by Arlene James
After the “wedding,” they returned to Edward’s office where they relieved a besotted Brenda of a fussy baby. Kendra checked Darla’s diaper, which was dry, and gave her a little formula, then carefully calmed her. Her every movement was efficient and knowledgeable.
Parker watched with keen satisfaction. His wife. His baby. Playing house could be fun. He grinned, well aware how out of character this was for him. But babies did things to people. Besides, she was all he had, this little scrap of humanity. He watched Kendra patting her tiny back as she rocked to and fro, and he saw himself down through the years with Darla, his darling Darla. He saw her as a jet-haired, potbellied ballerina with big doe eyes and a gamin smile. He saw a confident tomboy with a swinging ponytail. He saw a budding beauty ready for her first dance. Himself he saw as a fatherly patron of the arts, a softball coach—or maybe soccer—a wise and knowing dance master, a best friend and buddy, just a little superior, older, loving. He saw himself and her, and he imagined it would be just as it had been with him and Nathan, a little more complicated, perhaps, but essentially the same.
The baby went to sleep against Kendra’s shoulder and was carefully tucked into the car seat, which was doubling as a carryall. To his amazement, Kendra’s embarrassment, and Edward’s chagrin, Brenda and the receptionist had taken it upon themselves to fetch in a bottle of bubbly with which to toast the bride and groom, the assumption being that the recent tragedy had rendered a proper reception in poor taste. They did their best to make it a festive single drink, but despite their efforts, Kendra’s lips barely touched her wine and Edward didn’t even make a pretense of sipping. Parker drank and smiled and tried to be happy enough for all of them.
“We should go,” Kendra said after a few minutes. “Dad is expecting us.”
The dreaded meeting with Dan Ballard. Parker refused to let it trouble him. He had enough troubles just now. The deaths of his brother and sister-in-law were a constant ache that grew at times to a great, tearing, throbbing pain that momentarily robbed him of sanity and strength. And then there was Sandra Pendleton. He could not rest while any threat remained to his guardianship of Darla, and yet somehow he had to live under that threat until it was settled once and for all. Months, Edward had said. The court would appoint an attorney to represent the child’s interests. Studies would have to be done, opinions solicited, recommendations made. It scared the hell out of him. But he had Kendra, his secret weapon in the fight against Dr. Pendleton and her crazy notions. His wife. How remarkable that he should have a wife.
He picked up the car seat and carried Darla to the door. Kendra followed with the diaper bag and a warm blanket to tuck around the baby. He paused, and she tucked, flipping the end of the blanket up over the baby’s face as protection from the cool air of early evening. They walked to the car, a sporty silver two-door with all the extras. He wondered if it was sensible enough for a man with a family. Would the court care what sort of car he drove? He made a mental note to ask Edward. Surely a station wagon wouldn’t be necessary.
They buckled in the baby and took their places. Kendra looked pale and nervous. Before he started the engine, he reached over and squeezed her hand. “You’re a good woman. Nathan always said what a good woman you are. And you’re a good friend, too. I promise you won’t regret this.”
Her expression did not change, and yet sadness seemed to come over her, a deep, welling grief that filled her eyes and shadowed her face.
He was startled. “Kendra?”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” she said, and the tears started to fall.
“Kendra!” He put his arms around her and pulled her as close as the bucket seats would allow. “I’ll make it all right, I swear.”
She laughed huskily. “It’s so silly! I guess I had more girlish dreams than I realized. Oh, and Parker, my father wasn’t even there. I got married and my own father wasn’t even there!”
He didn’t know what to say to that, how to restore her “girlish dreams.” He just held her close, his nose buried in her fragrant hair, and wanted to kiss her. Oh, how he wanted to kiss her! After a few seconds, she wiped her fingers across her cheeks and drew away.
“All right now?” he asked.
She nodded and gave him a stilted smile that quickly faded. “It would be so much easier if we didn’t have to pretend.”
“Yes,” he said.
