The Pregnant Bride Read online

  This is wrong! her ever-vigilant conscience warned. But the louder voice of passion overrode it. With a soft moan of defeat, she collapsed onto a nearby chair.

  He dropped to his knees, lifted her bare foot, kissed her instep, her ankle, her calf. He raised her nightgown and blew a stream of cool air over her thighs and they, poor feckless things, fell slackly apart and willingly betrayed her.

  Biting her lips to keep from crying out loud, she knotted her fingers in his hair and swayed toward him, all kinds of absurd, unguarded words—I love you! I need you!—clamoring to be heard.

  But another voice spoke first. A child’s sweet treble fogged with sleep and asking uncertainly, “Why are you doing that to my daddy? Does he have tangles in his hair, too?”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  OF COURSE, they both damn near jumped out of their skins. In fact, Jenna was in such a hurry to distance herself from him that she came close to maiming him in his most tender parts.

  Flinging on the robe lying over the foot of her bed, she rushed to pick up Molly. “No, darling,” she crooned, hiding the kid’s face in her neck as if the sight she’d wandered in on might scar her for life. “We were just…just…”

  “Just wrestling,” he said lightly, aiming to defuse the tension of the moment with a little levity.

  The expression on Jenna’s face was enough to stop a clock. She was obviously furious—as much with herself as with him. “Don’t make matters worse!” she hissed.

  “Don’t you overreact!”

  She seared him with a glance. “So much for her never waking up once she’s been put to bed! A fat lot you know!”

  “She’s already asleep again, sweet pea,” he said mildly. “You’re getting stewed up over nothing. I’ll bet you dollars to donuts she won’t remember a thing about all this in the morning.”

  He should have left out the “sweet pea.” In fact, he should have kept his mouth shut altogether and she wasted no time telling him so. “Be quiet, you…insensitive clod!”

  “Hey, pardon me for finding you desirable!” he said. “And not to put too fine a point on it, but I didn’t seem to strike you as too repulsive, either.”

  She turned away, but not before he saw the blush staining her face. “I’m putting this child to bed, and I want you out of my room by the time I’m done.”

  “Give her to me. I’ll save you the trouble,” he said, becoming annoyed himself.

  “I can manage,” she said snottily. “Thank you.”

  “She’s too heavy for you to be lugging her around in your condition. And she is my daughter.”

  Ah, jeez! Why did he have to go and say a thing like that? She looked crushed. Devastated. And small wonder. “Hey,” he said, touching her arm. “Jenna, I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I’m the one who’s sorry for overstepping my bounds. Here, take her.”

  He lifted his sleeping daughter out of her arms. “I’ll be back and we’ll sort this out,” he said. “Just give me a minute to tuck her in.”

  In fact, it probably took him no more than thirty seconds. Molly was out cold and didn’t even move when he laid her in the bed. But thirty seconds was long enough for Jenna to have closed the door between their rooms and he’d have bet money that she’d locked it, too.

  They started back to Vancouver midway through the afternoon the next day. Jenna had opted out of going with him when he took Molly home after lunch, but she’d been really sweet with her that morning, producing a bunch of little goodies that she’d got stashed in her bag and generally going out of her way to give Molly a good time.

  It had paid off, too. In no time flat, Molly was hanging on to her like a limpet and he might as well not have been there, for all the attention she paid to him. She asked no pointed questions about last night’s incident and as he’d expected, clearly didn’t remember a thing.

  Jenna was a different matter. Though warm and affectionate with his daughter, her refusal to look him in the eye, coupled with her general touch-me-not attitude, made it plain that their relationship had fallen off the stove and into the deep freeze.

  He wasn’t about to put up with that. “So,” he began, once they’d cleared town and were headed back to the coast, “how long are you going to keep this up?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You heard me, Jenna, and you know damn well what I’m talking about, so spare me the long-suffering po-face and air what’s on your mind. I had enough of the silent treatment when I was married to Adrienne. I don’t need another round of the same thing from you. If you’re still ticked off about last night, say so.”

