The Baby Bump Read online

  By the time he drove through town, hardly anyone was about. Ike figured they were all at Ginger’s by now. Ruby had certainly spread the word far and wide, and the whole town had developed an interest in Ginger, in what she was going to do about her grandfather, about the house and tea farm. The coming baby, everyone knew about. All the work she’d done—everyone knew. They knew about her conniving Amos Hawthorne into working for her again, knew about her fainting all over town, knew about the Scuzzball showing up unexpectedly. They hadn’t shown up for tea. They’d shown up to show her exactly what she needed to know.

  That she was valued. By everyone who’d come to know her.

  He wanted to show her that he valued her, too. But in a different way. A very different way.

  The next stop was the florist. Naturally they closed at five, but Rhonda White had arranged to wait for him, met him at the back door in the alley. “You know how much this is going to cost you, sugar?”

  “I know. I don’t care.”

  “She’s going to love it.”

  “Could you promise that?”

  “Don’t you worry. She is. Trust me.”

  It took a huge number of roses to fill up a car with petals. Who knew? And because Ginger wasn’t much on pink, he figured he should get coral. Or that’s what Rhonda called the color.

  After that, he had to stop at the jeweler’s. That trip, thankfully, only took a few minutes.

  The rain had finally stopped by the time he pulled into her drive. He was shocked at the number of cars—must have been a hundred people inside. The last he knew, Ginger was inviting somewhere around thirty. Ruby’d said that no one wanted to be cut from an invitation so she’d “slightly” altered the original plan. But they weren’t all supposed to come. People always canceled.

  He parked in front of the porch—double-parked, truth to tell—but he had no other choice. He had to be able to get in and out. Fast.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ginger was running on fumes. The party was a success, by any standard she could measure, but her nerves were frayed. It didn’t matter if everything had gone wonderfully. The potential for disaster was still very real and all too possible.

  She needed the party over, the doors locked, the lights off and the chance to hide under a table where no one could find her.

  Instead, the craziest thing kept happening. Guests started to leave...but within minutes of exiting the house, they came right back in. They’d find her, beam, say they “just couldn’t get enough” of all the tea lore and “were having such a wonderful time.”

  She introduced everyone to her father, of course—although she still hadn’t recovered from the shock of his showing up. Heaven knew there was no point wasting any surprise on her dad—he’d always come and gone, all her life, on his whim.

  He’d walked right in and loved the party. No surprise there, either. Her dad’s black Irish looks—blue eyes, cream skin, a thick head of dark hair—were still extremely attractive. He also had charm to spare and a way with the ladies. He introduced himself to everyone as Sean, Ginger’s father—as if he was a Gautier by birth. He’d always loved his association to the “landed gentry” status of her mother’s family.

  Some of the seniors in the crowd knew him from a long time ago, but no one let on there had ever been a problem. Wherever he walked, wherever he stopped to talk, there was laughter—a brash of laughter, smiles, someone being hugged or touched.

  Ginger would have survived the visit just fine, except that Ike’s parents—Walker and June—quickly strode over to meet him, which was enough to give Ginger a near heart attack. Where was Ike? How come she got stuck with parents on both sides when their meeting had so much potential for disaster?

  Her dad could be irresistibly charming, but it was doubtful he could spell ethic even with a dictionary, and for certain he had no clue what a responsibility was. Sometime between his first effusive hug and Gramps calling him “John,” he’d mentioned being “a little down and out” and that he’d put a suitcase upstairs. Ike’s parents had overheard him. So did others.

  Which probably meant the whole town knew—in three minutes or less—that the scoundrel was back in town and likely hitting up Ginger for money.

  Abruptly she noticed her dad heading for the living room—both Lydia and Louella were in there—which meant there was a risk of some serious harm. She spun on a heel, planning to go after him, when Amos and his wife—who’d just left the party—abruptly reentered through the front door.

