Pregnancy Of Convenience

It seemed no time before Cal opened the door, carrying a tray. Quickly she closed the file; she had no intention of him finding out about her other life as a writer. She said casually, “That smells good.”

“I cooked the eggs myself,” Cal said. “Didn’t want Maria pouring hot pepper sauce all over them.”

She steeled herself against the laughter lurking in his gray eyes. “What’s the weather forecast?”

“Like this all day. Wind dying around midnight, the plow should come through during the night, and I’ve booked a tow truck first thing tomorrow. No flights out of Winnipeg today.”

“Oh, that’s just wonderful,” said Joanna, fighting down a wave of panic that was out of all proportion.

Cal’s eyes narrowed. “I’m going out to my vehicle to bring in Gustave’s gear,” he said coldly. “I’m presuming you don’t want any of it?”

She flinched. “No,” she said in a low voice. “I don’t need a harness or a set of ropes to remind me of Gustave.”

Cal plunked the tray down on the table. The trouble was, she fascinated him with far more than her incredible beauty. Anger, sadness, frustration, terror, she’d shown them all; and now he had to add a kind of dignity that he could only respect. “Eat your breakfast,” he ordered. “Any complaints about the eggs can be directed to the chef.”

She suddenly grinned. “I’m hungry enough they could be as tough as climbing boots and I wouldn’t complain.”

Her smile was full of mischief. Turning away so he wouldn’t grab her with all the subtlety of a caveman, Cal said brusquely, “I’ll be back with your lunch.” Then he wheeled and left the room.

The next couple of hours were far from pleasant for Cal. Maria’s iron facade wasn’t equal to seeing her son’s climbing gear; Dieter openly had tears in his eyes. Against his will, Cal’s anger toward Joanna was revived; although he was honest enough to admit some of that anger should be directed toward himself for letting her get past his defences so easily. Eventually the Strassens disappeared to their own room; around noon, his eyes tiring from the fine print of War and Peace, Cal took himself to the kitchen and produced some untidy but interesting sandwiches for himself and Joanna. Picking up hers, he headed back to the bedroom.

He could be very soft-footed when he chose to be. Not stopping to analyze just why he should want to take Joanna by surprise, Cal padded into the bedroom they’d shared last night. She was scowling into her laptop computer, totally focused on what she was doing. He couldn’t help admiring her concentration, for Joanna Strassen definitely didn’t want to be here: that much he did believe. Suzanne, under similar circumstances, would have been indulging in a major sulk. But Joanna was being…stoic, he thought. Stoicism was right up there in his list of virtues.

She’d fastened her hair in an untidy mass on top of her head; skewering the shiny black coils was a yellow pencil. As he watched, she leafed through a black-covered journal to her left, read half a page intently, and began rummaging through the papers on the table, muttering something under her breath.

Cal said lightly, “What’s your problem?”

She jumped, knocking several papers to the floor. “Do you get a kick out of creeping up on people?” she demanded. “Where the hell is my pencil?”

“In your hair,” he said amiably.

Her scowl deepened. “I’ve been doing that for years—I never think to look there and don’t you dare laugh at me.” Her gaze dropped to the plate in his hands. “You expect me to eat those?”

He glanced down. The tomato slices had skidded, the lettuce was falling out, and he’d been so generous with the egg salad that each sandwich bulged bounteously. Like a pregnant woman, he thought. “I couldn’t care less if you eat them or not! After Dieter and Maria saw Gustave’s gear they were very upset, and I sure as heck wasn’t going to ask either one of them to make your lunch.”

Joanna pushed back her chair, stood up and marched over to him. Her chin high, she said, “I’m sorry they’ve lost their son. Truly I am. But Gustave was a disaster waiting to happen—far too taken up with his own ego to be half the climber they thought he was.”

“If he’d just found out you were pregnant and he wasn’t sure who’d fathered the child—that’s completely irrelevant?”

“He knew who the father was. Trust me.”

Why couldn’t he trust her? She wasn’t Suzanne: or even remotely like Suzanne. Deliberately needling her, Cal said, “How could he have known? There are a lot of men in Europe.”

“And according to Dieter and Maria I’ve slept with most of them.” She gave an unamused laugh. “I’d like to know when I’d have found the time.”

Suzanne still on his mind, Cal said with a touch of bitterness, “Some women can always find time for what they want to do.”