Firefly Glen: Winter Baby (Harlequin Signature Select) (21 page)

He hesitated. “On the phone?”

She laughed softly. “I was thinking over lunch.”

He gritted his teeth, but he managed to nod. “Even then. I don't want to share you. But if I have to, I will. I meant it, Sarah. I
will
stop being such a possessive, jealous jackass.”

She squinted thoughtfully. “What if Ed needs to spend the night occasionally, to help see the baby through an attack of colic?”

But now he knew she was teasing. He tightened his grip around her waist. “The man can move into the downstairs bedroom and play tiddlywinks on my dining room table, for all I care.” His voice was husky with emotion. “Just as long as you're in the upstairs bedroom with me.”

“Liar.” She rested her cheek against the soft warmth of his leather jacket. Her breath misted against the gold star.

“But you don't have to promise me anything,” she said. “That's what I wanted to tell you. You don't have to promise me anything at all.”

He had begun to stroke her hair. It was as if, after their desperate race to touch, to speak, to explain, they
had found their way to the other side and entered a place of profound peace. “I don't?”

She shook her head, a tiny movement that he probably barely felt. “No, you don't. It's enough that you love me today, that you want me today. I've never understood that before. But I do now. I have learned a lot in the past few weeks, Parker. From this odd, wonderful little town. From the baby. And from you.”

He didn't jump in to contradict her. He obviously sensed that she was saying something that mattered a great deal to her. And he was listening. She loved him more than ever, just for that sensitive silence.

“I've spent so much of my life trying to control the future,” she said. “From the time I was a little girl, I've been practically obsessed with it. I've made elaborate, detailed plans that somehow gave me the illusion of safety. I think I wanted to believe that I could take a pencil and paper and plan away any risk of failure or pain.”

He tightened his grip and put a kiss on the crown of her head.

“But I've finally realized that trying to control the future is absurd. And arrogant. Because if you think you can decide what the future
will
be, that means you think you know exactly what the future
should
be. And no one ever knows that.”

She closed her eyes against a sudden sting of tears. “This baby, for instance. I didn't plan this baby, and yet it's one of the most wonderful things that ever happened to me.”

She lifted her face to his, though she knew her eyes were moist and aching with love. “And you. I could never have planned you.”

“I didn't plan you, either.” He gazed at her with eyes warm with kisses to come. “Although I think I might, on one of my loneliest winter nights, have
dreamed
you.”

Somehow she managed not to kiss him. She had just one more thing to say.

“So here's my promise to you.” She put her hands on the lapels of his supple jacket. “I promise to stop trying to plan the future. I'll let it unfold in its own way, in all its terrifying, wonderful mystery. Things could go wrong. Someday you may find that you can't really love a woman who carries another man's child. But that doesn't mean we can't have today.”

“Sarah—”

“I promise it, Parker. No more plans. Just today. I promise to cherish the way you feel about me today, without asking whether it will last forever.”

He smiled. “I guess we both think we sound like very reasonable, mature adults, don't we? But let's see if I've got this right. I'll try to live with my fear that you might stop loving me. And you'll try to live with
your
fear that I'll stop loving
you.
”

She looked at him. It did sound a little ridiculous, put that way.

“Essentially, yes. We'll both accept a level of fear and insecurity we were never willing to accept before.”

He put his hand under her chin.

“Or maybe this would be easier,” he suggested. “How about if we just go inside, tear up your plane ticket, tell your uncle we're getting married next week, and then drive back to my house and make love to each other until we can't breathe, or talk or even think? Until there's no room in our hearts for anything as foolish as fear.”

She felt her pulse begin to race. Her eyes filled with sweet, fiery tears.

“Now that,” she said softly, “is a plan.”

T
HEY WERE MARRIED
two weeks later, on election day.

Parker said he felt he owed the town something exciting to do that day, since he had denied them the thrill of a dramatic, family-feud race for sheriff.

To everyone's surprise—except maybe Emma, who guessed, and Sarah, who had been in Parker's arms when the decision was made—Parker announced that he would not seek a second term in office, leaving Harry to run unopposed.

Shortly thereafter, Parker told his closest friends that he planned to set up his own law practice, in the big brick professional building at the opposite end of Main. He said he was pretty sure he could make a decent living defending Ward Winters from defamation lawsuits alone.

