Kitabı oxu: «Lucky»
Praise for the work of USA TODAY bestselling author Jennifer Greene
“A book by Jennifer Greene hums with an unbeatable combination of sexual chemistry and heartwarming emotion.”
—New York Times bestselling author
Susan Elizabeth Phillips
“Jennifer Greene’s writing possesses a modern sensibility and frankness that is vivid, fresh, and often funny.”
—Publishers Weekly on The Woman Most Likely To
“Combining expertly crafted characters with lovely prose flavored with sassy wit, Greene constructs a superb tale of love lost and found, dreams discarded and rediscovered, and the importance of family and friendship…”
—Booklist on Where Is He Now?
“A spellbinding storyteller of uncommon brilliance, the fabulous Jennifer Greene is one of the romance genre’s greatest gifts to the world of popular fiction.”
—Romantic Times magazine
“Ms. Greene lavishes her talents on every book she writes.”
—Rendezvous
Jennifer Greene
Jennifer Greene sold her first novel when she had two babies in diapers. Since then, she’s become the award-winning, bestselling author of more than seventy novels. She’s known for her warm, natural characters and humor that comes from the heart. Reviewers call her love stories “unforgettable.” You can write Jennifer through her Web site at www.jennifergreene.com.
Lucky
Jennifer Greene
MILLS & BOON
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Foreword
This book is in no way a true story…except for one part. Years ago, someone I love dearly had a baby born with special problems—and who was misdiagnosed. The original prognosis for that baby was so dire that it seemed impossible to believe the baby had any kind of future. Yet that prognosis was wrong.
The story nestled in my heart for years until I had to write a book about it. It wasn’t just the baby that captured my heart. It was the crisis thrown at the parents. We all seem to grow up, very sure what’s right and wrong, very sure what we’d do if we were tested. Yet life can throw us a curveball that throws everything we believe right out the window.
I write romance because I truly believe that love has power—I gave my heroine that massive “curveball” in this story, because I think women can especially understand it.
Perhaps you’ve never had a problem remotely like the situation in the story. But I’ll bet you all grew up, aspiring to be good women, striving to do the right thing, intending to play by the rules. We’re raised with an unspoken promise that things will turn out fine as long as we’re “good girls.” Only life doesn’t always keep that promise.
It’s so hard to break the rules and risk all the things that make you safe. It’s so hard to find yourself alone, bucking the tide, when all you ever wanted was to be a good person and stay out of trouble.
It’s so hard to be more than you ever thought you could be.
This one’s for you, ladies.
Jennifer Greene
For STEPHANIE
No, sweetheart, this isn’t about you, because
I only write about pretend people. But I did
write it because I love you, and because
sometimes we all need someone to believe in us.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
PROLOGUE
D amned if her hands weren’t shaking.
Kasey sighed in exasperation. A year ago, she could never have imagined this moment—but then, a year ago, she’d believed she was the luckiest woman alive.
Thunder grumbled in the west as she hurried into the baby’s dark bedroom. Tess was lying in her crib, gnawing on a teething ring, wearing nothing but a diaper. Michigan in August was often hot, but this intense, smothering heat just kept coming. Normally Tess would have long been asleep by now, but the looming storm must have wakened her.
Curtains billowed wildly in the hot, nervous wind. Clouds hurtled across the sky, bringing pitchforks of sterling-silver lightning and a hiss of ozone. When the first fat raindrops smacked against the windows, lights flickered on and off—not that Kasey cared. She wasn’t worried whether the house lost power. She was worried whether she might.
She was born gutless. Pulling enough courage together to leave tonight was taking everything she had, everything she was—and she was still afraid that might not be enough.
“But you’re up for a little adventure, aren’t you, love bug?”
The baby kicked joyfully at the sound of her mother’s voice.
“That’s it. We’re just going to be calm and quiet, okay?” Well, one of them was. The baby softly babbled as Kasey swiftly changed her diaper and threaded on a lightweight sleeper.
A short time before, she’d stashed suitcases in the back of the Volvo, but she couldn’t leave quite yet. Quickly she packed a last bag with critical items—not diapers or clothes or money—but the things that mattered, like the jewel-colored mobile, the handmade quilt, and of course, the red velvet ball.
