“Get some rest. And call me if you need anything. Anything.”
“I will.”
A baby. He couldn’t stop repeating the words. Marienne is having a baby.
He was relieved. He’d been worried that something was seriously wrong. The fact that she not only wasn’t sick, but also was having a child instead, thrilled him. What must that be like? To know you’ve created a new life.
He imagined it must be wonderful. And scary. So much to think about. Marienne sounded happy, but her comments about Frank made it seem like he was less excited. Frank was a lot like Justine; he liked to be in control of what was going on, so it was probably the surprise of the news that had him unsettled. Frank’s a lucky guy.
Keeping this from Justine was going to be interesting. He was bursting to tell someone, but he was honored that Marienne had trusted him with such an important secret. Now that he knew, he was surprised he hadn’t figured it out on his own. Tired, nauseous, sick for weeks; surely most people would at least suspect pregnancy. Maybe Justine would figure it out herself. If not, he’d just wait until Marienne was ready to share her news.
A baby. He smiled. Maybe when Justine finds out she’ll consider having one too.
“You told Daniel?” Frank sounded exasperated.
“I had to.” Marienne’s head was pounding. She felt like she could fall to sleep standing up, but she wanted to finish folding the laundry before she went to bed.
“What do you mean you had to? He forced it out of you?”
“No, of course not. He was afraid I was dying or something. I couldn’t let him think that.”
“Okay, whatever. At least now we can tell people.”
“What?” She dropped a shirt back into the laundry basket. “No, we can’t.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because I don’t want to tell people yet. Nothing has changed.”
“So you’re saying Daniel’s not going to tell Justine?”
“He said he wouldn’t.”
“Did you ask him not to?”
“No, I didn’t have to. He said it was my news to tell.”
Frank puffed out his cheeks and blew out a big breath. “Well, I still say if you told him then we should be able to tell other people.”
She wanted the arguing to stop. “If you really want to, you can tell your mother, but that’s it. Please don’t tell anyone else yet.”
Frank seemed happy with that concession. “Okay, I’ll call her tonight.”
“Please tell her we’re not telling people yet. She’ll understand.”
“I’ll let you tell her that part. I don’t understand it well enough to explain it to anyone else.”
“She wants to talk to you.” Frank handed the phone to Marienne.
“Hi.” Marienne leaned against the fridge to hold herself up.
“Oh sweetheart, I’m so happy for you. This is the best news I’ve ever heard.” Ruth sounded so excited, Marienne felt bad she’d waited to tell her.
“Thanks.”
“How are you feeling? Are you tired? Are you sick a lot?”
“Constantly.”
“Oh, you poor thing. I know. That’s how I was with my first pregnancy. It wasn’t as bad with the other two.”
“That’s encouraging.”
“Don’t worry, sweetie, it’ll pass. So, what can I do for you? What do you need? Do you want me to bring you some meals ‘til you’re feeling better? Come clean for you?”
“No, you don’t have to do anything.”
“I know I don’t have to. I want to. You’re carrying my grandchild. You need to take it easy until you’re feeling better. Let me help you.”
“You’re sweet to offer, but it’s really not necessary.”
“I know it’s not necessary, but I want to help. Do you have anyone helping you? Any of your friends?”
“We’re not telling anyone yet.” Marienne held her breath, waiting to hear Ruth’s response.
“Oh, that’s good. I always think it’s better to wait a while before you start telling everyone.”
“I’m so glad to hear you say that. Frank thinks I’m crazy.”
“Frank’s a man. What does he know? You do what you think is best. And in this case, I agree with you on waiting. But that means no one else is going to offer to help you out because no one knows you need help, so let me do something. What would help the most? Is there anything you feel like eating?”
“Nothing whatsoever.”
“I know what that’s like. How about this, I’ll bring down some meals, and you put them in the freezer, and that way you don’t have to cook for Frank, and if you do feel like eating, you’ll have some things on hand to choose from.”
“That sounds like too much work.”
“Don’t be silly. I’ll cook extra of what I make for a few days, and I’ll stick it in some Tupperwares. Can I bring it down on Thursday night?”
“Are you sure you have time for all this?”
“I’m positive. I’ll put it all in a cooler and I’ll stick it straight in your freezer. I’ll be in and out of your house in a flash. I’m sure you don’t want your mother-in-law hanging around while you’re feeling sick. “
“That’s not true. We love when you visit.”
“You’re sweet, but I know what it’s like to have company when you don’t feel good. I won’t be a bother, I promise.”
“You’re never a bother.” Marienne was grateful that Ruth was being so understanding. “And thank you.”
“Thank you,” Ruth said. “I can’t wait to meet my first grandbaby.”
Chapter 19
Daniel clicked on refresh for the fifth time, and the error message once again appeared on his monitor. Wondering if it was his computer or if the server was down, he walked across the hall to Christina’s office. She was seated at her desk, struggling with something tiny in her hands.
“Dammit,” she said, setting a little glass bottle down and rummaging through her overstuffed pencil holder.
“What are you doing?” Daniel walked into her office and sat down on the chair beside her desk.
