“I intend to stay a part of your life.”

Jessica looked at the floor, which had begun to spin beneath her feet. “Even if I don’t want you?”

“Even if you think you don’t want me. We shared something special that night, Jessica. Rare, fleeting, almost surreal. Don’t you want to know why it happened?”

“I know why it happened,” Jessica shot back at him. “It happened because Maddy called off the wedding, and you stayed. It happened because I felt…I felt sorry for you and came outside to…to comfort you, and we got…got carried away in a moment. It was all one great big mistake.”

“A mistake. I see,” Matt said, sighing. “And when you can say all that while looking at me—well, then I’ll go away. Until then, however, I’m here. For the duration. Here, or wherever you might run to next.”

Marrying Maddy (SR#1469)

Jessie’s Expecting (SR#1475)

Raffling Ryan (SR#1481)

Dear Reader,

As Silhouette’s yearlong anniversary celebration continues, Romance again delivers six unique stories about the poignant journey from courtship to commitment.

Teresa Southwick invites you back to STORKVILLE, USA, where a wealthy playboy has the gossips stumped with his latest transaction: The Acquired Bride…and her triplet kids! New York Times bestselling author Kasey Michaels contributes the second title in THE CHANDLERS REQUEST… miniseries, Jessie’s Expecting. Judy Christenberry spins off her popular THE CIRCLE K SISTERS with a story involving a blizzard, a roadside motel with one bed left, a gorgeous, honor-bound rancher…and his Snowbound Sweetheart.

New from Donna Clayton is SINGLE DOCTOR DADS! In the premiere story of this wonderful series, a first-time father strikes The Nanny Proposal with a woman whose timely hiring quickly proves less serendipitous and more carefully, lovingly, staged…. Lilian Darcy pens yet another edgy, uplifting story with Raising Baby Jane. And debut author Jackie Braun delivers pure romantic fantasy as a down-on-her-luck waitress receives an intriguing order from the man of her dreams: One Fiancée To Go, Please.

Next month, look for the exciting finales of STORKVILLE, USA and THE CHANDLERS REQUEST… And the wait is over as Carolyn Zane’s BRUBAKER BRIDES make their grand reappearance!

Happy Reading!

Mary-Theresa Hussey

Senior Editor

Jessie’s Expecting
Kasey Michaels

MILLS & BOON

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To Ron Hausman,

one of the world’s nicest guys!

KASEY MICHAELS,

the author of more than two dozen books, divides her creative time between writing contemporary romance and Regency novels. Married and the mother of four, Kasey’s writing has garnered the Romance Writers of America’s Golden Medallion Award and the Romantic Times Magazine’s Best Regency Trophy.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Epilogue

Chapter One

W alking the beach at dawn.

A time for lovers still dressed in tuxedo and gown, carrying their shoes as they walked barefoot in the sand. Held hands, danced to their own music, laughed and dreamed and kissed as the sun came up over the horizon.

A time for seniors and their metal detectors, cloth bags tied around their waists to hold the treasures of coins and small pieces of jewelry left behind by tourists on this Ocean City, New Jersey, beach. They’d stop, watch the young lovers, smile in reminiscence, then get back to business. The business of occupying their time, settling for smaller dreams, just happy to see another sunrise.

A time for muscle-shirted men and their large dogs: big, playful dogs with names like Fletcher, or Bruno; fierce-looking but bighearted babies who wore kerchiefs around their necks as they challenged the waves, running at them, barking furiously and then wisely retreating when the waves answered back. All while their owners did a few stretches, struck a few poses, admired the way their “pecs” looked: oiled, shining slightly in the light of the rising sun.

A time for a solitary woman to sit on the sand, her knees drawn up to her chin, and watch the mist rise and the sun come up, just as it came up every morning, even when her own personal world had very definitely gone on hold.

Jessica Chandler was twenty-eight years old, nearly twenty-nine. She was tall, with light brown, almost blond hair, for once not secured in a French twist or otherwise tamed by brush and comb and pins—and propriety. Her hair blew against her face in the breeze, hiding her even, patrician features, her tear-wet blue eyes.

She was a competent businesswoman, the middle child of three grown children, wealthy through both inheritance and in her own right. She was unattached, currently on a leave of absence from the company business she and her older brother, Ryan, ran in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and she had come to the Jersey shore to think and to walk the beach.

She was just one more person on the beach at dawn, watching the gulls without really seeing them, digging bare toes in the still-cool sand, sighing sighs the slight breeze snatched away but could not halt.

