Desperate Measures Read online

  World-traveled, he’d met all kinds of women, but none of them made him feel the way Maddie did. She loved unconditionally. She was warm and gentle, and when she looked at him, he saw the love in her eyes. They were going to have a house in Connecticut, a summer place in the Hamptons, a dozen kids and two dozen grandchildren. They were going to grow old together and rock in wicker chairs on a big old front porch. He’d get one of those tractor lawn mowers so Maddie could sit on it with him when he mowed the grass on weekends. He was finally going to belong to someone.

  Of course, he hadn’t discussed this at any great length with Maddie. He assumed because he wanted it the same way Annie wanted it, that all women basically wanted the same thing, and Maddie fell into the category of all women. Maddie had said yes, children were on her road map; she hadn’t said when, though. He’d give her a year, maybe a year and a half, and she’d be ready for what he referred to as “the works.”

  All he needed was the time, the hour, magic. That’s what he needed, a goddamn bushel basket full of magic. In order to have all that, he was going to have to work his ass off; not that he wasn’t doing that right now. Jesus, maybe he’d have to work harder, put in more hours. The children would have to be miracle births if he didn’t put a clamp on his business travel.

  Until he met Maddie Stern, he’d been a workaholic, spending more time abroad than he did at home. Annie was becoming a stranger to him. He frowned. He couldn’t let that happen. Being an acquisitions attorney meant he had to move when his clients said move. He hated the beeper he wore, hated the cellular phone in his car, hated leaving Maddie’s phone number with his clients.

  He was about to complete the Windsor knot in his tie when he stopped and looked at his reflection in the mirror. He leaned closer. “Is that disillusionment I see in your face, Sorenson?” he asked his reflection. “Because if it is, think about your bank balance, think about the Rover you own outright along with the Beemer, think about the deposit on the Stamford house, think about Fairy Tales, think about those custom-made suits and shoes you wear, think about the expensive presents you lavish on Maddie. Think about that, Sorenson, and wipe that look off your face.

  “Maddie,” he bellowed.

  She was a whirlwind coming through the door, the coffee cup in her hand. She offered it to him as though it were a prize, and in a way it was. She made wonderful coffee. Pete loved it. “What is it, what’s wrong?”

  “Maddie, would you still love and marry me if I was a plumber or a trash collector?”

  “Pete Sorenson,” Maddie said in an awed voice, “of course. I love you. If you don’t believe that, then there’s no hope for us. You do ... believe me, don’t you?”

  Maddie stared hard at the man who would one day be her husband. He was far from handsome, more on the plain side, well-built, with the clearest gray eyes she’d ever seen. So often she told him they were the color of mourning doves. His sandy hair was thinning on top, to his dismay. He said his nose was too beaked to go with his angular face, his jaw jutted forward too much, he fretted, and his ears could stand to be pinned back. She loved every inch of him. Now, she said so, again.

  Pete smiled. “Maddie, I will always love you. Into eternity, and if that sounds corny, I’m sorry.”

  “It doesn’t sound corny at all. I feel the same way. Are you going to give me your itinerary?” she said briskly.

  “No can do, honey. I’m going to be on the move. These guys like to play host and put me up at different places, sometimes in apartments and condos they own. I can tell you pretty much what city I’m going to be in. I’ll call every chance I get.”

  “I get nervous, Pete, not knowing how to reach you when you’re away. I can handle two weeks, but forty-five days . . .”

  “You’re going to be so busy with Fairy Tales,” Pete said gulping at his coffee, “you won’t have time to miss me. Don’t forget, if you have time, buzz up to Stamford and take a look at the house. If you like it and can see us living in it, give them a check to bind it. I have the down-payment money set aside.”

  “Oooh, imagine me ... us, living with all those rich people in Stamford. We’ll fit in, won’t we Pete?”

  “I’m sure we will. I think it’s a Maddie house. The master bedroom has a fireplace, and the master bath has a Jacuzzi. It’s us, honey. The kitchen is great, the kind you said you always wanted. Lots of windows, a free-hanging exhaust system, cedar beams, real brick on the floor, with crocks of flowers. You’re gonna love it, Maddie.”

  “It’s outrageously expensive.” She frowned.

