Tavish steered Lauren into his mother’s office, an expansive, rectangular room with a solidly built mahogany desk in front of the draped window and a sitting area to one side. The walls held his mother’s multitude of books: legal texts related to her work as an attorney, historical biographies, mystery novels. He might have gained his father’s need to flee, but he’d also inherited his mother’s adoration for the written word. He definitely preferred the latter trait.
What would he pass on to his child? Hopefully more than an eye for composition and a tendency for transience.
His heart panged as Lauren slid away from his hand and took a seat on one of the wide armchairs flanking a granite coffee table. Mile-high barriers erected with one cross of her gorgeous legs and a mask of a smile. She took her teeny purse from her shoulder and slipped a piece of paper from it. “So. Speeches.”
He nodded, pulled a sheet of loose leaf from his back pocket and slung himself into the chair opposite her. “Hey. We’re away from the crowd here. Away from our families. Relax.”
“Okay.” The word came out uncertain, but her shoulders sank against the back of the chair.
They haggled over who got to tell which embarrassing story, and remembered way too many good memories from growing up, from back when they’d first fallen in love with each other. For a half hour, things ceased to be about the present.
Mesmerized, Tavish took in Lauren as she scribbled edits onto her closing paragraph. She held her pen cap between her lips.
He really wanted to be that chunk of plastic.
A flash of the inevitable struck. “Screw it.”
“Screw what?” The words came out garbled around the pen cap.
He leaned toward her, placed damp palms on the cool, rock tabletop. “If I were being crude, I’d suggest each other.”
Green-gold eyes widened. Her lips fell open and the pen cap clattered to the table. “No. We can’t. Terrible idea.”
By the flush in her cheeks, and the temptation glistening in her eyes, she looked damn convincible.
He lowered his voice to a near whisper. “Terrible? Really?”
She nodded fervently, sending her ponytail swaying.
“I wouldn’t say terrible. Ill-advised, yeah. But we’ve never been less than spectacular in bed.”
“That would complicate things even more.”
His ex-wife wasn’t just a pretty face. He’d always found her intelligence one of her more compelling traits. And he was about to prove himself way less smart than she was. But she’d wanted honesty.
He could at least give her that.
“I love you, Lauren.”
Mouth gaping, she stared at a point over his shoulder for a good minute. Finally, after he thought his heart would beat straight from his chest and out the door, disbelief lit her eyes. Her fingers loosened on the chair arms and the tips of her fingers turned pink again. “You mean you did love me.”
“No, I mean I do love you. And now, with you carrying our child...” If he wasn’t careful, what he felt for her would metamorphose right back into him being insanely in love with her. He moved to her side of the table, sat on the edge of the granite with his elbows on his knees. He captured her gaze with his. “We both know all the impossibilities, but for some God-only-knows reason, my feelings for you haven’t, aren’t and probably won’t go away.”
“That was grammatically incorrect,” she breathed, sinking as far back as she could. “You could get your master’s revoked for that.”
“It got my point across. And stop trying to change the subject.” Pinching one of the ruffles of her skirt, he teased the material between his fingertips.
Her teeth tugged her lip. The gauzy fabric on her tempting-as-sin breasts stretched as her breathing rate increased.
“All I’m saying is loving you is part of the equation for me,” he said.
She leaned toward him, took his face between her palms. “We’re crazy.”
He groaned. That talented mouth, millimeters away from his skin. So close to touching. His tongue moistened his dry lips.
Crack. The door flew open and hit the wall.
Tavish jolted as his sister materialized in the doorway. Lauren’s head jerked to look behind her. Her nails dug into his cheeks.
“Brother of mine! I’ve been looking for you everywhere.” Mackenzie put a hand on her hip as she entered the room. Her eyes fixed on Lauren’s hands, still cupping his face. “Oh. Jeez. Didn’t mean to interrupt.”
Lauren released him from her grip and stood up, turning so fast she wobbled on her heels. “You’re not.”
His sister crossed her arms. “Have you kissed and made up?” Pink bloomed on her cheeks. “Well, maybe not kissed. But made up.”
“Yeah, we’re good,” he said, lying through his teeth but not seeing any other option.
The sigh Mackenzie released was loud enough he was surprised it didn’t ruffle his hair from halfway across the room.
“Good enough,” he clarified.
