Forgotten Honeymoon (16 page)

“Excuse me,” Kelly said.

Lars turned to see her. “Kelly,” he said
quickly, walking over towards her. “I’m so sorry. How long has it
been?” He looked at his watch. “You win the Most Patient Wife
award,” he said, patting her arm. “Can you wait another ten --
fifteen minutes? Then I can wrap this up.”

Kelly nodded. “That’s fine.” She didn’t want
to be a nuisance. She walked away from the building, towards a
cluster of trees. Squirrels scurried overhead, chattering.

Kelly looked around, wishing there was a dry
place to sit down. She found a large tree limb on the ground and
sat on that. It was a little damp, but at least it wasn’t muddy.
She took a deep breath. As if to mock the surrounding damage, the
air was fresh and still.

She sat, waiting, and eventually, closer to
thirty minutes than fifteen, Lars finished his conversation with
the other men. She watched as they shook hands and slapped each
other on the back. Lars wiped his hands on his jeans and walked
towards her. “Finally,” he said with a smile for her patience. “You
must be exhausted.”

Wind blew through the trees, sending a shower
of raindrops down on her. Kelly blinked and looked upward, smiling,
then heard a loud cracking sound.

In an instant, Lars ran to her, grabbed her
and threw her to the ground, with himself on top of her. “Oooph,”
Kelly gasped as his weight pressed her into the mud.

The tree tipped over, crashing, narrowly
missing them. The trunk landed right beside her, the rough bark
scraping her arm. A heavy branch struck Lars’ back.

“Are you okay?” Lars demanded, lifting
himself up an inch.

Kelly spit a dirty leaf out of her mouth. “I
think so.”

The other men hurried towards them, and
lifted the branch so Lars and she could stand.

She was covered with mud and leaves and
twigs. She felt a little shaky, with the wind knocked out of her,
but overall, fine. She brushed herself off with trembling hands.
“How are you?” she asked Lars. His shirt was torn and the skin on
his back was scratched. His tie was undamaged.

“Fine.” He was still concerned about her.
“And the baby?”

As if he could hear them, the baby rolled
over inside her. “So far so good,” she said, wanting to reassure
him. “From what I’ve read, babies are pretty well insulated from
most bumps and bruises.”

He took her arm and gently guided her away
from the trees and out to the parking lot. “I shouldn’t have
brought you here,” he said grimly. “It isn’t safe. If I hadn’t
reached you, and that tree had landed a few inches closer ...” He
shuddered.

He did care for her. “Don’t even think about
it. We’re fine.”

“If I’d lost you, Kelly, I --”

“You’re not going to lose me,” she said
firmly and squeezed his arm. “I’m staying right here.”

For a moment there was a look in his eyes she
couldn’t decipher. “I still shouldn’t have brought you here.”

#

That evening in their hotel room, Lars
dressed for his meeting with the Rawlins’ employees. “I don’t want
you to go,” he said as he pulled a tie from his suitcase. “I think
you should stay here and rest.”

Kelly thought he was being overly cautious.
“Either I sit in the hotel room, or I sit in the gym. I don’t see
what the big difference is.”

Lars shook his head. “You could have been
killed this afternoon.”

“So could you,” Kelly countered. “I know you
want to take care of me, but I’m not a little china doll that is
going to break. I’m a grown woman and I feel fine.”

“All right, you can come,” he agreed finally.
“But if you get tired, I want you to lie down in the car.”

“Yes, sir,” she said mockingly, then raised
one eyebrow. “Are you going to join me in the back seat?”

“I’ll think about it.”

She reached up to kiss his cheek. “I want you
to do more than think about it.”

He looked away. “I have to get dressed,” he
said coolly, then walked over to look in the bathroom mirror as he
tied his tie.

Kelly sat down on the king-sized bed and
frowned. For the past few days she felt as if he was avoiding her.
She wasn’t an expert on how often married couples made love, but
why wasn’t he more anxious to repeat the experience? They’d made
love four days in a row, then nothing for the past three days.

Was he too busy with work or bored with her?
Kelly didn’t know if she should be concerned or just keep her mouth
shut. The last thing she wanted for him to do was to put it on his
day planner as a task for the day.

