The Unexpected Wedding Gift Read online

  “I’ll never be able to sleep,” she howled.

  “Yes, you will. Here, blow.” He pinched the end of her nose lightly with a fresh tissue. “That’s better. Now go take a nice long bath while I fix us a drink, then come to bed with me.”

  He steered her down the hall to the room she’d occupied since the day they’d moved into the house. During the half hour she spent in the tub, he made good use of the time at his disposal. When she showed up at his door again, all shining and smelling of flowers, he’d changed the sheets, turned the lamps down low, taken a shower and was waiting with a glass of hot milk for her and a snifter of brandy for himself.

  “Personally,” he said, hauling her into bed beside him and passing over the glass, “I’d rather drink antifreeze, but I believe hot milk’s the preferred remedy for helping a person relax, especially if it’s spiked with a shot of brandy.”

  What with her dark hair spread out on the pillows piled up behind her, and her demure cotton nightshirt that left her arms and neck bare but covered up everything else, she looked about fourteen years old. The thought didn’t exactly give Ben comfort. The difference in their ages had always troubled him, but never more so than in the last few days.

  Sure, she had a certain sophistication about her. Given her upbringing, it followed that she would. But her life had been sheltered, too, and he’d known that to expect that she’d simply take in her stride the bombshell that had landed in her lap on their wedding day, was absurd. He’d believed, though, that in time, she’d come to accept his son, and all indications were that he’d been right. But now another, potentially more damaging problem had surfaced and that, he feared, wasn’t going to be so easily resolved.

  Beside him, she slumped over her hot milk, then snapped her head up again with a start. “I think you’re just about gone,” he said, removing the half-empty glass from her hand.

  “I think you’re right,” she said. “The brandy cocktail did the trick.”

  She sighed sleepily, then slithered down under the covers, snuggled up next to him and slung her arm across his hips. Without being too obvious about it, he moved her hand out of the danger zone. He didn’t relish making love to an unconscious woman but nor was he made of stone, and the memory of how she’d felt, all silky and tight around him when they made love, was enough all by itself to get him revved up again. He could do without her accidentally touching him in his most susceptible area and adding dynamite to the mix. Sex, though undeniably enjoyable, wasn’t the answer to the problems facing them.

  Her breathing slowed and became more regular. He turned off the lamp and leaned against the headboard in the dark, sipping his brandy and trying to figure out how they were going to avoid the pitfalls that lay ahead. He’d more or less fobbed her off with a sugar-coated version of the truth, but there was no use in trying to fool himself. Even a successful bid for custody wasn’t going to make Marian disappear in a puff of smoke.

  She was the baby’s mother and that made her as much a fact of the future as she was of the past and the present. He wished it weren’t so, but wishing didn’t change a damn thing.

  The next afternoon, Felicity stopped by. “I won’t come in,” she said, when he opened the door, “I just wanted to drop off some of the wedding gifts. I thought you could both use a change of pace from what you’ve been dealing with lately, and opening presents is always fun, as long as you don’t end up with fourteen different electric mixers.”

  “You’re coming in,” he said, ushering her firmly over the threshold. “Do you really think we’d let you drive all the way out here and not at least offer you something to drink?”

  “Well…” She dropped him a sly wink. “I have to admit I wouldn’t mind taking a peek at that sweet baby of yours, just for a minute.”

  “That sweet baby, Felicity, has kept us up all night, every night, for the last week!”

  “They’re inclined to do that,” she said placidly. “And if they’re not keeping you up with their fussing, you’re lying there wide awake anyway, wondering if they’re still breathing. It’s the nature of the little beasts, Ben, but we love them regardless. How’s my granddaughter doing, by the way?”

  She was too wise to be fooled by half truths. “It’s touch and go,” he admitted in a low voice. “Frankly, I thank God for each day that I get up and find her still here.”

