Good Husband Material
KARA LENNOX
TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON
AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG
STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID
PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND
TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON
AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG
STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID
PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND
As Natalie Briggs looped her name badge around her neck, she casually checked out the remaining badges on the table.
Casually, until she saw the one that read Josh Carlson. Then she had to swallow hard and look away, hoping her panic wasn’t obvious. How was this possible?
Her friend Melissa had assured her Josh wouldn’t come. He’d made partner a couple of years ago at the Houston law firm he’d been working for since he got his law degree. That meant he didn’t have time for a silly class reunion.
She didn’t bear him malice, really. But it would be so awkward seeing him after all these years.
“Natalie!”
She found herself scooped into a bear hug by a five-foot-two tornado. Though Natalie couldn’t see the tornado’s face, she knew it was Melissa Bailey Pelton, the only person in tiny Camden, Texas, she’d kept in touch with over the last several years.
With her mounds of bright red hair—always completely out of control—and mischievous green eyes, Melissa had an eternal youthfulness about her that would probably still be with her when she was a hundred.
“Natalie, you look fabulous! I can’t believe you actually came!”
“I told you I was coming, didn’t I?” Then she added in a whisper, “But you told me Josh wouldn’t be here. You promised.”
“He RSVP’d at the last minute,” Melissa said with a shrug. “Anyway, I want to see him. We’ve exchanged a few calls and e-mails over the years, but I haven’t actually laid eyes on him since you guys split up…what, twenty years ago?”
“Twenty years ago this month, as a matter of fact.”
“Ah, so you keep track.” Before Natalie could comment, Melissa led her to a table, where a few others from their old crowd were sitting drinking beer and noshing on chicken wings. “Look who I found!”
“Hey, it’s Stick!”
Shrieks of recognition and lots of hugging followed. Back in high school, they’d been the brainy group, the ones who actually read the assigned books in English class and enjoyed them. The ones who’d planned on going to college, though not all of them had.
“Lookin’ good, Stick,” said Tommy, the one who’d dubbed her with her not-very-flattering nickname because she’d been so skinny.
“Not such a stick anymore,” she said with a grin.
Natalie hugged each of them in turn and met a few spouses as warm memories flooded her. Diane Helms, who’d played flute in the marching band; Bud Conklin, who read books on theoretical physics just for fun; Tommy Garrett, who loved practical jokes. Though some of them had less hair, more padding and a few more laugh lines, they were all instantly recognizable and seemed exactly the same.
It was too bad she’d let these friendships slip away. After her mother died, she’d found no compelling reason to return to her small hometown.
Camden and her old friends had only been a painful reminder of how happy they’d all been—how happy she and Josh had been before the struggles of the real world had taken their toll.
One more person came forward and Natalie found herself nose-to-chin with Josh Carlson.
Her ex-husband.
She stepped back, and every molecule of air in her lungs whooshed out, leaving her unable to speak.
“Natalie.” His voice was warm, sexy, almost provocative. “Melissa said you couldn’t come to the reunion.”
Natalie shot her friend a scathing look, but Melissa pretended not to notice.
“I decided at the last minute,” Natalie said when she could find her voice. It came out sounding remarkably normal. Oh, Lord in heaven, why couldn’t he have aged like their friends…like her? Josh Carlson in the flesh was just…an assault on her senses. He’d filled out some, but he wasn’t carrying an ounce of excess weight anywhere she could see, and his hair was as dark and thick as ever, though he wore it quite a bit shorter than she remembered. The slight silvering at the temples didn’t detract from his appeal at all.
He was six feet of lean, broad-shouldered, gorgeous male, and Natalie’s knees had suddenly turned to rubber.
“You look fabulous,” he said. “The men are going to line up to dance with you like they did in high school.”
Natalie laughed. The comment was such an exaggeration, and for some reason it put her at ease. This was the same Josh, even if he was a fancy lawyer now, and he didn’t appear to hate her. Maybe that was what she’d feared most.
“Sit down, you two!” Melissa insisted. “Here, have a beer.” Someone had brought a round of cold bottles from a well-stocked cooler. “Hey, this is just like prom except we don’t have to sneak the alcohol.”
Natalie felt her face grow warm. Every class at Camden High held their junior-senior prom at the VFW Hall. It was the only place in town that could comfortably hold a few hundred people. Memories of her own first prom were sharp in her mind; that was the night she and Josh made love for the first time, at the end of their junior year.
She glanced over at him and saw that he was studying her, his expression pensive. Was he remembering that night, also? A lot of their friends had been slipping out to the parking lot to drink, or sneaking sips from contraband flasks. But Josh and Natalie hadn’t needed any mood-altering substances. They’d been high on each other. They’d only been dating a few months, but they’d both known their relationship was special, and they’d decided to wait until that particular night to consummate their love.
Natalie had driven all the way into Austin, more than an hour away, to visit a clinic and get birth control pills. Ironic, now that she thought about it. She hadn’t needed them—would never need them.
As if she didn’t have enough nostalgia coming at her from all directions, the reunion committee had dug up the same band that had played at their proms. It was hard to believe they were still together. Now graying, some of them near retirement age, they nonetheless could still play, at least as well as they did twenty-five years ago, which hadn’t been all that great. But the music was loud, and the songs were the hits of their era, each one with memories attached.
“Hey, come on, what are we sitting around for?” Melissa demanded. “Let’s dance!”
Oh, sure, right. Everybody at the table was already paired up—except Natalie and Josh. She was going to kill Melissa when she got the chance.
Josh started to his feet, but Natalie froze. Melissa grabbed her by the arm. “Come on! You love to dance!”
“But—”
“Stop being such a stick-in-the-mud,” Melissa said with a gleam in her eye. “Drink down that beer, then y’all get out here and dance.”
Stick-in-the-mud. Melissa’s ultimate insult when she was trying to get someone to do something they shouldn’t. Natalie had fallen for it every time in high school, and to her surprise she wasn’t immune to it even now.
Josh drained his beer, then gave Natalie a challenging look. “C’mon, Nat. It’s just dancing.”
“Oh, all right.” If she didn’t agree, Melissa would bug her until she did. They would all be dancing in a big group anyway, like they used to, the girls dancing more for each other than for the guys, who always stood around like lumps and shuffled their feet.
The dance floor was crowded. Melissa carved out a spot for their group, and pretty soon they were all dancing to songs made famous by Hall and Oates, Huey Lewis and John Cougar. The years fell away. They were all seventeen again—but no one had a curfew.
Inevitably the band turned to country music, and almost without noticing, Natalie was in Josh’s arms for an easy two-step. By the time she realized where she was, it was too late to back out.
Josh grinned at her. “It’s great to see you, Nat. I’ve missed you.”
She swallowed, trying to relieve the dryness in her mouth. This would be easier if he weren’t so darned confident. She sought a subject of conversation, and decided something that reminded them both of the huge gulf between them would be welcome. “So, how are your boys?”
His smile widened. “The boys are great. Sean’s going into his senior year—plays football and guitar. He has a girlfriend, too, which scares the hell out of me.”
“Afraid he’ll run off and get married?” Which was exactly what Josh and Natalie had done, right after high school graduation.
“Yeah. Or he’ll get the girl pregnant. They’re already, you know…sexual.”
“Your son tells you?”
“I pried it out of him. Wanted to make sure he was being responsible about it.”
Natalie knew she would soon have those same kinds of worries. Her daughter, Mary, had turned sixteen just last month. She’d told Natalie she was still a virgin, and Natalie believed her. They were very close, and Mary knew Natalie would support her fully and love her unconditionally no matter what she did. But these days, Mary was looking more and more grown-up, and she seemed to be constantly on the phone with boys.
It was only a matter of time.
“So what about your younger son? Doug, right?”
He arched one eyebrow at her in surprise.
“Hey, I read our alumni newsletter.”
“Ah. Doug is great. He’s the serious one—a little bit more like me when I was that age. Kind of shy, but he has lots of friends. And he’s a brainiac—straight A’s.”
“I bet they’re both handsome.”
“They take after their mother. Blond hair, blue eyes. And very handsome, even if I do say so myself.” He paused. “You have a daughter, I hear.”
From Melissa, no doubt. Natalie was sure Josh didn’t approve of her decision to adopt without a husband. She smiled, ready to prove to him that she’d done an excellent job raising her daughter alone. “Yes. Mary’s sixteen and perfect in every way.”
“That’s motherly love for you. No teenager is perfect.”
“Well, maybe not perfect. But she’s my joy. Never gives me any trouble.”
“My kids are great, too, but they keep me in a constant state of terror.”
“There is that,” Natalie conceded. “I guess I do worry about Mary, though she’s never given me any real reason to.”
“You wouldn’t be normal if you didn’t worry.”
Well, that exhausted the subject of children. “Your parents? They doing okay?” Josh’s parents, who’d owned the Camden National Bank, had sold the bank and moved to a posh retirement community in Galveston a few years earlier. They’d never been overly fond of Natalie, but she still felt obliged to ask after them.
“They’re great. They live right by the beach, and my father plays golf every day. I was sorry to hear about your mom. I wanted to come to the funeral but…”
“I know. Melissa said you were worried about making me uncomfortable. The flowers you sent were beautiful, and I very much appreciated the donation you made in her name to the American Cancer Society.”
“Your mom was always really cool.”
Unlike his parents, who were tense and controlling. If his father played golf, he was probably competitive as hell.
“Do you love being a lawyer?” she asked. Nice and safe.
“I like it a lot, though I still have to work too many hours. Makes being a single parent something of a challenge.”
“I know what you mean.”
“You’re still doing the nurse thing?”
“Loving every minute of it.”
“Hey, if I were in the hospital, I’d want you as my nurse.”
Good Lord, he was flirting with her. “You’re a little old.”
“What?”
“I’m a pediatric nurse. I work in the neonatal unit, so all of my patients are newborns.”
Josh smiled again, a little sadly. “I can definitely see you doing that.”
Of course he could. From the time she could walk and talk, she’d been fascinated with babies. How many times had Josh been forced to stand around while she oohed and aahed over some baby she’d spotted at the mall? She’d volunteered to take care of babies at the church nursery and she’d babysat every chance she got, looking forward to the day when she could hold her very own newborn in her arms.
Only that day never came. She’d thrown away her birth control pills the day she’d gotten married, with Josh’s full blessing. Though they had no money and no plans, they knew they wanted kids.
But the pregnancy never happened.
They saw a fertility doctor. The problem was Natalie’s—she had under-functioning ovaries. If she ovulated at all, it had been extremely erratic. They’d tried fertility drugs, which hadn’t worked, and they simply hadn’t had the money to pursue the next step, which would have been in vitro fertilization.
The constant efforts, continual worries and monthly disappointments when pregnancy tests came up negative combined to put stress on a marriage already overburdened with money problems. They’d both been going to college and holding down various jobs, all while navigating around the strident disapproval of Josh’s parents, who’d been horrified by the sudden marriage of their only son.
Natalie hadn’t been willing to give up. She was going to get a baby, no matter what it took. She’d wanted to adopt, and she’d been ready to put them on a list, figuring that by the time a baby became available they would have the money for all the legal fees. But Josh drew the line. He’d wanted to raise his own child, and had insisted that they keep trying, pretending that some miracle was just around the corner.
In hindsight, she understood his hesitation. But at the time, she’d thought he was being narrow-minded.
Her attention was jerked back to the present when the lights dropped down low and the band switched gears to a slow song.
“Maybe we should sit this one out,” Natalie said nervously.
But Josh didn’t look nervous at all. “Aw, come on, Nat, lighten up. It’s a twenty-fifth class reunion. Comes along once in a lifetime. You’re supposed to get a little bit crazy.”
“Who says?” But she didn’t object when he put his arms around her and pulled her closer. They did a slow glide around the dance floor, passing Melissa and her husband, Beau. Melissa grinned and winked at Natalie. Little did she know the revenge Natalie was planning even now.
By the end of the song, Natalie had relaxed to the point she was resting her head on Josh’s shoulder and thinking about things she shouldn’t. It had been a very long time since she’d been intimate with a man. Years, in fact. There’d been a couple of boyfriends after her divorce, but every time a relationship seemed as if it might take a turn for the serious, Natalie had ended it. She hadn’t been able to bear the thought of falling in love with a man, then telling him she couldn’t have children.
Then she’d adopted one-year-old Mary. After that, she simply hadn’t had time for any other relationships—if anyone had wanted to be with her, which they hadn’t. It wasn’t a myth, that most men viewed single moms as if they had leprosy. But she hadn’t cared. Raising a daughter was completely fulfilling—she hadn’t needed a man in her life, hadn’t even missed having one.
Or maybe she had.
She’d forgotten how good Josh smelled. “Oh, my God.”
“What?”
“You’re wearing Stetson aftershave.”
“I might be.” She heard the grin in his voice.
It was one of the first gifts she’d ever given him, a bottle of Stetson. The smell had seemed incredibly macho to her back when she was seventeen. He’d worn it for her, and it had been a couple of years before he’d been brave enough to tell her he didn’t really like aftershave, that he preferred to smell simply like soap.
Yet he’d worn it tonight. “Is it that same bottle?”
“The old bottle turned to turpentine some years ago. I went out and bought a new one.”
“But you don’t like aftershave.”
“Sure I do.”
No, he most certainly didn’t. His decision to stop wearing it had hurt her feelings, so she darn well remembered it. “Let’s go get something cold to drink.”
On the way back to their table, Bobby Salazar stepped into their path. He stared at them drunkenly. “Thought you two got divorced.”
Josh slapped the other man’s shoulder. “Hey, Bobby. Thought you got sober.”
It took Bobby a moment to process the comment. “Heh, good one.” Then he grinned and staggered off.
“I’m sure we’re confusing a number of people,” Natalie said as they reached their table.
“Yeah, but we won’t see them again for another twenty or so years, so do we care?”
She shrugged. “Not really.”
“I’ll go get us a couple more beers.”
Melissa, of course, made a beeline for Natalie as soon as she was alone. “So, y’all are getting along, it looks like.”
Natalie narrowed her eyes. “You are in so much trouble. You lied to both of us.”
“They were just little white lies. Oh, Nat, you two should be together. I always told you so. Now there’s nothing keeping you apart. He’s been divorced from Beverly for, like, eons, and you’re single.”
“There’s a lot of painful history keeping us apart,” she reminded her friend. “We can’t undo the train wreck we made of our marriage.”
“But you were so young back then. You’d do better now.”
Would they? Certainly she’d matured in the past twenty years. She had mellowed, didn’t see things as black or white anymore.
“We’ve built separate lives,” Natalie said.
“So? You could merge them again. I mean, the issue, the big issue—that’s not even relevant anymore, right?”
She shot Melissa a dangerous look. “Melissa. Stop it.”
Melissa sighed. “You’re missing a great opportunity.”
Josh returned with the beers, which ended that particular conversation. Natalie was hot and thirsty—the old air-conditioning system in the VFW Hall didn’t begin to keep up with the heat, which was why Natalie had worn a sundress and most of the men had removed their jackets and ties, including Josh.
She took a long sip of beer and appreciated how good he looked in a starched white shirt. His chest was so broad now. Nice.
Soon Melissa had them all up and dancing again. This time they were line dancing, so it didn’t seem quite so weird, though Josh was there at her right. When the dance called for them to link up, he slid his arm around her waist, letting his hand stray briefly to her hip.
She felt a jolt of awareness all the way to her toes. “Josh!”
“Sorry.” He didn’t look sorry at all. The funny thing was, Natalie wasn’t sorry, either. Maybe it was the beer or the heat or the adrenaline, but she wanted him to touch her again.
After twenty minutes on the dance floor, Natalie was hot and sweaty and actually having a good time. But she needed some fresh air. When the band took a break, she excused herself to the restroom to brush her hair and reapply her lipstick, then slipped out a side door into the parking lot.
It was early June in Texas, which meant it wasn’t exactly cool. But a breeze was blowing, refreshing her face a bit. She thought about just getting in her car and driving back to Melissa’s house, where she was spending the night. She’d already gotten more than she’d bargained for at this reunion. But she probably shouldn’t drive just yet. Those one-and-a half beers had gone to her head. She would have to wait a couple of hours.
“I wondered where you’d gone to.”
She whirled around, startled. “Josh!”
He slipped an arm around her waist, just like when they’d been dancing. Except this time they were utterly alone and in the dark.
“I’m glad you’re doing so well,” he said. “For years I worried about you, all alone in the big city.”
She forced herself to relax as they naturally fell into a slow walk, heading for an area behind the building where a few picnic tables were scattered under some ancient live oak trees.
“I was never alone. My sister’s in Dallas.” That was why she’d applied to nursing schools there instead of Houston. That, and because she’d wanted to get as far away from Josh as she could, so she wouldn’t be tempted to go back. Ending their marriage had been the most painful decision of her life. She hadn’t wanted to go through it more than once.
“Yeah, but you didn’t have me.”
“Undeniably true. But by some miracle, I muddled through without you. Or any man.”
He took her hand and led her over to the tables, bending down to squint at the top of first one, then another.
“What are you doing?”
“Ah, here it is.” He took his key chain out of his pocket. It had a little LED flashlight attached, and he shined it on the top of the picnic table.
The beam of light illuminated a heart, with the initials J.C. and N.B. enclosed. Josh had carved it into the table when they’d first started dating their junior year. The carving had been painted over many times, but it survived along with about a hundred others.
“Defacing public property. Shame on you.”
“I wanted everyone to know you were mine.” He reached up and smoothed her hair behind her ear. “You haven’t changed. I mean, really. People say that, but you still look just as I remember you. No…better.”
“It’s the soft lighting,” she joked, but inside she was quaking. She couldn’t think clearly when he was touching her. She knew there was a very good reason not to be out here alone with Josh Carlson, but none came to mind. Nothing came to her mind except a hot desire she’d been sure was a part of her adolescent past.
Then he leaned in and kissed her, and she ceased thinking altogether.
Josh couldn’t believe how good it felt to have Natalie in his arms and his mouth on hers. She looked the same, she smelled the same, she even tasted the same, which was unlike any other girl he’d ever been with.
Despite what he’d told her, he’d known ahead of time she would be at the reunion. Melissa had warned him. But the warning had been more of an enticement, really. He’d wanted to see how she’d turned out. They were still practically kids when they’d split up—just twenty-three.
He’d half hoped Natalie would be fat and matronly, with plenty of wrinkles and gray hair. Some of the girls he’d gone to high school with certainly had aged in that way. But not Natalie.
Physically, she’d hardly changed at all. Oh, she’d put on a few pounds—weight that was sorely needed. As a teenager she’d been way too thin. Now her still-slender figure had real womanly curves. He liked them—a lot.
She had the same high cheekbones and lush lips, same thick, dark hair, slightly wavy, the ends curling about her bare shoulders.
And she still kissed with no holds barred. He wondered if he could turn her on as easily as he once had. He knew where to touch. But even after a couple of beers, he questioned the wisdom of lighting her fire. They were grown-ups now, and sex wasn’t a game anymore. Sex had repercussions, and not just physical ones.
Yet, he couldn’t stop kissing her.
A door opened and he heard raucous rock music pouring out. He removed his hand from Natalie’s breast, where it had mysteriously strayed without his conscious decision.
“We really shouldn’t be doing this,” Natalie said, her chest heaving so hard she was about to come out of her sundress.
“Why not?” he asked, though he knew the answer.
“Because some memories should be left alone.”
“And some memories should be taken out and examined,” he countered. “To see if they’re really as good as you remember.”
He coaxed a smile out of her. “And was it?” she asked.
“I don’t know yet. I have more examining to do.”
She allowed him to kiss her again. Kissing was innocent, after all. They couldn’t exactly rip their clothes off and make love right here.
As he delved into her mouth with his tongue, he wished he hadn’t thought about ripping off clothes. Because knowing they couldn’t get naked right here had only made him wonder where they could get naked.
“I’ve got a room at the Holiday Inn,” he whispered in her ear. But only because he wanted to get her reaction. Not because he thought she would take him up on his proposition.
He expected her to express shock or anger or at least issue a curt refusal. But she was the one to surprise him. “I can’t. I’m staying with Melissa.” Her voice was filled with regret.
“Do you really think she’d object if you went off with me? She’s been campaigning for us to get back together ever since our divorce.”
“Yeah. Get together, get married, live happily ever after.” She paused to kiss him some more, pulling the tails of his shirt from his pants so she could slide her hands up his bare back. The touch of her warm, soft hands made him shudder with desire. Oh, what this woman could do to him. He would be her slave if she wanted it. “She would not approve of what we’re…talking about doing,” Natalie concluded.
“It’s a class reunion.”
“You keep saying that.” She reached for his hand and placed it back on her breast. “Like a class reunion is some kind of free ticket to bad behavior.”
He dipped his head down and kissed the top of her breast. “And we’re doing more than talking.” If they didn’t come to a satisfactory plan very soon, they would be out of their clothes in a much-too-public place. He’d forgotten just how crazy Natalie could make him.
He forced himself to pull away, and push the strap of her dress up her arm and back on her shoulder where it belonged. “My car is twenty steps away. You can call Melissa’s cell from there. Better yet, leave a message on her home phone.”
“Yeah, with one of her kids. ‘Tell Mommy her slutty friend Natalie is getting laid instead of coming home tonight.’”
Josh chuckled. “C’mon, Nat. I wore Stetson for you, you know. Normally I never touch the stuff.” But the smell of it had brought back all kinds of memories. Really good ones.
Sensing her reluctance, he kissed her again—kissed her until, one by one, her tense muscles relaxed and she became liquid in his arms.
“All right,” she finally said with a naughty gleam in her eye. “Forget Melissa. I’m mad at her anyway for lying to me.”
Adrenaline shot through Josh’s body. She’d said yes. He and Natalie were going to make love.
He hadn’t come here to seduce Natalie. Yeah, he’d worn the Stetson cologne, but that was more to see if she would remember—and maybe to remind her of the good times, not the bad. But the moment he’d seen her, looking not so different from the teenage girl he’d fallen in love with, he’d known that he wanted her in his bed that night.
He’d given up one-night stands a long time ago. And since two marriages with bad endings had proved he wasn’t good husband material, marriage was out of the question.
This was different, though. This was Natalie, the woman he’d once loved so desperately, probably more than anyone on earth except his kids. Spending one night with her would not be the same as some empty, frantic one-nighter. This would be a trip down memory lane, a welcome oasis of nostalgia in a life that was so caught up in work and raising kids that he never had time for just Josh anymore.
By the time they reached his Jaguar, he’d beeped open the lock. He settled her on the leather passenger seat.
“Nice,” she commented.
He looked down at her bare leg, a lot of which had been exposed when her dress rode up as she sat down. “Nice,” he murmured right back. Natalie’s long legs had always driven him wild, but they’d been colt’s legs twenty years ago. Now they were strong, elegant and shapely.
He ran around to the driver’s door and quickly climbed inside, not wanting to waste any time. Before he turned the ignition, however, he slid his hand under Natalie’s hair to grasp the back of her neck, and pulled her in for another kiss. He didn’t want to give her too much time to think because he knew she’d let reason talk her out of what they both wanted.
But once he started kissing her, he couldn’t stop. He had his hands all over her, and before he knew it she’d scrambled over the gearshift to straddle his lap.
They were no strangers to car sex. During their senior year, his “car” had been a beat-up compact pickup truck with even less space than the Jaguar, but it had afforded them the privacy they’d needed. He pushed his seat all the way back, then reclined it until they were almost horizontal.
“Nice,” she said again. She had his shirt mostly unbuttoned and her hands rubbing his bare chest, so he didn’t know if she was talking about the car or him.
He slid his hand up her dress to caress her thigh, then her bottom, which was covered with something very silky—and very tiny. “Really nice,” he murmured, fingering the lacy waistband of her panties. “I’d like to see these.”
“You can see them if you take them off.” She claimed his mouth for yet more kisses, hot, wet, open-mouthed kisses with tongues and teeth.
He was not one to argue. In a maneuver they’d perfected with practice so many years before, she leaned down until she was chest-to-chest with him, pressing her wonderful, soft breasts against him. Natalie’s breasts were fuller, softer than he remembered. She straightened her legs and swung them around to the side. Now, with her sitting on his lap with her back to the window, it was easy to whisk her panties off.
“Still agile as ever,” Josh couldn’t resist saying.
“You talk too much. And you’re wearing way too many clothes.”
That he could fix. He had his pants unfastened and unzipped in record time. Natalie reached inside his briefs and wrapped her hand around his arousal, and he sucked in a breath. It had been way too long. He suspected he would have about as much control as a teenager, which was only appropriate, since they were acting like teenagers.
Suddenly a horrible thought occurred to him. “Dammit, I don’t have any protection.”
Natalie laughed. “Josh, get a grip. Remember who you’re with.”
“Oh. Right.”
“Even if I’d been fertile as a bunny rabbit in my twenties, I’m forty-three now.”
“Jeez, Nat, I’m sorry.” How could he have made such a blunder, reminding her of what had torn them apart? “I guess I was back in time, when we did have to worry about that. But I never for a moment forgot who I was with.”
She grinned. “I should take it as a compliment that having sex with me made you forget what year it is.”
“We’re not having sex,” he argued.
“Not yet.” But she soon changed the status quo.
As he entered her, he felt as if he’d come home after a long, long absence. No, he would never mistake her with any other woman.
He tried to make it last, but it took everything he had to hold off just long enough so that she could reach the peak of pleasure. Then he fell into a void, a vacuum in which there was nothing but white-hot sensation. He wanted to stay in that place forever, but it was over far too quickly.
When he returned to the here and now, he realized they were both slick with sweat. They’d been in a sealed car on a warm Texas summer night while generating their own heat.
He cradled Natalie against his left arm while he sat up slightly and reached for the car key. With a flick of the ignition the engine was running, the air-conditioning blasting.
“Well,” Natalie said.
Josh laughed. And when he looked down at her with her dress half off, her hair everywhere, her makeup smeared, not to mention his state of disarray, he laughed again. “Guess we still got it.”
She punched him lightly on the arm. “Is that all you have to say?”
Okay, so he’d never excelled at after-sex dialogue. One of his many failings. “Natalie, that was fantastic.”
“Yeah, we still got it. We’re still crazy. What if our children saw us right now?”
“Shh. Our children aren’t here. And we’re consenting adults. We haven’t done anything wrong.” In fact, he thought it had felt pretty right.
She leaned her cheek on his chest and sighed. “I’m glad you have tinted windows.”
“There’s nobody out here, anyway.”
“Josh, why did we do that?”
Good question. If he thought there was any chance they could start over…But that was impossible. They didn’t even live in the same city. It was a four-or five-hour drive between Dallas and Houston, depending on how far one exceeded the speed limit.
But even if they weren’t geographically challenged, there’d been too much pain between them. Each time they’d failed to conceive, Natalie had gotten a little more frustrated, a little angrier, until those negative emotions had infected every aspect of their lives.
Not that he couldn’t take some responsibility for the mess they’d made of their marriage. He’d been less than sensitive to her insecurities. He’d viewed their infertility as a logistical problem to be overcome. If they just tried a little harder…
He hadn’t realized that Natalie considered her misbehaving ovaries a slap in the face of her womanhood, and he hadn’t understood her emotional storms. Sometimes, when she’d seemed especially moody, he’d just removed himself rather than comfort her and say the things she needed to hear—that he would love her forever even if there was never a baby.
Their disagreement over adoption had been the proverbial straw.
Right now they were wallowing in the good times, the fun times of high school, before real life intervened. But they were riding a pink cloud of nostalgia that couldn’t last for long.
Still, this night could last.
“Let’s go back to the hotel,” he said. “I want to make love to you properly, on a real bed, with air-conditioning.”
“Oh, no, I don’t think so.”
“What?” What was she saying?
“We need to get back to the reunion. There are so many people I haven’t talked to yet—”
“Nat, you’re making excuses. What’s the real reason?”
She maneuvered off his lap, managing to narrowly avoid kneeing him in the groin. “I don’t regret this, Josh, but I think we should return to our senses.”
“I happen to think making love to you in a comfortable king-size bed is perfectly sensible.” He adjusted his clothes and buttoned his shirt while Natalie located her panties and worked her feet back into her high-heeled sandals. “Besides, I’m not sure you want to go waltzing back into the VFW Hall looking like that.”
“What?” She pulled down the visor and checked herself in the mirror. “Oh, my God, I look like I just had sex in a car. Melissa would know instantly.”
Everyone would know instantly, but he didn’t say so. She opened her little purse and pulled out a comb and a lipstick, working feverishly, first on her hair, then her lips.
“This is hopeless! And I’m all sweaty.” She smelled her hair, then her shoulder. “I smell like Stetson! All right, yes, take me back to your hotel room. I’m going to shower and air out the dress.”
Not exactly what he wanted to hear, but it gave him time to change her mind. “I have to go inside to get my jacket and tie,” he said. “What do you want me to tell Melissa? Because she’s going to ask where you are.”
“Tell her we’re going for a drive.”
NATALIE SAT IN Josh’s fancy car waiting for him to return and ordered herself to calm down. She needed to downplay what they’d just done, or Josh would know how profoundly it had affected her.
She’d had no idea what she’d been missing. She’d thought her memories of Josh were pristine, untouched by the years of separation. Every so often—probably more often than was healthy—she trotted out those treasured memories and relived them. But clearly she’d suppressed some things—like how Josh could send her to the moon with a simple touch.
Her hormones hadn’t had a workout like this in a very long time. But it was more than just the physical stimulation. Memories assaulted her from every direction, things she hadn’t thought of in twenty years. Like when Josh had carved their initials in that picnic table, her first real indication that what he felt for her was more than fondness or teenage lust. And all those times they’d driven out to Cemetery Road and made love in his truck. They’d always done it in the cab, because the one time they’d spread some blankets out in the truck bed and attempted to make love, a sheriff’s deputy had driven by and caught them with their clothes half-off. He hadn’t turned them in, hadn’t called their parents, but he’d told them to get dressed and go home.
Natalie had never been able to look Deputy Klegg in the eye again.
So many good times—picnics, taking Josh’s family’s boat to the lake with their friends and waterskiing, parties at Melissa’s house dancing to MTV. So much love.
Though they’d raised a lot of eyebrows by marrying so young, most people thought they’d make it. The only ones who weren’t surprised when Josh and Natalie divorced were his parents. Though they’d always been civil to Natalie, she’d known they thought Josh could do much better.
Josh returned a couple of minutes later with his jacket and tie in hand. “Good news,” he said as he climbed into the car. “Melissa was out on the dance floor. I didn’t have to tell her anything.”
Good. Maybe Natalie had a chance of returning to the reunion before it was over and pretending nothing had happened.
She and Melissa had once shared everything, but Natalie would never tell anyone what had happened tonight.
The Holiday Inn was a good twenty-minute drive and two towns away. Josh turned down the air-conditioning and opened the sunroof. Natalie was quiet as the breeze blew in, whipping her hair around.
“This is a gorgeous car,” she finally said to break the silence.
“Thanks. Kind of a cliché, though, don’t you think? A guy hits forty and buys himself expensive toys to compensate for his loss of youthful virility…”
“Ah, trust me, you haven’t lost anything. In the dark I’d have thought you were seventeen again.”
“I hope my technique has improved some since I was seventeen.”
“Fishing for a compliment?” Still, she couldn’t help smiling, remembering their early fumblings. They’d been each other’s firsts. They’d learned together through trial and error. Lots and lots of trial and error, followed by even more trial and success.
She squirmed a bit in her seat and deliberately changed her line of thought. She didn’t want to get all hot and bothered again, not when they would soon be alone in a hotel room. She could only hope Josh would honor her desire to freshen up and return her to the reunion.
The hotel was nice, built only a couple of years earlier. As Josh let Natalie into his room, she noted the open suitcase on the bed as well as the faded Levi’s and golf shirt he’d draped over the back of a chair, probably the clothes he’d driven here in.
The bed was covered with a snow-white duvet, but the pillows had been rearranged. She could see him propped up in bed, probably shirtless, one arm behind his head as he channel-surfed.
Her mouth went dry and she walked briskly across the room, out of touching range. She tossed her purse on the bed and kicked off her shoes. “Guess I better get busy. You made quite a mess of me.”
“I think you look better than you have in your whole life.” The way he looked at her almost did her in.
No, no, no, she couldn’t succumb again. But she froze as Josh followed her, walking slowly, purposely, with a devilish intent obvious in his blue eyes.
But instead of reaching for her, he reached for her purse and opened it, snagging her cell phone and pulling it out. He extended it toward her. “Call Melissa and leave a message that you won’t be home until morning.”
A whole night with Josh? Did she dare? Or rather, did she dare pass up the chance? How much fun did she allow herself, anyway? Her life was devoted to her work and her child. Not that she and Mary didn’t have fun, but Natalie seldom did anything for herself.
One night with Josh. Melissa would know the truth, but so what? Even if she told their friends—and she probably would—Natalie was no longer a part of this community. It wouldn’t matter what they thought.
She opened the phone, located Melissa’s cell number and dialed it.
“So what is it?” Natalie asked her gynecologist, pulling her sweater more tightly around her. “You’re not saying anything. I’m in early menopause, right?” When her doctor still remained quiet, Natalie became alarmed. “Is it something worse? Cancer? Am I going to die next week? What?”
“Oh, no, no, honey. I didn’t mean to scare you ’cause it’s nothing like that. I just didn’t know how to say it, but I guess I better just blurt it out. You’re pregnant.”
Natalie laughed. “Of all the people in the world, you know that’s not possible.” Surely Celia Brewster was kidding. She’d been Natalie’s doctor for close to twenty years, but more than that, the two had become friends.
Natalie’s laughter died as Celia stared at her with an unreadable expression. “It must be a mistake,” Natalie pointed out. “A lab mix-up. I could not possibly be preg—” She couldn’t even finish the word.
