The Surprise of a Lifetime, Page 2

  “Ready?” he asked, when the struggle seemed to be sub­siding.

  She nodded.

  He slid his arms beneath and around her. His feet were wet and quickly growing numb, but compared to what she was about to endure, he supposed frostbite was nothing. He took a tentative step backward and swung her into the air. With relief he realized that he probably was going to be able to carry her. She wasn’t as light as a feather, but even with the extra weight she was toting, she was a small woman. If he could get up the embankment without slipping and over the mound of snow to the road, they would make it.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Just…get me out of here!”

  “Well, Get-me-out-of-here, hang on tight.” He started forward. All he could see of her now was shining hair. Her cheek was against his chest, but he thought she was sobbing. “We’re going to get you to the hospital. Was that where you were heading?”

  “Yes. No. My doctor…”

  He tested his path, one careful step at a time. The em­bankment was slippery, but not the problem he had feared it would be. “You were trying to get to the hospital but couldn’t make it?”

  “The storm knocked out…my phone. My doctor lives… I was trying…”

  “To get to him,” he finished. “Bad luck all the way around. Is he close by? I sure as hell hope he’s close by.” He gripped her harder as she groaned again. He was very much afraid that she was having another contraction.

  “Down this road…”

  “Where’s your husband? Shouldn’t he be with you?”

  “Bastard!”

  So it was like that. Devin wasn’t surprised. Men were fa­mous for abandoning women who got pregnant unexpect­edly. Something akin to rage filled him. He would like to find the man who had done this to her, then left her alone to have their baby in the middle of a blizzard. “Look, don’t you worry.” He gripped her tighter and took another step. “I’ll stay with you if you want. I’ll see you through this. I’m going to make sure you’re fine.”

  She was sobbing loudly now. If he gripped her any tighter he would bruise her badly. He didn’t know how to comfort her. They both needed comfort, so he began to sing. Softly. To the top of her head. He made it up the embankment be­fore he realized what song he’d chosen. Not one of his greatest hits. Not one of Frozen Flame’s. It was the lullaby his mother had sung to him every night until her death early in his childhood.

  The song that he had been hearing in his head for the past weeks.

  He spoke without thinking. “I’ll be damned….”

  “You are damned…Devin…Fitzgerald.”

  He was poised with one leg over the snow mound when she spoke. He was frozen for a moment. Not from the bru­tal gusts of wind that could turn a man to ice. But from her words and a terrible revelation.

  He swallowed an answer and a question. He stepped over the mound and nearly stumbled, but somehow he managed to keep them both upright. Then he started across the road and down to his car. He was silent, and the only parts of him that seemed to be working were his legs. The rest of him was suspended and waiting.

  He made it to the car, balancing her against it as he opened the passenger door. Then he settled her inside.

  And in the beam of the overhead light he finally saw her face.

  He couldn’t remember her name, but she had remem­bered his. “Get me down this road, then get…out of my life!” she said between gritted teeth.

  He squatted beside the open door, squatted in the snow and the wind and the near darkness. But the car light shone clearly on her face. “Is this my baby?” he whispered.

  “Not…in a…million years!”

  But Devin knew the truth, even as she began to cry again. The child this woman was carrying belonged to him, as surely as the woman had belonged to him for one magical spring night the previous year.

  He remembered that April night as clearly as if it were yesterday. He wondered if she was remembering it, too.

  CHAPTER TWO

  A sea of daffodils danced in a light spring breeze outside the town-house window, and somewhere nearby a blue jay squawked displeasure at a tabby cat curled up in the sun­shine. April was in full bloom in Ohio, but Robin Lansing didn’t have time to notice.

  “So you think I should wear the green dress?” Robin held up two dresses for her best friend to examine.

  Judy McAllister frowned and shook her head. “The red. Sexier. And wear your hair down.”

  “I’m not supposed to be sexy. I’m supposed to be profes­sional. I’m representing the paper. I’m trying to get Devin Fitzgerald to give me an interview, not a back rub.”

  “You’ll have a better chance at both in the red dress,” Judy said wryly. “First you have to get him to notice you.”

  “I have as much chance of speaking to him as the man in the moon.” Robin held the red dress against her chest and decided Judy was probably right. It was worth a chance.

  “Look, the guy—or at least his press agent—sent the paper two tickets to his concert and the party afterward. Ap­parently he’s still got a soft spot for his old hometown. You’ve got an in. Now you just have to use it.”

  “I’m glad you’re coming with me.”

  “You’d better get dressed or neither of us will make it to Cleveland on time.”

  Robin finished dressing while Judy closed up the apart­ment and fed the cat. At the last minute Robin shook out her hair, which had refused to go into a smooth knot at the top of her head, and let it hang loose below her shoulders.

  “You know, that dress ought to come with a printed warn­ing.” Judy’s blue eyes were sparkling. She was dressed up her­self, but no matter what Judy wore, with her curly brown hair and round face she managed to look like Miss Whole­some Ohio, the title she had garnered in their senior year of high school.

  Robin smiled at her friend. “I’m glad you came to see me. You’re good for my ego.”

  “It’s a short trip from Cincinnati. And besides, I’m just glad to see you coming out of mourning.”