One of the muscle types spotted Jessica and deliberately tossed a Frisbee in her direction, so that he could shout out, “No, Buster, don’t chase it. Be careful of the lady,” and then came jogging across the sand to smile down at Jessica, to apologize if his charging dog had frightened her.

The guy was cute, in an overgrown-puppy way. All he needed was a friendly, waving tail and a Frisbee between his too-white teeth. He was tall, with muscles he obviously worked on daily, and had a broad, confident smile. The kind of guy who considered a beautiful woman a required accessory, just like the dog.

Boy, had he ever picked the wrong beach and the wrong girl.

“That’s all right,” Jessica said, barely looking at him, his handsomeness really not registering in her brain; not considering his attention the compliment he’d believed it to be. Then she stood up, brushed sand from her green shorts and walked away. She headed toward the waves without a backward look as the hopeful hunk shrugged and jogged off in the opposite direction. Buster followed her for a few paces, then grabbed the Frisbee between his teeth, turned, tagged off after his master.

Jessica Chandler was alone on this late-July morning, but she didn’t want company, be it male or canine. The very last thing she wanted was company.

Hello, everybody! Bet you didn’t know I was here, did you? But I am. Nobody’s talking about me yet, so I thought I’d introduce myself. I’ve been here for a little while now, feeling pretty good, making myself at home.

That lady you just met? Jessica? That’s my mom.

You still don’t know what’s going on, do you? I do. There’s a real mess going on, that’s what. But don’t worry. Where I come from, there’s no such thing as an unhappy ending. I promise.

Stick around. This should be fun.

The Chandler mansion—the mellow brick building was much too large to call it a house—sat in the western suburbs of Allentown, Pennsylvania, one state and a few hours northwest of Ocean City, New Jersey.

Jessica lived there, along with her brother, Ryan, their grandmother, assorted staff and, until almost two months ago, her baby sister, Maddy.

Now Jessica’s sister was married. Married to Joe O’Malley, the man she’d left outside a Las Vegas wedding chapel nearly two years earlier, a man who had come back nearly on the eve of Maddy’s marriage to Matthew Garvey.

Maddy and Joe had purchased the sprawling house next door to the Chandler mansion. They had just returned from a ridiculously long honeymoon, and they were just as happy as they could be—because the only thing that would make them happier would be if Jessica had been there to welcome them home.

“I don’t get it,” Maddy Chandler O’Malley said, hooking her legs around a kitchen stool as she watched her grandmother spoon butter-brickle ice cream into three bowls.

“I don’t think that’s a requirement, my dear,” Almira Chandler purred, licking the metal scoop as she handed the tub of ice cream to Joe O’Malley and pointed toward the double-door freezer on the opposite side of the room. “I really do adore Mrs. Hadley’s day off. Ice cream for lunch. Could anything be more decadent? At least at my age,” she said, winking one expertly resculpted eyelid—just one example of the several cosmetic surgeries that had Almira Chandler looking twenty or more years younger than nature and the passing of the years had ever intended.

She might be a grandmother, Almira had decided years ago, but that didn’t mean she had to look like one!

Almira had been in charge of the three Chandler children for more than a dozen years, since their parents had died. And she took her responsibilities seriously, when she remembered raising children was supposed to be a serious venture.

Mostly she enjoyed life and enjoyed her grandchildren, believing that they were intelligent beings and were probably smart enough to raise themselves. They just needed her around to point them in the correct directions.

She’d pointed Maddy in Joe’s direction. Oh, goodness, hadn’t she ever! She did not consider her actions to be meddling, however. She considered them to be more in the way of nudging.

Of course, Almira Chandler’s nudges could end up sending the nudgees reeling….

“Nice try, Allie,” Maddy said, giving her grandmother a jaunty salute. “Now, ice cream to one side—and I mean that figuratively only, so pass over my dish, if you please—why has Jessica gone to Ocean City? She never goes until August, when all that fiscal-year stuff is over and she says she can’t look at another figure unless it’s wearing a bathing suit.”

“Besides,” Joe said, leaning down to kiss the top of his wife’s head, “Maddy expected Jessica to be here to hear all about our honeymoon. Isn’t that right, honey?”

Maddy, the baby of the family, with eyes as green as her sister’s were blue, and with hair as black as Jessica’s was light, leaned back against her husband’s strength and stuck her tongue out at him. “You love it when you’re right, don’t you?” she said, then pulled him down for a kiss.

