What she wanted to say was: “I’m being threatened.”
What she wanted to say was: “I’m opening a shop that I have no business opening.”
What she wanted to say was: “I’m afraid Rex will hate me.”
But all Maddie could say was: “Yes. And I’m too old to be having a baby.” Then she started to cry.
Once her mini meltdown was over, Maddie felt composed again. And calm. Dr. Mason was nice. She spoke softly as she examined Maddie and reviewed her history. Then she said Maddie was in excellent health, that many women her age were having babies now, that knowledge of how to make things safer for both mother and baby was far greater than ever before.
Then, she asked if Maddie would like to see an ultrasound.
Surprising herself, Maddie said no. “I’d rather wait until the baby’s father is here.”
The woman nodded with understanding.
By the time Maddie left with reassurance that the prenatal vitamins she’d been taking were fine and with an appointment scheduled for the beginning of May, she was calm.
After leaving the office, feeling better, she walked to the café. Though the dining room was closed, they offered grab-and-go food until three o’clock. So she ducked inside and bought a ham and cheese sandwich, a root beer, and a big ginger cookie because she felt like celebrating. Then she carried her lunch to the hospital’s comfortable vestibule, where sunshine reflected off the harbor and sparkled through the wide wall of windows, and where, at last, Maddie settled into the comfortable sofa, quieted herself, and ate and drank in peace.
Though she’d barely started eating, she stopped and checked her phone: almost three o’clock. She searched for flights from L.A. to Boston: One had just landed and was taxiing to the gate.
She stifled a gasp. It was real. Rex was almost home.
Though she knew it was a two-hour bus trip south to Woods Hole before Rex could hop on a ferry, Maddie quickly stood up, crinkled the wrappings around her half-eaten lunch, and dropped them and the equally half-empty root beer bottle in the proper recycling bins. Then she darted into the restroom, freshened up her makeup, and checked her cape to be certain it covered her secret. It had been three months since she’d seen him; she wanted to look and feel her best.
Once out of the hospital, she climbed back into Orson and was so nervous she shifted into first gear instead of reverse and nearly rammed into a car while backing out of the parking space. Finally, she made it; finally, she left the lot and took a left onto Beach Road, grateful it was still off-season so there was little traffic and the drawbridge wasn’t raised. With angels no doubt at her back, she glided through Five Corners and into the Steamship Authority lot without even a tiny incident.
She parked Orson and checked her phone: three twenty-five. He could already be on a Peter Pan bus. So she sat and waited, her eyes drilled toward the jetty, and on the stretch of huge boulders behind it where the big white boat would soon curve into the port.
When the four-thirty arrived, she focused on every walk-off passenger who descended the gangplank; she didn’t bother watching the vehicles that crawled out of the freight deck—after all, Rex had his “walking papers” now. She repeated the process with the five-forty-five. A few times she glanced around the parking lot, wondering if she’d see Taylor and Kevin. But she did not.
Soon the sun was low in the sky and the air had chilled. Afraid Orson would run out of gas if she continued to sit there running the heater, Maddie decided to go into the terminal.
As the seven o’clock boat pulled into its berth, she stepped closer to the door in order to peer outside: surely he’d be on this one. Her heart started to beat faster again.
At last, the boat docked; she stepped outside to wait and watch. There she had a full view of the wide white doors of the freight deck as they rolled open and the crew began to make ready for the vehicles to exit. Again, on the side of the boat, the gangplank was wheeled to the mid-level. But before the passengers started to disembark, vehicles began to exit. The first one off was an ambulance. And Maddie thought,Thank God that’s not for him. Or for me. Not for either of us this time.
Standing close to the disembarking queue, Maddie glanced from the gangplank back to the ambulance as it inched toward her. The lettering on the side said it was a private one from Boston.
A disturbing feeling crept over her. As it moved slowly, about to pass where she was standing, she wished that she could see into the back. But all she saw was the passenger side of the vehicle, where a woman sat, staring straight ahead. She was an attractive woman, well-dressed from what Maddie could tell, wearing what looked like a chic wool coat and hat, and a cashmere scarf wrapped loosely around her neck. She did not appear to be in an EMT uniform, though Maddie realized she couldn’t know that what with the winter coat and all.
The vehicles stopped for a moment to let the stream of walk-off passengers who’d exited from the gangplank cross over to the parking lot. Scrutinizing every male figure in the crowd, she did not see Rex.
Which made her think:Is it possible thatheis the patient inthe ambulance?She’d assumed that he could walk under his own steam, but had she been wrong? And had the woman in the passenger seat been an EMT … or someone else? Someone like … Annie Sutton?
Maddie stood, staring at the back of the ambulance as it pulled out onto the street, leaving her standing on the sidewalk, just as a thin layer of fog started to roll in.
Chapter 25
After ditching a lame idea to stay at the terminal until the next boat arrived, Maddie returned to Orson, started him up, and cranked up the heat. She checked her phone to see if Rex—or anyone—had texted and she’d missed it. But no one had. As badly as she wanted to call Taylor or Kevin, she did not want to intrude. It was bad enough she’d thought it was her place to surprise Taylor’s brother, especially since Maddie had no way of knowing how Taylor really felt about Maddie being pregnant. Just as she didn’t know if Rex had been in the ambulance and if the front-seat passenger was Annie Sutton—or if Maddie’s hormones, not her intuition, had surged again, determined to wreak havoc.
Maybe Google could help.
Without listening to her common sense again, she hastily entered Annie’s name. Instantly, the screen lit up. Best-selling mystery author. Screenwriter. Nominated for an Academy Award last year. And there were many photos of a pretty woman with black hair and green eyes like her brother Kevin’s. Which was no help, because Maddie hadn’t seen the passenger on the front seat close enough to judge.
Numbness, disappointment, sorrow: The trio of emotions drifted through the fog and settled in her pores.
She wondered if she should text Rex. Ask if his flight had been delayed. She could have googled that, too, but she didn’t know what flight he’d actually been on, other than it arrived at three o’clock. She supposed she could check every flight into Boston today. Instead, she sighed, and dropped her phone back into her purse.
