Commissioned In White (Art of Love Series)

by McDonald, Donna

  Brooke laughed hard. “In his truck? Oh My God, Mom—that’s awful—not romantic at all.”

  “Actually, it wasn’t as bad as it sounds,” Jessica said. “He was just fooling around at first, but control got away from us both. He still makes me feel that way sometimes. There’s no one else for me, Brooke, so there’s really no choice but to marry the man. Legal or not, Will would still have that kind of power over me, but please never tell him I said that. He gloats enough as it is.”

  “I promise,” Brooke said solemnly, smiling. “I won’t even tease you about it.”

  Jessica lifted their joined hands for a kiss. “It’s very nice to be friends with my daughter. I’m so glad you decided to move back here.”

  Brooke smiled happily. “Well, I am too. Now if only I could start dating again, life would be great. I was so not meant to live a celibate life.”

  “Of course not,” Jessica said wisely. “I still think you should consider taking Drake for a spin. I hear he’s out of practice though. Brandon told Carrie he doesn’t date.”

  “Wow, that rumor is getting some mileage,” Brooke said on a laugh. “I think Dr. Barrymore would be quite appalled to know his eighteen-year-old son is discussing his lack of a sex life.”

  “Brandon adores Carrie, but I think he wants his father to date so badly that he would tell anyone he thought might get him doing it,” Jessica said. “Brandon is not quite as bad as Michael and Shane, but I can definitely see him getting that way if Drake doesn’t date soon.”

  “What do you mean?” Brooke asked.

  “Didn’t I tell you that Michael and Shane came to the school and talked me into going to see Will?” Jessica asked, letting go of Brooke’s hand as her daughter shook her head. “They begged me to date him, told me Will hadn’t been with anyone since he divorced their mother. They said he’d been waiting for me.”

  “I think I’m in shock. What did you do?” Brooke asked, laughing at the image of the two of them confronting her mother in her classroom.

  Jessica sighed. “I let them talk me into it. Shane was practically crying, which was shocking for a guy that looks like he does. Michael was begging and pleading. I finally caved, and it turned out to be worse than they were saying. Will was depressed and not getting out of bed—because of me.”

  “Mom. . .well—wow,” Brooke said, at a loss for anything to say. What her mother was sharing was mind boggling. Will was tough and sweet and obviously completely in love with her mother. It was hard for Brooke to imagine anything cutting the man down like that emotionally.

  “I went to the house, yelled at Will for being stupid about me, and climbed into bed with him while his sons watched,” Jessica said, defiance in her voice all these months later. “We made them go to dinner and leave us alone. Will and I talked, and I ended up spending the night.”

  “Geez, you amaze me,” Brooke said. “Since the first time was in his truck, I’m guessing Will didn’t touch you that night?”

  “No,” Jessica said flatly, the memory still smarting. “He had some strange ideas. Anyway, we had a big fight the next morning, which Michael witnessed, I later learned. Then I went out with Adam that evening because I’d already made the date.”

  Brooke snickered. “You spent the night in Will’s bed, but still went out with the math teacher? Forget Shane. You’re the one that should write a book,” she said. “I’m sitting here riveted in my seat, and I’m related to you.”

  Jessica laughed at the compliment. “Wait—I’m just getting to the good part. Will shaved his head, got an earring, and came after me that evening. It was like something you’d see in the movies. He was so sexy that I sent Adam home alone and ended up making out with Will in his truck.”

  Jessica sighed and sipped her wine. “I guess up to the truck part, it sounds kind of dreamy, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Brooke agreed on a laugh. “Makes me sorry Carrie got to Michael first.”

  Jessica laughed more. “Oh honey, Michael is definitely not like Will. He would drive you crazy. The man is very jealous, hovering and controlling, not to mention perpetually horny, if Carrie isn’t exaggerating. She says he uses sex to get his way with her. He’s not as stubborn as Shane, but he’s moody as hell. Not to mention, Michael wants a family whether Carrie does or not. He pushes her buttons just to see her get mad. I’m crazy about him, but sometimes I want to kick his ass for her sake.”

