Jessie's Expecting. Кейси Майклс

open. As if Jessica Chandler had ever even chewed gum. “Lousy?” she repeated loudly. “Did you say lousy?”

      Belatedly, Jessica realized that they had an audience of three small children and their quite interested mother, who was probably delighted to have some excitement in a day otherwise filled by sand stuck to her sunscreened legs, kids crying because they didn’t want to leave the beach, and the prospect of having to wash all the beach towels before returning to the beach after lunch.

      Well, too bad. Jessica wasn’t feeling much like putting some high drama in the woman’s life. Let her find her own and see just how much fun it was—not.

      Now it was her turn to take hold of Matt’s arm, pull him along behind her as she headed for the porch, the screen door and the privacy of the kitchen.

      “Lousy?” she said yet again, as the screen door slammed back into place. “You know what? That’s the perfect word. Lousy. We made love, you regretted it the next morning, and told me so. How do you expect me to feel about something like that, Matt? Flattered?”

      “I know, Jessica, I know,” Matt said, silently marveling at the sudden color in her usually pale cheeks, the hint of fire in her usually placid, blue eyes, the way her hair swirled around her face.

      She looked…disheveled. He’d never seen her disheveled. She looked cute rather than coolly, icily beautiful; and eminently touchable.

      He rather liked it.

      “If I could have kicked myself all the way here, Jess, I would have,” he continued quickly. “The moment the words were out of my mouth I knew they were wrong. Clumsy. I meant to apologize for taking advantage of you, of your sympathy for me…and I ended up sounding like some stiff-necked, jackassed idiot.”

      “No kidding!” Jessica responded, even while marveling in the new freedom she felt; the freedom to be angry and let him know she was angry. Hey, maybe some of these new, enhanced hormones weren’t so bad after all. “I think the words that really put the capper on it were when you promised me it would never happen again. Like, hey, I was sort of drunk, feeling pretty abused, so I grabbed the first woman who offered herself to me, the closest one, and used her. Do you really think I can be used, Matthew Garvey, that I would allow myself to be used? Do you know how insulting that is?”

      Matt opened his mouth to say something and she rescued him, knowing he was going to put his foot in his mouth again by saying “I’m sorry, Jess.” If he had said that, he’d be history, out the back door before he knew what hit him.

      But Jessica did interrupt him, did save his hide with her next words, words that popped out of her mouth before she could rethink them, edit them into something less revealing. “Well, you know what, buddy, I’m not sorry it happened. I’m not the least bit sorry. Now, what do you have to say to that?”

      Matt smiled, slowly, letting the smile pass above his mouth, enter his eyes. “Thank you?” he offered, then pretended to duck.

      All at once all the anger in Jessica evaporated, like dew on a hot summer morning. “Idiot,” she said, walking over to one of the cabinets and pulling out two glasses. “Want some lemonade? It’s a two-and-a-half-hour drive here from Allentown. You’ve got to be thirsty.”

      “It’s Saturday, Jessica,” he reminded her, willing to change the subject for the moment, watching as she retrieved a glass jug from the refrigerator and poured them each tall, cold glasses of pulpy, homemade lemonade. “I started out before six and I’ve been on the road for four hours, mostly following minivans with jammed roof racks and bicycles tied to the back bumpers. I guess I forgot that Saturday is the traditional starting date for most people’s vacations. But once I found out where you were, which was yesterday, by the way, I couldn’t think of anything else except getting here.”

      “How flattering,” Jessica said, handing him a glass, then sitting down at the large pine wood table with her own glass. “And you’ll notice that I’m not asking you who gave you that information.”

      Matt chuckled, relaxing even more. He was here, he was in the house, Jessica wasn’t killing him, and he might just get to stay. “What did we used to say as kids? I’ll give you three guesses and the first two don’t count? Yeah, I’m sure that was it.”

      “Allie,” Jessica said, sighing as she took her first swallow of the wonderfully tart liquid. She’d had her quota of milk for the day and deserved a treat. “Tell me, did she draw you a map, too?”

      He shook his head. “No need. Remember, I’ve been here before.”

      Jessica stiffened perceptibly and Matt quickly thought, There’s another old saying you forgot, you jerk. Two steps forward and one back. Sure, he’d been to the Chandler summer home before today. With Maddy, right after their engagement had been announced. They’d had a fairly large engagement party in this house, as a matter of fact.

      “Oh, yes,” Jessica said after a moment. “I forgot. Maddy and Joe are back home, aren’t they?”

      “They arrived the day after you left,” Matt told her, trying to pretend he didn’t notice the two new flags of hot, rather embarrassed pink in Jessica’s cheeks. “Tanned and happy and already tearing into the dozens of crates they’d sent back from overseas. I don’t know if their house is going to be Restoration or Victorian England, but they surely did ship home enough antiques to open their own branch of Sotheby’s.”

      Jessica smiled a little at this, knowing her art-history-major sister’s tastes that ran from the finest antiques to garish neon lava lamps. “I think we can safely say the furnishing will be eclectic. And she probably sent home a ton of cookbooks and any kitchen gadget she could find. Joe doesn’t know it, but he’s married himself quite the domestic goddess. I’ll bet he’s overweight within six months unless he works out.”

      Then her smile faded as she asked, “How are you doing, Matt? Is it uncomfortable for you…seeing Maddy and Joe together, that is?”

      Now here was a perfect time for the truth. The time to tell Jessica what her brother, Ryan, already had guessed. What Allie had somehow figured out months earlier, so that she made sure Joe had come back into the picture. The perfect time to tell Jessica that he had been about to call off the wedding when Maddy had come to him and confessed that she’d been engaged to Joe O’Malley a few years ago, that he was back in her life and that she loved him.

      However, the moment he told Jessica that, she’d have to realize that he hadn’t taken—that ubiquitous word—comfort from her that night in the gazebo because of his broken heart.

      He might have been able to do that, weeks ago. Before those impulsive, heart-shattering moments in the gazebo.

      But not now. Not when he knew Jessica was carrying his child.

      She would never believe him. She might think that he’d taken advantage of her. The fact that he had taken what she’d offered so sweetly, without confessing his love for her, wasn’t much comfort to him.

      She might even think that Almira had told him about the pregnancy, and that was why he was here now, to pretend to have fallen in love with her, to marry her out of guilt or pity or some other equally despicable motive.

      So, knowing Ryan would never betray him, and praying Maddy would keep her mouth shut, he did the most obvious thing. The most logical thing. The most damning thing, but for all the best reasons.

      He lied, played the pity card. Shamelessly.

      “I’m okay, Jess. I’m beginning to see that Maddy made the right choice,” he said, avoiding Jessica’s eyes.

      Jessica sucked in her lips, wet them with the tip of her tongue. “I see. Always the gentleman, Matt, aren’t you? Maddy waited until a few days before the wedding, then told you she was in love with another man. A near billionaire, if the news magazines are right, not that Joe was anything near to wealthy when Maddy first fell in love with him.”

      She cocked her head to one side, looked out at him from between slitted eyelids. “Joe’s