“But Edward says it’s necessary. The court wouldn’t take kindly to being duped.”
“No,” he said.
She patted his thigh, which made him instantly uncomfortable in the most lascivious way. “We’d better go.”
He started the engine and drove her to her father’s house.
It was an older home off Walnut Hill Lane, a rather stately place despite its size and mixed style. Less than two thousand square feet, he could only call it a Tudor ranch, a mixture of brick, wood and rock with high, overhanging windows and narrow eaves. The lot was good, covered in trees and gently sloping for excellent drainage. The house itself sat rather far back from the street, which made room for a wide, curving drive without sacrificing a showplace lawn. Dan Ballard had done a lot of gardening, landscaping and general maintenance since his retirement, and it showed. The place was picture perfect. Parker noticed a sleek, expensive “status” car parked in the garage beside Dan’s sensible, late-model sedan.
Kendra noticed it, too, and grimaced. “Kate’s here. I think she’s living here, and he just doesn’t want to admit it.”
Her vehemence surprised him. “Kate?” he said questioningly.
“Oh, they started up four or five months ago, and it’s... I don’t know. Something’s strange about it. She’s nothing like my mother, and he’s... It’s like she has this hold on him.”
“And you don’t like her,” he said.
“It isn’t that.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No. It’s...it’s creepy, is what it is.”
“Do you want to go and come back later?”
She shook her head. “No, I told you. He’s expecting us.”
He parked the car close to the house, then got out to open Kendra’s door and unbuckle the baby. They were standing at the door side by side, car seat and baby in his arms, diaper bag in hers, when Dan opened it. He smiled, and they both smiled back.
“Parker, how are you?”
“As well as can be expected, thank you.”
“Come in, come in. Don’t stand out there in the cold night air.” Dan fussed around them as they got inside with all their paraphernalia. “How is she, the little one?”
“Fine, I think.”
“Sad thing, terrible thing. I can’t bear even to think of it still. Such wonderful young people.”
“Yes, sir,” Parker said. “The very best.”
Dan herded them toward the living room. Kate was standing before the fireplace in a slim silk pantsuit she had definitely not worn to work unless her work was very unusual and highly titillating. Parker swept an appreciative eye over her. She was tall and elegant, blond by design and several years older than him, which still put her at least a decade under Dan Ballard. She exuded a fierce, unmistakable sexuality. A very interesting woman, he would have to say. Kendra hated her. He could sense it in the air, and he knew that Kate could, too.
Parker set the baby in her car seat on the coffee table. Introductions were made. They all sat down, he and Kendra on the couch, Dan in the big chair opposite them, with Kate perched on its arm. Parker laid his hand deliberately on Kendra’s knee and sent her a secret look from the corners of his eyes. She settled more comfortably next to him and pretended to relax. He traced the indentation just below her kneecap with the tip of his finger and felt the tremor that he had started beneath his palm. Satisfied, he looked at Dan and began.
“We have a rather startling piece of news.”
“Not so startling really, when you think about it,” Kendra said quickly.
He smiled at her and lifted his hand from her knee to drape his arm a
bout her shoulders. “It’s all right, darling,” he said. “We’re adults, after all, and we’ve known each other a long time.”
“All of our lives practically!” she interjected a bit too brightly.
Dan and Kate looked at one another.
Parker tightened his arm about Kendra and took the plunge. “Kendra and I were married this afternoon.”
He could not have stunned them more effectively if he’d fallen to the floor in a fit. For a long moment, neither of them moved or spoke or so much as breathed, and then he smiled, that charming, full-of-the-love-of-life smile of his, and Dan Ballard bought it hook, line and sinker.
“Married, for the love of God! Parker, my boy, my...son-in-law!” Suddenly Dan and Kate were on their feet again.
