About two hours into the project, Grace suddenly felt very faint and woozy with a touch of nausea. “Oh, damn, I forgot to eat,” she said to her Realtor.
“I have an energy drink in my purse,” Ray Anne offered.
“Oh, so that’s what keeps you going,” she joked, but a bit weakly. She used to live on those! But with a bun in the oven, she wasn’t sure what was safe. “Pull into the next grocery or deli. All I need is a half sandwich or something and I’ll be fine.” But it reminded her that she had other important business at hand.
She was just getting back to the flower shop a little after three when she finally texted Troy. Am I going to see you tonight?
He texted back that he was working at Cooper’s from four till whenever and if she wanted him to, he could stop by afterward.
If I want you to?
It was usually hard to keep him away.
Please, she responded. I really have to talk to you about a couple of things.
From that point until nine-thirty she wondered what she was going to say. How she was going to say it. When he finally arrived and used his own key to get in, she leaped to her feet and ran to him, throwing her arms around him. Even twenty-four hours away from him was too much.
But he didn’t embrace her as wildly. His hands rested on her hips. This was where Troy usually wondered how fast he could get into her. Counter, table, floor, wall? And yet there was a sudden distance she couldn’t understand.
“Why are you different?” she asked.
“Different how?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “There’s something different. You’re not clutching me. You’re not trying to get under my clothes. It’s like you don’t want to be here!”
“No, no, I want to be here. Gracie, we should talk about a few things.”
“Yes,” she said, drawing him into her little space. “Yes, we have to talk. You first. What’s bothering you?”
They sat on the couch together. He held her hands. He gazed into her eyes—all the gestures of impending bad news. “Grace, I’m not proud of this, okay. I have to be honest with you. The money. Your money. It was ten times greater than I imagined. A hundred times greater. It kind of blew me away. Intimidated me. Filled me with doubts.”
“Doubts?”
“About us, Gracie. I don’t feel like we have as much in common as I thought we did. It worries me a little. I’m wondering...what do we do if we find out we don’t fit? If we’re just too different?”
She was stunned. “Are you breaking up with me?” she asked.
“No. No, of course not. I’m just a little...I’m worried about us. I need time to figure out how we go forward together. I don’t have anything, Grace. You’re as rich as the Gettys. I don’t want to live off you. You can’t live off me. We have to figure this out.”
“Oh, for pity’s sake,” she said. “Do I look like I’m rich?” she said, throwing an arm wide, indicating her little loft. “I have an idea—how about if I earn a living, you earn a living and neither of us lives off the other?”
“And that fortune you’re sitting on?”
“I’ll do exactly as I promised my mother—I’ll take care of it. Troy, I’m not going to live in a big cold stone manor house with a full-time staff. I do need more space than this someday, but...I bought my mother a house today. On the beach. One of Cooper’s new houses. Something that would be perfect for her—the warm sun on the deck, the sound of the ocean. I think it could be comforting for her, much more so than the big house in the city. And I—”
“See? See? That was just so easy. You just went out and bought a house that must have cost, I don’t know, a million dollars or—”
“One-point-two,” she said, lifting her chin a notch.
“Holy Jesus...” He leaned an elbow on his knee and put his head in his hand.
“Close to my shop, close to the doctor, close to the sound of kids having fun, dogs barking as they play fetch or chase birds along the beach, nice neighbors...”
“Do you have any idea how weird that is? That you can just plunk down over a million dollars and—”
“So much for You don’t have to be afraid to tell me anything, Grace, and You don’t have to worry about how I’ll react, Grace. It’s who I am!” she shouted. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be broke and up to my eyeballs in student loans for you, but this is who I am and I’m not a bad person!”
“I never meant to suggest you were—”
“And I’m pregnant!”
All sound and motion stopped. She could tell that Troy didn’t breathe. He just held his breath and looked at her. Finally he said, “Whoa.” And that was all. After actual minutes had passed, he asked, “How pregnant?”
“I don’t know. Not very.”
“I thought you were going to see Peyton. I thought you were going to—”
“Take care of it?” she asked tartly. “I went to Peyton. She said I had a few days to see if my period would just come on its own so I could start on the pill. I was supposed to follow up with her.”
“And you didn’t?”
“A few things happened! I got that note, I tried to electrocute my boyfriend, your friends came for the weekend, my mother showed up with ALS...I forgot. It just slipped my mind. When I realized my period was really late, I used a test and peed on the stick. I wanted to tell you that second, but we were literally on our way to the airport and things were complicated enough. This is the first chance we’ve had to talk.”
“Oh, God,” he said.
“You didn’t remember, either! You never asked!”
“Grace, I take responsibility and you’re right, I didn’t follow up, either. But let’s not panic. It’s early. We don’t have to make any decisions tonight. We can process this.”
“I don’t have any decisions to make, Troy. I have a baby in me. It’s just a little seed, but it’s there and I’m not making it go away just because it’s inconvenient.”
“Okay, fine, right. But we don’t have to make any irrevocable decisions tonight. There’s time to think this through.”
“All right. You go think this through. When you know what you want, you know where to find me.”
“You want me to leave?”
