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Phyllis didn’t blame Cassie for her indecision. The two women had several things in common: their interest in pet therapy, their commitment to Shelter Valley…and their red hair. Now, apparently, they shared something else, as well.
Something Phyllis hadn’t planned on at all.
“You’re sure?” Cassie asked.
“I’m sure,” Phyllis said, nodding her head, feeling more like a lost little girl than the Yale graduate she was.
They were in the sitting room at Montford Mansion, sharing cups of homemade hot chocolate, courtesy of Cassie’s mother-in-law, Carol Montford. This was a rare moment of privacy for both of them. Mariah, Cassie and Sam’s adopted daughter, was still at school. And Sam was at work, refurbishing homes, providing better-than-new living conditions for people who occupied the inadequate housing outside Shelter Valley. These places, built in the late 1890s, had fallen into disrepair as subsidized government housing, and Sam was renovating them at a reasonable cost to their current owners.
“So you’re pregnant…. This might not be badnews, you know,” Cassie said slowly, the tremulous smile seeming to win the battle of expressions on her beautiful face. “Babies are such blessings in so many ways. Raising a child is one of the greatest accomplishments possible. And you’ll never be alone….”
Phyllis shook her head. “I’m not alone,” she said, surprised by the sudden ache she felt at Cassie’s pronouncement. “I have plenty of people to love. Plenty of people who love me.”
Cassie was one of them.
“Of course you do,” her friend said, her brow creased in a frown. “But no one who shares the ups and downs of daily life with you.”
Phyllis couldn’t argue with her there. She’d had that once, though. And in her case, being alone was the better option.
“I’m guessing you haven’t told Matt.”
Phyllis shook her head, her short, flyaway red curls the only vibrant thing about her.
“How do you think he’s going to take the news?”
“Not well,” Phyllis said, shrugging.
“Something, somewhere sucked all the love out of that man,” Cassie said, her sweet brown eyes concerned. “He’s been in town four years and has never—not once—accepted an invitation to anything. Not only does he always reject our hospitality, even at Christmas, but he’s never attended any community function when he’s not working. He was probably the only person in town who didn’t attend the Fourth of July celebration last summer.”
“I know,” Phyllis said, wishing the chocolate that was warming her thick ceramic cup could warm her, too. “He’s so…detached, and that’s what made him so safe to begin with. I wanted sex, not involvement.”
Cassie seemed to have more to say, but she sat there staring at Phyllis, instead. Phyllis could only wonder what her friend was thinking. And decided maybe she didn’t want to know.
“It’s not like he can be angry with me,” Phyllis finally said. “It was his condom….”
“So you have every right to be angry with him.”
Tilting her head, Phyllis grimaced. “And what good is that going to do me?”
“Give you the energy to cope,” Cassie said with her customary frankness. The two women had worked together on more than one occasion, counseling abuse victims through Cassie’s pet-therapy program, and they were used to speaking honestly. “Even negative energy is better than none at all.”
Once again, Phyllis couldn’t argue with her. Cassie had learned that particular truth the hard way, Phyllis knew, back when Cassie’s entire life had fallen apart, and she’d disintegrated right along with it. She’d needed years to rebuild what she’d lost, to reshape her existence in a new form.
“I haven’t even thought about coping yet,” she admitted quietly.
Setting down her cup, Cassie said, “And I’m assuming you plan to have the baby when there’s nothing that says you must.”
“Of course I’m having it,” Phyllis said, running her finger along the outer seam of her jeans. “You know me well enough to know that. I only found out this morning, so it’s not like I’ve had time to make a single plan, but not having this baby isn’t even a choice for me.”
“You want it,” Cassie guessed, her brown eyes piercing.
Looking up at her friend, Phyllis smiled. “I guess I do.”
Cassie lifted her cup and sipped carefully from her chocolate. “So,” she said, leaning forward on the couch, her legs spread slightly to accommodate her growing belly. “What kind of cooperation are you hoping to get from Matt Sheffield?”
“Not marriage, that’s for sure,” Phyllis said. That would naturally be one of the first assumptions people would make, but she wasn’t even going to consider it.
“While I have to admit I’m relieved that you aren’t holding out hope that the man’s going to do the right thing by you, do you have to be quite so adamant about being better off single?”
They’d had this discussion before. Phyllis understood that with Cassie’s newfound happiness, and her current state of being head over heels in love, she wanted the same satisfaction for those she cared about. Phyllis got that satisfaction in other ways, but she knew better than to argue with Cassie.
