Having Gabriel's Baby

Clearing his throat, he ran his fingers through his hair. “That’s probably a good thing. Look, maybe it means that we decided not to get married, after all. Or, maybe we just gave up on the idea because we couldn’t find anyone qualified to perform the ceremony.”

“Maybe,” Joelle grumbled. “But, unfortunately, I don’t think my luck these days is running that high. Considering our inebriated state, we could’ve gotten married and then simply lost the document on our way back here.”

Gabriel frowned, and Joelle could tell from the expression on his face that her theory wasn’t at all to his liking. Well, it certainly wasn’t to hers, either.

Still, she wasn’t quite ready to give up all hope of finding a simple resolution that would allow them to part company without worry or fanfare. Surely one of them would find something to jar their memory and, hopefully, give them both some badly needed peace of mind. With that in mind, Joelle proceeded to check the zipper compartments of her purse, but she found nothing. “Did you look through all your pockets?” she asked.

“I checked my pants. I haven’t found my shirt, yet.”

“Here it is,” Joelle stated, using her middle finger to pick up his wrinkled white dress shirt off the floor by its collar. She turned in his direction and offered it to him. As he reached for it, his eyes met hers, and he smiled.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Look, Joelle, about last night…”

“Forget it. It was as much my fault as it was yours.”

“Yeah…well, that’s not exactly what I was going to say.”

“Oh.”

“Look, I…uh…about the sex…I mean, it was great you know.”

Joelle thought her insides would turn inside-out. Yes, she knew, but she didn’t want to know. “Uh, look, I don’t really remember any of it, okay?” Liar. “And I’d like to keep it that way.”

“Hey, whatever you say,” he replied, shrugging lightly.

Joelle glanced up and their gazes locked. Within moments, though, she realized her mistake in thinking she could handle such a battle of wills with him and she shook herself. What, in heaven’s name, she wondered, did she think she was doing, gazing up at him that way? Here the two of them were, alone and practically strangers, with one of them wrapped in a bath towel, and the other in a bed sheet. Was she completely crazy, or just a glutton for punishment?

She took several steps away from him. He gave her a haunted look as he reached into his shirt pocket and came out a second later with a white folded piece of paper held tightly between his two fingers. Joelle’s heart skipped a beat. “What’s that?” she asked, breathlessly. She was at his side in a flash.

“I don’t know,” he said, releasing an anxious breath. He started to carefully unfold the piece of paper, only to discover that it was just a regular sheet of white, lined, loose-leaf paper. But written on it in a sprawling, amateurish handwriting were yesterday’s date and the words: Gabriel and Joelle, I now pronounce you man and wife. Signed, José Cuervo.

José Cuervo was the brand name of the tequila they had drunk last night.

Dazed for several moments, neither of them spoke. Finally, Joelle couldn’t take the deafening silence another moment. “What does that paper mean?” she asked in a whispered voice. It was as though if she spoke too loudly, the entire world would know her most recent sin.

Still staring down at the piece of paper in his hands, Gabriel Lafleur didn’t answer her. Finally she nudged him in the ribs with her elbow. “Lafleur, I need you to answer me. What does the note mean?”

“Hell, if I know,” he grumbled, suddenly crumpling up the piece of paper in one hand and tossing it like a basketball toward a nearby trash can. It fell inside like a dead ringer, and he said, “Bingo. See, now we’re off the hook. It’s in the trash.”

“Are you sure?” Joelle asked, still somewhat stunned from just awakening and finding Gabriel Lafleur in her hotel room, much less the rest of it. She sat down on the edge of the bed in the hopes of giving herself a moment to pull herself back together.

“Look,” he said, turning toward her and placing his hands on his hips. Joelle found herself following his every move. He had such wide, sensuous-looking hands.

Those hands had made love to her body last night.

Over and over, again.

She was breathless at the thought of it.

Swallowing hard, Joelle flicked her eyes back up to his. “What were you saying?” she asked.

“I was saying, surely you saw for yourself that piece of paper wasn’t anything legal. No minister or government official would’ve given us a handwritten note like that.”

