The Christmas Baby Surprise

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Emily stood, shook Martin’s hand. Harper sat in the corner of the kitchen, her tail wagging, while she watched the exchange between the humans with curiosity in her brown eyes.

“I’m mainly a plumber, but I know how to do just about anything. That’s what comes from buying my own fixer-upper twenty years ago.” He grinned. “I’m still working on it two decades later. The carpenter’s always the one who doesn’t get time to build his own furniture.”

“I bet that drives your wife crazy,” Carol said.

“Would if I had one,” Martin said. “But my Sarah passed away, going on ten years now.”

“I’m so sorry,” Carol said. “Listen, we were just having lunch. Could I get you something to eat, and we can talk about the repairs? I’ve got leftover meat loaf in the fridge if you want a meat loaf sandwich.”

Martin’s grin widened. “I haven’t had one of those for years and years. But I hate to put you out. I’m sure you’re busy.”

Carol giggled. Actually giggled. “Oh, it’s no trouble at all. You sit, and I’ll fix the sandwich.”

Emily had finished her salad and rose to put her plate in the sink. “Nice to meet you, Martin,” she said to the handyman, then turned to Carol. “I’m going to go back to work for a little bit.”

“Okay,” Carol said. “Be sure to get out and enjoy this bright sunshine, too. It’s an absolutely gorgeous fall day.”

Emily glanced out the window. “You know, that sounds like a great idea. I think I’ll take a notebook and head down to the dock.”

“Sounds like a perfect way to spend an afternoon,” Carol said.

Martin and Carol started talking about the repairs needed at the inn. Their conversation flowed easily, with a little undercurrent of interest on both sides.

A few minutes later, Emily threw on a thick sweatshirt, then grabbed a notebook and a pen and headed outside. Cole’s rental car was nowhere to be seen. A part of her hoped he’d done what he always did—hired someone to do what needed to be done so he could go back to work. Whenever she had something on the honey-do list, Cole would pick up the phone and solve the problem. There were times when she wanted to yell at him that she didn’t want hired help. She wanted her husband to be the one to hang the pictures, move the sofa, trim the old maple tree in the backyard. Because that meant he would be home for more than a few minutes, and she’d feel like they were in this life together, not two trains running on parallel tracks that slowly diverged in opposite directions.

The lake’s water glistened under the bright sun, as if diamonds had been sprinkled across the smooth, lightly rippled surface. The same wooden bench she remembered sat at the end of the dock, weathered and gray. She sat down, drew her feet up to her chest and leaned against the armrest. The sun warmed her face and shoulders, and soon Emily was immersed in her ideas. She scribbled all over the notepad, plot twists and character details flowing as fast as her pen could put the words on the page.

It was as if a waterfall had been held back too long, she realized. Maybe that’s what it was—all those years of trying to be Cole’s wife, putting everything she wanted to do to the side so that she could keep the perfect house and the perfect life, then be the perfect wife at banquets and dinners and parties. Her self had disappeared somewhere among the gossip-filled brunches with the other wives, the afternoons spent playing another round of golf while Cole networked. She’d forgotten the ambitions she’d had when she graduated, the dreams she was going to pursue. But now here, finally, she was doing it. Taking Melissa’s advice and living her life before it was too late.

“Enjoying the day?”

Cole’s voice jerked her to attention. Her pen skittered across the page. “You scared me.”

“Sorry. You were so lost in what you were doing there, I guess you didn’t hear me clomping down the dock.”

“You never clomp, Cole.” She chuckled. “You’re a little too refined for that.”

“Oh, are you saying I’ve gotten soft in my days behind a desk?”

The word soft made her glance over at his trim body, still muscular and strong, thanks to frequent gym workouts. He’d put a thick black leather jacket over the T-shirt and jeans, giving him an almost...dangerous air. The day she’d met him, he’d been wearing a leather jacket much like this one. In an instant, she was back in time, standing on a sidewalk and apologizing for running into Cole because she’d had her nose buried in a book, reading while she’d walked to class. He’d told her she should never apologize for a good story, and as he helped her pick up her schoolbooks, they’d started talking, and it felt like they hadn’t stopped talking for a solid month. By the holiday break, she was in love with him and by the end of the school year, Cole had proposed. All because she’d seen the leather jacket and thought he was sexy, and she’d been intrigued by a man who looked like a biker but talked like a scholar.

What was she doing? Getting distracted by the man she no longer wanted?

“Mind if I share the seat?” he asked. “Grab a little break?”

“Sure.” She turned, put her feet on the dock and moved to make room on the bench for him. As soon as she did, she regretted the decision. The bench was small, and Cole was so close, it would only take a breath of movement for her thigh to be touching his.

“I got you something when I was in town,” he said, and handed her a small brown bag.

“What’s this?”

