Just Curious (2 page)

That got Ann's attention. “What was in it?”

Karen leaned back again, her face showing her distaste. “He's a bastard, Ann. He really is. I know he's very good looking and he's rich beyond imagining, but as a human,
he's not worth much. I know these … these social belles of his are probably just after his money—they certainly couldn't like
him—
but they are human beings and, as such, they are worthy of kindness.”

“Will you get off your pulpit and tell me what the prenupt said?”

“The woman, his bride, had to agree to give up all rights to anything that was purchased with his money during the marriage. As far as I could tell, she wasn't allowed to own anything. In the event of a divorce, even the clothing he bought her would remain with him.”

“Really? And what was he planning to do with women's clothing?” Ann wiggled her eyebrows.

“Nothing interesting, I'm sure. He'd just find another gorgeous gold digger who fit them. Or maybe he'd sell them so he could buy a case of engagement rings, since he gives them out so often.”

“What is it you dislike about the man so much?” Ann asked. “He gave you a job, didn't he?”

“Oh, yes, he has an office full of women. I swear he instructs personnel to hire them by the length of their legs. He surrounds himself with beautiful women executives.”

“So what's your complaint?”

“He never allows them to
do
anything!” Karen said with passion. “Taggert makes every decision himself. As far as I know he doesn't even ask his team of beauties what they think should be done, much less allow them to actually do it.” She gripped her cup handle until it nearly snapped. “McAllister Taggert could live on a desert island all by himself. He needs no other person in life.”

“He seems to need women,” Ann said softly. She'd met Karen's boss twice and she'd been thoroughly charmed by him.

“He's the proverbial American playboy,” Karen said. “The longer the legs, and the longer the hair, the more he likes them. Beautiful and dumb, that's what he likes.” She smiled maliciously. “However, so far none of them have been stupid enough to marry him when they discover that all they get out of the marriage is
him.”

“Well …” Ann said, seeing the anger in Karen's face,
“maybe we should change the subject. How are you planning to get a baby if you run from every man who looks at you? I mean, the way you dress now is calculated to keep men at a distance, isn't it?”

“My! but that was good tea,” Karen said. “You are certainly a good cook, Ann, and I've enjoyed our visit immensely, but I need to go now.” With that she rose and headed for the kitchen door.

“Ow!” Ann yelled. “I'm going into labor! Help me.”

The blood seemed to drain from Karen's face as she ran to her friend. “Lean back, rest. I'll call the hospital.”

But as Karen reached the phone, Ann said in a normal voice, “I think it's passed, but you better stay here until Charlie gets home. Just in case. You know.”

After a moment of looking at Ann with anger, Karen admitted defeat and sat back down. “All right, what is it you want to know?”

“I don't know why, but I seem to be very interested in babies lately. Must be something I ate. But anyway, when you mentioned babies, it made me want to hear all of it.”

“There is
nothing
to tell. Really nothing. I just …”

“Just what?” Ann urged.

“I just regret that Ray and I never had children. We both thought we had all the time in the world.”

Ann didn't say anything, just gave Karen time to sort out her thoughts and talk. “Recently, I went to a fertility clinic and had a complete examination. I seem to be perfectly healthy.”

When Karen said no more, Ann said softly, “So you've been to a clinic and now what?”

“I am to choose a donor from a catalog,” Karen said simply.

Ann's sense of the absurd got the better of her. “Ah, then you get the turkey baster out and—”

Karen didn't laugh as her eyes flashed angrily. “You can afford to be smug since you have a loving husband who can do the job, but what am I supposed to do? Put an ad in the paper for a donor? ‘One lonely widow wants child but no husband. Apply box three-five-six.'”

“If you got out more and met some men you might—”
Ann stopped because she could see that Karen was getting angry. “I know, why don't you ask that gorgeous boss of yours to do the job? He beats a turkey baster any day.”

