S
even Months Later
C
asa Blanca’s parking lot was no longer a gravelly home to a construction trailer; it was a smooth asphalt expanse currently filled with shiny Mercedes, Beamers, and Jaguars. The new surface was so smooth that Jocelyn’s high heels made a satisfying tap as Will opened the door of her Lexus and she climbed out.
As her silky skirt slipped way up her thigh, Will let out a low whistle of appreciation.
“Zoe picked this outfit,” she said.
“A true believer in form over function.” Will loosened the knot around his neck, taking his eyes off her only when the whine of a sports-car engine stole his attention. “What do you call this thing again?”
“A tie?”
Laughing, he took her hand as she stepped out. “I meant this shindig we’re all dressed up for.”
“A soft opening.”
“I like the sound of that.” He pulled her closer, inhaling deeply as if he couldn’t get enough of her scent. “You know, Artemesia is the only villa not finished yet. I left the back door unlocked. Let’s sneak up there and find your soft opening.”
She added a little pressure to his embrace, their fit against each other so natural now they didn’t even have to think about it. “Later, I promise. But now it’s time to entertain the moneyed set from Naples, here for the VIP preview of the resort.”
She turned when a candy-apple-red Porsche swung into a space a few feet away.
“Arriving in true style,” he noted.
“Don’t knock it. These ladies pay top dollar for luxury, and Lacey and I plan to deliver.”
“Lacey plans to deliver any minute now, from the looks of her.”
She gathered her wrap and bag, tucking her hand into his arm. “As of an hour ago, she was pretty sure she’d be here, but she’s been having contractions all day. I have no such excuse and, as the spa manager, I need to make friends and charm potential customers.”
A man climbed out of the Porsche looking like he’d been plucked from central casting for the event. Black hair with maybe a whisper of silver threads, jaw-droppingly handsome, dressed in Armani, a phone pressed to his ear.
“If she’s not responding to the sandostatin, then we need to closely monitor her kidney function overnight,” the man said with gruff authority as he walked around
the car to the other side, reaching for the car door. Jocelyn thought there was something vaguely familiar about him. “Administer it with high-dose conditioning protocols for the next three hours and keep the patient sedated. If anything changes, call me.”
He opened the passenger-side door and an exquisite brunette dressed in a strapless white dress climbed out, her expression as icy as the diamonds around her neck. “You said your partners were handing the calls tonight.”
“This case has extenuating—”
“I don’t care. You have to fake this for one more night.”
Will put his arm around Jocelyn and guided her past the awkward exchange, keeping her tucked close to his side.
“Promise me we’ll never fight,” he said.
“Never? I make no such promises. But promise me you’ll never drive a screaming-red Porsche.”
“Never? I make no such promises.”
They laughed, looking at each other and slowing just enough to share a kiss.
“C’mon, Joss,” he murmured. “Let’s blow this thing off and go hit fungoes at the field.” He dragged his hand down her waist and over her backside. “I have a key to the clubhouse now.”
“Ah, the powers of a volunteer high school coach,” she teased. “Who needs a hundred-thousand-dollar sports car when you can do me against the varsity lockers?”
He grinned. “I love the way you think.”
“Behave, Will Palmer,” she warned as two uniformed porters welcomed them and opened the doors to Casa Blanca’s creamy, dreamy lobby.
Will kept his hand on Jocelyn’s back as they scanned
the crowd. There were mainly unfamiliar faces but a few were friendly, like Gloria Vail, who’d agreed to work in the salon against her aunt’s wishes. The guests were busy checking out the elegant North African mosaic work along the registration desk and reading informational pamphlets about Casa Blanca’s all-organic spa, which Lacey and Jocelyn had decided to call Eucalyptus.
The staff and subcontractors chatted in small in groups wearing expressions of pure satisfaction. They’d done it. They’d made the deadline. Lacey’s delivery date had become the de facto “end date” for the last six months, and the ever-growing crew of construction, hotel, restaurant, and spa staff had worked nonstop to get the resort ready before its owners brought baby boy Walker into the world.
“Where is everybody?” Jocelyn asked Will.
“And by everybody you mean Lacey, Tessa, and Zoe.”
“And Clay.” She glanced around, but none of the people she most wanted to see were there.
