The Baby Proposal

by Andrea Laurence

  “I think so. Just unannounced visitors from the sound of it. Call the night manager on his cell phone if something happens before he arrives.”

  He slipped out and got into his convertible. It only took a few minutes to drive around the property to his house, but the suspense was killing him. When he arrived, there weren’t many clues, either. Only nanny Sonia’s car and the rental SUV were parked out front. Whoever had arrived must have come by taxi.

  It wasn’t until he walked in the door that he realized who had invaded. It all made sense now. His brother had flown over from Oahu.

  Mano was sitting on the couch with his Seeing Eye dog, Hōkū, at his side. A thin, yet pregnant woman with long brown hair was holding Akela on her lap and cooing at her. Nanny Sonia stood out of the way as though she didn’t want to intrude on the family gathering but didn’t want to be thought neglectful of her charge, either. And then there was Lana, who turned to look at him with an expression of pure panic lighting her dark eyes.

  “Honey,” she said in an overly sweet voice she never ever used when she spoke to him. “Look who’s here to spend Christmas with us.”

  Christmas was three days away. They weren’t just visiting. They were unannounced holiday houseguests.

  Everyone turned and looked in Kal’s direction except his brother, who had on his dark Ray-Ban sunglasses. His attention was focused on the woman beside him, who Kal assumed was Mano’s fiancée, Paige. He tried not to look dismayed by their arrival, pasting an excited smile on his face. He ensured that he matched the tone with his voice so Mano couldn’t call him out for it.

  “Wow. I didn’t know you two were coming here for the holidays. This is such a great surprise. If you’d told me, I would’ve reserved our best suite for you at the hotel.”

  Everyone stood up to greet him. Mano made his way over with Hōkū at his side. He hugged his brother and took a step back. “You almost sold me on that,” he said, speaking low. “And of course I didn’t tell you. I want to be here at your new home, getting to know your bride and niece, not tucked away in that boring old hotel.”

  The smirk on Kal’s face said everything. That phone call announcing his sudden marriage had sent up warning flags that even his busy brother couldn’t ignore. Mano was using Christmas as an excuse to come down here and spy on him. Sneaky little weasel.

  Well, two could play at that game. “Mano, you’ve met Lana before, haven’t you?”

  Mano turned expectantly and Lana quickly stepped forward to take his hand. “It’s good to see you again, Mano.”

  He laughed and pulled her in for a hug. “There’s no handshakes in this family. You’d better get used to that now before you meet the rest of them. Congratulations to you and Kal. He didn’t let on that you two were serious.”

  Kal ignored his brother’s pointed tone. “Well, you of all people know how quickly love can strike. In two weeks’ time, you and Paige went from strangers to lovers to an engaged couple. Are you going to introduce us to the lovely lady whom I presume is your new fiancée?”

  “Of course. Everyone, this is Paige Edwards.”

  Paige handed the baby back to Sonia and stepped forward, smiling uncomfortably at the strangers who were now her family. Kal didn’t know what he was expecting of the woman who captured his brother’s heart, but it wasn’t what he’d gotten. She was tall and thin, pale and nervous-looking. But there was a light in her eyes that Kal immediately recognized as love and affection for his brother, and that was enough for him. He was excited to learn more about her and find out what had drawn the two of them together while she was vacationing in Hawaii.

  “It’s nice to finally meet Mano’s brother, and now, his sister-in-law!” she said. “He talks so much about you.”

  “Does he, now?”

  Mano placed a hand on his fiancée’s rounding belly. “And this, we found out for certain yesterday, is our daughter, Eleu Aolani Bishop.”

  There was another round of cheers and congratulations. Kal was pleased they’d chosen their mother’s name for the baby’s middle name. She would love that. “There’s so much to celebrate,” Kal said. “If you’d told me you were coming, I’d have been prepared with champagne and food in the refrigerator.” They really didn’t have much but some snacks and baby food. Thank goodness he had a second guest room and room service at his fingertips. It wasn’t as well appointed as Sonia’s room, but it was somewhere for them to sleep with no notice.

