Spring Fever (35 page)

Annajane shrugged.

“I can’t,” he started to speak, and then reconsidered.

“No matter what else happens, I want you to know that I love you. I always have. That’s never changed. Do you believe me?”

“I guess.” Her pulse was racing. She glanced up at him, then looked away.

“No, that’s not good enough,” Mason said, taking her hand and looking directly into her eyes. “I need you to understand that there are things that are out of my control. Situations…”

She lifted her chin. “Why don’t you just come right out and tell me what’s going on?”

“She’s pregnant,” Mason said.

Annajane picked up her glass of wine and sipped slowly. She was aware of the hum of voices around them, the smell of a sizzling steak being carried to a table next to theirs, the easy jazz playing on the restaurant’s sound system, the breeze rifling the fronds of the potted fern next to their table. A tiny piece of her brain noted these things and filed them away.
This is how it felt the night I learned I would never win the man I loved. I drank this wine and ate these foods, and I will never see or smell or taste these things again without thinking of that night.

“What will you do now?” she asked, putting the wineglass down because her hand was starting to shake. She rested her left hand on top of her right, to keep it from trembling.

“I don’t know yet,” Mason said. “She just told me a couple days ago.”

Annajane bit her lip and looked away. “And she’s sure?”

“So she claims,” Mason said bitterly. “At first I couldn’t believe it. I mean, we’ve been living apart for weeks now. She was obsessed with all this wedding stuff, and Sallie decided it didn’t look right to Sophie for us to be living together, so Celia has pretty much been staying at Cherry Hill. Plus, I guess maybe I subconsciously knew I didn’t want to go through with the wedding, because I just didn’t have the desire…” His face colored briefly and he looked genuinely ill. “I couldn’t even remember the last time…”

“I’ll bet Celia could,” Annajane said. She felt bile rising in her throat. Had Celia done this on purpose? Deliberately gotten pregnant just to make sure Mason would marry her?

“March,” he said glumly. “She was on birth control, the patch. She claims it sometimes happens. But…”

Annajane was having a hard time catching her breath. It felt as though she’d been punched in the chest. She held up her hand, struggling to regain her composure. “I don’t want to hear this, Mason. It’s too personal.”

“My God,” he said, his voice breaking. “I never saw this coming.”

Annajane sat back in her chair, easing her hand out from beneath his. She folded her hands in her lap, just for something to do.

“So now what?”

“Celia knows I’m in love with you. But she doesn’t seem to care. She says she can’t raise a child by herself. Not that I would let her. Celia’s not really … maternal.” He straightened his shoulders. “This is my responsibility. I’ll just … have to figure out how to make it work.”

Annajane could only nod. She felt her eyes filling with tears and was sure that everyone in the room was watching them. She fumbled with her napkin and tried to push her chair away from the table. But the chair caught on the edge of the tablecloth, and her glass of wine tipped over, sending a rivulet of sauvignon blanc flowing across the table and into his lap. “Damn. I’m sorry,” she said, desperate for a way out. But her chair was stuck on the edge of a flagstone. “I need to leave. Right now. Please, Mason.”

He caught the waiter’s attention and asked for the check. In the car, he looked at her expectantly. “Where to? Pokey’s?”

“No,” Annajane said. “I don’t think so. I’ll just get a room at the Pinecone Motor Lodge.”

He frowned. “A motel? Come on, that’s crazy. I’ll take you back to my place; you can have the guest room. It’ll all be very circumspect. And if you’re worrying about Celia, don’t. She’s been staying over at Cherry Hill.”

“The Pinecone will be just fine for now,” Annajane said. “It’s under new management. It’s clean and it’s cheap, and that’s really all I require for right now.”

He gave it some thought. “That place is in the middle of nowhere. I don’t like the idea of you driving out there at night like this. At least let me follow you there.”

“Mason,” she said calmly. “You forget I’ve been single for five years. I’m used to traveling alone, driving places by myself, checking into motels by myself. I appreciate your concern, but this really is no big deal.”

“I don’t like the idea of you staying in a motel. It’s … seedy.”

“This isn’t really up to you,” Annajane pointed out.

“I’m following you out there,” he said, and the stubborn set of his jaw told her it was no use arguing.