  Robin’s smile didn’t even falter. It had been two years now since Jeff, her husband, had died. Life had gone on, as Jeff had insisted it would. She was almost ready to step back on board. “Jeff would have liked this dress.”

  “You know, if you get an interview with Devin Fitzger­ald, it could lead to a job on a larger paper.”

  “I know.” Robin had left a job on a larger paper at the beginning of Jeff’s final hospitalization. After his death she hadn’t been able to face a busy newsroom every day. She had come to the Farnham Falls Gazette instead, to take a job as editor and begin the healing process. The job had been perfect for the two years she had held it, but getting free tickets to Devin Fitzgerald’s concert was the only exciting thing that had ever happened. It probably was time to move on.

  The two women chatted casually on the drive north, but Robin could feel her excitement building. She was an ad­mirer of Devin Fitzgerald’s, not precisely a fan, since her tastes ran more to classical and jazz; but Devin hadn’t aban­doned melody or poetry in his work, as so many rock art­ists had. He was part James Taylor, part Mick Jagger. Despite the driving beat of drums and the shiver of electric guitars, there was a purity, a raw emotion, to his songs that never failed to touch her.

  He was a handsome man by anybody’s standards, with golden-brown hair that nearly touched his shoulders, ice-blue eyes, a square jaw and a high forehead. Robin knew from watching his videos that he was large enough to dom­inate a stage. With his wide shoulders and long legs he looked like a New Age prophet when he performed. She was anxious to see him in person.

  She wondered if she would get close enough tonight to even tell Devin who she was and what paper she was from. The tickets and backstage pass had been a big surprise to everyone at the paper. Devin Fitzgerald had spent most of his youth and adolescence in Farnham Falls, but his con­nections over the years since had been tenuous. The aunt who had raised him had died a long time ago, and eve
n his remaining cousin had moved to the West Coast. Devin contributed sets of compact discs or generous checks to any fund-raiser in town, but he hadn’t been back in years.

  By the time the two women arrived in Cleveland and had parked at the hotel where they would spend the night, Robin was almost feeling young again. She was only twenty-seven, but some of those years had been agonizing. She knew plenty about pain, and she supposed that was part of the reason that Devin’s music appealed to her. He knew something about pain himself. While she had been losing a husband, he had been losing a wife to infidelity and di­vorce. Robin’s pain had been silent and unheralded, but Devin’s had been dissected in public.

  “I’ve read every article about Devin Fitzgerald that I could find, in case I get a chance to interview him,” Robin told Judy as they walked amid a swelling mass of young and old toward the downtown arena where the concert was going to be held. “But there hasn’t been much written in the past year about his personal life.”

  “Maybe it’s taken him time to recover, too.”

  “Do you suppose someone like Devin Fitzgerald is al­lowed to take that kind of time? The pressures on him must be fierce.”

  “He’s got more money than God and probably more women than a sultan. I’m having trouble working up sym­pathy.”

  Robin smiled, but she wondered if Judy was right. Fame and fortune didn’t protect anyone from the realities of life. As she and Judy found their seats at the front and settled in to watch the opening act, she wondered if Devin Fitz­gerald had been changed by misfortune in the same ways that she had. Now she understood how short life could be, and how capricious. She intended to fully live each day that was given to her and to savor with gratitude the good things that came her way. If anything positive had come from Jeff’s death, it was that.

  * ​* ​*

  Devin had braved the first wave of well-wishers right after the concert, but the second wave had been forced to wait until after he showered. Now he dried himself and slipped on a clean pair of jeans and a freshly ironed white shirt.

  The concert had gone well. It was one of only half a dozen he would do that year, and all the tickets had been snapped up the first day they had gone on sale. His mana­ger hadn’t understood why he’d insisted on a performance in Ohio, but Devin knew he owed something to the state where he’d been born. He wished that he had time to go back to Farnham Falls, to sneak in on some back road and revisit his childhood there. He had almost convinced his cousin Sarah to sell him the house where he had been raised. Maybe then he could go back, dig his roots deep in the county’s dark soil and try to remember who he was.

  At the same moment he went in search of his shoes the door to his dressing room opened. “We’ve got a roomful of people waiting to shake your hand.” Harry Bagley, Devin’s manager, stuck his head through the opening. “You about ready?”

  Devin considered refusing. He was bone weary. He had put more of himself than usual into the concert, perform­ing three encores with his backup band and one by himself with nothing but a spotlight and a guitar. But this was Ohio, and he owed these people. “About. You been hiding my shoes?”

  Harry shook his head in exasperation. “You need me to hire somebody to dress you, Dev? Is that what you need?”

  Devin collapsed on a plaid couch and rested his head against the back. “I need about six months away from you and everybody else. Then maybe I could find my own shoes.”

  “You need to get laid.”

  Devin opened his eyes and stared at Harry. It was an old argument. Harry believed that everything could be cured by money or sex. Since Devin had plenty of one, the root of all his problems must simply be a lack of the other.

  Harry held up his hand to stop Devin’s inevitable reply. “I’ll find the shoes. I’ll put them on and tie the damn things if that’s what it’ll take to get you there.”

