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Past 9:00 p.m., the General Store in Thunder Ridge was closed, so if you had a midnight hankering for a pint of mint chocolate chip or a desperate need to read the latest celebrity gossip mag, you had to drive to Hank’s Thunderbird Market on Highway 12. When Gemma’s sister Lucy phoned their parents’ house at 11:00 p.m., asking if someone could please, please, please pick up ear drops for her baby, Owen, and some teething gel—“The pink gel, not the white. The pink!”—because Owen had been crying nonstop for two hours, Gemma volunteered to make the drive.
Deciding a snack would make the late-night trip more entertaining, Gemma grabbed a package of Nutter Butters, which were the best cookies on earth, then added a bag of rippled potato chips since she was going to need to crunch on something on the way home. With her basket of support foods, she headed to the pharmaceutical aisle intending to grab the teething gel quickly and go to her sister’s. As she rounded the corner of the aisle, however, she nearly collided with another late-night shopper.
“Oh! My gosh. I didn’t expect to see you.”
“Yeah, no, me either. I’m... I had to pick up a few things.” Ethan nodded to the loaded cart in front of him and then—was it possible?—he blushed. As in, a deep red infused his gorgeous face. His gorgeous, exhausted-looking face.
Why was he blushing? Other than seeming tired, he looked great. She, on the other hand, had been wearing a T-shirt that read Eat, Sleep, Repeat and her hot-pink emoji pajama bottoms when Lucy had called, and she hadn’t seen any reason to change for the trip to the Thunderbird.
Her surprise at seeing Ethan here turned into absolute shock when she saw the contents of his shopping cart.
“Teething biscuits?” She arched a brow.
“Yeah.” He glanced around, then lifted a shoulder. “I like ’em.”
“Favorite locker-room snack?”
Ethan did not look happy. He looked, in fact, miserable. With one hand, he finger-combed the thick golden hair that appeared to have been mussed several times already. With the other hand, he retained a white-knuckle grip on the cart.
Gemma peered at the rest of the contents, which looked as if they’d been scooped up by a dump truck and piled in.
Coffee, milk, two four-packs of energy drinks, cotton balls, bandages, a thermometer (several, in fact, each a different brand), tissues, baby wipes—
Baby wipes? She looked closer. Yep, baby wipes. And formula! He had at least four different kinds of formula in that cart. And were those boxes of...
Oh, my goodness. Ethan was buying diapers. Disposable diapers, again in a few different brands. Plus, she spied the very item she was looking for—teething gel.
“You got the white kind,” she said, pointing to the small box with the picture of a tooth. “You should get the pink. My sister says it works the best.”
Frowning, Ethan followed her finger. “Really? Where is the pink one?”
Feeling as if she’d fallen asleep and was having a very weird dream, Gemma led him to the correct spot along the aisle. “This one.” She picked a box from the shelf. “Worked like a charm when my nephew Owen was cutting his first tooth.”
Looking as confused and frustrated as he was tired, Ethan scowled at the label, then tossed it into the cart along with everything else.
Selecting a box of the ointment for her sister, Gemma ventured, “So, Ethan, you have a toothache? And—” she nodded toward the diaper boxes peeking out at the bottom of the cart “—a problem with incontinence, perhaps?”
“Very funny.” He did the finger-comb again. “Can you keep a secret?” he growled, sotto voce.
“I can,” she replied, wondering at the strangeness of this meeting. “I’m not sure I’m going to want to.”
When he spoke, he looked as if even he didn’t believe the words he was about to say. “I have a baby.”
Gemma stared at him until her vision got blurry. “A baby what?”
“You know.” He made a rocking motion.
“A person? You have a baby...person?”
He nodded, and she could hardly breathe. I’m blacking out, I’m blacking out. Her heart flopped in her chest. “Wh-who-who is the mother?” Then she gasped. “Is it the redhead from the vampire cheerleader show?”
He looked at her oddly. “Who—You mean Celeste? No!” He swore. “Lord, no.” Coming around from behind the cart, he took her upper arm, glancing up and down the aisle as if this were a dark alley. “It’s not my baby,” he whispered.
She whispered back. “You said, ‘I have a baby.’”
“I do. In my house. Look,” he grumbled, “I don’t want to talk here. Are you done shopping?”
“I want to get ear drops for Lucy’s son. He’s been crying all night. She thinks he’s just teething, but you never know.”
Ethan’s attention sharpened. “Would an earache make a baby cry? A lot?”
