His Pretend Baby Read online

  Beau rubbed the back of his neck, feeling more than sheepish that he’d refused to put himself in that category when they’d first met. But he manned up and answered, “Yeah. Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  21

  Six months later

  “You sure about this, man?” Mac asked when they pulled up to the Birmingham Grand six months later.

  “More sure than I’ve ever been of anything in my life?” Beau answered.

  Mac shook his head. Beau knew this because he could hear the sound of the man’s beard rubbing against his shirt. “Just the last time you were in this place, I ended up having to peel you off the bar floor.”

  Beau stroked his chin, which he’d shaved this morning all by himself. It wasn’t the first time he’d done so, but it was the first time he’d gotten the job done without nicking himself or Mac having to wipe up any blood afterwards, so he’d been humming the Rocky theme rather triumphantly in his head all morning.

  “I’ll be all right,” he told Mac.

  He put his hand on the door handle and prepared to exit the car, but Mac said, “I could come with you.” He sounded less like the man who had been brutally training him to navigate in the real world and more like a fretful parent.

  “I promise, I won’t pass out this time.”

  “Yeah, but…”

  He carefully turned his face toward Mac’s voice. “Mac, you’ve been training me for this moment for months now. Either you think I can do it or you don’t.”

  The sound of Mac’s beard rubbing against his shirt came again, but eventually he said. “Okay, but don’t punch anybody out this time.”

  He couldn’t quite promise that, so instead he opened the car door and boldly stepped out into the Alabama sunshine. It was early on in the summer, not to hot, not to cold. A perfect day. Maybe that was a good sign.

  “Can I help you?” he heard a doorman say in the distance.

  But waved him off. “I’m fine,” he said. Then he made sure his Bluetooth earpiece was secure before pulling out a device about the size of a pocket flashlight and running his thumb over a few braille buttons until he came to the one marked “on.” Pushing the button activated a green laser beam that turned the device into the high-tech version of a traditional white cane. It delivered information about possible barriers and distances back to him through his Bluetooth device. He could also use the camera inside the main body of the device to do practical things, like scan barcodes, count money, and even “read” back words on packaging, books, or just about anything else.

  According to the entrepreneur who’d met with him to pitch the “eye saber,” this device was at the cutting-edge of low-vision technology and it would revolutionize the way the blind got around.

  But Mac, who’d accompanied him to the meeting, had been more concerned with how cool it looked. “It’s like a light saber!” he said with such awe in his voice that Beau could easily imagine the little Stars Wars fan boy lurking inside of the older man.

  A memory of all the times he and Josie had watched the original Star Wars trilogy together when they were kids came back to him, and that was all it took for him to agree to make a sizeable investment in the entrepreneur’s start-up. It wasn’t his first investment in the low vision market, and it probably wouldn’t be the last, since he was finding the role of a venture capitalist who invested primarily in blindness technology and research to be one that suited him.

  But he was especially grateful for this particular investment, because the “eye saber” was now leading him back to Josie. The soft, computer voice spoke gently in his ear: “Check-in desk, approximately ten steps to your right.”

  He followed the instructions, “checked in,” and eventually navigated himself inside an elevator with a penthouse key card in hand. His fingers found the braille “P” next to the button that would ferry him up to the floor where the penthouse suites were located. But it had taken a little more groping than usual to work out that he had to insert the key card the hotel had given him and keep it in there while pressing the “P” button, in order for the command to go through.

  Sooner than expected, he heard the elevator doors swish open and the eye saber was telling him his real destination, the one he’d used his family connection with the hotel to finagle, was only twenty steps away.

  A few seconds later, he was finally there, standing outside the door to Colin Fairgood’s room.

  But when he knocked on the door, he found it propped open, as if the occupants had been awaiting his arrival.

  “Come on in,” Colin’s voice called from further inside the room. “We’re back here.” They must have been expecting somebody.

  He turned off the cane. Not because he couldn’t have used it to navigate his way into the room, but because he didn’t want its automated voice in his ear when he spoke to Josie for the first time in six months.

  Luckily there weren’t any obstacles in his way, and he stopped when he felt the sunlight on his face from the windows he knew from experience sat just beyond the sunken den seating area. He also easily guessed when it was time to stop walking, because Colin said, “You have got some fucking nerve coming here.”

  The faint smell of perfume hit him immediately. Expensive and sophisticated, very much the kind of scent a man would buy for his girlfriend.

  Doing his best to resist the urge to punch Fairgood all over again, he turned toward the smell of perfume and said, “Josie, I know you don’t want to see me. But I had to see you.”

  “And that’s who it’s all about, isn’t it? You!” Colin’s voice was full of venom. “All these years and it’s still about what you need from Josie.”

  Beau tightened his hand into a fist, but then he said the last thing Josie probably expected to hear from him. “He’s right, Josie. I’ve been bullheaded and selfish and just about everything else. The truth is, you were right, I don’t deserve you. I’ve never been half the man Colin was when it comes to you, and that’s the reason I went crazy when he came looking for you. Because if it was a battle of who deserved you more, then I knew it was him no contest.”

