Jessie's Expecting

Ryan leaned back against the wall, looked at his friend, saw the naked pain in his usually bright-blue eyes. “I’m going to be honest with you, Matt, because you’re my friend, and because you probably should be warned. One, Jessica doesn’t want you to know. That’s a given. Two, Allie does want you to know. Now, if neither of those two facts scares you straight back to hell, I’ll tell you where my sister is, okay? The rest is up to you.”

Starting to figure it out, are you? I thought you would.

Now, more about me. It’s dark in here, but warm, kind of cozy. And I like the way her heart beats. Slower than mine, but steady, reliable.

I only wish she didn’t cry at night.

I’m the one that’s supposed to do that, just not yet. First I get to kick her, and maybe give her heartburn. It’s a lousy job, but somebody has to do it—it’s in all the books. Just so she remembers I’m here, and that she’s not alone.

Gee, I wonder how much bigger I have to get before I can suck my thumb….

Chapter Two

O cean City was a study in contrasts. Billed as the nation’s greatest family resort, it was a full-time city in its own right all year-round. But, in with the homes and schools and churches of an everyday town, there were hotels and motels enough for many summer visitors, while the majority of vacationers rented modern condos by the week or the month.

Old homes had been torn down, sacrificed in the name of building the most house possible on the least amount of land, so that the long streets were lined curb to curb with tall, ultramodern condos with fantastic views of the Atlantic Ocean.

Stuck here and there sat stubborn old summer homes that had not given way to progress, small clapboard houses with knotty pine signs over the front door with names like Seaside Heaven or Bill’s Dream burned into the wood.

And then there were the grand old homes of some of the first summer residents, built long ago, even before World War II. These homes near the northern end of the island were more dazzling in their age and design than the most innovative three-floor condo built on stilts and decorated with huge round windows that looked out at the ocean.

The Chandler home was one of these grand old dames. Designed as a Cape Cod, with the third floor built up so that there could be three extra bedrooms under the eaves for visitors, the house was huge, the clapboard painted a bright white. Dark green canvas awnings with white scalloped edges sat on top of each and every window and was duplicated in the large canopy over the huge cement back porch.

Evergreens lined the half-acre grass lot, along with a dazzling living fence of pink and blue hydrangeas that boasted platter-size blooms all summer long. Built-in sprinklers picked up their metal heads twice each day and watered this oasis of green in the middle of sand and cement. A curved driveway led to a separate four-car garage built off to one side, and the rear of the home had a slightly elevated and spectacular view of the ocean that, all by itself, put the value of the home in the millions.

Not that the Chandlers would ever consider selling what had been their summer paradise for six decades.

This was a home that could be picked up and re-deposited in Allentown, or any other northeastern town, and fit in as if it had been built on the spot. A solid house. An ageless design, with nothing of the modern about it except for the renovated kitchen and baths, and the addition of air-conditioning.

With two living rooms, a formal dining room, a book-lined study, five bedrooms on the second floor furnished in cherry woods and oriental carpets, the Chandler house was an anomaly in this resort town, one of about two dozen bastions of a bygone era, and it was lovely enough to make a person weep.

Which wasn’t why Jessica Chandler was sitting on the porch, her feet resting on a chintz-covered foot-stool as the sun rose on another perfect late-July day in this summer paradise, crying into her wholesome glass of milk.

She was so alone. So very alone. Rattling around in this great, empty house she had believed a natural refuge. But it wasn’t. It was just a reminder of how alone she was, how alone she would always be, how empty her life had become.

“Because I’m a great big idiot,” she said out loud before swilling down the remainder of the milk, then making a face at the empty glass. “A great big idiot who hates milk,” she amended, as she could at least be honest with herself. After all, who was here to hear her?

Nobody.

And that was her problem. She’d told the family to leave her alone, and they’d actually done it.

For a lot of families, this would make sense. You ask something reasonable, and they respond reasonably.