Suddenly the henna-glass spa doors shot open and Ashley burst out, looking more than a little panicked. When she spotted Jocelyn, Lacey’s daughter looked like she’d cry with relief.
“Aunt Jocelyn! We have a problem.” She grabbed Jocelyn’s arm and pulled her close, her eyes moist with tears. “My mom’s in labor. It’s happening so fast. Clay took her into the spa and we called nine-one-one and they’re headed over the causeway, but, oh my God, I think she’s gonna have the baby any second!”
Will and Jocelyn looked at each other, a silent communication instantly exchanged.
“I’ll get that doctor,” Will said. “Go be with Lacey.”
Will rushed off and Jocelyn wrapped an arm around a very shaken Ashley. “Don’t worry. She’s going to be fine.”
“I don’t know. She’s in so much pain.”
“She’s having a baby, Ash. There’s pain.” They hustled through the doors, running as fast as feasible on the heels. Jocelyn barely noticed the Marrakesh silver mirror she’d hung that afternoon or the Moroccan berber rugs they’d just imported for the opening.
Eucalyptus was an exotic, inviting, luxurious spa, but not the ideal place for a baby to be born.
Jocelyn took a deep breath, fighting the old urge to control everything. She sure as heck couldn’t control this.
Ashley pushed open the massage-room door, where the lights were as low as they would be for a client but the woman on the table was anything but relaxed. Tessa and Zoe’s backs blocked her view of Lacey, but Jocelyn heard the long, low, harrowing cry of her friend’s agony.
Ashley froze, then put her hand to her mouth. “Mom!”
“Shhh. Ash. Relax.” Jocelyn came around the table to stand next to Clay, who looked as pale as his stepdaughter. He held Lacey’s hand, and from the looks of it she was squeezing the living hell out of his fingers. Lacey’s beautiful periwinkle silk dress was soaked with sweat, and something else. Her shoes were off, her legs up, her hair a wild coppery gold mess.
“There’s a doctor coming,” Jocelyn said, taking Clay’s other hand. “He’ll be in here in one second.”
“He better hurry the hell up.” Lacey ground out the words and slammed her other hand on the massage table, her distended belly heaving with each gasp. “Because I have to push. I have to push
now
!”
“Don’t do that, Lacey,” Zoe said.
“Why not?”
“Because in the movies they never want you to do that.”
“I can’t… help…”
The door shot open and the man from the parking lot barreled into the room, instantly taking over the small space with an aura of calm, commanding control.
“Clear the table,” he ordered.
Everyone backed away, except Zoe, who stood stone still, ghost white, and speechless.
The doctor stood at the bottom of the makeshift bed and fired questions at Clay. How long, how many, how often, how bad.
Clay answered as Tessa put an arm around Ashley. “Let’s get you out of here, hon.”
“No, my mom needs me.”
Her mom let out a howl of pain.
“Your mom needs you to leave,” Tessa ordered with more force, ushering Ashley to the door.
“Can you deliver a baby?” Jocelyn asked the doctor, who was already getting in position to do just that.
“I went to medical school,” he said dismissively. “Get me gloves and a sterilized pair of scissors.” He put his hands on Lacey’s knees while she endured the next contraction. “And towels.”
“Help me get that,” Jocelyn said to Zoe, relieved that the doctor seemed so competent.
But Zoe remained rooted in her spot, still staring at the man.
“C’mon, Zoe,” Jocelyn urged.
At her name the doctor looked up from his patient, seeing Zoe for the first time. His eyes widened exactly
like hers did and, in that second, Jocelyn knew where she’d seen him before.
Oliver. The doctor who’d had Zoe dodging for cover all those months ago. The one whose practice they’d passed in Naples.
“Zoe?” he asked, obviously as stunned as she. “What are you doing here?”
Lacey grunted and annihilated Clay’s hand. “For the love of God, I have to push!”
Will appeared with the gloves and scissors, thankfully more focused than Jocelyn was. Jocelyn turned and opened a cabinet, yanking out a stack of fresh towels.
“You can leave now,” the doctor said as he pulled on the latex gloves. “I only need the baby’s father.”
Will gathered both of the women and led them out, having to nudge Zoe a little harder than Jocelyn. In the small vestibule designed for clients to meditate before and after their massages, Tessa stood with both arms around Ashley.
