Second Time Around

by Beth Kendrick

  “It’s—” All of Anna’s objections and questions lodged in her throat.

  “Perfect,” Trish finished for her. “I think my cold, Grinchy heart just grew a few sizes.”

  “Except for one thing,” Anna said. “What’s with the dog?”

  “I was thinking we should get one,” Jonas said. “I grew up with a dog, and I want my kids to have one, too.”

  “It’s true,” Trish agreed. “Every kid should have a dog.”

  Anna shot her a look. “I notice you don’t have one.”

  “I’ll put that on my to-do list, right after giving birth and getting back on my feet for more than ten minutes at a time.”

  Anna flipped through the pages again, dazed. “I can’t believe you did this, Jonas.”

  “It’s nothing compared to everything you’ve done.” His voice deepened. “You’ve spent years tracking down specialists and making the appointments and taking the drugs and charting your ovulation and everything. And I shut down and let you do the heavy lifting because I didn’t want to deal.” He cupped her cheek. “I made a decision on the flight home from Brussels. I’m going to stop thinking about what I can’t do and start focusing on what I can. This is the first step. We’ll take the next one when you’re ready.”

  She closed her eyes and pressed the leather folder to her chest. “It’s time for me to concede defeat.”

  “It’s not a battle,” Jonas said.

  But in a way, it was. Anna let go of the dream she’d been clinging to for so long and surrendered to the fact that she was not going to be that one-in-a-million who defied all the odds. She would not prevail through sheer force of will.

  She and Jonas were never going to conceive a child.

  This acknowledgment brought with it a bittersweet rush of relief. She could stop hoping for the impossible and finally start grieving the loss of a miracle that was never going to occur.

  But through her grief, she might open herself up to new miracles. During the past few weeks in Henley House, she had witnessed with her own eyes the serendipity of second chances.

  Anna opened her eyes to find Jonas and Trish shooting worried glances at each other and at her.

  “Okay,” Anna said to Jonas. “Let’s go for it.”

  “You’re serious? Just like that?”

  “Yes. But I want more than a baby. I want a family, the kind of family we promised we’d be on our wedding night. Do you remember that?”

  He nodded.

  “You and me,” she said. “First and foremost.”

  “You and me,” he agreed. “We’ll always be a team.”

  She ran her hand over the portfolio. “But what if nobody picks us?”

  “Are you kidding me?” Trish broke in. “After browsing through that, I wish you guys would adopt me. Which reminds me, Legacy, I have to ask you something. Something big; brace yourself.” She pushed her curly bangs back from her face. “Will you be the Bug’s godmother?”

  Anna sat back, stunned. “I’d be honored. But that’s a huge deal. Are you sure you don’t want to entrust that responsibility to someone you’ve known longer? And who’s up to your culinary standards?”

  Trish selected a book on infant care from her couchside library and opened to a random page. “Question: What’s the ideal room temperature to set the baby’s room at to help prevent SIDS?”

  “Oh, that’s easy,” Anna said. “Between sixty-eight and seventy-two degrees.”

  “You’re hired.”

  At the end of the evening, Jonas helped Anna return the wedding cake to the safety of Pranza’s freezer, then followed her back to Henley House and walked her to the front door. They stepped to one side of the porch to make way for a pair of arriving guests who were exclaiming, “Will you look at this place? It’s so quaint!” and “Leave it to Maureen to find the perfect storybook inn to go with the perfect fairy-tale wedding.”

  “It’s so weird seeing people who aren’t, well, us waltz in here.” Anna brushed her lips across her husband’s cheek. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay for the weekend? This place is booked to capacity, but we can find some other hotel nearby.”

  He drew her closer and rested his chin on her head. “What time do you have to get up tomorrow morning?”

  “The cake has to be at the president’s house by eight, but I promised Brooke I’d help her serve breakfast starting at six, and then Jamie asked me to help the caterers set up at nine, and—”

  “Stay here, do your thing, and don’t worry about me.” He tightened his embrace. “Call me after the wedding and tell me how many compliments you got on your cake.”