“Yes.”
“Where are the ear drops?”
“Over here.” She showed him. He handed her a box, then added one to his cart. “Let’s go.”
The fact that he was asking her to go to his house was weird—and exciting—to say the least. “I can’t come to your house right now. I have to take these things to Luce.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes. Owen’s crying.”
“Where’s her husband? Why are you out this late?”
“Rick is out of town. I help when I’m here.”
“Aren’t you already helping with the wedding? I hear you’re driving up from Portland every weekend.”
Was she mistaken or was there a note of censure in his tone? Instantly, Gemma felt on the defensive. “I don’t mind.”
Ethan shook his head. “You have three other siblings and parents who live in Thunder Ridge. Couldn’t one of them have helped Lucy?”
“They all have families, so...” She shrugged.
“So you get dumped on in the middle of the night.”
“It’s not the middle of the night! Anyway, it’s not like that. I told you, I don’t mind.” She sounded convincing, even to her own ears, but a cold heaviness filled her chest.
Sometimes she minded. Sometimes she was envious of her siblings’ problems and their time commitments with kids and spouses and PTA meetings. Sometimes she wished it were her living room walls that needed to be repainted again, because the kids woke up early one Saturday and got creative with an indelible marker. Gemma chewed the inside of her lip.
“Sorry,” Ethan relented. “I shouldn’t have said ‘dumped.’ You’re good at fixing people’s problems. It’s natural they turn to you.”
“Yes, I’m good at fixing problems,” she murmured. Everyone’s problems but her own.
Her thirty-fourth birthday was in September. According to her friend Constance, who taught reproductive biology to premeds, 95 percent of thirty-year-old women had only 12 percent of their original ovarian follicular cells. That was a lot of cells MIA. And everyone knew that when women reached thirty-five, fertility dropped like a rock. With no man on the horizon, Gemma could feel her ovaries shrinking to the size of raisins right here in the market.
Her gaze fastened on Ethan’s face. He was even more handsome now than in high school.
Why do you have a baby? Whose is it? Clearly, the situation was a surprise. He was about to purchase half the infant-care aisle and didn’t seem to know a single thing about infants.
“Who’s with the baby now?”
“I hired a nanny.” He frowned. “She’s young.”
“Oh. I’m sure she’s capable.” And I am going to mind my own beeswax. “I’d better get going,” she said hastily before she could change her mind. “My nephew is really uncomfortable.”
“Right. Okay.” He looked at his cart and frowned. “Me, too. I’d better—” he waved a hand “—head home.”
“Good luck with everything, Ethan.”
“You, too.”
As he picked up a box of infant cold and fever medication and stared dubiously at the label, she sped up the aisle toward the single cashier on duty. Her mother would kill her for not getting all the info on Ethan’s mystery baby. Come to think of it, it was strange that he hadn’t told Scott, who surely would have mentioned it to Elyse, who would have told not only their mother, but all of her former sorority sisters and everyone else who would listen. “Oh—” She turned back. “I’m supposed to ask if you’ll be at the rehearsal dinner and whether you’re bringing a date to the wedding.”
Ethan glanced up. “Yes. And no.”
“Yes to the rehearsal dinner, no to the date?”
“Right.”
“Okay. Well, see you soon.”
He nodded, turning back to the cold medicine, his brow furrowed in thought.
Gemma continued on her way. No date. She could thrill quite a few women with that information. And flatly refused to consider her own response.
Paying for her items and carrying the bag to her car, she tried not to think about William or about how, if he hadn’t ended the engagement, they would have been married by now, attending Elyse’s wedding as husband and wife and quite possibly arguing over baby names (he liked Jane for a girl; she favored Eliza). Instead, she was flying solo with shriveling ovaries, while Ethan, who apparently chose dating celebrities as his off-season sport, wasn’t bringing anyone to the wedding...but did have a baby.
Forget Ethan. Forget William. And, for heaven’s sake, stop thinking about your ovaries.
But she kept picturing Ethan with a baby and seeing images of him in high school, dating cheerleaders. And going out with her, Gemma. Once.
Turning the key in the ignition, she found the bag of ripple chips and tore it open. She just might require a few peanut butter cookies, too, for the lonely drive to her sister’s house.
