Marriage Under the Mistletoe

by Helen Lacey

  “I’ve enjoyed having you here,” Evie said. “And thank you for...well, you know.” She reached out and hugged the elderly woman.

  “So stop being a damned fool and take what’s in front of you,” Flora said into her ear.

  He’s not mine to take...

  And knowing that hurt her so much she could barely breathe.

  * * *

  The end of January and all of February were unusually quiet for the B and B. But having only one guest gave Evie an opportunity to get stuck into some necessary cleaning and repair work. She hired a handyman to replace window hinges that had corroded from the salt in the air, a requirement when the ocean was at the doorstep, and set about to do some of the minor painting and yard work by herself.

  She went on a date with the schoolteacher, experienced not a single bit of whoosh and decided to forget about dating for the next couple of decades.

  Summer had arrived with a vengeance. The days were hot, the nights long and balmy. Trevor had gone north to visit Gordon’s parents, and without him the big house seemed empty.

  To make things worse she caught some kind of bug and was laid up in bed for a few days. Afterward, once the nausea abated, she still couldn’t kick the fatigue, and her plans to spend long afternoons in the garden, pruning hedges and repotting geraniums around the wishing well, took a backseat to her sudden need to take a nap almost every afternoon.

  And then three weeks after he’d returned to Los Angeles, Evie got an email from Scott. It wasn’t particularly personal, just a few short lines asking how she was, and he mentioned that he’d returned to work. After dwelling on it for two days, she wrote back.

  January 23

  Pleased that you’ve settled back into your routine. It’s quiet around here at the moment, without any guests and Trevor’s away. Take care, Evie.

  Twenty-four hours later he sent one back.

  January 24

  Trev emailed me a few days ago and said he was heading off to his grandparents’. He also said you’d been sick. Are you okay now? Scott.

  Evie hadn’t realized her son was communicating with Scott. But she wasn’t surprised. Trevor was addicted to his computer and had genuinely liked Scott. And Evie had to admit, Scott had been generous with his time in regard to her son. She wrote back a few hours later.

  January 24

  I’m fine, just the summer flu. Lucky you left when you did or you might have caught my germs. Evie.

  January 25

  I could think of worse things.

  It continued like that for a week. Emails about nothing in particular. Nothing important. He asked how she was doing; she said she was fine. She inquired about his work; he said it was okay. But beneath the surface, something simmered...a kind of tension filled with words unsaid. Finally, on the seventh day, he sent her a message she obsessed over for three days.

  February 1

  I’ve been thinking, Evie...and I regret the way things ended between us. I’d like to think we can be friends. Scott.

  Friends? Evie wasn’t so sure she had the fortitude it would take to remain friends with a man she’d known only as her lover. A man she had fallen in love with and whom she could never have. Between the years that divided them and the career he’d chosen, their differences seemed impossible to overcome now that an ocean lay between them. But he was Callie’s brother. He was family. And family was important.

  So she garnered her resolve and replied.

  February 4

  I agree. And I’ve been thinking too. I overreacted that afternoon. And I’m sorry we didn’t really get to say goodbye. Evie.

  February 5

  Me too. But I’m not sure I could have managed to say goodbye to you.

  After that, the emails they exchanged became friendlier and she found herself sharing stories about what was happening in Crystal Point, about her guests who had just arrived and the slow progress being made renovating the surf club. In turn, he told her about his close circle of friends and how the football team he supported was doing and what he’d been creating in the kitchen. He asked if she’d been painting and she admitted that she had been spending time in the studio.

  She slept a lot, sometimes in the guest room where she’d spent her magical moments with Scott. She lay on the bed and hugged a pillow, imagining the sheets still had the scent of him in them. But she didn’t cry—despite feeling so emotional and wrung out. By the end of February the nausea returned and she began to wonder if something was seriously wrong. Trevor noticed it, too.

  “You’re sick again?” he asked one afternoon when he loped through the door after school.

  Evie shrugged and sat down wearily. “I’m just tired.”

  Trevor grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl and placed it in front of her. “And you’re hardly eating.”

  That wasn’t exactly true. She did eat. Dry toast and crackers seemed to have become her staple diet to combat the wretched nausea. And she was so tired that eating huge meals seemed like way too much effort.

  She grabbed the apple and smiled. “I eat,” she said, and to prove her point took a tiny bite. “See.”

  “You’ve been like this for a month or so. Maybe you should see a doctor?”

  Evie looked at her son. A month? Had it been that long? But what would a doctor tell her—to drink fluids and rest? Wasn’t that the usual remedy for the flu?

  Only, the more she considered it, the less like a flu it seemed. Besides the nausea and fatigue, she didn’t feel sick. She felt...like...like...

  Evie dropped the apple and quickly excused herself. She headed for her bedroom and grabbed the desk diary in her bedside drawer. She looked at the calendar pages with urgent fingers. The empty pages stared back at her.

  I missed my period.

  Not once, but twice. How did I not notice that?

