Mothers of the Year

by Lori Handeland

  Kelly wasn’t certain what to say. Did he mean he never thought he’d have such great sex again? Or something more?

  The connection she’d felt with him since the first time they’d kissed had only deepened tonight. She could love this man; she probably already did. In his arms, she could easily imagine creating a perfect family of three, but what did he feel?

  He kissed her, quickly, lightly. “I’ll be right back.”

  He hurried into the adjoining bathroom. The water ran, the toilet flushed, and then he was tumbling onto the bed, his face shining with a happiness that echoed the hope in her heart.

  Gathering Kelly against him, Scott tucked her head beneath his chin. “I’ve been looking for you all of my life, Kelly. I’ve always wanted a home, a family. The way you are with Dani. She’s so happy now, so confident and sure. Because of you.”

  “I didn’t do that much.”

  “You did. I’m good at the basics—feed, clothe, play. We were buddies. Then we came here and—” His shoulder moved beneath her cheek in a shrug. “I didn’t know what to do for her anymore.”

  “You love her. She knows that.”

  “She needs a mother.” Kelly’s heart stuttered at those words, then fell at the next. “She needs brothers and sisters. I’ve always dreamed of filling a house with kids. Kara didn’t want any more children. She didn’t want the one we had. I couldn’t stay married to a woman who didn’t share my dream. My fault for not finding someone like you in the first place.”

  Kelly couldn’t move; she couldn’t speak. The sense of déjà vu was overwhelming.

  Luckily Scott’s trip, the lateness of the hour, and the sex all combined and his next words slurred as he fell toward slumber. “Boys, girls. Doesn’t matter as long as they’re ours.”

  As soon as he was asleep, Kelly fled.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  THE SOUND OF the front door opening and closing woke Scott. Something was missing, and at first he wasn’t sure what. He was home, in his own bed, then he remembered.

  “Kelly?” he called.

  Her clothes weren’t on the floor. She wasn’t in the bathroom. When he heard footsteps on the stairs, he stepped into the hall, then had to duck into his room and shut the door as he’d been waltzing around buck naked.

  “Dani, what are you doing here?”

  She didn’t answer the question, instead asking one of her own from the other side of the closed door. “Where’s Kelly? She was supposed to pick me up, but she called and asked Mrs. Martin to drop me off instead.” Dani’s voice faded as she went toward the guest room. “Is she sick?”

  The creak of the door was followed by a gasp. Scott shoved his legs into his jeans without benefit of underwear and ran. “Is she okay?” he asked.

  All of Kelly’s things were gone. The bed was made. Not a single speck of her remained.

  Dani turned toward Scott, folded her arms and tapped her foot. “What did you do?” she asked.

  KELLY LEFT Dani a note on the dresser, explaining that she’d been called away and she’d get in touch just as soon as she could.

  Once back in Madison, she made sure there was an available mommy to take over with Dani come Monday, and she contacted the nanny applicant and gave her the Delgado’s contact information so she could arrange an interview.

  Then she went home, unplugged the phone and crawled into bed. She never wanted to get out.

  She had vacation days coming, and she took them, leaving a message for Paige. But she should have known her friend wouldn’t be satisfied with that.

  Two days later, Paige showed up on her doorstep. She rang the bell until Kelly thought her head might explode. So she opened the door, even though she hadn’t taken a shower or brushed her teeth in…Kelly couldn’t remember.

  “What is wrong with you?” Paige demanded before Kelly had even shut the door. “You look like hell.”

  “Which matches how I feel.” Kelly went into the kitchen, put her head in the refrigerator, decided she didn’t want to eat and walked back into the living room. There were still moving boxes all over the place, and she just couldn’t bring herself to care.

  After what had happened with Scott, she wasn’t sure she could bring herself to stay here, though she didn’t know if she’d ever work up the energy to move her body, let alone all her furniture to another town.

  “You’re sick?” Paige put her hand to Kelly’s forehead.

  Kelly slapped it away. “In the head.”

