“I don’t know,” he told me. “You seem to have had some problems taking care of the oven mitt.”
Chapter Two
“Good morning, little mama,” I heard, and I slid open the corner of one eye enough to see him propped up on an elbow beside me. Closing my eye, I pretended I didn’t hear him, but the edge of my mouth turning into a slight smile betrayed me. He began humming, and a bewildered look spread across my face even as I fought to keep my eyes closed.
“Mama,” he sang, “ooooh.” I sprang up in the bed and stared at him, blinking my eyes against the sunlight.
“’Bohemian Rhapsody,’ seriously?” He gave a sheepish grin and shrugged his shoulders.
“It was the only song with the word ‘mama’ that readily came to mind. Anyway, it worked, didn’t it? You’re awake.” He inched closer to me, and I evaded his grasp and slid off the side of the bed, heading for the bathroom. “Why do you always do that, you little sneak?”
“Because I can’t think until I brush my teeth,” I explained simply, stopping to place my hands on my hips. “Besides, don’t pretend that you haven’t already been up. I know your tricks, Mr. Parker. You think I won’t notice that you get up and brush your teeth and then come back to bed. Well, I’m onto your scheme.”
“Just consider it a public service,” he muttered as I closed the door behind me. It was impossible to have a conversation with him when he was lying there taunting me with his attractiveness. The worst part was, I was positively certain that he purposely tried to fluster me. Standing on the inside of that bathroom door smiling secretly to myself, I popped my toothbrush in my mouth and listened as he continued to hum on the other side of the door, rewriting his own version of “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
“Me and the little wife…
“Making a family…
“First she was my bride…”
“Now he’s losing his sanity,” I finished for him, quickly returning the toothbrush to my mouth. The sound of him bumping around in the closet came through the wall, and I hurried to join him only to find that he was dressed and had his shoes in his hand.
“Gotta go,” he explained quickly. “Jake’s waiting for me. Nice finish of the song, though. You’re getting quite a knack for this.”
“It’s because of all that practice I had on The Tilly Show,” I teased, remembering a couple days before and the way Tilly had forced me to play ad lib karaoke on her talk show. Walking toward him as I hiccupped, I instinctively placed my hand over my mouth.
“Feeling sick?” He forgot about the shoes momentarily and stared up at me from his spot on the bed.
“I’m not sure. It fades in and out.” Reaching for me, he pulled me to him and wrapped his arms around me, placing his head against my abdomen. With one hand he smoothed his palm against my stomach, and I rested my hand on his shoulder.
“You’re housing a person in there,” he stated, sounding amazed.
“I thought you had to meet Jake.”
“He can wait,” he told me with a sigh. “Are you sure you’re okay? I could have Mom come over and check on you.”
“Of course I’m okay. Please don’t have your mom come over. Besides, do we have to tell your parents now? Rachel was so excited about being pregnant, and I don’t want to steal her thunder.”
No, that would seem really unfair. With all the attention I‘ve had recently, between the wedding and the press for my book, Cole’s sister deserves her moment in the spotlight.
“That’s nice of you, but I’m not sure I can hide it.”
“It’s pretty simple,” I stated, pulling away from him. “You just keep your mouth shut.” He let out a loud groan as he pulled one shoe on, gazing up at me with a lopsided grin.
Lowering myself on the bed beside him, I watched my handsome husband pull on his second shoe. From the minute I set eyes on Cole Parker, I knew my life would never be the same. Little did I know how much my life would actually change, though. My anticipation of learning to live side by side with Cole and sharing a new life together had been turned on its head in the prior few weeks, when my mother didn’t leave town and an entire new mystery began unraveling in my life. Cole had been right by my side when I discovered the grandparents and half-sister I never knew existed. He had shown himself to be my greatest supporter when I publicly gave up my pen name and appeared on the television talk shows. He even filled in the gaps for me during my interview with Trent Bauer, when I upchucked into the potted plant. He was most definitely a keeper.
