The Christmas Baby Surprise

by Shirley Jump

  “Didn’t sound that way to me. It was nice.” He swallowed hard. “I’ve missed your singing. You used to sing all the time when we were first married.”

  She laughed. “That’s because we couldn’t even afford a TV. My singing was our only entertainment.”

  “I wouldn’t say it was our only entertainment.” His gaze met hers. Heat filled the space between them. Cole had never been so acutely aware of his wife’s naked body, and the thin scrap of cotton separating them. She’d put on a few pounds in the past couple months, but they only added to her curves and made her more desirable. He ached to take her in his arms, to let the towel fall to the floor and to taste that sweet, warm, peach skin.

  “Those were different days then,” she said, her voice low and soft. She fiddled with the edge of the towel. “Better days.”

  Had she stopped singing because she’d stopped being happy? Started again today because she was happier without him? Or had he stopped paying attention to Emily so long ago that he didn’t notice her singing? Her happiness?

  “You liked it better when we were poor?” he asked. “Living in that tiny fifth-floor walk-up, freezing in the winter and roasting in the summer?”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  He’d hated those days. Always struggling, feeling like he’d failed, the constant battle to get his business off the ground at night while he sweated on a construction site during the day. Working, working, working, and getting frustrated at how long it took to get from nowhere to somewhere. “Why? We had nothing, Emily.”

  “Nothing except each other,” she said. She raised her gaze to his. Tears shimmered in her green eyes. “That was always enough for me, Cole. But it was never enough for you.”

  He let out a gust. Why did it always come down to this? Didn’t she understand, he’d done all of this for her? For them? For their future together? The hours he’d worked, the effort he’d put in to take the business from their apartment kitchen table to a global power had been a constant source of friction between them. In the early days, Emily had supported him, but as the years wore on, that support had eroded into frustration and a cold, silent war.

  “You can’t blame me for wanting more, Emily. For wanting success. Look at us now. We have everything we always wanted.”

  A bittersweet smile crossed her face. “No. You have everything you ever wanted.” The smile shifted, became something he couldn’t read, as if Emily had a secret that only she knew. She nodded toward the door. “I’d appreciate it if you left now.”

  He did as she asked and left the room, shutting the door behind him, and feeling more lost than he had ever felt before. Cole was a smart man who had built his company from nothing into a global player. Who had taken them from a run-down apartment to a mansion in a tony suburb outside New York City. All along, he’d thought he was on the same path that Emily wanted.

  Now it turned out he’d been wrong. For a long, long time.

  * * *

  Sleep eluded Emily. She tossed and turned, then got up, tried to write and couldn’t get any further in the book. The whole day had been like that, her creativity stalled. Her mind was still stuck on the moment Cole had walked into the bathroom and looked at her with that hungry, admiring gaze she knew so well. One step forward, and she would have had him in her arms, in her bed, in her.

  She craved that, deep down inside, in places that only Cole knew. But she’d held her ground, and after he left the room, she’d told herself she’d done the right thing. Even if it didn’t feel that way.

  Her stomach rumbled. She pulled on a robe and headed downstairs to the kitchen. The inn was silent, and only a small light burned on the kitchen table. Moonlight streamed in through the windows, providing enough light for her to make her way through the rooms.

  Emily pulled open the fridge, and mulled over the choices. She settled on the leftover apple pie. A second later, she was dishing a hearty slice onto a small dessert plate. After all, she was eating for two now. She could afford an extra serving of dessert once in a while. She heard a sound and looked up to find Cole standing in the kitchen.

  He wore only a pair of old gray sweatpants that she knew well. He’d had them for as long as she could remember, the fleece worn and soft as butter. His chest was bare, and the desire that had been burning inside her all day roared to life again. Her hand flexed at her side, itching to touch the hard muscular planes, to draw his warmth to her.

  “Great minds think alike,” Cole said, taking a step closer and gesturing toward the pie.

  “Do you want a piece?” Then she looked down and realized she’d taken the last of the pie. “Sorry. Um, would you like to share?”

  “If you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all.” She pulled open the drawer and handed a second fork to Cole. He leaned over one side of the kitchen island, she leaned over the other side and they each took a bite of the pie. Their heads were so close, they nearly touched. It was so much like the early days, when they’d been inseparable and in love, that Emily could almost believe she’d gone back in time. She ached to run her fingers through Cole’s dark hair, to kiss the crumbs off his lips, to giggle when his shadowy stubble tickled her chin.

  “Carol’s pies are legendary,” she said instead.

  “I can see why.”

  Emily forked up another bite. “The other Gingerbread Girls and I would sneak down here in the middle of the night all the time and eat the leftovers. She’d yell at us in the morning, but half the time she was laughing at the same time. And sometimes she’d bake an extra pie, just so we’d have one to scavenge.”

  “Those must have been some amazing summers,” Cole said.

  “They were. Some of my best memories are wrapped up in this place.” She sighed. “I’m going to hate to see it sold off and turned into condos or something awful like that.”

