Suddenly a Bride / A Bride After All: Suddenly a Bride

And then she tilted her head to one side, watching him as he attacked the keyboard. Why was Richard suddenly writing a love story? A week ago, before his proposal, he’d been deep in his book, racing through the pages as if there weren’t enough hours in the day to get all of his ideas down.

So why this switch? Was he feeling the same lack she was? Was he still, in his own way, searching for something more? Something that, for all their compatibility and friendship, he knew he hadn’t found in her?

And if she hadn’t met Will Hollingswood this morning, would she even be asking herself any of these questions?

Elizabeth checked on the twins, was assured by Elsie that they were fine with her, helping her mix up a batch of peanut butter cookies, and then she went upstairs to pack Richard’s suitcase.

“Oh, my,” Elizabeth said as they walked into the ballpark and the field opened up in front of them. “I had no idea there was anything like this in the area. Boys, look over there,” she said, pointing to the large scoreboard above center field. “There’s the IronPig.”

They’d entered the ballpark through gates that led to a wide concrete area wrapping around the field above the main seating area that stretched from where they were, right field, to behind home plate, and then stretched out again along the left field line. It was as if they were standing on the rim of a bowl, with the rows of seats ahead of them leading down to the natural grass field itself.

Will stepped up behind them, looking across the outfield at the huge pink snarling pig head that made no sense, yet somehow seemed to make perfect sense … if you didn’t mind wearing shirts and hats with steroid-strong cartoon pigs on them.

“Pig iron, boys,” he said, “is a sort of in-between product that’s a result of smelting iron ore with coke and … some other things. It’s used to make steel, like for bridges and buildings. At one time, the Bethlehem Steel Works plants in, well, in Bethlehem, which is right next door to Allentown, made some of the best steel in the world. Bethlehem steel was used, for instance, for the Empire State Building and the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and even in the reconstruction of the White House. You know, where our president lives.”

Danny, or maybe it was Mikey, turned his head to look up at Will as if he had been speaking Greek. “Uh-huh. Can I have some cotton candy? Some of the blue kind?”

“What? Oh, sure, no problem,” Will said, leading them all toward the kiosk displaying bags of pink and blue cotton candy. “I thought you said they’d ask,” he said quietly to Elizabeth. “I’ve got the whole story, mostly. Although I didn’t think I’d mention the part where the molten iron was poured into a long channel and then these forms sort of branched off all along the sides of the channel, and somebody decided the whole thing looked like a litter of piglets, you know, feeding from the mother sow. Pigs, iron—pig iron.”

“You were probably wiser not to get that involved,” Elizabeth said, clearly trying to hold back a smile but not succeeding. “You really looked up the definition of pig iron, and all that information about the steel plants? That was very sweet of you.”

He pulled out a ten-dollar bill to pay for two bags of cotton candy and got four ones back in change. At least somebody was operating on a pretty hefty profit margin these days. “But not entirely helpful. I couldn’t find anything about how pig iron got turned around into iron pig, and I still sure as hell don’t know why anyone would name a baseball team the IronPigs.”

“Well, I’m beginning to think it’s rather cute. And you have to admit he’s a pretty ferocious-looking pig. Oh, look, they have a store. Is there time for me to take a look around before the game starts?”

“If you let me stay out here and wait for you, sure,” he told her, already eyeing the line in front of the beer stand. “Would you like me to get you something to drink?”

“Thank you, yes. I’ll have a lemonade if they have any. And apple juice or something for the boys? It might help wash some of that sugar off their teeth.”

“You’ve got it,” he told her, looking at the boys, who were both already sticky with cotton candy, their fingers, cheeks and definitely their tongues turning a deep shade of blue. “Uh, I shouldn’t have let them have that, should I?”

“Cotton candy wouldn’t have been my first choice, no. But they both ate all of their supper, so it’s all right. At least they’re not asking to go home. But you know what? I don’t think I should take them into the store while they’re all sticky like that, do you? Could you watch them for me? I want to get them each something with the pig on it.”

Panic, swift and fairly terrible, kicked Will in the midsection. He suddenly remembered why he’d always made it a point to never date women with children. “Me? Watch them? Oh,” he said, attempting to look, if not fatherly, then at least reasonably competent. “Sure, no problem.”

