More Than He Expected

by Andrea Laurence

  Alex grinned and shook his head. “Would it make you feel better if I told you it was?”

  Gwen shook her head and gazed at her ring again in amazement. A giant canary diamond. So typically Alex.

  “Before I go, is there anything else I can do for you?”

  “Loving me is enough.” She smiled, then Peanut kicked at her. Gwen felt the relief wash over her, feeling the baby move again after the last twenty-four hours. Everything was going to be okay. She knew it now.

  “But, if you don’t mind smuggling in a hot fudge sundae…”

  Epilogue

  “I’m really starting to hate this car.”

  Alex frowned as he reached down to help Gwen out of the convertible. She was no longer pregnant, but only a couple weeks out from delivery, she was still too sore to climb out of the low bucket seats of his Corvette without help.

  “We’re getting married and having children. I am throwing away my little black book and putting my salacious ways behind me. But I draw the line at getting rid of this car. I will buy you a more sensible car of your own, if you insist.”

  Gwen eased up and planted a kiss on his pouty mouth. “I would never ask you to get rid of your baby. Maybe we could just put some monster truck wheels on it.” She patted his shoulder playfully and the light sparkled off her engagement ring. The yellow oval diamond was dazzling in its antique setting, hit by the sunlight as it peeked through the bare branches and falling autumn leaves.

  Alex took her hand and led her to the fellowship hall of the Trinity Wall Street Episcopal Church, where they were holding the belated baby shower. “I feel like I should’ve brought a gift,” Gwen said, as they slipped through the heavy oak doors.

  “I think you brought the baby, honey.”

  Gwen laughed and shook her head. “I still should’ve picked up something.”

  The hall was decorated in white and pink for a combined welcome celebration and baby shower. When Gwen was hospitalized, Robert and Susan had decided to hold out on having a shower. Now that Abigail was a healthy, happy, fifteen-day-old girl, party time had arrived.

  The hall was filled with round tables, each alternating with pink or white tablecloths and centerpieces with bottles or candles. A spread of catered food lined one long table and ended in an adorable three-tiered diaper cake that had “Welcome Abby” in alphabet blocks along the bottom. Beside it was a large sheet cake with “Congratulations!” written on it in pink icing.

  “Gwen!” Susan shouted from across the hall.

  The crowd of people milling around all stopped to look in her direction. She had no doubt that they all knew who she was. Susan had been touting her as some sort of sacred vessel to anyone who would listen. It made Gwen a little uncomfortable, but one look into Susan’s excited face melted it all away.

  Susan came through the crowd with a white bundle in her arms. Abby was dressed in a pale pink and lace gown that had been in Susan’s family for generations. Through the last few weeks of Gwen’s bed rest, Susan had spent a lot of time with her. They’d chatted for hours about her plans for the nursery, her excitement about motherhood and details of Gwen’s upcoming wedding. One day, Susan had brought the gown with her so Gwen could see it.

  Gwen gently reached across the baby to hug Susan and smiled down at the tiny ivory-and-pink face of the most beautiful baby girl in the world. Despite the excitement, she was out cold in her mother’s arms.

  “Would you like to hold her? I feel bad that you haven’t gotten to see her since you were discharged.”

  “Susan, she’s your baby, not mine. You don’t have to share custody with me.”

  Gwen stroked her finger along Abby’s fat little cheek and whispered, “Hello, my Peanut.” The baby stirred slightly at the sound of her voice, smiling sweetly in her sleep.

  “What about you, Alex? You can get a little practice in for all those babies you’ll be having soon.”

  Alex’s eyes grew wide with panic, but before he could argue, the tiny infant was thrust into his uncertain arms. Gwen watched with amusement as he looked down at the baby as if she might sprout another head or start leaking something on him. But then, after a few moments, his expression softened and he watched Abby with a sense of newfound wonder.

  Gwen felt the tiny prickle of tears as he gently swayed with her and hoped that one day soon, she would see him holding their own child just like this. “You’re a natural.”

  “I’ve got a surprise for you,” Susan said, pulling her away from the touching sight.

  “For me? Why?”

  “Robert and I talked about it, and we thought this would be a wonderful way to say thank-you.”

  Robert came over to them with a copy of the freshly issued birth certificate in his hands. After the adoption was finalized, it had to be redone with Susan’s name as the legal mother. Gwen looked at it and was surprised to find the name Abigail Gwendolyn Thatcher written there.

  “I thought you were naming her Abigail Rose?”

  “We were, but we thought naming her after you would make it more meaningful. We always want Abby to know how special she is and how a wonderful person sacrificed so much to give her to us.”

  Now the tears were rolling in earnest. Gwen embraced Susan and then gave a hug to the reluctant Robert.

  “They’re crying again,” he said to Alex. Apparently he had gotten his fill of crying women at the hospital the day Abby was born.

  Alex shrugged. “They do that. As the father to a daughter, I suggest you get prepared. Here,” he said, holding out Abby. “Hand one of them the baby. That will distract them.”