  He scooped up some ice cream. “Why don’t I buy it? Let Carol run it...keep things as they are.”

  Emily let out a gust. She put her fork down and leaned away from the counter. “Not everything can be fixed with money, Cole.”

  “I’m just trying to help.”

  She read honesty in his face, and relaxed. He had helped over the past few days, more than he knew. She couldn’t fault him for wanting to do more. After all, finding solutions to impossible situations was Cole’s specialty. He’d built a business on designing creative answers to customer problems.

  For years, he’d been the one she relied on to solve everything from a checking account error to a strange noise coming from her engine. For the past six months, she’d relied only on herself. As scary as it had been, the independence had given her a newfound confidence. It was a feeling she wanted to keep, which meant no more running to Cole to fix the things that went awry. “Listen, I appreciate all the help you’re giving Carol with the repairs, I really do.”

  “But...?”

  She forked up some pie, but didn’t eat it. Instead, she turned to the fridge. “Do you want some milk?”

  “Yes,” he said, coming around the counter to face her, “but I also want you to tell me what you aren’t saying.”

  She grabbed the gallon jug, then two glasses, and poured them each an icy glass of milk. She slipped onto one of the bar stools and wrapped her hands around the glass. She debated whether to tell him what she was thinking, then decided she’d done enough of ignoring the issues, and maybe it was time to speak up instead of letting those thoughts simmer. “You have a tendency to throw money at a problem and then leave,” she said. “At least when it comes to us.”

  He dropped into the opposite bar stool. “I don’t do that.”

  “When something needed fixing at the house, you called someone to do it. When I needed to buy a new car, you called a friend at a dealership and had him show me the newest models. When I wanted to go on a vacation, you called a travel age
nt and told her to send me anywhere I wanted to go.”

  “What’s wrong with that? It’s problem solving.”

  Emily bit her lip, then raised her gaze to his. “The problem wasn’t the leaky faucet or the old car or the need for some time in the sun. It was that I wanted to do those things with you, Cole. I wanted you and me to install that faucet, even if it was messy and frustrating and time-consuming to do it. I wanted you to go with me to pick out a car, and go along on the test drive, and give me your opinion, then laugh when I bought what was prettiest. I wanted you to go on vacation with me and—” she exhaled “—just be. You and me for a few days.”

  He reached up and brushed a tendril of hair off her head. “I never knew, Emily. Why didn’t you say anything?”

  She slipped off the stool and away from his touch before she found herself in his arms again. In the darkened, silent room it was so tempting just to curve against Cole’s bare chest and to forget the separation, the problems between them, the difficult road yet to come. Instead she crossed to the window and looked out over the darkened lake beyond the trees. “I could say that I never said anything because you were never home to talk to, but really, that’s just an excuse. I never said anything because—” and now her throat swelled and tears rushed to her eyes “—I didn’t want to hear you say no.”

  He was behind her in a second, wrapping her in his arms, and despite her resolve a second ago, she allowed herself to lean back into him, just this once, just for this minute. “I wouldn’t have said no, Emily.”

  “Ah, but you did, Cole. A hundred times.” She stepped out of his embrace, and turned to face him. “Every time we went our separate ways, you to work, me to my charity work and golf dates and all those meaningless things that filled the hours between breakfast and bed, it added a little distance to the gulf between us. Eventually, that gulf got too wide, Cole, and crossing it was a Herculean task.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t do it anymore.”

  He took in her words, then nodded. “And to be honest, I don’t think I even realized that gulf existed until you asked for a separation. I had on these blinders that told me everything was just fine. When it was far from that.”

  “That was my fault, too. I didn’t speak up.” Emily flicked a crumb off the counter and watched it skitter into the sink. “When I was growing up, my parents fought all the time. If they were getting along, it made me nervous. It was like being around a purring tiger. You never knew when it would lash out again. That made me afraid to rock the boat, so I’d let things go that I should have done something about.”

  “I wish you had said something. I couldn’t read your mind, Em. Though Lord knows I tried.”

  “Would you have listened?” She shifted closer to him. “You’ve been so dedicated to the company for so long that I don’t think you would have heard me if I’d said the house was on fire.”

  “Well, I think I would have heard that.” He chuckled, then sobered. “You’re right. But you don’t understand, Em. A company is like a puppy. It needs constant attention or it will wither and die.”

  “That’s why you hire good people. To give you a break once in a while.”

  He shook his head. “You sound like Irene.”

  Emily raised a shoulder, dropped it again. “If everyone is saying the same thing, maybe they have a point.”

  “Or maybe none of them understand the demands on me as the owner. Being at the top is far more difficult than anyone understands.” He let out a long sigh, then ran a hand through his hair. “Just when I think everything is under control and I can step back, something goes wrong. Hell, you wouldn’t believe the number of calls and emails I’ve got just in the couple of days I’ve been here.”

