Adding Up to Marriage (7 page)

Who, in the void left by her absence after her departure, found himself almost kinda wishing she'd given him one of those hugs, too.

Which point was not lost on him, either.

E
xhilarated.

That was the only word for it, Jewel thought as she and Patrice stood on the Blacks' front porch an hour after Jewel caught Winnie's seven-pounds-and-change baby girl. Behind them the wind sighed through the sixty-foot pine trees standing guard over the modern wood and glass structure tucked into the mountainside. And farther back, Aidan Black's studio where the Irishman captured, on enormous canvases, the majestic kaleidoscope of light and color that made up the landscape that Jewel, too, had grown to love so much.

“Couldn't've done it better myself,” Patrice said, the yellow porch light skimming her high cheekbones and cropped silvery hair. Her broad grin. “Nobody could've told that was your first catch, missy. I'm proud of you.”

Grinning herself, Jewel snuggled more tightly into her jacket and leaned against the porch railing. They'd go back
inside shortly, but Patrice felt it was important to give the new family time to bond by themselves. “You might've given me warning, though, that you'd planned on turning over the reins.”

“And have you fretting your head off beforehand? No damn way.”

“I wouldn't have—” At Patrice's low chuckle, Jewel laughed, too. “Okay, I would've been a wreck, you're right. But what made you decide it was time I flew solo?”

“Couldn't really say. Same way I know when a baby's ready to come, I suppose. Even when the physical signs don't always agree with my intuition. You learn to feel these things, you know?”

Jewel released a breath. “Not like you do.”

“Which is why you're the apprentice and I'm the boss,” Patrice said, and Jewel smiled. “But I have no doubt whatsoever you will. I can tell already, could tell from the first time you attended a birth with me, you've got…I guess you could call it a gift, for listening and seeing with more than your eyes and ears.”

Her face warming, Jewel looked away. “You're gonna give me a swelled head.”

“You? Not a chance. So. How'd your first day go with the Garrett boys?”

“Fine,” she said, her face heating even more at the memory of the conflicted looks Silas kept giving her. At the even more conflicted feelings those looks provoked inside her. Hormones Gone Wild were one thing; those, she understood.
Ka-BOOM,
however, was something else entirely. And far, far scarier.

Then she remembered a certain unresolved issue. “You know anyplace I can stay for a week or two?”

“Why? Eli throw you out?”

“No, no…the house needs some major repairs, that's all.
And the consensus is it'd be best if I vacate the premises 'til they're done. I don't suppose you and Lucy…?”

“Trust me, honey, you'd never get a wink of sleep on that sorry excuse for a couch. I slept out there when Lucy had that cold a couple of weeks ago and my back still hasn't forgiven me. I mean, if you can't find anything else, you're welcome to it. But I swear a bed of nails would be more comfortable.”

“Believe it or not, it's tempting.”

“And why is that?”

“Silas said I could have the pull-out in his office, but only if—” Jewel made quote signs in the air “—‘worse came to worst'.”

“And the subtext there is…?”

Speaking of hearing with more than her ears—nobody was better at that than Patrice. Even so, Jewel hesitated. Perhaps because her mother had always been the needy one, Jewel had long since learned to solve her own problems. That she even saw this as a “problem,” however, was more of an eye-opener than she expected. That
Ka-BOOM
business and all. But maybe part of growing up was learning when to ask for help. Or at least, a fresh perspective.

“You ever find yourself attracted to somebody you know is no good for you?”

“Heh. Name me a human being who hasn't. Why? Oh…Silas?” When Jewel nodded, Patrice went, “I see. So what makes you think he's no good for you?”

“Oh, Lord…” Jewel leaned her elbows on the porch railing, only to smile when Winnie's border collie Annabelle nuzzled her hip for a scratch. “Where do I start?” she said, tangling her fingers in Annabelle's soft fur. “And anyway, it's more that we're not good for each other, if you know what I mean.”

“Enlighten me.”

Except when she opened her mouth…nothing.

