by Susan Meier
“Might as well mosey instead of running.” The man exiting the van smiled at him. “They’ll be taking up most of the bathroom stalls and all the space in front of the vending machines for the next twenty minutes.”
Last month that would have made Wyatt grouchy. This month it made him smile. He could see Missy’s kids doing the same thing a few years from now. “Yours?”
“Three grandkids. Three kids with my new wife.” He pointed at the tall, willowy redhead who followed the kids, issuing orders and in general looking out for them.
“Oh.” Wyatt was all for polite chitchat, but he wasn’t exactly sure what to say to that. The closer the stranger got to Wyatt the more obvious it was that he wasn’t in his twenties, as the redhead was. Early fifties probably. Plus, he’d admitted three of those kids were his grandkids.
The man batted a hand in dismissal. “Everybody says raising kids is a younger man’s game, and that might be true, but I love them all.”
“Bet your older kids aren’t thrilled.”
He laughed. “Are you kidding? Our house is the in place to be. We have movie night every Friday, so every Friday both of my daughters get a date night with their husbands.”
“Well, that’s handy.”
“And I feel twenty-eight again.”
Wyatt laughed. He guessed that was probably the redhead’s age.
“Didn’t think I’d pull through after my first wife left me.” He tossed Wyatt a look. “Dumped me for my business partner, tried to take the whole company from him.” He chuckled. “My lawyers were better than theirs.”
Wyatt couldn’t stop the guffaw that escaped. It was nice to see somebody win in divorce wars.
“But now I have a wife I know really loves me. Three new kids to cement the deal. And very good relationships with my older kids, since I am a convenient babysitter for weekends.”
“That’s nice.”
The older man sucked in a breath. “It is nice.” He slapped Wyatt on the back. “I’m telling you, second chances are the best. Just when you think you’re going to be alone forever, love finds you in the most unexpected ways.” He stopped, his mouth fell open and he began racing up the sidewalk. “Come on, Tommy! You know better than that.”
By the time Wyatt got out of the restroom, the van, the older man and the kids were gone. He shook his head with a laugh, thinking the guy really was lucky. Then he walked up to a vending machine and inserted the coins to get a two-pack of chocolate cupcakes. He pushed the selection button. They flopped down to the takeaway tray.
He opened them and shoved an entire cupcake into his mouth, then nearly spit it out.
Compared to the cake he’d been eating the past few weeks, it was dry, tasteless. And made him long for Missy with every fiber of his being. Not because he wanted cake, but because she made him laugh, made him think, made him yearn for things he didn’t even realize he wanted.
He wanted kids.
Someday he wanted to be the dad in the van taking everyone on an adventure. He wanted his house to be the one that hosted Friday night movie night—with the triplets’ friends.
He wanted to have a bigger family than his parents and Missy’s parents had given them. So his grandkids could have cousins and aunts and uncles. Things he didn’t have.
But most of all he wanted her. He wanted to laugh with her, to tease with her, to wake up beside her every morning and fall asleep with her at night. He didn’t want the noise in Tampa. He didn’t want to fight any more battles in courtrooms or in his boardroom. He wanted a real life.
He glanced around the crowded rest stop. What the hell was he doing here? He never ran away from something he wanted. He went after it.
And the first step was easy. He climbed on his bike, but before he started the engine, he pulled out his cell phone. He hit Betsy’s speed dial number.
When she answered, he said, “Here’s the deal. You come up with ten percent over the market value for my shares, or you sell me yours for their real value.”
She sputtered. “What?”
“You heard me. If you want to play hardball, I’m countering your offer. I’ll buy your shares for market value. If that doesn’t suit you, then you buy me out. But I’m not working with you. And I’m not running the company for you. One of us takes all. The other gets lost. I don’t care which way it goes.”
“We’re not supposed to negotiate without our lawyers.”
“Yeah, well, I found something I want more than my company. I’d be happy to keep it and run it, as long as I don’t have to deal with you. We never were a good match. We’re opposites who argue all the time. If we try to run the company together, all we’ll do is fight. And I’m done fighting. If you don’t want to buy my shares, I’ll find somebody who will.”
She sighed. “Wyatt—”
“You have ten seconds to answer. Either let me buy your shares for what they’re really worth or you buy mine and I disappear. Or I sell them to a third party.”
“I don’t want your company.”
“Clock’s ticking.”
“Fine. I’ll take market value.”
“I’ll call my accountant and lawyer.”
He clicked off the call with a grin. He was free. Finally free to walk into the destiny he’d known was his since ninth grade. He was gonna marry Missy Johnson.
He started the bike and zipped onto the highway, this time going in the opposite direction, back home.
He was going to get his woman.
* * *
Missy cried herself out in the shower, put on clean clothes and set about making gum paste. While it cooled, she could have made a batch of cupcakes. Her plan was to deliver the cupcakes to every restaurant in a three-county area this week, but her heart wasn’t in it. After Wyatt’s rejection, she needed to feel loved, wanted. So as Elaine gathered the ingredients for a batch of chocolate cupcakes, she went outside to plant the azalea bushes the kids had bought her for Mother’s Day.