Celia’s steady gaze never faltered. “There’s no mistake. You are most definitely pregnant.”
Natalie couldn’t believe this. Pregnant at forty-three, when she was supposedly terminally infertile. She’d had sex exactly once in the last several years—okay, more than once if you got technical. She’d lost count of the number of times she and Josh had made love that crazy night of the reunion two months ago. But still…
“How is it possible, Celia? What about my underfunctioning ovaries? Women just don’t get pregnant at my age, even normal ones!”
“You’d be surprised how many women give birth in their forties. As for how you could have overcome your fertility problem, I have a theory about that. Remember when you first came to me as a patient? You were very thin and your periods were almost nonexistent. Underweight women often don’t ovulate.”
Natalie did remember Celia’s concern about her weight. But Natalie’s diet had been more than adequate. She just hadn’t easily gained weight and she was perfectly healthy in every other respect.
“Over the years you’ve put on a few pounds,” Celia continued. “I’m not criticizing—you looked a bit malnourished before. Now you look great and you’re healthy as a horse. But discounting the last couple of months, have your cycles become more regular?”
Frankly, Natalie had never paid that much attention. After adopting Mary, she’d put all thoughts of conceiving her own child out of her mind, so her cycle was inconsequential. But now that she thought about it, she had been more regular the last few years.
She nodded numbly.
“My theory is that in your late teens and early twenties, your body weight was slightly under what you would need to regularly ovulate. In addition, you were under tremendous stress.”
“Because of how badly I wanted to give Josh a baby, you mean?”
“And because you were so young, married, both of you trying to go to school and make ends meet.”
“My doctor at the time did say if I could relax a bit, it might help,” she admitted. “But I thought that was just something doctors said to nervous women patients.”
Celia laughed. “You’re right. But in this case, it’s true. Stress impedes ovulation, too. At some point, when your weight reached a certain level, your ovaries corrected themselves. Absent the stress of worrying about conception, perhaps you approached something like normal fertility. Only you never realized it, because you weren’t having unprotected sex.”
“I wasn’t having any sex.”
“Well, clearly, you’ve had some.”
Natalie groaned. What was she going to tell Josh? What was she going to tell Mary?
“Then there’s also the one-in-a-million theory. Yes, the chances of a woman your age conceiving are quite small. But the chance is there. Kind of like your chances of winning the lottery.”
“Great. Why couldn’t I have won the lottery instead?” But then it hit her. This was better than winning the lottery. She was going to have a baby. Right now, a life was growing inside her. She put a hand to her abdomen, and a sense of wonder replaced the shock and terror.
“Will it be healthy?” she asked in a small voice as her eyes filled with tears.
“You know the risks as well as I,” Celia said gently. “Babies of older mothers do bear some additional potential problems. But I intend to keep a very close watch on you and the baby. First thing, we’ll get you on prenatal vitamins.”
Celia rattled on some more about the various things they would have to watch, the tests Natalie would have to take, but Natalie was hardly listening.
A baby.
MARY BRIGGS ADDED a pinch more curry to the sauce she was making, then took a taste. “Yessss, I am so good.”
As she heard the garage door go up, she checked her watch, pleased that her mother was on time. She pulled a bottle of cold Chablis from the fridge, uncorked it and poured a glass for her mom, knowing how much she liked to sit and unwind after a long day on her feet taking care of her babies.
As her mom entered the kitchen, Mary greeted her with a big smile and extended the glass of wine. But her smile fell as she immediately knew something was up. Her mother’s eyes were glazed.
“Mom, what’s wrong?”
“Uh…what makes you think something’s wrong?”
Relief washed over Mary. “You look funny. I thought you’d had a wreck or something.”
“No, no accidents. Well, not auto accidents, anyway.”
“So something is wrong?”
“Not wrong, exactly. Just shocking.” Her mom set down her purse on the breakfast bar and sank onto one of the bar stools.
Mary set the wine in front of her. “You look like you could use this.”
Her mom stared at the wine longingly, then shoved it away. “Nope. No more wine. Mary, your mother has gone and done something very foolish. But at the same time…well, it’s kind of a miracle.”
Concerned, Mary studied her mom, who looked kind of dreamy and misty. “Are we getting a puppy?”
Her mom laughed. “Better than a puppy. I’m having a baby.”
Mary stared, stunned into silence.
“Mary?”
“You’re pregnant?” She should have guessed when her mom had called it a miracle. That was a word she used a lot whenever she talked about anyone having a baby. Holy guacamole. She hadn’t thought her mother was even sexual.
Mary stepped around the kitchen island and enveloped her mother in a hug. “This is so cool! I’m going to be a big sister.”
When they pulled apart, they both had tears in their eyes. Natalie grabbed a paper towel and wiped at hers, but they just kept coming. “I feel so stupid, having to break the news to my own teenage daughter. Usually it’s the other way around.”
Mary pulled up another stool. “I thought you couldn’t. Get pregnant, I mean.”
“I thought I couldn’t, too. Which is why, you know, I didn’t protect myself.”
“You should have anyway,” Mary said primly. “For other reasons. Oh, but who cares now. This is so cool. So, who is he? You’re not going to have to marry the guy, are you? That would be positively medieval.”
“Ah, no, I’m not getting married.” Her eyes shifted slightly so Mary knew there was more to come. “But would it bother you if I did get married again?”
Mary thought about it. She knew it was selfish of her, but she’d had her mom all to herself for so long, the idea of some guy hanging around all the time, bossing her around, didn’t sit well with her.
Still, she forced herself to be nice. “Mom, if you fell in love with someone and wanted to marry him, that would be fine with me. You have a right to be happy. But I wouldn’t want you to marry some guy just because he got you pregnant. It’s just not necessary.”
“No, I agree, it’s not. But I will have to tell him. It’s only fair.”
Mary wasn’t so sure. If there was to be a new baby in the house, she didn’t want to have to share it or her mom with some guy. “He won’t, like, want custody or anything stupid like that, will he?”
Her mom shook her head. “I can’t imagine he would.”
“So who is he?”
“I suppose you’ll find out sooner or later.” Her mother sighed. “It’s Josh.”
Mary hadn’t thought she could be any more surprised, but she’d been wrong. “Josh? As in Josh Carlson, your ex-husband?”
“’Fraid so. Honey, I smell something—”
“Oh, my sauce!” Mary rushed around to the stove and turned off the flame under her saucepan. She stirred the contents. It looked okay, if a little thick. “I think it’s fine. Are you hungry? What am I saying, of course you are. You’re eating for two.”
Natalie smiled. “I’m starving.”
She watched her daughter move confidently around the kitchen stirring various things. This hadn’t been nearly as difficult as she’d feared it would be. She’d anticipated Mary being horrified that her mother would get herself into such a compromising situation, or jealous at the idea of another child in the house. But she seemed to be happy about it.
She and Mary were closer than most mothers and daughters, perhaps because it had always been just the two of them. Natalie had shared a lot about her past with Mary, including the basic facts of her youthful marriage and her infertility. Maybe she shared too much, but confiding secrets to each other had come naturally.
“You saw Josh at the class reunion?” Mary asked as she set a plate in front of her mother.
“Unexpectedly. I’m afraid we let all the nostalgia sweep us away.”
“That’s kind of sweet, really,” Mary said, sitting down at the bar beside her mother with her own plate of food.
It was a lot of things, but sweet wasn’t an adjective Natalie would have used. When she’d awakened naked in Josh’s hotel room the next morning, depraved had been the first word that came to mind.
What the hell were we thinking? had been the first words out of her mouth. In hindsight, perhaps her outburst had been ill-considered. Josh had been insulted by her insistence she’d made a terrible mistake, and their parting had been awkward.
Another wave of terror washed over her as she thought about telling Josh the news of his impending fatherhood.
“Mom? Is the curry too hot?”
“Oh, no, honey, it tastes wonderful. You truly are gifted.” She took another bite of chicken, really noticing the taste this time.
“I’m gonna be a big help when the baby comes,” Mary said. “I’ll help you take care of it.”
“That’s really sweet of you, honey.” She caressed her daughter’s smooth cheek and stroked her shiny black hair. Mary was so beautiful, inside and out. “I’m sure I’ll need lots of help. But I’m not going to stick you with babysitting all the time.”
“We’ll work it out,” Mary said in her sometimes unnervingly adult way. “So when are you going to tell him?”
Natalie set down her fork. “I suppose I ought to get it over with.” She would have to do it in person. Delivering this sort of news in a phone call just wouldn’t do. That meant a trip to Houston and an overnight stay. “I’ll aim for next week.”
She would need at least that long to figure out what she was going to say to Josh. Hi, Josh. Remember how I laughed at you for being worried about birth control? The joke’s on me.
“I’M VERY SERIOUS, MONTY,” Josh said into the phone. He was speaking to a colleague, and he was playing hardball—the only kind of ball he ever played. “Ten million plus medical expenses is a perfectly reasonable demand. My client’s life will never be the same.”
His client was a seventeen-year-old boy, a classmate of his son who’d been attacked and badly injured by a Rottweiler. The dog’s wealthy owner was claiming the boy had provoked the dog, but it turned out the dog had a history of at least three attacks on visitors to their home. The dog owner did not have a leg to stand on.
Unfortunately, neither did Josh’s client, and he meant that in a very real physical sense. The dog had severed multiple tendons in the boy’s leg, which would require surgery and physical therapy, and even then he might not ever walk without a limp. The kid was going to suffer for years and his baseball scholarship was out the window.
This was the kind of case Josh loved, one where there was a clear-cut bad guy—and it wasn’t his client. He would almost welcome taking this one to court. A jury would have a field day.
“My client says one million,” the other attorney said. “Not a penny more.”
Josh laughed. “Call me back when you want to get serious about negotiations.” He hung up without waiting for Monty to respond. He wasn’t worried. This one was in the bag.
He loved his work. Even after all these years, he loved crusading for the underdog. Now that he was a full partner, he could be a bit more selective about the cases he personally took on. This one he was doing as a favor to a friend, but it was the kind of case he would have taken anyway.
The moment he hung up, his intercom buzzed and he picked it up. “Yes, Rachel.”
“Mr. Carlson, you have a visitor. She doesn’t have an appointment, but she said it’s a personal matter.”
Josh frowned. “What’s her name?”
“Natalie Briggs, from Dallas.”
Natalie. What the heck was she doing here? He was surprised, yet not displeased. Ever since their crazy night together in June, he’d been thinking about her—a lot. He hadn’t understood or been very sympathetic to her panic the morning she’d awakened in his room, though. In fact, he’d tried to interest her in more lovemaking. After a couple of hours of sleep, he’d been raring to go.
But Natalie had looked at him as if he’d suddenly grown scales and horns. Not that she’d blamed him for their salacious behavior; no, she’d heaped blame on herself for being impulsive and irresponsible and not at all like the sensible woman she’d become.
Josh hadn’t seen it that way. They hadn’t behaved irresponsibly, and what harm had it done, reliving a few happy memories? He would never understand women.
“Mr. Carlson?”
He shook his head to clear his thoughts. “Yes, Rachel. Go ahead and bring her back.”
He couldn’t wait to see what she had to say.
Less than a minute later, the receptionist showed Natalie in to his office. She wore beige linen slacks with a matching jacket, a pale lilac top underneath. Her long hair was pulled back from her face so tightly it looked as if it would cause her a headache. Her face was pale, her brown eyes full of doubt.
Josh smiled at her, trying to put her at ease. “Natalie. It’s good to see you again.” He meant that. Though they’d parted awkwardly, he wasn’t angry about it. She’d obviously been confused and overwhelmed. “Can I get you something to drink?”
She smiled tentatively. “Actually, if you have any water, I’m parched. It’s a scorcher out there.”
“I’ll get you a water,” Rachel said. “Mr. Carlson, anything for you?”
“I’ve got coffee, thanks.”
Rachel withdrew, and Josh stepped around his desk. “Would a hug be out of order?”
Instead of warming up to him, she took a step backward. “I can’t think when you get that close to me, Josh. And I need to think clearly right now.”
Josh felt the first real tendrils of concern. “Is something wrong?”
“Sort of. Well, not wrong, exactly. In fact, once I got over the shock I started to feel pleased about it. But I don’t know if you’ll agree.”
“Let’s sit over here.” Josh had a love seat and a couple of plush chairs in his office for more informal meetings. He led her to the love seat, snagged his cup of coffee from his desk and took one of the chairs for himself. Rachel returned with bottled water and a glass of ice for Natalie, then quietly departed.
Natalie busied herself opening the water and pouring. He could tell she was composing what she would say, and he let her. In his business he’d learned that silence was often more powerful than words.
She gulped down several swallows of water, then set the glass down with a clunk. “So, here’s the deal. Now, this came as a complete shock to me, because I really thought…I mean, given our history…”
Oh, God, was she ill? Did she need money for treatment? Was it her daughter, or her sister?
“Natalie, whatever the problem is, I’ll help you if I can.”
“I thought you’d be kind of mad at me after the way I acted at the reunion.”
He couldn’t help smiling. “Hey, when a woman gives you the best night of your life, it doesn’t tend to make you angry.”
She blushed and stared down at her lap. “I got a little freaky about it. I didn’t mean to.”
“It’s okay. I don’t understand women’s emotions and I probably never will, but I accept that you must have had a good reason for hightailing it out of the Holiday Inn like your underwear was on fire.”
“No, that was the night before.” She grinned sheepishly and he returned the favor, but her smile fled almost immediately. “This isn’t easy.”
“Nat, this is me, Josh, remember? We used to tell each other everything.”
She nodded. “That night, at some point you commented that I’d filled out, that I looked more womanly.”
“I always thought you looked fantastic, but a few extra pounds did nothing but improve you.”
“Well, apparently the fact I was too skinny years ago was affecting my, um, fertility.”
She let that revelation sit for a minute between them until Josh figured it out for himself. “Oh, my God.”
She nodded. “Yeah.” Then she gnawed on her lower lip and waited for his reaction.
“You’re sure?”
She nodded again. “I’m eight weeks along. So far, everything’s fine.”
“You’re sure it’s mine?” The instant the words left his mouth, he wanted to slap them back, but it was too late.
“Josh! Of course. What, you think I’m running around sleeping with all the doctors at the hospital?”
“Sorry. But I don’t really know much about your current life. I mean, it’s been a lot of years. I wasn’t trying to shake off responsibility or anything like that. I was just making sure I had all the facts.”
Pregnant. Natalie was pregnant with his child. How they had both dreamed of this moment. For the five years of their marriage, they’d talked of it almost constantly, and worked at it so often that sex had gone from pure pleasure to a source of stress and fear. They’d both wanted children so badly. But he’d never dreamed this moment would come twenty years later.
“How could this happen?” he asked. “Could a few pounds make that big of a difference?”
“My doctor said it was a combination of things. Being underweight and stressed out affected my fertility. Having some actual curves and being relaxed fixed things. As for my age…it’s not unheard of for women to conceive in their forties. We were just…lucky.”
“Lucky?”
Her face tightened and her eyes flashed dangerously. “Well, yeah, lucky. Damned lucky. That’s how I feel about it. Blessed, really.” She softened. “The timing is awkward, but once the shock wore off I was excited and looking forward to it. Mary is almost as excited as me. She’s always wanted a sibling.
“But, Josh, if you’re not too pleased and want to pretend this never happened, I completely understand. I mean, you’ve raised your kids—they’re almost out of the nest. You’re probably thinking about other things—travel, buying a boat—and a new baby wouldn’t be in your plans. So I just want you to know that I’m not demanding or expecting anything from you. If you want to be a part of this baby’s life, that’s wonderful. But if you don’t—”
“Of course I do!” he exploded, not able to listen to any more. “I can’t believe you would think for a moment that I’d be content to wash my hands of responsibility and send you on your merry way.”
She pressed her fingertips to her forehead. “I’m sorry, Josh. No, I didn’t really expect that. You were always very responsible.”
Responsible. The word seemed almost like a curse. “I’m not just responsible. I love kids, and I’m a helluva good father. I’m going to be a good father to this kid, too, whether you like it or not.”
Natalie sat up straighter. “I wasn’t trying to deny—”
“But you were hoping. I happen to think a child needs two parents. I had to raise mine without a mother, and if they’re turning out okay it’s not because we didn’t go through some tough times.”
“Okay, Josh! I agree, two parents are best.”
“Yet you adopted as a single mother.” Once again, he realized he’d spoken unwisely. What was wrong with him? He didn’t normally blurt things out.
“Because one parent is better than a crowded orphanage,” she said indignantly.
Orphanage? Did they even have orphanages anymore? “Whoa, whoa, let’s back up. I wasn’t meaning to criticize. I’m sure you’re a fabulous mother to Mary. And you’re going to be a fabulous mother to our baby, too.”
She unruffled her feathers slightly. “I’m going to try my darnedest.”
“There’s a slight problem, you know. We live four hours apart.”
“We can work that out. Weekends, vacations—”
“I don’t want to be a vacation dad, or a summer dad. I want to be a part of this child’s life every day. I need that.”
“We’re going to have to make some compromises,” she said reasonably.
“Like hell. The solution is to live near each other. Preferably on the same street.”
“You just made partner,” she said. “You can’t exactly pick up stakes and move to Dallas. And I’m not—”
“It’s more logical for you to move,” he said smoothly. “You’re a nurse. Nurses are in high demand everywhere. With your experience, you can get a job at any hospital in Houston.”
“I can’t move!” she exploded, jumping to her feet. “I’ve got a home in Dallas. Family ties. Mary is in a school she loves, with friends she’s known her whole life.”
He wasn’t surprised at her outburst. He wouldn’t want to have to uproot his life or his kids’ lives, either. But she would get used to the idea. One thing Josh knew how to do was negotiate, and he had just the lever to negotiate Natalie exactly where she needed to be. “I can’t make you move, I guess. But in the end, I know you’ll do what’s best for our child.”
Natalie steamed through the entire drive home. How dare Josh demand that she give up her life, drag Mary out of her school and away from her friends, and treat her job like it didn’t matter? She’d been doing him a favor, informing him about the baby and giving him carte blanche to participate as much or as little as he wanted in their baby’s life. She hadn’t even suggested the possibility of financial support, though he probably earned at least five times her salary.
All in all, she’d been very reasonable and generous. And how had he reacted? By ordering her to disrupt her entire life, pack everything up and move herself and Mary to Houston.
She’d lived in Houston before, during most of her marriage to Josh, and she hadn’t liked it. Too hot and humid. Cockroaches bigger than your foot. Of course, no place was that attractive when you had no money for air-conditioning. Maybe it would be different now….
No, no, no. That was inconceivable. She couldn’t ask Mary to change schools halfway through high school.
She was no happier by the time she arrived home. She was exhausted from making the four-hundred-mile round-trip all in one day—she’d decided not to stay overnight after her argument with Josh. She’d been too restless to sit in a hotel room, and shopping or looking up old friends had been out of the question given her mood.
Natalie was tired and cranky by the time she arrived home. Of course, she was tired and cranky a lot lately. That was the reason she’d gone to see Celia in the first place.
Celia had warned her to expect more of the same. Pregnancy could be a bit more taxing for her than for, say, a twenty-five-year-old.
The smell of corn bread, though, made her smile. Mary was in the kitchen again.
Mary greeted her with a hug, managing to do it without dislodging the cell phone wedged between her ear and shoulder. “My mom’s home, I’ll call you back,” she said to whomever she was talking to, and disconnected. “Oh, poor Mom, you look done in. How did it go?”
“Not as happily as I’d hoped,” she confessed. “Whatever you’re cooking, I want some. I’m starving. And grateful, by the way, since I haven’t told you lately how much I appreciate the cooking and grocery shopping you do.”
“No charge. I bought some sparkling grape juice today, so you can pretend you’re drinking wine.”
“Oh, that’s so sweet.”
“So was Josh a jerk about it? Did he tell you to get lost?”
“No, nothing like that. He was a little too enthusiastic, in fact. Suddenly he’s super-dad.”
“Oh.” A little frown line appeared between Mary’s eyebrows. “That’s bad.”
Natalie sighed. “Not necessarily. It’s just that I’ve been making my own decisions for a lot of years now. To suddenly have someone trying to tell me what to do…I’m just not used to it and I don’t like it. We’ll work it all out.” The last thing she wanted was for Mary to worry. She was still just a kid, despite her comparative maturity for a sixteen-year-old.
Mary served up a cup of chili, a square of corn bread and a green salad, then made the same for herself. Natalie ate it greedily and felt better afterward. The worst was over. She’d given the news to the two people most affected by her pregnancy. Now she could start planning for the baby. She would have to convert the spare room to a nursery, but right now it was just a junk room, so that was doable.
So much to do, but the more she thought about it, the more excited she got. She had so enjoyed decorating Mary’s room in anticipation of her arrival. It would be even more fun planning it with Mary.
After helping her daughter with the dishes, Natalie was looking forward to a long bubble bath and turning in early with a good book. But she decided to check her e-mail, and she was shocked to find three messages from Josh.
With some trepidation, she opened the first one and read it:
Natalie—
Sorry if I came on a little strong. Your news came out of left field, and my reaction was hardly civil. I appreciate that you drove all the way to Houston to give me the news, and now that I’ve had a chance to think about it, I’m excited. We’ll talk more soon.
Josh
Natalie sighed with relief. So he hadn’t been really serious about her moving to Houston. Thank God. Although she’d meant it when she said she thought children were better off with two parents rather than one. It would be nice if Josh was closer.
She opened the second e-mail.
Natalie: I thought you might find these ads interesting. Please take good care of yourself and the baby.
Josh
He had copied several ads from an online job-listing site. One was advertising for a pediatric nurse at Children’s Hospital of Westwood, a Houston suburb. Flexible hours, it said. Salary commensurate with experience. Another hospital was looking for a neonatal unit supervisor with at least five years’ experience. She had that several times over, but the salary mentioned was significantly higher than her current earnings. A third ad, at a prestigious teaching hospital, was also looking for a neonatal post-surgical nurse. Competitive salary, great benefits, advancement opportunities.
Oh, wow. Natalie loved her job, but she had to admit she sometimes cruised job boards wondering if she could command a better salary. And with a baby coming, money would be in short supply. Of course, the jobs Josh had sent her were all in the Houston area.
Subtle, Josh, really subtle. She was almost afraid to open the third e-mail, but she did it anyway.
Natalie—
You wouldn’t believe the real estate bargains you can pick up in my neighborhood right now. One of the big telecom companies nearby closed down its offices, and homes went on the market right and left. Here’s a small selection.
Josh
Just out of curiosity, Natalie checked the ads, which he’d attached, complete with photos. Oh, my word, these were mansions—probably the type of house Josh lived in—but he apparently had no clue how much nurses earned. She couldn’t afford any of these homes, bargain or no. Although…she was a little surprised at the prices. They were lower than she thought they’d be. If she sold her house…No, no, no! This was so pointless. She was not moving to Houston.
Natalie shut down her computer and headed for bed. Her head hurt from all the decisions, all the changes coming at her as fast as a meteor shower. She stopped by Mary’s room to tell her good-night, then decided to have that bubble bath she’d promised herself.
But she couldn’t relax, not even with the soothing smell of lavender and her most sedate CD on the little boom box she kept in the bathroom. What if Josh was right? She agreed that it was important for a baby to have two parents, if there was any way to accomplish it. But was it more important than the life she’d built here?
She really couldn’t expect him to move, not when he’d just made partner. Never in a million years would he be able to get a position in Dallas that would be an equivalent. Plus, he had a son going into his senior year of high school. Uprooting him and the younger boy would be just as hard as moving Mary.
Yet Natalie could change jobs, and probably do better financially than she was doing now. She could employ her skills just as easily in Houston as in Dallas—where her baby would have a father. And she wouldn’t be all that unhappy to ditch her current supervisor, who was a real witch. A stick-in-the-mud, as Melissa would say.
She smiled, thinking about Melissa. She hadn’t yet told her friend about the pregnancy, but she was almost looking forward to it. She thought maybe she would do it in person, so she could see the look of shock on Melissa’s face.
“SO, MARY,” Natalie began, “how would you feel about moving into a bigger house?”
Mary turned to look at Natalie, a bewildered expression on her face. Natalie was driving her daughter to work at the diner where she’d gotten a summer job as a fry cook. “Leave our house?”
“Well, it’s a good size for the two of us, but with the baby coming I was thinking we might need to make a change.” Natalie held her breath, waiting for Mary’s reaction.
“Could we be in the same neighborhood?” Mary asked. “I mean, we wouldn’t move out of the district, right? We have to live in the district for me to go to the magnet school.”
“Well, actually, I’ve been looking at jobs in Houston.”
“What?” Mary exploded. “You’ve got to be kidding! What about the culinary arts program?”
“I haven’t made any decisions yet, because I wanted to talk to you about it first.”
“Then just forget about it!” Mary sounded on the edge of hysteria. “We can’t move to Houston. I refuse.”
Natalie had been afraid of this. Mary had been so calm about the coming baby, preternaturally calm. Natalie had feared something was building inside the girl, something that just needed the right trigger to burst out.
“I really think we should talk about this calmly,” Natalie said.
“Talk all day long if you want to. I’m not moving to Houston.”
“We don’t have to decide anything right now. We’ll just—”
“No, I won’t talk about it.”
“Mary, I’m surprised at you. You’re not usually so unreasonable.”
“Me, unreasonable? You want to ruin my whole life and then you accuse me of being unreasonable about it?” Mary almost screamed. They were stopped at a light about two blocks from the restaurant. Mary collected her purse, flicked open her seat belt and opened the door all at once. “I’ll walk the rest of the way.”
“Mary, wait—” But Natalie’s words fell on deaf ears. Mary was out of the car, standing on the corner, fuming, her whole body tense.
Natalie leaned her forehead against the steering wheel. Now Mary shows her teenage angst? Now, when Natalie’s life was being turned upside down by a baby and an ex-husband? Mary had a right to be upset, but Natalie had never expected her to be hysterical.
As the light turned green, she realized the game she’d played with Mary had backfired. She had already decided on the move. She’d found a job that paid thirty percent more than she was earning now, with fewer and more flexible hours. And she’d found a house she could afford only a couple of blocks from Josh’s home.
Actually, Josh had found the house. A friend of his had gotten a new job in another city, but he didn’t want to sell his home in a depressed real estate market. He’d been looking for someone responsible to rent the house, and was willing to give the right person a huge break on the rent. The rental would give Natalie plenty of time to shop for just the right home to buy.
Meanwhile, during the baby’s crucial early months of life, Josh would be nearby.
Natalie had delayed saying anything to Mary until she was positive. Then she’d thought she would ease into the subject, slowly, and make Mary believe she’d been part of the decision. But Mary was too smart for that. She knew if her mother wanted to move, they would move. So she’d gone on the offensive, striking hard and hitting close to the heart at the first opportunity.
The light turned green, and Natalie headed for the hospital. She hadn’t told any of her coworkers she was leaving, but they’d all noticed something was up with her. She would have to give her notice soon. Just what she needed—more people angry with her, more people pushing and pulling and trying to tell her what to do.
“YOU’RE GOING TO LOVE NATALIE,” Josh said. He and his two sons were about halfway between Houston and Dallas on I-45. Josh was driving while Sean and Doug sat in the backseat ignoring him, fighting over a video game just like they had when they were eight and ten years old. “I can’t believe I never introduced you to her before.”
“Maybe because she’s your ex-wife?” Sean snorted. “And that would have been just too weird?”
Doug snorted, too.
“Obviously Nat and I had our differences, but she was an important part of my past, part of what made me who I am. Besides, she’s great.”
Sean snorted again. “You said that. We know you’re all excited about having a new kid and all, but do we have to be?”
“Yeah, Dad.” Doug, who was normally placid and agreeable, was emboldened by his older brother’s attitude and was joining in the revolution. “This was the last weekend of summer. We were gonna go to the beach, and you wrecked that for us.”
Josh gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white. He’d thought it was a great idea, enlisting his sons to help out with Natalie’s move.
“Nat has a teenage daughter. Once we get the heaviest stuff loaded, all three of you can go hang out somewhere fun for a while.” And he would get some time alone with Natalie, time to smooth over her irritation with him. Yeah, he’d pushed her to move. He’d found her the job opportunity that would entice her from her current position, and he’d even gone so far as to buy a house one block over from his and set a ridiculously low rent so she could afford to live comfortably in his upscale neighborhood. Of course, she didn’t know he was her landlord, and he felt slightly guilty for deceiving her. But he’d been determined to use any means, fair or foul, to get her down to Houston.
His child was going to have two involved, available parents, and that was all there was to it.
“What if the daughter’s a loser?” Sean asked.
Josh gripped the steering wheel tighter. “Number one, you know I don’t approve of making judgments like that. But as I understand it, Mary is very smart and very pretty.”
“And you heard that from her mother, right? Yeah, she’d be unbiased.”
“Look, I don’t care if this girl looks like Jabba the Hutt. She’s making a huge sacrifice, moving away from her school and her friends. I want you to be nice to her.”
“Dad, give us some credit. If she looks like Jabba the Hut, we won’t say anything. We’ll just make her walk ten paces behind us if we go anywhere.”
“Funny, ha ha.”
“Chill, Dad,” said Doug, who was usually the peacemaker. “We’ll be cool. It’s just one day.”
It wasn’t just for a day. With this child about to be born, their families would be forever intertwined. That thought both excited and scared him. Yeah, he was totally disrupting Natalie’s and Mary’s lives. But his was going to be dramatically altered as well. It was a damn good thing he’d already made partner, because he anticipated that when the baby came, he wasn’t going to be spending as much time at the office. Two a.m. feedings and diaper rash would occupy his mind and his time, making him less than one-hundred-percent efficient at his job. He remembered what it was like when Sean and Doug were babies.
Of course, back then he’d been married to Beverly, who should have taken on some of the responsibility. But even the loudest-screaming baby hadn’t been able to lodge her out of bed at 2:00 a.m. He knew Natalie wasn’t anything like Beverly. In fact, he would probably have to pry the kid out of her arms to get any time with it at all.
He smiled at that thought. Natalie, with a baby. It was still hard to believe their long-ago dream, which had turned to ashes when they were still kids, had come back to life.
They found Natalie’s address easily enough. It was in a beautiful tree-lined neighborhood in North Dallas. The houses weren’t as grand as the ones in Bellaire where she was moving, but anyone could see her neighbors took pride in their homes. Lawns were manicured, paint was fresh, the cars in the driveways well-maintained. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but this beautiful enclave wasn’t it. He felt another twinge of guilt at ripping her away from the home she’d known for more than a dozen years.
Natalie’s house was white brick with blue and gray trim. There were flowers planted in front, wilting slightly in the August heat. Those flowers would die the minute no one was here to water them daily.
A moving van was parked in front as well as a car with a U-Haul trailer. Josh pulled up behind the trailer. “You guys grab the pizza,” he told the boys. “I’ll get the drinks.”
The boys grumbled, but Josh walked toward the house with a spring in his step. He was anxious to see Natalie again. Her short visit in Houston, which had ended so uncomfortably, had only whetted his appetite for more of her.
The door was yanked open just as Josh was about to hit the doorbell for the second time, and Natalie stood in the foyer. She had on shorts-overalls and a lime-green T-shirt, her hair pulled back in a scarf.
“Hi, gorgeous.”
“Yeah, right. Hi, Josh.” She peeked around him. “Your sons?”
He smiled proudly and hoped the pride was warranted. “Natalie, meet Sean and Doug.”
Doug stepped forward and extended his hand with a murmured, “Nice to meet you.” Sean was holding two pizza boxes, so he simply nodded as he mumbled a greeting.
Natalie smiled at them, but it was an almost sad smile, and Josh found himself thinking, They should have been her kids. God knew Beverly was no kind of mother to them.
“Come on in. The movers have already cleared out the downstairs of the big furniture, but I still have a few chairs.” In an effort to save money, she’d hired the movers to handle the big furniture only. Josh and the boys were going to help her and Mary load smaller furnishings and boxes into a U-Haul trailer.
“We’ll just take these to the kitchen,” Doug said.
A look of worry flashed across Natalie’s face. “Right. Kitchen’s that way. Enter at your own risk. Mary is in there trying to decide what she can fit in our cooler and what she’ll have to pack up and give to the neighbors.”
“This is a problem?” Josh asked.
“For Mary, it is. She’s bonded with all of the food she buys. She once cried when she accidentally let a bunch of fennel go bad.”
Josh remembered then that Mary was interested in cooking. She’d been enrolled in some culinary arts magnet school here in Dallas, something she’d had to give up to make the move to Houston.
He had imagined a bunch of kids baking cookies after school, maybe learning how to make mini-pizzas with English muffins. But if she knew what to do with fennel…Hell, Josh wasn’t sure he knew what fennel was, but it sounded sophisticated.
Natalie led them all into the kitchen. It was bright and sunny with a big window above the sink overlooking a patio with bird feeders. But the boys weren’t looking at the window. They’d skidded to a stop and were staring at a tall, slender girl wearing tight jeans, with shiny black hair down to her waist. She had her head buried in the refrigerator, though, and seemed oblivious to the interlopers.
“Mary?” Nat said.
“What?”
“We have guests,” Nat said pointedly.
With a sigh Mary straightened and turned to face the invasion, and Josh nearly dropped his bottle of Coke. She was Asian.
He shot the boys a warning look, but it was too late.
“You’re Chinese,” Doug blurted out, and the room went still.
“I mean, I just didn’t expect…with a name like Mary…” Doug was backpedaling as fast as he could. “Not that there’s anything wrong with—”
“Dude,” Sean said, taking a step away from his little brother. “Were you raised in a barn?”
Josh heard his own voice in Sean’s and would have smiled at his own admonition coming from his son’s lips…if the situation weren’t so awkward.
