Nearly Wild

by Linda Seed

  “Come on,” Daniel told her, taking her arm. “We’ll get you a drink.”

  “She can’t drink!” Pamela scolded him. “She’s pregnant!”

  “You are?” Daniel looked at her with wonder. “Wow. That’s … wow.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake.” She pulled her arm from Daniel’s grasp. “I’m not going anywhere, so don’t even try it.”

  “What the …” Chris was rubbing at his temples. “What the hell is going on?”

  “Will came over to Cooper House on Thursday night, when I was there alone.” Melinda’s eyes bore into Will’s with fury. “He made a pass at me.”

  “Oh, that’s a goddamned lie,” Rose said. “She’s just jealous because her ex has moved on to someone else.”

  “Ex?” Chris said.

  “Uh … yeah,” Will admitted. “Melinda and I … we dated before she met you. She didn’t want to tell you.”

  Chris turned to Melinda. “Is that true?”

  “I didn’t think it was important to tell you,” she said. “It’s all water under the bridge. Or, at least it was until Will tried to kiss me.”

  “She tried to kiss me,” Will said. “And then got mad when I said no. I have the text messages to prove it. And the security video, which I saved.”

  “That doesn’t prove anything.” Melinda glared at Will. “You could have doctored a video. You could have—”

  “Just … shut up,” Chris said. Melinda gasped.

  Chris turned to Will. “You didn’t tell me any of this.”

  “I didn’t want … Oh, hell. This. I didn’t want any of this.” He gestured to the chaos around them.

  Chris rubbed at his forehead with one hand and turned away from them.

  “Chris, please.” Melinda put a hand on his shoulder, and he shook it off.

  He turned back to face Will. “I think you’d better find a new job. And a new place to live.” Chris’s face had turned red, but he kept his voice calm as he straightened the cuffs of his tux. “In fact, don’t come back to the property. I’ll have your things packed up and delivered to you.”

  “I think you’re doing the right thing,” Melinda told him, putting her hand on his arm and following him as he walked toward his car.

  He pulled his arm out of her grasp and turned to her. “When we get back to the house, I want you to pack your things. I’ll arrange for your transportation home.”

  “But Chris, I—”

  “Just get in the car.” He turned to the group, couldn’t find anyone he wanted to be civil to, and settled on Rose. “Please tell Gen and Ryan that I apologize for the quick departure. Good night.”

  When they were gone, Rose looked at Will. “Oh, Jesus, Will. Your job. Your house …”

  “It doesn’t matter. None of it matters,” he said. “I’ll figure something out.”

  “Of course you will.” Pamela patted him companionably on the shoulder. “Did you know that Will is almost finished with his dissertation?” she asked Rose.

  “I’m finished, actually,” Will added.

  “Good for you,” Pamela said, smiling.

  “What’s happening here?” Rose said. The events of the previous fifteen minutes had left her dizzy with confusion. Plus, her face hurt.

  “What’s happening is that I’m going to defend my dissertation, get my PhD, then get a decent job, probably at Cal Poly. Then I’m going to be a father to our baby.”

  “You are?” Rose said. She could feel tears welling up in her eyes.

  “Yes. And we are a couple, Rose, whether you want to admit it or not. I love you. And I want to be with you. And I want our family.”

  She shook her head as tears fell down her cheeks. “I don’t … I can’t …”

  “Rosemary.” Pamela’s voice was stern. “Can’t you see that Will is the one? That he’s your one? My goodness, even I can see that, and I’m notoriously difficult to please.”

  “That’s true,” Rose said, laughing through her tears. “You are.”

  Will looked into Rose’s eyes. “I am your one. And you’re my one.”

  She waved toward the barn, where the party was still underway. “I can’t get married, or anything stupid like that.”

  “I know,” Will said simply.

  “You do?”

  “Of course I do. I know you.”

  “You do.” She said it on a sigh.

  He gathered her into his arms and kissed her, and the rest of the world ceased to exist.

  “I was supposed to distract Melinda,” Daniel told Pamela. “I’m a shitty wingman.”

  “It would seem so,” Pamela said.

