Prints Charming

by Rebeca Seitz

  “Come on, buddy. Major Carter’s probably in there sleeping soundly with Jake by her side.” The mental image of him curled up in bed with a cat quickened her pulse. She allowed herself to dwell on it for two seconds, then tugged Wilson over to their door.

  Time to buckle down and get some work done.

  Lydia opened her eyes to bright sunshine streaming through the bedroom window. She felt a heaviness settle about her and couldn’t quite remember what she was sad about until she turned over and saw Dale asleep beside her. He had come to bed after she fell asleep last night, no doubt staying up to watch some ball game on television. March Madness was living up to its name.

  She swung her legs off the side of the bed, coming up to a sitting position and gazing out the window. The sun reflected off the aluminum swing set in the backyard and hurt her eyes. Would it be as warm today as yesterday? She picked the remote up off the bedside table and clicked on the news just in time for the ten-day forecast.

  Her depressed feeling worsened when she took in the little snow flurry symbols on the screen. That was Tennessee weather for you. Beautiful and sunny one day, snowing the next. The forecast showed that today was the last day of temperatures in the seventies. Knowing another day of warmth might be weeks and weeks away, Lydia resolved to make the most of the day’s beautiful weather.

  “Dale, time to get up.” She poked his arm. “Come on, it’s the last warm day for a while. No rest for the weary. Let’s take everyone to the park.”

  Dale grumbled a bit, but didn’t even open his eyes.

  “Dale, come on.” She raised the volume of her voice. “It’s already”—she sneaked a glance at the TV screen—“after seven.

  The day’s wasting away, and we’re lying here in bed.”

  Dale opened his eyes a fraction of an inch and squinted at her. “Considering the fact that I just got in from work seven hours ago, I’m okay with that.” He shut his eyes again.

  Lydia huffed her impatience with him and slid off the bed.

  Why even bother? Maybe if she offered to bring a football to throw around, Dale would show some interest. She padded into the bathroom. How had he ever gotten his mind off of sports long enough to propose to her in the first place?

  A quick turn of the lever and hot water gushed forth until she pulled the shower lever. As stall steamed up, she checked out her face in the big oval mirror hanging over her side of the vanity. Turning to each side and pulling back her natural curls let her take stock of the gray growing along the side of her head.

  Her hairdresser, Coytt, had offered to highlight it when the gray started popping up a few years ago at the ripe old age of twenty-five, but Lydia had refused. It gave her a sense of maturity.

  “Wonder if he can still cover it?” She stuck her tongue out at her reflection. Who would even notice the effort? Dale certainly wouldn’t notice, unless she took out an ad to run on ESPN. And it was more money out of their budget—money better spent on scrapping supplies.

  She pulled her nightgown over her head and stepped into the warm shower, grateful for the steam that seeped its way into her bones. Soaping up her long brown hair took forever, which allowed plenty of time to mentally map out the day. Taking the twins to the park was a good idea. She could pack them a lunch and take Otis as well. The poor dog hadn’t gotten much outside time lately and would go nuts as soon as they got in the car. Maybe Mari could join them with Emmy. Olivia and Oliver would be good exposure to babies for Emmy, and Lydia would have another adult to talk to since her husband was too busy sleeping the day away to spend time with her. She tilted her head back and rinsed the shampoo, then applied conditioner. Thank goodness for girlfriends.

  Reaching for her razor, she debated pulling out some capri pants for the park. It was warm enough, after all. But, no, her legs might blind somebody. Better stick with jeans. She put the razor back in its hanger and leaned her head into the water to rinse the conditioner. She soaped up her body and rinsed quickly, looking forward to the day now that it had been planned.

  Shutting off the water and grabbing a white towel from the hanger by the door, Lydia stepped out of the steamy shower. Her makeup and hair routine were quick and no-nonsense. Fifteen minutes later, jeans and a T-shirt were the order of the day. Grabbing her tennies from the back of the closet, she made her way through the house and upstairs to the nursery just as crying came from the baby monitor in the living room.

