The Second Time Around Read online

  “My wife gets all the credit for that,” he told her modestly. “She gets credit for a lot of things, including teaching me how to dress and how to appreciate a good woman.”

  She heard the wistful note in his voice. He still missed her, she thought. Now that was devotion. “Then you are going to make some lucky lady a wonderful prize package someday,” she prophesized.

  Taking out her passkey, Laurel inserted it into the lock box and turned it. She felt the lock give. “I’m not sure exactly what you’re going to see. This is my first time here.”

  He nodded. “Consider me forewarned.”

  She considered him a great deal more than that. He was a catch waiting to be grabbed up. As she talked to him this morning, the wheels had begun turning in her head. Since she’d been a little girl, arranging dates between her fashion dolls and stuffed animals she’d had the heart of a matchmaker. She saw no reason to turn her back on her natural tendency now. All she needed was the proper lead-in. Men like Robert Manning didn’t come along every day. Or even once every leap year.

  Stepping back, she allowed him to walk into the house first so that she could observe him.

  The toast popped and Laurel frowned over the result. The color was too dark, even though she had it set on “light.” It was just a shade away from burnt. She put it on a plate and turned her attention to the waffles she was making. Too much of an undertaking on a day she was running behind, she chided herself. But Jason liked waffles.

  “You know that guy I told you about?” She tossed the question over her shoulder, then turned to him when she received no response. “The one I used to go to school with? He came in last week to look at some property.”

  She paused after each sentence, waiting for the light of recognition to enter Jason’s eyes. Like all husbands, hers suffered from the malady commonly known as short-term amnesia. He had the ability to sit and appear to listen to every word, only to have absolutely no recall when asked. The habit drove her crazy.

  “The one who got rich selling the dot-com companies,” she added in desperation.

  “Oh, right, him.” Finally, the light had dawned. “What about him?” Jason peered at her over the top of the newspaper section he was reading. “Are you thinking of throwing me over for him?”

  It was a joke. In reality, he was as secure as a husband could be, especially since she’d given him three and one-quarter children and he was fairly certain she was devoted to him.

  She thought about choosing her words carefully, then decided to go in, feet first. There was something to be said for honesty. For the most part, finesse was lost on Jason.

  “I was thinking of him for Lynda.”

  “Are you going to gift wrap him?” he asked drolly. “Or just tuck him under your arm and wait to present him to Lynda at the first opportune moment?”

  Ordinarily, she didn’t mind being teased. But the pregnancy didn’t find her doing anything “ordinarily.”

  “I’m serious.” She had to curb herself from snapping at him. “She needs someone in her life. Dean leaving her like that made her feel like a rank, number-one loser. If I had him here now,” she added, her eyes suddenly blazing, “I’d wring his neck.”

  He looked up from his newspaper again, but just barely. “My money’s on you, big Mama.”

  Laurel froze in the middle of removing the waffles from the griddle. “What did you just call me?”

  “Big Mama,” he repeated, a touch uncertainly now. “It’s a term of affection.”

  “So is ‘dog-faced woman’ in some cultures, but not here.” She moved over toward the refrigerator. With its shining black exterior, it offered up a bastardized version of her reflection. She looked at it, turning sideways and studying herself intently. “I look big to you?”

  Blessed with a keen survival instinct, he backpedaled as quickly as he could. “No, not at all. Tiny. So tiny that when I talk to you, I just throw my voice around, hoping it reaches you.”

  She frowned, completely unamused. Laurel glanced at her blackened reflection again. “So I’m big.”

  “Honey, I was just teasing,” he pleaded, then closed his eyes as he shook his head. “Oh God, I forgot how sensitive you get when there’s more than just one of you in the same space.” He made a last-ditch attempt at amends. “You’re not big, Laurie. But you have to face facts.” He was nothing if not truthful. It was something she both cherished and, right now, hated. “You’re going to get that way. You always did before.”