“Thank you,” she said, rummaging in her purse. “Here’s some wet wipes in case they finish their cotton candy.” Elizabeth’s smile strangely made his sacrifice seem worth the effort, and he held out his hand as he mutely accepted the wrapped packets. He then watched her disappear into the crowd milling along the walkway behind the right field seats, feeling only slightly desperate.

“Okay, boys, let’s go get Coach a nice cold one.”

“A cold what? Can we have one, too? Where’s Mom?” one of them asked, the one who had somehow gotten cotton candy on his elbow. How the hell did you get cotton candy on an elbow?

“You’ve got to be Mikey, right?”

“Yeah. So where’s my mom?”

“She went to buy you guys some Pigs stuff. She’ll be right back.” So please don’t cry.

“Cool,” Mikey said, licking his fingers. “I’m thirsty. Hey, Danny, are you thirsty?”

Danny, who had wandered off without Will realizing he was gone, walked back to them wiping his hands together after tossing the empty plastic bag in a garbage can. At least they were … trained. “Sure. I saw a kid with a hot dog. We could get hot dogs. Or maybe pizza? I saw some pizza, too.”

Will was beginning to sense that Elizabeth’s sons were going to eat their way through their first experience at a baseball game.

“Here, hold out your hands,” he told them, ripping open one of the packets. With memories of his mother scrubbing at his sticky face and hands with a washcloth, he started by wiping their faces and then opened two more packets and gave them each a wet towelette so they could clean their own hands. He reserved the last packet for himself, to clean himself up after cleaning them up.

“Will? Will Hollingswood? Is there something I should know?”

Will shut his eyes for a moment, recognizing the voice, knowing who would be standing behind him when he turned around.

“Hi, Kay,” he said grabbing the used towelettes the twins were shoving at him and stuffing them in his pocket before turning to look at the tall, stunningly beautiful brunette. “I didn’t know you liked the Pigs.”

“Well, then that makes us even. I didn’t know you had children.”

“Very funny. They’re not mine, Kay.”

“Are you sure?”

“Okay, not so funny this time. Kay, look, I’m sorry I didn’t call you, but it’s been a hell—” he shot a quick look at the twins, who weren’t really paying attention, thank God “—a heck of a week.”

“Yes, I heard about The Hammer. Are these two of your little baseball team children?”

“They’ve never seen a baseball game,” Will answered, going into lawyer mode. Tell the truth while saying nothing.

“And the entire team is here somewhere? You’re really taking this punishment seriously, aren’t you? Or maybe just trying to score brownie points with The Hammer, which wouldn’t be a bad idea. You really were out of line, Will, you know.”

“So says the assistant district attorney. If you’d been sitting at the defense table, you would have objected, too.”

Kay shrugged her bare shoulders. She was dressed in a sort of tube top that didn’t quite reach her waist, and a miniscule tan skirt whose length only barely passed the public decency test. It was like there were two Kays, the buttoned-down prosecutor in the courtroom and the sensual, sexual shark everywhere else. He should know.

And he needed her gone before Elizabeth got back.

Besides, the twins were now running in circles in a small cleared spot near the beer stand, chasing each other and nearly bumping into people, including a guy built like a Mack truck and carrying a full tray of beers. He didn’t look like the kind of guy who’d just laugh and say “boys will be boys” if the tray hit the ground.

“I’ve got to go, Kay,” he told her, pointing to the twins.

But he’d left it too late, because here came Elizabeth toward him, carrying a large plastic bag with the image of an IronPig on it.

“Danny! Mikey! Get over here.”

The twins stopped running and raced to their mother, each of them grabbing for the bag. She pulled out a pink baseball hat with the IronPigs logo on it and then handed the bag to her sons. “You each have the same thing, so there’s no reason to kill yourselves trying to see.”

Then she looked at Will. And saw Kay.

“I’m sorry I took so long, Will. There was a line at the register. Hello,” she said to Kay.

Will didn’t physically step between the two women, but he did think about it. “Elizabeth Carstairs—Assistant District Attorney Kay Quinlan.”

“Oh, how formal, Will,” Kay said, extending her hand. “Outside the courtroom, I’m just Kay. Are these two adorable boys your sons?”

“Only mostly adorable, but yes, they’re mine.”