He waved at the bag. “Open it and see.”

She peeked inside the bag. A shiny wrapper with a familiar logo winked back at her. “You got me my favorite snack cakes?”

“Thought you might be craving them.”

For a second, she thought he knew she was pregnant, and she panicked. Then Cole chuckled. “If I remember right, you were always craving those things. I think we cleaned out the campus cafeteria on a weekly basis. What’d you use to say?” He leaned back, thinking. “There’s always a reason—”

“To celebrate with cake.” She took the package out of the bag. “Of course, that’s what I said when I had the metabolism of a twenty-year-old.”

Cole reached up, as if he was going to brush away the bangs on her forehead, but withdrew without touching her. She swallowed the bitter taste of disappointment. “You’re still as beautiful now as the day I met you, Emily.”

She got to her feet. “Cole—”

He reached for her hand. When Cole touched her, electricity sizzled in Emily’s veins, and her heart caught. “I’m not saying anything other than that you’re beautiful, Emily. No reason to run.”

It did look ridiculous to hurry off the dock just because Cole had complimented her. She retook her seat. “Let’s just keep this friendly, okay?”

“Sure.” If he was disappointed, he didn’t show it. He propped his feet on the railing in front of him, leaned back on the bench and tilted his face to the sun, eyes closed.

It was as if all the years of stress and long hours melted away. Cole looked younger, happier, more peaceful than she had seen him in a long time. Maybe working on the inn was doing him some good. For years, she’d worried about him having a heart attack at work because he worked too much, ate at odd hours and had more stress on his shoulders than anyone she knew.

“I met Martin,” she said, unwrapping the snack cake and taking a bite. It was heaven on her palate. “Did you hire him to do all the work around here?”

“Nope. Just to help on the things I’m not good at. I figure I’ll stay a few more days.” He opened his eyes and turned to look at her. “If that’s okay with you.”

How could she say no? He was helping Carol, and Carol desperately needed help if she was going to keep the inn running. Plus, Cole looked so relaxed, so happy, something Emily had rarely seen in him.

When the baby was born, she and Cole would have to be civil. Attend family gatherings together sometimes, or maybe just meet to talk about their child. With the baby, Emily knew Cole would never be totally out of her life. Someday, maybe she’d stop reacting when he smiled at her or touched her. Maybe.

“It’s fine, Cole. I’m just surprised you want to do it.”

“Working with my hands has made me feel...useful.” He chuckled. “I know, I know, they need me at work and that should do the same, but this is different. When I fixed those steps, I saw an immediate response to a problem. One minute they were a hazard, the next they were ready for visitors. It’s like every corner of this place is crying out for attention.”

She wanted to say that she had done that for years, and he’d never noticed. Or listened. “Maybe we should have bought a fixer-upper instead of built a house. Then you could have had projects all the time.”

“You still have that honey-do list, don’t you?”

She shook her head. “I gave it to Bob. The contractor you hired to do the renovations on the kitchen? He’s taking care of all those things while I’m gone.”

“Oh, that’s good.” He sounded disappointed.

A part of her wanted to believe that if she went back to New York right now, Cole would take up that honey-do list and insist on being home more often, being there, being with her. But the sensible part of her knew this time at the inn was a temporary reprieve. The problems in their marriage ran deeper than a remodeling project. Instead, it would be better, and smarter, to use this time together as a way to forge their future together. Their real future, not a fantasy one.

“Cole...” She paused, laying her hands in her lap, her appetite for the snack cake gone. “I think we should sell the house. I don’t need one that big, and you aren’t living there anymore and...”

“Let’s wait,” he said. “Give it some time—”

“We’ve been separated six months, and really, a divorce is just a formality at this point. The sooner we get these things settled, the faster we can move on.”

“What if I don’t want to move on?”

The pain in his voice hurt her. She had no doubt he still cared, but she knew how this would end. She’d read this same story a hundred times over the course of their marriage. “Cole, we’ve tried this. The big fight, the talk of ending it. You come back, try for a few days, then before you know it, you’re back at work and I’m in a marriage of one person. Let’s just make it official, okay? Instead of pretending that we’re ever going to be a family.”

She gathered her things and got to her feet. She started to pass by him, when Cole reached out. “Emily.”

His voice was harsh, jagged, filled with need and regret. Feelings she knew well because she’d felt them herself. She hesitated, standing on the dock under the bright November sun while the water lapped gently at the pilings, and looked down at the man she had pledged to love forever.

“I’m sorry, Cole. I really am,” she said softly, then placed a kiss on his cheek.

At the last second, Cole turned, and his mouth met hers. Heat exploded in that kiss, and Cole jerked to his feet, hauled her to his chest and tangled his hands in her hair. Her mind went blank, and her body turned on, and everything inside her melted. All the perfect little arguments she had against being with Cole disappeared and for a moment, Emily Watson was swept back into the very fairy tale she had thought stopped existing.

