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

“Right through here,” she said as they passed by her bedroom and she turned into the larger of the two bedrooms, the one shared by the twins. Bending her knees, she managed to pull back the covers and then gratefully lowered Mikey onto the mattress. “If he’d had one more hot dog tonight, I wouldn’t have been able to manage this,” she said, watching as Will untied Danny’s sneakers and pulled them off.

Did Will know he was still wearing Danny’s hat? The hat didn’t quite fit, and he had it on sideways. Did he know how adorable he looked?

“Sorry, I think the left lace is still knotted,” he said, now tackling Danny’s socks. “Nothing seems to be waking them, does it? I don’t remember the last time I slept this well—or this deeply.”

“The sleep of the innocent,” Elizabeth told him, pulling the covers up over Mikey’s chest. They could take baths in the morning. A little dirt wouldn’t kill them, nor would having them sleep in their clothes.

“The innocent, huh?” Will said, smiling at her as they walked out of the darkened room. “That explains it. I haven’t been innocent in a long time.”

She shot him a weak smile as she leaned past him to close the bedroom door. “You’ve still got Danny’s hat on, you know.”

He reached up and took it off, handing it to her before reaching for Mikey’s hat, which was still on her head. “Long live the Pigs.”

“Oink, oink,” Elizabeth said, putting the hats down on the hall table. “This way they’ll be able to find them first thing in the morning. I have a feeling I’ll be seeing a lot of that pink pig.”

“I’m trying to figure out how you manage two kids at one time. I mean, I can see how you do it now—and you do it very well. But what about when they were younger? One is a handful. Two is twice that.”

“I had my ways,” Elizabeth told him as they passed back down the hall, her bedroom to their left, a combined living and dining area to their right. “When I needed to carry both of them, I’d pick up Danny first and then let Mikey climb me.”

They entered the brightly lit kitchen, and Elizabeth headed for the automatic coffeemaker she’d already prepared for the morning and switched it on.

“Excuse me?”

She turned to rest her hip against the counter. “I’d hold Danny, and then Mikey would grab on to my hand with both of his and put his feet against my leg. I’d pull, and he’d climb. Once he was high enough, he’d sort of snuggle against me and I could hold him.” Elizabeth felt her cheeks growing hot. “Sort of like King Kong climbing the Empire State Building.”

“Except that you’re a lot more soft and snuggly than good old Bethlehem steel,” Will said, looking at her in a way that made Elizabeth think perhaps what little makeup she wore had smudged beneath her eyes or something.

“I … I have some cookies in that jar on the table. Peanut butter. The boys made them today with Elsie, Richard’s housekeeper. They’re very good.”

“That sounds nice, yes,” Will said, stepping closer to her, which wasn’t a huge feat, as the kitchen wasn’t all that large. “Here,” he said, reaching toward her, “let me fix this. Your button must have come open when you were carrying Mikey.”

Elizabeth looked down in shock to see Will’s tanned hands, his long fingers, working with the material of her blouse that had, indeed, come open, revealing the line of her fairly utilitarian bra. He didn’t linger, didn’t do anything more than slip the button back into its buttonhole, but Elizabeth had to fight a shiver at the unexpected intimacy.

He looked into her eyes. He smiled. His eyes smiled. Teased. Then he backed off.

“Coffee’s ready,” she said, turning to grab two mugs from the cabinet, congratulating herself for not having fainted dead away or begun drooling or some such idiocy. “What would you like with it? Sugar? Cream?” Me?

“I’m fine with it black,” Will told her. “Where should I put this?”

She looked over her shoulder to see he was now holding the laundry basket. Was any of her underwear in it, or just all those little pairs of briefs with cartoon animals or superheroes or race cars all over them? “Oh, anywhere,” she said lamely. “That shouldn’t have been there. I’m sorry. I don’t have guests very often.”

Will pulled the cookie jar to the center of the table and removed the lid, reaching inside to grab one of the cookies. “Don’t worry about it. You have two kids, and you have a full-time job. I may have a full-time job, but the rest of my life is my own. Do you have your own life, Elizabeth?”

The suddenness, the seriousness of the question, startled Elizabeth. “I’m very happy,” she answered, wondering if she sounded as defensive as she felt. She also realized that she hadn’t answered Will’s question.