  Amos’s wife looked at her, shot her a big grin and a thumbs up and a wink.

  All right. Ginger had no idea why the guests were behaving so strangely, but something seemed to be affecting them when they went outside. It was hard to guess which was the scariest crisis—her father and Gramps’s attorney in the same room—or checking out the scene outside. Probably because she was desperate for some fresh air, she decided to whip out on the porch for a minute.

  She’d barely opened the door before a swish of silk covered her eyes.

  “Don’t be scared. It’s not a robber or a murderer. It’s just your personal kidnapper.”

  “Ike...” Of course she knew his voice. She felt his hands tying a knot behind her head, trying to secure the silk blindfold. “I don’t understand—”

  “Everybody’s in on it—so you don’t need to worry about leaving the party. Ruby’s got a whole committee to do the shut-down and cleanup.”

  “But what—?”

  “Nothing’s going to happen that you need to worry about. I just need you to come with me, be with me.”

  She couldn’t get his attention. “Ike. Your parents showed up.”

  His hands stilled.

  “And then my father showed up, out of the complete blue. I haven’t seen him in more than two years.”

  He finished the knot. “I want to meet him.”

  “Maybe you really don’t.” She never meant for him to hear a quaver in her voice. She hadn’t realized it was even there. It was just...she’d so badly needed this day to go well. It wasn’t about the tea party. It was about feeling competent, competent on the inside. Maybe the lawyer and the banker and everyone else involved would end up saying no to her. Maybe she couldn’t save the tea farm. But she needed to give it the lion’s try, for the community and Ike—especially Ike—to see that she was more than a young woman with problems, that problems didn’t define her.

  It all just caused a quaver, that’s all.

  And Ike must have heard it, because he suddenly snugged the silk blindfold on tighter. “We’ll deal with parents another time. Right now we have far more serious priorities. Like your kidnapping. If anything goes wrong with this, I’m afraid the whole town will blame me.”

  “You’re making me uneasy—”

  “Good.”

  “Ike!” Okay, she couldn’t help but laugh. “If you think you’re kidnapping me, what’s the ransom?”

  “It’s extremely expensive.”

  “How expensive?”

  “All the marbles.” His voice...she didn’t know what was in his voice, but it made her suddenly shiver. He’d been steering her, hands on her shoulders, blindfold secure, down the porch steps, into wet grass that tickled around her ankles. Probably ruined her shoes, too, but she didn’t care.

  This was crazy. Goofy. But for the first time in a long time—since they’d made love, she suspected—she felt her heart lighten, not because it was empty, but because it felt full. Full of love and hope both. Full of anticipation. Full of...

  Happiness.

  She couldn’t remember the last time she’d thought that word, much less felt it.

  He opened a door, but it didn’t sound like the creaky truck door...and suddenly there was a scent. The soft, velvety, unmistakable scent of roses. Everywhere.

 
“What—?” she started to ask.

  “I’m afraid where we’re going is a little drive. Under two hours, so it’s not that far...but far enough away that no one in town will know where we are. Now...”

  Ike was still talking, but she was too distracted to pay attention. He steered her into a car, the passenger seat—but a passenger seat that had been adjusted to a lie-flat position. When he closed the door—obviously to come around to the driver’s seat—he’d secured her seat belt.

  He started talking again, the moment he entered the driver’s side, but temporarily her senses were consumed with textures and scents. There weren’t just roses in the car. There were rose petals. Heaps and heaps of them. Her passenger side was a mattress of velvet, unbearably soft petals, the scent alluring and unforgettable.

