The Second Time Around Read online

  Frustration filled her. She’d had a figure once, a waist and small hips, and now they were gone. Who even knew if they were coming back? “Because I can’t zip up this dress.”

  “You’re not crying because Luke’s getting married?”

  “No,” she cried emphatically. “Denise is a sweet girl—away from that barracuda of a mother of hers—and Luke loves her. I’m happy for both of them.” She took a deep breath, willing herself to deal with this. She wasn’t going to get anywhere feeling sorry for herself. “But I’m really unhappy for me because it looks like I’m going to have to go naked to the ceremony.”

  He was relieved to hear her make a joke. As long as she had her sense of humor, there was hope. “In that case, you won’t be the only unhappy one.”

  She pretended to glare at him, wondering if, under the banter, he was being serious. “What?”

  He raised his hands in surrender. “Just trying to lighten the mood, honey. Okay.” He gestured for Laurel to get to her feet. “Stand up. Let me take a look at this.”

  Laurel exhaled a huge sigh. After a beat, she rose to her feet and then turned her back to him. The zipper’s tongue was still where she’d left it, lodged at the small of her back. It defied all of her efforts to get it to slide up her spine.

  “The dress fit just fine when I brought it home from the bridal shop three weeks ago.” Laurel placed her hand over her abdomen. She hadn’t thought she’d gained that much weight, but obviously, she must have. “This is going to be the first thirty-pound baby born at Blair Memorial Hospital.”

  And at least she hadn’t lost her knack of exaggerating. “You’re not that big,” he chided his wife. Taking hold of the zipper, he placed his other hand on the swell of her hip and began to pull. “Okay, hold your breath.”

  “No, you take in a breath, then let it all out,” Laurel told him and then followed her own instructions. “Okay,” she urged him through clenched teeth, her hands on her hips as she tried to move the material there closer to her spine to give him more play.

  Jason pulled. Hard. The zipper resisted, then finally, as he continued to work it slowly up, it rose up past what had once been her waist. Ordinarily, the few times he had helped Laurel with a tricky zipper, it was smooth sailing once he got to the area just beneath her shoulders.

  Not this time.

  It was touch and go, pull and tug.

  “Careful, don’t tear it,” she warned. “It’s very delicate.”

  “Luckily, you’re not,” he muttered. He continued maneuvering until finally, the zipper made it to the top of the summit. The dressed was zipped. “Done,” he announced, more than a little proud of his accomplishment. He stepped back to admire a job well done. “You’ll be fine if you don’t breathe for the next eight hours.”

  The dress felt like a tourniquet. She looked at herself in the mirror. Happily, it didn’t look like a tourniquet. “Not what I want to hear,” she told him.

  Jason always liked to have a contingency plan at his disposal. Now was no different. He looked around the room, then went to the bureau and began opening one drawer after another as he searched.

  “What are you looking for?” she asked.

  Just as she asked, he found it. “This.” Jason pulled out the silver shawl he’d accidentally come across the other day while looking for a fresh pair of socks. “Take this with you in case the zipper decides to make a break for it.”

  She stared at him, impressed. The shawl actually did match her dress. “Since when have you become so resourceful?”

  He spied a purse on the nightstand. Since it was small, he assumed she was taking it to the wedding. Her everyday purse was the kind that she could have smuggled a small pony in and no one would have been the wiser. Once he fetched the purse, he handed it to her.

  “Didn’t I ever tell you? I was a Boy Scout.” He threaded her arm through his and began to head out of the bedroom with her. “All of three weeks.”

  That didn’t sound like him. Jason usually stuck things out. At least for a while. “What happened?”

  He smiled as he remembered. Now that thirty-five years had gone by, his short stint was funny, although it hadn’t been at the time. “I accidentally set the park bench on fire in the campgrounds. The counselor wasn’t very understanding. I quit the next day.”

  She loved when he told her about things that had happened to him when he was a little boy. It made her feel closer to him. “Glad you stick to things a little longer these days.”

  He looked at her for a moment, his eyes communicating what he would have had trouble putting into words. “When I find something worth sticking to, it’s easy.” And then he put it behind him. “Let’s get a move on, honey. We don’t want to be late.”

  No, we don’t, she thought. Who knew how long the zipper would last?

  “Dress giving you trouble?” Jason whispered the question in her ear a little less than an hour and a half later. They were standing in the front pew of the right side of Our Lady Queen of Angels Church. The groom’s side.

  The strains of the wedding march had just begun to fade away. Denise was standing beside Luke and Laurel was staring at their backs. Blinking back tears.

  A thousand thoughts crowded her head. Luke, age three, leaping out of the bathtub and running madly around, with her chasing right behind him, his gleeful laugh echoing through the small house. Luke, age five, standing in front of Los Naranjos Elementary School on his first day, holding on to her hand so tightly her fingers were numb. Luke, all of nine, begging for one more story so he could fall asleep before the monsters came for him. Luke, twelve, sharing his first heartache with her as Megan DeAngelo dumped him for someone else. Luke, sixteen, waving at her as he drove away for his first solo drive, his driver’s license still warm in his pocket.

  Where had the time gone?

