3, 2, 1...Married!

by Sharon Sala

  “Hallie, darling, carry this to the table, will you?”

  Hallie blinked, then looked up. Her mother was pointing toward the twenty-pound turkey her father would soon be carving. She lifted her chin and took a deep breath.

  “Sure,” she said, and started to pick it up, when the doorbell suddenly rang. She froze, and then made the sign of the cross and closed her eyes.

  Moira O’Grady gasped. “Hallie, darlin’, are you all right?”

  But Hallie wasn’t talking, she was praying, as hard as she’d ever prayed in her life. Moments later, Evie dashed into the kitchen.

  “Hallie, there’s a man at the door. He says you were expecting him. He says he’s staying for dinner.”

  “Praise God,” Hallie gasped, and flew out of the room.

  Mother and daughters paused only long enough to wipe their hands, then they were right behind her.

  Jake stood in the doorway wearing blue jeans and boots and a western-cut coat. Impatiently waiting with his Stetson in hand, he was holding his own beneath the stares of the family beginning to congregate. He nodded at the men, and smiled at the women, but he was watching for Hallie.

  Suddenly she was there, pushing her way through the crowd and laughing out loud. Right then, every anxious moment he’d had just faded away. He opened his arms and held out his hands.

  “Come here to me, woman,” he said, and caught her in midair, kissing her soundly in front of everyone assembled with no thought of what they might think.

  “Here now, Hallie,” Sean O’Grady mumbled, suddenly remembering his place. “Just who in blazes is this stranger you’re kissin’?”

  Laughter bubbled up between her words as she looked up at Jake.

  “So, exactly how should I be introducing you to my family?”

  Jake handed her his hat, then grabbed her hand and slid a ring on her finger. “Hallie, darlin’, this is sort of public, but something tells me you’re not going to mind.”

  She was shaking with joy. It was all she could do to stand still.

  “I don’t mind,” she whispered, looking down in disbelief at the solitaire.

  “It’s beautiful,” she whispered.

  “Just like you.”

  Tears sprang to Hallie’s eyes. She clasped the ring to her breasts.

  “Oh, Jake.”

  “Just a minute, here,” Sean sputtered.

  Jake looked up. “Sir, I’ve come to tell you that I love your daughter, and that we’re getting married New Year’s Eve, 1999.”

  Moira O’Grady squealed, then gasped. “Saints preserve us! That’s only six weeks away. How will I manage?”

  Sean spluttered, then sighed. He’d known Hallie far too long to know that argument would only fuel her fire. He caught Jake’s hand in his own, taking the big man’s measure, but finding nothing outwardly wanting.

  “Calm yourself, Moira,” he muttered. “You’ll find a way—you always do.” Then he gave Jake a hard look. “So you want to marry my daughter, do you?”

  Jake didn’t flinch. “Yes, sir, I do.”

  Sean stared back. When the man’s gaze never wavered, he began to relax. Never trust a man who wouldn’t look you in the eyes. But this man seemed forthright enough. He finally shook his hand.

  “That’s all well and good, I suppose.” Then he turned to Hallie. “Don’t you think it would be a kindness to the family if you told us his name?”

  “Yes,” Hallie said, and shyly threaded her fingers through Jake’s. He squeezed them gently, then lifted them to his lips for a kiss. It was all she could do to remember what she’d been about to do.

  “Uh…Jake…this is my family. My mother, Moira. My father, Sean. Those are my brothers-in-law, Sam, Wayne and Frank. We’ll sort out last names and who they belong to later.” Then she pointed at the roomful of children behind them. “Suffice it to say that none of those little beggars are mine. They belong to those poor dumb, but beautiful redheads who are standing with their mouths agape. Pity for me, but those wretches are my sisters. The tallest one is Evie. The pregnant one is Petra. The other one is Dana.” Then she took a deep breath, and turned to her family. “Everyone, I want you to meet Jake Miracle.”

  A few seconds of stunned silence enveloped the group, and then Evie suddenly giggled.

