Baby Under the Mistletoe (Harlequin Super Romance)

by Jamie Sobrato

  Not that she expected him to tell the truth, but she figured she might get some hint of it with a well-timed question.

  Frank flashed a wry grin. “I’ve dated a bit, but there has only been one serious relationship since my divorce. We were together for a year before figuring out we weren’t right for each other.” He paused and shrugged. “Since then I haven’t met anyone I wanted to share my life with.”

  Julia nodded. Boy, did she ever relate. “It’s hard after having a long marriage, isn’t it?”

  “When you’ve already spent a lifetime making things work.”

  “I was surprised how much I’ve come to value my independence.” Julia’s face warmed. Was she supposed to say such things on a first date? Was it considered gauche to point out the downsides of relationships to a potential boyfriend?

  Oh, who the hell cared? She didn’t want to play games. She wanted to be honest, damn the consequences.

  To her pleasant surprise, Frank simply nodded in agreement. “Yes, exactly.”

  The bartender brought the wine they’d ordered and gave each of them a taste before pouring the glasses. The spicy smooth taste of the merlot went straight to Julia’s head, and she found herself warming even more to Frank even before the wine had any real chance to affect her.

  “I hope I’m not sounding old and bitter,” Julia said in a conspiratorial tone, leaning in close.

  “Not at all. Do you feel old and bitter?”

  “No. And you?”

  “I did until I walked into that coffee shop and saw you sitting there.”

  “Oh?”

  Frank sipped his wine, his eyes twinkling. “Have you ever gotten into a funk and not even recognized the landscape until something good happened to shake you out of it?”

  She gave the matter some thought and recalled the moment she’d seen Frank’s online profile. It had created an instant sense of dissatisfaction—as if her life suddenly was less for not knowing him. “I have, now that you mention it.”

  “Meeting you shook me out of my funk, so thank you.”

  Julia thought of chiming in with a “Me, too,” but it would have been the equivalent of heaping sugar on top of a hot-fudge sundae. Instead, she kept her mouth shut and basked in feeling the best she’d felt in years—decades, perhaps.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  SOLEIL OPENED one eye and squinted at the clock.

  The sound of a horn honking at nine-fifteen in the morning was not a welcome one. This was supposed to be a day of sleeping in, being lazy, relishing her aloneness and nothing-to-do-ness for the first time in several months.

  She wasn’t expecting any deliveries, or visitors, or—

  Her mother.

  She sat up in bed to peer out the window, and sure enough, the telltale sight of a white Honda in the driveway greeted her.

  Oh God, oh God, oh God.

  Wasn’t her mother supposed to arrive tomorrow? Definitely tomorrow. She was sure if it, because she’d been certain to mark her calendar with the date her mother had said she was arriving.

  But here Anne was, getting out of the car, slamming the door, walking back to the trunk and opening it…

  Soleil flopped down on her pillow and groaned. Maybe she could not answer the door.

  Except her car was parked out front, and she’d only be delaying the inevitable.

  So she got out of bed, went to the bathroom, washed her hands and splashed a little water on her face. Then she grabbed her bathrobe and shrugged it on before heading downstairs to open the door.

  “Hello?” she could hear her calling from outside.

  “Just a sec,” she called as she unlocked and opened the door that her mother was urgently knocking on. “I thought you were getting here tomorrow.”

  She was face-to-face with her mother. Soleil had to admit Anne looked good with her long white hair and faintly olive skin that accented her pale green eyes. Soleil had definitely inherited her height and eye color from her mother, which caused her to briefly consider what traits her own daughter would share.

  “My schedule changed, so I decided to surprise you!” Anne smiled and was extending her arms for a hug when her gaze dropped to Soleil’s belly, and her expression transformed to one of utter shock and disbelief.

  “You’re—” She stopped, as if she couldn’t say the truth out loud.

  “Pregnant,” Soleil filled in for her.

  “But…When did…And who…?”

  She stared at Soleil’s belly as if the answers might be down there.

  “Five months and three weeks or so. I’m due in early May.”

  “Oh, my. I’m…Why didn’t you tell me?” She finally pieced together an entire sentence.

  “I was going to. It’s been kind of nutty, and I thought…I guess I planned to surprise you for Christmas.” Sort of true. She had entertained the idea of showing up for the holidays and surprising her mother with the news.

  “Well, you’ve certainly surprised me. Help me with these bags, then you can fill me in over coffee.”

  Soleil picked up the closer of the two bags, already dreading how long her mother must have been planning to stay if two medium-size suitcases were required.

  She carried the bag down the hallway to the nicest of the guest rooms and placed it inside the door. This had been her grandparents’ bedroom once upon a time—the master suite of the house. But Soleil preferred the upstairs bedroom with the soaring view for herself, which had been her mother’s room as a little girl.

  “Can you believe I was conceived and born in this room?” her mother said, shaking her head and giving a bit too much information as usual. “Probably on that exact bed.”

  It was true the same bedroom furniture that Gram and Grampa Bishop had left behind was still here. Soleil hadn’t seen any point in moving it, when it suited the room.