  Robert gave Abby over to Susan, who immediately stopped crying and started smiling again at the sight of her little girl.

  Alex came up beside Gwen and wrapped his arm around her waist. “I never knew your name was Gwendolyn,” he admitted.

  “That’s okay,” she said with a smile as she stood on her toes to give him a kiss. “We’ve got our whole lives to learn everything we need to know about each other.”

  Alex gave her a sly grin and bent down to kiss her again. “I’m looking forward to every minute of it.”

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt of His Marriage to Remember by Kathie DeNosky!

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  One

  Standing in the hospital waiting room, Bria wrapped her arms around herself as she tried to chase away the chills. It did no good. In spite of the fact that it was early June in Texas and already extremely warm, she couldn’t seem to stop shivering.

  Terror like nothing she had ever known had clawed at her insides as she’d helplessly watched the angry bull slam Sam into the fence, then pummel his limp body repeatedly with its large head. Thankfully, the bull didn’t have horns and therefore Sam hadn’t sustained any puncture wounds, nor had he been stepped on by the massive animal. Nate and Sam’s foster brothers had immediately jumped into action and diverted the bull’s attention as quickly as they could. But it seemed as if they’d all moved in slow motion and took forever to get the beast away from him so the emergency medical crew could move in and take over.

  She drew in a shuddering breath. There was no getting around it, she was responsible for Sam’s accident. If she had only waited for another day, another time to bring the divorce papers for him to sign or if he hadn�
��t seen her and been distracted, she wouldn’t be standing in the waiting room while he underwent tests to see just how badly he was injured.

  But the rodeo was only a two-hour drive from her new home in Dallas and she had wanted to get the papers signed and everything finalized before she started her new job as a marketing consultant for one of the major department stores. If she hadn’t run into a traffic jam on the interstate, she would have arrived with plenty of time to get things taken care of and left before the dangerous bull-riding event even started.

  Her breath caught on a sob. It didn’t matter why she had been running late or that she had wanted to get on with her life. Sam was the one having to pay the price for her impatience.

  “Have you heard anything, Bria?” Nate called from somewhere behind her.

  Turning around, she watched Nate and his brothers hurrying down the hall toward the waiting-room entrance. Tall and ruggedly handsome, all five men were cowboys from the top of their wide-brimmed Resistol hats to their scuffed Justin boots. All six of the boys Hank Calvert had fostered had grown up to be extremely wealthy men, but to the outward eye, they were down to earth, hardworking cowboys who passed up designer clothing in favor of chambray shirts and jeans. Nate was Sam’s only biological sibling, but the other four men they called brothers couldn’t have meant more to them if they’d had the same blood flowing through their veins.

  “Th-They just took him…to the imaging department…for X-rays and a scan of his head,” she said, unable to keep her voice from cracking.

  Nate stepped forward and, putting his arms around her, pulled her to his broad chest. “He’s going to be all right, Bria.”

  “Sam’s as tough as nails,” Lane Donaldson added. The same age as Sam, Lane had a master’s degree in psychology that he used quite successfully as a professional poker player. Bria didn’t think she had ever seen the man look less confident.

  Ryder McClain, the most easygoing of the group, nodded. “Sam’s probably already being a pain in the butt about getting out of here.”

  “I hope all of you are right,” she said, feeling helpless.

  “Can I get you something, Bria? A cup of coffee or some water?” T. J. Malloy asked solicitously. He was the most thoughtful of the brothers, so she wasn’t the least bit surprised that T.J.’s concern extended to her.

  “Get some coffee for all of us, T.J.,” Nate commanded, without waiting for her to respond.

  “I’ll go with you to help carry everything,” Jaron Lambert offered, turning to follow T.J. Stopping, he turned back to ask, “Do you want anything else, Bria. Maybe something to eat?”

  “Thanks, Jaron, but I’m not hungry. I doubt that I could eat anything even if I was,” she said, thankful to have Sam’s brothers with her. They treated her like a sister and she was going to miss them terribly once the divorce was final and she was no longer part of their family.

  “Come on and sit down,” Nate said, guiding her over to a bank of chairs along the far wall. When she sat, he asked, “Did Sam regain consciousness in the ambulance on the way over here?”

  She shook her head. “I think he was starting to come around when they took him back to the examination room, but they told me I couldn’t stay with him and that the doctor would come out and talk to me when he knew something.”

  Unable to leave the rodeo they had coordinated to honor their late foster father, the men had sent her to the hospital with Sam, while they attended to dispatching the livestock Sam’s company had provided for the various events to the next rodeo on the schedule. She knew it had to be extremely hard for them not to have dropped everything to go with their brother to the hospital, but they had done their duty and seen to Sam’s interests when he couldn’t.

  “Is everything over with for this year’s memorial rodeo?” she asked, knowing the bull riding was usually the last scheduled event.

  “Yup, we got everything taken care of,” Lane said, lowering his lanky frame into one of the chairs. “There’s nothing for you to worry about right now, except being here for Sam.”

