by Julie
He kissed her neck, whispered, "Don't worry. I'm not going anywhere. I love you, Annie. Guess I always have."
She sighed. And then she cupped his face and told him, "And I love you. Always."
They stared at each other. And then he asked, "Enough to be my date for the Spring Fling this year?"
Her eyes misted over. "Oh, how did you know? It's been one of my fantasies, to go to the Spring Fling with you."
"Is that a yes?"
"You bet it is."
He kissed her nose. "Well, okay then. About that ride..."
The Harley waited in the driveway, silver paint and bright chrome gleaming. Down the street to the west, the sky flamed in swirls of purple and orange as Annie put on her helmet and swung a leg over, settling in behind Greg.
He started her up. She purred, loud and proud.
Annie wrapped her arms around Greg's waist. He guided the bike down the driveway, straightened her out and off they roared toward the setting sun.
DREAM MARRIAGE
Karen Rose Smith
Dear Reader,
I truly enjoyed crafting Dream Marriage. I married shortly after college graduation and have dabbled at a few careers, all the while juggling family life with work. Because of my own experiences, writing about a married couple came easily for me. In Dream Marriage, Gareth and Laura struggle with the meaning of commitment in their lives. As they come to terms with how their careers affect their marriage, they successfully reawaken the love and passion that originally brought them together. Their romance is set against the backdrop of Red Rock, Texas, the town that is home to many members of the Fortune family both old and new!
I was honored to be part of this anthology and I hope you enjoy visiting Red Rock.
All my best,
Karen Rose Smith
Chapter 1
As Laura Manning stood at the vanity in her mother's upstairs bathroom, she didn't know whether to laugh or cry!
She'd been in so much turmoil over the past six weeks since Gareth had been gone, she hadn't thought her life could get any more topsy-turvy.
She'd been wrong.
Staring down at the stick that had come with the pregnancy test, her eyes filled with tears. Of course, she wanted a child. Of course, she'd love it with every fiber of her being. But for all intents and purposes, when Gareth had left for Tokyo, she'd left him.
He'd told her he'd be home by May 2. Today was May 2.
How could they find a connection again when he didn't understand the gravity of what was happening to their marriage? How could she tell him she was pregnant when they had problems to solve first?
Laura ran her hand through her dark brown shoulder-length hair, still staring at the stick, reliving her last night with Gareth, as well as their argument. At twenty-seven, she was ready to be a mother, even though her year-old business was now flourishing.
Yet being a single mom and running a business was something else entirely. Could she do it without Gareth?
She'd have to do it without Gareth if he couldn't compromise. She wouldn't use a baby to hold their marriage together.
She simply wouldn't.
Gareth Manning opened the gate in the stucco courtyard wall and strode to his front door, expecting it to be open. It was locked.
Setting down his large suitcase and his laptop computer, he found his keys in his pocket and opened the door. He'd expected Laura to be home, making dinner, creating hors d'oeuvres for a party she was going to cater.
But when he stepped into the skylit foyer, there was complete silence in the thirty-five-hundred-square-foot house.
Nothing had gone as planned - not Laura's reaction to his business trip... not her decision to stay with her mother for a few days... not his fax to the Red Rock Gazette that was supposed to tell Laura he wanted their marriage now as much as ever. From the looks of it, someone on the staff had tampered with that letter, omitting names. Now that the town was in an uproar about it, he felt like a fool for writing it.
On top of that, whenever he'd tried to call Laura, he either hadn't gotten an answer here or her mother had told him she just needed time.
Time for what? They were married!
As Gareth stared into the dining room with its coffered ceiling, the empty oak table seemed to send a solemn message. To the right, the living room didn't show a magazine out of place. To the left, the family room with its exposed beams was deserted, too. The house was H-shaped and he'd bought it for them about a year after his management-consultant business had succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. But, now, as he left his suitcase and computer in the foyer and walked through the family room to the spacious kitchen beyond, he felt a dread he'd never experienced before.
There was no sign of Laura.
In the kitchen, he crossed to the pantry. The oversize freezer and extra refrigerator she'd purchased for her catering business hummed. Opening the freezer, he saw it was full of supplies and labeled containers. The refrigerator was the same, and he breathed a sigh of relief. She was obviously cooking here and catering from their kitchen.
But if she was still at her mother's...
The master suite was on the other side of the house opposite the kitchen. Passing the French doors that led to the pool out back, he went through the dining room and down the hall to their bedroom. The brightly colored quilt spread across the bed without a wrinkle. He didn't spot any of Laura's jewelry on the oak dresser or her lotion on the nightstand.
Opening the walk-in closet, a lead weight fell to the bottom of his stomach. The night before he'd left, she'd packed a small suitcase. Now her larger valise was gone also, and so were her summer clothes.
The trip from Tokyo had been wearing, and his beard stubble was heavy. But he had to find out where his wife was.
He had to find out now.
Ten minutes later, he parked outside a house on the other side of Red Rock. As he went up the two steps to the front porch, he had only one goal in mind - to bring Laura home.
