There was a challenging note in her voice, as if rambling about the rock group had allowed her to add up all the pieces and she ended up not liking the sum of the parts. “Are you Chloe’s nanny?” Doris asked.
“Oh, heavens, no,” Kate said. “My name is Kate. I am Aidan’s wife.”
* * *
Aidan stopped his car in front of the house in time to see Doris on the porch talking to Kate. It was good for them to meet since Chloe enjoyed spending so much time with Beatrice. Doris had been so good about having Chloe over and driving her here and there. Now they would have a better chance to reciprocate and have Beatrice over so Doris could have some free time.
“I understand congratulations are in order,” Doris said when Aidan approached. “I didn’t know that you had gotten married.”
Doris reached out and took ahold of Aidan’s left hand and made a show of looking at his wedding ring—as if she needed proof. She gave her head a quick shake, as if she was trying to wrap her mind around the idea. “Well, look at that. Matching bands and all. I guess I never noticed your ring, and I’m usually pretty observant when it comes to things like that.”
When neither he nor Kate said anything, Doris broke the awkward silence.
“I’m sorry this is throwing me for such a loop. I didn’t even realize you had someone special in your life.”
Kate crossed her arms and shot him a look with raised brows and pursed mouth.
He hadn’t wanted her to be a secret. Not on purpose. He and Kate had been seeing each other for nearly a year, but Kate had been adamant about keeping things casual. Friends with benefits, they had joked, even though he had wanted it to be so much more.
Still, he had decided he wasn’t going to push her. Because of that, he had done his best to keep Chloe’s world, with her school and teachers and friends and their parents, as separate as possible from his life with Kate. Introducing Kate into that mix would have only muddied the waters.
In retrospect, maybe he should have done it anyway. Though he never would have dreamed they would find themselves in a situation like this.
“Yeah” was all he said about the matter, following it up with “Thanks for letting Chloe come over today, Doris.”
Doris wrinkled her nose and smiled. “I’m sorry I seem so surprised. This is so odd. Chloe has never mentioned you, Kate.”
Kate inclined her head. “Until Aidan and I made things official, we wanted to protect Chloe. As a mother, I’m sure you understand what I’m talking about.”
“What on earth do you mean by protect?” Doris asked. “What would Chloe need to be protected from?”
Despite the stiff smile on plastered on Kate’s face, Aidan could sense that she was getting her back up.
Before the exchange could go any further, they were interrupted by the sound of two giggling six-year-olds. Beatrice and Chloe joined them on the porch. Beatrice had a doll tucked under her arm. Chloe was carrying Princess Sweetie Pie.
“I am letting Beatrice take Annie to her house so she can spend the night there,” Chloe said. “She’s letting her doll, Iris, stay with Princess Sweetie Pie and me. It’s a doll sleepover.”
The girls jumped up and down, hugging the dolls.
“That sounds like a fair exchange,” Aidan said. It suddenly dawned on him that because of the way Doris has been questioning them, she might say something in front of Chloe about him and Kate being married.
“Chloe, I need you to go inside and help Kate find the picnic basket because the three of us are going on a picnic for supper.”
He telegraphed to Kate that she should take Chloe in the other room. She seemed to understand, because she gave him a subtle nod and then whisked the little girl away.
Of course, Kate was the one who’d told Doris about them being married. How else would Doris have found out? Judging by what he had read in Kate’s eyes, she had realized it had been risky for her to let the cat out of the bag before they could tell Chloe.
“Who was that lady, Mama?” Beatrice asked, as Kate took Chloe inside and shut the door behind her. And not a moment too soon.
“That’s Chloe’s new mommy,” said Doris. She locked gazes with Aidan. Her gaze and her bemused smile wore a question, as if she expected Aidan to explain. But what else was there to say?
“Again, thank you, Doris. I need to get inside. We will see you and Beatrice soon. Maybe next time the girls can play over here.”
As Aidan was letting himself inside the house, Doris put her hand on the door. “I gave Kate a piece of paper with information about our rock-painting group. It is a mother-and-daughter thing, but fathers are always welcome, too.”
“Thank you for the invitation.”
“I do hope you will bring Chloe and join us,” Doris said.
She looked like she wanted to say something more. Instead, she let go of the door and stepped back. “Let me know if you ever need anything, Aidan.”
Kate walked into the living room as soon as Aidan closed the door.
“I’m sorry,” Kate said. “I shouldn’t have said anything to Doris until we had a chance to talk to Chloe. But she was grilling me. Doris certainly was surprised to discover that we were married. But maybe not as surprised as I was to discover that Doris is so young and pretty. I’m not going to lie. I had a mental picture of her being more of a grandmotherly type or like Mary Poppins.” Kate shrugged. “I guess that just goes to show you what preconceived notions will do. But I think she likes you.”
Aidan flinched. Surely she wasn’t meaning that the way he was inferring it? He decided to hedge, to play dumb, because the thought made him uncomfortable.
“Doris and I get along just fine. I am the father of her daughter’s best friend. She would not let Beatrice play with Chloe if she didn’t like me.”
