Cut To The Chase

“You still don’t look well,” he noted. He fished around in his backpack and pulled out a bottle of water. “Maybe you should let me take you somewhere cooler, where you can sit down. In the meantime, how about a drink of water?”

It looked untouched, but still… Did he really think she would drink out of his bottle? She considered. Well, yes, she would. Her mouth was dry, she was overheated, her stomach was unsettled, and that water sounded pretty good, whether there were Adorable Stranger germs on the bottle or not. Lifting her chin, pulling together every shred of composure she could muster, she found a thin smile for her sweet, misguided Galahad and reached for the water.

After wiping the top, she took two long swallows and then another one, greedily finishing it off. “I feel better now,” she whispered, awkwardly handing back the empty plastic bottle. “Thank you.”

He smiled. “You’re welcome.”

Oh, dear. The smile was a killer. Her knees felt all wobbly, and it had nothing to do with the nausea.

Even after the water, she wasn’t exactly capable of leaving her handy tree and walking away from him just yet, but she knew she had to get away from that amazing smile and out from under his penetrating gaze. How long before he recognized her, especially with her disguise reduced to a bad dye job and no makeup? She sent him a quick glance. What if he already did recognize her and that was the reason he’d stepped in?

“Thank you so much for your help,” she said as steadily as she could manage, stepping gingerly to the other side of the tree, away from Sir Galahad and his helpful hands. “I’m feeling lots better. Really. And I wouldn’t want to keep you from whatever it is you were up to when you decided to, you know, leap in and rescue me from my coat. Because I’m fine. Really.”

With the tree between them, she tried to laugh, holding out her free hand, signaling to him that he should return her coat. But he didn’t.

“I don’t think you’re fine,” he put in. “Actually, I think you should get out of the heat and sit down. In your condition, I mean.”

She paused, feeling her turbulent tummy take a dive. “My condition?”

“With the saltines and the nausea, it wasn’t hard to figure out,” he said softly.

“You’re wrong,” she rushed to assure him. “I mean, you were right the first time. I was overheated in the coat, that’s all. Or maybe it’s a touch of summer flu.”

“Nice try, but… Listen, this is a little weird, but I noticed you a few days ago and I’ve been, well, keeping an eye on you.” He studied her, wary, alert, way too smart behind those blue eyes. “I think I know who you are and what this is all about.”

It took a second for his words to reach her. “You know?” Full-fledged panic thumped under her heart, and she turned her whole body in toward the tree. Too late to hide now, especially since Galahad apparently had X-ray vision.

Oh, lord, lord, lord. Her worst nightmare. Both her worst nightmares. Discovered! Uncovered! Even without the coat, she was so hot she thought she might expire right there in front of him, which would, of course, make it all that much worse because she would be unconscious and unable to defend herself, leaving him free to cart her off to the ER and hit the speed-dial for CNN to tell them that Abra Holloway had just fainted in the middle of Illinois. Pregnant Abra Holloway.

Concepts like “CNN,” “Abra Holloway” and “pregnant” swirled around her head like bees. And it was all his fault! He was talking again, in that same level, soothing tone, the one that made her think of forest rangers trying to talk wild animals into cages, but she only caught the tail end of it. Not that it mattered. It still didn’t make any sense.

“It’s understandable,” he offered, “that you’d run away and not want to be noticed, I mean, having a baby under these circumstances.”

What? What did he know about her circumstances? “Who sent you?” she demanded, moving her hand to her head, refusing to keel over, refusing to fall down and die for one too-smart guy, no matter how spectacular his eyes or his smile. So she went on the offensive while her mind raced with choices. Try to buy him off? Threaten? First she’d better find out what she was dealing with. “Are you a P.I.? Is that it? Did Julian hire you to find me? Or Shelby?”

He narrowed his eyes. “No.”

“I didn’t think it would be either of them, but… Okay, then, so you’re a reporter. National Enquirer?”

