“I am,” Lisa said, smiling graciously at the older woman.
“Let’s leave the kids to their dinner, Blanche,” Gerald said, his words a little slurred. Marcus was pretty sure he was drunk.
“Oh, my, yes, of course. I’m sorry. Your food must be getting cold. It was good to see you again, Marcus,” she said, shaking Marcus’s hand. “And Lisa…” She held out her hand to Lisa, far enough away that Lisa would have to stand to reach it. Marcus recognized the sort of power play meant to make Blanche feel superior.
The bitch, Marcus thought, watching Lisa stand. She looked beautiful in the dark blue maternity dress she’d donned for the occasion. Beautiful and—
“Oh, my God! You’re pregnant!” Blanche said, loudly enough for all the tables around them to hear. Marcus had actually managed to forget for a few brief minutes.
“Yes, I am. Sixteen weeks today,” Lisa said gently, looking at Marcus.
He smiled at her. He’d prepared himself for the fact that their many acquaintances would naturally assume that Lisa’s baby was his. He could handle having to claim the child in public situations. After all, he’d been handling Marge’s questions for weeks, and had managed to relay information about his wife’s child just fine without thinking about it in terms of himself.
Blanche inspected Lisa’s stomach once more before looking at Marcus as if he’d just amassed another million. “Oh, Marcus, congratulations. A Cartwright heir! Your mother and father would have been so pleased.”
He felt like he’d been slapped. He wasn’t ready for this. Not by a long shot.
“Thank you,” he said, forcing himself to continue smiling as Lisa answered Blanche’s questions about the due date and late-night feedings. And watching his wife’s animated face, it came home to him just how much he was missing. Lisa was living their dream. He was on the outside looking in. And always would be.
HE HAD TO WORK the next morning, but remembering the trouble Lisa had gotten herself into the previous Saturday, he handled only what absolutely had to be done before Monday morning’s meeting with his executives. He drove home with his head full of plans for a drive up the coast that afternoon. Maybe he and Lisa could stop at some seaside place for a late lunch and then spend the night at Haven’s Cove. Remembering their anniversary, the glorious idyll of forgetfulness they’d found in the little cabana there, he called from his car phone to make a reservation. And maybe they’d even get some snow while they were there, making it impossible for them to return.
Recognizing in his high-handed approach to planning their lives a hint of desperation, Marcus pushed it away. He and Lisa were talking again. And though they were facing a very unorthodox situation, somehow they would make their marriage work. They loved each other too much not to.
“Lisa?” he called, shrugging out of his overcoat and pulling off his tie as he walked in the front door. He’d left the Ferrari out front. It should only take him a couple of minutes to change into jeans and help Lisa pack an overnight bag.
“I’m up here!”
Marcus took the steps two at a time, eager to share his plans with her. The more he thought about it, the more he knew that a weekend away was just what they needed.
“Pack a bag, Lis. We’re—” She wasn’t in their bedroom.
“Lis?” he called, back out in the hall.
“In here.”
Marcus looked at the door across from him. The door he’d been avoiding. What was she doing in there now? He’d finished everything up in there so they wouldn’t have to go in again. At least not for a while. With reluctance, he approached the nursery.
His good spirits evaporated when he saw what was inside. An entire room full of boxes—and his wife standing in the midst of them, dressed in a new pair of designer maternity jeans and a silk-embossed sweatshirt, grinning from ear to ear.
“I knew you’d be mad if I tried to put this all together by myself, but please hurry and change, Marcus. I can’t wait to see how it all looks in here. I think we should put the crib over there. What do you think?”
Marcus blanched, his plans for the weekend fading as he surveyed the number of boxes in the room. There was barely room to walk.
“If that’s where you want it, Lis,” he said, calculating the hours it was going to take him to get all that stuff put together. “I’ll be right back.”
Swallowing his disappointment, Marcus canceled the reservation he made for the night. Lisa was trying hard to make their marriage work. To allow him to help her, even though she knew he was only doing it for her, not for the child she carried. He couldn’t afford to waste her efforts.
Pulling on a pair of sweatspants and a T-shirt, he decided to tackle the crib first, sensing his wife’s impatience to see it assembled, in spite of the fact that she’d never mentioned the furniture to him. Other than when she’d answered Blanche Goodwin’s questions the night before, she hadn’t mentioned the baby since last week, when he’d caught her sanding the nursery all alone.
“I already brought up the electric drill and all the screwdriver bits,” she said. Marcus hoped he remembered how to use it. They had a shed full of tools, but they were for the gardeners and whatever handymen Hannah occasionally hired.
Lisa’s excitement was contagious, and as they pulled the various pieces of the crib from the box and slowly put them together, Marcus started to relax.
“Remember that waterbed we bought when we were first married?” he asked, grinning as he thought back to those invincible days.
“What a mistake that was,” Lisa groaned, sliding the long plastic covering on the top bar of the crib. “It would’ve been nice if they’d told us beforehand that it was really nothing more than a million pieces of plywood.”
“Or if we’d had any idea that the only real stability the thing had was after it was filled with water. But it was still kind of fun putting it together, wasn’t it, Lis? You were so damn cute strutting around with that tool belt on.”