Mind Over Marriage
Page 21
“Hello, Coop—how’s the prospective daddy doing?”
He stopped as he rounded the car, gritting his teeth. His luck had run out. “Pretty good, Holly, how are you?”
“Tired,” she said, putting a hand on her tummy. “And round.” Jonathan tried to pull his hand away, but she held tight. “Tell Kelsey I found that wallpaper pattern I was telling her about.” They turned and started up the drive. “Tell her I’ll be over tomorrow to show her.”
“Yeah, I’ll...tell her,” he mumbled, giving her a small nod. He watched as they walked into their garage.
He made his way slowly up the front walk, looking at the empty house and dreading the long evening that lay ahead of him. The place had become a tomb again, a collection of empty rooms, empty space. A silent reminder of all he had—and lost.
He’d thought of moving out, of getting a small room somewhere—a hotel, an apartment, any place he wouldn’t see Kelsey at every turn. Except it didn’t seem to matter where he was or what he did, he missed her constantly.
He’d called her numerous times in the past fourteen days, leaving messages at her apartment, at Mo’s, even at the hospital where she’d worked before the accident, but she hadn’t called him back. Mo had assured him she was all right, that the baby was fine, and had encouraged him to hang tight, that she would contact him when she felt the time was right. But Coop had a feeling that as far as Kelsey was concerned, the time was never going to be right again.
He shoved his key into the lock, twisting it in the slot and remembering what it was to have her waiting for him when he got home. Knowing she was there made coming back to the house at the end of the day a homecoming.
Everything was so different now, he thought as he pulled the door open.
He stepped into the entry and tossed his keys into the small dish on the hall stand. He had just started down the hall when a smell finally penetrated his olfactory nerves. He stopped in his tracks.
The smell of bread baking, its rich, warm aroma, filled the air.
He shook his head, trying to shake off the sudden and unsettling sense of déjà vu. He remembered the day Kelsey had told him about the baby, remembered the bread she had baked and the wonderful aroma that had filled the house.
He breathed deep. It couldn’t be. It was impossible. His mind was playing tricks on him. His memory was causing some kind of malfunction in his brain, prompting his senses to go haywire.
He shook his head again, calling himself a fool, and started down the hall again. He’d taken only a few steps, though, when he stopped again.
He walked back to the entry. He put his hands on his hips and inhaled deeply. Damn it, he wasn’t crazy. He could smell bread baking.
As he headed for the kitchen, his mind raced, searching for explanations. Had he left something on the stove or in the toaster? Was a window open somewhere and odors from around the neighborhood were drifting in? Was this some kind of phantom scent? Had the house suddenly become haunted? Had aliens landed?
However, as he rounded the corner of the breakfast nook and looked into the kitchen, he came to an abrupt . halt. Standing before the open oven, Kelsey reached for a loaf of bread from a rack inside, turned it out of the pan and set it on the counter next to several others.
Coop blinked, feeling a little like he’d been transported into another time. At that moment, he could have believed aliens from another planet had landed sooner than finding her there.
“Kelsey?”
She jumped at the sound of his voice, spinning around. “Coop—hi, you’re home. I didn’t hear you.”
“What’s...” He took a few hesitant steps forward, gesturing to the loaves of bread lined neatly along the counter. He still only half-believed she was there, still half-believed his longing and loneliness had caused him to start hallucinating. “What’s all this?”
She slowly closed the oven door and lowered her hands to the counter. “A peace offering?”
“I don’t understand,” he said, thinking this had to be a dream. She looked too beautiful to be real, too perfect for flesh and blood. “Are we at war?”
She reached back and untied the apron wrapped around her waist. “I think I sort of acted that way when I stormed out of here.” She slid the apron onto the counter beside the loaves of bread. “For a modern woman, it’s not very original—baking bread—but I wanted to apologize.”
“Apologize?” he stammered. He wasn’t sure what to say. He could hardly believe she was there, actually standing in their kitchen like she’d never left, as if the awful solitude and loneliness of the last two weeks had never happened. “To me?”
“Of course, to you,” she said, walking slowly around the counter toward him. “You certainly deserve one.” She walked to the table, touched the back of a chair to steady herself, hoping he wouldn’t notice how she was trembling. She’d taken a chance just showing up, a big chance, but she’d come this far, and there would be no turning back. “What can I say? I was upset and I took it out on you.” She looked at him, giving him a small grimace. “I seem to have a rather nasty habit of doing that.”
“You shouldn’t be the one apologizing.”
“Oh, yes, I should,” she said fervently. “For so many things.” She let go of the chair and took a step closer to him. “I lashed out at you just like I did two years ago—after the baby.”
“Kelsey,” he said, closing the distance between them.
