* * *
“I THOUGHT OUR selection as the babies’ parents was a done deal, at least once we pass the amended home-study portion,” Trace muttered when they left the campus and went to check into their hotel.
Trace and Poppy walked out of the lobby, key cards and map of the establishment in hand. “It is, as far as Anne Marie is concerned.”
Trace climbed back behind the wheel. “You don’t think her mom might influence her to change her mind?”
“Not about this, no. Anne Marie is as stubborn as I am. Once she makes up her mind about something...”
“It’s decided.”
“Pretty much. Yeah.” Poppy watched him fit the key in the ignition. “Why? Are you getting nervous?”
“No.” Trace draped his hand along the top of the bucket seats as he backed out of the space. “I know this is right—that I was meant to raise a family with you, and vice versa.”
Except he wouldn’t be there most of the time.
He braked as he came to a sign directing which way to go for which set of room numbers. “Everything okay with you?”
Poppy read the sign and pointed in the direction he should take. “Believe it or not, I’m getting heartburn.”
“From the grilled chicken and veggies we ate en route?” he asked wryly.
“Don’t laugh.”
“I’m not.” He drove around until he found a space closest to the door.
Poppy unfastened her seat belt. “I think I’m so worked up about the impending birth of the babies I’m getting sympathy pangs.”
“Like some new dads.”
She met him at the tailgate. “Last time I drove over to see her, which was a few weeks ago, she was having lower back pain, and by the time I got to my hotel, I had lower back pain.”
He laughed at her dramatic recitation.
She playfully punched his arm. “You promised you wouldn’t laugh!” Even though she had known he would.
He shook his head, sobering. “That just seems so unlike you.”
“Yeah, well...” Poppy watched him lift the gate and take out their overnight bags and laptop cases. “I suddenly have a lot of sympathy for the birthing partners that just have to sit around and wait.” She pressed her lips together ruefully. “I think it’s probably harder than actually being pregnant yourself.”
“I’m not so sure about that, in normal situations.” Realizing what he’d just said, he brought himself up short. “But maybe...in yours...” His voice trailed off.
An uncomfortable silence fell.
The light in the parking lot casting a surreal light over them, he shut the tailgate then locked the SUV via the keypad. He caught her wrist before she could pivot away from him. “Is it hard for you, seeing other women carry a child?”
Poppy stood, handbag slung over her shoulders, her laptop bag held in front of her like a shield. “Not as much as it used to be, but, yeah.” She forced herself to look him in the eye. There was enough compassion there to mend anything broken in her heart. “It hurts. I’m not going to sugarcoat that. But—” tears pricked behind her eyes and her voice took on that telltale catch “—I think that will pass when I become a new mom.”
Wordlessly, he moved her hand holding on to the laptop bag to the side and enfolded her in his arms. She let her head rest against his warm, sturdy chest.
Yes, she thought as she reveled in their closeness and the comfort he brought, she could definitely find a way to get over their past loss, if he were with her. Like this.
* * *
TRACE SET THEIR bags down inside the hotel room. Able to see from her expression and the way she kept rubbing her sternum, she was really uncomfortable, he said, “I’m guessing you don’t have anything for heartburn.”
She did not.
“How about I find a drugstore that’s open?”
Her body sagged in relief. “Are you sure you wouldn’t mind?”
He thought about all the times he hadn’t been there to hold and comfort her when she was sick or stressed, or just blue. He was glad he was here now. “That’s what husbands do, right?”
For that, she had no answer.
Tenderness rolling through him, he kissed her forehead. “I’ll be right back.”
Trace quickly learned that all the pharmacies in the area had closed. But there were several supermarkets that were open until midnight, and all of them had a medicine section. Not sure which type of antacid would work best, he picked up a selection, as well as a couple of additional things that might help, and headed back to the hotel.
Wondering what she’d packed in her overnight bag—he’d brought a change of clothes, a toiletries kit and nothing else—he used his keycard and walked in.
His fantasy that she would greet him in something as sexy as the second night of their honeymoon—such as it was—would warrant, quickly vanished.
Poppy was in work mode—something he was equally familiar with.
Clad in a pair of pink flannel pajamas, she had ballet slippers on her feet, a sketch pad across her lap and a lot of discarded papers around her.
Which meant...what? She’d brought clothes for any eventuality? Or just hadn’t planned on having a wild and sexy time in the first place?
Hoping it was the first option, he moved close enough to smell the apple-blossom fragrance she favored. “Feeling better?”
“A little. In the way I always do when I wash my face and put my hair back, after a long day.” She nodded at the grocery bag. “So, did you find anything?”
“Several kinds of antacids and indigestion meds.” He handed her four small boxes. “Pellegrino. Crackers. Lemonade. And—” He whisked out a plastic green strand adorned with white berries and held it over her head. “Ta-da! Mistletoe!” He kissed the top of her head. “In case you get to feeling better later.”
Poppy grinned at his clowning. She worked open the packet that declared instant relief. “You just can’t help yourself, can you?”
