by Brenda Novak
“I’m glad you’re on board for the ride,” he admitted. “And I’m glad my favorite nephew has fallen in love again.”
“We all love her,” Sydney announced, hugging her legs. Brittney stood a few feet away, smiling shyly.
Chantel lifted Sydney’s chin so she could see into her eyes. Then she reached out for Brittney. When her small hand slipped inside Chantel’s, Chantel squatted down to the girls’ level and said, “And I love all of you. We’re going to be happy together, aren’t we?”
They nodded and hugged her, and Dillon’s mother began to cry. “Everyone’s waiting,” she said, sounding impatient with her own emotions. “We’d better get started.”
Karen disappeared and Dave smiled reassuringly at Chantel as Monica and Janet arrived to take their places. Then the music changed to the wedding march, and Chantel slid her hand through the crook of Dave’s arm.
“Here we go,” he murmured. “Don’t be nervous.”
He might as well have told her not to breathe. Chantel braced herself and they set off, with Monica, Janet, Brittney and Sydney following.
Even though Chantel had seen almost all the guests as they came in, she couldn’t stop herself from looking for Stacy. She gazed down the rows of pews and searched each face, but mostly strangers gazed back, smiling.
Sadness filled Chantel’s heart, but she forced herself to smile, too. She was getting married. She should be thrilled, she told herself, and she was, once she glanced up and saw Dillon waiting at the altar. He looked even better than Chantel had envisioned. His black tux fit perfectly. His hair had been trimmed and combed back from his face but still curled just a bit in back and around the ears. And the dimples Chantel loved so much deepened as he watched her walk toward him. He had to be the handsomest man in the world, she thought. She already knew he was the kindest.
She gave him a tremulous smile, but then the door opened and closed, stealing Dillon’s attention away from her.
Something made his eyes sparkle. What was it? Chantel was tempted to see for herself, but everyone was watching her little procession, and she didn’t want to trip on her heels and take her bridesmaids down like dominos.
Dave stopped and put Chantel’s hand in Dillon’s, but Dillon was still looking beyond her.
“What is it?” she whispered.
“A wonderful surprise,” he said, turning her around as soon as her bridesmaids had taken their places.
Chantel scanned the pews again, until she saw what Dillon saw. Stacy, sitting in the back row.
Tears burned behind Chantel’s eyes and clogged her throat. Even though the minister, Dillon’s family and the entire congregation expected her to do something far different, she let go of Dillon’s hand and rushed back down the aisle to give her sister a fierce hug.
“Thank you for coming,” she whispered.
Stacy pulled back, tears swimming in her own eyes. “You’re my sister,” she said.
“NO. NO CLOTHES,” Dillon protested when Chantel tried to grab her robe off the chair in his bedroom before they headed down to rummage through the kitchen for something to eat. “I love seeing the curve of my baby in your belly.” His hand moved protectively over her abdomen, and he pulled her back against his own nakedness, then breathed in deeply, as though he’d absorb her very essence if he could.
Dillon’s mother had taken the girls for a week so that Dillon and Chantel could honeymoon in Hawaii. But they were spending their first night at home. In fact, Chantel wondered if she wouldn’t be just as happy staying right where she was and never leaving the bedroom. Dillon had massaged every part of her body with his hands, his lips, his tongue. And while he’d been cautious of the baby, he’d proved himself creative enough to give her a spectacular wedding night, in spite of their restrictions. He’d promised her a nice warm bath next, where he’d said he planned to lather her with soap and…
“What are you thinking about? You’re smiling like the cat who swallowed the canary,” he said.
Chantel laughed. “I was thinking about what an incredible lover you are.”
“Oh, yeah?” He nuzzled her neck. “Tell me more. My male ego is eating this up.”
She turned in his arms and pressed her breasts against his chest, then kissed the ridge of his jaw. “Your touch makes me crazy, Dillon Broderick, because you’re such a good man, and you’re so talented with your hands, and because…”
“And because you love me?”