*   *   *

The Pinecone Motor Lodge had been the only motel in Passcoe for as long as anybody could remember. Consisting of semicircle of a dozen small whitewashed frame cottages, it was set amid a thick grove of its namesake pine trees, and reached by a winding driveway leading off what had formerly been the main route into town.

Built in the postwar years as a tourist court, the Pinecone did a respectable business up until the 1980s, when the state built a bypass around it, traffic dwindled, and the Pinecone lost some of its luster. It changed hands a couple of times, then languished in foreclosure for two years, until a semiretired couple from Florida bought it to run as a hobby.

Mason had driven past the motel often in the past, duly noticing its slow deterioration. Now, though, he was relieved when his headlights revealed the changes brought about by two gay men and what must have cost several hundred thousand dollars.

The little cabins were gleaming white, with freshly painted dark green shutters with pine-tree-shaped cutouts. A neatly clipped boxwood hedge lined the front of each unit, and window boxes with perky red geraniums and trailing ivy flanked the doorways. Lanterns shone above every door, and on each miniature porch stood a pair of red-painted spring-back motel chairs.

She parked in front of a white bungalow with a small neon
OFFICE
sign. Mason pulled his car alongside hers. “Okay,” Annajane said, when he rolled down his window. “See? It’s perfectly respectable. You can go now.”

“Nuh-uh,” Mason said stubbornly. “Not til I see you safely inside.”

The look she gave him was bleak and full of despair. “Just go,” she said quietly. “Please?”

A small brass plaque on the office door requested that visitors
RING BELL AFTER 10 PM
. It was five past, so she hesitated, but then pushed the doorbell. A moment later, a lean man with a deep mahogany tan and a shiny bald head opened the door.

“Come on in,” he said, before she could ask about a room.

She found herself in a small entry hall. Her host, who was barefoot and dressed in a wildly flowered Hawaiian shirt and baggy white shorts, stepped behind a tall antique oak reception desk.

“I’d like a room, if you’ve got one,” Annajane said.

“One? I’ve got eight or nine,” he said. “You can have your pick.”

“Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry. Is business that slow?”

“Don’t mind me,” he said. “Thomas—that’s my partner—he says I’m a chronic complainer. Actually, business is a little better than we’d expected. We’ve been full every weekend this spring, and word is starting to get around about our little restoration project and the new management.”

“I’ve been hearing good things,” Annajane said.

“Just a single tonight?” he asked, peering over her shoulder out the window, where Mason sat patiently in his car.

She blushed. “Yes. My, uh, friend just wants to make sure I get checked in all right.”

“Ain’t none of my business,” he said airily. “We’re strictly don’t ask, don’t tell around here. Now. We’re an entirely smoke-free facility, but from the looks of you, I’d say you’re not a smoker anyway. Also, all the cottages have kitchenettes, with refrigerators and microwaves, a coffeepot, and toaster. But we also have a coffee hour here in the office-slash-reception area, from seven to nine every morning. We do fruit, and whatever kind of muffins Thomas feels like baking that day. And coffee and tea, of course.”

“How nice,” Annajane said.

He pushed the registration book toward her and turned to get a key. “Here you are,” he said, pushing an old-fashioned brass skeleton key with a silken red tassel hanging from it across the desktop. “You’ll be in unit six. It’s my favorite—so quiet, and there’s a pink rosebush just blooming its head off right outside your window. If you do decide to have company, there’s a new pullout sofa and a spare set of sheets and pillows in the top of your closet.”

“Fine,” Annajane said absentmindedly as she tried to remember her car’s license number. She handed him back the registration book, and he glanced down at it.

“Oh. You’re from Passcoe?” He peered at the book through the wire-frame glasses perched at the end of a long, bony nose.

“Yes,” she said. “I just sold my loft, downtown, and we had to close much quicker than I’d anticipated, so I’m sort of homeless for the moment.”

He nodded. “I can offer you our weekly rate, if you like. It’ll save you about twenty-five dollars a night.”

“All right,” she agreed. “I’m sort of in transition right now. I’m not really certain whether I’ll even decide to stay in town, or for how long.”

She opened her billfold, took out her credit card, and handed it to him.

“Annajane Hudgens,” he said, reading the charge plate aloud. He stuck out his hand, and she shook it. “Welcome home, Annajane. I’m Harold, and I run the place. Have you always lived in Passcoe?”