  “Now there you go, ruining my harmless fantasy about my sexy stepbrother with the sordid truth about his imperfections,” Brooke joked. “Carrie said Barrymore was like Michael, only much nicer.”

  Jessica thought about that analogy for a moment. “That sounds right. I think I would agree. Though I’m not completely sure about the nicer part. I think what she’s calling nicer in Drake, I’m going to call repression of his true nature. I could be wrong though.”

  Brooke snorted. “Well, whatever the situation is with Dr. Barrymore, I’m definitely not nice. I’m shallow and demanding, and I have a quick temper. It was all I could do not to kill him the first day we talked in person at the gallery. Then when he took me to pick up Shane’s car at the impound lot, I answered everything he asked in two word sentences to avoid fighting. Barrymore irritates me on a basic level.”

  “Like a rock in your shoe, or a special kind of itch that needs scratching—just by him?” Jessica asked, teasing.

  “Like bitter, cold coffee that makes you cringe when you forget and take a sip,” Brooke said, laughing at their varied analogies, all the while thinking about how much she truly much liked her mother.

  Jessica winced. “That’s bad. Nobody likes cold coffee. However, my instincts tell me he could heat up to scalding hot if circumstances were right.”

  “You sound like Carrie. She goes on and on about feeling sorry for him,” Brook said.

  Jessica shrugged and sipped more of her wine.

  Brooke laughed and decided not to debate her mother’s instincts, especially since she didn’t want to admit that her instincts were telling her the same thing. “So when is everyone else getting here. I’m getting hungry.”

  Jessica shrugged again, but looked up just as Ellen and Reesa were coming through the door. “Oh good. Ellen was able to talk the newest Larson victim—I mean bride—into coming.”

  “Who? Oh, Reesa,” Brooke said in a sing-song voice, light dawning. “I didn’t get to talk to her much when I met her. Shane wouldn’t let her alone long enough. Talk about possessive.”

  “Yes, Shane’s a big teddy bear, but his controlling nature is worse than Will’s. And he uses his size to get his way. He’s a sweetie most of the time, but I hope Reesa learns to assert herself with him. I don’t think that passive-aggressive thing she’s doing now is going to work for long.”

  Brooke laughed. “Thirty years of therapy and you sound like a therapist yourself.”

  “That’s because I’ve had to break myself of every negative coping mechanism under the sun,” Jessica said. “I recognize the signs. She’s not telling him how she feels because she thinks it won’t do any good—that and she doesn’t want to fight with him. Neither is helping their situation.”

  “It might not do any good to fight with him. Shane likes word games and probably thinks he’s smarter than everyone else. If I wanted that kind of intellectual challenge, I’d be married to a lawyer by now. That’s why I wasn’t interested in Shane for myself,” Brooke said quietly. “Been there, had my fill of that.”

  Jessica was smiling when Ellen and Reesa got to the table. “Welcome to my party. I’ve got a head start on the fun, so overlook my loose tongue please. Reesa, so glad you could join us.”

  “I insisted,” Ellen explained, trying to make up for Reesa’s obvious reluctance to be there. It was in the frown on the younger woman’s very expressive face. “Joseph was helping Shane build shelves in the garage. You can’t imagine the racket they were making. Jillian was there with the children. I talked Reesa into taking a break.”

  Reesa
sighed at Ellen’s explanation, still wondering why she had given in and come. She was becoming way more sympathetic about Shane’s reticence in telling his mother things. The woman had shown up three times this week to collect her for one purpose or another. Not that it wasn’t nice to get away, but it was playing hell with her routine.

  “What I really needed was to get the laundry finished,” Reesa joked, but it came off flat. “Sorry. The house is a construction zone and I’m going crazy. I guess I did need to get away for a bit.”

  “Oh well, you’re in good company with us then. We’re all a bit crazy,” Jessica said, pouring wine into two glasses and sliding them over to Ellen and Reesa. “Let’s order appetizers. Carrie said not to wait on her to eat. She ate some bad Chinese food earlier this week and hasn’t recovered. Poor baby. She turns green every time she looks at food.”

  Ellen raised an eyebrow. “Carrie’s sick? She isn’t pregnant again so soon, is she?”