  “Gee, Hallie, you always said it would be a miracle if you ever got married, but I didn’t think you meant it so literally.”

  Hallie grinned. “Trust in the power of prayer.” Then she turned to Jake. “Jake, darling, understand I’m only asking, not complaining, but why so soon, and why New Year’s Eve?”

  “Soon? Excuse my language, but these past weeks have been hell. As for the date, it’s the day before the millennium, and I’m not too good at remembering dates. I figure if we get married on New Year’s Eve, then it’s a sure bet I’ll never forget our anniversary.”

  Hallie threw back her head and laughed. Jake grinned. God, but he loved to hear her laugh.

  Sean O’Grady chuckled. “That’s a smart man. Say…there’s a rousing game of football on the TV. By any chance, do you like the game?”

  Jake grinned. “Next to women and oil, I don’t think there’s anything a Texan likes better.” Then he noticed the frown on Moira O’Grady’s face and the food cooling on the table. “But, it looks as if I got here just in time to help put food on the table.”

  The sisters gasped, then sighed in unison.

  “My God, you don’t suppose he also puts the toilet seat down?” Petra muttered.

  The three husbands groaned. “Now you’ve done it, Hallie. You’ve gone and picked yourself a gentleman and we’ll never hear the end of it.”

  Jake laughed. This family was something. Now he knew where Hallie got her spunk.

  “Don’t let it worry you,” he said. “We’ll live far enough away that maybe it won’t rub off.”

  The women groaned again, only this time in dismay.

  Hallie’s heart gave a twist, but just for a moment. As much as she loved her family, she loved this man even more.

  Moira O’Grady gave Jake a long look, but she’d made up her mind. If Hallie loved him, then it was good enough for her.

  “Young man…if your offer to help is still open, come with me. There’s food to eat and plans to be made. I won’t have my daughter standing before a justice of the peace. I’ll see her married in a church before you take her away, and that’s a fact.”

  Jake shrugged out of his coat and laid it on a nearby chair. Then he grabbed Hallie’s hand.

  “Come on, honey. Let’s make your mama happy.”

  Evie piped up again. “Oh, that’s easy,” she said. “Just have some babies. After that, she’s yours for life.”

  Hallie blushed, but Jake never missed a beat.

  “It would be my pleasure,” he said. “And we’ll start right in on the process, but not until I’ve tasted your mother’s cooking. If it’s as good as it looks and smells, I’m in heaven.” Everyone was laughing as they started toward the kitchen, when something occurred to Jake and he stopped.

  “Hallie, honey, can you cook?”

  Someone gasped. Everyone stopped. Hallie was beginning to look nervous. Then Jake shrugged.

  “It really doesn’t matter. I can.”

  The men groaned again, only louder.

  “Somebody feed him to shut him up. He’s ruining us,” Sam said.

  Hallie did a little dance in the middle of the floor, turning around and around like the ballerina in a child’s jewelry box, then to Jake’s delight, threw her arms around his neck and kissed him soundly.

  “Cowboy, I am yours for life.”

  He grinned. “Shoot, honey, I already knew that, but what convinced you?”

  “Because you love me, not for what I have, but in spite of what I’m missing.”

  Suddenly, he understood and grinned. As his daddy always said, anything more than a handful was a waste—and only the good Lord knew what a handful Hallie O’Grady really was.

  The g
ood news was, now she was his.

  Dearest Reader,

  Well, here we are, standing on the threshold of a brand-new century. The last time people did this, L.A. had no smog, New York had no midtown traffic (or traffic anywhere else, for that matter) and the word romance was more likely to be used in reference to languages or an era in literature than to what went on between two people. Think of the progress we’ve made these past hundred years. We might be coughing and terminally stuck in traffic, but our hearts are free to fall in love, and that, to me, is what makes the world go around.

