Always the Baker, Finally the Bride (30 page)

“Okay, ladies,” Sherilyn called out from the other side of the great room. “It’s time for more games! Come on over here, Em.”

“Oh, goodie,” Hildie muttered dryly. “More games.”

“I know, right?”

“If this is a slumber-shower, when do we get to slumber? I’m kind of over the games.”

Emma broke into laughter. “Whatever the game,” she announced, “Hildie’s on my team.”

“I appreciate your coming over, buddy.”

“Well, when you nixed Andy’s idea of a bachelor party—”

“Andy’s idea of a bachelor party,” Jackson pointed out, “is a poker game with the baby in a carriage in the corner and Henry noshing on the snacks when we’re not looking.”

“True enough. Anyway, I figured Chinese was the least I could do on the night of the bachelorette deal,” Sean told him as he handed over a quart container of shrimp lo mein. “You want moo shu?”

“Yeah.”

Sean dumped a glob of the pork and egg mixture on a plate, topped it with a fork, and slid it across the slick table toward Jackson.

“You get egg rolls?”

“Dude,” Sean said, sounding a lot like his wife. “Duh.”

“I wonder if that will happen to me.”

“If what will happen?” Sean asked, pushing a wax packet at him with an egg roll sticking out of it.

“If I’ll start to sound like Emma, the way you sounded like Fee just now.”

A bright-white smile wound its way across Sean’s dark face. “Yeah. You’ll wake up one morning, out of the blue, craving cake or something. It happens before you know it.”

“I look forward to it,” he commented.

“Got anything to drink?”

“Water,” Jackson said. “Maybe a Coke or two.”

Jackson dug into the meal while Sean grabbed a couple of bottles of water from the refrigerator.

“Yeah, I didn’t really anticipate all the ways she would impact my life,” Sean said. “Like that kid, Hildie. I just thought Fee was a little crazy and it might pass, but before I knew it, we were both invested. I almost hope we pull it off.”

“Pull what off?”

“Oh. Yeah. We’re trying to adopt her.”

Jackson coughed on the lo mein noodle stuck halfway down his throat and gawked at Sean with bulging eyes. “What? You’re what?”

“Yeah, we met with that caseworker woman . . .”

“Mrs. Troy?”

“Yeah. Troy. And she’s helping us work through the system.”

“Does Emma know?”

“I . . . I don’t know. I just assumed Fee would have told her, but maybe not. She’s pretty close to the vest with this thing. She seems like she’s got a duck’s back, but she’s invested in this.”

“And how do you feel about it?”

“I’m learning to love the kid, to tell you the truth.”

“Have you spent any time with her?”

“Yeah, a little,” Sean replied, and he paused to show Jackson another container. “Sweet and sour chicken?”

“Nah, I’m good.”

“We took her to the Braves game. Man, the kid really loves baseball.”

“And the foster family is okay with this?”

“Oh, yeah. The Rameys are great.”

Jackson dunked an egg roll into plum sauce and took a bite, chewing on it while he also nibbled on the idea of Fee and Sean adopting Hildie. If Emma knew, she surely would have mentioned it. He hadn’t realized he was staring until Sean’s smile twitched.

“What, man?”

“Fee as a mom,” he stated. “That . . . boggles my mind.”

“Yeah. I hear ya. But I think she’s better suited to it than you’d suspect.”

After they ate, they decided to go around the corner to shoot a game of pool at the sports bar Jackson used to frequent now and then to watch a game with his buddies, the ones he hadn’t seen or talked to for months on end. He hadn’t been to O’Hara’s since before the hotel opening.

Sean cleaned up in the first two games, but Jackson pulled out a win for the third. They each ordered something to drink and watched the end of a soccer game on the corner TV screen before heading out.

“So how was it?” Sean joked before heading for his car. “Better than a bachelor party, right?”

“Oh, yeah.”

Jackson slapped Sean’s arm as they shook hands, and he still wore the parting smile as he stepped back into his house. It had been a great night. He’d forgotten how much time had passed since he had made time for a simple night out with a friend. Sean was great company, and spending time with him made Jackson think about his old friend Decker Stanton. He wondered if Decker and Felicity had responded to the wedding invitation.

Without much forethought, Jackson grabbed his cell phone and dialed Decker.

“My caller ID must be on the fritz,” Decker declared as he answered. “It says Jackson Drake is calling, but that can’t be. He dropped off the earth months ago.”

“The rumors of my disappearance have been greatly exaggerated,” he cracked. Maybe Emma wasn’t the only one who had gotten a little lost in her work at the hotel.

“Man, how are you? Felicity just showed me the invitation to your wedding. You’re finally marrying that girl, are you?”

“I thought I might.”

“Glad to hear it, bro. We knew the first time you brought her out to tailgate that she was the one. Took your guff and gave it right back to you.”

Jackson laughed at that, and, after about fifteen minutes of catch-up on the phone with Decker, he headed for the shower, still thinking about that day. He couldn’t remember whom the Falcons had played, but he vividly recalled Emma jumping out of her seat and doing a happy dance with his friends when Ryan threw a forty-yard touchdown play. He’d found himself thinking how Desiree hadn’t cared one iota about football, and the comparison between the two women had shaken him to the core.

Who would have thought then that we’d end up here?
he wondered.

The tumble down Memory Lane sent him to a crash landing at the bottom of that dream he and Emma had just given up—the one where they packed up their new marriage and took it to Paris for a spell. He never really thought of himself as much of a romantic, but the nights they’d spent fleshing out the details of that dream had made him feel like one.

Now, he just felt like a weary, clashing combination of disappointed dreamer and the luckiest guy on the planet.