  “Morning, precious ones.” She bent and kissed each baby’s forehead. “How about we go to the park today and soak up some of this gorgeous sunshine?” The green-and-yellow nursery was adorned with characters from The Wind in the Willows. Morning sunlight poured through the window blinds. Olivia would need to be fed, changed, and dressed first. Oliver was content to lie in his crib and watch. So long as she was in the room with him, he would be fine.

  Lydia picked up Olivia from her white crib and took her over to the changing table. She rummaged around in the dresser drawer, pulling out a white romper with a big yellow daisy embroidered on the front, and yellow rickrack on the sleeves.

  “Here we go, sweet girl. Daisies for you today.” She changed the baby and got her dressed, keeping up a monologue while putting the little white socks with lace edging on Olivia’s chubby feet. Olivia gurgled and cooed back at her, turning her head side to side on the changing table. Lydia picked her up and turned toward the big cherry rocker in the corner of the room.

  Settling into the massive chair, she raised her shirt and began feeding the baby. Pictures of Olivia in this outfit would be adorable on a layout of daisy paper. Had she gotten any at the Savvy Scrapper sale?

  Twenty minutes later, Olivia pulled away, and Lydia went to lay her back in her crib. With a full tummy, Olivia would amuse herself with the little mirror hanging on the inside of her crib while Lydia got Oliver ready for the day.

  “Hey, big guy.” She scooped Oliver up and carried him to the changing table, pulling a yellow romper with a white train embroidered on it from the drawer below Olivia’s. “Did you have good dreams last night? Were big trucks and trains rumbling through your nighttime stories?” She wiggled her fingers at him, and he smiled a toothless little grin. She finished up the changing, putting little yellow socks and white cloth shoes on his kicking feet. “How about some breakfast?”

  She went through the same feeding routine in the rocker. Another twenty minutes later, both babies were full, happy, and wide awake. She put one in each arm and headed downstairs to call Mari about going to the park and snapping some good scrapping pics.

  “Hello?” Mari tried to get her breath back before answering the bedside phone, pushing John’s roaming hand away as he continued their early morning interlude. She never could just let a phone ring, no matter what was going on.

  “Mari? Are you okay?” Lydia’s voice rang with concern over the telephone line.

  “Buenos días, Lydia. I’m fine.” She pushed John’s wandering hand away again and tried to give him a stern look, but his devilish grin was her undoing. Being married was really, really fun sometimes. “What’s up?” She turned over onto her stomach, thinking if the temptation was removed, John would lose interest. His fingers walking up her bare calf said otherwise.

  “I’m taking the twins and Otis to the park today and wondered if you and Emmy might like to join us. Can you take that long a lunch hour?”

  “I took the day off today, and that sounds like fun.” Mari captured John’s hand in her own and gave a playfully disapproving look. “Which park?”

  “Edwin Warner is the best, I think. Would that work for you?”

  “Sure.”

  “Perfect. I was thinking a picnic lunch. How about we meet you there around eleven? I’ll go early and scope out the best picnic table. Oh, and I’ll bring my camera to capture some pics for Andrea’s book.”

  “Sounds good. See ya then.” She ended the phone call as gracefully as possible and turned back to her husband, sending up a prayer of thanks for this beautiful man
in her bed whose last name she was blessed to bear. “You are incorrigible, mister.”

  “Gracias.” John brought his lips to hers. “I’m also insatiable, mesmerized, addicted, and overcome, but I’ll settle for incorrigible.” He trailed kisses down her neck and let his hand stray down her bare leg. She shivered with goose bumps.

  “I’ve got to go get Emmy ready for the day. That was Lydia on the phone, asking us to join her and the twins in the park for a picnic lunch.”

  “But it’s only eight,” he said against her neck. “We’ve got hours to spend before lunchtime. I thought you took the day off from crazy bankers with suicidal career plans to spend with me. The office can run for a day without its head of Human Resources.” She giggled and lost herself for a minute in his touch.

  “Right, I did.” She forced herself back to the conversation.