They made a perfect couple: two gorgeous physical specimens who complemented each other in every way. They looked young and in love and happier than might seem humanly possible. Handsome Joe, with his shaggy, sandy hair and cobalt-blue eyes; Maddy, with her wonderfully rounded figure that was such a perfect foil for Joe’s planes and angles.

She’d done well, Almira told herself, not for the first time or even the tenth. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t poke a little fun at the lovestruck pair.

“There goes the appetite,” Almira teased, taking another bite of butter-brickle, closing her eyes as the confection melted on her tongue.

Joe laughed as he disengaged himself from his bride and sat down on the stool beside her, then looked across the bar at the matchmaking woman to whom he owed much of his current happiness. “Ah, you love it and you know it, Allie,” he said, reaching for his own dish of ice cream. “Mostly because you love being right. Otherwise, Maddy and I would still be pretending we didn’t love each other, and Maddy would be married to—”

“No,” Maddy interrupted, shaking her head. “No, I wouldn’t. Remember, darling, Matt was going to call off the wedding even before I told him I was still hopelessly in love with you, just as I was working up my courage to tell him I couldn’t marry him. We never would have gotten to the altar.”

“True enough,” Almira seconded. “And now, since I arranged all this newfound happiness you two seem determined to shove under my nose, I think it’s a good time to remind you that I’ll be old and doddering someday and expect you two to take care of me.”

“A villa in Spain, high in the mountains of Spain. Are there mountains in Spain? Ones with nearly inaccessible roads?” Maddy asked quickly, looking at Joe.

“Is that far enough away from here?” Joe just as quickly responded. “With full-time keepers, of course, to make sure she doesn’t find her way back.”

“And with Mrs. Ballantine installed as head warden, most definitely,” Maddy finished on a giggle, referring to the Chandler housekeeper, a woman Almira swore she detested—when the two weren’t plotting together to run all three of the Chandler grandchildren’s lives, that is. The fact that, so far, they’d been outstandingly successful was probably enough to make Jessica and Ryan more than a little nervous. Because if Almira’s schemes had worked once…well, what was to keep her from trying to improve upon her own perfection?

Not the Chandler grandchildren, that was for certain.

“Not far enough?” Maddy repeated, frowning. “All right. I guess we’ll just have to do it, then. The South Pole it is!”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Almira said, glaring at the two of them, happy children that they were, friends as well as lovers, and all because she, Almira Chandler, had poked her finger square in the center of their prideful lives and given it a less-than-gentle shake. “Well, isn’t it wonderful, then,” she said in satisfaction, “that I don’t ever plan on growing old.”

“Or doddering?” Joe asked, grinning. “You’re really going to have to take back that doddering bit, Allie. Especially when you can still beat Maddy at tennis.”

“Mrs. Ballantine could beat Maddy at tennis, darling. Blindfolded. But all right. Especially not doddering,” Almira said, finishing off her butter-brickle and letting the spoon drop into the bone-china dish with a sharp clink. “Now, if we’re all done sparring, maybe you’ll tell me how the honeymoon really was—and not just a recap of those totally uninformative postcards you sent us for the seven weeks. Let’s see, which was my favorite? Oh, yes. ‘Having a wonderful time. So glad you’re not here.’ Hardly inventive, but I suppose you were otherwise involved and couldn’t strain yourselves enough to be original. Let’s adjourn to the morning room, and you can tell me everything.”

“We’re not going to the morning room, Allie. We’re not taking so much as a single step until you tell us why Jessica is at the New Jersey house,” Maddy said stubbornly. “You’re much too happy she’s there and not here, and I want to know why.”

Almira smiled secretly. “You don’t have to know, darling. And the one who does have to know anything at all already knows, and the information is probably burning a hole in his brain, straight through his forehead, so that he’ll have to tell the other single person who has to know. You two are neither of those two people, but I assume you’ve guessed that by now. There, now that I have you both thoroughly confused, my work here is done. If you don’t want to talk about your honeymoon, I do think Julie could fit me in for a manicure. Toodle-oo, children.”

“But—”

“Give it up, Maddy,” Joe said, taking all three bowls to the sink and running water in them. “She’s obviously up to her old tricks again. Aren’t you, Allie?”

“Me?” Almira exclaimed, pausing on her way out of the kitchen and looking about as honest as a card player with the ace of spades hanging out of her sleeve. “Of course I am, darlings. I’m only surprised you had to ask.”