  “Finally something out of your mouth I can agree with,” Colin spat back.

  “But when it comes to who loves you more, that’s also no contest, darlin’. It’s me. You two met when you were twelve, but I can’t even remember a time when I didn’t love you. First like a sister, then as something else. Everything good I’ve ever done has been because of you: Football, learning to get around blind… I just started a charity to teach blind kids sports here in Alabama, because you taught me how to stop feeling sorry for myself and use what happened to me to do good. Colin wants you. But I know for a fact he doesn’t love you like I do. Not with his whole body, his whole…” He stopped and started back up again, “Josie, I should have told you this the night you left—I love you with my whole soul. You have no idea how much I love you, how much I’ve always loved you. But…”

  He brought a velvet box out of his pocket and bent down on one knee. “But if you agree to be my wife, I will spend the rest of my life treating you like you deserve to be treated. I’ll make it all up to you, darlin’, just say yes.”

  Complete and utter silence greeted his impassioned plea turned proposal.

  “…please,” he added, hoping that might help.

  “Oh, my God. That’s the sweetest thing I ever heard,” said a voice, soft and sweet with a hint of what he recognized as an Alabaman born-and-raised black accent.

  He straightened. This definitely wasn’t Josie. “Who are you?” he asked, coming to his feet.

  “A damn fool for staying quiet as long as I did, that’s who,” she answered.

  And though he couldn’t see her, he got the feeling she was throwing a scathing look at Fairgood as she said this. One that was confirmed when she said, “I would’ve spoke up sooner, but Colin here motioned for me to stay quiet.”

  Now Beau threw a scowl of his own in the direction of Colin’s voice. “Where is s
he?”

  “None of your damn business,” Colin immediately shot back.

  Beau was torn between wanting to pound Fairgood into the ground and the desperate need to know, “Did you already marry her?”

  “No,” Fairgood answered. “Not yet.”

  Beau smiled. “See what I mean. If I’d been you, I would have sealed the deal by now.”

  “You know what? Fuck you, Prescott.”

  But nothing could wipe the smile off of Beau’s face at this point. “You tried. You tried your damnedest, coming back to Alabama with your big music career and your platinum albums, and she still said no.”

  “What she said,” Colin corrected, “was she wasn’t ready to be in a relationship.”

  “With you,” Beau said.

  “Because of what you did to her!” Fairgood all but hissed back.

  “Let me talk to her.” Beau turned his head from left to right, straining to hear if she was anywhere in the suite, then when he didn’t hear her, he said, “If you were any kind of man, you’d let me talk to her—”

  “She’s not here,” the sweet voice assured him.

  “Shut up,” Colin said, his voice low and dangerous. “Shut up right now. This ain’t none of your business.”

  “No, but it’s not necessarily any of yours either. And I’m not going to let you torture this guy just because he tried to beat you up once in high school after you stole his girlfriend.”

  Beau frowned. This woman knew about that? How? And why did her voice sound so familiar, like a distant memory on the tip of his tongue? But before he could ask, she said, “She came by for the show yesterday, and he’s scheduled to meet her for brunch today. Colin was going to use me to make her jealous, but from what I’m putting together, that plan wouldn’t have worked out so well.”

  “If you tell him, all those hopes and dreams of yours? Well, I’m going to make sure they never happen,” Colin said between what sounded like clenched teeth.

  Beau crooked his head to the side. Apparently, Josie wasn’t the only one who’d undergone some changes since high school. Back then Colin had been easy-going and slightly goofy, but now it sounded like fame had turned him into a major dick. Not only was he trying to keep Beau from Josie, but he was obviously trying to manipulate this woman into making sure his plan was a success.

  “Don’t listen to him,” Beau said, his voice strong and determined. “As someone who pinned all his hopes and dreams on getting his sight back, I’m here to tell you, none of that stuff truly matters in the end. I can live without my sight or football, but I am nothing without Josie. She is the love of my life. So please tell me how to find her.” Then just in case his impassioned plea wasn’t enough, he added. “Plus, whatever Fairgood is paying you, I will double it.”

  “You can’t pay her what she’d be giving up if she says one more word,” Colin shot back. Then to the mystery woman, he said, “One more word and your career is over, I swear to God.”

  He could feel the woman hesitating. “Please,” Beau said again.

  Then he waited to see whose side she picked.

  22

  “Thanks for the ride, Sam,” Josie told her friend when they pulled up outside the Birmingham Grand.

  “No problem, but you need to get a new car already. It’s always breaking down on you, and you know that’s not safe.”

  “With what money?” Josie asked with a grin.

  The money Beau had paid her for the one week they’d spent together before she quit had been well spent. It’d been enough to keep Ruth’s House open and allow her enough credits to complete her degree at UAB. But even living as frugally as she had for the last six months, there wasn’t enough left over to replace her junker car.

  “I don’t know. Maybe you could ask Mr. Moneybags Country Singer in there?” Sam suggested. “You didn’t seem to have any problem hitting him up for that big donation last night.”

  “That’s different. The money Beau Prescott donated will only take us so far, and we’ve got to keep hustling.”