  “I knew this wouldn’t work,” Ike was saying, “if you were worried about your grandfather. So I set up a group of people to check in on him, be with him, from Sarah to Amos to Lydia—all of them volunteered. Then I know you’re worried about the business plan, the loan...and that you have legal issues you’re waiting to hear about, like medical and legal powers for your grandfather, so that you can pay his bills, protect his interests. Louella had a word with me yesterday—you know her, she wouldn’t give away your secrets or cross any ethical lines. She just made it bluntly clear that you won’t have trouble getting what you needed. And again, on your grandfather, old Doc Brady—the doctor I replaced? I’m sure you knew him from when you were a kid. Anyway, Doc Brady and Stephie, his retired nurse, will both be on call for the next few days. No strangers. No one your grandfather doesn’t already know and feel comfortable with....”

  She pulled off the scarf and turned her head to look at him. Really look at him. She’d never seen him nervous before, but he was. His fingers were drumming on the wheel, couldn’t keep calm. And there was a rose petal on his shirt, another in his hair.

  He looked darned silly with a rose petal in his hair.

  “Where we’re going is Whisper Mountain. The MacKinnons have always had a place there. Actually, we have a couple of the places, but there’s a cabin up on the highest ground. Pretty rustic, so don’t be expecting too much—but we’ll be alone. No anxieties, no intrusions, no interruptions. My sister Rosemary’s been hanging there for quite a while—since she broke off an engagement—but she’s taking a month off right now, doesn’t need the place in any way. She’s got Pansy, if you wondered, so don’t be worried about that, either—”

  “Ike.” She wasn’t sure he was going to stop talking. If he was even capable of stopping. As far as she could tell, he hadn’t even stopped for breath.

  He glanced at her, noticed she’d taken off the silk blindfold and shot her a worried look—but his gaze was drawn immediately back to the road. The pavement snaked in wildly sharp curves, too dangerous for a driver to look away more than seconds.

  “There’s a legend about Whisper Mountain,” he said. “You’ll laugh, it’s that corny. But there’s a legend that the mountain whispers—really whispers. But the only people who can hear it are those in love. I haven’t a clue how the story got started, but even my great-grandparents—”

  “Ike,” she interrupted again, this time in a soft, low voice.

  This time he heard her. Shot her another quick look, worried look, but had to return his attention to driving.

  “Now don’t object until you’ve seen it,” he urged her. “It may be rustic, but it’s not—”

  “Ike, I don’t need to hear a mountain whispering to me. I already know. I love you.”

  “Just go with—what?”

  “I love you. With all my heart,” she said simply.

  He jerked the car so hard she feared they were diving straight down a mountainside. But Ike, being Ike, pulled them both out of trouble. For a couple seconds there, though, he was in an extraordinary fast hurry to stop the car.

  * * *

  Ginger woke up slowly, feeling more luxuriously rested than she had in weeks, just wanting to snuggle deeper into the pillow and blankets. For long moments, she didn’t open her eyes, just savored the scents and sounds and textures around her.

  Warm sunlight blessed her closed eyelids. The smell of pines and cedar drifted close; even closer was the crackle of a cherrywood fire, the softness of a down pillow, the whisper of cinnamon and roses in the air....

  Only...

  She didn’t have a down pillow. There were no pines or cedar trees anywhere near her bedroom, and she couldn’t imagine a reason in the universe for how or why she could be smelling cinnamon.

  But her eyes popped open when she caught the scent of roses. The scent of roses was real for her in every way.

  She shot up on an elbow, wide-awake that flash-fast, and took in the rest of the unfamiliar room. Rustic cedar beams. A slanted ceiling. The four-poster bed she’d slept in was bigger than a boat. Across the room, a stone hearth had a grate full of sharp orange embers, and a tidy stack of fresh cherrywood on top. The top blanket covering her was a handmade quilt—it had that heirloom sort of look—and the wood floor was varnished, shiny as a mirror.

  Nothing was familiar. Even remotely.

  Except for Ike.

  He was reading, from a giant-size upholstered rocker by the hearth, his stocking feet up on an ottoman. Maybe he’d slept, but it didn’t look it. He was still wearing the white shirt he’d had on yesterday. He’d pushed off shoes, at some point brought up a tall glass of something, and his chin sported a fresh crop of whiskers. Now, too, she could see drifts of roses, one on a sock of his, some on the floor, some on the blanket...a regular Hansel and Gretel trail, leading from her.

