The Baby Agenda (9 page)

He had barely met her mother before the ceremony. Will had half expected her to be a redhead, too, but she wasn't. She had short, brown hair frosted with gray she hadn't bothered to color. She was a pretty, slender woman whose blue eyes had filled with tears when she embraced Moira after the ceremony. Sitting side by side at the restaurant, their heads bent together as they talked quietly, there was a palpable warmth and closeness between them that didn't surprise Will. They'd had only each other. He couldn't help wondering why a woman as attractive as Sylvia Cullen had never remarried. He supposed she'd kept her ex-husband's name because of her daughter.

“Aren't you curious whether you're having a girl or a boy?” Sophie asked at one point during lunch. She was seated halfway down the table, but didn't mind talking around several other people. Sophie wasn't shy.

Moira smiled. “Of course I'm curious, but I like the suspense.”

“Do you have a preference?” Clay asked, from Will's other side. Apparently nosiness ran in Will's family.

She glanced down at her stomach. Will thought he caught something on her face, but he couldn't pin it down. “No,” she said, after a moment. “No.”

Was that true? She might feel more comfortable if she had a little girl. She would know better how to raise one, especially if she were on her own. Will clenched his jaw at the idea, then deliberately relaxed it. At this speed, his dentist would notice he was grinding his molars down. And he had no right to feel irritated because Moira felt emotions that were surely natural. She had no reason to trust he was in this for the long haul, no matter what he said.

He'd count his blessings. She'd said, “I do.” He was going home with her tonight.

Actually, he and her mom both were going home with Moira tonight. He'd overheard her mother at the church earlier saying, “Moira, honey, I really wouldn't mind at all getting a hotel room. For heaven's sake, it's your wedding night.” Clearly, they'd already had this argument.

“Don't be silly,” Moira said. “You know our marriage isn't like that.” He'd ground his teeth at that point, too. She had continued, “Besides, I want to see you while you're here. I wish you were staying longer.”

Conversation became general again. Will was a little surprised at how well this mixed group of people seemed to get along. His gaze moved down the table. Dennis, an electrical contractor, was having an animated discussion with one of Moira's friends, while Sophie was listening, seemingly rapt, to some story Charlotte's sister, Faith, was telling. Jack was quizzing Ben Wheeler, the police chief;
no surprise there, Jack had briefly considered a career in law enforcement.

The wedding cake the waiter brought in was a surprise to Will and Moira both. A couple of people pulled out cameras and took pictures while the newly married couple cut the cake together. Moira's cheeks flamed.

Will and Clay wrangled briefly over the bill for the meal, Clay winning. Little brother was coming into his own, which apparently included the familial stubbornness.

“You didn't give us time to think of decent gifts,” he said. “I'd like to give you at least this much.”

In lieu of a gift, Jack had given Will back his pickup truck. With a grin, he'd said, “Clay's paying me slave wages, but, you know, I can afford to buy my own.”

More hugs and kisses were exchanged in the restaurant then in the parking lot as the crowd broke up. Will walked Sylvia and Moira to her car. His pickup was loaded with his suitcases and a few of the boxes he'd stored seven months ago at the house. He had spent his last night in his old bedroom, but this time, closing the door behind him, he'd felt none of the pang he had the night before he left for Africa. This house where he'd grown up didn't feel like home anymore, not the way it had. He hoped like hell Moira let him feel at home with her and didn't treat him like an inconveniently lingering guest.

As she drove out of the parking lot, he turned to his own vehicle to find Clay leaning against the bumper. His brother rose to meet him. Clay looked good. Unfamiliar, but good in a dark suit and red tie.

“So, you're a married man,” he remarked.

“Yeah.” Will looked down at his hand. For the first time in his life, he wore a ring, a simple gold band. The sight
of it induced something between panic and satisfaction in him. “Guess so.”

“You quit officially with the foundation?”

“Yeah,” he said again.

They'd professed to understand, but had to be disappointed in him. During the interview process, they'd heavily stressed that he was making a minimum two-year commitment. “No problem,” he'd said. Uh-huh.

“Your old job is waiting for you,” Clay said. “I figured you might want a week or two to settle in with Moira before you pick up the reins, but…”

Will shook his head. He should have foreseen this conversation and headed it off. “No. I'm not coming back, Clay. I told you before I left that I wasn't. I meant it.”

His brother frowned. “Then what the hell do you plan to do?”

“For now, take care of my pregnant wife.”

“You really think she's going to let you trail behind her all day, every day?”

“I'm assuming there are days she doesn't leave the office and I won't have to hang around. If she goes out on a construction site, I'll be with her.”

“Then what?” Clay asked.