So, obviously, did he. His eyes, his slight smile, both hinted to her that he did. But his next question really proved it.

“When was the last time you went out for dinner, Elizabeth? Not counting taking the boys someplace where you order by talking into a clown’s mouth or a dinner that could be served on a napkin at a ballpark?”

She couldn’t remember. Dear God, she couldn’t remember! “I don’t know. A while?”

“Okay. How about this one. Name the last movie you saw in a theater.”

Elizabeth wanted to get up, leave the room. Will was a lawyer, and he was interrogating her. But why? “It was … something the boys wanted to see. There was this prehistoric cartoon squirrel, and he was always chasing a—I don’t know. What difference does it make?”

“None, probably,” Will said, sitting back in his chair, the coffee mug—the one with a superhero dog stamped on the sides—clasped in both of his hands. “You’d never been to a baseball game until tonight. That was setting the bar pretty high. I didn’t want our next date to be a letdown. So dinner and a movie?”

She carefully set down her coffee mug, which was better than having the hot liquid splash all over her fingers because her hand was shaking. “Tonight was a date?”

“Technically, probably not. I thought we could try again, this time without the kids. Not that I don’t like them,” he added quickly. Too quickly?

“No, of course not. You were very good with them. Very … understanding. But I—I don’t date. I mean, I haven’t been on a date since before I was married, and I really don’t know how to—” She looked at him in appeal. “Could you help me out here? I’m being an idiot.”

“Happy to be of service. A date, Ms. Carstairs, consists of two people who wish to—”

“I know that part, smarty-pants,” she said, and then winced. Who called a grown man smarty-pants? Women whose usual verbal confrontations begin with “take your fingers out of your mouth, young man, and answer me,” that’s who. “How about I just say yes? I would love to go to dinner and a movie with you.”

“Terrific.” Will stood up at the same time she did, which brought them into rather close proximity to one another. “Tomorrow night?”

“I’ll need to arrange for a babysitter,” she said, not backing up because that would be so obvious. “I think Elsie wouldn’t mind. Thank you.”

“No, thank you,” he said, looking at her with those marvelous eyes of his. “Do you like Italian?”

She nodded. “I love Italian, yes.”

He opened his mouth, hesitated. “Good. Italian it is.”

There was a tension between them Elizabeth knew someone could cut with the proverbial knife.

“Italian it is,” she repeated, taking a deep breath.

“You can pick the movie. As long as it isn’t a courtroom drama. I always want to start shouting at the screen when they get it wrong. I might embarrass you, not to mention getting us both thrown out.”

“Thanks for the warning. I’ll look for a comedy.”

“Good idea.” He stepped closer to her. “I’ll pick you up at six. We’ll eat first and then go to the late show.”

“Sounds … sounds like a plan.”

Would he just do something? Talk, not talk. Move, not move. Kiss her, not kiss her. Something!

“I had a very good time tonight, Elizabeth,” he told her.

“And that surprises you?”

He ran a hand through his hair, mussing it in a most appealing way. “You figured that out?”

She nodded. “I just haven’t figured out why you invited us.”

His eyes shifted slightly, but then he looked at her as if he didn’t have a secret in the world. “You haven’t looked in a mirror lately?”

“Oh.” Well, there’s an answer that will go down in history! “I … I wasn’t fishing for compliments. But … but thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Will said, and then he moved even closer, and Elizabeth knew what was coming next. He was going to kiss her. She’d been out of the dating game for a lot of years, but she recognized a move when one was being put on her.

She lifted her face so that she could meet him halfway. If nothing else, curiosity was winning out.

“Mom? Mom! Can I get out of bed? I’m thirsty!”

Will stepped back. “I thought it would take fireworks to wake up those kids.”

“Or the sound of a pin dropping on cotton. They have an inner sense that tells them when I’ve just slipped into a bubble bath or I just picked up the phone to call my mother—that sort of thing. I don’t know how they do it, but they do it. I’m sorry, Will.”

“I should be going anyway,” he told her, heading for the door. “Practice is at nine tomorrow morning.”

“Mom!”

“Yes, I’ll … we’ll see you then. And we did have a wonderful time tonight.”

She closed the door behind him, fought the urge to lean herself up against the wood and sigh a girlish sigh and then headed for the cabinet to get Mikey a glass of water. No, she should make that two glasses of water, or Danny would be sure to ask for one. And then, with them both awake, they really needed to brush their teeth and get into their pajamas and …

She nearly dropped the glass when she heard the knock on the door.