“No.” He just kept staring at her, his gaze rapt and intense, as if he could see right under her clothes, all the way to the soul, as if every secret she’d ever had was easy pickings. He held that gaze—and his silence—till she wanted to throttle him. Or herself.

“Stop staring at me like that. It’s unnerving. And if you don’t tell me who you are right this minute, I’m going to scream for the cops,” she improvised. “You already said you’ve been stalking me.”

“I wasn’t stalking you.” He brushed that away with one impatient hand, as if the idea of her calling the police was nothing to him. “Listen, my name is Sean Calhoun.” He seemed to be watching her even more closely, to see if that name registered. Not as far as she knew. When she didn’t react, he said again, “I wasn’t stalking you. Just surveilling.”

“Surveilling isn’t even a word.” So he wasn’t from Julian or Shelby. Not from the Enquirer. Who else could it be? The Post wouldn’t send a reporter this far, would they? And no reporter worth his salt would use a word like “surveilling.”

Sean Calhoun, whoever he was, waited patiently, just watching her, not bothering to argue about the “surveilling” thing.

“Just tell me,” she snapped. “Who sent you?”

“Well, if you must know, my mother,” he said finally.

Maybe that would’ve made sense under better circumstances. Did he just say his mother? “Are you kidding? Why? Is she a fan?”

“Uh, no. Definitely not,” he responded with an edge of sarcasm that didn’t add up any more than the rest of it.

What, he was stalking her because she’d given advice his mom didn’t like on The Shelby Show? “I don’t need this right now,” she told him, pressing one hand into her tummy and waving the other one at him. “I’m sick as a dog, I don’t know who you are, and… And I’m not coping very well!”

“Okay, okay.” He advanced on her again, holding up his hands—with her baseball cap in one and her coat draped over the other—as if to show he didn’t have a weapon. “I’m not going to hurt you in any way, okay? You need to just calm down.”

“I hate it when people tell me to calm down!” Abra returned hotly. “Not that anyone ever needed to before this whole mess, because I was always perfectly calm. Not that they need to now, either, for that matter. It’s none of your business whether I’m calm or not!”

After that outburst, which sounded irrational even to her own ears, he muttered an oath, turned away, and then spun back around, his expression dark and brooding. “Look, I just need to know one thing and then I won’t bother you anymore. The baby…”

She kept her mouth shut, staring at the ground, refusing to confirm or acknowledge anything.

Finally, he came out with it. “Is it my father’s?”

She swung back around to look at him, utterly and completely mystified. His father? She didn’t know him or his father. Why on earth would he think her baby had anything to do with his father? “Who is your father?”

“Michael Calhoun.”

“But I’ve never met…”

“Park benches? Chicago?” he prompted.

“No!” she returned quickly. What in the world was this all about? “Me? Park benches? Chicago? No!”

He kept up the interrogation. “Were you at O’Hare a few days ago? Asking about buses to Champaign?”

“Yes, I came though O’Hare. But I don’t under—” Until all at once, gazing at him and his suspicious expression, it sunk in.

He thinks I’m someone else.

Could she be that lucky? Abra scrutinized him, adding up the clues. He didn’t appear to be delusional, so the logical conclusion was that it was a simple mistake.

He wanted to know if his father was the father of her baby. And hadn’t he said his mother had sent him? Of course she did, if she thought her husband was cheating and making babies. But not with Abra Holloway, because no one would be looking for Abra here. With some other woman. So Mom had sent him to find the woman her husband was cheating with, and for some reason, he’d gotten his signals crossed and thought that woman was her.

Which meant he had no idea that he’d stumbled over Abra Holloway, missing celebrity. None at all.

Filled with relief and a strange sense of euphoria, Abra began to laugh. Considering the circumstances, it was a little weird to be hooting with laughter, but she couldn’t help it. She could tell by Sean’s expression that her reaction had taken him by surprise, too.

He thought she was someone else. Phew.

