by Eve Gaddy
“I’m not.” Picking up a corner of the sheet, she dabbed at her eyes.
“Then what’s that moisture leaking out of your eyes and dripping down your cheeks?”
She shook her head again. “It’s nothing.” She slid her arms around him and kissed him.
She tasted of tears and sorrow. He pulled back and searched her eyes, trying to understand her reaction.
“Wyatt, I love you, too.”
“Then why—”
She cut him off with her fingers to his lips. “Just kiss me. Kiss me and love me and we’ll be happy.”
And though she didn’t say the words, he heard them all the same. For now.
Chapter Fourteen
I love you, Mia.
Wyatt loved her. He loved her and she loved him and she wanted to cry whenever she thought about it. How had she managed to screw things up so badly?
Well, for starters, you lied.
But she’d planned to tell him. She’d started looking at flights. If she hadn’t had the miscarriage she would have flown out to see him and told him. But she doubted Wyatt would believe that. Still what good would it have done to tell him? To make him suffer the loss of another child, a child who really had been his?
Whatever way she thought about it, she always came back to the fact that Wyatt trusted her to tell him the truth. What would happen when she told him she’d broken that trust? Months ago and every day since?
It would hurt him. More than the disaster with Loretta had hurt him. Wyatt and she had known each other so long, been friends for so long that losing each other would leave a huge hole in each of their lives. Would he hate her? Probably not. He was too good a person for that. But he’d be done with her.
Someone knocked on her door. Mia set her paintbrush down and glanced at the painting she’d been trying to work on. Maybe she should just leave it as is.
“Come in,” she called out.
Glory peeked in. “Do you want some lunch, Mia? I made one of your favorites, club sandwiches and potato salad. You haven’t been eating so well the last few days. Are you feeling all right?”
Mia’s eyes began to water and she willed away tears. Glory was worried about her. She wanted to feed her. Which meant Glory thought of her as family. “Thank you, Glory. I’ll be down after I wash up.”
“Do you mind if I look at your painting?”
“No, of course not. I’m going to clean up.”
When Mia came out of the bathroom, Glory was still gazing at the painting with a thoughtful expression. “Is it something you want to talk about?” Glory asked.
“Talk about?”
She gestured at the painting. “It’s beautiful, but it’s dark. A lot darker than the others you’ve painted since you’ve been here.”
Mia looked at it, realizing Glory was exactly right. It was a landscape of the waterfall Wyatt had shown her the first full day here. But it was totally different than the first one she’d done of the same place. The contrast was stark. Whereas the first one was blue sky, white snow, a beautiful creek flowing through it and the hawk diving for its meal, the one she’d been working on couldn’t be called anything but grim. The sky was a dark and threatening gray, warning of a coming storm. The snow was gray as well, dirty, and muddy, as if the beauty had melted away. Even the brook looked sad, choked with leaves and debris, the waterfall slowed to a trickle.
“I—” She broke off, unable to think of a thing to say. Tears pricked at her eyes. Glory was looking at her with such understanding and compassion, her tears overflowed and ran down her cheeks.
“Damn it! Don’t mind me, I’m just emotional today.”
“Would you like a shoulder?”
Mia started to say no, but instead she nodded and walked into Glory’s arms. And cried. Glory held her, patted her back, and murmured words of comfort.
What was wrong with her? She rarely cried, and never in front of people. Until she came to Marietta. First Wyatt, now Glory.
“I’ve made a huge mess of things,” Mia said when she could speak.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
She nodded, pulling back and wiping her eyes. “I want to. But I can’t. Not until later.” After she’d told Wyatt. After Christmas. When she couldn’t put it off any longer.
“Sometimes the anticipation is worse than the actuality. Maybe it’s not as bad as you think.”
“Oh, it is.” She wiped at her eyes, glad she wasn’t wearing any makeup. “It’s probably worse.”
“You go on and wash your face and come to lunch. You need to eat. You’ll feel better once you do.”
“Glory,” Mia said as the older woman started to open the door. “Thank you.”
