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Authors: Marilynn Griffith

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BOOK: Mom's the Word
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Karol stirred in the next room.

“I'm going to have to go, man.”

“Yes. Me, too. Quickly, though. How is it with the neighbors? The man, Neal? I know that the girls are worried about the wife, but I had a good feeling about him. Both of them. The same feeling I had when the two of you came.”

In the dark of the bathroom, Rob nodded to himself. Though the new neighbors weren't very friendly, and his wife wasn't very fond of them, he had a feeling that somehow they would all end up as friends. What worried him was the future of their relationship with Hope and Singh.

“I hope we did the right thing.”

Singh grunted in agreement. “As do I.”

To-Do
  • Map a jog route
  • Consult with landscapers about new yard design
  • Order new stove
  • Find a hairstylist
  • E-mail author press kits to Julie for the Fall tours
  • Find another person to travel with us on the Fallon Gray tour (in case I'm pregnant)
  • Check with
    Publishers Weekly
    on faith fiction showcase
  • Get PDA repaired and order a backup
  • Order Neal's supplements online—look for local supplier—not budgeted!
  • Call sorority regional office to see about getting Fallon a table at national conference
  • Talk to neighbors about toys in their backyard—fence options
  • Get pregnant!

—Dyanne, Move-in day

Chapter Two

“I
still can't believe he came over to help.” Dyanne stared out her side window, watching her new neighbor, Rob, amble back to his house, head high and smiling after helping them paint for the second day. Was he whistling?

Gimme a break.

“Look at him, Neal. I'm expecting him to start skipping any minute. He's like the black version of Pa from
Little House on the Prairie.
” She shook her head and moved away from the window. Moving back to Tallahassee, Florida, where the two of them had attended the prestigious business school at Florida A & M University, had been Dyanne's idea. Buying this house had been her husband Neal's thing. She'd gone along, even getting excited as the plans came together, but those people next door had her worried. All those kids of theirs were going to scare her husband right off her pregnancy timetable.

Neal passed Dyanne, heaving a footlocker full of her shoes into their bedroom. He brushed past her, muscles tight against his T-shirt. Her heart fluttered a little, but her head gently reminded her that ovulation was a few days away. Best to build up to that.

His arms enveloped her. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Who knew sweat could be so sexy? Maybe that ovulation stuff was overrated. Hadn't she read something about getting pregnant if you ovulated after an “event”? Anyway, there was always tomorrow….

“Rob's cool. He's different, sure, but that's what I like about him. The guy seems real somehow. He reminds me of your dad, actually.”

Dyanne froze. Her husband's embrace suddenly seemed like a prison. Her father had the same demeanor as Rob, but beneath it there was nothing but deceit. “I knew there was something about him I didn't like,” she said, tugging off her pumps one at a time before placing them carefully in one of the shoe boxes in the corner. There were matching boxes lining the wall of the living room and in the closet…and on the stairs. “I have a lot of shoes, don't I?”

Neal smiled. “Enough to make Imelda Marcos jealous, but you're not getting off that easy. Your dad is a good guy. Just because things didn't work out between your parents doesn't mean you have to hate him forever. You're grown now. To love him doesn't mean you love your mother any less.”

She tugged at her skirt zipper while walking toward the kitchen. She heard Neal padding behind, pausing to grab a banana on the way. Leg cramps probably. Good enough for him, talking to her about her father that way. What would Neal know about it, with his
Leave it to Beaver
family? She swallowed her anger, wondering instead how many e-mails she'd missed since coming here. She had to get that PDA fixed immediately.

Her husband caught up to her, kissing her cheek, then her nose.

She turned away, still fumbling with her skirt clasp. “Can you send my PDA in for repair by FedEx tomorrow?”

His hands circled her waist, unsnapping the metal fitting. Her skirt fell to the floor. He lifted her onto the counter. “You're officially unplugged, Dee, at least for this week. You've been touring with authors for the past six months. This will be the first month we've been in the same city for more than a few days since Christmas.

