Marion Lennox - Adopt-a-Dad

“Ellie, when did I last have time off work?”

“Beats me,” she said. “I don’t think you have. Not since you started here two years ago.”

“Permission to take the rest of the day off, then? With that and the weekend… That should do it. I’ll be back at work on Monday.”

“Should do what?” Her voice rose. “No. Don’t hang up. I take back what I said about not wanting to know. I do. Michael, what’s going on?”

“I want you to find out. You’re closer to the action than I am.”

“There’s a strange woman here,” Ellie said suddenly, as if she was looking around reception as she spoke and her gaze had rested on someone. “Not a bureaucrat. English, upper crust. Mid-sixties. Looks like Wallace Simpson on a good day. Not a hair out of place. Expensively dressed and smooth as silk. You know the type-or maybe you don’t. It’s a female thing-on the surface polite and sweet and a little bit helpless, and underneath as tough as nails. She’s questioning all the staff about where Jenny might be-says she’s Jenny’s mother-in-law, and she’s worried sick.”

“Is she now?” Michael turned away so Jenny couldn’t hear him. “What’s she saying?”

“She thinks Jenny’s run away because the immigration officers have come. She says Jenny’s pregnant and alone, with practically no money. She told me the immigration officials are trying to deport Jenny, and she’s desperate to help her daughter-in-law and her poor little unborn grandchild. So do I know anything I’m not telling the immigration people?”

“What did you tell her?”

“I didn’t tell her anything,” Ellie said frankly. “When she asked the staff in accounts where Jenny might be and they didn’t know, she offered them money. A heap of money. To be honest, she gives me the creeps. So no, she has nothing from me except blank stares. I can be a real dope when I try.”

“Good girl.”

“Don’t patronize me, you toad. Just tell me-”

“Watch her, Ellie,” Michael interrupted. “You’re right not to trust her. I don’t understand yet if there’s just cause, but Jenny’s frightened of her, and Jen doesn’t scare easily. And don’t worry. I’ll see you at work on Monday.”

“Michael!” Ellie’s voice rose in a wail, and Michael grinned and disconnected.

For a change, it wouldn’t hurt Ellie not to know what he’d eaten for breakfast that morning.

Or that he was married…

“RIGHT. That all appears to be in order.” The gray-haired woman pushed her glasses down her nose and stared across the desk at Jenny and Michael. Her eyes bored right through them. “But there are a couple of questions I need to put to you both.”

“Yes?” Michael took Jenny’s hand and exerted gentle pressure. Leave the talking to me, his hand said, but he didn’t mind admitting he liked the feel of her fingers in his.

“Why did you delay marrying for so long?” she asked. She fixed Jenny with a stern look. “You’re aware your permit to stay in this country expires on Monday.” She glanced at her computer screen. “We’ve been given advice that you didn’t intend leaving the country. On the basis of information received, we have officers checking your whereabouts right at this minute.”

“Who gave you that information?” Michael asked, as though surprised, and the woman shook her head.

“I can’t tell you that.”

“If it’s Jenny’s family in England, maybe we can understand it.” Michael smiled, and his grip on Jenny’s hand tightened. She was so tense. “They wanted her to come home when her husband was killed but she thought she’d get over his death better if she stayed out of sympathy range. And now… Maybe Jen’s thrown out a few hints that she was thinking of staying here after the baby’s born and that’s what’s worrying them. I guess they have reason to worry. Jenny’s a young widow, she’s alone, she’s vulnerable, and they don’t know me.”

“I’m not vulnerable,” Jenny said, but no one was listening.

“So you’ve been thinking about marriage for a while?”

“We’ve been working side by side for the last five months,” Michael said easily, as if pulling the wool over official eyes was something he did every day. “Jen applied for her work permit and came to me as a temporary secretary, trying to keep busy to get over her grief at Peter’s death. The arrangement was to have been for only a couple of months, but it kept being extended. By me. It didn’t take me long to realize Jen was special.”

That much at least was true. She was the best secretary he’d ever had.

“But Jenny was newly widowed,” he went on smoothly. “It’s taken time to convince her to look at anyone else.” He grinned engagingly at the woman behind the desk. “Five months, in fact. I must be a very slow convincer.”

The woman didn’t smile back, but she glanced again at the computer screen, as though what it told her conflicted with Michael’s story. Then she looked again at Jenny.

