Sweet Fortune

  She smiled mistily, her fingers splayed on his bare chest. “Got it. You know, I think that's about the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

  He grinned. “You mean threatening to paddle your backside?”

  She yanked on a handful of chest hair and looked satisfied when he winced. “No, I meant the part about needing and wanting me. Just me. Not me because I can act as an intermediary or because I can get something for you from Dad or because I can smooth things over and hold it all together. But me, just because I'm me.”

  “Remember that, okay?” He slid his hand down over her thigh.

  “Okay.”

  “Jessie?” His fingers were tangled in the nest of hair between her legs now.

  “Uh-huh?”

  “You're sure about wanting to have my baby?”

  “I'm sure. I think you'll make a good father, Hatch.”

  “Thank you for trusting me that much. I know what that decision means to you.” He kissed her throat and pushed his leg between hers. The womanly scent of her body filled his head. He was already hard. “No one has ever trusted me as much as you do. Walking away with me will mean starting over, you know.”

  “I know. I don't have a lot of money saved, but I've got some. We can sell one of the cars. I hate to say this, but it should probably be the Mercedes.”

  “Damn.”

  She patted his arm sympathetically. “On the plus side, I'm very good at finding jobs.”

  He moved on top of her, cradled her head between his hands, and smiled down at her. “It's not going to be too bad. I've got the stake I was planning to use to buy into Benedict Fasteners. I'll use it start up another management-consulting business. I've done it once. I can do it again.”

  “I know.”

  “Most of the money will have to go into the new business, though. There won't be a lot left over. Not for a while.”

  “Don't worry about it.” Jessie stroked his shoulders. “I'm not. I know you can make it work, Hatch.”

  He looked down at her glowing face and was filled with a deep sense of wonder and awe. “Where have you been all my life?”

  “Waiting for you.” She drew him down to her, wrapping her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck.

  Hatch entered her with a slow, aching tenderness, letting her pull him deep within her body. He watched the desire grow in her eyes and knew a sense of completeness that he had never felt before in his life.

  Nothing else really mattered, he decided. Not the uncertainties that lay ahead, not the loss of the bright, successful future he had been planning at Benedict Fasteners.

  Nothing mattered except Jessie and the baby they were going to make together.

  “I'm going to be one hell of a father for our kid, Jessie.” It was a vow as binding as any oath he would ever take.

  “Yes. I know.”

  “But I'll be an even better husband.”

  “I know.” She smiled brilliantly up at him. “And don't worry. Maybe we can find a way to keep the Mercedes.”

  “Damn right we will.”

  Elizabeth finished paying for the book on famous women scientists, picked up the paper sack, and turned from the counter to join Jessie.

  “I'm ready. You want to go look at clothes now?” Elizabeth glanced up inquiringly as they left the bookstore and ambled out into the crowded shopping mall.

  “Nope. I don't want to be tempted,” Jessie said, feeling extremely noble and virtuous and terribly thrifty. “Hatch and I will have to watch every penny for a while until he can get his new business established.”

  “Does this mean the big wedding production is off?”

  “Afraid so. Don't worry, you'll still get to be my attendant. We'll just be cutting back on some of the extras. Like serving a large buffet to three hundred wedding guests, the way the moms had planned.”

  “I'm still going to get to wear the dress Mom picked out for me? And the little hat?”

  “Definitely. Hatch and I will probably just wear jeans, naturally, but you can wear the fancy bridesmaid's dress. No problem.”

  Elizabeth slanted her a speculative glance to see if Jessie was teasing her. “Thanks. I can hardly wait. What about the engagement party?”

  “Oh, it's still on for Friday night. Hatch refused to let me cancel it. Said we weren't so hard-up that we couldn't celebrate the engagement. It won't cost all that much, anyway, if only you and David show up. Do me a favor and don't order the lobster, okay?”

  “It's going to seem strange, just David and me there.”

  “I know,” Jessie said quietly. “But we'll all have a good time.”

