Do You Take This Baby?

by Wendy Warren

  Scott shook his head. “No. We just found out this morning. We decided not to say anything until after your wedding. Didn’t want to steal your thunder.”

  Elyse gazed up at her husband with watery eyes. “I’m always stealing people’s thunder!” she cried, her head thudding on Scott’s chest.

  Slowly, Ethan lowered himself to the edge of his bed as it dawned on him that Elyse probably had a very good point. Gemma would be the one to bear the brunt of the hurt and humiliation if this not-quite-the-real-deal-marriage thing didn’t work out. He was used to the press and accepted that they could be as brutal as a troop of Mongol warriors. His skin was thick. Plus, in situations where wealthy men and middle-class women got together, headlines tended to treat men better than women. If anyone got wind that this marriage wasn’t a love affair, Gemma could be painted a gold digger.

  Because Gemma was everything her sister said she was, he couldn’t let her get hurt.

  Sighing, he pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. Since it was far too late to back out now without making everything worse—and because he had no intention of backing out, anyway—he knew he needed to drop back six and punt. As his mind rapidly scanned the possibilities, an idea came to him. A way to squelch speculation about the validity of his and Gemma’s marriage. He nodded, a smile stealing slowly across his face. Yeah, a fail-safe play.

  The PDA play.

  Public displays of affection would not be hard to pull off today. They were logical. Necessary even. His blood began to heat at the thought. If there was one aspect of their relationship he was really becoming fond of, it was touching Gemma.

  When she’d come up with her no-sex probation period, he’d wanted to shoot the idea down ASAP, but he figured that was his libido talking. Besides, she’d been adamant, and her reasons were pretty logical. Sex was a complication, she’d insisted, and their marriage was complicated enough already. With so much at stake, she wanted them to focus on the reasons for their “arrangement”—Cody’s future and her potential adoption. Later, they could renegotiate.

  Reminding himself she’d always been the smart one, he’d agreed. He could get sex just about anyplace, but he couldn’t find another Gemma.

  When it came to persuading everyone the marriage was real, however...well, she was going to have to trust the PDAs to him. That’s where he had the know-how.

  “Elyse,” he said, after giving her a chance to blow her nose and pull herself together. “Your sister means the world to me.” True. “The way I feel about her is... It’s new to me.” Also true. He couldn’t remember another time when he’d had a great friendship with a woman. Or a time when he trusted someone so much. “I promise I will never deliberately hurt her. We know what we’re doing. She’s happy. I’m happy. And I want to do everything I can to make this wedding great for her. You had your day, right? Now let’s give her hers.” Seeing Elyse begin to well up again, he dragged a hand through his hair. “You’ve got to stop crying unless they’re happy tears.”

  Elyse sniffed and nodded.

  “And whatever you do, please don’t tell her you’re having a baby, okay? Not today. Give her some time to be the star of the show. She deserves that.”

  Elyse looked up at him, tremulous discovery gradually altering her features. “You really do care about Gemma.” Accepting the tissue Scott passed her, Elyse blew her nose again and nodded. “I think you are going to take good care of her. I mean, despite all the other women you’ve slept with and discarded, it’s different between you two, isn’t it?”

  “Hey, Elyse, I have not slept with and discarded—” Ethan began hotly, then saw Scott make a slashing sign across his throat: She’s happy again. Leave it alone. Ethan nodded. Fine. “Yes, it’s different,” he concluded.

  “Good enough,” Scott said, taking his wife by the shoulders and pushing her toward the door. “I’ll walk you down the hall, honey. You need to get ready, don’t you?”

  They began to murmur gooey endearments to each other, and Ethan made a mental note. “No baby talk” was going to be part of his pact with Gemma. And absolutely no hormones.

  * * *

  The wedding ceremony was slated to take place in front of the waterfall on Ethan’s back lawn, for privacy’s sake. Because they’d had such a brief time to plan, Gemma had stated she’d be perfectly happy with a barbecue or perhaps a potluck, keeping it as simple as possible, but Minna, of course, had been appalled. Going into overdrive, she’d called on the connections they’d only recently used for Elyse’s wedding, arranging for thirty red-ribboned white chairs, a tent, tables and even a chuppah constructed of branches and woven with flowers and twinkle lights.

