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Yeah, right. Family problems, Pru repeated to herself now. His problem was that he hadn’t wanted a family.
She sighed with heartfelt frustration, pushed the sad memories away and sat down in her chair at the nurses’ station. She knew she was better off this way, that any life she might have tried to build with Kevin would have come tumbling down around her feet in no time flat. Better that she had discovered what kind of man he was before Tanner’s birth, than to risk having Tanner grow attached to his father and suffer the grief of his loss.
A baby needed to be loved and wanted. Kevin had obviously felt neither emotion for his son, and Tanner would have eventually figured that out. But Pru had enough love and want in her heart for two people and then some, and she gave it all to her child. Someday, she was confident, she would meet a man with whom she could share those feelings, too, a man who would be both perfect husband and perfect father material. For now, however, she was truly content to be alone.
Well, pretty content to be alone, at any rate. Kind of content. In a way. Being alone was certainly better than being with someone who didn’t love her. Of that much she was absolutely sure.
“Why, Prudence Holloway, as I live and breathe!”
Pru’s head snapped up at the summons, and her gaze fell on a woman who appeared to have exited from one of the patient rooms that surrounded the nurses’ station. She studied the woman intently in silence for a moment, and although she looked a bit familiar, Pru couldn’t quite place where she might have met her.
“Yes?” she said, not quite able to hide her confusion. “I’m Pru Holloway. Can I help you?”
The woman drew nearer and frowned at her, but the gesture seemed playful somehow. She wore a pale-lavender dress that shimmered beneath the fluorescent lighting overhead in a way that only pure silk can. Elegant pearls circled her neck and were fastened in her ears, and a good half dozen rings—all quite sparkly in a rainbow of hues—decorated the fingers of both hands. Her cosmetics were artfully applied, her strawberry-blond hair swept back from her face by an expert hand.
In no way was she the kind of woman who traveled in Pru’s social circle. This woman was obviously wealthy and refined, and used to the finer things in life.
“Don’t tell me you don’t remember me,” she said. “Easton High School? Class of ’90?”
Pru studied the woman harder. If this woman was, as she seemed to be claiming, a member of Pru’s senior class, then Pru should definitely remember her. No way would she forget anyone at Easton High in her native Pittsburgh, in spite of there having been 240 members of her graduating class, and in spite of the fact that she had gone out of her way to avoid every last one of them for the past ten years.
No way would she forget the people who had dubbed her, in the year book’s senior class superlatives, “Most Irresponsible.”
The dubious distinction had only crowned what had been four years of taunting from her classmates, and it had brought with it many chuckles throughout her senior year. Pru, however, had never been the one laughing. No, that particular pleasure had fallen to all her classmates, who had delighted in replaying, time and time again, all the instances when she had behaved a bit…oh…irresponsibly.
Pru herself had never understood the humor everyone else had found in having awarded her such a label. Even if she had been a tad, oh…irresponsible…over the years, that was no reason for her high school class to have voted her such.
And then to have printed the distinction in the senior yearbook.
Beside a photograph of her dangling upside down over the side of a cliff, with a rappelling line wrapped around her ankle after she had…irresponsibly…tried to climb it without the benefit of lessons.
And above a list of other activities—at least a dozen of them—that had been a trifle, oh…irresponsible.
For everyone to see. For everyone to laugh about. For all eternity.
It really wasn’t so much that Pru had been irresponsible, she tried to reassure herself now, as she had for so many years. No, it had just been that she just didn’t like to be bothered with taking the extra time out to learn to do things or read the instructions or follow rules.
These days, of course, she was nothing like she had been in high school. Nothing at all. No way. Motherhood had brought with it an enormous amount of responsibility. And Pru was proud of herself for having risen to the occasion so nicely. She took good care of her son, provided a life for him that was, if not luxurious, certainly more than adequate. And these days, those rash impulses that had been the bane of her youth were nowhere to be found.
At least, she was pretty sure they were nowhere to be found. It had been quite some time since she’d behaved rashly or impulsively. And she tried very hard to keep it that way. Of course, one could argue that her incessant preoccupation with one Seth Mahoney might be construed as slightly, oh…irresponsible. But she hadn’t acted on that preoccupation, had she? She hadn’t done anything there that might lead to behavior that was, oh…irresponsible. She hadn’t been at all impulsive or spontaneous or impetuous or even irresponsible.