  Sam grinned. “And that’s why I can’t wait until you’re done with your summer classes and can come work at the shelter full time.”

  “Me either,” Josie said, meaning it. She welcomed the idea of getting money from legitimate sources, ones she didn’t have to almost lie about. Sam knew that the money to keep Ruth’s House open came from Beau. But she had no idea what Josie had done to get it. “But right now I am so late, girl. I’ve got to go.”

  “Yeah, uh-huh. Don’t think this car topic won’t come up later,” Sam told her.

  But Josie just laughed and stepped out of the car into the Alabama sunshine, feeling better than she had in years. Healed. Because car or no car, she’d finally become the independent woman she’d been longing to be ever since realizing that her marriage was more of a well-laid trap than a dream come true.

  But then a gray-haired couple came out of the Grand’s sliding front door, laughing and holding hands. Josie’s heart fluttered with a memory of how Beau and she had laughed together over the hijinks of the heroine’s android assistant in the Clara Quinn novel they’d been reading together, the one she hadn’t had the heart to finish alone.

  Her steps faltered a bit. Independence was a little lonelier than she’d thought it would be.

  But she eventually squared her shoulders and kept on walking. So what if the memory of the one week she’d spent in Beau’s bed had kept her up at night for six months? So what if she still had trouble doing the reading homework for her assignments, because whenever she got bored, her mind would drift to thoughts of him, his hands on her body, his commands for her to tell him what he was doing to her even as he was doing them?

  Losing Beau was a small price to pay for achieving her dreams, for finally getting to live her life as she chose and on her own terms. Josie sailed into the hotel’s lobby with the hook to Destiny Child’s “Independent Woman” resounding inside her head...

  Right up until she saw a now clean-shaven Beau Prescott walk out of the elevator bank on the other side of the lobby with a gorgeous black woman on his arm.

  The record scratched then and Josie stopped dead in her tracks. This was not the Beau Prescott she had left behind to wallow in a pool of his own misery six months ago.

  This Beau was well-coiffed, wearing a pair of gold-plated aviators, and dressed in a summer blazer and white pants that both looked like they had been tailored specifically for him. This Beau looked so good it took her breath away. She literally didn’t breathe as he walked toward her with confidence and what looked like a light saber leading the way.

  He was happily smiling in the direction of his companion, a woman with flawless light brown skin and a head of red curls that framed her heart-shaped face beautifully. He said a few words, then they stopped, and Beau leaned down to hug her.

  Not only had Beau learned to navigate his blindness, but it also looked like he had moved on to someone new. And though she tried to be happy for him, she just couldn’t manage it. Something inside her curdled, watching him hug up on another woman.

  But then Beau let the gorgeous woman out of the hug and started walking toward Josie again. This time alone. And she scrambled out of his pathway, hiding behind a ficus to watch as he walked by. She couldn’t take her eyes off of him, but she couldn’t bring herself to actually talk to him either.

  But then right as he was about to pass by, he sniffed the air and turned toward her. “Josie?”

  “H-how did you know it was me?” she asked in surprise, stepping out from behind the ficus.

  “Your scent,” he answered with a sheepish smile. “Sandalwood. That’s pretty distinctive in a place like this.”

  Josie looked around the lobby at the other hotel patrons, most of whom were white now that the other black women had left. “I guess so. Well, it’s good to see you looking so well, Beau. I mean, you look great. Really good.” Then she made herself stop talking because she was just embarrassing herself now.

  Her
eyes went to his cane. “Is that one of those ultrasonic canes?” she asked. “I thought they were only in the prototype stage. At least that’s what I read when I was…” she trailed off, as a fresh wave of embarrassment made her face go hot. “…working for you.”

  But instead of following her down the path of small talk, he said, “Josie, I don’t want to talk with you about my cane.”

  And just when she thought the situation couldn’t get any more embarrassing. “Oh, sorry. I’ll just let you get on your way. Nice seeing you again,” she said. She stepped away from him then, but her somewhat dignified exit was cut short when she tripped over the ficus she’d forgotten was behind her.

  To her surprise, he caught her before she could stumble more than a few steps. “You okay?” he asked, pulling her up to his chest.

  “I’m fine,” she answered. “Thanks. I’ll just be getting on my way. I’m already...” She started to extract herself from their unexpected embrace, but he held her there, his arms as strong as a pair of steel bands around her. “…late.”

  He smiled. “It feels like you’ve gained a little more weight. I like it.”

  Josie looked around. A few patrons had stopped to stare. But Beau acted like there was nothing the least bit strange about how he was holding on to her.

  “I’m steady now,” she told him. “You can let me go.”

  “But how about if I don’t want to?” he asked. “How about if I never want to let you go?”

  Her heart started to soar, but then she remembered, “Weren’t you just hugged up on somebody a few minutes ago? A really, really good-looking somebody?”

  He chuckled.

  “What?”

  “His plan worked. You got jealous. It’s just it wasn’t over the right person.”

  “I’m not jealous,” she said, even though she totally was. “I was just wondering why you’re talking about never wanting to let me go when you obviously were just hugged up on somebody else.”