“I’m sorry,” she managed, finally getting herself under control. “I’m sorry you’re going through whatever it is you’re going through with your parents. I’m sure it’s not easy being sent to stalk your dad’s illicit girlfriend.”

“Wait a minute—”

But Abra kept on talking. “You have my sympathies. Really. But I can promise you that I am not in any way involved in your family’s domestic drama.”

“You’re sure?” he persisted. “Because you look like—”

“I don’t care who I look like. I’m not her.” Now she was starting to get mad. “I’ve never met you, I’ve never met your father, and I can’t think of even one Calhoun in my acquaintance.”

“Maybe he used a different name,” he tried.

“Not under any name. It may surprise you, but I do actually know with whom I have been, um, intimate.” She leaned over far enough to grab her baseball cap out of his hand and secure it on her head, and then she reached for her coat, but he held it away. “My fiancé is thirty years old and he lives in New York. What are you, twenty-seven, twenty-eight?”

He nodded.

“So even if I did think that Julian had a double life and a secret family in Chicago, which is absurd, he’s not old enough to be your father. Satisfied?”

He seemed to consider the issue, which only made her angrier.

“It’s not me!” she repeated, more forcefully this time. “And that’s far more of my personal business than you need to know.”

He didn’t say anything, just looked pensive.

“This is insulting,” she muttered. “Do I really look like the sort of person who would sleep with a married man twice her age? And have assignations on park benches? It’s so trashy!”

Now that she had worked through panic, relief and hysteria, a new emotion was starting to set in. Ever since she’d figured out she was pregnant, it had been like this, tripping from one emotional quagmire into the next.

So here she was, Abra Holloway, media star, beginning to feel a little aggravated that her gorgeous rescuer, so concerned, holding her coat, feeling her forehead, didn’t recognize the real her.

Of course, if he did recognize her, it would’ve been a disaster beyond disasters. But now that he didn’t, she was free to feel insulted.

But not insulted enough to stick around long enough for him to figure it out. Collecting herself, she snatched her coat away from him. She couldn’t bear to put it back on, but she crumpled it into her arms as she began to look around for her missing sunglasses. “Where are they? My sunglasses fell off when I started to…”

“I think you stepped on them,” Sean offered. “They’re in three pieces. Over there.”

Ah well. It was too late for sunglasses or any other disguise. Sean Calhoun had already seen way too much of her.

“Okay, well, never mind. Thank you for your help. Good luck with your, uh, situation. With your father, I mean.” Abra swept away from the tree, past Sean Calhoun, her head held high. But she couldn’t help turning back.

“What?” he asked. “What is it?”

She really shouldn’t. But she did. Quickly, she offered, “My suggestion is that you open up lines of communication within the family, maybe even go in for family counseling with both your parents. Instead of sneaking around following women you think might be the one, just ask your father if he has a girlfriend. And then take it from there. That’s my advice.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Thanks. I think,” he said after a moment. Was that a smile playing around his lips again?

“You’re, uh, welcome,” she murmured.

Nice mouth, she noted, letting her eyes linger there longer than she should’ve. Excellent mouth, actually. It wasn’t her fault that it had been way too long since she’d been kissed and she was really hungry for it. It wasn’t her fault there were enzymes running through her veins that made her think constantly about hot sex and sweat-slick skin and moist lips and clever hands and strong arms and… Other parts. Was it?

She touched her tongue to her own lip, still gazing at his. His mouth was a bit quirky where it turned up on the edges, with adorable little peaks in the center of his top lip, but with just enough softness to his bottom lip to make her think he would be a majorly good kisser.

She shook it off. Why would she think that? He might be a terrible kisser. Just because his lips looked good didn’t mean they would feel good or taste good…

Uh-oh. The idea of feeling and tasting his mouth was too overwhelming, too complicated, too altogether luscious. As she actually entertained the concept of grabbing him and kissing him just to find out, she realized she was feeling disappointed that she might never see him again and never find out if her theory about his kissable mouth was right or not.

