Sherryl Woods - Seaview Inn

“You know I can’t do that. There’s a family crisis and I need to handle it.”

“You’ve had a lot of crises lately,” Dave said. “Maybe this job isn’t as important to you as it once was.”

Hannah gasped at his insensitivity. “Do you honestly think I chose to have breast cancer just so I could inconvenience you? Do you think I wanted my mom to die or my grandmother to have difficulty coping with that, so I could take more time off?”

He backed down at once. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have phrased it that way. I know you’ve been through hell, but you’re the best person on this team. When you’re out of the office, it has an impact.”

“Nice save,” she said dryly. “Look, it’s only for a couple of weeks. I gave Carl notes on every single thing that needs to be done, along with the deadlines. Maybe you need to look over his shoulder for the next couple of weeks and make sure he follows through. If that doesn’t work, then I’m not the one to blame.”

Dave sighed. “I know he’s not pulling his weight around here. That’s why I assigned him to work with you. I thought maybe your organizational skills would rub off on him.”

“You always were a dreamer,” she said lightly. It was one of the reasons they’d always worked well together. She’d been his first hire after he and Lou Morgan had opened the firm fifteen years ago. He was a genius when it came to thinking up unique PR campaigns for their clients, but Hannah was the one who kept the projects on schedule, pacified nervous actors and authors and contributed her own share of creative ideas. He also counted on her not to mince words, so she didn’t now. “Dave, you’ve given Carl more than enough chances. Maybe it’s time to think about cutting your losses and letting him go. Get someone in that position who can cut it.”

“You’re probably right,” he admitted with obvious reluctance. “If I hadn’t promised my wife that I’d give the guy a break, I’d have fired him months ago. He’s her nephew and she adores him. Do you know the kind of grief I’m going to get if I let him go?”

“Compare that to the grief you’re already taking from clients like Ron Parker,” she said. “Look, I’ll call Ron now and fix this mess, but there can’t be a next time, Dave. You know that.”

“Yeah, I know it. Hurry back, okay?”

“Two weeks,” she reminded him. “You’ll hardly notice I’m gone.”

“That’s a joke. You weren’t out the door two minutes when we had our first crisis.”

“Careful,” she warned. “I’ll start to think I’m indispensable and you’ll have to give me a raise.”

She hung up slowly, then spent several minutes tamping down her annoyance over Carl’s screwup before calling Ron Parker and apologizing profusely. Fortunately, he was a reasonable guy, and the promise of a few perks on his next PR campaign calmed him down.

“I’m sorry Dave bothered you on your vacation,” he told her. “I was still angry when I spoke to him, so I was blowing off steam. I was never going to take my business elsewhere. You’re the best, Hannah. So is Dave.”

“And we love working with you. We’ll get together for lunch as soon as I’m back in town. You pick the place and it’s on me.”

“It ought to be on that idiot Carl Mason,” he said. “Enjoy your vacation and don’t worry about any of this, okay?”

“Thanks for understanding.”

When she finally got off the phone, she felt drained. Her head was still pounding, though the caffeine and aspirin were starting to kick in. One more cup of coffee and she might be able to cope with Grandma Jenny and whatever she had in store to destroy her peace of mind today.

* * *

“I don’t understand why you’re going to Florida,” Jeff told Kelsey as she packed her suitcase. “This is no time to go running off when we have so many things that need to be settled.”

“Things are settled, Jeff. No matter what you say, I am not going to marry you, and that’s final.”

“But we’re having a baby!” he said, as if she needed reminding.

“I’m the one having it,” she retorted. “Not you. I’m the one whose entire life has to go on hold because we were stupid one night and had sex without a condom.”

Jeff paled. “And that’s my fault. I accept that. It was stupid, but no matter how many times I say I’m sorry, it won’t change anything. Now we have to deal with where we are. I love you. I want to marry you. I want us to be a family. I wanted that before you got pregnant and I want it now.”

“And I’ve told you that I’m not ready to get married,” she said.

They’d been arguing like this for two solid weeks now, ever since she’d seen a doctor and told Jeff about the baby. Sometimes she wished she’d kept the news to herself, but she’d known how unfair that would be. What she hadn’t realized was how pressured she’d feel now that Jeff wanted to do what he saw as the right thing.

For him, the baby was only a tiny blip on a road he’d apparently mapped out when they’d first started dating last year. For her it changed everything. It took away her options and backed her into a corner. It wasn’t that she didn’t love him or that she didn’t envision them having a future together...eventually. It was about being forced into making a premature decision, one far too important to be made in haste.

She was a child of divorce, and while her mother had done everything in her power to see that Kelsey never wanted for anything, Kelsey had never stopped wishing that she’d come from a two-parent home. She and her dad barely had any relationship at all beyond an occasional check at Christmas or for her birthday and even rarer phone calls. In the beginning she’d seen him at least occasionally, but then he’d remarried, had more kids and the kind of family life she’d always wanted.

Now, here she was, willing to deny her own child what she’d missed most during her own childhood. She understood the irony in that, but so far she hadn’t been able to talk herself into backing down. She was convinced that if she rushed into marriage with Jeff because of the baby, they’d never have a real chance to make it work. She doubted she’d be able to hide her resentment, and that would poison their relationship.

Sighing, she sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled Jeff down beside her. Sitting thigh to thigh, even under these circumstances, she could feel the chemistry between them, chemistry that had been there from the time they’d first met. He wasn’t like the preppy guys she’d always dated. He was offbeat, a little bit of a nerd. His dark brown hair was almost always in need of a cut, not out of rebellion, but simply because he forgot about it.

It was his eyes, though, that had drawn her in. They were like melted chocolate, and when they were focused on her, their intensity made her pulse scramble.

His wardrobe, while not totally atypical of that of all the kids around them, was a horror—faded jeans, T-shirts and ancient sneakers. It offended Kelsey’s fashion sense, developed by associating with some of her mom’s designer clients, but she’d seen beyond the clothes to the really good person he was. Only after they’d been dating for months had she learned that he was from a wealthy San Francisco family and that he was somewhat of a computer genius, who’d already amassed a small fortune himself with software he’d designed.

Sitting beside him now, she stared straight ahead, afraid that if she looked into his eyes, she’d give in and agree to marry him. It was the simplest solution to her predicament, but one she was determined to resist.

“You know that I’m not saying no because I don’t love you, right?” she asked softly.

“You’re saying no because you’re stubborn,” he countered. “We’ve been talking about marriage for months now. All this changes is the timetable.”