Chantel drew back to look up at him. “You sound as if you’re trying to convince yourself of that.”
“Maybe I am.”
“Why?” It was well past midnight, but Dillon had insisted they leave the light on. He wanted to watch the expressions on his wife’s face when he made love to her, he’d said, and Chantel had enjoyed seeing his expressions just as much. But now she could read doubt flickering in his eyes.
“Maybe I’m afraid you married me for the baby’s sake,” he murmured. “Or maybe I’m just afraid it’s too good to last.”
Chantel wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him into a tight embrace. “You think I might do the same thing to you that Amanda did.”
He didn’t answer for a moment. “We started out happy,” he said at last.
“But you were working and going to school. You were under a lot of stress and you were gone a lot. That can take its toll.”
“But she seemed to grow bored so quickly.”
“I don’t think she really understood what marriage is all about. She still wanted to be young and have no responsibility. And you have to remember that she’s a different person than I am, Dillon.” At that moment Chantel knew it might take him a while before he could express his feelings for her. It was love that had given Amanda the power to hurt and manipulate him. He was fighting against putting himself in the same vulnerable position again. But he did care for her. She knew that much.
“I love you with all my heart,” she whispered, “And I’ll never purposely do anything to make you jealous or to hurt you in any way.”
She felt his arms tighten around her, crushing her to him as he buried his face in her neck. When he finally lifted his head, Chantel could see he was struggling with some deep emotion. Cupping his cheek in her hand, she smiled up at him. “You’ll tell me the same thing someday, when you’re ready. Now let’s go eat!”
She led him from the room, but he didn’t say anything until they reached the kitchen. By then he had his emotions in check and insisted she sit down while he cooked.
They lit a candle, turned off the lights and ate omelets in companionable silence. Afterward Chantel took Dillon’s hand and brushed a kiss across the knuckles. “I have a gift for you,” she said.
He raised his brows. “I don’t think you could give me anything better than what I’ve already got.”
“You’ll like it.” She went to the cupboard and brought back the envelope that held the results of Dillon and Sydney’s blood tests. “The other day, I noticed that this was still here.”
He tensed. “I’ve tried to throw it away several times, but…I can’t. I want to put an end to the wondering.”
“We’re a family, Dillon, a real family. What’s in this doesn’t matter.”
“I know. I think it has more to do with hope, hope that Sydney is mine and that Amanda has nothing to come back with.”
Chantel smiled and started to open the envelope.
“Don’t.” Dillon stopped her. “I don’t think it’s wise. I’ve debated with myself over and over, and while the wondering’s driving me crazy, I think it’s better not to look. Let’s burn it.”
“I said this was a gift, remember?” Chantel touched his cheek.
He didn’t answer. He just watched nervously as she pulled out a letter and a report and handed them both to him. Slowly he took the documents from her outstretched hand and, after a final scrutiny of her face, began to read.
“How did you know?” he asked a few minutes later, looking stunned.
�
�I peeked before you took me home last night. I thought it was worth the chance, and better me than you if things turned out…well, differently from what we hoped. In that case, I planned to carry the secret to my grave.”
“She’s mine,” he said as though he couldn’t believe it. “Despite her dark eyes and her small build, despite that weight-trainer guy in Amanda’s past, she’s mine.”
Chantel’s grin widened at the incredulity and happiness in his voice. “No one can ever take her away from you again.”
“From us,” he corrected. “And that’s the best gift of all.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Four Months Later
Lake Tahoe
“HAVEN’T YOU DONE enough?” Dillon asked, coming up behind Chantel at the cabin’s kitchen table. “You’ve been stuffing envelopes for two hours.” He grinned. “I’m starting to feel neglected.”