She juggled Tess and the bag, taking the back stairs, her heart slamming so hard she could hardly think. She grabbed rain gear on the way out. The garage was darker than a dungeon, yet Tess—who should have been tired enough to pull off a good, cranky tantrum—settled contentedly in her car seat. Kasey tossed in the rest of their debris and plunked down in the front.
It bit, taking the six-year-old Volvo. It wasn’t a car she’d paid for. It wasn’t a car she’d chosen. But compared to the new Mercedes and the sleek black Lotus and the Lexus SUV, it was the cheapest vehicle in the fleet, and God knew, the Volvo was built like a tanker.
A sturdy car wasn’t going to do her much good if she couldn’t get it moving, yet initially her fingers refused to cooperate. Yanking and snapping on the seat belt seemed to present an epic challenge. Then the key refused to fit in the lock. Finally she started the engine—which sounded like a sonic boom to her frantic ears—and then she almost forgot to push the garage door opener before backing out.
Her gaze kept shooting to the back door. Waiting for it to open. Afraid it would open. No matter how well she’d planned, no matter what she’d said, she was still afraid something or someone would find a way to stop her from leaving, stop her from taking Tess.
In an ideal world, she’d have made contingency plans—but she hadn’t been living in an ideal world for a long time now. She had no alternate plans, no contingency ideas.
This was it. Her one shot to tear apart her entire life in one fell swoop.
That thought was so monumentally intimidating that she considered having a full-scale nervous breakdown—but darn it, she didn’t have time. Her hand coiled on the gearshift and jerked it in reverse. The instant the car cleared the driveway, she gunned the accelerator.
Rain slooshed down in torrents, blurring her vision of the house and neighborhood. For so long she’d thought of Grosse Pointe as her personal Camelot. It struck her with a flash of irony that it really had been. She was the one who’d goofed up the happy-ever-after ending. She’d not only failed to follow the fairy-tale script, she’d somehow turned into the wicked character in the story.
Kasey knew people believed that. For months, she’d believed herself at fault, too—but no more.
She leaned forward, fooling with knobs and buttons. The windshield wipers struggled valiantly to keep up with the rain, but the defroster was losing ground. Steam framed the edges of the windows, creating a surreal, smoky world where it seemed as if nothing existed but her and the baby.
Kasey spared a quick, protective glance at her daughter. In that tiny millisecond, her heart swelled damn near to bursting. She’d never imagined the fierce, warm, irrevocable bond between mother and child until she’d had Tess. Sometimes she thought that love was bigger than both of them.
It still struck her as amazing, what even a spineless wuss—such as herself—would do for her child. And for love.
Emotions clogged in her throat, welled there, jammed there. Even now, she knew she could turn back. It was hard, not to want to be safe. Hard, to believe she had what it took to take this road.
By the standards of another life—the life she’d been living a year ago—Kasey knew absolutely that others would judge her behavior as wrong. Dead wrong, morally and ethically wrong, wrong in every way a woman could define the word.
A sudden clap of thunder shook the sky. The storm was getting worse, lightning scissoring and slashing the sky over the lake. When Kasey turned on Lakeshore Drive, Lake St. Clair was to her left, the water black and wild and spitting foam. There were no boats on the lake, no cars on the road. No one else was anywhere in sight.
Sane people had the sense to stay home in storms this rough.
At the first traffic light, she whipped her head around again, but Tess didn’t need checking on. The baby was wide awake and staring intently at the car windows, where streetlights reflected in the rain drooling down the glass.
The look in the baby’s eyes warmed Kasey. It didn’t suddenly miraculously make their situation all right—nothing could do that. But it was so easy to think of the storm as uncomfortable and unpleasant. Through the baby, Kasey saw the night diamonds, the magic in rain and light. Her vulnerable daughter had brought her miracles in every sense of the word.
Whatever frightening or traumatic things happened from here, she was simply going to have to find a way to cope with them.
The instant the traffic light turned green, she zoomed through the intersection. Quickly the lake disappeared behind them. The long sweeps of velvet lawns and elegant estates turned into ordinary streets. Lakeshore Drive changed its name when it got past the ritzy stuff. Kasey started sucking in great heaps of air at the same time.
