Heartwishes (31 page)

“Yes, ma’am,” Gemma said, and smiled back, her nervousness greatly alleviated—even though she wasn’t sure about the potatoes and wine analogy.

When all eleven of them were seated in the dining room, the table laden with enormous bowls and trays of food, Gemma soon found out that she was the center of attention. All the Fraziers,
except for Shamus and Colin, bombarded her with questions about her research, where she’d grown up, what she wanted to do in the future.

She tried to answer everyone, but there were just too many queries. Mainly, she didn’t want to talk about herself. If she did, she feared they’d ask about her and Colin, and it was too soon for that.

After several minutes of interrogation, she stopped them with a story of the first Shamus Frazier, the one who came from Scotland to America in the 1760s.

“His wife, the countess,” Gemma said, “wrote a letter telling of a carriage her husband made for the beautiful Edilean Harcourt.” She had their attention now and they ate in silence as they listened to her. “It was a yellow carriage with black seats, and Mrs. Harcourt called it her bumblebee.”

When there was a quick intake of breath and everyone looked at Mr. Frazier, Gemma did too.

He gave no explanation for the attention turning to him. “Go on,” he said. “What else did the letter say?”

“Prudence—that’s Shamus’s aristocratic wife—said the carriage was made to cheer Edilean up because the last of her children had married and moved out of their house.”

“I understand that!” Mrs. Frazier said as she looked at her five grown children. “Go on, Gemma.”

“Mrs. Frazier—the first one, that is—said that Shamus put a plaque under the seat, but he doubted if anyone would ever see it.”

To Gemma’s consternation, both Lanny and Shamus stood up.

“Shamus,” Mr. Frazier said, and the young man grabbed a couple of rolls and left the room.

Gemma looked across the table at Colin, her eyes asking him what was going on.

He smiled. “Dad has a lot of the old wagons and carriages stored in warehouses in the back. One of the prettiest is yellow with black seats. My little brother went to see if he could find the plaque.”

“You didn’t think to tell me that you have eighteenth-century carriages stashed away? I could have searched them for information,” Gemma said before she thought, then remembered where she was. She glanced at the others. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

All of the Fraziers started laughing, and Lanny slapped Colin on the back. “Our brother likes to keep secrets.”

“Better than blabbing everything to everyone,” Colin answered and everyone started talking again.

Next to Gemma was Frank, but she hadn’t been able to say a word to him.

Ariel, on the other side of him, leaned forward. “Gemma, would you like for me to take the attention off of you?”

“Could you please?” Gemma watched as Ariel reached inside her trouser’s pocket and withdrew a diamond ring. Under the cover of the dining table, she slipped it on her left ring finger. “That should do it,” Gemma said softly. She couldn’t resist kissing Frank’s cheek in congratulations—a gesture that brought everyone to a halt.

“Colin, it looks like you have some competition,” Pere said.

Colin looked at Gemma, and this time he was the one wanting information.

Ariel broke the silence by reaching her left hand far across the table to her mother at the end. “Mom, will you hand me the carrots, please?”

No one paid any attention to her—but Mrs. Frazier did. She reacted with a little scream, grabbed her daughter’s hand, and pulled so hard Ariel nearly landed in a bowl of collard greens.

“What in the world, Alea?” Mr. Frazier asked.

By that time, Mrs. Frazier had pulled her daughter out of her
chair and was hugging her, kissing her face, and crying copiously and loudly.

Everyone else was still seated, but they were staring at Ariel and her mother in wonder. Ariel clarified the matter by holding up her left hand and flashing her new ring.

Mr. Frazier, obviously well pleased, looked at Frank. “Think you can stand to be one of us?”

“I might survive it,” Frank said. “I know now isn’t the right time, but I’d like to talk to you about buying that old building you own, the one at the end of McTern road. Mike and I think it would be a good place to open our gym.”

“It’s yours,” Mr. Frazier said. “And there’ll be no talk of payment.”

“I can’t—” Frank began.

“Yes, he can,” Ariel said loudly as she pulled away from her mother. “Anyone want to see my ring?”