Chantel smiled, feeling the same warmth she always felt when Dillon was around. “I’m almost done,” she assured him. “I had to finish. I promised Senator Johnson I’d get these in the mail today. The election’s close and—”
Dillon slipped his arms around Chantel’s bulging middle and kissed her neck. “So is the baby. I don’t want you to overdo it. We shouldn’t even be up here, so far from the hospital.”
“But we had to come and celebrate the first snow.” She put her hands over his and threaded their fingers together, enjoying his clean woodsy smell.
“It was nice of Stacy to take the girls,” he said.
“Are you kidding? She lives for having the kids come.”
“I know, but we should’ve spent the weekend at home. What if you go into labor?”
“I’m not due for nearly three weeks, and I haven’t had any pains. Besides, there’s a hospital in Truckee. I’d rather have Dr. Bradley deliver the baby, but if it’s an emergency—” she shrugged “—we’ll go there.” Affixing a stamp to the last envelope, she added it to the gigantic pile of letters encouraging the voters of the seventh district to support Johnson on election day. “Phew! That’s the last of them.”
She leaned her head back against Dillon. “Did you get the generator started? It’s cold in here.”
“I started the generator and shoveled the walks—”
“So we can go to the post office?”
“No—so we can make a run for it, if we have to. And I built a fire in the living room. Come sit with me. I’ve got water heating for some herbal tea.”
Chantel stood and tried to stretch her aching back. She loved being pregnant and knowing she supported another life inside her, but it was getting harder and harder to work and to move and to sleep. Gaining enough weight had been difficult, too, but Dillon had made sure she’d eaten properly. And he told her she looked great even when she felt like a moose, which led her to believe he loved her as much as she loved him. Not that he’d ever actually said so.
He seated her on the couch, disappeared into the kitchen and returned with two cups. “I like this place,” he said, sitting next to her. “It’s certainly a lot nicer than the cabin Stacy rented last March.”
Chantel smiled. “It’s a lot more expensive, too.” Accepting the cup he handed her, she took a cautious sip, admiring the leaping flames beneath the stone mantel, the gleaming hardwood floors, the rough-hewn furniture. “Someday maybe we can afford to buy a cabin up here.”
Dillon put his arm around her and pulled her closer, and she curled her legs underneath her and relaxed against him. “We’ll build one. I’ll design it.”
“That would be great. We could bring the kids up whenever we wanted.” Her head resting in the hollow of his shoulder, she gazed out the window at the softly falling snow. “Even if I live to be a hundred, whenever I see snow I’ll remember the night we met, how you risked your life to save me.”
He chuckled. “And I’ll remember how you wrecked my new Landcruiser.”
She elbowed him in the stomach. “Here I am, being romantic, and you have to bring that up. Besides, that accident was your fault. If you hadn’t slammed on your brakes all of a sudden—”
“You mean, if you hadn’t been tailgating me all the way from Auburn—”
“Then we never would’ve met.”
“And I would have missed the love of my life,” he finished.
For a moment what he’d said didn’t quite register. When it did, Chantel twisted around to see his face. “Are you trying to tell me something?” she asked, holding her breath and hoping he’d finally grown to trust her enough to talk about his feelings.
“Something that’s been true since that very first night,” he admitted. “I love you, Chantel. I always have. I always will.”
And then he gave her a kiss that told her just how much.
EPILOGUE
Six Months Later
STACY STOOD in the hospital nursery, gazing at the five newborns who had entered the world during the past twenty-four hours. They were small and shriveled, not much to look at, really, but they smelled sweet and they were so innocent, so dependent. Her heart ached to think she might never have one of her own.
She’d had a birthday since Chantel’s wedding and was now thirty-three. She’d hoped to have several children by now. But it was Chantel who was busy raising a family. Grant David Broderick had arrived two weeks premature, weighing only five pounds, ten ounces, but he’d survived and now, at six months, was thriving. Chantel and Dillon doted on him and their girls almost as much as they doted on each other. And Stacy had to admit that she thought the baby was pretty special, too, although it was Brittney and Sydney she’d grown close to over the past few months. They came to stay with her once a week, or as often as Dillon and Chantel could bear to part with them.