  “I’m sorry, Kal,” Paige said, nudging Mano’s shoulder. “I didn’t like the idea of dropping in unannounced, but he insisted you two do it all the time.”

  “All the time, as in never once in all these years,” Kal countered with a grin.

  “Mano!” Paige chided, and smacked him playfully on the arm. “You tricked me into imposing on your family.” Mano just shrugged, refusing to look guilty for what he’d done.

  “You’re not imposing. Really. The more the merrier at Christmas, right?” Kal looked to Lana for support.

  “Absolutely. I was just telling him the other night how excited I was for Akela’s first Christmas and our first Christmas as a married couple. It will be so much more memorable with family here to share it with us. This is your first Christmas together, too, right?”

  “It is,” Paige confirmed with a beaming smile. “We have plenty to celebrate.”

  “Mano,” Kal said, “I’ll show you to the guest room and we can carry your bags back there. Ladies, why don’t you decide where you’d like to go for dinner tonight? I’ll have some food delivered in the meantime so we aren’t eating crackers for Christmas Eve.”

  Mano gripped Hōkū’s lead and followed him to where their bags and a stack of unfamiliar gifts were waiting by the door. Kal picked the bags up and started through the house to the spare bedroom. Once they reached it, he set the bags out of the walkway. “The bed is here on the left just when you come into the room. The bathroom is just past the closet on the right.”

  Mano just nodded passively with Hōkū panting at his side. “Great. Thanks for putting us up on such short notice.”

  Since they were alone, Kal turned to look at his brother. “You mean no notice. Are you here just to spy on me?”

  “No. I’m not just here to spy on you. I’m here to introduce you to Paige, to meet your new wife and spend the holidays with my brother.” He smiled wide. “And to spy on you.”

  “You haven’t told anyone in the family about this, have you?”

  “Of course not,” Mano said with a frown. “You told me not to. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to fly over here and see what the hell is really going on after social services calls me with a lengthy interview to make sure this is all legit.”

  “And what did you tell them?”

  “That you two are madly in love, of course.”

  Kal narrowed his gaze at his brother, although his annoyed expression drew no reaction, since he couldn’t see it. Instead he crouched down to give his brother’s service dog—a friendly chocolate-brown Lab—a good scratch behind the ears. “Good, because it’s true. You’re going to be disappointed, brother. There’s nothing scandalous here to find. Just a happy, newly married couple caring for their niece for a few weeks.”

  Mano stood for a moment, studying his brother’s words. He couldn’t rely on visual cues, so he was quick to notice tone, word choice and physical response. It made it harder than hell to lie to him, but Kal had gotten better at it over the last ten years. Considering everything going on, Mano was the worst person to crash their fake marriage, but also the only one he’d dare trust with the truth. Hopefully he wouldn’t have to spill his guts before the holiday was over.

  “Okay, then.” Mano seemed satisfied. For now.

  Standing back up, Kal said, “Let’s go back to the living room and see where the ladies chose to eat tonight.”

  Mano nodded to him. “Can you believe we both have ladies? Us? The Bishop Bachelors have finally been tamed.”

  “A great loss to the wom
en of the islands, I must say.”

  Kal’s brother was right. At least where Mano was concerned. Kal wasn’t exactly tamed by love, although his wild nights out would cease until he was officially divorced. He might not be in love with Lana for real, but he wasn’t about to cheat on her, either. Mano had really tripped and fallen in love, for sure. Kal had never seen or heard his brother as entranced with a woman as he was with Paige. The time they were apart earlier had nearly destroyed Mano. He’d chased Paige all the way to San Diego to propose and ask her to move to Oahu to be with him. That was serious stuff for a man who’d had a sporadic string of affairs over the years but insisted he wouldn’t settle down and be a burden on a woman.

  Paige didn’t seem burdened. She seemed pretty happy. When they came back into the living room and her eyes fell on Mano, her face lit up. Suddenly she was more beautiful than she had been before, and Kal understood more about his brother’s love for her. It radiated out of her.