But her family? Her grandmother? To let Jessica walk away, actually help her pack…and then not phone her every day, visit her twice a week, ask her a million and one questions? Her grandmother wouldn’t even bother to make up lame excuses for her calls, her visits. She’d just barge in, plant herself in one of the high-back wicker chairs on the sunporch, and say, “Well? Ready to talk yet, or am I going to have to beat it out of you?”

No. Jessica knew it just didn’t compute. She shouldn’t be alone, even if she’d said she wanted to be alone.

And here she’d always believed her family loved her.

Just showed you how wrong you could be.

Allie was probably all wrapped up in Maddy and Joe, who must be back from their honeymoon by now. After all, even millionaires who owned their own computer software companies had to go back to work sometime, didn’t they? Of course, they’d be living right next door to the family home in Allentown, and Allie was probably tripping over there every day, poking her surgically perfect nose into Maddy’s business until both she and Joe threatened to put a For Sale sign in the yard…but at least Maddy and Joe had somebody paying attention to them.

Why, for all the family knew, she could be lying on the kitchen floor with a broken hip, unable to reach the phone and slowly starving to death. She could have been carjacked on the way down the Atlantic City Expressway, and never even made it to Ocean City. Had they thought of that? Huh? Huh?

No. They couldn’t have thought of that. Because no one had called, not in a whole week. Seven days. Seven nights.

She was all by herself. Completely by herself.

That’s what being the middle child got you, Jessica decided, heading for the kitchen, letting the old wooden screen door slam shut behind her. Overlooked. Forgotten. Especially if you were a good child, never giving anyone a problem, never making waves, never even thinking about getting into trouble.

She eyed the refrigerator, knowing she had plenty of healthy salad-makings in the bottom crisper drawer. Then her eyes slid to her left, to the smaller freezer door of the side-by-side appliance, knowing that she had a half gallon of double-Dutch chocolate ice cream nestled inside. Calling to her. Singing to her.

“It’s a milk product, right?” she reasoned with herself as she headed for the wall of white-painted wooden cabinets and retrieved her favorite bowl from childhood—the one with Pebbles Flintstone on it. “It’s just in a more…more convenient form, that’s all.”

In the end she left Pebbles on the counter and picked out a nicely pointed tablespoon, snagged the cardboard ice cream container and returned to the porch. After all, there was no one else around to see her, to want her to share with them. Not that she would, she decided, holding the rounded container close against her as she sat down on the low brick wall surrounding the porch and watched the steady parade of families making their way down the sidewalk on their way to the beach.

Suddenly she was crying again. That was just about all she did these days. Cry. Or think about crying. Or go mop up after crying. If this was what hormones could do to a person, Jessica was definitely in favor of banning them.

Still, it was nice to sit here and look out at the people passing by. The happy people passing by.

She could remember holding Maddy’s chubby little hand as they followed their big brother, Ryan, down that same sidewalk, Allie and their beloved Grandpop bringing up the rear, loaded down with beach umbrella, blankets, sand chairs and three sets of sand toys. Even when their parents had still been alive, it had been Allie and Grandpop who’d taken them to the shore, taught them to jump the waves, helped them build sand castles on the beach.

Carefree days. Happy summers. Their fun-loving, jet-setting parents were gone, lost in a plane crash, but as they’d never been around very much, the Chandler children had adjusted well, as if anyone could resist the loving arms of Allie and Grandpop for more than a moment.

Now Grandpop was gone, and Allie was, thanks to the miracles of modern cosmetic surgery, looking younger every year. Maddy was married and happy. Ryan was running the family business and showing all the signs of becoming a stodgy, rather than happy, bachelor.

And Jessica? Ah, she thought, placing her hand over her flat stomach.

Oh, yes. Can’t forget Jessica.

Because Jessica, heading for thirty, a hormonal mess with a queasy stomach and her mind filled with notions that had nothing to do with her usual sane approach to life, was about to become a single mother.

She took another bite of ice cream, let it melt on her tongue. Thought about the day she would tell them, tell them all, that she was about to become a mommy.

She smiled sadly. That’ll teach them to lull themselves into believing this particular middle child wasn’t capable of upsetting an applecart or two….