Will grabbed the twins and stood them in front of him, his hands on their shoulders. Not that he needed a shield from either woman. “Mikey, Danny, meet Assist—that is, meet Ms. Quinlan.”

The boys mumbled something that sounded vaguely like a greeting and then went back to their new possessions, matching baseball caps and a pair of tan canvas-covered stuffed dogs sporting blue bandannas with the IronPigs logo on them.

Elizabeth must have seen him looking at the dogs. “They’re autograph hounds. I thought if I could interest the boys in the players that they’d also become more interested in the game. The salesgirl told me the players often sign autographs before and after the games. Is that all right? Oh,” she added, reaching into her purse, “I also got them a set of trading cards with the players’ photographs on them. Although the roster—roster, right?—isn’t complete anymore because players are always coming and going. Some of them have gone up to the big show already this year.”

“The big show?” Will grinned at Elizabeth’s earnest expression. “You mean, the big leagues, up with the Phillies.”

“If you say so. She just said the big show. I’m sorry, Kay. This is all new to me—and to the boys. Will has been kind enough to help explain the game to them now that they’re on a team.”

“So they are on your team?” Kay asked, one perfect eyebrow arched. “The one that only came into existence in the last few days? My, my, William, you don’t let any grass grow, do you?”

“Excuse me,” Elizabeth said, taking Mikey’s hand, probably knowing that where one twin went the other followed. “I think Mikey would like a hot dog. We’ll be right over there, Will. Kay? So nice meeting you.”

Will waited until Elizabeth and the boys were standing at the back of the line at the hot dog stand and then turned back to glare at Kay. “You had to do that?”

“Probably not. She seems like a nice woman. Let me guess. Newly divorced?”

“Widowed.”

“Even worse. Shame on you. Well, at least now she’s been warned, hasn’t she? When are you going to make your move, Slick?”

“I’m not making a move, Kay.”

“Sure you are. And the sooner you make it, the sooner you’ll be back in the pool. Call me.”

“I’m not making any—Oh, the hell with it,” he said as Kay turned away, heading for the beer kiosk.

He stood where he was for a few moments, his thirst for a beer gone, and wondered how he was going to explain Kay to Elizabeth. She’s nobody important, just someone I sleep with once in a while when we’re both bored? No, that wasn’t going to cut it. Did he have to say anything at all? Probably not, at least not from the way Elizabeth had looked at him before taking the boys to the hot dog stand.

How the hell had he gotten into this mess? Okay, so he knew how he’d gotten into the mess. He should never have tried to set Chessie up with somebody, especially with anal-retentive estate lawyer Bob Irving. Payback was a bitch, but what was fair was fair. And the idea had seemed simple enough. Show the girl a good time, Chessie said. Flirt with her, make her feel feminine, desirable. Remind her she’s still young—and all that crap.

Sure. Great plan.

Then have her standing there all fresh-cheeked and vulnerable, with her mommy-clothes yellow blouse and knee-length denim skirt and her silly pink IronPigs baseball cap on, and two cute but definitely not disposable kids with her, and introduce her to the sleek, sensual, übersophisticated, smart-mouthed Kay Quinlan.

That ought to help Elizabeth come out of her shell, or wherever the hell place it was that Chessie seemed to think she needed to get out of. Not.

Then again, who needed this? Not him. He didn’t like kids, didn’t know how to relate to them. Cleaning off sticky faces definitely wasn’t a turn-on. Nor was trying to romance a woman whose kids kept getting in the way.

He looked over at the hot dog stand to see that the boys were now munching happily as Elizabeth squeezed mustard on her own napkin-wrapped hot dog. They were kind of cute kids, though. Maybe they needed a haircut. All those curls on boys old enough to be swinging a baseball bat? He’d be surprised if they weren’t teased in school. But a woman raising her boys alone maybe wouldn’t know the little ins and outs of boy stuff. The kids could have a problem.

“Nah. Mikey would sock anyone who teased him,” Will told himself quietly. “And Danny would talk the rest of them to death.”

Will frowned. How did he know that? He’d only been with the twins for a couple of hours that morning. But he was already beginning to be able to tell them apart just by their mannerisms, the way they talked, the words each of them used. The way Danny played his mother like a fine Stradivarius, the way Mikey couldn’t seem to stand still for more than five seconds at a time.