“I know that. So, what’s your point, Lafleur?” Joelle stated.

“My point is, that piece of paper doesn’t prove anything. Certainly it doesn’t prove that we’re married.”

“I understand perfectly. But who could’ve written it?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” he replied. “Any person on the street, for all I know.”

“Then, it wasn’t you.”

“Me,” he said, sounding surprised. “No, of course not.”

Then he narrowed his eyes. “Was it you?”

“Dream on,” she replied, and for the first time since awakening that morning, she actually considered laughing.

“Well, was it?” he asked, skeptically, and suddenly Joelle realized that the man was actually serious.

“No,” she answered.

“Well, in that case, we’re back to square one. We still don’t know what we did last night.”

Suddenly, recalling something very critical in her plans for that day, Joelle gasped. “Oh, my God! What time is it?”

Gabriel glanced over to where his wristwatch lay on a bedside table. “Almost eleven-thirty.”

“Oh—my goodness. How could I be so dense? I must be losing it. My flight back home to San Diego leaves in less than an hour—and I’m not even dressed, yet.”

She raced to where her luggage sat, all packed up and ready to go—thank goodness—and picked up the outfit folded on top that she planned to wear today. “Do me a favor,” she said. “Call a cab and have them waiting for me at the entrance to the hotel in ten minutes.” Within seconds of saying that, she was closing the bathroom door behind her.

Minutes later she emerged, showered, dressed and ready to go. At first she thought that Gabriel Lafleur had skipped out on her and the whole messy ordeal— which she quickly decided would’ve probably been the best way to end this nightmare. But, unfortunately, though the weakening in her knees proved she actually felt otherwise, she saw him a second later, standing at the window with his back to her. He was now wearing the same dark gray pants he’d worn last night.

Without comment, Joelle quickly gathered her personal effects that were still on top of the dresser and dumped them into her cosmetic bag. Then picking up a piece of her luggage in each hand, she cleared her throat in the hopes of getting his attention. Like he hadn’t already heard her rummaging around in the room. He turned around to face her with his hands in his pockets. “I’m leaving now,” she said.

She saw him take in a deep breath. “Look, I don’t know what I’m supposed to say at this point.”

“Then don’t say anything,” she replied. Her heart was galloping around in her chest as if it were a wild, caged stallion.

A lopsided, sheepish grin slid up one side of his face. “But I feel like I should say something. I feel like I owe you that much.”

“You don’t owe me anything, Lafleur. I’m a big girl.”

“Somehow I feel that this is all my fault. I’m sorry.”

“Look, it just happened, okay? So let’s be modern thinking adults about this and just get on with our lives.”

“Hey, if you can live with it, then I sure can,” he replied. “It’s just you seemed to be upset earlier, so I was trying to make you feel better.”

Joelle sighed deeply. Truthfully she didn’t know if she was ever going to be able to live with herself, again, but, at the moment, she saw that she had no other choice than to try. “Look, for my own peace of mind, once I get back home I plan to have my attorney look into this matter and see if he can come up with anything. If he does, then I’ll give him the okay to resolve whatever problem we may have created for ourselves.”

Gabriel nodded his head. “That’s probably a good idea.” He walked to the bedside table where his wristwatch was, picked up a notepad and pencil and jotted something down. “Here,” he said a moment later, tearing off a sheet. “This is my telephone number just in case your attorney needs to get in touch with me.” He shrugged. “You can never tell.”

Joelle hesitated only a second before taking the piece of paper from him and stuffing it inside a pocket of her purse. Then, pulling out one of her business cards, she gave it to him. “Just in case,” she said.

“You never know,” Gabriel replied.

“True,” she said, and for some reason she felt breathless. “I guess we just as soon make this as easy as possible on ourselves.”

“I agree.”

Joelle turned for the door.

“Hey—Ames,” he said in a softer tone of voice. “Wait a minute.”

Pivoting around to face him, she lifted her eyebrows in question.

“What do you think? Did we actually get married?”

The question startled her and, for a brief moment, Joelle had no idea how to answer it. But, at the same time, it immediately brought a few things into focus for her. For one thing, she wasn’t going to part from this man and have him worry that perhaps she would show up at his doorstep one day, saying they were husband and wife and that he owed her something. He didn’t owe her anything.