  “Mom outdid herself,” Gemma murmured as she stood with her father before the grand glass doors leading to Ethan’s backyard.

  “She wants you to have the best, Gemmy girl.” Hal patted the hand she’d curled around his arm. “We all do. Mother Nature is cooperating, too.”

  Indeed she was. The late afternoon had settled perfectly into the midseventies with a sky so celestially blue, it looked as if cherubs had painted it. The parklike lawn and abundant foliage graciously lent themselves to the creation of a fairy-tale bower for her and Ethan to be married in. It was so much more than Gemma could have ever dreamed.

  From where she stood, she could see Ethan waiting for her next to Scott, and her stomach clenched with excitement as much as nerves. She didn’t think her groom could see her yet, but she got a nice eyeful of him. Dark gray suit perfectly tailored to a perfect male body, his hair glittering with sunny streaks, his hands held loosely in front of him, his smile turned toward Scott as they shared a word before turning their attention to the petal-strewn white satin aisle, where Holliday began to make her inimitable way toward the chuppah as the Dream Catchers, a local group, played a sweet, stringed version of “Storybook Love.”

  “Mom’s really happy, isn’t she?” Gemma asked, catching sight of her mother beaming in the front row.

  “She wants you kids to be happy.” Hal patted her arm. “She thinks being married will contribute to that.”

  “Because she’s so happy in her marriage to you.” Gemma smiled up at her dad, caught by surprise when his eyes grew watery with emotion. In response, her own eyes began to fill. How many times had both her father and her mother concluded a mealtime blessing with, “And thank you especially for our family”? Minna wasn’t simply excited about Gemma marrying Ethan; she was excited, because, as far as she knew, Gemma was about to have the very things that made Minna’s life so rich.

  All Gemma’s siblings had found the mate who would walk with them into the legacy Hal and Minna had created—a legacy of partnership, laughter and the overwhelming, imperfect love of family. For the first time, Gemma felt that she, too, was part of continuing that legacy.

  As Holliday reached the chuppah and moved into place, Gemma’s heart thumped harder. It was time. The Dream Catchers began the first notes of “Wedding Song.” Hal took a step forward to open the glass door, but Gemma tugged him back.

  “Daddy,” she whispered, “were you nervous on your wedding day?”

  “I was afraid I was going to throw up my Cheerios.” A poignant smile creased Hal’s face. “But the minute your mother showed up, I was fine.” For a moment his gaze traveled down the aisle to the man who waited for them. When he turned back to Gemma, Hal’s expression was more sober. “Sweetheart, every summer when we took you kids to go diving off Stronghold Rock, your brother and sisters would jump right in, but you’d hang back, standing on that rock, shivering, looking down, waiting for the courage to jump. It was the same every summer. You’d wait and wait, and when courage didn’t arrive, you’d get down from the rock and say you’d do it for sure the next summer.”

  Gemma frowned. She remembered that rock, remembered the heart-stopping feeling of standing with her siblings twen
ty feet above the best swimming hole on Long River and the yearning to go for it.

  “But I did jump eventually,” she defended. What was her dad getting at?

  “Yes, you did,” Hal allowed, his face as kind and nonjudgmental as ever. “When you were fifteen. That’s a lot of summers.”

  Fifteen. Had she really waited that long? She’d absolutely loved it once she’d taken the plunge, but her siblings had been soaring off the rock since elementary school. She’d missed out on years of flying.

  “Ethan was a good boy,” her father commented, “and he’s an even better man. But you don’t have to go through with this if he’s not the right man for you.”

  The desire to tell her father the whole truth hit Gemma like a sledgehammer. It would be selfish to worry Hal, though, if she planned to go through with this, anyway.

  “You’re telling me that if I’m going to do this, I should jump. You know me, though. I want to predict the future.” She tried to sound ironic and offhand, but could feel her upper lip trembling. “I guess I’ve never been as brave as I wish I was.”

