Fire and Midnight

by Sandra Renee Appet

  “20 … 19 … 18 … 17…”

  Ryan pulled her against his chest. “We did it. We told both our families, and we’re still standing.”

  “13 … 12 … 11 … 10…”

  Jane’s gaze flicked toward the kitchen. “So far, yes. But we don’t know what she’s planning in there,” she teased.

  “7 … 6 … 5…”

  “How about we get out of here before we find out the hard way?”

  Jane nodded.

  “2 … 1 … Happy New Year!”

  Ryan hooked his thumb under her chin and pressed his lips to hers. “Happy New Year, Querida.”

  “Happy New Year.” She kissed him, but she couldn’t help feeling a little dazed as she imagined all the changes the coming year would bring.

  ****

  A few minutes later, Isabel intercepted Jane as she headed for the front door to meet Ryan. “Miss Jane, are you leaving already?”

  “Uncle Ryan needs to check in at the restaurant, but I’ll see you again real soon.” She bent and held out her arms for a hug.

  “Is it true you’re going to have a baby?” Isabel’s eyes were wide.

  Jane nodded. “It’s true.”

  “And you’re going to get married to Uncle Ryan?” Isabel sang.

  Jane laughed. “That’s true, too.”

  “I’m going to wear a pretty dress to your wedding and put flowers in my hair, just like you had when we first met.”

  Jane was touched that the little girl remembered such a small detail. “That sounds absolutely lovely. Happy New Year, Isabel.”

  “Happy New Year, Aunt Jane,” Isabel said, and gave her a big hug.

  Jane’s eyes welled up with tears at Isabel’s replacement of “Miss” with “Aunt”. She waved good-bye to Isabel and stepped outside with Ryan, letting out a relieved breath when he pulled the door closed behind them.

  “Ready to celebrate your first San Antonio New Year’s Eve?” he asked as he helped her into the car, and she nodded, grateful that the hard part of the evening was over.

  They headed toward the bright lights of downtown San Antonio. Ryan parked as close as he could, but they still had to weave through throngs of people wearing light-up glasses and hats, laughing and blowing whistles.

  Slowly, she and Ryan made their way toward Vine. Strands of colored lights hung from the light posts, trees, and restaurant terraces for as far as she could see. “Wow! San Antonio certainly goes all out for New Year’s Eve.”

  By the time Jane spotted Vine, Gretchen was already waving at them from the hostess stand next to the patio.

  “I didn’t think you’d be back,” Gretchen shouted over the noise. “What’s the matter? Don’t you trust us?”

  “I’m off duty. We’re here for the best table on the River Walk to watch the fireworks.” Ryan surveyed the filled tables. “How are things going?”

  “Off duty, my ass,” Gretchen retorted, and laughed. “We’ve been filled to capacity all night, and we’re selling a ton of alcohol. Now let me see what I can do about a table for the two of you.”

  Gretchen had the waiters pull a small table and two chairs from the back to the patio. A tablecloth and candle completed the romantic New Year’s Eve setting. Jane and Ryan sat down just as the first boom of fireworks sounded above their heads, followed by a stream of sparkling lights.

  Jane gasped. “It’s beautiful.” The crowd started chanting the countdown. “This is for real, now.”

  “Things are about to get very real. Are you ready for it?” Ryan asked, and kissed her hand.

  She watched the waves of color light up the sky. Then, lacing her fingers through his, she pulled his hand to her cheek and closed her eyes. The warmth of his skin gave her strength to face the onslaught of changes that would be thrust upon them soon. “As long as you’re by my side,” Jane said, “I’m ready for anything.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Wedding plans and New York’s cold, dank weather kept Jane in San Antonio for a good portion of the winter, and Ryan couldn’t have been more pleased. He was far less happy about how her workload multiplied with the success of her biggest client’s new campaign. She was increasingly in demand at work, which was a curse, as far as he was concerned.

