It was a little overwhelming, even though they were a very likable bunch of people. Like agreeing to learn the doggy paddle and being shoved off the high-dive board. And to keep things interesting, somebody told Bobby, Kevin’s youngest nephew, the baby could hear stuff and he was determined to make his new cousin his BFF in utero. It was a bit disconcerting having a kid randomly tell bad jokes to her stomach. Like now.
“Why did the weasel cross the road?” he yelled at her belly button. “To prove it wasn’t a chicken!”
Then he laughed so hard he almost fell over. He was a cute kid, she thought, and then it hit her—a little over seven years from now, she might have one just like him. Some faceless, nameless boy with too much energy and the knees almost worn out of his jeans, telling jokes to crack himself up. Maybe, if they were lucky, he’d look like his daddy, dimples and all.
Bobby stopped laughing and craned his head to look up at her. “I hope it’s a boy.”
“So does your Uncle Kevin.”
“I’m sick of being the smallest boy. We need another one so I have somebody to pick on, too.”
“Oh…great.” It was scary to think her baby was going to be the low man on the totem pole of trickle-down family dynamics.
The home-baked cinnamon rolls made her a fan of Mary Kowalski for life, though having to pass by the gigantic urn of coffee almost killed her. She was trying to go caffeine-free so she made do with instant decaf even though she could have used the high-test to keep up with the Kowalskis.
Friendly, warm, numerous and—holy hell—loud. They ate and laughed and ate and argued and ate and laughed some more. The green-bean casserole was wicked good and the baked yams with melted marshmallows were absolutely to die for, just as Kevin had promised. As the day wore on, the background noise changed from the parade to football, but the family cacophony never dimmed. It was so different from the quiet meals she’d shared with her parents in the past, she spent most of the day reeling from something akin to culture shock.
When the opportunity arose, she ducked through the sliding doors onto a spacious back deck. Fortunately, it was a mild day for late November and, even without her coat, she wasn’t too chilly.
Folding her arms across her chest, she looked out over the sprawling backyard. It was chaotic, just like the family. Immaculately tended gardens. Sports debris strewn from one edge of the lawn to the other. A sagging volleyball net.
It was a
home.
The realization her child was going to belong to this insanity brought tears to her eyes. He or she would run amok in this backyard with cousins. Play and laugh and argue and then laugh some more.
The mixed feelings made the corners of her lips tilt up even as a tear ran over her cheek. She wanted her baby to have this—the loud and loving family. Would she pale by comparison, though? Just boring old Mom who sucked at sports and couldn’t bake cinnamon buns or name all the balloons in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. What kind of kid would want to hang out with her when the Kowalskis had all of this?
“Hiding?”
She whirled around to find Kevin’s sister-in-law, Lisa, behind her. “Oh, I didn’t hear you come out.”
“I was being quiet so nobody would know I escaped. Here, move to the left and we can’t be seen from inside.”
Beth shifted to the left as instructed, though she wondered if she should go back inside and let Lisa have a few minutes of peace. They’d spoken a few times over the course of the day, but she didn’t know her very well.
“I’m impressed you haven’t run screaming into the street yet.”
Beth laughed. “I tried. Came out the wrong door.”
“We can be a bit…much.”
“No, you’ve all been really wonderful. Especially considering…the circumstances.”
“The baby? Please. We’re all thrilled about the baby. And so is Kevin.”
He really was and that’s part of what worried her about him. Beth didn’t have a lot of experience with failed birth control, thank goodness, but she’d somehow gotten the impression men didn’t usually react so well to discovering they’d been caught up in an accidental pregnancy. Kevin, on the other hand, had taken to it—and to her—as if they were a real couple and making a baby had been the reason they’d fallen into bed in the first place.
“I think you guys are doing the right thing,” Lisa said. “Not rushing into anything because of the baby, I mean. Mike and I got married because I got pregnant with Joey.”
“Do you ever…” She let the words die away, unsure how to intrude on Lisa’s marriage without being rude or hurtful.
“Every marriage hits rough spots, but it’s hard when you know your husband proposed because you got knocked up, not because he loved you. With Bobby starting first grade, I had a rough summer. Even thought about having another baby because I thought he’d leave me once the little guy was old enough to handle it.”
Beth couldn’t imagine living like that. “So you spent all those years not trusting your marriage?”
Lisa shrugged. “It came and went, depending on how things were going. But he proposed to me again a few months ago and in January we’re going on a cruise—just the two of us. We’re going to get married again in a sunset ceremony.”
Beth smiled and congratulated her, but inside her stomach was twisting into a knot. That’s what she was afraid of—why deep down she knew insisting they not have a
real
relationship was the right thing to do. Not only imagining herself in one place with one person, but wondering for the rest of her life, especially during the rough patches, if they were just pretending for the sake of the child. Not something she was eager to sign up for.