Matthew Garvey laid the last signed paper down on the conference table, leaned back in his chair and sighed. “Congratulations, Ryan, old friend. By paying off this loan two years early and floating that new floor plan account, you’ve just made the bank’s shareholders very happy. Not to mention making yours truly look pretty damn smart in the bargain.”

Ryan grinned at his friend, although he couldn’t bring himself to quite meet Matt’s eyes. Doing that gave him the damnedest, most unexplainable headache. “So, then, I guess you wouldn’t want me to diversify. You know, not keep all my eggs in your bank’s basket? Divvy up a few of the accounts among the other banks that keep wining and dining me, trying to steal me away from you?”

“Give me their names,” Matt growled halfheartedly. “I’ll call them myself with your regrets.”

Ryan got up from his chair, put his hands flat against either side of his spine, stretched. “Man, one more all-nighter and I’ll feel like I’m back in grad school. Jessie sure did pick a rotten time to go find herself.”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Ryan winced, and not because his back muscles put up a stink at being cramped in a chair for the past few hours. He counted to three, feeling that flash of headache again, hoping to be able to get to at least five before Matt picked up on his stupid, revealing statement. What were such things called? Something close to Freudian slips, he was sure.

And it was all Allie’s fault, taking him aside, telling him things he wished he didn’t know and then leaving him to do battle with his conscience, wondering if it would be wrong to tell or the greater wrong to keep silent.

The slip of his tongue sort of settled that for him, he decided, still counting silently.

He only got to four before Matt said, “Find herself? That doesn’t sound like Jessica, Ryan. She’s just about the most complete, controlled person I’ve ever met.”

“Yeah,” Ryan agreed quickly. “Yeah, she sure is. Competent…a workaholic here at the plant. She’s smarter than I am, in case you haven’t noticed. I don’t know what we’d do without her.”

“But she’s gone off to find herself,” Matt said, knowing Ryan wanted to change the subject, but holding on to this one small bone of information with all the tenacity of a bulldog.

Jessica had been avoiding him ever since Maddy’s wedding—ever since Maddy and he had called off their own wedding, that is, and eloped with J. P. O’Malley, newest king of the computer software world.

He’d called. He’d e-mailed—the communication of choice in his set these days, it seemed. He’d stopped over at the house without notice, on the pretext of seeing Ryan, hoping to find her at home.

Nearly two months now, and she had never once let him close to her. If he came to the Chandler offices, she was in conference; if he arrived at the Chandler home, she was on her way out. She wouldn’t acknowledge him; she wouldn’t talk to him.

He hadn’t even seen her since the morning after they’d— Wincing, he tried to rethink the words morning after, but they wouldn’t go away, couldn’t be denied. Just as he couldn’t deny that Jessica was avoiding him.

Hell, as far as he was concerned, Jessica Chandler had walked out of his arms and straight into oblivion.

He stood up, walked around the wide conference table. Both he and his friend were a few inches over six feet. Ryan’s hair was as black as Maddy’s, his eyes the same bright green. And looking as evasive as hers had looked for too many weeks before the now-canceled wedding.

Something was up. Matt knew it. And if the prickle at the back of his neck meant anything, he was smack in the middle of the “why” of the reason behind Jessica’s flight from Allentown. “Where is she, Ryan? Where did she go?”

Ryan turned away, peered out the window overlooking the parking lot of the clothing manufacturing plant that had borne the Chandler name for three generations. Almira had been right. Ryan didn’t know how she’d known, he didn’t know all that she knew—and didn’t want to!—but the woman had been right-on in saying that sooner or later Matt was going to come to him, demand to see Jessica.

And now, on orders from his grandmother, Ryan was supposed to tell him. He was supposed to break his solemn promise to his sister and tell Matthew Garvey that Jessica was hiding out—was there another way to say that?—at the house in Ocean City. He had been further ordered to make her disappearance sound as mysterious as possible, then stand back and watch Matt’s reaction; tell him more if the guy seemed upset.

Okay. Matt had reacted. And upset was probably too mild a word. So how had his grandmother known all this? He hadn’t even asked Allie why he had to make the revelation of his burning secret so dramatic. It was one of those things he was certain he was better off not knowing. But he had his suspicions.

Hence his headache…

“I’d be breaking a confidence, Matt,” he said, stalling for time, trying to analyze the look in his friend’s eyes, trying to tell himself what he saw there was not pain, couldn’t be pain. Real, physical pain.

“You’re not allowed to tell anyone, Ryan?” Matt asked. “Or just me?”

