Baltimore 03 - Did You Miss Me?

divorce from wife number two. Nadine made good use of the time. She whisked me to the family house in DC. She didn’t want me seen by society until I was more polished.’
    ‘And less pregnant?’
    ‘Absolutely. I stayed in that house until Ford was born and a little after.’
    ‘What did your mother have to say about that?’
    ‘She was kind of flattened by Nadine. That first day, the day I showed up pregnant on her doorstep, Nadine called for her limo, said she was taking me to my mother. I had to tell my mother that I was pregnant, with Nadine watching. Poor Mama. She was devastated. Nadine told Mama that I’d be moving in with the Elkharts and told me to pack my things. Like she owned us.’
    ‘What did your mother do?’
    ‘She said no. Then Nadine listed all the things the Elkharts could provide for my baby and for me – mostly education and financial stability. My mother relented, but only on the condition that Nadine’s promises be in writing and reviewed by Mama’s attorney. I was shocked – I didn’t even know Mama had an attorney. I found out later that she didn’t, that she was totally bluffing. But requiring a contract earned her Nadine’s respect. Mama’s foresight was what allowed me to go to college and get my degree when Ford was a little boy. She also made sure that Travis couldn’t just divorce me after the baby was born – the marriage could only be dissolved if I agreed to it or if there were proof that I’d been unfaithful.’
    ‘What did Travis say when he was confronted with you being only fifteen?’
    ‘Travis swore he thought I was eighteen and that was fair. I’d lied to get a job in a restaurant that served booze. Higher tips.’
    ‘We wouldn’t want to be unfair,’ he said dryly. ‘Was it even legal for you to marry?’
    ‘It was legal in Maryland if you were pregnant and you had parental approval.’
    ‘It must have been quite a change for you.’
    ‘In the beginning it was very hard. I missed my mother, I had morning sickness for weeks and Nadine was a taskmaster. There was the academic tutor and all the how-to-be-an-Elkhart lessons. How to stand, eat, sit, dress. I was a regular Eliza Doolittle. But in her own way, Nadine tried to do right by Ford and, in the beginning, by me.’
    ‘I have to say that I’m surprised Travis’s mother agreed to any of this. I know a lot of rich women through my parents. Most of them would die before they allowed an uneducated, penniless waitress to marry their son, much less force the issue.’
    ‘I always wondered about that. I asked Nadine, several times. She always said that I “fit her requirements”. I kept poking and one day one of the housemaids showed me a picture of Nadine’s daughter who’d died in a boat accident when she was about fifteen. The resemblance was very strong. I figured Nadine wanted me because I looked like her daughter.’
    Joseph cringed. ‘Travis must have known that too. That he slept with you to begin with . . . Sorry, that’s just . . . Well, I have three sisters and I can’t imagine that.’
    ‘I worried about that for a while too, until I realized that Travis’s requirements were far less specific than his mother’s. I mentioned once to Hal that I was disturbed that Travis had even considered me and he told me that the night Travis met me he’d already had two women in his room. Apparently this was during Travis’s “Neapolitan” phase. You know, blonde, brunette, redhead. That actually made me feel better.’
    ‘So what finally happened to Travis?’
    ‘I got old. I was twenty-seven. I should have seen it coming.’
    ‘But you didn’t?’
    ‘Nope. Well, not until I walked into his office unannounced one day. Then I saw him coming. And his secretary too.’ She exaggerated a shudder. ‘Bleach for my eyes, stat.’
    He laughed, long and deep, and Daphne went completely still. Serious, stern, and focused, Joseph was compelling and sexy. Dangerous, even. But laughing . . . he was beautiful. As she’d always known he would be.
    He turned his head, abruptly sobering, and she wanted to sigh at the loss. ‘What?’ he asked. ‘What’s wrong?’
    ‘I like it when you laugh,’ she said simply. ‘It feels nice.’
    He stretched his arm over the center console, palm up, silently waiting. She slid her fingers through his, almost wincing when he closed his hand, hard and tight. When she lifted their joined hands to her cheek, brushing his skin against hers, his