The Christmas Baby Surprise

by Shirley Jump

  “Okay. I’ll remember that.” She shifted against the pillows and sat up. The sheet slipped down, exposing the ugly hospital gown underneath. She was sure her hair was a mess, her makeup smeared and for the first time in a long time, Emily wished she had looked in a mirror before Cole came.

  Like a nice hairstyle and neat eyeliner would change anything. She needed to face reality. He hadn’t changed his mind and she hadn’t changed hers.

  “Thanks,” she said. “Anyway—”

  “I’m not finished.” Cole took another step forward.

  He stood alongside the bed now, his hip within touching distance of her hand. A part of her wished he would sit on the edge of the bed and just talk to her. Like he had in the past few days.

  Then she remembered his reaction to the pregnancy and told herself to stop wishing for things that would never be.

  “Number three,” Cole said, “I’m staying with you until this baby is born. If there are complications—”

  “Nothing I can’t handle, Cole. I don’t need your help. I can stay with Carol until the baby comes. She could use the extra set of hands, I’m sure.” Emily didn’t add that she’d been put on modified bed rest for the next several weeks, to stop the early labor contractions. The doctor had told her to reduce stress, not to lift anything heavy and to rest. So far, she wasn’t doing well at two out of three of those.

  “At least let me hire a nurse to—”

  “No. I’ll be fine.” She didn’t want his money or his pity, or anything other than him. Unfortunately, that was the one thing he wasn’t offering.

  He let out a breath. “Why won’t you let me take care of you?”

  She leaned forward in the bed and faced Cole. “Because it’s not your job anymore.” Then she leaned over, tugged out the envelope in her purse and showed him the papers she had had overnighted to her this morning. If she couldn’t stick to her resolve to be done with Cole when she was around him, then she had to do something concrete about ending her marriage. “I called my lawyer and he got the papers together for me to file for divorce.”

  Cole’s blue eyes filled with hurt, then the hurt gave way to an icy coldness. “Is that what you really want?”

  “Yes.” God, she wished he would just leave the room. She wanted to cry, to be alone, to face the fact that her husband didn’t want the baby—or the life—that she so desperately did.

  “What if something happens to you or...” He waved at her stomach.

  That gesture and his avoidance of the word baby told her everything she needed to know. “We are no longer your concern. Goodbye, Cole.” Then she turned over and curled into a ball. She held her tears until she heard the soft click of the door.

  * * *

  Cole didn’t answer his phone. He didn’t talk to Joe or Carol. He didn’t go back to New York.

  He had the driver bring him to the inn, then he headed straight out to the gazebo in the back. Cole ripped off his suit jacket, tossing it on the ground, heedless of the price tag of the custom-made suit. Then he started tearing out the old posts from the rotted outbuilding, yanking, kicking, doing whatever it took to wrench the ruined posts out of place. Joe brought down the new wood and laid it on the deck of the gazebo without a word. He returned with a toolbox, laid that beside the wood. Cole kept on working, taking his frustrations out on the decrepit gazebo. After several trips back and forth with supplies, Joe finally went back to the inn, sensing that Cole wanted to be alone.

  Except that was the whole problem. He didn’t want to be alone. He wanted to be with Emily. And she wanted nothing to do with him.

  He’d sent a car and driver to the hospital to drive her back to the inn. Hired a nurse to stay with her. Emily had dismissed them both, Cole had been told, and opted to take a taxi instead. When he heard the car’s tires on the gravel drive, he stopped working. But Emily walked into the inn and never even looked his way.

  What the hell was he doing here? Why didn’t he just give up already?

  “Here. Take a break.” Joe dangled a beer in front of Cole.

  Cole shook his head. “I gotta get this done.”

  “No, you gotta take a break before you have a heart attack.”

  Cole wiped the sweat off his brow. He was breathing heavy and his arms ached. It wasn’t the good, job-well-done ache he’d had over the past few days. No, this was the pain of a self-induced beating by carpentry. Damn, he’d screwed everything up. What was that about good intentions? His hadn’t led him anywhere he wanted to go.

  He let out a sigh, then put down his sledgehammer and took a seat beside Joe on the floor of the gazebo. “What am I doing here?”

  “Damned if I know.” Joe took a sip of his beer. “If I were you, I’d just leave. She doesn’t want you here.”

  Cole cursed. What did Joe know? Where did he get off saying that, anyway? “She’s just confused.”

  “Dude, she’s not confused. She knows what she wants. You’re the one who’s confused.”

  “I’m not goddamn leaving and I’m not goddamned confused.”

  “Then leave.”

  “I told you I’m not—”

  Joe leaned in with a grin on his face that said his reverse psychology had had the desired effect. “If you aren’t going to leave,” Joe said, “then you better damned well start to fight.”

  Cole took a long sip of beer and thought about the past few days and the river of contradictory emotions running through him ever since Emily had told him about the pregnancy. “I just don’t think I’m ready for kids.”

  “Hell, who is? They are the most inconvenient creatures in the world, but I hear they’re pretty cool to have.”