  Paige wrinkled her nose. “You kinda smell, Kel.”

  “Whatever.” Kelly collapsed on the sofa and put her arm over her face.

  She heard Paige go into the kitchen, and run some water in the sink, then she returned. Kelly figured her friend was either going to drink the water, or try to get Kelly to. Instead, she poured it on Kelly’s head.

  “Hey!” Kelly sat up sputtering and choking. Water had gone up her nose, some dripped off the end. “My couch.”

  “It’s leather.” Paige handed her a dish towel. “Now, are you ready to tell me what happened at the Delgados’?”

  Kelly paused in the act of blotting the liquid off her couch. “Who said anything happened at the Delgado’s?”

  “You’re there, then you’re here. You send in a new mommy for no reason. You suddenly need a vacation—” Paige lifted a brow “—though all you seem to be doing is perfecting your couch-potato skills. The kid and the dad have been calling nonstop. The dad even showed up at the office and practically took the place apart trying to find out where you lived.”

  “He did?” Kelly cursed the hope in her voice. There was no hope.

  “He seemed pretty determined. He never showed up here?”

  Kelly shook her head. She had an unlisted number; still, he could have found her if he’d kept trying. She sighed. Even to her, the sound was pitiful.

  “Spill it,” Paige demanded.

  And because this was Paige, Kelly did.

  When she was done, her friend sat on the coffee table and took Kelly’s hands in hers. Kelly braced herself for a sorrowful agreement that this was for the best. She’d get over him. She’d find someone else. All those things were probably true, but they didn’t feel true. They felt like the biggest lie of all.

  “You’re a moron,” Paige said gently.

  Kelly blinked for several seconds, then she yanked her hands from Paige’s. “What?”

  “Maybe the term idiot would apply.” Paige tilted her head. “Dumb-ass?”

  “Why do I tell you anything?”

  “Because I’m such a good listener.” Kelly narrowed her eyes, and Paige smirked. “Definitely because I give great advice. Talk to the man.”

  “No.” The very thought made Kelly’s hands shake.

  “You’re condemning him because of something someone else did. Not all men are like Pete.”

  “He said—” Kelly’s voice broke as she again heard Scott’s final words before he’d drifted off to sleep, Doesn’t matter as long as they’re ours.

  “Whatever he said was without knowing your situation,” Paige continued. “You can’t end everything before you tell him the truth.”

  “Yes, I can.”

  “Dimwit.”

  Exasperated, Kelly began to pace. “Do you know what it’s like to have the man you love tell you you’re defective? That he wants to replace you, like he’d replace a toaster, with a working model?”

  “You don’t know that’s how Scott will feel.”

  “I don’t know that he won’t.”

  “You love him.”

  “Who said that I love him?”

  “You did. You said, ‘do you know what it’s like to have the man you love tell you…’” Paige made a circular motion with her forefinger. “Blah, blah, blah.”

  “I meant Pete.”

  “No, you didn’t. Besides, if you didn’t love him, you wouldn’t be so devastated.”

  Kelly looked away. Paige was right again.

  “Love doesn’t come around
as often as people think, Kelly. You might never get another chance. So take one. Tell him the truth.”

  Kelly thought about it, but not for long. Having her heart broken once in a lifetime was quite enough for her.

  “I can’t,” she said.

  “Coward.”

  Kelly thought she liked that better than moron. But as Paige got up and walked out of the house, slamming the door behind her, she murmured, “Then again, maybe not.”

  HOURS BLENDED into days blended into a week and beyond. Kelly returned to work. But she didn’t sleep well; she didn’t eat any better. She was twitchy whenever she went into the office, afraid Scott would show up, afraid he wouldn’t.

  She missed Dani with a longing that settled as a physical pain just below her heart. She kept in contact with cards and e-mail, but it wasn’t the same. Dani was hurt and upset. Finally Kelly couldn’t stand it anymore.