  “Maddie, I want you to have it, but if you can’t see us growing as a family in it, if you don’t like it, that’s different. The finances are my concern. Now come on, give me a big kiss and I’m out of here.”

  “I called downstairs. They’re holding a cab for you,” Maddie said, leaning into him. She kissed him, mashing herself against him. She grinned when he groaned. “Call,” she said, shooing him out the door.

  “Don’t forget, you have a root canal appointment three weeks from today, and that crazy cat of yours has to go for her checkup next week.” He was still rattling off appointments she needed to keep when he sprinted out the door. She heard him say, as she slid the bolt home, “You are a total airhead when it comes to keeping appointments.” And he was right, she was.

  She missed him already, and he was still in the elevator. She resisted the crazy urge to run after him, to beg him to stay.

  This wasn’t like her. She wasn’t a clinger. If anything, she was more independent than most of her peers. Until she met Pete eight months ago, she was content to go through life as a career woman. Meeting Pete changed everything. God, all that money!

  Back in her cozy red and white kitchen, Maddie poured the remains of her coffee into an oversize mug. She scraped the butter from Pete’s muffin and munched contentedly. She sighed deeply. It was all so perfect, this life of hers. She really had it all these days, unlike so many of her friends, who were scrambling to get to the top of their chosen professions and to find a man who would take care of them. She’d really stepped into her own private pot of gold.

  “Oooh, that tickles and feels soooo good.” Maddie laughed when her cat Tillie wrapped herself around her bare feet. “He’s gone, Tillie. Need I remind you that you need to make more of an effort to get along with Pete. He’s here to stay. He brings you fresh salmon. I only give you tuna and Meow Mix. Purr, Tillie, I love it when you do that.” She reached down to scratch the fat yellow cat behind its ears. She was rewarded with loud purring.

  Maddie slid from the chair to her hands and knees. She scooped up the fur ball and held her close as Tillie purred. “I have this awful feeling, Tillie, that something is going to go wrong. Everything is so perfect, it can’t be real. Sometimes I think I’m dreaming and I’ll wake up and Fairy Tales is just that, a fairy tale. I’ve never felt this way before. Women’s intuition. You know, like your cat sense.” Tillie continued to purr until warm tears touched her, then she leaped from Maddie’s arms and parked herself by the refrigerator door.

  “Okay, okay, I’m entitled to a good cry once in a while.” Maddie hiccuped. Tillie sat patiently by the refrigerator, waiting for her breakfast.

  Maddie spooned so much salmon into the cat’s dish it spilled over the sides. Tillie watched these strange goings-on as if to say, Don’t think I’m eating off the floor. Besides, you’re giving me too much. Maddie snorted at the finicky cat before she carried the remains of her coffee to the bathroom.

  It was still warm and steamy from Pete’s shower. She sniffed and smiled. The room smelled just like him, all woodsy and manly. She touched the thick towel hanging on the rack. Pete liked blue towels, the bath-sheet kind. She’d gotten six at Bloomingdale’s with her thirty percent discount. She should have bought more, but washing them in her compact washer-dryer was an all-day job.

  An hour later Maddie was back in the kitchen with her appointment book spread open in front of her. She looked at the miniature calend
ar at the top of the page. The forty-five days loomed ahead of her. It might be a good idea to call some friends now and set up some social evenings. She dialed, gave her friend Janice’s extension, and sat back to wait. The moment she heard her friend’s voice, she started to babble, ending with, “So how are my ten shares of Coca-Cola doing?”

  “The same thing they were doing when you called last week. You sound funny, is something wrong?”

  “No . . . yes. Not really. Pete left a little while ago. For forty-five days. I started to miss him before he was out the door.”

  “Where’d he go this time? You need to put a leash on him, Maddie.” Janice laughed.

  “He promised to cut his travel in half after we got married. By the way, the bridal shop called yesterday. They want you to go in for a fitting next Tuesday. I told them it would have to be on your lunch hour, and they said okay. Give them a call, okay? The other thing I called about is, how would you like to drive up to Stamford and look at a house this weekend? Pete gave me the keys to his car. The Beemer,” she crowed.

  “The weekend starts tomorrow, Maddie. Do you mean tomorrow or Sunday? I thought we were going to paint the woodwork at Fairy Tales.”

