Blue Dahlia

edgy. The best that could be said about the situation was the drive was short.
    Amazed he wasn’t sweating bullets, he swung in and zipped in front of the house.
    “You drive a snooty little car like this that fast, you’re just begging for a ticket.”
    “It’s not a snooty little car. It’s a well-built and reliable sports car. And I wasn’t driving that fast. What the hell is it about me that makes you crawl up my ass?”
    “I wasn’t crawling up your ass; I was making an observation. At least you didn’t go for red.” She opened the door, managed to get her legs out. “Most guys go for the red, the flashy. The black’s probably why you don’t have speeding tickets spilling out of your glove compartment.”
    “I haven’t had a speeding ticket in two years.”
    She snorted.
    “Okay, eighteen months, but—”
    “Would you stop arguing for five damn seconds and come over here and help me out of this damn car? I can’t get up.”
    Like a runner off the starting line, he sprinted around the car. He wasn’t sure how to manage it, especially when she was sitting there, red in the face and flashing in the eyes. He started to take her hands and tug, but he thought he might ... jar something.
    So he leaned down, hooked his hands under her armpits, and lifted.
    Her belly bumped him, and now sweat did slide down his back.
    He felt what was in there move—a couple of hard bumps.
    It was ... extraordinary.
    Then she was brushing him aside. “Thanks.”
    Mortifying, she thought. She just hadn’t been able to shift her center of gravity, or dig down enough to get out of a stupid car. Of course, if he hadn’t insisted she get in that boy toy in the first place, she wouldn’t have been mortified.
    She wanted to eat a pint of vanilla fudge ice cream and sit in a cool bath. For the rest of her natural life.
    She shoved open the front door, stomped inside.
    The shouts of Surprise! had her heart jumping into her throat, and she nearly lost control of her increasingly tricky bladder.
    In the parlor pink and blue crepe paper curled in artful swags from the ceiling, and fat white balloons danced in the corners. Boxes wrapped in pretty paper and streaming with bows formed a colorful mountain on a high table. The room was full of women. Stella and Roz, all the girls who worked at the nursery, even some of the regular customers.
    “Don’t look stricken, girl.” Roz strolled over to wrap an arm around Hayley’s shoulders. “You don’t think we’d let you have that baby without throwing you a shower, do you?”
    “A baby shower.” She could feel the smile blooming on her face, even as tears welled up in her eyes.
    “You come on and sit down. You’re allowed one glass of David’s magical champagne punch before you go to the straight stuff.”
    “This is ...” She saw the chair set in the center of the room, festooned with voile and balloons, like a party throne. “I don’t know what to say.”
    “Then I’m sitting beside you. I’m Jolene, darling, Stella’s stepmama.” She patted Hayley’s hand, then her belly. “And I never run out of things to say.”
    “Here you go.” Stella stepped over with a glass of punch.
    “Thanks. Thank you so much. This is the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me. In my whole life.”
    “You have a good little cry.” Jolene handed her a lace-edged hankie. “Then we’re going to have us a hell of a time.”
    They did. Ooohing and awwing over impossibly tiny clothes, soft-as-cloud blankets, hand-knit booties, cooing over rattles and toys and stuffed animals. There were foolish games that only women at a baby shower could enjoy, and plenty of punch and cake to sweeten the evening.
    The knot that had been at the center of Hayley’s heart for days loosened.
    “This was the best time I ever had.” Hayley sat, giddy and exhausted, and stared at the piles of gifts Stella had neatly arranged on the table again. “I know it was all about me. I liked that part, but everyone had fun, don’t you think?”
    “Are you kidding?” From her seat on the floor, Stella continued to meticulously fold discarded wrapping paper into neat, flat squares. “This party rocked.”
    “Are you going to save all that paper?” Roz asked her.
    “She’ll want it one day, and I’m just saving what she didn’t rip to shreds.”
    “I couldn’t help it. I was so juiced up. I’ve got to get thank-you cards, and try to remember who gave what.”
    “I made a list while you were