  Pamela and Daniel went back into the barn, leaving Will and Rose alone to ponder all that had happened.

  “Did you see what my mother did?” Rose asked him. “Did you see her? She just … zoomed in and attacked Melinda. Like a mother grizzly bear or something.”

  “I saw it,” he said in wonder. “Though she was moving so fast she was pretty much just a blur.”

  “I didn’t think she really cared about me,” Rose said. A fresh tear fell down one cheek, and Will wiped it away with a gentle finger.

  “Of course she does. She’s your mother.”

  “I think I have to go talk to her.”

  “You should.” He gave her a quick, sweet kiss on the lips. “I think that’s a good idea. You do that while I go find Daniel and chew him out for falling down on the job.”

  Rose and Will went back into the barn, where the candlelight and the music and the dancing made everything seem like a gentle dream. She was surprised to find her mother dancing with Ryan’s uncle Redmond. After the dance was over, Pamela returned to her table near the back of the barn, away from the band. When Rose approached her, she was holding a martini and chatting with Daniel, who was laughing about something.

  “I’ve got an issue with you,” Will told Daniel, who abruptly stopped laughing and looked contrite. “Dude. I’m sorry. I got distracted.”

  “So I gathered.”

  “You should kick my ass. You really should. But maybe we could just have a beer instead.”

  They wandered off toward the bar, leaving Rose and Pamela alone.

  “Hey.” Rose pulled out a chair and sat next to her mother.

  “Rose. Does it still hurt?” Pamela gently touched Rose’s cheek.

  “Not really. It’s okay. Thanks to you. If you hadn’t come charging in like … like Bruce Willis in Die Hard, she’d have broken my kneecaps.”

  Pamela smiled. “Nonsense, darling. You were ready to pummel her, and you would have if Will and I hadn’t intervened. I can’t say that I approve of that sort of behavior, but you would have been justified.”

  “You … you rescued me,” Rose said in wonder.

  “Well, of course. You’re my daughter. Why wouldn’t I?”

  “I just thought—”

  “My dear,” Pamela interrupted. “You’ll be surprised what you’ll do for your own child once she arrives. And, yes, I’m convinced it’ll be a daughter.”

  “But … how did you know? Both you and Will. Did Kate or Gen tell you? If Lacy blabbed, I’ll—”

  “No one had to tell me. Or Will.” She waved a hand to dismiss the thought. “The signs were obvious.”

  “Well, jeez. Neither one of you said anything.”

  “Of course not. You had to let us know in your own time. We both knew that.”

  “Wow.” Rose pondered that for a minute, and then remembered what Pamela had told her on the way to the wedding. “Are you really moving to Cambria?”

  “I’d like to. I’d like to be close to my grandchild. And you.”

  Rose didn’t know what to say. The idea of having her mother nearby was both heartwarming and terrifying. What if they didn’t get along? What if they continued to fight? What if Rose had to continue to live under her mother’s harsh and unyielding scrutiny?

  “I’m not sure you’d like it here,” Rose said, hedging her response. “I mean, it’s so far awa
y from your life in Connecticut. And it’s a small town. There’s no DAR. No … big society galas. Good God, I don’t know what you’d do without your social status.”

  Pamela waved a hand and made a noise: pfft. “Social status. Darling, all of that exhausts me.”

  “What? ” Rose was aghast. “It exhausts you? I thought … jeez, Mom. When I was growing up, everything was about social status! How I did my hair, how I dressed, where I went to school. You wanted me to go to Yale!”

  “You think I wanted you to go to Yale for status?” Pamela said with disgust.

  “Didn’t you?”

  “No! I wanted you to go so you could have everything!” Pamela grasped Rose’s hands in hers. This display of closeness—this physical touch—was so foreign to Rose that she almost flinched.

  “When I went to Brown, it was made very clear that I was there to find a man. That was the goal my parents had for me. Look beautiful, join a sorority, and marry well. The idea that there might be something more, that I might be something more … Well. It simply wasn’t an option that was presented to me. But you …” She squeezed Rose’s hands. “You could have done anything, accomplished anything. I wanted you to have the finest education so you could soar. Darling, I wanted to give you wings.”