As they watched the second movie of the night, Henry, Sherilyn’s massive Old English sheepdog, nuzzled Hildie’s leg while she rested her head in Fee’s lap where they sat on the floor, Fee braiding the girl’s long, curly locks. Norma, Pearl, and Audrey occupied the sofa behind them, and Kat sprawled on the floor at the foot of the coffee table.

Sherilyn and Emma had moved to the dining room, where Emma made notes on gifts and the people who had given them. Sherilyn pushed the bows they’d removed from each present through a hole in a thick paper plate to form a ribbon bouquet.

“You don’t have to talk about it if it makes you uncomfortable,” Sherilyn told her quietly. “I mean, Jackson was married before. And I know
you
weren’t always celibate. So I just wondered, you know, how you’ve waited such a long time for the wedding.”

Emma chuckled. “I don’t know. We both kind of renewed our faith in God at the same time that we found one another. It just seemed like that was the way it was supposed to go somehow.”

“Do you regret waiting?”

“Aside from the sheer torture of it?” Emma asked with a grin. “No. I don’t think either of us does.”

“Do you wonder if you’ll be . . . you know . . . 
compatible
?”

“I can honestly tell you, Sher, I haven’t had a moment’s thought about that. Jackson is . . . everything.”

Sherilyn’s hand went immediately to her heart, and she rolled her head down to her shoulder and grinned. “That’s so great. They say it’s all in the kiss. Is he a good kisser, Em?”

“The best. Seriously, I’ve never kissed someone where I felt it all the way to my toes, the way they do in the chick flicks they’re watching.”

They glanced over at the group of women in the living room, enthralled with big-screen images of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. Sherilyn giggled at Emma.

“Sometimes I look at Jackson,” she continued, “and I can’t believe he wants to spend his life with me. I’m the luckiest woman on earth.”

“After me.”

“Yes. After you.”

“So I guess you’re pretty disappointed about not going to Paris, huh?”

Emma sighed and tossed the pen down on the pad of paper. “Yeah. We’d been building on this pipe dream for so long, and then it was suddenly something that could actually happen. You don’t get over it so fast when something like that evaporates.”

“But you get to keep The Tanglewood,” Sherilyn encouraged her.

“And I’m so grateful about that, believe me. Jackson changed his mind all because of me. I know he didn’t do that lightly, and I don’t
take it
lightly. But I can’t help choking a little on the thought of us holding hands, walking along the Seine, or sipping coffee and eating croissants in some charming little bistro.”

“Other than the geography, you can do all those things right here, can’t you?”

Emma thought about it. “Sure,” she conceded. “Still.”

“I know.” Sherilyn completed the ribbon bouquet and extended it toward her. “Here ya go! A memento of your slumber-shower.”

Emma grinned as she took the bouquet. “Thank you, Sher. Really. For everything.”

Sherilyn hopped up from her chair and dove at Emma, rocking her in an enthusiastic embrace. “I love you so much, you know.”

“I know.”

“Come on,” Sherilyn said, grabbing Emma’s hand. “Let’s make popcorn. The next movie is bride’s choice. After that, we’ll let these losers sleep on the floor and we’ll sneak upstairs and crawl into the cushy California king in my room.”

“Well, that’s not fair,” Emma said, following her into the kitchen. “Is it?”

“Sure it is. You’re the bride, and I’m the hostess who just had a baby not so long ago.”

“Are you still working that angle?”

“Until it runs through the last fume of gasoline.”

Emma chuckled. Surrounded in the safety net of her friends, she felt a little ungrateful at even the slightest trace of remorse in the decision she and Jackson had made. The Tanglewood and all of its accoutrements spelled security and love and professional fulfillment. As she stood at the microwave next to Sherilyn, waiting for the last
Pop!
from the bag of kettle corn, Emma basked in the sheer delight of marrying Jackson and settling into life with him and the hotel and everything that came with it.

“It’s going to be a good life!” she exclaimed to Sherilyn.

When she plucked the steaming popcorn bag from the microwave and shook it, Henry jumped up from a deep sleep and trotted into the kitchen to check it out.

“Em, it already is a good life,” Sherilyn told her. “It can only go up toward
great
from here!”

Giggling, Emma teased, “
Grrrrr-eat!
You sound like Tony the Tiger.”

“Hey. I like Tony. He was my first boyfriend, you know.”

“I remember the stories. And that ratty old stuffed tiger you used to keep on your bed.”

“This, from the girl who fell in love with Race Bannon,” Sherilyn returned as they headed into the living room to join the others, Henry close at their heels.

“Who’s Race Bannon?” Pearl asked.

“The hot guy from
Jonny Quest
.”

“Dude. You just called a cartoon guy hot,” Fee said.

“Hey, Race was hot,” Emma defended, plopping down between Audrey and Norma on the sofa. “An ex-secret agent with muscular arms and white-blond hair . . . bodyguard and friend to Dr. Benton Quest, the greatest scientific mind in the world . . . tutor to Jonny and his friend Hadji . . . and always saving their little dog Bandit at the last possible moment . . .”

“Are you people serious?” Hildie called out, her eyes still closed, not moving a muscle. “These are cartoon guys you’re talking about?”

They all broke up laughing.

“Oh sure,” Emma said, dipping into the bag of popcorn. “Laugh it up, haters. But Race is still the coolest guy on the Cartoon Network.”

“Norma, be sure to warn your brother what he’s up against, will you?” Sherilyn joked. “Race is a pretty tough act to follow.”

“Yeah,” Emma cracked dryly. “Not like Tony the Tiger.”