  Jane, however, considered it a blessing. It enabled her to negotiate more flexibility in her schedule, as well as a generous increase in her salary, although it came at a price that was immediately evident to Ryan. A never-ending onslaught of e-mails, phone calls, and texts left little room in Jane’s life for anything other than her clients and their projects. The line between work and her off time became ever more blurred. Ryan tried to be supportive, telling himself that she would eventually draw a line in the sand and push back some of the work. Still, as the weeks wore on, she seemed to choose work over him more times than not, and his patience wore thin.

  In an effort to break her work-athon schedule, he proposed a deal with Jane for Valentine’s Day weekend. She agreed to shut off her phone and stay away from her laptop, doing no work for the entire weekend, while he, in turn, promised to take her on a scouting tour for wedding locations, followed by a special dinner at Vine.

  Ryan woke early on Valentine’s Day and decided to up the ante. He prepared Jane’s favorite breakfast and, instead of serving it on the patio, decided to surprise her with breakfast in bed. He crept upstairs with a tray piled high with coffee, juice, and her favorite cinnamon French toast. Nudging the door open with his hip, his gaze moved to the bed where he’d expected to find her sleeping soundly … and stopped abruptly, causing the glass to rattle on the tray.

  At the sound, Jane looked up from the laptop that was propped on her legs. Her eyes widened in surprise, and she pointed to the screen. “Just checking my e-mail for a second.” She closed her laptop, placed it on the bedside table and eyed the tray. “What do you have there?”

  Ryan swallowed the lump of anger in his throat, and strode to the dresser, sliding the tray onto its surface. “I thought we agreed not to work, today.”

  “We did. I just needed to check something.”

  He took a deep breath. “Lately, there always seems to be something you need to ‘check’. You’re putting in way more hours than they have any right to expect from you.”

  She shook her head. “It’s not that simple. If I don’t keep up, they’ll think I can’t handle the extra accounts.”

  He moved to her side of the bed and sat on the edge. “And that’s a bad thing why?”

  Stress etched lines at the corners of her eyes. “I’m finally getting somewhere with my career. I can’t drop the ball now.”

  “Damn it, Jane. Is this how it’s going to be? You working all the time?” The words fell from his mouth, and he instantly regretted his tone.

  Jane blinked back tears. “We’ve talked about this. I’ve already told you I’ll cut back.”

  “Yes, you’ve told me—but you haven’t done it. In fact, you’ve taken on more. The baby’s coming in a few months. What’s going to happen then?” He didn’t mention that their wedding was only a few weeks away, or that he’d planned on surprising her with a trip to Mexico for their honeymoon.

  “I’m taking time off after the baby is born. You’re making me feel like an uncaring monster.” A tear fell from her eye and traced a wet line down her cheek, melting his heart.

  “Come here.” He pulled her into his arms. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it to come out that way. It’s just that I’m worried, and I’m having a hard time understanding why you’re working so much. I make enough to provide for both of us and the baby. You don’t have to work at all, if you don’t want to. And you certainly don’t have to be constantly attached to that.” He pointed at the offending laptop. He never thought he’d be capable of hating an inanimate object, but he was beginning to loathe her laptop.

  He and Jane had been over the subject all too many times before. He wanted her to be a stay-at-home mother, but she was adamant about keeping her career. The subject wa
s a growing source of contention between them.

  Unfortunately, it was an easy issue for Maya to also pick at, as well. He’d done his best to avoid his sister since New Year’s Eve. Her words still hurt him, and he certainly didn’t want to throw Jane into Maya’s line of fire. It still burned when he remembered his sister’s response after he told her about the baby, on the deck that night.

  I’m sure she’s going to go on working after the baby is born. You know why, Reyo? So she can make her own money and leave you whenever life gets hard. It’s probably what she did to her first husband.

  Ryan couldn’t help but divulge the secret Joe had asked him to keep from Maya that night. He had been so hurt by Maya’s words, he told her how he’d lent Joe money multiple times to help her family. From the look on his sister’s face, she’d had no idea they were having financial problems. The truth was finally out.

  Even though Ryan wouldn’t entertain Maya’s remarks about Jane, they had left him wondering why Jane had her heart so set on continuing her career after the baby.

