Temptation Ridge

One evening when he was the last to leave the medical practice he took it upon himself to tidy up the waiting room. Toys and magazines were scattered everywhere and their current receptionist didn’t do a very good job of straightening up at the end of the day. With just another fifteen minutes, he could have it cleared out so the housekeeping staff could do a thorough cleaning. After stowing away the toys, he began to stack the children’s books and magazines for the parents.



And there she was—her face stared back at him from a little corner photo on the cover of People magazine. He sat heavily in a child-size chair in the waiting room, staring. If it wasn’t her, it sure looked like her. Kid Crawford Divorces Third Wife.



He read the story. Oh, it was her. Kid Crawford, a notorious rock star, had chosen for his third wife a flight attendant he’d met while traveling. They’d been married less than a year. He did some math—she had said she’d been served divorce papers nine months before, which made their actual marriage somewhere less than three months. Ouch. Given the source of his current sulk, he could well imagine how tough that would be on the ego. No wonder she was depressed.



There were more pictures in the body of the story, plus pictures of his first and second wives and the new girlfriend, who he had reportedly lived with for six months prior to his divorce. Perhaps the hardest thing to accept was that this classy young woman, so squeaky clean and sweet, had been married to this awful, bearded, greasy guy in torn jeans, dark glasses, gaudy tattoos and chains.



This would explain her pain and loneliness. He took the magazine with him to Joe Benson’s architectural firm. Joe stood, stretching out a hand. “Hey, Doc. Sorry, I don’t know anything more to tell you about the mysterious wedding guest.”



Cameron flashed the magazine. “Do you know her?” he asked.



The look on Joe’s face said it all. He couldn’t reel in the expression to cover it.



“Abby,” he finally said. “I’m sorry, Doc. I had a feeling it might be her.”



“But you wouldn’t have told me.”



Joe shrugged. “I couldn’t do that, Doc. To tell the truth, I sympathize with you, I really do. But you have to be careful about making women vulnerable to men you don’t know. And even though I’m sure you’re sterling, I don’t know you.”



“I understand,” he said.



“According to my wife, Abby’s had a real bad year. I’d hate to complicate it further.” Joe tapped the magazine. “It’s been just awful.”



Cameron frowned and shook his head. “How’d she end up with a loser like this?”



“Oh, he’s a loser, but this is all theatrics. He doesn’t look like this. I’m sure half his fans wouldn’t even recognize him. His name is Ross and I’ve never met him, but my wife was at their little secret wedding and she says he’s a good-looking, clean-cut, charming kind of guy. Except not for long, I guess.”



Cameron hung his head for a second, taking it in. “Gotcha. You still have my card?” he asked, digging in his back pocket for his wallet.



Joe held up a hand. “I’ve got it,” he said.



“If you could just get word to her that I’d like to hear from her sometime….”



“I could try that.”



“If I don’t hear from you, I’ll consider the matter closed.”



“Sure. I’ll ask my wife to get in touch with her.”



A couple of days went by with no phone call and he knew—there wouldn’t be one. If she had any interest, this was a good time for her to reach out to someone who cared about her, wanted to begin a relationship that wasn’t like this loony rock-star thing. He forced himself to accept the facts—it was a one-night stand. It was over.



Ten



Abby MacCall Crawford, aka Brandy one time only, had had a very simple plan when she returned to L.A. from the wedding in Grants Pass. She was going to sign the divorce papers, be free in two shakes and work on rebuilding her life. After all, her marriage to Ross Crawford had been over almost as soon as it began and while technically she’d been Mrs. Crawford for nine months, he’d lived with another woman for over six and she hadn’t seen him or talked to him in ten. This should be a mere formality. Long overdue.



It wasn’t going to be that easy for Abby.



First of all, she had to hire a lawyer because there were “terms” in Ross’s settlement offer. Her husband had run up some impressive bills on credit cards, most of them during their separation, and she was stuck for her half, even though her income wasn’t a tenth of his. Just negotiating the amount down to a third of what Ross demanded cost her huge attorney fees and still left her with a bill she could never pay. And she was asking herself for the millionth time how she’d gotten herself in this mess.



Ross Crawford had swept her off her feet with his practiced flirtations and she had fallen hard and fast. He was a musician, the bass guitarist in a band that had several popular albums out. She had met him on the airplane. His appearance in first class was so different from the one he presented while onstage. He was clean-cut in his khakis and crisp white shirt, his hair neatly cropped, face clean shaven, smile dazzling. He had such charisma, such humor! Onstage he wore ripped jeans, chains, and affected a scruffy three-day growth of beard that he only let grow out before he performed, and long shaggy hair that wasn’t his. She knew the band; it made her laugh to think it was the same man. Abby fell in love with a semifamous rock star and even saw her own face on the cover of a tabloid more than once.