The extra oxygen didn’t particularly help. She still couldn’t make her pulse stop zooming, her hands stop shaking. But it was odd. She didn’t really mind being shook up to beat the band. At least those feelings were real. She didn’t have to hide being anxious, being afraid—being who she was—anymore.
Love had the power to change a woman.
Kasey would never doubt that again.
The trick, of course, was for a woman to be able to tell the difference between life-transforming love and the kind of love that could destroy her.
She ran a yellow light. Then another. Courage started coming back in slow seeps. Of course, she was nervous and afraid. Who wouldn’t be?
She knew where she was going now. It was just hard to stop the questions from spinning in her mind.
How could she possibly have come to this point?
How did a nice, quiet, decent woman who’d always played by the rules get herself into such a situation?
How had the dream of her life become such a soul-destroying nightmare?
But the answers, of course, couldn’t be found in this night. The answers were steeped in the events over the past year. In fact, the whole story began almost a year ago to the day….
CHAPTER 1
“F or God’s sake, Kasey. No one’s killing you. You’re just having a baby!”
“Yeah, well, they told me all the pain would be in my head. None of it’s in my head!”
“Yelling and swearing isn’t going to help.”
Well, actually, she thought it might. She should have known it would happen to her this way. Breaking her water at a party—right in front of people she wanted to respect her, people Graham respected. Still, knowing she was going to die within the next hour definitely helped. It was a little depressing, realizing that peoples’ last memory of her would be with bloody water gushing down her legs in the middle of a dinner party. On the other hand, she’d be dead, so what was the point in worrying about it? For the same reason, there didn’t seem much point not to howl her heart out when the next pain hit, either.
As far as she could tell, she wasn’t likely to live through the next pain anyway.
“You wanted this baby,” Graham reminded her.
“Oh, Graham, I do. I do.”
“So try and get a grip. We’ll be at the hospital in fifteen minutes. Just stay here. I’ll run upstairs and get your suitcase and some towels for the car….”
He was gone, leaving Kasey in the kitchen alone for those few minutes. She sank against the white tile counter as another contraction started to swell.
Something was wrong with her. It wasn’t the stupid pain. They’d all lied about the pain—and she was going to stay alive long enough to kill the Lamaze instructor who promised that labor was simply work. It wasn’t work. It was torture, cut and dried. Yet Kasey fiercely, desperately, wanted this baby, and had expected to feel joyous when the blasted labor process finally started.
Instead, she felt increasingly overcome by a strange, surreal sense of panic. Goofy thoughts kept pouncing in her mind. This wasn’t her house. This wasn’t her life. This wasn’t really happening to her.
As the contraction finally ebbed, leaving her forehead flushed with sweat, she stared blankly around the high-tech kitchen. She realized perfectly well that anxiety was causing those foolish thoughts, yet the acres of stainless steel appliances and miles of white tile really didn’t seem to be hers. She’d never have chosen a white floor for a kitchen. The doorway led to a dining room with ornate Grecian furniture that she’d never chosen, either. The dining room led into a great room with cream carpeting and cream furniture—Graham had chosen all that stuff before they’d married, wanting a neutral color like crème to set off the artwork on the walls. He was a collector.
But now, the more she looked around, the more she felt a building panic roaring in her ears. This whole last year, she’d basked in a feeling of BEING LUCKY so big, so rich, so magical that she just wanted to burst with it. She’d found a true prince in Graham, when at thirty-eight, she’d given up believing she’d find anyone at all. And living in Grosse Pointe was like living in her own private Camelot—which it was, it really was. It was just that this crazy panic was blindsiding her. Maybe it had all been a dream. She didn’t live here. How could she possibly live here? She didn’t DO elegant. Cripes, she didn’t even LIKE elegant.
Not that she’d ever complained. Graham had said too many times that his ex-wife, Janelle, had been a nonstop complainer.
It wasn’t as if she spent much time in the fancy-dancy parts of the house, besides. With the baby coming, the kitchen was the room that mattered, and all the high-tech appliances were a cook’s dream. Still, the dishes were bone china. Heirlooms. Beautiful—but it was darn hard to imagine a baby in a high chair, drinking milk from a lead crystal glass and slopping up cereal from a 22-karat-gold-rimmed bowl onto that virgin-white tile floor.