Gabriel Lafleur didn’t know it, of course, but in her everyday life, she was a fully dedicated career woman and was quite capable of taking care of herself under any circumstances. “I—uh—no, I honestly don’t think we did.”

“Yeah,” he said after a moment of hesitation, “that’s what I think, too.”

“Goodbye, Lafleur,” Joelle said. “Have a nice life.”

“Goodbye, Ames. Take care.”

Then, in spite of a sudden heaviness at the center of her chest, Joelle took a deep, steadying breath, turned and hurried out the door.

She knew it would be the last time she would ever see Gabriel Lafleur again.

And though she hated to admit it, a small part of her regretted it.

It was so silly of her, she knew. Nonetheless, it was true.

Chapter Two

Arriving home that evening, Joelle took a deep, steadying breath, unlocked the door to her high-rise condo and stepped inside. Her telephone was ringing and she thought she knew who it was. If there was anything she could say about her father, it was that he was persistent. Well, she wasn’t anywhere near being ready to talk to him just yet. First she needed a couple of aspirin and some sleep, then maybe she’d be ready to confront the world, again. But, for tonight, she had enough on her mind. She stood nearby while allowing her answering machine to pick up the call and listened to see if her initial suspicions were accurate.

And, sure enough, they were. Within a moment she was hearing her father’s condescending tone of voice as he demanded that she answer her telephone and talk to him. From the number of messages she saw flashing on her machine, he’d obviously been trying to reach her for days.

Yeah, well, he could try reaching her all he wanted, but she wasn’t going to listen to his tirades anymore. Not after the way he’d humiliated her in front of all his employees. After all, it wasn’t every day that a daughter, who was always faithful to her father’s wishes, found out that he was having another employee within his company spy on her work performance and report those findings back to him. This time she was through allowing him to manipulate her. He might be her father, but he didn’t have any right to dictate her life.

This time, though, he’d really hurt her. In fact, he hadn’t gone into retirement and turned over his company to her at all. He’d only made her believe that she’d finally won his respect for him to do that, when all the time he was still calling the shots from behind the scenes. Damn him, anyway. He’d made her look like a fool. Well, this was one time she wasn’t going to forgive him for it. Nor was she ever going to trust him again to be on her side. But, more importantly, now, more than ever, she was determined to show him that he was wrong about her, and that even without his so-called help, she had the intelligence and tenacity to become highly successful. As much, in fact, as any son of his would have.

She was never going to forgive him.

Never. But, enough of her father for now. At the moment she had other, more urgent things to worry about. Things like Gabriel Lafleur.

No…actually, she really didn’t want to think about him, either. The problem was, if only she could stop herself. Wasn’t it enough that first thing tomorrow morning she was going to have to contact her attorney and have him look into the matter of her last night in Acapulco? My goodness, couldn’t something, somewhere give her a simple break?

It didn’t look that way. Because, already images of Gabriel were lurking at the corners of her mind, just waiting to jump forward. One in particular, the one where he was kissing her on the elevator while going up to her room was especially haunting.

It made her stomach quiver.

Her breasts tingle.

It made her feel breathless.

She still wanted him, for heaven’s sake. Just as much as she had last night.

How could she recall every little detail of their lovemaking and yet be unable to recall leaving the cantina with him to go get married? And, yet, something in the back of her mind told her that was exactly what she had done. The question was, had they succeeded?

The tension in her neck was so great that she couldn’t take it anymore.

Slipping out of her shoes, she turned on the water in her shower and then began unbuttoning her blouse. Moments later she slipped under the warm spray and began shampooing her hair. After stepping out and blowing dry her short shag hairstyle, she dressed in a pale green soft cotton robe. She plodded her way barefoot to the beige sofa in the den, and curled up on one corner with a blanket and pillow and fell sound asleep.

At some point, the doorbell finally woke her, and it became immediately clear that her caller had already grown impatient with her and as a result had his or her finger currently glued to the chime button. Throwing back the light blanket, Joelle groaned and somehow got to her feet. Without a doubt, she knew who it was.