  Who but a lifelong friend would give up her weekend to paint woodwork? Maddie thought. “We can do that next weekend if you’re free. Let’s go tomorrow and make a day of it. I’ll treat to dinner, and you can try and sell me some stock. How’s it going?”

  “Merrill Lynch isn’t real fond of women brokers. I’m here on probation, thanks to a friend of a friend. I need some rich clients. Like Pete.”

  “What about all the names I gave you from Bloomingdale’s?”

  “They’re afraid to invest. I’ve been following this stock called Unitec. It’s a bargain at two bucks.”

  Maddie felt bad for her friend, and a moment later it occured to her that she might be able to help.

  “So, what time tomorrow?”

  “Tenish. We can stay overnight if you want.”

  “I’ll leave it up to you. How’s Fairy Tales coming?”

  “They’re putting the new ceiling up as we speak, and the floor is scheduled to go down tomorrow. The hopscotch floor is so bright it boggles your mind. The cubby departments go in next week. Saturday will be a good time to match up the paints with the floor. If they’re off even a bit in the color, they won’t look right. I want this to be perfect, a one-of-a-kind store. Someday, I hope to have a chain of them, and then I can invest all my profits with you.”

  “On that happy thought, I’ll leave you. I have to go to a meeting. I’ll come by around nine-thirty. Scruffy clothes, right?”

  “Right.”

  Maddie sighed. She always felt good when she spoke to her friend Janice. Janice was real, a part of her youth, part of her old life.

  On her walk over to the corner of Third Avenue and Forty-sixth Street, Maddie ran her bank balance over in her mind. Money was going out faster than it was coming in. The high rent she was going to be paying every month petrified her, even though Pete’s negotiation with the landlord, who was a friend, had reduced it. The decorations, the built-ins, were custom-made. Possibly another mistake. But Pete seemed to have money to burn, so why was she worrying?

  In the beginning, her plan was to open a little children’s store that sold one-of-a-kind clothing, mostly handmade. When she’d told Pete about it, he’d moved like a whirling dervish, arranging things, taking charge, giving her input every hour of the day. It was nothing for him to call her from Germany in the middle of the night with an idea for Fairy Tales, saying it was the kid in him and when possible he wanted to work in the store on Saturdays so he could play with the toys and the children.

  As she waited for a traffic light to change, she winced when she thought about the loan the Small Business Administration had denied her. Pete had jumped right in and offered the financing, a loan so large she still couldn’t comprehend the numbers. When she incorporated, she’d offered, hesitantly, to put the business in both names, but Pete had said no, this was her business and the loan was a straightforward business deal. With lawyers and everything. Plus bills from said lawyers. The clock was already ticking, and she was nervous. Pete just smiled confidently, saying he believed in her and what she was trying to do. “Fairy Tales Can Come True.” She planned to play the song, sung by Frank Sinatra, in the background once the store opened.

  Maddie felt a rush of goose bumps on her arms when she reached the entrance to her three-thousand square feet of store space. The new door was up. A pristine white Dutch door. She giggled. A Dutch door on Madison Avenue. Mother Goose, Cinderella ...

  She’d gotten the idea for Fairy Tales years ago when she visited California. Quite by chance, on her way to Stallion Springs to visit a friend, she’d stopped in a quaint bookstore in Tehachapi. She remembered how stunned she was to see a circle of children gathered around a burning fireplace, mothers in chairs sipping herbal teas, while a woman named Chelley Kitzmiller read fairy tales to the children. She’d walked around the store on tiptoe, marveling at the little compartments where adults browsed and older children played with toys geared to the learning process. Little racks of handmade ruffled smocks for serious crafts were tacked on a pegboard. Everything was for sale, from books to smocks to lace-edged socks and pinafores.

  Miss Chelley, as the children called her, said her bookstore was a gathering place. A homey place for friends and neighbors and first-time customers. The only problem, Miss Chelley said, was that she no longer had any first-time customers. Repeat customers made for success. Maddie had carried that scene, that conversation, around with her for years, knowing someday she’d put it all to good use.

  In a way, it was a dream of hers to own something of her own, to be solely responsible for the success or failure of her own business. She crossed her fingers that her homey, comfortable, upscale, pricey store would be a success.