  “I wish they would come out and tell us something,” Bria said, unable to sit still any longer. She walked over to look down the hall toward the room where they had taken Sam.

  What could be taking so long? she wondered as she spotted T.J. and Jaron returning with several cups of coffee. The longer it took to hear something, the more worried she became.

  “Still no word?” T.J. asked as he stopped to hand her a cup. He had no sooner gotten the words out, when a man in blue scrubs and a white lab coat entered the waiting area.

  “Mrs. Rafferty?” he asked, walking over to her.

  As she braced herself for whatever news he came to deliver, Sam’s brothers rose to stand with her. “I’m Brianna Rafferty,” she said, surprised that her voice sounded strong when her nerves were anything but steady. “Is my hus…is Sam going to be all right?”

  “I’m Dr. Bailey, the neurologist on call this evening.” His expression gave no indication of what kind of news he had to tell them. “Let’s sit down and I’ll explain what’s going on with your husband.” Once they were all seated, he pulled up a chair to sit across from them. “Sam regained consciousness just before we took him to Imaging for the CT scan and X-rays, which is a good sign. And there was no evidence of broken bones.”

  Apparently sensing she needed support, Nate took her hand in his and asked the question that she couldn’t. “Why do I hear a ‘but’ in your voice, Doc?”

  “The scan showed that Sam suffered a severe concussion, but there were no signs of bleeding in his brain, which is good,” Dr. Bailey explained. “There is, however, some swelling.”

  “What does that mean?” Jaron demanded. With his raven hair and dark demeanor, Jaron was the type of man other men rarely had the nerve to cross.

  “There may or may not be complications.” Dr. Bailey met their worried gazes as he continued, “The next twenty-four hours should tell us if the cerebral edema will get worse. If that happens, we may have to take him into surgery to remove a section of his scull to relieve the pressure.”

  Bria covered her horrified gasp with her hand.

  “I really don’t think that’s something we’ll have to do, Mrs. Rafferty,” Dr. Bailey hastily added. “I’ve been monitoring his condition since he was brought into the E.R. and the swelling doesn’t show signs of worsening. But even if that isn’t an issue, we’ll have to watch for other neurological problems that wouldn’t show up on a scan.”

  “What kinds of problems are we talking about here?” Ryder asked, looking as if he would like to punch something. A rodeo bull rider, normally the man was absolutely fearless. But Bria knew his frustration was a mask for the fear they all felt for Sam.

  “With brain injuries there’s always the possibility of memory loss, problems with reasoning abilities or a personality change,” the doctor answered. “I’m not saying any of those things are inevitable or that they would be permanent if they do present, just that there are those possibilities.”

  “Dear God, this can’t be happening,” she said as tears spilled down her cheeks. Sam was so strong, so self-assured, it was impossible to think that he might end up having problems. That she had played a part in his being injured in any way was almost more than she could bear. But she couldn’t live with herself if he had long-lasting problems because she’d chosen today to end their marriage.

  Nate protectively put his arm around her shoulders. “When will we be able to see him, Doc?”

  “We’ve put him in the Intensive Care Unit for closer observation and he’s resting comfortably. But two of you can go in to see him for a few minutes now, then again every two hours or so.” The doctor stood up and shook their hands. “I’ll let you know more after I assess his condition in the morning. For now, I’ll have one of the nurses direct you to the ICU waiting room upstairs.”

  As the man walked away, Jaron patted her arm. “It’s going to be okay, Bria. Sam will get through this without any of tho
se problems.”

  “Sam’s tougher than anyone I’ve ever seen,” T.J. added. “I have no doubt he’ll be up and around in no time.”

  Lane took a deep breath. “Why don’t you and Nate go on up to see him, while the rest of us stake a claim on some space in the ICU waiting area.”

  On the elevator ride to the third floor, Bria couldn’t help wondering how much Sam had told his brothers about their divorce. Knowing him the way she did, he probably hadn’t told them any more than he had to.

  Bria sighed. She might have decided that she couldn’t be his wife anymore, but she wanted to be with him tonight, wanted to help see him through whatever he was facing. But she wasn’t entirely certain she should stay either. After all, they were so close to being divorced, she wasn’t sure she had the right.

  “Nate, maybe I shouldn’t be here,” she said uncertainly.

  Her brother-in-law looked at her as if she might be losing her mind. “Why the hell would you say something like that, Bria?”

  “Sam and I are one signature away from being divorced,” she said, hating the word. “I’m not sure he will even want me to be here.”

  Nate shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. You don’t have that signature yet and until you do, as far as I’m concerned, and I’m pretty sure the state of Texas is in agreement on this, the two of you are still married.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing,” he cut her off. “You’re still his wife, and until this is over with and Sam is back on his feet, this is where you belong. After that, it will be up to the two of you to sort it out.”

  She supposed Nate was right. Until the dissolution of their marriage was final and the documents filed at the courthouse, they were still legally married. If medical decisions had to be made on Sam’s behalf, she would be the one they turned to for answers. Besides, she wanted to be with him until she knew for certain he was going to be all right.