  History, she thought fiercely, did not necessarily have to repeat itself. Not if she didn’t let it.

  CHAPTER 14

  “You’re eating like a bird,” Jeannie commented, looking at the meal that Laurel had hardly touched.

  They’d gone out to lunch together, the way they did every Friday, stopping at the Village Steakhouse, one of their favorite restaurants. Today there had been something extra to celebrate as well, but Laurel had greeted her serving with less than her customary gusto.

  Jeannie regarded her with concern. “It’s been almost three months now. You still feeling nauseous?”

  Oddly enough, she wasn’t. The awful feeling that had haunted her throughout her first pregnancy and had hung on, to varying degrees, for the better part of the other two had completely vanished within a week of Dr. Kilpatrick’s world-jarring diagnosis.

  Laurel shook her head, still picking at the melting butter on her potato. “No.”

  “If you’re not nauseous, why aren’t you eating? Why are you just pushing around your food from one side of your plate to the other?” she asked. “Take advantage of the situation,” Jeannie coaxed. “You’re eating for two now.”

  “Yes, but one of those ‘two’ is the size of a peanut,” Laurel pointed out. “Peanuts don’t consume very much.”

  “Well, if you don’t want that baked potato, can I have it?”

  “Be my guest.” Laurel obligingly shifted the steaming vegetable over to Jeannie’s plate. It wasn’t that she wasn’t hungry. She actually was. But the thought of the food applying itself directly to her hips did a great deal to make things look unappetizing. “Anything else?”

  Jeannie eyed the steak on Laurel’s plate, even as she sank her fork into the potato. “I’ll let you know.” She took a taste of the baked potato. Her expression indicated that she had crossed over to the other side of the pearly gates. “Mmm, this is good.”

  “Enjoy,” Laurel told her. She didn’t bother picking up her knife and fork. Instead, she just looked off, out the window at the traffic that was moving by.

  Jeannie sighed as she reluctantly retired her utensils. She leaned in close to Laurel. “Okay, what’s wrong?”

  Laurel glanced at her, then looked away and shrugged. “Nothing.”

  “No,” Jeannie contradicted. “‘Nothing’ should be wrong. You just sold Mr. Hunk that semi-castle that Callaghan never thought we’d unload—and made Mr. Hunk think he was happy about it—”

  “He was happy,” Laurel insisted softly.

  She wouldn’t have sold the house to Robert if he hadn’t been. She didn’t believe in talking a client into anything. It was only on a whim that she’d even showed Robert the old Myford place. No one was more surprised than she was when Robert said he actually wanted to put a bid on it. The building was only three quarters finished. Construction had halted when the owner had run out of money. It was considered an eyesore in the neighborhood. But Robert, bless him, had seen possibilities in the place.

  He really did have a good imagination, she thought. She’d felt so responsible for his having bought the place that she’d offered Robert the services of her brother-in-law, Jared, who was a licensed state contractor.

  He and Morgan went out the next day to meet with Robert and discuss the house’s possibilities. Robert seemed very satisfied with the whole arrangement.

  Ed Callaghan had been overjoyed when she’d told him. The office manager had called her that night to tell her that the owner had snapped up the bid faste
r than a catfish swallowed bait. And just like that, Robert Manning had a house. Or three-quarters of one, she amended.

  Callaghan had brought out a bottle of champagne to celebrate the sale—at which point she was forced to tell him that she was pregnant.

  Champagne and a confession. It was becoming a pattern. Callaghan had seemed leery of the news, until she’d told him she intended to keep on working. He’d congratulated her—and everyone else had had the champagne.

  “So?” Jeannie pressed now. “If he’s happy, the owner’s happy and Callaghan’s thrilled to death, what’s the problem? Why the long face?”

  Laurel debated not saying anything. Or, just chalking it up to her hormones being out of sync again. But lying had never been her way and holding things in was lying. She turned away from the window and looked at Jeannie.

