When he answered, he reported that the spasms were gone but his leg would be sore for a few days.
“I’m glad you’ll be fine. I realize you were only trying to help last night, and thank you for that, but—”
“I’m sorry for what I let slip. Pain does that to me. One time I got sacked in a game against Denver and knocked out. I woke up calling for Nigel.”
“Who was Nigel?”
“The coach’s cocker spaniel.”
Lisa snickered.
“And, speaking of being sacked, I’m sorry I tackled you and gave you a rug burn. How is that, by the way?”
“It’ll heal. I’m wearing long sleeves to cover it up.”
“I’m really sorry,” Ben repeated. “I’m at Nathan’s office. He wanted to have a look at my leg again today. You know, this is a historic moment for Reston.”
“What do you mean?”
“The first time we’ve had a pregnant mayor. Has everyone in town stopped by to congratulate you?”
“Not yet. I haven’t actually seen anyone yet. Sandy won’t be in for a little while, so—” She broke off when she saw movement at the door and recognized the couple who were leaning closer to look in. “Oh, my goodness.”
“What is it?”
“Ben, your parents are here.”
“Oh, no. I forgot to call them, but somebody else obviously did. Blasted small-town gossips. Sorry. I’ll be right there.”
“That isn’t necessary. I can handle—” But he had hung up and she was talking to the air.
Taking a deep breath, she hung up the phone, straightened her collar and smoothed her hair as she went to open the door. As she did, she tried to assess the looks on Ben’s parents’ faces.
Jim McAdams was a big man like his son, handsome with thick, graying hair. He walked with a slight limp from an injury several years ago, but worked every day at one or the other of his enterprises and probably always would.
Helen was tall, as well, a little overweight, but was very energetic in church and community activities. She almost always wore jeans or other casual clothes, but today she was in a dress printed with spring flowers. Lisa smiled to herself, hoping the dress was in celebration of learning of her first grandchild.
“Good morning, Mr. and Mrs. McAdams,” she greeted them in a cheerful tone. “Please come in.” She held the door open, wondering how quickly Ben would arrive. She led the way into her office and offered them seats on the small sofa, then sat opposite them. “How are you today?”
“I’d have to say surprised,” Jim McAdams answered as he sat.
“Very surprised,” Helen added.
“We came to find out if it’s true.” Ben’s father leaned forward and fixed her with a steady stare. “That you’re having Ben’s baby.”
Lisa calmly folded her hands in her lap, to forestall any trembling that might start. Seemed like this was her week for confrontations. “Yes, it is. But you could have asked Ben that.”
Helen reached over and cuffed him on the arm. “I told you that. We should have called Ben, asked him if it’s true.”
Jim shot his wife a sideways look. “Well, yeah, maybe, but we need to apologize to Lisa first.”
“True.”
Lisa put a hand to her chest. “Apologize to me? Whatever for?”
Jim grimaced in self-consternation. “Because when you two were kids and old Sheriff Jepson took him to jail for popping Mrs. Crabtree in the behind—”
“And you broke him out of jail, Lisa.”
“I remember.”
“We forbade him from ever having anything else to do with you. That was wrong of us,” Helen said.
“No,” Lisa said, shaking her head. “It was an understandable reaction, given the circumstances.”
“We knew he needed to learn a lesson about respecting others and we were afraid that having a friend like you, who was comfortable skirting the law...well, we were afraid you’d be a bad influence on him.”
Lisa bit her tongue to keep from laughing or reminding Ben’s parents that he was known as the Reston Rascal. “I was only twelve at the time, and maybe a little over-imaginative.” She lifted her hands, palms up, to indicate her office. “I haven’t pursued a life of crime.”
“We know,” Jim said. “And you’ve done very well for yourself.”
Helen nodded. “But if we hadn’t done that, dear, kept you two apart, you might have gotten together much sooner and we would already have several grandchildren.”
Lisa stared at her. “What?”
