by Shirley Jump
“Because I’m your wife,” she said, “and because...I love you.”
His eyes lit, and a smile curved across his face. “Do you? Still?”
“I never stopped.” It was the truth and one of the many things she had been afraid to say. Where had that fear got her? Nowhere but filled with regret. If Cole walked away at the end of this, so be it. She would know she had given their marriage every last possible chance. “I’ve always loved you, Cole. I always will. You stole my heart the day we met, and I’ve never asked for it back.”
“I love you, too, Emily. I love the way you smile, the way your eyes light up when you’re excited, the way you curve into me when you’re cold. I love your cooking and your messes and your laugh. I just didn’t realize how much I loved you, or how deep that love ran inside my heart...until I thought I lost you.” His hand reached up again, and his blue eyes locked on hers. “I haven’t, have I? Lost you?”
She shook her head, her vision blurring behind the tears. No matter how many times she had said she was done, her heart had never got the message. She still loved her husband, still wanted him. Still wanted to wake up next to him and build a life with their child. “No, Cole. I’m still here.”
“Good.” He exhaled a long breath of relief. “That’s so damned good to hear. The whole way over here, I was so sure I was too late. That you had already signed the papers and moved on in your heart.”
She wanted to linger in this moment of connection, in the joy in Cole’s eyes, but she couldn’t, not until she brought up the one topic they had thus far avoided tonight. “I haven’t signed the papers. And I won’t, until I’m sure.”
“Sure about what?”
She watched the fog undulate across the lake, slow and soft, like a gossamer blanket. On a night many years in the past, two young lovers had stood at the edge of this very lake and taken a giant risk to find their own happy ending.
“I’m still having our baby, and if you don’t want to be a real family, I can’t stay with you.” Emily placed a hand on her abdomen. “Sweet Pea and me are a package deal.”
“Sweet Pea?”
She shrugged. “It’s what I named the baby until I know whether it’s a boy or a girl.”
“I like that name. A lot.” He took a step forward, his face filled with tentative curiosity. He put out a hand. “Can I?”
She moved her hand away and gave him a nod. “You can’t feel anything yet.”
Cole’s palm was warm, even through her jeans, though when his palm met the tiny bulge of her belly, it seemed as if she and Cole were joined in a deeper way than they ever had been before. Cole lifted his gaze to hers. “When will it start kicking?”
“A couple more months. By then, I’ll be fat and ugly.”
“You will never ever be ugly, Emily. You are the most beautiful woman in the world.”
“And you are the most biased man on the planet.”
He chuckled. “Maybe so.”
She covered his hand with hers, then drew in a deep breath. “Tell me, Cole, do you want to take the biggest risk of your life and become a father?”
He lifted his gaze to hers, and for the first time ever, she saw trepidation in Cole’s eyes. “What if I’m like my own father?”
“You won’t be.”
“How do you know that?”
She thought a moment, looking for the right words to show him what she saw when she looked at him through her eyes. “Because you ate that terrible chicken and potatoes dinner I made with a smile on your face. Because you made love with me in the messy closet. And most of all, because you are a man who would never hurt anyone you love.”
“Ah, but I have hurt you, Emily. Too many times to count.” He cupped her jaw and studied her face. “I never meant to. I thought I was building a life for us. I never realized all that time at work was destroying our life at the same time.”
She thought of the envelope in her room. The papers that needed only a signature to take that final step to dissolving her marriage. “Where do we go from here, Cole? How do I know that if we get back together, you won’t go back to working a thousand hours a week? I want a family, Cole. That means dinners at home and road trips in the summer and picnics in the park.”
He reached in his pocket and took out his phone. The screen lit with messages and alerts, as busy as ever, even on a holiday. “This is where we go, Em.” He leaned back, then pitched his arm forward. The phone spiraled through the air, then disappeared in the thickening fog before landing in the lake with a heavy plop. A second later, it disappeared under the surface.
She stared at the space where the phone had been, openmouthed. “Why...why would you do that?”
“Because nothing matters more to me than you. Us.” His hand went to her belly again. “All of us.”
“Really?”
“Really. I’ve been a fool for too damned long. And I’m not going to be that stupid for one second longer.” He cupped her jaw with his hands and brought his mouth within inches. “I love you, Emily. I love our baby. I want to marry you again and do it right this time.”
“But how do we fix everything? Where do we begin?”
“We begin with love. Everything else will flow from that. I promise.” Then he drew his wife into his arms and kissed her while the fog wrapped around them, and once again the lake’s decades-old legend brought two lovers together, this time in a happy ending.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from SINGLE DAD’S CHRISTMAS MIRACLE by Susan Meier.
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CHAPTER ONE
“TURN RIGHT.”