“Any time, sweetie.”
Glory didn’t have children but she was the most maternal woman Mia had been around since her mother died. She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed a mother’s touch.
Thank God, Wyatt was at work. She needed to pull herself together. Hold it together for a few days. Until after Christmas.
Sean and Honey’s wedding day dawned crisp and cold. The sky was a clear Montana big sky blue and made the snow on the ground look impossibly white. Much to his three brothers’ amusement, Sean was nervous.
The groom was sure as hell not hungover. They’d held Sean’s bachelor party last night at Grey’s Saloon, in the back of the main floor, near the pool tables. No strippers—not that Wyatt had been to a bachelor party with strippers in years, anyway. There wasn’t much liquor, everyone mostly drank beer. There was a little bit of food and basically nothing to do but play pool and shoot the breeze.
Besides Sean and his brothers, Honey’s brothers, Mick and Kevin Jordan, were there. A few old friends of Sean’s and several new ones from the hospital came. And that was it. Jack left first, claiming he needed to get home because of the baby. Almost everyone else either had to work the next day or had some reason they couldn’t stay and party. As for the guest of honor, he mostly sat around in a daydream, probably thinking about ten days alone with Honey.
Wyatt couldn’t blame him.
Would it be a mistake asking Mia to marry him so soon after they had become lovers? She’d said she loved him. Besides, they’d known each other for years, even if they’d only become lovers recently. Something, though, was nagging at him. Why the crying? Mia wasn’t a crier. The first time he’d seen her cry in all the time he’d known her had been when she told him about her parents. Yet she seemed almost sad whenever she told him she loved him. That didn’t make sense to him.
Today was Sean’s and Honey’s day, so Wyatt put those thoughts out of his mind and concentrated on making sure the groom’s part of the wedding went off without a hitch.
The men were gathered in the downstairs library. It wasn’t a fancy library. Just a comfortable room with wood floors and tall, built-in bookshelves. There was a fireplace with a couple of leather couches and chairs grouped in front of it, and a massive dark wood coffee table. Over by the window, facing the front lawn, was another leather chair, clearly well worn, a floor lamp and a small table. Wyatt remembered his father sitting in that chair, reading the local newspaper.
Sean stood by the unlit fireplace, tugging on his tie and checking the time every few minutes. “Do you have the rings, Dylan?” Sean asked. “I gave them to you, didn’t I?”
Dylan looked blank. “I thought Wyatt was in charge of them. You didn’t give them to me.”
Sean turned white, then red. Before he busted a gut, Wyatt stepped in. “He’s jerking your chain. You should know him by now. Dylan, show him.”
“Okay, okay. It was a joke, for God’s sake.” He pulled the rings out of his suit pocket. “See, I’ve got them right here.”
“You are so dead,” Sean told him. “Or you would be if I wasn’t dressed for the wedding. I knew I should have given the rings to Wyatt.”
Jack yawned and said, “No one asked me. I’m the oldest, I should have been the one.”
Sean and Wyatt excha
nged glances. “You put orange juice in your coffee this morning, Jack,” Wyatt said. “We decided you didn’t need any more responsibility.”
“I thought that coffee tasted weird.”
Someone knocked on the door. Glory opened it and stuck her head inside. “We’re ready.” She pushed the door open and walked all the way in. “I have to say, you Gallagher men are a fine looking bunch.”
No one mentioned the absent Gallagher. Glenna was still missing, and the private investigator hadn’t had a decent lead on her whereabouts yet.
“Are you coming, Wyatt?” Dylan asked.
There wasn’t a thing any of them could do about Glenna that they weren’t already doing. Today was his brother’s wedding day, though, so Wyatt did his best to put Glenna and his concerns about her out of his mind. “Sorry. I was just thinking about something.”
“Yeah, me too,” Dylan said, as they walked out of the room together.
Honey Jordan was a gorgeous bride. Mia wasn’t surprised. After all, she was a stunner wearing blue jeans and an old T-shirt. But Honey, the bride, took Mia’s breath away. She looked forward to seeing Sean’s reaction.
