Kitabı oku: «To Keep Her Baby»

Chapter One

“Miss O’Leary, please describe your goals if accepted as a pupil of Madame Davenport’s School of Etiquette,” Larilla Davenport said from behind her desk.

“Just look at me,” Ginger blurted out as she stood up. Her low-cut hot-pink tank top, size extra, extra small, showed the lacy tops of her leopard-print push-up bra. Babe was written in rhinestones across her ample chest. Her ruffled miniskirt, which came to an end just past her rear, was also extra small. Big was her platinum blond hair in “beachy waves” to her waist. Four-inch stilettos, a bunch of cheap bracelets and heavy makeup completed her usual daytime look.

The fiftysomething woman sitting across from her—so spiffy in an ice-blue sheath dress and matching jacket, her dark hair pulled back in one of those elegant buns at her nape—looked Ginger up and down. Yeah, she was used to that.

“My dear,” Madame Davenport said, “if you were just interested in changing your look, you could wash your face and buy a few new outfits. So why are you really interested in enrolling in my course?”

Because of last night. And this morning. Which felt like eons ago but had just been hours before. It started with the pregnancy test. The red plus sign appearing in the little window. Racing back to Walgreens for another test, which Ginger had taken in the bathroom at Busty’s, the “exotic dance saloon” where she worked as a waitress. Another plus sign. She was pregnant. Her, Ginger O’Leary. Someone’s mother?

The thought of it had knocked around in her head during her shift last night, serving the tap of the day and shots to leering customers. I’m pregnant? she’d kept thinking, setting down baskets of breaded mozzarella sticks and plates of loaded nachos on tables. Me?

Ginger O’Leary had lost her virginity at fifteen. She was now twenty-four. That was nine years of sex with guys who she’d been naive about, but she’d always been careful, keeping several boxes of condoms in her bedroom and car, and always a few packets in her purse. This time though, the condom had broken, and the man who’d had it on had muttered expletives, grabbed his clothes and run out of her apartment.

For the past year, he’d been coming into Busty’s twice a week and always left with a different waitress each time. He was one of the richies. There were the richies and the poors, per the female staff. The richies were the ones who looked—key word looked—like gentlemen who left ten-dollar tips. The poors were jerks who said stuff like “Here’s your tip—flash me and I’ll leave you a buck.” Busty’s was a real quality operation.

Anyway, Alden Arlington, the father of her baby, hadn’t come in last night but she’d seen him this morning, heading into Java Jamboree with a woman. She’d trailed him into the café and asked if she could talk to him, and he’d said, “I’m surprised you get up before noon.”

Normally she didn’t. But this wasn’t a normal day. Like she could sleep.

She told him it was super important, and finally, the woman at his table gave her a dirty look and said she’d go order their lattes and scones.

Ginger sat down in the woman’s seat. “I thought you should know I’m pregnant,” she whispered to him. “I just found out yesterday.”

“Uh, congratulations?” Alden said. God, he was good-looking. All that movie-star blond hair, the green eyes. The expensive suit. He looked like a young Brad Pitt. Of course, being gorgeous and nicely dressed didn’t make him a nice guy. He’d avoided Busty’s for a good two weeks after the broken-condom incident, then started coming back in a couple nights a week again and ignoring her, leaving with other women. Whatevs. She hadn’t been hanging her hopes on him as a boyfriend, but he didn’t have to treat her like she wasn’t worth a hello.

“It’s yours,” she said.

He laughed. “Sure it is, honey. You probably sleep with more men in a week than there are in here right now.”

Ginger actually gasped, which surprised her. She wasn’t the gasping type. People said a lot of crap to her. But she didn’t actually sleep around. She’d liked Alden, had hoped he’d notice her, and he had. Before he’d shown his true colors, she’d had all these fantasies that he’d fall for her and carry her out of Busty’s like Richard Gere had swooped Debra Winger out of the factory in that movie An Officer and a Gentleman.