At that moment the outer door swung open and Ben limped inside, hurrying across to her office.
“Good morning, Mom, Dad,” he said, giving a quick, concerned glance at Lisa’s stunned face.
Helen jumped up and ran over to give her son a hug. “Good morning, honey. We were just congratulating Lisa on the good news. So tell us the next piece of good news. When are you two getting married?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“MARRIED?” LISA SQUEAKED.
“Of course,” Jim and Helen said in unison, and Jim added, “That’s the next obvious step.”
Ben held up both hands as if he was trying to stop a speeding train. “Mom. Dad. No.”
“When is the baby due?” Helen asked excitedly, paying no attention to her son.
“September,” Lisa answered faintly. She looked at Ben for an explanation, but he appeared to be as poleaxed as she was.
“Then we need to get busy planning.” Ben’s mom clasped her hands rapturously. “Wouldn’t a Fourth of July wedding be delightful? We could have an entire patriotic theme going on. Sparklers and fireworks. Do you think Sunshine and Wolfchild Whitmire would let us use the pavilion out at their campground? It would make the perfect setting with star-spangled bunting draped from pillar to pillar.
“Lisa, dear, how do you feel about a white dress with a sweeping train, and a red, white and blue sash, and then red, white and blue bridesmaids’ dresses?” Helen gestured as she spoke, her hands floating out as if to encompass a long dress. “Red-and-white-striped skirts, blue bodices? Oh, with stars on them! A little white top hat? Or maybe black?”
Lisa said the first thing that came to mind. “Gemma and Carly would kill me.”
She tried to get a handle on this surreal situation even as visions of her best friends dressed as Uncle Sam floated through her head.
“Or perhaps we should have the wedding sooner, earlier this spring,” Helen went on dreamily as Jim beamed at her. “A May Day wedding with the girls in soft pink with rows and rows of ruffles.” She twirled her hand to indicate floor-length, puffy gowns. “Enormous bouquets and huge, floppy, straw hats.” Her hands floated out in front of her and her fingers fluttered. “A carpet strewn with rose petals.”
Lisa gulped. “Then they really would kill me. Gemma’s a redhead. She looks awful in pink and...Carly isn’t really a pink-and-fluffy kind of girl.” She wondered in amazement why she was engaging in this crazy conversation.
“Sounds like Gone With the Wind live,” Ben muttered. “I gotta get off this leg.” He pulled a chair over and sat with his sore leg outstretched. “Mom, sit down and calm down, please.”
Helen gave him a puzzled look but she retook her seat beside her husband.
“This is a side of you I’ve never seen before,” Ben said. “I didn’t know you were so interested in weddings.”
“All women are.” His mother sniffed. “And since I never had a daughter, and you’ve insisted until now that you never intended to get married—”
“Mom, I still am not—”
“Your dad and I got married at the county courthouse, no big white dress for me or tux for Jim. It wasn’t my dream wedding.”
“The courthouse was what we could afford at the time, and i
t accomplished what we wanted to accomplish,” her husband reminded her. “Since we were trying to start our own business.”
“Mom and Dad, you have to forget all this talk about weddings,” Ben said in a reasonable tone. “Lisa and I aren’t a couple.”
“You’re having a baby together,” Jim answered, his expression collapsing into a mighty frown. “How can you not be a couple?”
“Lisa will have the baby and raise it, and I’ll provide child support.” When he saw his mother’s appalled look, he added, “Generous child support.”
“I should hope so!” Helen said.
“But we’re not getting married,” Ben continued doggedly. “It’s the decision we’ve made.”
“This wasn’t planned,” Lisa put in. “It just happened.”
Jim and Helen looked at each other then at Ben and Lisa. Everyone was silent for a second until Jim shook his head in that age-old way that fathers have of showing disappointment in their offspring. “Son, we didn’t raise you to get a girl pregnant and not marry her.”