  Oh...God...could it be true? Could I be pregnant with Scott’s baby? She did the calculation in her head and worked out the weeks. She remembered the time they’d made love without protection. She dropped the diary and placed her hands on her abdomen. A baby? Tears pitched behind her eyes and she shook herself. There was no point in imagining what a baby would mean to her before she had proof.

  She took about ten minutes to change her clothes and grab the keys to her Honda. The trip into town was forty-five minutes there and back, with a quick stop at a pharmacy to purchase an over-the-counter pregnancy test.

  She took the test and waited. Three of the longest minutes of her life. Once the time was up, Evie stared at the strip. Two blue lines. She sat on the edge of the bathtub.

  Oh, sweet heaven...

  “I’m pregnant.” She said it out loud. “Oh, my God, I’m pregnant.”

  I’m having Scott’s baby...

  Joy and fear mixed together and created a vortex of feelings inside her so intense she stood no chance of stopping the tears. So Evie let them come. When it was over she felt better, stronger somehow, to deal with the inevitable fallout when news of her pregnancy came out. Because it would come out. Another month or so and she’d be showing. Her family would ask questions, they’d speculate and she knew it wouldn’t be long before they worked it out.

  And Scott had a right to know he was about to become a father before the rest of the world did. Only...she wasn’t sure how to do it.

  Over the following days she picked up the telephone a dozen times and started emails she didn’t send. But how did she tell him something like that? Especially when their fledgling relationship was over and all that remained was a courteous, forced friendship held together because they were now obscurely related by the marriage of their siblings.

  So, as the days morphed into a week, and then another, her courage dwindled. Evie knew she was living in a vacuum of borrowed time. Trevor kept asking her what was wrong. So did her mother and Noah.

  Physically she felt good. The nausea was gone, and her appetite had resumed with a vengeance. She remembered her wanton addiction to toffee ice cream when she’d been pregnan
t with Trevor, and this time appeared to be no different. She had her first appointment with her obstetrician and scheduled a time to have her first ultrasound the following month.

  And still she didn’t tell Scott. In fact, she’d been so preoccupied with not telling him, she hadn’t responded to any of his emails for a couple of weeks.

  In March she received another email.

  March 15

  I haven’t heard from you lately. Is everything okay? Scott.

  Evie stared at the computer screen and fought the urge to hit the delete button. But she didn’t.

  March 24

  I’m fine.

  March 25

  Trevor said you’ve been sick again? I’m worried about you. What’s wrong?

  She deliberated for an hour. But she knew it was time for the truth. He had rights and she had an obligation to tell him what was happening. They’d both made love that night, and her resulting pregnancy was a shared responsibility. Whatever Scott chose to do with the information was up to him. All Evie knew was that she wanted the baby. She wanted this precious gift more than she’d ever dared imagine. She took a deep breath and wrote.

  March 26

  I’m pregnant.

  Chapter Twelve

  Scott wandered around his apartment that night, barefoot, in jeans and a worn T-shirt; he walked from room to room, trying to soothe the crushing ache behind his ribs.

  A baby...

  Evie was having his baby. But he felt as if he’d been punched in the gut. That she would tell him like that...it seemed so outrageously callous he could barely get his head around it. And Evie wasn’t callous. Of course, he knew she was notoriously hardheaded about some things...but he couldn’t believe she would send an email containing two words and think that was adequate.

  Scott headed for the kitchen and grabbed a beer from the refrigerator.

  His head felt as if it were about to explode. He gulped some beer, winced as the cold liquid froze his brain for a few seconds and tried his best to be as mad as hell at Evie.

  But no use. He’d spent months in a kind of dazed limbo—missing her, wanting her so much he couldn’t think about anything else. He’d gone back to work and gone through the motions, determined to keep his head because he knew what the consequences could be if he let the distraction take hold of him.

  But the nights were impossible. He hurt all over just thinking about Evie.

  I’m going to be a father.

  And he didn’t quite know what he felt. Shock, definitely. And fear. And the absolute certainty that he wanted to share this child with Evie. And not just as a distant, absent parent. But how could it work? His life was in L.A....Evie’s was in Crystal Point.

  He dropped his half-empty bottle into the trash and walked back into the living room. The laptop still sat on the coffee table in the center of the room. He should call her. Scott picked up the telephone, thinking of her number that he couldn’t remember memorizing but somehow had. The telephone stuck to his hand. What would he say—Thanks for the news...let me know when our kid arrives? Yeah, as if that was gonna happen.

  The doorbell rang and he shook himself. A few seconds later three of his friends piled into his apartment, carrying six-packs of Bud and pizza boxes.

  “The game’s on, remember?” Clint Dawson reminded him as he stood as if he were a statue and let them pass. “And you’re the one with the big flat screen.”

  The game? Flat screen? Right...he vaguely remembered agreeing to an evening in with his friends, sharing the tab for takeout and watching the game on TV.

