by Marie Force
“Maggie and I made his bed yesterday after it was delivered.”
“Thank you, Frannie.”
“I knew you’d be tired tonight. I was glad to be able to help.”
“I’m going to like having you around,” Andi said.
“We’ll be spending a lot of time together since you’ll be working at home for the next few months, and I’m still using my studio here while our house is being built.”
“I wonder if we’ll get anything done?” Andi asked as she topped off their wineglasses.
“You’d better hope so, since most of what I’m doing right now is for your commission,” Frannie said with a grin.
She and Jamie got ready to leave a short time later.
“Thanks for all the help today,” Jack said as he and Andi walked them to the door.
“It was our pleasure,” Jamie said. “We’re all glad to have you here to stay, Andi, especially him.” He poked Jack. “I don’t know that we could’ve stood him for much longer.”
“What? I wasn’t that bad!”
Frannie and Jamie shared a look.
“I was not!”
Andi laughed and put her arm around Jack. “I’ll take it from here, guys. Thanks for the help.”
Shutting the door behind them, Jack turned to hug Andi. “I feel like a kid on Christmas.”
“Speaking of kids, let’s go find mine and get him to bed. He’s got to be exhausted after staying out late last night and all the excitement today.”
Eric was delighted by him his new room, which had been painted the same pale blue as his room in Chicago. He was also surprised to find his bed from home waiting for him. They all laughed when he asked if it’d been on the airplane with them.
“Whew,” Jack said on the way downstairs with Andi. “I hope they’re not going to be that wound up every night.”
“They might be for a while.”
“Maggie’s so thrilled to have him here. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad she’s happy, but it kind of surprises me, since she’s always loved being the baby of the family—and played the part to the hilt.”
“She’s never had anyone to take orders from her before,” Andi said.
“True. What else do you need for tonight?” he asked, gesturing to the pile of luggage in the foyer that they planned to deal with in the morning.
She pointed to a small bag. “Just that one.”
“Give me five minutes and come on up.” He kissed her and took her bag with him.
“What’re you up to?”
He held up a hand on his way upstairs. “Five minutes.”
She locked the back door and flipped the front light on for Jill and Kate, who were babysitting. On her way upstairs, she stopped to check on Eric. He’d fallen asleep right away and was on his back with both arms thrown over his head. She covered him, picked up his stuffed dog off the floor, and put it back in bed with him. When she looked in on Maggie, Andi found her also fast asleep and uncovered. She tucked the girl back in and went up the spiral stairs to Jack.
On the way upstairs, Andi felt some of the tension she’d been carrying for weeks drain from her shoulders. Now that she and Eric were finally here and the move was behind them, she gave herself permission to start hoping that everything might just be okay.
The newfound hope in her heart grew and expanded when she entered their bedroom, which was alight with candles. He’d also lit the fire, and Andi felt its warmth when she entered the room. The furniture she’d sent from Chicago was arranged in a way she would’ve done herself, and the room had taken on an entirely different atmosphere than it had the only other time she’d been up there.
“Hello?”
Jack came out of the master bathroom wearing just jeans and a big smile. “Hi there.”
The sight of him in the candlelight sent a wave of desire charging through her. She ran her hands over his chest and leaned into him, still wanting to pinch herself to believe she now lived with the love of her life.
He hugged her. “How about a soak in the Jacuzzi?”
“I’d love that.”
He led her into the spacious bathroom, and she gasped at the two-dozen red roses he’d left on the counter for her.
“I was going to put a card with them, but I figured I’d just tell you what it would’ve said.”
She breathed in the fragrant roses. “And what’s that?”
“Something like, ‘Welcome home. I’m so glad you’re here.’” He stole a lingering kiss and bent to start the tub.
“They’re wonderful, thank you.”
“I have something else for you.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring of keys. “The three silver ones are for the house. The others are my office, the boat, and Haven Hill. Oh, and this one’s for my car.”
“The keys to your kingdom,” she said, touched by the gesture.
He handed her the ring. “Everything I have.”
She put the keys on the counter. “Thank you.”
“Let’s soak.”
The pulsing water soothed away the strain of the last few weeks. “Jill was so sweet to get the cake and the balloons,” Andi said as she relaxed against his chest.
“I couldn’t believe it. She really surprised me.”
Andi closed her eyes and sighed with contentment. To finally be with him without a time limit was nothing short of a dream come true. After they’d soaked a long while in silence, she said, “I’m turning into a noodle.”
“That sounds serious.” He helped her out and wrapped her in a huge white towel and tied another around his waist. He picked her up so fast, she never saw it coming.
Lowering her to their bed, he leaned in to kiss her. “Don’t move.” He reached down to where he’d hidden a cold bottle of champagne and two glasses. “I thought we needed to celebrate tonight.”
“I couldn’t agree more.”
He popped the cork, poured the foaming bubbly, and handed a glass to her. “Here’s to you and me and the rest of our lives together.”
She touched her glass to his. “I’ll drink to that.”