“I didn’t mean there was anything wrong with being Chinese,” Doug said hotly. He looked desperately at Josh, then at Natalie, and finally at Mary for some salvation. “You are Chinese, right? Not Japanese or Korean or Vietnamese?”
Mary slammed the refrigerator door. “I’m American.” She stalked out of the room.
Natalie shook her head and squeezed the bridge of her nose. “That went well.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Briggs,” Doug said. “I didn’t mean to say anything wrong.”
Natalie managed a smile. “It’s not your fault, Doug. She does look undeniably Chinese.”
Josh hadn’t had a clue. Melissa hadn’t mentioned it, and certainly Natalie hadn’t. But why should they have? What difference did the girl’s ethnicity make? If he were truly color-blind, as he’d tried to teach his boys to be, he wouldn’t have been so surprised.
Natalie’s “orphanage” comment made more sense now.
“Should I go apologize to her?” Doug asked. Poor Doug, the eternal peacemaker. He hated for people to be mad at each other, and hated it even worse when they were mad at him.
“Best just to let her be alone for now,” Natalie said. “Anyway, she’s not exactly Miss Congeniality. But it’s been a tough day for her, so I’m trying to cut her some slack and I hope you all will, too.”
“Sure,” Doug said, and Sean nodded.
“Let’s see these pizzas you brought!” Natalie opened the box on top. Steam rose from the pizza, carrying with it the scent of sausage and onions.
Natalie promptly turned an interesting shade of green. “Excuse me,” she said as she bolted for the stairs.
Natalie had thought her “morning” sickness was getting better. But one whiff of that sausage—oh, Lord.
Mary found her sitting on the bathroom floor, having just emptied her stomach. “Mom, are you okay?”
“I feel like I’m going to die, but I suspect I won’t be so lucky.”
“I was going to fix us some nice turkey sandwiches for lunch. Why’d they have to bring pizza?”
“Honey, it was a thoughtful gesture. They couldn’t have known you hate pizza.”
“They obviously didn’t know a lot of things about me, including that I have slanty eyes and yellow skin.”
“Oh, Mary, cut it out. You didn’t look like they expected, that’s all.”
Mary slid down the wall to sit on the floor across from Natalie. “Why is it that’s the first thing people notice about me?”
“Honey, it’s human nature. When we first meet someone, all we have to go on is looks. I happen to think your heritage makes you interesting, and most other people do, too, if you give them a chance.”
Mary sighed. “I’m not eating pizza.”
“You don’t have to.” Most kids refused to eat their vegetables. Mary refused any kind of fast food. “All I ask is that you be civil. Josh and his sons drove all the way up here to help us out.”
“Yeah, he can afford to be gracious now. He got his way.”
Natalie had been trying not to look at it that way but Mary was exactly right. “Go down and be nice to them.”
“Do I have to?”
“Yes. I’ll make a deal. Be nice, and you can take all the food from the fridge, even if I have to go out and buy another cooler.”
Mary put her fist in the air. “Yesss. Thanks, Mom. Can I get you anything?”
“No, I’m feeling better now. I’ll just brush my teeth and be down in a few minutes.”
Five minutes later, feeling physically better but still humiliated, Natalie watched as the movers carefully maneuvered her antique headboard down the stairs, then followed them into the kitchen.
Josh looked stricken. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” She went to the fridge and got herself a bottle of orange-flavored fizzy water. “Save me a couple of pieces of pizza. I’ll eat them later.”
“If you’re sure. Sean, why don’t you offer the moving men that second pizza. Then Natalie can put us to work. Were you planning to leave those bird feeders behind?”
Natalie gasped. Her bird feeders! She’d forgotten all about them.
“Boys, I’ve found a job for you. Get a box, get some tape and pack up those bird feeders.”
They seemed glad to escape the kitchen, where Mary was making herself a turkey sandwich. She wasn’t exactly being nice, but at least she was in the same room with the Carlsons. That was progress. Natalie feared it was one small step on a very long journey.
“Now, what can I do?” Josh asked.
“Is there any chance you’d like to go out and buy a big cooler, so Mary doesn’t have to leave any of her food behind? I’ll give you the money for it.”
“I’d be happy to do that. Tell me where the nearest store is. Don’t worry about the money. You can pay me back later.”
“Okay. Mary, the cooler is for your stuff. Why don’t you ride with Josh and show him where the Super Target is? Buy some ice, too.”
Mary gave her a mutinous look. Natalie knew this was dangerous. But she figured the sooner Mary realized Josh was a nice person and not the big threat she’d made him out to be, the better.
“Yeah, okay,” she finally said.
Josh pointed to her sandwich. “You can bring that with you.”
Mary nodded and wrapped the sandwich in a paper towel.
Natalie sat down in the only chair left. “I’ll just stay here and drink my soda.”
As she watched Josh and Mary head for the front door, Natalie noticed how nice Josh’s butt looked in a pair of faded jeans. No matter how sick she was, she’d never be too sick to appreciate that.
“WHERE’S YOUR JAGUAR?” Mary asked. Her mom had gone on about his car.
“At home in my garage. This is our second car, for the boys to use. It seemed more practical.”
“Nice.” It was a big ol’ black Jeep Cherokee, almost brand-new. “I was hoping my mom would buy me a car when I turned sixteen. But she used the money she was saving for a car to pay for the move.” Okay, so that wasn’t precisely true. Her mother had never for sure said she could have a car, nor had she said it was out of the question. But she knew how much this move was costing, and the rent at their new place was way higher than their mortgage had been.
She could figure things out from there.
“Which way to the store?” Josh asked when they were both settled in the car.
“Go back to Forest—behind us—and turn left. It’s at the second light. It’s not like you really needed me to help you maneuver through all the complicated turns.”
“I know. But I don’t mind the company.”
“This is really lame. Mom’s just pushing us together so we’ll make friends, or whatever.”
“Look, I know you don’t have any reason to like me. I know you don’t want to move, and I know it must be hard to leave your friends and your school. My son was rude to you—although in his defense, he really didn’t mean to be.”
“It’s nothing I haven’t heard before.” About a million times.
“I told Sean and Doug to just give things a chance, and I’m telling you the same thing. You want your mother to be happy, don’t you?”
“She’s not happy. She doesn’t want to move any more than I do. Does she look happy?”
“Nobody looks happy when they have morning sickness.”
“She cried half the night last night. She loves our old house.”
“She’ll learn to love the new one, and so will you.”
“It’s not even ours. It’s just a rental.”
Mary sat in the car while Josh went inside the store to buy a cooler. She knew she was being a jerk, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. This was so unfair.
It was bad enough to have to move to muggy Houston where she had no friends, and she didn’t even want to think about the giant flying cockroaches. But it would be ten times worse if her mom and Josh got married again. Those blond-haired, blue-eyed golden boys would be her brothers. Yuck.
She was going to make darn sure there would be no wedding, no matter how unpleasant she had to be.
NATALIE COULD HARDLY believe it, but she and Mary were on the road to Houston, to their new home, their new life. She was a little bit excited, especially about starting her new job at Children’s Hospital, where she would be not only taking care of newborns, but also be part of the decision-and policy-making board. There’d been so many things she wanted to change about the neonatal unit at her previous job. But there, she was just a nurse and nobody would listen to her. Now she would be in a position to suggest and implement changes, if she saw they were needed.
But every other aspect of the move terrified her. The meeting between her little family and Josh’s had been a disaster from the word go. Josh was so easy to get along with, she’d thought for sure that he would win over Mary in a short time if only he had her alone. But when they’d returned from the store with the cooler, her daughter had been as surly as ever.
Still, without Josh and his sons to help with the last-minute packing and cleaning, they would never have gotten out of the house at a reasonable hour. Now at least they would arrive at their new home before midnight.
“So, Mary,” Natalie began, striking an easy conversational tone that did not jibe with her pounding heart. “What did you think of the Carlsons?”
“Do you really want to know?” Mary shot her mother what could only be described as a warning look.
Natalie winced. “Yes, I do.”
“Josh is okay,” Mary said, surprising Natalie that she would give even that small inch. “But his sons are pigs.”
Pigs? They seemed like nice boys to her. The older one, Sean, was a bit full of himself, but that was to be expected from a boy who was going into his senior year, on the varsity football team, and very good-looking to boot.
Doug had seemed a bit shy and awkward, but he’d pitched in to help whenever his dad asked him to do something. He seemed like basically a good kid, despite his early, embarrassing gaffe.
“What makes you say that?” Natalie asked in as calm a voice as she could manage.
“I just know their type,” Mary said dismissively. “Rich, good-looking, probably the most popular kids in their class. They assume they’re entitled to anything they want, and they get it. Did you know the Jeep is their car?”
“Hmm. That seems a lot of assumptions to make based on the little bit of contact you had with them.”
“It doesn’t take much. I can tell.”
“Might I remind you that you are good-looking and popular as well? It’s not a sin.”
“Mom. They’re in a whole different class of popular.”
Natalie wanted to tell her daughter not to make sweeping generalizations, but now didn’t feel like the right time for a lecture. Mary was hurting and lashing out.
“Could you at least try to like them, a little? They must have some redeeming qualities.”
“It doesn’t matter whether I like them or not. They don’t like me.”
Natalie quietly sighed. It was true that the boys hadn’t gone out of their way to engage Mary. “I think they’re just being cautious. Remember this—yeah, we’re the ones who are making the move to accommodate Josh, so the baby will have two involved parents. But the boys’ lives will be disrupted, too. Just like we’ve been a team for all these years, Josh and his boys have been a team, too, just the guys.”
“What happened to their mother?” Mary actually sounded interested.
“Their mother isn’t involved in their lives.” Natalie didn’t know a whole lot about Josh’s second marriage, other than what Melissa was able to glean and pass on. But she knew a little bit. “Beverly took off when she was pregnant with Doug. After she gave birth, she came back long enough to dump the poor kid with Josh, then took off again. The boys have only seen her a couple of times in their lives.”
“That’s horrible. I mean, neither of my birth parents wanted me, but since I don’t know who they were or anything about them, it doesn’t really bother me. But it’s weird in this country for a mom to not want her kids.”
“Right.” Natalie was glad to see Mary showing some signs of compassion. “So their lives haven’t been all sweetness and light. And now their dad, who’s been their champion all these years, who’s always put them first, has a new priority. It’s bound to be a little scary for them, just like it is for you.” And for me.
“I’m not jealous of the baby. I was excited until Josh came into the picture.”
“You can still be excited. I believe Josh will be a good father. I’m actually a little bit relieved to share some of the responsibility with him. A newborn is a lot of work.”
“Hah! I can’t wait to see this. Anybody who wants to even hold this kid for five minutes will have to make an appointment with you first.”
Natalie had to smile. There was a bit of truth in Mary’s observation.
“Anyway, back to Josh and the boys. Can you promise me you’ll at least try?”
Mary gave a long-suffering sigh. “I’ll try if you’ll promise me something.”
“What?” Natalie asked warily.
“I’ll be nice, and I’ll go to the new school and I’ll try to make good grades. But if I still hate it after the end of junior year, can we move back?”
Move back? This relocation had been a nightmare. Do it all over again in nine months? To Mary, a year seemed like forever. But to Natalie it would go by quickly. By next May, the baby would be a couple of months old.
“We have a year’s lease on this house, right?” Mary continued. “It wouldn’t be that big of a deal to just pack up at the end of the lease and move back home.”
It would be a huge deal. And Josh would fight her tooth and nail if she tried to move the baby away from him.
“You have no idea how this is messing up my plans,” Mary said, in tears now. “I really, really wanted to go into the culinary program. It would give me a huge leg up in my career. This cooking thing, it isn’t some whim. It’s my passion. You always said I should find something I’m passionate about, like you did. Well, I have. But you’ve just dismissed it like it’s nothing.”
As if Natalie didn’t feel guilty enough. “Oh, Mary. I know it’s important to you.” And maybe Mary was right. Maybe getting a head start now would be the difference between her being a renowned chef at a five-star restaurant, and being a fry cook at a burger joint.
Maybe she’d been unfair, forcing this move on her daughter.
“Okay.” Natalie could only hope that Mary would adapt and flourish, as was her previous pattern. “All I ask is that you give our new situation a fair try. If you still want to move back to Dallas by next summer, we’ll find a way.”
Mary smiled through her tears. “Really?”
“Yes, of course really. The new baby’s welfare is important to me, but so is yours.”
“Thanks, Mom. And I’ll try to make the best of it, really I will.”
Mary’s optimism lasted until they pulled up with their U-Haul trailer in front of their new house in Bellaire, which was its own little city stuck to the southeast edge of Houston. The neighborhood was gorgeous, with lots of trees and some huge houses—some of the priciest real estate in the area.
Theirs was not huge. Theirs was a three-bedroom, brown-brick ranch-style house on a postage stamp of a lot. It was actually larger than their old place, if the square footage was compared. Unfortunately, it was devoid of even a shred of charm.
The yard was overgrown with weeds and had no flowers or shrubs at all. The one tree in the front yard was a midget. A jagged stump showed that a larger tree, perhaps an oak, had once stood there.
“This place is a dump!” Mary exclaimed, almost refusing to get out of the car.
“It’s not a dump,” Natalie said sternly. “It’s going to require some work to make it homey, that’s all. We had to do a lot of work on our old house, remember?” But Mary had been only five when they’d moved into their last home. She probably didn’t remember.
“But this isn’t even our house,” Mary grumbled. “And it’s a one-story. I like having an upstairs.”
Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea, renting this house from Josh’s friend just because it was the only house in his neighborhood she could afford. She could have ventured a little farther away. But this house was convenient to the hospital where she would work, and Bellaire had a top-rated public high school.
“What happened to making the best of it?” Natalie asked.
Mary said nothing. Who was this girl? Natalie hardly recognized her anymore. What had happened to her cheerful, mature daughter?
Natalie supposed she had only herself to blame. Josh might have pressured her, but she was the one who’d made the decision to move. Too late to change her mind now.
They carried in their essentials—suitcases, pillows, blankets and the two coolers of food. They would unload the U-Haul the next day. Mary refused to pick out a bedroom, and instead unpacked her precious groceries, then curled up on the living room carpet with her pillow and blankets, her cell phone, and her MP3 player.
Josh had offered to let them stay in his guest room until their furniture arrived, but Natalie had nixed that idea, anticipating open rebellion from Mary if she even suggested it.
Now, too exhausted to argue, she switched on the air-conditioning, then made her own pallet in the master bedroom. She hoped the moving van showed up tomorrow as promised. Her forty-three-year-old pregnant body couldn’t take too many nights sleeping on the floor.
Lord, what had she done? Would her life—and Mary’s—ever recover?
WHEN JOSH WALKED UP the sidewalk toward Natalie’s house the next morning, with two bleary-eyed teenage boys in tow, he belatedly remembered he’d intended to mow her lawn before she arrived. The place looked awful. It needed some landscaping, and the trim could use a new coat of paint—in a different color than dingy brown.
“This is the house you bought?” Sean asked. “It’s the ugliest house on the block.”
“It was a great deal.” But it was also humble enough that Natalie didn’t question the below-market rent he’d set. “Remember, Natalie doesn’t know I own the house.”
“You lied to her?” Doug asked.
“It was the only way to get her here. She never would have rented the house if she’d known I was behind it. She already thinks I’ve manipulated her too much.”
“You have,” Sean said.
Maybe he had. He didn’t have much of a defense, except his strong desire to be close to his child, and his boys wouldn’t understand that until they had kids of their own.
He looked at his watch. It was a little after eight, very early for a Sunday morning. But he’d brought a box of donuts and a Thermos of coffee, so maybe Natalie would forgive him. He’d also brought a housewarming gift, which he intended to give to her as soon as he had her alone.
She answered the door in an overlong T-shirt, which gave them a clear view of her tanned legs. Her breasts showed through the thin material, and she wasn’t wearing a bra.
His pulse immediately went into overdrive, and he resisted the urge to push his boys behind him and block their view. “Too early, I guess? We can come back, but I promised the guys we’d be done by eleven so they could go to the lake with their friends.”
“No, please, come in,” Natalie said, her voice sexy with sleep. “Let me jump in the shower and I’ll be ready to go to work.”
Josh let himself visualize her in the shower for a fraction of a second before he thought better of it. “There’ll be coffee and donuts in the kitchen when you’re—” But he already smelled coffee.
“Mary is fixing breakfast,” Natalie said, almost apologetically. “It’s what she does. But y’all don’t wait for me.”
She scooted away then, to the back part of the house.
They did, indeed, find Mary in the kitchen, dishing up fresh fruit and something that looked like runny yogurt into two bowls. An automatic coffeemaker was just finishing up its brewing cycle.
Mary looked at the males in her kitchen, then pointedly at the box of donuts. “Mom’s at risk for gestational diabetes. She can’t eat that.”
“She’s sick?” Josh asked at once. God, he’d never considered—
“She’s not sick, but she has to take care of herself. She shouldn’t have eaten that salty pizza yesterday—it puffed her up like a toad.”
Josh couldn’t believe he’d been so thoughtless. “Right. No more donuts and pizza.” Beverly had eaten anything and everything she wanted when she was pregnant. But Beverly had been in her early twenties. He handed the box of donuts to Sean. “You guys know what to do with these.”
“Absolutely.”
“Eat them outside. Dispose of the evidence.” He didn’t want to tempt Natalie, who loved sweets. In fact, back in their day she’d been a junk-food junkie. Her ultrathin body hadn’t been the result of avoiding fattening foods.
The boys disappeared without even saying hi to Mary. He couldn’t understand this. Didn’t teenagers naturally gravitate to one another? He knew both boys thought Mary was pretty, since he’d overheard them discussing her on the way home yesterday.
Not that she was giving off any warm fuzzies of her own. He could almost taste her hostility in the air. Maybe in forced proximity, they would all thaw out a bit.
“The guys are going to the lake this afternoon to meet some friends for one final bash before school starts,” he said to Mary. “I’m sure they’d be happy to take you with them and introduce you around.”
“You’re sure of that, are you?” Mary asked.
He was sure he could talk them into it, even if they balked at first.
But she didn’t give him a chance to formulate a delicate answer. “Even if they did want me, I can’t leave Mom to cope with the unpacking by herself.”
“She won’t be by herself. I’ll help her.”
“You don’t know where anything goes. And no offense, but Mom’s really stressed out and you’re the one stressing her. I know you want to be involved in the baby’s life, but the baby won’t be here ’til February. Maybe you could try to chill out until then.”
Natalie, who’d pulled herself together as hastily as she could, paused at the kitchen doorway, startled to hear Mary warning Josh away. Or was she merely trying to protect her mother?
Yes, it was true, Josh did stress her out. Or, more precisely, the weirdness of their relationship stressed her out. She still felt a sexual pull toward him, making her feel like a teenager again. But was it real, or was she merely reveling in the past? They’d been sexual at the reunion, but that didn’t mean they would be now.
In fact, she knew that would be a bad idea, but didn’t mean she didn’t want it.
“I’m not going to argue with you about this,” Josh said calmly. “Your mother is not a shrinking violet. If she doesn’t want me hanging around, she’ll tell me.”
“Fine. Hang around all you want, but don’t think that gives you any right to order me around.”
Natalie decided she better intervene before this got any worse, but Mary nearly ran her over as she exited the kitchen with the subtlety of an eighteen-wheeler, clutching her bowl of fruit.
Natalie turned. “Mary…” But it was no use.
She entered the kitchen to find Josh leaning against the counter, looking more bemused than angry.
“I’m sorry she’s behaving like this,” Natalie said, pouring herself a cup of coffee. “Want some of this? It’s decaf.”
He pointed to a Thermos on the counter. “Brought my own, fully leaded. I brought donuts, too, but Mary said you’re not allowed.”
Natalie rolled her eyes. “She’s become my mother.”
“Before things get crazy, I brought you a housewarming gift.” He reached into the shopping bag he’d brought with him and pulled out a large, brightly colored gift box with a green bow stuck to the top.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Natalie said with a smile, remembering other times Josh had surprised her with little gifts, sometimes for no reason at all.
When they’d moved into their first apartment together, a tiny one-bedroom with inadequate AC, he’d bought her a little battery-operated fan she could carry around with her. He’d always put thought behind his gifts. He’d never given her jewelry, other than her engagement ring, or perfume or any of the other generic gifts men gave women. He watched and listened to her carefully, figuring out what she wanted or needed often before she did herself.
He might be bossy and manipulative at times, but he did care. That knowledge had been the only thing that kept her from taking a swing at him sometimes.
Since the moving men hadn’t arrived yet with the furniture, she stood at the counter to open his gift. Inside the box, nestled in bubble wrap, was the most beautiful mosaic bird feeder Natalie had ever seen, along with a small bag of wild birdseed.
“Oh, Josh, this is so thoughtful.”
He glanced out the picture window in the breakfast nook, where her kitchen table would go. The view was of her dreary backyard, which had no trees of its own. But a neighbor’s tree hung over the fence, providing some shade. “I see the perfect branch to hang it on. Want me to do it?”
She clapped her hands together like a child. “Oh, yes. Let me fill it up.” She loved feeding the birds. It was relaxing to sit and watch them fly back and forth, chattering and singing. Mary enjoyed it, too. She especially loved it when the spring babies started venturing out of their nests to the feeder.
After her own baby was born, she could sit at her kitchen table, nurse and watch the birds. She would have to plant some flowers out there, too, for the butterflies and hummingbirds, and put in a birdbath.
A couple of minutes later, the new feeder was hanging from its branch. It might be a day or two before any birds discovered it, but already, that small detail made this sterile, unfriendly house seem more like home.
“Thank you, Josh.” She gave him a spontaneous hug. It just felt so natural to thank him in that way, and it felt even more right to stay there in his arms. Her life had been so chaotic these last couple of weeks, and all she could think about was how solid, warm and secure he felt.
He rubbed her back. “So how are you doing? Really?”
“Honestly? I’m exhausted every hour of every day, all my jeans are getting too tight and my ankles are already swollen.”
“Because you ate pizza yesterday. You should have told me you couldn’t eat it.”
“Me, turn down pizza? A little water retention won’t kill me.” But she did have to watch her blood pressure. She’d learned in the last couple of months that her normally robust, healthy-as-a-horse body was now on the verge of falling apart if she didn’t remain vigilant. She’d had no idea how harsh pregnancy was. Because of her age, she would have to work like a dog to get her figure back after she gave birth, if that was even possible.
Finally he released her. “I’m here to help. If you need to move something heavy, or climb on a ladder to hang a picture, call me. I’m close.”
“How close, exactly, are you?”
“On the next block over. As a matter of fact…” He pointed out the picture window. “See that gray stone house across the alley, through the trees to the left?”
Holy cow. Their backyards almost touched. “How convenient.” Too convenient? “It’s amazing that your friend’s house, which he just happened to be renting out for a ridiculous price, is right across the alley from you.”
“It’ll be easy bringing the baby back and forth between our houses,” Josh said mildly. “We won’t even have to get in the car.”
Natalie knew Josh had somehow engineered this move precisely to his liking, and considered confronting him about it. But, shoot, there was no other way she could have afforded to live in a house in Bellaire, even if it was the ugliest house on the street. She had enough to worry about without looking a gift horse in the mouth.
But she couldn’t help wondering—what else had he engineered? Her thoughts drifted back to the fact he’d worn Stetson aftershave to the reunion. He’d known she would be there. Melissa hadn’t lied to him, just to Natalie.
Perhaps he’d come to the reunion with the sole purpose of getting her into bed. She wondered now if those initials carved in the picnic table had been faked somehow.
About the only thing he couldn’t have engineered was her getting pregnant.
Natalie ate her fruit while Josh drank coffee from his Thermos. They retreated to innocuous subjects, like their jobs and the weather. But Natalie silently vowed she wasn’t going to let down her guard again where Josh was concerned. He might be showing her a lot of consideration right now, but his main focus was the baby. He’d practically rearranged the planets so he could have the baby close by.
One thing for sure, she didn’t intend to become some kind of fringe benefit. He’d never made any noises about trying their relationship again before she was pregnant. Even when they’d lain in bed between bouts of passionate lovemaking at his hotel, he’d never said anything about seeing her after the reunion was over.
They’d both been single for many, many years, yet they’d never even talked to one another before this summer. So clearly it was the pregnancy that had made the difference. She had to be careful that she didn’t fall into Josh’s arms simply because she was needy or feeling nostalgic. Their marriage had fallen apart for some very real, concrete reasons that hadn’t disappeared simply because she was pregnant.
MARY TOOK HER BOWL of fruit and crème fraîche out the front door to the ugly, weedy yard, where she could be alone. Unfortunately, she’d forgotten that Sean and Doug had come out here, too. She found them sitting on the front steps, wolfing down the last of those disgusting donuts.
All right, maybe just one donut wouldn’t have been so bad. She’d caught a whiff of yeast and sugar when they’d first walked into the kitchen, and it had made her stomach grumble.
Rather than retreat to some other safe place to eat her breakfast, she perched against the wall of a raised flower bed, which was barren at the moment. “I can’t believe you just ate a dozen donuts.”
“We’re growing boys,” Sean said.
“Yeah, well, something like one-third of high school football players are obese.”
“Not quarterbacks,” Sean said haughtily. “This is nothing but pure muscle.”
“Then why do I see your gut hanging over the top of your pants?”
Sean sat up straighter and pulled his shirt down. “Maybe because I just ate six donuts.”
“Seven,” Doug corrected him. “I only got five.”
Doug was pretty skinny. She couldn’t claim he was at any risk of larding up. Actually, Sean wasn’t overweight, either.
“It wouldn’t hurt you to put on a few pounds,” Sean said to Mary. “Maybe if you ate something besides rabbit food…”
“I eat lots of different things, and I’m not too skinny. I’m at a perfect weight, my doctor said so. You’re just used to seeing fat Houston girls.”
“Girls in Houston aren’t any fatter than anywhere else,” Sean shot back.
“Okay, this arguing is stupid,” Mary said, changing tacks. “You’re not happy about this situation and neither am I.”
“You’re not happy your mom’s having a baby?” Sean asked, peering at her curiously.
“Of course I’m happy she’s having a baby. She loves babies. What I’m not happy about is all this togetherness, and you’re not, either. You would much rather be anywhere but here, helping carry stuff out of our U-Haul.”
“You’re right about that,” Sean grumbled.
“The point is, this is only going to get worse. My mom and your dad were married once. They used to be in love. What if they fall in love again? What if they get married?” Her mother had assured her she had no plans in the works for a wedding. But things changed. A couple of months ago she was sure Josh wouldn’t be interested in helping to raise his child.
“That would be gross,” Doug said, as if he’d never considered it before. “I mean, your mom is nice and all.”
“Yeah, not like you,” Sean added.
“If they get married, you’ll never be rid of me,” Mary said, trying not to show that she was offended. “I’ll be your sister. We’ll have to be together at every holiday, every family gathering of any kind.”
She could see she’d made her point. Maybe these two lunkheads weren’t in the habit of thinking about the future, but she was.
“So what are we going to do about it?” Mary asked.
“What can we do?” Doug shrugged. “They’re the adults. They make the rules.”
“We can do a lot,” she argued. “For one thing, they’re both really anxious for us to make friends and be nice. Did you know your dad invited me to go to the lake with you two?”
Sean’s reaction was clear and unequivocal—he was horrified, which only confirmed Mary’s theory that Josh’s sons didn’t like her, and nothing she did would make a difference.
“Don’t worry, I said no,” she hastened to add. “But here’s my point. Maybe you aren’t the creepiest guys in the world, and maybe I’m not the ugliest, nerdiest, most unpleasant girl you’ve ever met, and maybe under other circumstances we could at least tolerate each other.
“But we can’t. We have to continue despising each other. If we can’t stand to be in the same room, our parents couldn’t even think about…moving us all into the same house.”
“Good point,” Sean said.
“So we have to keep it up. No being nice. You tell your dad I’m too mean to be nice to, and I’ll tell my mom the same thing about you.”
“We wouldn’t exactly be lying,” Sean pointed out. “You are mean.”
Mary tried not to flinch. No one had ever accused her of being mean before. Her whole life, she’d worked at making friends and getting along with her classmates, trying not to stand out any more than she already did. At age ten she’d even chosen a new name, the most normal, common girl’s name in America, and convinced her mother to let her change it legally from the very ethnic-sounding Xiang.
“Yeah, well, you’re no bowl of cherries.” She ran inside and locked herself in her room—some random bedroom, her room was in Dallas—before anyone saw her tears.
THE HOUSE WAS STARTING to take shape. Once the furniture was moved in and a few pictures hung, it looked much more inviting. Natalie would have to contact the owner for permission to paint the walls, which were all a boring white.
She had a whole week to get things settled before she had to report to her new job, and she intended to use it working on the landscaping.
She’d enrolled Mary in school that morning. The poor girl had looked pale and drawn and utterly scared, and why wouldn’t she? For the past ten years, she’d attended school with kids she’d known since preschool.
Natalie had been hoping that Sean and Doug would befriend her daughter, show her the ropes, but clearly that wasn’t going to happen. Now, Natalie could only hope that Mary’s naturally sunny personality, the one she’d kept hidden lately, would shine through. She’d always been a magnet for friends.
Natalie went inside to change into some ratty clothes. It was already warm and humid, even at ten in the morning, but that wasn’t so different from Dallas. When she came out the front door with her spade and some trash bags, ready to attack the hideous flower beds, she encountered a crew of yardmen unloading mowers and other tools in front of her house.
“Ah, excuse me.” She approached the one who seemed as if he were telling the others what to do. “Excuse me. I think you’re at the wrong house.”
The man looked at her quizzically. “You’re Senora Briggs?”
“Yes, but I didn’t hire any lawn service.” She did own a lawnmower, and normally she hired Mary to mow the lawn for extra spending money.
“The owner pay,” the man said.
Natalie wasn’t aware that her lease included lawn service, but she wasn’t going to object. The landlord should have at least mowed down the weeds before she moved in, but now was okay.
“Right. Well, tell him thanks.”
“You don’t have to clean the flower beds. We do all of that, and plant beautiful flowers for you. Okay?”
“Well, sure.” What else could she say? She still thought it odd that her landlord would do all this after she’d already signed the lease, rather than when he was trying to attract a desirable tenant. She still suspected Josh was somehow responsible, but she decided she’d rather not know for sure.
She spent the morning unpacking and arranging. Mary had done nothing with her room except unpack a few clothes. Her things were cast in great heaps all around the room. Natalie thought about Mary’s bedroom back home, how cutely she’d decorated it. She’d always taken so much pride in her space and her things. It broke Natalie’s heart to see this mess, but she resisted the urge to clean and arrange things herself. Mary was in open rebellion. The less emphasis Natalie put on her daughter’s undesirable behavior, the better.
When she passed the big windows that looked out onto the backyard, she stopped and stared. A crew was back there, too. They were putting down sod. Another group of workers was tearing out the fence along the back perimeter.
Oh, my gosh. They were planting trees, two of those fast-growing pear trees and one live oak. Before she’d recovered from that shock, the doorbell rang. When she answered it, standing on her porch was a man in stained white overalls.
“Are you Ms. Briggs?”
“Yes…”
“The owner of your house hired me to paint the trim. He said you could pick out the color.” He handed her a stack of paint-chip cards.
“Oh.” That was weird. The owner had never even met her. How did he know she wouldn’t pick out hot pink or chartreuse? “How about a nice cream color?” She sorted through the chips until she saw what she wanted.
The painter considered it, then looked back at the house. “Yeah. That’ll look nice. How about just a touch of blue, around the windows? And maybe paint the front door blue.”
Natalie thought about her old house, with its blue shutters. It was almost like the painter knew her taste. “That sounds perfect,” she said, still marveling.
She’d been sniffing something for a while, but now she really smelled a rat.
ON HIS WAY HOME from the office, Josh drove by Natalie’s house and nodded with satisfaction. The place looked two hundred percent better, and the work wasn’t even finished.
But as he pulled in to his own garage, he saw something out of the corner of his eye that alarmed him. Natalie was storming across the alley toward him. Her fists were clenched and her eyes blazing. She walked so fast that her ponytail slapped her shoulders with each step.
He climbed out of his car and made his way toward the alley. “Hi, Nat! How was Mary’s first day at school?”
“It was miserable, but don’t change the subject.”
“Did we have a subject?”
“Did you have anything to do with the fact my house has been crawling with workers like on one of those reality decorating before-and-after shows?”
Josh didn’t answer right away. He didn’t want to lie to Natalie anymore. He’d gotten her down here, after all, so there was no reason to perpetuate the lie. She would find out eventually.
“The yard needed help,” he finally said.
“So you pressured your friend Dave into doing all this? Or is he planning to put the house on the market after all, and he’s spiffing it up to get a better price? You promised me that lease was okay. If he evicts me—”
“You’re not going to get evicted.”
“How do you know for sure? Why would he spend all this money?”
“How about if I take you out to dinner and I can explain the situation about the house then.”
She crossed her arms. “A fancy dinner out is not going to fix things if you lied to me. Did you?”
Hell, she’d already figured it out. “My friend Dave did own the house. And he did get transferred, and he didn’t want to try to sell the house when the real estate market was down. But he didn’t want to mess with renting it out. So I bought the house.”
“You’re my landlord?” she squeaked. Josh had thought she’d be suspicious when the lease had listed a real estate holding company as owner.
“The house is a good investment.”
“Right. You probably paid above market for it, you’re sinking in thousands more by fixing it up and you’re charging a severely discounted rent. Sounds like a wonderful investment to me.”
“This is a great neighborhood and that house was a bargain. I’ll eventually make a profit.”
“Admit it. You tricked me into moving down here.”
“I just wanted to make the move more attractive for you.”
“No, you lied to me and manipulated me because you wanted things your way, and Josh always gets his way. Did you get me the job, too?”