  This reminded Soleil of something she’d been forgetting to mention for months. “I went through the attic not too long ago and found some of Gram’s things. I’ll have to show them to you later and see if you want any of it.”

  “I’ve got enough of my own crap,” Anne answered as she dropped a suitcase on the bed and unzipped the outer pocket. From it she withdrew a silver flask, which surely contained whiskey.

  “It’s not even ten in the morning. Isn’t it a little early to be drinking?”

  “It’s cold as hell out there and I just found out that my only daughter is knocked up. I’ll be having my coffee Irish.”

  Soleil sighed but knew better than to argue. Anne had always been a heavy drinker and probably always would be.

  Soleil went to the kitchen and made a pot of decaf, which her mother would complain about. Too bad. She’d have to get over it.

  Anne followed her. “So, who’s the baby’s father?”

  “Not anyone you’d know.”

  “Of course I wouldn’t, since you seem to have completely shut me out of your life.”

  “Right, Mom. You can spare me the vitriol.”

  She got the cream out of the fridge and put it on the table with a bottle of honey.

  “I’ve cut all sugar and dairy out of my diet,” her mother said.

  “It’s not sugar, it’s honey.”

  “I’m seeing an acupuncturist who has me on a cleansing diet. I’m only allowed to eat vegetables and lean protein for the next month.”

  “And whiskey?”

  “I make allowances for a few necessities,” Anne said with a flourish of her hand.

  Soleil tried not to roll her eyes.

  “So tell me all about him.”

  “The baby? I haven’t met her yet.”

  “Her? You know you’re having a girl? That’s wonderful! But you’re avoiding my question.”

  “The baby’s father is West Morgan. We’re not in a relationship, but he does want to be involved in the baby’s life.”

  Her mother watched her for a few moments, silent, a half smile playing on her lips. “I guess all my feminist ranting really did get through
to you, didn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Here you are, a self-sufficient woman, getting ready to start a family all on your own. You’ll be coparents or whatever they’re calling it these days. I’m so proud of you, dear.”

  This was the reaction Soleil expected from her mother, so she had no idea why she suddenly felt as if her head was going to explode.

  “I just wish you’d told me you were planning to have a baby. I’d have loved to share all this with you from the start.”

  “Mom, I didn’t exactly plan this.”

  “Honestly, I never saw you as a potential breeder. You pour so much of your energy into saving the world—”

  “A potential breeder?”

  “Well, now you’re an actual breeder.”

  “Thanks. That’s lovely.”

  The coffee stopped perking, a welcome distraction. Soleil got out two cups and poured one for each of them, then carried the cups to the table and sat.

  “Don’t you use birth control?”

  “Of course I do. It’s capable of malfunctioning, you know.”

  Anne uncapped her flask and poured a healthy splash into the coffee. Then another.

  Soleil winced. “How can you drink that without even a little cream or something?”

  Her mother shrugged. “One sip at a time. It goes down quite easily.”

  Sure, if you’re used to drinking your whiskey straight from the flask.

  “Anyway, you’ll meet West. He’s supposed to come here tomorrow to help me put the baby’s crib together.”

  “You know, I’ll never understand you. You’d think you’d want to share this time of your life with me.”

  “Of course I want to share it with you,” Soleil said, trying not to grit her teeth.

  “But? You’re being intentionally spiteful to punish me for imagined grievances from childhood?”

  Soleil halted in the middle of adding cream to her coffee. “I don’t think this is a good way to be starting our visit,” she said as calmly as she could, though it came out sounding as tense as she felt.

  Her mother leaned back in her seat, crossed her slender arms over her chest and fixed a narrow-eyed gaze on Soleil. She was ready to battle.

  “I’m not going to sit around and pretend everything is okay when my own daughter is concealing the most important facts of her life from me,” Anne said in the not-quite-steady voice of the clinically unbalanced. “Have you ever known me to play nice about such things? How did you think I’d react?”

  “I thought you’d react like a crazy person no matter when I told you, which is why I put it off!”

  She slammed the carton of cream down on the table and a splash of it sloshed out of the spout. Then she pushed back her chair and prepared to storm out of the room.

  But that was her adolescent self reacting. Grown-up Soleil hated to run away and prolong an argument. She preferred to stand her ground and work things out. But that never quite seemed to create peace with her mother. Instead, it was more like an exercise in pounding her head against the wall.

  Anne sat silently perusing her response options, one eyebrow cocked as if daring Soleil to leave.

  “You have no idea how hurt I am,” Anne finally said, her tone taking on a note of self-pity. “I thought we were better friends than this.”

  The guilt trip. One of Soleil’s least favorite of her mother’s weapons. “We’re not friends. We’re a parent and child, but I have no idea which of us is supposed to be the child right now.”

  Her mother eschewed the spiked coffee and took a long drink from her flask. “I’m going to my room to rest, and when I come back, I’ll expect an apology,” she said, standing. “And I want to meet this West person sooner rather than later, since he’s going to be part of our happy little family now.”

  He’s not going to be part of the family, Soleil wanted to argue, but that wasn’t exactly correct. Her mother was, at least about this, right. As she watched Anne leave the room, doing what Soleil had deemed too immature, she knew she was in for a worse than usual visit if she didn’t find a way to get her mother focused on something else.

