“Sure, but it gets really hot up there. The stuff might get damaged.”
Lacey hadn’t thought of that. She groaned inwardly, foreseeing herself tripping over the boxes in her small bedroom for the next several months.
All the more reason to get that house sold fast.
“I could put them in the office,” Maeve offered. “We’ve got a huge storage space in the basement we never use.”
“I swear if you were a man, I’d marry you. Thanks. It sounds perfect.”
“But you really do let people take advantage of you, Lacey,” Maeve said in her usual big-sister-like tone.
Lacey sighed. She knew that was coming.
“She’s got a son, right? Why can’t he store them?”
“The guy’s a prick. I wouldn’t trust him with anything important. She probably feels the same.”
“Great to have kids, huh?” Maeve said sarcastically. “Glad I’m not going down that road.” She raised her coffee mug as though it were a toast. Or a vow. “They’re helpless, loud, smelly when they pop out, and they only get worse with age. Thanks, but no thanks.”
Lacey couldn’t say she felt the same. But right now, career was her only priority.
***
She hates kids.
Bess sat on the staircase with her head between her knees. She had been halfway up the stairs when she felt dizzy and had to stop. She hadn’t intended to listen in on their conversation. But it might be for the best that she did.
Better start looking for another place to stay. Instinctively, she held her hand to her belly. She wasn’t showing yet, but would soon. Baggy clothes could only hide so much.
She raised her head slowly and gradually stood up.
Where could she go from here? No one would want to rent a room to a single mom of an infant. And she certainly couldn’t afford to get an apartment on her own yet.
I could go back to my parents, she thought, her heart filling with dread.
But he’d find her there. It was still too soon for her to risk seeing him again.
Her parents were not an option then. She’d have to let them live with the blissful story that she had gone to explore Europe for a few months. When a few months turned into a year, she doubted they’d even notice.
With any luck, if Dan went to her parents to try to track her down, they’d share the story with him. And with a little more luck, he’d take it as gospel.
What a fool she had been. The bruises, the swollen jaw, the black eye, and the empty apologies she accepted afterward.
Yes, she had been a fool.
Until the day she found out she was pregnant. Her cheekbone was still swollen from a few days before. But at that moment, staring at the yellowish mark on her face in the bathroom mirror and holding a positive pregnancy test in her hand, she knew her child deserved better than a father like him.
So for now, she’d cover her tracks.
Bess rubbed her belly and looked around the room she now called home. Tracing her hand along the headboard, she gazed at the picture on the wall. It was Maeve’s grandparents, Bess had been told. The grandfather’s loving gaze at his wife reminded Bess that all men weren’t like Dan.
But it was the image of the grandmother that really touched her. Her joyful eyes seemed to reach out from the photo with warm welcome.
“Gram.” That was what Maeve had called her. What a lovely woman she must have been. Even now, as Bess closed her eyes, she could feel the grandmother’s smile watching over her.
She sighed, for now simply content to have a soft bed to rest, and sent a silent request to a grandmother she never knew for a little more time in this sanctuary on the Chesapeake Bay.
And she smiled, feeling the old spirit’s answer.
CHAPTER FOUR
Lacey pushed another open house sign into a patch of soft soil alongside the road. Her blouse was already sticking to her chest after standing in the heat for only a minute, and her hair had doubled in volume.
Cursing Annapolis’s oppressive humidity, she jumped back into her car and blasted the AC. Fortunately, she had plenty of time to cool down at the house before people would start arriving.
If they arrived. Half of Annapolis was probably bobbing around on their boats on a hot day like today.
She parked her car along the street so that she would not obstruct views of the house. It looked perfect. Even the black-eyed Susans had seen fit to hold their blossoms for her open house. She hoped it was a sign of good luck ahead.
Stepping into the house, Lacey held her breath. She had stopped by yesterday evening to make sure everything was ready for today, half-expecting a pipe burst or roof leak to delay today’s open house. But everything was perfect then, just as it was today.
Odd, though. She was certain she wouldn’t have left the coat closet open like that.