Shut up, Kasey. Just shut your mind up. Another pain was coming. This one felt like lightning on the inside, as if something sharp and jagged was trying to rip her apart. Then came the twisting sensation, as if an elephant were swollen in her stomach and trying to squeeze through a space smaller than a spy hole.
She opened her mouth to scream her entire heart out, when Graham suddenly jogged into the room. “All right, I reached Dr. Armstrong. He’ll meet us at the hospital. You holding up okay?”
Of course she wasn’t okay. She couldn’t conceivably be less okay. She was wrinkled, stained, shaky, and positively within minutes of death by agony. Graham, typically, looked ready to host a yacht club outing. Abruptly—and with all the grace of a walrus—she pushed away from the counter and aimed for the back door. “Which car are we taking?”
“The Beemer. Easiest to clean the leather seats if we have to. Although I brought towels.”
For an instant she thought, Come on, Graham, couldn’t you think for one second about the baby instead of fussing over getting a stain in a car? But even letting that thought surface shamed her.
Her attitude had sucked all day, when she knew perfectly well that Graham was unhappy about the coming baby. During their courtship, he’d been bluntly honest about wanting no children—he adored his nearly grown daughter, but that was the point. He’d done the fatherhood thing. At this life stretch he wanted Kasey, alone, a romantic relationship with just the two of them.
Maybe there was a time when Kasey fiercely wanted children, but even at thirty-eight, there were increased health risks with a pregnancy. More than that, she’d already settled into a life without kids—and she loved Graham and everything about her life with him, so it just wasn’t that hard to go along with his choice.
Birth control hadn’t failed them so much as life had. She’d tracked conception down to the week she’d had a bad flu and couldn’t hold anything down—including her birth control pills. By the time she’d recovered, the fetus already had a grab-hold on life. If the problem had never happened, Kasey would undoubtedly have been happy as things were—but once she realized that she was pregnant…well, there was only one chance of a baby for her. This one.
She wanted this baby more than she wanted her own breath, even her own life. It was her one shot at motherhood. She just couldn’t give it up.
And she totally understood that Graham wasn’t happy about it—but there was no fixing that yet. Once the baby was born, she could work on him, make sure he never felt neglected, take care to shower him with love. Besides which, once the baby was born and Graham held the little one, Kasey felt certain the baby would win his heart. It’d all work out.
If she just didn’t blow it in the meantime.
“I love you,” she said in the car.
“I love you, too, hon.” But immediately he fell silent, steering through the quiet night, his profile pale as chalk. Dribbles accumulated on the windshield. Not rain, just the promise of it. She heard a siren somewhere, the thunk of the occasional windshield wiper, and realized that she was doing better. The pains were easing up, not one galloping right after the other now.
Randolph Hospital loomed ahead. Graham pulled up to the emergency-room door where a sign read NO PARKING UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. The hospital looked more like an elegant estate than a medical facility, with security lights glowing on the landscaped grounds and garden sculptures.
Graham slammed out of the car. “I’ll get a wheelchair or a gurney. I hate to leave you alone, Kasey, but I promise I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll be fine.”
But she wasn’t fine. He’d barely disappeared inside before another lumpy gush of blood squeezed between her legs. How come no one ever said labor was a total gross out? Certainly not that nauseatingly cheerful Lamaze instructor. And then another pain sliced her in half, so sharp, so mean, that she couldn’t catch her breath.
Pain was one thing. Being scared out of her mind was another. She fumbled for the door handle, thinking that she’d crawl inside the hospital if she had to—anything was better than dying here alone in the dark. She got the door open. Got both feet out. But then the cramping contraction took hold and owned her. She cried out—to hell with bravery and pride and adulthood and how much she wanted this baby. If she lived through this, and that was a big IF, she was never having sex again, and that was for damn sure.
The emergency-room doors swung open. She didn’t actually notice the man until she heard the clip of boot steps jogging toward her, and suddenly he was there, hunkering down by the open curb.
“You need help?”