Counting Honey, nine women were crowded into the room serving as the bride’s dressing room. There were almost as many different conversations going on. At sixteen, Sean’s nieces, Carmen and Gina, were trying to act very mature, but the young girl in them kept coming out in their excitement at being a part of the wedding.
Mia managed to catch Honey alone for a moment. “Your dress is gorgeous,” Mia told her. “And you look beautiful. You make me want to paint a portrait again.”
Honey laughed. “That is a compliment. Thank you. It was my mother’s dress.”
“I wondered. Not that I’ve seen a lot recently, but it has a timeless look that I don’t think is common.” The gown was a beautiful, old-fashioned, ivory wedding dress, made of satin and lace, with long sleeves, a long train, and a high-collared, beaded bodice. Honey wore her jet-black hair down, falling in rippling waves over her shoulders and down her back. She said Sean liked it down, so that was how she wanted to wear it at her wedding.
Someone knocked and Martha went to the door. She said something to whoever was there and then stood aside and opened the door wide. “Honey, there’s someone to see you.”
An older man stood in the doorway. He looked unsure of his welcome. The color had drained out of Honey’s face.
She took a step forward. “Dad?”
He nodded and said quickly, “Kevin and Mick got me a pass for the day. If you don’t want me here—”
Honey’s voice cracked when she said, “Of course I want you,” and ran into his arms.
Martha and Glory ushered everyone out to give father and daughter some time alone. As she left, Mia heard Honey’s father say, “There now, don’t cry. You look so much like your mother. I wish she could see you.”
Mia swallowed a lump in her throat and blinked back tears. If she’d been Honey, she’d be bawling.
She wandered into the living room, where all the furniture had either been moved or pushed out of the way to make room for a few rows of chairs. The fireplace mantel was draped in greenery with roses and calla lilies woven into the garlands. Sweet Pea Floral had done a great job on the flowers. Vases of roses, calla lilies, and amaryllis were scattered throughout the living room and artistically placed on the big dining room table.
Glory was in the dining room, attending to last minute food preparations.
“This is beautiful, Glory. Can I do anything to help?”
“No, dear, but thank you.”
The table was loaded with delicious food, arranged on china and crystal platters. A set of Havilland china plates, a delicate rose and ivory pattern, was set out for the guests to serve themselves.
Mia had happened to be with them when Sean had asked Glory why they weren’t using paper plates. Glory had drawn herself up to her full, not very tall, height and pinned him with a look that would have made a lesser man quail.
“Paper plates? Over my dead body! Your mama would roll over in her grave if I didn’t use her good china.”
Sean had laughed and hugged her. “I had a feeling you’d say that. The good china it is.”
Mia looked around and not seeing anyone nearby, she said, “Thank you again for talking to me the other day, Glory. It really did help.”
“I don’t know that I did much, but you’re welcome, sweetie. Any time you need me, I’m here.”
Yes, but Mia wouldn’t be for much longer. She pushed the thought out of her mind. No sense being miserable until she had to be.
The music started, warning everyone to take their seats. The Gallagher men were a sight to behold. Four tall men, two of them light-haired, two of them dark, all of them good-looking. Naturally, Wyatt had her attention. He caught her staring at him and smiled.
Vivaldi’s “Spring” began playing and Honey and her father started down the aisle. Mia looked at Wyatt and found him looking at her. He loved her. His expression said it as clearly as if he’d spoken the words. Her heart slammed against her ribs and she wanted more than anything in the world to believe that she and Wyatt could be together.
But she didn’t.
Chapter Fifteen
Wyatt and Mia spent Christmas Eve with the family. Since it was easier for Maya and the baby, everyone went to Jack and Maya’s house. Wyatt knew it would be an early night. Regardless of the fact that it was only four o’clock, his brother and sister-in-law looked like they could pass out on any available surface. Dylan was at the ranch, and hadn’t made it over yet. His job was to bring home pizza for dinner. Glory would put on a Christmas dinner on Christmas Day, but dinner on Christmas Eve was always takeout. Usually pizza.
