Authors: Barbara Bretton
"You're not off the hook entirely."
She arched a brow. "Oh, really?"
"It won't be easy, you know, acting like a real married couple."
"I'd thought of that." She hesitated. Was he flirting with her? "I think we can handle it."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah," said Caroline, imitating his inflection. "I do."
He reached over to brush a strand of hair away from her face. His hand lingered near her mouth. She found herself yearning for the touch of his lips on hers. Her breath caught in her throat. He stepped forward. She swayed toward him. The question was in his eyes and the answer, in her smile. He lowered his head and moved closer, closer--
"I knew it!" said a female voice from the hallway. "I waited too long and there isn't a thing in the world for me to wear this afternoon, is there?"
Caroline and Charlie leaped apart like two guilty children.
"A customer," said Caroline, regaining her equilibrium. "I forgot all about her." She raised her voice and called out, "Stay right where you are, Ms. Walker. I'll bring your selections to you in a second."
Charlie had a triumphant look in his vivid green eyes and Caroline looked away, both embarrassed and pleased.
"I don't want to get you in trouble with your customers," he said. "I'll shove off for now."
"Tell Sam we said yes."
She draped a Donna Karan and a Calvin Klein over her arm and searched for the Arnold Scaasi she knew was in there somewhere. "Oh, and ask her to make sure she has decaf iced tea on hand by the gallon."
"I'm going to fix up an entrance bell for this door," he said.
"You don't have to."
"I know," he said. "I want to."
"Drive carefully."
"Better watch out, Caroline," he said. "You're starting to sound like a wife."
She stood in the doorway and watched him walk down the sidewalk toward his truck. The battered pick-up looked out of place parked among the BMWs and Jaguars, same as Charlie had looked in her frilly, fussy dress shop. "You didn't have to drop by, Charles," she murmured as he disappeared down the street. "You're starting to act like a husband."
#
The O'Rourke's barbecue was rained out but Sam threw open the doors to her house anyway. "So we cook indoors," Sam said with a snap of her fingers. "We'll have a great time."
Sam was as good as her word. The crowd from the bar poured in, as did Murphy's newspaper buddies and Sam's employees at her catering firm. Even young Patty's pals showed up, undeterred by inclement weather. The house was jammed to the rafters, noisy, and growing messier by the second. By comparison, Caroline's immaculate townhouse seemed like a mausoleum. She tried to imagine it in a few years
, when her baby was a rowdy preschooler but she came up empty. Somehow her perfect house no longer seemed like a home. Not compared to this joyful madness.
Of course, there would be plenty of time to think about things like that after the baby arrived and she and Charlie were once more living their separate lives. It was just that on a day like this, surrounded by friends, their uncertain future was the last thing she wanted to ponder.
Caroline and Charlie shared a chair in the overcrowded living room. Perched on his lap, Caroline felt both out-of-place and extremely comfortable. It was an odd feeling, to be treated as part of a couple, and to her surprise she enjoyed playing the part of a happy newlywed for the day.
Sam and Murphy nudged each other in the kitchen and exchanged "I told you so" smiles. Bill O'Rourke and his wife whispered in the hallway and favored the Donohues with their best Why-Marriage-Is-Wonderful stories.
Even Caroline's goddaughter Patty got into the act.
"He's cu-u-u-te," Patty said, perched on the edge of her mother's bed as she watched Caroline comb her hair. "Margaret says his eyes are so green they must be contact lenses."
"Margaret is a terrible twelve year old cynic," said Caroline, smoothing her bangs, "and you, my dear Patricia, are to tell her that Charles's eyes are indeed green." She paused, tapping the comb against the palm of her hand. Were they? Truth was, he could have a different pair of green contacts for every day of the week and Caroline would never know it. Married almost six weeks and she didn't know the most basic of facts about her very own husband.
She marched back out into the living room and called Charlie out onto the porch.
"Do you wear contact lenses?" she asked without preamble.
Leave it to Charlie to not bat an eye. "Nope."
"Your eyes are really green?"
"Last I looked."
"I thought so." She marched back into the kitchen where Patty and Margaret were cadging cookies from the platter Sam had arranged the night before. "His eyes are a natural shade of emerald, girls, and I'll thank you very much to forget about contact lenses."
"You told her what I said!" Margaret's face turned as red as Patty's ponytail. "How could you, Patty?"
"It was a valid question," said Patty, looking at Caroline with undisguised curiosity. "I wear contact lenses myself now."
You're overreacting,
Caroline thought. She was getting defensive, and for what? Charlie's honor was scarcely at stake. Contact lenses or no, the two girls hadn't impugned his character, for heaven sake. She was acting like a woman in love with her husband and that was patently ridiculous.
Hormones,
she thought, rejoining Charlie in the living room. Nothing more than hormones.
#
There was a time when Caroline would have jumped at the chance to be center of attention, but when Scotty asked her to accompany him in a rendition of "Danny Boy," she said, "Not this time, Scotty. I think pregnancy has ruined my vocal chords."
"Nonsense," said the elderly professor. "You sound as splendid as ever. You just want to be coaxed."
The gang from O'Rourke's clapped and cheered their encouragement.
"You don't have to sing if you don't want to," Charlie said to his wife. "Just tell 'em you're too tired."
"It's my own fault," she said. "A bit late to claim shyness, wouldn't you say?"