“No, no. Yes. I mean—my husband’s coming. It’s just that right now—” The pain was just like teeth that bit and ripped.
“What do you want me to do? Get you inside? Stay with you? What? I can carry you—”
“No. It’s—no. Just stay. Please. I—” She wasn’t really looking at him, wasn’t really seeing him. Her whole world right then was about babies and labor and pain. Still, there was something about him that arrested her attention. Something in his face, his eyes.
Their whole conversation couldn’t have taken two minutes. She only really saw him in a flash. Background light dusted his profile, sharpened his features. He was built tall and lanky, with dark eyes and hair, had to be in his early forties or so. His clothes were nondescript, the guy-uniform in Grosse Pointe of khakis and polo shirt, but his looked more worn-in than most. He looked more worn in than most. The thick, dark hair was walnut, mixed with a little cinnamon. The square chin had a cocky tilt, the shoulders an attitude—but it was his eyes that hooked her.
He had old eyes. Beautiful brown eyes. Eyes that held a lot of pain, had seen a lot of life. In the middle of the private hospital parking lot, mosquitoes pesking around her neck, panting out of the contraction, scared and hot…yet she felt a pull toward him. He exuded some kind of separateness, a loneliness.
She knew about loneliness.
Of course, that perception took all of a minisecond—and suddenly the emergency-room doors were clanging open again. The man glanced up, then back at her. “Damn. You’re Graham Crandall’s wife? And you’re having your baby in this hospital?”
His question and tone confused her. She started to answer, but there was never a chance. Graham noticed the man, said something to him—called him “Jake”—but then he disappeared from her sight. The world descended on her. In typical take-charge fashion, Graham had brought out an entire entourage—a wheelchair, three people in different medical uniforms, Dr. Armstrong.
Graham was midstream in conversation with the doctor. “I don’t care what you have to do. She comes first. No exceptions, no discussion. You make sure she’s all right and gets through this. And I want her to have something for the pain. Immediately.”
“Mr. Crandall—Graham—first, I need to examine her, and then everything else will follow in due course. I swear that I’ve never yet lost a father—”
“I don’t want to hear your goddamn reassuring patter, and forget trying to humor me. I want your promise that nothing is going to happen to my wife.”
“Graham.” Kasey had to swallow. She’d never seen her husband out of control. Graham didn’t do out of control. And love suddenly swelled through her, putting the pain in perspective, reassuring her like nothing else could have. “I’m just having a baby. Really, I’m fine. The pain scared me. I didn’t realize it was going to be this bad—”
“I’ll take care of this, Kasey.” Graham cut her off, and rounded on Dr. Armstrong again. “I don’t care what it costs. I don’t care how many people or what it takes—you don’t let anything happen to my wife. You understand?”
The next few hours were a blur of hospital lights and hospital smells. The labor room was decorated to look like a living room, with a chintz couch and TV and even a small kitchenette. Dr. Armstrong did the initial exam. As always, he was patient and calm and as steadfast as a brick.
“But I can’t be only three centimeters dilated! You have to be kidding! I thought I was in transition because of the amount of pain.”
“I’m going to give you something to help you relax, Kasey.”
“I don’t want to relax! I want to get to ten centimeters and get this over with! And I want to be able to see the fetal monitor! Is our baby okay?”
“Your baby’s just fine,” Dr. Armstrong said reassuringly, but he hadn’t even looked. What was the point of being all trussed up with the fetal monitor if no one was even going to look at it? “You can have ice chips. And your husband can rub your back. And you can watch TV or listen to music….”
She just wanted it over with. But at least, once they all left her alone with Graham, she thought she could get a better hold on her fears and emotions. Later—an hour, or two, who knew?—she remembered the man outside, and thought to ask Graham who he was.
“Name is Jake McGraw. Used to be from the neighborhood.”
“I thought you called him by name, so I was pretty sure you knew him.”
“Yeah, I knew him. He’s Joe’s son. You’ve heard of Joe, used to be one of GM’s high-step attorneys. Money from generations back. Joe had a heart attack a while ago, put Jake back in the neighborhood now and then to help his father.”