* * *
Elyse and Scott’s rehearsal dinner was held at Summit Lodge, a fabulous place that could accommodate rustic or more formal affairs. Nestled into the base of Thunder Ridge, the Scottish-themed lodge allowed guests to enjoy the mountain’s year-round majesty, and every December, Santa distributed presents among the boys and girls whose parents brought them to Brunch with Saint Nick. Gemma’s baby sister had chosen the lodge as her wedding venue all the way back in elementary school.
Because it was Memorial Day weekend, and Oregon’s weather could be unreliable, Elyse had opted to walk down a formal staircase and up the aisle between rows of guests who would be seated before one of the lodge’s massive stone fireplaces. Elyse and Scott were being married by their friend Jessie, an ordained minister. The fireplace was so tall and so wide that they, their officiate and some of the wedding party could have stood inside it.
It was in this majestic, romantic environment that Gemma saw Ethan for the first time since their meeting in the market.
At their current altitude, it was a bit chilly, and in his ivory cable-knit sweater and straight-leg jeans, he fit perfectly into his surroundings. His hair glowed golden in the ambient lights, and his blue eyes held their customary laugh, but once, when he glanced Gemma’s way, she thought he looked stressed.
Elyse had Gemma running around, asking so many questions and tying up so many loose ends that there was no time at all to speak to Ethan. Her sister’s remaining bridesmaids, on the other hand, seemed to find plenty of time to gather around the sports star. He looked as if he were holding court, and his million-dollar smile almost made her think she’d imagined the tension. So far no one she knew had mentioned Ethan’s baby news. Sometimes it seemed she’d dreamed the whole thing.
As the rehearsal finally wound up, Gemma dropped into one of the wide chairs positioned around the perimeter of the room. She still hadn’t caught up on the sleep she’d missed while running to Lucy’s last weekend, and at school, rapidly approaching final exams had kept her working extra hours. She was toast, and the wedding was tomorrow.
“Auntie Gem! Auntie Gem!”
Her brother David’s six-year-old twins, Violet and Vivian, ran over and grabbed her hands.
“Do you wanna see the floor where we get to dance tomorrow? We know where it is! Come on, we’ll show you. Come on, Auntie Gem! Come on!”
Resisting the yanking of her appendages, she instead pulled the chair with her and frowned doubtfully into freckled faces topped by curly auburn hair. “Do I know either of you? You don’t look like anyone I know.”
“We’re your nieces!” Vivian, the bolder of the two, told her indignantly. “You knowed us since we were babies.”
“You changed our diapers,” Violet, the more serious of the two, pointed out.
“Really?” Bending toward each in turn, she sniffed. “No, you don’t smell like those kids. They were stinky.”
Both girls dissolved into giggles as Gemma cuddled them.
“We’re not stinky anymore, Auntie Gem,” Violet informed her. “Mommy says we have to take a bath once a year, whether we need it or not.”
Gemma grinned. “Yeah, I do the same. Once a year, no excuses.”
“I knew we had something in common.”
The deep voice had them all raising their eyes. Ethan was looking right at her, azure gaze steady, his smile an ad company’s dream.
Gemma glanced around, wondering if the groupie bridesmaids, as she was starting to think of them, were going to pop up in a second. But nope, amazingly, he was alone.
“Your fellow bridesmaids are with Elyse and Minna,” he supplied as if reading her mind, “making sure there are enough mirrors for everyone to get ready tomorrow. First one who calls a mirror gets to use it.” He arched a brow. “You want me to take you to them so you can stake your claim?”
“I’m not very competitive. I’d rather take my chances with a compact. How about you? Shouldn’t you be duking it out with the groomsmen for mirror rights?”
The perfect lips unfurled into an electrifying grin. “Nah. I just roll out of bed, and I’m pretty already.”
He may have been joking, but it was the gospel truth. Not that she’d seen him straight out of bed, but... Gemma sighed. It only took a glance to realize he’d been gifted. If she was plain as brown bread, he was red velvet cake.
“I think I can guess who these lovely ladies are.” Ethan looked at the two girls who were staring at him, a bit intimidated. Getting down on his haunches to make his six-foot-three-inch body less imposing, he said, “Your dad is Gemma’s brother. Am I right?”
Protectively, Gemma pulled her nieces closer. That is the kind of smile for which you do not fall.
Vivian spoke up first. “No. She’s our aunt.”
Ethan pursed his beautiful lips. (And, really, why were those wasted on a man? The Cupid’s bow looked drawn on.) “Hmm. So that would mean your father is Gemma’s...grandfather?”
“No!” The girls rocked with laughter.
“Your father is her...great-grandfather?”
“No!”
“Her son?”
