A Promise for the Baby. Jennifer Lohmann
together existed in a dream world, but his memories of the morning after were clear and sharp. He remembered waking up to find her sleeping, her black hair spread across the pillow and her neck exposed. He remembered looking at the knobs of her spine as they trailed from her nape down her back and under the covers. How kissable those knobs had looked. But then he’d gotten out of the bed to make coffee, found the marriage certificate and any thought of kissing her neck was gone.
Stepping outside into the cold pushed away those memories. They were married, she was in Chicago, and kissing the slim line of her neck had never been further away from possible. “Do you have a winter coat?”
She was standing outside in jeans, her sweater and pink argyle socks. “I’m not cold.”
Even in the hazy moonlight he could see goose bumps dotting her neck, but she didn’t shiver or tuck her hands around her body for warmth.
“I bought the apartment for this view,” he said, folding his arms on the railing of the terrace and leaning forward to look out over the city with her.
“What are the names of some of the buildings?”
He pointed out the Aon Center and Smurfit-Stone Building. “If you’re still here in the summer, maybe you can go on an architecture boat tour. Or they have walking tours year-round.”
“You don’t have curtains.”
“No.” Removing the curtains was one of the few changes he’d made when Jessica had moved out.
“Not even in your bedroom?”
“I value openness.”
“You should come west.”
“I’ve been to Vegas.” He slid closer to her on the terrace. Not so close that their arms touched, but close enough to feel her presence. She still smelled like jasmine.
“Not Vegas. Vegas is the flashy west. I mean southern Idaho, where you can see for miles in every direction and there’s nothing but sky and canyons.”
“Is that where you’re from?”
“I graduated high school in Jackpot, Nevada. It’s right across the border.”
He’d married a blackjack dealer from a town called Jackpot. The world had an unfortunate sense of humor. “It would’ve been a shorter drive from Vegas to Jackpot.”
She turned her head to the side to look at him, the corners of her mouth turned up in a mysterious smile. “Shorter, yes, but there’s nothing for me in Jackpot. Plus, it would be wrong not to let you know you’re going to be a father.”
“A phone call would’ve sufficed.”
“Would you want to learn that you’re going to be a father with a phone call from a stranger?” She didn’t slip again and admit to not being able to go home, as she had when they’d been talking in the living room.
He didn’t have an answer to that question. If asked this morning, he would’ve said yes. Now, standing next to Vivian on his terrace, looking at the lights sparkle across Grant Park and smelling her jasmine perfume, he wasn’t so sure. Her neck was even more kissable up close.
“Dinner’s getting cold.” He pushed off the railing and walked back into the apartment, not looking to see if she followed.
* * *
KARL WASN’T MUCH for words, Vivian thought, as she picked up the plates after dinner. They were strangers, sure, but they were married strangers who were having a child together. Even after they finalized the divorce, they would still have a child to raise together. The least they could do during the next eight months was to get to know each other.
But based on his terse responses over dinner, he didn’t agree. She heaped the utensils on the stacked plates and took them into the kitchen. When she turned, he had followed with the cups and trash.
“I’ll get those.” She took the glasses from his hand and loaded them into the dishwasher. “Don’t worry about the plates,” she said when he started rinsing them. “Go sit down. I’ll clean up.”
“I’m not letting you stay here so you can clean up after me.” He didn’t stop rinsing the plates, but did let her load them into the dishwasher. He had rolled up his shirtsleeves before turning on the water, and light brown hair dusted his forearms.
She blinked, uncomfortable after catching herself staring at his arms. The plates clinked against one another as she used a little too much force to close the dishwasher.
“I know, but...” She didn’t want to finish that statement.
“But?”
But I’m here because we had a one-night stand and I got pregnant, and we were drunk when we got married and I now need help and you’re giving it to me and I don’t know how long I’ll need the help and I don’t know how long you’ll offer the help and I wish you’d let me clean up after dinner. Her insecurities nearly pushed her down as they flooded over her, but all she said was, “I’m happy to help out.”
He nodded before grabbing a sponge and leaving to wipe down the table. He wasn’t nodding because he knew she was happy to help out. She could feel in his intense hazel eyes that he knew what she had left unsaid. He knew she would act as maid in a poor attempt to make up for invading his life. He knew and he still went to clean the table.
She knew very little about her husband. Their night together had been his last day in Vegas, and their conversation over breakfast had been about the details of a divorce. The next day she’d received a phone call from a lawyer saying he represented Karl Milek and they would pursue a divorce according to Nevada laws. When could she come by his office? Did she have her own lawyer? No? Did she need time to find one?
Like all things in Nevada, getting out of the trappings of your sins was far more complicated than getting into them.
Karl’s efficiency had intrigued her enough that she’d done an internet search on him. After reading newspaper articles, exploring his office’s website and watching snippets of televised news stories, she’d felt as though she had a sense of who this man was. But now she realized every movement he made, everything he said, was carefully constructed to give the illusion of revelation without actually revealing anything. Not that any of that had been important to her at the time.
Then she’d gone home to an apartment emptied of anything of value and a note containing an apology from her father folded on the kitchen counter. When she had checked her bank account she’d found every penny she had carefully saved was gone. Then she had missed her period, and by that point it had been too late for Plan B. She hadn’t even had enough money for an abortion, if she had decided to go that route, anyway. Then she had been fired, and suddenly the most important thing in the world was that her husband seemed to be the kind of person who fixed problems.
Their marriage had been a problem, and he was going to fix that. Now her pregnancy was the problem, and his magical fix had smoothed away the practical, immediate problems of that, too. She didn’t want to have to rely on him, but she couldn’t predict what help she would need after the baby was born—or what he would be willing to provide.
Once the activity of cleaning up after dinner was done, they were left with nothing to do but face each other and feel awkward. At least, Vivian felt awkward. She had the sense that Karl could have a fox eating out his stomach under his shirt and his face wouldn’t reveal any pain. How drunk had he been to indulge himself in a feeling as human as lust? What else had been going on in his life that he’d allowed himself to get that drunk?
“Well—” she clapped her hands together “—I’m beat.” She was no such thing. Wired and punchy would be a more accurate description of how she felt right now. “Do you have a book I could read before I fall asleep?”
“I thought you said you were beat.”
She opened her mouth to respond but he’d already left the kitchen. He returned with Mr. Midshipman Hornblower,