“It’s only me, Elizabeth,” she heard Will call through the door.

“Uh … it’s open?”

He stepped inside, holding on to the pair of child booster seats. “I figured you might need these,” he said, putting them down on the table.

“Oh, yes, of course. I’m sorry I didn’t think of that. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Oh, and one other thing.”

Elizabeth gripped the glass tightly. Here it comes. He’s going to kiss me. What do I do if he kisses me? Close my mouth? Open my mouth? Fall on the floor in a dead faint?

Will walked past her to lift the lid on the cookie jar. “I thought I’d take one for the road,” he said, holding up a cookie like some sort of prize. “See you tomorrow.”

“Yes … see you tomorrow,” she echoed, lifting her hand to give him a small finger-wave.

This time, after the door closed, she counted to ten, waiting to hear his car move off down the drive.

Then she sat down in one of the kitchen chairs and laughed until Mikey padded into the room to remind her he was still thirsty.

Once back on the main road, Will used his hands-free cell phone to call his cousin. She answered after five rings, her voice sounding as if he’d woken her up. Good.

“Chessie, this isn’t going to work.”

“Wha … who—Will? What time is it?”

He shot a look at the dashboard clock. “Not quite midnight. And I mean it, Chessie. This isn’t going to work. I’m going to call it off.”

“You’re going to call what off? For God’s sake, Will, it’s midnight. Just because you can operate on less than eight hours’ sleep doesn’t mean the rest of us can. Call me back in the morn—Oh, wait. Um … does this have anything to do with Elizabeth? I thought you told me you were just taking the three of them to a ball game. Ah, man, Will, what did you do?”

“Nothing,” he told her, looking to his left before pulling out onto the highway. “I did nothing, I should do nothing, I am doing nothing. It was a stupid idea, Chessie. She’s not my type.”

“If you mean she isn’t cold and ambitious and only out for herself, then no, she isn’t.”

“Leave Kay out of this,” Will told her, concentrating more on his driving than he was on what Chessie was saying. Always a mistake.

“Aha! So you knew just who I meant, didn’t you?”

“Never mind that. I’m just telling you—”

“Never mind that? You wake me up in the middle of the night, and then don’t even give me a moment to gloat when I score a major hit? Hi, Will, this is Chessie—remember me? I gloat. I live to gloat.”

“Yeah, yeah, score one for Chessie. Can we get back to the reason I called, please? Because your plan is full of holes, Chess. There’s no such thing as just waking someone up. You have to figure out what to do with them once they’re awake.”

“You could be nice and hang up and call them again in the morning,” his cousin said. She then added quickly, “Okay, okay, I know you’re not talking about me. You’re talking about Elizabeth. What did you do, Will? Turn on all your boyish charm in one go?”

“This has nothing to do with me. I’m only saying that Elizabeth … that she’s …” How about that? Him, the silver-tongued lawyer, at a loss for words. “She could get hurt.”

He could hear Chessie getting out of bed. Well, either she’d thrown back the covers and gotten out of bed, or she had just levitated a good three feet above the mattress. “William Hollingswood … what … did … you … do?”

“Nothing. I didn’t do a single thing. All right, almost. I was going to kiss her good-night. Hell, it’s the natural end to an evening. But I didn’t. Chessie, I don’t think the woman’s been out on a date since her husband died. How do I say this and not have you crawl through the phone and murder me? Okay, I can’t. She’s ripe, Chess. Ripe for the plucking.”

“But you won’t … pluck. Right?”

Will closed his eyes for a moment. “No, I won’t. But she knew I wanted to. She’s a nice woman, Chess. A lady, a mom, for crying out loud.”

“Not your type.”

“God, no.”

“Did you want to kiss her? Or was this one of those, ‘oh, hell, we’re here, why not’ deals?”

“I don’t know,” Will said honestly. “What I do know is that Elizabeth is the forever type, and I’m not. On my own I never would have asked her out. So, since you’re the one who got me into this, how do I shut this thing down without hurting her?”

His cousin was silent for a few moments, and then surprised him. “There’s a thing? Really? You know, Will, it could just be that Elizabeth doesn’t find you all that captivating. Did you think about that one? Okay, so you took her out. One time. Do you really think you’ve now ruined her for all other men or something? God, that’s arrogant.”

