My Best Friend's Baby (19 page)

"I heard," Red murmured, grabbing another
carrot stick. "So what are you going to do about it?"

"What am I going to do about it?"

"Yeah."

Pound a new head-shaped dent in my
Frigidaire.

Nah, that wouldn't help.
Pound a new dent
in Bruno
.

"The Nick Steadman I know wouldn't just
stand by and let some other guy steal his girl," Red went on,
blithely propping her hands on her bony hips as she rolled her
carrot around her mouth. "The Nick Steadman I know would fight for
her."

Nick cast her a miserable glance. "How can
I?" he asked. He thought of the conversation he'd heard earlier,
thought of his sisters listening open-mouthed and teary-eyed as
Chloe described her mysterious, romantic Bruno, and knew he
couldn't destroy her chance at happiness. Not if that was what she
wanted.

Even if the bastard still hadn't managed to
get in touch with her yet. For some reason, she obviously wanted
him anyway.

"If you could only see her eyes when she
talks about him," he told Red. "It's like—like—"

"Like she's in love with him."

He nodded. "And the crazy thing is, I have
this feeling

..."

"Go on."

"I've been remembering things ..." He rammed
his hands into his hair, realized what he was doing, and
straightened his glasses instead. "Things ... awww, hell. They
can't be true, Red. Otherwise—"

"Otherwise?" She edged closer, and the
carrot stick disappeared between her lips.

"Otherwise Chloe's been—"

A movement in the kitchen doorway stopped
his words. Nick clamped his mouth shut as Chloe stepped inside.

"Been what?" she asked, her gaze darting
from Nick to Red and back again. "Besides surprised, revived, and
treated like royalty?" Grinning, she lifted the full coffee pot and
assessed its contents, then flipped open the cupboard above it.
"This guest of honor stuff is great," she went on in a muffled
voice as she rooted around inside. "Thanks so much for the party,
Nick. It was really sweet of you."

Consider it my send-off
, Nick
thought, watching her hot-pink-clad backside sway as she searched.
Straight into Bruno's arms
.

"You're welcome," he said aloud. "I think
even Larry, Moe, Shep and Curly had a good time."

"Thanks to your sports drinks. That was a
brilliant idea. Did you see them lap up that stuff, Red?"

"Sure did. Looks like you're fixing to help
us lap up some of your special coffee, too," Red remarked.

"Nick's sisters asked me to." Bright-faced
and happy, Chloe plunked a half-full bottle of Kahlúa onto the
countertop and started arranging cups beside it. She glanced over
her shoulder at Nick. "Your mother said she'll drink an extra cup
for me."

"That's my mom. Generous to a fault."

"I know." Chloe sighed and lifted the
bottle. "Hey, I'll make some for you, too, if you want. Interested
in Kahlúa and coffee?"

And sympathy?
his brain added, half
on auto-pilot.

He looked at her standing there, swinging
the Kahlúa bottle between her fingertips and waiting expectantly
for his answer, and suddenly answers for all the half-formed
questions he'd had for months clicked into place.
Kahlúa and
coffee and sympathy
. Chloe's never-fail remedy for disastrous
job interviews, bad hair days ... and Nick's months-old heartbreak
over what'shername.

The night they'd spent together crystallized
in his mind, clear for the first time in months and heartrendingly
remembered too late. An image of Chloe's comfy sleigh bed—and
waking up in it—the morning after. Her sheer orange bra, those sexy
purple-dotted silk boxers she'd had on ... the way she'd called him
darling
and smiled at him sleepily from beneath the sheets.
He'd held her in his arms and in his heart that night, and wakened
denying everything.

What was that he'd said? Tell me this isn't
what it looks like, Chloe. Tell me I didn't take advantage of you
last night.

So she had. Nothing happened here last night
except too much Kahlúa, too much talking, and way too much
sympathy. Damn, damn, damn.

But Chloe was wrong. Everything had happened
between them that night, including love.

Including a baby.

How could he have been so blind? So ready to
believe her, despite all evidence to the contrary?

The same way he'd been blind to missing
Danny's birthday party, the family Easter egg hunt, the monthly
Sunday brunch with his sisters and their husbands and his nieces
and nephews. The same way he'd turned into an invention-obsessed
workaholic without realizing it.

