Cut To The Chase. Julie Kistler

far as she knew. When she didn’t react, he said again, “I wasn’t stalking you. Just surveilling.”

      “Surveilling isn’t even a word.” So he wasn’t from Julian or Shelby. Not from the Enquirer. Who else could it be? The Post wouldn’t send a reporter this far, would they? And no reporter worth his salt would use a word like “surveilling.”

      Sean Calhoun, whoever he was, waited patiently, just watching her, not bothering to argue about the “surveilling” thing.

      “Just tell me,” she snapped. “Who sent you?”

      “Well, if you must know, my mother,” he said finally.

      Maybe that would’ve made sense under better circumstances. Did he just say his mother? “Are you kidding? Why? Is she a fan?”

      “Uh, no. Definitely not,” he responded with an edge of sarcasm that didn’t add up any more than the rest of it.

      What, he was stalking her because she’d given advice his mom didn’t like on The Shelby Show? “I don’t need this right now,” she told him, pressing one hand into her tummy and waving the other one at him. “I’m sick as a dog, I don’t know who you are, and… And I’m not coping very well!”

      “Okay, okay.” He advanced on her again, holding up his hands—with her baseball cap in one and her coat draped over the other—as if to show he didn’t have a weapon. “I’m not going to hurt you in any way, okay? You need to just calm down.”

      “I hate it when people tell me to calm down!” Abra returned hotly. “Not that anyone ever needed to before this whole mess, because I was always perfectly calm. Not that they need to now, either, for that matter. It’s none of your business whether I’m calm or not!”

      After that outburst, which sounded irrational even to her own ears, he muttered an oath, turned away, and then spun back around, his expression dark and brooding. “Look, I just need to know one thing and then I won’t bother you anymore. The baby…”

      She kept her mouth shut, staring at the ground, refusing to confirm or acknowledge anything.

      Finally, he came out with it. “Is it my father’s?”

      She swung back around to look at him, utterly and completely mystified. His father? She didn’t know him or his father. Why on earth would he think her baby had anything to do with his father? “Who is your father?”

      “Michael Calhoun.”

      “But I’ve never met…”

      “Park benches? Chicago?” he prompted.

      “No!” she returned quickly. What in the world was this all about? “Me? Park benches? Chicago? No!”

      He kept up the interrogation. “Were you at O’Hare a few days ago? Asking about buses to Champaign?”

      “Yes, I came though O’Hare. But I don’t under—” Until all at once, gazing at him and his suspicious expression, it sunk in.

      He thinks I’m someone else.

      Could she be that lucky? Abra scrutinized him, adding up the clues. He didn’t appear to be delusional, so the logical conclusion was that it was a simple mistake.

      He wanted to know if his father was the father of her baby. And hadn’t he said his mother had sent him? Of course she did, if she thought her husband was cheating and making babies. But not with Abra Holloway, because no one would be looking for Abra here. With some other woman. So Mom had sent him to find the woman her husband was cheating with, and for some reason, he’d gotten his signals crossed and thought that woman was her.

      Which meant he had no idea that he’d stumbled over Abra Holloway, missing celebrity. None at all.

      Filled with relief and a strange sense of euphoria, Abra began to laugh. Considering the circumstances, it was a little weird to be hooting with laughter, but she couldn’t help it. She could tell by Sean’s expression that her reaction had taken him by surprise, too.

      He thought she was someone else. Phew.

      “I’m sorry,” she managed, finally getting herself under control. “I’m sorry you’re going through whatever it is you’re going through with your parents. I’m sure it’s not easy being sent to stalk your dad’s illicit girlfriend.”

      “Wait a minute—”

      But Abra kept on talking. “You have my sympathies. Really. But I can promise you that I am not in any way involved in your family’s domestic drama.”

      “You’re sure?” he persisted. “Because you look like—”

      “I don’t care who I look like. I’m not her.” Now she was starting to get mad. “I’ve never met you, I’ve never met your father, and I can’t think of even one Calhoun in my acquaintance.”

      “Maybe he used a different name,” he tried.

      “Not under any name. It may surprise you, but I do actually know with whom I have been, um, intimate.” She leaned over far enough to grab her baseball cap out of his hand and secure it on her head, and then she reached for her coat, but he held it away. “My fiancé is thirty years old and he lives in New York. What are you, twenty-seven, twenty-eight?”

      He nodded.

      “So even if I did think that Julian had a double life and a secret family in Chicago, which is absurd, he’s not old enough to be your father. Satisfied?”

      He seemed to consider the issue, which only made her angrier.

      “It’s not me!” she repeated, more forcefully this time. “And that’s far more of my personal business than you need to know.”

      He didn’t say anything, just looked pensive.

      “This is insulting,” she muttered. “Do I really look like the sort of person who would sleep with a married man twice her age? And have assignations on park benches? It’s so trashy!”

      Now that she had worked through panic, relief and hysteria, a new emotion was starting to set in. Ever since she’d figured out she was pregnant, it had been like this, tripping from one emotional quagmire into the next.

      So here she was, Abra Holloway, media star, beginning to feel a little aggravated that her gorgeous rescuer, so concerned, holding her coat, feeling her forehead, didn’t recognize the real her.

      Of course, if he did recognize her, it would’ve been a disaster beyond disasters. But now that he didn’t, she was free to feel insulted.

      But not insulted enough to stick around long enough for him to figure it out. Collecting herself, she snatched her coat away from him. She couldn’t bear to put it back on, but she crumpled it into her arms as she began to look around for her missing sunglasses. “Where are they? My sunglasses fell off when I started to…”

      “I think you stepped on them,” Sean offered. “They’re in three pieces. Over there.”

      Ah well. It was too late for sunglasses or any other disguise. Sean Calhoun had already seen way too much of her.

      “Okay, well, never mind. Thank you for your help. Good luck with your, uh, situation. With your father, I mean.” Abra swept away from the tree, past Sean Calhoun, her head held high. But she couldn’t help turning back.

      “What?” he asked. “What is it?”

      She really shouldn’t. But she did. Quickly, she offered, “My suggestion is that you open up lines of communication within the family, maybe even go in for family counseling with both your parents. Instead of sneaking around following women you think might be the one, just ask your father if he has a girlfriend. And then take it from there. That’s my advice.”

      He raised an eyebrow. “Thanks. I think,” he said after a moment. Was that a smile playing around his lips again?

      “You’re,