  “Yeah, for some people.” Cole put the beer aside and got to his feet. He wanted to take Joe’s advice and fight for his marriage, but even if he did, where would that leave them? Together, but with a baby on the way. A child, who would look to Cole for love and guidance. For him to be not just a father, but a good father.

  The one thing he had no idea how to do.

  “I gotta get back to work. Sooner I get these projects finished, the sooner I can go back to New York.”

  “What’s stopping you from leaving now? Just hiring this out?”

  “I made a commitment to finishing. I keep those commitments.” Okay, so that was a lie. He was here because he wanted to make sure Emily was okay.

  “Is that why you don’t want to get divorced? Because you committed to finishing the marriage?” Joe took a step forward. “Or because you don’t want to lose the best woman to ever come along in your life?”

  “Will you just let me finish this gazebo? And quit with the questions?” They were the same questions Cole had asked himself and didn’t have any answers for then or now.

  Joe shook his head. “You are being an idiot, Cole. You’re a smart man, hell, a genius some would say the way you built that business up from nothing. But right now you are being the biggest idiot on the East Coast.” Then he grabbed his beer and headed up the hill.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  PROPPED UP AGAINST the pillows on her bed, Emily sat with her laptop open on her lap and the book file waiting for her input. The packet from her lawyer sat beside her on the floral comforter, also waiting. All it required was a signature, and then the divorce was in process.

  Even after everything, she had yet to sign the paper. She still had hope, damn it.

  Because she’d seen a little of the old Cole in the past few days. For a long time, she’d given up, thinking the man she remembered from those early days had been sucked into a demanding job and a never-ending drive toward success. But the Cole who had fixed the steps and made the pie and given her the journal was the Cole she had fallen in love with years ago.

  And damn it all, the same Cole she still loved.

  She went t
o the window and watched him working on the gazebo like a man possessed. When he’d left the hospital earlier, she had fully expected him to go back to New York. And yet he was here.

  Why?

  The day had edged into late afternoon, the sun sinking lower and lower in the sky. A cold front was moving in, according to the weather reports. The nice fall days would be over, and soon winter would clamp its snowy grip over the inn. Tomorrow was Thanksgiving, one of her favorite holidays of the year, and the first one in forever that would be filled with homemade food, not a catered turkey. It was the kind of back-to-basics life that she wanted for her child.

  A life a thousand miles away from the one Cole wanted.

  And that, in the end, was the reality she had yet to accept.

  Emily drew on a thick sweater and went downstairs. Carol was sitting by the fireplace, curled up in a chair and reading a book. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

  “Much better. I think I just needed some rest.”

  “Well, you can get plenty of that here.” Carol put her book on the side table. “How are you doing emotionally?”

  “I don’t know.” Emily’s gaze went to the window. It was getting too dark to see all the way past the trees to the gazebo, but she suspected Cole was still out there, working. “I have a lot of decisions to make.”

  Carol got to her feet and grabbed an anorak jacket off the hook on the wall. “Why don’t you go for a walk before dinner? A little fresh air always makes everything clearer. This is probably one of the last nice nights you’ll have around here before the snow starts flying.”

  “Don’t you need help prepping for Thanksgiving tomorrow? I should—”

  “You are not supposed to be doing any such thing, missy. You worry about that precious little gift right there—” Carol gestured to Emily’s abdomen “—and nothing else. Okay?”

  Emily drew Carol into a tight hug. “Thank you.”

  “No, thank you,” Carol said, her voice thick with emotion. “You’ve given me back the one thing I lost.”

  “What’s that?”

  Carol drew back and cupped Emily’s face with a tender, maternal touch. This was why Emily had always been so drawn to the warm and giving innkeeper. She was more like a mother to Emily than the woman who shared Emily’s DNA.

  “Hope,” Carol said. “I was ready to give up on this place before you came here.”

  “I couldn’t let you do that,” Emily said. “This place is home to me.”

  “No, honey, that’s where you’re wrong. This place isn’t home. Home is where the people you love are. Whether they’re in New York or Paris or the Gingerbread Inn.” Carol drew the coat closed and pressed a kiss to Emily’s forehead. “Now go for that walk.”

  Emily thanked Carol, then headed outside. She didn’t hear any sounds of work and figured Cole had left after all. Just as well, she told herself, if only so she wouldn’t give room to the disappointment churning inside her.

  Emily walked down the crushed stone path that led from the inn to the lake, her way guided by little landscape lights. It looked almost magical, with the tiny lights against the stark darkness.

  “It’s so peaceful out here, isn’t it?”

  She turned at the sound of Cole’s voice. Not startled. A part of her knew he hadn’t left. Had hoped he had stayed. Because of her and the baby? Or just because he wanted to win the argument of hiring a nursemaid to look after her? “Yes, it is.”

  “Mind if I walk with you?” he asked.

  “Not at all.”

  They started toward the dock, then detoured to walk the edge of the lake, traversing the path that the teenage lovers had probably taken all those years ago. Except this time, Emily wasn’t running away with Cole like the teenagers had.

  No, she was finally going to tell him it was over. She had tried, over and over, to make this work. But he had yet to open up to her, nor did he have any interest in raising their child with her. Those two things gave her the answers she needed. Answers she needed to accept once and for all.