  To home.

  Ike was home.

  “Hey, kidnapper,” she murmured. “Did you sleep at all?”

  His head shot up. He immediately put down the book, and once she could see his face, she knew the answer. The intense lines on his brow, the gray shadows under his eyes...no, he hadn’t slept.

  But his answer was a simple, “I got enough.” He didn’t move, but looked her over as intensely as she’d studied him.

  “What time is it?”

  “Around one.”

  She lifted her eyebrows. “How could it be one? There’s sunlight outside—”

  “That’s because it’s one in the afternoon, lazy bones. Which is partly why I didn’t try to sleep. You needed—really, really needed—a block of rest. I got you up a couple of times—pregnant women invariably can’t make it many hours without a bathroom run. But I think you were half in a coma, didn’t really wake up even for that. There’s some food downstairs. I made cinnamon rolls. Well. At least, I followed the directions on the container. And there’s eggs. I can either do an omelet, or scramble up a bunch. You have to be hungry.”

  “I am. Near starved.” She crooked a finger, inviting him closer. “I just need to talk to you about a couple of things first.”

  “I can talk from right here.”

  “No. I don’t think so. I have a problem that I need your help with.” She hadn’t thought up a problem yet, but she knew what motivated Ike. If he thought she needed him, he’d be there faster than jet speed.

  And as expected, he pushed out of the rocker immediately, came forward immediately, sat on the bed immediately. But Ike—who always moved with a lanky, boneless rhythm—approached with a careful, robotic stiffness...and she hated the wary expression in his eyes. He carved a seat on the bed near her side, but he didn’t attempt to touch her.

  She was pretty sure he wasn’t afraid she had cooties. So it had to be something else.

  “I have a feeling you were watching me sleep for quite a while,” she said.

  “Maybe. I just didn’t want to leave you alone in a strange place. I knew how badly you needed the rest.”

  “I did. But watching someone sleep has to be unbelieva
bly exciting...on a par with watching grass grow.” That won almost a smile. Not a full smile, but a teensy untensing of all those taut muscles.

  “Maybe I find watching you sleep unbelievably exciting.”

  “Ike?”

  “I’m right here. What?”

  “Come clean. What’s wrong?”

  “What could be wrong?”

  There happened to be four pillows on the giant bed. She flapped his head with one of them. And there. She caught the ghostly but unmistakable hint of a real grin.

  “It’s possible,” he said delicately, “that you might wake up from a sleep this sound and forget what you said to me last night.”

  “You mean...about loving you? About being in love with you? Specifically about being crazy in love with you?”

  He looked out the window, then back at her. “I never thought I’d hear you say those words. The love words. But as much as I wanted to hear them...I was kicking myself.”

  “Kicking yourself why?”

  “Because I was afraid my plan, what I thought was my great, romantic kidnapping plan, could have backfired. I suddenly realized that you could have felt...pushed. Pressured. Because so many people saw the car, the rose petals, me dressed up like a stranger.”

  “Wearing a tie, even.”

  “Wearing a tie, even.”

  “And without Pansy.”

  “And without Pansy. Ginger, I didn’t want to put you on the spot. Didn’t want to make something hugely private to me—to us—to come across as something to be shared in public. It wasn’t like that. What I wanted was for you to know—for everyone to see—that I was in love with you. That I wasn’t with you because of the baby bump or your grandfather or the tea. It was about you. Being the woman I wanted to fill up the car with rose petals for. Do you remember what you told me?”

  “Which thing?” Her voice was thick, from hearing what he’d planned, how he felt.

  Hearing her vulnerable man lay himself bare.

  “You said that respect was something you had to earn. You didn’t expect it for nothing. But you wanted to earn that respect—from me. From everyone.”