  “No,” she answered Jason with lips that hardly moved. The tears were stinging her eyes. She took a slow, shallow breath. “It seems like only yesterday I was pushing him out, and now look—”

  “He got out,” Jason concluded.

  The priest had begun to speak. Here it comes. Laurel took out a handkerchief, preparing for the waterworks she knew were inevitable. “He’s not my baby anymore,” she whispered.

  “No,” Jason agreed, leaning in so that only she could hear. “He’s Denise’s. But he’ll always be your little boy.”

  The words made her heart swell. She glanced at Jason as a tear escaped. She doubted that she had ever loved him as much as she did right at this very minute. “You think?”

  “I think,” he responded.

  She pressed her lips together as she drew in a long breath. Her firstborn was a man now. And he was getting married.

  How had it all happened so fast? In just the blink of an eye.

  Laurel moved her hand to her abdomen, spreading her fingers out over it protectively.

  You’re not getting married until you’re thirty, you got that? she silently told the daughter who had yet to be.

  In response, she thought she felt the baby move. No, that wasn’t a move, that was a kick. A definite kick. The first of many tonight, she knew. Laurel smiled to herself. It was comforting to know that even while she was letting one go, another one was coming on to the scene.

  And this one, Laurel had a feeling, was going to be a scrapper. But that was all right. She found herself looking forward to the matches.

  CHAPTER 29

  Jason wrapped his fingers around hers. The musicians at the reception had finally decided to try their hand at a slow number—either that or their fingers were worn out by all the fast songs they’d been playing for the past forty-five minutes—and he thought it was safe to ask Laurel to come out on the dance floor. She loved to dance and he knew if she were on the floor for a fast song, she’d do her best to keep up. And the baby might suddenly arrive several months prematurely.

  But slow dances were different. Slow dances didn’t require excess energy. What did require energy, he di
scovered, was attempting to hold his wife close. Her stomach was a definite roadblock here. The fact that the baby was kicking her—and now him—didn’t help matters any.

  Jason smiled down at her.

  “What?”

  “Dancing with you is definitely a challenge tonight.” As Laurel eyed him quizzically, he glanced at the general vicinity of her stomach, then back to her face.

  Laurel leaned into him as best she could. It was like attempting to get close with a small beach ball lodged between them.

  “That’s what keeps a marriage interesting,” she told him, a smile playing on her lips. “The curveballs that are thrown.”

  “Is that what this is, a curveball?”

  “Well, it’s certainly not anything either one of us reckoned on,” she reminded him.

  They were in agreement there. Jason smiled to himself. It was nice to feel as if they were on the same side of things for a change. Laurel had been edgy lately and still so prone to crying that it made him nervous. He was accustomed to her being a rock, the harbor that his ship sailed toward over choppy seas. Lately, the harbor had been periodically shut down for repairs.

  It made him appreciate her and realize what it was he had that other men didn’t.

  Jason looked over toward where Luke was standing with Denise. They had their heads together and were laughing. It made him remember his own wedding. He realized that he was a little envious of all they had before them.

  When he turned back to Laurel, he saw that she was watching him, a curious expression in her eyes. He wasn’t about to admit to the sentimental feeling that had just wafted through him. Instead, he sought refuge in being glib. “Well, one down, two to go.”

  “Three,” she corrected him.

  Jason laughed. “I don’t think that one is going to be ready to ‘go’ for quite some time yet.”

  Laurel gazed at Luke and Denise. Luke was leading Denise out onto the floor. He stopped to kiss her softly. Laurel could feel herself tearing up again. That made four times already. She would have thought she’d be dehydrated by now.

  “God, I hope not.”

  Ever the prepared husband, Jason reached into his pocket and pulled out his handkerchief. He handed it to her. “Just how much water do you have in you, woman?” he asked. But his voice was soft, tolerant. Even if he didn’t understand it, he was used to her crying at moments that didn’t, in his book, merit tears.

  “Allergies,” she sniffled, turning her head away. She offered him back his handkerchief.

  Jason stowed it in his pocket until next time. “How come these allergies only seem to act up whenever you look in Luke’s direction or say something about the wedding?”

  She shrugged. “Must be his cologne.”

  Rather than scoff, Jason nodded, his expression neutral. “Must be.” And then he laughed. “You know, you’re an awful liar.”

  “That should make you feel very secure.”

  His eyebrows drew together in marked confusion. “How so?”

  “Well, if I’m a terrible liar, and you can see right through me if I do lie, then you know I’ve never lied to you.”

  It took him a moment to unscramble that. “Unless it’s all an act to lull me into a complacent state.”

  Laurel laughed. He was giving her way too much credit.

  The music stopped and the band leader said something about being back after a ten-minute break. Jason took her hand and led her back to their table.

  “Yes, I am diabolical like that, on occasion,” she admitted sarcastically, addressing the “confession” to his back. “I guess then you’ll never know if I’m being on the level.”

  Jason stopped just shy of their table. Two of the other couples were there and he didn’t particularly want to be overheard, even though what he had to say was harmless.

  “I guess there’s only one solution.”

  “And that is?” she asked gamely, not sure she liked the gleam in his eye.