All the women said yes and even Pere’s model girlfriend seemed to come alive.

“Dad,” Ariel said, “I want the biggest, most expensive wedding this town has even seen. And I want Sara Shaw to be my matron of honor.”

“If you told her before I knew—” Mrs. Frazier began, but Ariel cut her off.

She put her arm around her mother’s shoulders. “You were the first to know.”

“You don’t
have
to get married, do you?” Mrs. Frazier asked. There was so much hope in her voice that everyone started laughing again.

“No, Mom, I’m not pregnant,” Ariel said. “I told you that I need to finish my residency first. Once we get back to Edilean and I start my practice, Frank and I will think about kids.”

When Mrs. Frazier looked at Frank, he put up his hands in
surrender. “I’m on your side. You think I wanted Mike to beat me in the kids department?”

Ariel looked at her brother. “Colin, help me out here.”

He looked across the table at Gemma. “Sorry, but I’m on Mom’s side too. I like the idea of settling down.”

Gemma looked down at her plate as the two other girlfriends looked at her in curiosity.

Rachel saved her by opening the door to the kitchen with a loud bang. “I have six pies in the kitchen and whoever helps me clear up gets a piece.” She left the room.

Everyone except Ariel and her mother started clearing the table. Colin, his big arms full of dishes, got behind Gemma. “Sorry if I embarrassed you.”

“You can make it up to me by showing me the carriages.”

“I would love to.” He leaned down so his lips were near her ear. “How about if we steal a pie and go see the wagons?” He lowered his voice even more. “Ever make love inside an eighteenth-century bumblebee?”

“Have you?” she shot back.

“No,” he answered. “But I’ve imagined it in detail.”

“I like fulfilling fantasies,” she whispered as they entered the kitchen.

Rachel said quietly to Gemma, “His favorite is in the oven. After Ariel’s news, no one will notice if you left.”

“You’re my new BFF,” Gemma said as she went to the stove.

As she opened the oven, Gemma wondered what kind of pie Colin liked best. “Blackberry cobbler,” she whispered when she saw it.

Colin leaned over her shoulder. “Ready?”

Just as Rachel had said, everyone was huddled around Ariel and Frank, so they didn’t notice when Colin and Gemma slipped out the back door. She followed him to the nearest utility truck,
four of which were lined up on the lawn. “Take your pick,” he said.

She chose a plain green one.

“Coward,” Colin said as he nodded toward the others, each of which had been personalized.

They didn’t make it to the carriage barn. They stopped at Gemma’s house to get spoons for the pie, took one look at each other, and headed to the bedroom. Clothes came off as they ran.

Since early morning in the gym they’d been wanting each other. There had been hours of silent foreplay as they touched fingertips, whispered to one another. By the time they finally escaped the company of others, they were at fever pitch with longing.

Gemma, naked, fell onto the bed, Colin on top of her, his mouth seeking hers as he entered her.

She gloried in his big body, at the way his skin felt under her hands. She loved the strength of him, how his thighs felt between hers.

It was an hour later that they rolled apart, both sweaty and sated.

“Just so you’ll know,” Gemma managed to say, “that was
my
favorite dessert.”

“But you haven’t tasted Rachel’s blackberry cobbler,” he said as he got up and went to the kitchen.

Gemma put a pillow under her head and thoroughly enjoyed watching him walk in and out of the room naked. He returned with the cobbler and a big kitchen spoon and sat down beside her.

He took a bite, chewed, swallowed. “Fabulous.” Bending, he kissed Gemma, his lips firm against hers. When she reached out her arms for him, he pulled away.

“No, no, not yet. I’m still comparing.” He took another bite of cobbler. “Good. Yes, very good. I can see merits in both of them. I can’t quite decide between the two of you.”

“Oh yeah?” she said as she took the full spoon from him. She started toward her mouth as though she were going to eat it, but she didn’t make it. Instead, she let the warm, thick, sweet pie drop down onto her bare breast. “Uh oh,” she said. “How will I ever get that off?”

Colin set the dish of cobbler on the bedside table, then turned to her. “It would be a real shame to let that go to waste.”