Part III
The Butterfly: To burst forward through the water by the simultaneous up and down movement of the arms and legs.
Chapter 21
Andi made good use of her two weeks off to unpack and get settled. She was careful to make changes only to the room she shared with Jack and left everything else in the house just the way it was, which she felt would be important to the girls.
She made them a fancy, candlelight dinner for Valentine’s Day. The kids enjoyed the dinner and the silly gifts she got each of them. Jack surprised her with a pair of enormous diamond earrings that sat in a box on her pillow at bedtime. She gave him a new watch to replace the one he’d broken the week before.
The next weekend, he took her to shop for a car and talked her into a midnight blue convertible BMW, the four-door version of his. When he tried to buy it for her, she protested and let him know she was capable of buying her own car. He put up an argument—and even created a bit of a scene in the dealership—until he finally got that he couldn’t win this one.
“Andi…” He reached for her hand as they drove home in his car. Hers would be delivered the next day.
She tugged her hand away and looked out the passenger window.
“What did I do?”
“You know what you did.”
He pulled the car off the road. “Look at me.” Using his finger to turn her chin, he seemed shocked to find tears in her eyes. “Talk to me. What’s wrong?”
She looked down to study her hands. “I totally overreacted. You were just being generous, like you always are. I’m not used to that. No one has ever wanted to take care of me the way you do.”
“I do want to take care of you—and Eric.”
“Since Alec left us—and even before then—it’s been up to me to take care of us. I can’t stop that now. I make plenty of money, and I want us to have an equal partnership.”
“I make plenty of money, too,” he said with a pained expression. “In fact, I have plenty of money. Well, tons of it actually, and that doesn’t even include the money from my father, which I’ve never touched. It’s been years since I’ve worked because I had to. I want be able to do things for you and Eric without upsetting you.”
She knew he was successful, but to hear him use the words “tons of money” made her laugh. “Tons, huh?”
He winced. “You don’t even want to know. What can I say? The business does well. Really well.”
He was so embarrassed that she loved him all the more for his humility.
“Can we compromise?” he asked.
She thought about it for a moment. “I’ll allow the occasional indulgence, but I pay for the big things—my car, Eric’s school, anything he needs. I don’t want to spoil him. And my salary goes into the household pot. Fair?”
“We’ll go to the bank tomorrow and open a joint account. We’ll pay for everything out of that, okay?”
She nodded. “Will you do something else for me?”
He kissed her hand. “There’s absolutely nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”
“Don’t get mad when I won’t let you pay for something.”
“I’ll try.”
She raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“What? I will try.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Grinning, he leaned over to kiss her. “Did we just have our first fight?”
Laughing, she said, “When we fight, buddy, you won’t have to ask.”
On her first day back to work in early March, she drove Eric’s carpool and stopped for coffee on her way home to her new office in Jack’s study. He’d made room for her to work from home during the final months of construction when she would oversee hiring, publicity, and the opening gala.
Frannie worked every day in her studio while she waited for construction to be completed on their new home. Andi looked forward to their daily chats and often walked with her to pick up Maggie at school. They’d begun to notice crocuses nudging their way through the still-frozen ground, a sure sign that spring was on its way.
One afternoon, Frannie came in from the studio looking frazzled.
“What’s wrong?” Andi asked.
“My stomach has been a mess all day.”
Andi took a closer look. “You’re kind of green.”
“Ugh! I can’t afford to be sick right now with so much left to do on your commission.”
“Are you sure it’s a bug and not something else?”
“Like what?”
Andi made a pregnant-belly gesture.
“No way. That ship has sailed for me. I’m sure of it.”
“How sure?”
“Sure enough that I haven’t been doing anything to stop it.” Frannie’s face went slack with shock. “You don’t think… I mean really…”
Andi roared with laughter. “You are so pregnant. I hope it’s not triplets.”
“That’s not even funny! I’ve got to go get a test. Do you mind going for Maggie?”
“Not at all. Are you coming back here?”
“I guess so. I’ll need reinforcements if it’s positive.”
“I’ll be here,” Andi said, laughing again at the shell-shocked look on Frannie’s face.
Andi walked to Maggie’s school and arrived just as the students poured out the front door of the elementary wing. She waved to Maggie when she saw her come running out.
“Hi, Andi. Where’s Frannie?”
“She had something she had to do, so you’re stuck with me.”
“That’s okay.”
Andi smiled at her. She still sometimes felt that Maggie put up with her because she was part of the package that came with Eric. But Andi was making a concerted effort not to push herself on the girls, hoping a relationship would develop over time.
“Did you have a good day?” she asked Maggie.
“It was okay. Bobby Denton puked at lunch. It was so gross.” Maggie shuddered with fifth-grade revulsion.
“That poor kid, I’m sure it was embarrassing for him.”
“It probably was. I hadn’t thought about it that way. There’s Hailey Harper.” She nodded at a girl across the street. “I don’t like her.”
“Why not?”
“She thinks she’s so fancy with her funky French braids.”
