She looked at him through eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Of course. Why?”
He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her closer. Her hips rubbed his, but she held him off with her hands so she could watch him.
Charlie smiled. “I’m thinking if I put you on my payroll, we can cut out all that extra tax business and insurance you’d have if you started your own shop, and you can head up some kind of financial division of my company, specializing in construction software.”
She stared at him. “Charles Maximillian Smith, you’ve already planned a wedding, two babies, and a house. Now you want to take over my career?”
He glared at her. “Who told you about that Maximillian part?”
“Did you think you’d hide it from me forever? Your mother and I had a long talk.” Grinning, she slid her hands from his chest to circle his waist. Then she wiggled her hips against his. His response must have been pretty obvious, because she giggled and pressed herself closer. “Can’t, not now. We’ve got kids, remember?”
“We’ll hire a nanny,” he growled. At a shriek from the far room, he grimaced. “Maybe two.”
EPILOGUE
Beth adjusted the wide-brimmed lacy concoction of her hat at a jaunty angle. “No one can see I look like warmed- over death, can they?” she asked anxiously.
Penelope kissed her sister’s cheek. “You’re so radiant, they’ll think you’re the bride.”
“Oh, Pen, I wish I could see you. I bet you look gorgeous.” She fingered Penelope’s silk brocade. “I’m glad Mother could be here to see you wearing her gown.”
“Umm, well, it’s a good thing she was pregnant with us when she got married or my waist would never fit in it,” Penelope replied with a sniff, adjusting the circlet of flowers holding back her hair.
“Penelope! That’s a terrible thing to say. You have a lovely waistline. Mother was only eighteen when she married. We were a lot skinnier at that age too. The gown fits just fine.”
“Ladies, I suggest you hurry. The groom’s threatening to come after you.” John appeared in the doorway of the reception room they were using for last-minute preparations. He’d taken the day off from his new job at the DA’s office, where his legal background had proved invaluable in tracking the evidence for the Jacobsen case.
“Well, tell him to hold on to his cummerbund; we’ll get there when we’re ready,” Penelope said acerbically. “He’s the one who decided to make a production of this.”
Beth shook her head at John. “She’s just nervous; ignore her. We’ll be right out. Tell the piano player to stand ready.”
Penelope could see John standing there stubbornly, waiting for Beth. It was a damned good thing this was a casual affair. The argument over whether Beth could walk the aisle alone had been an ongoing one from the very start. The small garden beside the apartment complex had a path accessible to all its physically challenged occupants. Beth could maneuver it with a cane, but she’d been hesitant about using one and ruining the look of the wedding. Penelope hadn’t objected, but John had insisted that he could rent a tux and walk beside her. After that, Penelope had just stayed out of the way.
The first strains of the wedding march rang through the open doorway, carried on the same breeze as a strong scent of gardenias. A tear crept from the corner of Penelope’s eye as Beth hesitated, then slowly accepted the offer of John’s arm. They looked wonderful together. She’d not lied earlier. Beth looked so radiant, people would mistake her for the bride, and John just beamed with happiness. To heck with formality, this was what weddings were all about—love.
She gulped nervously as her turn came to walk down the aisle. Her father had stayed home, probably too broke to afford airfare or too ashamed to face them, so she had to walk the aisle alone. She didn’t mind. She’d walked alone for years. It was just the principle of the thing right now. If a love like Beth and John’s, or her mother and father’s, could go so far wrong so easily, what were her chances of succeeding?
Remembering she had already made that decision, that it was far too late to turn coward now, she took a deep breath and stepped out.
One look at Charlie’s face at the far end of the aisle provided all the reassurance she needed. He broadcast his love and happiness with his smile, in the pride with which he followed her progress, in the eagerness with which he reached for her. A breeze rippled his thick chestnut hair, and impatiently, he shoved a blunt hand through newly shorn locks. He was probably the most impatient man alive, but Penelope understood his eagerness to grasp life. For too long, she’d been afraid to grasp anything. She took his hand proudly now.
She scarcely noticed Charlie’s best man until the minister said the words and Raul handed Charlie the rings. Charlie’s mother and stepfather were here somewhere, and Tammy was with them, for now. That was another battle that had raged these past weeks, with no winner. Tammy would be staying in Miami and attending the university. Penelope would wager the chance of the love between Tammy and Raul surviving was even slimmer than the chances she’d given herself and Charlie.
Still, here she was, taking a chance on love. Standing before the minister, they exchanged vows, and donned the visible symbols of the chains of love they’d forged together.
The crowd cheered and blew clouds of rainbow-prismed bubbles over their heads as Charlie kissed her, and they turned to meet their audience as husband and wife. Sunlight sparkled through the bubbles, in the tears of the women watching, on the roses bobbing on the trellis overhead. Joy filled Penelope’s heart as Charlie took her hand and proudly paraded her down the path.
