Vicki Thompson - That's My Baby!

Still, she missed Herb and his persnickety ways. She missed all of the staff, even stuffy Barclay. She hadn’t realized how much until she stood in the shadows looking at the house that had sheltered her for so many years. But then, she supposed zoo animals would miss their keepers if they were suddenly turned loose. You had to give up something to get something, as her father was so fond of saying.

The cabdriver walked away from the car again and headed for the slope leading down to the river. About that time, the lights of a barge appeared from upriver, and the rumble of the boat’s engines drifted toward her on the night air. The driver stood with his back to her, his hands in his pockets as he gazed at the approaching boat.

Jessica’s pulse leaped as she recognized her opportunity. Nat had ridden in the front seat on the way out here. No doubt he’d do the same on the way back. While the cabbie watched the barge sail past, she could hide on the floor of the back seat. The boat’s engines would muffle the sound of her opening and closing the car door.

Unless Nat happened to come out at the exact moment when she was sneaking into the cab, she’d be able to hitch a ride without being noticed. When they arrived at Nat’s hotel, she’d reveal herself and hope that the cabdriver didn’t have a weak heart.

As for Nat, maybe he deserved the jolt she’d give him. For all she knew, he was telling her parents about her involvement with him, which she definitely didn’t appreciate having him do without checking with her first. To be fair, he would have had some trouble checking with her first, but still, in coming here he’d overstepped his bounds.

The rumble of the boat’s engine grew louder. Good thing she didn’t have a weak heart. It was skittering around like crazy while she waited for the noise to reach its loudest point. Okay. Now. She hurried toward the cab. The back door was locked.

She lost precious time opening the front door and reaching around to lift the button on the back door. Fortunately the barge’s engines drowned out the sounds she made. Or at least she hoped they did. The rhythmic rush of blood against her eardrums made it difficult to gauge how much noise she was making.

Luck seemed to be favoring her. The cabdriver didn’t turn around and the front door remained closed. She climbed into the back seat and shut the car door as quietly as possible. The driver stood watching the barge edge down the river. He probably didn’t think he needed to watch over his cab when he was inside the gated confines of Franklin Hall.

Putting her backpack on the floor, she lay on her side across the hump and put her head on the backpack. Not so good. And she’d thought she was roughing it when she’d had to give up first-class for coach.

She shifted position several times trying for some level of comfort. Finally she gave up. Comfort wasn’t in the cards for this ride. She’d have to hope, when the cab reached the city, that she wouldn’t be too crippled to walk.

Now if she could only stop gasping for breath, she might actually be able to pull this off. She forced herself to inhale slowly and deeply. She almost choked on the stale cigarette smell wafting up from the carpeting.

I’m doing this for Elizabeth, she told herself. She turned to face the back seat instead of the front, which gave her a little more breathing room. Gradually she became more accustomed to the obnoxious odor.

Nat’s backpack was within reach on the back seat. She stroked the frayed canvas, as if that would somehow start the process of connecting to him. He was not the same man who’d left her in Aspen, that was for sure. But then she wasn’t the same woman, either. Maybe they’d find no common ground other than the most obvious—their child. But Elizabeth’s welfare was worth any amount of sacrifice she had to make.

Despite her awkward position on the floor of the car, she began to relax. Then she heard the front door of the house open and close. Suddenly she couldn’t breathe. Nat was coming.

“All set?” the cabdriver called.

“Let’s go,” Nat replied.

His voice splashed over her, drenching her with longing. She wanted him. No matter how she’d tried to stamp out her feelings, the sound of his voice brought back a flood of memories—tender, lusty, explosive memories. And of all the times they’d made love, the most electrifying had been the night they’d conceived Elizabeth. He’d become such a part of her that night that she’d thought for sure he’d agree to break the code of silence.

Instead, he’d smashed their love to smithereens.

Her heart beat wildly as the front doors of the cab opened and the dome light flicked on. If either of them decided to look in the back seat during that brief time, they’d see her.

They didn’t.

The engine started, and she discovered one other unpleasant fact. She could smell car exhaust down here. Wonderful. Now she could worry about asphyxiating herself.

As the cab began to move down the driveway, Jessica was sure she could feel every rock and pebble in the road, especially when the tires threw them up under the car. But she didn’t dare move, at least not until they were well on their way back to the city.

“Did you get your business settled?” the cabdriver asked.

“Not exactly,” Nat said. “But it was a start.”

Please let this be a nosy cabdriver, Jessica prayed. She just might find out something that would partially make up for being crammed in here like a doomed mobster.

Unfortunately for her, the cabbie wasn’t all that interested in Nat’s business at Franklin Hall and started talking about the World Series instead. Jessica clenched her teeth as Nat happily traded opinions on the relative merits of each team in the playoffs. Guys and their sports.

Yet even though the conversation bored her to tears, she loved listening to Nat’s voice, and his low chuckle was enough to trip the switch on her libido. She didn’t focus on his words, but absorbed only his tone.

