The Unexpected Wedding Gift Read online

  She picked up the roses she’d cut and lifted them to her face. Closed her eyes and inhaled the fragrance. Brushed one soft velvet petal over her cheek. “Are you asking me for a divorce?”

  In a flash of perception as inexplicable as déjà vu, he saw how she would look pregnant: calm, dreamy almost, and unbearably beautiful.

  But not with your child, buddy! You screwed up too badly before you met her to be the one to father her children. “I think it would be best, yes.”

  He was on the verge of leaving when she finally spoke. “And what,” she said, spilling the roses onto the bench and coming toward him, “if I won’t give you one? What if I were to tell you that I’ve already come to the same realization about Marian and accepted all those points you just mentioned?”

  “They’re easy words to say, Julia, but tough to abide by.”

  “Well, here’s something even tougher. I’ll agree to a divorce if you can look me in the eye and tell me you’re no longer in love with me. And that is the only reason I’m going to walk away from this marriage.”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake, Julia!”

  “Never mind Pete. This isn’t about him, it’s about you and me. So go ahead, Ben. Let me have it. Heaven knows I’ve given you reason enough to decide you can live without me and nobody who knows you is going to think any less of you for cutting your losses before they get any worse.”

  “I can’t say it. You know damned well I can’t.”

  Her smile put the sun in the shade. “Then what are we arguing about?” she purred, rising on her toes to brush her mouth against his.

  That simple gesture ignited his libido faster than a match tossed in a can of gasoline. All the angst and misery that had started more than a week ago and gathered momentum until it reached flash point last night came together in a great wad of emotion that found its outlet in the kind of oblivion only she could offer.

  The smooth, warm silk of her skin beneath his hands, the sweet, feminine pressure of her body against his most susceptible parts, the lure of her lips—what chance had logic to combat their potency? Even the straps of her skimpy little sundress fell under the spell she cast, obligingly slipping down past her shoulders to lay bare her breasts.

  Leading her around the side of the rose arbor farthest from the house, he feasted his eyes on her loveliness, kissed her sun-dappled flesh and let his hands take a lazy detour down her long, supple spine.

  “Ah…!” she sighed, angling her hips ever more intimately against him and almost destroying him. “I love it when you touch me like this. I love you…every part of you…here, and here, and—”

  “Keep this up and we’ll be doing it out here,” he warned her hoarsely. “My stamina’s not what it usually is.”

  “Oh, goodie,” she gurgled, sending his blood pressure soaring to dangerous heights with her wicked explorations of his nether regions.

  “This probably isn’t a good idea, Julia,” he said, in much the same tone of disapproving authority that Dopey likely used when he first discovered Snow White sleeping in his bed. “We both know we can’t turn to sex to escape our problems.”

  “I’m not sure I subscribe to that theory,” she said breathlessly, while her fingers played tag with the snaps of his fly. “In fact,” she went on, sliding cool hands over his backside and leaving him standing there with his pants around his knees, “I think being intimate with the person you love…like this…can work miracles.”

  He was going to explode. The only question was, how soon?

  Backing her against the convenient trunk of a nearby dogwood tree, he pushed her dress up around her waist and tugged at her underwear. Her panties slithered down around her ankles with a silken whisper. He touched her and knew he was not the only one in an advanced state of rampant desire. She was hot and sleek with wanting, the soft folds of her femininity already quivering with anticipation. And all for him!

  She left him no time to gloat. Deftly, she closed her hand around him and guided him home.

  “What will the neighbors think?” he said against her mouth, and she gave a smothered gasp of laughter because she knew he was long past the point where he gave a rip about anything so mundane. Neighbors lining up six deep couldn’t stop the vortex of passion ruling the moment.

  It was only the second time they’d done it, but they came together as if they’d been practicing for years. Bracing his hands under her bottom, he held her to him and drove into her in one long sweep. Eyes wide, she let her head fall back, opened her mouth in a soundless exclamation and rocked against him.

  “Slow down, sweetheart,” he begged.

  “I can’t…!” she cried raggedly. “I…can’t….”

  Nor could he. She was contracting around him, pushing off the edge of reason and sending him soaring into sheer delirium. He heard a sound, something between a groan and a shout, followed by a soft answering cry, and felt her tears on his face.

  Drained, he sank to the grass with her still wrapped around him. He was shaking all over, stripped of his strength and floundering to anchor himself to reality again. He thought his heart might flop out of his chest, it was thundering so hard and fast.

  Gradually, the world swam back into focus. Above him, the roses swayed against the morning sky. Beside him, dew sparkled on the blades of grass. Against him, Julia lay warm and smelling sweetly of flowers and love. If he’d had his way, they could all have stayed like that through eternity. He’d never come so close to holding perfection in his grasp.

  “Well?” Julia said, her voice as sultry as her glance. “Do you still want to talk about divorce?”

  “As if you don’t know the answer to that!” he said. “Cripes, was it my imagination, or did I let out one mother of a yell just at the crucial moment?”

  “It wasn’t your imagination,” she said. “My grandmother probably heard you. Come to that, half the town probably heard you and sent someone to investigate. I can see the headlines now. Tourists Stunned by Bridegroom’s Passionate Bellows!”