  The next Saturday, she checked the schedule at Rent a Mommy. The nanny had obviously not worked out, since Scott still used their services. She saw that one of the mommies was working that day, which meant Scott must be out of town. Kelly climbed into her SUV and headed for Kiwanee.

  The sight of the town made her eyes sting. She missed it, too, and how could that be? She’d never wanted to set foot in a place so small, so rural, so much like her hometown again.

  At the Delgados’, she was relieved to see one car in the driveway, and it wasn’t Scott’s.

  Dani answered the door, then threw herself into Kelly’s arms. “You came back,” she whispered.

  Uh-oh.

  Kelly drew away, peering into Dani’s face. “Just for a visit, not to stay.”

  Dani’s lip trembled.

  “Hey, I’ll always be your friend. You can call me anytime.”

  “Why did you go? I love you. I want you to be my mommy.”

  Kelly’s eyes burned. She wanted that, too.

  “Dad misses you. He sighs a lot. He won’t say your name. He won’t talk about it. What did he do?”

  Kelly had a sudden flash of what he’d done, what they’d done. What she really, really wanted to do again.

  Abruptly, she stood. “Nothing, smoocheroonie. It wasn’t him, it was me.”

  “He said it wasn’t you, it was him. What kind of crap is that?”

  Kelly choked on a startled burst of laughter. “Are you supposed to say crap?”

  Dani rolled her eyes, then tugged Kelly into the house.

  Kelly waved at the rental mom, who glanced out from the kitchen.

  “She’s okay,” Dani whispered. “But she isn’t you.”

  “Thanks.”

  Dani pulled her into the living room. “I wanna show you something.” She picked up a notebook from the table and handed it to Kelly.

  Figuring the girl had started keeping a diary, or perhaps a book of drawings, Kelly opened the cover, then frowned. The first page was filled with a list of words. Upon closer inspection she saw they were all the silly nicknames she’d used for Dani while she was here.

  “One more.” Dani took the notebook and painstakingly wrote smoocheroonie on the last line. “I really liked it when you called me those things.”

  Kelly ran her hand over Dani’s hair. “I liked calling you them.”

  “But—” Dani bit her lip.

  “But what, baby cakes?”

  Dani wrote it down, then handed Kelly the notebook again. “Turn to the second page.”

  At the top had been written “What I Wish Kelly Would Call Me,” then beneath were the words: my daughter, my child, mine.

  “Oh, kiddo,” Kelly began.

  “You could adopt me. Adopting would make me yours, right?”

  “Right, but—”

  “Dad’s always talking about adoption.”

  Kelly stilled. “What?”

  “Did you know he was adopted? He really, really wants lots of kids. He says he needs to help others like he was helped.”

  Kelly’s mouth moved, but no words came out. She had to sit, so she did. Then she had to move, so she got up. “Where is he?” she asked.

  “At some adoption party. He’s a sponsor of—” Dani scrunched her face up, trying to remember. “I don’t know. He left the name in the kitchen.”

  Kelly turned on her heel and headed in that direction.

  “Where’s Scott?” she demanded of the mommy in residence, who handed her the contact sheet.

  “Parents Through Adoption,” she read. “Fund-Raiser at the University of Wisconsin Union.”

  She glanced at her watch. She’d just have time to make it.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “ADOPTION ISN’T for everyone, but what better way is there to share your love, share your life than with a child who needs you so badly?”

  Applause lifted toward the ceiling. There had to be three hundred people who’d paid fifty dollars for lunch and the chance to hear Scott speak, maybe shake his hand. Scott enjoyed these talks. Usually.

  Today, well, lately pretty much every day, he enjoyed nothing.

  He missed Kelly, and knowing that he’d probably never see her again, or if he did, it would be some accidental meeting where they’d either pretend they didn’t know each other and move on, or try and make nice, then end up so uncomfortable they’d have been better off pretending, only depressed him more.

  He’d tried to find her. He’d wanted to talk to her to at least discover what he’d done, why she’d run. He’d nearly called his old roommate the P.I. to ferret out her address, but then he’d had a revelation.