“Find some idiot to pin it on,” he said. “I’m a little too smart for that.”

The woman came back to the table just then with coffee drinks and plates, and sat down on the other side of Alden, sipping her latte. “Listen to me, sweetie,” she said, staring at Ginger with ice-cold eyes. “You’re saying it’s my brother’s baby? Fine. A DNA test will prove you’re lying. On the off chance you’re not? Expect a custody battle since you’re not exactly fit to be a mother.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ginger snapped, hands on her hips.

“Look at you,” she said, waving her hand up and down.

“It’s not mine, so don’t even waste your breath on this lowlife,” Alden said to his sister, picking up his drink.

Ginger grabbed the scone and threw it at him. It hit him on his tie and bounced on the table, then landed on the floor. “Screw you.”

“That’s battery,” the sister said, pointing a manicured finger. “We could have her charged.”

Cursing herself for her temper and impulsiveness, a lick of fear traveled up her spine. She’d rushed out, practically running all the way back to Busty’s and trying to calm down in the very bathroom stall where she’d taken the pregnancy test.

“My goodness,” Larilla Davenport said, jerking Ginger out of the memory.

Had Ginger meant to say word for word what happened? Out loud? Maybe not. But hey, one thing you could say about Ginger O’Leary was that she told the truth.

Ginger sat up straight and looked Madame Davenport in the eyes. “You asked me what my goals are if I get accepted as a student here. All I want is to be a good mother to this baby.” She looked down at her still-flat belly, then shook her head at the Babe across her big chest, which was natural, by the way, and not enhanced—except by the push-up bra. “Babe is now about the baby, Madame Davenport. Not me. I’m going to be someone’s mother. I have to change—and not just how I look. Everything about me. How I talk, act, think. I need to become proper. I need to become the kind of person who doesn’t get called a lowlife, you know? Someone who doesn’t throw baked goods at people out of anger. Because Alden could take the baby away. I need to become the kind of person who won’t get her baby taken away.”

Tears poked at her eyes, and she slashed a hand underneath each. “Madame Davenport, if I’m going to raise my baby right, I need to be right. And if I ever hope to find a good man to be a father to my baby, I have to become the type of woman a good man brings home to meet the folks.”

Madame stared at her for a moment, then jotted something down in the electronic tablet on the ornate polished desk. “I see. How did you hear of my etiquette school, Ms. O’Leary?”

“Well, my boss at Busty’s is this really kick-ass lady. She pulled herself up from nothing. I asked her how she accomplished that, and she said she’d spent all her savings a few years back to go to etiquette school in Wedlock Creek. Coco told me the course teaches everything from how to act, dress, order in a restaurant, what not to say, what to say—all that. So I told her I had to quit, got in my car and drove three hours from Jackson.”

Madame Davenport smiled. “Ah, Coco. I remember her. I admired her spunk.”

Ginger too. “Problem is, I can’t exactly afford five minutes of one class, forget about the three-week session.” Ginger had $212 to her name. She glanced around at the office, full of antiques and oil paintings on the walls. The beautiful Queen Anne–style house was like a castle—surely Madame Davenport needed another cleaning person or prep cook. “I’ll do any job in exchange for the etiquette course. Anything. I’ll scrub all the toilets till they sparkle.”

Madame Davenport eyed Ginger and snapped the cover of the tablet closed. “My dear, you will not scrub anything but yourself into the person you want to be. You are hereby enrolled in the three-week session that starts tomorrow. On scholarship.”

For the second time ever, Ginger O’Leary gasped.

* * *

Have a few moments to help with a new pupil assessment?

James Gallagher read the text from his godmother and groaned. He used to help out at Larilla’s etiquette school quite a bit, playing the role of “upstanding young man in the community” so that Larilla could assess how students acted around the opposite sex and practice their newfound skills in conversation. Larilla had a list of men of all ages who loved helping out at the school, but all her favorites must be unavailable today.