They’d scarcely had time for each other in these last frantic days of preparation. He’d had lawyers and accountants lined up putting together the new division of his company. He’d testified against Jacobsen and his firm. He’d ordered Raul back to St. Lucia, finally getting the project under way. And he still had his other projects to oversee.
He’d left Penelope to help with Beth’s children while Beth recuperated, and to organize the wedding on her own. He hadn’t wasted any time in talking to his fellow builders about her software, and in between the kids and the wedding, she’d been putting together proposal packages and interviewing with prospective clients. She had no fear of being a burden on Charlie’s income. With all these new clients, she could pay for Beth’s operation on her own.
Not that she had anything to fear about bankrupting Charlie. She’d discovered Charlie really hadn’t been bragging when he’d said his company was larger than Jacobsen’s. Her muscle-bound, T-shirted construction worker had more money tucked away than he knew what to do with.
Actually, he knew what to do with it. He just hadn’t bothered until now. They’d already hired the architect for the house they were planning to build together. Penelope smiled up at him as Charlie drew her onto the dance floor of the reception room with the first beat of the Beatles tune they’d last danced together. Ridiculous wedding song, she knew, but she loved him for the choice.
“Do you want to know a secret?” she whispered in Charlie’s ear as he drew her up against him.
Charlie pulled her closer until her breasts crushed against his chest and some of his workers cheered in the background. “I don’t think it’s a secret anymore,” he whispered back. “I think they’ve guessed.”
Shocked, she pulled back to stare up at him. “How could they? I just found out myself.”
It was his turn to look surprised. “Found out what?”
Embarrassed, Penelope realized they were talking about two different things. She tried to shake her head and wave it away, but the band changed their tune, and the floor filled with eager guests. Charlie waltzed her toward the edge of the floor.
“What secret?” he demanded. “We just stood before this crowd and vowed to love and honor for all the world to hear, so you can’t renege on that one now.”
She played nervously with his tie. “You know how I said we had nothing at all in common?”
Impatiently, he sto
pped her hand by holding it against his chest. “Yeah, but that was all superficial stuff. I thought I proved that. So I like beer and you like wine. I watch football and you watch opera. That stuff doesn’t count if I’m willing to try wine and opera and you’re willing to learn about football.”
“Symphonies, not opera. I don’t like opera either,” she stalled. “And I used to be a cheerleader, remember? I know all about football.”
He brightened. “That’s right. I won’t have to teach you. I’ve got season tickets. Now I won’t have to cancel them.”
She grinned. It took so damned little to make him happy. “You were planning on canceling your tickets for me?” she asked in astonishment.
“Well, maybe I would have shared them with others more often,” he answered grudgingly. “We could go just once in a while.” His eyes narrowed again. “You still haven’t told me your secret.”
“You weren’t planning on canceling the tickets,” she accused.
“We could buy season tickets to the symphony too,” he compromised, tugging her toward the door.
“We can’t leave yet,” she protested as they slipped into the garden. Their guests were still occupied with the music and the freely flowing liquor. “I haven’t thrown my bouquet. I want Beth to catch it.”
“Do you have any idea how many women are in there waiting to catch that damned thing? You’d have to throw each flower individually before she’d have a chance.” He drew her into the shadows of the arbor and kissed her nape. “Now spill it.”
Shivers flew up and down Penelope’s spine at his kisses. She wouldn’t be coherent much longer, and she had so much to say. Only silliness seemed able to escape her lips. “Beth will catch it. We’ve worked out a signal.”
Charlie groaned and lifted his head to stare down at her. “There isn’t any secret, is there? You’re just trying to make me crazy. What signal?”
“The same one we used when we were playing softball. Drove the other teams crazy. She’ll know it’s coming to her when I whistle.”
“Softball? You played softball?” Bewildered, bemused, and utterly bewitched, Charlie shook his head. “When were you planning on telling me you played softball?”
She shot him an impatient look. “We couldn’t play basketball or football because we were on the cheerleading squad. Pay attention, Charlie. So we played softball. We took the team to the top two years in a row.”
He bent his head so his brow rested against hers. “Tell me you were the umpire.”
“Of course I wasn’t the umpire. Don’t be ridiculous. I was the pitcher. That’s how I know Beth will catch the bouquet.” Her heart thumped harder. Charlie’s head might be resting against hers, but she didn’t think he had his eyes closed. The low-cut bodice of her mother’s gown strained a bit too tightly across her breasts.
“My wife the athlete, and here I thought I would be the only dumb jock in this family. We’ll have a family of Neanderthals. Do you think we could teach them football and softball both?” His hands crept up to rest just below her breasts.
Breathless at this proximity, Penelope tried to respond sensibly. She should have waited until tonight, until they were alone, but she’d wanted to share this gift with him for hours. She’d wanted to share it that morning, when she’d found out. So, maybe impatience was another trait they shared.
“Well, twins run in the family. We could eventually have enough to make an entire team.”
Charlie’s hands stopped their slow upward movement, and he lifted his head enough to watch her face instead of her breasts. She could almost see the blue of the tropical skies in his eyes.