For a moment Karen tried to stay annoyed but Ann's persistence thawed her. “Mr. Taggert, rather than a raise,” Karen mimicked, “would you mind very much giving me a bit of semen? I brought a jar, and, no, I don't mind waiting.”

Ann laughed, for this was the old Karen, the one she'd rarely seen in the last two years.

Karen continued to smile. “According to my charts, I'm at peak fertility on Christmas Day, so maybe I'll just wait up for Santa Claus.”

“Beats milk and cookies,” Ann said. “But won't you feel bad for all the children he neglects because he spent the whole night at
your
house?”

Ann laughed so hard at her own joke that she let out a scream.

“It wasn't
that
funny,” Karen said. “Maybe Santa's helpers could—Ann? Are you all right?”

“Call Charlie,” she whispered, clutching her big stomach; then as another contraction hit her, she said, “The hell with Charlie, call the hospital and tell them to rush a delivery of morphine. This
hurts!”

Shaking, Karen went to the phone and called.

*   *   *

“Idiot!” Karen said, looking at herself in the mirror and seeing the tears seeping out of the corner of her eyes. Tearing off a paper towel from the dispenser on the restroom wall, she dabbed at the tears, then saw that her eyes were red. Which of course made sense since she'd now been crying for most of twenty-four hours.

“Everyone cries at the birth of a baby,” she muttered to no one. “People cry at all truly happy occasions, such as weddings and engagement announcements and at the birth of every baby.”

Pausing in her wiping, she looked in the mirror and knew that she was lying to herself. Last night she'd held Ann's new daughter in her arms and she'd wanted that child so much that she'd nearly walked out the door with her.
Frowning, Ann had taken her baby from her sister-in-law. “You can't have mine,” she said. “Get your own.”

To cover her embarrassment, Karen had tried to make jokes about her feelings, but they had fallen flat, and in the end, she'd left Ann's hospital room feeling the worst she had since Ray's death.

So now Karen was at the office and she was nearly overpowered with a sense of longing for a home and family. Making another attempt to mop up her face, she heard voices at the door, and without thinking, she scurried into an open stall and locked the door behind her. She did
not
want anyone to see her. Today was the office Christmas party and everyone was in high good spirits. Between the promise of limitless free food and drink this afternoon and a generous bonus received from Montgomery-Taggert Enterprises this morning, the whole office was a cauldron of merriment.

If Karen hadn't already been in a bad mood, she would have been when she realized that one of the two women who entered was Loretta Simons, a woman who considered herself the resident authority on McAllister J. Taggert. Karen knew she was trapped inside the stall, for if she tried to leave the restroom, Loretta would catch her and badger her into hearing more about the wonders of the saintly M.J. Taggert.

“Have you seen him yet?” Loretta gushed in a way that some people reserved for the Sistine Chapel. “He's the most beautiful creature on earth—tall, handsome, kind, understanding.”

“But what about that woman this morning?” the second woman asked. If she hadn't heard all about Taggert, then she had to be the new executive assistant, and Loretta was breaking her in. “She didn't seem to think he was so wonderful.”

At that, Karen, hidden in her stall, smiled. Her sentiments exactly.

“But you, my dear, have no idea what that darling man has been through,” Loretta said as though talking about a war veteran.

Standing against the wall, Karen put her head back and
wanted to cry out in frustration. Did Loretta never talk about anything but the Great Jilt? the Great Tragedy of McAllister Taggert? Wasn't there anything else in her life?

“Three years ago Mr. Taggert was madly, insanely in love with a young woman named Elaine Wentlow.” Loretta said the name as though it were something vile and disgusting. “More than anything in life he wanted to marry her and raise a family. He wanted his own home, his own place of security. He wanted—”

Karen rolled her eyes, for Loretta was adding more to the tale each time she told it: fewer facts, more melodrama. Now Loretta was on to the magnificence of the wedding that Taggert had alone planned and paid for. According to Loretta, his fiancée had spent all her time having her nails done.

“And she left him?” the new assistant asked, her voice properly awed.

“She left that dear man standing at the front of the church before seven hundred guests who had flown in from all over the world.”