The problem was she could see splashes of red through the shabby hedge. Her heart stuttered a bit. Wyatt’s truck. He’d have to come home for that.
She stopped the happy thoughts that wanted to form. Even if he did come home, he wouldn’t come over to see her. He’d made his choices. Now she had to live with them. With her pride intact. She didn’t beg. She’d never begged. She sucked it up and went on.
She would go on now, too.
But one of these days she’d dig up those shrubs and replace them with bushes thick enough that she couldn’t see the house on the other side. True, it would take years for them to grow tall enough to be a fence, but when they grew in they would be healthy and strong...and full. So she wouldn’t be able to see into the McKenzie yard, and any McKenzie who happened to wander home wouldn’t be able to see into hers.
She snorted a laugh. No McKenzie would be coming home. He’d probably send somebody to pick up the truck, and hire a Realtor to sell the house. She had no reason to protect herself from an accidental meeting. There would be no accidental meeting.
The roar of a motorcycle in her driveway brought her back to the present. Her first thought was that someone had chosen to turn around in her drive. Still, curious, she spun around to see who was.
Wyatt.
Her heart cartwheeled. Wyatt.
She removed her gardening gloves and tossed them on the picnic table, her heart in her throat.
As he removed his helmet and headed into her yard, all three kids bounced up with glee. He got only midway to the picnic table before he was surrounded. He reached down and scooped up Claire. Helaina and Owen danced around him as he continued toward the picnic table.
“Are we going to play?” Owen’s excited little voice pierced her heart. This was just like Wyatt. Come back for two seconds, probably to give her keys to the truck for whoev
er he sent up to retrieve it, and undo all the progress she’d made in getting the kids to understand that he’d left and wasn’t coming back.
“In a minute.” He slid Claire to the ground again. “I need to talk to your mom.”
All three kids just looked at him.
He laughed. “If you go play now, I’ll take you for ice cream later.”
Owen’s eyes widened. “In the twuck?”
Missy sighed. Now he was just plain making trouble for her. “The truck doesn’t have car seats.”
Wyatt sat on the bench across from hers and casually said, “We’ll buy some.”
That was good enough for the triplets. With a whoop of delight from Owen and a “Yay!” from Claire and Lainie, the three danced over to the sandbox.
“Why are you here?” There was no point delaying the inevitable. “Did you forget something?”
He laughed. “Yes. I forgot you guys.”
“Right.” She glared at him across the table. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means I don’t want to go back without you.”
Her heart tripped. She caught herself. She hadn’t precisely misinterpreted everything he’d said and done to this point, but she had done a lot of wishful thinking. She liked him. But they were at two different places in their lives. And even if they weren’t, they lived in two different parts of the country.
“I shouldn’t have gone.”
She sniffed a laugh. “You seemed pretty certain about it last night.”
“Last night I was an idiot. This morning I left without talking to you because I didn’t want to hurt you. Turns out I hurt myself the most by leaving.”
She shook her head. “So this is all about you?”
“This is all about us. About how we fit. About how we would be a family.”
For the first time since he’d walked over from her driveway, hope built in her heart. But hope wasn’t safe. She’d spent her childhood hoping her dad would change. Her marriage hoping her husband would stay with her. Every time she hoped, someone hurt her or left her.
“Hey.” His soft voice drifted over to her as his strong hand reached across the table and caught hers. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone. I didn’t even want to leave. But something inside me kept saying I couldn’t do this. That I’d hurt you and hurt the kids.”
She didn’t look at him. She couldn’t. If she glanced over and saw those big brown eyes sad, she’d melt. And she didn’t want to melt. She needed to be strong to resist whatever nonsense he was about to say.
“Then I saw this guy and his family at a rest stop on I-95. His first wife had dumped him for his business partner and he married this really hot chick who had to be at least thirty years younger than he was.”
Missy couldn’t help it. She looked over at him with a laugh. “Are you kidding me?”
“No. Listen.” He rose from his side of the picnic table and walked over to hers. Sitting almost on top of her, he forced her to scoot over to accommodate him. “He had six kids in a van that sort of looked like yours.”
“Six kids?”
“Half of them were his with his new wife.”
“Half?”
“The other half were grandkids.”
That made her laugh out loud. “Grandkids?”
“Grandkids and kids all mingled together, and they were having a blast.”
She suddenly realized they were talking like normal people again. Just two old friends, sitting on her picnic table, talking about the daily nonsense that happens sometimes.
It hurt her heart because this was what she wanted out of life. A companion. A lover, sure. But more than that, every woman wanted a guy who talked, shared his day, shared his hopes, his dreams. And the easy, casual way Wyatt sat with her, talked with her, got her hopes up more than any apology.
If she didn’t leave now, she’d let those hopes take flight and she’d end up even more hurt than she already was.
She rose. “Well, that’s great.”
He grabbed her hand and tugged her back down again. “You’re not listening to what I’m telling you.”