“Wouldn’t it?” Gemma said.

In the next second they were entangled again, a mass of arms and legs, mouths and necks.

Thirty minutes later, Colin rolled away. “You win,” he managed to say.

“I didn’t hear you.”

“You taste the best. Better than all the cobblers ever made.” He pulled her to him, snuggling her like a child’s toy. “I think—” he murmured, but said no more.

Gemma lifted on her elbow and saw that he was asleep. She’d never been a person who could nap, so she quietly got out of bed and went to the shower. She’d never been so happy in her life.

21

B
Y THE END
of the week, Gemma felt that she was becoming the kind of woman she used to detest. Over the years, she’d had to sit by and watch good friends transform from
I
into
we
. And no matter how many times it happened, it always startled her—especially the abruptness of it. She and her friends all dated and they loved to get together afterward to talk about how good or how awful the date had been.

But what always happened was that one day a friend would start saying
we
. It started out innocently enough. Gemma would ask her friend if she’d like to go somewhere on Saturday and her friend would say, “I’ll have to check what we’re doing this weekend.”

The first time it happened, Gemma hadn’t noticed, and she’d been unprepared for the
we
that soon escalated into
our,
as in “our” classes, “our” books and lastly, “our” time.

Before Gemma knew it had even begun, her friend had left the group and she rarely ever saw her alone again. There was no more of their being just the girls. Her friend had become an
us
and to be
with her meant that she brought with her a male who was pretty much always bored and yearning to be somewhere else.

The first time one of her friends showed up wearing an engagement ring, Gemma had naively said, “Promise that we’ll always be friends.”

By the time her third friend flashed a diamond ring, Gemma wanted to say, “Let’s hit it with a hammer and see if it’s real.”

But now, she at last understood. She and Colin had spent every minute possible of the last week together.

When the furniture arrived, she and Colin directed the placing of it. It had been fun to argue about whether the blue rug went in “their” bedroom or the guestroom. Colin said the bedside table on “his” side of “their” bed was too small, so they’d switched it with one meant for the guest bedroom.

When one of the delivery men had trouble lifting Colin’s big leather chair, Gemma sighed loudly and said, “It’s too bad Lanny and Pere aren’t here to help carry it in.”

As Colin walked past her, he picked her up by the waist, carried her outside, set her in the chair, then carried them both inside.

The delivery man looked at Gemma’s wide eyes and said to Colin, “I see what you’re gettin’ tonight.”

And of course he was right.

That night they’d finally opened the champagne from Tess and they drank to
their
house and
their
furniture.

The next morning Colin had driven Gemma back to the guesthouse and for a moment he’d sat behind the wheel, not moving. “You like this place a lot, don’t you?”

“Do you mean your parents’ estate or the guesthouse?”

“Either. Both,” he said.

“I love the guesthouse library. It’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever worked.”

He didn’t say any more, just walked her inside, kissed her goodbye, and went to work.

Gemma spent the day reading the old Frazier documents and making notes. She was beginning to piece together a more complete story of the first Frazier who came to America. She was intrigued by him and wondered how he got an earl’s daughter to fall in love with him. Maybe Shamus was so handsome—no, she thought. He was a Frazier, so it was probably his strength that won the lady.

Gemma entertained herself with a story of great passion, of a beautiful countess trapped under a yellow carriage, and along comes a man of extraordinary strength who lifts the vehicle and frees her. Of course she fell in love with him.

“Not scientific,” she said aloud. “And certainly not dissertation material.”

By four she found herself looking at her watch and wondering when Colin would show up.

At five he sent her a text.

Ellie gave me something to cook for dinner. Can you come over and play? How about a sleepover?

Gemma threw clean clothes into a duffle, and put her computer and notes into another bag. She was at Colin’s house, “their” house, fifteen minutes after he texted.

They made love as though they hadn’t seen each other in months, with a desperate urgency she’d never thought was possible.

They showered together, then looked to see what Colin had bought at the grocery. They managed to cook a whole meal together, eating half of it as they cooked. They finally sat down at
their
table, in
their
dining room, and looked out at
their
garden.