“Oh good.” She handed him the bottle. “Make yourself useful. Open this.”
“Jasmine essential oil.” He read from the label as he made his first attempt at opening it. The top wouldn’t budge. He grabbed a napkin from the stack next to the remains of her sandwich and wrapped it around the lid.
“Ahh.” He felt the seal loosen.
“Thanks.” She lifted the cap, withdrawing a plastic wand from inside the small bottle. Daniel watched as she dabbed the wand against a tiny piece of cloth and placed it inside what appeared to be a locket.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m scenting my necklace,” she said, as if that should be perfectly obvious.
“What?”
She gave him her sideways smile. “You’re such a guy.”
“Your point?”
She held the necklace out for him to see. “It’s like a locket, but it’s all open scrollwork on the back.” She flipped it over. “You put your favorite scent—a perfume, an essential oil, whatever, on a little piece of felt and stick it inside. Then you put it on.” She placed the necklace over her head. “It’s like wearing your own personal air freshener. I like the jasmine. It calms me down, and I have a meeting with Bob this afternoon, so I need it.”
“Bob.” Daniel crinkled his nose. “You may want to bring that whole bottle.”
“What are you up to?” she asked.
“Oh, I almost forgot. I wanted to see if your internet connection is down.”
She clicked on her mouse, and sure enough the same error message popped onto her screen. “It’s down,” she said.
“Great.”
“Look on the bright side. At least you’re not meeting with Bob.”
“True.” Daniel stood up. “I’m going to go grab lunch. Can I bring you back anything?”
“No thanks, I’m good.”
�
�Hey.” He paused at her door. “Can you really put any scent you like in one of those things?”
“Why? You thinking of getting one for yourself?”
“Very funny,” he said. “Seriously, could you put vanilla in there?”
“I suppose. I think they sell vanilla essential oil, in which case you definitely could. Ask someone at the store, I got it at that new age shop down the block. Someone there will know. This for Justine?”
“No, a friend.”
Christina’s eyebrows went up.
“Just a friend,” he said.
She sighed. “Sorry, I was hoping for some juicy gossip.”
“I got nothing.”
“In that case, bring me back a chocolate chip muffin from the Waverly. I need some excitement.”
Daniel laughed. “See you in a bit.”
“What’s this?” Marienne asked, looking at the small brown bag Daniel had placed on her countertop.
“Consider it a belated Christmas gift.”
She furrowed her brow.
He chuckled. “Just open it.”
She unfolded the top of the bag and peeked inside, then withdrew the little bottle of vanilla oil, pausing to read the label. “Cool.”
“There’s more.”
She removed the small velvet pouch. Her delicate fingers loosened the drawstring, and she poured the contents into her left hand. The locket lay sparkling in her palm.
“Oh, my God,” she said, clearly surprised. “It’s beautiful.”
“Do you know what it is?”
“A necklace?” She looked up at him with a confused expression.
“Well, yes, but it’s a special kind of necklace. It’s called a scented locket.”
She tilted her head, her brow crinkled again.
“Oh good,” he said. “I thought I was the only one who’d never heard of them. Look.” He reached over and took the necklace, then opened the locket and removed the small piece of cloth. “You put your favorite fragrance on this piece of felt, then you pop it back into the locket, and it releases the scent while you wear it. I got you the vanilla thinking maybe it would make you feel like you’re baking when you’re not baking.” Explaining it that way made him feel foolish. His words weren’t coming out the way he wanted. Marienne didn’t seem to notice.
“That is the nicest gift anyone’s ever given me.”
“Well, I certainly hope that’s not the case.” The look on her face made him think she might have been serious. She reached for the vanilla oil and tried to open it, but the lid remained stubbornly sealed.
“Here.” He held out his hand. “Let me try. It seems they practically glue them shut. That’s how I learned about these necklaces. My friend Christina has one, and she couldn’t get her bottle open. Got it.” He placed a drop onto the fabric, and then snapped the locket closed.
Marienne took a tentative sniff. “Mmmmm.” Her eyes closed and she breathed in deeply. “Smells wonderful.”
He smiled, pleased she liked it.
She slipped the chain over her head. “Now every time I smell vanilla, I’ll think of you.”
Chapter 20
Marienne was dicing carrots when the phone rang. Justine’s voice crackled across the line the second Marienne answered. “What’s the most spectacular dessert you can make with only forty-eight hours’ notice?”
“What?” Marienne had no idea what Justine was talking about.
“I have ten extremely important potential investors coming to my house on Friday night, for a dinner party, and I just found out an hour ago. I need to impress them. I can’t serve standard catered food. I have to show them I can put together something unique and different. What’s the best dessert you can whip up on short notice? I don’t want bakery crap. I need one of your knock-your-socks-off specialties. I’ll pay you.”
Justine’s voice had an excited edge to it that Marienne had never heard before, a cross between glee and mania.
“You don’t need to pay me.”
“I want to pay you,” Justine said. “This is business. I’ll write it off. Name your price. All I’m worried about is the time frame.”
“It doesn’t take that long to make anything. What kind of dessert so you want?”