She crossed her arms and slid her gaze between Lauren and him. “Are you sure this is all in the past for you?”
“Our lifestyles are as incompatible now as they were last summer,” he ground out. His seat on the coffee table put Lauren’s right hand directly in his line of sight. She clenched it into a fist and the blood drained from her knuckles.
“That’s not an exact answer to my question,” Mackenzie said doggedly.
“It’s the only answer you’re getting.”
It was all he could do not to reach for Lauren’s tense fingers. To try to work them back to relaxation.
“I don’t know why you think you can’t grow roots, but I believe you can,” his sister said.
His gut bottomed out. Her faith in him made no sense, given how little he’d been around for the last decade. “Why? I’ve never proved that. Just like Dad couldn’t.”
“You’re here now, aren’t you? And you’re staying to help after the wedding.”
He shook his head. It was a nice thought, but he didn’t share the same confidence in himself. Knew too intimately the skin-crawling feeling that prompted him to leave. That he ignored even now. “Do we seriously have to have this conversation?”
Her eyes narrowed in a you-owe-me glare. “Maybe you’ve changed.”
Not unless he could alter his genetic code. “I don’t think so.”
Lauren let out a squeak. “I’m going to go find my brother.”
“Lauren, wait.” He reached out a hand to stop her but she evaded his attempt and swept from the room.
Mackenzie watched her friend leave and then glared daggers at him. “I think it was something you said.”
“Gee, you think?”
“Yeah. And I think you’re selling yourself short.”
“No,” he snapped. “We’re just going to try to get through the weekend without stealing any more of the attention you and Drew rightly deserve.”
“And then?” She sounded appreciative but suspicious.
“Then we’re going to keep WiLA running. And when you’re back, I’m gone.” But not for as long as last time. He wanted to support Lauren where he could during her pregnancy. That would mean more frequent trips home. Even if he was suppressing his restlessness every second he was in town.
Mackenzie closed the space between them and sank into the seat Lauren had vacated. “I wish you’d stay.” Her words spurted out like an arterial bleed.
“I’ll come back.”
“When? Two, four, six months from now?” Her voice took on a helpless tone. “You’ve only been home thirteen days of the last year.”
Her arithmetic wormed its way under his skin, made him stiffen. “I didn’t know you kept track.”
She shot him a look of womanly scorn. “Of course I do.”
He placed his palms on her knees and gave a squeeze. “I’ll come back the minute you call me to say you’re in labor. I’m going to take my uncle duties seriously. Someone’s going to have to take some decent newborn portraits.” And maybe by then he and Lauren would have a plan for their own child.
“I see.” Mackenzie groaned as she eased back into the chair and toed out of her flats.
Concern panged at the sound of his sister’s discomfort. “Are you okay?”
“Physically? Yeah.”
“You’re sure?” He examined her belly.
It twitched.
So did he. “How is that ‘okay’?” Jesus, he had a lot to learn. With Lauren’s medical background, she would know it all. And he’d probably end up feeling as incompetent supporting her through pregnancy as he did at the idea of becoming a father.
Mackenzie laughed. “That’s normal. I’m pregnant with an active kid, is all.” Her voice saddened. “I don’t want a professional set of family photos taken on a brief visit home. I want you living in the same zip code as me.”
“Kenz—”
“It’s just... My old apartment’s so close to my new house. You could live there for good. I could see you every day.”
His throat tightened. Maybe he’d start using her place more often—he’d need some sort of home base if he was coming for visits with the baby—but it becoming his full-time residence? Yikes. Saying I love you was one thing. Living it was something he’d never quite managed to do. And he had just over seven months to learn.
* * *
The next morning Lauren dressed in her turquoise maid-of-honor gown. It felt tighter than yesterday. Had to be her imagination, or maybe discomfort from morning sickness. She was weeks away from showing. Ugh, if only she wasn’t so pale against the vibrant shantung silk. She’d applied as much blush as she could without looking like a clown, but somehow last night had sucked all the color from her cheeks.
It was still only seven forty and Mackenzie had wanted to sleep until eight, but Lauren hadn’t been able to follow her friend’s lead. She’d been awake, staring at the ceiling for hours. Because the wedding dress code was reasonably casual, they’d decided to do their own hair and makeup. Lauren had pulled her hair back into a French twist. Pinned in tight. Just like her willpower to get through the next sixteen hours without falling apart.