Well, not yet, anyway, a little voice at the back of her head taunted her.
Ignoring the voice, Pru turned her attention back to the woman who had summoned her, resolved to decipher her identity.
As if sensing Pru’s determination, the woman smiled and said, “Oh, all right, I admit it. I’ve changed a bit.” She touched a finger to a delicate curl dancing over her forehead. “I used to be a dishwater blonde,” she confessed. “And I’ve lost about twenty-five pounds since we sat next to each other in Mrs. Clement’s literary social criticism class.”
Pru gaped, then covered her mouth. “Hazel Dubrowski?” she said.
The other woman’s smile turned radiant. “In person.”
“Oh, my gosh,” Pru cried, stunned by the transformation. “You look incredible.”
“Yes, I know,” Hazel agreed without a trace of modesty.
Now that Pru knew the woman’s identity, she could definitely see signs of seventeen-year-old Hazel Dubrowski lurking there. Still, ten years—and heaven knew how many trips to the salon—had given her old schoolmate a totally new appearance.
“It’s actually Hazel Debbit now,” she told Pru as she strode forward, pausing at the counter of the nurses’ station to drum perfectly manicured, plum-colored fingernails over the Formica covering. “I got married three years ago. My husband is the CEO of a Fortune 500 company that his father founded.”
“Is that what you’re doing here in South Jersey?” Pru asked. “Do you and your husband live here?”
Hazel shook her head. “No, we live in Pittsburgh, but my in-laws are here.” She jutted a thumb over her shoulder, toward the room she had exited a moment ago. “My father-in-law was in having some tests done. Nothing major,” she hastened to add. “He’s fine. In fact, my husband is helping him pack up his things now, because he’s just been released.”
“Well, that’s good news.”
The other woman nodded. “And now I run into you after all this time. Prudence Holloway. I can’t believe it. Small world. So what have you been doing since graduation? Nobody’s heard from you since you left Pittsburgh, especially now that your folks moved.”
Yes, well, there was a good reason for that, Pru recalled. Namely that she didn’t want to speak to anyone in Pittsburgh, especially now that her folks had moved. But she didn’t think it would be a good idea to tell Hazel that.
“I’ve been living here in South Jersey for about six years now, ever since getting my nursing degree. I needed a change,” she said casually by way of an explanation. At least, she hoped she’d sounded casual. Because it really hadn’t been so much because she needed a change that had made her leave Pittsburgh. It had been more because she had needed an entirely new life.
“Wow,” Hazel said, obviously surprised by this news. “You got a nursing degree?” She shook her head in disbelief. “When I saw you standing out here, I figured you must be a hospital volunteer or something. I had no idea you were actually a nurse. I mean, that takes drive and ambition. You really have to dedicate yourself. I can’t believe you lasted through four years of college and nurse’s training. That’s amazing.”
Yeah, Pru thought morosely, and now that Hazel did know she was a nurse, she’d probably be wondering if her father-in-law had been safe while assigned to this unit. Because, hey, to everyone at Easton High, Prudence Holloway would live forever as “Most Irresponsible,” dangling upside down from a rappelling line.
“I mean,” Hazel added, as if she really, really, really wanted to drive home her point, “I can’t imagine anyone giving you a degree in something like nursing. It just sort of defies logic.”
Pru drew herself up with all the dignity she could muster. She was remembering Hazel pretty well now and recalling that, by their senior year, she had been like everyone else at Easton. Always looking for a new way to tear Pru down. Always poking fun. Always laughing.
“Yeah, well, even more astonishing,” Pru couldn’t help adding, “I graduated from nursing school at the top of my class.”
This time Hazel was the one to gape. “Get out,” she said. “Where did you go? Did you take one of those International School of Bartending nursing courses?”
Somehow, Pru managed to keep her growl of discontent to herself. “No. I went to Penn State,” she said.
Hazel only shook her head slowly as she studied Pru. “Boy, you just never know with some schools, do you?”
What Pru knew was that there was no reason to continue with this conversation. Just as everything—and everyone—else in high school had, it would only serve to demoralize her further. She’d come a long way in the ten years that had passed since graduation, and she wasn’t about to go back. Hazel Dubrowski Debbit just served as a reminder of how good Pru had it these days, having left all that behind.
