Now Teresa snorted and, shaking her head, muttering something about delusional males, she left the office.
When she was gone, he sat back and thoughtfully looked at the letter in his hand. Pale blue envelope, tidy handwriting. Too small to hold a pair of lacy thong panties. Too narrow to be hiding away a photo. Just the right size for a cabin key card though.
“Well, then,” he said softly, “let’s see who you are. Hope you included a photo of yourself. I don’t do blind dates.”
Chuckling, Nick pulled the card from the envelope and glanced down at it. There was a photo all right. Laughter died instantly as he looked at the picture of two babies with black hair and pale blue eyes.
“What the hell?” Even while his brain started racing and his heartbeat stuttered in his chest, he read the scrawled message beneath the photo:
“Congratulations, Daddy. It’s twins.”
Two
She wasn’t ready to give up the sun.
Jenna set her coffee cup down on the glass-topped table, turned her face to the sky and let the warm, late-morning sunshine pour over her like a blessing. Despite the fact that there were people around her, laughing, talking, diving into the pool, sending walls of water up in splashing waves, she felt alone in the light. And she really wasn’t ready to sink back into the belly of the ship.
But she’d sent her note to Nick. And she’d told him where to find her. In that tiny, less-than-closet-size cabin. So she’d better be there when he arrived. With a sigh, she stood, slung her bag over her left shoulder and threaded her way through the crowds lounging on the Verandah Deck.
Someone touched her arm and Jenna stopped.
“Leaving already?” Mary Curran was smiling at her, and Jenna returned that smile with one of her own.
“Yeah. I have to get back down to my cabin. I um, have to meet someone there.” At least, she was fairly certain Nick would show up. But what if he didn’t? What if he didn’t care about the fact that he was the father of her twin sons? What if he dismissed her note as easily as he’d deleted all of her attempts at e-mail communication?