Penelope (4 page)

They weren’t, but that wasn’t their fault, Penelope thought.

Brock drank down the rest of his water. “I should go and let you get back to work here. I’m staying in Oklahoma City. I have the items to give you in my hotel room.”

Penelope nodded and watched as he stood. She moved herself in the chair to stand and he offered her a hand.

“Thank you,” she said taking it and hauling herself to her feet.

“I’ll be checking out of my hotel tomorrow and I’ll come back by if that’s okay. After that I’m headed to Missouri to see my mom. She knows I’m headed back, she just doesn’t know when.”

“You didn’t tell her?”

He smiled and she noticed his cheek dimpled when he did. “I knew I had to find you first.”

His words squeezed her heart. A man would really keep his word to another man like that? And there she’d married a man who couldn’t keep his word to anyone.

“I’ll try to stop by before noon.” He walked toward the door and Penelope followed him.

He stopped just before the door and turned to her. “I should give you my phone number.”

Penelope pulled her phone out of the pocket of her shorts. Brock rattled off his phone number and she stored it in her cell phone.

“If you ever need anything feel free to call me.”

Penelope gazed into his rich chocolate eyes. “Why would you do that for me?”

He let out a grunt of a laugh. “I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

Penelope watched him walk out to the curb and open the door to a rental sedan.

“By the way,” he called back. “The Mustang is prettier in person.”

“How did you know about the car?”

“That he had pictures of.” Brock gave her a wave and a moment later he was gone.

Penelope leaned against the doorjamb, rubbed her stomach, and watched him drive away.

Adam Monroe never talked about his wives and never mentioned his kids, he was courteous enough to burn her risqué pictures, but only bragged about his car. Who the hell had she married?

Penelope turned, her hands still on her stomach. From the moment Brock Romero had talked to her there was something going on inside of her.

She looked up to see Vivian walking down the steps. “Did he leave?”

“Yes. He’ll be back tomorrow,” she said, moving her hands to different locations on her stomach.

“Are you okay?” Vivian moved toward her.

“I’m fine.” She looked up at her. “I think I can feel the baby.”

A smile formed on Vivian’s mouth and she moved closer and rested her hand on Penelope’s stomach. “What do you feel?”

“I don’t know. It’s constant. Like the baby is jumping.”

“I can’t feel it, but I’m guessing he has the hiccups.”

“I can feel hiccups?”

Vivian laughed. “Yeah. Weird huh?”

Penelope laughed and tears began to burn her eyes. “I’ve never felt the baby before. But the second Brock came in here I could feel things. Lots of things.”

“This is only the start.” Vivian pulled her hand back. “So what did he want?”

“Brock? He has something for me from Adam. He’ll bring it by tomorrow.”

She could see concern flash across Vivian’s face. “He’s coming back? What does he have?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t tell me.”

Vivian crossed her arms over her chest and the line between her brows grew deeper. “Did Adam send him to talk to all of us?”

Now the quickening feeling she’d felt in her stomach seemed to be in Penelope’s chest. “No.” She took a breath. “Brock didn’t know Adam was married to anyone other than me. He’d never mentioned it.”

“Are you kidding me?” Amelia said from the top of the stairs. “Adam never told anyone about his family?”

Penelope looked up at her. “No. He’d never mentioned it or even the girls.”

Vivian’s face had gone red and Amelia’s eyes grew wide.

“Son-of-a-bitch,” Vivian growled through gritted teeth. “What a waste of so many years.”

Amelia walked down the steps. “Why are you surprised? You don’t marry three women without being a man who keeps his own secrets well.”

“
I
shouldn’t have been a secret.
I
shouldn’t have just been forgotten.” She lifted her eyes to Penelope. “I sent pictures of the girls every week. I wanted him to be part of their lives and he ignored us. He’d come home and say he didn’t realize how beautiful they were or how big they’d gotten. He didn’t care about anything. So why would he send someone here to see you?”

Amelia rested her hands on Vivian’s shoulders. “Don’t jump her. This isn’t her fault.”

Penelope selfishly wanted to think that it was because he loved her most. Perhaps, for once, someone loved her over everyone and everything else.

The girls walked down the stairs hand in hand. “Mommy, we’re hot,” Emma said as she waited for her sister to catch up as they took the steps slowly.

“I know sweetheart. But we have to…”

Amelia gave Vivian a gentle shove. “You have to go swimming.”

“Are you kidding me?” Vivian retorted as the girls now moved quickly up to her.

“Yeah! Swimming! Please, Mommy.”

Vivian narrowed her eyes on Amelia. “Why do you do this?”

“Because you need to spend some time with them. C’mon, look at this place.” She swept her arms as if to show her the house. “We’re almost done. You’ve got all the permits and licenses we need. In another couple of months we’ll have little kids in here. Your kids. For now, go swimming.”

Vivian looked down at her daughters. “You want to go swimming?”

“Yes!” They both answered in squeals and jumps.

“Fine. Let’s…” she trailed off and dropped her shoulders. “Let’s run to Walmart and buy you a swimsuit.”

Penelope felt her heart sink. Most of their belongings were still buried in their collapsed home.

The girls didn’t seem to understand their mother’s hesitation over going shopping and then swimming, but Penelope did. Everything had a price tag. It cost gas to drive there. It cost money to buy a new suit when they’d probably had a good one back home. It cost time to take away from work. Those were all things Penelope would have heard from her mother—she wouldn’t have heard the words,
Let’s go swimming.

