Emily McKay - It Happened in Manhattan

“You’re welcome. Can I get you anything else?”

“One of my lollipops. Top drawer of my desk. Right-hand side.”

Glad to have something to do, he headed straight for her desk. The first thing he saw when he pulled out the top drawer was an artist’s sketchbook. A large pencil drawing dominated the page. In the bottom left-hand corner was a scared little girl in a pinafore dress, with black curls and huge eyes, like a cross between Shirley Temple and Betty Boop with just enough Kitty Beidermann thrown in to make the character unmistakable. She clutched her hands in front of her in exaggerated terror. Behind her loomed an enormous monster, all pointy teeth and glistening drool. Its arms arched over her head, wicked claws gleaming. The monster’s body was formed by the letters F, M and J. The overall effect was both humorous and compelling.

So, she fancied herself an artist, did she?

He grinned as he picked up the sketchbook and flipped the page. However, the other pictures weren’t cartoons but rather sketches of jewelry. It was the same tongue-in-cheek, gothic sensibility, but applied to intricate drawings of necklaces and earrings.

“Find one of the yellow ones, if you can,” she called out from the bathroom.

He looked back in the drawer and saw a pile of lollipops. After digging through for a yellow one, he headed back to the bathroom, flipping through the sketchbook as he went.

When he reached the bathroom, he tucked the book under his arm to pull the wrapper off the lollipop. He held it out to her. “These help?”

She plopped it in her mouth and rolled her eyes at him, either in relief or at his obvious doubt. After several strong sucks that caved in her cheeks and worked her throat in a way that was alarmingly erotic, she nodded.

“They’re specially formulated.” She spoke between sucks. “High in Vitamin C. Sour flavor. Helps with the morning sickness.”

This was morning sickness? Undeniable proof of the baby growing in her belly. The baby that was maybe his, maybe not his. But she was definitely making herself known. He felt as if a hand reached into his chest and gave his heart a squeeze.

Kitty swayed a bit, apparently still feeling wobbly, and he automatically reached out a hand to steady her. Her touch on his arm felt weak and trembling. That hand squeezing his heart tightened to a fist.

Before she could protest, he wrapped one arm around her shoulder and gripped her arm with the other, guiding her out of the bathroom to the sofa in her office.

They’d just left the bathroom when her door opened and Marty strolled in. He stopped dead in his tracks, looking from Kitty and back to Ford, then to the open bathroom door through which they’d obviously just walked. Together.

Marty’s gaze narrowed and his cheek muscles twitched into a frown. “I’m glad with all the work we have to do that you two are finding ways to amuse yourselves.”

Ford waited for Kitty to explain her morning sickness. Instead she pressed her body against his side and slithered her arm around his waist. With exaggerated slowness, she pulled the lollipop from her mouth and smiled. Then she slanted him a look meant to turn men rock-hard.

“Me, too,” she murmured with the faintest wink.

Marty gave a disgusted squawk and fled the room, apparently imagining that they were about to go at it again right in front of him.

As soon as the door shut behind him, Kitty sprawled on the sofa, stretching her legs out in front of her indelicately and popping the lollipop back in her mouth with absolutely no artifice.

“Oh, thank God he’s gone. Like my nausea wasn’t bad enough without having to listen to him.”

“You could have explained.”

“Trust me. The last thing I need is Marty feeling sorry for me.” She shuddered with mock disgust, closing her eyes again to concentrate on her lollipop.

Her hand rested on her belly, her fingers absently toying with the swatch of knit that covered the exact spot where he imagined her baby growing. The way she’d stretched across the sofa, her belly appeared perfectly flat with only the gentlest slope to her stomach. No one would guess she was even a day pregnant. She must not be very far along. More than a month, since she’d already taken the test, but not much more. Maybe two.

The recesses of his brain started doing a little involuntary math, but he shoved the thought aside. She’d said it wasn’t his. She was letting him off the hook. That was enough. He didn’t want to be a dad and he sure as hell didn’t want to inflict himself as a father on any poor kid. It wasn’t just him she was letting off the hook. It was all of them. Until she was far enough along to get proof one way or another, he had to take her word for it anyway.

To distract himself from those disconcerting thoughts, he pulled the sketchbook out from under his arm and started flipping through it again.

“What is this?” he asked.

She opened a single eye to gaze at him. When her gaze fell on the sketchbook, she tensed for a second. Then she closed her eye and forced a breath that almost sounded relaxed. “Just doodles.”

“They don’t look like doodles. They look like jewelry designs.”

He held up the page to reveal a sketch of a necklace and earrings. The set was full of intricate curlicues and elaborate swirls in a style that managed to reference Victorian styles while still looking modern.

“It’s just something I drew up. It’s not even very original.”

“What do you mean?” He turned the page to look at the next design.

“I modeled it after some of my grandmother’s old jewelry. The ones I had to sell. Most of the drawings in there came from pieces of my grandmother’s. A swirl here, a flower there. Just bits I combined together from one piece or another.”

He looked up from the drawings. Her free hand still rested on her stomach, but her fingers had started tugging at the knit. Normally Kitty’s innate confidence bordered on arrogance. If he didn’t know better he’d think she was fidgeting.

He flipped to the next page, staring at the image for a moment before turning the page ninety degrees to get a better angle. “Is this a case for an iPhone?”

She pulled in her legs, straightening. “You know not everyone likes their gadgets to look like gadgets.”

It was the same scrolling design as one of the earlier pictures, but this time the perfect size and shape to enclose a cell phone. The page held three drawings, one of the back; the second depicted elegant, tiny, clawed feet, which wrapped around the front of the phone; the third showed the delicate hinges along the side. He could imagine it in gleaming sterling. The overall effect was a brilliant merging of gothic Victorian and geeky tech. Between the clawed feet and the ghoulish tiny gargoyle face on the back, the piece almost had … a sense of humor.

Like the drawing of FMJ gobbling up Kitty.

“Did you think of this?” he asked.

“It’s similar to my great-grandfather’s cigarette case.”

“Wait a second.” He flipped back a few pages to the drawing of the earrings and pendant. He squinted at the scrawled writing he’d dismissed initially. In tiny letters he saw the words Bluetooth? and ear buds? “This isn’t jewelry, is it? These are gadgets. This isn’t a necklace, it’s a case for an MP3 player.”

She reached to pull the sketchbook from his hands. “You don’t need to poke fun at me.”

“I’m not.” He held the book just out of her reach. “I think it’s brilliant.”

Her gaze narrowed in suspicion as she stepped closer to him, still reaching for the notebook. “It’s completely unrealistic.”

“Says who?” he asked.

“Everyone I’ve ever showed it to.”