  She tilted back her head and winked up at him. “Well, with Trish and me working our combined magic, how could any mere mortal resist?”

  “It’s not magic, Anna,” he said. “It’s you.”

  “How did everything change so completely and so quickly?” she murmured. “I let my guard down for one second—”

  “Maybe that’s the secret to happiness.”

  She laughed. “You went soft on me over in Europe.”

  “It’s the dog.”

  “I haven’t said yes to the dog.”

  “Yet.” He waggled his brows suggestively. “I have ways of convincing you.”

  This time, their kiss was long and lingering.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to come up?” She nibbled his earlobe. “Just for a few minutes?”

  His hands found their way under her coat. “I want to come up for a few hours. But didn’t you just say there’s no room at the inn?”

  “Like that’s ever stopped us before. Remember that outdoor shower next to the cabana on our honeymoon?”

  “How could I forget?”

  “Well.” She went in for another steamy, openmouthed kiss. “Brooke’s suite has a separate bathroom, and I happen to know that the shower pressure is superb in there. I’m sure she wouldn’t begrudge us a quick little tryst while she’s downstairs fluffing pillows and pouring cocoa.”

  He yanked off her jacket and started on her blouse buttons. “We’re going to get in trouble.”

  She hooked her finger through his belt loop. “Maybe if we’re really bad, they’ll put us on probation.”

  When they finally stumbled through the front door, they were greeted by Brooke, who offered up a plate of warm oatmeal cookies and a hospitable smile. “Welcome to the Paradise Found Bed-and-Breakfast. We are officially open for business.”

  “The last thing one discovers in composing a work is what to put first.”

  —Blaise Pascal, Pensées

  Helena stretched her limbs and nestled into the luxurious ivory linens covering the feather bed. She’d never felt more feminine than here amid the masculine black walnut furniture in MacCormick’s bedchamber.

  She turned to him in the bed and sighed happily. He sat with his back against the headboard, his long legs out before him, a satisfied grin on his handsome face.

  When he reached for the bottle of champagne resting on the bed stand and refilled their crystal flutes, she again marveled at their situation. “I truly had no idea that we were in such danger. And from such an unlikely source.”

  “You do no’ know how badly I wanted to tell you. But I’d been sworn to secrecy.”

  She accepted the glass he offered and took a sip as she traced the scar that ran along his chest. “To think that all this time, you’ve been my protector.”

  “I knew from the moment I saw you that you needed a protector in more than one way,” he said, the double meaning clear in his words.

  She smiled against the rim of her glass. “Then it must have surprised you when I saved your life in the end.”

  “It’s fortunate I’m so confident in my manhood. A lot of men would no’ care for their women saving the day.”

  “Well, after these many hours, there can be no question of your manhood.” She gave him a kiss before sipping once more. “You should thank me for continuing to ransack your chamber at every opport
unity. Otherwise, I’d never have known where to find a sword in a pinch.”

  “For such a well-bred gentlewoman, you’re quite handy with weaponry,” he conceded. “Had you been taking fencing instruction on the sly?”

  “No, but I’ve read all about the finer points of swordplay in those novels you dismiss so cavalierly.” She frowned. “Yet reading about running a villain through is one thing; the reality is quite another. Truly, it was merely a stroke of abject terror and blind luck.”

  He reached forward to graze the back of his fingers along the line of her cheekbone. “I owe you my life. And now, you’ve stolen my heart as well.”

  “I shan’t be returning it.” She handed him her empty flute. “I believe all this celebratory champagne has gone straight to my head.” With a nod toward the bottle on the bed stand, she said, “Won’t you pour me another glass, my darling?”

  He cast her that rakish grin she loved so well. “You are very improper, Mrs. MacCormick.”

  “You wouldn’t have me any other way.”

  Cait didn’t realize how long she’d been working, how terrible her posture was, or how much her neck muscles hurt until she felt the light pressure of Gavin’s hands on her shoulders.

