Around her the Coffee Cup virtually hummed with customers. The sounds of muted conversation and cups clinking against saucers combined with Sinatra's silky voice and melded into the most comforting symphony she could imagine. Addison was delighted to be back, right in the center of it all. The Coffee Cup was where she belonged, where she felt at home.
Six weeks had passed since that fateful night onboard the Anastasia. Christmas had come and gone. Jack had been released from the hospital and would soon begin physical therapy. The Coffee Cup had reopened in time for the new year. Her insurance company had even supplied her with a new espresso machine.
Just because she hadn't seen Randall in a month wasn't any reason to fall to pieces. Was it?
He'd been tied up in D.C., the subject of a much-too-thorough grand jury inquiry. He'd been distant when he'd told her over the phone that he'd moved back into his old town house. He'd been vague when she'd asked about his next trip to Denver. She hated it that he'd been so upbeat about his new desk job with the NTSB.
Addison knew a brush-off when she heard it.
The Wall Street Journal had done an expose on the late Garrison Tate, starting with the rape of Agnes Beckett twenty-seven years ago and ending with the final, violent hours he'd spent with Addison onboard the Anastasia. Sheriff Delbert McEvoy had been indicted on bribery charges. It seemed Tate had sent the good sheriff and his wife to London twice and paid for a Caribbean cruise and a trip to Ireland in the last ten years. More serious charges ranging from arson to murder were expected to be filed in the coming weeks.
From her hospital bed the morning after that terrible night, Addison had found out that Tate had committed suicide onboard the Anastasia. Strangely, she'd felt nothing more than a sense of closure. For herself. For her parents. For Agnes Beckett.
Her search had finally come to an end. She knew as much as she would ever know about her birthparents. As much as she ever wanted to know. She would ponder her roots no more.
Larry and Patty Fox were her parents. A childless couple who had given an unwanted baby a chance for a good life. They'd given her their love, instilled in her their morals, their sense of right and wrong, and built her into the person she was today. She could never ask for more, and she would forever cherish them as her only parents.
Addison glanced at her watch, wondering for the hundredth time how Randall would take the news. Aside from the time he'd spent with Jack, and the single weekend he'd come home, Addison hadn't seen him for four very long weeks.
It seemed like a lifetime.
She chastised herself for thinking that today would be any different from any other. She was at her shop. Customers were piling in to buy Sumatra coffee and Earl Grey tea. The china teapots were moving well. She should be overjoyed. To have her life back. To be alive. Instead, she felt as though she was coming apart at the seams.
She'd heard the news just that morning, as shocking as a blast of frigid air on a hundred-degree day. During a follow up visit to her doctor, she'd mentioned that her period hadn't come, believing it was due to the physical strain of the hypothermia she'd suffered six weeks earlier. Two hours later, the doctor had called her at the shop and reported that she was pregnant.
Since then, Addison had been riding the emotional rollercoaster from end to end, up and down, over and over again. She went from elated to uncertain to frightened, then back again.
More than anything she wanted a family. A center to her life. Someone to love. It was something she'd always imagined for herself. A child. A husband.
So why was the idea of having a baby terrifying her so?
Sternly, she reminded herself that she didn't need Randall Talbot to be happy. Nor did she need him to have the baby. They would get along fine without him. Telling him was merely a courtesy.
Not sure if her nausea was from nerves or the tiny life growing inside her, Addison shoved the latte away, dropped her head into her hands, and groaned,
"Headache?"
Her head whipped up at the sound of his voice. Her face heated with an unexpected blush. She wanted to be angry with him. For keeping her waiting. For making her feel so damned uncertain. For making her love him so much her chest ached with it.
"I hate it when you sneak up on me," she said nastily.
Thick dark eyebrows shot up. Innocently, he looked behind him as if to make certain the words had been directed at him.
"He came through the front door like all your other customers." Gretchen approached the table with a tray. "How was your flight, Randy?" she asked, her tone dripping with honey.
"Too long," he said, gazing steadily at Addison.
Randall pulled out one of the bistro chairs as Gretchen set a foamy latte and a plate of fresh-baked scones in front of him. "If you haven't already noticed—" she winked at Randall—"our queen for the day is in a bad mood." With a sly, grandmotherly smile, she turned on her heel and left them alone.
Randall reached for his latte.