The soothing voice of the GPS rolled into Althea Johnson’s car, and she maneuvered her vehicle as directed, onto the snow-covered Main Street of Worthington, Pennsylvania. The week after Thanksgiving, the little town sparkled with the spirit of Christmas. Tinsel connected to telephone poles looped above the street. Huge evergreen wreaths decorated with shiny multicolored ornaments covered the top half of shop doors. Silver bells glistened in the sun that managed to peek through the falling snow.
But as quickly as she entered the tiny town, she exited. The GPS stayed silent so she continued up the winding road and climbed a tree-covered mountain.
Up and up she went for a good ten minutes, causing her palms to sweat as her car just barely chugged through the wet snow. Positive she’d missed an exit, she was about to look for a place to turn around when the GPS sang out, “In thirty feet, turn left.”
With a sigh of relief, she braked slowly, carefully. She’d learned to drive in Maryland winters, but she’d spent the past twelve years in sunny Southern California. Her car didn’t have snow tires and her driving skills were a bit rusty.
“Turn left.”
Braking again, she guided her little red car down a short lane lined with snow-coated pine trees. A huge Victorian house came into view. A pewter-colored SUV had been parked haphazardly in the driveway. A man reached in and pulled grocery bags out of the open hatch. Snow fell on him like cotton balls from heaven, covering his shoulders and back, and icing the evergreens that ringed his property. A big black dog bounced around him. A little girl clung to the hem
of his jacket.
Frazzled.
That’s the word that came to Althea’s mind. She stopped her car, pushed open the door and slid out. The big dog bounded over with a “Woof.” In one quick movement, he jumped on his hind legs, his paws landed on her shoulders and she fell backward into the snow.
Cold seeped through the back of her lightweight jeans and Southern-California hoodie. Huge white flakes billowed down on her.
Trapped by the dog—who had his paws on her chest as if he were holding her down until the police could get there—she only saw boots rapidly approaching.
“Crazy!”
The man gave the dog a nudge. The beast bounced off with another “Woof!”
He extended his hand. “Let me help you up.”
She gaped at him. His face was perfect with a straight nose, angled cheekbones and the tint of five o’clock shadow, even though it was only noon. “Did you just call me crazy?”
“The dog’s name is Crazy. Her given name is Crazy Dog. If she had a birth certificate that’s what would be on it.”
She laughed.
She came up so fast that she stopped inches away from his nose. This close, she could see his whiskey-brown eyes that perfectly matched his light brown hair.
“You named your dog Crazy Dog?”
He stepped back, putting some space between them. “After the way she knocked you down, I would think you wouldn’t be surprised.”
She laughed again. Cold air filled her lungs. She slapped her hands together to remove the snow.
“Let me get your back.”
The words were barely out of his mouth before he turned her around and brushed the snow off her back and then did a quick sweep over her bottom.
“If this stuff melts on your clothes you’ll be wet all afternoon.”
Her nerve endings tingled. Her breath stuttered in and out. The intimacy of it should have made her indignant. Instead, it felt surprisingly...normal. This was a man who saw a problem and fixed it. For him, his brushing her butt was nothing more serious than that. For her...well, she hadn’t had a man touch her in years. So even that simple brush zinged through her and sent the wrong kind of warmth careening through her bloodstream.
She pivoted to face him. “I’m fine. You don’t have to brush anymore.”
“That big, stupid dog should know her place.” His eyes narrowed as he looked at her hoodie and jeans. “I’m hoping you have a coat in the car.”
“I’m from Southern California.” Funny how easy that came out of her mouth when really she was “from” right down the road. Newland, Maryland, was only fifty or so miles away from the green hills of Pennsylvania, where Clark Beaumont lived.
“California?” He stepped back. “Are you Althea Johnson?”
“In the snow-covered flesh.” She extended her hand to shake his. “I take it you’re Clark Beaumont.”
He caught her hand, gave one quick pump and pulled back. “I thought you weren’t coming until Friday?”
“Once I told Emily,” she said, referring to the mutual friend who had told her about the job and referred her to Clark, “that I would interview with you, I drove straight through.”
“You haven’t slept?”
“Or really eaten for that matter.”
“Wow. This is not your lucky day. Things sort of went to hell in a handbasket around here this morning when the snow started to fall.”
She glanced around at the winter wonderland, understanding why he chose to live in this peaceful, beautiful slice of heaven. Even if living this far out of town probably came with complications.
“Don’t sweat it. I haven’t really had a lucky year.” Or a lucky life for that matter, but a few months ago she’d decided not to wallow in self-pity anymore and it had worked. She laughed more. She forgot all about designer labels and getting married. She took one day at a time, did the task in front of her and didn’t worry about tomorrow. And her life, even though it came with trouble, had become happier.
“Which is why you were driving back to your hometown?”