Still, as a security measure, she peeked through the peephole first and then opened the door. The moment she did, her father came barreling across the threshold as if he were a tyrant on a rampage—which was normal behavior for him. “Where have you been, Joelle?” he demanded, his ruddy complexion reddened with anger. “I’ve been calling for days. Didn’t you get any of my messages?”

If there was ever the slightest chance of Joelle getting rid of her headache anytime soon, it had just quickly skedaddled out of her reach. “I’ve been out of town, Father,” she said, dryly, dropping back down on the sofa and laying her pounding head back against the soft cushion. At any minute, she felt certain that her head was going to explode into a million pieces.

“That’s no excuse,” her father declared, standing over her and glaring down as if he was a mighty eagle and she, an insignificant little sparrow. His voice seemed to vibrate through her aching head like the strumming of a high-pitched guitar. “I was worried sick about you,” he continued as his hands came to rest on his hips. But, actually, from Joelle’s point of view, his arrogant pose said otherwise.

“I wish I could believe that,” she replied, listlessly, without bothering to lift her head and look at him. Instead she placed her fingertips against her temples and began massaging them.

She was still angry at her father. And hurt, too. And she had every right to be. It was time that Sylvan Ames realized that she was a real person with feelings and not just someone put on this earth for him to ridicule when the mood struck.

“Joelle, have you any idea of how embarrassed I’ve been by your sudden absence from the marketing firm? Everyone has been asking about you and I’ve had to lie to them about your whereabouts.”

Opening her eyes, Joelle lifted her head and met his stare. “Really? Well, why didn’t you just tell them the truth, that I’d resigned on the spot the day I walked out and that I’m no longer an employee of your company?”

“What kind of an idiot do you take me for, Joelle? I’m not about to tell my employees something like that. Now we both know that you just overreacted that day. I’m sure now that you’ve had time to think about how foolish you looked storming out of the office like that, you’re as anxious as I am to put the whole ugly incident behind us and get on with business as usual.” Walking briskly toward the door, her father turned just before reaching it. “In fact, be in your office by eight sharp tomorrow morning. We have a new account that needs your attention.”

“I’m sorry, Father, but that isn’t possible,” Joelle replied.

Coming to a sudden halt, her father turned and pinned her to the spot with his glare. “Joelle, I’ve had about enough of this. I want you to stop behaving like a spoiled child.”

“Don’t you mean like a silly female?”

“Yes. That, too.”

“Well, for your information, Father, I’m not behaving like either. And to prove it, I’m declining your offer of reinstatement. You see, I’ve decided that it’s time that I make it in this world on my own—without your help.”

“That’s absurd. You’ll never do it,” Sylvan Ames remarked bitterly.

Joelle sighed. “Yeah—well, neither one of us will ever know that for sure unless I try. And tha’s what I’m going to do, Father. Surely you can understand my reasons.”

Her father narrowed his eyes. “You’ll never make it without my help.”

“Maybe not. But it’s a chance I have to take.”

Smirking, her father pointed his finger at her. “You’re going to fall flat on your face. But, when you do, don’t you dare come crawling back to me. You’ve had your chance. I’ll not be sympathetic to your pleas.” Then, pivoting on his heels, he rushed out her door, slamming it behind him.

Hot tears sprang to Joelle’s eyes. “You needn’t worry, Father. I won’t come crawling,” she whispered into the extreme silence that immediately followed his departure. “Not for any reason.”

Later that night, Joelle opened herself a can of chicken soup for supper. After eating, she went to bed early with an ice pack for her throbbing head. At some point, she began dreaming of Acapulco and Gabriel and woke up the following morning halfway expecting to find her vacation lover asleep in bed beside her. But he wasn’t there, and Joelle soon found herself wishing that he was. Eventually she began to realize what she was doing to herself and vowed to put him from her thoughts, once and for all.