  I’ve never been to a New Year’s Eve party, not even once, but I wouldn’t trade any of the New Years I’ve had with anyone, because all my New Year’s Eves were spent with the people I loved most: my parents and brothers, and later, my husband and children. That last evening of the year is a time that always seems to remind me just how very blessed I am.

  I hope that when the ball comes down that last minute of this year, whether you’re at a huge party or an intimate one for two, you have someone to hug and kiss as you welcome in a brand-new century. I wish you all health and happiness and, most of all, someone to love and to love you in return.

  With all my love,

  The Single Daddy Club

  Marie Ferrarella

  To everyone in my life

  and to everyone within sight of this book,

  Happy New Century

  Chapter 1

  “There they are, just like clockwork. They gather together there every Saturday and Sunday.”

  Rachel Collins leaned forward in the wheelchair she’d temporarily adopted, thanks to an unceremonious spill last week while taking advantage of an early snowfall at Lake Tahoe.

  Finally, Rachel thought, something good was going to come out of having this wretched accident. She glanced over her shoulder at her sister, K.C., to see if she was listening. K.C. didn’t even seem to hear her.

  Determined, Rachel continued, raising her voice just a little. “Sundays they meet an hour later.” She turned in her chair to face K.C. What did she have to do, hit her over the head? “This is just like in that article in the magazine.”

  K.C. shoved Mr. Fuzzy-Foo, a ridiculously named bear with an endearing face, under her arm as she busily cleaned up after Gracie, Rachel’s exuberant two-year-old and her beloved niece. K.C. didn’t even bother turning around. A registered visiting nurse by profession, she’d offered to use her vacation time to help out until Rachel was back on her feet. But Bryan, Rachel’s husband, had insisted on employing her instead. His shrewd reasoning was that it kept the agency happy, K.C.’s vacation intact and K.C. at Rachel’s beck and call, something that Rachel had delighted in since they were children.

  K.C. was beginning to wonder if she’d somehow gotten the shorter end of the stick in this deal.

  “What’s just like in that magazine?” K.C. shoved a myriad of stuffed animals into Gracie’s overflowing toy box, then paused to look at her sister. She knew that expression. Rachel was up to something. Maybe she had better pay closer attention before Rachel got carried away with whatever it was that she thought she was cooking up. “Rachel, what are you talking about?”

  Ever since Rachel had read the article in the August issue of Prominence Magazine, she had been searching for a way to get K.C. to try this newest avenue for meeting single men. In her opinion, it was high time K.C. started going out again.

  Swinging the wheelchair around completely so that she could face her sister, Rachel beckoned her over. “Come here.”

  The family room window offered an expansive view of the park across the street. In passing, Bryan had mentioned encountering the group to Rachel the other day. It was comprised of several single fathers who gathered together twice a week in the park to exchange information and support in this maze called parenthood. He’d been mistakenly invited to join their ranks when he’d taken Gracie to the park one Saturday while Rachel had been nursing a stubborn cold.

  Seeing them as she had just now, everything fell into place for Rachel. It was perfect. A smorgasbord to choose from. K.C. had to get out there before some woman took it upon herself to snap up the dark-haired one, Rachel thought. The one who looked as if he could double as a romantic spy in a James Bond movie.

  “See those men?” She pointed to the bench in the foreground. “With the kids?”

  K.C. saw the children first, then noticed the men clustered on the bench and casually sprawled out on the grass on either side of it. They seemed to be having a good time. There were five of them. Friends from the looks of it. It was a heartening sight, she supposed, but nothing for Rachel to get excited over.

  “What about them?”

  Rachel hesitated a moment. If she told K.C. that she knew all about the group and that Bryan had talked to some of them, then K.C. might decide to be perverse, not go out and ruin everything. She searched for the right way to present this.

  “Just that I’ve seen them out there before. Five single men. Kids. No women hanging on their arms. I’ll bet they’re part of a ‘Single Daddy Club’ of some kind.” Her face was the picture of innocence when she looked at K.C. “What do you think?”