When she met him, Ross had been returning to Los Angeles after being in drug treatment, a secret carefully guarded from the public. But the secret wasn’t that Ross had used drugs, but rather that he’d stopped; there was a certain druggie mystique about rock stars that made them seem more edgy and dangerous, more popular. The fact he was in recovery didn’t deter her from seeing him; she was proud of him. He went to meetings every day and couldn’t talk about anything but his program. His sincerity was riveting. The other guys in the band didn’t use, he said. In fact, they were the ones that did the intervention, demanded the life change if he was going to stay with them. He spoke the gospel; he was clean as a whistle, proven by regular urine tests. He wanted a stable life, a wife, a family, something genuine to come home to.



Abby had married him too quickly because she was with him every day and night anyway. After only a few weeks of marital bliss, Ross was back on tour with the band. The daily phone calls lasted only a couple of weeks and though she could arrange her flying schedule around his tour pretty easily, he told her he was just too busy with the band, rehearsals, travel and grueling performances. But she knew—he started using again right away. She could hear it in his voice—first the slur of alcohol, then the sharp euphoria of cocaine as well. Then he stopped picking up her calls; she went straight to voice mail.



Her own naivete had so embarrassed her that for weeks that turned into months she tried pretending everything was all right, that it was simply difficult being separated while he was on tour with the band. Then his picture started appearing in the media with other women. Then his lawyer called her; she was served papers. Ross had never bothered calling, himself. By the time she gathered with some of her girlfriends at Nikki’s wedding in Grants Pass, everyone knew it had fallen apart long ago and she was faced with their pity. So she had slipped away from the reception before it was over, then out of town first thing in the morning.



A turning point for her had been a night of wonderful love in the arms of a stranger. It had been a complete accident. When he left her in the bar to book a room, she had no intention of spending the night with him. She got up from her table and went to the elevators to go to her own room. But when he saw her there, thinking she was waiting for him, the look on his face was so sweet and sexy, she melted. When he took her hand and pulled her carefully into his arms, the need to be held and treated with love surpassed any common sense she might’ve possessed.



At the time she was glad to have had that night. Something about it showed her that life wasn’t over, that after the divorce was final she might actually find happiness someday. It had been her intention to just go back to work, careful not to allow herself to get close to any flirtatious passengers, and go about the business of recovering from the shattered expectations she had had of love. Then she would start anew. When the divorce and her recovery were complete, she thought she might get in touch with that beautiful stranger and maybe get to know him better.



But in the chilly days of late October, her divorce still not final, she was sitting in her doctor’s office, tears pouring down her cheeks. “I just don’t see how this could have happened. I’ve been on the pill forever and never before…”



Dr. Pollock took her hand in both of his. “I can tell you exactly how,” he said. “You were taking antibiotics for an ear infection and it rendered your oral contraceptive ineffective. Didn’t they warn you about that at the clinic? When they prescribed the antibiotic?”



“They might have,” she said with a sniff. In fact, who knows what they said? There were many colliding facts—one, she had to have something to heal her ears—she was flying after all. When she realized she couldn’t clear her ears without pain and would be on duty in three days, she went to the airline’s outpatient clinic right away. If they’d said anything about her birth control being useless to her, she wouldn’t have given it a thought—she wasn’t making use of her birth control. Her husband was gone; his lawyers had called her every week about that divorce. And then, a handsome young doctor had found her sad and lonely in a hotel bar, bought her a couple of champagne cocktails, led her upstairs and made incredible, unforgettable love to her.



A complete stranger. She had become pregnant by a complete stranger.



“Dear God,” she whispered. “What am I going to do?” she wept.



“You have a few options,” her doctor said. “But you should make a decision about whether to continue the pregnancy as soon as possible. The longer you put it off, the more complicated it gets.”



It briefly crossed her mind to get in touch with Cameron Michaels. Nikki had called her to ask her if she’d met the man; he’d gone to Joe’s office, looking for a way to get in touch with a woman who fit her description. Abby played dumb; she wasn’t about to tell even her closest friends what had happened before she had a plan. “Gee,” she’d said to her friend, “I ran into a couple of real nice guys in the hotel bar, but that name doesn’t ring a bell.”



Now it was too late. Now if she saw him again, he’d know he had fathered her child and she’d be stuck with him for life, if only as the baby’s father. And what if she learned she didn’t want a permanent relationship with him? She couldn’t take the risk. That he had been perfect that one night didn’t mean anything! Even Ross had been perfect longer than that!



Then everything had become a horrible mess; as if the divorce wasn’t enough, being followed constantly by people with cameras, hungry for the ugly details, made it so much worse. Ross had made himself excellent tabloid fodder.



And then there was that other sticky thing—the prenup. Ross’s attorney would begin sending her a settlement every month—ten thousand dollars—predicated on her fidelity during their marriage. When she signed the agreement, it seemed almost silly—if she promised to be completely faithful during her marriage, he would pay her that amount in the event of divorce, up to the date of her remarriage. Rich guys had to make deals like that—so short-term wives didn’t walk away with millions. She hadn’t expected to be a short-term wife.



If her pregnancy became obvious, it was possible Ross or his legal beagles would be able to prove she’d had sex with another man more than a month before the divorce was final. To give up the alimony was nothing to her; she didn’t care about that. But the bills Ross had left her with were huge. Cheating him out of alimony wasn’t on her mind, but those bills that claimed more than forty grand owing were his, not hers.