“A word that does not exist in this family. And anyway, your grandmother knows the Colonel, so there you are.”
“I think knows might be stretching it. She worked with his wife or something, a million years ago. And she met him once. Not exactly bosom buddies.”
Her eyes sparkling behind her enormous glasses, Kelly put a finger to her twitching lips, then motioned for Laurel to follow her. They crept through the dining room to another set of French doors opening into the sunroom, where Laurel could hear her grandmother and Tyler’s dad yammering away. The silver-haired, broad-shouldered Colonel—who redefined intimidating—chuckled at something her grandmother said, and Laurel’s mouth sagged open.
Kelly gave her a thumbs-up then they both scurried back to the kitchen like a pair of kids caught eavesdropping on their parents.
“Holy crap,” Laurel said.
“I know, right? Matt says the Colonel’s never been the same after Jeanne—his wife—died a few years ago. Not that this is a surprise. She was such a neat lady, and he obviously adored her. I can only imagine how hard it’s been for him. It’s good to hear him laugh.”
Over the pang—because, heck, yeah, she’d like to be adored, too—Laurel released a short laugh. “That’s Gran’s gift.” She thought of how her grandmother had kept their spirits up, after her mother died, deliberately prodding their funny bones in order to break the mesmeric grief that could have so easily suffocated them both. Except then she remembered the “catch the bouquet” comment and sighed. “Although she can be a real pain in the patoot, too.”
“And you love her to bits.” Nodding, Laurel pressed a hand to her heart. Because everything her grandmother did or said—yes, even the irritating stuff—stemmed from love, she knew. The redhead smiled. “It’s also nice to see Ty with someone who communicates in something other than giggles.”
Laurel’s cheeks warmed. “Oh, we’re not with each other... We’re just neighbors—”
“So he said. But still. The giggling thing?” Kelly shuddered, and Laurel softly laughed.
“I’ve witnessed the giggling, once or twice. Although not for a while... Ouch, baby.”
Kelly’s eyes shot to Laurel’s face. “What?”
“Oh, it’s nothing. But I keep having these little...twinges.”
“Down low or up high?”
“High.” Laurel palmed the top of the mound. “Here. Like my belly keeps making a fist.”
Kelly looked relieved. “Braxton Hicks. Annoying, but harmless. So when are you due?”
Laurel decided against mentioning the backache. Especially since, now that she was off her feet, it’d gone away. Mostly. Probably caused by the heels. Which she wasn’t used to wearing in any case. “Beginning of October.”
“Get out! For real? God, I was huge by six months with both of mine. With Aislin I thought for sure I was going to birth a hippo.”
“Tell me about it. Especially since it’s gotten hot.”
“Yeah, summer pregnancies suck. I used to take cool baths at night... They seemed to help.”
“Good idea, I’ll try that.” She watched Kelly make quick work of a pile of washed mushrooms, her rings flashing, and she shoved down another spurt of envy. And got busy with her own knife. “Congratulations, by the way. Matt seems like a really great guy.”
Backhanding a stray curl off her forehead, Kelly grinned. “They all are, those Noble boys. The Colonel and Jeanne raised ’em right. But thanks. It’s been a long time coming—”
“Only like twenty freaking years,” Sabrina said as she reappeared, plucking at the deep neckline of her bright blue, cleavage-enhancing dress. She grabbed a pair of unused kabob skewers off the counter and, following her sister-in-law’s lead, twisted up her long, dark hair, impaling it with the sticks. Add some dangling flowers and white makeup, they could do The Mikado. “Talk about a long learning curve.”
Laurel chuckled. “Ty said you were sweet on each other when you were kids?”
Her makeshift updo wobbling, the brunette leaned over the counter and grabbed a slice of cucumber off the cutting board, the enormous diamond in her engagement ring nya-nyaing Laurel, too. Brother. “Except neither dumbass bothered to clue the other one in.”
“And sometimes these things need time to ripen. Oh, come on,” Kelly said at Sabrina’s eye roll, “what could we have possibly done about it when we were kids? Matt and I didn’t...fit each other then.”