  Jane nuzzled her head into his neck and intertwined her fingers with his. They remained silent for a while, and the only sound was the rhythmic in-and-out whisper of their breath.

  “I know you don’t want me to work after the baby,” Jane said at last. “But I think I can make it all balance. Just have a little faith in me,” she urged, her head still tucked near his shoulder.

  Ryan leaned back and tipped her face up to meet his gaze, wiping her tears away with the pad of his thumb before coasting it over her bottom lip, leaving a damp trail. He leaned down and brushed his mouth over hers, tasting the salt from her tears. “I put all my faith in you, Querida. You’re my home, my family, my love. I want nothing more than for you to be happy.” He gave her a gentle squeeze, then released her and straightened. “Right now, though, you need to eat your breakfast, before it gets cold.”

  ****

  The French toast was delicious, but too soon it was transformed by guilt into a leaden lump in her stomach. She believed Ryan when he said that he wanted nothing more than for her to be happy, and she wanted the same for him, but she couldn’t bring herself to say the words. They would sound silly to him—or, worse, insulting—because they both knew that she had the power to make him happy by saying just two words: I quit.

  Those words would make her a failure, and she refused to fail. After all, she already had one strike against her, as far as Ryan’s family was concerned. With the exception of Maya, the rest of the family acted as though they liked her, but they stole glances at her when they thought she wasn’t looking, and they spoke together in hushed voices. She didn’t know a lot of Spanish, but it didn’t take a foreign language major to understand the word she’d overheard: divorciada.

  Sometimes, she wondered whether she was the right person for Ryan. She loved him so much, it had made her heart hurt, but she knew how much the rift between Ryan and Maya affected him. She hated to be the source of acrimony between Ryan and his sister, and she wondered whether he would eventually come to resent her for having driven a wedge between him and the Rosales family. Maybe Ryan would have been better off with cute little Tilly.

  Still, as Ryan would say, that was all spilt wine now, because she had a new life growing inside her body, one Ryan and she created together.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asked as he played with a lock of her hair.

  “How lucky I am to have you, and what a great father you’ll be.”

  “I know when that brain of yours is in overdrive. You have a lot more than that on your mind. Want to talk about it?”

  It was almost scary how well he’d come to know her. She wanted so much to tell him the thoughts and fears she kept buried inside. Sometimes, she felt like a shaken bottle of seltzer water on the verge of exploding.

  But now was not the time. Instead, she closed her eyes, letting her head rise and fall with his chest. “Can we just stay like this all day?” She ran her fingers over the bulge of his bicep. “Stay in bed with you all day? Now that would make me happy.”

  Just as he lifted the tray from her lap, the baby gave her a swift kick. Jane jumped and cupped her stomach with her hands.

  “Are you okay?” Ryan asked.

  “Give me your hand.” She pulled up her shirt, flattened his palm on her growing bulge, and guided his hand to the location of the kick. “Right there. Let’s see if it’ll happen again.”

  Ryan froze like a statue, tense and attentive.

  “You can breathe,” she said with a giggle.

  “I don’t want to miss it.” After a few moments the baby obliged with another jab. Ryan gasped. “Was that it? Did I just feel a kick?”

  “Mmm-hmm.” Jane grinned. “I think the baby’s thanking you for breakfast.” A flutter of kicks to the exact spot of Ryan’s hand confirmed her statement.

  “It’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever felt. That’s our baby in there.”

  When Jane glanced up and saw that his eyes were dancing in amazement, a warm glow of happiness spread through her. Despite everything, she had managed to make him happy.

  Carefully, Ryan slid under the covers and curled up behind her, cupping his hand around her belly. “What does it feel like when the baby moves inside you?”

  She smiled. “At first, you’re not even sure it’s the baby. It feels like little bubbles trying to escape.”

  Ryan chuckled. “In other words, you’re not sure whether it’s the baby or gas?”

  She nodded. “Pretty much. Then, after a while, you’re sure it’s the baby. You come to know the pattern. When the baby moves and stretches, it’s like being caressed from the inside. It’s almost like when we’re making love, and you push all the way inside me and pull out just a little, then push full inside me again.”

