Jessie's Expecting

Nearly two months now, and she had never once let him close to her. If he came to the Chandler offices, she was in conference; if he arrived at the Chandler home, she was on her way out. She wouldn’t acknowledge him; she wouldn’t talk to him.

He hadn’t even seen her since the morning after they’d— Wincing, he tried to rethink the words morning after, but they wouldn’t go away, couldn’t be denied. Just as he couldn’t deny that Jessica was avoiding him.

Hell, as far as he was concerned, Jessica Chandler had walked out of his arms and straight into oblivion.

He stood up, walked around the wide conference table. Both he and his friend were a few inches over six feet. Ryan’s hair was as black as Maddy’s, his eyes the same bright green. And looking as evasive as hers had looked for too many weeks before the now-canceled wedding.

Something was up. Matt knew it. And if the prickle at the back of his neck meant anything, he was smack in the middle of the “why” of the reason behind Jessica’s flight from Allentown. “Where is she, Ryan? Where did she go?”

Ryan turned away, peered out the window overlooking the parking lot of the clothing manufacturing plant that had borne the Chandler name for three generations. Almira had been right. Ryan didn’t know how she’d known, he didn’t know all that she knew—and didn’t want to!—but the woman had been right-on in saying that sooner or later Matt was going to come to him, demand to see Jessica.

And now, on orders from his grandmother, Ryan was supposed to tell him. He was supposed to break his solemn promise to his sister and tell Matthew Garvey that Jessica was hiding out—was there another way to say that?—at the house in Ocean City. He had been further ordered to make her disappearance sound as mysterious as possible, then stand back and watch Matt’s reaction; tell him more if the guy seemed upset.

Okay. Matt had reacted. And upset was probably too mild a word. So how had his grandmother known all this? He hadn’t even asked Allie why he had to make the revelation of his burning secret so dramatic. It was one of those things he was certain he was better off not knowing. But he had his suspicions.

Hence his headache…

“I’d be breaking a confidence, Matt,” he said, stalling for time, trying to analyze the look in his friend’s eyes, trying to tell himself what he saw there was not pain, couldn’t be pain. Real, physical pain.

“You’re not allowed to tell anyone, Ryan?” Matt asked. “Or just me?”

Ryan winced, not really playacting anymore, because this was his friend, and his friend was hurting. “If you ever decide to sell the family bank, you might want to take up law. You cross-examine real well for a banker. You’re right, Matt. I’m not supposed to tell you. She didn’t want me broadcasting her whereabouts to anyone, but you were the only one she mentioned by name.”

“She mentioned me by name.” Matt’s eyes flashed blue fire as he felt his hands clenching into fists at his sides. Tension, strain—they’d been his companions for long weeks, and he was almost afraid he was going to lose it entirely and shake the answers out of Ryan if he wasn’t forthcoming soon. “And you not only kept your word, you didn’t come to me, ask me what the hell was going on?”

“I thought about it,” Ryan confessed, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Then I thought about how you haven’t beaten down the door demanding to see Jessica whether she wanted to see you or not. She might be wondering that, too. I know Allie wanted me to wait until—never mind. Let’s just say I was waiting for the proper moment? God, that’s lame. I’m sorry, buddy.”

Matt let out his breath on a sigh, feeling his anger drain away to be replaced by something just as uncomfortable. Sometimes he wished Jessica wasn’t Ryan’s sister. Ryan was a good friend; the kind of guy other guys confided in, told their troubles to, be they financial or female or anything in between.

But the “troubles” with Jessica weren’t the sort Matt wanted to discuss with Ryan. Not by a long shot.

“We…um…” he began slowly, searching for the right words. “We, um, Jessica and I spoke together the night of…well, the night Maddy and I decided to break off our engagement. After dinner, when I went out back to the gazebo, feeling pretty much like a fifth wheel at the dinner table. Jessica followed me. Trying to comfort me, I suppose.”

“You spoke together? Out back, in the gazebo, in the dark? Just the two of you? You were gone for a couple of hours, if I remember correctly,” Ryan said, nodding.

And then he winced, one of his many suppositions reforming into more of a certainty. “Boy, now that explains it. I see it all now. You spoke together, and eight weeks later my sister picks up and takes off for parts unknown—at least to you—after spending those weeks avoiding you like the plague. Must have been some conversation.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it was,” Matt said, going back over to the papers on the table, gathering them up, stacking them neatly. “So was the talk we had the morning after the first one, right before she told me to go to hell. Since I figure I’ve been there ever since, maybe she’ll think I’ve done enough penance and will talk to me again. Now, are you going to tell me where she is, or am I going to have to tell you things you damn well don’t want to know?”

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.