The Pregnant Bride (17 page)

Ignoring the question, she threw back one of her own. “How did you know where to find me?”

“I’ve known where you were every day for the last three weeks,” he said, cupping her chin and studying her face as if he wanted to etch the memory of it in his mind forever. “Credit cards leave a trail of evidence behind them, my darling, and tracing a phone call takes mere seconds.”

“But when I spoke to you earlier tonight, you were at home. How did you manage to get here so quickly?”

“Desperate situations call for desperate measures,” he said, smoothing his hands over her hair. “Did you really think I was going to stand idly by and let you end our marriage without putting up a fight? I chartered a helicopter and I’d have been here a lot sooner if I hadn’t been left cooling my heels while the weather calmed down.”

“You should have saved yourself the trouble,” she said, belated common sense reasserting itself. “Flying in at the last minute doesn’t change a thing.”

He smiled and she wished he’d been born with bad teeth, or better yet, had no teeth at all. A stone image would have found that smile hard to resist. “You look wonderful,” he said, taking a step back the better to view her, and hooking one finger under the string of pearls around her neck. “That color suits you.”

And she, fool that she was, blushed at the compliment and rejoiced that she hadn’t changed since dinner. She knew that the dark green maternity dress, with its high empire waist and sweeping skirt, flattered her; that her slender, black pumps gave her added height and made her look less lumpily pregnant.

“Thank you,” she said. “You look…”
Tall, dark and devastating. Handsome beyond imagining. Beloved!

She stopped and bit her lip, hard. She needed to have her mouth stapled shut! “Rather chilled,” she said. “You shouldn’t have risked pneumonia by coming here for nothing.”

She might as well have been speaking in foreign tongues for all the attention he paid to what she said. “Our baby has grown,” he remarked, his hand sliding intimately over her breasts to where junior was kicking away as if he knew it was his father’s touch pressing lightly against him. “You’re twice as big as you were the last time I held you.”

She didn’t want to be reminded of that last time. Nor was she about to permit a repeat performance, even though it was obvious that Edmund had decided to switch tactics and try to woo her with charm and seduction.

“You’re wasting your time,” she said, pushing him away. “I’ve made up my mind.”

He strolled to the window and although he had his back to her, she knew he was watching her reflection in the dark glass. “And what would it take to change it, Jenna, my love?”

“Nothing,” she said, sternly resisting the lure of
my love,
and
my darling,
and any other blandishment he might see fit to toss her way.

Lazily, he unbuttoned his jacket and removed it. “Don’t you dare take off your clothes!” she said, in breathless panic.

He laughed, and it was as if summer breezed into the room, rich with warmth and sunlight. “The thought never crossed my mind.”

“You’re not staying, you know.”

“I’ll leave the minute you hear me out.”

“Edmund,” she said, a shade desperately, “we have nothing left to say to each other. I thought I made that clear already.”

“I dropped the custody suit, Jenna.”

“Dropped—?” Stunned, she stared at him, wishing he’d turn around so that she could read the expression on his face. “When?”

“Shortly after you left, but not, I hasten to add, because you left. This isn’t a ploy to win you back. I made my decision independently of anything to do with you and me.”

“Then…why?” She was almost afraid to ask. Afraid that he was raising her hopes, only to dash them again and leave her more desolate than ever.

“I drove up to the Okanagan with every intention of bringing Molly back to town with me. When she saw me, she started to cry and begged her mother not to let me take her away. And Adrienne…” He heaved a sigh and slowly turned back to the room. No trace of his recent laughter remained. Instead, there was a soberness to the cast of his mouth, an introspective darkness in his eyes. “Adrienne told her not to be upset, that I was her daddy and would never hurt her, and she should go with me and have fun. But it wasn’t enough. Molly still wouldn’t look at me, let alone come to me. So Adrienne suggested I stick around for a while, have lunch with them, that sort of thing, to give her time to come around. And it shamed me. Because if the situation had been reversed, I’d have capitalized on it.”

He cleared his throat and waited a second before continuing, “I stand just over six-two in my bare feet, Jenna, but at that moment I felt about two feet tall. My own daughter was afraid of me, my wife had left me because she, too, was afraid, and my ex-wife was showing a compassion and generosity I didn’t deserve. What kind of jerk did that make me?”