“You’re right.” Will pulled into his own driveway and cut the engine. “It was one date. And not even a date, since we had the twins with us. It was just a friendly evening. I’m overreacting,” he said, sitting back in the bucket seat. “Of course I am. I’m being an ass, and I’m sorry. And I’ve already asked her out for tomorrow night. Why did I do that, Chessie?”

“Yes, you were, and I have no idea. Unless, of course, Elizabeth packs more of a punch than she thinks she does. Does she, Will? Is this phone call about you being worried about her or you being worried about yourself?”

“Go back to bed, Chess,” Will said, cutting the connection. And then he sat in his car for another five minutes, trying to answer his cousin’s question. “One more day. I’ll give it one more day,” he said at the end of those five minutes, and then he went inside, feeling he’d at least begun to back away … even if Elizabeth didn’t know that yet.

Chapter Five

Sam The Dog had somehow managed to wrap his leash around Elizabeth’s bare legs in the time it took to grab a folding lawn chair from the back of the SUV, and the boys were already halfway down the hill to the field by the time she could follow them.

She felt a small pang as she watched them so blithely desert her—and not only because they’d left their bats and mitts behind in the backseat. They were growing up. Sometimes it was as if they grew an inch or more overnight, and they didn’t seem to need her the way they once had … the way she’d always clung to them, probably too tightly, once Jamie was gone.

They’d just finished first grade, had been away from her for nearly seven hours a day. Now they were playing baseball. Tomorrow they’d be leaving for college.

“And now let’s all have a pity party for the overprotective mommy in the crowd,” Elizabeth grumbled as she struggled to hold on to chair, bats, gloves and Sam The Dog while navigating the slope down to the ball field. “Sam The Dog! Stop pulling on the leash!”

Her mother would have told her that she was attempting a “Lazy Man’s Load,” trying to carry too much at one time in order to save herself a trip back up the slope to her car, and that the exercise was doomed to end in failure. And her mother would, as usual, have been right.

The lawn chair slipped out from beneath her arm, cracking her hard on her ankle bone before it hit the grass. Her reaction was to reach down to grab her ankle, a move that dislodged the two bats tucked into the crook of her other arm. She made a quick, twisting grab for them, and that’s when it happened.

Sensing the slack on his leash, Sam The Dog made a break for it, heading straight onto the field and into the midst of the players standing huddled around the coaches.

It was like watching a bowling ball strike the pins, sending them scattering everywhere.

Sam The Dog, being a border collie, immediately began trying to herd all the children back to where they were, even while the coaches seemed to be attempting to shoo him off the field.

Elizabeth left everything where it had fallen and took off down the slope. “Sam The Dog! Sam The Dog, you come here this instant! Danny, grab his leash!”

Danny made a valiant stab at it but only ended up laid-out on his belly as Sam The Dog eluded him as he circled the children, urging them closer and closer to the pitcher’s mound.

She saw Will standing near the players’ bench, a clipboard against his chest, watching the excitement with an amused smile on his face. She hastened to where he stood, nearly breathless from running and shouting. Well, at least now she didn’t have to worry anymore about what she was going to say to him the next time she saw him.

“I’m so, so sorry,” she told him as Mikey finally managed to grab Sam The Dog’s leash. “He means well. He really does.”

“Mikey or the mutt?” Will asked her, his eyes still on the ball field. “He was herding them, wasn’t he? And with much more success than we’ve been having. Amazing. If we can find him a shirt that fits, we could make him the first-base coach. What’s his name? I heard you calling something, but I couldn’t catch it.”

“He’s Sam The Dog,” Elizabeth said, relieved that she and the dog weren’t going to be immediately ejected from the field.

Will turned his attention to her. “You’re kidding, right? And you call him that? Not Sam? Sam The Dog?”

“He’s Richard’s dog. Officially, he’s Samuel Thibold Devonshire, I think it is, but Richard thought that was too long, so now he’s Sam The Dog. I don’t know. It fits somehow.”

“True, I guess. But it’s so obvious. I mean, if you called him Sam The Deer that wouldn’t be so obvious. Sam The Donkey? Sam The Duck? Or, to make it simple, you could just call him STD.”