Ryan winced, not really playacting anymore, because this was his friend, and his friend was hurting. “If you ever decide to sell the family bank, you might want to take up law. You cross-examine real well for a banker. You’re right, Matt. I’m not supposed to tell you. She didn’t want me broadcasting her whereabouts to anyone, but you were the only one she mentioned by name.”

“She mentioned me by name.” Matt’s eyes flashed blue fire as he felt his hands clenching into fists at his sides. Tension, strain—they’d been his companions for long weeks, and he was almost afraid he was going to lose it entirely and shake the answers out of Ryan if he wasn’t forthcoming soon. “And you not only kept your word, you didn’t come to me, ask me what the hell was going on?”

“I thought about it,” Ryan confessed, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Then I thought about how you haven’t beaten down the door demanding to see Jessica whether she wanted to see you or not. She might be wondering that, too. I know Allie wanted me to wait until—never mind. Let’s just say I was waiting for the proper moment? God, that’s lame. I’m sorry, buddy.”

Matt let out his breath on a sigh, feeling his anger drain away to be replaced by something just as uncomfortable. Sometimes he wished Jessica wasn’t Ryan’s sister. Ryan was a good friend; the kind of guy other guys confided in, told their troubles to, be they financial or female or anything in between.

But the “troubles” with Jessica weren’t the sort Matt wanted to discuss with Ryan. Not by a long shot.

“We…um…” he began slowly, searching for the right words. “We, um, Jessica and I spoke together the night of…well, the night Maddy and I decided to break off our engagement. After dinner, when I went out back to the gazebo, feeling pretty much like a fifth wheel at the dinner table. Jessica followed me. Trying to comfort me, I suppose.”

“You spoke together? Out back, in the gazebo, in the dark? Just the two of you? You were gone for a couple of hours, if I remember correctly,” Ryan said, nodding.

And then he winced, one of his many suppositions reforming into more of a certainty. “Boy, now that explains it. I see it all now. You spoke together, and eight weeks later my sister picks up and takes off for parts unknown—at least to you—after spending those weeks avoiding you like the plague. Must have been some conversation.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it was,” Matt said, going back over to the papers on the table, gathering them up, stacking them neatly. “So was the talk we had the morning after the first one, right before she told me to go to hell. Since I figure I’ve been there ever since, maybe she’ll think I’ve done enough penance and will talk to me again. Now, are you going to tell me where she is, or am I going to have to tell you things you damn well don’t want to know?”

Ryan leaned back against the wall, looked at his friend, saw the naked pain in his usually bright-blue eyes. “I’m going to be honest with you, Matt, because you’re my friend, and because you probably should be warned. One, Jessica doesn’t want you to know. That’s a given. Two, Allie does want you to know. Now, if neither of those two facts scares you straight back to hell, I’ll tell you where my sister is, okay? The rest is up to you.”

Starting to figure it out, are you? I thought you would.

Now, more about me. It’s dark in here, but warm, kind of cozy. And I like the way her heart beats. Slower than mine, but steady, reliable.

I only wish she didn’t cry at night.

I’m the one that’s supposed to do that, just not yet. First I get to kick her, and maybe give her heartburn. It’s a lousy job, but somebody has to do it—it’s in all the books. Just so she remembers I’m here, and that she’s not alone.

Gee, I wonder how much bigger I have to get before I can suck my thumb….

Chapter Two

O cean City was a study in contrasts. Billed as the nation’s greatest family resort, it was a full-time city in its own right all year-round. But, in with the homes and schools and churches of an everyday town, there were hotels and motels enough for many summer visitors, while the majority of vacationers rented modern condos by the week or the month.

Old homes had been torn down, sacrificed in the name of building the most house possible on the least amount of land, so that the long streets were lined curb to curb with tall, ultramodern condos with fantastic views of the Atlantic Ocean.

Stuck here and there sat stubborn old summer homes that had not given way to progress, small clapboard houses with knotty pine signs over the front door with names like Seaside Heaven or Bill’s Dream burned into the wood.

And then there were the grand old homes of some of the first summer residents, built long ago, even before World War II. These homes near the northern end of the island were more dazzling in their age and design than the most innovative three-floor condo built on stilts and decorated with huge round windows that looked out at the ocean.

The Chandler home was one of these grand old dames. Designed as a Cape Cod, with the third floor built up so that there could be three extra bedrooms under the eaves for visitors, the house was huge, the clapboard painted a bright white. Dark green canvas awnings with white scalloped edges sat on top of each and every window and was duplicated in the large canopy over the huge cement back porch.