  “Simple.” He pulled out her chair for her. “Stick to you like glue so that you can’t do anything to lie about.”

  Laurel nodded as she took her seat. “Sounds like a plan to me. Especially since I have to go to those Lamaze classes.”

  They’d joined the others at the table too soon. Leaning over and keeping his hand before him so that no one could see his lips, he told her, “Slight change of plan.”

  “Too late.” She sounded both cheerful and final.

  He knew that tone meant she had made up her mind and if he wanted any peace in his life, he was going to have to go along with it. She didn’t use it often, but when she did, she couldn’t be blasted away from her decision.

  Still, he wasn’t about to throw in the towel, either. “We’ll talk.”

  Laurel frowned. She knew what he was telling her. That he’d talk, she’d listen. But not this time. When she’d had the other three, she’d been fairly into securing peace at any price. Not that Jason was a tyrant, but there were times when she let him get his way and she was not happy about it. But for the sake of harmony and in order not to rock the boat around her sons, she’d gone along with things when that happened.

  This time around, for all intents and purposes she was carrying an only child. Almost. One and a half sons were out of the house. Christopher returned only when he had a bag of laundry in his hand or when his cupboard was bare. With this particular pregnancy, for reasons she had yet to sort out, she felt completely empowered. Jason’s equal in every way but one. And with that, since it was childbirth, she felt superior.

  That put her slightly ahead of Jason.

  She was going to win this argument when it came down to the wire, she promised herself.

  “Yes,” she responded with feeling, her eyes meeting his. “We will talk about this further.”

  As the days went by and the time for the Lamaze classes drew closer, Jason felt that he was not being humored so much as whittled away. No matter what the conversation, Laurel found a way to turn it back to what she regarded as their unfinished debate.

  It was only unfinished to her since she hadn’t heard the answer she wanted. As far as he was concerned, the discussion was terminated. He wasn’t going. Wasn’t going to relive classes that had been etched into his brain almost a quarter of a century ago. There was no way he was about to sit there and feel like some octogenarian who was the covert object of pity, not to mention unabashed curiosity. Especially not to get a mere certificate qualifying him to stand there and watch something he really didn’t want to watch in the first place: Laurel in pain.

  Yes, it was all well and good to welcome a baby into the world, but it would make things a hell of a lot easier if that baby just stepped off a bus or deplaned at one of the local airports. Watching his wife writhe in pain, alternately biting back screams and turning red, pushing, was not his idea of a good way to spend half a day—or night.

  But saying as much was not getting him anywhere. Laurel was nothing if not relentless. She might lack energy in other areas, but when it came to arguing, she was utterly tireless.

  “C’mon, Jase,” she pleaded when he turned her down for what seemed like the millionth time at the breakfast table. There was less than a week left before classes were to begin. “This is going to be your last time to see this.”

  He raised his eyes from the newspaper he really wasn’t reading. “Promise?”

  Sitting opposite him over a plate of waffles that had grown cold, Laurel gave a little shrug in response. “Unless you get me pregnant again.”

  He snorted at that possibility. “Once that baby comes, I’m not going near you until you’re seventy. I’m assuming you won’t be fertile by that time.”

  She smiled brightly at him. “You could always get a vasectomy.”

  The very thought sent a shiver down his back. “That’s a discussion for another time.” He raised the paper up again.

  “Okay, fine.” Determined, she put her hand on top of the newspaper, pushing it down until she could see him agai
n. “But about the discussion we are having—”

  He sighed, abandoning all attempts at grabbing a few minutes for himself before he had to leave. “You’re having it,” he pointed out. “I’m just being nagged.”

  He knew she hated when he said she nagged, Laurel thought. He’d said that on purpose. But she refused to be baited or get sidetracked. There was something bigger at stake here. “You’ll never forgive yourself if you miss this.”

  He’d seen Morgan and Christopher come into the world. Two out of four were pretty good odds in his book. “I’ll chance it.”

  “Do you actually mean to tell me that if I asked you, really asked you, you’d say no?”

  He did his best to ignore the hurt he saw in her eyes. “I thought you were asking me,” he said. “Was this just a trial run?”

  But she wasn’t smiling. “This isn’t funny, Jason, I want you to come with me.” Laurel pressed her lips together, a part of her fearing rejection. “I need you to come with me.”

  He gave it one last try. “What about Lynda, or your mother? Or Jeannie?”

  Her eyes never left his face. She said the same thing to him now as she had when he’d originally suggested the substitution. “They’re not my husband.”

  Jason could feel himself losing ground. It was literally slipping away beneath his feet. “Granted, but they’re a lot more up to this than I am.”

  “Jason, please,” Laurel entreated softly.

  And that was his undoing. That small, pleading voice meant only for him. “Oh, all right,” he sighed. “Sign me up.”

  She smiled then, one of her incredibly radiant smiles. The kind that made him think of sunshine. The smile that had made him fall in love with her in the first place. “I already did.”

  CHAPTER 30

  The hospital corridor leading to the room where the Lamaze class was being held was brightly lit. There was absolutely no chance of missing their destination, Jason thought glumly. Especially since there was a large sign posted right by the open door.