  “And I will spend time with you today, but I promised Lydia we’d meet her at the park by eleven, and it takes thirty minutes to get there. That means we have two and a half hours to get ready, and you know how long it takes to get Emmy ready for anything, and we haven’t even started on breakfast.” She blushed as he stopped his kisses to look at her directly.

  “Okay, Madame Overplanner, how about this.” He began kneading the small of her back as she turned on her side to face him. “I’ll help you get Emmy ready. Together we can do it in a little over an hour, which leaves us about an hour for us while she’s busy watching Veggie Tales now.”

  He kissed her again, deepening it as her body softened into his. She loved his warmth and how he could completely envelop her with his arms. She tilted her head back and enjoyed the magic as he once again trailed kisses down her neck and back up to her ear.

  “Deal.” She took his hand in hers, determined to show him just how much she loved him, even if her body wouldn’t give him the second child he longed for.

  “But after this picnic, you take Emmy over to Mom’s and come home to me for the rest of the afternoon. No stopping at Wachovia on the way. There is no working before coming home. Still a deal?” He pulled her close to him and hooked his legs around hers.

  “Deal,” she said breathlessly and resolved to enjoy the next hour.

  chapter 13

  The knock on Jane’s front door set Wilson off to barking.

  “Okay, okay, buddy. I’ve got it.” She bent and looked through the peephole, then tamped down the happiness that spread through her at the sight of Jake. Taking Wilson’s collar firmly in her hand, she opened the door.

  “Hi.” He looked unsure as he held out a large gift bag, and she tried to ignore the little flip her heart made. “I was thinking about our conversation yesterday and, well, thought maybe you would like this.”

  “Oh! Um, come on in.” She opened the door further and pulled Wilson back, making room for him to enter her apartment. Closing the door, she released Wilson’s collar, and he immediately began sniffing Jake’s shoes.

  “Wilson, stop it.” She shooed the dog away, then looked up at Jake. “Sorry.”

  “No problem. Carter checks out everybody who comes through the door, too.” He raised the gift bag again, and she took it from him, carrying it over to the kitchen table, excited that he had thought to get her something. Presents were so much fun.

  “Shall I open it now, or would you like for me to wait?”

  “Oh, no, go ahead.” He gestured toward the gift. “I mean, I didn’t mean for you to wait.”

  She reached in and began pulling white tissue paper out, wondering what in the world he had gotten her. Chocolate? Maybe a CD or DVD? Excitement turned to confusion as the end of the tissue paper unearthed a stack of at least fifty AOL CDs.

  “Um, thanks so much. I’m not sure what to say.” Act happy. You can throw them away when he leaves.

  He chuckled. “There’s more. Trust me; this will make sense in the end.” He pulled another, smaller, gift bag from behind his back and handed it to her as well. “Now open this one.”

  Once again she pulled tissue paper out. Maybe the first one was a gag gift. She burst out laughing at a miniature sledgehammer in the bottom of the bag.

  “I thought we could go outside and spend some time smashing the Internet. Since your ex seems to have used it to hurt you, you might as well hurt it back, right?”

  Her laughter grew with the thought of slamming the sledgehammer into the CDs, little bits of Internet connection capability flying everywhere. This was exactly what she needed.

  “Jake, thank you. It’s perfect. Absolutely perfect.”

  “Whew. I was worried for a second that you might think I was crazy.” He put his hands in his back pockets and rocked back and forth on his heels. “So, no time like the present, right?

  Let’s get to smashing!”

  “You bet. No time like the present. Just let me get my shoes on.” She snatched up her tennies from beside the door and sat down in one of the Windsor chairs at the kitchen table to get them on, excited at the prospect of doing something destructive, and thrilled with such a fun gift.

  “Okay, all set.” She tied the last bow and slapped her jeans-clad legs before standing up. “Wilson, crate!” she called out and followed Wilson into the bedroom to latch his crate.

  “Now, that is obedience,” Jake called from the living room.

  “Does he actually walk all the way into his crate?”