  “But you did,” Rose said, tears in her eyes, emotion thickening her throat. “You did. You raised me into a person who knew that I wanted to be free. I did have wings, and I used them. I flew here. I am the person I wanted to be. That just didn’t turn out to be who you expected.”

  For the first time—perhaps ever—Rose considered that her mother might have had a hand in making her someone strong enough to do what she’d done so many years ago.

  “I love you, Mom.” It was the first time she’d said it since she drove off that day in the Mercedes, a duffel bag of clothes in the backseat and a note to her parents on the dining room table. Saying it now, and meaning it, broke down a wall she’d built around herself, a wall she could now see had not just kept her safe, but had also kept her trapped.

  “Oh, Rose. I love you too.” Pamela gathered Rose into her arms and rocked her like she hadn’t done since Rose was small. Had she even done it then? Rose couldn’t remember.

  “You have another chance, you know.” Rose sniffled as she pulled back from her mother’s embrace. “You have another chance with your grandchild. And with me. I hope you’ll take it. I hope you’ll come to Cambria.”

  Pamela nodded mutely, her eyes shiny with unshed tears.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Will looked anxiously toward Rose and Pamela. While he was doing that, wondering what they could be saying to each other, Jackson and Ryan came over to where he and Daniel were drinking beer from longneck bottles.

  Will forced himself to smile. “Where’s your lovely bride?” he asked Ryan.

  Ryan pointed toward the dance floor, where Gen was dancing with Lucas, Ryan’s other nephew. She had to bend over to make it work, since Lucas was only six, but somehow they were managing. Gen looked amazing, happy and glowing amid yards of tulle.

  Ryan turned back toward Will. “So, what the hell was going on outside? People were leaving one by one, and then we heard some kind of commotion. I wanted to come out and see what was going on, but Gen didn’t want to miss the Chicken Dance.” He grinned.

  “You should have seen it, man,” Daniel said in awe. “Melinda hit Rose—I missed that part—and then Pamela attacked Melinda, and then Will here lost his job. And his home.”

  “Oh, shit.” Jackson looked concerned. “That’s … I don’t even know where to start.”

  “Yeah. I know how you feel.” Will nodded.

  “You gonna move in with Rose?” Daniel wanted to know.

  “No, no. I mean, I’d like to. But she’s not ready for that.”

  Jackson put a hand on Will’s shoulder. “You can stay in Gen’s old place until you figure something out. She doesn’t need it anymore.” He gestured toward the room around them. “Obviously.” Gen had lived in an apartment on the bottom floor of Kate and Jackson’s house until she moved in with Ryan.

  “Thanks, Jackson. I think I’ll do that, if Kate doesn’t mind.”

  “She won’t.”

  They all stood there drinking for a moment, considering everything that had happened.

  “So, can we all stop pretending we don’t know about the baby?” Ryan asked.

  “I guess. Yeah.” Will grinned.

  “I wasn’t pretending. I really didn’t know. Congratulations, man,” Daniel said. “Sincerely. You’re going to be a great dad.”

  “I’m going to be a dad,” Will said. The whole thing seemed so huge and awe-inspiring that for a moment, he was overcome with happiness. The job didn’t matter. The cottage didn’t matter. Even the dissertation didn’t matter, though he was going to get that behind him as soon as possible. He was going to be a father. And a partner to Rose. Everything else seemed to fade into insignificance.

  “Let’s have a toast,” Ryan suggested, and they all raised their bottles and glasses. “To Will and Rose. And parenthood.”

  Will was happy to drink to that.

  After the reception, Will was still a little buzzed and didn’t think it was wise to drive, so Rose—the only sober one of the three of them—drove him and Pamela. The party had gone late into the night, and it was close to two a.m. by the time they left the Delaney Ranch property.

  They dropped Pamela off at her rental house, and then Rose and Will held hands as she drove through the darkness up Ardath Drive.

  “I guess this is the part where you take me home, but I don’t have a home anymore,” Will said. He was still pretty light-headed, but not fully drunk. “Jackson said I could stay at Gen’s old place. I guess you should take me there.”

