Maureen Child: Baby Bonanza

Despite the way it had ended, that one week with Nick Falco had turned Jenna’s life around and upside down. It was simply impossible that she was the only one affected that strongly.

“So instead, he’s being Mr. Smooth and Charming,” she said. “Probably romancing some other silly woman, who, like me, won’t notice until it’s too late that he’s nobody’s fantasy.”

Oh, God.

That was a lie.

The truth was, she thought with an inner groan, he actually was any woman’s fantasy. Tall, gorgeous, with thick, black hair, pale blue eyes and a smile that was both charming and wicked, Nick Falco was enough to make a woman’s toes curl even before she knew what kind of lover he was.

Jenna let her forehead thunk against the mirror. “Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea,” she whispered as her insides fisted and other parts of her heated up just on the strength of memories alone.

She closed her eyes as vivid mental images churned through her mind-nights with Nick, dancing on the Pavilion Deck beneath an awning of stars. A late-night picnic, alone on the bow of the ship, with the night crowded close. Dining on his balcony, sipping champagne, spilling a few drops and Nick licking them from the valley between her breasts. Lying in his bed, wrapped in his arms, his whispers promising tantalizing delights.

What did it say about her that simply the memories of that man could still elicit a shiver of want in her, more than a year later? Jenna didn’t think she really wanted an answer to that question. She hadn’t boarded this ship for the sake of lust or for what had once been. Sex wasn’t part of the equation this time and she was just going to have to find a way to deal with her past while fighting for her future. So, deliberately, she dismissed the tantalizing images from her mind in favor of her reality. Opening her eyes, she stared into the mirror and steeled herself for what was to come.

The past had brought her here, but she had no intention of stirring up old passions.

Her life was different now. She wasn’t at loose ends, looking for adventure. She was a woman with a purpose, and Nick was going to listen to her whether he wanted to or not.

“Too busy to answer his e-mail, is he?” she muttered. “Thinks if he ignores me long enough I’ll simply disappear? Well, then, he’s got quite the surprise coming, doesn’t he?”

She brushed her teeth, slapped some makeup on and ran a brush through her long, straight, light brown hair before braiding it into a single thick rope that lay against her back. Inching sideways out the bathroom door, she carefully made her way to the built-in dresser underneath a television bolted high on the wall. She grabbed a pair of white shorts, tugged them on and then tucked the ends of her yellow shirt into the waistband. She stepped into a pair of sandals, grabbed her purse and checked to make sure the sealed, small blue envelope was still inside. Then she took the two steps to her cabin door.

She opened her door, stepped into the stingy hallway and bumped into a room service waiter. “Sorry, sorry!”

“My fault,” he insisted, hoisting the tray he carried high enough that Jenna could duck under it and slip past him. “These older hallways just weren’t made for a lot of foot traffic.” He glanced up and down the short hall, then back to Jenna. “Even with the ship’s refit, there are sections that-” He stopped, as if remembering he was an employee of the Falcon Line and really shouldn’t be dissing the ship.

“Guess not.” Jenna smiled back at the guy. He looked about twenty and had the shine of excitement in his eyes. She was willing to bet this was his first cruise. “So, do you like working for Falcon Cruises?”

He lowered the tray to chest level, shrugged and said, “It’s my first day, but so far, yeah. I really do. But…” He stopped, turned a look over his shoulder at the dimly lit hall as if making sure no one could overhear him.

Jenna could have reassured him. There were only five cabins down here in the belly of the ship and only hers and the one across the hall from her were occupied. “But?” she prompted.

“It’s a little creepy down here, don’t you think? I mean, you can hear the water battering against the hull and it’s so…dark.”

She’d been thinking the same thing only moments before and still she said, “Well, it’s got to be better than crew quarters, right? I mean, I used to work on ships and we were always on the lowest deck.”

“Not us,” he said, “crew quarters are one deck up from here.”

“Fabulous,” Jenna muttered, thinking that even the people who worked for Nick Falco were getting more sleep on this cruise than she was.

The door opened and a fortyish woman in a robe poked her head out and smiled. “Oh, thank God,” the older blonde said. “I heard voices out here and I was half-afraid the ship was haunted.”

“No, ma’am.” The waiter stiffened to attention as if just remembering what he’d come below for. He shot Jenna a hopeful look, clearly asking that she not rat him out for standing around having a conversation. “I’ve got breakfast for two here, as you requested.”

“Great,” the blonde said, opening the door wider. “Just…” She stopped. “I have no idea where you can put it. Find a place, okay?”

While the waiter disappeared into the cabin, the blonde stuck out one hand to Jenna. “Hi, I’m Mary Curran. My husband, Joe, and I are on vacation.”

“Jenna Baker,” she said, shaking the other woman’s hand. “Maybe I’ll see you abovedecks?”

“Won’t see much of me down here, I can tell you,” Mary admitted with a shudder as she tightened the sash on her blue terry-cloth robe. “Way too creepy, but-” she shrugged “-the important thing is, we’re on a cruise. We only have to sleep here, after all, and I intend to get our money’s worth out of this trip.”

“Funny,” Jenna said with a smile. “I was just telling myself the same thing.”

She left Mary to her breakfast and headed for the elevator that would carry her up and out of the darkness. She clutched the envelope that she would have delivered to Nick and steeled herself for the day to come. The elevator lurched into motion and she tapped her foot as she rose from the bowels of the ship. What she needed now was some air, lots of coffee and a pastry or two. Then, later, after Nick had read her letter, she would be ready. Ready to face the beast. To beard the lion in his den. To look into Nick’s pale blue eyes and demand that he do the right thing.

“Or,” Jenna swore as the doors shushed open and she stepped into the sunlight and tipped her face up to the sky, “I will so make him pay.”

“The sound system for the stage on the Calypso Deck has a hiccup or two, but the techs say they’ll have it fixed before showtime.”

“Good.” Nick Falco sat back in his maroon leather chair and folded his hands atop his belly as he listened to his assistant, Teresa Hogan, rattle off her daily report. It was only late morning and together they’d already handled a half-dozen crises. “I don’t want any major issues,” he told her. “I know this is the shakedown cruise, but I don’t want our passengers feeling like they’re guinea pigs.”

“They won’t. The ship’s looking good and you know it,” Teresa said with a confident smile. “We’ve got a few minor glitches, but nothing we can’t handle. If there were real trouble, we never would have left port last night.”

“I know,” he said, glancing over his shoulder at the white caps dancing across the surface of the ocean. “Just make sure we stay one step ahead of any of those glitches.”

“Don’t I always?”

“Yeah,” he said with a nod of approval. “You do.”