  “You’re up and dressed already?” His voice was thick with sleep. She could feel the warmth instilled by the down comforter radiating from his body. “It’s the crack of dawn.”

  “I know, but I had an idea for the last scene of my book. I wanted to get it down on paper while ‘the heat is in me,’ as Thoreau would say.”

  “So you’re finished with the first draft already?”

  “If only. No, I still have to tease out a lot of plot points in the middle, but I’m getting there. And I have a ton of research to do.” She double-clicked the icon on the computer screen to zoom in on a pen-and-ink sketch of London’s Parliament building. “Are you upset that I’m using your office?”

  “Not at all.” He leaned over to examine the image on the screen. “What are we looking at?”

  “Well, right now I’m reading about the Great Stink of 1858, when raw sewage overflowed the Thames. Every Londoner who had the means fled the city for the summer, and cholera decimated the remaining population. It was grosser than gross. Next up is a crash course in 1850s hairstyles and accessories.” She nodded at the stacks of books she’d requested from the college library: Inventing the Victorians, Love in the Time of Victoria, and a compilation of lithographs from Godey’s Lady’s Book. “Makes me want to slip into some puce kidskin gloves and a gown with a gilt leather sash.”

  “Sounds like you’re making progress.”

  She sighed. “I’ve pretty much figured out the love story, but I need to go back to the beginning and work on the action scenes and layer in all the details. What style shoes my heroine has, what she eats, what she reads.”

  He brushed aside her hair and kissed her temple. “Whether she wore plaid boxer shorts under her petticoats.”

  “Exactly. And then I’ll have to go back through again and focus on character development, now that I have a better idea of who these people really are. It’s like the more I write, the more I have left to write.” She sat up straighter. “I just keep telling myself that if Brooke can single-handedly remodel Henley House, surely I can renovate a manuscript of my own making.” She waited for him to weigh in with advice. He just kept rubbing her back and looking at the picture of Parliament, so she prompted, “Don’t you have any words of wisdom to impart?”

  “Nope. You know what you’re doing. In fact, I’d say you’ve accomplished quite a lot for seven a.m. on a Saturday. Don’t you want to come back to bed?” He took a step back. “Or would you prefer I make you some coffee and leave you alone to work?”

  She couldn’t detect any trace of resentment in his tone, and was startled to realize she’d expected it. Over the last few years, she’d allowed her boyfriends to prioritize their own goals—both personal and professional—before her own. But Gavin considered her his equal. More importantly, so did Cait.

  “No, stay.” She swiveled in the chair to face him. “This isn’t at all what I expected.”

  “What isn’t?”

  She spread out her hands. “Everything. My book isn’t what I expected it to be. You’re not who I expected you to be. Even I’m not who I expected me to be. ‘Real life’ is not as advertised.” She smiled. “It’s much better.”

  He smiled back. “I love you.”

  The words hung between them for a few seconds while she stared up at him. He laughed and said, “From the look on your face, I can tell you weren’t expecting that, either.”

  Cait didn’t bother trying to be eloquent or original. She simply replied, “I love you, too.”

  He tugged her to her feet, then toward the hallway. “Come with me. I have this research project I’m working on.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “Yeah. I’m investigating what insomniac historical romance novelists wear underneath their pants.”

  “You and those plaid boxer shorts. You’re obsessed.”

  “That’s not fair; I’m always willing to try new things. Let’s get you some gilt leather sashes and see what happens.” He urged her toward the bedroom.

  She gave him a hard, quick kiss on his cheek. “I promised Anna I’d help her transport the wedding cake to the president’s house and she’ll be here to pick me up in five minutes.”

  His hands slid down to her hips. “We can cover a lot of ground in five minutes.”

  Ten minutes later, there were clothes strewn all over the hallway and a car horn was blaring outside. Cait yanked her bra straps back into place, pulled on the black pants and white shirt Jamie had instructed her to wear “to blend in with my staff,” and combed her fingers through her hair.

