The President's Daughter - Mariah Stewart [65]
“If you’re asking me if I’m going to turn you away—”
“Not asking you if you’re going to.” Blythe’s smile was slow and sad. “Just making sure you know that you can. No hard feelings. Ever. I wouldn’t think any less of you. I know that I’m asking a lot of our friendship.”
“Whatever I can do, whatever you need me to do . . .” Jude swallowed back the lump in her throat. “Tell me what you want.”
“I want to lease a house out here, under your name. I want you to live there with me.”
“What else?”
“Nothing.” Blythe looked away, then back again. “Just that you’ll take care of the baby for me if . . . well, if anything ever happened to me.”
“What do you think is going to happen to you?”
“Nothing. I’m sure nothing.” Blythe began to cry. “I just feel scared, Jude. For me and for my baby and for Graham, if anyone should find out about this.”
“Then we’ll just have to make sure that no one finds out.” Jude massaged Blythe’s shoulders. “Who else knows?”
“Just one or two friends of Graham’s, as far as I know.”
“Obviously people he trusts?”
“With his life.”
“And you can trust me with yours. And with the baby’s.”
Jude continued to knead the muscles in Blythe’s neck. “What are you going to tell your family?”
“I don’t know.” Blythe shook her head and wiped at her eyes. “My father’s retiring as Ambassador at the end of next year. It wouldn’t be good for him, certainly, for this to become public while he’s still serving.”
“And Betsy?”
“I trust her. She’ll always do what’s right.”
“You’re going to tell her who the father is?”
“I haven’t decided yet. Sometimes the truth can be a burden, you know?” She wiped her eyes and turned to look up at Jude. “I have everything else planned, though.”
“Okay, then, let’s hear it.” Jude sat back down in her seat, her head reeling.
“As I said, the first thing I’m going to do is find a house. I need something that is somewhat secluded, in the event that Graham can find a way to visit. I don’t know that that will be possible, frankly, what with the Secret Service and all, but I want him to have that option.” Blythe took a deep breath. “Then, I’m going back east for a week or so. I need to talk to my lawyer.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to make certain that if anything does happen to me, my baby is taken care of. I inherited a small estate from my mother.”
Jude smiled to herself, wondering just what constituted a small estate in Blythe’s world.
“And I want to name you as guardian.”
“Of course, sure.”
“I want to set this up so that if something happens to me, you’ll raise my baby. You’ll have full access to the money for housing, schooling, clothing, trips, whatever you want to spend it on. Whatever’s left the baby will inherit on your death.”
“Blythe, I think it’s always wise to look ahead, but . . . well, you just look so serious. What do you think will happen?”
“I don’t know, to tell you the truth.” Blythe’s lavender eyes clouded over. “I just want to know in my heart that if for any reason I can’t be around you’ll raise him or her as your own.”
“Of course I would.”
“You promise, Jude?”
“You have my word.”
The next few months had passed in a surrealistic blur. Blythe had found a house and leased it under Jude’s name. There had been Lamaze classes and late-night phone calls from Washington. Days when Jude returned from her classes and found Blythe floating in the pool on a raft, slick with oil and complaining about the heat. There were shopping trips where baby furniture was purchased and tiny garments oohed and ahhed over. Since Blythe’s only contacts were with other participants in Lamaze, there was no baby shower, a fact that Betsy—once the shock of her sister’s predicament passed—had lamented. She’d flown in two weeks before the baby was due, lugging beautifully wrapped packages from Philadelphia’s best stores and delighting Blythe by arranging for a catered lunch for the three of them so that Blythe could be showered with gifts as tradition dictated.