Lisa laughed. “Can you imagine us with another baby? Especially another boy. God. How about you? Hoping for a girl?”
“Maybe. Bobby wants a boy so he can finally have somebody to pick on.”
Lisa laughed and shook her head. “Girl or boy, your baby’s going to be short kid on the Kowalski totem pole. But don’t worry—kids toughen up pretty damn quick around here.”
Both women turned when the slider whooshed across the runner and Kevin stepped onto the deck. He closed the slider and immediately moved to the left.
Beth chuckled. “Not much of a hiding spot.”
“It won’t stop anybody from finding us,” Kevin said. “But it’ll slow them down for a few minutes. Thought maybe you ran off and left me.”
“Like I told Lisa, I tried but I went out the wrong door.”
He laughed and hooked his arm around her waist as if it was the most natural thing in the world. The entire day he’d been waging a constant campaign of subtle looks and slight touches, but she didn’t want to kick up a fuss in front of his family. And then there was the troublesome possibility she might like it. No doubt he was attentive. And sweet. And so damn hot she’d swear her skin sizzled everywhere he touched her.
“Lisa,” somebody bellowed from inside the house and she sighed.
“Time to go.” On her way by, she punched Kevin in the arm. “Behave yourself out here.”
“I’ll try, but no guarantees.” Beth shivered when he turned his piercing blue gaze on her.
After Lisa closed the door behind her, Beth stepped out of the circle of Kevin’s arm. With Lisa’s words fresh in her mind, she needed to reestablish some boundaries. “We talked about this over and over and—”
“It’s time for pie.”
He had to be joking. “You’re going to eat again? And stop trying to change the subject. You’re not getting—”
“Chocolate cream pie. Homemade, even the whipped cream.”
“I’m not going to let you distract me.”
“Six. Inches. Deep.”
Well, hell. She supposed she could tolerate the sexiest man in the world touching her in exchange for a slab of homemade chocolate cream pie.
There was nothing sweeter than watching the Patriots kick some Jets ass on a cold December Monday night in Foxboro. With a brother on each side of him, Kevin watched Brady in the shotgun, looking for Wes Welker. Another first down and the crowd went wild.
“So Beth seems nice,” Mike said during a lull in the action.
“Yup.” He’d known, since this was the first time he’d been alone with Mike and Joe since Thanksgiving, she’d come up in the conversation. “And she didn’t run away screaming, so that was good.”
“No offense,” Joe said, “but it looked like maybe you were a little more into her than she was into you.”
No offense, his ass. “She’ll come around.”
“You’ve got women practically lined up in the bar looking for a date, and you’re chasing the one playing hard to get?”
“I don’t recall Keri exactly throwing herself at your feet. If you gave up the first time she didn’t run into your arms, she’d be in L.A. and you’d still be in a monogamous relationship with your right hand.”
Mike laughed, but Joe just shrugged. “She snuck out on you and—”
“That was a misunderstanding.”
“—then you didn’t hear from her again until she found out she was pregnant.”
Kevin watched the Pats line up in the red zone to buy himself a minute to think. He knew Joe was just looking out for him, but he didn’t really want to hear it. It was complicated—Beth was complicated—and maybe she was trying to keep him at a distance, but that didn’t mean he was going to abandon ship.
She just needed some time to recover from having her life turned upside down and he was going to give her the time she needed because he liked her—a lot—and he thought maybe they could make a go of it. She was smart and funny and stubborn and independent and, even now when he was doing one of his favorite things, he counted the minutes until he’d see her again.
After the Patriots walked the ball into the end zone and the cheering died down, Mike elbowed him. “Women can be…unstable, emotionally, during the first part of a pregnancy, just so you know. Stick it out if you really think she’s special.”
She was special. He wasn’t sure how special yet, because it was hard to separate how he felt about her from the fact she was having his baby, but he did know he’d be devastated if she ever pulled another Cinderella act on him. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“So you really like her, then?” Joe asked.
“I really do.”
Joe, being Joe, probably had more to say, but the Patriots intercepted the ball and the brothers rose to their feet, cheering with the crowd, as the cornerback engaged in a rowdy foot race with the Jets offense.
As the clock ticked down on the third quarter, the conversation moved on to draft pick progress, injury reports and whether or not the blonde two rows down had real breasts or not, but Kevin had only one foot mentally in the game.
When the crowd erupted into an angry roar and Kevin had no idea why, Mike sadly shook his head. “Man, you got it bad.”
Yeah, he was beginning to think he really did.
***
Paulie slid into a booth at her favorite greasy spoon diner, careful not to catch her jeans on the duct tape covering a split in the vinyl. She’d caved when Sam returned after Thanksgiving weekend in Boston and
threatened
her into another dinner date, but he’d been stupid enough to leave the reservations to her.
