The Unexpected Wedding Gift

by Catherine Spencer

  She knew he’d been born on a train stranded halfway across the Canadian prairies in a January blizzard; that his parents had left Texas and come back to his mother’s homeland to start a new life on a farm in northern Saskatchewan, left to her by an uncle she never knew.

  “Trouble was,” he’d told Julia, lying stretched out on the floor in front of the fireplace in his apartment, with his head in her lap, “they hadn’t the first idea what they were taking on. They thought they were coming to a pretty log cabin beside a lake ringed by majestic evergreens. What they got was a tar-paper shack with an outdoor privy, a well whose pump should have been retired years earlier, the closest body of water a slough frozen solid eight months of the year, and summers plagued with mosquitoes and black flies.”

  “But they were happy,” she’d said hopefully, because she found their story so touchingly romantic.

  “Hardly! They had no concept of the bone-cracking, deep-freezing cold of the Canadian north, and no idea at all how to work a farm, which is a tough undertaking even for people born to the life. We survived those early years only through the generosity and pity of neighbors who came to our rescue an embarrassing number of times.”

  “But, in the end, they made a go of things?”

  “In the end, they lost everything, including their lives. I was ten at the time, and winter was particularly vicious that year. To try to keep the house warm, my clueless father overloaded the woodstove and burned the place to the ground. The neighbors came running—again—but there was nothing anyone could do. The place went up like a rocket.”

  He’d swung himself to a sitting position and hunched forward over his knees so that she couldn’t see his face, and his voice had been hoarse with emotion when he’d continued, “I’d been sent out to bring in more wood, and I’ll never forget the noise or the heat as that pathetic shack literally exploded into a ball of fire, or the hiss of sparks landing on frozen snow.” He’d drawn in a long, shuddering breath. “Or the screams of my parents trapped inside.”

  Julia had wrapped her arms around him and warmed the back of his neck with her tears. “Oh, Ben!” she’d murmured brokenly. “I’m so sorry.”

  He’d shaken his head, impatient with himself and with those poor people who hadn’t lived long enough to see what a fine man their son had become. “My mother’s dreams of happy-ever-after were slapped down time and again by my father’s inability to provide for his family. He was a dreamer, a poet, as unsuited to that corner of the world as a palm tree is to an iceberg, and unwilling to adapt. Yet she loved him regardless and would have been lost without him. It was just as well they both went together.”

  “But what about you? You were just a child. Who took care of you?”

  “The same people who’d taken care of us all from the day we set foot in the area. For the next six years, I was passed around from one family to another, depending on who had a bed to spare and who could afford to feed another mouth.”

  “Weren’t there any relatives who could have taken you in?”

  “No. And it was a matter of pride in that kind of tight-knit group for people to look after their own, without interference from government agencies or the like.”

  Desperate to find some sort of silver lining to the story, she’d stroked his hair and murmured, “But that was good, wasn’t it? Better than being sent away to live with strangers?”

  “I guess. But for all that those good people tried, I never fit into their stalwart Norwegian community. Blue eyes and lanky height notwithstanding, I was as much an alien as if I’d landed from Mars, marked with my father’s genes and because of my resemblance to him, tarred with the same brush of incompetence. No matter how hard I tried, whether it was working from dawn to dusk on the land or scoring the winning goal for the local ice hockey team, I was still the son of that impractical fool Carreras, who’d been too busy writing rhyming couplets about the northern lights to learn the rudiments of survival.”

  He’d turned around and looked at her long and seriously then. “I dropped out of school when I was sixteen, Julia. One day, I left Saskatchewan on a Greyhound bus, bound for wherever I could get for the price of the ticket I could afford, and ended up in Vancouver. I don’t come from old money, with a university education and enough influential relatives to ensure my automatic entry to the best clubs. Sure, I’m CEO of my own company, but I seldom wear a business suit and until recently, I didn’t drive a fancy car. So I understand why your folks think I’m not good enough for you. But I promise you this. I’ll never let my wife go short of anything—not food, or shelter, or decent living conditions. If I have to work the clock around, seven days a week, to provide a good life for my family, I will. I’ll prove myself worthy of you and I swear I’ll never give you reason to regret marrying me.”