Evergreens lined the half-acre grass lot, along with a dazzling living fence of pink and blue hydrangeas that boasted platter-size blooms all summer long. Built-in sprinklers picked up their metal heads twice each day and watered this oasis of green in the middle of sand and cement. A curved driveway led to a separate four-car garage built off to one side, and the rear of the home had a slightly elevated and spectacular view of the ocean that, all by itself, put the value of the home in the millions.

Not that the Chandlers would ever consider selling what had been their summer paradise for six decades.

This was a home that could be picked up and re-deposited in Allentown, or any other northeastern town, and fit in as if it had been built on the spot. A solid house. An ageless design, with nothing of the modern about it except for the renovated kitchen and baths, and the addition of air-conditioning.

With two living rooms, a formal dining room, a book-lined study, five bedrooms on the second floor furnished in cherry woods and oriental carpets, the Chandler house was an anomaly in this resort town, one of about two dozen bastions of a bygone era, and it was lovely enough to make a person weep.

Which wasn’t why Jessica Chandler was sitting on the porch, her feet resting on a chintz-covered foot-stool as the sun rose on another perfect late-July day in this summer paradise, crying into her wholesome glass of milk.

She was so alone. So very alone. Rattling around in this great, empty house she had believed a natural refuge. But it wasn’t. It was just a reminder of how alone she was, how alone she would always be, how empty her life had become.

“Because I’m a great big idiot,” she said out loud before swilling down the remainder of the milk, then making a face at the empty glass. “A great big idiot who hates milk,” she amended, as she could at least be honest with herself. After all, who was here to hear her?

Nobody.

And that was her problem. She’d told the family to leave her alone, and they’d actually done it.

For a lot of families, this would make sense. You ask something reasonable, and they respond reasonably.

But her family? Her grandmother? To let Jessica walk away, actually help her pack…and then not phone her every day, visit her twice a week, ask her a million and one questions? Her grandmother wouldn’t even bother to make up lame excuses for her calls, her visits. She’d just barge in, plant herself in one of the high-back wicker chairs on the sunporch, and say, “Well? Ready to talk yet, or am I going to have to beat it out of you?”

No. Jessica knew it just didn’t compute. She shouldn’t be alone, even if she’d said she wanted to be alone.

And here she’d always believed her family loved her.

Just showed you how wrong you could be.

Allie was probably all wrapped up in Maddy and Joe, who must be back from their honeymoon by now. After all, even millionaires who owned their own computer software companies had to go back to work sometime, didn’t they? Of course, they’d be living right next door to the family home in Allentown, and Allie was probably tripping over there every day, poking her surgically perfect nose into Maddy’s business until both she and Joe threatened to put a For Sale sign in the yard…but at least Maddy and Joe had somebody paying attention to them.

Why, for all the family knew, she could be lying on the kitchen floor with a broken hip, unable to reach the phone and slowly starving to death. She could have been carjacked on the way down the Atlantic City Expressway, and never even made it to Ocean City. Had they thought of that? Huh? Huh?

No. They couldn’t have thought of that. Because no one had called, not in a whole week. Seven days. Seven nights.

She was all by herself. Completely by herself.

That’s what being the middle child got you, Jessica decided, heading for the kitchen, letting the old wooden screen door slam shut behind her. Overlooked. Forgotten. Especially if you were a good child, never giving anyone a problem, never making waves, never even thinking about getting into trouble.

She eyed the refrigerator, knowing she had plenty of healthy salad-makings in the bottom crisper drawer. Then her eyes slid to her left, to the smaller freezer door of the side-by-side appliance, knowing that she had a half gallon of double-Dutch chocolate ice cream nestled inside. Calling to her. Singing to her.

“It’s a milk product, right?” she reasoned with herself as she headed for the wall of white-painted wooden cabinets and retrieved her favorite bowl from childhood—the one with Pebbles Flintstone on it. “It’s just in a more…more convenient form, that’s all.”

In the end she left Pebbles on the counter and picked out a nicely pointed tablespoon, snagged the cardboard ice cream container and returned to the porch. After all, there was no one else around to see her, to want her to share with them. Not that she would, she decided, holding the rounded container close against her as she sat down on the low brick wall surrounding the porch and watched the steady parade of families making their way down the sidewalk on their way to the beach.

Suddenly she was crying again. That was just about all she did these days. Cry. Or think about crying. Or go mop up after crying. If this was what hormones could do to a person, Jessica was definitely in favor of banning them.