Annoyed, she turned on him. “So what are you telling me?”
“Well, I was going to say I love you, but you seem a little too grouchy to hear it.”
She huffed a laugh. “You don’t love me. You said so last night. You said you cared about me but didn’t love me.”
“Geez, did you memorize everything I said verbatim?”
“A woman doesn’t forget the words that hurt her.”
He caught her chin and made her look at him. “I do love you. I love you more than anybody or anything I’ve ever thought I loved. I got confused because I thought I wasn’t ready or supposed to love. That guy in the van, the guy with all the kids and enough family to be an organizational chart for a Fortune 500 company? He showed me that you don’t have to be ready. Sometimes you can’t be ready. When life and love find you, you have to grab them. Inconvenience, messiness, problems and all.”
The hope in her heart swelled so much it nearly exploded. “Are you saying we’re inconvenient?”
“Good God, woman, you have triplets. Of course this is inconvenient. You’re starting a business here, which means you can’t leave. My business is a thousand miles away. You haven’t met my parents. Not that they won’t love you, but it’s going to be a surprise to suddenly bring three kids into their world. Especially since if we’re going to make this work, I’m going to be spending a big chunk of my time up here.” He shook his head. “They moved to Florida to be with me and now I’m going to be living at least half the year up here.”
She laughed a bit. That was sort of ironic.
His serious brown eyes met her gaze. “But I love you. I want what you bring to my world.”
“Messiness, inconvenience and problems?”
“Happiness, joy and a sense of belonging.”
With every word he said his face got closer. Until when he said, “Belonging,” their lips met.
This time there was no hesitation. There was no sense that as soon as he got the chance he would pull away. This time there was only real love. The love she’d been searching for her whole life was finally here.
Finally hers.
EPILOGUE
TWO YEARS LATER they got married on a private island about an hour down the coast from Tampa. The triplets, now six, were more than happy to be the wedding party. Owen looked regal in his little black tux that matched Wyatt’s, and the girls really were the princesses they wanted to be, dressed in pale pink gowns with tulle skirts.
Nancy, their longtime babysitter, now a college sophomore, had been invited to the wedding as a guest, but ended up herding the triplets into submission as they stood at the end of the long white runner that would take Missy to the gazebo on the beach, where she would marry the love of her life.
She and Wyatt had decided to date for a year, then had been engaged for a year. Not just to give her a chance to get her company running smoothly, with a baking supervisor and actual delivery staff, but also to give the two of them time to enjoy being in love. Though Wyatt spent most of his time in her house when he visited, he’d kept his gram’s house. He was very sentimental when it came to Missy, to their past, and especially to the picnic tables where he’d taught her how to solve equations.
“Okay, Owen, you’re first.”
Nancy gave him a small push to start him on his journey down the white runner to the gazebo, where Wyatt and the minister waited. Owen hesitated at first, but when he saw all the people urging him on, especially Wyatt’s parents, his first grandparents, it was as if someone had flashed a light indicating it was showtime. He grinned and waved, taking his time as he went from the back of the beach to the gazebo.
Wyatt caught
him by the shoulders and got him to stand still, but he couldn’t stop Owen’s grin. This was the day they officially became a family. A mom and dad, three kids and actual grandparents more than happy to spoil them rotten. Yeah. Owen was psyched for this.
Then the girls ambled up the aisle, more serious than their brother. They had rose petals to drop. Nancy had skirted the rows of folding chairs to get to the end of the runner and help the girls up the two steps into the gazebo.
Owen gave the thumbs-up signal. The crowd laughed.
Missy smiled. Then she pressed her hand to her tummy as she circled behind the last row of chairs to the runner. When she stood at the threshold of her journey up the aisle, she saw Wyatt, and all her fears, all her doubts disappeared.
His black tux accented his dark good looks, but with Owen standing just a bit above knee height beside him, and the girls a few feet away, waiting for their mom, he also looked like the wonderful father that he was.
She watched his eyes travel from her shoulders to the bodice of her strapless gown and down the tangle of tulle and chiffon that created the short skirt. His gaze paused at her knees, where the dress stopped, and he smiled before he raised his eyes and their gazes locked.
She walked down the aisle alone, because that’s what she was without Wyatt. Then she carefully navigated the two steps to the gazebo and handed the two bouquets she carried to the girls.
Wyatt took her hands.
They said their vows and exchanged rings with the sound of the surf behind them. Then they posed for pictures in the gazebo, on the shore, with the kids, without the kids, with his parents and even with Nancy.
In the country club ballroom, they greeted a long line of guests, mostly Wyatt’s friends and employees, as well as a swell of friends she’d made once she felt comfortable in Tampa.
As they walked to the main table for dinner, she guided Wyatt along a path that took them past their cake.
“Banana walnut?” he whispered hopefully.
“With a layer of chocolate fudge, a layer of almond, a layer of spice and an extra banana walnut layer at the top for us to take home for our first anniversary.” She paused, her critical gaze passing over every flower of the five-layer cake.