  He rubbed his chin ruefully. “I was led astray. And I’d better not find a photo of my bare backside staring back at me from the front page of next week’s edition of the local paper, or you’re in trouble!”

  “If my grandmother had come looking and found us in flagrante delicto, you’d have been the one in trouble.” She gave him a sexy, complacent, utterly female smile. “I’d have told her you taught me everything I know.”

  He rolled her onto the grass and hauled his jeans back where they belonged. “On your feet, Mrs. Carreras, and make yourself decent before we hike back to the house. I don’t want you ruining my image.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  WHEN he came downstairs again, freshly shaved and showered, Felicity had the omelet pan warming on the stove. “I forgot to mention that I spoke to your mother this morning, Julia,” she said, pouring in the egg mixture. “I was supposed to meet her and your father for brunch at the golf club, but when I explained what had happened to Michael, they understood why I canceled.”

  The mere mention of his in-laws was all Ben needed to ground him in reality again. “I can’t imagine they were particularly interested in the news. They made it clear enough at the wedding that they weren’t about to accept Michael into the family.”

  “Give them time, dear boy,” Felicity said, adding slices of orange and a few grapes to the omelets she expertly shoveled onto plates. “They’ll come around eventually.”

  “I doubt it. No disrespect to you, Felicity, but neither your son nor his wife strikes me as having your generosity of spirit.” He shrugged. “But hey, it’s their loss and I’ve got more important things to worry about than trying to convert them. Julia, are you planning to come with me to the hospital to see Michael?”

  The look she directed at him across the table would have melted granite. “What do you think?” she said softly. “Of course I’m coming with you. He’s my baby, too, remember?”

  Why couldn’t he just grab her words at face value and ru
n with them? Why the uneasy feeling at the back of his mind that her capitulation had come about too quickly, too easily? “You don’t have to do this all at once, sweetheart,” he reminded her in a low voice not meant for Felicity’s ears. “I’m happy with small steps taken one at a time.”

  “No. I meant what I said, out there in the garden.”

  He grinned. “You said quite a lot of things out there in the garden, ma’am! Which ones, exactly, are you referring to?”

  Her face flamed. “The part about us being a family!” she said, slinging a furtive glance Felicity’s way. “I want to honor all the vows I made in church, Ben, not just a select few.”

  “I guess that makes me one lucky guy, then.”

  If she meant what she said, that was—and she sounded adamant enough. Still, he couldn’t shake a vague uneasiness that her words were prompted by a kind of What other choice do I have if I want this marriage to hold together? desperation. He’d taken a pretty hard line with her, after all.

  “I really do mean it,” she said, watching his face. “I love you, Ben. Being your wife is the most important thing in the world to me.”

  “And Michael?”

  “I want what’s best for him, which is why I’ve decided to hand in my notice at work. I want to be a fulltime mother, not the sort who only sees her baby in the evenings and on weekends.”

  “I’d never ask you to give up your job, Julia,” he said. “You love what you do and you’ve worked hard to get where you are. Not many women your age are marketing managers for a media company the size of McKinnon’s.”

  “My priorities have shifted. Writing copy for ad campaigns and researching target markets don’t hold the same fascination anymore.”

  He regarded her soberly. “You do realize this is a hundred-and-eighty-degree turnaround from what you were saying a couple of weeks ago? You were all set then to accept another promotion.”

  “Only because we hadn’t planned to start a family right away. But now that we have…” She lapsed into silence and let her smile complete the sentence.

  She’d obviously convinced herself, so who was he to go around casting doubts? “Okay. In that case, let’s eat then hit the road. Felicity, would you like to come to the hospital with us? Not that I’m trying to get rid of you, you understand. You’re welcome to stay here as long as you like.”

  “Thank you, but I’ll pass on both invitations this time,” she said, taking the chair he pulled out for her. “Your little boy’s got enough to deal with right now without a flock of strange faces hanging over him.”

  The huge balloon bouquet floating from the end of the crib in Michael’s room, sent with love from Great-Amma Felicity, made Ben smile. The monstrously ostentatious flower arrangement on the dresser, with a card that read Wishing you a speedy recovery, Stephanie and Garry Montgomery, gave him gas.

  “At least they sent something,” Julia said, seeing him wince. “And the colors do liven up the room.”

  Though there was doubtless some merit to her remarks, Ben would have been happy to toss the whole ghastly arrangement out of the window. But seeing Michael bright-eyed and alert disposed him to be generous. “I appreciate the gesture, honey,” he said, and touched his forefinger to his son’s cheek. “Hey, Michael, you’re looking pretty good, all things considered.”

  “He knows your voice!” On the other side of the crib, Julia was almost hopping with excitement. “Look, Ben! He’s smiling at you.”

  He was! The little squirt was definitely baring his gums in a pint-size grin. “Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle!” Ben breathed, and wondered if it was normal for a father to get all choked over such a milestone.

  The surgeon came in shortly after, with more good news. “Your boy’s a real trouper,” he told them. “At this rate, you’ll be taking him home by the end of the week.”