Still, it was nice to sit here and look out at the people passing by. The happy people passing by.

She could remember holding Maddy’s chubby little hand as they followed their big brother, Ryan, down that same sidewalk, Allie and their beloved Grandpop bringing up the rear, loaded down with beach umbrella, blankets, sand chairs and three sets of sand toys. Even when their parents had still been alive, it had been Allie and Grandpop who’d taken them to the shore, taught them to jump the waves, helped them build sand castles on the beach.

Carefree days. Happy summers. Their fun-loving, jet-setting parents were gone, lost in a plane crash, but as they’d never been around very much, the Chandler children had adjusted well, as if anyone could resist the loving arms of Allie and Grandpop for more than a moment.

Now Grandpop was gone, and Allie was, thanks to the miracles of modern cosmetic surgery, looking younger every year. Maddy was married and happy. Ryan was running the family business and showing all the signs of becoming a stodgy, rather than happy, bachelor.

And Jessica? Ah, she thought, placing her hand over her flat stomach.

Oh, yes. Can’t forget Jessica.

Because Jessica, heading for thirty, a hormonal mess with a queasy stomach and her mind filled with notions that had nothing to do with her usual sane approach to life, was about to become a single mother.

She took another bite of ice cream, let it melt on her tongue. Thought about the day she would tell them, tell them all, that she was about to become a mommy.

She smiled sadly. That’ll teach them to lull themselves into believing this particular middle child wasn’t capable of upsetting an applecart or two….

Matt drove over the Ninth Street Bridge and onto the island that was Ocean City, still rehearsing his lines, rearranging them in his head, mentally striking out whole paragraphs and inserting new ones.

Abraham Lincoln had said more in the short Gettysburg Address than Matt had been able to condense into a near novella of explanations, excuses, sorry reasons and apologies—none of which Jessica would probably give him time to recite, anyway.

And, with all he had to say, all he had to atone for, be forgiven for, he could not say the one thing that would get Jessica’s full attention.

He had left Ryan’s office the previous afternoon and made a beeline straight for the Chandler mansion, dedicating himself to hunting down Almira Chandler and convincing her that telling him everything she knew would be a good thing; that telling it all to him, without prompting, would be an even better thing.

He’d found her on the tennis court, returning serves from an automatic-serving machine being manned by none other than the perpetually black-clad Mrs. Ballantine, the Chandler housekeeper.

Or, as Maddy had more than once referred to the two women: the Good Witch and Morticia, both with Pinocchio noses—noses that were forever poking into everyone else’s business.

The two women, Matt knew, made a big to-do over goodnaturedly detesting each other, but he also knew that the pair thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company. Even if their friendship was pretty much based on a mutual desire to rule the world—or at least as much of it as they could reach.

That was why he had come, after Ryan had let slip that Almira had told him to tell Matt where Jessica had gone off to a week ago. That one statement had been enough to warn Matt that there was more to Jessica’s disappearance than a desire to get away by herself for a while.

When Matt combined that one statement with the knowledge that Jessica was about as conscientious as a person could get, and would never stay hidden at home for weeks on end, or go on vacation while the end of the fiscal year passed over Chandler Enterprises—well, it didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out that something was wrong. Very, very wrong.

Not that he didn’t already know most of it, considering he had caused it in the first place.

Falling in love with a woman who, like his own sister, had already married herself to her career, when he wanted nothing more than a wife and family, had been his first mistake.

Becoming engaged to Maddy because they seemed to have shared goals, similar desires for what they wanted out of life had been the second mistake, thinking that being a part of the warm, welcoming, loving Chandler family might be enough.

But not telling Jessica that he had felt relieved rather than crushed when Maddy had broken their engagement…allowing Jessica to comfort him…taking that comforting to a much higher level…well, that mistake could probably win him second prize in the Screwup of the Year awards.

Apologizing the next morning for having made love to her—that had to have netted him first prize, with oak-leaf cluster.

The funny thing was—that was funny strange, not funny ha-ha, he reminded himself, was that the moment Almira had seen him coming she’d motioned for Mrs. Ballantine to shut off the serving machine and headed straight for him, looking more than eager to talk.

“Darling Matt, it’s been too long,” she’d said, allowing him to kiss her cheek. The woman was a marvel. Seventy if she was a day, and looking fifty. Acting thirty. Being the best grandmother any three kids could have hoped for: hip, a real friend, and yet still very definitely the person in charge, the person who taught them both love and respect. And not looking at all ridiculous while doing any of it.