  It made Kal wonder, marriage or no, if he’d ever have a woman look at him that way. He’d never wanted that before—it came with a level of commitment he couldn’t give—but suddenly he had a longing for it that he’d never expected. Had he made the wrong decision keeping himself emotionally isolated? Mano certainly seemed happier than he had been alone.

  “What have we decided for tonight?” Kal asked, trying not to let the thoughts of his parents’ death creep in and ruin his mood.

  “Well, Paige has never been to Maui,” Lana explained, “so I thought we’d go to your rooftop restaurant. It’s hard to beat the view or the food.”

  “Great choice.” Unlike Mano, who put a pair of penthouse suites at the top of his resort, Kal had opted for an exclusive restaurant. With wall-to-wall windows, it had a three-hundred-sixty-degree view. To the east, lush green mountains and to the west, the ocean and views of nearby Lanai and Molokai.

  “I told her we might even see whales tonight.”

  Kal nodded. “That’s true. This time of year, the humpback whales are just arriving from Alaska. By February, the waters between here and Lanai will have the densest population of humpbacks in the world. It’s an amazing sight. Hopefully you’ll see at least one while we eat. Why don’t you two get settled in and relax, and I’ll make a call to the restaurant to hold the best table?”

  Paige nodded and joined Mano to head back to their room. Kal noticed the way she clung to him, guiding him gently without dragging him around. He hadn’t been sure his brother would ever find a woman who could get through his defenses, but Paige was obviously the love of his life.

  Turning to look at Lana and her concerned frown, he wondered if they’d be able to pull off a relationship that convincing over the next few days.

  * * *

  Lana couldn’t remember the last time she’d lain on the beach and enjoyed a little sun. It was the kind of indulgent rest and relaxation she rarely allowed herself. Having Kal’s brother and Paige visit was the perfect excuse. Tonight she was performing the last luau before Christmas, but she had hours before she had to be ready.

  Turning her head to look at Paige, Lana reached for the sunblock. “I think you’d better put more of this on. You don’t want to be burned and miserable on Christmas.”

  Paige sat up on her chaise and accepted the bottle. “My skin just isn’t meant for the tropics. I’ve taken to wearing SPF fifty just to walk from one side of the resort to the other. No major burns yet, though. I wish I had beautiful brown skin like yours.”

  Lana smiled. “Thank you. I think you have a lovely complexion, though. So creamy and even. I think women always want what they don’t have.”

  “You’re right. I’ve wanted curves all my life and now that I have this baby belly and pregnancy breasts, I’m not so sure. This isn’t what I had in mind.”

  “You’ll have a beautiful daughter when it’s over. Maybe she’ll end up with Mano’s coloring.”

  Paige stiffened and turned to look over her shoulder to where the brothers were playing with Hōkū and Akela in the surf. “I thought Kal would’ve told you this, but Mano isn’t the baby’s father. At least not biologically. In every other way, he’s convinced the child is his.”

  Lana perked up in her seat. “Oh. No, he didn’t tell me. You’re very lucky, then. Mano seems absolutely smitten with you and his baby. I had no idea from the way he talked about his daughter.”

  Paige nodded. “I am the luckiest woman on the planet. You must know what that feels like. I can’t imagine being so in love that you would just run off one day and elope without telling anyone. That’s so romantic, like Romeo and Juliet or something. With a happier ending.”

  “He’s amazing,” Lana said. She didn’t have to lie to Paige about that, because it was true. Kal was amazing in every way. That was part of the problem of having him for a best friend. No matter how hard she tried, she knew she couldn’t find a man like him and wouldn’t be able to have him for herself. She wasn’t in Kal’s league.

  There was no sense in letting herself fall for Kal, no matter how he smirked handsomely at her or treated her like a princess. He might be attracted to her, and keen to continue their physical relationship while they were married, but it wouldn’t last. He’d said as much. She knew he didn’t really want to get married and she wouldn’t be the one to change his mind about the convention.

  Both women turned back to the brothers. They hadn’t opted for swimsuits, but they were both in T-shirts with their pants rolled up to walk barefoot in the water. Kal had Akela in his arms. Occasionally he would dip down and let the cool ocean water tickle her toes until she squealed, and then he’d stand up again and give her kisses on her chubby baby cheeks. Hōkū splashed around happily, his tail wagging so hard his whole rear end wiggled from the force of it.