“Incredible, aren’t they?” A man stood at the entrance to the nursery, wearing blue jeans, a golf shirt and a baseball cap.
Stacy nodded, wondering which baby belonged to this handsome father. She hadn’t seen him during the night when she’d helped two mothers go through labor and delivery. She figured he must be with one of the three women assigned to the other nurse.
“Which one’s the Hansen baby?” he asked.
Stacy navigated through the jumble of rolling cradles to a big boy who weighed almost ten pounds. “Here he is,” she said, wheeling the sleeping bundle toward the door. She automatically checked the man’s wrist for the band that would identify him as the baby’s father, but found none, so she kept her hands on the cradle and stopped several feet away. “Are you a member of the family?”
He was staring at the baby, looking awed. A crooked grin appeared on a face badly in need of a razor. He’d probably been at the hospital most of the night and hadn’t gone home yet to shave. “His father’s in the military and couldn’t be here. I’m just standing in. I’m his uncle.”
“Well, he’s a big healthy boy. I’m sure his father will be proud.”
The man nodded. “Any chance I can take him to my sister? She’d like to feed him.”
“I can’t let you take him without a wristband. But we can go together, if you like.”
“That’s fine.”
As he led the way to room 305, Stacy couldn’t help noticing his straight back, broad shoulders and tight behind. It’d been a long time since she’d met someone who’d started her heart pumping so furiously, but this man was definitely attractive. And she loved his attitude toward the baby. Was he married? She caught a glimpse of his ring finger, but didn’t see a wedding band.
He waited at the door while she pushed the cradle inside. Then he went to his sister’s bed and praised the newborn extravagantly as Stacy helped nestle him in his mother’s arms.
“It’s no wonder we thought you were having twins,” he told his sister. “This guy’s half-grown.”
Mrs. Hansen was no china doll. Somewhere close to five-ten she had a sturdy frame and looked almost as big as her brother, although he had her beat by a few inches in height. They both had dark hair, hazel eyes and smile lines bracketing t
heir mouths. Stacy imagined they laughed a lot.
“Just hit the call button when you want me to come back for him,” she said.
“Oh, wait. Would you mind taking a picture of us?” the woman asked.
“Not at all.” Stacy listened to the quick instructions Mrs. Hansen rattled off, then admired the woman’s brother through the lens of the camera. What a gorgeous man! She pressed the shutter release, heard a soft click and whir, then asked if they wanted another one.
“Get Rand holding Jeremy this time,” Mrs. Hansen suggested.
Suddenly looking ill at ease, her brother picked up the baby, but held him in an awkward position, away from his body.
Stacy chuckled and moved to show him how to cradle the newborn in the crook of one arm. “You must not have any children of your own,” she said.
“Not yet.”
“Do you and your wife live in the area?”
His sister’s lips curved into a smile. “I don’t know, Rand, but I think that might be Nurse—” she leaned forward to read Stacy’s badge “—Miller’s way of asking if you’re married.”
Stacy felt herself blush at being so easily found out, and stepped away to hide behind the camera again. After she’d taken another picture, Rand said, “Don’t mind my sister. She loves to put people on the spot.”
Stacy set the camera on the table. “I guess I was being a little obvious,” she admitted, then tried to bolt before Mrs. Hansen could embarrass her again. But the other woman’s voice followed her out. “Rand’s not married, by the way.”
“Ugh, I’m an idiot!” she groaned, and raced for the nurses’ station, where she slumped into the seat behind the desk. “Why didn’t I just come right out and ask for his number?”
“That probably wouldn’t have been a bad idea.”
Stacy stopped pounding her forehead against her palm long enough to look up. Rand had followed her. “Oh, God. It gets worse.”
He laughed, the sound deep and rich and appealing. “But just for the sake of tradition, why don’t you give me yours?”
