“Mike!”
“Stop arguing. I drive or you stay here.”
“Dammit, Mike, I am not helpless.”
“No, but the baby’s due any second. What if you go into labor while you’re on that country road all alone? Or what if there’s an accident? The steering wheel could hurt the baby.” He shuddered visibly. “No, I’m going and that’s that.”
“Mike, if you’d been this bossy when we were together, I’d have thrown you out on your ear.”
“You weren’t having a baby then,” he said, as if that were explanation enough for his overprotectiveness.
Jane sighed and followed him to the car. “You’ll sit at a separate table,” she informed him as they drove.
“Whatever.”
“In fact, you could wait in the car.”
He grinned at her. “Don’t push your luck, angel.”
“Okay, a separate table will do.”
Naturally, though, it didn’t work out that way. All of the women she knew were well acquainted with Mike. They had all pretty much guessed that he was the father of her expected baby, even if they hadn’t said as much to her face. The minute she and Mike walked in the door together, the others crowded around, assuming that his presence meant a wedding was just around the corner. Jane guessed from Donna’s satisfied expression that she was the one who’d steered Mike to Jane’s apartment.
“Feeling smug?” Jane inquired, choosing a seat by her friend.
“Hopeful,” Donna replied. “He’s still around. That’s a good sign, isn’t it?”
“Depends on your point of view,” Jane grumbled. “He’s fussing over me as if I were the first woman on earth to have a baby.”
“And your complaint about that is?”
Jane sighed. “It’s not going to last. Sooner or later, he will go back to San Francisco.”
“You don’t know that. He looks content enough to me. This could be just what he needs to decide he wants to stay in Virginia.”
“He spends an hour or more on the phone to his office every day when he thinks I’m taking a nap. Doesn’t that tell you something?”
“It tells me there are twenty-three hours he’s devoting to you. Be grateful. Most husbands don’t give their wives that much attention, ever.”
“You don’t understand,” Jane said. “I can’t let it matter. I just can’t.”
“You still love him, don’t you?”
“Yes, but…”
“Then use this time with him to come up with a workable arrangement.” She regarded Jane slyly. “Maybe you should think about the fact that you’ve been living away from home and away from teaching for months now and it hasn’t been as awful as you feared it would be.”
“Because I still talk to all of you and see you. And at first I was so exhausted, I slept all the time. I wasn’t awake long enough to miss teaching.”
“Honey, that’s why they invented long-distance phone lines and airplanes. As for the exhaustion, wait till you have a toddler around the house.” She patted Jane’s hand. “Think about it, okay? Promise me.”
Jane nodded. “I promise.”
Donna grinned. “Good. Now, then, let’s get this party underway.”
“Party?”
“Annie?” Donna called. “Are you hiding back there?”
“I’m here,” Annie called back and wheeled in a cart laden with packages as all the others shouted, “Surprise!”
“A baby shower. I can’t believe it,” Jane whispered, tears in her eyes. Mike made his way to her and put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. She looked up at him and caught the way he was eyeing all the presents. She was probably going to have to fight him for the right to open them.
“After all the baby showers you’ve attended for the rest of us, it was the least we could do,” Daisy said.
Jane thought back to Daisy’s shower the previous March. That was the event that had triggered all of this. That was when she’d realized just how desperately she wanted a baby of her own. That was when she’d bought that wonderful antique crib from Annie.
It was also when she’d begun thinking of Mike again, wishing that they were together just like this. Well, almost like this. She’d hoped for a more traditional arrangement, but she was having his baby and he was here at her side. That counted for a lot.
As she opened the presents, oohing and ahhing this time over her own gifts, a feeling of absolute contentment stole over her. She wouldn’t have done a thing differently, she realized now. Whatever difficulties lay ahead, she wanted this baby—Mike’s baby—with all her heart. If she couldn’t have Mike with her for the rest of her life, at least she would have a permanent reminder of the love they’d once shared.
When the last present had been opened, and the last crumb of cake had been devoured, she made a decision. She turned to Mike. “I want to go home,” she whispered.
“Okay. I’ll get all of this stuff in the car and then we’ll go back to the apartment.”
She shook her head. “No, I mean I want to go home, to my own house. I want to put these things in the nursery. I want to stay there. I want to spend Christmas in my own place, to be there when I go into labor.”
He studied her worriedly. “Are you sure? You’ve gone to this much trouble to hide your pregnancy. Do you really want to go back now?”
“I’m sure. I don’t want to hide out anymore. Will you come with me?”
“You know I will.” He knelt down and brushed a strand of hair back from her cheek. “In fact, if you want we can stop at St. Mary’s on the way and see about getting married.”
“Married?” she said as if she’d never heard the word before, never heard him propose the same thing a dozen different times. Sneaking it in again now, when she was so clearly vulnerable, was a low-down, dirty trick. She wavered.
“If you won’t do it for yourself or for me,” he added, “let’s do it for the baby.”
She wanted to. Oh, how she wanted to, but a marriage that from the very start wasn’t meant to last? Wouldn’t that be worse than no marriage at