“She’s not really a girl, Dad. She’s a woman with a career and—”
“I’m right here,” Lisa pointed out, waving her hand.
“Well, she can give that up,” Helen said. “I did when you were born.”
“Mom, Lisa’s got her own business and now she’s acting mayor.”
“Well, she can definitely give that up,” Jim said with a dismissive sweep of his hand. “We’ve never had a woman mayor.”
That statement snapped Lisa out of her stricken silence. No matter how much she respected Harley and his years of running the city, she wasn’t going to let sexism go unchallenged.
“It’s high time that Reston did have a woman mayor,” she said testily. “And I’m not giving up either my real-estate business or my position as acting mayor.”
“Well, dear, you can’t do it all and be a good mother, too.” Helen folded her arms and nodded her head as if that was the last word on the subject.
Lisa stared at her. What century did this woman live in?
“And another thing,” Helen said. “Why didn’t you tell us about this sooner, Benton James McAdams? I had to learn about it from June Rhodes, from the garden club. She called to congratulate me on finally becoming a grandmother, and I had to pretend like I knew what she was talking about.”
“I’m sorry, Mom. I wasn’t going to tell anyone until Lisa was ready.”
“Well, it’s your child, too. And we’re your parents.”
“Sorry, Mom, but you know now,” Ben said, then added firmly, “We’re not getting married. Mom, Dad, I never made a secret of the fact that I don’t—” he cast a quick glance at Lisa “—didn’t want children. I travel all the time. It wouldn’t be fair to the kid.”
“Then this will keep you at home, won’t it?” Jim asked. “Sounds like a win-win to me.”
“Or an April wedding,” Helen said, sinking back into her daydream. “With dresses made of that shiny fabric that looks pink in one light, and then, in the right light, changes to a kind of bluish purple—like hydrangeas.”
Lisa gagged but didn’t bother to respond. Instead she announced to the room at large, “No wedding. No giving up of careers. If you want to be a part of your grandchild’s life, we can work that out. I want him, or her, to have family.”
“Since his father apparently won’t be around,” Jim said, giving his son a dark look, “we’d like that, too.” The big man got to his feet. “Come on, Helen. We might as well go.”
She blinked. “So, no wedding?”
“No wedding,” Ben answered, standing to give his mother a hug.
She finally seemed to notice his leg and began fussing at him, asking what had happened, had he seen the doctor? She thought he hadn’t showed up for dinner last night because he wasn’t hungry. Why hadn’t he called?
Murmuring reassurances and more apologies, Ben finessed them out the door. The three of them met Sandy, who was coming in with a huge grin and a fluffy teddy bear.
Sandy plopped the toy down on top of the desk and came to Lisa with her arms outstretched. “Congratulations on the baby. I’ve been waiting for you to tell me yourself, but I had to hear it from Raylene Prestridge over at the Gas ’n’ Go, so I had to make another stop to buy the bear. That’s why I’m late.”
“Thank you. He’s adorable.” Lisa paused, admiring his goofy expression and the big red bow around his neck. “You knew I was pregnant?”
“Sure, honey. I’m the mother of three and the aunt of seven. I know when a woman’s going to have a baby. You’ve looked like death’s favorite girlfriend around here for weeks, pale and sickly. ’Course, I didn’t know that Ben is the father.” She sighed. “Lucky you.”
That wasn’t the word Lisa would have used, but she smiled and picked up the teddy bear. She had a sudden vision of her child, a dark-haired little boy, dragging it by one foot down the hall as he came to find her and snuggle into her lap. The image caught at her heart and she paused, trying to remember if she had ever been held and cherished like that.
That made her think of Maureen. She hadn’t meant to drive her mother away, and last night had doubtless been the worst time to have brought up the past. She had already been so distraught over her encounter with the bats, and Ben announcing she was pregnant, that she had overreacted to Maureen’s hovering and caused deep hurt. She would certainly apologize to her mother, but it might be a while before Maureen would take her calls.