The last time he helped with an assessment was last year, in the final days of Ava Guthrie’s course. He’d watched Ava transform from a “country girl,” as she’d called herself, into a “lady,” and he’d given her top scores in the final assessment. She’d hooked him, hadn’t she? A “well-educated businessman,” twenty-eight-year-old James Gallagher was one of Wedlock Creek’s “hottest catches,” per a ridiculous article in the Wedlock Creek Gazette that his sisters loved to tease him about. Last year, he’d even been thinking about getting himself removed from the eligible-bachelor list because he’d found his Ms. Right.

But Ava Guthrie had played him for the fool he was. After she’d gotten what she wanted—to be the kind of woman who’d attract a man like him—the grifter had gone for the kill, leaving town and taking James’s ability to trust. She’d sped off in the shiny new Fiat he’d bought her. Like an idiot.

After that fiasco, his godmother had kindly stopped asking him to help. Larilla knew he’d do anything for her, just as she would do anything for him. His parents and grandparents on both sides were long gone, and Larilla was all he had left of his mother’s side of the family. On his dad’s side he had the five half siblings he’d raised since his father’s and stepmother’s deaths seven years ago. Larilla had always been his rock. If she asked a favor, he was damn well going to grant it. Besides, a month and a week from now, he’d be in Paris, France, the start of his long-awaited summer sabbatical trip around the world. He wouldn’t be able to help Larilla with anything, and he owed her.

Be right over, he typed back.

Wonderful! We’re in the dining room.

It was just after six, but Larilla structured her course so that she met with a few students individually throughout the day and held group sessions twice daily. She always assessed new students over a private meal so that she could see how they conducted themselves at the table.

Larilla’s home, which housed the etiquette school, was just a few minutes’ drive from his place. He left his room, the converted attic bedroom, and headed down the steep steps of the big house his father had bought when he’d married James’s stepmother twenty-two years ago. None of his siblings were home, no surprise there. The quints were twenty-one now, and two—his brothers—had left town for their dream jobs, one involving a prosperous ranch and the other as a sous chef in a five-star hotel in Cheyenne. Two of his sisters worked as assistants to Larilla, wanting to learn the business, which pleased his godmother to no end, and then there was Josie, who was generally responsible for his carrying three rolls of Tums wherever he went. “You are responsible for your reaction to me, James, so don’t blame the heartburn on me!” Josie had bellowed a time or two.

He passed his dad and stepmother’s old master bedroom in the huge house. None of the Gallagher siblings had felt right about moving in there, including him. They used it as a family room so that they’d always feel their dad and Kerry with them when they were watching movies or TV, or having family meetings about who the slob who couldn’t cap the toothpaste or wipe up the spills on the kitchen counter was.

James couldn’t believe it had been seven years since he’d lost his parents. Or that he’d actually done it—seen the siblings through the throes of raging adolescence at thirteen to twenty-one-year-olds living their lives. He’d put his own life on hold to raise them, but come a month from now, James was hitting the road—the skies, actually—for a global summer trip of no responsibility to anyone but himself. He’d eat the best pasta in the universe in Italy. Amazing bread and cheese in France. Paella, a favorite of his, in Spain. Sushi and real ramen in Japan. He’d go on safari in Africa. Swim the coral reefs in Australia. He’d even try to learn to meditate in India, not that he could imagine relaxing to that degree.

He was going to see the world—without a care. He. Could. Not. Wait.

He drove over to Larilla’s blush-colored Queen Anne, the sight of which never failed to make him smile. With its three-story octagonal tower and ornate wraparound veranda, the house looked like an etiquette school. A sign noting Madame Davenport’s School of Etiquette hung from the side of the porch, where Larilla’s Persian cat, Esme, lay curled in a padded rocker in a patch of sunshine.