  They were a handsome pair, both brothers tall and lean with thick, dark brown, almost black hair. They both had lazy beards growing in from skipping a day or two of shaving, making them look more alike than ever before. They were a hard duo to resist as they played with a dog and a baby.

  Akela had gotten Kal wrapped around her finger in no time. Lana hadn’t been so sure how this would go, since he wasn’t much of a kid person and never wanted his own, but he was whupped. She noticed that sometimes even when Sonia was around, he’d take the baby and give her a break just to play with her and hear her infectious baby giggle. The big, important hotelier was a huge softie under those expensive suits. All that baby girl had to do was push out her little bottom lip or bat her full, dark eyelashes and Kal was tripping over himself to make her happy. Kind of how he did with Lana.

  The difference was that the baby didn’t know that she didn’t get to keep Kal, and Lana did. She wished she was ignorant enough to enjoy the time with him that way.

  “Paige! Lana!” Kal called, and pointed out at the water. “Come quick!”

  The women got up and jogged through the sand to where the boys were standing. “What is it?” Paige asked.

  “The humpbacks are breaching. Just wait for it.”

  The two couples gathered on the shore and waited for the whale to make its next appearance. Five seconds later, a great gray mass leaped from the water and came back down with a huge splash.

  Paige gasped and clung to Mano’s side. “Oh, wow,” she whispered. “It’s incredible. I wish you could see it,” she added softly. There was a sadness in her voice that Lana understood. She wanted the man she loved to enjoy the moment as much as she did. Kal had told her that his brother tried not to dwell too much on losing his vision. People traveled from all over the globe to see the sights that were just out his window, but he was unable to see them. If Mano let himself wallow in those thoughts, he’d probably never get through the day.

  “I don’t need to see it,” he said as he nuzzled her ear with his nose. “I experience it through you, pelelehua.”

  Lana tried not to melt on the spot listening to the two of them. His pet name for her was butterfly. So sweet. To avoid intruding on their moment, s
he moved to Kal’s side and he put his free arm around her shoulder.

  “Watch, Akela,” he said, as though the infant could follow along with what they were seeing. “See that tail come up out of the ocean? And that little cloud of misty water shoot up? That’s the whale breathing.”

  A few minutes later, one of the whales breached again and Lana felt her chest tighten. She’d seen these whales every season when they returned to Maui to have their calves in the warm waters. It was beautiful and exciting, but she’d never really given it all that much thought, much less stood transfixed on the beach and watched it happen like a tourist.

  Somehow it meant more to do it here with Kal and Akela. With her brother-in-law and future sister-in-law. It felt like she was sharing the moment with family, not just her friends. With her family as it was, it was something she’d never really had. As she watched the back of a whale arch up, then slip beneath the waves with a small calf by its side, she felt a similar sinking in her gut.

  She was getting too attached to this life they were building just for show. All this time she’d been worried about the sex, but that wasn’t the issue. The sex was great. But she also liked having dinner with Kal at the end of the day and listening to him sing old Hawaiian folk songs to Akela while he gave her a bath. She enjoyed waking up to a mug of hot coffee he’d made for her and rolling over in the night to feel the warmth of his body near to hers.

  It was like her dream of a family was coming true, and yet it was the simple things that were getting to her. They were the moments that she would miss the most when all this was over. The whole wedding had been her idea, but she was starting to regret it. It was possible that she could’ve gotten custody of Akela without all this, but now...? How was she supposed to go back to her life the way it was before? Living out of a hotel room, eating out every night and dating one loser after the next held almost no appeal to her now. Not when she compared it to sharing a home with Kal, cooking dinner for both of them and taking time away from her job to have an actual life.

  It might not be a real life, but it was all she had. And the longer this charade went on, it was all she wanted. Not just a marriage and a family, but this marriage and this family. She wanted the sweet, tender romance she saw between Mano and Paige. They had come from two different worlds and yet their lives had meshed together so well. Was it possible that she and Kal could have that for themselves?