Step one: avoid all thoughts of the words I and love and you being uttered by her fricking ex-husband.
Step two: well, no need to get carried away. Step one was going to take enough of her energy.
She brushed her hands over the below-the-knee hemline and took stock of her situation. Still pregnant. Her sister still hadn’t spoken to her.
And Tavish still loved her.
Which was part of his equation.
But so was the fact he didn’t think he’d changed. Seriously, how could someone hear they were going to become a parent and not change in some way?
She swallowed, trying to make the tension in her throat spread to her heart, provide some firm support for the day. If she managed to crawl into bed tonight retaining any semblance of emotional wholeness, she’d head straight for the convenience store and buy a Powerball ticket.
She glanced in Gwen Fitzgerald’s main bathroom mirror one last time to make sure her all-day lip gloss hadn’t adhered itself to her teeth, then made her way to the kitchen. Cadie, Mackenzie and she had stayed overnight after the rehearsal dinner. Mackenzie had slept in her old bedroom and Cadie and Ben had stayed in the main guest room, leaving Lauren lucky—ha! There’s that joke of a word again—enough to spend the night in Tavish’s old room. The collection of memories he’d taped over his bed—tickets from the Garth Brooks concert he’d taken her to in Missoula, his acceptance letter to Yale, a roll of camera film he’d refused to develop or tell her what was on it—had long disappeared. But the memory of him had spooned up against her, keeping her awake until the wee morning hours.
Hoping the bags under her eyes were disguised by the careful application of concealer, she sat down at the kitchen table with her sister, who was busy feeding a sleeper-clad Ben yogurt and applesauce. Cadie wore her bridesmaid’s dress, identical to Lauren’s, but had buttoned a men’s Oxford shirt over the satin.
One of Sam’s? Couldn’t be. Her sister hadn’t brought more than a box of her late husband’s belongings when she’d moved home from Colorado. She swam in the garment, still way too thin even a year and a bit after being widowed. Jeez, on the summit of the mountain, where the ceremony was to take place, she’d blow over if a gust hit her.
“Sexy shirt,” Lauren teased.
Cadie glanced down at her front, then back up at Lauren. Her lips pressed into a line and indecision flashed across her face before she cleared her throat. “Perfect for the ceremony, right? I know the light blue isn’t quite the same as the turquoise, but it’s close enough. I found it in Gwen’s guest closet.”
“It’ll work awesome for pictures.” She drummed her fingers against the table. “Can we talk, Cades?”
Her sister’s smile stretched her skin across her jaw, cast hollows in her cheeks. “You didn’t need me—didn’t want to—and that hurts. But we shouldn’t think about it today.”
Lauren drew back. “But I do need your help.”
“Don’t force the issue just to make up.”
“I’m not.” It wasn’t about finding something random to confess in order to make up with her sister. She needed Cadie as a confidante, damn it. There was no one else to talk to about Tavish.
“Yeah?” Cadie spooned another tiny heap of applesauce into Ben’s surprisingly clean mouth, sounding cautiously hopeful. “Ready to stop treating me like I’m going to fall apart?”
“Yeah. I just didn’t think you needed to worry about me. Didn’t want to be your tipping point.”
“Ah.” Cadie switched containers and scooped yogurt onto the spoon. She let out a frustrated breath. “I’m not helpless, Lauren. And I don’t get why you became the mama bear.”
“Someone needed to be.”
Her sister studied the floor. “You’re not Mom, Lauren.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?” Cadie looked up, stared straight into all of Lauren’s dark, ugly corners.
“Uh-huh.” She couldn’t get the sound out with the convincingness she wanted. “No one could be like Mom.”
“No one needs to be like Mom.”
Her chest tightened. She couldn’t quite bring herself to agree.
Letting out a long breath, Cadie fed Ben the last scrapings from the bowl of applesauce. “It’s too much effort to stay mad at family. I’ll probably be hurt for a while, but it’s impossible not to forgive you, Laur. But tell me something. When did you start sleeping with Tavish again?”
Lauren’s jaw hit her lap. She reflexively touched her stomach—obviously still flat, so Cadie hadn’t figured out about her failed attempt at closure that way. “I—What do you mean?”