“So that’s why he was at the hospital?” God. Another pain was coming on. How many did you get before you’d paid your dues? And now she knew you didn’t die from the little ones, because there were lots, lots, lots bigger ones after that.
“I don’t know why he was at the hospital. Forget him, Kasey. He’s a loser. An alcoholic.”
“Really?” For an instant she pictured those old, beautiful eyes again.
“Was part of a big fancy law firm, wife from the Pointe, fast lane all the way. Had a wild marriage, and I mean capital W wild. Gave one party that started out in GP and ended up in Palm Springs. They both played around, until some point when Jake went off the deep end. Or so they say. He’s got a teenage son, Danny, lives with his ex-wife. Doesn’t practice law anymore. You hearing me? He’s bad news all the way. Lost everything. And deserved to.”
“You never mentioned him before—”
“Why would I? And it beats me why we’re talking about him now.”
And then they weren’t. She’d only asked the question in passing. The man wasn’t on her mind. Nothing was, as the minutes wore on and the night deepened and darkened. Somewhere in the wing, a woman screamed. A door was immediately closed, sealing out the sound. The nurse came and went. Graham survived for a while—at least the first couple hours—but then he started pacing.
“Do you want some more ice chips, Kase? Are you cold? Warm? Want to watch any specific show on the tube?”
His solicitousness was endearing—except that every time a pain ripped through her, he paced again, like a panther who wanted to throw himself against the bars. Anything—but be trapped in here. “Graham, go out,” she said finally.
“No way. I’m not leaving you.”
“I know you’re willing to stay. But this is hard…harder than I thought. And to be honest, I believe I’ll handle the pain better if I’m alone. I’ve always been that way. Go on, you. Go get some coffee, or something to eat. Don’t feel guilty, just go.”
He kissed her, hard, on the forehead, squeezed her hand. But eventually she talked him into leaving.
She’d lied about wanting to be alone. The truth was, she desperately wanted Graham to be with her, yet he was obviously miserable, seeing her in pain. And for a while, for a long time, the fear completely left. Medical help was just a call away, and so was her husband, so it seemed easier to relax. She inhaled the silence. The peace. The feeling as if there was no one in the universe but her and the baby.
She cut all the lights but one, shut off the television. In between contractions, she rubbed her tummy, talking softly to her baby. This was about the two of them. No one else. “You’re going to love your room. I bought you a teddy bear the size of a Santa, and the toy box is already filled. The wallpaper is balloons in jewel colors, and over your crib, I set up real jewels dangling from a mobile—amethyst, citrine, jade, pink quartz. When the sun comes, you won’t believe what brilliant crystal patterns it makes on the wall. And there’s a wonderful, big old rocker. You and I are going to rock and sing songs, and I’m never going to let you cry, never….”
An hour passed, then another. Suddenly a pain seared through her that was different from all the others.
Finally, she thought, the transition stage. All the books claimed this stage was the hardest—but it also meant that they were nearing the end. Soon enough she’d hold the real baby in her arms after all these months.
Another pain. Just like that one, only worse. More of the fire, more of the scalding feeling of being ripped apart. She hit the button for the nurse, then hit it again.
No one came.
Now she realized what a sissy she’d been before, because these contractions were completely different. And possibly that’s why no one was coming now, because they thought she’d been crying wolf? Only Graham…where was he? Surely they wouldn’t leave her much longer without someone checking on her?
This wasn’t pain where she could scream or yell like before. This was pain so intense that it took all her concentration to just endure. This wasn’t about whining how she could die; this was about believing for real that she may not survive this. Agony lanced through her, again and again, not ceasing, not letting up, not giving her a chance to catch her breath. Her body washed in sweat. Fear filled her mind like clouds in a stormy sky, pushing together, growling and thundering. She wanted her mom. She wanted Graham. She wanted someone, anyone. She pushed and pushed and pushed the call button, but she had no possible way to get up out of bed and seek help on her own, not by then.
Finally the door opened a crack. Then a nurse’s voice. “Good God.” Then…lights and bodies and motion and more pain. “There, Kasey, you’re doing good—it’s going to be all over very soon.” By then she didn’t care anymore—or, if she cared, she couldn’t find the energy to respond.
Pulsuz fraqment bitdi.