“No. I’m driving back to my hometown to see my sister. I’m interviewing for the temp job with you because of the bad year. My teaching position was cut. Rather than wait until I ran out of money and lost my apartment, I decided to go home. My sister owns a company and can give me a job the second I get to Newland, but I don’t want to work in a bakery. I want to find a teaching job. And the few thousand dollars I’ll make tutoring your son will give me a couple more weeks before I’ll have to become a baker out of desperation.” Especially since room and board came with the job.
He sniffed a confirming laugh that said he knew all about bad years, temp employment and desperation. But looking at his house, with multiple angles and levels of roofs, green shutters that accented the creamy yellow siding and gingerbread trim along the wraparound porch, she had to wonder if the guy really knew trouble. The house only needed gumdrops and candy canes to be ready for a storybook. People who lived in storybook houses didn’t know trouble.
In her head, she snorted in derision. That’s what everyone had believed about her family. But behind the walls of their perfect Cape Cod home, their father had ruled with an iron fist. Literally.
She shivered.
Clark’s eyes widened. “I’m sorry. You’re freezing. Let’s go inside.” He glanced back at her car. “Do you want me to grab your luggage?”
She smiled politely. “Let’s see how the interview goes first.”
He winced. “Right. Sorry.” He pointed to the house and motioned for her to go before him. “Emily was so sure you’d be a good choice as Jack’s homeschool facilitator that I took the liberty of checking the references on the résumé you emailed me. So we really are just down to the interview.”
“That’s good.” She walked to the white porch steps and began climbing. The town she’d driven through at the bottom of the mountain had been decked out for Christmas. But this beautiful Victorian house, perfect for a dreamy holiday, didn’t have as much as a string of lights along the porch roof.
“With my housekeeper sick for the past week, everything’s been a little off-kilter. If I hadn’t gone to the grocery store, I wouldn’t even be able to offer you coffee.” He stopped. “Shoot. I forgot the groceries. You go ahead inside. I’ll get them.”
She turned around with him. “I’ll help.”
“You’re cold.”
“And carrying groceries will warm me up.”
She followed Clark to his SUV. He pulled out two plastic bags with handles and she took them from him.
“Just go in the front door and follow it back down the hall to the kitchen.”
She nodded, but by the time she got to the door in her slippery tennis shoes, Clark was right behind her.
“If you decide to take this job, you’ll have to get yourself a pair of boots.”
“I guess.”
“And a coat. Winters can be brutal here.”
The little girl who had been hanging on Clark’s coat when she arrived stood in the front foyer. Wearing a pink hooded jacket and little white mittens, she looked both adorable and warm.
“This is Teagan.”
The little girl’s gaze dipped to the marble floor, so Althea stooped in front of her. “Hey, Teagan.”
“Teagan, this is Ms. Johnson. She’s the lady interviewing to be Jack’s teacher.”
Teagan continued to look at the floor.
“It was nice to meet you, Teagan.” She rose. Sometimes it was best to give a child her space. Eventually, she’d warm up to her. Kids always did. With a quick smile at Teagan, she continued on to the kitchen.
Clark plopped his bags of groceries on the center island. Dark wood cabinets should have given the room a gloomy feel, but the cheerful white marble countertops a
nd warm oak hardwood floors took care of that. So did the huge windows by the wooden table that provided a spectacular view of the mountains behind the house.
“Wow.”
“Thank my wife for that view. She found this land, created the design for this house.”
“She’s got a real eye for things.” She turned from the windows just as a boy of about twelve walked into the kitchen, the big black dog on his heels.
“Dad, did you get that ham I asked for?” When he saw Althea, he stopped dead in his tracks.
“Yes, I got the ham.” He faced Althea. “Althea, that’s my son, Jack.” He turned to Jack. “Jack, this is Althea Johnson. As soon as I get these groceries put away I’m going to interview her to see if she can become your new teacher.”
Taking a bag of cans to the pantry, Clark continued putting away the groceries. Big black dog by his side, Jack stood where he’d stopped, sizing her up.
Usually she wasn’t afraid of a twelve-year-old boy, especially not one so handsome. Shaggy brown hair and big brown eyes like his dad’s gave him an angelic choir-boy appearance. But he also had an odd expression on his face. Almost as if he were strategizing how to get her fired—and she hadn’t even taken the job.
Clark came out of the pantry. “Okay, I’ll make sandwiches. Jack, you finish with the groceries and then I can interview—” He stopped, faced Althea again. “I’m sorry. You’d said you hadn’t eaten yet.”
“I haven’t.”
“Okay, here’s what we’ll do. I’ll make cocoa for the kids and then coffee for us before I make the sandwiches. Jack and Teagan can eat out here. We’ll take our lunches into the den and we’ll talk while we eat.”
She wasn’t the kind of person who got cozy so quickly with strangers. But when she’d turned over the new leaf about her life a few months back, she’d promised herself she’d stop being so cautious. Plus she was extremely hungry. The thought of a cup of coffee and a sandwich made her taste buds dance for joy.