This place didn’t take reservations and there was never a wait. And she had a nice view of Samuel Thomas Logan the Fourth’s face as he walked through the door. His expression was pretty similar to her mother’s the day six-year-old Paulie accidentally dripped chocolate ice cream on her dress. She’d been restricted to bland, non-staining vanilla until she turned sixteen and could drive her shiny new BMW to the ice cream parlor herself.
Sam grimaced as he slid into the booth. “Do they print the menus on the back of the condemned signs they rip off the door?”
“Snob.” Besides the meatloaf special, she’d brought him there for a reason—the diner perfectly illustrated how different her world was from his.
“It’s called standards.” He pulled a menu out of the rack behind the condiments and sugar dish. “How long did it take you to find a place you thought might scare me off?”
“Paulie!” Cassie, who not only waited the tables but owned the place, rushed over. “The flowers you sent Mom were beautiful! It was the biggest bouquet in the entire wing and everybody was jealous.”
She smiled, noting Sam’s incredulous stare in her peripheral vision. “I’m glad she liked them. How’s her new hip?”
“Good. The doctor says she’ll be good as new in no time. You both want coffee?”
When they nodded, Cassie left them and Sam nudged Paulie’s ankle with his toe. “You actually eat here? On a regular basis?”
“Yes, I do, so do you get it now? Your life and my life have nothing in common.”
“You’re telling me we don’t have a future together because you’ve got a fondness for one-star food?”
As if the critics would get close enough to give the diner one star. She didn’t have to answer him, though, because Cassie came back with their coffees. After they’d both ordered the meatloaf special, Sam leaned back in the booth and sipped his coffee.
“Not bad,” he admitted.
“This is my idea of a date. Not some fancy restaurant with a maître d’ who’ll only seat you if your family’s listed in
The Social Register.
I’d rather come here or go to a game and eat hot dogs from a street vendor.”
“I can do that.”
“Sure, right now. Once or twice, maybe. Not as a lifestyle.”
“Why are you being so stubborn about this?”
Only the fact she needed the caffeine kept her from whacking him upside the head with her coffee mug. “Sam, you know this isn’t going to work. I don’t know if it’s a game to you or—”
“It’s not a game.”
“If I thought we’d be happy together, I would have met you at the end of the aisle the first time.”
“That was then. Now I know how you feel, which you never bothered to tell me before.”
“And what’s knowing going to change?”
He managed to capture her free hand in his before she could snatch it away. “No matter how much I told myself I didn’t, every day for the last five years I’ve missed you. And this time I’m going to fight for you.”
“Even if you have to fight dirty,” she muttered.
“You know I’m not going to tell anybody who you are. That was…you’re so damn stubborn I knew that was the only way I’d get you to go out with me.”
“I already told Kevin, anyway.”
He smiled, squeezing her fingers. “So you’re not here because you were afraid I’d tell him, which means—”
“It means I wanted to tell you in person that you should find yourself some scion’s daughter to marry you and have Sammy the Fifth because you and I aren’t going anywhere.”
He should have been mad, but she saw amusement in his eyes. “You named our son?”
Dammit. “Not our son.
Your
son. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out what’s going on the kid’s birth certificate.”
Cassie showed up with their meatloaf, then refilled their coffees, buying Paulie a few minutes of silence. Why wouldn’t the man give up? She couldn’t really make it any more plain.
After taking a bite of his dinner, he actually moaned. “I take back my crack about the condemned signs. This is the best meatloaf I’ve ever had.”
She could do without the sexy sound effects, thank you very much. It was hard enough keeping her mind on all the things wrong with their relationship without being reminded how good the sex had been.
“I’m never going back to Boston,” she said abruptly, just to remind him—and herself—where they stood.
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“You’re going back to Boston.”
He nodded. “I told you that. I’m leaving straight from here and I’ll be gone…a couple of months, I guess. Christmas season and then a trip to Europe for business. I need to wrap up some loose ends so when I come back here I can concentrate on this job. And you.”
His gaze met and held hers and she knew he meant it. He wanted her back, despite her objections it wouldn’t end well. “Maybe I’ll be gone when you get back.”
“This time, if you run, I’ll come after you.”
Would she have stayed and married him if he’d come after her? She didn’t know if it would have made a difference or not. It was her parents and Boston and the life she’d had to lead she was running from, not Sam.
“I’m going to call you while I’m gone,” he said.
“Texts are better,” she said. “Easier to deal with when I’m working.”
“Then I’ll text you.”
She should have told him she wasn’t interested in hearing from him at all. If she pushed hard enough, his pride would keep him from groveling and he’d walk away. But, even though she wouldn’t say it out loud, she was going to miss him, too. A text or two probably wouldn’t hurt.
