Lullaby and Goodnight by Wendy Corsi Staub Page A

can be sure.
    She hands the card back to him without comment.
    â€œYou’re probably wondering why I’m out talking to strange women at this hour.”
    She shrugs. That’s exactly what she’s wondering.
    â€œI had the day from hell at the lab—I just left now, in fact. I’m on my way home to an empty apartment and an empty fridge. I desperately need a beer and I desperately need sleep, but I guess I’m even more desperate for somebody to talk to. Lucky you, right?”
    She can’t help smiling at his expression . . . or glancing down at the fourth finger of his left hand.
    He catches her, and laughs, holding it up and waving it in her face. “No ring. I’m divorced. You?”
    Pregnant and single.
    â€œI’m not divorced.”
    â€œMarried, then?”
    â€œNo. Just . . .”
    Pregnant and single.
    But she isn’t about to tell him that. Why would she? He’s a stranger. She’ll never see him again. It’s none of his business.
    â€œNot interested?” He shakes his head, laughs again. “It’s okay. I get it. I guess I won’t bother asking if you want me to walk you the rest of the way down the block. Here’s where I turn off.”
    They’ve reached Ninth Avenue. The crosstown light is red.
    â€œThanks for the melon,” Peyton tells him as she waits for the DON’T WALK sign to change.
    â€œYou’re welcome. Thanks for the ear.”
    Feeling a twinge of guilt that she wasn’t more receptive, she sees that the light is green.
    â€œGood night.” She waves and steps off the curb.
    She forces herself not to turn back as she crosses the street, but she can feel his gaze on her. Or so she believes.
    When she reaches the opposite side, she allows herself to turn her head briefly.
    The spot where she left him is empty.
    Maybe he wasn’t watching her walk away after all.
    Maybe you shouldn’t flatter yourself that way.
    She can’t help smirking. She’s been in the city long enough to know about the notorious dearth of handsome, professionally successful eligible bachelors her age. She’s had only a few dates since she moved here—in part because her job consumes all her free time, but also because interesting men don’t pop up and fall in love with her on a regular basis.
    It isn’t until Peyton reaches her brownstone in the middle of the next block that something Tom said comes back to her.
    I guess I won’t bother asking if you want me to walk you the rest of the way down the block.
    It almost sounded as though . . .
    No.
    She’s never seen the man before in her life.
    Why would she think he might know where she lives?
    It’s just that the way he phrased it— the rest of the way down the block —seems telling. How does he know she doesn’t live in one of the blocks beyond the intersection? Or around a corner?
    She’s probably just paranoid. More pregnancy hormones at work.
    Still, she checks the locks on her door several times once she’s inside, and, feeling foolish, looks under the bed before climbing back into it.
    The watermelon sits untouched, still in its plastic bag, her craving having vanished just as unexpectedly as the stranger who paid for it.

Month Three
    April

CHAPTER THREE
    â€œI’m Rose Calabrone,” the woman across the threshold announces in a friendly tone that almost puts Derry at ease.
    Almost.
    Standing there beside her husband, facing the stranger who holds their parental fate in her hands, Derry can’t help but fret. She clenches her fists in the pockets of the new corduroy pants she found on final markdown at Strawberry’s during yesterday’s emergency shopping trip.
    Less than twenty-four hours ago, as she scurried around the city on her fashion mission, it was sleeting, reducing the remnants of a late snowfall into ugly gray slush in the gutters.
    Today, the April breeze is so unseasonably balmy that