“Come on,” her sister scoffed. “The way he was looking at you last night? The way you were looking at him? No way has it been a year since you’ve done the dirty deed.”
“Uh...” She wasn’t going to lie to her sister again, but she couldn’t make her voice work to admit the truth.
Cadie wiped Ben’s face with a wet cloth and took her babbling son out of the old high chair Gwen had unearthed from the attic. Bouncing Ben on her lap, she pierced Lauren with a saberlike gaze. “You’re not the only person who’s worried about her sister. It’s not exactly easy to mend a broken heart.”
“My heart’s already broken, Cadie. It can’t get worse.”
Cadie’s look of disbelief was clear, and echoed the warnings in Lauren’s gut. “Falling in love with someone twice isn’t worse than doing it once?”
Not when you’d never stopped loving the person. But loving Tavish wasn’t enough. Hadn’t been then, wouldn’t be now. The day of her grandparents’ funeral, he’d sat in his thinking place, a pleading look stretching his handsome face. I can’t take pictures of Montana forever. And then the clincher: Please. Love me enough to come with me.
She’d said no.
And now her pregnancy made following him doubly impossible.
But living with the look of devastation she’d put on his face was no easier a year after the fact. Words tumbled out before she could stop it. “Memorial Day weekend. When he was home, we...”
“Made love—”
“Had sex.”
“Semantics.” Cadie waved a hand. “I think you love him, so it’s making love.”
It so had been. “I’m not going to disagree.”
Ben tugged at one of Cadie’s loose curls. Cadie untangled his fingers from her hair and kissed his fingertips. And Lauren flashed forward a year or two, to having her own baby. Alone, like her sister.
Her stomach rolled and she wrapped her arms around her midsection. “You want me to confide in you? Here goes—I’m pregnant.”
Cadie froze, the only movement in her body the long, slow blink of her eyelids. Even Ben’s tiny palm smacking her on the nose didn’t get her moving.
“It’s not that big a deal,” Lauren joked, though the poor attempt at humor came out way too wobbly to be worthy of a laugh.
“You’re pregnant.”
“Yeah. I have a bone to pick with a certain prophylactic company.”
Cadie shook her head. “Does he know?”
“Yeah.”
“What are you going to do?”
“We haven’t gotten that far.” Lauren’s heart clamored, made her want to rip the traitorous thing right out of her chest. Beyond its physiological necessity, the organ had been way too much trouble as of late. “He says he wants to be involved. But he also insists he can’t settle in town.” She scrubbed her fingers over her mouth, then stopped. Stupid nervous reaction, making her smear her lip gloss.
“That’s a bit contradictory,” Cadie said carefully, plunking Ben’s diaper-cushioned bottom on the table in front of her.
“Just a little.” Lauren fisted an abandoned paper napkin and began to worry the edges. “Get this—he says he loves me.”
“He probably does,” Cadie ventured. “But the way he loves and the way you need to be loved don’t line up.”
A wave of anxiety knocked Lauren off kilter. Were they too misaligned to even function as parents? “So what do I do?”
“It’s not about what you do, Laur. It’s about what he does. If he’s going to say he loves you and wants to be involved, then he needs to prove that to you.”
And that would be great and all, provided he was able to prove himself. But if he tried and failed, she didn’t know if she could put herself back together again. Or if she talked to him about it and he refused to even try—for her, or their child—what would she do then?
Before Lauren could reply, Mackenzie entered the kitchen wearing a thin, knee-length bathrobe tied over her bump. “This looks like way too serious a conversation for my wedding morning.” She grinned and placed her hands on the sides of her stomach. “You both look great. And I’m about to, as soon as I feed the poppy seed.”
Cadie looked at Mackenzie’s stomach and then pointedly at Lauren, but didn’t say anything to break her confidence. “Kenz, don’t get me wrong. You’re stunning and gorgeous and every synonym for beautiful in the entire world. But that baby you’re carrying is way too big to be referred to as a poppy seed anymore.”
For the rest of the morning they fought with Mackenzie and Cadie’s curls, got their fingers stuck together with false eyelash glue and interspersed the curses that followed with a whole lot of laughs. Plenty to occupy Lauren’s attention. But keeping her mind on wedding prep involved more effort than she was capable of. The possibility of Tavish proving he loved her and wanting to be involved in raising their baby consumed her, refused to go away.