  His talk of a home, a family, children, had spooked her. He’d been wrong again about the woman he’d fallen in love with. Though Kelly had seemed the polar opposite of Kara, in the end, she wasn’t. She was a businesswoman who’d wanted something from him, and once she’d gotten it, she’d left.

  Kara had wanted the attention that had come from being married to a major league ball player, and she’d wanted the money.

  So what was Kelly’s excuse? He was no longer a big-deal ball player, which meant the money wasn’t rolling in anymore, either.

  In the first painful days after she’d left, he’d wondered if she’d only wanted sex. He’d found that hard to believe, but he was also finding it hard to come up with any other options.

  Scott stepped away from the podium and greeted the dozen or so people who wanted to talk to him. For the next half an hour he chatted, he explained, he promoted the agency he supported with all his heart. If it weren’t for adoption, he wouldn’t be the man he was. Scott firmly believed that.

  As he said goodbye to the last guest, he saw Kelly sitting at an empty table. He wasn’t sure what to do, what to say. Then he saw the expression on her face, the one he remembered from when they’d been all tangled up together, the one that had made him think she loved him, too.

  He took one step toward her, then he stopped. He’d been wrong before, and both his heart and his daughter had suffered for it. He wasn’t going to take that chance again.

  He crossed the short distance between them slowly. She rose as he approached. They stood a few feet apart silent and unsure.

  “What are you doing here?” he blurted at the same time she said, “Scott, I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “I should have told you.”

  “That you didn’t love me? That you only wanted one thing and you’d be gone?”

  “Huh?” she said.

  “You took off after I told you my dream, after I said I wanted a family with you. What was I supposed to think?”

  “I don’t know.” She looked away. “There’s something I have to explain, if you’d just hear me out.”

  Scott motioned for her to take a seat, and he joined her.

  The story of her life, her marriage and her idiot husband made Scott’s hands curl into fists. When she was through, she stared at her lap.

  “Kelly,” he said, and reached for her.

  Her head went up and hope lit her eyes. She curled her fingers ar
ound his and held on.

  “You obviously know why I’m here.” He waved absently at the banners proclaiming Adoption Is For You!

  She nodded.

  “I love you, not just for myself, but for Dani, too. She needs you. I need you. The children who could find a new and better life with us need you. When I said I wanted kids, I just meant—” he lifted one shoulder, then lowered it “—kids.”

  “You said it didn’t matter as long as they were ours.”

  “They’d be ours. We’d adopt them together.” He took a deep breath. “Marry me?”

  Joy spread over her face, and he kissed her. She was the one he’d been searching for. He was the one she’d been destined to find.

  Suddenly Kelly pulled away. “Oh!” She stood and paced a few steps to the left, then to the right, then back to stand in front of him. “I’ve got it. The perfect event to make the Mother’s Day picnic special.”

  “I’ve asked you to marry me, and all you can think about is the Mother’s Day picnic?”

  She lifted his hand to her mouth and kissed his knuckles. “You’ll like this thought.”

  When she did that, he pretty much had only one thought, but he managed to control himself. “Okay, what’s the perfect thing to make this year’s picnic special?”

  “A wedding.”

  EPILOGUE

  EVERYONE AGREED that the Kiwanee Mother’s Day Picnic that year was the best ever.

  The day dawned clear and sunny, the sky a bright blue. The temperature hovered in the low seventies. The park smelled of flowers, fresh-cut grass and barbequed pork.

  Kelly had worked nonstop, but with the help of Paige and all the mothers in Kiwanee, she was able to pull off a wedding to rival any that had required years to plan.

  At eleven o’clock in the morning on Mother’s Day, Kelly walked down a sidewalk covered in rose petals, wearing a tea-length dress of ivory lace, with her parents at her side.

  Paige was her maid of honor. The twins and Dani, who had decided at their first meeting that they were best friends forever, stood as bridesmaids. They all wore crowns of white roses with multicolored ribbons streaming to their shoulders.