“He’s going to deliver the baby,” Jocelyn assured them as much as herself. “He seems like a really good doctor.”
Zoe snorted.
They all just looked at her, but Will said, “Actually, he’s an oncologist. His wife just let me know in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t here to work.”
Zoe closed her eyes, turned, and walked down the hall away from the group while Tessa continued gentle words of assurance for Ashley.
“C’mere.” Will took Jocelyn’s hand and tugged her out of the vestibule.
She glanced over her shoulder at the closed massage-room door. “I want to wait here,” she said. “It could be any minute.”
“We’ll be right around the corner. I need something.”
At the serious tone in his voice, she followed him into the facial room, completely dark and cool and smelling vaguely of mint and lavender. In the center of the room, a simple bed with clean sheets awaited the first facial… or…
She smiled at him. “You’re kidding, right?”
“I’m dead serious.”
Laughing, she put a hand on his chest. “Let’s take it to the villa later.”
Will’s eyes flashed dark blue as he came closer, wrapping his arms around her. “Don’t worry, we will. To celebrate.”
“The new baby?”
“Life’s curveballs.”
“So says the catcher.”
“I’m serious.” And he was. There was no smile on his face, no humor in his expression. “Shit happens, fast and unexpectedly.”
“Yes, it does.”
“So, Joss, let me ask you a question.”
“What are you prepared to die for?”
She blinked at him. “Excuse me?”
“That’s the question you asked me once, when you were life coaching. You said it told you what was important to someone.”
“That was really just a rhetorical question I used to ask clients to get a conversation going.”
“I know what I’m prepared to die for,” He got closer, stealing her air and space and any last shred of sanity as he walked her toward the middle of the room. “You.”
She kind of melted, letting him dip her back on the facial bed. “Likewise.”
“So why are we waiting for the right time?”
“I know you hate to wait now,” she teased, but it was hard to joke in the face of all this certainty. Determination. Focus.
“I don’t want to wait another day or night or minute.”
She closed her eyes and dropped backwards, the words and the man sweeping her right off her feet. “I’ve created a monster who refuses to wait for anything.”
He laughed a little, kissing her throat. “So, when?”
“Right now, right here?” A shiver of anticipation and desire shot through her, control slipping away as he trailed his tongue along her jaw and settled her deeper onto the bed.
“Maybe next week.”
She gave him a little nudge away, to see his face. “Next week?”
“We can’t get everything together before then.”
“You don’t mean for sex.”
“No, I mean for marriage.” He cupped his hands over her face. “I love you so much, Jocelyn. I want to know we’re in this together, forever, as one.”
“Oh, Will, I love you, too. You know we’re together.”
“I don’t know anything except I love you.” He kissed her, still holding her face, tenderly like she was his prize. “I love your heart.”
She put her hand on his chest. “You’re the one with the big heart, Will. You’re all heart.”
He rocked against her. “Not all.”
“Okay, and some soul.”
He nestled against her, kissing his way to her ear. “Let’s make this official then. Jocelyn Mary Bloom, love of my life, girl of my dreams, mother of my future—”
The door popped open and they froze as Zoe stood in stunned silence, taking in the scene. “Seriously, guys? Now?”
Will held Jocelyn firmly on the bed, ignoring the intrusion with an unwavering gaze. “I was just proposing,” he said.
“Oh,” Zoe whispered. “Well, what’d she say?”
“I don’t know yet.” Will gathered her a little tighter as more footsteps came toward the room and Tessa’s happy laughter floated in.
“We have an audience,” Jocelyn whispered.
“I don’t care. Where was I?”
“Something about love, girl, dreams, motherhood…” She closed her eyes as happiness clutched her heart. “It was all good.”
“Say yes, Bloomerang.”
“Dying here,” Zoe sang from the doorway. “Just say yes.”
“Yeah, just say yes, Aunt Jocelyn,” Ashley added, no doubt with Tessa.
Jocelyn looked into Will’s eyes and called, “Tess, what’s your vote?”
“Go for it, girl. Break that damn shell around your heart.”
She took a deep breath, savoring the word she was about to say, the commitment she was about to make, and the life she was about to live.
At just that moment, Elijah Clayton Walker let out his very first cry and they all yelled out at the same time. “Yes!”