  “First, I want to apologize,” he said. “I reacted badly to you telling me about the baby. You took me by surprise. I never expected—”

  “That we’d make love and I could get pregnant?”

  “Yeah. Guess I need to repeat high school health class.” He walked a while longer, a tall man silhouetted in the dark. “How did we get to this point, Emily? How did we let it go so wrong for so long, and never do anything about it?”

  “I don’t know, Cole. I really don’t.” She looked out at the lake, twinkling under the light cast by the crescent moon. She thought of all those dreams she’d had years before, and how far away she’d got from those wishes. “When I was younger, the other girls and I stood here at the edge of the lake and made a promise to each other because of these rocks we’d found. Remember the one I showed you?”

  He nodded.

  “We thought those rocks were a sign. Of what, I’m not sure, but we decided that day to promise that we would always follow our dreams. I made the promise, and then I didn’t keep it. Yeah, I wrote some in high school and college, but once we got married and you started making enough money that I didn’t have to work, I didn’t go back to writing. I kept finding other things to do, excuses, really, for why I couldn’t write. It wasn’t just about being afraid of rejection, it was about—” she let out a breath “—failing. If I didn’t try, then I couldn’t fail, you know what I mean?”

  He let out a short, dry laugh. “More than you know.”

  “Then Melissa died, and we all got these letters from her. I realized that my life was ticking by and I was desperately unhappy, but I hadn’t done anything about it. I just kept waiting for things to change, instead of taking the leap and making the change myself.”

  She had done the same thing with her marriage. Letting it fall apart rather than confronting the issues—and possibly failing. Her inaction had fed into her greatest fear, and now the dreams she’d had when she walked down the aisle with Cole had died.

  “And those changes are what brought you here,” Cole said.

  She nodded. “I thought it was appropriate to go back to the place where the dream began. Plus the inn has served as a nice, quiet retreat, a good place to write my book, to think and to get away.”

  “From me.” The two words were exhaled on a curt note.

  “That was the plan.” She gave him a crooked smile. “I never imagined you’d follow me.”

  “I never imagined you’d leave.” He took her hand in his. “I guess I thought that this whole separation would blow over, and things would go back to the way they were. I never realized how unhappy you were.”

  “I should have spoken up more.” She’d let fear rule her choices for too long. If there was one thing she’d learned in the months on her own, it was that she was stronger and able to weather more storms than she thought.

  “I should have paid better attention to you and to us,” Cole said. “I kept my focus on the wrong things. On the company, instead of on our relationship. I looked around my office this morning and realized all of that was stuff. Things that I had worked to achieve. At the cost of our marriage.” He sighed. “That was too high of a price to pay for a better bottom line.”

  Hearing him say that filled her with a thrill. Her heart had never given up on Cole. Still, her brain raised a caution flag. They had a baby on the way, and that introduced a whole other dynamic. Cole had yet to talk about the baby. It was as if he thought ignoring her pregnancy would keep them from having to deal with it. In a few months, Sweet Pea would be here and there’d be no ignoring him or her then. “I guess we were both looking in the wrong direction. Now I’m just looking ahead, to the baby coming.”

  He started walking some more, his shoes making impressions in the not-yet-frozen earth. “You asked me why I didn�
��t want kids. I kept telling you, and myself, that it was all about it being the right time, but that’s not it.”

  She waited, afraid to press, afraid of what she might hear next. When he didn’t continue, she said, “Then what was it, Cole?”

  “I don’t talk about my past, Em.” He ran a hand through his hair. “With anyone.”

  “You told Joe.”

  “Kinda hard not to. We’ve been friends forever, and he was at my house a few times when I was younger. He saw what went on.” Cole cursed and shook his head. “Let’s just say it wasn’t pretty.”

  She swung around in front of him and took his hands. “Tell me, Cole. I’m your wife. I should be your best friend, too. That means knowing the good and the bad about you.”

  “Do you know why I never told you about my childhood?”

  She shook her head.

  “Because I’m ashamed of it, Emily.” His voice sharpened, rose. “I never wanted you to be anything but proud of me. I’m supposed to be the man, the one who leads the family, takes on the challenges—”

  She cut off his words with a soft hand against his cheek. “You don’t always have to be the strong one, Cole.”

  His features crumpled, and he turned away. She let him go, sensing that the conversation had brought up something Cole had kept tucked away for a long, long time. A loon called out from the other side of the lake, and a fish flopped its tail against the water. Then Cole turned back, and when he spoke again, his voice had gone hoarse. “I don’t know any other way to be, Em.”

  Her heart broke for her strong, smart, driven husband, who kept all those vulnerable parts of himself behind a tough shell. A facade. “Just be yourself, Cole. That’s all I ever wanted.”

  “I don’t even know if I know how to do that. I have no map, no guidebook. I know how to be the best at school or work, but I haven’t a clue how to be the best parent.”

  “Most people don’t, Cole. You figure it out as you go along.”

  “What if I figure it out wrong?” He ran a hand through his hair, then gestured toward a large rock at the edge of the water. They sat down together, facing the lake. Cole took Emily’s hand in both of his and rubbed her fingers, providing warmth, protection from the cold.