“Why are you staring at me?” he wanted to know, and I drug my eyes from his smile up to those deep brown eyes. Dark pools of melted chocolate, I had thought the night we met. My sentiments hadn’t strayed far from that moment until the one I found myself in right then, with the sunlight streaming across his face.
“Like I said in our wedding vows, Cole,” I breathed with a sigh, “just kind of amazed, that’s all.”
“I love you, Cam,” he whispered, sliding his hand across the bottom of my chin and leaning in for a kiss. Allowing myself to melt into him, I grabbed a fistful of his t-shirt and held on tight. When he finally did try to pull away only to find my fingers clenched against his chest, he laughed under his breath.
“Are you clinging to me, or is my desire to stay keeping me pinned here?”
“It’s totally you,” I teased, relaxing my fingers.
“Meet me for lunch at the café?” he proposed. “Unless you don’t want to because of Rita…”
“I want to,” I assured him, letting my hand slide away from his chest and down his abdomen. If meeting at the café was the only chance I was going to have of being with that incredible man that day, my mother would have to deal with my presence. Surely we could survive in the same room now, anyway – since we had made our peace.
“Don’t be late,” he instructed me as he stood. “I don’t want to lose a single minute.”
“How can I argue with that?” Rising from the bed, I followed him to the stairs, with him not seeming to notice. All the way down the stairs I watched his back, and across the living room until he stopped by the door to grab the keys to his truck. When he opened the front door and stepped out onto the porch, he finally turned to offer a dreamy smile.
“I have to leave, you know,” he informed me slyly, “regardless of whether you make it easy or not, beautiful. You could make it a little easier, though, by not following me to the truck.”
“So, in other words, you want to make it easier on you, but not on me.” Tilting my head to the side, I placed my hands on my hips as I faced him in the doorway. Within two strides, he had swept me into his arms, giving me a kiss I wouldn’t soon forget. When he left me rather breathlessly standing there in the doorway with my eyes closed, I let out a sigh and blinked into the bright morning sunshine only to find that he had maneuvered down the steps and was almost to his truck. Turning with a wave, he blew me a kiss as he started the engine of his truck and began backing out of the driveway, leaving me staring after the thin cloud of dust he left in his wake.
Glancing down at my t-shirt, I let my hand drift across my abdomen, flat and smooth, wondering how long I had before that would no longer be the case. A week or two, maybe? That seemed like something I should look up so I would have the inside information, but in the meantime, I needed a run.
Scratch that – I needed a long, cleansing, mind-clearing run.
So, after a quick Internet search to ease my mind about whether or not it was advisable to run while pregnant, I laced up my purple running shoes and was ready to go, although my mind had already taken off on its own race.
Pregnant – that felt like a really weird thing to call myself. A couple months before, I would have considered that thought completely insane. In all fairness, though, it had only been about three months since Peter had proposed to me, sending me on the adventure to Tennessee in the first place.
Wow, is that possible? Has it really only been three months? In a mere ninety days, could I really go fr
om the unsettled victim of an ill-advised proposal hiding behind a pen name to a roots-planted wife and soon-to-be mother who recently made a book launch appearance on Almost Midnight with Jamie Price? I was interviewed by Trent Bauer, for crying out loud! Who is this person?
And how can someone the size of a pea be causing me so much trouble?
Hauling myself up from where I had been tying my sneakers, I scurried across to the restroom and knelt onto the tile, letting my head rest against the wall, wondering if the blissful first months of my marriage were also going to be some of the longest of my life.
-§-
The local café that sat directly across from the library had been a common stopping point for me in those first few weeks after my arrival in Tennessee. The library had been one of my most frequent destinations while researching for my latest published novel about my fifth-great grandmother, Willa Lawrence (the first-ever Camdyn Taylor release), and Lily and I had popped over for lunch on several occasions, when she could get away from her librarian-type duties. There was also one awkward lunch date at the café with Jake within my first couple days of arriving on Tennessee soil, probably made stranger because I had already fallen for Cole, but that was a different story entirely.
