was the same, as was the guest bedroom. The emotional level when he laid me down in his bed was as high as our wedding night. Sensual overflowed and I had never loved him more than holding him against my body in this house. We stayed for two heart-pounding nights and then, when it was time to restart our journey, he backtracked to get to 51 and headed north, taking a long route around to completely avoid New Orleans. He explained that my car would be enough of a red flag. If word got to D’Angelo that a Shelby Ultimate Aero had come through the city, things would change quickly.
We made our next stop in Pensacola at Bev and Matt’s house. I told them they were sworn to secrecy because Mom had no idea about Micah or the baby and that we had to stay out of the press as long as possible. They were ecstatic to see us, but they were concerned over what they heard about our lives since the wedding. I told them we were apart for a little while, but what mattered was we were together again and very happy.
I wasn’t sure if I should call Jewels. With everything that had been in the news about me and Ryan, I didn’t know if she’d even speak to me. I decided to give it a try and to my pleasant surprise she was thrilled to hear from me. We talked for a long time over the phone about all that had happened in both our lives. She wanted to know how Ryan and I were getting along. I explained that he and I had never been more than good friends, but he finally found someone and was living in Colorado. She said she found someone, too. Brent Rushford, whom she had dated off and on since ninth grade, asked her to marry him. They had only been engaged for a week, but she was already planning the wedding.
We were leaving out in the morning, but I told her I would love to see her, even if it was only for a few minutes.
“How about the school parking lot? That was where we spent most of our time anyway,” she giggled.
“All right, but you’ve got to promise me one thing; no loud music. I don’t need Officer Martin to catch us trespassing because I’m trying desperately to stay out of the news.”
“Who’s with you? Is it that guy from Remake?” she asked with a little squeal.
“You’ll see in the morning,” I laughed. “Can you get there early, like 7:15? I want to be out of there before all the students start arriving.”
“I’ll do one better; I’ll be there at seven.”
Seven a.m. I watched a little white Kia turn into the lot. We had parked just inside the gate and she was drawn like a magnet to the sports car. I was leaning against the hood as she parked.
“OMG! I love your hair! I almost didn’t recognize you!”
“That’s the idea,” I laughed.
“That is a freaking awesome car…” She started to say as she ran to embrace me, but as soon as she threw her arms around me, she discovered my secret.
“Holy crap! You’re-you’re pregnant?”
The car was suddenly forgotten.
“Would you like to meet the father?” I said, tapping on the driver’s window to let Micah know it was okay to step out of his dark hiding place.
He raised the door and started to get out, but she practically knocked him over to hug him.
“I guess this means you approve,” Micah laughed, picking her up off the ground as he hugged her back.
“Lord, yes,” she blubbered out. She was crying and saying she hoped all along the two of us would end up back together. “You guys were like perfectly matched. When I heard you’d split up, I was
“It wasn’t his fault, but the important thing is we’re together and our son is due in September.”
We spent a few more precious minutes together, but I knew the other cars would be filing in and we didn’t need any exposure in Pensacola. We shared a couple more hugs, begged her to keep things quiet, and then we drove away.
Micah wanted to know if I wanted one more hotel stay to break-up the twelve hour drive to Palm Beach, but I was ready to see my family. I called Mom and told her we would see her around eight or nine p.m. The strange thing for me was that Micah’s emotional state as we grew closer seemed to lower, almost to the point of depression. I asked him if he was okay, but he just kept saying that Palm Beach held a lot of good and bad memories for him. I knew he was right, and it broke my heart all over again to think about what he went through when I vanished only days after our wedding.
When he and I came through the door, Mom honestly looked like she could faint. Micah was instantly at her side to keep her from hitting the floor. She simply couldn’t believe it. Kimmy was happy, but I think she was expecting Micah all along anyway.
After Kimmy went to bed, the three of us sat up and the whole story came out from D’Angelo at the Acqualina to our reunion in California (minus the brutality of the attack and the Ecstasy at the cottage). And as for the baby (which, thank God she was sitting down when we dropped that bomb-shell on her), I just told her he’d come to see me a little more than four months ago and when we parted ways I was pregnant. I told her about what D’Angelo did to make me think Micah had slipped a mental cog, causing me to run again. And, how it all worked out when he found me.
“Well, I hope you are out of the mob again because this marriage has had a rough enough start. Things are going to need to calm down by the time September rolls around and my-I can’t believe I’m saying this-my grandson arrives. I don’t feel old enough to be a grandmother,” she said with a little nervous laugh.
I looked at Micah’s face and that same strange expression that had been getting stronger from just before he met with Ryan reappeared. He was starting to worry me, but he insisted he was fine and that I needed to concentrate on the baby and nothing else.
I lay in my own bed that night with him beside me as I babbled on about house hunting and baby names, and how I really wanted a big bowl of hot peach cobbler with lots of vanilla ice cream, and chocolate syrup, and nuts and whip cream and…
He finally started laughing at me.
That was good because I didn’t want any more of his serious side to suck away our happiness. “Do you think we can find any place tonight that has peach cobbler?” I asked.
“Baby, it’s almost midnight-no, I don’t think so. You know you haven’t asked me how much I weighed when I was born.”
I gave him a funny look, “Why?”
“Because the baby usually follows the father’s genes in size.”
“So-how much did you weigh?”
“Ten pounds, five ounces,” he said, looking at me with a crooked smile, “If you aren’t careful, honey, this baby might be as big as I was.”
His unpleasant thought was putting a damper on my midnight snack ideas.
Chapter Thirty-One
The next morning, I begged him to go to the store and buy peach cobbler with all the trimmings. I had this insatiable need to eat peaches and it wasn’t going to go away until I got what I wanted. He happily agreed, but did ask if I wanted a can of sardines included with my order. I wrinkled my nose and said definitely not.
“But if you can find some good barbecued ribs this time of the morning, I’d like those.” I was serious.
He was laughing.
When he came home, he wasn’t smiling. He set the bags of groceries on the kitchen counter and then pulled out a magazine and handed it to me.
“It just came out this morning,” he said quietly.
The cover was a picture of me with an obvious baby bump, taken apparently at some point when we were either going into or coming out of the restaurant in San Antonio. It was only a shot of me, but surrounding me were three pictures, Micah, Ryan, and Sadarius with question marks over all of them asking “Who’s Your Daddy?” That really pissed me off and for once, I was ready to call my attorney and tell him to go after them-they had gone too far.
I read the article and it didn’t say specifically I was at the restaurant with Micah, I guess because they wanted