“Guess who knows how to braid like that?”
“You do?” Maggie’s eyes lit up. “Could you do it for me?”
“Sure, we’ll do it tomorrow.”
They chatted all the way home, and Andi celebrated her first breakthrough.
One down, two to go.
Andi stifled a laugh at the loud moan from the master bathroom.
“Oh my God!” Frannie flung open the door and held up the stick with the large pink cross. “I’m almost forty-four. I can’t be pregnant!”
Andi hugged her. “You can, and you are.”
Tears spilled from Frannie’s eyes. “Jamie will freak,” she moaned. “We’re both too old!”
“He’ll be thrilled,” Andi assured her.
Frannie sat on the sofa and dropped her head into her hands.
Andi did and said everything she could think of to comfort Frannie, but nothing seemed to work. “I’ll be right back.” She went downstairs to use the phone in Kate’s room, so Frannie wouldn’t hear her. “Hi, Jamie, it’s Andi.”
“Hey, Andi, what’s up?”
“Everything’s fine, so don’t worry, but can you come over to the house…um…now?”
“Is something wrong?”
“No, it’s Frannie, she’s—”
“I’ll be right there.”
Jamie bounded up the stairs fifteen minutes later and stopped short at the doorway when he saw Frannie crying.
“Frannie, honey, what’s wrong?”
“I’ll leave you two alone.” Andi closed the door and went downstairs. A few minutes later, she smiled at the loud whoop that came from upstairs.
Jack came in a few minutes later looking worried. “What’s wrong, Andi? Quinn told me you called and Jamie went running out of the office.”
Andi kissed him. “Nothing’s wrong.”
“Then why did Jamie come over here like that? It scared the hell out of me.”
“I’m sorry it scared you, but you’ll have to let them tell you,” she said with a mysterious smile.
He seemed to get that whatever was going on wasn’t bad news, so he picked her up. “Tell me what you know, woman!”
“Put me down!”
But instead he flung her over his shoulder and pretended he’d drop her if she didn’t tell him.
“What’ll we do if our kid turns out like him rather than me?” Jamie asked as he and Frannie came into the kitchen.
Jack gasped as he set Andi down. “Your kid?”
The others nodded.
Jack let out a whoop of his own and hugged them both. “Congratulations! What a surprise!”
“No kidding,” Frannie muttered.
Glowing with delight, Jamie put an arm around his wife.
Jill came into the kitchen. “What’s all the yelling about?”
“Your aunt and uncle have some wonderful news,” Jack said.
“We’re having a baby!” Jamie said.
Jill squealed and called her sisters downstairs.
Eric trailed along with Maggie, and Andi signed the news to him.
Everyone was talking at once when Frannie turned green again and ran for the bathroom.
Frannie was sick for weeks, until Jamie couldn’t take it anymore and called her doctor. She was admitted to the hospital and put on intravenous fluids. An ultrasound done the first day she was in the hospital confirmed what the doctor thought she’d heard on the fetal heart monitor—two heartbeats.
Frannie was asleep when Andi stopped to visit later that day after Jamie called to tell them about the twins.
She woke up when Andi sat down next t
o her bed. “I blame you, you know.”
“Oh, really? I can’t wait to hear this.”
“Everyone you buy paintings from ends up with all these kids—first triplets and now twins. You’re some sort of fertility witch.”
Andi snorted with laughter. “You keep thinking that, but I’ll tell you exactly what got you in this boat—two weeks in a hut in Fiji.”
“It was a very nice bungalow, and we saw no reason to leave it,” Frannie said with a spark of life back in her eyes. “I’m thinking now that maybe we should’ve done some sightseeing.”
“I’ll bet you are,” Andi said with a chuckle.
“My mother was here earlier, telling me how twins run in her family. Mine will be the fifth set she knows of. Her great-grandmother was a twin. I never knew that. I was like, thanks a lot, Mother, but it’s a little late now to tell me I was playing with fire.”
“No kidding! Are you feeling any better?”
“Yeah. At least I’m not puking constantly anymore.”
Andi winced. She could think of nothing worse. After an easy pregnancy with Eric, the delivery had been chaotic and ended in an emergency cesarean. She often wondered if the problems during delivery had somehow caused his hearing impairment, but she would never know for certain. “Well, I’ll let you get some rest. I’m sure the girls will be by, and Jack will want to come in later, so I’ll see you then, okay?”
“I still blame you.”
After a spell of rainy days that Andi thought would never end, May dawned warm and sunny. The tulips were in bloom, and a few days were nice enough for her to finally try out her new convertible. She picked Jack up at his office one day and took him for a ride on Ocean Drive. They stopped to inspect the hotel, which was now framed and crawling with construction workers. Jack had been there earlier in the day and said he was pleased with the progress.
A week later, he and the girls noted the second anniversary of Clare’s accident by visiting her and having dinner out. They asked Andi and Eric to join them for dinner, but Andi thought they needed to be alone together and took the opportunity to spend some time with Eric.