“Financially you’ll be okay, even if he denies all responsibility?” Cassie asked.
“Okay, and then some.”
Elbows on her knees, Cassie rested her chin in her hands, staring down at her bare feet, and then over at the fashionable ankle boots Phyllis was wearing with her size-six jeans.
“You really look great, you know that?”
The words brought a smile to Phyllis’s face. “Thanks.” But then the expression faded as something else hit her. “I’ve lost forty pounds, I’m finally feeling positive about myself, and now I’m going to turn around and get fat again.”
“But only for a while,” Cassie reminded her. “And for a very good cause.” She cradled her own belly, obviously loving every pound, every outward sign that she was truly carrying a baby of her own. She’d been told years ago, after the death of her first born, that she’d never conceive a child again.
“Yeah.” Phyllis nodded, still a bit concerned. Those pounds of hers had not come off easily. Through many long months of struggle, she’d promised herself that she’d never see them again.
“Did you read Borough Bantam this week?” Cassie asked suddenly. As a diversion, the tactic was a little rough around the edges, but Phyllis was eager to turn her thoughts away from her own situation, if only for a minute or two. She nodded.
“The little mouse character picked out a boy’s name and a girl’s name in case a new mouse comes to live with her. You’ve obviously been talking to Mariah about the baby.”
Borough Bantam was a nationally syndicated comic strip depicting a village of creatures who, through their daily and often comical adventures, imparted gentle lessons and observations about life. Cassie’s husband, Sam, the creator, had fashioned them after people he’d grown up with in Shelter Valley, his way of keeping in touch with his home and everything he’d left behind during his ten-year exile from the place he loved. The little mouse in the strip represented Mariah, the little girl Sam had adopted when her parents, his best friends, had been killed by terrorists on the other side of the world.
“We have.” Cassie’s smile was tinged with sadness. “She’s insisting we name the baby either Brian or Morning Glory.”
“After her parents?”
“Yeah. Her mother’s name was Moira, but Mariah always says Morning.”
“So are you and Sam going to keep those names?”
“Absolutely. How can we not? Our daughter speaks her mind, we listen.”
For the first few months Mariah had lived with Sam, she’d been mute, a result of the trauma of witnessing her parents’ death. Cassie and her pet therapy had been the way by which Mariah was able to heal. It was also the way Cassie and Sam found each other again.
“So is Sam used to everyone in town thinking he’s a hero for creating Bantam?” Phyllis asked. She knew that Cassie’s husband had been more than a little worried about his reception—and that of his comic strip—when he’d returned to town after so many years.
“I don’t know if he’ll ever get used to it,” Cassie said honestly. “He was so sure they’d think he was poking fun at them and hate him for it. But I think he’s getting just a bit tired of everyone trying to help him write it!”
“They all have ideas, huh?” Phyllis commiserated, and Cassie nodded.
“So, back to Sheffield,” Cassie said. “What are your expectations?”
Shaking her head, Phyllis set her cup farther from the edge of the end table. “I’m expecting nothing from him,” she said. “Our being together—it just…happened. Wasn’t planned. Other than when we put on the psychology seminar last week, we haven’t spoken.”
Cassie studied her friend. “And you were happy about that.”
“Absolutely.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m just trying to deal with the ramifications of this pregnancy in my own life. Matt Sheffield doesn’t matter to me at all.”
Sighing, seeming oddly relieved, Cassie sat back. “Can I tell you something then?”
“Of course.”
“If Matt reacts coldly to the news, don’t take it personally. I don’t think the man’s capable of softer feelings.”
Phyllis frowned. “Why do you say that?”
“Last year I had a litter of pups that’d been left at the clinic,” Cassie said. “I took them down to campus one afternoon, offering them to anyone who might want a dog. While I was busy giving care instructions for one of them, another puppy got tangled up in one of the leashes I’d brought along with the stuff I was giving away to the new owners. Sheffield walked by and didn’t even stop. He just left that puppy there, squirming and frightened.”
“Maybe he didn’t see it.”
“He saw it,” Cassie assured her. “He looked right at us. Besides, when he walked by, the puppy started to squeal, which is what alerted me to the whole thing.”
Shrugging, Phyllis looked tired as she laid her head back against the chair. “So maybe he doesn’t like dogs. Probably got bitten by one as a kid.”
“Spoken like a true psychologist. Always looking for the hidden motivations.”
“Everybody has them.”