  “Mm hmm,” Rose said. But instead of turning on Ogden to go toward Kate and Jackson’s place, she just kept winding up Ardath and away from Marine Terrace.

  “We’re not going to Gen’s old place,” Will observed.

  “No,” Rose agreed.

  He leaned back against the headrest and grinned at her sleepily. “Does this mean I get to stay at your place tonight?”

  “It does,” she agreed.

  “Hmm. Is there going to be sex in this for me?”

  “There might be. We’ll just have to see.”

  The thought of that made the ride home a lot more interesting.

  There was, in fact, sex in it for him.

  When they got inside Rose’s cottage, she flipped on the lights, kicked off her delicate high-heeled sandals, let her hair out of its elaborate updo, shook it out, and turned to Will with a slow, lazy smile.

  “Exactly how drunk are you?” she wanted to know.

  “Not too.”

  “Tired?”

  “Nope.”

  “Neither am I. I wonder if we can think of something to do with all this alertness we’ve got going.”

  “Oh, I’ll bet we can.” He moved toward her, enfolded her in his arms, and breathed in her scent, something warm and sweet and comforting. He kissed her and pressed her back against the kitchen counter.

  She started with his tuxedo jacket, slipping it off his shoulders and tossing it a few feet onto the sofa. Then she started on his tie. She managed to untie it and drop it to the floor without ever breaking the kiss.

  He put his hands on her neck, caressing her, feeling the warm planes of her skin, as she began to untuck his shirt and unbutton it.

  “Bedroom?” he murmured.

  “Yes,” she sighed.

  He took her by the hand and led her into the small bedroom, then paused in surprise when he saw the bed in disarray, the clothes on the floor.

  “Oh. Ha. I guess I didn’t get a chance to clean up this morning.” She looked up at him, blushing slightly.

  “I guess my clothes can keep yours company on the floor,” he said with a grin. He finished unbuttoning his tuxedo shirt, took it off, and dropped it atop a scattering of her things.
r />   “That’s good. Because my bras and undies were lonely.”

  “Can’t have that.”

  He took her face in his hands and kissed her deeply, his tongue caressing hers. Then his hands moved around to the back of her dress and slowly unzipped it. “I like this dress,” he murmured. “I’ll like it better when it’s on the floor with my shirt.”

  She giggled and slipped out of the dress, letting the silky fabric slip to the floor.

  When he saw her in only her lacy strapless bra and panties, he just stopped and looked. She was growing softer with pregnancy, her breasts fuller. He put his hand on her abdomen, where their child was growing.

  “I love you, Will,” she said, a slight tremor in her voice. “I didn’t say it earlier. I didn’t say it back. But I do. I love you.”

  “I’m not going to disappoint you, Rose. And I’m not going to hurt you. I promise.”

  “Come on.” She took his hand and drew him forward. “Get undressed. Come to bed.” And he did.

  They made love slowly, with none of the fevered frenzy that had marked some of their earlier encounters. This time wasn’t just about sex. This time was about knowing that it was real, and that it was going to last.

  When they were naked under the covers of her bed, he explored her, worshipped the curves of her body, the contours of her skin. He traveled her body with his mouth, his tongue, his fingers, kissing the peaks of her breasts and entwining his hands in her hair.

  She wrapped her hand around him and stroked him until he groaned, his mind lost in a world where nothing but the two of them existed. He gently touched the warm folds at her core until she threw her head back and sighed.

  And then, when they couldn’t wait any longer, he rolled onto his back and pulled her up onto him so that she sat astride him, his hard arousal sinking deeply into her.

  God, this. Could there be anything more than this?

  She moved on top of him, slowly at first, and he was mesmerized by the look on her face. The abandon. The pure, transporting pleasure. The thought that he was giving that to her, making her feel that, left him humbled and incredibly grateful. He ran his hands up her body as she moved above him.

  Soon, she fell into a steady rhythm, and his pleasure rose with hers. The slow need that had started in the center of him grew more urgent, more insistent, as she rocked her body atop him. As her movements grew faster, he moved his thumb to rub the little nub of her body where they were joined.