The blare of the loudspeaker on a nearby pole alerted Will that the team was taking the field, snapping him out of thoughts that weren’t making him all that happy anyway.

He walked over to Elizabeth and told her it was time to take their seats. They filed into the box in the third row behind the dugout just as it was time to stand for the national anthem. Elizabeth yanked Danny’s baseball cap off just as Will was doing the same for Mikey—their nearly synchronized movements seeming so natural to him and maybe even satisfying. Elizabeth smiled at him in thanks for his help, and he suddenly had a niggling feeling that, although he was the only one who hadn’t had anything to eat yet tonight, he’d maybe just bitten off more than he could chew.

“I still can’t believe they sell turkey legs at a ballpark,” Elizabeth said as Will eased his car into the line of traffic leaving the ballpark. She felt so comfortable with him now that it was difficult to believe she’d been nervous and vacillating up until the moment he’d picked them up for the game.

“I still can’t believe Mikey ate one,” he told her, waving his arm out the window to thank the trucker who’d let him in line. “Plus the slice of pizza and the snow cone.”

“And the hot pretzel—although, to be fair, you ate at least half of it,” Elizabeth told him, taking off her baseball cap and running her hand through her curls. “And we won. You do realize that now the boys will expect fireworks if their team wins a game.”

“We don’t keep score, remember?”

“… four … five … hey, Mom, I’ve got six autographs,” Danny called out from the backseat. “And Mikey got seven. But we can get more next time, right?”

“Yeah, Mom. Next time. When are we going again? I love the Pigs. Oink! Oink!”

Elizabeth and Will exchanged looks. “Methinks you’ve created a pair of monsters, Coach. I don’t know how much they understand now about baseball, but they certainly understand all that food and getting autographs.”

They were free of the parking lot now, and Will deliberately turned left as most of the traffic was turning right. The trip home might be longer this way, he told Elizabeth, but at least they wouldn’t be sitting in traffic for the next quarter hour.

“No problem. I told you, I have season tickets. But I’m afraid the team leaves for a road trip tomorrow morning. A road trip, guys, means that they’ll be playing their games in somebody else’s ballpark. They won’t be back here for another week or even longer.”

There were twin sighs of frustration from the backseat that were not matched by the occupants of the front seat.

“They’ll be fine,” Elizabeth assured him. “With luck, they’ll also both be asleep by the time we get back to the highway. We all really did have a wonderful time tonight, Will. Thank you.”

“Actually, thank you. That was a lot of fun, explaining the game to the boys. They asked some pretty good questions, too.”

“But I didn’t?”

He shot her a grin. “Oh, I don’t know. The one about why the players don’t wear dark pants so that they don’t get so dirty wasn’t too terrible.”

“They were wearing white, Will. Who plays in the dirt while wearing white? I pity whoever has to presoak all those uniforms.”

“But they’re the home team, Elizabeth. The home team wears white. It’s … tradition.”

“And it’s a tradition that would only last another three days if the team owners had to personally presoak the uniforms themselves,” she said firmly. “Don’t say anything. I know I’m being silly. I just couldn’t think of anything else to ask you. But I think I cheered at the right times.” She turned slightly in her seat and looked behind her. “Ah, out cold, the pair of them. And we didn’t even reach the highway yet.”

Worse, Elizabeth thought, with the twins asleep, and the subject of the baseball game pretty much worn out, now she had to find something to say to Will to keep the conversation going. She dredged her mind for a topic, being very careful to avoid the subject of the beautiful and clearly well-known-to-Will Kay.

Not that his relationship with the assistant district attorney had anything to do with her. Because she and Will weren’t on a date. You don’t take a pair of bottomless pit rowdy seven-year-olds with you on a date. Not a real date ….

Chapter Four

Will had turned on the radio, and they’d allowed the music to fill the silence for most of the ride back to Saucon Valley.

He’d asked Elizabeth if she’d seen Billy Joel’s Broadway musical, Movin’ Out, the one that featured the singer’s hit song, “Allentown.”

She hadn’t, but she did know the song. That led to a short biography, as she thought of it, and Elizabeth told him how she’d grown up in Harrisburg, the state capital, but she and Jamie had moved to the Allentown area to follow a job transfer.

