Bundle of Joy

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 1991, 2012
by Barbara Bretton. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

Cover and eBook design by Barbara Bretton

Copyri
ght

The Begin
ning

The First Trime
ster

The Second
Trimester

The Third Trim
ester

Endings an
d Beginnings

Author's N
ote

Excer
pts

About th
e Author

The Beginning

It was commonly understood around O'Rourke's Bar and Grill that Charlie Donohue and Caroline Bradley were just not meant for each other. Like oil and water or chalk and cheese, the ex-Navy cook and the beautiful
shop owner were a bad match, and although O'Rourke's was filled with inveterate matchmakers, even the most determined of the lot had to admit this was one match that would never happen.

Not that they hadn't tried to bring the two together. Dinner invitations. Extra tickets to a Princeton theatre production. Cookouts and charity balls and all manner of obviously phony reasons designed to bring a reluctant man and an unwilling woman into close proximity.

Nothing worked. Months passed and, one by one, the matchmakers at O'Rourke's threw their hands up into the air and admitted defeat. "Opposites don't always attract," said Professor Scotty MacTavish, the wisest of the group. "It would serve us well to remember that."

And so the notion of Caroline Bradley and Charlie Donohue becoming Caroline-and-Charlie faded away and the two very single adults settled into an adversarial rel
ationship that suited them both, if not the rest of the group at O'Rourke's.

Not that Caroline willingly spent a great deal of time at O'Rourke's, mind you. If it weren't for the fact that her best friend Samantha had married the owner's son, she wouldn't be cau
ght dead parking her pricey stilettos under one of the scarred pine tables scattered about the smoke-filled tavern. Caroline liked champagne and strawberries; O'Rourke's offered Coors and salted peanuts. Her idea of stimulating conversation ran more toward obscure indie movies while the "A" topic at O'Rourke's was whether the Giants would go all the way to the Super Bowl.

On that fatefu
l afternoon when it all began, Caroline was perched on the edge of a rickety wooden chair with her elbows resting lightly on the sticky tabletop, doing her best not to notice the noise and the smoke and the general air of good-natured pandemonium that was the hallmark of the bar and grill. One thing she couldn't help but notice was that most of the pandemonium seemed to center around the brawny figure of Charlie Donohue. He'd spent the better part of the last hour lugging beer kegs down to the basement while O'Rourke's silver-haired clientele cheerfully offered suggestions on how to lighten his load. Charlie Donohue was proportioned on a heroic scale; tall, with wide shoulders and narrow hips, and he hoisted those beer kegs as if they were down-filled pillows.

It wasn't that she'd been paying a great deal of attention to the short-order cook, but it was a trifle difficult to ignore 6'3" of rippling masculinity on parade. When he caught her looking at him, his impertinent wink made her remember why she didn't like him in the first place.

She cleared her throat and turned her attentions back to her best friend. Across the table, Sam was nursing a large glass of iced water and lecturing Caroline on the miracle of childbirth for the thousandth time in the past eight and one half months.

"It's a whole other world out there," Sam expounded. "When I had Patty twelve years ago, they still treated you as if you were sick, not pregnant. Why, except for this gigantic belly and breasts the size of watermelons, I'm as healthy as a horse."

Caroline feigned a swoon
. "Please remember I'm the one who passed out when Lucy gave birth to Little Ricky."

"That was a rerun," Sam said, laughing. "Little Ricky must be
sixty by now and losing his hair."

"It's the principle of the thing. I firmly believe childbirth should be left to those best suited for it."

"You have the equipment," Sam pointed out.

"I have the equipment to run the New York Marathon, too, but you don't see me lacing up my Adidas and heading for the starting line."

"You're a terrific godmother, Caroline. I know you'd be even more terrific at the real thing."

Sam's blue eyes went misty and Caroline reminded herself that hormones were powerful things; Sam couldn't be held responsible for taking it upon herself to promote the joys of marriage and motherhood. Caroline liked men just fine, thank you, but she didn't want to own one. Why that should bother so many people was entirely beyond her.

"Remember who you're talking to?" she asked, summoning up her best dumb blonde voice--the one men seemed to love. "I went from diapers to dinners
a deux
with no stops in between."

"You're terrible," Sam said with a laugh. "I seem to remember a bout with braces and skinned knees--"

"Shh!" Caroline ordered as Charlie Donohue walked past their table. "I have a reputation to uphold." She'd worked hard to create the image of a beautiful and pampered woman with nary a care in the world. That very image was responsible for making Twice Over Lightly, her rent-a-designer-dress boutique in Princeton, the phenomenal success that it was. Lacroix fantasies, Karl Lagerfeld extravaganzas, and Chanel originals like the one she was wearing, all vied for attention in her elegant shop. Somehow she had managed to bridge the gap between middle-class pocketbooks and aristocratic tastes, making her clientele feel special the moment they walked through the door--even if they could only be Cinderella for one night.