“How awful,” the assistant said. “He must have been humiliated. What was her reason? And if she did have a good reason, couldn't she have done it in a more caring manner?”

Karen tightened her jaw. It was her belief that Taggert waited until the night before or the day of the wedding to present his bride with one of his loathsome prenuptial agreements, letting her know just what he thought of her. Of course Karen could never say that, as she was not supposed to be typing Taggert's private work. That was the job of his personal secretary. But beautiful Miss Gresham was much too important to actually feed data into a computer terminal, so she gave the work to the person who had been with the company the longest: Miss Johnson. But then Miss Johnson was past seventy and too rickety to do a lot of typing. Knowing she'd lose her job if she admitted this, and since she had a rather startling number of cats to feed, Miss Johnson secretly gave all of Taggert's private work to Karen.

“So that's why all the women since then have left him?”
the assistant asked. “I mean, there was that woman this morning.”

Karen didn't have to hear Loretta's recapping of the events of this morning, as it was all the office staff could talk of. What with the Christmas party and the bonus, yet another of Taggert's women dumping him was almost more excitement than they could bear. Karen was genuinely concerned for Miss Johnson's heart.

This morning, minutes after the bonuses had been handed out, a tall, gorgeous redhead had stormed into the offices with a ring box in her trembling hand. The outside receptionist hadn't needed to ask who she was or what her errand was, for angry women with ring boxes in their hands were a common sight in the offices of M.J. Taggert. One by one, all doors had been opened to her, until she was inside the inner sanctum: Taggert's office.

Fifteen minutes later, the redhead had emerged, crying, ring box gone, but clutching a jeweler's box that was about the right size to hold a bracelet.

“How could they do this to him?” the women in the office had whispered, all their anger descending onto the head of the woman. “He's such a lovely man, so kind, so considerate,” they said.

“His only problem is that he falls in love with the wrong women. If he could just find a
good
woman, she'd love him forever” was the conclusion that was always drawn. “He just needs a woman who understands what pain he has been through.”

After this pronouncement, every woman in the office under fifty-five would head for the restroom, where she'd spend her lunch hour trying to make herself as alluring as possible.

Except Karen. Karen would remain at her desk, forcing herself to keep her opinions to herself.

Now Loretta gave a sigh that made the stall door rattle against its lock. Since Loretta had told every female in the office all about the divine Mr. Taggert, she wasn't worried about anyone overhearing.

“So now he's free again,” Loretta said, her voice heavy with the sadness—and hope—at such a state. “He's still
looking for his true love, and someday some very lucky woman is going to become Mrs. McAllister Taggert.”

At that the assistant murmured in agreement. “The way that woman treated him was tragic. Even if she hated him, she should have thought of the wedding guests.”

At those words, Karen could have groaned, for she knew that Loretta had recruited yet another soldier for her little army that constantly played worship-the-boss.

“What are you doing?” Karen heard Loretta ask.

“Filling in the correct name,” the assistant answered.

A moment later, Loretta gave a sigh that had to have come straight from her heart. “Oh, yes, I like that. Yes, I like that very much. Now we must go. We wouldn't want to miss even a second of the Christmas party.” She paused, then said suggestively, “There's no telling what can happen under the mistletoe.”

Karen waited for a minute after the women were gone, then, allowing her pent-up breath to escape, she left the stall. Looking in the mirror, she saw that the time she'd spent hiding had allowed her eyes to clear. After washing her hands, she went to the towel holder and there she saw what the women had just been talking about. Long ago some woman (probably Loretta) had stolen a photograph of Taggert and hung it on the wall of the women's restroom. Then she'd glued a nameplate (also probably stolen) under it. But now, on the wall above the plate was written “Miserably Jilted” before the
M.J. Taggert

Looking at it for a moment, Karen shook her head in disgust, then with a smirk, she withdrew a permanent black marker from her handbag, crossed out the handwritten words, and replaced them with, “Magnificently Jettisoned.”