  “I’m embarrassed about last night,” she said. “And ashamed, too, if you must know. I never thought of myself as the kind of person who’d behave so irresponsibly in front of a child.”

  “Jenna,” he said on a sigh, “it was unfortunate that Molly happened to walk in on us when she did, but we weren’t doing anything wrong.”

  “Oh, please! How can you say that?”

  “Admittedly, we got carried away and that was mostly my fault. But cripes, it wasn’t as if we’d been caught doing it!”

  She gave a strangled laugh. “Another five minutes and we would have been!”

  “So? Face it, Jenna—little kids Molly’s age walk in on their parents all the time. Do you plan to put a lock on the bedroom door once we’re married, in case we get caught playing leapfrog?”

  “For a start, I’m not her parent, I’m a complete stranger. And second, we’re not married. And third, how you can joke about this is beyond me!”

  “I’m trying to put the whole thing in perspective, something you seem unable to do. Look at the big picture—the weekend was a smashing success. You were worried that Adrienne might disapprove of you, that Molly might not accept you, and you came through both tests with flying colors. Shouldn’t that count for more than a ten-second episode that only you and I remember?”

  “I think we’re trying too hard to cram into a few days something which takes months to achieve. Molly might have had fun with me today, but she doesn’t know me and she has no reason to trust me. I’m not the one she’ll run to if she skins her knees or the one she wants tucking her into bed at night, and I don’t think she’s ready to accept us as a couple.”

  “I don’t like where all this talk is leading,” he said, suspicions on high alert. “What’s the bottom line here, Jenna?”

  “I think we’re putting too much pressure on her—on all of us. In my opinion, we should postpone getting married.”

  He’d been afraid of that. “No!”

  “We’re rushing things too much, Edmund.”

  “You should have thought of that before you begged me to make love to you at The Inn.”

  “I was distraught then.”

  “And you’re pregnant now, or have you forgotten that?”

  “I do believe I almost had,” she said, sounding surprised. “It got pushed to the back of my mind with everything else that’s happened.”

  “Then I suggest you bring it back to center stage. Molly is one of two compelling reasons we decided on marriage in the first place, and that infant you’re carrying is the other. Postponing our plans won’t benefit either of them.” He shot her a sideways glance. “Or does the reason you’re getting cold feet have to do with Molly? Have you changed your mind about taking on a stepdaughter?”

  “No!” she exclaimed, doing a number on her ring. “She’s a beautiful child and I don’t see how anyone could fail to love her. But I admit I’m not altogether comfortable with the idea of your going after custody. Your concerns all sounded very valid when you first told me about them, but now that I’ve met Adrienne, I can’t help wondering if you’re not going to extreme measures over—”

  “You want to talk about extreme?” he snapped, livid suddenly. “How about extreme negligence? You saw Molly’s legs—and let me tell you, they’re a hundred percent improved over the way they were a month ago. You saw how her gait is still affected from h
er pelvic injury. You saw her being allowed to go back to the very place where she nearly got killed. And when I objected, you heard her mother dismiss me as being overprotective.”

  “Oh, Edmund,” she said, with more warmth than she’d shown all day, “I do understand how worried you are. I know how close you came to losing your little daughter.”

  “Then you ought to be able to understand why I’m not waiting until another accident happens before I take steps to ensure her safety.”

  “But Adrienne struck me as a sensible, caring woman.”

  “You figure you know her better than I do, after no more than ten minutes’ conversation with her?”

  “I don’t think she’d deliberately expose Molly to danger.”

  “It happened once and I don’t see any steps being taken to prevent it from happening again. You can afford to take the high road, Jenna, because Molly isn’t your child and you didn’t see the shape she was in, the day of the accident. But I did and I can tell you this—if it had been your baby whose life was on the line, and you were left to pace the floor wondering if he was going to make it, you wouldn’t be so full of optimistic charity and no measure to protect him would strike you as too extreme.”