  “Don’t think so,” Jessica said, “not that Michael hasn’t been trying his best to make her that way.”

  “Mom,” Brooke said, sliding the wine away. “No more drinking until you eat something. You said that in front of Michael’s mother.”

  “So?” Jessica said, turning her head to Ellen, who only laughed. “Am I saying anything you don’t already know?”

  “Nothing at all. I’m well aware of my son’s intentions towards his wife. I just hope Carrie is smart enough to use good birth control. Mine failed and that’s how I got pregnant with Michael,” Ellen said shrugging, sipping her drink. “Thank God for menopause.”

  Jessica laughed and lifted her glass in agreement, then saw Reesa’s wide-eyed stare at her mother-in-law. “Are we embarrassing you, honey? I’m sorry.”

  Reesa laughed nervously. “I’m not embarrassed, just—worried now. The last thing I need is a baby.”

  All the women at the table laughed. Ellen reached over and patted Reesa’s hand. “That’s what I thought both times.”

  “I was pregnant at seventeen,” Jessica said. “No one plans to do that.”

  “So what you’re both telling me is there’s nothing I can do but abstain or hope the birth control works,” Reesa said on a sigh.

  “Well, I did my part by raising sons who will make good fathers. They have an excellent role model in Will. So if birth control fails for either of my daughters-in-law, I’m hoping it means they will have help raising their babies. But if my sons don’t do right by either of you, I’ll personally kick their asses and make them,” Ellen said, laughing when Reesa almost spit out her wine.

  “What? I can’t swear?” Ellen asked, meeting Reesa’s sparkling green gaze with her twinkling blue one.

  “You just don’t look like the type of person who swears,” Brooke teased, saving Reesa from having to admit it to her mother-in-law.

  Ellen snorted. “Great, my sons think I can’t drink beer or watch a football game. My daughters-in-law and friends think I can’t swear. Am I going to have to get a tattoo and maybe a nose ring to shake people up?”

  “Don’t do it on my account,” Jessica exclaiming, laughing at the thought. “You can swear all you want around me, Ellen. Hell, I’d drink beer with you too, but I hate the stuff.”

  “That’s because you haven’t had good beer,” Ellen said snidely. “Personally, I like Mexican beer, but a dark German bock is good too.”

  Reesa looked at her mother-in-law. “You honestly drink beer?”

  Ellen sipped her wine and snorted. Instead of answering Reesa, she turned to Jessica. “I bet no one is ever surprised by anything you do,” she said snidely.

  “Probably not,” Jessica agreed. “But I’ve had a lot of practice being wicked. You’re still a rookie, even if you are older than me.”

  “Really? How’s this for wicked?” Ellen asked, giving Jessica a middle finger salute that had her laughing, and the younger women gasping in shock.

  “Now that’s what I’m talking about,” Jessica said, smacking the table and smiling when Ellen laughed hard in response.

  But two hours later, no one was laughing anymore.

  “Carrie, honey, I don’t think food poisoning lasts for four whole days,” Jessica said softly, holding back Carrie’s hair as she bent over the toilet.

  When she had finished throwing up, Carrie swore and took the wad of wet towels Ellen brought over to her. “I can’t believe Michael Larson managed to knock me up again so soon,” she complained, sniffling as she laid her head on her arm. “Good thing we kept all that baby stuff, I guess. We just closed the door on the room and thought we’d deal with it after the gallery was up and running.”

  Tipsy from several glasses of wine, Ellen slid to the floor and wrapped her arms around her daughter-in-law’s back. “Honey, I’m sure things will be better this time,” she whispered, hoping she was right.

  Carrie sniffled again, and reached to pull Ellen’s arm closer around her. She needed all the comfort she could get. “Of course they will. I actually want the baby this time. I just wanted it down the road, like next year or something. I can’t be sick every two seconds and still open the art gallery. This timing sucks—just sucks.”

  Brooke and Reesa stood outside the open stall, sighing and biting their lips.

  “I think I may change my mind about dating after this,” Brooke said, turning to look at Reesa’s equally worried expression. “Maybe I’ll buy a vibrator instead.”