He watched as she made her way to the piano in the far corner of the room and sat on the bench next to the old professor. Jealousy nipped at Charlie's gut. Jealous of old Scotty? What a crock. Scotty was eighty if he was a day. It was no secret that Scotty adored Caroline--and it was also no secret that Caroline adored him right back. But if ever there was a relationship to define the word "platonic," this was the one.
You're in trouble, man
, thought Charlie.
Next thing you know you'll be jealous of Sam's baby boy.
Caroline seemed tentative at the start; her clear soprano wavered on the first bar and it was obvious her heart wasn't in it. Charlie leaned forward in his chair.
Come on, princess,
he thought.
You can do it.
She met his eyes and he smiled encouragement. She visibly relaxed as her voice gathered power. The old Caroline took over and before his eyes she turned into the world-class flirt he remembered from his first visit to O'Rourke's Bar and Grill. Only this time it was different. This time he knew there was someone else lurking behind that glamorous facade. Someone he kind of liked--and might like even more if he ever really got to know her.
Don't go getting sentimental, Charlie. You knew what this was all about when you started the whole thing.
This marriage was for the kid and nothing else. The moment that baby was born, he'd be booted out the door of her fancy apartment quicker than he could say goodbye. Being at each other's throat for the next six months didn't make any sense, but expecting anything else from the relationship was asking for trouble.
So they'd had a nice day together. Big deal. No point to reading anything into it.
Pretending their relationship was anything but what it was, was asking for trouble.
#
The song
Danny Boy
had always made Caroline feel melancholy, but tonight it made her downright ornery. The last time she'd sung that song had been at Sam's Labor Day party the year before. Caroline had come with an account executive from a Princeton investment firm, and she'd relished being the belle of the ball. Life had been good that year. She was young and healthy and so was her business. One by one she had achieved each of the goals she had set for herself as a little girl and she experienced a deep sense of pride that she'd been able to accomplish so much with so little to start with.
This year found her married to a man she barely knew and pregnant with a baby she hadn't planned on. Her life was out-of-control and as she sang the plaintive words to the old song, she knew in her deepest soul that nothing would ever be the same again. She could never go back to being the woman she'd been just a few short months ago.
So confident, so in control. That part of her life was lost to her now as surely as if she'd never lived it at all. This time next year she would be a mother. An infant would be looking to her for love and guidance--for his or her very existence. For the rest of her life she would be somebody's mother.
Unlike her marriage. This time next year she would be the ex-Mrs. Donohue. But, the thought occurred to her, would she be able to put the experience away with her maternity clothes and forget it had happened?
She could divorce Charlie after the baby arrived but she couldn't divorce him from their lives. He would always be part-and-parcel of her existence, connected to her by the child they had created on that warm June night.
By the time Sam's Labor Day bash was over, Caroline was exhausted and queasy. Charlie was queasy, too, from battling feelings he'd sworn he would never feel for anyone, much less the former Caroline Bradley.
They rode home in silence. Caroline kept taking deep breaths, struggling to calm her jittery stomach while Charlie concentrated on the dark and winding road. "Why the hell don't they spring for some streetlights?" he muttered, straining to see ten feet ahead of him. "We pay enough damn taxes...." A flash of something white caught his eye near the side of the road then darted closer.
This time of year the woods were filled with white-tailed deer, just waiting to play chicken with unsuspecting drivers. He slammed on the brakes just in time as a doe and fawn scampered past his headlights.
Caroline's sharp intake of breath echoed in the quiet truck.
"For God's sake, Charles. Can't you be more careful?"
"I saw a deer," he said. "Two of 'em. If you don't mind killing Bambi and his mother--"
"Oh,
be quiet," she snapped. "I only asked you to be more careful. I didn't ask you to lay a guilt trip on me."
"If you put your seat belt on, you wouldn't have a problem."
"My seat belt
is
on. It's your driving that's the problem."
He stopped dead in the middle of the deserted road as something inside him snapped. He didn't know if it was the stress of playing the happily-married couple or the stress of being married in the first place, but suddenly he couldn't manage to be civil or polite or considerate. What he wanted was to bail out. "You wanna drive?"
She lifted her chin defiantly. "I'm sure I would do a more competent job."
"Fine." He shifted into neutral, put on the emergency brake, then flung open the door. "You got it, lady."
"You're being ridiculous, Charles."
"Ridiculous?" He crossed around the front of the truck until he was looking straight at her through the open window of the truck. "What's ridiculous is this marriage of ours."
"And whose bright idea was this marriage anyway? It certainly wasn't mine."
"Yeah, well, don't think I haven't lived to regret it, Bradley. Living with you isn't exactly fun."
He yelped as the passenger door swung open and clipped him in the flank. "Why the hell don't you watch what you're doing?"
She leaped to the ground, a small and volatile bundle of rage unleashed. "I did watch what I was doing and you should be extremely glad my aim wasn't any better."
"Go ahead," he said, flinging his arms wide. "Take your best shot."
"Don't tempt me."
He moved closer, all male dominance and anger. "What's the matter, Bradley? Losing your nerve?"
"The name's Donohue," she said between clenched teeth. "Or have you forgotten?"
"How could I?" he countered. "That's the whole problem."
That did it. She was on him with all the power at her command. She pummeled his chest, swung wildly for his jaw, then was about to knee him in the groin when he grabbed her under the arms and swept her off her feet and onto the fender of the truck.
"One shot," she hissed. "You promised me one clear shot."
"You had three of them. One more and I fight back."
"Just like you, Donohue. What kind of man would hit a pregnant woman?"
"Who said I'd hit you?"
"I doubt if you intended to dazzle me with your wit."