Kate crossed her arms and pinned him with a steely gaze. “You know that’s not what I’m talking about.”
He let his face go blank. “No, I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. What do you mean?”
“Are you blind?” Kate asked. “You have to know what I mean, or you are blind.”
“Then if I’m blind, does that mean you’re jealous?” Aidan laughed. Just as he hoped, the question threw her off her line of questioning.
“Why would I be jealous? Or maybe I should ask if I should be jealous? As I said, Doris is beautiful, and she is obviously interested in you.”
Chloe seemed to materialize from out of nowhere with her stuffed white cat tucked into the crook of her arm. He wanted to hug his little girl for saving him. “Why are there boxes in our kitchen?” she asked. “Where did they come from?”
He and Kate exchanged a glance. They needed to talk to Chloe before the news of their marriage came out the wrong way. They needed to make this happy news. Because it was a happy thing. But first, he and Kate needed to be on the same page. And there was no room on that page for Doris Watson.
Aidan kneeled down in front of his daughter so that he was eye level with Chloe.
“Remember how I told you we were going on a picnic for dinner tonight?”
Chloe nodded and plucked at the fur on Princess Sweetie Pie’s face.
“Kate and I have a big surprise for you. And we were going to tell you about it on the picnic, because it is something very special and very exciting that the three of us are going to celebrate.”
The little girl’s eyes grew large and her mouth fell open. “What is it, Daddy?”
“It is a surprise,” Aidan said. “Go get your shoes on while Kate and I go into the kitchen and finish getting the picnic ready and we will get this party started.”
Chloe jumped up and down and clapped her hands, then scampered off toward her room, leaving Kate and Aidan alone.
“Let’s just tell her about the wedding now,” Aidan said. “I want her to digest that and then we can tell her a
bout the baby later, when she’s ready. Are you okay with that?”
Kate put her hand on her middle and nodded. “Of course. You know Chloe and if you think that’s the best way to handle it, I’m right there with you.”
He reached out and ran the pad of his thumb along Kate’s jawline. “Don’t worry. Everything is going to be fine.”
“Do you really think so?” she asked. “I mean, are you sure Chloe isn’t going to feel like I’m an intruder in the life that the two of you have built together?” Kate whispered the words.
“I hope not. I mean, I can’t imagine that she would feel that way. Her mom has never been a part of her life. Since she’s been hanging around Beatrice and Doris so much lately, she’s asked me a couple of times why she doesn’t have a mother like her friends.”
Kate’s face softened. “Oh, poor little girl. I hope I can live up to the task and be a good mother to her.”
“You already are,” Aidan said. “All you have to do is...love her. I think you’ll be good at that.”
The word love made him think of how they hadn’t resolved Kate’s question, which seemed to have come from out of the blue. Of course, he cared for her. He wouldn’t have married her if he didn’t. Then he saw Kate’s throat work as she swallowed. When she looked up at him, emotion swam in her eyes.
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her softly on the lips.
“You’re going to be a great mother,” he said.
The sound of Chloe’s feet scampering on the hardwood floors made Kate tense and pull out of his arms.
“It is going to be fine,” he said. “I promise.”
* * *
A half hour later, Kate, Aidan and Chloe were seated on a quilt in Forsyth Park. As Kate helped Aidan set out the food for their dino nugget dinner along with six gourmet cupcakes he had picked up at the store for the celebration, the little girl danced around them on the grass.
“Princess Sweetie Pie wants to know when we can have our surprise,” she said. Now she was jumping up and down. “Can we have the surprise before dinner? Pleeease, Daddy? Pleeease.”
“It is not exactly something that you have,” Aidan said.
Chloe stopped jumping and blinked. Not in a disappointed, spoiled-child way. It was more of a look that said she was trying to understand what he was telling her.
“What is it, then?” she asked quietly, holding her cat by one arm at her side.
Aidan glanced at Kate, as if looking for the answer. She shrugged and gestured back at him. She had nearly blown it once today when she had spilled the beans to Doris. He needed to figure out the right way to break this news. She would be right here for moral support.
He must’ve understood, because he finally said, “It is something that Kate and I have to tell you.”
Chloe dropped down onto the quilt that they were using as a picnic blanket and stared up at them, her face solemn.
“Don’t look so upset,” Aidan said. “It is good news. It is happy news.”
Kate’s heart was hammering in her chest as if it was trying to break out and run away.
Then Aidan reached out and took Kate’s hand.
“You know how you told me that you wished you had a mommy?”
Chloe nodded.
“Well, now you do. Kate and I got married when we went away—remember when we went away, and you stayed with Beatrice?”
The little girl nodded again, her eyes looking hopeful.
“Since we’re married, Kate is your mommy. What do you think about that?”
Chloe’s hands flew to her mouth. “Really?” The words were muffled behind her little fingers. “Are you really my mommy?”
“I would be honored to be your mommy, if you want me to be,” Kate said.
Chloe nodded earnestly. Then she jumped up and threw her arms around Kate’s neck.
Suddenly she pulled back and tilted her head to the side. “Does that mean you’re going to live with us and tuck me into bed and eat dinner with us every night?”