  Elizabeth looked away, apparently studying a window display. “I'm going to miss you, Jessie.”

  Jessie put her arm around her shoulders and hugged her. “I'm going to miss you too. But you'll be able to come and visit us as often as you want.”

  “Hatch won't mind?”

  “No. He won't mind.”

  “Do you think you'll go all the way to Arizona?”

  “Hatch isn't sure yet. A lot depends on where he thinks the best prospects are for his new business.”

  “I hope you just go to Portland. I could get down to Portland on the train as often as I wanted.”

  Jessie took a deep breath and blinked back the moisture in her eyes. “I sort of hope we go to Portland too. But either way, it will be all right, kid. I promise you.”

  “Everything's going to change, isn't it?”

  “I'm afraid so.”

  “I hope you're going to be real happy with Hatch.” Elizabeth turned her face upward again, revealing the tears behind her glasses. “I want you to be happy, Jessie.”

  The tears in Jessie's own eyes spilled over. “Thank you, Elizabeth. Thank you very much.” Jessie pulled her into her arms and the two of them stood in the middle of the mall and cried until a security guard finally stopped and asked if anything was wrong.

  Jessie and Elizabeth shook their heads and walked outside to where Jessie's car was parked in the garage.

  Lilian and Constance were both waiting in the office of ExCellent Designs when Jessie drove up with Elizabeth. Elizabeth grimaced when she opened the office door. She glanced back over her shoulder. “Watch out, Jessie. They're both going to let you have it.”

  Constance frowned at her daughter. “Why don't you run outside and amuse yourself, Elizabeth? Lilian and I want to talk to Jessie.”

  “Sure, Mom.” Elizabeth gave Jessie a sympathetic glance on her way back out the door. A brief silence followed as it closed behind her.

  “Well, Jessie.” Lilian regarded her daughter with a straightforward, serious expression from the other side of her desk. “Why don't you tell us what this is all about?”

  Jessie shrugged and sat down in one of the uncomfortable Italian chairs. “There's not much to tell. The engagement party's still on for Friday. Hatch and I haven't set the wedding date yet, but it will be soon. We'll probably be moving to either Portland or Phoenix. That's about all the information I have at the moment. Stay tuned. Film at eleven.”

  “This is hardly a joking matter.” Constance leaned forward and folded her arms on her desk. “Is the deal between Hatch and Vincent really off?”

  “Yes. Hatch made it a condition that the company had to be equally divided among him, David, Elizabeth, and me. Dad wouldn't go for it.”

  “For God's sake, we all know he wouldn't go for that kind of arrangement. We've been trying to get him to do it for years.” Constance slapped the desk. “Damn that man.”

  “Who? Vincent or Hatch?” Lilian asked dryly.

  “Both of them,” Constance muttered.

  “The question,” Lilian murmured, “is what are we going to do now?”

  “Nothing,” Jessie stated.

  Lilian shook her head. “Jessie, you've got to be realistic about this. There is simply too much at stake. You can't just opt out of this mess now.”

  “I'm not exactly opting out. I've made a choice.”
/>
  “The wrong one,” Constance snapped. She sighed. “Jessie, be reasonable. You've said yourself that your feelings for Hatch are uncertain.”

  “I never said that. They're very certain now. I've made my decision, Connie. I'm sorry if it's not the one you think I should have made, but it's the one I want to make.”

  “There are a lot of futures at stake here,” Connie shot back. “My daughter's income from Benedict Fasteners is in jeopardy. So is yours and David's. You can't just walk out.”

  “Yes, I can.” Jessie smiled gently. “I'll tell you something. It's really not as hard as I thought it would be. Besides, let's get real here. Nobody's going to starve. You may not get as rich as you once thought you would when you assumed Benedict was going to become a giant in the industry, but things won't be all that bad.”

  “Are you kidding?” Constance looked appalled. “Without you around to handle Vincent, there's no telling how bad things will get.”