* * *
A wildflower carpet ringed the grassy area where, framed by summer-bare peaks, Drew and Mackenzie kissed at the end of their wedding ceremony. Tavish watched with stinging eyes, but hadn’t heard a word. The script from his own vows, long since memorized, played on a loop in his head.
Love. Honor. Cherish.
Funny how fulfilling those vows had meant breaking off his marriage.
But the baby meant reconnecting in some way. It wasn’t going to be as lovers or partners in the true sense of the word—nothing like having your I love you replied to with We’re crazy—but there was still an intimacy involved in being parents.
The recessional music started and he pressed pause on the mental tape before it drove him totally insane. Making eye contact with his ex-wife, he met her in the center of the altar and took her hand in the crook of his arm. They followed the bride and groom down the aisle.
It was utterly impossible to retreat from an altar with Lauren without envisioning her face when the organist at the little chapel on the Strip had struck up the beginning notes of “Can’t Help Falling in Love with You.” Lauren’s hair still smelled sultry, tropical, like swimming under a Hawaiian waterfall. The scent wafted at him on the mountain breeze. Then, he’d wrecked her fussy up-do not five minutes after they’d left the chapel. That limousine ride...
He interrupted his memories with a string of silent swearing. Nine hours to go. Sure, they’d be working together for the next couple of weeks, but at least they wouldn’t be thinking about weddings the whole time.
No, we’ll be thinking about babies.
An incongruent blend of excitement and terror climbed into his throat as they approached the end of the aisle.
“Everyone’s looking at us,” Lauren whispered.
He slowed his pace to accommodate her. Her stupidly impractical—but atrociously sexy—shoes looked to be getting stuck in the ground.
“Well, you’re starting to get that rosy pregnant glow,” he replied, voice just as quiet as hers.
She flushed, hissed out a shush.
He cleared his throat, which had clogged as soon as he’d connected Lauren and pregnant and glow. “You’re too easy to tease, sweetheart.”
“I’m not in the mood.” She dug her fingers into his arm. “I’m already having a hard time thinking about anything but embryos this morning without you bringing it up.”
Blinding him with science. She was so damn sexy. “Hey. Put it aside for the moment. Enjoy Mackenzie and Drew’s day.”
“You sound calm.” She didn’t. Confused, sure. Panicky, definitely.
“Mission accomplished,” he muttered.
They headed for the location Mackenzie and Drew had chosen for their pictures, a wooden-railed viewpoint with a stunning vista of Sutter Creek and Moosehorn Lake. Teetering on her high heels as she followed the tree-lined path, Lauren linked her hands around his forearm. “These pictures will be beautiful, but I might break my ankle in the process.”
He untangled his arm from her grasp and gripped her around her shoulders. “I could carry you.”
She stopped walking, jaw hanging open as if he’d lost his mind.
Not far from the truth, really. “What? Drew picked up Mackenzie fifty yards back.” The happy couple were the only ones ahead of them. The wedding guests were heading for the chairlift that would take them down to the cocktail party at the mid-station Creekview Lodge, and his mother and Edward Dawson trailed behind with Cadie, Ben and the slow-moving, injured Zach Cardenas.
“They just got married, Tavish. He’s supposed to carry her around. If you did the same for me, people would talk. They already are, I’m sure.”
“No one cares what we do, Lauren.” He figured if he said the words with enough force, they’d become true. “Did you enjoy the ceremony?”
She gripped his arm tighter and started walking again, gaze affixed to the ground. “You wrecked it for me.”
“Huh?” He figured between holding her up on their walk down the aisle, and helping her along now, all he’d done was stop her from falling over.
“I kept getting distracted by the mental picture of looking like Mackenzie come winter.”
Tavish’s gut tensed. “My thoughts might have drifted in that direction over the past forty-eight hours.”
They walked silently for twenty more yards or so until they caught up to Mackenzie and Drew and the wedding photographer. Having their pictures taken prevented them from having any more private conversations. As much as he would have loved to, with being in the wedding party Tavish wasn’t able to do all the photography for the wedding, but he did take the portraits of Mackenzie and Drew by themselves. As he snapped frame after frame, he recognized the looks of bliss on their faces as the same one he’d worn for the first five days of his own marriage. But they would manage to make those looks stick. Wouldn’t fail like Tavish had.