“It sure does,” Kate said around the emotion that had knotted in her throat. “I’ll even take you to school every morning if you want me to.”
Again Chloe nodded enthusiastically. “Will you take me to school tomorrow?”
“I would love to take you to school tomorrow, as long as it is okay with your daddy.”
Both heads swiveled to looked at Aidan. He held up his hands in surrender. “Hey, it is two against one. Majority rules. It looks like I’d be outnumbered if I said no, but I would not have said no anyway. Not to my two best girls.”
He locked gazed with Kate and hot tears stung the backs of her eyes. She blinked them back and bit the insides of her cheeks until the temptation to cry passed. She had never been a big sap like this. She had prided herself on being stoic and cynical. One look at the happiness on Chloe’s face—the little girl made it seem like getting a mother was the best gift anyone could have ever given to her—and Kate was about to become a blubbering mess.
Was this what kids did to you? Soften your hard heart and strip away your defenses? Because that was what was happening to her as she realized that Chloe—and Aidan—and their baby were the best gifts she could have received.
From where she sat, she could see the Forsyth Galloway Inn across the grassy expanse and through the moss-laden trees on the other side of the street. The place that had belonged to six generations of women in her family. It felt as if each one of her ancestors who had come before her was smiling down on her right now, approving, welcoming this formerly motherless little girl into their female-centric fold.
It was overwhelming, and, at the same time, the most divinely right feeling she had had in her life. Well, except for one. When she looked up and saw the look on Aidan’s face, she felt like she was finally home.
Chapter Eight
“How is married life?” Daniel stood in the open doorway of Aidan’s office, startling him out of his thoughts.
“Considering that we have had one week of normalcy under our belts, now that Chloe and the family know, so far so good.”
“Good thing you’re an architect,” Daniel said. “Because you make a terrible actor.”
Aidan’s knee-jerk reaction was to pretend like he didn’t know what his brother was talking about, but why? One thing he had learned with Kate was you didn’t solve problems by pretending life was perfect. Kate had taught him that you had to come at the situation head-on.
“The other day you said I had a good poker face.”
“That was when you were keeping the marriage a secret. You were good at that. But I can tell that something’s bothering you.”
Aidan sighed.
“Okay, marriage is hard.” He shrugged. “We are adjusting. Or, at least, we are trying to and I’m trying to keep a positive outlook. You know, set a good example for everyone.”
Aidan pushed back from his desk and placed his hands behind his neck and shrugged.
“Chloe is happy. So that’s good. She loves Kate. She loves finally having a mother and Kate is a great mom to her. She’s good with Chloe. We haven’t told her about the baby yet. We wanted to break the news to her in digestible bites. You know, let her get used to us being a family first. Let her feel safe, and then we’ll tell her our family is going to grow some more. That she’s going to have a sibling.”
Daniel lowered himself onto the chair across from Aidan’s desk.
“That’s good,” Daniel said. “So what’s the problem?”
“Kate’s...quiet. You know, distant. I don’t know. I guess we’re still adjusting to living together. I’m not sure how I thought life would be, but I thought it would be different than this. I don’t know whether to give her space or if I should try harder.”
“Marriage, even under the best circumstances, can be difficult. Or maybe I shouldn’t say difficult. Difficu
lt has a bad connotation. It can be challenging. Challenging puts a better spin on it.”
“But should you have to spin something like marriage?” Aidan asked. “Shouldn’t she and I just be happy to be together? We’re newlyweds.”
“Are you saying you’re not happy?”
“No.”
He had answered too fast, he knew it, which placed his answer squarely in the “doth protest too much” territory.
“I don’t know,” he amended. “I don’t know that we would have gotten married had the circumstances been different.”
“I thought you said you didn’t get married because of the baby.”
“We didn’t.”
“But you just said you would not have married her if she wasn’t pregnant?”
“I didn’t say anything about marrying her because she was pregnant.”
“Okay, I’m confused,” Daniel said. “Did you and Kate plan this Vegas elopement, or did you just get caught up in the moment?”
Aidan clasped his hands together tightly on top of his desk. Then he loosened them and steepled his fingers, tapping them together as he thought of how to best answer his brother’s question.
He inhaled a long and slow and steady breath as he chose his words. “It is more complicated than that.”
“My next appointment isn’t until after lunch. So I’ve got all the time in the world if you want to talk it out,” Daniel said.
Aidan explained about Kate’s wedding amnesia, following up with how the doctor said Kate’s pregnancy hormones could have created an allergy to the alcohol, causing her memory loss.
“She wanted an annulment before we found out she was pregnant. She didn’t want to be married—to anyone—but the baby changed everything. The pregnancy meant we couldn’t have annulled the marriage. We would have had to get a divorce. Looking at things honestly and with clear eyes, I believe the judge would not have granted the annulment anyway—even without the pregnancy—because of our personal history. But once Kate found out about the baby, it was clear that she resigned herself to staying married. Still, it feels a little precarious to know my wife had to resign herself to marrying me. I can’t shake the feeling that we’re living in a house of cards. You know, one wrong move and it will all come crashing down.”
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