“Not like you do now, I imagine,” Sabrina said with a wicked grin, ducking and shrieking when Kelly smacked her with a tea towel, and Lauren thought, I miss this. Oh, she cherished her solitude, for sure wasn’t lonely...but it’d been a long time since she’d had a gal pal to shoot the breeze—or the bull—with. Gran was great, but...it wasn’t the same.
“You know,” Sabrina now said, frowning slightly as she chewed, “you look familiar. Were you at Hoover High?”
“I was. But a year ahead, I think—”
“And I moved away when I was sixteen,” Kelly said as Sabrina’s phone buzzed. “So at the most we would have only been there at the same time a year—”
The brunette snorted. “Chad. Needing to be rescued, probably.” Laurel had only briefly spoken to Sabrina’s fiancé, but her immediate impression was that he didn’t quite know what to make of this boisterous, cobbled-together family he’d be marrying into. “Good thing our wedding’s not till next summer, it’ll take at least that long to break the poor guy in. You need me for anything else, Kell?”
“No, I think I’m good. Thanks.”
Laurel couldn’t quite read the expression on Kelly’s face as she watched her sister-in-law leave, but with a small sigh Kelly crossed to the counter to pull a jug of virgin olive oil and a bottle of balsamic vinegar out of a canvas tote. “So is your nursery ready yet?”
Laurel pulled a face. “There’s a room that will be a nursery, but...no. And yes, I know this kiddo’s not gonna wait until I decide on a paint color. Or a crib. Or, well, anything else. I mean, I went to Babies “R” Us, but...holy crud. Three aisles in and I nearly had a panic attack.”
“Sing it, honey. Not that I don’t totally love that store, but Eighth Layer of Hell when you’ve got pregnancy pickle brain. Took me two hours to pick out a stroller... Oh, sweetie!”
The tears came out of nowhere. Like a freaking tsunami. Instantly Kelly was around the island, draping an arm around Laurel’s shoulders and handing her a paper towel to blow her nose.
“I’m so sorry—”
“Hush,” Kelly said, giving Laurel a quick squeeze. “Listen, when I was pregnant I’d go under at the sight of an empty toilet paper spindle.”
Laurel snuffled a laugh, then dabbed the stiff towel underneath her eyes as Kelly let go to perch on the stool beside her. Then she sighed. “But I’m not—this isn’t like me. At all.” She blew her nose. And felt her bottom lip go quivery all over again. She made a sound that was part laugh, part groan. “God, what is wrong with me? It’s like aliens have taken over my brain.”
“No, just your uterus. And it will pass. I promise.” Then Kelly gently said, “Tyler told me you’re doing this on your own.”
“Yeah,” she said on a shaky breath. “And I’m so...”
She stopped. Not that Kelly didn’t seem to be a genuinely caring person, but they’d known each other for like a nanosecond. And it was the woman’s wedding day—
“Scared?”
“Try petrified.”
Kelly smiled. “Then welcome to a very large club. Oh, I suppose there’s a few überconfident mothers-to-be out there, but I don’t know any of them. Or want to, frankly. And God knows I wasn’t one of them.” She patted Laurel’s hand, then got up to drizzle olive oil, then vinegar, over the salad. “Is anyone giving you a shower?”
“I... No.” She frowned. “I hadn’t even thou
ght about it—”
“Well, consider yourself showered,” Kelly said, picking up a pair of salad servers to toss the greens. “We will go back to Babies “R” Us— Yes, I’m going with you, I can live vicariously—and you will set up a registry, and you will invite every woman you’ve ever known, thus guilting them into giving this kid a gift—”
“I can’t do that!”
“You can, and you will.” Kelly lowered her chin and gave her a hard look. “How many wedding and baby gifts have you been suckered into giving over the years?”
Laurel’s mouth twisted. “A few.”
“Then there you are. The universe’s way of evening the score.” She leaned forward. “And you need to let the world know you are celebrating this little person’s arrival. Right?”
“When you put it that way...”
Kelly jabbed one of the servers at her. “So name the date. We’ll do it here, it’s absolutely stunning in the early fall, when Jeanne’s roses get their second wind. I’ll bring the food—”
“Wait.” Laurel’s eyes narrowed. “Did Tyler put you up to this?”