  “I think you landed on your head as well as your leg when you took that tumble down the ski slope, that’s what I think.” Both hands filled with crayons she’d picked up from all four corners of the room, K.C. deposited the booty next to Gracie. The little girl was sprawled out on her stomach, determined to leave her mark on every single page of the new coloring book she’d been given this morning. “‘Single Daddy Club,”’ K.C. echoed. “Is this something you just made up?”

  It was obvious that K.C. had completely ignored the magazine she’d given her to read. It was still lying on the coffee table, untouched like the others. Rachel wheeled herself over to the table, found the issue she wanted and held it up.

  “No, it’s in the magazine.” When K.C. made no attempt to come over and take it from her, Rachel dropped the magazine in her lap and drove the wheelchair forward, stopping directly in front of her sister and cutting off any hope for a clean getaway. “It wouldn’t hurt you to read one of these magazines once in a while, you know.”

  With a sigh, K.C. looked at the magazine. “‘Married by the Millennium,”’ she read the feature article title out loud. “These kinds of articles are only good for one thing. Making confetti out of them.”

  Rachel was not about to give up. “Let me summarize the part that applies to you, since you won’t read it. The second method they mention is to find a Single Daddy Club—like the one we have here,” she said pointedly, “and find a way to mingle with the men. You know how helpless men can be with kids.”

  Rolling her eyes, K.C. took the magazine from her and dropped it on the table. “No, thanks. I’ve no desire to say ‘I do’ to anyone—before the millennium or after.”

  And that, Rachel thought, was just the trouble. But she’d be damned if she stood by and watched her sister become a cloistered nun. K.C. had too much to offer to shut herself away like this.

  “Just because Eric left you—”

  K.C. looked at her sister sharply, a stab of pain mingled with indignation going through her. You’d think it wouldn’t hurt so much anymore. “Eric didn’t leave me. We left each other.”

  Which was just something her sister told herself to assuage her hurt feelings, Rachel thought. “Sorry, I guess Eric just left a little faster than you did.” Her mouth twisted in a sarcastic smile. K.C. was better off without that loser. “It’s the track star in him.”

  K.C. had no intention of continuing this discussion. Dropping the latest collection of toys she’d just picked up, she placed a hand on either side of Rachel’s wheelchair and leaned her face in close to her sister’s.

  “Look, I might be your younger sister, but for the duration, and because your husband insisted on paying my agency, I am also your private duty nurse, O Pampered One, and as your nurse I highly recommend some bed rest.” Her eyes narrowed slightly as she ended he
r suggestion with a command. “Immediately.”

  Rachel wasn’t about to give up so easily, not when this seemed like the perfect opportunity to spark something. “I—”

  Straightening, K.C. had no intention of being out-maneuvered. “That means resting all of you, including your mouth.”

  Her mind in overdrive, Rachel reconnoitered. Sighing dramatically, she nodded. “All right, I am tired.” And then a sly smile curved her mouth. “But I can’t rest if there’s noise.”

  Turning Rachel’s chair in the general direction of the back room, K.C. retreated back to Gracie. She dropped to her knees, and began to color with the little girl. “We’ll be quiet.”

  This wasn’t what Rachel had had in mind. “You’ll be quieter if you take Gracie out to play. You know how she loves being outdoors.”

  The town house Rachel and her husband had moved into last autumn, nestled amid several others, was designed to resemble homes along the Italian Riviera. The European flavor abounded in the small development, but what had been sacrificed was any hope of a backyard. To make up for the lack, an aesthetically appealing public park, equipped with several play areas for the very young and two gazebos as well as a picnic area and a barbecue pit for adults, had been placed in the center of a long, serpentine street and was in the middle of four developments, two of which were comprised solely of two-story garden apartments.

  K.C. remained where she was on the floor beside her niece. She raised her eyes stubbornly toward Rachel. “I know where you’re going with this.”

  She’d won. Rachel congratulated herself. She could tell by K.C.’s tone. K.C. had never been able to refuse Gracie anything. “That’s why Dad always called you the smart one.”