“Yeah, that makes it clear,” Patrice said, chuckling.

“Cut it out, I'm serious. Maybe I can't put it into words, but…but I know in my gut what I'm feeling…it's just not right. Dammit, Patty—I'm not like this! I don't hanker after things I can't have.”

“And what makes you think you can't ‘have' Silas?”

Jewel remembered how he'd looked at her over the dinner table, when he thought she didn't see, and thought,
Okay, maybe not the right word choice.
“It's no secret he's been resisting relationships since his divorce, so it's pretty obvious it really wrecked him. But it's been two years…” Her mouth pressed together, she wagged her head. “You ask me, all he's doing is hanging on to that safety net because it's what he's used to. Not what he really thinks anymore.”

“Okay. And?”

“And…so…I think—even if he doesn't know it yet?—he's actually ready to take another shot. But no way is he gonna make the same mistake he did the first time around. Especially because of the boys.”

“Makes sense. But I'm still not getting—”

“Only, see,” Jewel said, straightening, “I sure as heck wouldn't be the right person for him, even if I was looking to get married—which I'm totally not because I'm trying to, you know, figure out who I am and all—because what the heck do I know about how to keep a marriage going? I mean, it's not like I've got any experience in that department!” She slapped her hand over her mouth, only to immediately lower it and whisper, “Did I really say that?”

“You really did.” Smiling slightly, Patrice crossed her arms and leaned against the porch railing. “You do realize the only way to figure out how to make a relationship work is to just get in there and do it, right? Like catching babies—”

“And how many births did I have to observe before you felt I was ready to deliver a baby myself? And even so you were right there to cover my butt. Oh, Patty…it's not like I don't believe in good marriages—I see 'em, I know they exist. But not up close and personal. I have no earthly clue
how
those marriages work. How any marriage works. And I couldn't bear—”

“What?”

She looked at the other midwife. “I've seen way too many times the toll a failed relationship takes on all parties involved. I was only a baby when my father left, but twice after that I've helped my mother pick up the pieces, and each time she's more fragile than she was before. And to some extent I see the same hurt in Silas's eyes. That same ‘why'? He probably doesn't even know it's there, but it is.”

Patrice stared at her hard for a few seconds, then said, “Not that you don't have a valid point, but for heaven's sake, honey…talk about getting ahead of yourself. People get the hots for each other all the time. Doesn't mean they have to act on it. Or even if they do, doesn't mean it has to be more than what it is.”

“And it's not like I don't know all that!”

“Then what's the problem?” A smile played around the older woman's mouth. “You think you're too weak to share quarters with the man without caving?”

Jewel forced a dry laugh. “Bingo?”

Patrice gave Jewel's arm a quick squeeze, then leaned back again, her hands shoved into her cargo pants' pockets. “Lord, you think things to death probably more than anybody I've ever met. But for what it's worth, I don't think you will.”

“You don't think I will, what?”

“Cave.”

“Really?”

“Not without giving yourself permission, no.”

“You're not helping.”

“That's 'cause you're a lot more fun to torment than my last apprentice. But I will say one thing—you want to shore yourself up so you don't cave, you might want to think about why you're looking into the man's eyes long enough to see whatever it is you think you see in there. Just a thought. Now,” she said, pushing herself upright, “how's about we go check on mama and baby so we can maybe get home at a reasonably decent hour?”

Jewel managed to smooth out her crumpled forehead before going back into the Blacks' bedroom, where Winnie lay in the four-poster bed nursing her new baby girl, Aidan curled behind her. On the floor at the foot of their bed, their preteen son Robbie showed two-year-old Seamus how to run toy cars along the designs of the red, black and gray Navajo rug. For the first time that Jewel could remember since she'd started her apprenticeship, a weird, not-good, feeling shuddered through her, like when you think you might be getting sick but you're not sure.

She thought maybe it was called
doubt.
Not about her conviction that she wasn't meant to marry. God, no. But up until now she'd been perfectly at peace with that. Suddenly, though, something almost acidic seemed to nibble at the edges of that peace.