“I do play golf with the chief of pediatrics, and I might have put in a good word for you.” He’d committed to being honest; as long as she was mad at him, he might as well confess everything. “But he said you were the most qualified anyway.”
She looked him up and down as if he’d just burglarized her house. “You don’t even understand why I’m so mad, do you?”
“Not exactly. Most people are happy to get a break on their rent. Most people like having their yards landscaped, or having a friend put in a good word for them with a potential employer. It’s called networking.”
“It’s called manipulation. Then there’s the fact that you failed to take into account my feelings or my preferences. You don’t have any idea what I’ve gone through, what I’m still going through, so you can get your way. I shudder to think what it will be like when we have a disagreement about our child, but I can guess whose opinion is going to prevail.”
Josh was stunned by how angry she was. They’d had their turbulent times, their disagreements, when they’d been married, but she’d never let him have it with both barrels like this.
If he recalled correctly, usually if they’d disagreed, she’d burst into tears and run from the room, then he would apologize and comfort her and they would reach some kind of agreement. He stretched his memory. Had those agreements always resulted in him getting his way?
“I know it’s been rough,” he said. “But I didn’t force you to move, I tried to make it easy for you. We agreed it would be the best decision for the baby. Look, why don’t you let me take you out to dinner?” He tried again. This ploy had sometimes worked with Beverly, especially when he picked an expensive place. “You can have a nice steak, you can relax and unwind—”
“A steak dinner won’t fix the fact my baby’s father is callous and untrustworthy. Throwing money at a problem doesn’t always fix it. You know, I think I liked you better when you were poor.”
With that she turned and stalked away. He wanted to go after her and make her listen, try to get her to understand. Maybe he had been pushy, and maybe he was used to getting his way. But everything he’d done, he’d done for the child’s welfare. He already loved this baby and he couldn’t bear the thought of being separated from him or her for extended periods.
Hell, if Natalie up and moved back to Dallas, he would follow her. He’d sell his share of the law firm and start over if he had to. It wasn’t like he was short on cash.
But then he remembered the boys and he realized he could never rip them away from the school they loved, their friends and the house where they’d all been so happy.
Yet that was exactly what he’d expected Natalie to do. He had ridden roughshod over anything that got in the way of getting what he wanted.
Maybe he was callous and untrustworthy. Maybe he ought to work on that.
Mary had never felt so alone in her life.
Just three months before, she’d had her future planned. She would attend the culinary arts program at the magnet school, apply and be accepted at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, then get a job at a very cool restaurant in New York or San Francisco or even London, where she would eventually become the executive chef.
She might have even gotten her own cooking show.
She’d never had to worry about her grades. She’d never had to worry about whether she would have a date for a school dance, or whether she would be invited to a party. She always did, and she always was.
Everything was different here. For one thing, she was already lost in calculus class, while her French class was laughably easy. But the worst thing was, she had no friends. The only people to talk to her were the two other Asian students in her class, two extremely nerdy Korean boys, and when they found out she wasn’t interested in math and science and didn’t want to join the young inventors club, they started ignoring her, too.
Her mother said she needed to take the first step herself, to just start talking to her classmates, asking if she could sit with them—or find another student who was by herself and try to make friends. But her mother was out of touch with reality. If someone in this school didn’t already have a group of friends, even a group of geeky friends, they were probably outcasts, and to make friends with them would be social suicide.
It was noon on her fifth day of school, and she was facing another solitary lunch. At least she had an interesting book to read. She’d found a 1950s Junior League cookbook in the school library. She loved reading vintage cookbooks and finding forgotten recipe gems she could update.
She’d just sat down when she realized Sean Carlson was sitting a few tables down from her with some of his football jock friends and a couple of cheerleader types. Their gazes met, and Mary nodded a polite hello. She had, after all, promised her mother she would try a little harder with Josh’s sons.
He nodded back, then returned his attention to his friends. They all leaned forward in a huddle and cast glances her way. He was probably telling them what a loser she was.
She opened her lunch bag, pulled out a couple of plastic containers, put her straw in her carton of milk and started reading.
She’d hardly taken more than a couple of bites when two complete strangers sat down across from her. “Hi.”
She looked up. Two boys from her PE class. They’d been on her volleyball team. She was the worst volleyball player in the history of the sport.
“Hi,” she said back. Then added cautiously, “Sorry I was so lame in volleyball.”
“Mary, right?” one of the boys asked. He was kind of cute, in a slightly geeky way. But that wasn’t necessarily bad. A lot of her friends back in Dallas were kind of that way.
“Yeah, Mary Briggs.” She didn’t remember either of their names.
“What’s a Chinese girl doing with a name like Mary?”
She bit down on the inside of her cheek to keep from pointing out how rude his question was. Lots of people were rude without meaning to be. Maybe he was just curious.
“My birth name was Xiang,” she said, “but I changed it.”
The second boy laughed. It wasn’t a pleasant sound. “We like Xiang better,” he said. “Xiang, Xiang, Xiang!”
Mary wanted to die. As the boy chanted her old name, he pulled his eyes up at the corners and bobbled his head back and forth while his friend hee-hawed with laughter. She looked around to see that several kids at nearby tables were staring.
“What’s this?” The second boy picked up her book and read the cover. “The Junior League cookbook, 1956?”
“I like to—”
“What are you eating?” the first boy asked.
“It’s a stuffed chicken breast with shiitake mushroom sauce.”
Both boys nearly collapsed with laughter. She had no idea why. What was so funny about her lunch? It was a lot better than the swill they served in the cafeteria.
Boy Number One elbowed Boy Number Two. “Breast. She’s eating a breast.”
“With shiiiiiit-icky mushrooms,” the other said, which only made them laugh harder. Then one of them grabbed the plastic container and slid it out of her reach.
“Hey, gimme that!” She made a grab for it and missed.
“You want your breast? Hey, she wants her breasts.”
Mary’s face grew hot with humiliation and anger. She’d heard of kids getting teased like this, had seen it in movies and such, but it never happened at her old school. If any kid had acted like these baboons at her old school, they’d have been kicked out.
Suddenly both boys found themselves dumped out of their chairs. Sean was standing behind them, looking disgusted.
“What do you morons think you’re doing?”
“We were just—”
“Give her back her lunch.”
Mary’s lunch had taken a dive when her tormenters had, but she didn’t really care about that. Someone had actually stood up for her. Sean Carlson, of all people, when she’d been so mean to him.
Boy Number One put the plastic container back on the table. He scooped the chicken breast off the floor and plopped it into the Tupperware. “There, all right?”
Sean yanked them both to their feet. “Apologize.”
“W-we’re sorry, Xi—” Boy Number Two began, but Boy Number One elbowed him.
“We’re sorry, Mary.”
Sean released them and they skulked away.
“Thank you,” she said to Sean.
Sean just shook his head. “If you would eat a normal lunch and read normal books, maybe you wouldn’t get teased. And while you’re at it, you could try wearing normal clothes.”
Whatever warm feelings she’d generated for Sean evaporated as he walked away with his clique, ignoring her once again.
What was wrong with her clothes? Back home, she’d been admired for her fashion sense. Here, though, most of the kids wore jeans. Her pleated skirt and sweater set stood out—maybe not in a good way.
She hated following the crowd. She wasn’t going to change everything about herself to please these idiots. She didn’t care if she never made a single friend here. Next summer, she would move back to Dallas and never have to see any of them again.
JOSH WAS TRYING, really trying, to make things easier for Natalie and Mary. But neither of them seemed to want his help. Over the past week since Natalie had stormed across the alley, they’d managed to talk civilly about a few things connected with the baby. Natalie had gotten hooked up with a fabulous obstetrician, a perinatologist, who specialized in high-risk pregnancies. She’d scheduled her first sonogram and dutifully informed him, because he’d said he wanted to be there.
But they were as tense around each other as a couple of alley cats vying for territory. That just wouldn’t do.
So he’d scheduled a barbecue. Houston had gotten its first break from the hot weather, and he loved cooking on the grill. The boys loved charco-broiled hamburgers. Grilled chicken breasts would be healthy for Natalie, and if Mary had something special she wanted to bring, he was willing to share grilling duties with her.
Once he had everyone in one place, he intended to use his not insignificant persuasive skills to convince them all to try to get along better, for the baby’s sake—and for the sake of Natalie’s health. All this extra stress couldn’t be good for her.
“C’mon, guys, help me straighten up a little,” he implored his sons, who were engrossed in some stupid war-death-conquest video game. “I know you can pause it, so don’t try to tell me you have to finish this level or whatever.”
Sean rolled his eyes and paused the game. “I think it’s weird you’re trying to impress your ex-wife.”
“They’re our guests. Now, please. Take your books upstairs, get your shoes out of the living room and change your clothes. Jeez, Doug, you haven’t even showered since soccer practice. Do it.”
“Is Mary coming?” Doug asked.
“Yes, I believe Natalie is dragging her along, so please be nice to her.”
“Dad,” Sean said, “I’ve tried. I rescued her from a couple of bullies the other day. But she doesn’t even try to fit in. She dresses weird, she eats weird, she reads weird books.”
“So, she’s an independent thinker. Is there something wrong with that?”
“She’s deliberately putting people off. She’s determined not to enjoy herself.”
That didn’t sound good. “Is she making any friends at all?”
“I saw her hanging out with those biker guys,” Doug offered. “The ones who go behind the gym and smoke grass.”
That didn’t sound good, either. Natalie claimed that Mary had never gotten into any trouble, but that could change if she started hanging out with the wrong people. He didn’t want his baby’s older sister to turn into a pothead.
“Just keep trying,” Josh said. “Please? She’s bringing over some shish kebabs tonight, and it would be nice if you could try one and tell her it’s good, even if it’s not.”
Sean groaned.
A few minutes later, Natalie and Mary arrived at the front door. Natalie looked tense and drawn, and Mary just looked sullen.
“Come on outside to the deck,” Josh greeted them. He saw that Mary was carrying a large plastic container. “Are those the shish kebabs?”
She nodded.
“You can put it in the fridge until we’re ready to grill.” He led the way to the kitchen and cleared off a shelf in his refrigerator, then took his guests outside. The boys were in the yard tossing a football. “Mary,” Josh said, trying again, “you can go hang out with the guys if you want.”
“I can’t play football,” she said coolly.
“Maybe they would teach you how,” Natalie said.
Mary rolled her eyes. “Mom, I’m not the slightest bit athletic.”
Natalie looked so frustrated, and Josh could identify with that. They were both dealing with open teenage rebellion for the first time, and it wasn’t easy.
Josh opened a cooler. “I have soft drinks and water,” he said. “Who wants something?”
“I’ll take a water,” Mary said. She paused a moment too long before adding, “Please.”
Josh had just passed out the water, and a lime soda for himself, when the doorbell rang again. That was weird. He wasn’t expecting anyone, but maybe a friend of the boys had dropped by. That was okay, the more the merrier.
But when he opened the door, he was shocked to see his parents standing on the front porch.
His mother looked slim and stylish as always in a designer pantsuit. Her purse and shoes matched, and every one of her artfully frosted hairs was in place. His father was the picture of healthy retirement in a soft green golf shirt and khakis. The two of them could be actors in a commercial for retirement plans or upscale resort vacations.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, trying to mask his panic.
“We were in town visiting our broker and we thought we’d stop by, maybe take you and the boys out for dinner,” Beatrice said smoothly. “I know it’s a school night, but it’s early yet.”
He opened the door wider and let them in because he didn’t know what else to do. He couldn’t exactly tell them to go away and call next time. They never dropped in unexpectedly. Why today of all days?
“Actually, I have guests over for dinner,” he said, hoping they would immediately express their regret for barging in and leave.
“Oh?” his mother asked as she swept through the foyer and into the living room like she owned the place. “Is this a, um, date?”
“No. It’s a neighbor and her…” He stopped. Hadn’t he just promised himself that he would work on being more trustworthy? Trustworthy people didn’t bend the truth, even if their motives were honorable. “It’s Natalie.”
Both of his parents dropped their jaws. “Natalie?” Beatrice said. “As in, your first wife?”
“Yes. And her daughter.”
His father cleared his throat. “I wasn’t aware you even kept in touch with her.”
Oh, Lord, he should have told them about the pregnancy. But he hadn’t seen much of them this summer. They’d been on a long cruise all during July…No, that was a cop-out. He should have told them. And he was going to have to do it now.
“We got back in touch this summer. In fact, um, Natalie recently moved into the neighborhood. She got a job at Children’s Hospital. She’s a nurse now, a neonatal nurse. She’s done really well in her career…” Oh, God, he was blathering.
“Why on earth did you invite her over?” his mother asked bluntly. “Just because you were once briefly married to her doesn’t mean you have to be the welcoming committee. Joshua, be honest. Is she trying to worm her way back into your life after she almost destroyed you last time? Because you’d be quite a catch for any woman—”
“No, she isn’t trying to worm her way back into my life,” Josh said, “as you so charmingly put it.” In fact, he had the distinct impression Natalie would just as soon be out of his life. “She’s a new neighbor, she and her daughter don’t have any friends—”
“Josh, have you gone insane?” his mother almost screeched. “That girl was all wrong for you. She made you miserable.”
“On the contrary, she once made me very happy. It was the divorce that made me miserable.” But to keep the peace, he reassured his mother. “We aren’t dating.”
“Well, thank God for that.”
Josh’s father looked supremely uncomfortable. “Bea, knock it off. It’s none of our business.”
“My son’s happiness isn’t my business?” she countered.
“Maybe we should come back another time,” his dad said.
But his mom would have none of it. “Derek, are you kidding? I want to see her. I want to see what kind of woman she turned into. Where is she?”
Just then the door to the deck opened and Natalie walked in. “Josh, do you have any nap—” she halted and froze when she saw his parents “—kins?” She swallowed hard. “Mr. and Mrs. Carlson. I didn’t know you were coming.” She shot Josh an accusing look, obviously thinking he’d orchestrated this.
“We dropped in unannounced,” Josh’s father said. “Apparently it’s a bad time.”
“Please, stay,” Natalie said, recovering her composure. “I’m sure there’s plenty of food, and I’d love the chance to get reacquainted. You’re both looking splendid.”
“You look very nice, too.” His father cast a questioning eye at Josh. Natalie didn’t show, exactly, but there was a tiny bulge if you knew where to look.
“Sure, we have plenty of food.” What else could he say? He got some paper napkins, and when they all went back out on the deck, he saw that Natalie was setting the picnic table. “Easy to squeeze in two more,” she said. “And I’d like you to meet my daughter, Mary.”
Beatrice looked around, her eyes skipping over Mary and dismissing her. “Your daughter? I wasn’t aware…I mean, I thought you had a…Where is she?”
“She’s right there, Mother,” Josh said. Mary stood, looking terrified but prepared to be polite, at least. But Beatrice continued to look right through her.
“Mary, these are Mr. and Mrs. Carlson, Josh’s parents,” Natalie said through gritted teeth.
“Nice to meet you,” Mary mumbled.
Finally, Beatrice got it. “Oh, um, hello. Yes, nice to meet you, too. What a pretty girl you are.” She looked around again. “Natalie, am I to presume you have a, um, an Oriental husband around here somewhere?” She smiled uncertainly.
“Mary is my adopted daughter,” Natalie said. “And, no, I don’t have a husband.”
Beatrice’s smile fled. “Oh, I see.”
Natalie sidled over close to Josh. “Am I to presume you haven’t told them?” she said under her breath, hardly moving her lips.
“I was going to,” he murmured back. “I just haven’t had the right moment.”
God, this could hardly get any worse.
“Mary,” Natalie said brightly, though her eyes were glittery with suppressed panic, “why don’t you go hang out with the boys. Maybe you can suggest doing some activity you would all enjoy.”
“Okay. Whatever.” She descended the stairs into the backyard. “Hey, jock-boys. The old folks say we gotta play nice together.”
“Okay.” Doug tossed her the football. She made an awkward lunge for it and missed.
“I’m terrible at sports,” she said huffily.
“Maybe you just need a little practice,” said Doug, to his credit. But Josh could spare no more attention to the kids. He had his own crisis to deal with.
His mother’s mouth was pursed in disapproval.
“Mom, Dad, Natalie and I have something to tell you.”
Beatrice gasped. “You’re getting married?”
Natalie waited for Josh to set his parents straight. Surely he hadn’t engineered this scene, not unless he was a sadomasochist. It couldn’t get any more awkward for any of them.
But she couldn’t believe he hadn’t told his parents about the baby. At least he looked every bit as uncomfortable as she felt.
When Josh failed to explain, Natalie took over. She couldn’t just leave the Carlsons staring at them, utterly baffled.
“We’re having a baby,” she said, daring them to say something rude about it. “You’re going to be grandparents again.”
Beatrice Carlson went very pale, and she opened her mouth but nothing came out.
Josh helped her to a chair.
His father, Nat couldn’t help noticing, was smiling. He seemed to like the idea. But then, he’d never clashed directly with Natalie the way Beatrice had.
“Congratulations,” Derek said. “Am I to assume you’re happy about the impending arrival?”
“We were shocked, of course,” Natalie said, “but yes, I think I can safely speak for Josh when I say we’re both excited and thrilled.”
His mother looked to him for confirmation, of course. She wouldn’t trust Natalie if she said the sky was blue.
Josh smiled, and Natalie was gratified by the sincerity in his expression. “I can’t wait,” was all he said. So long as he truly would love and welcome the baby, that he wasn’t insisting on being so involved as part of some power trip, she could handle the rest of it.
Beatrice still seemed bewildered. “But, Natalie, I thought you were, you know. Incapable of…”
Derek put a hand on his wife’s arm. “Now, Bea, the hows and whys are none of our business.”
Natalie replied anyway. “We don’t have all the answers, but apparently my infertility corrected itself when I wasn’t paying attention.”
“But is it safe to have a baby?” Beatrice persisted. “At your age?”
“Mom.” Josh’s warning came out almost as a growl. Natalie appreciated the protective streak asserting itself, but she could handle Mother Carlson.
Natalie had completely run out of polite and patient comebacks. If she opened her mouth, she was going to tell Beatrice to butt out, and she didn’t want this to turn into a verbal brawl. She’d hoped to get along better with Josh’s parents now that she wasn’t married to their precious son.
Apparently not.
This time it was Josh’s turn to return the volley. She could tell he didn’t care for his mother’s insinuations, either. A pulse throbbed at his neck and his jaw was clenched.
“Natalie and I aren’t getting married,” he managed to say in a fairly normal-sounding voice. She had to give him credit for not lunging directly for his mother’s throat.
Predictably, Beatrice’s eyes widened in horror. And she focused them right on Natalie, clearly indicating where she placed the blame for this travesty. “You’re going to give birth to a bastard?”
Natalie had had just about enough from the imperious Madame Carlson. “No, I’m giving birth to a child who will be loved and cherished by two parents who do not happen to be married. And if you ever use that word around my child—”
“Hold up, Nat,” Josh said. “Let’s not get crazy here.”
It was too late. The woman had already made Natalie crazy. She stood before she could say anything else incendiary. “The coals are ready. I’ll put the burgers on. Josh, please explain the facts to your mother.”
As Natalie used a spatula to place the meat on the grill, she could hear a little of what Josh was saying. He was explaining that times were different, that there was little or no stigma attached to a child born out of wedlock, that he and Natalie weren’t romantically involved, that there was no need for a shotgun wedding.
Instead of being reassuring, his adamancy made her a bit wistful. When she was younger, she’d always wondered how her life would have differed if she and Josh had been able to conceive a baby. Not that infertility was the only reason they’d split. But their failure at baby-making had served to highlight other problems—like Josh’s tendency to always believe he was right, and their mutual inflexibility.
If they’d had a child, or several, maybe they could have worked the rest out. She certainly would have worked harder to keep their marriage together if children had been involved.
What if times were different, and they had to get married? Could they make things work this time around? If they’d been forced to try again, maybe they would do better. Maybe they could rediscover the powerful love that had drawn them together in the first place.
But she was building castles in the air. Josh sounded pretty positive that he did not want to marry Natalie. His concern was for the baby. Period.
As Natalie closed the lid on the grill, she felt a presence behind her and turned to find Derek Carlson at her elbow.
“Didn’t mean to startle you,” he said with a chuckle.
“That’s okay. I’m easily startled these days.”
“I wanted to apologize for Beatrice’s appalling behavior. She never did know when to hold her tongue.”
Natalie was surprised by Derek’s gesture. Years ago, Josh’s parents had always presented a united front, though she’d sensed Beatrice was the one taking the hard line.
“Well, we did spring the news on you in a not-very-elegant way,” Natalie said. She’d cooled off a little, and she wanted to cut her ex-mother-in-law some slack. Above all, she wanted her child to know its grandparents, and to have a good relationship with them. Since Natalie’s parents were both gone, the elder Carlsons were the only relations her child would have in that generation. Natalie remembered her own grandparents fondly. Though they’d both died before she hit her teens, they’d still provided a sense of family continuity that she’d found comforting.
“Bea will come around. Once it sinks into her head that she’s going to have another grandbaby to spoil, all the rest will fall by the wayside. I hope you’ll find it in your heart to forgive her foibles. She’s a very strong-willed and opinionated woman.”
“So, apparently, am I,” Natalie said with a smile. “Perhaps we’re kindred souls and we don’t even know it. But I’ll try, I promise. I’m not at my best today. It’s been a long, trying couple of weeks.”
“Well, try to relax and take care of yourself. Just let Bea’s sharp comments roll off your back like water off a duck. That’s how I’ve managed to stay married to her for forty-five years.”
Natalie would try to remember that. She was fond of telling Mary that no one could hurt you with words unless you allowed it. Perhaps she should take her own advice.
Mary climbed up the stairs to the deck. “Is it time for the kebabs?”
“I think so. The burgers are cooking pretty quickly.”
“Shish kebabs?” Derek asked, politely curious.
“With chicken and veggies,” Mary replied. “I’m sure there will be plenty if you want one—the moron brothers won’t touch them.” She flounced away to the kitchen.
Natalie sighed. “Beatrice hasn’t cornered the market on tactless comments. But I’m sure Mary didn’t think through the fact she just insulted your grandsons.”
Derek laughed. “She was probably provoked. I love those boys, but they can try a person’s patience. As can their father.”
Amen to that. Natalie kept her enthusiastic agreement to herself.
“Josh has mellowed a lot over the years, though,” Derek continued. “I think he regretted letting you go without a fight. His marriage was probably the only thing he didn’t fight for, when he should have.”
“We were both young and stupid,” Natalie said, feeling awkward discussing her marriage with her ex-father-in-law. He’d never talked to her like this before, adult to adult. Years ago, he’d talked at her. Maybe Josh wasn’t the only one who’d mellowed. “We had idealistic ideas of what our lives would be like, and we didn’t handle the bumps in the road very well. Neither of us did.”
“Maybe it would be different now,” he said.
Natalie shot him a look that said he should drop it, but he didn’t take the hint.
“Not that I agree with Bea. I don’t believe a couple should get married just because of a baby. But it would be a shame to totally rule it out because you don’t want to feel like you were forced into it.”
DINNER WENT SURPRISINGLY WELL, Josh thought, given the evening’s rocky start. His mother kept her claws sheathed. She even tried one of Mary’s kebabs and complimented the girl for showing an interest in something besides fast food. The comment might have been a veiled reference to the fact Natalie’s diet had been appalling when she’d been younger, but he hoped she wouldn’t take offense.
The boys were in their own world, talking about football and totally excluding Mary, but at least there was no open hostility.
Natalie was quiet. He remembered her moods well enough to know she was mulling something over, but he didn’t know what. He tried not to stare at her. This was the first time since the class reunion they’d been together for any extended length of time when they were more or less relaxed, and he couldn’t get enough of looking.
He knew it was a cliché, but she did glow. Even with minimal makeup, her hair pulled back in a simple ponytail with a gold barrette, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. He ached to touch her, and he was not nearly as sanguine as he pretended with his parents about the fact he and Natalie had no plans to get married.
Maybe it was the height of stupidity on his part to even let the thought of marriage enter his mind. They’d certainly made a mess of things the first time, and since both of them had been single for a very long time, they were probably both set in their ways. Considering Natalie had damn near walked out on him when she’d found he owned her house, trying to maneuver her into marriage could only be worse. She was under stress, and now was almost certainly not the right time. But he had to confess that the idea appealed to him…a lot. And not just because he wanted his baby under his own roof.
Even if this wasn’t the time, did that answer the question, forever and ever? Was the door closed tight and locked? Right now she was still a little put out with him for the way he’d misled her, and he didn’t really blame her.
But Natalie was a forgiving soul. They’d argued about a lot of things during their marriage, and she’d always tried to understand his side of things, at least until the last few months. He hated to think they would remain so edgy around each other for the rest of their lives.
“Natalie,” Beatrice said when the conversation lagged, “do you need any help decorating the nursery? I did the nurseries for both Sean and Doug. Their mother wasn’t very—” She halted, as well she better. He’d warned her many times about not bad-mouthing Beverly in front of the boys. “Well, she admitted she hadn’t a clue how to do it.”
“We’re going to have two nurseries, actually,” Natalie said. “One here, and one at my house. So there will be plenty of decorating to do.” She stopped short of welcoming Beatrice into her home, but at least she’d left the door open. A crack.
If she was willing to bend even that small amount for his mother, maybe there was hope.
The next two months went by in a blur for Natalie. Her new job was extremely demanding as she struggled to learn the hospital’s procedures and got to know her staff, as well as the administrators she answered to.
But she was glad she’d made the move. She felt at home at Children’s, and everyone seemed to share her optimism about her pregnancy. She’d been repeatedly assured that taking her family leave time would in no way have an impact on her career.
Of course, that was still months away. At five and a half months along she was obviously pregnant and grateful for the comfortable, baggy scrubs that were her uniform at work and at home. She hadn’t gotten around to buying actual maternity clothes yet, other than one pair of jeans, but she couldn’t put it off much longer.
The downside was how lonely she felt. She was making friends at work, but she missed the people at her old job. She missed her sister. Even Melissa, to whom she talked on the phone every week or two, didn’t provide the kind of bone-deep friendship she needed right now.
She couldn’t really talk to Mary about what was going on—even if Mary would have welcomed any kind of intimacy from her mother, which lately she didn’t. What could a sixteen-year-old, who had her whole life ahead of her, understand about being forty-three and settled, content with her life, only to have to switch directions one hundred and eighty degrees and start completely over?
She wanted someone she could really talk to about her fears and doubts and insecurities. And if she were honest with herself, she would admit she wanted Josh. As her pregnancy progressed, her long-ago dreams of having a houseful of children had started to surface, like little fish that had been asleep at the bottom of a lake for years and years, now wanting to be fed. Feelings she’d been sure were long dead had come alive, daydreams of sharing the anticipation with Josh, picking out names for the baby, buying all the necessary paraphernalia, having him run out in the middle of the night to buy her ice cream and sardines, like on that old episode of I Love Lucy.
It all came to a head one dreary, cold, damp evening when she’d stopped at the grocery store after work to pick up a few staples. Mary’s willingness to grocery shop had dropped off sharply. She didn’t like the stores here, she said, and Natalie didn’t push her because, after all, buying all the groceries and doing all the cooking wasn’t Mary’s responsibility. She was still cooking, but she didn’t seem to have the joy in it that she’d had before their move. She wasn’t trying new recipes or rhapsodizing over a new spice or a new variety of cheese, like she used to.
So Natalie was putting away all the groceries and feeling the emptiness of the house stalking her like a ghost. Mary was out; she’d left a note that she was “studying” with friends, but she hadn’t said which friends or when she would be home, another departure from her normal behavior. Natalie was about to dial Mary’s cell number when it happened: the baby kicked.
It was the first time. All her life, Natalie had wanted to know what that felt like. It was unbelievable, spectacular. Life-altering. And she was all alone, with no one to share it with. She put her hand on her belly where the little foot—or maybe it was an elbow—had protruded, but now everything was still.
“I’m here, precious,” she whispered, thrilled and awed by this undeniable sign of the life inside her. Before now, the baby had been something of an abstract—a pulsing figure on the ultrasound video screen, a faint heartbeat heard over a speaker in a doctor’s office. But now her child was viscerally real.
She had to tell someone. So she went ahead and dialed Mary’s number.
Mary answered, sounding not too happy. “Hullo.”
“Mary, it’s Mom. I’m just doing that mom thing, checking up on you. Did you get something to eat?”
“We had tacos.”
Oh, Lord. Mary was eating fast food? What was the world coming to?
“Who are you, um, studying with?”
“Just a guy in my chemistry class.”
“Could I have a name, please? You know the rules.”
“His name’s Blake. Mom, I really have to go.” She hung up before Natalie could ask her when she would be home. Before Natalie could tell her about the baby kicking.
Feeling even more forlorn than before, and ridiculously needy, she did the unthinkable. She dialed Josh’s home number.
“Natalie. Is something wrong?”
“Oh, no, I just…we hadn’t touched base in a while.”
“I would have called, but I thought you didn’t want me checking up on you.”
Had she really said that? “You must have caught me in a grouchy mood. I have a lot of those lately. Hormones running amok.” In truth, she’d wanted Josh the last couple of months. When she’d first told him about the pregnancy, there had been loads of reasons for them to talk—so many decisions to make, plans to build. But now that she was installed across the alley from him, there wasn’t that much more to discuss until the baby was born. She’d dutifully kept him informed of her medical progress, as he’d requested.
She hadn’t yet told him the baby’s sex, which she’d learned last week.
“Well, it’s good to hear your voice,” he said, sinking into the conversation warmly. “How’s Mary?”
“Belligerent. Troubled. She hates school and her midterm grades were grisly. She normally gets A’s and B’s.”
“I’m sorry the move was so hard on her. If there’s anything more I could do…”
“If I can think of anything, I’ll let you know.”
An awkward silence descended. Natalie’s throat felt like it might close off. She couldn’t get the words out, which was silly. It wasn’t as if the earth had moved. Her baby had kicked for the first time, that’s all.
“Well,” she said, “I’ll let you go—”
“Do you want to go out to dinner sometime? Just us, not the kids. I don’t think I’m up to negotiating between the troops.”
Natalie laughed. “That would be nice. We did get off on the wrong foot. I know things could never be like they were when we were kids. But I want to be friends, Josh. I want to feel comfortable around you again.”
“Yeah, me, too.” His voice was a little rough, and she wondered if he was feeling anything, or if he just had the cold that had kept half her shift home today. “Next Friday?”
“Oh, um…”
“I understand,” he said quickly.
“I would love to have dinner with you,” she said just as quickly. “But Melissa is coming to visit this weekend with her kids. She’s going to help me with the nursery.”
“Is that a good idea?” Josh asked, sounding concerned. “I mean, not that I don’t love Melissa, but are you up to entertaining a houseguest?”
“Frankly, no. But I haven’t done one thing for the nursery, and I can’t turn down Melissa’s offer of help. She’s bringing all her nursery furnishings from her attic, too.”
Long pause. Natalie wondered if she’d said something wrong.
“I thought we would work on the nurseries together,” he said. “My mother is hinting very broadly she’s going to drive up here and take care of it unless I do something soon.”
Natalie could see it now. Beatrice would probably call in an interior designer and decorate the room so stylishly the baby would be afraid to drool on anything.
“Tell you what,” she said before she had time to think about it. “We’ll work on mine Saturday, then we’ll do yours Sunday. If we all work together it’ll go faster.”
“Deal. Just tell me when to show up. I’ll bring breakfast.”
“OH, MY GOD, look at you!” Melissa screamed the moment Natalie opened the front door that Friday evening. “You are the cutest pregnant person ever!”
Natalie found herself enveloped in her friend’s warm hug. “I feel like a cow, but thanks anyway.”
“Wait ’til you see all the stuff I brought. You aren’t going to have to buy a thing. Of course, if you don’t like any of it, speak up, you won’t hurt my feelings.”
“I’m sure everything you brought is wonderful,” Natalie said, hugging Melissa so hard she thought she’d never want to let go. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed her best friend. They lived closer now than they had when Natalie was in Dallas, but still, they hadn’t seen each other since the reunion. Melissa was very involved with her kids’ activities, so her schedule was always packed to the brim.
“Where’s Mary? Can she help us unload the truck?”
“Mary is who knows where. I can’t keep her at home anymore.”
“Oh, I know what you mean. I see Danielle when she wants food or money, that’s it. In fact, I didn’t bring either of the kids with me after all. Billy’s got a cold and I didn’t want to expose you to the germs. And Danielle pitched a fit—she has some party to go to tonight.”
Natalie was disappointed, but not too much. She enjoyed Melissa’s kids, and Dani got along well with Mary, but having a houseful of people was stressful.
“We can unload the truck tomorrow,” Natalie said as she ushered Melissa inside. “Josh is coming over to help.”
Melissa grinned. “So things are going well between you two?”
“Don’t start with me. Your matchmaking is what got me into this mess.”
“Oh, as if you would change a thing.”
Natalie couldn’t help grinning a little herself. “No, of course not, not about the baby, anyway. I guess I should be grateful you’re such a meddler. But Josh and I aren’t together, so don’t go trying to push us.”
“Why not?” Melissa said. “I don’t get it.”
Natalie led her friend into the kitchen, where she put a pot of coffee on. She’d bought some pastries just for Melissa’s visit, justifying that it was a special occasion and a little bit of sugar wouldn’t hurt.
“Melissa, I know you find this hard to understand, because your marriage to Beau has been so…so storybook perfect. But Josh and I…There’s just way too much water under the bridge. He’s been supportive and I know he’ll be a good dad, but that’s the extent of it.”
Melissa’s face hardened. “If you think my life has been some kind of fairy tale, you’re wrong. Beau and I have been through a lot. I never told you this before, but I lost a baby.”
Natalie’s stomach clenched. No horror in her imagination could compare to what her best friend had endured. “Oh, Melissa. I’m so sorry. When?”