“Around you, darlin’? Apparently not.” Determined to make her as comfortable as possible, he reached for the ice bucket on the dresser, unfolded the plastic liner and set it inside. “I’ll get us some ice. Need anything else?”
She worked the chewable tablets out of the foil-and-paper wrapper, paused, medicine in hand, and looked up at him gratefully. “I’m good. And thanks for being such a great—”
“Husband?”
She rolled her eyes in a way that reminded him they weren’t really married, not in the traditional sense. “I was going to say friend.”
That was what she had always tagged him. And it had never really bothered him.
Until now.
So what had changed? Why was he suddenly feeling so driven to protect and care for her? Was it the fact they were about to become a family—albeit a non-traditional one. And he was already slipping into the role of ‘dad’? Or something more...?
* * *
BY THE TIME he had returned with the ice Poppy had gone back to drawing. She had turned the Sunday-night football game on TV. For him, obviously. Poppy wasn’t into football. He wasn’t, either, this evening. Maybe because it wasn’t a particularly exciting match-up.
He poured her a glass of Pellegrino over ice and took it to her, along with a packet of crackers.
She looked up in irritation. “You really don’t need to wait on me.”
He set both down on the table beside her chair with a thud. “Probably not, but I want to anyway.” He paused to survey her languidly, then added tautly, “Is that a problem?”
Poppy inhaled sharply and gave him an adorably contrite look. “No. I’m sorry. Forgive me?”
Trace could see she was stressed out, so his temper quickly cooled. “Of course.” Settling in the chair next to hers, he inclined his head at he
r sketch. “Do you really need to do that tonight?”
“Yes, unfortunately.” She pinched the bridge of her nose, as if trying not to cry. “If I’m going to do the nursery right away—”
“To help the process with Anne Marie along.”
She pulled herself together, as always. “I’ve got to figure out what I’m going to need.”
He’d always admired Poppy’s ability to set a task and get it done well, and with remarkable efficiency. He picked up some of her discarded sketches. Saw different views of nurseries. All looked fine to him. And not that different. But, apparently, to her, they were. Maybe she just needed inspiration. The retail kind.
Once again, he threw himself on the sword for her. “Want to go shopping tomorrow?” he asked casually.
Poppy’s eyes lit with excitement. “Yes, but not where you’d think.”
Chapter Six
“You want to purchase the wedding ring first or go look for baby stuff?” Trace asked late the next morning, after they had stopped by McCabe Interiors to leave his SUV and pick up the small moving truck she used for her business.
Poppy waved at a fellow business owner who was putting up a yuletide display in her store windows, then continued driving toward the storage complex at the edge of town. “You don’t need me to do that. Do you?”
Trace caught the flex of her shapely thighs as she moved her foot from accelerator to brake. His body ached with the need to make love to her again.
“Don’t you want the bands to match?” Hers was gold with some sort of decorative ridge around the edges.
“I got it at the jewelry store on Main Street.” She paused in front of the security gates and held an electronic fob against the reader. The light turned from red to green. The automatic metal gates opened and she drove through. “They can look it up for you.”
“Which means you don’t want to go.”
“I don’t think I have time. At least, not right now.”
That was clear. She’d been up half the night working on her sketches while he’d watched football on the hotel room TV. Then she’d fallen asleep shortly after taking a second dose of antacid. This morning, she’d been in a rush to get back. So they’d grabbed breakfast at the buffet off the hotel lobby and headed out. On the drive back from Fort Worth she’d made a series of business calls on her cell phone. Most of them related to the nursery she was setting up.
“I mean, that’s okay, isn’t it?” She grinned at him as they emerged from the truck. “You can handle it?”
That wasn’t really the point.
He’d figured, as long as he was going to be here, they’d spend as much time as they could together. She clearly did not feel the same.
Reminding himself that Poppy was a woman who needed a lot of personal space, he walked with her into the long building. A brightly lit cement-floored aisle ran the length of the building. On either side were aluminum garage doors. She opened three of them, one right after the other. He stared at the amassed contents inside. “Do you have a secret life as a hoarder?”
She tossed him a look. “Ha, ha. This is all stuff for my business.”
And there was plenty of it. Sofas, dressers, lamps, chairs. Steamer trunks, decorative wall signs, paintings, even chandeliers. The second unit had rolled rugs, patio furniture, sconces, desks, china cabinets and bookcases. And the third...well, that was all nursery stuff.
Lots and lots of nursery stuff. And holiday stuff galore, too. She had at least a dozen cribs in there. Youth beds. A variety of glider rockers. Plus more wall art. “This is what you meant by going shopping.”
“Yes. I’ll actually have to buy the inventory I choose from my business, although I can give myself an employee discount.”
As long as they were talking the mechanics of things... “We should split the cost.”
Twin spots of color highlighting her cheeks, she spun away. “That’s okay.”
Money. It could be harder to talk about than sex. He followed her past a row of change tables. “I’m serious. If I am going to be the dad to these twins, then I am going to be financially responsible, too.”