“Twins usually skip a generation,” he said carefully.
Penelope shrugged. “Twins run on both sides of our family. My grandfather had a twin brother.”
“Beth and John didn’t have twins,” he pointed out, a shade nervously.
“John doesn’t have twins in his family. Your mother said your father had uncles who were triplets.” She figured her pulse had reached rocket proportions. How dense could one man be?
“Triplets,” he repeated flatly. “We could have triplets.” Grasping her shoulders firmly, Charlie filled his chest deep with air and asked, “How soon?”
It was a good thing Charlie’s hands were holding her up or she might have collapsed with sheer relief at not having to actually say the words. “By my inexpert calculations,” Penelope whispered, “in seven months.”
He dropped to the arbor bench with a puff of exhaled air. The bench cracked with the weight of the blow. Charlie didn’t seem to notice. He caught her hips between his big hands and pulled her toward him, studying her flat belly intently. “Seven months?”
She nodded, although she doubted he saw her.
“A baby?” He looked up hopefully, this time watching her face.
“No, a rocket ship,” she said dryly. “Or triplets. What’s the difference?”
“Or triplets. My God.” Stunned, he sat there a moment longer, absorbing the information. “I think I’ll have that champagne now.”
“You don’t like champagne,” she reminded him.
“That’s all right. I’ll take a magnum of it anyway.” Lumbering to his feet, towering over her, his barrel-wide chest and shoulders powerful enough to support a small car, Charlie swayed like a leaf on the wind.
He stared down at the waistline he’d studied moments before, and Penelope could swear he turned gray.
“Triplets?” he inquired weakly.
“Three dozen dirty diapers a day,” she replied wickedly. “Three mouths screaming at midnight. Why, you could have a whole team of football players in a few years.”
“You’d do that to me, wouldn’t you?” he demanded, recovering enough of his equilibrium to push her toward the reception hall. “You’d do it to me just to get even with me for getting you pregnant.”
“If that could be arranged,” she agreed as they stepped into the crowded room. As he grabbed a bottle of champagne from a passing waiter, she stood on tiptoe and whispered in his ear, “I think it was the Jacuzzi. The first one.”
His hand jerked, and the champagne cork hit the ceiling.
Foam fizzed and spurted across the room, drawing all stares in their direction. Waving the foaming bottle at his audience, Charlie shouted at the top of his lungs, “We’re going to have a Jacuzzi!”
Laughter erupted and rolled around the room until Penelope’s ears turned red, and she pounded Charlie’s wide chest in embarrassment. He merely lifted her from her feet and swung her in circles, swigging the champagne straight from the bottle, spilling half of it down his tux and her gown.
“Hey, John,” he shouted again, spotting a tower of flowers on the table with their untouched wedding cake. Grabbing a bouquet, he swung around until he found Beth’s ex standing in a far corner, watching the scene with amusement. “She says it’s your turn next. Catch!”
The bouquet flew swiftly and accurately straight into the hands of its intended target. John stared at the flowers in puzzlement.
“We’re gonna have us a football team! You’d better start teaching your kids.”
With that rollicking cry, Charlie swept Penelope off her feet and into his arms, and proceeded out the door.
No one tried to stop him. Not even Penelope.
And not once did she ever mention his rude, uncouth, Neanderthal behavior, except maybe a few times amid a litany of more explicit curses during the interminable hours of labor seven months later. But that was to be expected of a mother of five-and-a-half-pound twins.
Charlie bought them Dolphins helmets. One had a pink bow.
About The Author
With several million books in print and New York Times and USA Today's bestseller lists under her belt, former CPA Patricia Rice is one of romance's hottest authors. Her emotionally-charged contemporary and historical romances have won numerous awards, including the RT Book Reviews Reviewers Choice and Career Achievement Awards. Her books have been honored as Romance
Writers of America RITA® finalists in the historical, regency and contemporary categories.
A firm believer in happily-ever-after, Patricia Rice is married to her high school sweetheart and has two children. A native of Kentucky and New York, a past resident of North Carolina, she currently resides in St. Louis, Missouri, and now does accounting only for herself. She is a member of Romance Writers of America, the Authors Guild, and Novelists, Inc.
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BLUE CLOUDS
by Patricia Rice
All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not inspired by any person known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by
Book View Cafe 2012
© 1998 – Patricia Rice
Originally published 1998 by Ivy Books, The Ballantine Publishing Group
BLUE CLOUDS (Sample)
by Patricia Rice
“Believe me, Phillippa, this hurts me as much as you.”
Pippa heard Abigail’s voice through a fog of disbelief. She recognized her supervisor’s compassionate expression, but the words weren’t sinking in.
“I fought against it every step of the way,” Abigail continued. “You’re a good worker; we have no complaints at all. We’ll give you excellent references, call other hospitals in the chain if you wish to relocate, anything you ask. It’s just that we’re downsizing like everyone else in the business today, keeping our margins intact, and the administrative staff is the first to go. We can’t cut back on essential care.”
Volcano Page 32