“Between Dani and Billy. It almost ended our marriage—mostly because I went a little nuts. Beau left for a while. But love brought us back together. We never stopped loving each other, and we got through it. You guys could work through it, too, if you just tried.”
Natalie was stunned at the idea of Melissa and Beau being separated. She could hardly picture it. They were so in love, so perfect for each other. Then again, that was what most people had said about her and Josh.
“It’s not just us,” Natalie said. “It’s the kids. All of them. They’re so resentful. Mary is not adjusting to Houston at all. I couldn’t possibly lump one more change on her.”
“I appreciate your wanting to protect your children, but they have their own lives to lead, and you have yours. One day they’ll have to deal with people close to them making unpopular decisions. Why not teach them now how to deal with it gracefully, instead of giving in to them?”
“Melissa, if you don’t drop it, I’m going to send you and your furniture home.”
Melissa looked chastised. “All right. ’Nuff said.”
They lingered over the pastries and coffee, then unloaded a few small things from the truck, including a gallon of pale green paint. Beau was a contractor, and he always had leftover paint lying around.
“I love the color,” Natalie said.
They spent the rest of the evening painting the third bedroom. The room was tiny, so it didn’t take long. Mary came home at about ten, and Natalie tried to engage her in helping with the nursery, but she wasn’t interested. With only a cursory greeting to Melissa, she retreated to her room.
“I see what you mean,” Melissa said, wiping a drop of paint off the baseboard. “But don’t worry too much. Teenagers are moody by definition. It’ll pass.”
Natalie sure hoped so.
By the time they were done with painting, Natalie was exhausted. She handed Melissa some sheets for the sofa bed in the living room, then went to bed herself.
In the morning, a loud crash woke her up with a start. “What the hell…?” She looked at her alarm clock and saw that it was after nine. How had she slept so late? She always woke up before seven.
She shoved her arms through the sleeves of a ratty chenille robe and went to investigate. The sight that greeted her was kind of funny and a little bit alarming. Josh was on one side of a pale, maple-wood crib, Melissa and Mary on the other side, trying to maneuver it around the corner and into the nursery. Funny, because all three of them appeared to be stuck.
Alarming, because Josh was pinned against the door frame, the crib pressed against his broad, muscular chest as Melissa and Mary pushed and pulled.
“Good heavens, what are you people doing?” she asked. “And why didn’t someone wake me up?”
Despite his predicament, Josh grinned at her. “You need your rest. And we’re moving a baby bed.”
“They’ve got me trapped,” Mary said, which explained why she deigned to help. “If we don’t get this thing out of the hallway soon, I’m leaving through my bedroom window.”
“Hey, if I can’t get to the coffeepot, I’m leaving with you.” Even if it was decaf. “Melissa, stop pushing and back up. Josh, scoot to your left and lift that corner up. I’ve got this side.”
“Whoa, whoa, you’re not allowed to lift anything.”
“It’s not that heavy,” she argued. “Anyway, you’re holding most of the weight. I’m just guiding.”
In a matter of a few seconds, the crib made it through the door. Mary made her escape down the hall as quickly as she could, a backpack slung over one shoulder, but Natalie followed.
“Mary, where are you off to?”
“Just to a friend’s.”
“To study?”
Mary nodded, but she looked guilty as hell.
“Don’t be gone all day, okay? I miss you. I thought you were going to help me with the nursery.”
“It looks like you have plenty of help.” She turned and left by the front door. She was apparently on foot, as no one was there to pick her up.
Natalie stood at the door and watched her daughter walk up the street. Mary stopped at the corner, put down her pack and waited.
Soon Natalie noticed a warm presence behind her, and knew without looking it was Josh.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“I just want to see what Mary’s doing,” Natalie answered. She hated it that she and Mary had become adversaries. “She was acting very cagey.”
A few seconds later she had her answer. An enormous motorcycle pulled up. Mary shouldered her pack, donned a helmet, hopped onto the back and the black-jacketed driver rumbled off.
Natalie was so shocked she couldn’t speak. No wonder Mary hadn’t volunteered much information about her friend. She knew Natalie would blow a circuit if she saw the motorcycle.
“Who’s that?” Josh asked, peering over Natalie’s shoulder and far too close for comfort. She could smell him—not Stetson this time, thank God, but the comforting scent of soap and freshly washed T-shirt, with a subtle undertone of healthy male. The combination was more intoxicating than any aftershave could be.
“I don’t know,” Natalie finally said. “But when she gets home, she’s grounded ’til she’s eighteen.”
Josh didn’t know what to say. Teenagers were infuriating, that was for sure. “She’s sixteen,” he said. “She’s almost grown. You can’t really control them at that age.”
“You can’t reason with them, either.” Natalie closed the door not quite firmly enough to be called a slam. “I can understand rebellion. But not evasiveness. We’ve always been honest with each other.”
“And if she’d told you she was seeing some guy who rides a Harley?”
Natalie sighed. “I’d have pitched a fit. I’m still going to pitch a fit.”
She looked so pretty, all rumpled from sleep even as color rose in her cheeks. It reminded him of when she…No, he shouldn’t let himself remember that.
“Maybe you need some coffee,” he suggested.
“I do, but that won’t improve my mood.”
Natalie poured herself a cup of coffee, then carried it wordlessly back to her bedroom. A few moments later, Josh heard the shower running.
With a shrug he suppressed the urge to join her and returned to the nursery and Melissa, who was placing the crib mattress inside the frame.
“Trouble?” she asked.
“Rebellious teenager and mom in caffeine withdrawal don’t make a pretty combination. Let’s move the rest of the big furniture before Nat gets done with her shower. I don’t want her lifting anything else.”
Fifteen minutes later, a changing table, a small chest of drawers and a rocking chair were all in place. Just in time, too. Natalie, barefoot and in jeans and a long-sleeved gray T-shirt, walked into the nursery still towel-drying her hair. She stopped and looked around.
“This looks fabulous.” Josh thought he detected the sheen of tears in her eyes, but he wasn’t sure. “You guys did it all without me.”
“There’s still the wallpaper border to do,” Melissa said, pointing to a roll she’d set on top of the chest. “I bought way too much of this stuff when I did Billy’s nursery—I can’t believe I held on to it all these years. Oh, and the curtains—they’re in the top drawer. There’s still plenty of finishing touches to take care of.”
Natalie walked around the small room, touching each item of furniture while her other hand rested protectively on her abdomen. “Look, baby, look at all the pretty things. Just for you.” She stopped at the crib, peering down at the empty mattress.
Suddenly this baby was real to Josh in a way it hadn’t been up ’til now. He could almost see her, sleeping in the crib with her thumb in her mouth. What would have happened, he wondered, if they’d been able to share this moment twenty years ago?
He felt the most uncontrollable urge to walk up behind Natalie as he’d done when she was at the front door. But this time he would put his hands on her shoulders, and press a light kiss to her ear…
He realized Melissa was watching them, holding her breath. When Josh caught her gaze, she made little shooing motions with her hands, indicating he should do exactly what he’d been thinking about. Then she slipped out the door.
“I have to go,” she mouthed.
Still playing matchmaker, apparently. He didn’t care. He took one step toward Natalie, then another, and another, until he was standing close enough to touch her.
She didn’t jump, as he thought she might. She let him grasp her by the shoulders. But when she turned to look at him, he saw the tears falling down her cheeks.
“What’s wrong, darlin’?” he asked, the endearment slipping out.
“Nothing’s wrong. It’s just that I never felt this way before. It’s so real. She’s a real person now, with a place to live when she arrives.”
“So it is a she?”
“Um, yeah. I let them tell me at the last ultrasound, the one you couldn’t go to. She’s a girl.”
A girl. He was going to have a daughter.
“Wow.” Now he was the one who felt like crying, but he resisted. “It’s funny. I was just picturing a baby girl, without even knowing.” He pulled Natalie closer. “Don’t cry, darlin’.”
“So much is happening. I can’t wait to be a mother. I mean, a new mother. But at the same time, it’s happening too fast. I’ve been soothing myself with the idea that there’s plenty of time. But then last week I felt the baby kick for the first time—”
“You did? Really?” And he hadn’t been there.
“It’s what I called to tell you. But then I started feeling silly and I didn’t tell you after all.”
“You should have. Has she kicked any more?”
“Just that one time.”
“Tell me next time. I want to know. I want to know everything about this kid. I’ll help you get ready, don’t worry.”
She turned to face him and he ended up with his arms around her. “Let’s not fight anymore. I want to start over.”
“Me, too.” But start over as friends? Or lovers? She wasn’t exactly working hard to move away from him. But she was looking distractedly over his shoulder.
“What happened to Melissa?”
“Gone. She said she had to go.”
Natalie sighed. “I would accuse her of masterminding this whole thing, except I’m the one who asked you to come over.” Her eyes were full of uncertainty. “I’m not really sure why I did.”
“I am.” Then he kissed her.
Natalie kissed him back without reservation. Josh was right, this was what she was hoping for, at least in the very back of her mind. Having a baby without the full support of a husband was a lot harder than she’d thought it would be. More difficult, even, than adopting Mary had been.
Maybe it was selfish and weak, but she needed to be held. She needed someone to lean on, someone to share the responsibilities and the fears, someone who would rub her feet and bring her a cup of hot chocolate and tell her that everything would be okay.
She sank into the kiss and put her arms around Josh’s neck. It wasn’t quite as easy to press herself against him as it used to be, and she suddenly became self-conscious about her body.
“Josh,” she said, pulling away slightly so she could look at him, “if you’re kissing me because you feel sorry for me, please don’t.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m not at my best right now. My hair is a wreck and I’m not wearing any makeup and…and I have fat ankles.” She was on the verge of tears again. Oh, no, she couldn’t cry anymore. But all of her emotions were right at the surface these days, waiting for the slightest provocation to burst out.
Josh ran his hands down her arms and cupped her elbows, holding her as a willing prisoner. “Natalie. You look like a goddess. You’re the most beautiful pregnant woman in the world. You…you glow.”
She rolled her eyes. “No clichés, please.”
“It’s a cliché for a reason. I want you more right now than I did when I was seventeen.”
“We have a problem then. Because right now I have zero resistance, and there’s not a thing in the world that’s going to stop us.”
He smiled his slow, sexy smile that was always guaranteed to melt her. “Why is that a problem?”
“Look what happened last time we threw our common sense out the window.”
“It’s a cinch that can’t happen this time.”
But sex had other repercussions, not the least of which were emotional ones. Even before she knew she was pregnant, she hadn’t gone home from the class reunion totally unscathed. Her body, reawakened to sensation after a long slumber, had longed to be with Josh again. She’d thought of him constantly, her only respite from the provocative memories when she was focusing on her babies at the hospital.
She supposed she’d been waiting for him to call. And of course, he hadn’t. While she’d been profoundly changed by their night of passion, he’d probably viewed it simply as a pleasant interlude, one of many a handsome, single, rich guy would have.
It had probably never crossed his mind to call her, to try to work out a way for them to see each other again. It had taken a baby to do that.
The right and sensible thing to do was back off. But she couldn’t seem to make herself do it. When she looked into his blue eyes, she was looking at young Josh, the boy who had loved her with so much fire it had nearly consumed them both. And she was powerless to turn away.
He was waiting for her to decide. He wasn’t going to seduce her like the night of the reunion, and after the way she’d freaked out the next morning, could she blame him? She had to be sure.
How could she be sure? Nothing was ever risk-free, and sometimes the only thing to do was close your eyes and jump.
She hesitated for a moment, then closed her eyes, grabbed on and kissed him with all the passion and longing she’d been building up over the weeks and months. That kiss, fueled by loneliness and frustration and just plain ol’ lust, ignited Josh like a Roman candle. Without ever breaking the kiss, he scooped her up in his arms, making her feel like she still weighed ninety-five pounds soaking wet, and carried her down the hall toward her bedroom.
She was vaguely aware that her room was a mess, the bed unmade, but of course he wouldn’t care. He set her gently on the bed and wasted no time peeling her T-shirt over her head. She was wearing regular jeans because she simply hadn’t had time to buy many maternity clothes yet. But she couldn’t button them anymore.
Josh grinned at her. “Now there’s something I never thought I’d see. You not able to button your jeans.”
“Yeah, I’m a moose.”
Josh knelt beside her on one knee. “You’re beautiful, and I’ll keep saying that ’til you believe it.” He placed a hand against her bulging tummy, almost reverently. “Nat, is it okay for you to do this?”
“It’s perfectly fine. Technically this is considered a high-risk pregnancy because of my age, but my doctor said everything’s going great.”
“But did you ask?”
Natalie’s face flushed warm. She had asked. Just in case. “He specifically said it was okay.”
“I’ll be gentle.”
Somehow, Natalie doubted it. Even when they started out slow, they always got so crazed in the heat of passion. Besides making love in cars, they’d been known to do it standing up in the kitchen or the shower. More than once they’d fallen out of bed.
But he surprised her. He removed the rest of her clothes as if she were a delicate piece of porcelain. And he went slowly. He didn’t so much make love to her as worship her body, charting every nook and cranny.
Everywhere he touched her, trails of fire followed, and it was all she could do not to transform into a tigress and pounce on him. Sex with Josh had always been intensely pleasurable, but in her current state she felt even more sensitive.
She was moaning even before he got all his clothes off. When he kissed her breasts, which were full and lush for the first time in her life, she thought she might set the sheets on fire. When he touched her there…oh, and there…it felt both new and exciting, yet achingly familiar. Her own body was a stranger, yet her passions brought back so many memories, the happiest of memories when they were so in love they couldn’t keep their hands off each other.
“Turn on your side,” he said when she thought she was going to implode from wanting him inside her.
“What?”
“Just trust me.”
She did as he asked, and as soon as she was situated he pressed himself against her back.
“This way I won’t squash Juniorette.”
“But can we—” The objection died on her lips as she realized that, yes, indeed, they could. He curled around her, spoon-fashion, and with one hand grasping her thigh, he slowly entered her.
She tilted her hips so he could go deeper, and gasped with satisfaction when he did. He slid his other arm under her neck and around to caress her breast as he began to thrust. He was still incredibly gentle and slow, though the friction was no less exciting. In fact, his caution allowed her to close her eyes and really feel him inside her as she never had before.
They went for a long time as pressure slowly built. A butterfly kiss to her neck, just under her ear, sent her careening over the edge. He must have been waiting for her because his cries of release soon joined hers.
Afterward they lay together for a long time without words. Natalie was spent and totally blissful. She might never move again.
But much as she wanted to remain in bed all day, she had no idea when Mary might get home. Not ’til much later, if she followed her usual pattern, but Natalie couldn’t risk her daughter finding them like this.
“We need to get up,” she forced herself to say.
“Can I shower here?” he asked, nuzzling her neck.
“Sure. You can use the master bath. I’ll use Mary’s.”
“I thought we’d shower together.”
“If we do that, we’ll just end up having more sex.”
“And that’s a bad thing…why?”
“I have things to do. I can’t loll away the whole day indulging in carnal pleasures with you.”
“We used to. Remember our trip to San Antonio?”
For their third anniversary. No, she wasn’t likely to forget that. They’d spent the entire weekend in their hotel room and hadn’t even bothered to go see the Alamo or the River Walk.
“Things were a lot different then,” she pointed out as she sat up and moved deliberately out of Josh’s reach.
“But we’re still the same people.”
“No, we’re not. We’re grown-ups now, with homes and kids and careers.”
“Nat, why do you do this? We just had a wonderful time, and the first thing you do is start throwing things between us.”
She was. She was doing exactly the same thing she’d done at the Holiday Inn the morning after the class reunion, though without quite the degree of panic.
“Maybe I’m afraid to hope,” she admitted. “I still have feelings for you, Josh. But I don’t dare hope that anything could come of this. If we don’t ever get together, then we can’t break up. Our first breakup almost killed me. I couldn’t go through that again. For the baby’s sake, we need to be friends—not broken-up lovers.”
Josh looked at her like she’d gone crazy. “Not to put too fine a point on it, but what we just did wasn’t the sort of thing ‘just friends’ do.”
“I know. I’m weak. I’ve never been able to resist you, and certainly not now, when I’m feeling so alone and anxious.”
“You’re talking about breaking up when we’ve been together exactly—” he checked his watch “—one hour and seven minutes.”
Right. She was getting nutso. “Sorry. I hate to be a walking cliché and blame it on hormones, but—”
“Say no more. I’m starved, how about you?”
She was famished. She’d somehow managed to skip breakfast, which was odd considering she was always hungry. “Last one dressed has to cook.”
Natalie took a lightning-fast shower in Mary’s bathroom and threw her clothes back on. All the while, her feelings vacillated between ecstasy at the joy she and Josh had reclaimed, and a sense of doom that it couldn’t last…of course it wouldn’t last. Then she would have to tell herself to settle down.
Take things one day at a time. It was the advice she was constantly giving Mary, but she seldom listened to her own good counsel.
The fact she and Josh had succumbed to their desires—again—could be a step to a true reconciliation. Or it could mean nothing at all. She just had to stop attaching so much importance to it, and not get ahead of herself.
Her bedroom and bathroom were empty when she returned. She quickly dabbed on a little makeup and blow-dried her hair, and for the first time in quite a while she felt pretty and feminine. She tugged on a pair of flat-heeled boots, then went to find Josh.
He was poking around in her kitchen. “You have nothing to eat.”
“I know. I’m afraid I got a little spoiled with Mary doing all the cooking and grocery shopping. Since she’s been on strike, I’m not so lucky.”
“She’s not cooking at all?” Josh asked, sounding concerned.
“Not like she was before. It’s not just a mother’s pride when I say she’s extraordinarily talented in the kitchen. Some of the dishes she made, I swear I could close my eyes and believe I was at a four-star restaurant. She was so excited about the culinary arts program. But Houston doesn’t have anything close.”
Josh’s frown deepened. “It’s rare for someone her age to find a passion like that. It needs to be nurtured.”
“I tried to tell you,” Natalie said, though she didn’t want to open that can of worms again. Josh hadn’t forced her to move. She’d made the decision of her own free will.
“I guess I didn’t realize what a big deal it was.” He stared at the wall for a few more seconds, his mind obviously working through something. But then the lines of his face softened, and he smiled at her. “Let’s go out. I owe you a meal, since you didn’t let me take you out last night.”
“I was the last one dressed,” she pointed out.
“Tough. Get your jacket.”
Though it was getting close to Thanksgiving, the day was crisp and clear. Natalie grabbed a light windbreaker and headed outside.
“What are you in the mood for?” Josh asked once she was buckled into the passenger seat. “Chinese? Mexican?”
“I can’t do any of that stuff,” she confessed. “Too salty.”
“How about a hamburger? Can you do that?”
“That I could do.” A big juicy hamburger sounded like heaven. She hadn’t indulged since the barbecue at his house. In fact, she’d eaten so many spinach salads, she was afraid she was going to start twitching her nose like a rabbit.
He started the Jag’s powerful engine. “I know just the place.”
Natalie made pleasant conversation and tried not to think about what she’d done in this car the last time she’d ridden in it. It was a few minutes before she realized Josh was heading toward Montrose, their old neighborhood, and she had a sneaking suspicion.
Surely that hole-in-the-wall where they used to gorge on cheap hamburgers and onion rings didn’t still exist. But as he pulled into the parking lot of the strip mall, she saw the sign: Longhorn’s Burgers.
“I can’t believe this place is still here. The guy who ran it was about a hundred years old! He’s not still around, is he?”
“His grandson runs the place now. It got so popular, he expanded into the dry cleaner’s space next door. But otherwise it’s exactly the same.”
“You still eat here?”
“I take clients here to impress them.”
“Oh, my God, it is exactly the same,” Natalie said under her breath. The smell of charbroiled beef made her mouth water and brought back a whole boatload of memories. Their first apartment had been only about four blocks from Longhorn’s. They always knew that if they could scrape together a buck or two, they wouldn’t starve.
The one-buck burgers were now four bucks. Natalie ordered one along with an icy caffeine-free Diet Coke. Josh pumped some quarters into the ancient jukebox and found some songs from the ’80s. The only thing missing was the order of onion rings, which were definitely not on Natalie’s diet.
“Nostalgia is what got us into trouble in the first place,” she reminded him as he sat down with their tray of food.
“We’ve gotten in just about as much trouble as we can, don’t you think?”
Oh, no. It could get a lot worse. But Natalie didn’t say that out loud. She ate her burger, relishing every juicy bite, and sipped her drink. She hadn’t relaxed and enjoyed herself so much in ages as she and Josh reconnected with their past—and not just the good times.
They’d been poor. Sometimes they really did have to search in the sofa cushions and under the car seats to squeak by ’til the next paycheck. There was the time Josh had gotten mono and had refused to go to the doctor because he didn’t want to spend the money, until Natalie had been so desperate she’d dragged him to the free clinic. But their love had always gotten them through.
Still, it hadn’t been strong enough to survive their highest hurdle. As Josh finished off his drink, sucking those last few drops through his straw like when they were kids, Natalie wondered for the thousandth time what their lives would have been like if she’d gotten pregnant back then. Would they still be married today, with grown kids, perhaps grandkids?
Looking back, it seemed like their love had been rock solid, their marriage strong. But in the end neither had been strong enough. If not for infertility, would something else have torn them apart?
Had they simply been too young and immature, or fatally mismatched, as Josh’s parents had believed?
He left her at the front door of her house, but with a promise that she would make good on her offer to help him with his nursery the next day. He was starting from scratch, and he wanted Natalie to go shopping with him and help him pick out furniture and paint and whatever else was necessary.
“I think I can probably manage that.” As she opened her front door, he left her with a kiss steamy enough to melt the doorknob in her hand. And then he was bounding down the walkway toward his car. From the back, he still looked like a cocky teenager.
Given Natalie’s shortness of breath, she felt like a teenager in the throes of her first crush. Her feet weren’t quite touching the ground as she stepped inside the house and closed the door.
“Where’ve you been?”
Natalie jumped, then crashed to earth in a hurry. “Oh, Mary, I didn’t think you’d be home yet. I was out to lunch with Josh.”
“You could have left a note or something.” Mary stood with her arms folded and a stern expression on her face. Some day Mary’s kids would come to fear that look. “The car is here but you weren’t. I thought you’d been kidnapped or something.”
Well, wasn’t this a nice little role reversal. “Oh, honey, you knew I was with Melissa or Josh. Anyway, I didn’t think you’d be home before me.”
“Obviously. Your shirt’s on inside out.”
“What?” Natalie looked down at her shirt, alarmed, then felt for the tag, relieved to find it exactly where it belonged, on the inside of her collar. “No, it’s just one of those shirts with the weird seams.”
“But you had to check. I know what you were doing.”
How the hell could she know? Natalie had heard of mothers having a sort of sixth sense about when their kids were getting into trouble, but she’d never heard of it the other way around.
“Mary. What I’ve been doing is none of your business.”
“It is my business. Because what you and Mr. Carlson do affects me. And just so you know, if you and Mr. Carlson do something so completely gross as get married, I am not living in the same house as him, and certainly not with Sean and Doug. I’ll go live with Aunt Lisa.”
Natalie’s stomach churned. Maybe that greasy hamburger wasn’t such a good idea after all, even without onion rings. “No one said anything about marriage,” Natalie said calmly.
“But it could go that way. It could,” Mary said insistently when Natalie started to object. “Just so you’ll know. I’ve made my position clear.”
“Abundantly.”
What was a mother supposed to do with a sixteen-year-old mule for a daughter? Natalie couldn’t lock her in her room. If Mary decided to run away, she would probably do it, and quite successfully. She wouldn’t be one of those kids who returned after one scary night away from home. She would have a plan.
Natalie put a hand to her stomach. She really didn’t feel too good. “We’ll have to continue this discussion another time. I need to lie—”
When the cramp hit, it doubled her over.
Josh whistled as he carried an armload of weights from the spare bedroom to the garage. The room had become a dumping ground for junk—games and toys the boys had outgrown, a TV that needed repair, a hamster habitat for a pet that had gone to the Happy Hunting Ground years ago.
Most of it, Josh was boxing and bagging up for charity. But he would set up the weight bench in the garage, because Sean did use it sometimes.
Josh had moved into this house long after Doug was past the nursery stage, so nothing had ever been done to this small room. But it was close to the master suite, which made it an ideal baby room. It would be good to have a baby in the house again.
It would be even better to have a baby and a woman. One woman in particular.
He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed Natalie until today. Their trip to Longhorn’s had brought back so many memories. Of course the sex had been mind-blowing—it had always been like that between them. But he really missed the smaller moments, too. Some of his fondest memories involved no more than sitting with Natalie on the roof of their apartment building looking up at the stars, or fixing popcorn and watching an old movie on TV—or even just doing dishes together. One of the best parts of today was working on her nursery, and he looked forward to working on his with her help.
He wasn’t sure, though, what else he wanted. Yeah, it was nice to think about getting back together with Natalie, getting married, filling this big house with more people.
Realistically, he wasn’t so sure. He’d already failed at two marriages. When Natalie had most needed his support, when she’d been devastated over her inability to conceive, he’d been so wrapped up in his own needs he’d been totally insensitive to hers. He could see that now.
And Beverly. God only knew what she wanted or needed, because she didn’t communicate anything very clearly. But he hadn’t taken the time to try to figure it out, either. He’d been gratified to find a woman whose sole aim in life seemed to be making him happy. It was only later he realized she’d had children strictly to please him. The marriage had been lopsided from the beginning. She’d fled with the surprising declaration that she needed to go figure out who she really was. Until that moment, Josh had had no idea she was lacking an identity.
Yeah, he’d proved he wasn’t good husband material. He was too self-involved. You couldn’t rise to partner in a big law firm without a certain amount of egotism, but that didn’t excuse his behavior.
He was in the process of taking the weight bench frame apart when the phone rang. Expecting a call from an associate, he dashed into his bedroom to answer, and instead found Mary on the other end of the line.
“Thank God. I’m at the hospital with Mom. I didn’t know who else to call.”
Josh’s whole body tensed and his heart stopped beating for a couple of seconds. “What happened?”
“I don’t know. She started having some pains and I drove her to the E.R.”
Oh, God, please, no. What if she was having a miscarriage? Could the baby possibly survive at this stage? She hadn’t reached six months yet. “You’re at University?”
“Yes. I’m so scared. They won’t tell me anything. You’ll come, won’t you?”
“Of course. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
Josh drove faster than legally advisable to get to the hospital, which thankfully wasn’t far. He parked in the first spot he could find and jogged toward the E.R. entrance.
He didn’t see Mary anywhere in the waiting room, so he marched up to the front desk. “Natalie Briggs.” He was breathing hard, and he forced himself to slow down and remain calm, or the woman would think he was a nutcase. “She was brought in a few minutes ago.”
“Yes,” the woman said pleasantly, with an infuriating lack of urgency. “She’s being seen by the doctor now. And you are…?”
Josh marshaled every shred of patience he had. “I’m her baby’s father. Her daughter Mary called me. She asked me to come.” He knew hospitals were maniacal about privacy issues and security these days. They wouldn’t give out information or allow him to see Natalie without some convincing reasons, and if he stormed back to the treatment rooms looking for her he would probably get arrested. That was all that kept him rooted to the spot.
The woman got up and consulted with a nurse, then returned. “They’ve taken her to obstetrics,” she said. “Down that hall to the elevators—”
He could find it. He took off down the hall, sick with fear. They wouldn’t take her to obstetrics if all she had was a case of indigestion.
He never should have talked her into having sex. He never should have let her eat that hamburger or snitch one of his onion rings, either. What was wrong with him?
No matter what she’d said, she was in the middle of a high-risk pregnancy. But as usual, he’d been thinking of his own needs. If she lost that baby, it would be his fault.
He’d already started to love this baby; he couldn’t even imagine how Natalie felt about it. He could spend the rest of his life trying to make it up to her, and never succeed.
A nurse directed him to a treatment room, where he finally found Natalie—hooked up to enough equipment to launch a space shuttle. She was pale against the white sheets, her eyes filled with worry. Mary sat by the bed, holding her mom’s hand and looking positively stricken.
They both looked up when he entered.
“Thanks for coming,” Mary said, almost grudgingly.
Natalie couldn’t muster even a small smile for him. “Josh. I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Are you okay?” He approached the bed and took her other hand, kissed her knuckles in an automatic gesture. Then he realized what a stupid question he’d asked. Of course she wasn’t okay. If she’d been okay, she’d be safely at home worrying about the perfect nursery.
Mary looked away. “I’m gonna go find something to drink,” she mumbled before making a hasty escape.
Joshed wished the girl wasn’t so agitated around him, but he couldn’t spare much concern for her right now. Natalie had to claim all of his attention.
“Our daughter is a little overanxious to see the world,” Natalie said, trying to act like she wasn’t scared to death. But her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Josh. I went into preterm labor. They’re giving me nifedipine.” She pointed to the IV in her arm. “It’s supposed to stop the contractions.”
“Is it working?”
“I don’t know yet. My blood pressure was really high, too.”
“I’m so sorry, Nat.”
“We haven’t lost her yet.”
“But this is my fault.”
“What? No, it isn’t.”
“We shouldn’t have…this morning. I shouldn’t have let you work so hard on the nursery. I shouldn’t have encouraged you to eat that unhealthy lunch.”
“Josh, get a grip. I doubt very much that one hamburger caused this. Other than helping move the crib—and I was really just guiding it—I didn’t carry anything heavier than a pillow. As for the other—there’s no way. You were so gentle.” Her eyes softened, and she reached up to stroke his face.
He let go of her hand and stepped away from the bed. “Maybe you’re right. But maybe you’re not. My actions today could have caused you to go into labor. Because I wasn’t thinking of you, I was thinking of me.”
“You were helping me fix up my nursery,” she reminded him.
“So I could get close to you. That’s what I had in mind all along. And at the reunion? I lied. I did set out to seduce you. I wore that damned Stetson aftershave for that very purpose. I don’t know what I was trying to prove.”
“Maybe that we shouldn’t have given up?”
“Maybe I wanted you to regret leaving me. I don’t really know.”
“And maybe now is not the time to dissect our past, huh? We have other concerns.”
Of course. He felt like a mule had kicked him in the gut. Once again he was thinking of himself, not her. “How are you feeling?”
“Okay.” Suddenly she got a goofy smile on her face. “Oh, Josh, the baby’s kicking again.”
“A contraction?” he asked worriedly.
She shook her head. “Just a kick. Probably mad I won’t let her come out.” She crooked a finger at him, and when he came close enough, she took his hand and placed it on her lower abdomen, just below some kind of high-tech belt she was wearing.
There it was. A tiny foot or arm or knee, poking into the palm of his hand. He felt his own goofy grin forming. Beverly hadn’t ever invited him to do this. If Sean or Doug had kicked inside the womb, and if she’d noticed, she hadn’t ever said anything.
“That’s amazing.”
“It is, isn’t it?”
The door opened and a white-coated doctor entered. Josh pulled his hand away self-consciously. “How’s it going, Natalie?” the doctor said with a phony, bedside-manner smile. Josh hated him on sight. He was too handsome and too familiar.
Natalie consulted her watch. “It’s been twenty-two minutes since the last contraction.”
“That’s good. I think we might be getting a handle on this thing.”
“Dr. Wheatland, this is Josh Carlson, the baby’s father.”
Dr. Wheatland, who looked more like a soap-opera doctor than a real one, extended his hand. “It’s nice to meet you. And I’m glad you’re here, because what I have to say affects you, too.”
Josh shook the doctor’s hand, but he didn’t like the sound of what he was saying.
“I’m going to admit Natalie overnight. We’ll continue to monitor her and make sure the contractions have stopped. If everything looks good, I’ll release her in the morning.”
“So you think I can still carry to term?” Natalie asked breathlessly.
“There’s a very good chance you can. Provided you’re careful. That means taking your medications, monitoring your diet and severely restricting your activities.”
Natalie waved her hands in the air. “Whoa, whoa. How restricted? You’re not confining me to bed, are you? ’Cause I have a job.”
“If you want to have a healthy baby, you’re going to have to take a leave of absence. I won’t restrict you to bed…yet. But you must stay off your feet. I want you in bed or sitting on a comfy sofa with your feet propped up. No cooking, no driving, no housework.”
“She’ll do it,” Josh said, while Natalie gaped like a landed fish. “No problem, we’ll work it out.”
The doctor smiled his smarmy smile. “That’s what I want to hear. It’s essential that Natalie have the full support of her family. Someone will have to take care of fixing Natalie’s meals, running her errands, housework and laundry—”
“That’s no problem,” Josh said again. “She’ll have all the help she needs.”
“Good, glad to hear it.” The doctor returned his gaze to Natalie. “Someone will be in to move you as soon as we have a room ready for you.” He turned and headed out the door.
Natalie looked up at Josh, utterly panicked. “What am I going to do? I just started my job, I have no vacation time built up. I have a house, a daughter—”
“Natalie, stop. It has to be done—you know it does, so there’s no use arguing about it. Your job will give you a medical leave of absence. I’m sure they’ll welcome you back when you’re ready. As for the rest of it, it will be taken care of. If I have to cook your meals and do your laundry myself, someone will be there to take care of everything. I don’t want you to worry.”
She sighed. “Thank you, Josh. But how can I not worry? My life has spun completely out of control.”
“Only temporarily. We have to do what’s right for the baby.”
“I know. All right, I’ll stay home with my feet up. I’ll go insane, but I’ll do it.” She closed her eyes. “An hour ago, I thought I was going to lose the baby. I shouldn’t complain, should I?”
Josh tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I know this is hard. And I’ve been part of the problem. Everything I’ve done since you told me you were pregnant has caused you stress and anxiety. But from now on I want to be part of the solution.”
She took his hand and squeezed it. “Thanks. Maybe what we did this morning wasn’t the smartest decision. I want our baby to have two loving parents who are friends. We need to focus on being the best parents we can be—not lovers, not arguing ex-spouses.”