Sam grinned as Charlie stripped off his work shirt and, muscles rippling in his white cotton t-shirt, hoisted another keg of beer. "Impressive, isn't he?" The look she cast Caroline was pointed.

Caroline shrugged, almost as if male pulchritude made no difference at all. "Denim work shirts are simply too
outre
for words."

Sam groaned and took another sip of water from her icy beer mug. "No French words today, please. It's too hot. Charlie may not be a GQ cover
boy, but he's a damned good cook. My father-in-law's lucky to have him here."

"I think I liked you better before you got pregnant," Caroline observed, fanning herself with her latest copy of
Vogue
. "You've become entirely too domesticated, if you ask me."

"I haven't asked you. Besides, you have no one to blame but yourself for my condition."

Caroline arched one pale blond brow. "Really, Samantha?" she drawled. "Perhaps you should sit in on one of your daughter's hygiene classes."

Of course, Caroline knew exactly what her oldest and dearest friend was talking about. Caroline and her goddaughter Patty claimed full credit for bringing the reluctant caterer and the intrepid reporter together. Today, however, she felt like being difficult. "I have retired from the matchmaking business," she declared with a wave of her exquisitely-manicured hand, "and I advise you to do the same."

Sam's dark blue eyes widened in mock surprise. "Matchmake? Whatever do you mean?"

Even in French Caroline's comment carried an earthy punch. "The music teacher, for one.

"He asked for your phone number, Caroline. I didn't volunteer it."

"I choose my own male companions, thank you very much."

"Like that snooty professor?" Sam wrinkled her nose.

"Alfred is a lovely man. Is it my fault you prefer jocks to intellectuals?"

Sam's laugh bounced off the walls of the dimly-lit bar. "You may be able to fool the others with that line, Caroline, but I've known you
way too long to let you get away with it. That soap opera star you dated last winter had his doctorate in hairspray not quantum physics."

"So I'm a sucker for a pretty face. Is it a crime?"

Sam angled her head back toward the bar where Charlie Donohue was talking to the afternoon bartender. "Charlie's not half-bad."

Caroline shuddered. "I may be a world-class flirt, but I do have my standards." They watched as he shrugged back into his shirt, laughing as he talked to the afternoon bartender. It wasn't that Donohue was bad-looking. Quite the contrary. There was something so brazenly male about him that she half-expected he would start beating his chest and drag off the next available woman to his cave. She preferred men whose appeal was a bit more subtle. And yet even Caroline's breath caught as his powerful back muscles strained against the confines of the material and she coughed to cover the moment.

Unfortunately, Sam knew her too well. "Denim doesn't look so bad all of a sudden, does it?"

Caroline hid her grin behind her glass of iced tea. "I'll admit he has a certain rough charm but he's not my type at all." And Charlie's type, she was sure, wore spandex dresses and stiletto heels and looked up to Madonna as a cultural icon.

Sam leaned back in her seat and glanced at the wall clock near the juke box. "Murphy's late. Is that going to throw a monkey wrench in your plans?"

"Not a major one." Sam's husband had volunteered, after some not-so-subtle urging, to help Caroline move a truckload of "gently-used" designer dresses into the storage room of her shop. She pushed back her chair and stood up, smoothing the sleek skirt of her raspberry silk Donna Karan. "Why don't I go back to the store and get started.
You can send Murphy over when he gets home."

Sam looked from Caroline to Charlie and back again at Caroline. A sly smile darted across her face.

Had Caroline seen that smile, she might have had a chance to change things, but the smile disappeared before Caroline noticed it and her fate was sealed.

#

Charlie Donohue rarely did anything he didn't want to do, so when Samantha O'Rourke asked him to pitch in and lend a hand to her pal Caroline, the word "no" was on his lips before Sam had finished her sentence.

"No?" Sam's dark blue eyes narrowed. "You said no?"

He tempered his lack of enthusiasm admirably. "It's not that I don't want to help out, but it's happy hour. I've got to man the skillet and start turning out the burgers for the hungry hordes."

"I'm sure Bill wouldn't mind if you took a few hours off, would you, Bill?" She aimed her smile at her father-in-law and Charlie watched, amazed, as his crusty employer crumpled before his eyes. "See?" She sounded triumphant. "Murphy was going to help Caroline with the coats but he's been delayed and besides, I was hoping he'd be around tonight." She patted her belly absently then launched her final salvo. "You never know. Junior might decide to make a surprise appearance."

Bullseye.
Charlie could say no to just about anything, but he couldn't say no to a pregnant woman who apparently was ready to deliver her baby any moment. To his dismay, he found himself agreeing to drive over to Caroline Bradley's hot-shot boutique and help the small blond whirlwind unload a truckful of mink coats.