Maybe because she was lying in the dark, she began to think of how it had been lying with Nat in the dark. Gradually her mind replaced his talk about baseball with other words, polished gems from her treasure-house of memories. I could spend forever looking at you, Jess. And kissing you. Your skin tastes like milk and honey. Come here, woman. Come let me make love to you. For the rest of the night. Who cares about sleep when we can do this?

She hadn’t forgotten a minute of the time they’d been together. She wondered if he’d forgotten it all. But if he didn’t want anything more to do with her, why had he traveled to Franklin Hall the minute he set foot on U.S. soil?

Cautiously she wiggled over so she could see out the window. It wasn’t a great view, and the hump on the floor forced her to arch her back to an uncomfortable degree, but she’d be able to tell when they reached the city. She was more than ready to get there. The exhaust fumes were making her woozy.

“There’s the Franklin Tower,” the cabbie said. “They say Franklin’s office takes up the entire top floor. A huge office, they say, with a three-hundred-sixty-degree view of Manhattan.”

She knew that office. Jessica brought her attention back to the conversation in the front seat. Maybe the driver would finally try to get some gossip out of Nat.

“I’ve heard about his office,” Nat said.

He’d heard it from her. Nat had been the only person who knew about her background, and when he’d abandoned her, she’d lost more than a lover. She’d lost the one person she could talk to without constantly guarding her speech.

When she’d left New York, she’d severed all ties with friends because she couldn’t be sure they wouldn’t somehow give her away and leave her open to the kidnappers her father spoke about endlessly, the ones waiting to snatch a rich man’s child. She’d heard his warnings for so long that she believed him. She’d just wanted to find a different way to avoid that fate.

She’d made new friends in Aspen, but none of them knew she had a famous father. Only Nat. Keeping the secret had been more of a burden than she’d planned on, and confiding in Nat had been a welcome relief.

“That Franklin, I guess he’s a real wheeler-dealer,” said the cabbie, obviously fishing for information. “I’ve also heard he’s tough to get along with.”

No joke, Jessica thought. Try having a different opinion from his and see what happens to you. The lights of the city were all around her now, with horns blaring and even more fumes coming up through the floor of the cab. Her head started to pound, and she closed her eyes to see if that might help.

“Someone did tell me that Franklin was hard to get along with,” Nat said. “But he seemed like a reasonable guy to me.”

Jessica’s eyes snapped open. Nat thought her father was reasonable? What sort of a turncoat was he, anyway? Her headache grew worse.

“So you two got along pretty well, then?” the driver asked.

“I think so,” Nat replied. “Anybody with that much power is bound to rub people the wrong way once in a while, and he makes for an easy target, but he struck me as a decent man who tries to do the right thing.”

Jessica couldn’t decide which was worse, the fumes or Nat’s praise of her father. Both of them were making her sick.

“And I also think the person who told me he was hard to get along with probably has some authority issues to work out,” Nat added.

Authority issues? What the hell did he know about it? Jessica’s automatic yelp of protest was halfway out before she remembered that nobody was supposed to know she was hiding in the back seat. She clapped her hand to her mouth, but it was too late.

“Jesus!” the driver cried. “Somebody’s in the—”

“You watch the road! I’ll handle it!” Nat climbed into the back seat and grabbed Jessica by the front of her jacket.

She was too stunned to speak.

Gasping for breath, he hauled her up to a sitting position, which knocked her glasses askew. She pushed them back into place and tried to keep from throwing up. The exhaust fumes had really made her nauseated.

“My God, it’s a woman,” Nat said in amazement.

“What’s a woman doing in my cab?” the driver babbled hysterically. “Is she armed?”

“I don’t know,” Nat said, breathing hard. “Are you armed?”

She shook her head, still trying to keep from tossing her cookies.

“She’s not armed,” Nat said to the driver. As his breathing slowed, he peered intently at her. Multicolored lights streamed in through the cab windows and slid across his face, making it difficult to read his expression. But he seemed to be studying her, as if trying to solve a riddle.

“I’m heading for the nearest cop shop,” the cabbie said.

“Don’t do that yet,” Nat told the driver quietly. “Let me see if I can find out what’s going on here.” He looked down at Jessica. “Where did you come from?”

She didn’t trust herself to open her mouth without losing her lunch, so instead she took off her glasses and gazed up at him.

He stared at her, stared at her hard. Then, while he kept his gaze locked on hers, he reached up with his free hand and hit the switch on the dome light.

She blinked in the glare of the overhead, but when she could once again meet his gaze, she saw the dawning recognition there.

“Jess?” he whispered.

She nodded. Then she scrambled for the window, rolled it down and threw up.

ENDLESS HUMILIATING moments later, Jessica was finally ensconced in the bathroom of Nat’s hotel room with the door locked. Swearing under her breath, she stripped down, pulled off her wig and stepped under the shower. In all the scenarios she’d played in her head about this meeting, none of them had included barfing.