Temporarily foregoing the baby stuff, Poppy stacked the Christmas things she needed to decorate her bungalow on a wheeled cart and pushed it toward the exit.
Trace took over for her and loaded it into her truck. “Obviously, you don’t agree.”
She accompanied him back into the building, spine stiff. “It’s my house, which makes any change in the decor my responsibility. Financial and otherwise.”
He helped her move two dissembled cribs out into the aisleway. “Except that the changes are for the kids we are both adopting.”
Leather cowgirl boots clicking across the cement floor, Poppy marched back into the storage unit. Trace didn’t know what he admired more. Her purposeful sexy strides or the way her lower half looked encased in those skintight jeans.
Poppy shifted several boxes away from a glider rocker the same hue as the cribs. “The thing is, I can afford to raise these kids on my own. I planned on doing that all along. So—” She grabbed the matching ottoman while he carried the chair out and set it next to the cribs.
He stopped. “You don’t need my money? Is that it?”
Poppy had no immediate answer for him.
“You accepted the check from my dad.”
“Because it was a gift. His heart was in the right place. It would have hurt his feelings if we hadn’t accepted it.”
“I have feelings.”
“You know what I mean, Trace. And I’m putting the money he gave us in a college fund for them. But I won’t even do that until after the adoption is final. So, technically, although I have a check from him, I haven’t actually accepted any money from him, either.”
“Boy, you’re prickly.”
“And you’re pushy!”
They stared at each other in indignation.
Was this their first fight?
The harbinger of many to come? Trace wondered uncomfortably.
He’d promised himself he would never have a marriage like those of his parents. Yet, here they were, not even two days in, rubbing each other the wrong way...over nothing.
Poppy looked just as nonplussed.
Luckily her phone rang before they could say anything else to each other. With an irritated sigh, she glanced at the Caller ID. “I have to get this.” Lifting the phone to her ear, she walked a short distance away. “Hi, Will. Yeah, sure. He’s here.” Her fingers grazed his as she pushed her cell phone into his hand. “My cousin wants to talk to you.”
Still savoring her gentle touch, wishing he could haul her right back into his arms, and make sweet wild love to her until all this tension between them faded, Trace turned his attention to the task at hand, and said instead, “Hey, Will. What’s up?”
Will explained.
Trace went into action mode. “Sure. I’ll be at the Laramie airfield at seven.” Promise made, he ended the call.
“What’s going on?” Poppy asked, delicate brow furrowed.
Not surprised she’d picked up on the fact a situation was brewing, Trace closed the distance between them and handed Poppy her phone. “They need an experienced medevac pilot for an air ambulance flight to Nashville tonight. The gal that was going to fly it is down with the stomach flu. I figured you wouldn’t mind.” That maybe you might even appreciate the personal space...
“Of course I don’t. And you don’t have to ask me, remember?” She pivoted to look at him. “We’re still independent operators.”
Funny that he’d thought differently.
He wasn’t normally the romantic type.
Anything but, in fact.
Jerked back to reality, Trace looked at the furniture yet to be loaded and the additional Christmas decorations she�
��d set aside while he was on the phone. “I don’t want to leave you in the lurch. I know you were planning to get most of this done today.”
She nodded with a little grimace. “And I will. So long as you can help me load it on the truck and move it back to my house.”
An easy task, compared to his efforts to understand what had been going on with her since the moment they’d said their I Do’s. “No problem.”
She flashed him a smile that was both determined and aloof. “Then let’s get started.”
* * *
“SO HOW’S MARRIED LIFE?” Rose teased when she, Lily and Violet arrived at Poppy’s house that evening.
Hard to say, Poppy mused. Ever since they’d said their I-‘Sort-Of’-Do’s, she and Trace had been completely out of synch. Wildly in lust one minute, unusually at odds the next. She waved an airy hand. “Oh, you know. Busy,” she fibbed.
Her sisters exchanged looks.
Clearly, Poppy noted, they were disappointed she wasn’t more forthcoming with tales of utter bliss in this season of joy...
Rose set down a wicker picnic basket full of organic fruits and local yuletide goodies from her wholesale business. She took off her coat and scarf.
“Sad for you, to be away from your handsome hubby so soon after the ceremony, though.”
It was, Poppy thought. Because even though she and Trace hadn’t actually figured out how to be married while not really married, yet, she did love being with him. And she missed him desperately when he was away. Too much, really...considering their circumstances.
“Is he coming back tonight?” Lily unveiled a luscious-looking Brie in puff pastry.
Poppy got out the plates and silverware and passed them around. “Tomorrow morning. If the weather holds.”
“Well, that’s not too long then,” Violet soothed. Both doctors, she and her husband were used to spending many hours apart. It seemed to only bring them closer, Poppy noted enviously. Especially now they had adopted an adorable infant, Ava, who after a rocky start, was now thriving. “Since you decided not to paint, at least for now,” Violet continued, “we should have the nursery done before he gets back.”
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