This was the part Will didn't like to think about. Funny, when he'd spent years craving his freedom like a sober alcoholic did the drink he wouldn't allow himself. But now that he was free in a way he'd never intended, Will felt like as if he'd stepped out of an airplane without knowing whether he'd be able to reach the ripcord. It was unsettling.

“I don't know,” he admitted. “I've got time to think, and I intend to use it.”

“Have you considered going back to college?” Clay asked, his tone tentative.

“I'm too old.” Will moved his shoulders uncomfortably. “No, that's not true. I'd do it if I was sure where I was going. Say, I hankered to be a lawyer. But right now, if I went back to school I'd be taking classes like any eighteen-year-old with no idea what I wanted to be doing with my life.”

“Would that be so bad?”

“I like building,” Will said slowly. “More than I realized all those years. I want to build something that matters. And…I discovered over there that I was better at persuading people to do what I wanted them to do than I expected to be.”

Clay grinned. “I could have told you that. You're the original immovable object. People
always
do what you want them to. You didn't notice?”

“Being bullheaded is one thing. Patient and diplomatic is another.”

“Hell, maybe you
should
think about law school.”

“Maybe so.” Will shrugged. “Like I said…I've got time.”

Ignoring the uneasiness that rose at the idea of so much unstructured time and an uncertain future, he reached for his brother and gave him a hard hug. “Thanks.”

Clay hugged him back, just as hard. “We've missed you.”

Stepping back finally, Will said, “I missed all of you, too. Those first weeks were a little like going off to college. Caught me by surprise, but I was homesick as hell.”

“See? You could be eighteen again.”

A reluctant laugh escaped Will. “Got to tell you, I don't feel that young. Thank God. No eighteen-year-old should be a father.”

“Man, I'm going to be an uncle.” Clay shook his head.

“That day I went out to meet Moira, I kept feeling weirded out when I thought about how it was your kid in there.”

They said their goodbyes and Will started, at last, for West Fork. He'd expected to be right behind Moira, although he doubted that she was watching her rearview mirror. She didn't need him when she had her mother with her.

Clay, he thought as he merged onto the freeway, wasn't the only one occasionally weirded out by the stunning realization that Moira was carrying his baby. It amused Will to realize that he also felt a whole lot of satisfaction and some primitive, male triumph.

Maybe that was even okay now. After all, Moira was his wife. She and the baby both were his. Temporarily.

His hands were rhythmically squeezing the steering wheel. He heard it creak.

What a time to discover that he hated a state of uncertainty. He'd married a woman who'd agreed only because she'd grudgingly conceded she could use some help. For now. And, oh yeah, he was unemployed.

It didn't make him happy to realize that he was a hell of a lot more nervous now than he'd been the day he got on the airplane to start a new life in Africa.

W
ILL HADN'T ARGUED AT ALL
when Moira had informed him, the day he asked her to marry him, that she wasn't ready to share a bed with him.

“I don't know you well enough,” she'd whispered, knowing how dumb that sounded under the circumstances.

“And with me so pregnant…”

Watching her, seeing the distress on her face, he'd only nodded calmly and said, “We'll have time.”

She hadn't been able to tell if he minded her ultimatum. Probably not. Just because he'd had sex with her once—at her invitation—didn't mean he really lusted for her.

And things were different now anyway. She'd wondered ruefully whether men ever genuinely lusted for a woman who was starting to waddle from pregnancy. She hadn't quite worked up the nerve to ask any of her friends whether their husbands had found them sexy this far along.

Now it was not only Moira's wedding day, Will was moving in with her.

He had arrived twenty minutes after she and her mother got home. He rang the doorbell, probably for the last time. She had a small burst of panic. She'd have to give him a key. From now on, he would simply walk in. It would be
home
for him. Wow.

Leading him down the hall, she explained, “I'm going to pull out the couch in the living room tonight for Mom.
She slept in the bedroom last night, but I've already changed the sheets.”

“You didn't have to displace her,” Will said mildly. He was close behind her, a big plastic tub in his arms. “I'd have been okay on the couch.”

“You have all your stuff.” Which he'd refused to allow her to help carry. “It makes sense for you to go ahead and settle in now.”

Her mother came out of the bathroom as they passed. “Oh, I thought I heard voices. Will, can I help?”

“No, I can get it all.”

Gee, of course he didn't want a woman carrying anything when he—a man—was around to do it. Moira was beginning to wonder—oh, shoot, why kid herself? she'd wondered all along—what she'd gotten herself into. Will Becker, she suspected, was sexist and overbearing, even if he mostly disguised those tendencies behind a relentlessly pleasant manner.

Mom laughed and said, “I can certainly pull a suitcase,” and went out to his truck.

His eyebrows drew together as he watched her. After a minute, evidently resigned, he passed Moira and walked across the guest room to set the tub on top of the dresser.

