The Pregnancy Surprise

Chapter Four

Sara disconnected the phone, her heart pounding. She’d only delayed the inevitable; sooner or later she would have to tell Reece she’d had a wreck in his car.

It was just a minor fender bender, and not her fault, either. She’d been innocently looking for a parking space, and another car had backed right into her. But since she’d been in a hurry, and both cars were drivable, she’d quickly exchanged information with the other driver and gone on about her business.

Reece’s previously pristine car was now caved in on the right side, the passenger door inoperable.

Well, Reece would just have to understand. It could have happened to anyone, and the important thing was that no one was hurt.

She hoped he would see it that way.

Sara dropped her cell phone into her bag and went back inside to check on Miss Greer. She didn’t know if the older woman was waking up yet or not, but she might be. She really ought not to have fibbed to Reece, though. That was a bad habit, telling little white lies. As her father always said, a lie was a lie and the size was immaterial.

Miss Greer woke a short time later, but she was in a lot of pain. Sara spent the rest of the morning tracking down a doctor who could prescribe something that would make the poor woman more comfortable, then hanging around to make sure the nurses gave it to her. After that, when Miss Greer’s lunch was delivered, Sara had to coax the elderly woman to eat a few bites.

It was something of a full-time job, making sure Miss Greer got the care she needed. By the time she was fully awake, adequately fed and reasonably pain-free all at the same time, it was almost dark.

Sara probably should have checked in with Reece again, but she’d aggressively put him out of her mind while she kept busy with Miss Greer. She hoped he was getting along all right taking care of the guests; he’d sounded okay earlier. Breakfast was the hardest part; she was sure he could make up beds and run the vacuum.

Although, come to think of it, she hadn’t reminded him he needed to do those things. Since he’d been a guest for some time, he probably knew the drill. But men were a little dense when it came to housework. Some she’d known obviously thought the elves came in at night and cleaned.

It was almost dark by the time she pulled Reece’s Mercedes onto Magnolia Street and parked it across the road from the Sunsetter, close to some bushes. Maybe the damage wouldn’t look so bad in the dark. Reece wasn’t an excitable type; he would probably be calm and reasonable about the whole thing.

Her hopes were dashed when she spotted him pacing on the front porch, his cell phone glued to his ear.

He saw her then and snapped his phone shut. He had started toward her as she got out of the car, and she quavered a bit at the thunderous expression on his face.

“Sara, where have you been? I’ve been worried sick about you. I’ve been calling your cell phone all day.”

“I can’t keep it turned on inside the hospital,” she reminded him.

He stopped inches from her and placed his fists on his lean hips. “You couldn’t check your messages every once in a while?”

“Sorry. I guess I was pretty focused on taking care of Miss Greer.” Yeah, right. She was such a saint. She’d deliberately left her phone off because she knew Reece would be frantic about his car.

“So what happened to the car?” he asked, finally taking his laserlike gaze off her and aiming it at the Mercedes.

“I had a-” she swallowed, her mouth feeling as if it was full of shredded wheat “-a small accident.”

“Accident?”

“Just a small one.”

Reece eyed the car from bumper to bumper and, apparently seeing no damage, walked around to the other side.

Sara knew the moment he saw the crunched-in door. She longed to flee to the safety of her room, where she wouldn’t have to endure his anger. But one thing her parents had taught her-and that had sunk in-was that she had to take responsibility for her actions.

“How did this happen?”

“Someone backed into me in the parking lot.”

A muscle twitched in his jaw. “So it wasn’t your fault?”

She shook her head. “The guy apologized all over the place.”

“You have a police report?”

Again she shook her head. “We exchanged information.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a rumpled piece of paper onto which she’d written the man’s name, phone number and driver’s license number.

Reece walked back around to the street and took the paper from her. He examined it briefly before meticulously creasing it and placing it in his wallet. “I can’t believe you wrecked my new car.”

“It wasn’t my fault.”

“Maybe not technically, but you drive like you do everything else.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Full throttle, damn the consequences.”

He turned and walked back into the house without a backward glance.

His attack was so unfair, and his harsh judgment cut her to the bone. But Sara resisted the juvenile urge to cry. She’d learned not to. When she was little, and her father yelled at her for some sin, real or imagined, she couldn’t help the tears. But crying only made everything worse. If she cried, her father would just scold her for crying, too. He’d told her not to be a crybaby.

Reece was not her father, she reminded herself. But she didn’t like this self-righteous side of him.

He hadn’t even tried to listen or show some understanding. He’d gotten in the last word and walked away.

Now they had this thing between them.

Realizing she couldn’t stand in the street forever, she moved her leaden feet toward the front porch. This hadn’t been the best day of her life, but neither had it been the worst. Stuff happened. She would go into the kitchen, fix up a nice soup and maybe even show Reece she was a bigger person than he was by offering to share. Then she would get everything ready for breakfast tomorrow. She would have to return to the hospital tomorrow morning to make sure Miss Greer was doing okay, but she could wait until after breakfast was served.

She had no idea how she would get to Corpus Christi, but she would figure something out. Maybe Allie would loan Sara her car. She seldom needed it during the day, when she was out on her boat running one of her charter trips.

The B and B guests were all in the living room when Sara entered the house, drinking cocktails and talking about where they would have dinner that night.

Had Reece served them the wine? Miss Greer kept a few bottles of inexpensive wine around, usually to serve the guests on their first night at the B and B.

“Oh, Sara,” said Mrs. Silverstein, who had stayed at the Sunsetter many times, “how is Miss Greer doing?”

“Much better,” Sara answered with a smile. “She’s looking forward to learning to walk with her new hip.”

“I got a new hip last year,” said Mrs. Benedict, doing a couple of shallow knee bends to show how flexible she was. “Best thing I ever did for myself. Miss Greer is going to love it!”