  “Having a new baby in the house is a strain even under the best of circumstances, you know. Her father howled for the entire first three months of his life. I remember being ready to throw him out of the window on occasion.” She gave another droll wink. “I’d have thrown myself out as well, except we lived in a rancher and it wouldn’t have done me any good!”

  It had been so long since he laughed that the muscles in his face ached. “Don’t say things like that in front of Julia. You might give her ideas!”

  “She’s not bonding with the baby?”

  “He’s not the problem so much as the baggage he comes with. She and I need to sit down and talk quietly, without distraction. But trying to do that around here is damn near impossible.”

  Felicity eyed him thoughtfully. “When was the last time the two of you had time alone together?”

  The question caught him off guard. “Come to think of it,” he said, scratching his head, “I can’t remember.”

  “Then I’m very glad I invited myself over,” she said briskly. “Tell your bride you’re taking her out for dinner tonight, Ben. I’ll stay here and hold down the fort while you’re gone.”

  “I can’t ask you to do that. You don’t know what you’ll be taking on.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Dear boy, have you forgotten the daughter-in-law I’m saddled with? Compared to Stephanie, your little son will be a piece of cake, even for an old bird like me! Now take me to my granddaughter. I want her to give me a tour of this lovely home you’ve given her.”

  He had to turn away before he made a fool of himself. Damn it, she just about had him in tears with her warmth. He hadn’t felt so completely accepted or approved of in years, not since he was a kid of eight or nine. “If she divorces me,” he said thickly, “will you still be my friend?”

  “She will divorce you,” Felicity said sternly, “over my dead body. And since only the good are supposed to die young, I’ll be around for a good many years yet. As for being your friend, it goes without saying and I’m surprised you’d even have to ask. You are part of my family, Ben, and I love you.”

  He choked and tried to cover it up with a cough. “The two don’t always follow.”

  “I know that better than most, my dear. But in your case, they are inseparable.”

  He managed to get them a table on the rooftop terrace of a new French restaurant on the beachfront. What with the potted palm trees and clay planters stuffed to overflowing with brightly colored flowers, and the brilliant blue of sea and sky, they might have been dining on the Riviera.

  “Well?” He smiled at Julia. She’d put her hair up and had on a pale blue summer suit with pearl buttons. She looked stunning, the way a week-old bride should. Almost. Her answering smile was a little too tentative, her eyes not quite as clear and untroubled as he’d have liked.

  “It’s lovely,” she said, looking around.

  “So are you, sweetheart,” he replied, and wished he could guarantee she’d still be blushing with pleasure at the evening’s end.

  He fed her smoked breast of duck, poached pear salad and fat prawns in Pernod, all washed down with champagne. By the time the crême brulée she ordered for dessert arrived, she’d relaxed enough to let her guard down—not something she’d allowed to happen too often in the days since the wedding.

  He waited until then before approaching the one topic of conversation he’d been putting on hold all day. Sneaky, no doubt, by most people’s standards, but to his way of thinking, extraordinary difficulties called for extraordinary solutions.

  Reaching for her hand, he stroked his thumb over the bright new gold of her wedding
ring and searched for a casually diplomatic lead-in. “You’re going to be a wonderful mother, honey. Marian’s lucky you were there to take over when she decided she wasn’t up for the job. And speaking of Marian—”

  In a flash, the wariness was back in her eyes. Her hand, which had lain warm and pliant beneath his, turned rigid as stone. “I didn’t know we were,” she said. “In fact, I can’t imagine why you’d even bring her into the conversation, particularly since you were so insistent that we have this time all to ourselves.”

  Well, so much for biding his time and mincing his words! He might just as well have stated his case baldly at breakfast and shot the entire day to hell!

  Too much of what he was thinking must have shown on his face. Zeroing in on it, Julia’s gaze narrowed. “Or was softening Julia up with wine so that she’d be more amenable to your agenda what tonight was all about to begin with?”

  He swallowed and looked away. There was too much truth in her allegation for him to bring himself to refute it, and she recognized that, too.