Laura's mother, Janice Bates, was an exotic-looking woman of Italian descent, with olive-toned skin, dark brown hair and green eyes. She was taller than Laura and about thirty pounds heavier. But her daughter had inherited her beauty, her poise and her tact.
Now, however, she didn't look tactful. She looked worried as she opened the door to him. "Gareth! You're home."
"I told Laura I'd be home by May 2. What I want to know is why she's still here rather than in our house.”
“You're going to have to ask her that question.”
“Is she here?"
Janice glanced nervously over her shoulder. "Yes. She was doing something upstairs. But I don't know if she wants to talk to you - "
"I want to talk to her. We haven't seen each other for six weeks." The change in time zones was catching up to him and his voice was clipped with a frustrated edge.
"Come inside," Janice finally invited. "I'll get her."
Laura's background had been very different from his. He'd grown up in a two-bedroom box house in San Antonio with his uncle Isaac. Laura, however, had grown up in this small community not far from San Antonio with every advantage a child should have. Her father was a doctor and doted on all his kids. They'd wanted for nothing. The two-story house with its brick and tan siding was spacious.
When Laura descended the steps into the living room, Gareth experienced the same thrill of attraction he'd felt the first time he'd laid eyes on her. Then she'd been a paralegal working in an all-purpose firm. For one of his first management-consulting contracts, he'd seen an attorney there. His eyes had met Laura's, they'd smiled and the rest had been history.
Now, however, Laura didn't look as if she were remembering their first meeting. There wasn't the welcome he'd expected on her face. There wasn't even a smile.
Her mother discreetly left the room. "I didn't expect you to be here." He tried to keep his tone even.
"I told you if you left on this trip I wouldn't be in our house whe
n you got home."
"I thought you were overreacting. I thought you'd change your mind. Why wouldn't you take my calls?"
Laura had pulled her dark hair back into a ponytail. The style emphasized the beautiful oval of her face, her wide-set green eyes, her bangs that she brushed aside when she was nervous. She brushed them aside now.
"We've grown apart," she said finally.
Crossing to her, he towered over her. "Laura, don't make a mountain out of a molehill. I've always traveled in my work. When you worked with me, you understood."
After he'd met Laura, she'd become his personal assistant. Once they were married, he'd worked out of a room in their apartment. One of his early contracts had involved analyzing a department's makeup for Ryan Fortune. The magnate had recommended him to other businesses, and Gareth's career had taken off. He'd rented an office in a strip shopping center, and Laura had worked beside him every day until a year ago when she'd decided she wanted to be a caterer and somebody should replace her in his office.
"We worked together, Gareth. But you didn't travel as much then. You dealt with local businesses. You traveled for a few days, came home and did the rest by fax. But this past year, you didn't even notice how much you were away."
"You've been busy, too," he accused. "Some nights when I get home, you 're not there."
"I'm building my clientele. And why do you think I started doing it in the first place? I was tired of having supper alone."
"You started your catering business because of my trips?" She'd never told him that. Or had she told him and he hadn't listened?
"Not entirely. But I wanted something of my own. I wanted a life."
"We have a life!"
"No. You have your work. You have dinner with me when it's convenient for you. For the past three years I've been asking you to spend more time with me, but each time I asked, you brushed it off."
Certainly he hadn't, had he? Yes, he spent a lot of nights working.... He ran his fingers through his short-cropped brown hair. "I was working to make our future secure."
Her voice was incredibly sad. "Our future was secure before I stopped working for you."
That was true, he supposed. He'd made a lot of money in a short amount of time and had invested it well. Still, he wasn't sure what she was suggesting. "What do you want me to do? Sit by the pool all day and drink margaritas?"
She shook her head. "Of course not. But if we're going to have a marriage, something has to change."
Gareth knew he wasn't good at change... for a lot of reasons.
Trying to remain rational and reasonable on very little sleep, he suggested again, "Come home with me. I've traveled halfway around the world and I haven't slept since I left Tokyo. I'll change clothes. We'll go have a nice dinner somewhere and - "
He saw her chin quiver as she blurted out as if she'd been practicing for six weeks, "I think we've grown too far apart. I think we need a separation."
"We've been separated for six weeks!" He couldn't keep the anger from his tone now.
"Whose fault is that?" she asked softly.
Laura had always been more passive than assertive, more peaceful than confrontational. What had gotten into her? Another question was more important. "Are you blaming me for the distance between us?"
She didn't have to answer him. Yet it wasn't only blame he saw in her eyes. The emotion looked like desolation, and that unsettled him even more than her refusal to come home with him.
"All right," he gave in, not knowing how to handle this woman he didn't understand anymore. "You win for now. I know if I throw you over my shoulder and carry you home, you'll leave if you don't want to stay there. But I don't think a separation is the answer. After I get some sleep and have a shave, I'll be back. We've been married for five years, Laura, and I'm not about to throw that away. I won't let you do it, either."
Then he left her standing in her mother's living room. Whatever was broken, he was going to fix. He loved Laura and he wasn't going to let her go.