“Well,” she said coolly to Hazel as she picked up a file from the counter that she really didn’t need at the moment. “It was good seeing you again, Hazel. Give my regards to everybody in Pittsburgh.”
She hoped she’d made clear her subtle but suitable hint that their conversation—and all other contact—was concluded, but Hazel obviously didn’t take it. Because even when Pru glanced down as if looking for something else, her old classmate closed what little distance remained between her and the station, then folded her arms over the counter. When Pru glanced up, arching her eyebrows in silent query, Hazel only smiled.
“You’ll be at the reunion next month, right?”
Although Pru had received her invitation—wondering, frankly, how and why the reunion committee had tracked her down—she had ignored it. No way would she subject herself to something like a ten-year reunion. Hey, she was happy these days. Why mess with a good thing? Especially since, considering her present situation of single motherhood, she would only be laughed at all over again?
Because what could possibly be more irresponsible than being knocked up and abandoned, right? The last thing Pru needed was for her senior class to be hearing about that. “No, I hadn’t planned to attend,” she said. Then, unable to quite quell the ten-year-old hurt that had haunted her, she found herself adding, “Do you honestly think I want to go to a ten-year reunion and see a bunch of people who voted me ‘most irresponsible’ in the senior class superlatives? Why should I put myself through that? High school was bad enough the first time around. Who needs to go through it a second time?”
Hazel chuckled. “Oh, come on, Pru,” she said. “Lighten up. It’ll be fun. Aren’t you curious to see how everyone turned out?”
“No,” she answered honestly.
The other woman’s smile turned positively predatory. Oh, yeah. Now she remembered Hazel Dubrowski. Really well. She’d been one of the most carnivorous members of the senior class. In fact, now that Pru thought more about it, she recalled that Hazel had been on the yearbook staff and had been the one who spearheaded the senior superlatives in the first place. And the one who spearheaded the campaign was the one who usually wound up deciding the winners, based on the prevailing winds.
Sure, Pru could see how she might have been viewed as irresponsible back then. But Hazel was the one who would have created the category. And somehow, Pru was certain she’d done it on purpose, just so she could hang the crown of thorns on Pru’s head. And that was because, Pru also remembered now, Jimmy Abersold had asked her to the junior prom, instead of Hazel.
Oh, it was all coming back to her now. Funny, how selective a person’s memory could be about something like high school—until that memory was forcibly jarred by some baaaad karma, like Hazel was bringing with her now.
“Well, I’m sure they’re all anxious to see how you turned out,” she told Pru with a smile that was at first knowing and then suspicious. “And just how did you turn out, anyway?” she asked further. “I mean, it’s one thing to be a nurse, but what else is going on with you, Pru? I kind of always figured you for the type to wind up knocked up and abandoned somewhere.”
Pru felt a cool weight settle in the pit of her stomach at hearing her own words—her own fears—echoed back at her. But even if she had indeed ended up exactly the way Hazel had known she would, Pru refused to capitulate to the other woman’s meanness.
Schooling her features into the blandest expression she could, she replied evenly, “Really.”
Hazel nodded. “Oh, yeah. I imagine most of the class of ’90 assumed the same thing. Even if you were Little Miss Goody-Two-Shoes for the most part, someone as irresponsible as you were was bound to wind up pregnant and alone and relying on welfare. It’s just the logical conclusion to make.”
Amazed at her ability to remain civil, Pru repeated, “Really.”
And in that moment she knew she had made the right decision in disregarding the invitation to her ten-year reunion. There was no way she would let her senior class discover firsthand just how right they’d been about her all along. The last thing she needed was for 240 people to laugh and point and say, “Man, it’s even worse than we thought it would be. She really did get knocked up and abandoned.” And worse, “Hey, Pru, we told you so.” And worse still, “We knew what kind of person you were all along, even if you never believed it yourself.”
Hazel nodded again, more adamantly this time. “But, gosh,” she said, “just look at you, all professional in your nurse’s uniform. Maybe you have built a solid, responsible life for yourself. I suppose stranger things have happened. Probably. Maybe. In outer space somewhere.”