  She held both hands flat against her belly protectively. “No,” she said, ashen-faced. “I don’t imagine it would.”

  “Then please, don’t even think about backing out of our arrangement. Not if you really care about the welfare of our children.”

  He couldn’t have hit a more sensitive nerve if he’d tried. “Well, of course I care,” she said soberly. “The children must always come first. Don’t ever doubt that.”

  “Okay then. So let’s not hear any more talk about postponing the wedding.”

  They were married the following Saturday. Jenna wore the dress she’d bought when she and Irene went shopping, a printed polished cotton affair with a portrait collar and dropped waist which disguised the slight thickening around her middle. Edmund wore a navy blazer and gray trousers.

  She walked into the courthouse at noon as Ms. Jenna Sinclair, and walked out again fifteen minutes later as Mrs. Edmund Delaney. The ceremony, witnessed by Irene and Jim Harte, a friend of Edmund’s, took all of ten minutes.

  Afterward, the four of them went out for lunch in the park. Edmund ordered sparkling apple juice for her and champagne for everyone else. Jim proposed a toast; Irene proposed another. And Jenna behaved the way a bride was supposed to behave, smiling at all the right times and saying all the right things.

  But inside, she felt numb, bewildered; a woman caught up in a situation moving at such lightning speed that she’d lost control of it. The week had raced by, one day after the next so filled with appointments that she’d once again been forced to take time off from work. There were rugs to buy for the house; window coverings, new appliances, linens and furniture to be ordered; work crews to instruct, landscape architects to consult.

  If she was overwhelmed, though, Edmund was very much on top of things. He’d gone with her for her prenatal checkup on the Monday. “Why not?” he’d reasoned. “These days, fathers don’t wait until the baby’s born to get involved and with this one I intend to be a hands-on parent from the start.”

  On Wednesday, he insisted on buying her a new car.

  “I don’t need a new car,” she told him. “I like the one I’ve got.”

  He’d dismissed that argument with a flick of his hand. “It’s a two-seater and you’ve already told me it keeps breaking down. You need a more dependable family-oriented vehicle.”

  “Edmund, the baby’s not due for another five and a half months!”

  “But Molly’s already here, and too young to ride in the front seat.”

  True. But there were a dozen more pressing issues to deal with just then, and how often would she be driving Molly anywhere in the next little while?

  On the Thursday, he sent two of his employees over with a truck to pack up and move to the new house those possessions she was keeping.

  “It’ll feel more like home if you’ve got some of your own things around you,” he said, when she suggested waiting until things calmed down a bit before worrying about closing up her apartment. “Your happiness—and our children’s well-being, of course, are what matter most to me.”

  When she tried to tell him she didn’t need him to organize her every waking moment, that she was used to looking after herself and was more than capable of choosing a length of drapery fabric or a new car without his supervision, he’d put his arms around her and say, “You’re pregnant, sweet pea. You can’t run around doing everything the same as usual. You need more rest and that’s where I come in. We’re a couple now, and it’s my job to look after you.”

  How could she tell him that by the very act of rushing everything along at such a pace, he was defeating his stated purpose? She had never felt more harried, or more exhausted.

  “Don’t take on too much,” her doctor warned her.

  But the days weren’t long enough to get everything done.

  Just when she’d had enough of being chivied around and was ready to put her foot down, though, he’d arranged a quiet evening for just the two of them and made stunning, exquisite love to her that smoothed away all her abrasive edges and left her so molten with hunger for him that she could hardly wait to be his wife and lie beside him every night.

  Still, it seemed unnatural that she hadn’t yet met her husband’s family, or that Molly hadn’t been told her daddy was remarrying. It lent a sneakiness to the wedding day that Jenna found disturbing, and made their marriage seem less the sensible arrangement they’d intended than a trap set to take the unwary off guard.

