"Gwen?" Krystal's face split in a smile. She jumped to her feet as the door opened, and the rest of them followed.
"Gwen! What are you doing here?"
"We thought you couldn't come."
"We're leaving today. Why did you wait till so late?"
"You're finally wearing maternity clothes."
And then, one by one, the women fell silent as the implications of Gwen's appearance hit them. Molly looked stricken. She turned to gaze at Annabelle, then at Heath. The other women were only a few beats behind. Dan's calculating expression indicated that Phoebe had told him about Annabelle's scam, but the rest of the men were oblivious.
Kevin snatched up his beer as Pippi made a grab for it. "Gwen called me yesterday to make sure we had room," he said with a grin. "She wanted to surprise you."
And did she ever.
"Where's your husband?" Webster asked.
"He'll be along in a second." With the women surrounding her, Gwen still hadn't spotted Heath, who'd come slowly to his feet. "Our closing got postponed," she said, accepting the glass of iced tea Sharon handed her. Annabelle was too queasy to take in much of her explanation-something about a problem with the bank, their furniture going into short-term storage, and a week to kill before they could move in.
"Hey, guys." Ian stepped into the gazebo. He wore wrinkled plaid shorts and a Dell Computer T-shirt. The men called out greetings. Darnell slapped him on the back, sending him pitching into Kevin, who clasped him around the shoulders.
"You haven't met my agent yet." Kevin drew him past the women. "Ian, this is Heath Champion."
Ian's extended arm froze. Gwen drew in a quick breath, and her hand shot to her rounding stomach. She stared, first at Heath, then at Annabelle.
Annabelle managed a weak smile. "Busted."
Heath shook Ian's stalled hand without giving anything away, but Annabelle knew sudden death when she saw it.
"Nice to meet you, Ian," he said. "And, Gwen… Good to see you again." He nodded in the general direction of her stomach. "Fast work. Congratulations."
Gwen simply swallowed. Annabelle felt Heath's fingers coil around her upper arm. "Would you excuse us? Annabelle and I need to talk."
Just like that, the book club sprang into action. "No!"
"Don't move!"
"You're not taking her anywhere."
"Forget it."
Heath's expression was a cluster bomb about to detonate. "I'm afraid I'll have to insist."
Kevin looked puzzled. "What's going on?"
"Business." Heath marched Annabelle toward the screen door. If she'd tossed a sweater over her head, it would have been a bona fide perp walk.
Molly shot ahead of them. "I'm coming with you."
"No," Heath said flatly. "You're not."
Krystal shot Phoebe a frantic look. "You scare everybody in the NFL. Do something?"
"I'm thinking."
"I know…" Molly grabbed her daughter and thrust her toward Annabelle. "Take Pip with you."
"Molly!" Phoebe shot forward in outrage.
Molly regarded her sister helplessly. "How rough can he get if he has a three-year-old watching?"
Phoebe snatched her niece out of harm's way. "Never mind, sweetheart. Mommy's having one of her crazy spells."
Gwen made a faint, fluttery motion with her hand. "Annabelle, I'm sorry. I had no idea."
Annabelle managed a shrug. "Not your problem. I brought this on myself."
"Exactly," Heath said. And then he steered her out the door.
They walked without speaking for several minutes. Finally they reached a grove of trees, and that was where he turned on her. "You conned me."
More than once if she counted this morning, but she hoped he hadn't figured that out. "I needed a sure bet to get you to sign the contract, and Gwen was the best I had. I promise, I was going to tell you the truth sooner or later. I hadn't worked up the nerve."
"Now there's a surprise." Those cold green eyes could have cut glass. "Bait and switch."
"I-I'm afraid so."
"How did you get the husband to go along with it?"
"A-uh-year of free babysitting."
A blade of wind cut through the clearing, ruffling his hair. He stared at her for so long her skin started to itch. She thought of all she'd put herself through this morning… For nothing.
"You conned me," he said again, almost as if he were still trying to take it in.
Apprehension knotted her stomach. "I couldn't see another way."
A bird shrieked overhead. Another screeched in response. And then the edges of his mouth crinkled. "Way to go, Tinker Bell. This is exactly what I've been talking about."
Just because Heath approved of Annabelle's scam didn't mean that she escaped a lecture about business ethics. She defended herself by saying, truthfully, that it wouldn't have occurred to her to do something so dishonorable to any other client.
He was only partially satisfied. "Once you start flirting with the dark side, it's hard to turn back."
And didn't she just know it.
Kevin eventually popped through the trees. "Oh, good," he said as he spotted Annabelle. "I told Molly you'd probably still be alive."
She stayed at Kevin's side as they all walked back to the gazebo. Shortly after that, Heath took off. As he left, she found herself thinking that this deception crap was getting old. How would Heath have reacted if she'd been honest? Right. Like that wouldn't have been a recipe for destroying everything from her self-esteem to her professional dreams. But she was sick of deceit. She wanted to make love with someone she didn't have secrets from, someone she could build a future with. And didn't that just say it all. This was about chemistry. It had nothing to do with an eternal meeting of kindred souls.
Chapter Sixteen
Portia hit the Enter key on her office computer to sort the data file. This time she'd searched by hair color, which was stupid because hair color could change from one week to the next, but surely someone lurked in her data bank whom she'd missed, someone who'd be perfect for Heath, and she kept envisioning a blonde. She winced as the aggressive whine of a power saw cut through the Sunday afternoon quiet. Non-union laborers were remodeling the office overhead, and the intrusion grated at her already frayed nerves.
Heath had taken off for the weekend with Annabelle Granger. Portia had gotten the news from his receptionist, a woman she'd befriended several months earlier with front-row seats at a Shania Twain concert. Portia still couldn't quite absorb it. She "was the one who spent weekends with important clients: Vegas jaunts, Wisconsin winter excursions, lazy afternoons at one beach or another. She'd thrown wedding showers and baby showers, attended bar mitzvahs, anniversary parties, even funerals. Her Christmas card list had over five hundred names on it. Yet Annabelle Granger had spent the weekend with Heath Champion.
The power saw emitted another abrasive screech. Generally she stayed away from the office on Sunday afternoons, but today she'd been more restless than usual. She'd begun the morning with mass in Winnetka. When she'd been a kid, she'd hated going to church, and in her twenties, she'd given it up altogether. But about five years ago, she'd started attending again. At first it had been a business tactic, another way to make the right contacts. She'd targeted four upscale Catholic churches and rotated among them: two on the North Shore, one in Lincoln Park, and one near the Gold Coast. But after a while, she'd begun to look forward to the services for reasons that had nothing to do with business and everything to do with the way the knots inside her unraveled as the familiar words of the liturgy washed over her. She still alternated churches-God helped those who helped themselves, didn't he?-but now her Sundays had become less about business and more about the possibility of peace. Not today, however. Today the serenity she needed so desperately had eluded her.
She'd met some acquaintances for coffee after mass, socially prominent friends from her brief marriage. How would they react if she introduced them to Bodie? Just the thought made her headache worse. Bodie inhabited a secret compartment in her life, a sordid, perverted chamber she could never let anyone peer into. He'd left two messages on her machine this week, but she hadn't returned either of them, not until today. An hour ago, she'd given in to temptation and dialed his number, then hung up before he could answer. If she could get one good night's sleep, she'd stop obsessing about him. Maybe she'd even be able to stop worrying so much about Heath and the feeling that her business was falling apart.