The gossips in town were almost sick from all the delicious, gooey news, like children let loose in a bakery. Emma Dunbar had been seen kissing Griffin Cahill. Harry Dunbar had nearly killed Griffin with his bare hands. Inexplicably, Emma and Harry were living together again. Parker Tremaine was going to marry Sarah. Sarah was going to have a baby.
And,
oh, my heavens, have you heard, Parker's not the father!

Sarah knew that Parker made sure she never heard the worst of it. And by the time the wedding came around, it was all fairly old news. Glenners liked Parker Tremaine, that was the bottom line. And if Parker could live with the mystery baby, they supposed they could, too.

And besides, they did love a wedding.

Winter House, filled with flowers and music and hundreds of smiling, weeping people, had never looked more beautiful. Its eccentric, Gothic-monastery charm, Ward explained wryly, was the perfect stage for anachronistic tribal rituals of high drama.

Sarah remembered very little of the ceremony, which had passed in a blur of confused joy and trepidation. She remembered best the steady feel of Ward's arm under her fingers as she walked down the aisle, and then the familiar, comforting thrill of Parker's hand in hers.

But she knew that she would never, never, forget the reception.

Everyone was there.

Madeline Alexander had stayed up every night for two weeks, sewing Sarah a wedding dress, so of course she was there, coming by every few minutes to adjust a pearl button or tug at a ruche of lace.

Harry and Emma came, too, of course. Emma was the matron of honor, beautiful in blue, and Harry wore
his shiny new star with a rather endearing, grateful pride.

Eileen O'Malley had been the flower girl, and as she stood beside Sarah, so serious in her blue velvet, her red hair a fire of curls around her pudgy shoulders, Sarah had caught her first, breathtaking glimpse of the beauty to come.

Heather Delaney came, too, though she wore her pager and had to leave halfway through the reception to deliver a baby. She and Sarah exchanged glances as the beeper went off, and Sarah knew they were both thinking the same thing. Someday that little electronic sound would call her to Sarah's side, to bring her child into the world. Heather kissed Sarah as she left and hugged her, too, something the ultra-contained young doctor rarely did.

Theo catered the food, which was served in the dining hall by candlelight, of course. No wedding feast had ever been more visually enticing, or more delicious, and yet Theo had stayed in a constant agony of embarrassment, sure that she hadn't lived up to her own standards.

Even Mike Frome was there, working off some restitution hours by serving hors d'oeuvres to the guests. Sarah winked at him as he went by, handsome in his tuxedo. He'd worked off about one square foot of a fifty-foot window so far. Poor Mike, Sarah thought. He was going to be working for the Winters family for years.

Actually, everything started well. Sarah and Parker
danced the first dance, posed for pictures, shared champagne and cut the cake.

And then the trouble began.

Justine Millner walked by, wearing a bright red gown made out of approximately three-quarters of a yard of silk. Watching her, Mike Frome tripped on something—Parker later suggested it might have been his tongue—and sent a plate of hors d'oeuvres flying into the library window, which broke.

Ward, who simply couldn't believe it, yelled something rude, to which Mike's grandfather, Granville, took offense. The two old men began shoving each other, and several of the younger men started circling them, trying to find a safe way into the fray.

Madeline Alexander began to cry, wailing that surely her beloved Ward was going to die. And at that Bridget O'Malley reared up like the warrior queen she had been born to be, and announced that Madeline had better stop acting as if she had dibs on Ward Winters, which she didn't.

Jocelyn Waitely, who had knocked back too much champagne, joined in the debate, announcing loudly that
she
was the one Ward liked the best, which caused her husband Bourke to dash his drink into the fireplace, causing a semi-spectacular explosion that sent the rest of the guests screaming for the exits.

Sarah watched in mesmerized horror as her lovely reception turned into a scene from an Irwin Allen movie. Somehow, just as the chaos reached its peak, Parker came to her rescue.

He took her hand, pulled her into the one remaining
quiet corner and, looking deeply into her eyes, asked huskily, “So, Mrs. Tremaine. This is what you've married. Want an annulment yet?”

She settled into his arms. “Nope,” she said. “How about you?”

“Well, no,” he answered, kissing her nose. “But, then, this was my town already.”

“And now it's mine.” She put her hands on either side of his face. “I love Firefly Glen, Parker Tremaine. And I love you.”

He grinned. “As much as Madeline Alexander loves your uncle?”

She considered it carefully. “I don't know,” she admitted. “I still wouldn't set myself on fire for you.”

“Then come with me,” he said, pulling her to her feet. “Let's get out of this insane asylum and go home. Perhaps I can start that fire myself.”