CHAPTER FIVE

FOR ONE LONG sweet moment, Cole’s life was perfect. Then Emily broke away from him, and stumbled back a step. “We...we can’t do that. We’re getting divorced, Cole.”

He scowled. “I know what’s going on between us.”

“Then let’s stop getting wrapped up in something that’s never going to work. We made that mistake a few months ago, and—”

“And what?”

She shook her head and backed up another step. “And it was a mistake.”

“So you’re giving up, just like that?”

Her gaze softened, and though Cole wished he read love in that look, what he really saw was sympathy. “No, Cole, I never gave up. You did that for both of us a long time ago. And now you’re doing what you always do. Fighting to win, because Cole Watson never loses at anything. Too bad you never realized that you lost me a long, long time ago.”

He stood on the dock for a long time, listening to the soft patter of her feet as she headed up the dock and toward the inn. The water winked back in the sunlight, bright and cheery. For the hundredth time, Cole wondered what the hell he was doing here and why he was trying so hard to save his marriage when his wife didn’t want him to.

The lake blurred in front of him, and his mind drifted back over a decade into the past. To a beach in Florida, a run-down motel and the happiest five days of his life. Things had been simpler then, he realized, before the company and the money and the big house, and all the things he thought would improve their life. Instead, it had cost him all he held dear.

Somehow, he needed to get back to that simple life, to the world that had once seemed to consist of just him and Emily. Then his phone started buzzing against his hip, and he knew doing that was going to be harder than he’d thought.

* * *

Emily buried herself in words for two hours that afternoon. She cracked the window, letting some of the crisp, fresh air filter past the lacy curtains and into the room. The sounds of chirping birds and the occasional whine of the table saw broke the quiet of the day. The pages flew by, as she took her characters and had them battle past the challenges in their lives, striving for success, even against impossible odds. The book was going very, very well and each new chapter she started gave Emily a little burst of energy and satisfaction. She was doing it. Finally.

She sat back in the chair and stretched. If only solving her own life problems was as easy as solving those of her fictional characters.

It didn’t help that she had complicated things herself by kissing Cole. It was as if there were two parts to her heart—the part that remembered the distance, the fights, the cold war of the past few years, and the part that remembered only the heady beginning of their relationship. The laughter, the happiness and the sex.

Okay, yes, being touched by Cole was the one part of their marriage that had never suffered. Their sex life, when they’d had one, had been phenomenal. He knew her body, knew it well, and had been a wonderful lover.

When he had been there to love her at all.

That was the real problem in their marriage. Cole’s absences, fueled by his dogged dedication to the business, meant he was never home. In the early years, she’d supported him, encouraged him to work as much as he needed, but as success began to mount and Emily thought he would finally cut back on his hours, Cole instead worked more, dedicating weekends and vacations to this new project or that customer problem. He’d poured his heart and soul into the company, leaving almost nothing of either one for their marriage.

She got to her feet, gathering her dishes from her afternoon snack and headed down to the kitchen. Carol was peeling potatoes at the table, and had a basket of fresh green beans waiting to be cleaned beside her. Emily put her dishes in the sink, then sat in the opposite chair and started twisting off the stringy ends and breaking the green beans in half, then adding them to a waiting colander. “I remember doing this when I was a little girl,” Emily said.

Carol smiled. “You always did like helping me in the kitchen. Half the time I’d have to kick you out and remind you that you were on vacation, not part of the KP crew.”

Emily shrugged. “I liked being here.”

“Instead of with your own family.”

“We weren’t much of a family to begin with,” Emily said. “My mother was always off doing her thing, my father was always working. And when they were together, they fought like cats and dogs.”

An understatement. Emily’s parents’ marriage had been mostly a marriage of convenience, two high school friends who’d married at the end of senior year, then had a child in quick succession, before realizing they were better friends than lovers. They had lived separate lives and only came together for birthdays and major holidays. The annual “family” summer vacation to the Gingerbread Inn was more of an opportunity to spend time with their friends and play shuffleboard than to bond as a family. The only time all three of them were together was Friday nights, when they all went into town for dinner at their favorite diner.

Carol picked up a fork and pricked holes in the scrubbed potatoes. “So when you grew up you did the opposite, right?”

Emily let out a little laugh and thought about how she had described her parents. She’d done the same thing, though not on purpose. For years, Emily had done her own thing and Cole had worked. The only saving grace—they hadn’t caught a child in the middle of that mess. Not until now. Emily covered her belly with her palm. When Sweet Pea arrived, she vowed to give her baby the childhood Emily had never had. “I pretty much carbon copied their life. At least I’m smart enough to get out before bringing kids into that...mess.”