  “Well!” She flung down her napkin and snatched up her purse. “Here’s a news flash, Ben. It’ll take a lot more than a few swigs of champagne to make me toe this particular party line. Your son is one thing. Your ex-lover is another. I will not tolerate sharing my marriage with her. So make up your mind who you want and do it fast before I find myself in any deeper than I already am.”

  “Meaning what?” he said, grabbing her hand to keep her from walking out on him.

  Her eyes glowed like coals in the flickering light of the hurricane lamp on the table. “Meaning I’m not about to invest any more of myself in you or your baby until I know for sure I’m not going to wind up empty-handed. You’ve taken enough away from me—my trust, the kind of future I thought we faced, the sort of happiness I thought we were guaranteed when you asked me to marry you. I’m not going to wait until you break my heart over that little boy before I cut my losses. So have a drink on that, Ben Carreras, and damn well let go of my hand before I make a scene you won’t soon forget!”

  He didn’t have much choice, at least on the latter. With a flick of her wrist, she wrenched herself free and left him alone to face an audience of other diners enthralled by the impromptu entertainment of seeing a guy dumped by his date for the evening.

  “Cheers!” he said, lifting his glass in scornful response. “Here’s looking up your old address, folks!”

  She walked home, taking the nearly deserted brick-paved sea walk, then following the curve of the beach so that there was no chance he’d pull up beside her in the car and demand that she ride with him. She’d sooner have flown on a broomstick, which he no doubt was beginning to think was where she belonged.

  But right at that moment, she didn’t care what he thought. Right at that moment, she hated him, and she couldn’t understand why admitting it made her start crying all over again.

  A middle-aged couple out for a late stroll under the stars passed her and seeing her distress, stopped. “Do you need help?” the woman asked.

  Such kindly concern from a stranger who owed her nothing completely undid Julia. Overcome, she shook her head and hurried on.

  Her grandmother stood at the open front door when she arrived home. “Heavenly nights, Julia, here you are at last!”

  By then thoroughly composed again, she said, “I gather that Ben’s already here and has told you what a wonderful evening we had.”

  “He’s been and gone again, child,” Felicity said.

  “Gone?” she echoed blankly, feeling as if her legs were about to fold under her. How was it that one man could put a woman through such a maelstrom of emotion? How was it possible to hate him one moment and be terrified that she’d lost him, the next?

  “He took the baby to the hospital.”

  “Hospital?”

  Felicity clicked her tongue impatiently. “Is there something amiss with your hearing, Julia, that you find it necessary to repeat everything I say as if you’re not sure you understood me correctly? Ben has taken the baby to the Peace Arch Hospital. The child is very ill. His father is extremely upset and worried. So am I, and I would be with both of them now, but you chose to go missing. So I stayed here instead, because your husband was concerned about where you’d got to and he didn’t want you coming home to an empty house. Personally, I think that man has enough on his plate, without having to sweat over the fact that his wife’s disappeared yet again, but I suspect my opinion carries little weight with you these days.”

  “If you’re determined to lay blame,” Julia replied, stung, “blame Ben! He’s the one at fault this time, not me.”

  Her grandmother didn’t reply to that, but the glance she turned on her was so loaded with disappointment that Julia hardly knew where to look. “I suppose you think that’s hardly important right now,” she muttered.

  “Do you think it is, my angel?”

  “No,” she said, feeling about ten years old again. “The baby’s health is all that matters. Will you…come with me to the hospital, Amma?”

  “No,” Felicity said. “As long as he has you by his side, Ben doesn’t need me. But if you don’t mind, I’d like to stay here until the morning. Not only do I want to hear how my great-grandson’s doing as soon as possible, but my night vision isn’t what it used to be and I don’t feel comfortable driving in the dark. I won’t put you out at all. I’ll be perfectly comfortable on the couch.”