  He’d spoken with such heartfelt sincerity but words, she now realized, were cheap when they weren’t backed up by actions. Before she’d had time to grow used to the feel of his wedding ring on her finger, he’d broken his most sacred promises. How could he have done that, if he loved her the way he claimed he did?

  Weary from going over the same ground time and again, but too strung up to sleep, she turned off the light and opened the window. The night sky was so clear that she could see all the way to Washington State and the ghostly shape of Mount Baker, snow-covered year round, riding the horizon to the east. To the southwest, the waters of Semiahmoo Bay lapped quietly against the shore.

  The scent of roses drifted on the warm air, and night-scented stocks. There was a sliver of moon casting a rippled path of light over the sea. If she leaned out far enough, she could just catch the glimmer of lights from the sidewalk restaurants lining Marine Drive. There’d be music and laughter down there; the clink of wine-glasses, the flickering glow of candles throwing shadows over the flowers spilling from the planters and hanging baskets outside each establishment.

  It was a night made for lovers, for honeymooners; for lying beside one’s new husband in the moon-splashed darkness and discovering what true intimacy was all about. But she had never felt more alone. Ben was only a few yards away, yet the distance between them was such that he might as well have been on the other side of the world.

  Thinking about it, about him, brought the disappointment and hurt surging back with a vengeance, enough that it might have overwhelmed her all over again if another sound hadn’t penetrated the quiet.

  She stopped in the act of turning away from the window and listened. It came again, from somewhere in the house, the thin heart-rending wail of a very new baby. Ben’s baby.

  She didn’t want to hear it. Didn’t want to know why it was crying. But nor could she ignore it. An only child herself, she hadn’t been exposed to infants. Her experience with them was so slight, it was negligible. Yet she knew instinctively that the poor little mite was missing its mother and she couldn’t bear it.

  Turning on the light again, she rummaged through her overnight case for something with which to cover herself since she had no intention of venturing forth in her undergarments. The only item she found was the satin nightgown and matching peignoir—white, of course—that had been a trousseau gift from her mother. It was a lovely thing, lavishly embroidered with lace inserts, too frivolous and romantic by far for the present situation, but it would have to serve.

  The upper floor was in darkness when she stepped into the hall but there was light showing below. Silently, she made her way to the top of the staircase, not daring to think too far ahead, not knowing if she could do anything to soothe the baby, knowing only that she could not ignore its pitiful cries.

  She was halfway down the stairs when a stream of light from the kitchen flooded into the lower hall. A moment later, she froze as Ben appeared.

  He’d removed his dinner jacket, left his bow tie hanging loose around his neck and had undone the top button of his dress shirt. He had a tea towel slung over his shoulder and was holding the baby as if it were a football, resting its head against the fingerti
ps of his right hand and its little bottom on his palm of his left hand, with its legs tucked into the crook of his elbow.

  He was humming to the child and jiggling it much too energetically. Her heart jumped with fear as he negotiated the newel post at the foot of the stairs. Another inch or two to the right, and he’d have banged the baby’s head.

  Be careful! she wanted to cry out. Watch where you’re going and don’t toss him around like that unless you want him to get sick to his little stomach. Hold him so that he can hear your heart beat, not as if you’re about to try for a touchdown!

  Perhaps she made a sound, or perhaps she moved because Ben suddenly stopped in his tracks and glanced up, trapping her as she hovered with one foot extended toward the next stair. She wanted to look away, to run back the way she’d come, but he would not release her from his gaze.

  The seconds spun out, marked by the quiet tick of the Vienna clock hanging opposite the front door. At length, Ben said, “He threw up all over me but he’s asleep finally.”