Insanity. True insanity.

Grimly pressing her lips together, Abra did her best to damp down her crazy feelings. She spun back around and got away from there—and away from him—before she noticed anything else about him she wanted to touch or feel or taste. Yikes! Hormones were driving her around the bend.

That was her story and she was sticking to it. Blame it all on hormones. It couldn’t be that Sean Calhoun was an extraordinarily attractive man and she was feeling vulnerable and needy. Heavens, no. And certainly not that he was exuding sex appeal all over the place from his moody blue eyes and hot body, making her mouth water with the possibilities.

Nope. Just hormones.

She remembered at the last moment to scoop back across the Quad to pick up her tote bag, the scattered cracker packets, and the rumpled copy of Great Expectations: Managing Your Pregnancy that she’d ripped the cover off of. It was a miracle her things were still there. But after the day she’d had, she deserved one little miracle.

Were Sean Calhoun’s eyes still following her? How long had he been out there, watching her every move? And how could she not have noticed?

She didn’t dare look back to where she’d left him. But she could feel him there, still connected to her in some bizarre way, his gaze touching her, his thoughts wrapping around her.

Oh, yeah. Abra shivered. She could definitely feel him. But not enough. Not nearly enough.

As she paused there on the Quad, desperate to run, desperate to stay, all she could think about was all the ways she wanted to feel him. His hands and his mouth on her bare skin, her hands and her mouth on his. All of him, hard around her, tangled with her, doing terrible, wicked and exciting things.

Feel him? Oh, yeah. She could really get into that.

4

AS HE WATCHED HER walk away, Sean stayed where he was, juggling a mystifying mix of feelings. First was attraction. Which was really strange. He couldn’t remember ever being knocked back by this kind of steamy chemistry the first time he met someone. Especially not a furtive and secretive pregnant woman with a bad attitude and worst case of morning sickness. How could that be attractive? And yet on her it was. Amazingly so.

It was his job to notice things, and he definitely saw the same feelings staring back at him from her eyes. Sparks of excitement and awareness were there every time she glanced at him, in the way her gaze seemed to flicker up and down his body, in the way her pretty pink tongue darted out to moisten her lips.

In short, she kept looking at him like she wanted to eat him up with whipped cream and a cherry on top. And it made him want to find the spoons.

“She’s pregnant, you idiot. With someone else’s kid. You can’t be attracted to her.” Frustrated, he swore out loud. He had no clue how to handle that one.

But there was also relief. Yes, he was relieved she’d claimed never to have met his father, and yes, he believed her. He’d spent his adult life judging whether people were telling him the truth, plus there was that “uncanny knack” thing. Both common sense and intuition told him that her panic at having been found out was real, but so was her confusion when he’d mentioned his dad.

If he’d decided once upon a time that he was about eighty percent sure she was the tootsie Bebe had seen in the park, now, after talking to her, he was about ninety percent sure she wasn’t.

Okay, so if he analyzed his feelings, he found attraction and he found relief. But there was also frustration, not just the sexual part, but because he couldn’t figure her out. At all. And he found himself really, really needing to do just that.

“Thank God she’s not messing around with the old man,” he said out loud. “But then… Who the heck is she?”

She’d mentioned a fiancé in New York, but she had no rings. And what was she doing in downstate Illinois, pregnant and alone, with nothing better to do than hide behind a terrible disguise as she sat on the Quad and moped? He’d watched her long enough to be sure she wasn’t teaching or taking a class or even doing research at the university’s famous library. All she did was hang out under trees, eat junk food, stare into space, and go back home. So what did it get her to be in Champaign-Urbana instead of back in New York or wherever she lived? Why the obvious disguise? And why was she giving off sexual energy that knocked his socks off? As well as other, murkier vibes that made him think she was in trouble with a capital T?

“She’s got the vibes all right,” he muttered, trying to get his mind off the total package of curves and conundrums he found so fascinating. There was just something about this woman, something hungry, something haughty, something…hot.