A solid, responsible life, Pru repeated to herself, ignoring the sarcasm inherent in the response. She hoped the heat she felt flaming in her midsection didn’t show up in her face.
“I mean,” Hazel went on, as if she sensed Pru’s discomfort and wanted very much to compound it, “for all I know, you’re happily married, and you and your husband have a big, beautiful house right here in Cherry Hill. Hey, for all I know, you married a doctor.” Hazel’s smile, however, indicated what a joke she thought that was. “I can just see you subscribing to the orchestra, the ballet, and the theater,” she went on blithely, clearly not meaning a word of what she said. “You probably spend your spare time volunteering at an art museum or being active in your garden club and your reading group and your cooking club. And your kids are probably all beautiful and smart and going to private school. Tell me I’m right,” Hazel dared her. “Tell me that’s exactly the way you live these days.”
Pru swallowed hard, wishing she could agree with every word that Hazel said. Not because she wanted it to be true, and not because she particularly aspired to such a grand life. But because she knew that once her old classmate found out the truth, Hazel would gleefully recount the situation to every single member of the Easton class of ’90 when she went to the reunion.
Oh, I saw Pru Holloway last month, and she hasn’t changed at all. She’s still totally irresponsible. Got herself knocked up by some jerk who dumped her. Now she’s a single mother struggling to pay the bills on some dinky apartment. She’s probably on food stamps and has credit-card debt out the wazoo. Most likely her kid’ll end up in jail. Then we honest taxpayers will have to pay both their ways through life.
Oh, yeah. She could see it now. Everyone in the Easton High class of ’90 ought to have a lot of laughs at her expense. And even if Pru wasn’t planning to attend herself, she didn’t want her title of “Most Irresponsible” to be perpetuated forever. She hated to be the butt of jokes, even in absentia.
But the fact was, she forced herself to admit, that the label still fit. As much as she had tried to change her ways, and as much as she hated to admit it, she was irresponsible. She always had been. She always would be. She didn’t know why she tried to kid herself otherwise.
There was no husband, no house, no lifestyle of forthright responsibility. There were no subscriptions to the arts—hey, who could afford it? There was no volunteer work—hey, who had time? There were no garden clubs, reading groups or cooking clubs. The closest thing Pru had to a garden was the questionably breathing African Violet on her kitchen windowsill, the one she—irresponsibly—kept forgetting to water. The only books she’d bought in the last year had been about infant care and breastfeeding, and even those she’d only—irresponsibly—skimmed. As for cooking, well…she wondered if microwaving pot pies and Beefaroni on a regular basis counted for anything. Anything other than being totally irresponsible about one’s health.
And then, of course, there was that business about having been knocked up and abandoned, Pru reminded herself unnecessarily. Yep, pretty much the ultimate in irresponsible behavior.
“So just what is your life like these days, Pru?” Hazel challenged her again, smiling in a way that indicated she just couldn’t wait to hear. Mainly because she just couldn’t wait to tell everyone they knew that Prudence Holloway had turned out exactly the way they had all known she would.
Resigned to her fate, Pru opened her mouth to confess.
But she was intercepted by a deep baritone that answered for her, “Her life is pretty much exactly the way you described it.”
She spun around to find Seth Mahoney standing behind her, smiling that incredibly charming smile that made every female in a fifty-foot radius melt in a puddle of ruined womanhood at his feet. Hazel Dubrowski Debbit, Pru realized upon turning her attention back to her old classmate, was no exception. Because she stood gaping at Dr. Mahoney as if he were a great, big, hot-fudge sundae with marshmallows and strawberries on top.
“Who’re you?” Hazel asked, heedless of the lack of courtesy in the command.
He extended his hand toward her and jacked up the power on his smile about a hundred kilowatts. Pru was nearly blinded. And her heart went vah-rooooom. “I’m Seth Mahoney,” he said smoothly, easily, sexily, taking Hazel’s hand in his. “I’m Prudence’s husband.”
Three
My what?
For a moment, Pru feared she had spoken the question aloud—loudly aloud—then realized the echo she was hearing was only in her brain.
Oh, no, she thought, when she understood what Dr. Mahoney was doing. Oh, no, please. Not that. Anything but that. But before she could say a word to contradict him, he launched into what she was sure would become the biggest, fattest, whoppingest lie she had ever heard in her life.