Carmen and Gina had offered to take care of the baby while Jack and Maya took a nap. Somehow he and Mia wound up watching baby Will. Or baby Andy. They’d finally named the kid William Andrew after both of their fathers, but now they couldn’t decide which of those names he’d go by.
Christmas music played softly in the background. Looking out the window, Wyatt saw a light snow falling in the near dusk. The baby was, for the moment, asleep in the cradle that had been through many Gallaghers, including Gina. He and Mia sat on the couch, watching Miracle on 34th Street, muted. He had his arm around her and was thinking that this was just about perfect. After tomorrow, it would be perfect.
“This is nice,” Mia said. “It’s so peaceful.” She glanced over her shoulder. “What do you suppose the girls are doing?”
“Congratulating themselves on suckering us into watching the baby and playing video games, I imagine. I think they should call him Andy.”
“There’s not much to do. He’s been asleep for an hour.” She glanced at the sleeping baby. “He looks more like a Will to me.”
Wyatt opened his mouth to argue the point, but Will/Andy started making noises. The noises progressed to whimpering and then rapidly to full-fledged crying.
Mia went to get him. When she picked him up she wrinkled her nose. “I think he needs a diaper change. I’ll take him to the nursery.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“Have you ever changed a diaper?” Mia asked him. She put Andy down on the changing table and unzipped his sleeper. It had a Santa on the front of it and a reindeer on his butt.
“Sure.” He hoped she wouldn’t make him prove it. “Once or twice,” he said when she lifted her eyebrow at him. “When Gina was a baby. A long time ago now.”
It didn’t take Mia long to change him. “There, now, Will. All clean.” She kissed one of his tiny hands and picked him up to hold him in her arms and smile at him.
“You’ve obviously done this before.”
“I used to babysit a lot. And I’ve had friends with babies.”
She looked so natural with the baby in her arms and a tender expression he’d never before seen on her face. Her eyes were soft and dreamy, a smile curved her mouth. She kissed the baby’s forehead and Wyatt could hav
e sworn he smiled, even though he knew perfectly well babies didn’t smile at only a few weeks old.
“You’re a natural with him. Have you ever thought about kids? About having your own?”
He sensed he’d said something wrong. Mia had turned away and he thought she’d stiffened.
After a long pause she said, “Most women my age have.”
Which wasn’t an answer, but he let it pass. Andy started fussing as they walked back into the living room.
“Why don’t you let me try?” he asked after a moment.
Mia passed him the baby and sat on the couch, watching him.
Wyatt put him up on his shoulder and patted his back. He tolerated that for a minute or two and then started fussing again.
Wyatt cradled him in his arms. “Hey, there little guy. I think you’re hungry. Is that what’s wrong?”
“Maya said she fed him just before she put him down and that she’d feed him again when she woke up.”
“Did you hear that?” Andy had stopped fussing and was looking at him. “Women. Don’t they know when a guy’s hungry he needs to eat?”
“Unless you’ve grown breasts with milk in them, he’s going to have to wait for his mother.”
“Wait?” Andy started crying again. Wailing was more like it. “He’s not down with that at all.”
Jack walked in looking like he just rolled out of bed. Which he had. But he looked better than he had a few hours ago.
He ran a hand over his head and yawned. “Here, I’ll take him to Maya. Thanks for watching him. I see the girls abdicated.”
“We didn’t mind,” Mia said. “He’s a sweet baby. Have you settled on what you’re calling him yet?”
“Yes, just now. This is Will.” He left the room, adding, “I’ll be back in a minute. I hope Dylan’s on his way.”
“Stop smirking,” Wyatt told Mia.
“Who, me?”
“Yes, you.” He sat beside her, leaned over and kissed her. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
There it was again. The sad note in her voice, which he heard every time she said she loved him. Which didn’t make sense. Maybe he was imagining what he heard in her voice. And maybe there was something going on that he didn’t know about.
