Do You Take This Baby?

by Wendy Warren

  What a change. And all the credit went to Gemma.

  Inside his closed fist, Gemma’s wedding ring dug into his palm. Jumping from the bed as if it were aflame, Ethan set the diamond band on the dresser and stalked from the guest room to the master suite. No other woman had ever been in this bedroom. Somehow he’d known instinctively that his home in Thunder Ridge wasn’t meant for casual encounters, yet he hadn’t intended to marry, either. Shame over being unable to read had persuaded him not to let anyone get too close. As for kids... Once he’d imagined his own children’s humiliation when they realized their father was functionally illiterate, he’d known a family of his own was not in the cards.

  Now Ethan looked at the dresser and mirror combination that had been chosen by his decorator. There was nothing personal on it. Not a photo stuck into the frame of the mirror. Not a card or memento on top. Nothing to show someone loved him, or that there was somebody here he loved.

  He stood for a long time until a key in the front door lock shook him from his inertia.

  Moving without thinking, he sprinted out of the room and down the stairs as if he’d realized the game-winning ball was in his hands. The second he saw Gemma standing in the foyer, wearing her bright yellow sundress and the flip-flops that had glassy red ladybugs—ladybugs, for crying out loud—glued along the straps, his confusion cleared. The pieces of his life fell into place as if he’d turned just the right section of a Rubik’s Cube, and suddenly everything made sense.

  “Before you say anything,” he pleaded when Gemma looked up and saw him, “hear me out.” Without waiting for her assent, he sped on, talking as he closed the distance between them. “I get it now. I do. I should have talked to you about Sam. I didn’t want to, because I knew you’d tell me the truth. And I was afraid to hear it.”

  The tiny furrow between Gemma’s brows gave her the appearance of someone either confused or fed up. He prayed it wasn’t the latter as his urgency grew. “I tried to convince Sam to come home,” he admitted. “When she refused, I kept pushing. She said I was trying to rewrite history by controlling the future.” He shook his head. “I refused to listen. Then I saw your wedding ring...and I knew.”

  “My ring?” Gemma glanced at her left hand. “Where—Oh, yeah.”

  “Sam’s right. I was trying to fix the past. From everything I told her, she knew Cody already has the kind of family she and I missed out on as kids. She says that’s what she wants for him, and why fix what isn’t broken anymore?” Ethan took a very deep breath. “She saw more clearly than I did that having a family to come home to every day, one that fills you with pride—that’s my dream now. Not hers. The thing is, I never thought I could have it, Gemma, not with my background or with my—” he raised a fist to his head “—screwed-up brain.”

  “Your brain is fine,” she defended hotly.

  Ethan smiled. “That’s my girl—champion of the underdog.”

  Her tiny smile gave him a bit more hope. “I don’t think I would ever refer to you as an underdog.”

  “I am, though. When it comes to relationships, I’m way behind. I need some tutoring.”

  He tried to gauge her reaction, but for the first time in his memory Gemma’s expression was shuttered and inaccessible. She wasn’t going to make this easy on him. All he could do was take a leap of faith.

  “I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want to—I can’t lose what we have.” Voice rough with emotion, he pressed on, figuring he had nothing to lose by laying it all on the line. “You, me and Cody...it’s who I am now. Who I want to be. Gem, without you, Cody and I are just two lost dudes looking for a light to drive home by. You’re it. You’re our North Star. We need you.” He waited for her to process his words. Some kind of reaction built behind her eyes, but she stayed silent. Tell her the truth, an inner voice urged. “I need you.”

  Ethan felt as if his intestines were being tied into square knots as he waited for a response. When none came, he knew he’d blown it. He hadn’t understood what was right in front of him, hadn’t treated it as something better than anything that had come before or might possibly come after. And now the only woman he’d ever fallen in love with was looking at him like—

  His heart seemed to struggle to beat.

  Gemma was looking at him like maybe it truly was over.

  * * *

  He still hasn’t said, “I love you.”

  Not anticipating the scene she’d just walked into, Gemma had listened carefully to everything Ethan had to say. She’d watched him carefully, too. The muscular Adonis who made love the way he played football—with great technique and exquisite passion—had yielded to a man who seemed uncertain and even a little desperate.

  He needed her, and she didn’t doubt his sincerity for a second. The problem was, needing her wasn’t enough.

  “My mom told me I’ve always settled for less than I truly wanted,” she said after a long pause. “I’ve thought a lot about that, and she’s right. I’m not willing to settle anymore.”

  When Ethan’s brows dipped so low that he appeared to be in danger of obscuring his vision, Gemma had to steel herself against a powerful tug of compassion, and while compassion was fine, it was not a solid foundation for marriage, at least not the kind of marriage she knew she wanted.

  “Our marriage began as an experiment,” she said, not unkindly. “We accepted that the future was a big question mark. And then there was the whole ninety-day trial thing.”

  “We can go back to that,” he interjected, “if that’s what you want. For now.” He was so adorably desperate, she almost relented right then and there.

  “No, I don’t want that.” She shook her head. “I made a decision about us before I came back here today. And you may as well know that my mind is made up.”