“Just about,” she said. “I’m a native.”

“You’re lucky to be from such a beautiful place. Thomas and I just love it here,” he confided. “As far as we’re concerned, you can have Miami.”

Annajane put the credit card away. “You might change your mind come February, when it’s fifteen degrees here, and in the eighties in Florida.”

“Never,” he declared. “Now, don’t be a stranger. We’ll expect to see you in the morning for coffee.”

“Maybe,” she said. “I leave for work pretty early.”

“Where do you work?”

“Quixie. The soft drink company?”

“Quixie, we adore it! We’ve even been talking about buying cases of it, so we can put a bottle in every room. Guests love that kind of local stuff.”

“Let me know if you want to pursue that,” she said, ever the marketing professional. “I can get one of our sales reps to talk to you about adding the Pinecone to one of the regular routes.”

“Perfect!”

She picked up her key. “Good night, Harold.”

“Good night, Annajane.”

32

Mason kept watch until he felt certain Annajane was safely inside her unit at the Pinecone Motor Lodge. Finally, when he saw lights blink on inside the cabin, he reluctantly drove home.

Letha had left the porch light burning for him. He didn’t bother to drive around to the garage, instead parking by the front door and leaving his car there.

He went into the kitchen and saw that she’d left him a paper plate of food neatly covered with aluminum foil, which he dumped into the trash.

Stepping softly, he climbed the stairs to the second floor. He opened Sophie’s bedroom door and peeked inside. A pink-shaded nightlight shone from an outlet beside her bed, and he could see her blond curls spilling out on her pillow. Mason sat lightly on the edge of the bed and looked down at her. Five years ago, he’d been terrified at the idea of raising a baby. She’d been so tiny, so sickly, so helpless.

He’d been lucky to find Letha, who was Voncile’s sister-in-law and, like Voncile, a widow. She’d raised three of her own children and taken care of numerous grandchildren. She was as skinny as Voncile was stout, with improbably dyed frizzy red hair and pale blue eyes. Letha was calm and loving and untroubled by Sophie’s bouts of colic and sleeplessness. But even with Letha hovering nearby, Sophie seemed to prefer Mason’s presence to her nanny’s. For the first six months after he’d brought her home, he’d fallen asleep in a chair beside her crib more nights than he could count, with the fretful infant hugged tightly to his chest.

Mason wondered what Sophie’s reaction would be to having another baby supplant her in his affections. Sibling rivalry? And how would Celia treat Sophie after her own baby was born? She’d never really seemed the maternal type to him. He’d somehow managed to sublimate that during the short time they’d been dating. Celia was fun, she was lively, she was undeniably attractive, and undeniably attracted to him.

But there was an undercurrent there, a layer of dark and cold he could never pierce, and didn’t actually care to try.

Sophie stirred and he laid a hand on her back. Her face relaxed, and he felt himself responding in kind. He wound one of the silky corkscrew curls around his finger. Finding out about Sophie’s existence had been a shock, but now he couldn’t imagine his life without her. He had to believe that he would come to feel this way about Celia’s baby, too. Even if he knew he would never actually love her the way he’d always expected he would one day love the mother of his children. That love, Mason thought, belonged to another. To Annajane.

Sophie turned slightly, and the shift exposed her pocketbook, which she’d hidden beneath her bedsheet. It had been a birthday gift from Annajane last year and had quickly become his daughter’s most treasured possession, which she rarely let out of her sight. Whenever anything small disappeared around the house, they all knew to check Sophie’s pocketbook. She was especially fond of anything shiny. More than once he’d had to retrieve from the pink plastic purse a favorite silver Mont Blanc cartridge pen, various keys, and even a small antique sterling silver penknife that had been a high school graduation gift from his grandfather.

Soon now, he thought, they would have to discourage her unauthorized acquisitions. But for now, Sophie’s hoarding of trinkets was harmless. He leaned down, planted a kiss on the top of her head, and stood up. He was suddenly exhausted.

Inside the master suite, he placed his watch, wallet, and cell phone on the bathroom vanity. He brushed his teeth and stripped to his boxers, leaving his clothing in a heap on the floor, reverting to his messy bachelor habits.