He could feel the heat down to his bones.

She wasn’t blatant at all, but there was a major league come-on happening that he wasn’t sure she was even aware of. Provocative and innocent, all at the same time. It was a potent package.

Still letting the questions tumble around in his brain, Sean adjusted his position so he could keep her in view. She had the hat back on, but not the coat, and he had to say, now that he had the back view, that he could personally attest to the fact that she provided some very nice scenery. The swing of her hair, the frisky way she walked… And her butt. Sweet. It wasn’t polite, but he couldn’t take his eyes off that round bottom, temptingly displayed in some kind of shiny grayish pants that were cut just low enough and tight enough to display delicious curves.

She was in a hurry now, bending over to stuff things into her tote bag, offering him an even more tantalizing view. Sean groaned. He had a habit of sitting back, judging, sifting through the facts with all due deliberation, but this was one time he really wanted to just leap into action.

Whatever was going on with her, he liked what he saw. A lot. And every instinct he had was telling him to follow up, press on, keep this connection humming, even if it was strange and weird and convoluted. Let’s see, so far, he’d spied on her, practically leered at her, and mistaken her for what his mother had called a “cheap piece of Christmas trash,” while she’d made her way through forty-seven packets of saltines and then possibly thrown up on a tree.

He was in the wrong place with the wrong woman; she was pregnant and toting a whole lot of baggage. Not exactly an auspicious beginning.

Thankfully, she didn’t stay in that beautiful bottoms-up position long, hustling away from the Quad as if that reporter from the Enquirer she was afraid of were nipping at her heels. As she disappeared past the Foreign Language Building, down the campus street that he knew would lead her home, Sean set his jaw. Whoever she was, she was certainly a whole barrel of contradictions.

If her life was such a mess that she needed to sit under a tree and ponder it every day, why did she hand out advice to strangers with such practiced ease? When she’d whipped into guidance-counselor mode, all that Ann Landers-meets-Dr. Phil stuff about the Calhouns going in for family counseling and opening up lines of communication, she’d seemed like a whole different person.

Sean knew very well it was none of his business if an unknown woman with a penchant for advising strangers decided to leave her fiancé and have her baby alone, wherever she chose, in whatever clothing and hair color she chose. But there were so many facets of this mystery he found fascinating. Like Julian, the missing fiancé.

“Julian,” Sean said derisively. “Who has a fiancé named Julian?”

But posing that question made him think about its implications. He narrowed his eyes. She had mentioned people named Julian and Shelby, as well as The National Enquirer. He was steps away from his hotel and his car. If he wanted to find out who the common denominator was between Julian, Shelby and the Enquirer, all he had to do was find the public library and a computer and run a quick Google search. What would it take, three seconds?

Making up his mind, Sean turned in the opposite direction, back toward the Union, keeping his hands in his pockets and his pace steady. No point in hurrying back and calling attention to himself. Julian, Shelby and The National Enquirer. Piece of cake. He liked having a path to follow, an investigation to begin. It made him feel a whole lot less unsettled. And he expected to have all the info he needed in no time at all.

SAFELY BACK AT THE sweet little house she was subletting, Abra was stewing. It wasn’t as if stewing were a new thing for her, just that she had a new subject to stew about. Instead of angsting over the baby and Julian and her career and where she could possibly go from here, now she was worried about one Sean Calhoun, how much he knew, and when he knew it. And where she could possibly go from here.

“Damn it, anyway,” she swore, getting up from the kitchen table to root in the fridge. She was starving again. She had a taste for ice cream, and nothing but Chunky Monkey, with the banana and the chocolate and the walnuts, would do. Of course she had none. She’d already eaten four pints of the stuff in two days, and she was going to have to make a run to the grocery store for more. But she didn’t have a car, so she was limited to what she could carry on foot or on the bus. At the moment, she was going through this particular ice cream faster than she could store it.

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