She couldn’t answer. He was as close to tears as she ever hoped to see him, and it was breaking her heart.

“I finally saw that you were right,” he said, wrenching his emotions under control. “I’d lost sight of what mattered. The whole custody issue had taken on a life of its own that had nothing to do with Molly. I was blaming Adrienne and Bud when the person I should have blamed was myself.”

“No!” she whispered, aghast. “Whatever else you did wrong, you weren’t responsible for Molly’s accident, Edmund.”

“Indirectly, I’m afraid I was. I knew Bud was strapped for cash and that the machinery wasn’t being properly maintained. That’s probably why the brakes failed on the tractor, the day of the accident.”

“But you paid child support, didn’t you?”
Oh please,
she prayed,
tell me that you did!

“I guess I deserve that question,” he said. “And yes, I did, every month without fail. But Bud wouldn’t let Adrienne touch a cent of it. Every cheque I sent went straight into a trust account for Molly. Except for the gifts I gave her, everything she’s owned since he married her mother came out of his pocket. He was scrupulous about being the provider. The way he saw it, he’d done more than take a wife, he’d taken on her child, as well. And that ate holes in me. I felt irrelevant. Instead of lending a hand with a few extra dollars when they were needed, I stood back and watched him struggle. That’s why I have to take some responsibility for Molly’s accident.”

“You’re being too hard on yourself,” she said. “It was no one’s fault.”

“Well, if it makes any difference, I’ve tried to put things right. I might be a real bozo at times, but I do learn, eventually. I’ve convinced Bud to let me help out with the cash flow. Things should be a bit easier for him from now on.”

He steepled his hands and pressed them to his mouth, then gave a shrug. “And that’s about it, Jenna. The next move’s up to you. If you still want a divorce, I won’t oppose it, nor will I use the baby as a bargaining tool. But,” he said, moving with fluid grace to where she sat and falling to his knees at her feet, “if you’ll give me another chance, I’ll do my level best to prove myself worthy of it.”

“Why? Because of the baby?”

“Because I love you,” he said.

She turned her face aside and stared across the room, because looking at him and seeing the pain in his eyes was more than she could bear. “You make me afraid, Edmund,” she said. “You touch my heart so easily; you always have. I’ve never been more vulnerable than I am with you.”

He neither moved nor spoke. The only sound in the room was the shifting of a dying log in the hearth, the only motion that of sparks shooting up the chimney. For perhaps a full minute, he remained with one hand resting against her knee and his eyes tracking the expressions flitting across her face: hope warring with uncertainty; love fighting suspicion.

Finally, he rose to his feet and went to where he’d left his jacket. “I have done this to you,” he said heavily. “My God, I should be shot.”

He’d gone as far as the door before she found her voice and the courage to say what was in her heart. “Please don’t go.”

“Why not?”

She had never heard him sound so defeated. What had happened to her indomitable husband, the one whose favorite expression had once been
I won’t allow…?

“Because,” she said, twisting in her seat to look at him, “every child deserves to grow up with both his parents there to tuck him in at night. And everyone deserves a second chance. Even us, Edmund.”

He needed no further invitation. “I won’t let you down again,” he whispered hoarsely, drawing her into his arms and holding her as if he’d never let her go. “And if I ever get out of line again, do me a favor and give me a good swift kick in the rear.”

“Oh, I can do better than that,” she murmured, peeling the duffle jacket off his shoulders and running her hands over the lovely firm planes of his chest. “Remember what I said before, about you keeping your clothes on?”

“Mmm-hmm.” He nuzzled her neck.

“I’ve changed my mind,” she said. “Will you please take them off?”

“I will,” he said against her mouth. “Provided you do something for me.”

She was ashamed of the little start of uneasiness to which that question gave rise. “And what’s that?”

“Marry me,” he said, undoing the buttons on the front of her dress and planting a kiss on her bare shoulder.

“We’re already married.”

“I know. But the last time, it was a furtive affair based on practical considerations.” His mouth traveled to her ear, his voice lowered to a whisper. “This time, I’m asking you because I love you and I can’t live without you. And I want the whole world to know it.”

“But I’m pregnant,” she objected. “Can’t we wait until I’ve at least got a waist again?”

“Not a chance, sweet pea,” he said, lifting her into his arms and making tracks for the bed. “I’m not risking losing you a second time.”