That café hadn’t really been an option lately, however; after my estranged mother showed up at our wedding rehearsal and Cole’s father showed her the door, she decided not to leave town and began working as a waitress. Cole and I had a policy of avoidance since that point, not that we had much time to sit around having leisurely lunches anyway. Those past couple whirlwind weeks of meeting my previously unknown family members had taken over pretty much everything else, up until the press for my novel, which led to the current moment.
Standing on the street in front of the café, and realizing I was about fifteen minutes early, I suddenly feared the prospect of standing face to face with Rita. It was true that she had stopped by my house a couple days before and I had truly made an effort to forgive her for her past mistakes, while she did a lot of explaining and apologizing. Ultimately, though, I wasn’t sure what we would talk about now, and I didn’t want to face her alone. Instead, I strolled across the street to the library and pushed the door open, stepping into the slightly musty-smelling foyer and seeing Lily at the front desk, her dark asymmetrical hair lowered over a book. She glanced up as I began to cross the faded carpet, and a smile spread across her face.
“The television star has returned,” she remarked as I rambled to the desk, placing my elbows on it casually.
“Yep, I thought I would bestow my regal presence on this humble establishment,” I teased. “What are you working on?” With a sly grin, she lifted the book from the desk and showed me the cover of my own novel.
“I can’t put it down,” she admitted. “I just keep dragging it around with me and sneaking a peek whenever I have a few minutes.”
“Your hesitance to work due to devotion to me is very flattering. I’m sure whoever pays your salary would be pleased.”
“Oh, you just be quiet,” she hissed, glancing over her shoulder and closing the book quickly. “What are you doing, more research?”
“Nope,” I stated, nonchalantly going through a stack of books on the corner of the desk. “I’m meeting Cole at the café in a few minutes for lunch, and I just thought I’d say hello.”
“So I guess you’ve come to an understanding with your mom, then?” She pulled on the long end of her hair as though she was uncomfortable asking me the question, so I let out a chuckle as a verbal confirmation that her query didn’t bother me.
“Understanding is such a big word,” I muttered. “I think we can coexist in the same space for an hour, and that’s a start.”
“Yeah,” she agreed, crossing her arms against her chest and glancing at the floor. “Is Jake going to be with Cole?”
“They were working together today,” I informed her, stacking her books a little more neatly in their pile. “You two aren’t an item anymore, or so he told me.”
“As if we ever were,” she huffed, walking around the desk to join me, leaning one elbow on the counter as we stood face to face. “Jake isn’t relationship material, remember? When I told him Nate wanted me to come to Nashville to see him, though… I guess I wanted him to care, but he didn’t. He just told me that there was no future for us, and I should go to Nashville. It was infuriating, really. I sort of wanted to thump him.”
“I’m sorry, Lily.”
“Don’t be,” she said with a mischievous grin. “Nate seems like a great guy, and I’m taking it in stride. Anyway, you better get going – I just saw Cole pull up at the café.”
“Thanks. Hey, don’t be a stranger, okay? I would ask you to come to lunch, but…”
“No, just go on. Give Jake a real zinger for me, though, would ya?”
“I’ll do my best.” Adding a wink for good measure, I made my way back out the door and onto the street, glancing both ways before I jogged across to meet Cole as he exited the truck, Jake just a few steps behind. It wasn’t hard for me to understand what Lily saw in Jake McAuliffe. Sure, he was flirty and self-assured to an annoying degree, but he did have the ability to be witty and charming when he wanted to showcase that part of his personality. Plus, there was no question that he was handsome. When he smiled and that dimple showed up in his left cheek, he could have been dangerously intriguing – well, had I not met Cole first, that is. To another woman, though, I was fairly certain that would be the case.