“I’m sorry I haven’t visited sooner, Allie,” he’d answered, offering her his arm as they walked back to the house. “It was probably that No Trespassing sign Jessica put up on the front lawn that kept me away.”

“And you should be ashamed of yourself for listening to her,” Almira countered, giving his forearm a squeeze as she leaned against him. “But, obedient as you are, you have your limits. That’s nice to know, not that I didn’t know all along. I have great faith in you, Matt. So, did Ryan tell you where she is? And then let slip that I told him to tell you?”

Matt smiled, shook his head. “I’ll assume those were rhetorical questions. I am here, Allie, aren’t I?”

“It was that obvious?” Almira frowned, carefully, so that she didn’t crease her smooth forehead. “I must be slipping. Either that, or Ryan considers himself to be one step ahead of me. I’ll have to teach him differently. But we’ll leave that for another time. For now, I’m supposing you want to know what I know.”

“It would help,” Matt admitted as Almira let go of his arm, sat herself down in a shiny, black wrought iron chair as he remained standing. “It would most especially help to know if she’s just angry, or if she’d like to see me run off a cliff.”

“A little of both, actually,” Almira said, accepting a glass of lemonade from Mrs. Ballantine, who then just stood there, her hands folded in front of her, glaring at Matt. He considered asking for a glass for himself, but then thought better of it. The way the woman was eyeing him, he’d be afraid to drink it.

“Oh, just tell him, why don’t you. It will be obvious soon enough,” Mrs. Ballantine growled, then shrugged her shoulders as Almira smiled up at her. “I’ll be inside, running your bath. After all, this shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.”

“Such a lovely woman, for a piranha,” Almira said after the housekeeper had gone inside. “Now,” she said, putting down her glass, “let’s talk, shall we? Did you never hear of the word protection, Matthew?”

Protection?

What in hell—?

Oh boy. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.

Or girl…

Matt leaned forward from the waist, his heart pounding, his eyes all but popping out of his head as he croaked out, “Jessie’s pregnant?”

“Bingo! Please select a prize from the bottom shelf. Unless you wish to play our game again and go for a larger prize?”

“Allie, that’s not funny, damn it,” Matt said, beginning to pace. Was this the greatest news he’d ever gotten in his life, or the worst? That Jessica was pregnant, carrying his child, was wonderful. Great. Even terrific. But now? Was now so terrific?

Timing. Everything was timing. And he couldn’t help believing that his timing had been off, way off. No wonder Jessica had run from him. “How…”

“Oh, please,” Almira cut in, rising from her chair. “I think we both know how. The question is what. What are you going to do about it? Knowing that you can’t possibly tell her you know. You do realize that, don’t you? I mean, I’m not going to have to hold your hand through every step of this, am I? I’m still recovering from leading Maddy about by the nose until she finally saw what was just under it.”

Closing his mind to the rest of that short, embarrassing conversation with Jessica’s grandmother, Matt left Ninth Street, turned left at the beginning of the beach block, and headed north, on the way to Brighton Place and the Chandler summer house.

Almira had been right, of course. He couldn’t tell Jessica he knew she was pregnant. Just as he shouldn’t have apologized for making love with her.

And he couldn’t possibly confess that he’d been in love with her for months…for years.

She wouldn’t believe him for one thing, and, for another, he couldn’t blame her. He’d made mistakes. He’d made some real whoppers. And now he’d gotten her pregnant—not a solo exercise by any stretch of the imagination—but certainly a result Jessica, the born career woman, couldn’t be doing handsprings about, overjoyed.

So, without telling her he’d be there for her, without asking her to marry him, without so much as hinting that he knew she was pregnant, he was here, in Ocean City, without a plan, without a prayer, and with only his stupid, apologetic speech to protect him.

He might as well be going into battle carrying an anchor.

Is anybody else feeling some sort of excitement in the pit of their bellies? Something’s coming. Someone’s coming. Something’s about to change.

Maybe everything is about to change.

And I’m feeling good, feeling really good. Must be some good stuff coming at me now, something sweet and cool that seems to be making Mom’s belly happy. Wish I could taste it.

She’s doing all the right things. Eating a lot, sleeping a lot. Getting plenty of exercise and fresh air. But still crying too much, and now even talking to herself.

She should talk to me. I am here, right? Yeah, she should be talking to me. I could tell her. Everything is going to be all right. She’ll see. I’ll take care of her….

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