He nodded, though he wasn’t sure he agreed. But for once in his life, he was going to stuff what he wanted and focus on what was right for everybody else.
Even if he didn’t like it.
MARY SAT CROSS-LEGGED on the floor in the hallway outside her mother’s treatment room, sipping from a bottle of water. She wanted to be with her mom, but she didn’t think she could stand watching Josh and her mom making goo-goo eyes at each other.
She’d never thought of her mom as some man’s girlfriend, or lover, or wife. She’d always been just Mom. Of course she knew her mom couldn’t have gotten pregnant without sex, although she preferred not to think about that. But how could she not think about it when they were throwing it in her face?
She’d been so scared when her mom started cramping—scared she would lose the baby, which Mary didn’t want to happen no matter how badly the kid had screwed up her life. Mostly she’d been scared that something would happen to her mom. Her mom had always been so strong, never sick, and never slowed down for anything. To see her doubled over in pain, incapacitated…it was a wonder Mary hadn’t had a wreck on the way to the hospital.
It was okay now, though. She could relax. It seemed like those drugs were working.
She wished she hadn’t called Josh. But she’d been all by herself, and what would she have done if the situation had been worse? It wasn’t, so she could handle things now. Or she should be able to, but she couldn’t because Josh had taken over.
Josh wasn’t really a jerk, he was just aggressively male and used to getting anything he wanted. He’d practically broken his neck to get here, given how quickly he appeared after her call. The look on his face had said it all. He did feel something for Mary’s mom, even if he drove her crazy and bossed her around and made her do things she really didn’t want to do, like move to Houston and rent a house practically next door to him.
He did care. In some ways, that was bad news for Mary. The more he cared, the more likely it was her mother wouldn’t want to move back to Dallas next May. But she’d promised, and Mary intended to hold her to that promise, no matter what else happened.
Things at school weren’t quite as bad as they’d been. She had a boyfriend, sort of. Blake was the kind of guy she’d have stayed away from back at her old school. He smoked and he cut class, and he rode his motorcycle way too fast.
But he’d looked at her in a way that made her feel very funny, almost not herself, and she’d found herself flirting with him even though she knew she shouldn’t. When she did, though, she felt a little giddy knowing she was doing something her mother wouldn’t approve of. Blake, and the other kids he hung around with, were the kind that got into trouble.
Maybe if Mary got into trouble with them, her mother would realize what a mistake she’d made, taking her away from her nice school and her nice friends.
Unfortunately Mary wasn’t the getting-in-trouble type. She liked making A’s in school. She liked pleasing her teachers. Lately it was almost as if her evil twin had taken over.
Josh came out of the treatment room and offered up a smile for Mary. “I think your mom’s gonna be fine.”
She already knew that or she would never have left the room. “And the baby?”
He gave her a thumbs-up. “Good so far.” Then he did something that totally shocked her. He sat down next to her on the floor. “We need to talk.”
Oh, God, here it comes. He was going to tell her that he and her mom were together and she better get used to it.
“I know you don’t have much use for me,” he began. “You’ve had to give up a lot because of the baby, you’re angry about it and you have every right to be. But I’m going to ask you to do something very difficult. I’m going to ask you to put aside that anger and take care of your mom.”
Okay, that wasn’t exactly what she was expecting. “My mom and I always take care of each other.”
“You haven’t done such a good job of it lately,” he said bluntly. “You’ve been doing badly at school, you’re staying away from home without letting anyone know where you are, you haven’t been helping around the house, not even with cooking, which is something you love. In short, your mother is worried sick about you.”
Worried sick. He hadn’t chosen those words by accident. He was a trial lawyer. He made his living with persuasive arguments.
But Mary felt the first stirrings of guilt. Still, she fought back. “So you’re saying it’s all my fault Mom nearly had a miscarriage?”
His face filled with honest horror. “No, of course not. Don’t even think that. What I’m saying is that she’s been under a lot of stress. I’ve contributed to it, I freely admit. So has her job, but so have you.”
She shrugged, knowing what he said was true.
“She’s going to have to make some changes for the next few months. She’ll have to take leave from work and stay home—mostly in bed.”
“Really? It’s that bad?”
He looked at the floor and for just a moment she felt a little sorry for him. “I’m afraid so. I know you don’t owe me, but I’m going to ask you anyway. You’re going to have to help take up the slack. I need for you to take responsibility for the groceries and the cooking, like you used to. And I need for you to change your attitude. Even if you’re just pretending not to be mad. Your mom has a lot to worry about. Don’t add to that. If you’re angry, you can come yell at me. Yell at me all you want.”
Mary eyed him thoughtfully. “What are you going to do?”
“I’ll be responsible for everything else. I’ll hire a full-time nurse’s aide to do cleaning, laundry and errands. I’ll make sure your mom gets to doctor’s appointments.”
“I can do more cooking,” Mary said grudgingly. She did miss her time in the kitchen. And the other day she’d spotted a Whole Foods-type grocery store she’d been dying to explore only a couple of miles from home. But it had been hard for her to get excited about cooking when everything else was so screwed up. “Don’t you have to work? How are you going to do that other stuff?”
“I’ll work it out. Don’t worry.”
Don’t worry. Like that would help. She was worried about everything. She almost told him, then, that she wouldn’t stop worrying until they were safely back in Dallas. But her mom would be mad if she did, so she kept quiet. For now.
Natalie was terrified. She had no idea how she was going to cope for the next few months. Yes, the hospital would probably give her a leave of absence, but it would be unpaid. She could possibly collect some disability insurance. But she might also be forced to dip into her savings—the proceeds from the sale of her home in Dallas, which she planned to use to buy another house and for Mary’s college tuition.
Aside from the financial aspects, the prospect of lying around the house for three months was horrifying. She’d always been an active person. She hated sitting still. And how would she survive without her babies at work? Those tiny infants were her lifeblood. She needed them as much as they needed her.
The only bright spot was Mary. She seemed to have turned a corner; since Natalie’s crisis, she’d been a lot nicer—almost back to her old sweet self. She’d stayed at the hospital almost all day Saturday, making sure her mom was comfortable and had everything she needed. She’d been alert to any return of Natalie’s symptoms, which thankfully had remained at bay.
This morning, Mary had shown up bright and early with a fresh set of clothes for Natalie, ready to drive her home. As she drove, she’d chattered away about all the low-sodium recipes she wanted to try, all the ways she could flavor up food without salt.
When they pulled into the garage, another surprise greeted her: Josh. He had her car door open almost before Mary had come to a stop.
“Welcome home.”
“Um, thanks,” she said uncertainly as he helped her out of the car. “What are you doing here?”
“I promised Mary I would take care of things around here. So that’s what I’m doing.”
“He said if I did the cooking,” Mary added cheerfully, “he’d take care of everything else. It sounded like a good offer to me.”
Oh, dear. Natalie was grateful that Mary and Josh seemed to be getting along better, and she appreciated Josh’s willingness to help, but she knew what would happen. He would commandeer her life. She remembered how he was when they were visiting the fertility doctor back when they’d been married. He’d taken over the whole process, and he’d hovered over her, deciding when she would sleep, what she should eat and when they would make love to maximize the chances of conception.
She knew he did it because he cared, so she couldn’t get too mad at him. But she would have to set the tone immediately, or he would control every aspect of her life for the next three months. And once the baby was safely born, he would probably continue doing it until their child turned eighteen.
She was still coping with the notion that, although he was physically attracted to her, even after all these years, his true focus was on the baby.
As soon as she was on her feet, Josh scooped her up into his arms. “Josh! Put me down.”
“No,” he said with a laugh. “You’re not supposed to be on your feet. It’s straight to bed.”
“Dr. Wheatland said I’m not confined to bed,” she said. “I just have to spend more time resting.”
“I was there, remember? He said bed or sofa with feet elevated.”
Natalie didn’t think the doctor had used those words. But she didn’t have time to argue. In the matter of a few seconds Josh had carried her to her bedroom and set her gently on the side of the bed, where more surprises awaited her.
She had a new set of sheets—soft flannel sheets in lilac. And she had four new pillows, beautiful fluffy goose-down pillows. On the bed was an array of about twenty glossy magazines and a stack of new, bestselling novels, as well as a few books on pregnancy and childcare.
There was also what looked like a brand-new, flat-screen TV that had been set up on her dresser. And a laptop computer she’d never seen before sat on the nightstand.
“Josh, what have you done?”
“Just trying to make sure your confinement isn’t any worse than it has to be. I know you’ll go stark-raving mad with boredom if someone doesn’t provide ways to keep you entertained.”
Confinement? Wasn’t that what they used to call it in centuries past, when pregnant women, healthy or not, weren’t allowed to leave the house?
“Flannel sheets are supposed to be the most comfortable if you’re in bed a lot,” Josh explained. “And you’ll need pillows so you can prop yourself up. You’ll probably want something under your knees so your back won’t hurt.”
“What are you, some kind of bed-rest expert?”
“I read up on it. You can find out anything on the Internet.”
She laughed and shook her head. “You’re ridiculous, you know. You didn’t have to do all this.”
“I know. I wanted to.” He knelt down and took off her shoes, then rubbed her feet. Oh, how she loved having her feet rubbed. He peeled off one sock and really got into it, using his strong thumbs to press all the sensitive spots.
He still knew them.
The tingles started in her toes and worked their way up her body, settling somewhere near her nether regions. “Josh.”
“Mmm?”
“You do remember what rubbing my feet does to me, right?”
He dropped her foot as if it had suddenly become molten metal. “Oops.” He looked at her, contrite. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Just because I’ve been ordered to bed doesn’t mean I’m dead. In fact…” She scooted up on the bed and patted the space beside her. “There are lots more interesting things to do in bed besides read or watch TV.”
Josh stood and backed up so fast he ran into her dresser. “Natalie! You just got home from the hospital.”
“I can’t help it.” She wiggled her toes. “You shouldn’t have rubbed my feet. Anyway, I wasn’t suggesting we hang from the ceiling fan. There are lots of ways we can have fun that aren’t on my list of forbidden activities.”
“Your daughter’s in the next room.”
“Well, I didn’t mean right now. Mary is gone a lot, though.”
“Not anymore. She’s grounded.”
“She is?” Had Natalie grounded Mary and didn’t remember?
“I told her you were grounding her. The motorcycle, remember?”
“Excuse me, but that’s not your place. I’m not going to force Mary to stay home and be my nursemaid. It’s not necessary.”
“Well, someone is going to be here with you twenty-four hours a day. What if Mary hadn’t been here yesterday?”
“I’d have called an ambulance.”
“And what if you couldn’t get to the phone?”
“Oh, Josh, honestly. I’m not an incapacitated old lady. Give me my purse. I’ll carry around my cell phone. Happy?” And how had her friendly little flirtation turned into an argument? What had just happened?
Josh gave her her purse. “That’s a good idea. But I’m still not leaving you alone. And I think it’s probably better if I keep my hands off you from now on.”
That did it. She could stand all the fussing if he was her loving partner. But if all he was going to do was ride shotgun over her pregnancy to make sure she didn’t endanger his progeny, he was out of here.
She pointed to the door. “Leave. I can manage.”
“Natalie, don’t be like that.” His cajoling voice only made her madder.
“Do you, or do you not, trust me to take proper precautions to ensure the safety of my baby? I’m a nurse. I know what I’m doing. Thank you for everything, but you need to leave now.” Before she did something stupid, like burst into tears.
Mary appeared at the bedroom door, looking worried. “Is everything okay?”
“Mary, escort him to the door, please. He’s leaving. He’s making me upset, and being upset isn’t good for the baby.” Ha. She would use his own ammunition against him.
Josh’s shoulders sagged in defeat. “Let me know if you need anything.”
She almost called him back. But that would be lunacy. She waited until she heard the back door open and close, then gave way to her stupid tears.
He was so obviously pulling away from her. While she’d been building castles in the air after their lovemaking, he’d been regretting it. He wanted to be close to her, but not as her partner. Of course, he was right. They’d tried it once, hadn’t they? They’d already proved their relationship couldn’t survive the pressures of adversity. It would be insane to try again.
Yesterday she’d thrown herself at him and he’d responded. Big deal, he was a guy—of course he’d go for sex. Today, he was determined not to. Regret oozed out of his every pore.
Well, fine, but he couldn’t have it both ways. If the man had been in love with her, she’d cut him some slack. But if he was merely the father of her baby, he should have no say in how she lived her life. The baby inside her might be half his, but the rest of her body was not.
She quickly dried her tears, telling herself she did not have time to cry. Oh, who was she kidding? She had all the time in the world. She could wallow in self-pity for weeks, if she wanted to.
Mary returned, looking perplexed. “What just happened?”
“He was getting too bossy. I had to put my foot down before he took over my whole life, and yours, too. He had no right to ground you.”
“Oh, that. I didn’t take it seriously. You’ve never grounded me before.”
“Yeah, well, I never saw you get on the back of a motorcycle with Easy Rider before, either. Mary, you know how dangerous motorcycles are. I had a friend in nursing school who was killed on one. I’m pretty lenient about most things, but that I’m not. I don’t want you riding that motorcycle again.”
“Mom, he’s a good driver.”
“It doesn’t matter whether he’s good or not. There are lots of bad drivers out there, and if you have even a minor accident while on a motorcycle you could be killed. If you want to go some place with Fonzie, you can drive my car.”
“His name’s Blake.”
“And that’s another thing. If you’ve got a boyfriend, why didn’t you tell me? And why doesn’t he come to the house and meet me before he takes you out?”
“He’s not a boyfriend, he’s just a guy. You are so medieval.”
“Well, whoever he is, he’ll have to get used to riding in cars if he wants to hang out with you. Or I will ground you.”
Mary rolled her eyes. “Yes, ma’am.” She got up, obviously intending to make her escape, but Natalie stopped her.
“Just one more thing.”
“What?”
“You don’t have to be my nursemaid. I’m not an invalid. I want you to have fun with your friends. Doesn’t your school have dances and football games and stuff?”
“Yeah, but they’re so lame. And, news flash, I don’t have any friends. Can I go now?”
Exit sweet Mary, enter surly Mary. Natalie nodded, and Mary slid out the door like a mist.
Was Mary really friendless, a complete outcast? And had she turned to this jerk Blake out of loneliness? Had she made herself an easy target to a guy who would use her and hurt her?
BY THE NEXT MORNING, Natalie was already tired of bed rest. She’d overdosed on silly women’s magazines, given herself a manicure, watched the Home Shopping Channel and rearranged her sock drawer. She’d played solitaire on the laptop and surfed the Net.
She’d also slept very badly. She kept dreaming that she was going into labor, then waking in a panic only to find she was okay.
Mary prepared boring fruit and yogurt for breakfast and brought it to her on a tray. “There’s leftover low-salt lasagna from last night for lunch. Microwave for ninety seconds. I also made a spinach salad.”
Cooking seemed to have put Mary in a better mood; she was humming as she brought her mother a small glass of orange juice. “Have everything you need?”
“This is wonderful, honey, thanks.” The doorbell rang just as Mary was leaving for school. “Would you get that before you go, please? It’s probably the physical therapist.” Dr. Wheatland had prescribed light physical therapy to keep Natalie’s muscles toned during this sedentary period.
The person who knocked on her bedroom door and entered without waiting for an invitation wasn’t a physical therapist; it was Beatrice Carlson.
“Hellooooooo, dear,” she said in her shrill, overly cheerful voice. “Joshua tells me you’re a bit under the weather.”
“H-hi, Mrs. Carlson. How nice to see you. Joshua is misinformed. I’m not sick at all. I just need to rest.”
“Well, then, I know just what you need. Some good home cooking and inspirational movies. I’ve brought you all my favorites—On Golden Pond, Driving Miss Daisy, Steel Magnolias. We can watch them together.”
Holy cow. Who are you, and what did you do with the real Beatrice?
“JOSH, MS. BRIGGS is on line four.”
With a sinking feeling in his chest, Josh pushed the intercom button. “I’ll take it, Rachel, thanks.” He was preparing for court tomorrow, going over research his investigator had dug up about a contractor trying to sue his client for nonpayment. The contractor had operated under more than a dozen corporate names, all of them with Better Business Bureau complaints about shoddy work, work left undone, jobs not done to spec. The guy was toast.
That thought brought Josh little comfort, because he was toast. With Natalie, at least. “Hi, Natalie, how are you feeling today?”
“Josh, why on earth did you send your mother here?” she said in an urgent whisper. “Of all people!”
“I didn’t exactly send her. I happened to mention your, er, health challenges and she volunteered to come take care of you. I told her not to. I told her the bases were covered. Speaking of which, did the woman from Mother’s Little Helper show up?”
“The who from what? No! The only person here is your mother, and she’s going to kill me! She threw out the nice leftovers from dinner last night and fixed me tuna noodle casserole. Aside from the fact that I hate tuna noodle casserole, it’s too salty.”
“I’ll talk to her.”
“No, I’m not done yet. She tried to tell the physical therapist how to do her job. She tried to give me a sponge bath!”
Josh let his mind linger on the idea of a sponge bath for a couple of seconds, until Natalie’s increasingly desperate whispers brought him back.
“I liked it much better when she hated me!”
“She never hated you,” Josh objected, but of course that wasn’t the point. Even if his mother was Florence Nightingale, if she was upsetting Natalie, Josh had to do something.
“Let me talk to her.”
“She’s in the kitchen, fixing me herbal tea, which I abhor, and then she’s going to make me watch Titanic. She calls it ‘cry therapy’ and she insists it will wash the toxins out of my body. Oh, God, here she is.”
“Here we are,” his mother said in the background, her voice all singsongy. She didn’t sound like herself at all. “Some nice hot lemongrass tea with honey. Who are you talking to?”
“Your son,” Natalie replied. “He’d like to—”
“I didn’t hear the phone ring.”
“I called him.”
“Natalie, men don’t like it when you chase them.”
“Would you just talk to him?” Natalie said impatiently.
“Well, of course.” Moments later, she had the phone. “Hello, Joshua, dear. I was just giving Natalie some hot tea, and we’re going to watch a movie. I have to say she’s a bit of a grumpasaurus, but I guess I would be, too, in her circumstance.”
“Mom, it’s really nice of you to want to help Natalie out. But what she really needs is quiet. She should be taking a nap, not drinking tea and watching movies.”
“Oh. I didn’t realize…well, of course I wouldn’t want to go against doctor’s orders.”
“You should probably turn off the TV, close the blinds and leave her alone for a while.”
“How long?”
“As long as she sleeps.”
“If she sleeps all day, how will she sleep at night? I had to stay in bed my last month with you, you know. I understand exactly what she’s going through. She’ll get her days and nights mixed up if she naps too much.”
Josh hadn’t realized his mother had gone through something similar. “Well, anyway, at least let her nap a bit. She’s just home from the hospital and has all kinds of drugs in her system.”
“All right, if you say so.”
“Thanks, Mom. Could I speak with Natalie?”
A moment later, Natalie was back on the line. “What?”
“Try to get along with her. I’ll sort it out when I get home.”
“When?” Natalie wailed.
He sighed. “Tonight. You can make it ’til then. Mary will be home in a couple of hours, and she’ll feed you.”
Natalie hung up the phone, very unsatisfied. She’d wanted Josh to come home instantly and slay dragons for her.
She knew she was overreacting. Beatrice was only trying to help, and she’d never been this nice to Natalie. Of course, she was being nice only because Natalie was carrying her grandchild. Nothing else would explain the transformation.
Beatrice stared at her like a kicked puppy. “I’m sorry for overstimulating you. I was just trying to share all the things I enjoyed when I was stuck in bed, pregnant with Josh.”
Now Natalie felt guilty. Her former mother-in-law had extended an olive branch, and Natalie had been cranky and ungrateful. “I appreciate all you’ve done, really. And I’d love to watch a movie with you. But not Titanic. It’s too sad and depressing. How about a romantic comedy? Laughter is supposed to be great therapy. The baby kicks when I laugh.”
Beatrice smiled uncertainly. “I didn’t bring any romantic comedies.”
“I have loads of them. They’re in the living room, on the shelf to the right of the TV. And while you’re up, could you bring me an apple, and maybe a piece of the leftover baked chicken, please?” She looked down at the congealed tuna noodle casserole on her tray. “I really can’t eat the tuna. I’m not allowed to eat a lot of salt—it elevates my blood pressure.”
Beatrice blinked a couple of times. Then she whisked away the plate of tuna. “Why didn’t you say something? I just figured the lasagna was too spicy. I couldn’t eat anything spicy when I was pregnant.”
She disappeared, but returned a couple of minutes later with a plain baked chicken breast, an apple cut into quarters and three DVDs. Then she kicked off her shoes and sat cross-legged on the bed with Natalie to watch When Harry Met Sally.
Could it really be this easy? Natalie wondered. Had she ever tried really hard to get along with Beatrice?
Abruptly, Beatrice paused the video. “I was a terrible mother-in-law.”
“No, you weren’t,” Natalie said.
“Yes, I was. It wasn’t you. I would have been angry with any girl who convinced my only son to elope when he was eighteen. I didn’t give the marriage six months.”
“And I was sure it would last a hundred years,” Natalie said, not quite sure what to make of the new, more sensitive Beatrice.
“It probably would have. If…”
“If I’d been able to get pregnant.” There it was again. Her value to Josh was strictly as a mother to his child. Not as a wife.
“It ate away at Josh,” Beatrice said, her face awash in sadness. “He was meant to be a father.”
“We could have adopted if he hadn’t been such a horse’s ass about it.” Natalie knew she risked Beatrice’s newfound goodwill by dissing her precious son, but she couldn’t help it. Josh’s close-mindedness irked her to this day.
“He was young. He wanted his own child. Is that so bad?”
“I guess not,” she admitted. She sort of understood it, even if she didn’t agree with it. “He got what he wanted in the end.” Like always. “Sean and Doug are great boys.”
“They are. And Josh is every bit as excited about the new one coming as he was about his first. It’s all he talks about.” Beatrice hesitated, then continued. “You got what you wanted, too. You adopted Mary.”
And now they both got what they wanted—a baby between them and a houseful of children. Twenty years too late to save their marriage.
Mary was putting together some tortilla wrap sandwiches when Mrs. Carlson arrived…a bit earlier than normal. Usually Mary managed to breeze out just as the older woman got there, avoiding any lengthy conversations.
She didn’t like the way Mrs. Carlson walked in without ringing the bell. She said she didn’t want Mary’s mom to have to get out of bed and let her in, but it still bugged Mary.
Mrs. Carlson entered the kitchen, pulling off a plastic rain bonnet that protected her perfectly styled helmet-hair. “It’s duck weather out there!” she said with the overt cheerfulness that grated on Mary’s nerves. “Good morning, Mary.”
“Good morning, Mrs. Carlson. Mom’s still asleep.”
“Good, she needs her rest.” Mrs. Carlson peered at the cutting board, where Mary had sliced up a sweet onion. “What have we here?”
“Smoked chicken and veggie wrap sandwiches. I made one for each of us.”
“Are you sure the onions are okay for Natalie?”
“They’re very sweet. Anyway, Mom loves spicy food. She doesn’t have any problems with it, and the spices keep her from missing the salt.” Mary had explained this to Mrs. Carlson about ten times during the previous week.
Mrs. Carlson shook her head in bewilderment, then reached for the teakettle and filled it from the sink. “I can’t get over what a good cook you are. How did you learn? I’m pretty sure Natalie didn’t teach you.”
Mary bristled a bit at this dig. Yeah, her mom could hardly boil water, but did Josh’s mother have to point that out? “Mostly I taught myself.”
“Josh told me you were all set to go to cooking school in Dallas. It’s a shame you weren’t able to go.”
A shame? It was a disaster. No one seemed to appreciate what a blow the move to Houston was for Mary. The training would have given her a huge leg up. After graduation, she would have been able to get a real job in a real kitchen. She’d have been an attractive candidate to any cooking school in the country.
“There’s a Cordon Bleu school in Houston. Have you thought of applying there?”
“You have to be eighteen and a high school graduate. Anyway, it costs, like, a gazillion dollars.” She’d looked into it.
Mary finished up the sandwiches. She put two in the fridge, dropped the third into a plastic container and dropped it into her backpack, along with a bottle of water and a small jar of her own homemade yogurt with fresh strawberries.
“See you later.” She made a quick escape.
Things were a little better, now that she could use her mom’s car any time she wanted. Not that it was a very cool car, but it got her places.
She had friends now, too, though probably not ones her mother would approve of. There was Blake, who stood way too close to her and touched her in proprietary ways that bugged her, considering he’d never even asked her on a date.
Then there was Lacey, who had a tattoo of a skull at the small of her back. Kevin and Amanda had two interests—sex and very loud music. But because Blake paid attention to Mary, they did, too, so she sometimes had people to sit with at lunch.
Blake was waiting for her at her locker. “Hey,” she said.
He stepped aside only slightly, so he was breathing down her neck as she put her things away. “Hey. I got tickets to Jet stream tonight, wanta go?”
So, he was finally asking her out? And if she went, would he expect her to sleep with him? She wasn’t sure who Jet stream was. “I’ll have to check with my mom,” she said. It was a school night, and her mother was on her case about staying home on weeknights. She never used to say anything as long as Mary’s grades were good, but her midterm grades had been dismal.
“Need to know by noon, so I can pay the dude for the tickets,” Blake said. “It’s fifty-five dollars.”
“Oh.”
“Well, I can’t pay for my ticket and yours, too,” he reasoned when she frowned at him.
Probably because he needed to buy some weed to smoke at the concert. She knew he did that, but he didn’t do it around her. “I don’t think I’ll be able to go.”
He gave her a disbelieving look. “You’re turning me down?”
Like, how could any girl turn down such an attractive offer? “Sorry.”
He shrugged. “Your loss, babe.” He sauntered away, but not without giving her bottom a quick squeeze.
She shook her head as she closed her locker door—and came face-to-face with Sean Carlson. “Why do you hang out with that loser?”
“He’s not a loser,” she said, though secretly she knew he was.
“He got arrested last year, you know. For drugs. The only reason he’s still in school is that’s part of his probation.”
Sean was probably making it up. She turned and walked in the direction of her first class, chemistry. She was going to have to stop skipping if she wanted to pull out even a C.
“Look, I’m only talking to you because John Drogan thinks you’re hot but he’s afraid to talk to you.”
John Drogan? A jock thought she was hot? She’d figured she was invisible to those guys.
“Look, I know he’s kind of a dweeb, even if he is a football player, but he’s a hell of a lot better than Blake Jaccard. I told him not to waste his time with you ’cause you’re really, really weird. But I couldn’t convince him.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“So if he talks to you, do you think you could be nice, even if it goes against your nature?”
“What do you think I’m going to do, spit on him or something?” This was so junior high, sending your friend to find out if a girl liked you. But John was sorta cute, in a dweeby way.
But he was just the sort of guy her mother would want her to date—clean-cut, good grades, probably had plans for college. If she hung out with someone like John, she might even start having fun.
If she started having fun, if she got herself a boyfriend, a real boyfriend, she might not want to go back to Dallas. She might give up her plans for the future, settle for second best.
She couldn’t let herself weaken. Yes, she would try not to cause her mother a lot of stress, because she truly did want everything to be okay with the baby. But being a dutiful daughter did not mean she had to be happy about it. Come next May, she was determined to look her mother in the eye, tell her she was miserable and force her to make good on their deal.
Maybe she would scrape together fifty-five dollars and go to the dumb concert, after all.
NATALIE COULDN’T BELIEVE the situation with Beatrice was working out as well as it had. Once they’d set some ground rules, Beatrice had actually been a big help.
Beatrice was staying at Josh’s house, but for the past two weeks, every morning she showed up at Natalie’s, her arms loaded with things to keep Natalie entertained.
Today it was video games. She had brought over an old game system that the Carlson boys had abandoned for a newer, more advanced version, and between them they’d hooked it up to the television in the living room. Natalie recalled playing Pac-Man a few times when she was a kid, but she’d quickly lost interest. Today, however, with nothing more compelling or constructive to do, she found the games engrossing—addictive, almost.
Not that she was any good at them, and Beatrice was worse. They spent all afternoon trying to shoot down enemy star craft and locate hidden treasures, laughing at each other’s total incompetence until they had tears streaming down their cheeks.
“I demand a rematch,” Natalie said, grabbing a tissue to wipe her eyes. “You cheated with that demon-thing.”
“I won him fair and square. And he’s a fire-eater, not a demon.”
Natalie leaned back on the sofa cushions with a sigh. “Maybe we’d better take a break. My hands are getting cramped. Do you know people can actually get tendonitis if they play video games too much?”
“I don’t doubt it. I broke a nail on that last game, I got so excited.”
“Beatrice, this was fun. I frankly have never thought of you as a real fun person. It’s nice to see this side of you.”
Beatrice looked away, suddenly solemn. “I spent a lot of my life being way too proper, telling everybody how to live their lives. I alienated Beverly both times she was pregnant, so I didn’t get to be a part of things when the boys were born. I don’t want to make that mistake with this grandchild. I—I behaved so badly that evening of the barbecue. Just falling into old habits, I guess, but I realized later that if I wanted to be a part of my new grandchild’s life, I was going to have to learn to do better.”
“I want my child to be close to her grandparents,” Natalie reassured her. “You and Derek are the only ones she’ll have.”
“Then we’ll try to be the best.”
Natalie was so touched, she started crying again. Granted, she cried over anything these days, but she’d never in a million years thought Beatrice would undergo such a total attitude adjustment.
She hugged Beatrice, the first truly warm, spontaneous hug she’d ever given the woman, and Beatrice hugged her back.
And that was how Josh found them when he walked into her house a few minutes later.
“Oh, Josh,” Natalie said, drawing back. “Your mother and I were just pounding each other at video games.”
“I’m glad you’re home early,” Beatrice said, quickly scooting off the sofa as she dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. “I need to get my fingernail fixed. Bye, Nat, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Josh watched his mother leave, still too stunned to speak. Had he just hallucinated Natalie and his mother embracing?
“What are you doing home from work so early?” she asked.
“I got my case dismissed. Thought I’d blow off the afternoon and see if you needed rescuing from my mom. Obviously not.”
“Your mom and I had a breakthrough today. She’s really pretty cool.”
Josh stuck his finger in his ear and wiggled it. “I’m sorry, I must have heard you wrong.”
She threw a pillow at him. “You should be happy.”
He wasn’t sure what to think. Having his mom and Natalie at fisticuffs was familiar and comfortable. He’d been surprised when his mom had volunteered to help Natalie out, not too surprised at Natalie’s initial reaction.
Though his mother could be aggravating, at least he’d felt secure knowing she’d look after Natalie’s physical well-being, and he much preferred her to some stranger from Mother’s Little Helper.
But come to think of it, Natalie hadn’t complained at all after the first couple of days.
It was odd that Natalie and his mother were growing closer, while it felt like he and Nat were drifting apart. She’d been cool toward him since the foot-rubbing incident.
He didn’t blame her. He’d almost caused her to lose the baby. He knew he wasn’t good for her, but that hadn’t stopped him from wanting her, wanting to be close to her.
He usually stopped in at least once during the evening to make sure she was okay, and if any chores or errands needed to be done. But between Mary and his mother, Natalie was being well provided for.
“What’s that you’re holding?” Natalie asked, pulling him back to the present.
“Oh. I almost forgot. It’s a prenatal class on DVD. I figured since you couldn’t go to the classes, the classes would come to you.”
Natalie laughed. “Josh, I don’t need childbirth classes. I worked in labor and delivery for three years before I switched to the neonatal unit. I know what to do.”
“Yeah? Well, I don’t. Beverly refused to go to childbirth classes. She wouldn’t let me be with her during either delivery.”
“Why not?”
“She was mad at me. Beverly spent a lot of time being mad at me. She wasn’t a very happy person. I guess I didn’t make either of my wives happy.”
Natalie smiled gently. “It wasn’t your job to make me happy. That was something I had to do for myself. Do you really want to watch the DVDs? I imagine they’re boring.”
“To you, maybe. But I need to see them. I want to be a good coach, even if you don’t need one.”
“Oh.” She looked away, seeming very uncomfortable all of a sudden. “You’re planning to actually be there?”
He came closer and sat on the edge of the bed. “Well, yeah. Of course. I want to see my daughter being born.”
“My sister and Melissa will both be here.”
“And you were planning to shut me out?”
“I hadn’t really thought about it. I didn’t think you’d want to actually be in the room…I thought you’d be in the waiting room.”
“You are shutting me out.”
“No, no,” she said quickly. “You can be there if you want. Are you sure you can handle it? I remember that time I cut my foot at the beach and you had to take me to the E.R. You nearly passed out when I was getting stitches.”
He smiled, remembering. “I’m a lot stronger now. With two active boys, I’ve made more trips to the emergency room than I can count. Nothing fazes me.”
Except maybe seeing Natalie in pain. It hadn’t been the stitches or the blood that bothered him. It was watching her face, contorted in pain as the nurse had washed out the cut and the doctor had stuck the needle into her foot.
He took her hand. “I want to be there.”
“All right, but no video camera.”
He talked her into watching the DVDs, since she had nothing else to do. The first one was about the stages of pregnancy. Natalie yawned several times, but Josh found it fascinating. She was almost to six months now. At six months, the baby looked like a real baby. It had eyelids and fingernails.
“Can we fast-forward over this part?”
Josh took pity on her and turned off the DVD. “All right, I guess I’ve bored you enough. Where’s Mary? Shouldn’t she be home by now?”
“She called a little while ago. She’s going to a concert tonight.”
“On a school night?”
“I know, I should have said no. But she’s been so good these last couple of weeks. She comes home every day right after school and does her homework, then she fixes dinner and does all the dishes. She deserves to have some fun, and she promised to be home by eleven.”