  “Ah, sweetheart.” Hal touched her cheek lightly. “Courage isn’t the confidence that you’re going to succeed at everything. It’s the faith that you’ll be fine if you don’t. That kind of courage is available to every one of us.”

  A couple of tears Gemma couldn’t hold back slipped down her cheeks. Immediately Hal reached for the handkerchief he was never without. “Four women in my life means I need four handkerchiefs,” he always joked. With an expertise born of experience, he dabbed the tears without disturbing her makeup.

  “It’s your choice, honey.” He nodded toward the room’s entrance and then at the glass doors leading to the garden. “Which way do you want to walk?”

  Gemma took a deep breath. “Forward, Daddy. I’m going to go forward.”

  * * *

  As soon as she stepped onto the silk runner, Gemma’s eyes met Ethan’s. Their gazes remained locked as he took her hand and stood with her before the officiant. Only dimly aware of the small crowd gathered on the lawn, Gemma recited the words of the wedding vow and fell under their binding spell as Ethan recited his, voice deep and certain.

  Even though this wedding wasn’t as real as Elyse’s or Lucy’s or their parents’ had been, Gemma felt married when she heard the words, “I now pronounce you husband and wife.”

  To whoops and clapping, Ethan kissed the bride, dipping her back dramatically. His lips pressed deliciously to hers, stopping time and blocking out everything but the awareness that Ethan’s lips were the just-right ratio of soft to firm, and that they applied the most perfect pressure, and that if this was Ethan’s fake just-married kiss, then, yowza, would she ever love to get a taste of the real thing.

  When finally he set them both upright, she was so wonderfully woozy she only vaguely heard their introduction as “Mr. and Mrs. Ladd.”

  They walked up the aisle arm in arm, stopping so Ethan could hug her mother and shake her father’s hand. Minna had quite obviously cried throughout the short ceremony and hugged her daughter fiercely, murmuring, “You’re beautiful. He’s a very lucky man.”

  Wow. I should be a bride more often, Gemma thought. She was genuinely touched.

  After the pit stop with her family, Ethan drew her over to his aunt Claire, whom she’d met for the first time a few nights ago when Claire arrived from Washington and moved into one of the guest rooms for her stay in Thunder Ridge. Claire seemed like a no-nonsense, plainspoken woman, caring but not effusive with her emotions. She’d met Cody with a stoic approval, commenting that he was a handsome baby, “like his mother.” She hadn’t requested to hold him and declined when Gemma had asked if she’d like to, stating baldly and without apology, “Babies make me nervous. Always have.”

  As Gemma leaned forward to hug the older woman now, Claire gave her a hearty thump on the back. “You’re good for him,” she whispered huskily in Gemma’s ear, with the most feeling Gemma had yet heard from her.

  A strange combination of pleasure and guilt filled her. Perhaps she needed to rethink her definition of “real.” Maybe it existed on a bell curve. There were facts and there was the truth, and the truth was that in this moment she felt excited about her future, more excited than she’d been in ages.

  “He’s good for me, too,” she whispered in return to Claire.

  Escorted by the Dream Catchers’ rendition of “Here Comes the Sun,” Ethan, Gemma and their guests moved the party to the area covered by a sprawling white tent. In the gathering twilight, flickering candles illuminated the faces of happy family and friends as they dined on a buffet of salads, brisket, chicken in a Jack Daniel’s glaze, vegan knishes and martini glasses filled with assorted pickles, all freshly made by the Pickle Jar deli’s ever-growing catering division. Dessert had been ordered from the deli’s own bakery, Something Sweet, and featured an elegantly lovely wedding cake with stunning sugar flowers, plus a groom’s cake in the shape of a Seattle Eagles helmet.

  Minna had been solely in charge of the food and the cake, and everyone was thrilled with the results. Elyse had offered to take charge of flowers and other decorations, and she, too, had done a splendid job, taking into account the dots of red in Gemma’s unique gown while incorporating the vivid yellows, greens, blues and intense fuchsia pinks of an Oregon summer. It wasn’t at all the wedding Gemma had planned when she’d thought she was going to marry William, but it was exactly right for her and Ethan.