That got a laugh. “He’s a guy. Guys do not think in terms of baby showers. I, however, do. And it’s been a while since I’ve given one, so watch out.” At Laurel’s smile, Kelly’s expression softened. “But since you brought up the subject...men also aren’t very good about saying when they’re concerned about someone. But I can tell Ty is, about you—”
“Hey,” Laurel heard behind her, and she stiffened. Speak of the devil. Ack. “Matt wants to know, what’s the holdup?”
Figuring her face was probably a lovely shade of lobster by now, Laurel decided against turning around. Especially since she had no idea how to handle Kelly’s little revelation about Tyler. And even less how to handle the potential fallout if he’d overheard.
“Sorry!” Kelly said brightly, palming the island to wiggle her bright blue pumps back on, then hauling the huge glass salad bowl into her arms. “Lost track of time! This was the last thing, so we’re ready.”
Then she skedaddled out of the kitchen...and Tyler plunked his butt on the stool Kelly had recently vacated, the longneck in his right hand dangling between his spread knees. Like his brothers, he was wearing khakis and a royal-blue polo shirt, open at the neck. Unlike them, he wore loafers without socks. And a frown underneath the floppy, streaked hair.
“You were crying?”
Laurel took the crumpled towel to her eyes again. “It’s what pregnant ladies do. For no good reason, most of the time.” She gave him a smile as she slid off the stool. Her back twinged again; she ignored it. “I’m fine.”
“Then why’d you make that weird face—”
“What weird face?” Gran said, coming into the kitchen. She’d gone all out today, in some salmon-colored chiffon number that reeked of mothballs and the Reagan era. And rhinestone-studded gold flats.
“This one,” Tyler said, imitating her. Gran’s beady eyes zinged straight to Laurel’s.
“What’s going on? And don’t you dare lie to me.”
“Nothing,” Laurel said, pressing her knuckles into her lower back. “But I probably shouldn’t’ve worn these shoes, and it’s hot and—”
“We should probably get you home,” Tyler said, setting the bottle on the counter and sliding off the stool.
“Home, hell,” Gran said. “Where’s your cell phone, sweetheart? I’ll call your doctor’s service, have her meet us at St. Luke’s. You know where that is?” she said to Tyler.
“Yeah, that’s where I had my broken arm set—”
“You guys!” Laurel said, not sure whether to laugh or clobber somebody. “I’m way too early, this can’t possibly be labor—”
“You ever been in labor before?” Gran asked.
“No, of course not—”
“Then how would you know? Yeah, that’s what I thought. So where’s your purse? Tyler, you want to bring the car around?”
“You got it, I’ll meet you guys out there—”
“Excellent,” Gran said as Tyler strode off. “So. Laurel? Purse?”
“And I told you—”
Her belly tightened again, so hard she couldn’t breathe. Or move. Or, alas, finish her sentence. Well, crap.
Swallowing down a surge of panic, Laurel sagged against the stool, waiting out...whatever this was. No, no...this was so not happening. Not now—
“My bag’s with yours, Gran,” she whispered over her hammering heart. “On the bench by the front door.”
Her grandmother fake-smacked her forehead. “Of course, I’m an idiot, we’ll get it on the way out. Come on, sweetheart,” she said, and that’s when Laurel saw, past Gran’s bravado, her own fear reflected in the old woman’s eyes. Tucking her withered hand around Laurel’s arm, Gran guided her toward the front door, whispering, “It’s going to be okay, doll baby, I promise.”
The very same words she’d said, Laurel realized as she slid into the front seat beside Tyler, the night Laurel’s father dropped her off right after her mother’s funeral, promising he’d return for her soon....
* * *
“You think it’ll be much longer before we know what’s going on?” Laurel’s grandmother said, looking toward the double doors behind which Laurel had been whisked more than an hour ago.
Tyler pocketed his phone after Kelly’s worried call, wondering how it was he always seemed to be the one reassuring everyone these days. That used to fall to the woman he’d finally learned to call Mom, the woman who’d patiently shepherded him through his godawful teenage years. She’d know exactly what to say, he was sure. How to be.