  “It’s starting,” she said glumly.

  Jeannie’s penciled-in eyebrows drew together over a very pert nose that had been a gift from a plastic surgeon. “What’s starting?”

  Laurel pressed her lips together, looking for the right words, the right way to put this without sounding as if she was whining.

  This morning, when she’d tried to get dressed, she’d found that the button on her skirt no longer wanted any part of the hole it normally fit into. There was at least an inch between them now. A whole, irreconcilable inch. And when she finally managed to pull the two sides together, pushing the button through the hole, she found that breathing had become optional. And very difficult. It felt as if she had just applied a tourniquet to her waist.

  And this was only the beginning. There were at least five more months ahead of her.

  “I’m putting on weight,” she murmured.

  Jeannie laughed, shaking her head. “For my money, you’d look better with a little meat on your bones.”

  “A little, maybe,” she allowed diplomatically, since Jeannie was rather heavyset. She didn’t want to insult the woman, but that didn’t change how she felt about what lay ahead of her. “But I never started gaining weight so early in my pregnancy.”

  “They say the body remembers. I read that in a health magazine once. And each time you get pregnant, I guess it remembers a little faster.” She grinned, amused. “You get pregnant again and you’ll probably start gaining weight the next morning.”

  “Pregnant again,” Laurel echoed. “God forbid.” After this pregnancy was behind her, she was going to give Jason the option of either getting a vasectomy, or wearing two condoms whenever he made love to her again.

  “So you gained a little weight faster than you expected. What’s the big deal?”

  The big deal was that by the end of the month, if not sooner, nothing in her closet was going to fit her anymore. She sighed. “I don’t have any of my old maternity clothes.”

  Jeannie broke off another hunk of bread and slathered it with margarine. “Well, that’s a good thing,” her friend observed, taking a healthy bite of bread. She paused until she’d swallowed. “Styles have changed in the last twenty years.”

  “Twenty-one,” Laurel corrected absently. The last time she’d been in maternity clothes was twenty-one years ago. That was a whole generation ago. What in God’s name was she thinking, getting pregnant again?

  “Twenty-one,” Jeannie echoed. “Even more changes.” She grinned broadly at the opportunity this presented for Laurel. “Hey, like I said before, this a built-in excuse to go shopping, honey.” Her mailbox was always filled with catalogues. “From what I’ve seen, they’ve done some really cute things with maternity clothes these days.” She finished off the piece of bread, chewing thoughtfully. “Although I have to say, I’m not too crazy about the bathing suits. Makes you look like you’re trying to smuggle a beach ball and not being very clever about it.” She turned her attention back to the last of the baked potato she’d scored. “The new slogan seems to be ‘pregnant and proud of it.’”

  Laurel wasn’t sure she’d go quite that far. “I’m not ashamed of being pregnant,” she told Jeannie. “I just don’t particularly want to stick it in anyone else’s face, that’s all.” And, she added silently, she didn’t want to be mistaken for the Goodyear blimp, either.

  She caught her lip between her teeth. She could feel herself expanding even as she sat here, with her hips spreading east and west and her breasts determined to sink south. It felt as if she was a lost section in a map handbook.

  “Then get big maternity clothes, that’s all,” Jeannie suggested.

  Picturing herself walking into a maternity shop was enough to make her shiver. Unlike Jeannie, who felt that all shopping was good, she didn’t want to do this. But she obviously had no choice. Her only other alternative was to walk around wearing a barrel.

  “I dread the whole process,” she admitted to Jeannie.

  Jeannie’s fork stopped in mid journey to her mouth as confusion clouded her features. “In heaven’s name, girl, why?”

  She pushed the remainder of her steak into the wilting cluster of asparagus spears. “Because I’m not looking forward to shopping for maternity clothes standing elbow to elbow with girls who have peaches-and-cream complexions and think that crow’s feet means something a crow uses for walking.”