Forty minutes later, Lars stood in the local
high school auditorium, addressing a crowd of three hundred people.
He wore suit pants and a tie, but the sleeves of his white shirt
were rolled up, giving him a more approachable look. “First of
all,” he said calmly. “This is not a time to panic. The plant’s in
bad shape, but that’s good. You know we’d been thinking about
renovating, and now we have the opportunity to do it right. From
the ground up.”

There were a few laughs and some people
clapped.

“It will take at least four months, maybe
more, to take down the original structure, and build a new one. I
looked into the possibility of transporting our equipment to a
temporary location, but it was cost prohibitive, so we’ll shut down
production until we get the plant rebuilt.”

There were a few murmurs of dismay.

He continued, “Now I can see in your faces
that some of you are thinking, ‘That’s fine for the plant, but how
am I going to feed my kids?’ Well, don’t worry about that. Rawlins
Lighting is going to pay your wages and benefits, until the plant
is running again.”

The crowd cheered its approval, and he held
up his hands to silence them. “But don’t think of this as a free
ride. In exchange, I want you to spend the time cleaning up Hanahan
and Goose Creek. There are a lot of people without homes tonight, a
lot of people who don’t have jobs, who need a helping hand. You can
be those helping hands.”

The crowd’s response was deafening. Kelly
clapped as well, tears filling her eyes. She hadn’t known what Lars
was going to tell them. She was so proud of him tonight.

Eventually, the crowd quieted and he spoke
again. “Now this isn’t all charity,” he said. “It’s good business
planning. Think of all the people who will be rebuilding and
remodeling their homes. If we help them, what kind of light
fixtures do you think they’ll be putting in their kitchens and
their front hallways?”

The crowd chanted, “Rawlins. Rawlins.
Rawlins.”

Lars listened, smiling. “That’s right,” he
said over the noise, and the room quieted. “Now, I don’t know about
you, but I’m hungry. And there’s a heap of barbecue over in the
cafeteria. Let’s go eat.”

Kelly stood with a paper plate in one hand,
shaking hands with the other. Lars came up and put his arm around
her waist. “How are you holding up?” he asked quietly.

“I’m fine.” Her feet ached and she felt as if
she’d shaken five hundred hands, but she was happy.

“I think we can go, now,” he said.

As they walked outside to the rental car, she
said, “You were fantastic. But is the Board of Directors going to
go along with your plans?”

He shrugged. “The worst thing they can do is
fire me.” As her eyes widened, he reassured her, “And they won’t do
that.” He smiled. “Not when I’m married to the daughter of our
biggest stockholder. I think I’d have to blow up the plant myself
before they fired me.”

“There’s nothing like a little job security,”
she said wryly.

She thought, then asked, “Isn’t it going to
be expensive to keep everyone on the payroll?”

“For eight months, yes.”

She gasped, “That long?”

He kissed her nose. “Hopefully not. But in
any case, it’s good public relations, and it’s good for company
morale. Employees are more willing to work hard for a company that
will back them in times of trouble.”

“So this was a business decision, pure and
simple.”

He shrugged. “It was the right thing to
do.”

#

Frank and Margaret Rawlins walked down the
gateway to the terminal gate. Kelly hugged her mother. “Oh, Mom,”
she said. “You look great, so tan and well-rested.”

At her words, her mother looked worried. “I
used sun block every day, but something must have gotten through
...”

“Too much rest, if you ask me,” her father
said. He shook Lars’ hand and pounded him on the back. “Nice
handling of the plant crisis. We came back as soon as I heard, but
you’d already taken care of everything. I couldn’t have done it
better myself.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“How’s everything else?” Frank asked. “Are
the Vice Presidents threatening to mutiny?”

“Not yet,” Lars said quietly. “But I do have
a few questions --”

“Tomorrow,” Frank said, holding up his hand.
“Let me get my land legs first.”

“Yes, sir.”

Margaret stepped back to look closely at
Kelly. “Have you gained weight? You look ...” her voice trailed
off.

“Pregnant,” Kelly supplied, answering the
unspoken question. “Yes, mom, I’m pregnant.”