"Winning the contract to make desserts for the Spring Fling is a big deal," Laura's mother mused aloud as she concocted a beautiful table decoration from baby's breath, silk daylilies and pink silk roses. "Are you sure you'll be able to handle making enough?"
Laura was working on another centerpiece for the serving table, using the same array of flowers as her mother. "Corrine and I will do fine. I have two weeks to pull it all together. That's plenty of preparation time. We can make and freeze most of them before the event."
"It's still an awful lot for two people. The whole town could show up."
"I'll hire high-school girls to help me serve."
As Laura was growing up, her mother had always added to her self-doubt, rather than wholeheartedly supporting her. Her older sister, Victoria, on the other hand, had always received praise and backing. But Vickie was very different from Laura, with her sun-streaked brown hair, her high IQ, her perky cheerleader-like attitude, her medical-school degree. She'd always forged ahead with self-confidence and an oldest child's demand for attention.
Positioning another rose just so, Janice prophesied, "If you do a good job with the Spring Fling, your reputation will be made. Some of the Fortunes usually come. If you get into that circle you won't have to worry about underbidding your competitor. Take these flowers, for example. You kept your bid down by going to that flower warehouse and doing these yourself. Any other caterer would have included the price for fresh bouquets from the florist."
"Maybe. Maybe not. I like doing flower arrangements. But if you're getting tired, you don't have to help."
"I'm not getting tired. I was just thinking I'd like to be doing one of these for a party for Tony. I can't believe he didn't want me to throw a graduation party for him on Friday night."
Tony was nine years younger than she was, the baby in the family. His graduation on Friday night would be a milestone, only he wanted to celebrate it differently than his parents expected. "Kids now want to celebrate graduation with their friends, not with their families.'"
"Well, I don't like it. How am I going to know those parties are properly chaperoned?"
"You could get a list from Tony and call the parents." The fact that she was pregnant was making her think about this in a whole different way.
"If I did that, he'd never speak to me again." Her mother's tone was wry.
Laura laughed. "You might be right."
"I promised I'd get him a cell phone. I should do it before Friday night. Then he can call in and let me know where he is and what he's doing."
Laura hid a smile behind the flower arrangement. Her brother would love that idea.
"So..." her mother began conversationally. "How did it go with you and Gareth? He didn't stay very long."
Knowing the subject would come up, Laura tried to keep the tremor from her voice. "I told him I think we should separate for a while. He didn't take it well."
"I suppose not. Are you sure you know what you're doing? Gareth's a good man. It seems foolish to throw five years away."
"I'm not throwing them away. I need some time to think."
"You've had six weeks. Haven't you thought enough? Sometimes, Laura, I just don't understand you. What do you want from your marriage?"
That was the crux of the matter. She knew exactly what she wanted. She wanted a connection with the man she loved, as well as communication. Once in a while, she wanted to be swept off her feet. At the beginning, she and Gareth had had all of that. But then he'd become consumed by his work, and she'd felt more and more lonely. They didn't have the kind of marriage they should have to bring a child into the world. She wasn't about to tell her mother about her pregnancy. Not yet.
"What did you expect when you married Dad?" Laura asked, instead of answering.
After Janice shoved a stalk of baby's breath into the Styrofoam beside a daylily, she answered, "I didn't expect anything. I mean, I wanted children, and I expected your father t
o support us. I knew his work as a cardiologist was important, and I would always come second to that."
"I don't want to be second to Gareth's career. And if we have children, I want them to come first for both of us."
"You're not being realistic."
"I think I am. Is it so extraordinary to want to feel special? To want to know I'm valued for who I am?"
"You've been watching too many talk shows."
"I haven't been watching any talk shows. I don't have time. But even Dr. Phil would agree a husband should support a wife just as much as a wife should support a husband."
"You always did have your own ideas of the way the world should be," her mother said with a sigh. "I'm going to take a break and see what Tony wants for supper. If we go to the mall for a cell phone afterward, do you want to come along?"
"No. I have to work on menus on the computer and make a list of supplies I'll need for the next week or so."
"All right. We'll stop at that ice-cream shop you like so much and bring you home some Rocky Road."
Rocky Road used to be her favorite ice cream. Now the idea of it almost made her turn green. "Vanilla would be good."
Her mother looked at her askance. "Vanilla?"
"For a change."
Janice Bates shook her head and left the kitchen.
Other than the missed period, which wasn't all that unusual for her, Laura had used the pregnancy test because she felt nauseous every evening, not in the morning, like most women. She felt particularly sick if she didn't rest in the afternoon. She'd noticed other changes, too. Her breasts had felt fuller. Gareth would appreciate that change -
Tears came to her eyes. She simply didn't know what to do.
When she thought about the past five years, she remembered all the good moments, as well as the lonely ones. But the good moments had become fewer and farther between. She remembered the night a friend of hers, who liked her crab balls, had asked her to make them for a party. She had, and at that party someone had asked her if she took orders. Something had made her say yes. She'd started small, mainly taking jobs when Gareth was away. But as he was away more and more, she'd decided to make Delicacies by Laura a business. A year ago, after Gareth had returned from a week-long business trip, she'd brought up the subject.