“The drawers are empty and the closet is mostly,” she told him hastily. “I have some extra bedding in there up on the shelf…”

“I don't need that much space.” He glanced around, his gaze finally settling on the open doorway beside her.

“Is that your room across the hall?”

“Yes. I have a second bathroom in there. You can put your stuff in the one out here.”

His expression told her she sounded like a bellhop unnecessarily pointing out features of a hotel room. She
couldn't seem to help herself. This was so bizarre. A man she hardly knew was moving in with all his worldly possessions.

She was wearing a wedding ring that he'd put on her finger.

Ulp.

“Uh…let me check that there are clean towels in the bathroom.”

With a nod, he left. Moira still hadn't moved when her mother pulled a giant suitcase in, said, “I'll go back for another load,” and disappeared again. Moira hurried to the bathroom before Will could catch her still standing there like a dolt. She already knew there were clean towels in here because she'd hung them on the rack not ten minutes ago, but this was a good place to hide briefly. And heck, while she was here she had to pee anyway. That was pretty much a given these days. She was awfully glad the master bedroom had a separate bath, or else he'd hear her getting up all night long.

She made a face. Not that he could live with her for long without noticing she needed the bathroom constantly. Gray hadn't commented, but that was probably only because he was used to his pregnant wife doing the same.

Thank heavens Mom was here tonight. Her presence made Will's feel less strange. More as if Moira simply had houseguests, two of them instead of one. Of course, one of them was going to be staying a whole lot longer than the other.

Marriage might have been an even bigger mistake than sleeping with him had been in the first place. Moira stared at herself in the mirror and saw how dilated her eyes were, how shell-shocked she looked. And how not married. The first thing she'd done when she got home was change out of her wedding dress into a denim jumper over a forest-
green turtleneck. Nicer than she probably would have put on if she'd been by herself, but comfortable. And a contrast to Will in his well-cut dark suit.

Seeing him today at the church, she'd wondered whether it was the same suit he had worn that night at the gala. When she'd approached him at the altar and he held out his hand to her, the moment had felt eerily familiar. As if the two scenes had layered one over the other, she'd seen him stepping into the hotel room, his eyes devouring her face. His expression had been similar—intense, maybe hungry, and yet also tender.

It was the tenderness, she admitted to herself, that got to her.

She slipped out of the bathroom after hearing his footsteps going down the hall. She lurked in the kitchen pretending to be thinking about what she'd make for dinner even though she already knew. What was she going to
do
all afternoon?

Will appeared in the kitchen. “What are you up to?”

“Um…making sure I took the chicken out of the freezer.”

“You look tired.” His voice was gentle. “Why don't you lie down for a bit?”

The minute he suggested it, Moira wanted that nap with all the desperation of a chocoholic grubbing for a hidden stash of Hershey's Kisses. She needed sleep. More, she needed oblivion. A chance to recharge.

“You know, I think I will. If you don't mind.”

“No.” He smiled at her. “You'll feel better.”

“Where's Mom?”

“She's as determined as her daughter. She's out getting another load.”

“Oh. Will you tell her…?”

“Yeah.”

He didn't touch her as she went by, but she felt his gaze following her all the way to her room.

As overwhelmingly sleepy as she suddenly felt, Moira expected when she lay down to spend some time thinking about Will and the fact that they were married now and what that meant, but it didn't work that way. She kicked off her shoes, slipped under the covers and conked out.

 

T
HIS OUGHT TO FEEL SIMILAR
to living at home, Will thought a week later. Somehow it didn't, even though he was used to sharing his home with a woman.

But Moira wasn't Sophie. He didn't feel about her the same way he did about his sister.

The two women had things in common, though. Neither of them took direction well. They were both smart, too, and curious. And they both had smiles that warmed his heart.

In some ways, of course, Moira was the more confident of the two. She was in her thirties, not twenty-one. She had a successful career. She'd won recognition as an architect, had homes and commercial buildings she'd designed featured in Sunday supplements of the
Seattle Times
and
The Herald.
She was more of an artist than most architects were, Will had seen; her sketches weren't only clear, they had grace and deserved to hang framed on the wall.

What he couldn't figure out was why she also had a quality of vulnerability that Sophie, who'd lost her parents early, didn't. Why that trace of sadness clung to Moira, why he'd been able to tell that she wasn't surprised at all when Bruce Girard treated her the way he did. Moira maybe wasn't beautiful by the standards set by fashion magazines, but Will was a hell of a lot more attracted to her generous curves than he would have been to any
skeletal runway model. She was vibrant and sweet and yet had a quality of innocence that made him think of Botticelli's Venus, or maybe a Renaissance Madonna. Pregnant, she embodied fertility, but he never saw even a hint that she was aware of herself as a sensual woman.

