Magic for Joy

by Holly Jacobs

  “Who am I in love with?”

  “Helen.” Just saying the name sent a jolt of pain through Joy’s heart.

  “We’ve been over this. But I’ll say it one last time—and I hope you’re listening. Helen is a friend, and she was a convenient front to keep other women at bay.”

  “Are you sure she knows that?” Joy needed to know. “What will you do with her now?”

  “I’m sure she knows that. As for what I’ll do with her—she’ll still work for me, still be a friend, but she won’t need to pretend we’re something we’re not anymore.”

  “No, you’ll have me running interference. So, Helen’s no longer necessary. Just where does that leave me when I’m no longer necessary?” It hurt to ask, but Joy was afraid it would hurt even more to leave the words unsaid. She wanted to be completely candid with Gabriel. Well, candid about everything except her true feelings. Those would keep. “Where will I be when you and Sophie no longer need me?”

  Ten

  “GIVE HIM A CHANCE,” Fern began, but one look from Joy silenced her. And it must have been ferocious enough to silence the two fairies next to her on the counter as well.

  “Joy, it’s not like that with you,” Gabriel protested.

  “It was like that with Helen, and she was just convenient. Oh, wait, no I remember, I’m comfortable as well.”

  “Why are you twisting everything I say?” he exploded, slamming his hand against the cupboard.

  “I’m not twisting. I’m simply trying to understand what it is you want, Gabriel. Where you think I’m going to fit into your life. For instance, since you say you’re doing this for Sophie.” He looked like he was going to protest, so she held up her hand. “And because you care about me and my convenience and comfort level, where will we be when Sophie’s old enough to move out of the house? I realize that’s twelve years down the road and life doesn’t offer any guarantees, but do you see us separating at that time? Or will we still be married?”

  “I told you I wanted other children with you,” he exclaimed.

  “Actually, you told me I wasn’t getting any younger, and we could think about having them, or something to that effect. That’s not the same as wanting to have children with me.”

  Gabriel raked his fingers through his hair, frustration painted in his every gesture and expression. “Joy, I’m better with machines than people. Give me a computer and I can make it sing. But give me a simple proposal, and I can’t do anything right. What I should have said was, of all the women I’ve ever met, I can’t think of one—not one—I’d rather have children with.”

  Joy’s heart gave a little lurch in her chest. Maybe there was hope here?

  “There’s always hope.” Myrtle braved Joy’s wrath by continuing, “Gabriel just needs time to realize what you mean to him.”

  “You’re so good with Sophie that I know you’d be good with other children as well. After seeing how Trudi handled parenting, I want my future children to have a mother who will put them first. You’ve already done that with Sophie. I can only imagine how diligently you’ll guard your own children.”

  Any hope died. Not only was she an old, convenient, comfortable sort of woman, now he was comparing her to a watchdog, ready, willing and able to defend some yet-unborn children.

  But despite that, she was going to marry him. Maybe she’d known it since the fairies confessed that Gabriel was the man they had in mind for her. Or, maybe she’d known Gabriel St. John was the man for her the first time she saw him smile.

  “You love him,” Blossom said, voicing the thought Joy kept trying to avoid, but kept coming back to anyway.

  “Don’t lose hope,” Myrtle added.

  Hope, Joy thought. That was the only thing keeping her going. Let him think he was getting good, old, comfortable, reliable Joy. Once the ring was on her finger, she’d show him just how uncomfortable she could be.

  EVERY LITTLE GIRL dreamed about her wedding, but in all Joy’s dreams, never once did she dream about not only marrying a man who didn’t love her but having three fairies in attendance. The week had sped by. Every day Joy had thought about calling off this farce. Every day she prayed Gabriel would say he loved her. Every day her emotions seesawed back and forth between despair and hope.

  Sophie was ecstatic, Gabriel was pensive, and Joy had decided the fairies had well and truly driven her crazy, because she had to be crazy to be going through with this.