Matt drove over the Ninth Street Bridge and onto the island that was Ocean City, still rehearsing his lines, rearranging them in his head, mentally striking out whole paragraphs and inserting new ones.

Abraham Lincoln had said more in the short Gettysburg Address than Matt had been able to condense into a near novella of explanations, excuses, sorry reasons and apologies—none of which Jessica would probably give him time to recite, anyway.

And, with all he had to say, all he had to atone for, be forgiven for, he could not say the one thing that would get Jessica’s full attention.

He had left Ryan’s office the previous afternoon and made a beeline straight for the Chandler mansion, dedicating himself to hunting down Almira Chandler and convincing her that telling him everything she knew would be a good thing; that telling it all to him, without prompting, would be an even better thing.

He’d found her on the tennis court, returning serves from an automatic-serving machine being manned by none other than the perpetually black-clad Mrs. Ballantine, the Chandler housekeeper.

Or, as Maddy had more than once referred to the two women: the Good Witch and Morticia, both with Pinocchio noses—noses that were forever poking into everyone else’s business.

The two women, Matt knew, made a big to-do over goodnaturedly detesting each other, but he also knew that the pair thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company. Even if their friendship was pretty much based on a mutual desire to rule the world—or at least as much of it as they could reach.

That was why he had come, after Ryan had let slip that Almira had told him to tell Matt where Jessica had gone off to a week ago. That one statement had been enough to warn Matt that there was more to Jessica’s disappearance than a desire to get away by herself for a while.

When Matt combined that one statement with the knowledge that Jessica was about as conscientious as a person could get, and would never stay hidden at home for weeks on end, or go on vacation while the end of the fiscal year passed over Chandler Enterprises—well, it didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out that something was wrong. Very, very wrong.

Not that he didn’t already know most of it, considering he had caused it in the first place.

Falling in love with a woman who, like his own sister, had already married herself to her career, when he wanted nothing more than a wife and family, had been his first mistake.

Becoming engaged to Maddy because they seemed to have shared goals, similar desires for what they wanted out of life had been the second mistake, thinking that being a part of the warm, welcoming, loving Chandler family might be enough.

But not telling Jessica that he had felt relieved rather than crushed when Maddy had broken their engagement…allowing Jessica to comfort him…taking that comforting to a much higher level…well, that mistake could probably win him second prize in the Screwup of the Year awards.

Apologizing the next morning for having made love to her—that had to have netted him first prize, with oak-leaf cluster.

The funny thing was—that was funny strange, not funny ha-ha, he reminded himself, was that the moment Almira had seen him coming she’d motioned for Mrs. Ballantine to shut off the serving machine and headed straight for him, looking more than eager to talk.

“Darling Matt, it’s been too long,” she’d said, allowing him to kiss her cheek. The woman was a marvel. Seventy if she was a day, and looking fifty. Acting thirty. Being the best grandmother any three kids could have hoped for: hip, a real friend, and yet still very definitely the person in charge, the person who taught them both love and respect. And not looking at all ridiculous while doing any of it.

“I’m sorry I haven’t visited sooner, Allie,” he’d answered, offering her his arm as they walked back to the house. “It was probably that No Trespassing sign Jessica put up on the front lawn that kept me away.”

“And you should be ashamed of yourself for listening to her,” Almira countered, giving his forearm a squeeze as she leaned against him. “But, obedient as you are, you have your limits. That’s nice to know, not that I didn’t know all along. I have great faith in you, Matt. So, did Ryan tell you where she is? And then let slip that I told him to tell you?”

Matt smiled, shook his head. “I’ll assume those were rhetorical questions. I am here, Allie, aren’t I?”

“It was that obvious?” Almira frowned, carefully, so that she didn’t crease her smooth forehead. “I must be slipping. Either that, or Ryan considers himself to be one step ahead of me. I’ll have to teach him differently. But we’ll leave that for another time. For now, I’m supposing you want to know what I know.”

“It would help,” Matt admitted as Almira let go of his arm, sat herself down in a shiny, black wrought iron chair as he remained standing. “It would most especially help to know if she’s just angry, or if she’d like to see me run off a cliff.”

