скачать книгу бесплатно
Quinn clapped him on the shoulder. “That’s exactly what I said right before I met Dena.”
Garret was relieved that a wedding specialist chose that moment to arrive, and for the next half hour, talk was of tuxedos and accessories. While they were measured and fitted for the formal wear, they discussed their roles as ushers and groomsmen at the wedding and reception.
When a question arose regarding which groomsman would be escorting which bridesmaid down the aisle, Quinn said, “I’m not sure. That’s Dena’s territory.”
“I’ll take the hot redhead who lived downstairs from you,” one of the hockey players offered with a huge grin.
“You mean Krystal.”
Upon hearing her name Garret’s blood stirred. It had always been that way, even before he’d spent the night with her. Someone would mention her name and he’d be aroused. He blamed it on the fact that the first time he’d seen her she’d been half-naked. He could still remember the look of surprise that had been on her face when he’d pushed open the laundry room door at 14 Valentine Place and found her sorting her dirty clothes clad only in a lacy bra and pants.
Ever since that day he had fantasized about what it would be like to see all of that delectable body un-clothed. Never had he expected it to happen, and certainly not on the night of the hospital ball. Only it had happened and now he was having trouble forgetting how she had looked lying naked in his bed.
“Is she seeing someone?” the hockey player asked.
“Are girls that hot ever not seeing someone?” Dave wanted to know. “She probably has guys lining up halfway around the block to take her out.”
“I bet I could get to the front of the line,” boasted the hockey player.
Garret didn’t doubt that he could. He looked like the kind of guy Krystal would find attractive. She liked men who looked as if they spent more time at the gym than they did at a job and dressed as if they were on their way to a GQ photo shoot.
He wondered what everyone would say if he announced that he had been to the front of the line. That he’d spent the night with her and she was everything a fantasy should be and then some.
He chuckled to himself. They probably wouldn’t believe him. Not that he could blame them. He and Krystal were as different as night and day. No one would expect that someone as fun loving and outgoing as Krystal would be attracted to a man who spent most of his free time reading medical journals.
“Knowing Krystal, I bet she already has a date lined up for the wedding,” Quinn commented.
Garret suspected he was probably right. There was no shortage of men in her life. He only hoped that the man she did bring wouldn’t be Roy Stanton. After the way Roy had betrayed her, Garret didn’t want to think she would ever let the creep back into her life. Yet he knew the possibility existed. History had proved that she’d forgive him for almost anything.
“Will you be bringing this Samantha as your date to the wedding?” Quinn interrupted his thoughts.
“Ah…I’m not sure,” he said evasively. Until now he hadn’t considered taking anyone, but if he needed a date, Samantha would be a sensible choice. She was, after all, more his type than someone like Krystal.
Again his thoughts returned to the beautiful, impulsive hairdresser. He wondered if she ever thought about their night together, or had she simply written it off as a night she wanted to forget. Judging by the way she’d avoided him whenever he’d stopped in at 14 Valentine Place lately, he guessed it was the latter. He knew he should do the same. Forget about her, forget about that night.
Only he couldn’t. He’d messed with a fantasy and his life would never be the same.
“I’M SO GLAD YOU WERE OFF today and you could help me move,” Samantha told Garret as she filled a shelf with books.
Because she’d hired professional movers, there was little to do except help her unpack boxes. To someone as organized and as efficient as Samantha, it was a task that didn’t take long to accomplish.
“I believe that’s the last of it and just in time,” she told him as she dusted her hands off on her blue jeans. “I’m ready for lunch. Where do you recommend, since this is familiar territory to you?”
“Dixie’s is good and it’s close.”
“Great, I’ll just make a couple of phone calls and we’ll go.” She leaned over to grab her phone from her desk.
“I’ll wait for you downstairs. It’ll give me a few minutes to talk to my mom,” he told her, then headed down to the first floor.
He found his mother in the kitchen seated at the large round oak table. She wasn’t alone. Krystal sat across from her, a pair of scissors in her hands. Her expression was one of concentration as she cut clippings from a magazine.
Dressed in a T-shirt and jeans with her hair pulled back from her face and held in place by a barrette, she looked like an innocent and very different from the woman who’d seduced him the night of the hospital ball. She’d been all glitter and glamour and his body tightened as he remembered what had happened after they left the party.
“All finished?” his mother asked when she noticed him.
“Yes.” He didn’t miss the way Krystal kept her eyes lowered and focused on her task. Usually she greeted him with a grin and started a conversation, but not today. He’d expected that after the way they’d parted the next morning, things would be awkward between them, but not this awkward.
As he moved closer to her he saw what had her attention. Spread out on the table were what looked to be paper dolls, only they were all men wearing swimsuits and none of them had heads.
“What’s up with that?” he asked, gesturing to the clippings. “Are you venting your frustration with the opposite sex?”
“We’re working on a game for Dena’s wedding shower,” his mother answered.
“What kind of game has headless male swimsuit models?” he asked.
