Special Delivery by Danielle Steel Page B

pensively, she was deeply worried about her daughter. She had looked so down about it, and so hopeless.
    Maybe if they forget about it for a while, it will just happen.
    That's what I told her. But I think in circumstances like this, it's all you think about. I have friends who went through it. He nodded, and they talked of other things. They always seemed to have a thousand things to say to each other. He talked to her a lot about the store, and asked her opinion about lines he was buying, particularly the high-end ones. She had great taste and a good eye, and she had already made some useful suggestions. And now he was particularly interested in her input in the store he was planning to open in San Francisco. The opening probably wouldn't be for another year or more, but he wanted to get started.
    She liked going to the store on Rodeo to visit him, and Gladdie was impressed each time she saw her. There was no question that Amanda was very striking, but she was also very human, and the two women chatted sometimes. Gladdie was their only confidante and she loved knowing their secret.
    The entire month flew by. They spent a weekend in Palm Springs, and in February he took her skiing in Aspen. They had a fabulous time, and ran into a number of his friends, all of whom recognized her. They were enormously impressed to see him with her, and much to her chagrin, there was a small blurb about them in the Aspen paper.
    I hope no one calls L.A. This is no way to tell the children.
    Maybe we ought to tell them ourselves one of these days. They had been inseparable for nearly two months now. And they'd been careful to avoid the L.A. press, by staying away from the kind of events that they covered.
    But when she had lunch with Jan and Louise again, Jan was still so depressed that Amanda didn't have the heart to tell them. It seemed selfish somehow to brag about her own happiness when Jan was so unhappy. The only time she smiled was when she laughed and said something about Paul's father.
    Paul thinks he has a serious girlfriend. He's really settled down. Paul says he looks half his age, and goes around grinning like a Cheshire cat. But he doesn't say anything about her. She's probably some nineteen-year-old bimbo. But whoever she is, she seems to be keeping him happy and out of trouble.
    Knowing him, Louise said with a look of disdain, it's probably a set of quintuplets.
    Now, girls, poor man ' he has a right to his own life, Amanda said nervously, feeling awkward.
    When did you get so charitable about him? Louise asked, and then the conversation turned to other things. Amanda felt as though she had swallowed her napkin as she looked at them, wondering how she was ever going to tell them.
    Amanda told Jack about it that night, and he laughed at her. You act like you expect them to think you're a virgin.
    Worse. I'm their mother. You know what that means. No sex, no boys, no hanky-panky, except with their father.
    They're adults. They can take it.
    Maybe. But he hadn't convinced her. She knew her daughters.
    They were staying in Malibu a lot these days, the weather was warm, the beach was heavenly, and she loved being in his house with him. Even after the initial shock of sleeping with him, she was still a little uncomfortable in her own house. It was easier staying at Jack's place. And she cooked breakfast for him every morning, before he left for work and she went back to her own place.
    She was scrambling eggs for him the week before Valentine's Day when he wandered into the kitchen, and was surprised to see her looking unhappy.
    Something wrong? She was always so sunny in the morning that it surprised him. He had the paper under one arm, and he stopped to kiss her on his way to get coffee.
    I don't know ' not really ' I don't feel well. She'd had a headache the day before, and she was feeling slightly queasy. But lately, after thinking it would never happen to her, she had begun to think her body was going through changes. The signs