The whole truth hit him like a whap on the
head.

Chloe's baby was his baby, too.

He was going to be a father.

Nick's knees buckled. He slammed his hand
onto the tabletop just as Red jabbed her elbow into his ribs.
Luckily, the motion helped keep him upright.

"Well, sonny?" she asked.

"Huh?"

He was going to have a baby.

"Are you having some of this or not?" Chloe
elaborated, swirling the liquor around inside the bottle. "I think
there's just enough for everyone to try a little."

Nick, Jr., maybe.

"Nick?"

Holy cow!

"Should I fix you some Kahlúa and coffee, or
not?"

He looked up at her. "Are you dishing out
the truth along with that Kahlúa? Because that's what I'm really
interested in."

She went white, down to her fingertips
wrapped around the bottle. It wobbled in her hand as Chloe stared
at him.

He stepped forward and grabbed it. The cool,
dark glass slipped from her hand as easily as the lies had come
from her mouth, month after month after month. "We can start with
Bruno," he said.

"B—Bruno?"

"Yes."

She licked her lips and gave him a wary
look. "What do you want to know?"

Sticking with her alibi, all the way down
the line. Nick's heart twisted.

"I want to know why you didn't trust me with
the truth."

Chloe backed into the counter behind her,
twisting her hair like a hairdresser on fast-forward as she went.
Nick followed.

"I want to know why you didn't tell me
I'm Bruno
," he said, his voice rising. "I want to know why
you hid my baby from me and—"

"
You're Bruno
?" Red shrieked,
staring, dumbfounded, at them both.

He kept his focus on Chloe. "—and I want to
know why the
hell
you didn't come to me first and let me
help you!"

"Maybe because I thought you'd react just
like this," Chloe yelled back, rising on tiptoes to face him
better. "Just like a ... a ... a
man
!"

Nick planted both hands on the countertop,
fencing her in. "I am a man," he said quietly. "And, as it turns
out, I'm going to be a father, too."

"
You're Bruno
?" Red asked again. She
shook her head and tapped out a cigarette from the case in her
hand. "My, my, my—"

"I had a right to know!" he shouted.

"Why? So you could abandon your dreams, just
like every other steady Steadman has for generations?" Chloe asked.
Twist, twist
, went her hair. "So you could 'do the right
thing?' So you could jump in and take over and—"

"Yes, dammit! We could've already been
married by now, had all this settled—not be doing ..."

"Doing something that's totally wrong for
us?" she asked, shoving at the arms caging her in. "You don't have
any obligation to me, Nick."

"... doing
this
, a week before your
due date," he finished. "And I damn well do have an obligation to
you. I—"

"Four days," Red put in, puffing on the
cigarette she'd lit. "Her due date's in four days, not a week."

Gritting his teeth, Nick looked over his
shoulder at her and squinted through the haze of cigarette smoke.
"Could you do that someplace else?"

She looked at her Lucky Strike as though it
had sprouted, fully lit and smoking, from her fingertips. "Sorry, I
crumble under pressure."

"Let me go!" Chloe demanded with another
shove—this one, at his chest. "I've got a party to finish."

"
A party
?" Was she in denial? Or just
too stubborn to realize how she'd shut him out ... how she was
still shutting him out? "You want to get back to your party, in the
middle of all this?"

"Uncle Nick?" Danny stuck his head around
the corner leading to the kitchen. "My mom wants to know if you're
coming to my soccer game this weekend. It's the finals."

"Never mind. Looks like the party's come to
us," Red said.
Puff, puff
.

"She said you'll need these directions,
'cause you've never been to the field before," Danny went on,
holding out a folded piece of paper. The hopeful expression on his
little face was like a knife to Nick's heart. How many games had he
missed, trying to make his mark as an inventor?

How many chances to watch his baby grow had
he missed, thanks to Chloe's deception?

Hell.

Nick took the paper from Danny's hand just
Naomi's head appeared above her son's. "Honey, I told you to ask
Uncle Nick another time," she whispered quickly. "He's, umm, busy
right now."