  “How are we going to let everyone know about us?” she asked him, after they’d said their goodbyes to Irene and Jim, and were driving to their new home.

  “We’ll have a party tomorrow night and announce the news then.”

  Assuming he was joking, she said, “Edmund, I hate to have to break it to you, but I can’t possibly organize a party in twenty-four hours.”

  “You don’t have to, sweet pea,” he said, pinning on his most dazzling smile. “It’s already been taken care of.”

  “Taken care of how?”

  He shrugged. “The usual thing. Caterers, bartenders, flowers.”

  “And what about guests, or are we the only ones who’ll show up?” she said, still only half-believing him. “People need advance notice, you know.”

  “And they got it. Your folks, mine, friends, business acquaintances—they’ll be there with bells on. I took the liberty of sending out invitations earlier this week. I thought you deserved something a bit more memorable and lavish to mark your wedding day than lunch for four in a crowded restaurant.”

  “You’re serious!” she said, too stunned to be angry.

  “You bet!”

  She swallowed. “Did it never occur to you that I might like to be consulted before you went ahead with this?”

  “Honey,” he said, all injured innocence and sweet male reason, “I didn’t want you being run off your feet any more than you already have been. I figured you’d be as eager as I am to spread the word that we’re married and it seemed to me that getting everyone together in one place and breaking the news that way was the most efficient route to go.”

  “Efficient?” she said, indignation finally outstripping astonishment. “How about overbearing? I assumed marrying you meant I’d be mistress of my own house, but I’m beginning to feel more like a piece of furniture!”

  He covered her knee with his hand and favored her with what he no doubt considered a sultry gaze. “Some piece of furniture!” he growled.

  “Exactly what did the invitations say?” she demanded, slapping his hand away. “That Edmund Delaney would be putting his new house and wife on display?”

  “You do me an injustice, Jenna,” he said mournfully. “They were simple, straightforward invitations to an open house being held in your honor.”

  And just like
that, he did it again: made her feel like an ungrateful harpy who didn’t have the brains to know when she was well-off!

  Edmund’s parents were the first to arrive but Jenna barely had time to shake their hands before other guests started pouring through the door, which was a pity. They seemed such a nice, unassuming couple that they surely deserved better than to be lumped in with a host of strangers to hear that their son had taken another wife, and she’d have liked the chance to break the news privately.

  But, “Don’t feel you have to keep us company,” his mother said kindly, obviously not having the foggiest idea of what the evening was really all about. “Billy and I will be quite fine by ourselves. Edmund hasn’t thrown a party like this in years—not since his divorce. We’re just so pleased to see he’s taking time for a social life again, and it’s lovely to be included in such an elegant affair.”

  Well, she had a point. Edmund had certainly spared no expense or effort in putting the party together. All Jenna had had to do was spend a leisurely two hours getting dressed and squeezing herself into an outfit which suddenly felt at least two sizes too tight. By the time she was ready, the catering staff had taken over the rest of the house.

  There were flowers and candles throughout the reception rooms, little tables on the patio, lights strung through the trees in the garden. Maids in uniform had prepared trays of hot and cold canapés, white-jacketed bartenders stood guard over magnums of champagne chilling in silver buckets, two valets were stationed outside the front door ready to park cars.

  Edmund had been waiting for her in the front hall, too handsome for his own good in a charcoal suit, white shirt and oyster-gray tie. “Well?” he’d said, tucking her hand under his arm and parading her around to inspect his handiwork. “Will it do?”

  “I can’t fault you on a single detail,” she said, knowing that even if he’d made a complete mess of the whole affair, she’d have forgiven him after the afternoon they’d spent making love. Whatever their differences elsewhere, in bed they were utterly and blissfully compatible. “Everything’s perfect. I couldn’t have done half the job, even if I’d had a week to prepare.”