“Maybe he’s just incapable of caring for anything or anyone,” Cassie said softly.
“Maybe.”
Phyllis didn’t care one way or the other.
“You know,” Cassie said, leaning forward to lay a hand on Phyllis’s arm. “Between Tory and me and Becca and everyone else in Shelter Valley who’s fallen in love with you, we’ll get you through this pregnancy. And we’ll give you whatever help you need for the next eighteen years or more of single motherhood. No sweat. You can count on that.”
Phyllis’s eyes filled. “Thank you.”
“What we can’t do,” Cassie said, her voice taking on a note of warning, “is prevent—or cure—a broken heart.”
Nodding, Phyllis believed her friend. Cassie should know. She’d lived with one for more than ten years. And from the sound of things, there’d been days when the pain had been almost enough to kill her.
“Don’t worry,” she said, “this heart is firmly intact.” And going to remain that way.
AS DAYS WENT, it wasn’t a good one. Matt Sheffield wondered what he’d done to piss off the fates this time. The new gels had come in for the dance show that weekend and they were the wrong colors. The light board—the computer that controlled the lighting—had crashed, so the lights weren’t working. He had a student working for him who could only be described as technically challenged, the kids in his lighting design class had all acted as though they’d rather be someplace else, and his star student, Sophie Curtis, had been missing cues all morning.
And it was a dance show. His least-favorite kind of production to entrust to students. Plays were usually easy to light—a wash, some specials—unless they were going for extravagant effects. Concerts were even easier, symposiums downright boring. But dance—now there, the lighting was part of the art. He could lose himself in creativity and forget about life for a while.
Unless he had butts to wipe every step of the way.
And Sophie…she’d been preoccupied all semester. In the two years he’d known her, Sophie had done nothing but amaze him, with her diligence, her reliability, but mostly her vision. She could make magic out of an empty stage with almost nothing. Whether she was working as lighting designer, stage manager or sound engineer, she was always the glue that held the rest of the students together.
Until this semester. She’d been late, absentminded, short-tempered. She’d lost weight.
Something was wrong.
Not that Matt had any intention of finding out what.
“You busy?”
He glanced up from his desk in the office at the back of the performing-arts center to see who actually had the nerve to interrupt his lunch hour—the one time he could let down his guard and allow free rein to whatever thoughts he felt like having.
Dr. Phyllis Langford was standing there. The psych professor. Matt’s stomach dropped at about the same rate his heart sped up.
The day just kept getting better and better. Not.
“Finishing my lunch,” he said, indicating the empty sandwich wrapper on the desk in front of him. He wadded up the debris, put it and the empty chip bag in the little brown sack he’d brought from home and lobbed the whole package into the trash can beside his desk.
“I knew you had class this afternoon and I wanted to catch you before you went in.”
She hadn’t come any farther into the room. Just stood there, not quite meeting his eyes, but not looking around at anything else, either. An odd mixture of confidence and disinterest. Funny, the month before, he’d only noticed the confidence.
Confidence and passion and… No. They’d forgotten that insane lapse in the production room. They were both going to ignore it, both going to act as though it had never happened.
He studied her through narrowed eyes, hoping they had indeed forgotten. He’d sweated for a couple of days after their tumble that afternoon, afraid she’d come calling with expectations he’d never meet.
And had been honestly, greatly relieved—despite a slightly damaged ego—that she hadn’t. Apparently he’d lost his touch with women; under the circumstances, that was nothing but a blessing.
“You can come in,” he said when she continued to hover. He didn’t want her anywhere near him or his office, but she was making him edgy, just standing there silently full of something to say.
That same sexy scent—the one that had lured him to insanity last month—drifted in with her as she took a seat on the other side of his desk. Phyllis Langford didn’t perch on the edge of her chair as many women did—at least in his office. There was nothing tentative or uncertain in the way she sat, somehow commanding the space around her with her model-slim body. She’d had on black lycra bell-bottom pants the day he’d spent with her. Today she was wearing a circumspect, honey-colored business suit.
He wasn’t sure which he found sexier.
“I’m pregnant.”
Matt blinked. Froze inside. “Pardon?”
“I’m pregnant.”
He waited.
“I just thought you should know.” Dr. Langford, as he preferred to think of her, looked far too calm sitting there, her honey-colored purse, which matched her honey-colored shoes, still slung over her shoulder.
Her hair, a red version of Meg Ryan’s stylishly messy do, distracted him.