  Lilian nodded. “She's right, Jessie. Things could get very nasty. Vincent will make us beg for every penny. You know what he's like.”

  “So don't ask for a cent. That'll drive him crazy in no time,” Jessie suggested dryly. “He likes the sense of control he gets from holding the purse strings. My advice is to cut the strings.”

  “Easier said than done,” Lilian said quietly. “When I think of what Benedict Fasteners could have become…” She let the words trail off.

  “You're talking about cutting off the strings of my daughter's potential inheritance which could be huge if Benedict goes big,” Constance pointed out.

  “Elizabeth will do all right. It was never Dad's money she needed. It was Dad's love and attention.”

  “Well, she'll get even less of that now that you're going to be leaving, won't she?” Constance pointed out.

  “There's your own inheritance to be considered too, Jessie.” Lilian gave her a chiding glance. “It's easy enough now to say you're going to chuck it all for love, but how will you feel five years from now when you've got children of your own?”

  “I would like my children to know their grandfather,” Jessie said. “But they won't need his money. And neither will I.” She stood up and slung her shoulder bag over her arm.

  “Jessie,” Lilian said quickly, “think about this. You've been unsure of your feelings for Hatch all along. Don't rush into anything now. Give yourself time. Consider all the ramifications. You don't know what Hatch's motives are in all this. He might think he can use you against Vincent somehow.”

  “No. He's not going to use me. He loves me.” Jessie smiled. “For myself, not because I'm useful. If anything, I've probably caused Hatch more trouble than anyone he's ever run into before in his entire life.”

  “What are you talking about?” Lilian demanded.

  “Look at it from his point of view, Mom. I dragged him into a crazy adventure. He nearly got killed because of me. He's lost his chance to make Benedict Fasteners the cornerstone of the empire he'd planned to build when he decided to rescue me from my role in the family. And now he's going to be more or less starting over financially because of me.”

  “You're looking at this from a skewed perspective.”

  “I'm not so sure about that.” Jessie went to the door and paused, her hand on the knob. “When you think about it, he's really given me one heck of a courtship, hasn't he? Obviously the man is in love.”

  “Jessie, we're just asking you to be reasonable about this,” Lilian cut in swiftly. “What if Vincent is mad enough to sell out? Even if he doesn't, we all know the company needs to be modernized if it's to stay competitive, and Vincent can't do it. The chance to turn Benedict Fasteners into a corporate giant is too important to let slip away.”

  “You'd need Hatch to do it, and Dad fired Hatch,” Jessie reminded her.

  “But you could fix it, dammit.” Constance threw up her hands in exasperation. “You can deal with Vincent. Get him to see reason. Get Hatch to see reason.”

  “Dad would make Hatch crawl.”

  “It's called compromise, dammit.” Constance shouted.

  “It's called pride,” Jessie said. “If Dad and Hatch are ever going to find a way to work together, one of them will have to back down. And I can tell you right now, it won't be Hatch.”

  “You know it won't be Vincent,” Lilian warned.

  Jessie nodded. She knew her father as well as anyone. “I know. Oh, by the way, you're both invited to the engagement party on Friday evening.”

  “You can't really expect us to help you celebrate this fiasco of an engagement, Jessie,” Constance muttered.

  Lilian frowned at her daughter. “Go home and think it over, Jessie. Think it over very carefully. You don't want to abandon your family for a man who is so unreasonable he'll walk out on a multimillion-dollar future.”

  Things felt a little eerie, Jessie thought later as she parked her car in front of her apartment building and got out. She had the oddest sensation of impending disaster again, rather like the feeling she'd had about the Attwood case.

  It was probably caused by the array of changes she was confronting in her life. After all, a great deal had happened at once. She had been fired from a job she had really thought was going to work out. She had gotten engaged to be married. She had become the cause of a lot of serious tension in the family, when normally she was the one who smoothed things over for everyone.

  Her life was undergoing a tremendous upheaval, she reminded herself. It was probably normal to feel vaguely uneasy and perhaps even threatened. She reached into the backseat for the two sacks of groceries she had just bought at the supermarket. Grasping one in each arm, she backed out of the car.