  She peered out the window, waved to Anna, and turned back to Gavin. “Do I look presentable?”

  “You look—how would the Victorians put it? Beauteous. Like an angel in human form. Although I should probably tell you that your shirt’s inside out.”

  “Jamie would rather I be on time than well dressed. I’ll be back by—” Cait glanced at the clock, then considered the unpredictable demands of her friends’ jobs. “I’ll be back eventually. Hopefully tonight, but definitely by tomorrow.” She blew him one more kiss on her way down the stairs. “I promise I’ll make it worth your wait.”

  “Have fun. Stay out of trouble.”

  “Having fun is a given,” Cait assured him. “But staying out of trouble has never been our forte.”

  Am I hallucinating, or does this bride have a mustache?” Cait squinted at the delicate porcelain statue atop the wedding cake. She, Brooke, and Anna were attempting to set up the cake table in the back parlor of the president’s house, and as the morning sunshine intensified, she had started to discern an unmistakable shadow on the upper lip of Mrs. Richmond’s expensive, European, hand-painted masterpiece.

  “Damn it.” Anna stopped arranging ivory rose petals on the dark red tablecloth and frowned at the cake. “You can still see that? I spent hours trying to scrub it off.”

  “I didn’t notice it at first, but yeah, it looks like her ‘something borrowed’ is facial hair from the groom. Should I even ask what happened?”

  “It would probably be better if you didn’t.” Anna turned the base of the cake so that the bride’s face was no longer in direct sunlight. “And for the love of all that is good and holy, don’t let Jamie see this.”

  Brooke approached with a fresh cup of coffee poured from the silver carafe in the corner. “Here you go, Anna. You look exhausted.”

  “A little bit.” Anna yawned.

  “Another all-nighter in the kitchen?” Cait asked.

  “No.” Anna’s eyes sparkled. “Jonas came up to visit me last night and we—”

  “Defiled my bathroom,” Brooke interjected. “And what’s worse, you got water stains on the rug in the downstairs hallway.”

  Anna choked on her coffee. “Are you kidding m
e?”

  “I haven’t had time to install glass doors in the upstairs showers, so in the meantime, we have to make do with those flimsy vinyl curtains,” Brooke explained to Cait. “Well, some of us got a little carried away last night.”

  “Pulsating shower head.” Anna grinned. “I only have so much self-control.”

  Brooke was not amused. “The water sloshed onto the bathroom floor, leaked down through the ceiling, and ended up on the hallway rug. It was like an indoor rain forest.”

  Anna busied herself with rose petal placement. “Relax, I’ll buy you a new rug.”

  “I don’t want a new rug.” Brooke closed her eyes. “What I want is to remain blissfully ignorant of all the sexual escapades going on under my roof.”

  Cait laughed. “What do you expect? When people go away for the weekend, they want a little vacay nookie.”

  “Last night was like a Regency house party! Nothing but compromised virtue and midnight assignations!” Brooke shook her head. “I was up till all hours listening to headboards banging and glasses clinking and drunk people stomping up the stairs. And these are well-heeled, middle-aged couples!”

  “Those are the people most in need of sexual escapades,” Cait pointed out. “They’re ditching their jobs and their kids and their stress for a few days. They need to cut loose.”

  Anna glanced at Cait. “Hey, speaking of vacay nookie, how was Florida?”

  “We defiled a few bathtubs ourselves.” Just the memory triggered a little quiver. “Also beach dunes, a sailboat, and a hammock—that one was a little tricky.”

  “Sounds heavenly. Where did you stay?”

  Cait hesitated, then decided that her best course of action was to stick to the truth. “A cute little beach bungalow, right on the water.”

  “In the middle of the season, on such short notice?” Brooke looked impressed. “Professor Clayburn must have some connections.”

  Cait sidestepped the issue by saying, “I think you can call him Gavin at this point.”

  “Especially now that we know about his sexual proclivity for hammocks,” Anna added.