  She nodded, unable to speak for the enormous lump in her throat. There was a huskiness in his voice, a touching tenderness in his eyes as he glanced briefly at the child, and she knew that the emotion that had crossed his face when he first held his son had intensified in the hours since. He was irrevocably in love with his baby. He would never be all hers, ever again.

  “Were you looking for me, Julia?” he asked, coming up to where she waited.

  “No.” The answer emerged in a rusty whisper.

  “Is there something you’d like?” He lifted his shoulders in a shrug, a slight movement only but enough to stir the baby to a squawk of sleepy indignation. “The refrigerator’s empty so I can’t offer you hot milk, but there’s brandy in the liquor cabinet if you need something to help you sleep.”

  An ocean of brandy couldn’t put her to sleep! And even if it could, did he really think a good night’s rest would do the trick and she’d feel better about everything in the morning?

  The resentment that had alternately seethed and simmered within her from the minute her wedding day had collapsed in ruins flared to new life again. “There’s not a thing you can do for me!” she spat, tossing the words over her shoulder as she fled back to her room with her peignoir swirling around her ankles like mist.

  He fell asleep just after midnight, only to have the baby waken him about an hour later. Wiping the grit out of his eyes, he scooped the child out of the drawer he’d set up as a makeshift crib and lay it on the bed so that he could change its soggy rear end.

  It was a chore that took some getting used to. No matter how careful he was or which part he tackled first, something always managed to leak or fall out of the diaper he removed before he could juggle a clean one in place.

  To add to the problem, the baby seemed to know he was in the hands of a novice. The minute his backside was exposed, he set up a wriggling that would have done an eel proud.

  As for being able to squirt…! His deadly aim and ever-ready supply of ammunition was nothing short of amazing for someone so small!

  “Bear with me, kiddo,” Ben muttered, fumbling to secure the diaper’s adhesive tabs in place as the infant set up an outraged howling accompanied by a frenzy of kicking. “I’ll look after the other end as soon as I’m done down here.”

  He assumed that’s what all this to-do was about: that the child was hungry again. But hell, what did he know? The closest he’d ever come to a baby before tonight was when he’d still been living in Saskatchewan and the woman who’d taken him in gave birth to twins. Two days later, he’d been shunted over to the neighboring farm, to make room for the new arrivals.

  “Hang in, Squirt,” he begged, stuffing the skinny little legs back into the one-piece sleeper—a near impossible task, since the minute he got one foot in place, the other flipped free again. “I’ll get that bottle to you ASAP.”

  He could use a bottle himself—preferably one full of Jack Daniels. With a straw stuck in the neck!

  Cradling the child to his chest, he went down to the kitchen refrigerator and pulled out one of the bottles of formula he’d found stashed in the bag Marian had left with him. “Here,” he said, popping the rubber nipple into the baby’s mouth.

  A moment of blessed silence reigned then splat! Formula dribbling out of the corners of its mouth, the kid rejected the bottle and filled the night with another shriek of rage.

  Helplessly, Ben stared at the pint-size tyrant in his arms. “Well, what do you want then?”

  Practically blue in the face with fury, the baby screamed back at him. Seizing opportunity while he had the chance, Ben again stuffed the nipple back in the wide open mouth, then hurriedly withdrew it as the baby dissolved into a paroxysm of choking.

  “Shee-oot!” he cursed, and rocked the tiny body frantically. “I need help. Now!”

  Somebody heard him. Not God, whom he’d meant to call on, but Julia. She appeared from the shadows, modestly clutching the filmy dressing gown thing—a negligee he supposed it was called—over her low-cut nightgown. Her dark hair flowed loose about her face and he thought she was the most beautiful creature he’d ever set eyes on. “Hey,” he said, raising his voice over the baby’s din. “Did we wake you?”

  Oh, brother, talk about a dumb question! Half the neighborhood was probably awake by now.

  “I wasn’t sleeping,” she said.

  He grinned weakly. “We aren’t having the best night, either.”

  Her glance veered toward the baby, then slid quickly away again. “He sounds upset.”