“A fun one,” Krystal answered, cutting around a pair of men’s legs.
His mother used her scissors to point to a small stack of paper heads. “The object is to match the celebrity’s head with the body. Each match is worth a point. The person with the most points wins. It’s as simple as that.”
“But Quinn is five points,” Krystal corrected.
“Quinn? You have his body in here?”
“Of course. He is a celebrity,” his mother reminded him. “Although it wasn’t easy finding him in a swimsuit. He’s usually photographed in his hockey gear.”
Garret peered more closely at the headless paper men on the table. “Which one is he?”
“You can’t tell?” his mother asked.
He chuckled. “No, Quinn has clothes on when I’m with him.” That comment caused Krystal to smile, but she didn’t look up at him. “Won’t this give Dena an unfair advantage? She’s probably the only one who’s seen that much of Quinn’s skin.”
“That’s part of the fun…seeing if she can identify her own fiancé without his clothes,” Krystal answered.
She glanced up at him then and, from the look in her eyes, he knew she was remembering what he looked like without his clothes. If his swimsuit-clad body was in the game, he wondered if she would be able to identify it.
She looked away and he knew that what had happened the night of the hospital party had definitely changed how she felt toward him. The old Krystal would have flirted with him and made a comment regarding the two of them sharing a secret. The new Krystal looked as if she wished he wasn’t in the same room with her.
Just then Samantha appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. In her usual take-charge manner, she strode in and greeted his mother.
“I’m glad you’re all settled,” Leonie said. “Have you met Krystal?”
“Yes, at the hospital ball,” Samantha extended a hand, but Garret could see her smile was forced. “It’s nice to see you again.”
Krystal stiffened and for a moment Garret thought she might bolt right out of her chair, but to his surprise, she smiled brightly, shook Samantha’s hand and said, “You’re right. You had on the dress with all the ruffles.”
The two women made small talk about the food and music at the party. Garret tried to remember Samantha’s ruffled dress, but all he could recall was the slinky dress that Krystal had worn. It had been a bright blue and cut to a vee in the front revealing a generous cleavage that had drawn the eyes of every man in the place. Then there had been the slit up the side that had spread whenever she walked, revealing a thigh that was ever so…
“Garret, I asked if that’s all right with you?” Samantha sounded a bit impatient and he realized he’d missed what she’d been saying.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“Your mother offered to show me how to use the laundry facilities. You don’t mind waiting a few minutes longer, do you?”
She didn’t wait for his response but headed out of the kitchen.
Leonie followed her out and suddenly he found himself alone with Krystal for the first time since the party. She didn’t look at him but continued cutting out the paper dolls. Before today it would have been unusual for there to be quietness between them. But then it would have been unusual for anyone who was in Krystal’s company. She could talk enough for two people and often did.
Only she wasn’t talking now. She wasn’t even looking at him. And he knew why. They’d had a one-nighter and nothing would ever be the same between them again.
“I’m glad we have a few minutes alone,” he finally said, breaking the awkward silence. “I wanted to talk to you about Samantha living here.”
“If you’re worried I’m going to slip up and let the cat out of the bag that I wasn’t a real date that night of the ball, you can relax. I’m not going to say anything,” she told him, her concentration on the trimming of a brawny chest. She must have made a mistake because she crinkled the paper and tossed it aside.
“It was a real date, Krystal…or have you forgotten?” He deliberately made his tone seductive, wanting to get a response from her and he did. Her cheeks turned a light pink. “Besides, the cat’s already out of the bag,” he added.
That brought her head up with a jerk. “You told her the truth?”
“Is there a reason why I shouldn’t have?”
“Yes! What happened between us was private,” she said, her eyes sparkling with emotion. “I didn’t think you’d tell anyone.”
“I meant I told her the truth about why you went with me to the ball. She doesn’t know what happened after we left and I don’t plan to tell her. Or anyone else for that matter.”
She looked relieved. “Then she thinks we’re just friends.”
“We are friends, aren’t we?”
“Yeah, sure.”
He wasn’t so sure she wasn’t simply agreeing with him because she didn’t want to get into a discussion about what had happened between them. “Is it going to be awkward for you having her living upstairs?” he asked.
She rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to lose any sleep over it, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“You have no idea what I’m thinking.”
She looked directly into his eyes and said, “Then why don’t you tell me?”
He couldn’t because, if he did and his mother and Samantha were to walk back into the room, they’d hear that he’d made love to her. Because that’s what was running through his mind right now—the memory of that night they’d spent together. How incredibly good sex had been with her. How he hadn’t been able to forget that it had happened—or that the only reason it had happened had been because she was trying to ease the pain of Roy Stanton’s betrayal.
But he couldn’t tell her any of those things so he said, “You know Mom likes to think that everyone who lives here is one big happy family.”
She set down her scissors and stared at him. “So that’s it. You’re not worried about things being awkward for me. You want to make sure I’m nice to her.”
