelings on this, Molly," Spencer said with that easy grin of his. "I think you're making a mistake, but the least I can do is help you see it through."

"
I'm not that apprehensive anymore," Molly lied. "She sounds like a perfect tenant." Young, single, a resident at the medical center. She'd probably never be home.
And a stranger, Molly. Don't forget that important fact.
She was reduced to letting strangers live with her for money.

"
You're a lousy liar."

"
You noticed," she
said. "And here I thought I was getting better at it."

"
I know this isn't a perfect solution," he said, moving a little closer to where she stood by the living room window. "I would do anything to settle the divorce in a timely fashion for you."

"
I appreciate everything you've done, Spencer," she said quickly, afraid she'd offended him. "I hope you realize that." Once he'd come to terms with the fact that she
meant what she said about taking in a boarder, he'd taken over the process of advertising for and screening tenants. Actually his assistant did all of the hard work. Spencer had simply met with Molly and helped guide her through the stack of papers and references. The final decision had been hers.

He was saying something about the rental agreement
, but his words danced right over the top of her head.

"
I trust you," she said, waving her hand in the air. "I know you'll protect me."

"
That's my job," he said.

She looked over at him
, wondering if that was all it was. Lately her imagination had been running away with her. It was so easy to pick up the telephone and pour out her heart to Spencer. He lived the life Robert had been striving toward: successful lawyer at a successful firm with money and perks at his disposal. His family had been pressing him to marry and produce a few Mackenzie heirs, but, as he'd told Molly last night over dinner, he wasn't in a rush. "When I do it, I want to do it right," he said to her as the waiter brought them their entrées. "I've seen what happens when it goes wrong."

So have I
,
she thought. She was living it. A man like Spencer would be very careful when he picked a wife. No mistakes for him.

"
I think I'll pour us some iced tea," she said, determined to banish the unpleasant thoughts from her mind.

"
You stay put," he ordered. "Jessy will be here any minute. You should be the first person she meets."

"
We're not looking to bond with each other," Molly said in a dry tone of voice. "She doesn't have to imprint on me like a duckling."

His laughter caught her by surprise. Her best remarks usually got no more than a smile from him.

"I'll get the iced tea," he said. "You work on your attitude."

She thought of something smart to say but decided
against it. It was enough she'd made him laugh once today. She wasn't about to push her luck.

#

Rafe was mowing the front lawn when he heard the sound of laughter from Molly's house. He felt like steering the mower right into the guy's shiny black Porsche.

When you grew up in the middle of nowhere the way he had
, you learned to rely on your instincts, and his instincts told him Spencer Mackenzie was no good for Molly Chamberlain. The second the guy pulled his fancy sports car into the driveway, Rafe found himself battling the urge to ram his Chiclet-white teeth down his throat. No particular reason. The guy didn't ignore him the way another rich guy might have done. No, Mackenzie was too smooth and polished for that. He gave Rafe a friendly, hail-fellow-well-met hello then strode up the, walkway to the front door as if he owned the place.

Rafe wanted to deck him.

No reason. He just hated the guy on sight.

He
'd hate any man who made her laugh.

#

Jessy found Princeton Manor Estates with no trouble. She rolled to a stop at the, gates and gave her name to the serious young man in uniform. He made a production of checking a list, frowned, then made a telephone call. She watched as he mumbled something, nodded, then waved her on. She forced a pleasant smile and a thank-you. Her Southern background wouldn't let her do anything else. He probably thought she was a cleaning woman from a not-very-successful service. Not that she blamed him. Her car was older than he was.

She glanced down at the map Mr. Mackenzie
's secretary had faxed over to her at the hospital. A right on Rosebud Ridge, a left on Marigold Drive, a quick series of rights on Amaryllis and Lilly, and that should bring her to the base of Lilac Hill. She wondered how anybody found
their way around Princeton Manor. The roads curved and meandered like, lazy Mississippi streams with no particular destination in mind. The houses were all enormous. They looked more like small hotels than private homes. Saabs and Porsches napped in the driveways. The lawns were manicured to golf-course perfection.