  “Gem—” he tried to intervene, but she stayed the course.

  “Wanting to be married is an important ingredient in a long marriage, but it’s not enough. I wanted to be married to William, after all, didn’t I? But it was pretty easy for him to leave, and my heart didn’t break when he did.” There was a powerful yearning inside her, and she allowed it to infuse her voice. “I want to know my heart can break. Maybe that sounds ridiculous, but I’ve played it safe too long. From now on, I want to love so much that I scare myself. I want to know I can break someone else’s heart, too. I want to be crazy in love right from the get-go.”

  Adopting the sternest expression she could, Gemma took two steps forward. “And that is why I am not going to settle for you saying—” she made air quotes “—you ‘need’ me. Need, shmeed.” She jabbed a finger at his ridiculously broad chest. “I want to hear, ‘I love you, Gemma. I don’t want to live without you.’ Because that’s how I feel about you, you big lug. I have everything I’ve ever wanted right here, right now, and if I have anything to say about it, you and I are going to be together until we’re sick of the sight of each other. You got that? Because—”

  She had no chance to finish the sentence.

  Pulling her against him, Ethan kissed her in a way that made rivers of heat course through her veins.

  “I love you, Gemma,” he murmured against her lips. “I don’t want to live without you. So don’t make me.” He rained kisses over her face. “I can’t believe I didn’t say it already. I’m an idiot. I love you.”

  “I know you do,” Gemma whispered, weak in the knees. Reaching up, she put her palms on his cheeks. “Once I calmed down and thought it over, I knew you loved me even if you didn’t realize it yet.”

  “I realize it.” Lowering his head, Ethan began to plant kisses along the side of her neck. “Oh, boy, do I realize it.”

  Gemma reflexively hunched a shoulder against the delicious shivers that raced across her skin. “Maybe you should stop doing that for a sec?” she said as she felt herself falling into a sensual haze.

  �
�Why?”

  “So we can finish talking.”

  “Bad plan,” he growled, pulling away to look into her eyes. “Gemma, I love you. You love me. We’re married for better or worse. Forever. Right?”

  Thirty-two trillion cells in her body jumped for joy. “Right.”

  The confirmation made his eyes smolder, and he held her tighter. “Then the rest is just details. We’ve got a lifetime to work those out.”

  “Wow.” She nodded. “You make really good sense.”

  “Yeah.” His head lowered toward hers again. “My wife says I’m a pretty smart dude.”

  Smart enough, as it turned out, to lift her into his arms and carry her upstairs. Depositing her in the master bedroom, he retrieved her wedding band and sank to one knee before her.

  Joyful tears pricked Gemma’s eyes. I might have to get used to tears of joy for a while, she thought as the reality hit her: she was living her wildest dream.

  “Gemma Rose Gould Ladd,” Ethan said in the gorgeous, deep voice that would someday read to their children, “there’s a lot I don’t know. But I’m sure of this—marrying you was the best move I ever made. I promise to appreciate every bumbling step in our journey together. And if I forget, I promise to let you remind me. Most of all, I promise never to forget how damn lucky I am to have fallen in love with you in the first place.” He hovered the ring at the end of her finger and asked, “Will you stay married to me?”

  She nodded so hard to that she almost made herself dizzy. “Yes! And I promise to remember how lucky I am to love you so much that I don’t ever want to say goodbye. I will stay married to you, Ethan Jonathon Ladd, until we’re sick of the sight of each other. And way beyond that.”

  He rose. “Hey, that’s the second time you said that. We are never going to be sick of the sight of each other.”

  Smiles filled Gemma’s heart as she recalled her mother’s wisdom. “Yeah, we will be.” Looping her arms around her husband’s neck, she promised, “But then one day I’ll watch you get out of the shower, and it’ll all be fine again.”

  Ethan shook his head, baffled. “What?”

  “I’ll explain later. We have to pick Cody up at my parents’ place in a few hours, so we’d better get started.”

  He cocked a brow. “Started on what?”

  “Working on a sibling for him.”

  A slow smile crawled across Ethan’s face. “So soon?”

  “Well, we may need to practice awhile before we get it right. Besides, I’m thinking we should build our own football franchise.”

  Laughing, Ethan picked her up again, and they landed on the bed together. “I like the way you think, Mrs. Ladd. Have I ever told you that your brain is one of the sexiest things about you?” He began to unbutton her dress.

  She looked down, where his fingers brushed against her breasts. “That’s not where my brain is.”

  “I said one of the sexiest things. And now—” the small yellow buttons gave way beneath his fingers “—we’re going to explore the other things.” Ethan’s head dipped to her chest. “All of them. Giving a great deal of attention—” he followed the opening of each button by tasting her skin “—to each.”

  “Oh, this is a fine plan.” Gemma’s fingers threaded through her husband’s hair as she cradled the back of his head. Releasing a blissful sigh, she commended, “A very, very fine plan.”

  Epilogue

  Three years later

  “Read Seymour the Serious Dragon!” Bouncing in one-hundred-and-eighty degree arcs worthy of an emerging gymnast, Cody Ladd treated his new big-boy race-car bed more like a trampoline than a place to lay his blond head at night.