“I don’t know.”
“Okay, well, what are you serving for dinner?”
“Actually, I want your input on the menu, too. Daniel will be in the city Friday, but he only has one early morning meeting. I was going to send him to Dean and DeLuca to pick up food. They’re good, right?”
“The best,” Marienne said. “I worked there for years.”
“Oh, my God, that’s perfect. You must know the store really well. Could you go with him?”
“To Dean and DeLuca?”
“Yes. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about him getting the wrong things. You know how awful he is at shopping. I’ll ask for golden tomatoes and he’ll come home with Meyer lemons. Would you go?”
“I guess.” Marienne opened the coffee table drawer and pulled out a notebook and pen. Dean and DeLuca she wrote at the top of the page. With Daniel. She shifted the phone away from her mouth so Justine wouldn’t hear if she giggled.
“Unless you think you won’t have time. I still need you to bake.”
“Don’t worry. I can do both. Now, what did you have in mind for food?”
The next hour was spent discussing dinner menu options. Marienne was thankful her morning sickness was finally over; now that she could eat again, she enjoyed thinking about all the possible food combinations. She wrote down a basic list of Justine’s wants and don’t-wants and decided to base the specifics on what Dean and DeLuca had on Friday.
Marienne rattled off a dozen dessert possibilities. “You have a lot of variety in your dinner menu, so you should mirror that in your dessert choices. I’d suggest something chocolatey, something creamy, something fruity, and something crunchy. That way, people can take what they want and try a little of everything.”
“Shit,” Justine said. “You’ve got way better ideas than the catering menus. You should do this professionally.”
“Thanks, but I don’t want to do this as a business, at least not now.”
“You’re sure you can make any of these things in that time frame?”
“Positive.” Marienne was certain, but Justine’s question made her nervous.
Half an hour later the menu was set. They had agreed on truffle loaf with crème anglaise and caramel sauce, assorted fruits, chocolate fondue, and butter cookies. Marienne whipped up a batch of the cookie dough, rolled it into logs, and tucked them into the freezer. They needed to chill at least six hours before she could slice and bake them, so she decided to head to the grocery store to pick up the rest of her supplies.
Frank came home late, but Marienne was still cooking. Racks of cookies cooled on the countertop, some plain, others covered with chunky sugar crystals, and a third coated in fluffy confectioner’s sugar. The house smelled like caramel.
“What’s all this?” Frank pulled off his jacket and tossed it onto a kitchen chair.
“I’m helping Justine.”
“Helping Justine what? Gain weight?” He surveyed the kitchen table, which was covered with supplies, blocks of chocolate, tins of cocoa, and bottles of vanilla beans.
She frowned. “She’s having a dinner party on Friday, a bunch of people who might want to invest in Just in Time. She wants to impress them. She asked me to make desserts for her.” Marienne rhythmically stirred the contents of the pot on the stovetop. “She offered to pay me.”
Frank looked pleased. “Everyone always raves about your desserts.”
“She also wants me to go do the grocery shopping, in the city, with Daniel. She’s afraid he’ll buy the wrong stuff.”
Frank laughed. “She’s right. Crazy Brit would probably come home with English muffins and marmalade, and Justine would kill him.”
“He would not.”
Frank raised his eyebrows. “Daniel’s a grea
t guy, and he’s got a lot of talents, but I doubt planning a menu is one of them. That’s your strong suit. You know food, and you can cook.”
“Yeah, I know. That’s why you married me.”
He came up behind her. “That, and a few other reasons.” He pressed against her.
She shifted away. “You’re gonna make me burn the caramel.”
“Yeah?” He kissed her. “What about after you finish the caramel?”
The kiss felt good. The pregnancy hormones were making her horny, and it had been weeks since they’d had sex. This was the first week she was feeling human again. She kissed him back, then checked the caramel. It was starting to turn golden.
“Give me three more minutes. I’ll meet you upstairs.”
He groaned, rubbing against her one more time. “Hurry.”
Marienne finished the caramel sauce and poured it into a bowl to cool, then headed up. Frank was in bed, watching TV, naked and very much ready. She felt nervous as she undressed. The last time they tried had been a complete disaster. She’d been nauseous and kissing had made her even more so, plus she’d been painfully swollen. He hadn’t been able to enter her. The night had ended with him cursing under his breath as she ran to the bathroom to puke.
She climbed into bed still wearing panties and a tank top.
“What’s with these?” Frank ran his hand over her underwear.
She shrugged.
“We don’t need anything in our way.” He leaned over to kiss her and pulled them down.
He ran his hand briskly up her body, trying to insinuate his fingers between her legs. She tensed, pulling back.
“Slow. Please, if this is going to work, we’re going to have to go really slow.” She kissed him, her lips brushing against his. She relaxed her legs, letting his hand slip between them.
Frank rubbed his hand on her. She knew it was killing him to go slow. It had been a while, way too long, as he’d kept reminding her. He pressed against her thigh. He stroked faster and she grabbed his wrist. Instead of pulling away, she began ever-so-slowly rocking against his fingers.
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