  His breath blew hot on her shoulder, and she felt his erection against her backside. “I can’t hurt the baby, can I?”

  “As long as you don’t put your full weight on my stomach, the baby’s perfectly safe. I promise.” She caressed her hand over his hip.

  Ryan whipped off his clothes in record time. With infinite care, he pulled her panties off and pushed inside her from behind. He cupped her breast, while he trailed damp kisses up her neck. When he reached her ear, he whispered to her in Spanish while his hand trailed down her belly to the spot that set her body on fire.

  “Please don’t stop,” Jane said breathlessly. The directive applied to the magical way he stroked her to a spiraling oblivion, but her words meant so much more. Don’t stop being there for me. Don’t stop loving me. Just don’t ever stop being mine.

  He thrust deeper, but not as far inside as usual. She knew he was holding back because of the baby. “I love you,” she said between moans as her climax carried her over the edge.

  Afterwards, they lay together, catching their breath. “No one ever told me how hot pregnancy sex was,” he murmured in her ear.

  “Mmm, well, you’re in the club now. But, speaking of pregnancy, I have to pee. Then we should probably get dressed and tackle at least one location on Gretchen’s list, don’t you think?” She kissed him and slid her legs over the side of the bed.

  “I’d rather stay here with you, but you’re probably right. She’s expecting a decision on the wedding venue when we’re there for dinner tonight,” Ryan said.

  Jane was glad that Ryan had asked Gretchen to help them with their wedding plans. After much debate, they’d decided it would be best to have a small wedding, with a handful of relatives and friends. Charlotte, Tyler, and her mother would be Jane’s only guests, and Ryan had pared his list down to a few key people as well. She knew it hurt him to leave Maya off the guest list, but he refused to allow his sister to ruin their wedding.

  Since the wedding would be so small, Ryan had asked Gretchen to suggest a few locations in town for their ceremony, confident that the weather in March would be perfect for an outside wedding.

  They showered and were on the road within the ho
ur.

  “Do you have Gretchen’s list? Where are we headed first?”

  He handed her a folded piece of paper. “She thinks we’ll like the first one best.”

  Jane unfolded the paper and glanced at the short list. “The Japanese Tea Garden? Never heard of it.”

  “I haven’t been there in years. It was an old quarry that was developed into gardens. It’s a popular spot for weddings around here,” he explained as they merged onto the highway.

  Soon, they turned into the park’s long driveway, and followed signs to the gardens. Jane loved the peaceful vibe as soon as she stepped out of the car. “Gretchen’s right. This place is great,” she said as she took Ryan’s hand.

  They strolled along the walkways that snaked around colorful gardens, stone bridges and koi ponds. Then Jane spotted a large, open-air gazebo on a hill that peeked over a thick brush of bushes and trees. “That would be a great place for the ceremony. Let’s check it out,” she said, and headed toward the winding stone stairs leading up the hill.

  They were halfway up the steps when her belly suddenly tightened. “Oh!” She stopped and placed both hands on her stomach.

  “What is it?” Ryan asked. “Are you okay?”

  The twinge passed, and she rubbed her belly. “Must be a little indigestion. I’m okay.” She slid her hand into Ryan’s again, and started up the next set of stairs.

  “Wait.” He held her hand, preventing her from going farther. “I don’t think we should do this today,” Ryan said, and wrapped his arm around her shoulder.

  She shrugged from his grasp. “Don’t be silly. We’re already here. Let’s go see what it looks—” Then a spasm stole her breath away. Jane grabbed her belly and doubled over. “Ryan!” She could barely bite out his name through the searing pain.

  “I’m here, Querida.” He eased her down on the step. “Where’s your bottle of water?”

  She clamped her eyes closed. The pain was almost too much to bear. “Purse,” she said between clenched teeth.

  He pulled the water bottle from her bag and unscrewed the cap. “Take a sip,” he urged, and held the opening of the bottle to her lips.