  She’d gone through the motions. She had Alice pack up her things and ship them to Erie, and she’d put Ripple’s move into motion. Gabriel, true to his word, had cleared space for a small office.

  And now she was here at the Courthouse. There was no turning back.

  Judge Gerald Terry stood solemnly in front of them. “And, do you Delphina Joy Aaronson take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

  “What do you suppose his friends and family called him?” Blossom whispered in her ear. “Gerry? Gerry Terry. What a name.”

  “His parents must have had a real sense of humor. It’s worse than Delphina Joy,” Fern pointed out.

  Joy couldn’t see them. They were too afraid of Sophie seeing them to materialize, but that hadn’t stopped them from coming to the wedding. They’d been prattling in her ear since she’d reached the court house with Gabriel and Sophie.

  Judge Gerry Terry—the name was stuck in her head now—cleared his throat, and Gabriel nudged her.

  “Pardon?” Joy asked, trying to keep from smiling over the man’s absurd name.

  “He wants to know if you’ll take Gabriel?” Joy didn’t have to see Myrtle to hear the exasperation in her voice.

  “He asked, if you take me to be your husband. If you’re done thinking it over, maybe you could give us your answer?” Gabriel said.

  Gabriel was looking at her as if she was crazy. Maybe she was. Hearing fairies in her head wasn’t the sanest thing Joy had ever done. Actually, this marriage wasn’t all that sane, either.

  She shook her head. She’d been thinking the most ridiculous thoughts all morning. It was probably her mind’s defense system, taking her away from what was bothering her.

  She looked at Gabriel’s stern face and ached to reach out and caress it, but she wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Not yet. She couldn’t touch him because it would lead to more touching . . . a kind of touching she couldn’t have until he loved her.

  And he would love her. The fairies had promised her her own true love and she wasn’t settling for anything less than that. They weren’t off the hook until he said the words.

  “Yes,” she said, smiling at him. She might not have Trudi’s tall, willowy looks, but he liked her.

  “He’ll love you, honey. How could he not?” Blossom asked in her ear.

  Joy wished she could ask the fairy if she was sure, but didn’t want to appear any more sanity challenged than she already did.

  “Is that a Yes, I have an answer, or is it a Yes, I’ll marry you?” Gabriel asked, exasperation in his voice.

  “Yes, I’ll marry you.” She forced her mind from Gerry Terry’s name, from fairies, and from the problem of how to make Gabriel love her and tried to pay attention to the ceremony.

  “I do is the traditional response,” Gerry Terry scolded.

  “Yes, I do take you to be my husband,” she said. And yes, some day Gabriel would love her, she added silently.

  “Then I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss the bride.”

  “Kiss her, Daddy,” Sophie cheered.

  “Joy?” Gabriel asked, aware of the fact Joy had avoided him as much as possible during the last week. He’d railroaded her into this marriage—he knew that. He’d been afraid she’d change her mind, and then where would Sophie be? And of course it was Sophie he was worried about. “Do you mind if I kiss you?”

  Joy seemed to
be considering her answer. Maybe the marriage was wrong. It wasn’t the first time he’d had the thought. Gabriel had even thought of telling Joy to forget it, to go back to her life. But every time he tried to get the words out, she’d smile or laugh, and he knew that no matter how selfish it was, he was going to marry Joy Aaronson. No, St. John.

  Joy St. John. He liked the sound.

  Shyly, she nodded and stepped into his embrace. Afraid of scaring her, Gabriel moved slowly, tenderly fitting his lips to hers with an ease he’d never known with any other woman. It amazed him how well they fit together, and if Joy would quit insisting on her own room, he was sure they’d fit as well in bed.

  One way or another, he was going to convince her. As the kiss deepened and flames of passion lit inside him, Gabriel realized he’d better get that convincing done soon. “Wow,” he murmured.

  “Wow yourself,” she said with a smile.

  “We’re going to be good together. I swear it Joy.”