The fluttering and jumps in her stomach had eased and now there were just aches in her side. Perhaps it wasn’t so much the baby that was making her uncomfortable, but the tensing she did when she thought about her mother.

For a single mother, she’d been very successful. Penelope had been brought up in the best daycare centers, which ran from six in the morning until six at night. That was when one of four teenage girls her mother paid would pick her up, take her home, feed her dinner, and make sure she was tucked into bed. At some point, her mother would kiss her goodnight when she’d drag herself home from the office.

And how did she make it all seem worthwhile? She dragged herself and her daughter to church each Sunday and the word of the Bible was shoved down Penelope’s throat until she choked.

She ran her hand over her stomach again. Wasn’t that how she’d ended up where she was?

By the time she was twenty, she wanted to experience the world. Her mother had nice clothes, a nice car, a paid off house. What she didn’t have was a relationship with her daughter who had walked the line her entire life.

Penelope had made a few friends and learned the joy of going out to parties. Of course that
walk the line
principle was still instilled deep in her. She didn’t drink. She didn’t smoke. She didn’t sleep with men she wasn’t married to.

Air was stuck in her lungs and she fought for the breath she needed. Following all the rules hadn’t gotten her very far. She felt the baby again. Her mother had told her how disappointed she was in her for running off and getting married. Her disposition had been even less cordial when she’d told her about the baby.

Well, this baby would be loved and well cared for. This place they were building would be her refuge and her baby’s. The baby would have sisters. He or she would have aunties and someday uncles. They were a family and her baby would have a family.

Sam passed by her as the men who had been fixing the window signaled that they were finished.

Amelia touched her arm. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

“Just thinking about things.”

“I’m here if you need to talk.”

Penelope nodded. “Thank you. I think I should go back and lay down.”

Amelia’s mouth turned up in a smile. “You could go upstairs and sleep in your own room.”

The aches and pains that had tensed in her eased. “That’s right. I could.”

“C’mon, I’ll walk you up.”

The house was quiet. That might take some getting used to, Penelope thought as she lay in the bed and darkness moved in over the house.

She wasn’t afraid of old houses. In fact, she thought it was quite exciting to live in a house that had seen decades slip in and out.

What were the stories of the people who lived here? This bedroom—whose was it? Did a small child grow up in this room? A housekeeper? An old grandmother? The thoughts made her laugh.

The baby poked at her and she stopped thinking. Penelope placed her hands on her stomach and felt for that little movement again.

She’d been in love with Adam Monroe. In fact, she’d venture to guess that maybe she was the only one of the three that might still have any kind of feelings for the man at all. But it was hard not to when a little part of him grew inside of her and she could feel it move.

In the morning, she would get her first glimpse of that life. Tears began to sting her eyes when she thought of it. She’d see her baby tomorrow. Hear his or her heartbeat.

Adam wouldn’t be there, but Amelia and Vivian would be—her sisters, she thought.

“You’re going to be so loved,” she whispered to the baby. “And I love you already more than I ever thought I could.”

As the tears spilled over her cheeks and down into her pillow she let exhaustion, pride, and love wash over her. Everyday that passed was one day closer to seeing the face of her baby—conceived with the man she loved—and knowing, for the first time, unconditional love.

The next morning, sunlight cast lacy shadows on her walls through the feminine curtains hanging over the windows.

She’d spent her first night in the room Adam’s other wives had created for her. What a blessing.

Who would have thought when Adam Monroe took on three wives, secretly, that they would bond? She certainly hadn’t thought it when she’d cashed her last paycheck in a daze and driven to Oklahoma.

That had been foolish, she knew that now. But she’d been blindsided by his death. And worse, she knew she was going to face women who would automatically hate her.

Amelia didn’t hate her though. That might have saved Penelope’s life right there. Had those two women turned on her, she didn’t know what she’d have done. Add to it that Adam had left her nothing and their marriage wasn’t even legal.

Her breath was coming rapidly now. She was upsetting herself and that wasn’t a good thing.

Penelope forced herself to take in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then again.

Everything, for her anyway, had worked out.

She looked around the bedroom and sat up in the bed. She could build a fresh new start here, in this room with her baby. All of her personal belongings had been destroyed in the tornado. She had nothing left from the life she lived prior to a week ago.

That was okay, she told herself. Nothing had come out of that life anyway. Except, she placed her hands on the swell of her stomach, her baby.

After a few more minutes of appreciating her surroundings, Penelope made her way to the closet and found a few items of clothing. She’d need to go shopping for more, but they’d thought of everything when they’d planned the room.

She took out an outfit and headed to the bathroom to take her shower.

It came as no surprise that the bathroom was stocked with nice things too and a fluffy terry-towel robe hung on a hook.

If it were possible to fall in love with a group of people all at once, she’d done that.

By the time she’d gotten ready for the day, she could smell the scent of fresh coffee and hear voices downstairs. She supposed as long as the voices always came after eight o’clock in the morning there’d never be reason to be startled. The more she thought about it, she realized in another month voices would be heard much earlier that eight-thirty. They’d discussed opening at six-thirty for those parents that needed to be to work by seven. Add that to the pending parenthood she was facing and she was sure she’d never get any sleep.

The thought, or the sheer fact that it was morning, had her stomach a little queasy. She sat down on the edge of the bed and caught her breath. Everything was going to work out just fine.

Penelope hadn’t been surprised to hear voices, but she was surprised to see that it was Vivian in the kitchen and Brock was sitting at the table.