  Stricken, Julia saw the toll the evening had taken on her grandmother’s energy. Fatigue and worry had her looking every one of her seventy-nine years. “You’ll do no such thing!” she exclaimed, steering her toward the staircase. “Take the guest room at the end of the hall—the one overlooking the back garden. The bed’s already made up and you’ll find everything you need in the bathroom.”

  Ben’s car was in the parking area outside the hospital when she arrived, but he was nowhere to be found in the emergency room. “The Carreras baby?” the nurse said, when Julia inquired. “Oh, he had to be shipped to Children’s in Vancouver.”

  “For colic?” Julia’s breath snagged with sudden fear. “Why couldn’t he be looked after here?”

  “Unless you’re the mother, I’m afraid I can’t give you any more information, ma’am.”

  Was she the mother? It was the question she’d put off facing until another day, until a time when the stressful emotional baggage that had cluttered her marriage to date had been dealt with. Except, suddenly, today was now, and there was no more procrastinating.

  “Not exactly,” she said. “But he’s my husband’s son and I’m… I’m his stepmother.”

  Stepmother! Julia’s voice broke on the word. What a cold, unfeeling image to attach to such a tiny, helpless baby!

  “I think that qualifies.” The nurse reached for a folder on the desk. “His little tummy was very distended and our medical team suspect he might need surgery. They weren’t about to take a chance on it—we don’t have the facilities here—so they flew him to Children’s.”

  “Flew him?”

  “By helicopter. His father went with him. They left about half an hour ago.”

  “But to fly him, when it takes less than an hour to drive! Is it so serious?”

  The nurse regarded her sympathetically. “He’s very young, Mrs. Carreras. We can’t afford to adopt a wait-and-see approach with babies his age. To do so could be life-threatening.”

  “Oh, God!” She clapped a hand to her mouth to stifle the sudden sob that erupted. Not all the tears she’d shed over the last week amounted to a drop in the ocean of despair and dismay that overwhelmed her then.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Carreras, I didn’t mean to frighten you. All I’m trying to point out is that if surgery is necessary, he’ll receive the best possible care at Children’s, so try not to worry.” The nurse came around the desk and put an arm around Julia’s shoulders. “I’m a mother myself, and that’s easy advice to dispense and just about impossible to follow, I know.”

  “I ha
ve to go to him,” Julia whispered, the horror of the whole business washing over her afresh. What was it about her and Ben that their every step forward was followed by two steps back? And why did a baby have to be caught up in the middle of all the ugliness?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  SHE found him in the waiting room on the surgical floor at Children’s Hospital. He sat at one end of a couch, head bowed, hands hanging loosely between his knees and such an air of despair about him that her own heart failed.

  “Ben?” She touched him on the shoulder. “Is there any news?”

  “No.”

  “Did they say how long…?”

  “No.”

  “When did they take him in?”

  “An hour ago—forty minutes.” He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I wasn’t watching the clock.”

  “Do they know what’s wrong?”

  “They’ve got a pretty good idea.”

  “And they can fix it?” She ached to take him in her arms but he’d so thoroughly isolated himself in his own private world of misery that she dared not. Instead, she sat beside him on the couch and begged, “Talk to me, Ben, please. Don’t shut me out.”

  He lifted his head long enough to fix her in a long stare. His blue eyes, so startling in contrast to his dark, Spanish-American beauty, illuminated his face with a cool, clear light that had always seemed able to look past all the external nonsense to the real heart of any matter.

  They dissected her now with unforgiving candor and a weariness that had nothing to do with fatigue. “Sorry, Julia, but I’m about talked out and I’m sure as hell not up to going another round with you. So do us both a favor and go home.”

  “No,” she said, covering his hand with hers as if that would stop him from slipping out of reach forever. “If I didn’t know it before, I learned tonight that walking away doesn’t help anything. He’s my baby, too, Ben. Not legally, perhaps, but in every way that really counts, and you’re my husband. I belong here with you and with him, and whether you like it or not, I’m staying.”