“Hmm. What concert?”
“Uh, the Jets? Something like that.”
“Jetstream.”
“Oh, yeah. Are they good?”
“Only if you want an instant migraine.”
“Josh, you’re sounding suspiciously like an old fuddy-duddy. My mother used to say things like that about Aerosmith.”
“Who’s she going with?” Josh asked, though he was pretty sure he already knew.
“The mysterious Blake. She promised, no motorcycle. She’s driving, and she’s a very safe driver.” At Josh’s dubious look, she added, “I don’t like it, but if I tell her no she’s just going to rebel.”
Josh hated to break the news to Natalie, hated to worry her, but if Blake was more than a casual friend to Mary, Natalie needed to know. “I know something about Blake,” he said. “He’s a doper. He was arrested for possession last May and he’s on probation.”
Natalie gasped. “Oh, no. Are you sure?”
“Sean told me some of it, but I checked him out myself.”
Natalie reached for the phone. “I’ll call her right now and tell her I changed my mind.” But all she got was Mary’s voice mail.
“I’m sure she’ll be fine,” Josh said, almost wishing he hadn’t said anything. “Mary’s a levelheaded girl. And, who knows, maybe the guy is reformed. Maybe he deserves a second chance.”
“Yeah, well some other girl besides my daughter can give it to him. I don’t want her within a hundred feet of the guy.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “This is my fault. I’ve been encouraging her to make friends. If she doesn’t find her niche in the next few months…”
“What? She’s a teenager. She’ll get through it. We were kind of nerdy in high school. We survived.”
“Yeah, but we had each other—and Melissa and Beau and Bud and Diane and Tommy. We never had to uproot and go to a new school. It’s harder for her.”
Josh tried to put himself in Mary’s place. But he’d never had trouble making friends. In college, he hooked up with other scared freshmen his first day. He was still friends with a couple of those guys.
“She’ll be fine,” he said.
“Here’s the deal, Josh. When we moved down here, I made a promise to her. I told her if she would just give Houston ’til the end of the school year, if she still hated it, we could move back to Dallas.”
Josh felt all the air whoosh out of his lungs. “You’re going to move my child away from me? When, exactly, were you going to tell me?”
Josh knew he shouldn’t upset Natalie, but he couldn’t help it. Had she moved down here simply to placate him temporarily?
“I’d hoped there wouldn’t be any need to say anything. I was sure she would immediately make friends and do well, and she would completely forget the deal we made. But so far neither is the case.”
Josh stood and paced. He wanted to explode. He and Natalie had both worked so hard to get where they were now, and she wanted to undo it all?
“That’s crazy, you know,” he finally said. “Letting a sixteen-year-old dictate your life.”
“So I should instead let an infant make all the decisions? I know you would prefer to be close to your new daughter, and it would be good for her. But I have two children’s needs to consider. I love them both equally, and I have to weigh the potential benefits of one situation against the harm of the other.”
“And I don’t have a say?” he complained.
“Of course you have a say,” she replied calmly, making him feel like an idiot for losing his temper. Who was supposed to be the overemotional one here? “I never would have moved down here if I weren’t giving your preferences a lot of weight.”
He was a lawyer. He was supposed to be able to argue his way out of anything. But Natalie’s persistent, well-reasoned arguments were slicing and dicing him to shreds.
For him, it all boiled down to one thing: he needed to be a daily part of his child’s life. If he were honest, he would admit he wanted to continue to be a part of Natalie’s life, too. Maybe they would never be husband and wife again, but being close to her fed his soul. He hadn’t felt this fully alive since she’d left him twenty years ago.
“It just seems to me that you’re letting Mary manipulate things,” he said. “Don’t you want to teach her that she can’t always have everything her way? Don’t you want her to learn compromise?”
“Oh, you’re a fine one to talk about not wanting everything your way. I suppose you think her needs should be secondary because she’s not my flesh and blood the way the new baby is.”
“I never said that,” he retorted, his voice rising sharply. “I never implied that.”
“But you’ve thought it. Admit it, you’ve disapproved from the very beginning of me adopting a child as a single mother. You think I’ve done a bad job of raising her, because she’s turned out spoiled and manipulative, according to your definitions, and not perfect like your boys. But try moving Sean and Doug across the state and see how perfect they are!”
“I’ve never thought it, not for one second,” he insisted. “When Melissa first told me about the adoption years ago, I admit I felt mildly annoyed that you would choose to raise a child without a father. But that was before I knew Mary came from an orphanage in China, where she could have easily grown up with no parents. And anyway, once I saw her—once I saw you together—I knew you’d given her the best possible upbringing. I would never for a moment suggest she should take a backseat because she’s not your biological child.” God, how could she even—“Natalie, surely you know me better than that.”
She looked out the window. “You’re right, I do. I took a cheap shot. But if I’m such a wonderful mom, why has my daughter turned into a stranger? Why is she getting bad grades and hanging out with dopers and doing everything to ruin her life?”
Josh softened. He sat down on the end of the sofa, moving Natalie’s outstretched feet to his lap, and started rubbing them absently.
“Kids rebel at different stages. Mine have not been perfect, despite what I might have led you to believe. Mary will be fine. She might be pushing her boundaries a bit, but if you gave her a good foundation, if you’ve taught her how to make good decisions, she won’t go too far off the path.”
Natalie did not look comforted.
“Do you want me to talk to her? Sometimes a person who isn’t a parent can get through.”
Natalie laughed. “No, I don’t think that’s a good idea. One of her biggest fears is that you and I will get back together and she’ll have a stepfather bossing her around.”
“Maybe Sean, then. He’s been keeping an eye on her at school, you know.”
“He has?” Natalie closed her eyes. “The foot rub feels so good. It’s hard to stay mad when you’re doing that—mad at you or anyone.”
“That’s why I’m doing it.”
“I’d be thrilled if Mary could be friends with Sean and Doug. But she seems determined not to do anything that would make her or me happy.”
“Because she wants you to worry about her so much you’ll move her back to Dallas.”
Natalie groaned. “Maybe you’re right. But Dallas is important to her.”
“I know I’m right. Between my mom, Beverly and my law practice, I’ve made a good study of manipulative behavior over the years.” He pressed his thumb into her arch, earning a look of ecstasy on her face. If only he could see that expression for other reasons. “I have an idea. Since you’re on your own tonight, why don’t I order in some dinner? I’ll wait with you until Mary gets home.”
“That’d be great. But remember, I can’t do pizza, Mexican or Asian takeout.”
“Leave it to me.” He pulled out his cell phone from his jacket pocket. Since he did a lot of working lunches, he had a contact list with the number of every restaurant in Houston that delivered. He sifted through the list until he found exactly what he wanted, then dialed.
Natalie didn’t know what to make of Josh. One minute she wanted to punch his lights out, and the next she had all these warm, tingly feelings for him.
He wasn’t exactly a neophyte at manipulation himself. He was a lawyer, after all. Each word, each gesture, even the way he was rubbing her feet, was designed to elicit a certain response from her. But wasn’t that what everybody did? He just happened to be better at it than most.
Except perhaps her eldest daughter, who already had Natalie’s heart wrapped around her little finger.
There was a lot of truth to what Josh had said about Mary. She might be doing it unconsciously, but she was pushing Natalie’s buttons in a way that was guaranteed to get her the result she wanted.
Would Natalie be doing her daughter a disservice by caving in? If she stood strong, would Mary realize she couldn’t win and give up being the troubled, rebellious teen? Or would she irrevocably trash her life first?
Natalie forced herself to release her troubling thoughts for the moment. Stewing about it would only elevate her blood pressure. Instead, she focused on Josh, who was apparently on the phone with some chef, giving him specific instructions for their meal that took into account Natalie’s dietary restrictions. He had been paying attention.
Josh might be a tad pushy, but he came from a place of concern, and that was reason enough not to shove him out of her life too hastily. Her baby could do so much worse than having Josh as a father.
She could do a lot worse than Josh as a husband, too.
The thought came out of nowhere, shocking her. Surely that was out of the question. Notwithstanding the mutual physical attraction and shared concern for their child, they’d had their chance. They’d blown it—or, rather, she’d blown it. She was the one who’d filed for divorce. She was the one who’d left, because she could no longer take the pain of her failure to give him a child.
He hadn’t given any indication that his feelings ran deep enough now that he would risk loving her again.
But after Beverly—which Melissa had insisted was a rebound marriage—he hadn’t married again. And Natalie hadn’t even come close. If a woman was entitled to only one great love in her lifetime, she’d had hers.
Josh closed his phone. “It’ll be here in about forty-five minutes.”
“What did you order?”
“You didn’t hear?”
“I was thinking about other things.” Things she shouldn’t have allowed to enter her mind.
“Then you’ll have to be surprised.”
She consented to watch another childbirth DVD while they waited. It kept her distracted. This one was on all the changes a woman could expect to her body during pregnancy, and it was slightly embarrassing.
Rather than focusing on the TV screen, she started watching Josh, who was apparently fascinated. He was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, his blue eyes bright and alert. Most other men she knew wanted nothing at all to do with this stuff. She’d even taught a few mom-to-be classes at her old job, filling in for the regular teacher. Most of the husbands, if they attended, would fidget and look anywhere but at the TV screen when videos were shown.
The food arrived, and Josh paused the show while he dealt with the delivery. Then he spread their feast out on the coffee table, and it was lovely—chicken breasts in a champagne sauce with wild rice and mushrooms, sautéed spinach, fresh strawberries in crème fraîche for dessert. He poured sparkling water in champagne glasses, and even lit a candle.
“If I didn’t know better,” she said as she tried to find a place to put her napkin, “I would think you were trying to seduce me.”
“Aw, now, see there? You always think the worst of me. We both know I can’t seduce you. I just thought you might enjoy a little treat, since you must be bored out of your mind being confined to the house.”
“I’m ashamed of myself for doubting your pure motives.” His motives were pure, weren’t they? After all, what else could he want from her? If she got serious about moving back to Dallas he might find ways of trying to change her mind, but that was months away.
The meal was delicious, and she found she didn’t even miss the salt because the fresh seasonings were so exquisite. She couldn’t eat very much of it, because the baby was using her stomach as a pillow, but Josh wrapped the leftovers up and put them in the fridge for her.
They watched one more DVD, and Natalie wished they’d skipped it. It was the one on risks and warning signs. As a nurse she knew all of it, but now that she was personally experiencing some of the conditions, it seemed much scarier. She would have a whole new empathy for the moms of her tiny patients from now on, knowing the hell some of them went through just to give birth.
The final DVD was on labor and delivery itself.
“We don’t really need to watch this one, do we?” she said. “I mean, I can tell you what happens. There’s a lot of whining, a lot of panting, then it’s push, push, push and we have a baby.”
“This is the one I really need to see,” he objected. “Despite the fact I have two kids, I really don’t know what to do. I want to be able to help you out, make you more comfortable.”
“Unless you can figure out a way to actually do the labor for me, there won’t be much you can do.”
“All right.” He shrugged. “I’ll take it home and watch it there.”
She sighed in defeat. “Never mind, we can watch it if you really want to.” The truth was, she would much rather watch a slasher movie than think about labor. Those few contractions she’d had when she almost miscarried had put the fear of God into her. The pain had been much more intense than she’d ever imagined.
She would have thought that with all those screaming patients she’d coached through birth back in her days as an obstetric nurse, she’d have understood how painful it was. But she really hadn’t guessed. On top of the pain, Natalie knew she would be scared to death for the baby, particularly if she didn’t make it to the full thirty-eight weeks.
She tried to watch the video with her usual detachment. She’d seen hundreds of babies being born. But none since she’d become pregnant.
Suddenly she couldn’t stand it a moment longer. She grabbed the remote and hit Stop.
Josh looked at her curiously. “Nat?”
“I’m not ready for this.”
“Not ready?” he repeated, confused.
“Maybe I should have waited until I was fifty to get pregnant. Josh, I can’t do this.”
He smiled uncertainly. “It’s a little late to send it back.”
She wanted to get up and pace, but she wasn’t allowed. Instead she picked up the hand weights she kept on the sofa and started doing bicep curls. But it didn’t help. She was terrified. She was having a bona fide panic attack.
“There are too many things that could go wrong. You have no idea. You’ve never seen those tiny babies hooked up to machines. I won’t be able to stand it if everything’s not perfect.”
“Natalie, get a grip. Our baby is going to be perfect. The sonograms say so. You’ll handle everything just fine. We’ll handle everything. I’ll be there with you every step of the way.”
His words were more reassuring than he would ever know. She was so used to doing everything by herself. Ever since she’d learned of her pregnancy, she’d felt like she had to fight every battle as a lone warrior—especially since Mary had withdrawn her enthusiastic support. Until now, she’d had to think of Josh as an adversary, a problem, a strategic dilemma to be managed.
But when it came down to it, she and Josh were on the same team. They both wanted a healthy, happy baby.
She put the weights down. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I never imagined I would be one of those whacko mothers. I always thought I would be a calm, serene pregnant woman.”
“No one says you have to be. You’re entitled to fall apart.”
“It seems like I’m falling apart on a daily basis.” She swallowed back the tears that seemed to be at the edges of her eyes all the time lately.
“Then let me catch the pieces.” He slid an arm around her and pulled her against him, nestling her head against his neck in a way that felt very familiar and safe. For once they were touching when it wasn’t about sex. It felt good and right. Sex was great, and Josh wanting to be a good father was well and good. But a relationship needed more than that.
“Thanks, Josh. I know you didn’t sign on for this.”
“You think I don’t want to be here?”
She let the question hang in the air, afraid to let it mean too much.
She let him hold her until her breathing returned to normal. Her eyes were drooping, but she couldn’t go to sleep until Mary was home. Natalie checked her watch and was surprised to find it was already a few minutes after eleven. Mary had never missed a curfew before.
“Mary’s late,” she said.
“I’m sure she’s fine. You can bet the concert isn’t over yet. Or if it is, the traffic is sure to be a mess.”
“She should call, then. She should do at least that.”
“I agree. I’m sure you’ll hear from her soon.”
But as the minutes ticked by, Natalie grew increasingly agitated. She was so grateful Josh was there to hold her together.
She was really glad for his presence when she heard the garage door open at eleven-thirty. So long as there was a witness present, she wouldn’t strangle her wayward daughter.
“Thank God,” she said as relief flooded her body. Then she stood, preparing to meet Mary at the door and do battle.
Josh pulled her back to the sofa. “Don’t fly off the handle.”
“Excuse me? You’re the one who claims I let my daughter get away with too much.”
“I didn’t say that. I said you’re letting her manipulate you. And if you go ballistic here, I very much suspect you’ll be giving her exactly what she wants.”
Natalie was only half listening. She was too upset to be cagey about how she reacted. Her daughter was dating a doper, and she’d just broken curfew by half an hour—on a school night—without calling.
Standing up again, Natalie greeted Mary the second she walked in from the garage with that old parental standard. “Where have you been? I was worried sick!”
Mary made a show of looking at her watch. “Oh. I didn’t realize it was that late. We left the concert at ten-thirty but the traffic was terrible.”
“You should have called.”
“I’m sorry, okay? Anyway, I’m not supposed to talk on the phone while I’m driving.” Mary made an attempt to skirt Natalie and escape, but Natalie stepped in her way.
“That’s a poor excuse and you know it. You worried me on purpose.”
“Mom, you’re being paranoid. I said I was sorry. Aren’t you even going to ask me if I had a good time?”
That was when Natalie got a whiff of an alien smell coming off her daughter. She grabbed a handful of Mary’s long dark hair and took a good sniff.
“Mom!” Mary pulled her hair back.
“You reek of weed!” Natalie was horrified.
“Duh. It was a concert. People all around us were getting high. I wasn’t.” Mary took advantage of Natalie’s momentary consternation and slipped by her, heading for her room. She stopped when she saw Josh, who stood in the middle of the living room, his hands on his hips, looking like he wanted to say something.
Natalie followed hot on Mary’s heels. “I’m not done talking to you, young lady.” Oh, no, she sounded just like her own mother.
Mary whirled around. “What’s he doing here?”
“That’s not the issue. The issue is that you’re hanging out with a boy who has a criminal record. You’re late getting home, and you didn’t call me to tell me you were okay. What did I buy you that cell phone for?”
“Mom, you’re getting too upset. It’s not good for the baby.”
“I was upset before you got home, worrying about whether you were lying in a ditch somewhere.”
“You’re overwrought. We’ll talk about this tomorrow, when you’ve calmed down.” She turned and continued toward her bedroom.
Natalie stood there, her mouth hanging open. She’d been dismissed.
“She’s good,” Josh said, looking faintly amused. “She turned the tables on you.”
“How did she do that? I’m supposed to be the parent, the calm, rational one. She managed to make me take on the role of the hysterical teenager, while she became the disapproving parent. How did she do that? And don’t you look so smug. You could have helped me out.”
“You told me not to get involved.”
Natalie sighed. “Just think, I’ll have to go through this again in another sixteen years.” She patted her ever-increasing abdomen. “You better not act like your sister.”
Josh stepped around the sofa and came to her, putting his arms around her. “Why don’t you go to bed? Things will look better in the morning.”
“I still won’t know what to say to her.”
“Just let her know you love her. That’s a good way to start.”
He walked her to the bedroom door, but he stopped short of entering her inner sanctum. “I enjoyed tonight.”
“Me, too, up to a point.” She thought about asking him to come to bed with her. She felt so uncharacteristically fragile, and she hadn’t gotten enough of feeling him next to her. She wanted to absorb more of his strength, his calm reassurance.
But she couldn’t. At some point she and Josh were going to figure out what sort of relationship they had, but tonight wasn’t the night to push it.
He kissed her on the cheek. “G’night, Nat. Call me if you need anything.”
“G’night.” She watched him go, feeling an ache in her heart that was so big, she wasn’t sure anything could fill it.
“Good morning, Mr. Carlson.” Rachel offered Josh a cheery smile as he entered his office the next morning.
“Morning, Rachel. I have a project for you.”
“Oh, good, your projects are always fun.”
“I need you to research cooking schools, culinary arts programs, restaurant internships—anything you can find in the Houston area. I want to know how and when students apply, what the requirements are, how much it costs, the time commitment. And most important, I need to know if there’s anyone connected to the firm who can help me get a talented, sixteen-year-old chef into a good situation. I’m willing to pay whatever it takes.”
Rachel raised one eyebrow. “Is your son considering a new career?”
“It’s for my possible future stepdaughter.”
Rachel’s eyes sparkled. “You’re getting married?”
“I’m considering the hell out of it, but the bride doesn’t know anything, yet. So keep it to yourself for now.”
“Mum’s the word. I’ll try to have something for you by noon.”
Josh knew he could count on Rachel—on both her effectiveness and her discretion. The other partners might have thought they were the be-all and end-all, but Josh knew Rachel was the one who kept this place functioning.
He’d settled on a new plan last night—or rather, early this morning, after lying in bed unable to sleep for worrying about Natalie.
He could not allow her to just move away, not when he’d worked so hard getting her here. But his control over Natalie was purely an illusion. If she wanted to move—for the sake of Mary’s well-being—she would do it, and he wouldn’t be able to stop her. And he had to admit that Mary’s needs were real and legitimate.
Natalie didn’t want to move away, any more than he wanted her to. The key was Mary. Get her settled and happy, and Natalie would be happy. If he could get Mary on his side, maybe he and Natalie could figure out how to be together.
He wanted to be with her. It wasn’t just for the baby’s sake, either. Over the last few months, it had all come back to him—the strength of their love, the happy times they’d shared. He’d felt the loss of his marriage to Natalie more keenly than ever.
Last night, when he’d been watching those DVDs and listening to the litany of things that could go wrong—for mother or baby—his stomach had churned with the fear of losing her.
He’d pushed aside his feelings so that he could calm her fears. It wouldn’t do to have both of them fall apart at the same time. But later, when he’d been alone, he’d known terror. And he’d realized that, wise or not, he was falling back in love with Natalie.
He wanted to be her husband again, in every sense of the word. He would try harder this time. He would pay more attention to what she needed from him. He wouldn’t push so hard.
If only she would give him another chance.
“HEY, MARY, WAIT UP.”
Mary turned to see Sean Carlson heading her way. Her last class had just ended, and she was on her way toward her car, ready to go home and make peace with her mom.
She’d acted horribly last night.
She hadn’t meant to miss her curfew. It had all happened like she said. She’d tried to leave the concert at ten-thirty, before it was even over. The music had been too loud anyway and she’d discovered she didn’t even like Jetstream. But gathering up everybody who’d ridden with her had been like herding cats. It had been close to eleven by the time they’d reached her car.
Knowing she would be late, she’d reached in her purse for her phone, only to find it was missing. Considering her mother would probably never let her go out again if she told her what had really happened, it had seemed easier just to pretend she’d lost track of the time. She still hadn’t figured out how to replace her phone without her mom having a fit.
“What’s up?” she asked Sean, more friendly than she’d meant. But she really didn’t hate him that much. For a jock, he was okay.
He fell into step beside her. “I wanted to let you know I snitched on you. I told my dad you were hanging out with a dopehead.”
“You what?” But of course, her mother had to have found out somehow.
“I wasn’t trying to get you in trouble. I just don’t think you should be hanging with that crowd. They are complete losers. And if you hang out with losers, you become one.”
“Tell me, Sean, what choice do I have? Do you see lines of people waiting to be my friends?”
“Maybe not. But I told you John Drogan wants to hook up with you. And I know for a fact Hai Nguyen has a huge crush on you. But you ignore both of them.”
“Hai, the guy who wants me to join the calculus club?”
“Hai’s a nice guy. I’m just saying, no one forced you to be friends with Blake and Amanda and Kevin. You have choices. And I happen to like your mother and I don’t want to see her sad because her daughter ends up a high school dropout pothead.”
“Wait a minute. You like my mother?”
“You have no idea how lucky you are to have a mother like her. I haven’t even seen my mom for, like, five years. She doesn’t care whether Doug and me live or die.”
Mary felt a stab of conscience. She did have a pretty cool mother, and Mary had been awful to her lately. What if the extra stress of worrying about Mary did cause her mom to go into labor early?
“Your dad was at our house again last night. Late.”
“I know. So? They’re part of each other’s lives now. Nothing we say or do is gonna change that.”
Mary crossed her arms. “That’s not what you said a few months ago.”
“Yeah, well, that was before. I’ve never seen Dad so happy and excited, and it’s not just ’cause he’s having another kid. I think he’s in love with Natalie. Like it or not, you’re gonna be my sister.”
Mary gasped. “Doesn’t that gross you out?”
He shrugged. “Not really. If you’re my sister, at least I’d have a legitimate reason for beating up on Blake for messing with you.”
Mary rolled her eyes. Typical jock response, resorting to violence. “Blake isn’t messing with me. We’re just friends.” Though Blake had made it clear he wanted that status to change, and he was getting impatient about it. Maybe it was time she got rid of her new “friends” and tried something else.
Sean shrugged again. “I’m trying to help you out here. But you gotta want to help yourself, too.” He sauntered away.
She hated that he was right.
When she reached her car, she found Blake, Kevin and Amanda already sitting inside it. Now what? The car had been locked—how had they gotten it open?
“Hey, babe,” Blake greeted her, climbing out from behind the wheel. “Gimme your keys and hop in. We’re gonna go get some pizza.”
“I’m not allowed to let anyone else drive my car,” she said, not caring that she sounded like a prim Goody Two-Shoes.
The other kids laughed, predictably.
“Come on, Mary, it’s just fifteen minutes away,” Kevin said. “You can drop us off if you absolutely have to get home to your mommy.”
That ticked her off. “All right, I’ll give you a ride, but I can’t stay. I’ve got a chemistry test to study for.” That caused another round of laughter. God, why had she thought it was a good idea to make friends with these jerks? Her friends at home never acted like this. They used to study together, in fact. The only thing Blake and his crowd had ever asked her to do was help them cheat or write their papers for them. She hadn’t sunk that low to make friends, thank goodness.
She hadn’t cleared the school parking lot when she heard the unmistakable sound of a pop-top coming from the backseat.
“That better be Coke.”
She got hysterical laughter for an answer. What was she doing with these losers?
“HEY, NOT BAD FOR MY very first necklace.” Natalie held up her first artistic creation to the light. She’d never had any desire to do anything creative. But at this point she was so bored that she was willing to try anything. When Beatrice had suggested beadwork, Natalie had shuddered, but she’d agreed to at least try it. To her surprise, it was kind of fun. It didn’t really require a whole lot of talent. You just picked out some pretty beads and strung them together. Of course, some people who worked with beads created masterpieces. But Natalie figured if she could make a few baubles to use as Christmas stocking stuffers, her time would be well spent.
The phone rang, and Natalie picked it up. Caller ID told her it was Mary. Her new cell phone must be working okay. “Yeah, sweetie, what’s up?”
“Mom?” she said in an alarmingly frightened voice. Then she broke down crying and babbling about something, but Natalie couldn’t understand a word.
“Sweetie, slow down, I can’t understand.”
She babbled some more, but finally Natalie understood one thing. “I’ve been arrested.”
“Oh, my God. Mary, baby, are you okay? Are you hurt?” Visions of police brutality and prison assaults flashed through her mind. If this didn’t raise her blood pressure to lethal limits, nothing would.
Eventually she found out Mary was at the police station on Mykawa Road, where the juvenile division was housed. “I’ll come right away, sweetie. Just don’t say anything to anybody ’til I get there.”
“You shouldn’t drive,” Mary said, suddenly less hysterical.
“Beatrice will drive me. Don’t worry. Hang tight, sweetie, I’ll be there shortly.” She hung up and fought back tears. The last thing Mary needed was for her mother to get hysterical, too. She told Beatrice what was happening.
“Of course I’ll drive you. But let’s call Josh and have him meet us at the station. Mary might need a lawyer.”
“But Josh isn’t a criminal lawyer,” Natalie protested. Part of her longed to have Josh present. She couldn’t deal with this alone, and he could definitely help her navigate the legal maze, if this turned out to be serious. But part of her didn’t even want Josh to know. Here it was, evidence right in her face that she hadn’t done such a good job raising Mary after all. Her daughter had turned into a juvenile delinquent.
“Josh knows enough to help Mary at this stage,” Beatrice said pragmatically. “If it turns out to be something serious—and it probably won’t—he can refer you to a defense attorney.”
“Yeah, okay.” She grabbed her phone from her purse and put on her coat, somehow managing to dial Josh’s cell in the process. He’d said something about being in court today, so the cell was probably the way to reach him.
He answered right away. She could hear traffic noises, so she assumed he was in his car. She told him the story, now crying almost as much as Mary had been. “I really need you—”
“I was on my way home. I’m ten, maybe fifteen minutes away if I don’t get stuck in traffic. I’ll find out what’s going on.”
“Thank you, Josh. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Traffic was horrendous, and it took Beatrice more than thirty minutes to get to the police station. She dropped Natalie off in front and went to find a parking space. Natalie wanted to break into a run, but though her oldest child was in crisis, she didn’t want to put her youngest in a crisis of her own. She forced herself to walk sedately up to the front door of the building. It was all she could manage not to jump onto the counter, grab the desk sergeant and demand to know where her baby was.
“My daughter,” she began. “Mary Briggs—”
“I found her.” Natalie turned to see Josh standing there in his suit looking very lawyerly and authoritative. She’d never been so happy to see him. If she’d had to handle this by herself…
“Oh, Josh. Is she okay?”
He came toward her and wrapped his arms around her. “She’s fine. A little scared, that’s all. They’re not going to formally charge her with anything, but they want to release her into your custody. She’s back this way.” He kept one arm around her shoulders as he guided her toward a locked double door. A uniformed guard standing on the other side opened it for them and allowed them in. They walked through a metal detector, then down some hallways toward the juvenile section.
“They treat the kids differently than the adults,” Josh explained. “By law they have to keep them totally separated from adult offenders. Some of Mary’s friends are older, so they didn’t fare so well.”
“What happened? What was she doing that she got arrested? Please don’t tell me she was using drugs.”
“Honestly, as nearly as I can tell, Mary didn’t do anything except hang out with the wrong people. I’ll let her explain it.”
“She’s going to have some explaining to do, all right.”
When Natalie finally saw Mary, she sobbed with relief. She couldn’t help herself. Her little girl wasn’t locked up in a cell, she wasn’t wearing handcuffs. She was just seated in a plastic chair, slumped over with her head in her hands, looking more dejected than Natalie had ever seen her.
“Mary?”
Her head came up and she flew out of the chair, nearly knocking Natalie over. “Oh, Mom, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” she cried over and over through her tears. “I didn’t do anything, I swear, it was Kevin and Blake. I was just giving them a ride. I didn’t know they had beer and then we were on the freeway and this car cut us off—”
“Okay, honey, okay. It’s okay.” Apparently it wouldn’t be any trouble getting Mary to tell the story.
A woman in a severe suit with a no-nonsense haircut approached and introduced herself as Detective Cutler. “We do have an open-container law in this state,” she said, “and since Mary was the one operating the vehicle, she violated the law.”
Mary remained silent as she clung to Natalie.
“But since it was her backseat passengers causing the trouble, and since Mary has been very cooperative and she hasn’t been in trouble before, we’re not going to hold her.”
“So I can take her home?” Natalie was afraid to believe it would be this easy.
“No charges are being filed,” Josh clarified.
The detective leaned down and got in Mary’s face. “You lucked out this time. If I see you back here ever again, it won’t be so easy.”
“You will never see me here again. I promise. I don’t even want to drive anymore.”
“Thanks, Detective,” Josh said. Then he dragged Natalie and Mary away from there before the police could change their minds.
Beatrice greeted them in the lobby. “What happened? Is everything okay?”
“It’s okay,” Josh said. “Mom, why don’t you drive Natalie home. I want Mary to ride with me.”
Natalie didn’t like the sound of that. She was Mary’s parent. It was her job to do the disciplining. It was her job to yell. Obviously Josh thought Natalie wouldn’t do a good enough job, so he was taking over.
She started to object, then thought about it for half a second and decided not to. Obviously she wasn’t doing such a great job as a parent, or she wouldn’t be picking up her daughter from jail. And she could always yell at Mary when they got home.
MARY DIDN’T SAY A WORD as she walked with Josh across the parking lot. He waited until they were in the car before he said anything.
“I’m not going to waste my breath telling you you did a very stupid thing. I’m sure you’ve figured that out by now, because you’re not stupid.”
“You don’t have to tell me I did a stupid thing.”
“Why don’t you tell me what you should have done?”
“As soon as I realized Kevin and Amanda had beer, I should have pulled over and made them get out. Except I’m not sure they would have. They didn’t listen to me before when I said I needed to go straight home.”
“Mary, people are going to be trying to manipulate you your whole life. Might as well learn now how to stop them. If someone is in your car, and you want them to get out, and they won’t get out, get your phone and dial 911. Because if you let them push you around, even a little, they’ll keep doing it.”
She nodded. “But it’s hard to call the cops on your friends.”
He would grant her that. “What other choices should you have made—before you got to the car?”
She thought for a minute. “Picked better friends?”
“Now that’s a good one. So why did you start hanging around with those guys?”
“Because they were the only kids who would talk to me.”
“I’m not sure I believe that.”
She sighed. “It’s true. At least it was at first. I guess I also knew it would piss off my mother.”
This was a whole lot easier than he’d thought it would be. He’d thought he would have to work to get her to admit that she was purposely doing things to convince her mother to worry about her.
“What was the ultimate goal?”
“Move back to Dallas.”
“Your mom told me about the deal you made. And part of that deal involved giving your new school a fair chance. Have you done that?”
“No.”
He let her think about that for a moment.
“Is there anything that would make you want to stay here?” he asked. “If you could wave your magic wand and make Houston your ideal city, describe it to me.”
“My friends from Dallas would live here,” she said immediately.
That he couldn’t manage. “Friends are important. What else?”
“There would be a magnet school with a nationally renowned culinary arts program. Like in Dallas. I want to go to school with people who understand me, who share my goals.”
“What if I could get you an internship at the Blue Heron?”
“What’s the Blue Heron?” She sounded suspicious, but intrigued.
“It’s only the best restaurant in Houston. It has a Mobile five-star rating and a Michelin three-star. Chef Chico Herrera is the head chef. Have you heard of him?”
“Chico Herrera?” Her voice rose with excitement. “The guy who’s on the Food Channel? That Blue Heron?”
“That’s the guy.”
“I’d empty the garbage for Chico Herrera.”
“I can get you in,” he said matter-of-factly. “I can get you an audience with Herrera. He doesn’t normally take on interns, but if you impress him he might let you work as a…I don’t know. A junior apprentice chef or something.”
“Are you serious?” Her eyes got so big he worried she might damage herself.
“My firm has done some work for him so I have an in. I can only get you the interview,” Josh cautioned her. “You’ll have to impress him on your own.”
“No problem! I can impress the hell out of him!” She reached into her purse and pulled out her new cell phone. “I have to call Lindy and Kathy! They won’t believe it!”
“I guess I should have said first that we’ll have to clear it with your mom.”
Mary stopped dialing. “I know she plans to ground me forever, and I’m okay with that. But she wouldn’t stop me from doing this, would she?”
Josh’s heart went out to the girl. He’d never seen such naked hope and abject fear in anyone’s face. “She’s pretty upset right now. But no, I don’t think she’ll stop you from pursuing your dream. It’s too important, and she knows that.”
Mary closed her phone without completing the call.
“Don’t worry, okay?” Josh said. “It’ll all work out somehow. But if the thing with Chico Herrera doesn’t pan out, there will be other opportunities. In fact, there’s a Cordon Bleu school right here in Houston that has a young chefs program over the summer.”
A look of excitement returned to Mary’s face. “The Cordon Bleu is really expensive,” she said. “I don’t know if my mom could afford that. Especially since she’s not earning a paycheck these days.”