“So soon?” her mother gasped, and hugged her
again. “That’s wonderful. When’s the baby due?”

Kelly glanced over at Lars. She’d told him
that her mother would notice. There was no more hiding the truth.
She just hoped her mother was up to another shock. “At the end of
the year,” she said. “Possibly early January.”

“But that’s --” Her mother mentally counted
backwards, eyes widening as she realized when the baby was
conceived. “That’s wonderful,” she said, looking between them both.
“A baby is always wonderful. I’m happy for both of you.”

Kelly sighed with relief. Her mother was
handling the news well.

Margaret turned to her husband. “Frank, did
you hear that? We’re going to be grandparents.”

#

Kelly turned to Lars as they entered the
kitchen. “My mom’s right, you know. We should be discussing names
for the baby. We don’t want to be unprepared.”

“We have a few more months,” he said
reasonably. “There’s no rush.”

Kelly wasn’t surprised by his reaction. He
probably wanted to wait until the ultrasound so they could
eliminate half the names in the baby name book. That would be the
most efficient approach, but she wanted to have fun, going through
the book and picking an assortment of possible names. “Do you like
the name Amanda or Abigail?”

He said nothing.

“Ashley’s pretty,” she continued, “but I
always think of Ashley Wilkes in Gone With the Wind, and --”

“I don’t think we should be discussing names
just yet.”

Something was wrong. She could hear it in his
voice. “Why not?”

“Because I might be the wrong person to be
consulting about names.”

Kelly froze. “What are you talking
about?”

He watched her face carefully. “I saw Nigel
the other day. He thinks he might be the father of our baby.”

Kelly stammered. “But that’s -- that’s --”
She was going to say impossible, but then she had a sudden memory
of her and Nigel arguing.

She’d confronted him for sleeping with
Tiffany. He said it was her fault for being such a cold fish.
“We’ve been engaged a month and I haven’t gotten anything.”

He tried to kiss her, and she’d pushed him
away. “You’re not going to get anything now, either.” Then he
grabbed her and pushed her down onto his leather couch.

She shivered, remembering his tearing at her
clothes. Was her baby the result of rape? Was that why she had
blocked those days from her memory?

Lars reached out to touch her gently. “What
is it? Did you remember something?

“No,” she said automatically, avoiding his
gaze. She put her hand on her stomach. “This is our baby. Nigel is
lying. When I first told him I was pregnant, he said it couldn’t be
his.”

He had to be lying.

“Well, he’s changed his mind, and until we
can take a blood test, there’s no way to know for sure.”

True, but the odds were in Lars’ favor. But
what if it was Nigel’s baby? Would Lars want to stay married to
her, to raise another man’s child? She didn’t want to think about
that; she refused to think about that.

She hugged herself. Tears filled her eyes,
and she blinked them away.

“Kelly,” he said hoarsely. “Don’t cry.” He
wrapped his arms around her.

I love you, she thought, but didn’t dare say
it. I love you and I don’t want to lose you.

“Hold me,” she whispered. “Just hold me.”

He kissed the top of her head. “Kelly, if the
baby is Nigel’s --”

“No.” She put her fingers up to his lips.
“Don’t even say it. Just kiss me. Don’t talk.”

He kissed the salty tears from the corners of
her eyes, then her damp cheeks, and finally her trembling lips.
Kelly clung to him, not wanting to let go.

As if reading her mind, he picked her up and
carried her to their room. They made love quietly, desperately. For
a few moments, he made her forget everything but the feel of him.
But when the passion was spent, the sick weight of fear
returned.

What was she going to do if Nigel was the
father? She turned her head to hide her tears.

#

Lars lay in their bed, staring at the ceiling
while Kelly slept. He knew she’d remembered something. Something
she didn’t want to tell him. He clenched and unclenched his hands,
wishing, worrying. It had broken his heart to hear her cry, but at
least she was still here, lying next to him. She hadn’t left
yet.

Was it fair for him to keep her if she was
carrying another man’s child?

Nigel would be a rotten father, but if the
baby was his, he did have some rights. Lars would gladly pay him
the money to keep him away, but what did Kelly want?

Lars knew what he wanted. He wanted to keep
Kelly, to raise this child, to be a family.