  “How about a different story?” Ethan suggested, approaching his son’s book collection.

  “No! Seymour! Seymour! Seymour!”

  “Enough jumping. Put your bottom on the bed.” Ethan pointed to the mattress. When Cody complied, he scanned the shelves for the requested picture book.

  Ethan had developed a serious case of flop sweat the day Gemma had suggested the floor-to-ceiling shelving and began stocking it with enough juvenile literature to start their own library. Unable to read the majority of the books his wife had chosen, he’d felt the crushing sense of inadequacy that had dogged him most of his life. But Gemma, with her characteristic optimism and unwavering faith in education, had promised everything would be fine.

  “Is Mommy coming?” Cody asked.

  “She already kissed you good-night, sport, remember?” Returning with the book, Ethan tucked his son under the car-covered sheets and red blanket, then sat on the edge of the bed. “Mommy’s studying really hard tonight.”

  During the school year they lived in Portland, where Gemma continued to teach, but they spent summers right here in Thunder Ridge so Cody could connect with family while his mother worked on her PhD. Almost three years after their hasty wedding, Ethan still figured Gemma was worth twenty of him. She rarely missed Cody’s bedtime routine, but tonight she’d asked for a little time to herself, and he was glad to oblige.

  Opening the book on his lap, he held it up. Cody loved the illustrations of Seymour, the dour-looking dragon who learns he has it in him to choose happiness. “‘Seymour was a serious dragon,’” Ethan began, reading off the page even though he practically knew the story by heart. “‘He smiled once a year, and that was only because his mother made him...’”

  With Gemma’s unwavering support, he had turned the hurdle of dyslexia into a stepping stone. His reading skills had improved to the point that he’d registered for next fall’s semester of community college, something that would have been unthinkable before Gemma had set him straight on viewing his limitations as growth opportunities. Two years of community college would bring him closer to his dream of earning a BA and a teaching credential, which he hoped someday to turn into a career as a high school football coach. Pretty high flyin’ for a dumb jock who couldn’t read Green Eggs and Ham a few short years ago.

  By the end of the story, Cody had turned onto his side and closed his eyes, lips puffing softly as he settled into sleep. Closing the book and kissing his son, Ethan left on the night-light and decided to head downstairs to Gemma’s office to see if she needed anything—a shoulder rub, perhaps, which might turn into some neck nibbling and possibly upper-body privileges—before he left her to her work.

  Walking down the broad upper-floor hallway, he smiled at the thought of a little hanky-panky before he hit the books himself and almost, almost missed the sight in the doorway to the master bedroom.

  One hand on the wrought iron stair rail, Ethan halted when he noticed Gemma leaning against the doorjamb. “Hey,” he said, “I didn’t know you were up here. I thought you were down...stairs. Holy moly.” For a few seconds no sound emerged from his open mouth as he pointed at what Gemma was wearing. Finally he rasped, “Is that what I think it is?”

  She smiled. “Mmm-hmm. Does it bring back memories?” Her voice was deliberately sultry.

  Ethan swallowed. She-yeah, it did. Leaving the top of the stairs, he moved toward the master bedroom. “What I remember,” he said, referring to the barely there negligee she’d worn on their wedding night and again the first time they’d made love, “is that I didn’t get the chance to take that off you.”

  Before he’d even stopped moving, he reached for her, and Gemma slid into his arms. He wasted no time beginning to explore the lush body beneath the transparent material.

  “Did I ever thank your sister for giving you this?” he muttered as his lips found the most sensitive part of her neck, the spot that always made her hunch her shoulders against t
he goose bumps that raced across her skin.

  “I think we still owe them a thank-you note.”

  Ethan smiled against her neck. “I’ll get right on it.”

  Gemma clutched his shoulders as he kissed his way toward her breasts. “Did Cody go to sleep easily?” she asked, her voice breathy.

  “Mmm.”

  “Did he want to hear Seymour the Serious Dragon or Danny Gets a Dog?”

  “Seymour.” Ethan blazed a trail of kisses from the top of one beautiful breast to the other. Gemma tilted her head back, and he moved lower...

  “I like the name Danny—oh, my!” She gasped as he tasted her nipple through the sheer material. “So, uh, do you like the name Danny?”

  Ethan lifted his head. “You really want to talk about this? Now?”

  “Kind of.” Gemma’s doe-brown eyes sparkled. “Unless you have something better in mind.”

  “Much,” he growled. In one swift move, Ethan picked her up and carried her to the bed. “Do you still have to work?” He prayed she’d say no, because he had revised his plans for the evening, and they would last most of the night.

  “I’m not working tonight.”

  Depositing her on the mattress and following her down, he slowly traced a design from the top of her stomach past her belly button. “I thought you said you had things to do.”

  “I did them already. I also like the name Eden for a girl. Sounds like Ethan.”

  Bracing himself on his hands, he hovered over her. “All right, what’s going on?”

  Gemma slipped her hand under his pillow, withdrawing a box tied with shiny silver ribbon.

  Ethan bolted up. “It’s our anniversary! Aw, damn it, I’m sorry.”