  For the next five days, Ben divided his time between the hospital and his downtown office, leaving the house early in the morning and not returning until evening, though he usually met Julia in the hospital cafeteria for a quick lunch.

  But after the second day of holding dinner for him, she protested, “I want to spend as much time with Michael as you do, Ben, but do you have to go to work as well? The only time I get to see you is when we’re in bed.”

  “It’s the only time I get to see you, too,” he said, leering at her. “And may I say, I find the sight inspiring!”

  “You know that’s not what I mean. I hoped we could turn these few days that we’re alone into a kind of mini-honeymoon.”

  “Sweetheart,” he said, taking her in his arms, “the honeymoon’s postponed, not canceled. As soon as things settle down, I’m taking you away to a private tropical island and lavishing you with attention, gourmet food, fine wines and the best sex you’ve ever dreamed of! Right now just isn’t the time, though.”

  “As if I don’t know that! But since you’d already arranged to be away for a month after the wedding anyway, no one’s expecting you to show up at work and take charge. So why do you have to be gone all day?”

  “Because there’s other business that needs taking care of and the time I’d be wasting traveling back and forth into town I’m using to attend to that.”

  “Business to do with Marian, you mean?” she said, and he was relieved to notice there was no hostility in her question.

  “Kind of, yeah. Michael might have my DNA, but the night he was admitted to hospital brought home to me how few rights that gives me because I’m not the one named as his father on the birth certificate.”

  “But they still let you give permission for his surgery.”

  “Only because I bullied them into cutting through all the red tape with the threat of a major lawsuit if their nitpicking over petty details cost my son his life. Legally, I didn’t have a leg to stand on and I can promise you, Julia, I don’t ever intend to be put in that position again. By the time we bring that baby home, the custody and adoption applications are going to be in the works. God forbid it should ever happen, but the next time someone has to sign waivers on our son’s behalf, that someone is going to be you or me.”

  She chewed on that for a while, then, “I hadn’t looked at it that way, but you’re absolutely right,” she said, her frown clearing. “Don’t worry about me, Ben. I can keep myself occupied while you’re looking after the legal end of things.”

  “Occupied how? By going back to work, after all?” He had to admit he wasn’t too thrilled at the idea, for all that he’d said he’d never ask her to give up her job. The idea of leaving Michael with a nanny all day held little appeal.

  “No,” she said. “I already told you I was going to resign, and I have. But there’s still plenty to be done around here. We didn’t anticipate having a baby in the house when we contracted for the renovations, and I intend to make up for that omission. By the time I’m done, this house is going to be a baby paradise.”

  She was as good as her word. She fixed up the nursery, painting clouds and balloons on the ceiling, papering a frieze of rabbits along the top of the walls and hanging a colorful mobile above the crib.

  She shopped for outfits, for stuffed toys, for CDs of nursery rhymes and lullabies. She bought a lamp that showed silhouettes of circus animals rotating in the base when the music box hidden underneath was wound up.

  She bought a high chair.

  “You’re crazy,” Ben said, sweeping her off her feet and planting her on the kitchen counter. “He’s not going to fit into that thing for at least another six months.”

  “I want it there, ready and waiting for him when he does,” she said.

  She was wearing shorts and a sleeveless top. He ran his hands up her thighs and reveled in the flare of heavy-lidded passion in her eyes his touch produced. “But are you ready for me now?” he said huskily, knowing she was, and made love to her right there and then, fast and furiously because when he was locked inside her dark, sweet warmth, he always felt that nothing could ever again drive them apart.
r />   She bought a playpen and a musical clown that rolled around under its own lopsided steam. “Seems to me you’re having more fun with that thing than he ever will,” Ben teased her, squatting beside her as she played with it.

  They made love that time, too, though he did manage to contain himself long enough to haul her upstairs to their bed before stripping her naked and kissing every inch of delicious skin. Afterward, as they lay together in the afterglow of loving, he said, “You know, there’s been a lot of hanky-panky going on around here in the last week, but we haven’t talked about contraception. I know you went to see a doctor before we were married and were planning to go on the pill, but I’ve never asked…”

  “I’m taking it,” she said. “Most of the time, anyway.”

  “Most of the time?”

  She curled up against him so that he couldn’t see her face. “I did forget a couple of times, when Michael first got sick.”

  He could understand how that might happen. Between lack of sleep and worry, he’d been pretty punchy himself for a few days.

  Another time, she bought a rocking chair, “because,” she said, when he playfully accused her of becoming a shopaholic, “I promised Michael I would, that night I stayed up with him and we really began to bond.”

  He could hardly argue with that. The chair was comfortable enough that even he could probably nap in it if he had to. And after the scare Michael had given them, Ben suspected it might be a long time before either he or Julia took for granted that any night-time fussiness was just part and parcel of a growing baby’s normal development.

  But he drew the line when he came home on Thursday, the day before Michael was due to be released from the hospital, to find that she’d bought a dog. “I wish you’d discussed it with me first,” he said, regarding the mutt galloping over the lawn in the back garden. “Baby furniture and toys are one thing, but a dog…! Couldn’t it have waited until things settled down a bit?”