  He shut the door and watched Clint, and then Marcus Crane, drop into the pair of recliners that had prime position in front of the flat screen. Gabe Vitali, his first cousin and closest friend, was the only one of the trio who thought to ask him if he was all right. Scott only shrugged, thinking the last thing he wanted was a night in with his friends. He wanted to get his thoughts together. He wanted to speak with Evie, to hear her voice, to tell her what he felt...

  Which was what, exactly?

  The constant ache in his chest, the lack of pleasure he got from doing anything, the almost robotic way he’d been living since he left her...what did that mean? And what they’d had together felt like more than he’d experienced before...more feeling...more passion...more everything.

  He looked at his friends—newly divorced Clint, commitment-phobic Marcus and his cousin, whose fiancée had run off the year Gabe had been diagnosed with a serious illness. What did any of them have beyond the job and an apartment? Scott felt the meaninglessness of his existence through to the marrow in his bones.

  And now Evie was having his baby. He wanted to shout it to the world. The shock had dissipated and was replaced by a sense of calm so acute it felt almost euphoric. Suddenly, like a shard of glass striking through his blood, Scott knew what he wanted.

  Everything. Evie—the baby—a life scratching at his fingertips.

  He wanted Evie. He wanted their baby. Nothing else mattered.

  He stalked across the room and grabbed the remote, then flicked off the TV and turned to face his startled friends.

  “I’m in love,” he announced, watching as three broad jaws dropped. “And I’m going to be a dad.”

  * * *

  Evie covered herself in the baggiest smock she could find, hiding itself in the archives of her old maternity wardrobe. At four months along she was really beginning to show. For the past few weeks she had managed to avoid too many interactions with her family and friends—but she knew she couldn’t keep up the pretense forever. Especially to Trevor. Being a hermit would last only so long. Her mother wouldn’t be held at bay for too much longer. Grace was calling her every few days. And Fiona was doing what friends do by trying to leech the truth from her. Her family would come around, mob fashion if need be, and she had to be prepared for the onslaught. They would mean well, but they would also demand answers to questions she was not prepared to consider.

  Okay, so her pregnancy would be revealing itself to the world soon. But she had no intention of admitting anything about her baby’s paternity until she spoke to Scott again. And he hadn’t communicated with her at all.

  Too apprehensive to email him again, or call, she caged herself into her house like a hibernating bear. And as the cold fingers of doubt climbed over every inch of skin with each passing day, Evie convinced herself that telling Scott about the baby was the worst thing she could have done.

  He obviously doesn’t care one way or another. And it hurt. It hurt so much she could barely stand thinking about it. And it wasn’t that she had any kind of expectations—she simply couldn’t believe he’d drop contact altogether.

  So she was to be a single mother. Wasn’t that what she’d planned anyway? From the moment she’d discovered she was pregnant, Evie had known she would be going it alone. And she was fine with that. Perfectly fine. She’d been a single mother for ten years, after all.

  Only...she remembered those first precious moments when Trevor was born...she remembered the look in Gordon’s eyes, the tears of pride and wonderment toward the new and perfect life they had created together. Evie instinctively placed her hands on her growing belly, and a hot surge of love washed over her. I’ll love you, she promised her baby. I’ll love you and keep you safe.

  Without Scott. Besides, he was only her temporary lover and someone she shouldn’t have fallen in love with. The fact that she had was her burden to bear. He’d broken no promises to her. He was too young...too much the kind of man she didn’t want in her life and a risk she could never take. Especially now that she had a new baby to consider.

  She would get on with her life, as she had always done. And once her family knew, she was certain they would support her decision to raise her child alone. Besides, nothing could dampen her joy at being pregnant. She was happy.

  It was three days later that the downstairs doorbell woke her up from her usual afternoon nap. Evie checked her watch and clambered off the bed. Two o’clock.
She remembered that Noah was coming around to hang a few of her paintings in the downstairs living room. To be really painting again had been a surprise—but strangely, her passion had returned with a vengeance. She had finished a few pieces she’d started years before, ever mindful of the small crystal globe and Saint Catherine watching over her from its spot on a shelf near her easels.

  And maybe she would tell her brother about the pregnancy. She’d always been able to share things with Noah. They’d been there for one another over the years—when his wife had walked out on him and the kids, when Gordon had died, when Trevor had needed a father’s influence. Evie trusted her brother with her news.

  Evie reached the door and flung it back wide on its hinges. “You’re two hours early,” she complained with a laugh as she flipped open the security screen. “And you interrupted my afternoon—”

  She stopped and caught her words in her throat. It wasn’t her brother standing on her doorstep. It was the father of her baby.

  Scott’s gaze dropped instantly to her belly. He lingered there for a moment and she heard him suck in a sharp breath. “Hello, Evie.”

  She took a step backward. “What are you doing here?”

  “You really have to ask that?” he replied as he met her eyes. “I want to talk to you.”

  Evie absorbed everything about him in a second—the jeans and cotton Henley he wore so well, the duffel at his feet, the way his hair flopped over his forehead, the travel-weary look on his face. Her insides lurched and she instinctively laid her hands on her stomach. “I...I—”