  Tension had knotted his shoulders, furrowed his brow. The part of Emily that still cared about Cole filled with concern. She knew that look. Knew it well. She’d seen it hundreds of times. Before he had a team of employees under him, Cole would come home to their cramped apartment, a smokestack ready to blow, and she would be his sounding board. When had Cole stopped coming to her? When had she stopped asking him to share his day? “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.

  “You’ve got enough on your plate.”

  She could see him distancing himself, doing what he always did and taking all the problems on his shoulders. Putting another brick in the wall between them. Her first instinct was to throw up her hands and walk away, but really, had doing that made anything better?

  Emily reached out and put a hand on his arm, a touch of comfort, but one that sent a zing through her. “Remember when we first got married and you were working around the clock, trying to pay the bills and launch the business?”

  He nodded. “We’d stay up half the night, eating junk food and talking.”

  She laughed. “Kind of like we’re doing tonight.”

  His gaze softened, and she let her touch drop away. “Yeah, kind of like tonight.”

  “Then why don’t we sit down and talk it out? I may not know anything about technology, but I can be a good listener.” I’m still here, Cole, she wanted to say. I’ve always been here. Even if you stopped reaching out to me. “I know you, Cole. If you’re up in the middle of the night, it’s because something is troubling you.”

  His features softened. “You still know me better than I know myself.”

  She didn’t reply because a part of her felt like she didn’t know him at all. Maybe they’d kept too much of themselves back for too long to ever find that connection again.

  “Before I came down here, I was pacing my room, jotting down ideas, trying to figure out a solution to a problem at work.” Then he waved it off. “But I don’t want to keep you up, too. Go to bed, Em. I’ll figure it out.”

  Maybe he’d stopped coming to her because she’d stopped asking. Stopped being there. Could he be caught in the same feeling of disconnect as she was?

  Either way, she hated seeing this stress and tension on his face. She reached out and gave his hand a light touch. “Let’s finish that pie and save the world. Or at least the world of Watson Technology Development.”

  “You sure you want me to bore you with the details?”

  “I don’t mind. If you want my opinion, that is.”

  “Of course I do, Em. You’ve always had great ideas when it came to the business. Maybe I should have hired you to work for me as a consultant.”

  She laughed. “That would have been a disaster.”

  “Maybe yes, maybe no.” A tease lit his eyes. “Will you work on commission?”

  She feigned deep thought. “Depends. Is there pie involved?”

  “Always.” He grinned. They crossed to the bar and took their seats again. The small kitchen light washed the room in a pale gold glow, while the moonlight added touches of silver. Outside, an owl hooted, but the world was quiet and still, except for this small corner of the Gingerbread Inn.

  Cole steepled his fingers, a move Emily knew signaled he was getting serious. “I’ve got a huge order for the next generation of cell phones from one of my biggest customers. The launch is in place, the customer is ready for the rollout, but the product is delayed. We’ve had them under development for over a year, and things were on track, but then the plant that is making the screens was damaged in a storm. We found a backup supplier for the screens, but their quality hasn’t been the best. So now we’re stuck without a screen supplier, and the first order is due to drop in a week.”

  “All you have left to do is add the screens?”

  He nodded. “If we had some to add, yes.”

  “Then do what you do best, Cole. Build it yourself.” She tapped the counter before him. “Remember when you first started out, you had those prototype screens you made? You never used them because you found a supplier who could make them cheaper.”

  “That’s right. They’re still in t
he warehouse somewhere.” He sat back, and Emily could see the wheels turning in Cole’s head. “We could substitute those, at least for the first drop order, and that’ll give the Japanese supplier time to get back online and ship the order to us.” He gave his forehead a smack. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of it myself.”

  She shrugged. “Sometimes it’s just a matter of hearing another opinion.”

  “A smart and wise opinion at that.” He leaned back on the bar stool, his gaze skimming over her features. “I’ve missed hearing your opinion, Em. I guess I stopped asking. Or I stopped getting up in the middle of the night for pie.”

  If he had, would things be different? If he’d included her in the day-to-day of his company? Or asked her to do more than just attend another banquet or golf tournament? “It’s been a long time since you asked what I think,” she said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, me, too.”

  The moment extended between them, full of regrets and missed opportunities. Cole was the first to look away, shifting his gaze to the plate before them. “Last bite. It’s all yours. Payment for services rendered, as agreed.”

  “Oh, you can have it, Cole. I don’t—”

  He speared the last bit of pie, then held it before her lips. “I know you, Emily. And I know you want this.”

  His voice was low and dark, and sent a wave of temptation through her. Not for the pie—he was right, she always wanted pie—but for him. Damn. She’d always wanted him, too. No matter what.

  She opened her lips and took the bite from him, slow, easy, their gazes locked, and the piece of pie became about much more than just some slices of cinnamon-glazed apples and flaky crust. Heat unfurled in her gut, and for a second she wished Cole would just lean her back against that counter and take her right here, right now. That it could be like it used to be, without the muddle of the past ten years.

  “Delicious,” he said. “Isn’t it?”

  “Very.” She licked her lips and watched Cole watching her tongue. “Too bad it’s all gone.”