Once inside the gorgeously decorated home, which always struck him as “cozy museum,” he headed to the dining room, where he found Larilla seated at the head of the table, a young woman to her left. The platinum blonde looked like an extra from that movie Working Girl with Melanie Griffith and Harrison Ford—lots of skin, makeup and hair. They’d clearly just finished dinner, since there were serving dishes and plates on the table.

As he entered the room, the blonde let out an impressive wolf whistle and checked him out from head to toe and back up again.

Larilla jotted something down in the electronic tablet she carried everywhere.

“That’s probably the kind of thing I shouldn’t do anymore,” the blonde said to Larilla. “It’s not ladylike or whatever, right?”

“My dear,” Larilla began in that slight drawl of hers, “men have been catcalling women since the dawn of time. When I was in my late forties, a man walked past me on Main Street and said, ‘Hey, hot stuff.’ Boy, did he end up regretting that.”

The young woman’s eyes widened—in a gleeful way. “Whatja do?”

Larilla took a sip of her tea. “I bored him for a good fifteen minutes in the middle of the sidewalk on why it was inappropriate to comment on my appearance—anyone’s appearance, except perhaps to note that someone looked lovely today. Boring someone to death is an effective deterrent, I’ve noticed.”

“Kinda weird for me to tell this dude he looks lovely today,” the blonde said, raking her hazel eyes over him again.

“In that case, you simply ogle on the down low and keep mum,” Larilla explained with a wink.

The blonde beamed, and Larilla patted her hand.

At least he understood why his godmother had asked for his help when she knew he was still bitter as hell about what happened the last time he had anything to do with an etiquette student. The platinum blonde would probably need three courses before she’d graduate, and by then, James would be in Europe, on a gondola in Venice. This was one student who wouldn’t get to him.

Larilla turned to him. “James, I’m pleased to introduce my newest pupil, Ginger O’Leary. Ginger, my godson, James Gallagher.”

“Man, your eyes are blue,” Ginger said to him. “Guys get the best eyelashes too, am I right? I have to buy a new tube of mascara, like, every two weeks to keep up. Lahl!”

“Lahl?” James repeated. Was that a brand of mascara?

Ginger gaped at him as though he was nuts. “Lahl. El-oh-el. Get it?”

El-oh-el? What? Oh, he thought. LOL. “You mean the text acronym. Wait, so you were LOLing at your own joke? Larilla, write down that. Infraction of the worst degree.”

Ginger looked worried for a second, then stared at him to see if he was kidding. Which he was. He kept his poker face, and she waved her hand in the air. “Oh God, if that’s my biggest crime, I’m doing all right.”

Larilla smiled. “Well, James, thank you very much. I have what I need. And, Ginger, I’ll see you at 9:00 a.m. sharp for our first session.”

Ginger suddenly put her hands on her stomach, and her eyes widened.

Why was she doing that? He stepped a bit closer. “Are you all right? Dinner didn’t agree with you?”

“Are you kidding?” she said on a breath. “Filet mignon with roast potatoes always agrees with me. Like I ever have that.”

“Then what’s wrong?” he asked.

Ginger bit her lip and looked from him to Larilla and back to him. “I just felt that weird tightening sensation in my belly again. According to Dr. Google, it’s normal when you’re pregnant.”

“Pregnant?” He stared from Ginger to Larilla.

“Ginger is in the family way,” Larilla said. “She’s due in December.”

“If I counted right,” Ginger added. “I’ve never been great at math.”

“What did the doctor tell you?” he asked.

“What doctor? I just found out I was pregnant two days ago.”

“I’ll ask around for recommendations for an ob-gyn,” Larilla said. “You’ll need a checkup and prenatal vitamins.”

Now it was becoming even clearer why Larilla would call him to help assess. Not only was Ginger the furthest thing from his type, not that he had one, but she was pregnant.

He was leaving town to get away from “fatherhood.” The last thing he’d ever walk toward was more of that responsibility.

In fact, he felt a little better that now he could help out Larilla with this pupil. Buffalo would fly before James Gallagher fell for Ginger O’Leary.