  Just in case anyone felt like arguing the point, the kid set up a fresh howling. With his eyes scrunched shut and his mouth all twisted to one side, he looked, Ben thought, like a wrinkled, dried-up apple carved to resemble an old woman.

  “I thought he was hungry but he won’t take the bottle. Every time I give it to him, he spits it out and bellows.”

  “Perhaps you made it too hot,” she said.

  “Hot?”

  “When you heated it.”

  He stared at the film of condensation on the glass. “It’s cold,” he said.

  She looked at him as if she thought that if he had another brain, it would be lonely. Stepping forward, she took the bottle from him. It was as close as she’d come to touching him since she’d tolerated having him usher her from the reception to the limo. “Well, no wonder he’s unhappy!”

  “But it said on the note that I should keep the formula refrigerated!”

  “Oh?” She removed the nipple, put the open bottle in the microwave oven and set the timer to forty seconds. “That was the extent of Marian’s advice, was it? It never occurred to her that a complete set of instructions might be necessary?”

  He didn’t want to talk about Marian. He wanted to talk about them; about Julia and him, and how they were going to get their relationship back on the rails. It wasn’t the most romantic moment, what with the baby screaming and all, but he tried anyway. “You look beautiful, Julia. Like an angel.”

  The microwave oven timer pinged. “Here,” she said, thrusting the bottle at him. “Try it now.”

  Okay, so his timing stank. He’d try another approach. “I’m not very good at this and you seem to know what you’re doing.” He hefted the baby in her direction. “Do you want to feed him?”

  She froze, right down to her eyelashes. Absolutely nothing about her moved, and he knew he’d put his foot in it again.

  “Sorry,” he said, cringing inside at how mealymouthed he sounded. “I guess I’m pushing my luck.”

  “Yes,” she said tightly. “I guess you can say, without fear of contradiction, that you are.”

  The baby latched on to the bottle tip as if he hadn’t been fed in a week. For a few seconds, the only sound was the glug of the milk going down, and the kid’s occasional grunting squeak of satisfaction.

  Ben settled his hips against the kitchen counter and eyed his wife. “You’re upset, I know. Anyone can see that and only a fool would deny you have the r
ight. But you’ve got to know I didn’t plan things to turn out this way. Hurting you is the last thing I ever wanted.”

  “It would seem that Marian was the last thing you ever wanted,” she said.

  He swore. “That’s exactly the kind of remark that doesn’t help, Julia. In fact, it’s the kind of cheap shot I’d expect from your mother, not you.”

  “Well, they do say, don’t they, that if a man wants to know what kind of woman he’s marrying, he only has to look at her mother? So if you’re disappointed with what you ended up with, you can at least take comfort that you haven’t come into the deal entirely empty-handed. You have a baby—which is a damned sight more than I’ve got.”

  “You’ve got me,” he said, curbing his irritation. They were both exhausted, physically and mentally, and he should never have started the conversation in the first place. “You’ll always have me.”

  “I’m not sure I want you,” she said.

  “Julia…!”

  But she’d gone, her bare feet whispering over the oak floor as lightly as thistledown in a breeze.

  As though he didn’t like not being the center of everyone’s attention, the baby chose that moment to throw up.

  “Holy…!” Ben rolled his eyes in despair and swabbed at his chest with a paper towel. “I don’t know who it was who first said that good things come in little packages, Squirt, but he’d obviously never met you.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  SHE awoke the next morning to the splash of a fountain below her window and sunlit water reflections bouncing across the coffered ceiling. Just briefly, she wondered where she was, why she was alone, why there were no sheets on the bed and she was covered only by her peignoir.

  Too quickly, the answers came to her as she recalled with stunning clarity the events of the previous day. The confrontation with Ben, his confession, her parents’ barely concealed glee that he’d lived down to all their low expectations of him, not to mention the open curiosity of the wedding guests and their whispered speculation…oh, the indignity and pain of it all were beyond bearing!