  “Maybe it’s really food poisoning,” Reesa said hopefully, unwilling to believe Michael’s lovemaking had overridden Carrie’s birth control. She couldn’t believe it and ever let Shane anywhere near her again.

  “Do you also think denial is a river in Egypt?” Brooke teased, eyeing Reesa’s shaking head.

  Carrie laughed at Reesa’s look of shock too. She didn’t blame her, but couldn’t help thinking it was funny, too. Damn Larson men.

  “Look—I’m just feeling sorry for myself. This is obviously not all Michael’s fault. I specifically asked my OB/GYN for the strongest birth control they had, warned the doctor that the man I married just looked at me and I got pregnant, but no—she had to give me the lesser dosage because it was safer. Damn it—I knew I was right to want the stronger stuff. There will be no living with Michael now. He’ll make me freaking insane with his worrying.”

  Jessica started giggling, and then Ellen chimed in, trying unsuccessfully to cover it with her manicured hand.

  Carrie glared at both of them. “Yeah, you two can laugh, but it wouldn’t be so funny if it was happening to either of you. How would like to be pregnant?”

  “Never going to again in my case. I’m completely menopausal and loving every minute of it,” Ellen said. “It has its challenges, but at least I don’t have to worry about contraception anymore.”

  “I had my tubes tied in my mid-twenties,” Jessica bragged. “I never regretted it and am even more grateful now.”

  “Single and loving it,” Brooke declared. “No man gets near me without a super strength condom.”

  Reesa groaned and dropped her head in her hand. “If I get pregnant, Shane Larson is a dead man. The last thing I need is another child to take care of in my life.”

  Carrie stumbled from the stall to put her arms around the tiny woman who made her feel gigantically tall. She hugged and rubbed Reesa’s back in empathy.

  “It’s not the pregnant part that’s hard. It’s all the hovering you have to put up with from the guys—and the crying. Man, I hate crying. I cried buckets last time. I should have suspected I was pregnant when I cried over the cheap electric bill I got at the gallery. Nobody cries over electric bills. That’s just asinine.”

  “I don’t know,” Reesa said. “I’d probably cry over a cheap electric bill.”

  The women all snickered, but Carrie turned to Jessica. “This is the worst bachelorette party I have ever attended. Where are the strippers?”

  “Brooke didn’t get me any,” Jessica complained, crossing her arms and pretending to be upset. �
��She was worried about what I might do to Will if I got too churned up.”

  “God, I can’t wait to get older,” Reesa said, sighing. “When do you get to stop worrying when you have sex?”

  Ellen came out of the stall and slipped an arm around her other daughter-in-law’s tiny waist as Carrie moved away. “Oh, it’s not really about age, Reesa. It’s more like sometime after the kids are gone, you start to realize there’s no one left to worry about what you do. It takes a bit to reinvent yourself, but honey, it’s so worth it.”

  “I guess I need to stop and get a pregnancy test on the way home,” Carrie said, resigned to checking, even though she didn’t really need to since all the signs were there. She just had been too busy to pay attention. “You can bet your ass tomorrow I am going to have a long talk with my baby doctor. I also hope I have some of those anti-nausea pills left. Michael is going to be so happy. I hope I can carry to full term this time. And here I go again, angry to weepy in three seconds flat.”

  Carrie put her hands over her face, sniffled again, and then let the flood loose in the towels Ellen had given her.

  Jessica walked over and hugged Carrie, brushing back her hair. “Everything with Michael is better now though, right?”

  Carrie nodded. “Yes—better than I ever imagined.”

  “So I’ll just buy plenty of new clothes and plan on being at the gallery every day until you get past the sick part. No problem,” Jessica said easily. “It will keep me from having a panic attack about retiring.

  Carrie hugged back. “I think my parents have been praying for this too. Between them and Michael, I knew I wasn’t going to get to wait a whole year before getting pregnant. But I was still hoping. I need to go home now.”

  “Good—because I have to tell you girls, I am partied out. This is all the fun I can take for one night,” Jessica said. “Let’s all go home.”

  They trailed out of the bathroom and back to the table to collect their coats.

  “So are you really going to rent the condo, Brooke?” Reesa asked as they were leaving.