  Jessie heard the roar of the suddenly accelerating engine just as she closed the car door. Automatically she glanced to the right to look down the normally quiet street.

  The dark brown car was no more than a few yards away, still accelerating rapidly. It was coming straight toward her.

  Jessie screamed and dropped the two sacks of groceries. In a split-second calculation she realized she could never make it across the street in time.

  She did the only thing she could do. She pressed herself flat against the side of her own car, praying the driver would at least see and try to avoid the vehicle, even if he had not seen her.

  The brown car whooshed past so close that Jessie's purse caught on the fender. The bag sailed into the air and landed yards away. She felt a rush of wind sucking at her, got a glimpse of windows tinted so dark it was impossible to see the driver, and then it was all over.

  All over and she was still in one piece. Barely.

  Jessie nearly collapsed as she peeled herself away from her car. The vehicle that had almost run her down was already squealing around the corner, vanishing from sight.

  “Damn drunk drivers,” an old woman on the sidewalk yelled in sympathy. “They oughta get 'em all off the road once and for all. Take away their cars, I say.”

  Jessie just looked at her.

  She was still staring blankly at the groceries scattered across the street when Hatch's Mercedes pulled into the empty parking space behind her car a few minutes later.

  Seeing the scattered groceries, he was out of the car in a flash, racing toward her.

  “Jessie?”

  She almost fell into his arms. Nothing had ever felt so strong and reassuringly secure as Hatch did in that moment.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  You're sure you're okay?” Hatch asked for what must have been the fiftieth time.

  “I'm okay. Honest. Just a little shaken up.” Jessie sat at the kitchen counter gripping the cup of hot tea he had just made for her. “Calm down, Hatch. It was just one of those things. I should have been more careful getting out of the car.”

  “Damn right, you should have been more careful.”

  Jessie cocked a brow at him. “Do I detect a lessening in the degree of sympathy you feel? Is this where you start lecturing?”

  “Now that the shock
is over, I'm entitled to start lecturing.” Hatch leaned back against the sink, his arms folded, eyes hooded. “Christ. Next time you get out of a car, look behind you. Got that?”

  “Believe me, I'm not likely to forget it.”

  “I just wish that old lady on the sidewalk had gotten a license plate.”

  “There wasn't time, Hatch. I'm telling you, it was all over in a matter of seconds. Everything happened so fast.”

  “And you didn't get a look at the driver?”

  Jessie shook her head. “I told you, tinted windows. Not that I would have had time to take notes anyway. I was too busy trying to meld myself to the metal of my car. There's nothing to report to the police except that a brown car nearly hit me. Unfortunately, that sort of thing happens to innocent people all the time. All a person can do is be careful.”

  “Remember that.” Hatch fell silent. His gaze turned brooding.

  “Hatch?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “About a few things.”

  “That certainly clarifies the issue,” Jessie muttered. “Let's have it. What's going on in that convoluted brain of yours?”

  “I was just thinking that the police haven't picked up the DEL guy who broke into your office and tried to get into my car. They're investigating Edwin Bright and they've got Landis and Hoffman, but what if there was another one running around?”

  Jessie's eyes widened. “You don't think he'd be after me, do you?”

  “Probably not,” Hatch said a little too quickly. “If he exists, and if he's got any sense, he's skipped town. And even if he was dumb enough to still be around, he'd be more likely to go after Susan Attwood. She's the one who's supplying most of the hard evidence against Bright.”

  “True. Do you think we ought to call Susan and Alex?”

  Hatch chewed on that. “The thing is, it really doesn't make any sense for that jerk to still be in the picture. Assuming there is a jerk, he was just hired muscle. If he was smart enough to escape the police net, he should be smart enough to be long gone. But it can't hurt to call Robin. I'll tell him to keep an eye on Susan and to lock his doors and stay out of dark alleys for the next few days.”