  “Get out. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  Harry snorted. “If you’re not, I’ll be back.”

  “You come back and you’re fired.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” The door slammed behind him.

  Devin sat up and began looking for his shoes again.

  The party was in full swing by the time he joined it. He was mobbed immediately, which exhausted him immedi­ately. He had used up most of his energy onstage. The suite was brightly lit and noisy, exactly what he didn’t want to­night. At the beginning of his career he had craved both. After a performance his adrenaline had flowed so fast and furiously that he’d needed this excitement so that he could come down slowly. But more often now he only wanted peaceful conversation, soft music and the warmth of friends.

  One look around the room told him that friends, real friends, were in short supply tonight. His band had already come and gone. The best of the myriad people who trav­eled with him weren’t here. The place was filled with stran­gers and people he didn’t want to know better.

  Harry took his elbow and led him across the room to in­troduce him to a small group of men in business suits. He was still making the rounds ten minutes later, listening po­litely and commenting when it was called for. Someone had gotten him a drink; someone else had given him a plate of food, which he’d had to set down somewhere in the mid­dle of the room to shake a hand.

  He was hungry, his head hurt, and his ears rang from all the noise. As he smiled and conversed he backed slowly to­ward the door, signaling his bodyguard and driver to go for his car.

  A soft, warm body stopped his progress.

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  He heard the woman’s voice before he saw her. He was apologizing as he turned. “No, it’s my fault. I…”

  Pale ivory cheeks turned pink at his words. He hadn’t seen a woman blush in years. For most of the women he knew, it would have been pointless. This one did it natu­rally, but then, everything about her seemed natural. She was a dark-eyed beauty with long hair that was as black and shiny as a raven’s wing. She wore very little makeup, just enough to enhance the delicate features that Mother Na­ture had blessed her with. She was tiny. The top of her head barely came up to his chin, but she was no child. In a hip-hugging dress the scarlet of tulips, she was every inch a woman.

  “I’m clumsy.” He recovered quickly. He had met a mil­lion women at parties like this one, and too many times he had been disappointed.

  “No, I was in the way.” She smiled. “I liked the concert.”

  Liked, not loved. She liked it. She wasn’t gushing with praise. She liked it. “Did you?” he asked. “I’m glad.”

  “I have a neighbor who claims that when he was a boy he could hear you playing the guitar in your aunt’s barn all the way from his house.”

  He tilted his head to get a better look at her. “Really?”

  She held out her hand. “I’m Robin Lansing. From the Farnham Falls Gazette. Thank you for sending us tickets.”

  He absorbed it all. She was from Farnham Falls. She knew an old neighbor, someone who had known him as a child. “Us?”

  “Yes. My friend Judy. She’s here somewhere.”

  Someone put a hand on his shoulder to get his attention, but Devin ignored it. “Do you like the party as well as the concert?”

  “I don’t like it at all.” She smiled. Her entire face lit up, and he felt bathed in sunshine. “Not until now, anyway. I’m glad I got to meet you.”

  “Is that why you came?”

  “I came to see if I could get an interview, but I can see that’s going to be impossible.”

  “Why?”

  “Because this is a zoo. We’d have to shout at each other.”

  “You’re not nearly pushy enough to do what you do for a living.”

  “Probably not. But most people seem to want to talk to me, anyway.”

  He wanted to talk to her. Devin suspected this woman might be the only sane person in the room. He had become an excellent judge of character in the years of his career, par­ticularly since his divorce. This woman believed in old-fash­ione
d virtues like honesty and concern. He knew that after one minute in her company. And she was as lovely and fresh as an Ohio spring. He wanted to know more.

  “I’m starving,” he said. “And I’m tired. I want something to eat and a friend to talk to. Would you like to be that friend?”

  He saw the first tracing of wariness cross her features. “To talk to? Is that code for something else?”

  This time he smiled. “Talk’s what I’m asking for. All I’m asking for. You can tell me all about Farnham Falls. Are you willing?”

  “May I take notes?”

  “I’ll tell you when.”

  “All right. But I need to let Judy know.”

  “I’ll wait right here.”

  * * *

  “We’ve got two choices,” he told her, when she rejoined him and they threaded their way through the arena com­plex toward the place where his limo would meet them. He took her hand and ignored the security trio who trailed be­hind them. “We can try to find a restaurant that’s open and hope I won’t be recognized, or we can go back to my hotel and order from room service in my suite.”

  “Are you ever not recognized?”

  “Nope.”

  “Then we’ll go to your suite.”

  She was silent as they got into the limo and silent as they drove past a squad of cheering fans who had figured out where he would exit. She was silent in the hotel, too, as se­curity whisked them through gathered crowds. She was si­lent until they got to his suite and closed the door behind them. “I’m beginning to get a feel for the way you live,” she said.

  “Daunting, isn’t it?”

  “Do you get used to it?”

  “More or less. Less, tonight. I’m not in the mood to be a god.”

  “Are you ever?”

  “Not really.” He gestured toward the comfortable leather sofa, and she sat down. He smiled when she took off her shoes and tucked her feet under her skirt. “What do you want to eat?”