  “I can go with you,” Jeannie offered. She glanced down at her mature figure. “We can tell them we got knocked up together. One look at me and nobody’s going to doubt that I’m not pregnant.”

  Jeannie’s unself-conscious remark made her smile. “No, I can do this by myself. But thanks for the offer.”

  Jeannie turned her attention back to eating. “Hey, what are friends for? Are you going to finish your steak?”

  With a laugh, Laurel slid the piece onto Jeannie’s plate.

  CHAPTER 15

  It took Laurel another two-and-a-half weeks to work up the courage to face walking into a maternity shop. Two-and-a-half weeks and five outfits that no longer buttoned or zipped the way they were supposed to.

  Examining herself in her bedroom mirror when she’d reached outfit number five, she felt tears filling her eyes. She looked as if she’d been stuffed into the suit and was about to explode at any second.

  It was her favorite, the one she considered her “lucky” suit. Though not superstitious, she still felt that if she had the suit on things were more inclined to go her way.

  But not anymore.

  She needed a new “lucky” suit. She needed a new everything.

  There was, of course, an alternative to walking into a maternity shop. She could just buy clothes the next size or two up. But the problem with that was she was only gaining weight in an isolated area. Her waist was expanding. Everything else, including her shoulders, remained just as they had been. Which meant that she was still a size four—everywhere but in her midsection. That appeared to be thickening every hour on the hour. So while clothes two sizes up might accommodate her waistline, they would hang off the rest of her.

  Logically, she had no choice but to go to a maternity store. The thought left her far from happy. Every day, she found a reason not to go. But this morning, as outfit number five died, a casualty of the ever-expanding waistline war, she made up her mind. There was no other choice. She had to go shopping.

  Still uneasy about the pending venture, she’d briefly entertained the idea of taking Jeannie up on her offer to come along with her. She’d even thought of—God help her—asking her mother to accompany her to the maternity store. She did neither, knowing that both women, especially her mother, would feel compelled to offer a running commentary as they went from outfit to outfit within the store or stores.

  Right now, her emotions were in a state of flux, bouncing back and forth between joyous and overwhelmed in less than the blink of an eye. She kept going from “Oh, boy” to “Oh, God,” in zero to sixty seconds.

  Laurel could just hear her mother commenting about the emotional whiplash she was getting. And asking Lynda was out of the question. Her sister would probably spend the entire time looking wistfully at every
single article of clothing within the shop, trying not to cry over the fact that she would never see her belly distended.

  “I’m going to die miserable and alone,” Lynda had lamented the last time she’d spoken to her sister on the phone. Laurel had curbed the desire to say, You will if you keep this up, knowing that pointing out her sister’s flaws would do no good. Lynda was going to have to work some of her issues out by herself before she was up to keeping any sort of company with people of the opposite sex.

  Laurel had even thought—so briefly that for all intents and purposes, it hadn’t happened—of asking Denise to come with her. From the moment Luke got serious with this girl, Laurel had been determined to create a bond between herself and her future daughter-in-law. But currently, Denise was in the final stages of the mother of all meltdowns because of the swiftly approaching wedding. A simple greeting was liable to cause the girl to burst into tears.

  She’d smiled to herself, thinking that she and Denise were not all that far removed from each other in their present frame of mind. The wrong look was liable to send her off into a crying jag, too. Except that she was discreet enough to hide it. Denise believed in being open about everything. It was the new truth as far as she was concerned.

  So, in the end, Laurel decided to go on her odyssey to the maternity shop alone. Taking advantage of a lull in the office, she’d left Jeannie and a woman named Sonya to deal with anyone who walked in while she was gone. With dread and not a little trepidation, she got into her car—a car that was beginning to feel slightly crammed around the hip area—and drove in to the Bedford Mall where the oh-so-cutely named store, Bun In The Oven, was domiciled.

  The walk through the mall was over with before she knew it, even though she tried to linger over a display of camping gear, something she had yet to work up an interest for.