Lisa glanced up when Ben walked back into the outer office and greeted Sandy, who was settling in at her desk. When Sandy offered her congratulations, he murmured a thank-you that left Sandy staring after him. He closed Lisa’s office door and sat once again, wincing as he propped his leg up on the coffee table.
“These past twenty-four hours just keep getting better and better,” he said sardonically. “What’s going to happen next?”
“I was just thinking about that, but I don’t want to speculate. Life is already too crazy.”
“You’ve got that right.” He paused. “Listen, I’m sorry about my parents. I don’t know where they got the idea we’d be getting married. They know how I feel about—”
“We all do, Ben,” she said.
“Oh, sorry. I’ve wanted to keep this on a businesslike footing, so—”
“You don’t get emotionally involved. We all know that, too.”
He frowned at her. “What’s wrong with you this morning? I’m trying to make sure the issue isn’t clouded with unrealistic expectations about big weddings and...and fireworks.”
Lisa turned her head so he wouldn’t see her unbidden tears. There was no reason for her to feel so let down by him when he’d never made a secret of his feelings. Blinking quickly, she stood and said, “Yes, I know.” She intended to find her copy of the financial spreadsheet of child-rearing costs when she felt a fluttering in her tummy.
“Oh,” she said softly, her hands immediately going to cover the bump, trying to locate the precise spot.
Ben surged to his feet and, in spite of his hurt knee, was across the room in seconds. “What? What is it? Are you sick? Need something?”
“No.” She looked up, tears forming in her eyes once again and her face filling with joy. “I think I just felt the baby kick for the first time. Gemma said that probably wouldn’t happen for a week or two. Obviously, he’s a prodigy.”
With a soft laugh, Lisa reached out and scooped up his hand, spreading his fingers over her belly. “It was here, on the right. There! Can you feel it?”
Ben’s face froze; his expression one she’d never seen before—disbelieving and concerned. “It’s like little butterfly kicks.”
“They’ll get a lot stronger, or so I’ve read in the four books I’ve received from Gemma and the million online articles from Carly.”
>
Lisa released a laugh of pure delight. Until this moment the baby hadn’t seemed quite real. His only manifestations had been nausea and frequent urges for the bathroom. Now she knew he was moving and growing.
She looked up into Ben’s face, which was so full of emotions she couldn’t sort them out, though none resembled happy. Looking down, she realized that she had his hand trapped against her, feeling the movements of a child he wanted little or nothing to do with. In her eagerness to share this moment with someone, she had let herself forget how he felt about the baby.
She stepped back. “I’m sorry, Ben. I was so surprised to feel it and know it’s his first kick. It’s like the first acknowledgment of him saying, ‘Hey, I’m in here, and I’m a person.’”
Ben lifted his hand and covered his mouth for a minute, then dropped his arm and sucked in a deep breath as if he’d been keeping himself from breathing.
“Um, yes. That’s a baby, all right. A person.” He turned toward the door, lurching a little on his bad leg. “That’s good,” he said. “That’s good that it’s so... Listen, I’ve got to go. Nathan insists on looking at my leg again. Can’t keep the doctor—”
He didn’t even bother to finish the cliché he’d been about to utter, simply disappeared out the door, didn’t even acknowledge when Sandy told him goodbye. Her secretary gave Lisa a shocked glance, but she only shook her head and retreated into her office.
Lisa didn’t know why she was surprised. He had made it clear time after time that he wanted nothing to do with the baby.
“That’s okay, little one,” she said, cradling her arms around the bump. “I’m happy about you.”
* * *
MAUREEN TORE DOWN the highway, her thoughts scrambling frantically, picking apart the conversation she’d had with Lisa the night before. After packing her car as silently as possible, she had slipped away at dawn and left her daughter behind. Again.
Lisa had called, but Maureen let it go to voice mail. She wasn’t ready to talk yet.
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