Parker nudged Kendra up, smiling, his eyes holding hers as Dan Ballard wrapped him in a bear hug and Kate folded her in. Parker couldn’t tell what Kendra was thinking or feeling, but he was pleased, immensely pleased. He was even relishing his role, which was easy enough to do, considering that it wasn’t permanent. When everybody had hugged everybody and exclaimed enough to wake the baby, they all took their seats again. Kendra held Darla and comforted her absently, her eyes flitting from one face to another while Parker fielded a barrage of questions.
“It’s been coming on for some time actually,” he lied as easily as buttering bread. “I think we both knew it but neither of us wanted to admit it, and then the accident... I guess we just suddenly realized how much we meant to each other.” He gave Kendra a long, full look. “I certainly realized how much I need her.” He took a breath and switched his gaze back to Dan. “We’re going to raise Darla ourselves.” He thought it best not to say anything about Sandra Pendleton’s intentions just yet. Let them get used to the idea of the marriage first. “Maybe have one or two of our own eventually.” That was laying it on a bit thick and he knew it, but what the heck.
Dan Ballard was positively jubilant by this point. “I can’t believe it,” he said to no one in particular. “Thank God she’s not going to Africa! Holy cow, I guess I’m the next thing to a grandfather now, aren’t I?”
“She’s a beautiful baby,” Kate said, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees and her hands twined together.
“Yes, she is,” Kendra said softly, “very beautiful.”
Something about the way she said it, the wistfulness of it, or maybe just the sincerity in it, went through Parker like a bolt of shimmering light. He looked down just as she looked up, and something behind her eyes leapt out at him. A yearning, a need. He leaned over and kissed her, his hand at the back of her head. She opened her mouth beneath his and, briefly, kissed him back. It was over in an instant, a heartbeat, two, no more, but it was enough to send a hot, wild lust through him, a raging, desperate need to feel and taste and invade her naked flesh. No annulment. No annulment, no way.
Parker looked at Kendra’s father and smiled and knew he was everything people had ever called him, and he smiled some more.
Chapter Six
“Leave the crib here,” Kendra said. “I’ll move into the other room.”
Parker shook his head. “Let’s think this out, shall we? There will be home studies, Edward said. People coming in to look us over. Will they think this is a real marriage if they see you living in one room and the baby and I in another?”
She fixed him with a flat stare. “You’re not suggesting that you and I sleep in the same room, are you?”
He pursed his lips. “No, not exactly. But you will have to put your things in here. It has to look like we’re sleeping together. Of course, one of us will be sleeping here in the master suite, and one of us will be sleeping on the extra bed in the baby’s room.”
“And which one of us gets to get up with the baby every night?” she asked cryptically.
He smiled. “We’ll take turns. I have to work tomorrow, but I’ll be glad to go first if you like.”
“How magnanimous,” she retorted coolly. “But I have to wonder what you’re going to do if I don’t get a permanent shift at the hospital. Get up with the baby every night?”
He made a doubtful face. “Surely you’re higher up on the totem pole than that.”
She mimicked him, pulling a doubtful face of her own. “I wouldn’t count on it. Chances are I’ll be in at the bottom again.”
He sighed. “Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. Meanwhile, will you do the honors tonight, or shall I?”
“You have to work tomorrow,” she reminded him sweetly. “I’ll get up with the baby tonight.”
He smiled, and she knew without a doubt that she’d played right into his hands. But what the heck? He did have to work tomorrow.
Kendra helped Parker partially dismantle the crib and maneuver it out of his bedroom and along the gallery, which was separated from the living area, as was the kitchen and dining area, by tall plaster columns. They wrestled the awkwardly rolling bed past the powder room to what had been until this moment the guest room. It didn’t fit. Parker had sacrificed space in the less used portions of the house for the large, elegant, open living area where he liked to entertain crowds of people. The guest room, now the baby’s room, was the smallest in the house. Kendra looked at Parker and shrugged. Wordlessly, they moved to the bedside table, lifted it and hauled it out of the room.