As for me, my heart belonged solely and wholly to that dark-haired man with the five o’clock shadow who was strolling towards me. Letting out a verbal sigh, I gazed into his eyes as he approached.
“What am I supposed to do with that?” he whispered as he leaned in for a lingering kiss that probably should have embarrassed me, considering the fact that we were next to the street, in full view of the café, and standing in front of Jake.
“With what?” I questioned as soon as we parted, biting my lip to keep from smiling.
“The way you’re gawking at me,” he suggested quietly. “Jake just told me he’s jealous of me. Can you imagine that? Jake jealous of a married man?”
“Yes, I can imagine that,” I retorted seriously. “Every man should be envious of you, because you’re awesome. And that is my totally unbiased opinion.”
“Of course, unbiased,” he added with a chuckle, wrapping his arm around my shoulders. “Come on, I’m starving.” We took a couple of steps until we were directly next to Jake, who lifted his eyebrows in my direction as he offered a slight smile.
“Hey, heartbreaker,” he stated breezily, still using the nickname he had adopted the day we met. “I suppose it’s only fitting that I should have the privilege of sharing lunch with the lovebirds, since I’ve done nothing all day but hear your praises.”
“It’s not been that bad,” Cole interjected, at which point Jake shook his head and laughed.
“I beg to differ, my friend,” Jake argued. “I know more about the little heartbreaker here than I know about any of the girls I’ve dated – ever. None of that’s from me spending time with her – it’s from spending time with you. You’re the leader of the fan club, buddy.”
“As he should be,” I defended my husband as Jake swung open the door to the café, sending the overhead bells jingling. The guys headed straight for an open booth by the window, and Cole waited for me to slide across the red seat with the plastic feel before he settled next to me and across from Jake.
“How are you feeling?” Cole asked quietly before sliding his arm around the top of the booth behind my shoulders, his fingers settling warmly on my arm. I took a second to smile up at him before I answered, enjoying his nearness.
“I’m good,” I finally answered simply, and I was, for the moment. I knew from my limited experience the past few days that my condition could change at any second, but at that instant I really was hungry and felt relatively normal.
“Well, if it isn’t my favorite custom
er,” I heard a drawling voice say beside us, and looked up to see Rita. When my mother arrived in town she invented some sort of southern belle sob story and adopted that fake accent, and it appeared she was still using it to her advantage. Surprisingly, though, she wasn’t referring to me as her favorite customer – she was staring at Jake.
“Hey, Rita, what’s good today?” Jake wanted to know. “And don’t tell me the meatloaf, because I won’t believe you.”
“Honey, you know everything’s good, but today I recommend the brisket.” She winked at him, and in a split second I did feel rather sick to my stomach, but I knew it wasn’t from the baby. The thought of Jake and my mother flirting, even though I wasn’t sure that was what they were doing, really rubbed me the wrong way.
Don’t be silly – Rita’s way too old for Jake.
Then again, Jake would probably flirt with any woman within a 50-mile radius.
“Sweet tea for you fellas?” Rita continued, finally locking eyes with me. “Hi, Camdyn. Water with lemon, isn’t that right?” The fact that the accent slipped away while she talked to me did not escape my notice.
“Yes, that’s right,” I confirmed, attempting to smile at my mother. Honestly, I felt like I looked deranged, and it definitely wasn’t natural.
“I’ll take that brisket you were raving about,” Jake interjected, pulling his phone out of his pocket and looking at it quickly before dropping it back to his lap.
“I think I will too,” Cole told her, tightening his grip on my shoulder.
“Can you bring me chicken salad on wheat, with chips?” It was difficult not to stare at Rita, because this newfound truce of sorts was still so forced and uncomfortable. I definitely wasn’t accustomed to having calm, rational conversations with my mother.
“Sure, babe,” she went back into that accent, heading away from the table. Instinctively I wrinkled up my nose just thinking about my awkwardness.
For No Reason (The Camdyn Series Book 4) Page 2