“Heather is taking care of things. If she needs you, she'll call. You need to be reading that stack of books for the new imprint and devising a marketing plan. I'll be your pool boy and bring you latte, but for now, the PDA is out of bounds.”

So is talking about my father.

Dyanne looked up her husband, running the tip of her nail over his shoulders, staring into the honey that was his eyes. Those eyes had been with her since sixth grade, when Neal moved into the house next door. “Four boys,” her father had said at breakfast. “Can you imagine?”

She couldn't imagine. Thoughts of blaring music and a street full of junk cars kept Dyanne and her mother from sleeping until a boy showed up at the door with a basket of scones and a pitcher of tea. Wearing a tie and khakis fresh from St. Mary's Academy for Boys, Neal had leaned over and kissed her cheek, saying he'd be back the next day for the pitcher. That night, Dyanne had added Neal's last name to hers in her journal, despite her mother's warnings against such things.

Tonight, looking into those eyes, everything she'd ever wanted stared back at her. Well, almost everything. She clasped her hands around his neck.

He kissed her fingers. “I'm glad we bought this house. And I'm glad you were assigned to the Grace Pages imprint. I started one of those books this morning. A reissue. Your dad gave me the original version when we were dating. I wasn't ready for it then, but it seems right this time.” He kissed her cheek, then her mouth…He stopped. “That's what I forgot. I meant to ask Rob about their church.”

Dyanne looked around her kitchen, subdued with blues and grays instead of overwhelmed by the life-size family tree covered with children's names and handprints left by the previous owners. Though most everything had been torn down or covered over, the wacky Christian couple who'd owned the house somehow lingered, as evidenced by Neal's strange talk about church and her father.

Sure, Dyanne was excited about the new line. Who wouldn't be? Christian books were selling like crazy. She'd suggested for years that her publishing house get into the game. She hadn't counted on becoming the line's publicist as a result, in addition to dealing with bestselling author Fallon Gray.

Her boss promised the double duty wouldn't last long, but Dyanne knew better. Fallon had gone through everyone in the company. She wouldn't take anyone else. Having hit the
New York Times
Bestseller list for the first time under Dyanne's watch, Fallon took her publicist for some kind of genius.

It didn't matter anyway. Dyanne had the month off for this move. By the time she went back to work, she'd be pregnant, Neal's objections aside. Maybe church was just the thing to help make that happen. “Didn't he say their church was small? Five hundred people?”

Neal's hands slid under her blouse as he lifted her into his arms and started out of the kitchen. “Four hundred I think he said. Like the church I grew up in. Maybe we could actually make some friends. Get to know some people for real.”

Maybe not. Dyanne stared at the hardwood beneath her dangling legs as though it were a raging sea. What was happening to her husband? Reading the books she was working on? Wanting to go to some rinky-dink church and make friends? While they were dating, Dyanne had begged Neal to attend services with her, but Neal made it clear that while he believed in God, he wasn't going to become some fanatic like her father.

Instead of sharing their faith, Neal and Dyanne had bonded over their lack of it. Dyanne had missed her church involvement at first, but when she and Neal shared their first raised eyebrow at her father's rantings, she'd been hooked.

Everything from there had been about goal setting, hard work and becoming a better person. Becoming the publicity director had taken much of her time, but Dyanne had squeezed in all the seminars and yoga classes Neal thought they should attend. After a while, life had boiled down to getting ahead, though Neal still insisted on recycling and had fought her to the end about the woodstove and the yard. In the end, though, Dyanne always won.

Until now. Something new was happening with Neal and it wasn't on her to-do list. She could almost hear her father in her head, trying not to laugh. “Maybe this is a God thing, sugar.”

Whatever.

It took longer than usual to rally her anger against the thought of her father. She couldn't muster her usual rift with God very easily, either. Still, she wasn't going to end up like her mother, watching while her husband turned and walked away, then later forgiving him when he changed into some Jesus freak. Dyanne had her own thing going now and no matter how weird Neal was acting, she'd find a way to make all of this work—for her and not against her.