  She gave him a funny look. “I think there’s a chance that we will be, eventually.”

  “Eventually?”

  She nodded, looking at him seriously. “Eventually.”

  Gabriel dealt with the judge and then joined his wife and daughter. His wife. It felt right. More right than anything he could remember.

  “Well, ladies, how about a celebratory lunch?” he asked, anxious to take his newly formed family out on the town.

  Sophie shook her head, her hair creating a red wave against her blue dress. “I can’t, Daddy. I have plans.”

  “Plans?” He had planned on them being a family this weekend and had hoped Sophie would prove to be a buffer from any awkward feelings that surfaced. Maybe it was cowardly, but all was fair in love—marriage, he corrected himself—and war. “I don’t remember hearing about any plans.”

  “Grace called this morning and asked Sophie to spend the night.” Joy said. “I’m sorry, I should have mentioned it.”

  “CheChe’s lonely and Uncle Max and Aunt Grace—” Sophie stopped short. “I can call them that now, can’t I?”

  Seeing his daughter holding Joy’s hand twisted something in Gabriel’s chest.

  “Sure can, sweetie.” Joy turned to Gabriel. “I hope you don’t mind, but when they called this morning I just said yes without thinking.”

  Gabriel wasn’t pleased, but as he looked into his daughter’s chestnut eyes, he knew he didn’t have much choice. “Sure. No problem.”

  Joy knelt down and hugged Sophie. “I had to tell my family, and I guess Max and Grace are as good a place to start as any. They’ll be surprised.”

  She looked up at Gabriel and gave him a look that said that surprised wasn’t the emotion she was worried about.

  Sophie giggled. “Yep. Can I tell them?”

  “If you like.” Joy turned to Gabriel. “I would have preferred keeping it to ourselves a while longer, but I don’t think that’s going to be possible.”

  “And just when did you want to tell your family, Joy? You didn’t want them at the ceremony, didn’t want any celebration of our wedding. Why?” Thankfully Sophie was skipping ahead of them towards the car.

  “You know why,” she whispered.

  “Why don’t you tell me why?”

  “Gabriel, we’ve been through this. What we have isn’t a real marriage, just a sort of business agreement. I wouldn’t feel right having a big celebration, or even marrying in a church.”

  He was silent after that, not because he didn’t know what to say. He knew just what he planned to say and just what he planned to do about his wife—his wife. She might not think this was a real marriage, but she was about to find out just how real it was.

  He might not know his new brother-in-law and his wife, but Gabriel already owed them. With Sophie spending the night, he could begin trying to convince Joy that what they had was more than a marriage of convenience.

  “MAX! GRACE!” SOPHIE squealed as she shot from the car the moment it stopped.

  Joy saw her brother and his wife come out onto the porch. Her stomach fluttered. Marrying Gabriel was one thing—telling her family about it was another thing entirely.

  Well, Max would just have to get over being annoyed, since his wife had created the fairies who had started the whole thing.

  When Max approached, he swept Joy into a bear hug. “Are you going to introduce me to your friend?”

  “Her husband,” Gabriel corrected.

  Joy pulled away from Max’s embrace and glared at her husband. “Gabriel,” she said, censure in her voice.

  “Husband?” Max asked, his stance reminiscent of a long-ago knight’s as he stood ready to rush to the defense of the poor and helpless. The only problem was Joy wasn’t a poor, defenseless heroine in need of rescuing.

  “Husband, as of an hour ago,” Gabriel added.

  “And you didn’t see fit to invite any of your family, or at least inform us you were getting married?” Max said, turning on his sister.

  “It was a private thing. We wanted to keep it that way.” The problem with having a brother was they never believed a sister could take care of herself. Having two was even worse.

  “You wanted to keep it that way,” Gabriel, her ever helpful husband, offered.

  “You didn’t want us there?” Max asked.

  Joy spotted Grace walking down the drive, CheChe on her hip and Sophie clinging to her hand. “Help,” she shouted, happy to have reinforcements.