Sara felt cheered by the news. Mrs. Benedict was at least as old as Miss Greer, and she was still active. Hopefully Miss Greer still had several good, productive years to look forward to.

“Does anyone need anything before I head to the kitchen?” Sara asked.

The youngest woman in the room, who by process of elimination must be Mrs. Taylor, gave a sultry smile. “Reece has been taking very good care of us.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Silverstein said. “That new boy you hired is doing very well for himself. The breakfast he served was marvelous!”

Sara stopped herself before she could point out that she was the one who had cooked the breakfast. That would be petty. But it gave her a little pang to realize she could be replaced in the guests’ affections so easily.

Sara entered the kitchen expecting it to be a disaster, but Reece had apparently cleaned everything up after breakfast. That was a first. She’d never known a man who would set foot in the kitchen, much less clean it.

Goodness, he’d even run the dishwasher.

She opened the door of the industrial-size dishwasher, pulled out the lower rack intending to put away the dishes, and let out an involuntary shriek.

Miss Greer’s beautiful Haviland china looked as if someone had taken a hammer to it.

“What?” Reece appeared in the doorway, out of breath. “What happened?” Then he took in the broken china and his face fell. “Oh, no.”

Sara was tempted to tell Reece that any idiot knew not to put fine china into a dishwasher. She experienced a brief, childish urge to make him feel the way he’d made her feel not ten minutes ago.

She opened her mouth, then stopped. Truth be known, this was her responsibility. She knew he had little experience in the kitchen. She should have told him those delicate bone china dishes had to be hand washed, especially since this dishwasher was notoriously brutal.

“Can they be fixed?” Reece removed a shard from the dishwasher and examined it. He looked so forlorn, any irritation she’d felt toward him melted away.

“I’m afraid not.”

“Were they valuable?”

“Probably only to her. It’s her wedding china from her hope chest.”

Reece put a hand to his head and leaned against the counter, looking as if someone had just hit him. “God help me. I’ve destroyed an elderly woman’s girlhood dreams. What kind of a monster does that make me?”

“It’s not your fault, Reece.”

He looked at her, surprised. “You’re making me feel worse, you know. You should yell at me.”

“I don’t want to yell. I don’t like yelling.”

His guilty expression would have amused her under other circumstances. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper about the car. You said it wasn’t your fault and I should have accepted that. And even if you were at fault-which I’m sure you weren’t-it wouldn’t have been on purpose. I’m sorry, Sara.”

Now she really wanted to cry. Reece certainly wasn’t like her father, who’d never apologized for anything in his life-at least not to her.

“I might have been driving a little fast through the parking lot,” she admitted. “Maybe I could have prevented the accident if I’d been more careful. And I should’ve told you not to put china in the dishwasher. It’s my fault, totally. I’ll take the blame with Miss Greer.”

Reece actually smiled. “Throwing blame around doesn’t really make things better, does it? Let’s try to solve the problem. Can we replace the dishes?”

Sara relaxed. The hideous “thing” between her and Reece was gone, just with a few words of understanding. Now the dish disaster had been reduced to a tactical challenge, and she liked a good challenge.

“There are services out there that do nothing but sell replacement china, silver and crystal,” she said. “But it wouldn’t be the same.”

“You mean we couldn’t match the exact pattern?”

“No, we could probably do that. But they wouldn’t be the exact same dishes.”

Reece obviously still didn’t get it.

“Are you familiar with the concept of sentimental value? These are the very dishes Miss Greer collected, dreaming of a life with a future husband who never materialized. Think how excited she must have been, saving her pennies, buying one plate or saucer at a time, planning for her very first meal. New dishes, even if they looked exactly the same, wouldn’t actually be the same.”

“Could she tell the difference?”

“Are you suggesting we don’t tell her?”

“Why break her heart if we don’t have to?” Reece countered.

It seemed dishonest, but she supposed Reece had a point.

“All right,” Sara agreed reluctantly. “Let’s figure out exactly how much is broken so we’ll know what pieces to look for.”

After removing all of the broken pieces from the dishwasher, they had their tally: three broken dinner plates, two salad plates, six teacups and two saucers. The pattern was Haviland’s Tea Rose, according to the seal on the bottom of a plate.

“I’ll get started researching this on the Internet,” Reece said.

Sara wasn’t particularly skilled on the Internet. She didn’t even own a computer. “I’ll make us some dinner.”

“Is that allowed?”

Sara laughed, the first time she’d done so since wrecking Reece’s car. Miss Greer was notoriously territorial about the kitchen, and anyone who stayed here any length of time knew it. “She lets me cook for myself,” Sara said, “so long as I don’t get in her way or smell the place up with onions. But while she’s away, we get to make up the rules. I’m going to cook all the things Miss Greer doesn’t approve of. Is there anything you especially like to eat?”

He thought for a moment. “Pot roast with potatoes and carrots?”

She should have known. “That’s not really my style of cooking. I lean toward vegetarian and ethnic dishes.”

“No meat loaf then?”

Honestly, the man had zero imagination when it came to food. “How about tortilla soup?” she asked. Everyone loved tortilla soup.

Except Reece, apparently. “Look, don’t worry about me. I’ll go into town to eat.”

“Will you at least try what I fix?” she persisted. “It’s much more fun to cook for someone other than myself. I mean, restaurant meals are fine, and I love trying new places, but nothing beats a fresh meal from your own kitchen.”

“Sure,” he said after a very long pause, “but please don’t be insulted if I don’t eat the spicy stuff.”

“I’ll tone down the spices just for you.” She gave him a little wink, because she couldn’t help herself. His life might be boring and predictable, but his food didn’t have to be. She was going to convert him to adventurous cuisine if it was her last act on earth.