  Maddie walked around her cluttered domain, tramping in sawdust and Sheetrock dust, marveling at the hanging wires, the exposed pipes for the plumbing, the new windows that had grids in them now, à la Hansel and Gretel. She brushed at the Sheetrock dust building up in the fine hairs on her arms. She had to get out of here before she choked to death. The catalogs, the order blanks, her thick file with the names of various tradespeople under her arm, she left the store, but not before she stood back to admire the double Dutch doors.

  And it was all hers.

  “This house is gorgeous,” Maddie said, her voice tinged with awe. “This . . . this is ...”

  “Ritzy.” Janice giggled. “I love Tudors. If the key is in the mailbox like the realtor said, then this is the house. I wonder how much it costs. Did Pete tell you?”

  “Seven hundred fifty big ones. It’s so ... big. I’ll need a gardener, maybe two.” Her voice was full of elation.

  “Take a look around this neighborhood,” Janice said. “Everything is pruned and mowed to perfection. The chances of a bunch of husbands creating this look is about one in a million. Two gardeners,” Janice concluded positively.

  Maddie reached into the wooden mailbox for the key, then held it up. “This is it.”

  “Maddie, do you have any idea how very lucky you are? You have a sweet guy who loves you, a guy who is helping you financially with your business and now this house. This is a long way from the Bronx, Maddie.”

  “Janny,” Maddie said, using the childhood nickname she’d given her friend in kindergarten, “I’m scared, but in some cockamamy way, I’m elated too. Yesterday when Pete left, I had this awful feeling something was going to go wrong. I haven’t been able to shake it off.”

  “Oh, Maddie, I think it’s the forty-five days that’s bothering you. Pete’s trips are usually shorter. A month and a half is a long time. What could possibly go wrong? Nothing, that’s what!”

  Janice stepped into a tiled foyer. “Maddie, this is soooo gorgeous.” She moved beyond, to the sunken living room, and gasped. “Look at the fireplace! It goes all the way to the ceili
ng.” Her eyes popping, she said, “You can stand up inside the opening. I bet you could roast a whole pig in there.”

  “It’s going to take so much furniture. I love buying furniture. I’ll be able to shop for days. Pete said I can buy whatever I want. Money’s no object. Can you believe that, Janny? I can’t wait to move out of that crummy apartment on Forty-ninth Street. Still, I do love Manhattan.”

  “This is so perfect,” Janny said, only half listening. “Pete’s going to want to entertain. So will you once you start dealing with all those people you’re doing business with. I would kill for this, Maddie. God, you are so lucky. Let’s look at the kitchen. I love kitchens.”

  “That’s because you’re a good cook. I’m lucky I can boil eggs and water. I’m a whiz at opening cans and boxes, though,” Maddie said ruefully. “I’m going to get a cook and a housekeeper.”

  “Just think, you’ll get off the train, your housekeeper will pick you up at the train station, you’ll waltz in here, she’ll have a drink waiting and your dinner all set out. She’ll do all the laundry, the dusting, and all that junk. All you’ll have to worry about is keeping Pete happy and running Fairy Tales. It’s the perfect scenario. Everyone lives happily ever after, just like in a fairy tale.”

  “Do you think Pete will balk at a cook, housekeeper, and two gardeners?”

  “That’s Pete’s problem. He’s the provider,” Janny said airily.

  “The commute is going to be a killer. Retailing is a killer too,” Maddie said, her eyes wild.

  Janice ignored her comments. “Jeez, would you look at this kitchen. I’ve never seen anything like it, even in magazines.”

  “A contractor built it for himself. His wife left him and ran off with the electrician who wired the house. Pete told me that. The house has never been lived in. Everything is custom-made.”

  “Maddie, loosen up and think about how you’re going to make love to Pete in front of that gorgeous fireplace. Lord, the carpet alone is thicker than a down comforter. These cabinets are cherrywood. This center island is beautiful, and those cedar beams . . . oh, Maddie, you’ll be so happy boiling water. Look at those Tiffany lamps hanging over the bar area! The wraparound window in the breakfast room is gorgeous. You need to get colored place mats, the kind with fringes. Cottage curtains with the same color tiebacks as the place mats. Why do you suppose the contractor’s wife ran off with the electrician? I’d never give this up.”