"You mean fighting with Chloe?" Danny
squinted at the adults, then shook his head. "Nah, she's his best
friend," he said with supreme seven-year-old confidence. "Best
friends always make up."

"Don't bet on it," Nick muttered, glaring at
Chloe.

"I tried to tell you!" she cried, waving her
arm. "Out on the porch, remember?" She stepped closer to the
kitchen doorway, moving farther and farther away from Nick. "You
wouldn't listen. You—you—you—"

Were thinking about getting her into the
surprise baby shower before somebody gave it away.

"Wouldn't listen," he said, and it was
hideously, unarguably true. He'd been absorbed in his own thing,
concentrating on nothing except the goal to be reached.

Just like he'd focused on his inventions,
even at the expense of everything else.

Your whole point is doing the right
thing
, Chloe had said.
No matter what the cost
. Nick
hadn't known then what she meant. Now, he did.

"Awww, Chloe," he whispered, reaching for
her. "This is never going to work between us. Not this way."

Her eyes misted. Her lips wobbled, setting
off all the tell-tale, weepy signs. Dammit, somehow he'd done it
again... except this time, Nick felt like bawling right along with
her.

Chloe lifted her chin. Her fingertips
brushed along his jaw like a fluttery, warm kiss goodbye, and her
voice sounded husky when she spoke.

"Didn't you know, Einstein?" she whispered.
"That's what I've been trying to tell you all along."

With one last, sorrowful glance, she put her
hand to her rounded belly and slipped between Danny and Naomi. An
instant later the front door opened and closed, quiet as the whole
crowd of partygoers had become.

Danny's hand nudged Nick's, then his small
arm wrapped around his uncle's waist and his voice broke the
silence Chloe's departure had left. "Look at it this way, Uncle
Nick," he said, giving him a man-to-man squeeze. "You know all that
nice stuff Chloe was sayin' about Bruno? It was really about
you!"

"Yeah," Nick mumbled, feeling forlorn.
"That's really great."

"Can we go blow up some stuff now?"

Chapter Twelve

"I knew Nick would never forgive me," Chloe
said.

"He's just mad, hon," Red replied with a
knowing shake of her head. She settled sideways on Chloe's cushy
plaid sofa and reached for the bottle of brilliant red nail polish
Chloe held out to her. "That was a real whopper you kept from him.
And it's only been two days. Give the man some time! He'll get over
it."

"Get over me, you mean." Feeling morose, she
leaned back against the sofa pillows and extended her bare
foot.

"If you'd gave him half a chance, he'd
forgive you." She twisted open the nail polish and dunked the brush
a few times, then squinted up at Chloe. "Are you sure you want to
take time for this?"

"You bet. It's my last chance to look
glamorous."

"Raising a child is not a life sentence of
frumpery. 'Sides, glamour comes from within." Grinning, Red waggled
her fingertips over her head like a cowboy-boot-wearing,
red-pompadoured fairy godmother awakening Chloe's Inner
Glamour-puss.

"That's beauty that comes from within.
Glamour comes from the Estée Lauder counter."

"You're turning into a real cynic, Chloe
Carmichal. I just might be having second thoughts about selling my
pet store to someone like you."

"Too late ... ouch! You already used the
money for the down payment on that retirement place in Sun
City."

Red laughed, looked closer, and frowned.
"Was that another contraction?"

Chloe nodded, panting as she clicked on the
stopwatch in her hand and set it on the coffee table. "They're
coming about fifteen minutes apart now."

At the onset of the contractions, earlier
this morning, she'd been excited. Finally! It was almost time for
the baby to be born. Now the excitement had mixed with fear, and
both emotions were roller-coastering through her insides. She
wasn't ready yet.

Not without Nick.

"Look, the fancy pedicure can wait," Red
said, getting up from the sofa to put the polish away. "We're going
to the hospital."

She made it almost to the fireplace—where
the Bruno letters and the "Macho Men of the Military" pinup
calendar that had started the whole stupid mess crackled
merrily—before Chloe grabbed her hand and eased her back down
beside her.

"No! I'm not ready to go yet, anyway. Not
until I finish this." She tapped the fabric-covered notebook in her
lap and gave Red a beseeching look. "Please?"