  Cody, dressed in his tiny two-piece “tuxedo,” had cooperated beautifully by snoozing through the ceremony. He was awake for the reception, however, and Gemma insisted on taking him from her mother, missing the feel of him in her arms. Eager to be fed, Cody surprised her by calmly accepting the hubbub around him as he sucked on his bottle.

  “Sit down with him, sweetheart,” Ethan urged with a hand on Gemma’s waist.

  At the word sweetheart, she shot him a questioning look he either missed or ignored. He’d been using endearments liberally since their walk back up the aisle, as if the vows had included, “Do you promise to use cutesy terms of affection whenever possible?” Honestly, she hadn’t thought he was the sort, but she liked it. Her fave so far was when he’d referred to her as “my pinup girl.” (Sorry, Gloria Steinem.)

  Leading her to their table, he pulled out her chair. “I’ll get our food.”

  Returning with her plate first, he set a mountain of delectable treats in front of her. “I’ll see if your mother can hold Cody so you can eat,” he said, already looking around for Minna.

  “No, don’t bother.” Gemma stopped him, smiling. Ethan held the baby more often now, but he still didn’t feel confident holding his nephew when they were someplace where crying would be inconvenient. “Go get a plate for yourself. We’re fine here.”

  Gemma cuddled the baby and chatted with Aunt Claire, two cousins who had driven over from Portland and the other guests at their table until Ethan arrived with another full plate of food. Instead of tucking into his own meal, however, he looked at her dish and frowned. “You haven’t eaten anything.”

  “I’m fine.”

  As conversation around the table continued, with questions about football and other Seattle Eagles players tossed Ethan’s way, Gemma found herself caught entirely off guard when a forkful of brisket appeared before her lips.

  “Taste this, babe.” Babe? Ethan hovered his fork in front of her until she leaned forward a smidgen to take his offering. For the next several minutes, tempting morsels of food were airlifted her way, along with casual comments—“These potatoes are the bomb. We should try to make them at home,” and “You’re going to love the chicken”—as if they did this at every meal when, in fact, he’d never fed her so much as a grape before.

  By the time Minna arrived of her own accord, insisting on holding the baby and showing him off to her friends, Gemma fe
lt she’d had enough food and was ready to mingle. With her hand tucked into the crook of her new husband’s arm, they made the rounds from table to table. When they’d hammered out the details of the marriage, they’d agreed to maintain the ruse that their union was a love match, but they hadn’t discussed the finer points.

  As they moved among their guests, Ethan kept a hand on her waist and every so often rubbed her back in languorous circles. At her aunt Edie and uncle Hugh’s table, they chatted about the new composite decking Hugh installed until Ethan quite suddenly put both arms around Gemma, pulling her against him so he could bury his nose and lips in her neck.

  “Ooh, you two are so adorable!” Aunt Edie trilled. “Hugh, get a picture of them.”

  While Uncle Hugh search his pockets for his cell phone, Gemma tried to keep her mind clear, no easy task with Ethan eliciting goose bumps on every part of her body. Once more, she wondered why, in the two weeks since his proposal, he hadn’t nuzzled her neck as he was now. Nor had he pulled her close to his side and kissed her head while he was talking to other people or fed her tiny knishes from his own fingers as if he were afraid she might waste away without sustenance. It had all started after the ceremony today. Ergo, either wedding vows were an aphrodisiac for him and he was hoping to toss the ninety-day probationary period on intimacy out the window (she might be able to be persuaded), or there was something else going on. Every touch at her waist, every sexy glance in her direction, every stolen kiss made it so tempting to believe in this marriage, so easy to float through the party on a pink cloud.

  When Hugh had taken his fill of photos, Ethan stepped away slightly, grinning, the glint in his eyes suggesting he’d like to rip the dotted Swiss off her body right then and there.

  The prohibition on consummation...yeah, why had she insisted on that? It had something to do with keeping things uncomplicated. But at the moment, with their wedding night looming ahead like a giant neon bed, it seemed to Gemma that her no-sex-please-we’re-not-really-married rule was actually making things a wee bit more complex.