“A little of both, actually,” Almira said, accepting a glass of lemonade from Mrs. Ballantine, who then just stood there, her hands folded in front of her, glaring at Matt. He considered asking for a glass for himself, but then thought better of it. The way the woman was eyeing him, he’d be afraid to drink it.

“Oh, just tell him, why don’t you. It will be obvious soon enough,” Mrs. Ballantine growled, then shrugged her shoulders as Almira smiled up at her. “I’ll be inside, running your bath. After all, this shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.”

“Such a lovely woman, for a piranha,” Almira said after the housekeeper had gone inside. “Now,” she said, putting down her glass, “let’s talk, shall we? Did you never hear of the word protection, Matthew?”

Protection?

What in hell—?

Oh boy. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.

Or girl…

Matt leaned forward from the waist, his heart pounding, his eyes all but popping out of his head as he croaked out, “Jessie’s pregnant?”

“Bingo! Please select a prize from the bottom shelf. Unless you wish to play our game again and go for a larger prize?”

“Allie, that’s not funny, damn it,” Matt said, beginning to pace. Was this the greatest news he’d ever gotten in his life, or the worst? That Jessica was pregnant, carrying his child, was wonderful. Great. Even terrific. But now? Was now so terrific?

Timing. Everything was timing. And he couldn’t help believing that his timing had been off, way off. No wonder Jessica had run from him. “How…”

“Oh, please,” Almira cut in, rising from her chair. “I think we both know how. The question is what. What are you going to do about it? Knowing that you can’t possibly tell her you know. You do realize that, don’t you? I mean, I’m not going to have to hold your hand through every step of this, am I? I’m still recovering from leading Maddy about by the nose until she finally saw what was just under it.”

Closing his mind to the rest of that short, embarrassing conversation with Jessica’s grandmother, Matt left Ninth Street, turned left at the beginning of the beach block, and headed north, on the way to Brighton Place and the Chandler summer house.

Almira had been right, of course. He couldn’t tell Jessica he knew she was pregnant. Just as he shouldn’t have apologized for making love with her.

And he couldn’t possibly confess that he’d been in love with her for months…for years.

She wouldn’t believe him for one thing, and, for another, he couldn’t blame her. He’d made mistakes. He’d made some real whoppers. And now he’d gotten her pregnant—not a solo exercise by any stretch of the imagination—but certainly a result Jessica, the born career woman, couldn’t be doing handsprings about, overjoyed.

So, without telling her he’d be there for her, without asking her to marry him, without so much as hinting that he knew she was pregnant, he was here, in Ocean City, without a plan, without a prayer, and with only his stupid, apologetic speech to protect him.

He might as well be going into battle carrying an anchor.

Is anybody else feeling some sort of excitement in the pit of their bellies? Something’s coming. Someone’s coming. Something’s about to change.

Maybe everything is about to change.

And I’m feeling good, feeling really good. Must be some good stuff coming at me now, something sweet and cool that seems to be making Mom’s belly happy. Wish I could taste it.

She’s doing all the right things. Eating a lot, sleeping a lot. Getting plenty of exercise and fresh air. But still crying too much, and now even talking to herself.

She should talk to me. I am here, right? Yeah, she should be talking to me. I could tell her. Everything is going to be all right. She’ll see. I’ll take care of her….

Chapter Three

J essica heard a car pulling into the driveway and held her breath, waiting for it to back out again. The only drawback to living on the beach block was that it was a necessary dead end against the boardwalk, so that lost drivers were forever turning around in the driveway.

She was silly to be worried about a car, silly to think that this car had anything to do with her, that anyone in that car had anything to do with her.

But that was how she’d been, how she continued to be. Jumpy. Sometimes even a little irrational. About as far from her usual unflappable, reasonable, sensible self as possible. Wasn’t it enough that she was pregnant? Did she have to lose her mind, become nothing more than a supersensitive bundle of over-active hormones and an imagination to match?