“That’s not what I meant at all,” he denied firmly.
“Isn’t it?” She jumped up from the table. “I’ve got to go. I have things to do.”
“Krystal, wait,” he called out to her as she hurried out of the room.
She kept walking, saying, “You don’t need to worry, Garret. I’m not going to be mean to your girlfriend.”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” he said, but she was already gone.
KRYSTAL AWOKE TO the feeling of something not being quite right in her world. It didn’t take her long to remember exactly what it was. Before even lifting her head from the pillow, she reached for the soda crackers on her nightstand. After several bites, she gingerly rolled out of bed, relieved that the home remedy for nausea worked for her.
As she did every morning, she showered then examined her naked body in the mirror, looking to see if it had changed enough that other people would notice she was pregnant. So far it hadn’t. Except for the slight thickening of her waist, which wasn’t any different from the bloating that usually accompanied her PMS, she looked the same as she had ten weeks ago. She wondered how much longer that would be true.
She hoped to keep her pregnancy secret until after Dena and Quinn were married. Weddings were supposed to be happy occasions and with so many Donovans involved in this one, the news that she was expecting Garret’s baby could make things uncomfortable for people she cared about, including Dena. She wasn’t going to take that risk. A pregnancy lasted forty weeks. Whether she told Garret now or in four weeks wouldn’t change that. Postponing the news would, however, make Dena’s wedding a more joyful celebration.
Which was why, after dressing in a pink polka-dot chiffon skirt and a white tailored blouse, she went straight to her car instead of stopping for breakfast in the kitchen. She felt confident that she could keep her secret from Leonie, but Samantha was a doctor, trained to diagnose such things as pregnancy. She didn’t want to be around her any more than was necessary.
On her way to the mall, she stopped at a convenience store for a bottle of orange juice and a container of blueberry yogurt, which she ate in her car. Next she tackled the shops with her usual zest for shopping.
When she’d purchased everything on her list, she glanced at her watch and saw that it was past noon. Her stomach growled in hunger, reminding her that, although she was plagued by morning sickness, there was nothing wrong with her appetite during the middle of the day.
She drove home expecting she’d have the kitchen to herself. Only as she pulled into the alley, she saw not only Samantha’s car but Garret’s, as well.
“Is it going to be awkward for you to have her living upstairs?” Garret’s question echoed in her mind.
She couldn’t believe he’d even ask such a thing. Of course it was awkward. She’d slept with the woman’s boyfriend. The only thing that made her even more uncomfortable was seeing him, which was why she didn’t want to go inside when she knew he and Samantha could very well be having lunch together in Leonie’s kitchen.
For the first time since she’d moved to 14 Valentine Place, the boardinghouse did not feel like home. And after everything that had happened the past few weeks, if there was one thing she needed, it was the comfort of home.
As she sat staring at the big old Victorian house, she realized this wasn’t the only place she called home. Lately she hadn’t been back to Fergus Falls, but ever since she’d moved to St. Paul she’d gone back to her hometown when she needed to be with people who loved her unconditionally.
Today she felt that need. Carly already knew about her pregnancy, but she’d been avoiding telling her mother about the baby for fear of what she’d say. Maybe the time had come for her to trust in that unconditional love and ease the burden of her secret a little.
So instead of parking her car next to Garret’s and going inside for lunch, she drove right on through the alley and out on to the city street. Within a few minutes she was on the interstate and heading west. She made one stop on the way—to pick up a chocolate milk shake at the drive-through window of a fast-food restaurant.
When she reached the city limits of Fergus Falls, it was the middle of the afternoon. As always when she returned to her hometown, she felt a rush of nostalgia. Nothing had changed since the last time she’d been back, except lawns that had been green were now brown from the extended hot spell.
The mobile-home park where her mother lived was on the north end of town. It, too, looked the same. A row of long metal boxes parked close together. Her mother was outside her pink-and-gray box home sunning herself on the small patio next to it. A woman Krystal recognized as her neighbor, Edie Fellstrom, was in the reclining lawn chair next to hers. Both wore two-piece swimsuits that were tinier than any Krystal had ever owned. White cotton balls covered their eyes.
They looked oblivious to everything going on around them. Country Western music played loud enough to drown out the sound of her tires crunching on the gravel. It wasn’t until Krystal slammed her car door that her mother removed the cotton balls and lifted her head.
“Well, look what the cat dragged in.”
Krystal was used to her mother’s sense of humor and didn’t take offense to the greeting.
“Hi, Mom.”
“What’s wrong?” she demanded to know.
“You make it sound as if I never come to visit you unless something is wrong.”
Her mother swung her legs to one side of the reclining lawn chair and sat up. “Why aren’t you at work?” she asked suspiciously.
“When I work Saturdays I get a weekday off. This week it’s Tuesday.” She watched her mother spritz arms already a deep bronze with cold water. “You should watch how much you sit in the sun, Mom. Too much isn’t good for you. It can cause cancer.”