 

That evening in bed, Neal leaned on one elbow, running a hand through his wife's hair, which was as straight as the woman next door's hair was nappy. In the back of her head, though, just above Dyanne's neck, there was a thatch of curls as thick as his own. He thrust his fingers in deep and made wide circles, knowing it would disappear as soon as Dyanne found a hairdresser that met with her standards. Coordinating the move and flying in to direct the landscapers had made her miss an appointment with her first choice of stylists back in New York.

She'd looked worried when he reminded her about it, but Neal didn't care. In fact, Neal thought his wife would be beautiful with a short natural style like the way she'd worn her hair in college, but he knew better than to say so. Dyanne's hair was a part of her image—pretty and powerful. She admitted to maintaining it for him, too, fearing his head might be turned by some weave-wearing temptress.

That was college.

Things had changed. Returning to Tallahassee made Neal realize just how much. Sure he was excited about being around for the annual homecoming game and the alumni events, but the canopy oaks and love bugs reminded him of something else, too: the faith he'd brought from Ohio and easily discarded in his first year on campus.

He'd talked Dyanne out of church back then, but now he regretted it. His parents were active leaders in the community by the age he was now and all he and Dyanne had been doing was building their own kingdom. The trees that bowed gracefully over his house with open arms reminded Neal of his need for roots and his desire to grow something more than a business. Dyanne wanted to grow something, too, only in her belly instead of her heart.

A baby.

Neal wasn't so sure that either of them was ready for that.

According to Dyanne, they'd done everything right to prepare for being parents: undergrad together and grad school for him, great jobs, traveling all over the world…. Neal wondered if after conquering him and her job, Dyanne wasn't just looking for some other box to check off her list. If that was it, as much as he loved his wife, Neal just couldn't play along. This wasn't a cappuccino machine or a plasma TV they were talking about but a person. And people needed parents who did more than get on planes and close deals.

He kissed Dyanne's hair and rolled over onto his side, reaching under the bed for
Living a Life that Counts,
the book from the new line he'd been reading. After reading another short but deep chapter, Neal gripped the book's pages tightly before shoving it under their bed. He laced his fingers behind his head and closed his eyes for prayer, a habit that had come back to him with an awkward ease.

God, what am I missing? I have everything I need and most of what I want. But something just isn't adding up. Not for Dyanne, either. She thinks a baby will fix that. I think only You can fix it. If we're supposed to have a baby, show us. Get us ready…

As his wife turned and rolled onto her back, Neal thought about the question that his father-in-law had raised to him a few days before they'd left New York. “If you had unlimited money, resources and time, what would you do? What is your passion? What do you believe?” The question haunted Neal as much now as it did then, when the only answer he could come up with was himself.

He believed
in
a lot things: taking care of his wife, working hard, getting plenty of exercise, eating healthy, making money, doing good in the world. But he didn't believe a lot of people. Everybody he met seemed to be out for some kind of con, including his wife. His own parents were the picture of perfection, but underneath that beauty ran a subtle cruelty, waiting to crush anyone who stepped out of line. He'd seen that same thing in his wife as she destroyed a beautiful yard to create her own idea of a fantasy landscape.

And now she wanted to create a baby for the same purpose. His plan to stay away from Dyanne had dissolved at the first sight…and first scent of her. Except for a few stolen lunches and a layover in Atlanta, they hadn't been together for weeks. As though she were thinking the same, Dyanne's hand moved along his spine, pausing at his neck before rubbing his head.

Neal closed his eyes, remembering how many times she'd touched him this way, only to have one of them whisk out the door for a trip or take a late-night call. Could his wife want a baby because she was lonely? Or could God be using this to get to her, too?

He turned over slowly, throwing his thigh over his wife's smaller, but just as solid leg. He didn't know what God was doing or how it would all work out. Head rubbing, however, he understood perfectly.

BOOK: Mom's the Word
12.96Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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