It was just a car. Nothing to set off alarms in her head, set her ridiculously sensitive stomach to doing flips.

Only this car didn’t pull out, then head back up the street. She heard the engine die even as her heart leaped into a quick double-time beat. A car door slammed shut.

That couldn’t be a good sign, could it?

Maddy? She and Joe were back from their honeymoon, after all. It would be natural for her sister to ignore her plea to be left alone and come crashing in on her solitude.

The solitude that had seemed such a good idea at the start, but that was now rapidly driving her crazy.

It couldn’t be Allie. Allie never came to the shore until late September, after most of the tourists had gone home, leaving the beach empty enough for her to enjoy it. If her grandmother hadn’t barged in on her within days of her leaving Allentown, she sure wouldn’t come now, more than a week later. Too anticlimactic. It just wasn’t Allie’s style.

Who did that leave?

Ryan? No, not her brother. He had to be swamped at work without her there to help. Besides, Ryan rarely “played.” Like her, he was a sober Chandler, somewhat lacking in the fun-loving spirit of their grandmother and baby sister. Working bees, that was what she and Ryan were. Not that Maddy and Allie were drones.

They were natural queen bees.

All of which, Jessica reminded herself, wasn’t telling her whose car had just pulled into her driveway.

The process of elimination had left her with one name, one person, and she didn’t know if she’d be delighted or angry to see him. If she’d tell him to go to hell or fall into his arms. If she could look at him, remember what had happened—all that had happened—and not completely dissolve into a puddle of unrequited love, confusion and more than a little guilt.

Not that she was given time to sort through these possible reactions, for, as she walked off the porch and onto the grass, Matt was coming straight at her across the lawn, looking as bad as she felt.

So accustomed to seeing him in impeccably tailored business suits, she was always rather shocked by how good he looked in casual slacks and knit shirts, both of which skimmed his tall, slim body in most flattering ways. She liked his hair, black as a moonless night, but had never before seen it looking as if he was two weeks past a good trim.

There seemed to be an added purpose in his always confident stride, as if he had come on a mission of sorts, and she wished she could see past the mirrored sunglasses into his eyes, two blue pools she considered to be the window to his calm, cool, collected, almost analytical mind.

But she couldn’t see into his eyes. She could only see the tight set of his mouth, the long strides that were rapidly eating up the distance between them. Why, he almost looked angry.

Who was he to be angry? The nerve of the man!

Jessica tilted up her chin, ready to do battle. She’d give him what for, coming down here uninvited, barging in on her solitude…looking so damn sexy and irresistible.

Damn! Her chin wouldn’t stay still; it began to wobble. Ready tears, always on standby lately, sprang into her eyes, stinging them.

Deserted by her courage, betrayed by her rampantly out-of-whack emotional responses to every stimulus from ice cream to a robin’s morning song, Jessica did something brilliant. She turned on her heels and all but ran back toward the door to the kitchen. Safety.

A bolt-hole and denial—they weren’t much, but they had worked so far, hadn’t they?

“Jessica, wait,” Matt said. “Please, Jessica.”

It was probably the “please” that stopped her. Either that or the defeated, yet still faintly hopeful, tone in his voice.

Without turning to face him, she allowed her shoulders to slump and said, “What do you want, Matt? Because if you feel some burning need to apologize to me again, I have to tell you you’ve wasted a trip. I don’t want to hear it.”

The next time he spoke, he was right behind her. She could feel the heat of his body, the warm brush of his breath against her bent neck. “How about if I apologize for apologizing? Would that work?”

Matt winced as he heard his own words, which sounded miles too flippant, even as he meant each word with every fiber of his being. He watched Jessica square her shoulders as she resumed her usual perfect posture, then whirl around to face him.

“Do you know how you made me feel, Matt?” she asked, not able to guard her own words or even to remember that they were standing in the side yard, the one facing the sidewalk and the dozens of passing tourists on their way to and from the boardwalk and beach.

“Pretty lousy, I’d imagine,” Matt answered truthfully, taking her by the elbow and trying to, gently, steer her back under the semiprivacy of the canvas-covered porch.