Pregnancy Of Convenience

When Cal went back into the bedroom, his socked feet soundless on the bare hardwood, Joanna Strassen was lying flat on her back, gazing up at the ceiling. Her brow was furrowed, as though she were in pain; the white pillowslips and her cheeks were exactly the same color. A floorboard creaked beneath his heel. She gave a visible start, just as quickly controlled; the face she turned to him was empty of expression.

He said, “I’ll help you sit up.”

“I can manage.”

“Don’t be so dammed stubborn!”

Defiance flared in her eyes. But with that same superhuman control, she subdued it. Where had she learned such control? And why?

And why did he care so strongly about the answers to his own questions?

As Cal put the tray down on the bedside table, she tried to struggle to an upright position, her lower lip clamped between her teeth. He’d been concussed once, on the Eiger, and it had left him with a splitting headache. He slid the pillows from behind her back, propping them against the headboard; then he put his hands under her armpits, lifting her whole weight.

The soft swell of her breast brushed his forearm, the contact surging through his body. Unceremoniously he pushed her back on the pillows, hearing her shallow, rapid breathing. He said with unwilling compassion, “I asked Maria for some painkillers, you’d better take one.”

“They’ve probably got arsenic in them.”

“I’ll take one, too,” he said dryly, “if that’ll make you feel safer.”

“I don’t like taking pills.”

“Is that how you got pregnant?”

He hadn’t meant to ask that. He watched emotion rip across her face, raw agony, terrible in its intensity. As he instinctively reached out a hand in sympathy, she struck it away. “Just leave me alone,” she cried. “Please.”

She couldn’t possibly have faked that emotion. The pain was real. All too real. He said flatly, “So you regret getting rid of the baby.”

“Why don’t you use the real word? Abortion. Because that’s what you mean. And that’s what Dieter and Maria think I did.”

“That’s certainly what they told me.”

“And you believe everything you’re told?”

“Why would they lie to me, Joanna?” Cal asked, and found he was holding his breath for the answer.

“Because no woman in the world would have been good enough for their beloved Gustave! I was their enemy from the very first day he brought me here.”

Could it be true? Cal rested the tray on her lap and reached down to put more wood on the fire.

When he turned back, she was making a valiant effort to eat. But soon she pushed the bowl away. “That’s enough,” she mumbled, her lashes drifting to her cheeks.

He took the tray from her, standing by the bed until her breathing settled into the steady rhythms of sleep. She’d stopped shivering, and there was the faintest wash of color in her cheeks. She was going to be fine and he was a fool to stay in this room overnight. How could he lust after a woman whose every word he seemed to distrust?

First thing tomorrow he’d organize a tow truck and see her on her way. Then he’d give the Strassens Gustave’s gear and head for the airport. They’d rebooked him on a flight midmorning. Twenty-four hours and he’d have seen the last of Joanna Strassen.

It couldn’t be soon enough.

Glancing at his watch, Cal saw to his dismay that it was scarcely eight o’clock. After leaving the bedroom, he checked out the tidy ranks of books in the parlor. He’d been meaning to read the classics, and apparently now was the time for him to start, he thought wryly, leafing through a couple of volumes of Dickens. Then Dieter spoke from the doorway. “Ah, I thought I heard you in here. Maria and I are not our best, Cal, you must forgive us. You have no suitcase, nothing. Please let us give you a new toothbrush, some pajamas.”

Cal never wore pajamas. “That’s very kind of you.”

“Come through to the kitchen, and I will get them for you.”

Maria was putting away the dishes. Cal said pleasantly, “Your daughter-in-law has no nightclothes—could I trouble you for something?”

Her lips thinned. Without a word she left the room, returning with a carefully folded pair of striped pajamas over her arm. “Give her these.”

“We’ll be gone by morning,” he said gently.

“I regret the day our son first saw those big blue eyes of hers!”

Dieter came through the door, passing Cal towels, pajamas and toilet articles. “Thank you,” Cal said. “I’ll say good night now, I’m a bit jet-lagged.”

He was actually distressingly wide awake, all his nerves on edge. Grabbing War and Peace from the shelves on his way by, he strode to the back bedroom. Joanna was still sleeping, her neck crooked at an awkward angle. For several minutes he simply stared at her, as though the very stillness of her features might answer some of the questions that tumbled through his brain. She was too thin, he thought. Too pale. Asleep, she looked heartbreakingly vulnerable.

Normally he was a fairly astute judge of character. But something about Joanna had disrupted his radar. One thing he did know: next time he was asked to do a favor for a dead mountaineer, he’d run a mile in the opposite direction.

He added more wood to the fire and settled down with his book. Two hours later, adding one name to his handwritten chart of the characters, he realized the fire had nearly died out. After he’d added some kindling and a small log, he turned around to find Joanna Strassen’s eyes open, fixed on him. They looked almost black, he thought. Depthless and mysterious. Full of secrets.

He said heartily, “Sorry if I woke you. How are you feeling?”

“I have to go to the bathroom.”

Moving very carefully, she sat up. Then she swung her legs over the side of the bed and pushed herself upright. Abruptly she brought her hand to her forehead, staggering a little. “I feel so dizzy…”

“Here,” Cal said unwillingly, “lean on me.”

She swayed toward him. He put an arm around her waist, furious with himself for liking her height, and the way her cheek brushed his shoulder. “Why don’t you have a hot bath?” he added noncommittally. “It would relax you.”

She stopped, looking him full in the face. “I won’t relax until I’m on a plane heading east,” she muttered. Then her jaw dropped. “My flight—I’ve missed it!”

“Everything’s canceled because of the storm.”

Agitated, she said, “It was a seat sale, will they charge me more?”

Franz had said she was miserly with her money. Is that why she wore no jewelry? “They won’t. But if they did, surely you could afford it?”

Her eyes suddenly blazed like blue fire. “Oh, of course. I’m a rich widow. How stupid of me to forget.”

He’d always liked a woman with spirit. Suzanne, his wife, had made a fine art out of avoiding conflict. But then Suzanne had had something perennially childlike about her; she’d never matched him, adult to adult. When he’d married her, he’d been too much in love to understand that about her; or to anticipate how her behavior would affect him.

Suzanne had also lied to him frequently, with casual expertise. He’d gradually come to understand that she didn’t lie out of malice, but simply because it was easier than owning up to responsibilities or consequences; after a while he’d stopped expecting anything more from her than a modicum of truth. While he certainly was intelligent enough to realize that every beautiful woman wasn’t necessarily a liar, Suzanne’s legacy, overall, had been a deep-seated reluctance toward any kind of facile trust. This trait had done well for him in the world of business. But as far as Joanna was concerned, was it doing him a disservice?

With an effort Cal came back to the present. “Maria’s loaned you something to wear to bed. I’ll get it for you.”

As she supported herself on the frame of the bathroom door, he passed her the pajamas. Automatically she took them, the fingers of her other hand digging into the wood; for a moment Cal wondered if she was going to faint. He grabbed her around the waist. “What’s wrong?”

“How she hates me,” Joanna whispered, and suddenly flung the pajamas to the floor. “Don’t you see? They’re Gustave’s pajamas! She knew I’d recognize them.”