“When he died, my mother wanted me to move back home, but I was young and stupidly independent. I knew if I moved home, my mother would turn me back into her kid again, take charge of my life. I was a mother now, and I had to learn to stand on my own two feet, raise my boys. At least that’s what I thought. Stupid, huh? With them barely out of diapers, I certainly could have used the help. But my mother’s gone now—she moved to Sarasota, that is—and I’ve learned to feel like this area is our home.”

“And now you’re working for a famous author, Chessie told me.”

“Richard, yes.” She looked out the window as they drove past the large three-story mansion—there was nothing else to call it but a mansion. “You came in through the gates earlier, but if you drive past them, there’s another lane you can use to get straight to the guesthouse and garages.”

“Okay, I see it,” Will said, and in another few moments they were in sight of the large stone-walled bank of garages. There was a light burning at the top of the outside staircase and the small landing that was there and another in the kitchen lit up two of the windows. “How old is this place? Do you know?”

“Richard says the main house was built in 1816, but the garages were added much later, along with several additions to the house itself. It’s difficult to tell, though, as the stone is such a good match. The original Halstead homestead was part of a very large farm.”

Will pulled his car to a halt behind Elizabeth’s and put the transmission in Park. “Halstead.” And then he said it again. “Halstead … oh, now I remember. There’s an old oil painting of a Judge Halstead in the courthouse. Very imposing man. I have a feeling a lawyer who spoke out of turn in his courthouse probably ended up in the public stocks. Or maybe his wig just itched.”

“He wore a wig?” Elizabeth eyed the staircase to her apartment. She wanted to be up there, safely on the other side of the door. What was the matter with her? She hadn’t been nervous earlier. Why was she nervous now? “That must have been a long time ago. Well … well, thank you again, Will. The boys and I really had a nice time.”

Will shifted on his seat, looking over his shoulder. “You’re going to need help with these guys. They’re out cold. And I’d love a cup of coffee, if you don’t mind.”

He’d love a cup of coffee. Of course he would. It would only be polite to ask him, too. Elizabeth Carstairs, you’re hopeless!

“Oh, yes, of course,” she said, opening her door before he could come around and do the courteous thing. The date-like thing. “You’ll have to pop the child locks,” she reminded him.

She then opened one of the back doors while he opened the other and, together, they looked at the sleeping twins. Danny had used his autograph hound as a sort of headrest, and Mikey—oh, oh, Mikey—had his thumb in his mouth. He only did that when he was exhausted. Her heart melted.

“Come on, boys. We’re home. You have to get up now,” she told them, reaching in to touch them each on the cheek. So soft, so warm. Her babies. “Mikey, come on, sweetheart. Danny?”

“I’m thinking a megaphone,” Will said, grinning at her across the expanse of the backseat. “Or maybe dynamite.”

Elizabeth shook Mikey’s bare leg and then unhooked his seat belt. “Mikey. Michael Joseph Carstairs. Wake up!”

“Wake up, it’s time for bed. That makes sense. That’s a mother thing, isn’t it, passed down from generation to generation,” Will said, unhooking Danny’s seat belt. “Look, Elizabeth, I have an idea. You run ahead and open the door, and I’ll carry them upstairs, one at a time.”

The idea made sense. Perfect sense. Well, perfect sense to someone who hadn’t been both mother and father to the twins since they were three. She was used to handling the boys on her own. She was independent. She was capable. She was being an idiot ….

She reached into her purse for her keys. “I can manage Mikey,” she said, already pulling the boy’s pliable form toward her. “Fireman’s lift. It works.” She took Mikey’s new hat from him, stuck it on her own head—what else was there to do with it?—hefted her son over her shoulder and then retrieved the autograph hound, tucking it under her other arm. Her knees wanted to buckle slightly, but she ignored their protest. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” Will told her, putting Danny’s new IronPigs hat on his own head before grabbing up Danny and his autograph hound. He then kicked his side door shut, so that Elizabeth did the same thing, and, together, they made their way up the flight of wooden stairs to the landing.

Fitting the key in the lock wasn’t easy, but she managed, even while mentally trying to remember if she’d moved the laundry basket from the kitchen table, where she’d earlier sat sorting socks and little boy underwear. One look inside the kitchen told her that she hadn’t. Some people use fresh flowers as a centerpiece, she told herself as she led the way through the apartment, flipping on lights as she went.