  It was as if without even knowing it, Anne was conspiring with West to turn Soleil’s life into something she didn’t want it to be.

  Conspiring with West…

  This gave Soleil an idea. Maybe he’d be the distraction to get both of them off her back.

  She drank her coffee, cleaned up the kitchen and once she’d given her mother time to fall asleep for a nap, she crept upstairs to the nursery, where she sat in the middle of the floor to contemplate the view. This room was her favorite in the house now, thanks to the purple wall color she’d chosen. She came here to sit and not exactly meditate, but let her mind trip over all the facts of her life, and speculate about the future.

  For a least an hour now, her mother had been holed up in the guest room, napping or, whatever it was she was doing. Composing an angry poem about what a bad daughter Soleil was? It wouldn’t have been the first time.

  One of her mother’s more famous poems—one that had shown up in quite a few feminist anthologies over the years—was entitled “Stranger of Mine.”

  Stranger not as in strange, but as in, someone you don’t know. As in Soleil, apparently.

  She’d never asked her mother about the poem. It had been composed when Soleil was in her teen years, but she hadn’t seen it until thumbing through her freshman anthology in college.

  The poem’s theme of alienation between mother and child had felt like an insult all those years ago. As if her mother had announced to the world that she didn’t really know her daughter, without ever telling Soleil herself.

  What was not to know?

  Was her mother merely being dramatic?

  That was a distinct possibility, but the very fact that the notion had occurred to Anne only served to drive Soleil further away.

  She wanted to have an entirely different relationship with her own daughter. She wanted to be a loving, fun, strict but kind mother. A sane mother. Someone her daughter could trust to keep it real.

  She would be all those things. She was certain she could trust herself to do at least that for her child.

  But what else could she do? Could she swallow who she was and give her baby a live-in father? Or give up the farm and go play air force wife in God-knows-where?

  No way.

  She was just as certain that she couldn’t do that.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  A DAY AFTER her mother’s arrival, Soleil was tense and counting the days until Anne would leave. Which would have been a lot easier if she wasn’t in Promise for an open-ended visit.

  She’d disappeared in the morning, on her way to a day at the local hot springs, where she’d scheduled a massage and was attending some kind of relaxation workshop.

  If it meant she’d learn how to relax without the aid of alcohol, Soleil was all for it. And she was relieved to have her mother gone for West’s visit to assemble the crib.

  “So, this is the baby’s room,” Soleil said as she led West into the bedroom next to her own.

  It was the smallest bedroom in the house and would work perfectly as a nursery. She’d originally intended to put off creating a nursery until later, once she’d figured out other more important details of her impending motherhood—like how to tell the baby’s father she was pregnant, and how to take care of a baby and run the farm at the same time. Then she’d dreamed of painting the baby’s room purple, so she’d done it.

  Now, with West commandeering her life, she could ponder things like where to place the crib in the room, and what view the baby might enjoy best.

  Her baby girl.

  Preparing the nursery was one more step along the path to the baby becoming a real live person, complete with name and favorite foods and a set of eyes through which to view the world as no one else did.

  “Great location. We—I mean, you will be able to hear her when she wakes up.”

 
Soleil bit her tongue, choosing to ignore his little slip. Maybe it had been an honest mistake, and not yet another example of him insinuating himself into her world. Either way, because he’d been so nice about wanting to help out around the farm when she needed it, and because she was enjoying his company more than she’d thought she would, she was playing the diplomat.

  When she didn’t say anything, he apparently took her silence as a sign that she was upset. “I didn’t mean to suggest—”

  “It’s okay. I know you’re trying to work your way into my bed,” she joked, but as soon as the words were out of her mouth, they had an unintended effect.

  They shined light on a fact she’d been working hard to ignore—that she was still attracted to him physically.

  Wildly attracted, in spite of their differences, in spite of her ever-increasing girth, in spite of the stress of the holidays. It had always been her problem.

  West smiled, a little too knowingly for her comfort. And, in that infuriating way he often had, he let the awkwardness hang there in the air between them, not saying a word.

  “Okay,” Soleil said. “There’s the bed. I’m going to start the second coat of paint. Just let me know if you need any help putting that puppy together.”

  He eyed the huge cardboard box. “Do you have any tools inside, or are they all in the barn?”

  “In the kitchen there’s a tool set in the first drawer to the left of the sink.”

  He disappeared down the hallway, and Soleil put the old T-shirt on that she’d been using for painting. She turned on the radio, tuned in to the local station that was currently playing a tribute to Joni Mitchell, to save them from any more awkward silences. She pried the lid off the paint can, poured more paint into the pan, then started applying the second coat.

  They worked without talking for a while, and Soleil tried to get lost in the rhythm of painting. It was something she normally enjoyed doing, finding it meditative and physical in a satisfying way, but today she felt West’s presence like a wild animal that she had to constantly be on the lookout for.

  “Could you give me a hand with this part?” West asked, and Soleil turned to see that not only did he have his shirt off—dear Lord—but that he’d managed to put together most of the bed already.