  Grace smiled. “Help with what?”

  “Help calm my brother who seems to think he must defend my honor.”

  “Leave her honor alone,” Grace said helpfully.

  “She just got married and didn’t see fit to invite us,” Max informed his wife. “She wanted to keep it private.” He sneered the last word, telling everyone just what he thought of Joy’s privacy.

  “If you’ll recall, we didn’t invite her to our wedding,” Grace reminded him.

  “That was different.”

  “Yes, it was.” A secret smile passed between the two of them, and Joy felt a pang of envy. That’s what she wanted with Gabriel. Secret smiles and small codes no one else could understand. She wanted the relationship her brother had found with Grace. Like her mother and father had as well.

  “It’s just everything happened so quickly, we decided to keep it between us. Maybe we’ll have a huge party to celebrate and invite the whole family.”

  Max looked slightly appeased and Grace hugged her. “Now, I’m so glad we invited Sophie to spend the weekend. Those tickets to the Ice Capades couldn’t have come at a better time. You and Gabriel can go celebrate—” Max frowned at the word, but Grace just went on talking, “And enjoy a small honeymoon.”

  “Are you going on a real honeymoon?” Max asked Gabriel.

  “As soon as Joy gets her business settled and things are back to normal, I thought the two of us would sneak away.”

  “Yeah, the two of you are awfully good at sneaking off,” Max muttered.

  “Max!” Joy and Grace scolded at the same instant.

  “Can I call you Uncle Max now?” Sophie asked, obliviously unaware of any friction among the adults.

  “I can’t think of anything I’d like better, sweetheart,” Max said, scooping Sophie into his arms and pulling one of her braids. “I’ve always wanted a niece, and I can’t think of any little girl I’d rather have fill the position.”

  He turned towards Joy and glared. “Well, you two should take off. We won’t expect you until late Sunday.”

  “Max, thanks,” Joy said, hugging him in an attempt to mollify him. “Would you mind holding off saying anything to Nick, or Mom and Dad? I’ll call them next week.”

  He just nodded and started off towards the house, Sophie still in his arms. Grace juggled CheChe to one side
and gave Gabriel a hug. “Welcome to the family, Gabriel. It’s sometimes a bit crazy, but I think you’re going to fit in just fine.”

  “Are you saying that marrying Joy is going to make me as nuts as the rest of you are?” he asked, a hint of a smile playing across his face.

  “I can almost guarantee it,” Grace said with a wink. She waved and followed her husband and Sophie.

  “Well,” Joy said. “That went better than I’d hoped.”

  “That was better?” Gabriel asked, opening the car door and ushering her inside.

  “Oh, much better. Max is prone to analyzing things to death. I was afraid he’d want us to go inside and have a seat on the couch while he tried to figure out why we didn’t want to share our wedding with the family.”

  “And why didn’t we?” Gabriel asked, as he took his seat behind the steering wheel.

  “You know why we didn’t. It’s not as if this is a love match and we want them to share our joy. This is a business arrangement, and it seemed wrong to invite them to what amounted to our signing of the contract.”

  She sank back into her seat, wishing it had been different. Gabriel tore from the driveway, and a heavy silence filled the car as they made their way home.

  “GABRIEL, DO YOU mind if I put my grandmother’s china cupboard in the dining room?” Joy called. Spending her honeymoon night unpacking her things wasn’t what Joy had always dreamed of, but nothing about this wedding day had been part of any of her dreams.

  “I said, do whatever you want,” came Gabriel’s surly reply.

  “I don’t think this marriage is starting off on solid footing,” she muttered.

  Blossom appeared on the other side of the box Joy was unpacking. “I don’t think he liked you calling this marriage a business arrangement, or insisting on separate bedrooms.”

  “But that’s what it is.” Joy’s things had been shipped to Gabriel’s. Unpacking seemed preferable to brooding about a marriage that wasn’t real.