Next went the darling antique curio cabinet in the corner, followed by the small, satin-covered armchair. The four-drawer dresser had to be moved to another wall, with the mirror to follow later. Finally, they shoved the full-size bed up against the wall and positioned the crib next to it.
The baby was sleeping in her car seat, safely tucked into the corner of one of a pair of long, white couches in the center of the living room. Parker transferred her to the newly made-up crib, removed her tiny soft-soled shoes and tucked her in without waking her, while Kendra began to unpack her necessary personal belongings and put them away in the master bedroom, making room as she had to. Parker was almost depressingly neat and organized, his slacks on one side of the closet, shirts on another, coats and vest in their own areas, shoes lined up neatly on the floor around the perimeter. Kendra shoved them all together and hung her own jumbled belongings haphazardly upon the rods.
In the bathroom, his razor was laid neatly next to his toothbrush in one drawer, his hairbrush and comb in another. The bottles in his medicine cabinet were all positioned carefully with their labels turned out for easy reading. His hair dryer hung on a hook behind a door on the underside of the sink. Kendra dumped all of his things into one drawer and her own in another. She stuffed her medicine bottles into the cabinet and shimmied the door until it closed. She slung her hair dryer, curling rod and hot rollers into the cabinet beneath the sink, tossed a can of hairspray in on top of them and hung a plastic bag of extra cosmetics on the hook with Parker’s dryer. Her shampoo and conditioner were stashed into corners of the shower. That left only the dresser drawers to shuffle around and stuff with panties, bras, slips, gowns, scarves, stockings and the comfy old clothes in which she lounged around the house.
Parker came into the room and glanced around him. He smiled with pleasure at a room that looked exactly as he’d left it. “All done?” he asked.
“All done,” she said.
He rubbed his hands together. “Good. Let’s have dinner.”
She smiled as she walked past him. “Fine. What are you making?” She pretended not to notice as his eyebrows shot up.
They had warmed-over pizza out of the refrigerator and a salad cobbled up from canned peas, lettuce, radishes and shredded carrot. He seemed determined to make it a festive affair, putting out fringed cotton napkins, white stoneware and candles, along with marble-handled flatware and stemmed glasses filled with fragrant red wine. He lit the candles, and they sat down to enjoy an adequate but pleasant meal. The handle on the front door rattled faintly, then the doorbell rang three times in quick succession. Finally a fist pounded on the closed door. A thin, shrill cry came from the
bedroom and quickly built in volume. Parker hung his head. Kendra pushed her chair back and said, “I’ll get the baby.”
“I’ll kill whoever’s at the door.”
She had to laugh as she hurried in one direction and he in another. She returned to the kitchen with the baby hiccupping against her shoulder to find Edward sitting in her place, sullenly sipping her wine and munching her pizza. Parker set another place for her and shared the pizza off his plate, placing his own wine close to her hand. She smiled her thanks and sat down.
“What’s up?” she asked offhandedly, lowering the baby to her lap.
Parker slanted a look at Edward. “He was just wondering how your father took the news.”
She bounced the baby gently on her knee and reached for the wine glass. “He was thrilled,” she said drolly, “absolutely thrilled. He considers Darla the next thing to a granddaughter and waits breathlessly for us to produce the real thing.”
Edward choked on his wine, coughing a spray of it into his napkin. Kendra sipped hers, grinning wickedly over the rim of the glass at Parker, who cleared his throat to derail a laugh. She put her wine down and picked up a piece of pizza, nipping off the end with her front teeth and transferring it to the back of her mouth for chewing. Parker picked up her glass and sipped from it, his eyes on hers. For some reason she felt warm all over when his lips touched the rim, but she denied the feeling and switched her gaze. Edward put his elbows up on the table and looked from Parker to her mournfully.
“I’ll never forgive myself for this,” he said. “It’s all my fault for suggesting he find a wife. I should have known he’d go to you. I should have known.”
She smiled sympathetically. “I’m a big girl, Ed. I make my own decisions and I live with the consequences.”