"But then you came along," Devlin said with a small smile.
"Yep," Emily agreed. "That I did. When Katy realized, she told Joe, and then they told the grans. Grandpa Shanski was already gone, leaving Grandma a widow with two sons to raise. By this time it was March. Katy had a scholarship to Wellesley, and Joe had one to Princeton. They couldn't have gone to such wonderful schools without those scholarships, and both had serious careers in mind. So Katy hid her condition in order to avoid getting kicked out of high school, and the grans sneaked them off to another town for a nice civil marriage ceremony so I'd be born on the proper side of the blanket. After their graduation Katy was supposed to go off to Europe on a grand tour before college. Actually she went into a nice church home for naughty girls until she had her baby. I was supposed to be put out for adoption to a good Catholic family, but once the grans saw me they agreed they couldn't let me go, and took me themselves to raise."
"Your parents divorced then?" he said.
"Actually the civil union was annulled on the grounds that Katy was under the age of consent when they had married. The fact that their parents had arranged the marriage in the first place was conveniently overlooked. And this allowed both Katy and Joe to be married in the church when they finally chose mates one day, which of course they did. Katy went to Yale Law after Wellesley, and eventually married Carter Phelps the Fourth. She has two kids, Phoebe and Carter the Fifth. Joe's a doctor, a pediatrician, actually. He married a nice Irish girl named Mary Shannon, and they have three sons, Joe, Frank, and Sean."
"You don't call your parents Mom and Dad," he noted.
"I never thought of them like that," Emily said. "My mother and I never saw each other at all except at Christmas, when she came home because my Grandmother O'Malley insisted she do so. I don't think she ever even thought of me except when she had no other choice. Please don't misunderstand, though. Katy's a nice lady, and a good mother to my half brother and sister, but for her I was a mistake to be forgotten. Of course, when she married Carter the Fourth she had to tell him about her little slip from grace before the engagement was announced. They both knew Carter the Fourth would be going into politics. I was displayed most prominently at their society wedding with Gran O'Malley. Carter the Fourth had wanted me to be a flower girl, but Katy drew the line at that." Emily chuckled. "I was referred to as her child from a brief high school union that had been annulled. I like Carter and his kids. My half sister is actually quite a fan of mine. Katy is quite astounded by my career and by my success. Now and again you'll see a media piece referring to me as Senator Phelps of Virginia's stepdaughter. But not often. I prefer to be my own woman."
"I've discovered that," he said, reaching for another of her sweet rolls and buttering it lavishly. She was a senator's stepdaughter? Could he be deported for making wild love to a senator's virgin stepdaughter? "What about your father?"
"Oh, Joe's a good guy. I saw more of him as a kid than I did of Katy, but medical school takes up a lot of time. He always remembered my birthday, though. When he married Mary Shannon she wanted me with them, but the grans put their collective feet down. So she went and had three sons of her own. Joey and Frank are in high school now, and Sean's in middle school. I always get invited for the holidays, of course. Mary Shannon is a grand, bighearted Irish girl, and while Gran Shanski was a bit put off by her enthusiasm, she appreciated her loving nature. But you can understand why I never called them Mom and Dad. They gave me life, to be sure, but they weren't my parents at all." She stood up. "Are you through, Devlin? You're going to get sick if you eat another sweet roll," Emily told him, reaching for his plate. "You've had four already."
"We have work to do, Emily Shanski," he told her with a grin. "But first I need to get to a pharmacy for some condoms. Want to tell me where?"
She did, and then added, "Try not to attract too much attention to yourself, Devlin. I mean between the fact that you're a striking man, and that Healy." She sighed. "You don't want anyone at Stratford to know we're having a love affair. And I don't want anyone in Egret Pointe to know. It's a small town, Devlin."
"I grew up in one," he said as he headed out the back door for his car with a wave. He knew just what he wanted: the thinnest rubber on the market, lubricated. He hoped the store she was sending him to would have them. And she had to get on the pill. He didn't want to wear those damned rubbers any longer than he had to. He wanted nothing coming between him and Emily Shanski's wet, hot cunt. He backed slowly out of her driveway and headed down Founder's Way just as Rina Seligmann was turning her Lexus onto the little street. They waved at each other.
Where was he going? Rina wondered as she pulled up in front of Emily's house. She called out as she entered the front door, "Emily, it's Rina."
"I'm upstairs making the bed," Emily called down. "Be right with you."
"No, I'll come up and help you," Rina said, hurrying up the stairs. "Why are you changing the sheets in the guest room? This isn't the Grande Hotel, sweetie, and I'm sure Mr. Gorgeous has slept on the same bedsheets a couple of nights in a row." Then something caught Rina's eye. "Oh, my God," she said dramatically. "You screwed him! Was he wearing a condom? I'll tell Sam to give you a prescription. No, I'll have him give you a couple of months of samples. You don't want everyone in town knowing you're screwing your editor. I never asked before, but it was your first time, wasn't it?"
Emily was almost beet red in the face with Rina's blunt questions. "If it was my first time, Rina," she said, "how would I know if he was good?"
"You'd know," Rina replied. "It's instinct."
"Then he's good."
"Why now? And why him?" Rina wondered. "Oh, the sexy book." She started putting fresh pillow slips on the pillows.
"Hey, he's my editor, and he's supposed to help me," Emily responded with a little grin. "And his career is just as much on the line as mine. He's not married, and he's not involved with anyone else, so why not him?"
"Well," Rina said, "he looks like a great first-timer. Why didn't you use the Channel?"
"It seems their reality and this reality have to be in sync for it to work," Emily explained. She sighed. "And my new hero looks just like Devlin. Go figure."
Rina nodded. "Then you wanted him right from the get-go," she said as they tucked in the sheet and fluffed the down coverlet.
"It was the oddest thing, Rina. The second our eyes met I felt as though someone had hit me in the pit of my stomach. I felt like I knew Michael Devlin even though I had never before set eyes on him. Go figure that one out. Don't put the spread on."
Rina chuckled. "Okay," she said, grinning. "Then I had better get going. I'll go get you some birth control samples from Sam. Pills or the patch?"
"Devlin went to get condoms. It's okay for this weekend," Emily replied.
"Unless he gotcha the first time," Rina considered.
"Rina, you know women don't get pregnant the first time," Emily told her.
Rina Seligmann looked both astounded and appalled at the same time. "Who in the name of God ever told you that?" she wanted to know. "Not your grans."
"I guess I wasn't thinking too straight at that moment," Emily muttered.