He found he wanted to know badly whether she'd had her heart broken. Who had hurt her and why. Why she'd never married and had reached the point of being grateful to have become pregnant during a one-night stand.

Since their wedding day, she'd been as skittish with him as the dainty impala he had startled once at the edge of a Zimbabwe woodland. A patient man, Will was smart enough to bide his time. It was easy to talk about work, about clients and friends, to draw her out. He waited several days even to ask how she and Gray had gotten to be so close.

They were eating a dinner he'd cooked—grilled salmon and baby potatoes sautéed in butter and dill. Moira wrinkled her nose at the broccoli, but took a decent helping. He'd noticed that she wasn't fond of most green veggies, but Will was trying to make sure she ate right.

“How'd you and Gray get to be friends?” he asked, helping himself to another serving of potatoes, his tone deliberately casual.

“Our freshman year we were in the same dorm, same hall.” Moira's smile was soft as she remembered. “We flirted a little, went out a couple of times and had a really great time. He kept coming by my room to hang out. We talked and talked, and somehow never got around to seriously making out or anything like that. Even then, Gray was always totally upfront. One day he said, ‘You're, like, the best friend I've made here, but I sort of get the feeling neither of us has the hots for each other,' and I realized he was right.”

Had she really felt the same? Will couldn't help wondering. Or had she fallen in love and, given her lack of experience, was waiting for Gray to make a move?

Sounding breezy, she went on, “He told me about the girls he was seeing, I talked about guys. I ended up getting pretty serious about this one guy my junior year, and even so there's stuff I'd have never in a million years have told him that I'd already told Gray. When we graduated, we promised each other that someday we'd open a firm together.”

“Promises like that are easy to make,” he observed.

“And unlikely to be kept? That's what I thought. I went home to Missoula. I'd worked summers there for this firm and they offered me a job. Gray took one in Portland. I figured we'd drift apart.”

“So what happened?” Will asked.

“It was Gray more than me. More than anyone I've ever met, when he says something he means it. He had a goal, and he never let himself forget it. We talked often, emailed all the time and we both saved money. When we thought we had enough, Gray told me he'd found the perfect town. Aside from nixing a few places—with my skin, I don't do well at all in hot climates—I didn't care so much where we opened our firm. Gray, though, had this ideal town in mind, and as far as he was concerned West Fork was it. Small town, but close enough to Everett and even Seattle that we're not dependent on a strictly local clientele. And he was right. It's worked great.”

“Was he already married when you moved here?”

She shook her head. “No, Charlotte had grown up on a farm here, but she came back to town again only last year when her dad needed her. She got pregnant pretty soon after the wedding. I don't think she and Gray
planned it. Which I think is funny, because Gray plans
everything.
”

Will nodded. There was no reason for him to be jealous of her relationship with Gray Van Dusen, but he felt a jab now and then anyway. There was a sense of intimacy between the two of them that made him wonder whether Moira would have liked her
friend
to feel more for her. Will knew she wouldn't admit it even if he asked, though, so he didn't.

“What happened with the college boyfriend?”

One shoulder lifted in a dismissive, who-knows shrug.

“It wasn't the romance of the century. He met someone the summer between our junior and senior years and I didn't actually care.”

Yet another guy who'd ditched her. Or was he reading entirely too much into normal stories of youthful romance? He'd had a girlfriend himself his freshman year, and he couldn't remember her last name or quite picture her face.

“Anybody serious since?”

She didn't quite meet his eyes. “Not really.”

He wasn't buying that; she was thirty-five, not twenty-five. Most people their age had had a few near misses, at least.

Suddenly stunned, he thought, good God, what if it was true? What if she hadn't had the high of knowing a man she liked was falling for her? What if that college boyfriend had been the last? Was it possible?

After a moment, she said, “You?”

Surprised and pleased, since up to this point she'd avoided asking him anything very personal, Will said, “I've had a couple of relationships that lasted a year or more, but…” He frowned, mulling it over. “Truth is, I was pretty tied up, between the business and my sister
>and brothers. I was doing well to sneak away for a date once a week.” His mouth tilted in a rueful smile. “Plus, I made a house rule that none of us could have overnight guests of the opposite sex. I was the one who suffered the most from it in the early years, but I didn't want home to degenerate into a frat-house atmosphere. Especially with my sister being the youngest. The rule broke down eventually, when each of them had college friends stay, but the friend always had a bed made up in the family room. If anybody sneaked down the hall…” He laughed. “I pretended not to notice.”

She was smiling, too. “Even when it was Sophie's boyfriend doing the sneaking?”

“I might have been a little stricter with her. I guess you've noticed that I'm an old-fashioned kind of guy.”

Quietly, Moira said, “We wouldn't be married if you weren't.”

He couldn't read much with her eyes downcast. “No,” he said after a moment. “I guess we wouldn't be.”