***
As she walked through the front door of Jasper’s Bar & Grille after a long lunch and dinner shift at the restaurant, Beth heaved a sigh of relief. She was home.
It surprised her how, after just shy of six weeks, this was home in a way her former apartment would never have been, and if she wasn’t careful she might actually start liking the word. Besides the obvious lack of stale cat urine, there were the people. Paulie, who was fast becoming a very good friend. And Kevin. Despite the almost constant barrage of charm and sex appeal, she enjoyed their relationship a lot, too.
The rest of Jasper’s staff were warm and welcoming. She wasn’t sure what they’d been told about her. With no obvious signs of pregnancy showing, they might just think of her as a new tenant. Or who knew what Kevin might have told them.
Beth climbed onto her usual stool at the end of the bar and waited for Paulie to finish up with a customer. On her way over to say hello, Paulie grabbed one of the cans of cranberry-lime seltzer they’d started stocking for her.
Beth cracked it open and took a long drink. “Thanks.”
“No problem. You gonna eat something?”
She was going to be good and have a salad. “A side salad, with light dressing and…oh, hell, a side of bacon cheeseburger, please.”
Paulie laughed and went to give the order to the kitchen, leaving Beth with her seltzer and some kind of sports recap show on the television. Sports wasn’t really her thing, but her attention was caught when the show went to commercial—a blitz of Christmas sales.
Her comfortable mood dimmed as she wondered—for the umpteenth time—what she was going to buy Kevin for Christmas. Business at the restaurant had picked up as promised, so she’d been able to set aside some Christmas money as well as putting away money for future prenatal check-ups, but it wasn’t a lot.
She needed to find the perfect gift on a tight budget. Something special because he really did deserve it after stepping up to the parenting plate and being there for her in so many ways. But not so special he might mistake her intentions.
A few minutes later, Paulie arrived with her food. “You look a little stressed out.”
“Christmas is coming. Two weeks.”
“Ah.” Paulie set her plate down and leaned against the counter. “Nothing makes you crave the Pepto Bismol and Xanax like decking the halls.”
“Do you and Kevin exchange gifts?”
“Sure. What are you getting him this year?”
“I guess there’s no chance I can get out of this.” Paulie’s look pretty much confirmed it. “He’s going to go nuts, isn’t he?”
“If, by nuts, you mean him using the occasion as an excuse to give you all the things you won’t let him buy you, then probably.”
“And that’s why I’m stressed out.”
“Better for your blood pressure to accept now you’re going to get smothered in presents and you’re not expected to smother back.”
“I hate that.”
“And they know that about you, so hopefully they’ll make some kind of attempt at self-control.”
“They?” This conversation was
not
making her feel better.
“All of them. The whole Kowalski clan.”
She’d been so focused on Kevin, she hadn’t even thought about the rest of them. Why did there have to be so many? “Great.”
Paulie laughed. “Don’t even try to get out of the Christmas Eve party. Even I have to go and I don’t have a Kowalski tadpole swimming in my pond.”
When a guy at the other end of the bar bellowed for Paulie, Beth dove into her cheeseburger, letting the explosion of cheese, bacon and Jasper’s special seasoning blast at her anxiety. She’d find something for Kevin and Paulie and then worry about the rest of them. Or maybe just token gifts for the kids. She could only do what she could do.
Paulie was gone a while, but eventually she wandered back and dumped Beth’s dishes into a buspan. “You want another seltzer?”
“No thanks. I’ve still got some and I’m going to explode as it is.” She didn’t even want to think about buying new clothes as her waistline expanded. “So I haven’t seen that guy around lately.”
Paulie’s cheeks turned pink. “What guy?”
“You know what guy. Did you drive him off?”
“He had to go home for the holidays, plus he had some business to do in Europe.” She shrugged. “He’s a bad penny. He’ll turn up again.”
“Has he called?”
“I hate phones. We’ve exchanged a few emails. Some text messages.”
It wasn’t like Paulie to clam up and Beth wasn’t sure she knew her well enough to know how hard to push. “So he’ll be back, then?”
“Probably not for a couple more months. There’s not much he can do on site here, so he’s trying to finish up a bunch of other stuff so once he’s needed back here, he can focus on the job.”
Regardless of the lack of enthusiasm her words conveyed, her voice and the puppy-dog look gave away just how much she was missing him. “And focus on you.”
Paulie snorted. “Lucky me. Now back to Christmas shopping—”
“Ugh. I don’t even know where to start.”
“I know this great artisan gallery with homemade gifts for a wicked great price. Because I like you, I’ll even give you my list. There was a scarf I thought Steph might like and a wooden pop gun for Bobby and…some other stuff. Oh, a hand-pressed journal for Danny because he wants to be a writer. You could get something small for each kid and maybe a hostess thing for Mr. and Mrs. Kowalski for about fifty bucks.”