  “Oh yeah. Come watch.” Jake walked down the hallway and into her bedroom. “I couldn’t believe it when he first did it.” She began latching the hooks. “It was totally by accident that he even learned it. I didn’t realize that every time I put him up, I was telling him to get in his crate.” She reached into the big jar of dog treats on her dresser and pulled out a peanut-butter-flavored one.

  “Until one day I was heading out and did my usual, ‘Let’s go get in your crate,’ and he ran ahead of me.” She poked the treat through the wires, and Wilson gingerly took it in his mouth.

  “How amazing is that? So he’s a pretty smart dog.” They walked back toward the front door.

  “Yeah, he’s scary smart sometimes.” She smiled at the pride in her voice and dusted dog-treat crumbs off of her hands onto her jeans. “Anyway, let’s go smash some Internet!”

  Jake picked up the red gift bag full of CDs with one hand and grabbed the mini-sledgehammer with the other.

  “Where did you get so many AOL CDs anyway?” She followed him back out the front door and locked it behind them.

  “After you told me yesterday what had happened with your ex, I wanted to give you a way to get back. When I saw the stack of AOL CDs piled by the mailboxes, I knew I had my answer. I waited around for a while and offered to take anybody else’s as they checked their mail. Here I thought I was the only nut who checked his mail at eight a.m.”

  “Our mail runs at eight?”

  “Yep! We’re the first on the mail route. Anyway, it turns out a bunch of folks get their mail on the way to work in the morning. Within a couple of hours, I had enough weird looks to make my skin crawl, but I also had enough CDs.”

  She stopped walking and turned to look at him in disbelief. “You sat at the mailboxes for a couple of hours?”

  “Well, yeah.” He looked unsure again. “There were some stacked on the ledge already, but I wanted to have more. You know, enough to make a real smash party. I had a Chris Well book with me, so I wasn’t bored.” His eyebrows went up as he gave her a quizzical look. “Is that all right?”

  Jane stood and stared. He had given several hours out of his day for her. He had sat and thought about what would bring her joy and then gone out and found it for her. She tried hard to remember the last time Bill had done something just to bring her pleasure, when there wasn’t anything in it for him. It took a few seconds, but it finally came to her. It had been the night of their six-month wedding anniversary. He had brought home Stargazer lilies, her favorite. Had it really been just that one time? She nibbled her fingernail, oblivious to the concerned expression on Jake’s face as
she tried in vain to think of another instance of Bill showing affection toward her with a gift.

  “Hey.” He held up the bags in his hands. “I can take them back if you want. Say the word and they’re trash.”

  Not only had he gone and gotten her the most thoughtful gift she had ever received, but he was willing to throw it out the window for her if she didn’t like it. She opened her eyes wide to keep the stupid tears from falling.

  “No, no, it’s not that. I’m sorry. I just . . . It’s just . . .

  Oh . . .” Losing the battle with tears, she tilted her head down in a vain attempt to hide them. Taking her elbow, he steered her over to the stairs that led to the upper-level apartments and sat her down on one. He set the gift bags down at their feet and waited silently as she got control of her emotions. He patted her back as her sniffling came to a close.

  “Whew, sorry about that.” She peeked up at him and nearly lost it again at the worry on his face. He barely knew her, and here she was, blubbering in his presence for the second time. Geez, what he must think of her?

  “Not a problem. Want to talk about it?” He leaned back and rested his elbows on the stair above them, crossing his legs at the ankles and settling himself in.

  “I was just trying to remember if or when Bill did anything nice for me.”

  “I take it Bill’s the ex?”

  “Yep.”

  “And?”

  She grimaced. “I realized it was six months after we got married, but not a single time before or after. How dumb am I that I didn’t catch on to that until now?” She shook her head.

  “I don’t think that means you’re dumb. I think it means he is.” He bounced his feet in rhythm.

  “Where did you learn all the perfect lines?” she asked with a small smile.

  “Perfect Lines for Dummies.” She jerked her eyes back to him, but saw the laughter in his face and grinned.

  “I’ll need to get that, I guess. Is it a Barnes & Noble staple, or will I have to special order it?”