At this, Elizabeth narrowed her eyes as she looked at him. “STD? I don’t think so.”

Will smiled, covering his mouth with his hand. “Oh, right. That would seriously cut down his chances with the lady dogs, wouldn’t it?” He took two steps toward the field. “Mikey! No dogs on the field. Bring him over here.”

There were protests from the team, all of whom seemed to be almost as enthralled with Sam The Dog as he was with them.

“Come on, put some hustle into it. We’ve only got the field for another hour or so.”

Elizabeth took the leash from Mikey, telling him to get Danny and run back up the hill to get their equipment and her chair. “Once again, Will, I’m really sorry. But Richard is gone, and Sam The Dog looked so forlorn as I was leaving that I thought it wouldn’t hurt to bring him along.”

“Richard’s gone? Richard as in your boss—that Richard?” Will asked, as if that was the only thing he’d heard. “For how long?”

“We’re not sure. His publishing house keeps wanting to add new cities to his tour. A week, ten days—more? Why?”

“No reason,” Will said, taking Sam The Dog’s leash from her. “I think the pooch here will enjoy himself more if I tie him up next to the team bench. And I just thought that might mean you’re pretty much on vacation, with your boss gone.”

Elizabeth mentally, figuratively—please, Lord, not physically, because that he could see—backed up a pace. “I have a few things to do, routine things. But yes, I suppose you could say I’m on vacation.”

“Then you’ll be staying here in town, not going anywhere. Not taking the kids to the shore or anything?”

She shook her head. “No, I hadn’t planned on it. Why?”

He seemed to mentally pull himself up short. “No reason. It’s just that we need to field ten kids—we have four outfielders, cuts down on the coaches having to chase balls—and we only have fifteen on the team. I’ll be down two for a week when Jason and Drew Keglovitz leave on vacation. So … so it’s good to know that Mikey and Danny will be available. Sam The Dog, huh?”

Elizabeth nodded. “Sam The Dog. Right. Well, um, I should go find a place that’s out of the way and let you get back to work.”

“Okay, good. I’ll … I’ll see you after practice.”

She turned away, her eyes momentarily widening in a “what the heck was that all about?” way before she picked up her lawn chair and headed for the grassy area where other parents were congregated.

“Here, put your chair down next to mine,” one of the women, a striking redhead, said, motioning for Elizabeth to join her. “Cute dog. I’m Annie Lambert. My Todd is the one with the bright orange hair—no surprise there, right? Which little darling is yours?”

Elizabeth introduced herself as she unfolded her chair and sat down. “I’ve got two here, actually. Mikey and Danny. They’re twins.”

“Oh, how neat. Unless you’re the one up all night with them while they’re newborns, I guess. I swear, my Todd never slept through the night until he was three—years, not months. Where are they?” Annie asked, shading her eyes with her hand as she looked out over the ball field.

Thanks to her evening at the IronPigs game, Elizabeth was able to answer with some authority: “Danny’s standing at first base, and Mikey is at third.”

“Really? You have to mean the ones with those adorable blond curls sticking out from under their caps. I’m so sorry. I thought they were girls.” Annie pulled a comical face. “I was told there were a couple of girls on the team. Not that I don’t love curls, and I would hate to see them cut off. It’s bad enough their soft baby skin doesn’t stay that way. Todd’s got knees like sandpaper. He’s also got his hair shaved down to just about nothing for the summer, but that was his father’s idea. I think it’s great that your husband is letting you keep their curls this long. They grow up too fast as it is.”

“I’m a widow,” Elizabeth said, as if that excused the curls, which was ridiculous. The curls were probably ridiculous. Why hadn’t she realized that? But they were babies, her babies. And now they were growing up so fast. “They need haircuts, don’t they?”

Annie put her hand on Elizabeth’s arm. “Sweetie, you do what you want to do, and don’t listen to anyone else. They’re your kids. But, yeah, I’d say get them haircuts. Kids can be cruel.”

“They never told me about any problems in school,” Elizabeth said quietly. “But you’re right. My husband would have made sure the curls were gone by the time they were three or four. It’s just so difficult sometimes … letting them—Ohmigod!”

As she and Annie had been talking, Elizabeth was also watching the practice on the field. Will was throwing balls high into the air, and the fielders—they were called fielders—were running in to catch them. Trying to catch them. Watching the balls bounce and then chasing them.