“No,” she said insistently. “Let me get this out. It’s taken me too long as it is.” She drew in a deep breath. “I was wrong about so much. I can see it now, thanks to Gloria and her incessant questions.” She paused for a breath, shook her head. “I hated those damn questions, but you know, they finally made me see, finally helped me to understand.” She took another step forward. “I was wrong about leaving you, about wanting the divorce. I knew what we had together, knew how we felt about one another.” Emotion swelled in her throat, making it difficult to speak. “It’s just...when I thought I couldn’t...when I saw how hurt you were, I couldn’t think straight. I hated myself for disappointing you, hated that I couldn’t give you what you wanted. I thought if I let you go, I thought maybe someone else...”
“Oh, God,” he groaned in a raw, low voice. “All I ever wanted was you.”
Tears swelled in her eyes, blurring his handsome features. “I know that now. I think I must have blocked out the past two years on purpose, because I wanted to do them over again. I wanted you back,” she whispered, her lips trembling. “Tell me it isn’t too late, Coop. I’ve made so many mistakes, been mixed up for so long, but I never stopped loving you—never.” Her hand drifted to her stomach. “And now I feel like I’ve been given a second chance at a family. Please, give me a second chance with you, too.”
“Kelsey,” he murmured, catching her in his arms. If this was a dream, he hoped he would never wake up. If it was real, he would spend the rest of his life being grateful. “Kelsey, I love you.”
“I love you, too,” she whispered against his lips. “Tell me I can stay, tell me you forgive me and that you’ll marry me—again.”
He pulled back, suddenly feeling as though the sun was shining bright. “Is the bread part of the deal?”
She looked at him, smiling despite the tears. Everything was going to be all right now. “We can negotiate.”
“Then, lady, you got a deal.” He laughed, pulling her close and bringing his lips to hers. “You know, this is the kind of peace offering I could get used to.”
Epilogue
“Time for breakfast.”
Kelsey scooted up against the pillows and reached for the top button of her nightshirt. “Somebody sounds hungry this morning.”
“Be nice to this guy,” Coop said, carrying his little son in his arms. “He slept six hours straight.” He handed the baby to Kelsey. “Of course, he woke up wet to the gills and ready to eat my finger, but that’s not bad for a little guy who’s only four and a half weeks old.”
“Goo
d morning, my precious,” Kelsey cooed as she took the baby in her arms. Smiling, she looked at Coop. “How long did you have to wait?”
Coop gave her an innocent look. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“You know exactly what I mean,” she said dryly as her son began nursing hungrily at her breast. “I heard you stub your toe on the nightstand when you got up.”
“I just took a peck,” he said, rubbing his sore toe.
“A peek?” She gave him a skeptical look.
“To make sure he was all right,” he insisted. “It was his first night in the nursery, and that’s a whole room away.”
Kelsey gave him a stern look. “Coop, you have got to stop standing over that crib all night long—you need your sleep.”
“I can always sleep,” he said with a sigh, laying down across the bed and running a finger along his son’s full cheek. “But he’s only going to be like this a short time.” He leaned close and gave the baby a kiss on the top of his head, then kissed Kelsey, too. “I just like looking at him.”
Kelsey smiled, looking at the child in her arms. Chandler Cooper Reed—or CC as his daddy called him—was indeed a sight to behold with his big brown eyes and wispy brown hair. At eight pounds, two ounces, he’d burst into the world kicking and screaming—round, healthy and six days overdue. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”
“I sort of like looking at you, too,” Coop murmured, pressing his mouth to hers again. The kiss was far from a peck this time. “How did I ever get so lucky?”
“You wouldn’t give up,” she whispered, her heart filled with emotion. “Even when I wanted to.”
“Well.” He sighed, feeling more content, more comfortable than any one person had a right to feel. “I guess it just goes to show if you keep at something long enough, you finally get it right. Marriage, babies, they just take a little practice.”
Kelsey lifted CC to her shoulder and patted him gently on the back. “And maybe a good bump on the head.”
CC let out a yelp and pulled a loud burp up from his toes. Kelsey and Coop looked at him, then at each other and laughed.
“Oh, no,” Coop assured her as he took the baby from her. “I’ve learned my lesson good.” Holding CC in one arm, he reached for Kelsey with the other, pulling her close. “A building doesn’t have to fall on me to know how lucky I am. This marriage is forever this time—I’m never letting you go again.”
“That’s good,” she murmured, snuggling into the crook of his arm and lazily buttoning her pajama top. “’Cause I’m afraid you’re both stuck with me.”
“Yeah, stuck,” Coop repeated, holding his whole world in his arms. “And don’t you forget it.”
ISBN : 978-1-4592-7211-8
MIND OVER MARRIAGE
Copyright © 1997 by Ann Marie Fattarsi
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 300 East 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017 U.S.A.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents
“The other night you mentioned there was something you needed to tell me. Maybe
Letter to Reader
Books by Rebecca Daniels
About the Author
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue
Copyright
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
“The other night you mentioned there was something you needed to tell me. Maybe
Letter to Reader
Books by Rebecca Daniels
About the Author
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue
Copyright