Because, like pretty much everybody else on the planet, Tyler hated E.R. waiting rooms. That feeling of helplessness, the aroma of fear. The way his heart refused to settle down into anything even reasonably close to a normal rhythm. And right now, he especially hated the agitated expression on the old woman’s face, her dress floating like koi fins as she paced with her arms tightly folded over her ribs, because there wasn’t a damn thing he could do or say to ease her mind.
Or his, he thought, as remnants of years-old dread chugged through his veins.
Of course, this time wasn’t anything like the night Jeanne collapsed, and it’d only been him and the Colonel in the house when the ambulance came. Tyler had driven Pop to the hospital, following the paramedics, the Colonel’s eerie silence scary as hell. No matter how much they got up each other’s butts, on that night terror and shock united them. As had their determination to act “normal” for Mom’s sake during the weeks that followed—
He realized Marian was watching him, her drawn-on eyebrows pushed together behind her silver glass frames.
“I’m sure they’ll give us an update soon,” he said. “You want some coffee or something?”
Her gaze returning to those damn doors, Laurel’s grandmother firmly shook her head.
The admitting nurse had told her she was welcome to come with Laurel into the exam room, if she wanted, but Laurel had said absolutely not. Kindly enough, but firmly. After watching the old gal do her pacing thing for the past hour, Tyler could understand why. Her worrying would’ve driven him insane, too.
But at least she did worry. At least Laurel had her, no matter how nuts the batty old woman made her.
Finally, Marian plunked her bony little butt beside him, heaving a breath that smelled of peppermint. “You don’t have to stay, you know. You probably need to get back to the party.”
“I’m good,” he said, even though he wasn’t. At all. Not only for the aforementioned reasons, but for a whole bunch more he didn’t want to examine too closely. “And anyway, I brought you over, remember? In your car?”
“Oh, right. Forgot.” She frowned at the doors again. “How hard can it be to tell us something? Is she in labor or not?”
<
br /> Talk about being out of his depth. Although Laurel hadn’t seemed to be in any real distress on the way to the hospital that he could tell. Tight-lipped, yes, but not like he imagined a woman in labor would be. Didn’t they tend to moan and scream a lot? So his guess was that she’d been more pissed than anything. “Not that I know anything about this...but maybe they’re not sure, either—?”
“This is all my fault,” Marion huffed, and Tyler frowned.
“Excuse me?”
Her bright red mouth thinned. “Oh, it would bug me to death, seeing her sit at home night after night, acting like she was perfectly content with her life when I knew she wasn’t. Or, when she would go out with somebody, give up on the guy before even giving him a chance. She’s so damn picky, honestly. Always has been. Not like her mother, that’s for sure...”
Realizing she was probably yammering to keep herself from thinking too hard about her granddaughter—that, or she was one of those old ladies who’d share her innermost thoughts with anyone who’d stay still for more than thirty seconds—Tyler leaned forward to leaf through a two-year-old Entertainment Weekly on the table in front of them, figuring eventually the old girl would run out of steam. And the talking was better than the pacing.
“...and I probably would’ve let it go,” she went on, “except, like I said, I knew she wasn’t happy. Or at least, not as happy as she could be. Because when she was a little girl—before she came to live with me, I mean—she’d talk and talk and talk about how she couldn’t wait to get married, what her wedding would be like, how many children she wanted. Five,” Marian said with a chuckle. “Can you imagine? And she went out plenty when she was a teenager. Although I was a real buzzkill, I wouldn’t let her date until she was sixteen. But she never had a serious boyfriend that I could tell. At first I was glad, figuring...well. You know. Then...”
Underneath a helmet of shimmering white waves, the old woman’s forehead knotted. “Then, after college, she moved to the city for a few years. By this time she was in her twenties, and I started to nag her...” Laughing softly, she laid a warm hand on Tyler’s forearm. “You know, about whether she’d met any nice young men. Only she’d be so cagey, never really answering me. Frankly, for a while I wondered if she might be gay but didn’t want to tell me.”
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