It had taken them months to resolve their differences. It took only minutes for him to strip her naked, and only seconds longer for him to shed his own clothes. “I love you, Jenna Delaney,” he said, just before he entered her.

Smooth and powerful, he filled her with his vibrant heat and she, as she always had, closed around him in a fusing of limbs and mouths; of hearts and minds and spirits. He was her soul mate. For the first time in weeks, perhaps for the first time ever, she felt truly complete.

“And I love you,” she cried, clinging to him as the rhythm gained strength and the first spasms of slow sweet release took distant hold, rippling over her flesh, pebbling her skin, and turning her liquid with passion.

Outside, the wind picked up again, driving the waves relentlessly ashore. Inside the room, a different kind of passion ruled, no less implacable but infinitely more splendid.

T
HEY
renewed their vows in November, on a day of crystal blue skies, and sunshine which still retained a faint breath of late summer.

The little church was full. Behind him on the left, his mother-in-law wore the look of a woman about to be martyred a second time. To the right, his mother adjusted her hat and whispered in his father’s ear. Immediately behind them, Adrienne smiled encouragingly and Bud gave him the thumbs-up sign.

The air was heavy with the scent of flowers. The congregation hummed with anticipation. And he was nervous as a cat on hot bricks. What the devil had he been thinking, to suggest they go through with a second wedding when the first was still in effect? All this fuss, all these people…!

The organ droned to a halt, then struck up the opening notes of the familiar
Here Comes The Bride, Forty Inches Wide
wedding march. The door to the private room at the back of the church opened, and Molly came skipping out, angelic in white and dainty as a butterfly as she came down the aisle scattering rose petals. “Hi, Daddy,” she piped, when she was still only halfway to the altar.

Even Valerie Sinclair cracked a smile.

Then Jenna appeared on her father’s arm, and Edmund knew why he was there: so that he could keep the memory of how she looked alive in his heart long after they were both old and gray.

She wore blue, and carried a small bunch of creamy roses. Her long skirt brushed her ankles. The matching jacket hung full in front, proclaiming rather than trying to hide her pregnancy. Her eyes, her smile, her face…!

He swallowed and blinked. She was a vision! Once she’d looked at him as if he were her guardian angel, but he knew that, in fact, it was the other way around. She was the angel who’d brought him to the place he was now at: a man at peace and able to accept the compromises which were part and parcel of life.

“Jenna’s got a baby in her tummy,” Molly informed the congregation at large, as Jenna reached his side. “That’s why it’s sticking out.”

A wave of laughter swelled from the pews.

He swallowed again, wiped his damp palms on the seat of his pants and wondered why such a woman would want to spend the rest of her life with a schmuck like him. He didn’t deserve her. But, oh brother, did he need her! She was his lodestar, the one who kept him grounded. She had taught him what love was really all about.

“We are here today,” the clergyman began, “to celebrate with Jenna and Edmund as they renew their marriage vows.”

She’d pinned her hair up into some sort of fancy knot which she’d skewered in place with a couple of rosebuds. The diamond earrings which had been his wedding gift to her caught the light spearing through the mullioned windows and sparked with fiery brilliance.

“You’re spoiling me,” she’d said, when he’d presented them to her the night before.

“You’re worth it,” he’d replied.

Worth that, and a whole lot more! “An eternity ring,” the jeweler had suggested, when, to mark their second wedding day, he’d asked to be shown something special to go with her existing engagement and wedding rings, but he’d not heard him right and thought the man said “maternity ring.” Either way, the narrow gold band studded with diamonds and engraved with that day’s date and the inscription
For Jenna: my wife, my love, my life.
did justice to only a fraction of what he felt in his heart.

“Edmund, do you take this woman—?”

“I do,” he said, gripping her hands so tightly that she winced.

“Ahem!” the clergyman said. “—to be your wedded wife? Will you love her, honor her and keep her only unto you, so long as you both shall live?”

“And beyond,” he said, winging it without warning. “For all eternity. I will cherish you forever, Jenna.”

She turned a smile on him, so radiant that it put the sun to shame. Reflected in her lovely eyes he saw the affirmation of all that was in his heart and which, never in a million years, could he have put into words.

Eternity wasn’t long enough for him to show her the depth of his love and commitment to her. But it would do for a start.