But, unfortunately, over the next three weeks Joelle was incapable of pulling herself so completely together that she was able to block out all thoughts of Gabriel. He crept into her mind at the weirdest times, at some of the most inappropriate moments. Sometimes she found him in her thoughts even when she was making plans for her future…plans that, truthfully, here lately, she seemed to have so little energy in trying to accomplish. It wasn’t that she was depressed, or sickly, because she wasn’t either. The drive was there. It was her get-up-and-go that wasn’t.

She was just tired all the time. And sleepy. In fact, no matter how early she went to bed at night, she couldn’t seem to get enough sleep. Lately she required an afternoon nap, just to keep going. Finally, after realizing that her condition wasn’t improving, she decided that she needed to see a doctor for a good physical and promised to make herself an appointment soon.

But by the time she did, she was quite certain that there was really something seriously wrong with her. She was beginning to wonder if maybe she had picked up some kind of intestinal virus while on vacation.

Gabriel Lafleur stood on the veranda of his large Cajun-styled plantation home, built by his ancestors over a hundred and fifty years ago. It wasn’t quite sunup yet, but he knew he should’ve already been in the cane fields out back. His hired help was already hard at work. But, instead of hurrying to join them, here he was sitting around, sipping on his last cup of coffee and acting like some lovesick fool who had all the time in the world to be thinking about her. Hell, it was planting season and he didn’t have time to be thinking about anything other than work. Acapulco was weeks ago. It was time he forgot about the woman he’d made love to while there. Heaven help him, it was what he wanted to do more than anything else in the whole world. Only there was a dumb, stubborn part of him that wasn’t cooperating with his common sense.

And that’s what ate at his gut…constantly… steadily. He didn’t even want to think about her. Or, any woman, for that matter. His ex-wife’s betrayal had cured him of that. No way would he ever trust another woman enough to make her his wife. Even he wasn’t that big a fool.

And, yet, here he was acting just like one. Joelle Ames was, without a doubt, from start to finish, from head to toe, all wrong for him. In fact, that’s what made him an even bigger fool than most. He knew she was all wrong for him.

He was an idiot. No doubt about it.

Actually, instead of standing around like some lovesick schoolboy, he should’ve been counting his lucky stars that Joelle Ames was obviously the kind of woman who had been able to put their one-night stand into its proper perspective, just as he had. Some women he knew would’ve had trouble being that open-minded.

He was surprised that he hadn’t heard something— anything—by now from her or her attorney. Under the circumstances, he had felt certain that he would have, if for no other reason than to touch base and clear the air between them one final time. In some ways, maybe he’d been wanting to hear from her.

In fact, one day last week, he’d got to thinking about her—about their night together—and almost picked up the telephone to call. But then he’d decided that maybe it was for the best if he didn’t. Certainly he didn’t want to stir up any unnecessary trouble for himself. Besides, if she wasn’t worrying about any legal problems that might result from their time spent together, then why should he?

Well, in all reality, he did have his family inheritance to worry about. The last thing he needed was for some woman he hardly knew thinking she had some legal claim to it.

But he didn’t think that Joelle Ames was that stupid.

Still and all, right now his inheritance wasn’t the biggest problem concerning him. She was his biggest problem—period.

Damn her, anyway. Why couldn’t he simply forget about her?

Suddenly renewing his strong determination to put an end to his thoughts of her—Gabriel set his cup down on the railing that surrounded the porch and headed down the steps toward the fertile fields behind his house. This was the land of his ancestors, the land his father had left him. Located on the western edge of the Atchafalaya Basin in south Louisiana, it was rich, prime soil for toiling sugar cane. But even with all the modern technology and equipment, farming was still a hard way of life. It still took his total commitment, and then some.

But he wasn’t complaining. Not really. This was his way of life; it was all he’d ever known, and it was more important to him than anything in the whole world. And it always would be.

Forever.

Therefore, his memories of Ms. Joelle Ames, citywoman personified, could just back off.

Pregnant! Joelle closed the door to her doctor’s office as she walked out and stepped into the bright light of another typical California day. She didn’t smile, or breathe deeply of the crisp, clean breeze as she normally would have. Instead she got into her car and drove straight home. Once inside, she wandered aimlessly from room to room, her nerves too fidgety for her to think of sitting down for even a moment.