“My information says that you are desperate to stay in this country,” she said, ignoring Michael’s charm completely. “Maybe desperate enough to consider marriage as a means to staying?”

“Hey, am I someone you’d have to be desperate to marry?” Michael was all ready to feign outrage, but Jenny returned the pressure on his hand to tell him she was capable of answering the question herself, thank you very much. Vulnerable? Ha!

But she didn’t remove her hand from his.

“I nearly went crazy after my husband’s death,” she said softly. “That’s why I wanted to stay here for a while-to be close to where he died and to avoid the crushing sympathy of friends and media back home. You know that my husband-my late husband-came from a titled family in Britain? My baby will inherit that title, and my mother-in-law has promised to support us both in luxury for the rest of our lives. I’m not under pressure to stay in America. On the contrary, my family, my wealth, my son’s inheritance, all those things are pressuring me to go home. So it’s been a very hard decision to stay here, to stay with Michael.”

She smiled, and reluctantly the lady behind the desk smiled back. It seemed Jenny’s charm worked better than Michael’s.

“I’d be guessing the person worrying about me-putting pressure on your officials-is my mother-in-law,” Jenny continued, pressing her advantage. Speeding up the thaw. “She wants me to return home, and she’s a very strong lady. Maybe if she’s spoken to you then you know that already, and that she thinks I’m a fool for staying. I intended to go home-after all, there’s a lot to be said for living on my ex-husband’s inherited wealth-but when I went to the travel agent to book my return ticket I realized…I realized just how much I wanted to stay.”

“And why was that?”

Jenny cast a sideways glance-a loving look that almost shattered Michael’s composure-at her new husband. If she was acting, she was sure good at it! “It was knowing how much I wanted to stay with Michael,” she said in a voice that was no more than a whisper.

“So you didn’t buy your return ticket?” the woman pressed her. “But you thought about it. That would be how long ago?”

“A month ago,” Jenny said, unruffled. “Nearing the end of the time I could fly.”

“So you’ve been planning this marriage for a month?”

“I have,” Jenny said serenely. “I just delayed telling Michael.”

“Can I ask why?”

“I wanted to make him sweat.” Jenny’s eyes twinkled, and she gave Michael an affectionate grin, for all the world as though they were longtime lovers and she was teasing him. Then she turned to the woman, and her smile died.

“No.” She hesitated. “That’s not the truth. To be honest… I don’t know if you can understand, but… Peter’s only been dead for seven months. It’s soon. Maybe too soon. That was why we haven’t told anyone of our relationship. We’ve kept it quiet. Though it seemed so right, it still seemed a betrayal. It has been very hard to say yes to Michael. I only know that I couldn’t say no.”

There was a trace of sympathy flickering in the woman’s eyes. “But you’ve said yes now?”

Jenny’s chin tilted. “I surely have. We’re married now, so I guess I’m as sure as I’ll ever be. Michael’s promised to care for my baby like his own.” Her eyes defied the woman to doubt her. “An offer like Michael’s-from a man like Michael-doesn’t come along every day. I’d guess that my mother-in-law is very upset. I can understand her reasons, though we don’t always get on. But I’d be a fool to go home to England and to hope that Michael would follow.”

“I would follow,” Michael said, playing his part to the hilt. He put his arm around her waist. “I certainly would. It’d be me who’d be the fool if I didn’t.”

And suddenly it was over. The woman was rising and smiling, her frost giving way to a thaw. “Well, this seems satisfactory. There will be follow-up visits, checking on you on your home territory, so to speak, but it seems a formality. We’ll give you notice.” She cast a look of dislike at her computer screen, as if it had betrayed her. “Enough of my time’s been wasted on this. I seem to have sent my officers on a wild-goose chase.”

“Your officers?”

“There are two of our people searching Austin for you right now,” she told Jenny. “I suspect they’ll be annoyed when I tell them I’ve had you here all along.” She pursed her lips. “Of all the useless…”

“Was that because of us?” Jenny said, distressed. “Should I have let people know sooner? I didn’t think- I mean, I thought we had until Monday to let people know. I thought if we applied now…”

“No, my dear, it is not your fault,” the woman told her. “You go off and enjoy your honeymoon, and I wish you the very best of luck for your life together.”

“I DON’T THINK,” Michael said carefully as the door closed behind them, “that Gloria is in for a very good reception if she tries to exert more pressure on you through immigration.”