Something almost like…anger.

However, the minute Winnie looked up at her with her big, bright smile, the feeling passed, so quickly Jewel half thought she'd only imagined it. For her sanity, she was going with that. Because a momentary icky feeling about whether or not she was
happy,
for lack of a better word, didn't change anything, did it?

As for getting wigged out about the prospect of living in
Silas's house…that was just dumb. She
wasn't
her mother, she'd never in her life gone all weak in the knees over a man—heck, she'd never even gone through a boy-crazy stage when she'd hit puberty—so why on earth should she go down that road now?

Ka-BOOM
S notwithstanding.

After arranging to check on Winnie and the baby the next day, Jewel said her goodnights and returned to her car, fully intending to take off right away. Instead, she sat behind the wheel for what seemed like forever, a soup of thoughts swirling in her brain, until one eventually bobbed to the surface: That her mother's emotions, her libido—heck, her very existence—had always seemed to be something almost apart from her, acting completely on their own and leading their owner around by the nose.

Not Jewel, though. No way, no how. No, she couldn't control the outside stuff—like, say, leaking roofs—but she sure as heck could control how she reacted to them. How she reacted to, say, obviously lonely men with longing—and pain, no sirree, let's not forget the pain—in their eyes.

So. She could choose to be weak, or strong.

To be in control of her body, or let her body control her.

To sleep in her car for two weeks, or put her big girl panties on and accept Silas's sofa bed offer. However grudgingly it had been given.

Right, then,
she thought, finally backing out of the Blacks' driveway.
You can do this.

Soon as she unearthed her copy of
Loin-Girding for Dummies.

 

“So whaddya think about a Facebook page for the business?” Jesse, the “baby” Garrett brother said, half reclining in front of the office computer, his hands linked behind his
shaved head. “It's free and takes like five minutes to set up. Couldn't hurt, right?”

Slipping into his jacket, Silas affectionately wondered, as he had many times before, how the multi-pierced, living graffiti display in front him had come from the same gene pool he did. But after a rocky few months a couple of years ago—during which Jesse had gotten his high school girlfriend pregnant, run off, returned and married her—the kid certainly appeared to have gotten his bald head on straight. He and Rach seemed to be doing okay, for one thing, and Jesse adored his baby girl. He'd also appointed himself the family's marketing director, and was apparently doing a bang-up job of it. Even their dad had to admit that if it hadn't been for Jesse's putting the business on the Web, the recession might have clobbered them a lot more than it had.

Silas smiled. “Couldn't hurt, I suppose. But ask the others, see what they think.”

Nodding, Jesse hunched forward, his fingers flying over the keyboard. “So how's Jewel working out with the kids?”

Depends on who you ask,
Silas thought, suddenly weary. And mildly anxious. Because if it was one thing he'd learned over the past week, when it came to Jewel, expecting the unexpected was the norm.

For her. Not him.

Whether it was having to peel sticky construction paper bits off the dog's feet—from a collage session with the boys that had reduced his kitchen to Lower Manhattan after the Yankees won the World Series—or hearing her shriek “Don't eat that!” a moment before the green “Jell-O” reached his mouth, or getting out of his car the precise moment a water balloon exploded in his face to say his
nice, orderly world had been shattered would be a gross understatement. However.

The boys were totally in love with her, for one thing. They were also both out like lights by 8:00 p.m. No hundred and one “I'm thirsties” or “I gotta pees” or not-so-stealthy belly crawls down the hall an hour after Silas thought/hoped/prayed they were asleep.

“Actually, it's working out okay,” he said, even if he'd yet to sort out the weird combination of dread and anticipation that heralded his return home every evening.

“Cool,” Jesse said, nodding. “So what's she gonna use the wood for?”

Silas froze. “Wood?”

“Yeah.” More clicking, the intricate Native design on his brother's forearm gyrating in sync. “She came in earlier, asked Noah if we had any scraps.”

Tap, tap, clickity-clickclickclick.