It was time for him to take a chance. “What if you had a stepdad who could afford it?”
“Uh…really?”
“It’s only a possibility at this point. But remember, there’s always a way, Mary. Don’t get caught up in thinking there’s only one way to do things. Or only one way to reach your dreams.” Maybe that was advice Josh should consider himself. Sometimes, a problem simply required a creative solution.
Where Natalie was concerned, he simply needed to expand his thinking and let himself explore what was really important.
Why was it taking so long for Josh and Mary to get home? Natalie forced herself to sit on the sofa instead of pacing as she longed to do. She had already maxed out the time she could spend on her feet today. She kept reminding herself that things could have turned out far worse. Mary was alive, whole and healthy. She hadn’t been charged with a crime. She hadn’t crashed the car.
Maybe this was exactly the wake-up call her daughter needed to realize the wreck she was making of her life.
Missing curfew, hanging out with the wrong kids, getting a bad report card—these were all normal things most kids did, and by themselves weren’t cause for alarm. But for Mary, they represented a downward slide that could have grave repercussions on her entire future. Natalie hadn’t known how to get that message across to her daughter.
But maybe her brush with the law had done it. She could hope, anyway.
As Beatrice brought Natalie a cup of tea—God help her, she was starting to like the stuff—Natalie heard the powerful roar of Josh’s Jaguar and breathed a small sigh of relief. Of course Josh would get her baby home safely. But she was in full worried-mother mode, and it was hard to relax.
Mary burst through the front door like a hurricane-force gale. She didn’t look like the penitent daughter Natalie had last seen half an hour ago at the police station.
“Mom, you won’t believe this! Josh is going to get me an interview with Chico Herrera. Do you know who he is?”
Natalie flashed a worried look at Josh, who was barely suppressing a grin. What the hell was going on here? “Chico Herrera. That chef on TV?”
Mary nodded eagerly. “I’m gonna get a job at the Blue Heron working for Chico Herrera! With something like that on my resume, I can get into any cooking school in the world! I know I’m grounded forever from everything, but can I call Lindy and Kathy first?”
Natalie felt like she’d just been dropped into an alternate universe. “Excuse me, but you’ve just put me through hell and now you’re babbling about getting a job with some chef? Number one, I would have to let you out of your room for that to happen, and don’t count on it. Number two, I think you owe me an explanation. And then, yes, you will be grounded from everything forever.”
Mary deflated like a week-old balloon, and Natalie felt a pang of guilt. This was the first time she’d seen Mary excited about anything since they’d moved to Houston, and Natalie had ruined it. But what kind of a mother would she be if she let her daughter get away with getting arrested and didn’t pitch a fit?
“Sorry, Mom. You’re right, I owe you an explanation and an apology, and I intend to spend the rest of my life making this up to you for getting you all upset and making you drive downtown when you’re supposed to be resting.” She set down her purse, walked over to Natalie, leaned down and hugged her. “I’m so sorry, Mommy. Can I talk to you alone?”
Natalie’s heart melted. Here was her sweet girl, the one who’d been missing in action for months. “Did you thank Josh for helping you out of the jam you got yourself in?”
“She did thank me.” Josh was there, solid and sexy as ever. “I think when you hear the whole story, Nat, you’ll understand a little better.”
Wait a minute. Wasn’t he the one who’d said, just the other day, that she spoiled Mary? That she let her get away with too much? Now here she was, trying to be the firm parent, and he was undermining her authority. What the hell had gone on in his car between the police station and home?
She intended to find out. But right now, she was more worried about setting things right with Mary.
“Josh, Beatrice, I very much appreciate your help with everything this afternoon. We’ll talk later.”
They took their cues, leaving Natalie and her daughter alone, as requested.
Mary sat next to Natalie on the sofa, and she told her the whole story of what had transpired that afternoon. She didn’t make excuses, she didn’t try to cast herself in a more favorable light.
It sounded to Natalie as if Mary had been pressured into giving Blake and his friends a ride, and that she really hadn’t known they had a six-pack of beer in the backseat.
“If I’d pulled off the freeway and told them to get out,” Mary said, “I doubt they would have. I just thought the easiest thing would be to take them where they wanted to go and then come home. But some jerk cut me off on the freeway, and Kevin thought it was a good idea to throw a half-empty can of beer at their car. There was a cop directly behind us—I mean, right on my bumper. When he stopped me, he said the city had a zero-tolerance policy regarding road rage.”
“Road rage? That’s what this was all about?”
“That’s how it started. It ended up being about having open cans of beer in the car. The fact Blake smarted off to the cop didn’t help matters.”
Natalie hated to admit it, but it sounded like Mary hadn’t done anything horrible. She’d just gotten caught up in something she didn’t know how to handle. If she was telling the truth. Natalie hoped that was the case.
“Mom, I won’t be hanging around those kids anymore.”
“You got that right.”
“Mr. Carlson and I were talking on the way home about different choices I could have made. I can see it now, but it’s hard to know when you’re right in the middle of the situation.”
Natalie put her arm around Mary’s shoulders and drew her near. “I know, baby. It’s not like I’m the poster child for smart choices, or I wouldn’t be forty-three, single and pregnant.”
“But you wouldn’t change anything, would you?”
“I’d change a lot of things, but I’d never give up you or my new baby.”
“You don’t wish you’d stayed married to Josh?”
What a strange question. “We couldn’t stay married. Even though we were in love, we were hurting each other. He wanted his own children and I couldn’t give them to him. I wanted to adopt…” Her voice faltered.
“He didn’t want to.”
“Men are funny that way,” she said, ready to defend him for that decision although she never had before. “They want children to carry on their DNA. I read somewhere that it’s a survival mechanism buried deep in their brains.”
Mary was silent for a moment. “Josh wants to marry you.”
Natalie sat up straighter. “What? Why would you say something like that?”
“He said so. He said he might become my stepfather.”
How like Josh, to unilaterally decide he was going to get married, and not bother to consult the bride. She took a deep breath and tried not to take her daughter’s revelation too seriously. Maybe Mary had misinterpreted something.
“I wish you’d had Josh as a father,” Natalie mused. “Maybe you wouldn’t be getting into trouble now.”
“It’s not too late.”
“Excuse me, but aren’t you the one who said you would run away from home if I married Josh?”
“That was before I knew him. When I thought about some strange man bossing me around, it scared me. But he’s already bossing me around, and it’s not all bad. I think, even though he’s not related to me, he really does care about me.”
“What else did you and Josh talk about?” Natalie asked suspiciously.
“He said he thought it wasn’t fair that I didn’t get to go to cooking school and he wanted to make it up to me. He said he would introduce me to Chico Herrera, and that he might even pay for me to attend the Cordon Bleu young chefs program next summer.”
“Hmm.” Natalie resisted the urge to become unglued over Josh’s manipulation, because she saw how important this was to Mary.
“He did say you would have to approve,” Mary added. “But you won’t say no, will you? Please.”
“Next summer? I thought we would probably be moving back to Dallas next summer. That was the deal we made.”
“Only if I still hated Houston by then. But I’m going to try to like it here. So can I at least meet with Chico Herrera?”
“You can’t get a job when your grades are so lousy.”
“I’ll get an A on every one of my final exams. I’ll do extra credit. I can do better.”
“I know you can.” She looked her daughter in the eye. “I guess you can meet with Mr. Herrera if Josh sets it up. But—”
Mary didn’t wait to hear the rest. She threw her arms around Natalie’s neck and nearly choked her. “Thanks, Mom.”
“But you’re totally grounded. Consider yourself on probation until the first of the year. No phone, no car, no Internet, no iPod. You can use the car to go to the grocery store, only. You can ride your bike or the bus to get to school.”
Mary grinned. “That’s no problem. As long as you don’t ground me from the kitchen. Hey, Thanksgiving is next week, you know. Have you ever had turducken? It’s turkey, duck and chicken all layered together.”
“Josh invited us to his house for Thanksgiving,” Natalie reminded her daughter.
“Cool, I’ve always wanted to cook in that huge kitchen.”
“We’ll have to ask—but I don’t think he’ll mind.”
Natalie waited until Mary retreated to her room to gather up all her electronics to surrender. Then she dialed Josh’s number. “Get over here,” she said without preamble.
“Gee, how could I possibly turn down such an attractive, politely worded invitation?” When she said nothing more, he sighed. “I know, I’m in trouble. I’ll be there in five minutes to take my medicine.”
Natalie hung up, rubbing her hands together. She had to hold on to her mad. Less than two minutes later, she heard his key in the back door.
“You phoney!” she said as soon as he walked into the living room. “You go around preaching about how I have to be tougher on Mary, and then the first thing you do when she really misbehaves is reward her.”
At least he had the good grace to look penitent. “I’m sorry if I overstepped my boundaries. But she looked so sad. I just wanted to make her happy.”
“Join the club.”
“Normally I don’t advocate rewarding a kid for acting out. But it really hit home, once I had her in the car, how damaging the move to Houston was. I was her age once. I remember how badly I wanted to be a lawyer. I remember how much it hurt when my parents refused to pay for college when I got married so young, and how determined I was to prove to them I hadn’t ruined my life.
“But I was doing the same thing to Mary. She had a vision for what she wanted out of life, and I trivialized it, just because she’s young.”
Natalie was surprised by Josh’s heartfelt explanation for his behavior. She’d expected him to justify his actions, to argue that he was right and she was wrong and, as always, he knew best.
“I wanted to make it up to her. In fact, I’d been researching ways she could get back into cooking before today’s disaster. It just seemed like the thing to do at the time, but I should have talked to you first. I would have if things hadn’t gotten out of hand.”
“Yeah, well, now you’re Santa Claus and I’m the Grinch.”
His face froze. “You didn’t tell her she couldn’t accept my offer, did you?”
Part of her wanted to. Just to prove how wrong he’d been to interfere. But deep down, she knew Josh had done the right thing. With one fell swoop, he’d accomplished what she’d failed to do in the last several months. He’d brought back the old Mary.
“I didn’t tell her no. But she has to bring her grades up before I’ll let her get any kind of job.” Then Natalie laughed. “You sucker. My daughter has you wrapped around her little finger.”
“Hey, not true. Cooking isn’t all we talked about. I told her in no uncertain terms she was going to have to cut the crap and stop acting like a spoiled brat or you would send her to reform school. More or less.”
“How come it works when you say it, but not me?”
“Maybe because I coupled my threat with a bribe.”
She had to admit, Josh’s approach had sure worked better than hers. “She thinks you’d be a good dad,” Natalie ventured. “That’s quite a compliment from a girl who always claimed she didn’t want any guy bossing her around.”
Natalie held her breath. Would he admit what he’d said to Mary? Or had Mary exaggerated, maybe heard what she wanted to hear?
“I’m happy to stand in as a substitute dad anytime she needs one.”
Well, that answered that. She’d given him the perfect opening to tell her he wanted more, and he hadn’t taken it.
“You’re still coming for Thanksgiving, right?” he asked.
She nodded. “Mary has offered to cook the whole dinner in your kitchen.”
“Great! I’d love to see what she can do.”
“All right. Well, it’s been a helluva day. I’m going to grab something for dinner and go to bed. I’m sorry I made you come back over just so I could yell at you. I could have done it over the phone, I guess.”
“You were much more impressive in person,” he said. “Nothing scarier than a pregnant woman losing her temper.”
“Except a pregnant, sleep-deprived woman. I need my bed.”
“You’ve been through a lot today. I could bring you in a tray.”
Much as she longed for Josh to coddle her, she was afraid her feelings were too close to the surface right now. If he looked closely enough, he would see the love shining out of her eyes, and she didn’t need that humiliation.
Yeah, she was in love with Josh Carlson. Again. Maybe still. But now that it looked as if she was in Houston to stay, he had everything he wanted. Why would he marry her now?
“Mary will take care of me,” she said. “You can go on home. I’m too wrung out to be fit company.”
“You’re always fit company, even when you’re tired and cranky. But I’ll go away if you insist.”
No, stay!
But he kissed her on the cheek, then left the way he came.
“SO WHAT’S GOING ON?” Doug asked excitedly when Josh returned home. “Sean said Mary got arrested?”
“She was detained because the people she was with caused some trouble. But Mary was never under arrest. And I’d appreciate it if you guys didn’t spread it around. Mary’s ready to make a fresh start, and you guys could be a big help with that.”
Sean looked up from where he was studying, sprawled on the floor in the great room. “I’ve tried. She doesn’t want to be friends. I tried to set her up with Drogan, who’s got this megalithic crush on Mary, but she’s not interested.”
“Try one more time.”
Sean sighed. “My friends don’t need to be shot down in flames that many times.”
Josh was sympathetic. He hadn’t worked things out with Natalie, either, at least not to his satisfaction. Now that she looked like she’d swallowed a small pumpkin, she was more desirable than ever. There was something about a pregnant woman, especially this one. Even with her hair all mussed and a small ketchup stain on her shirt, all he could think about was taking her to bed.
Impossible, of course, which was why he couldn’t kiss her or hold her or tell her all the things he was feeling. All she needed was for him to throw one more emotional trauma at her. Or one more decision.
He wanted to marry her, needed to spend the rest of his life with her. After all, it wasn’t just Mary who should get to chase her dreams. But if he asked Natalie now, he suspected she would say no. Given the fragile state of Mary’s situation, Natalie wouldn’t dare heap one more change on the poor girl—not even if Mary thought Josh wasn’t so horrible anymore.
The old Josh would have just plowed ahead, minimizing any potential problems. But he’d learned something over the past months. This was the new, more considerate Josh. He would bide his time. And after the baby was born, when life settled down…
Yeah, right. Like anyone’s life settled down with a new baby in the house.
He’d waited too long. It was so obvious now, he must have been blind to have missed it. If he’d pursued Natalie last summer as he’d been tempted to do, before she’d known she was pregnant, she might actually believe that he loved her and wanted her by his side as his wife. Or back when she told him she was pregnant…what if he’d been honest then about his feelings for her? About the fact that he’d never stopped loving her?
What if he’d told her then that he’d been a complete jerk for not being eager to adopt children with her, that he could love a child without regard to its DNA?
But he hadn’t. Instead, he’d tried to orchestrate everything to suit his current situation in a way that didn’t force him to take any risks.
He shook his head in frustration. Man, he really was a jerk. No wonder neither Natalie nor Beverly had stayed married to him. He hadn’t deserved it, hadn’t deserved either of them.
It was too late now. Natalie would never believe it if he told her he simply, honestly loved her, that he wanted to marry her and adopt Mary. She would be looking for an angle, and with the new baby, there would be angles aplenty. And who could blame her?
He poured himself a stiff scotch, then poured it down the sink. He didn’t want a drink, he wanted Natalie—the one thing he couldn’t have. Maybe he was missing something vital in his personality that would have made him a good husband.
He wouldn’t pursue her anymore. Why, when he would inevitably end up causing her pain? She deserved a partner who was as selfless and openly loving as she was.
That person wasn’t him.
MARY WAS ABSOLUTELY not going to ride the bus to school. That would be too humiliating. So she got up early, pumped up the tires on her old bike and headed off. She’d made sure her mom had something available for breakfast and lunch first, though.
She didn’t complain, didn’t try to get her mom to soften. She’d gotten off easy and she knew it. What if she’d actually been arrested and charged with a crime?
It was cold outside and a bit drizzly, but not too bad. The school was only a couple of miles, and she didn’t have to ride on any really busy streets.
She was only a couple of blocks from home when a car pulled up alongside her. She glanced over and saw that it was a black Jeep Cherokee—Sean and Doug’s car. Great. They probably couldn’t wait to make fun of her.
The passenger window lowered and Doug stuck his head out. “Hey, Mary, want a ride?”
It was on the tip of her tongue to say no, she could handle this. But she was getting kind of wet. And since Josh had been so nice to her, she really should think twice about being mean to his sons. Even though they’d agreed all those months ago to try not to get along, the boys hadn’t ever been really mean to her.
In fact, Sean had gone out of his way to be nice a couple of times. He wasn’t so bad. Doug was just a goofy sophomore, but he’d been nice to her, too.
“Okay, thanks.”
She dismounted and popped the front wheel off her bike. Sean helped her load it into the back.
“What happened to your car?” Doug asked once she’d climbed into the backseat.
“Y’all didn’t hear?” she said as she took off her helmet and shook water out of her hair. “I thought your dad would have said something. I got in a ton of trouble yesterday.” She didn’t want to go into details. She was embarrassed by how stupid she’d been, hanging out with that crowd even after Sean had warned her what would happen. “I’m grounded from everything.”
“That bites,” Sean said. “For how long?”
“Uh, like forever. ’Til after the holidays, at least. If I do good on my exams, Mom will ease up, I think. Maybe.”
At least Sean didn’t say I told you so.
“You aren’t coming to the game tonight, then?” Sean asked. “There’s a dance after. I thought maybe you and John…” He shrugged.
All of a sudden, Mary really wanted to go to the game and the dance. She hadn’t bothered all year with school activities, even when something appealed to her.
“I’m pretty sure grounded is grounded. But…if you want to give John my phone number, he can call when I get ungrounded. If he wants.”
“Okay, I’ll tell him.”
This was a good start, but Mary needed to go further. “Do y’all remember when I said we should do whatever we could to keep our parents apart?” She was sure they did, so she plowed ahead. “Well, that was a really lame idea. Your dad is totally cool and so…well, I guess you can do what you want. But would it be so bad…?” She held her breath, hoping they weren’t still grossed out at the thought of being her stepbrothers. If they were, she had only herself to blame.
Doug looked to Sean for an answer. Finally Sean said, “It’d be okay with me.”
“Your mom’s cool,” Doug added once he was sure he was on the same page as his brother.
Mary sighed with quiet relief. Maybe things would turn out okay after all. Somehow.
When they got to school, Mary started to get her bike out of the back. “You can leave it there if you want,” Sean said. “We can give you a ride home. Unless you just really want to ride your bike.”
“Not too much in this weather. Thanks.”
The three of them walked together through the front doors of the school, then parted ways with a friendly “See ya later.”
As Mary walked toward her locker, a tall, blond girl fell into step beside her. “Mary, right?”
“Yeah,” Mary said warily.
But the girl smiled. “I’m Charlotte. Did I just see you with Sean Carlson?”
“Oh. Yeah, you did.” Mary deliberately didn’t elaborate, forcing Charlotte to ask more questions.
“Are you like…hooked up with him?”
Mary laughed. “No. Ick. Sean is practically my brother.”
“How so?”
“His father used to be married to my mother, like, twenty years ago. Now they’re having a baby.” This was the first time she’d admitted the embarrassing truth to anyone.
But Charlotte, who Mary realized was one of the varsity cheerleaders, seemed more impressed than anything. “That is way cool! So you’re really close? Have you been to his house and stuff? Have you seen his room? He is so hot.”
“No, yes, no and ewww. But I’ll be going to his house for Thanksgiving. I could look at his room then and report back.”
She’d only been kidding, but Charlotte was totally serious. “Oh, my God, you are so lucky. Except for the part where he’s almost your brother. Ever since he broke up with JoLynn Myerson every girl in the school has been after him.”
Mary realized she could become Miss Popularity if she wanted. She had something every girl in the school was dying to get—access to Sean. Tempting, but that would be almost as bad as taking up with a bad crowd just to torture her mother. Sean was genuinely trying to be her friend, and she refused to exploit that friendship.
If she was going to make friends, she wanted them to like her for herself. “I have to run, Charlotte, I’m late. It was nice to talk with you.”
She hurried down a different hall to her locker, grinning. Imagine, the key to fitting in and having lots of friends had been in her pocket all along. But now she didn’t need to use it. She was okay. She would just be herself and start doing the things she liked to do, and the friends would come, just like they always had for her.
No place on earth was more dreary than Houston during a rainy January. Most days it was just cold enough to be unpleasant, so Natalie couldn’t sit outside on the patio and watch the birds as she had in the early days of her restricted activity.
She was huge, and she still had a month to go. None of the clothes she’d ordered online earlier in her pregnancy fit her anymore. Pretty soon she was going to have to visit Omar-the-Tentmaker. com to buy clothes.
She was spending a rare afternoon alone. Beatrice had a doctor’s appointment. She’d left only when Natalie assured her she would carry her cell phone everywhere so she could dial 911 in an emergency.
Since it appeared Mary wasn’t going to take down the Christmas tree, Natalie decided this was a good time for her to do it. It was getting a little embarrassing, this being toward the end of January. So she brought in the empty ornament boxes from the garage and started the painstaking process of removing each ornament and putting it in a nest of tissue.
The task made her feel even more melancholy.
This should have been the happiest time in her life. But she was miserable, and she had a pretty good idea why.
It wasn’t because of Mary. Natalie’s delinquent daughter had turned into a model teenager. With a concerted effort she had brought her grades up to respectable levels. She did chores without being asked and never once complained about being grounded. Natalie had lifted her punishment after the New Year. Mary had gone on a couple of dates with a friend of Sean’s, but now that she had a part-time job in the kitchen at the Blue Heron, she didn’t have a lot of time for socializing.
The job entailed cleaning, not cooking, but the girl was so happy just to be in the presence of the great chef that it didn’t bother her, being the lowliest of the low.
So Mary was no longer a main source of worry or stress.
Natalie’s checkups had yielded nothing but good news. No diabetes, blood pressure under control, baby developing normally. So she wasn’t too worried about her health.
Her supervisor at the hospital continued to stay in touch and assured her she would have a job when she was ready to return. Her finances were holding up okay. So no worries there.
Beatrice continued to spend a few hours with her most days, and they were getting along well.
And the man she loved treated her like a prize cow.
Josh came over on the evenings Mary worked. But his manner had become that of a friend, rather than a lover. He’d filled the nursery up with presents for the baby, who clearly was going to be the most spoiled child on earth. He was attentive and concerned about her pregnancy. But there was a certain distance between them now. He certainly hadn’t rubbed her feet in ages.
She couldn’t put her finger on it, because they still talked and laughed. But their times together lacked a certain intimacy that she craved.
She remembered when things had changed. It was after Mary’s brush with the law. After that frightening incident, their two families had started seeing each other more often. The kids got along fine now; Josh’s boys had even done a few chores around her house.
Mary had even made a point of saying she wouldn’t mind if Natalie and Josh got married again.
But ironically, just when Natalie felt that most of the barriers between them had been breached, Josh seemed as if he was no longer interested.
She looked down at her enormous belly, which looked as if it was growing before her eyes. No wonder he wasn’t interested! Would that change once she had the baby?
In her heart of hearts she knew her pregnancy wasn’t the reason for Josh’s cordial distance. Something else was going on. Had he met someone? Surely women threw themselves at him all the time. No one would blame him if he found one he liked. He wasn’t tied down. He could enjoy his freedom.
But the Josh she remembered had liked being tied down. He’d eagerly anticipated marriage and children even as a teenager. She’d never had to worry about him straying because he liked being at home, working around the house or doing things with her.
Perhaps he’d learned to appreciate being single.
Natalie didn’t bother with the ornaments at the top of the tree, which would require too much stretching. But she at least made a start on the ones she could easily reach.
She paused when she removed one particular decoration. It was a delicate angel made of spun crystal. Josh had given it to her for their first Christmas tree, when they’d had hardly any ornaments. She remembered actually praying to the angel to help her get pregnant.
After the divorce she’d kept it, but she hadn’t displayed it on a tree again until this year. She’d thought it was appropriate, since the angel had answered her prayers. Finally.
“You must be the slowest angel in heaven,” she murmured, carefully wrapping the piece in tissue. She’d secretly been hoping Josh would notice the angel and remember, but he hadn’t.
Her back started to ache after she’d only worked on the tree a few minutes, so she abandoned the project and sought her easy chair.
That was where Josh found her a few minutes later, almost dozing.
“I was on my way home and saw that Mom’s car is gone. I thought I’d check on you.”
“I’m fine,” she said, knowing she should appreciate his concern but resenting it instead. “I was getting a start on the Christmas tree, but it takes so little to tire me out.”
“You shouldn’t have to do this. Wasn’t Mary going to take it down last week?”
“She’s so busy. She does so much already, I can’t fuss at her for procrastinating on this one task. Anyway, I’ve sort of enjoyed having it up.” Every night she sat quietly for a few minutes, with the tree lights as the only illumination in the darkened living room.
“I’ll take it down.”
She didn’t care about the damn tree. She would have preferred for him to sit beside her, put his arm around her and watch the tree lights like they used to when they were married. Instead he was a model of efficiency, methodically removing each decoration and placing it in the appropriate box, properly cushioned.
When the ornaments were all put away, he started on the lights. “We used to always get a live tree, remember?” he said quietly. “We’d go on Christmas Eve and find the scrawniest Charlie Brown tree on the lot.”
“I felt sorry for the trees that didn’t find homes for Christmas,” Natalie said, remembering.
“Why’d you go with an artificial tree?” he asked. When she didn’t answer, he turned. “Nat?”
She couldn’t answer because she was doubled over with pain. She knew this pain. She was in labor. Again. Almost four weeks before her due date.
JOSH BARELY REMEMBERED the drive to the hospital. He knew he’d broken every speed limit and run a couple of red lights, with Natalie screaming at him to slow down before he got them killed.
But he got them to the emergency room entrance in record time. Natalie had used her cell phone to call ahead, so they were greeted by an orderly with a wheelchair.
Natalie was crying. He didn’t know whether it was from pain or fear, but it tore at him. She was so strong. The pregnancy had caused her to get weepy a lot, but it took a lot to make her really cry.
She gripped his hand as he trotted alongside her wheelchair. “It’s too early,” she said. “Why can’t she be a little more patient? I never should have messed with the Christmas tree.”
“It’s not your fault,” he said emphatically. “You weren’t running a marathon. Our girl is just in a hurry to meet us.”
That was all the talking they got to do, because the medical staff whisked Natalie into an examining room, where she was immediately hooked up to IV drips and mysterious machines. He hated seeing her so scared, so helpless, but his reassurances sounded empty.
A doctor who didn’t look old enough to shave came into the room and introduced himself. He looked almost as nervous as Josh felt. “I’m going to see what’s going on with you, Ms. Briggs.”
“Josh,” Natalie said suddenly. “Can you call Mary? Oh, and Melissa and Lisa? I think the baby’s coming.”
“Maybe not,” the doctor said. “We won’t know until I—”
“I know,” Natalie said. “Josh?”
He didn’t want to leave the exam room, but neither did he want her to give birth without her support group around her.
“I’ll do it right now.” He stepped out to find a place where it was safe to use cell phones and ended up going all the way outside.
“It’s too early!” Mary screeched over the phone, sounding eerily like her mother.
He did his best to reassure her, and cautioned her to drive carefully on the way to the hospital, that everything was okay for now and the baby probably wouldn’t be born for a few hours. He also called his kids, Nat’s sister, Lisa, and matchmaker Melissa, who also screeched in his ear and said she was dropping everything and not to let Natalie have the baby until she got there.
As soon as the phone calls were done he rushed back to the exam room—only to find it empty.
A nurse came up behind him and touched his arm.
“Mr. Carlson?”
“Did you stop the labor?” he asked, his voice ragged.
“Your wife’s water broke right after you left. I’m afraid we can’t arrest the labor now. You’re definitely about to be a daddy.”
How could she be so cheerful? The baby was four weeks early! “Natalie’s not my—” he started to say but then didn’t. In his heart, she was still his wife.
“They’ve taken her to obstetrics. Don’t worry, she won’t have the baby without you.”
She better not, he thought as he strode down the corridor toward the elevators. More than anything he wanted to witness his and Natalie’s child being born.
On the other hand, he was terrified by what might happen. He never should have watched those DVDs. What if something happened to the baby? Or to Natalie? Could he survive it?
He loved her so much, loved their child more than his own life. Yet he hadn’t told her. He’d kept it all inside, believing it was in Natalie’s best interest.
But, dammit, he was doing it again. Even when he tried not to run Natalie’s life, he was doing it. He should have just told her how he felt and what he wanted and let her decide. He hadn’t been holding back for Natalie’s sake; he’d been a coward. He’d been afraid she would reject him again. She’d been the one to initiate their divorce, saying they weren’t right for each other.
What if she still felt that way?
He’d been too proud, then, to beg for another chance. Well, he wasn’t proud anymore. He could take the rejection, he decided, if that was what it took to learn the truth. But he had to tell her what was in his heart.
He found Natalie in a small birthing room that was decorated in soothing pastels. Still hooked up to all the hardware, she now wore a hospital gown with pink and blue teddy bears on it. And she was still crying.
“Oh, Josh.”
“Everything’s going to be fine,” he said, praying somehow it would be. He would make everything right, he always did. But this was one situation that he had no control over. His money, his position, his personal persuasiveness meant nothing to the child that was about to be born. His daughter was already rebelling against him.
“I wish I didn’t know so much about premature babies,” Natalie said through her tears. “I wish I was blissfully ignorant of the details. What if she can’t breathe on her own? What if she can’t digest her food? What if—”
“Whatever happens, she’ll have the best care available, and the most loving of parents. Weren’t you the one telling me how great the neonatalogists are at this hospital? If anything can be done, it will be.”
He was at least as terrified as Natalie, but he assumed total confidence for her sake. He’d watched the DVDs, so he could spout statistics. “She’s at thirty-five weeks, right? And you told me her weight was up over five pounds at your last checkup. Lots of full-term babies are about that weight. She’ll be fine.”
Natalie didn’t respond because another contraction wracked her body. “This is awful,” she said when it was over. “Why didn’t someone warn me? Can’t they give me my epidural now?”
“Try to relax, honey.” It had to be a good sign that she’d started to focus on her own pain instead of fretting about possible but unlikely horrors their premature daughter might face.
“Relax?” she shrieked. “Easy for you to say. Especially since this is your fault. You did this to me.”
He’d always imagined Natalie would be stoic when she delivered a baby, that she would be so happy about her impending motherhood that the pain would hardly register.
Guess not.
Her obnoxiously handsome obstetrician chose that moment to appear with a big grin. “Natalie. How are you feeling?”
“Dr. Wheatland, she’s too early,” Natalie said frantically, new tears forming.
“A little earlier than I would have liked,” the doctor agreed cheerfully. “But nothing to panic about. Everything looks good so far.”
Josh sat next to Natalie’s bed and held her hand as the doctor examined her. When he was finished, he grinned like a jackass. “Your daughter is impatient.”
“We know that,” Josh groused.
Things happened quickly after that. An incubator was brought in and the neonatal team stood by, ready to take charge of the infant when she was born.
Josh hardly had time to prepare himself. There wasn’t even time for the long-anticipated epidural. Before the nurses could even get Natalie properly draped, Baby Girl Briggs made her debut. Naturally, since her conception had been miraculous, her birth couldn’t be less than spectacular.
Natalie didn’t weep for joy the way the moms on the DVDs did. She was listening for a cry, just as Josh was. When it finally came, thready at first, then more robust, Natalie burst out laughing. “Let me see!”
A nurse brought the incredibly small baby closer so they could both have a look. She was pink and wiggly, which had to be good. But before Josh could drink his fill of the sight of her, she was whisked away to the neonatal ICU.
“It’s standard procedure,” Natalie said to Josh. “They’ll check her over down to her eyelashes.”
“I already counted the toes and fingers.” Josh’s voice broke and his vision blurred a bit. He’d cried the first time he’d seen Sean and Doug, too. “She looks beautiful. Perfect.” He had a daughter. Jennifer Lynn. That was the name they’d decided on.
Natalie’s smile was beatific. “I finally did it, huh?”
“You’re fantastic. I love you so much.” He took her hand. “Please, Natalie, will you marry me again?” He hadn’t meant to propose marriage in front of several strangers, with bright lights glaring down on them. But he couldn’t think of a more romantic moment than having just witnessed a new life coming into the world—a life that was part of both of them.
She gave him a rather dazed look. “What the hell took you so long?”
A couple of the nurses applauded. “Nice job, Dad. Who needs candlelight, wine and roses?”
Natalie hadn’t said yes, and she hadn’t told him she loved him back, but he knew she was going to say yes by the way she looked up at him. There would be lots of time, now, for candlelight, wine, roses and I-love-yous.
Maybe he’d finally done something right.
LESS THAN AN HOUR after giving birth, Natalie sat in a wheelchair and was allowed to hold her baby for the first time. Their daughter was healthy and well-developed, breathing on her own and cranky as all get-out. The pediatrician wanted to keep her in the neonatal ICU for a while as a precaution, but her prognosis was extremely good.
Josh, Mary, Sean and Doug stood outside the nursery, their noses pressed to the glass, all of them wearing dopey grins that matched the one sure to be on Natalie’s face. She was a new mother, and she was getting married to the man she loved.
His timing was awful, and she was going to make him propose to her properly, but in the end she would say yes.
She caught a movement out of the corner of her eye and looked back up at the window. Melissa was there, bouncing crazily and waving like a maniac. Beatrice and Derek were there, too. It was just the way she’d always dreamed it would be.
She stroked the baby’s downy head. “You truly are a miracle, Jenny Briggs, you know that?” she whispered. But more than one miracle had happened today. Josh had finally found a way to tell her what was in his heart. He did love her. He’d been afraid to try again, that was all. Afraid to risk hurting again.
But that was all part of life, and a lesson they’d all learned over the past months. Sometimes you had to come out of your comfort zone—or get dragged out—to discover who you really were. You couldn’t let fear of the unknown, or fear of being disappointed, stop you from living life the best way you could.
She knew it wouldn’t all be smooth sailing. Blending the Carlsons and Briggses under one roof would be challenging. Josh would still be bossy—that would never change. But her little daughter would grow up with two loving parents, three protective siblings and a couple of doting grandparents. Their house would be filled with love.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-1165-4
GOOD HUSBAND MATERIAL
Copyright © 2008 by Karen Leabo.
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario M3B 3K9, Canada.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.