The Pregnant Bride

Tentatively, her hand stole out to verify reality, checking the other half of the bed. Finding the dent in the other pillow where another head had lain. She stretched her leg under the covers, explored with her toe the barely perceptible warmth of other feet recently removed from the mattress.

As if floodgates had suddenly burst open, memory rushed in.

Cautiously, she opened one eye and took quick inventory of the room. Like hers, it overlooked the Pacific. The cold ashes of last night’s fire lay in the hearth. The empty brandy snifters still stood on the bedside table. But of the man who’d brought her to the edge of delirium with his mouth and left her sobbing for release; who’d filled her with his vitality and ridden with her to heights of pleasure she’d never before experienced, not once but over and over again throughout the night—of him there was no sign.

Clutching the duvet to her, she sat up. A thick terry-cloth robe lay across the foot of the bed. Someone had folded her clothes and left them over the arm of a chair, with her shoes neatly placed on the floor below them. The bathroom door stood ajar with no light showing from the interior. Clearly, he wasn’t in there.

With a tiny click which seemed deafening in the silent room, the digital clock beside the bed rolled to eight-thirty. How could she have slept so late? How could she have slept at all?

By exhausting herself, physically and emotionally until she was as limp as a rag! By curling up next to Edmund’s hard, warm frame, sated in body and soul, and refusing to think about what yesterday had brought or what tomorrow might hold because, right at that moment, with nothing but a silver dollar moon to witness the event, the here and now had been enough.

Of course, what they’d shared wasn’t love. It couldn’t be. Because she loved Mark.

Didn’t she?

Of course she did! But he’d deserted her and left her at the mercy of self-doubt and a hurt so deeply wounding that she’d wanted to crawl into a hole and never again come out. Instead, she’d turned to Edmund and, miraculously, passion had flared between them with scorching intensity. Because of him, she’d begun the long process of restoring her confidence in herself as a woman.

Recognizing that was a blessing she’d never expected to find. She knew now that, in time, she would recover. The rest of her life would not be blighted because Mark Armstrong had reneged on his promise to marry her. A whole different world from the one he’d offered waited to be discovered. And one day, when she was ready, she would find a better and a truer love. In the meantime, there was Edmund, and today, and perhaps even tonight.

Sliding her legs to the floor, she reached for the robe and was securing the belt around her waist when a knock came at the door.

“Well,” she said, a rush of anticipation warming her cheeks as she ran to open it, “there’s no need to be so polite! It’s your room, after all!”

A uniformed busboy stood outside, holding a tray. “Your breakfast, ma’am,” he announced pleasantly. “May I come in?”

Breakfast for one, she noticed with mild dismay, waving him across the threshold.

Placing the tray on a table by the window, he drew up a chair and removed the fluted paper cover from a tall glass of orange juice. “Another lovely morning, ma’am. A number of our guests are already enjoying the beach.”

Of course! And Edmund was probably one of them.

“May I pour your coffee?”

“I’ll wait a while, thanks.”

“In that case, I’ll leave you to enjoy your meal. No,” he insisted, backing toward the door when she reached for her purse to tip him, “that’s already been taken care of, ma’am. Have a very nice day.”

She thought it entirely possible that she would—an amazing concept, all things considered. The rich aroma of coffee underscored by the delicate scent of the single bud rose which completed her breakfast tray, added to the stunning view from the window and the stream of sunlight slanting over the polished wood floor surely made for a great start to the morning.

Buoyed with sudden optimism, she picked up the glass of juice and silently toasted the bright morning. Life really did go on, one day at a time. Trite, perhaps, but true. The secret was to look forward, instead of back.

She did not find Edmund on the beach, nor in the lounge where guests were taking morning coffee when she returned to The Inn two hours later. The Navigator was not in the parking lot. The message light was not blinking on the phone in her room.

“Mr. Delaney checked out early this morning,” the clerk told her when, with a growing sense of unease, she inquired at the front desk.

“Checked out?” But he’d told her he was staying for a week. He’d slept with her the night before. He’d ordered breakfast for her. She’d thought…she’d thought…

What? That a new love could be so easily born to replace the one she’d lost? In fairy tales, perhaps—or the mind of a self-delusional fool!

Still, she looked for a reason that at least hinted of a happy ending. “And you’re sure he left no message?”

“He was in a hurry,” the clerk said kindly. “I was already on duty when the call came through. Normally, we don’t intrude on our guests when they’ve specifically requested us not to do so, but his wife insisted he be contacted right away—some sort of emergency, I understand. Fortunately, he happened to come into the lobby just then—he’d been down at the pool for an early swim, I believe—and I was able to convey the message right away.”

Wife? She’d spent the night in the arms of another woman’s husband? No wonder he’d phoned the front desk the minute he’d closed his door behind them, and asked not to be disturbed! Risking a call from his wife while he was in bed with another woman would have seriously hampered his performance!

Jenna thought she was going to be sick, right there on the floor in full view of whoever happened to be passing by.

The clerk seemed to think so, too. “Are you feeling unwell, ma’am? Shall I send for a doctor…?”

“No,” she said, somehow managing to articulate a response even though her insides were shaking. “Thank you for your concern but I’m perfectly fine.”

Dazed with shock, she reeled toward the front door and the cool fresh air outside.

I come with too much excess baggage, he’d said, the night before, but she’d never for a moment supposed he was talking about a wife. He’d seemed too straightforward for such arcane half-truths.

And she…she had only herself to blame for the guilt and regret now hemming her in on all sides. It was one thing to accept the end of a relationship, and quite another to imagine that flinging herself headlong into the start of another was any solution. New hopes weren’t built on the ashes of broken dreams. A person had to heal before she was ready to begin again with someone new.

Furious to find tears brimming yet again, Jenna drew in a shaking breath and squared her shoulders. So, okay! She’d made a mistake. But the damage was done and no amount of weeping and wailing was going to change it. At the very least, she could stop compounding her problems, instead of adding to them.

Her life, her future, lay elsewhere and this place…oh, it had provided the refuge she’d needed during those first long, dreadful hours after she’d received Mark’s letter, but at best it was a temporary reprieve only. Sooner or later, she had to go back and face the people and situation she’d left behind.

As for Edmund Delaney, in all fairness, her anger toward him should be tempered by gratitude. Unquestionably, he’d deceived her, but he’d also made her feel desirable again. And for that, she owed him a debt he could never begin to imagine.

“You know,” Valerie Sinclair said, regarding Jenna through narrowed eyes, “I don’t think it’s necessarily over with Mark. If you hadn’t disappeared off the face of the earth so suddenly the way you did, I truly believe you’d be married to him by now. He’s phoned here, you know. Several times. Says he’s tried phoning you as well, but you never return his calls. From what I can gather, he got cold feet at the last minute but he came to his senses soon after.”

During the month since her return to Vancouver, Jenna had fielded an endless outpouring of sympathy and numerous offers to hook her up with a new man. She’d refused every one, not because she didn’t appreciate the concern of her friends but because she was actually enjoying being free to do and wear and eat what she pleased. Not until he was out of her life had she realized how completely Mark had tried to control it—or how close he’d come to succeeding.