“It’s uncanny, really,” he told Hazel, “how you hit on things so exactly.” He dropped an arm casually around Pru’s shoulder and pulled her close, and the vrooming in her heart compounded. “We do, in fact, have a big, beautiful house right here in Cherry Hill. Four thousand square feet, if you must know. And frankly, Hazel,” he added, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial murmur, “you do seem like the type who must know.”
He straightened again before continuing, then went on without care, “Pru, God love her, is active in so many things. In addition to her work here at the hospital, she is involved in nearly every one of those activities you listed. Just between you and me, I don’t know how she does it. She’s an amazing woman.
“Oh, and this,” he added, picking up a framed photo of Tanner she kept at the nurse’s station, “this is our son, Tanner.” He thrust the picture at Hazel, who, still gaping, took it from him and dropped her gaze toward it. “He’s nine months old. A great-looking kid and smart as a whip. He’s the only one we have right now, but we’re planning on at least two more. It goes without saying that they’ll all be going to the finest school we can find for them.” He turned to Prudence, beaming. “Right, honey?” he said.
Too stunned to do anything else, Pru nodded and replied faintly, “Right.”
And then, catching her totally off guard, he bent his head and brushed his lips lightly, affectionately, over hers.
It was a brief, simple, chaste kiss. There was no reason for it to set off explosions throughout her midsection. There was no reason for it to send a sizzle of heat right through her body, from fingertips to toes. There was no reason why she should want to push herself up on tiptoe, wrap her arms around his neck, and pull him back down for a more thorough embrace, for a more demanding grope.
But that was exactly what she wanted to do. Those were exactly her responses. Even the merest touch of his mouth on hers had her brain scrambled and her libido in an uproar.
Dr. Mahoney, however, upon pulling back, looked as if what he’d just done was something he did every day. He gazed at her as if the two of them had been married for years. As if the two of them were irrevocably in love. As if the two of them were building a life together. As if the two of them had made a baby together.
Oh, no. Oh, no, please. Not that. Anything but that.
“I’m sorry,” he said, turning back to Hazel. “What was your name again? I seem to have stumbled into this conversation somewhere in the middle. I missed the beginning part. I gather you’re a friend of Prudence’s from high school?”
Hazel nodded dumbly, numbly, as if she were still held in thrall by the golden, shining promise that was Seth Mahoney.
“Well, how nice,” he said. “It’s always good to run into an old friend and relive those glory days.” He returned his attention to Pru, his back fully on Hazel now. And Pru could see by his expression that he knew exactly what Hazel had been pulling a moment ago, and it was his intention to bail Pru out. “Isn’t it, sweetheart?” he added. “Isn’t it fun to see people from high school that you honestly thought you would never, ever, see again for the rest of your natural life? Don’t you just love that?”
His smile was absolutely devilish, and Pru couldn’t help but succumb to it, to him. Trying not to giggle, she smiled back. “Oh, yeah,” she agreed. “It’s something, all right. Honey,” she added belatedly, hoping she wasn’t slathering it on too thick.
His expression told her that she probably was, but that he didn’t have a problem with it. And then, as if to illustrate that very thing, he bent and kissed her quickly again. Simply, briefly, chastely. Explosively, hotly, uproariously. Part of her really wished he would stop doing that. But another—perhaps even larger—part of her, wished he would never, ever stop.
“So I guess this means you’ll be coming to the reunion with Prudence, then, won’t you?”
As one, Pru and Dr. Mahoney turned to Hazel. But he was the one to ask, “What do you mean? What reunion?”
Hazel uttered a soft sound of surprise. “Didn’t she tell you? Her ten-year high school reunion is next month. The invitations went out in January.”
“I…I didn’t mention it…dear,” Pru quickly replied, “because I know how, uh…how busy March is going to be, and I…I just didn’t think I…that is, I didn’t think we…would be able to make it.”
Oh, well done, Pru, she said, congratulating herself. My, but that had sounded convincing.
“Oh, pooh,” Hazel said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “It’s been ten years. You could clear one weekend for the reunion. Besides,” she hurriedly went on when Pru opened her mouth to object again, “considering the way you live now, you’d be crazy not to come to the reunion. Don’t you want to rub everybody’s nose in it about the ‘Most Irresponsible’ thing?”