“Yes,” she said. “You have a lot of issues. Whether we’re right for each other, whether we have enough in common, whether the fact that I come from a family with money is going to be a problem for you, what you want to do about a baby. I have no issues. I have nothing I have to process.”
“Okay, now you’re getting mad,” he said. “Be fair, Grace—what can I ever give you if you have everything? If all you have to do is point and it’s yours?”
Right, she wanted to say. The same way I bought the gold medals. Her hand slid over her flat tummy. “I want you to go,” she said evenly. “I want you to process. When you know how you feel about me, about us, about this little seed, you let me know. You’ll get more thinking done on your own. Besides, I’m not lying naked in bed with someone who isn’t sure. That’s too much to ask.”
“Gracie, I love you,” he said.
“Great. Thanks. Doesn’t sound like that’s going to do me much good right now. So let’s take a break while you decide whether this is all too complicated for you. I have to take care of myself, my little seed, my mother, my shop. I don’t have any extra energy to take care of you right now.”
“Are you sure that’s the way you want it?”
“I’m sure,” she said.
Twenty
Early Thursday morning, Peyton stood in the doorway locked in a passionate kiss with Scott while her sister, Adele, waited in the car. When the kiss wouldn’t stop, Adele tooted the horn. Peyton laughed against Scott’s lips. “I’ll see you tomorrow night,” she promised. “And you’ll bring my honeymoon suitcase
.”
“And you have your wedding dress and will pick up my tux.”
“And you’ll take the kids to the grandmothers.”
“They want to stay at the farm, which is going to hurt the grandmothers’ feelings.”
“Talk to them about that on your drive up, okay? They’ll get plenty of time at the farm, but they do have to visit all the grandparents and take turns and be fair. They know how to share and be fair.”
“I’ll talk to them,” he promised. “But I want to stay at the farm, too. With you.”
“Starting Saturday night we will always stay together and I won’t have to sleep in your mother’s craft room anymore,” she said.
“I never understood that,” Scott said. “She doesn’t do crafts. Not really.”
“I love you, Scott. I’m going to marry you.”
“I can’t believe it. Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. Are you?”
“I was sure the day you walked into my office. The only reason I didn’t make a pass right away was because I thought you were a lesbian. Lesbian hearts are breaking all over the world and I got you.”
She laughed. “You got me all right. My breasts are actually getting sore already.”
He grinned at her. “Then they’re going to get big.”
Adele gave the horn another toot.
“Think I’d better hit the road?” she asked.
“Call me when you reach the farm. I’ll get to my mom’s tomorrow. I’ll help her with the groom’s dinner if she needs it.”
“Grace is bringing the centerpieces.”
Another quick kiss and Peyton was in the car with her sister. Adele’s baby girl was in the car seat in the back. “Are you absolutely sure you don’t want to go back in there and maybe have a little more sex before you leave?” Adele asked.
“I’ve had all the sex I can take for a while.”
“Ah. Spoken like a wife!”
“And a mother?” Peyton asked.
“Oh, my God, you’re pregnant?”
“Just a little,” she said. “I wasn’t going to tell anyone, but you’re not just anyone.”
“This is fabulous! I’ll be counting the days! Our kids will be so close to the same age! Have a girl, will you?”
“I’ll see what I can do. Now don’t tell anyone, all right? Because we should concentrate on the wedding, not the pregnancy.”
“Everyone will know the second you say no thank you to a glass of wine.”
“It’s not like I drink that much wine,” Peyton said. “You didn’t notice last night.”
“You appeared to have wine!”
“No, that was citrus green tea in a wineglass.” She grinned. “I can fake my way through this.”
“Oh, this is going to be so fun! Thank you for getting rid of that ass Ted and finding adorable Scott. I love him. What ever happened to Ted?”
“Last time I talked to his daughter, she said they had a very nice housekeeper and he was playing grandfather. Apparently he’s better with her little one than he ever was with his kids. A transformation, it sounds like. Good for him.”
“No regrets?”
“Are you kidding me?” she asked. “Scott is my dream man.”
The drive to the farm, near Portland, was four hours from Thunder Point. Adele lived in San Francisco and had arrived two days ago; her husband would be driving up on Friday morning in a catering truck stocked with prepared dishes—he was a restaurateur and would be catering much of the reception, but not all—Peyton’s mother, sisters, aunts, grandmother and cousins would not be held back from sharing their special Basque dishes. But Lucas was an amazing chef and wanted to do this for Peyton. He would follow Adele back to the city on Sunday.
Peyton and her youngest sister were best friends. It was odd in a large family how the siblings paired up and there was no formula to it. Peyton was always there for Adele and vice versa. They talked all the way to the farm—about their men, their jobs, the wedding, the other siblings, their parents.
When they arrived, all was as expected. There were vans, RVs, trailers and trucks with camper shells everywhere. The kitchen was full of women, talking, laughing, some arguing here and there. Adele walked in ahead of Peyton, carrying baby Rose, named for her great-grandmother and at least three women on Lucas’s side of the family. Peyton followed with her wedding dress hidden by a garment bag so that Scott wouldn’t see it.
“We’re here,” Adele said. “Peyton’s pregnant.”
Peyton gasped but the women shrieked and came running, fussing over her, hugging her, laughing and shouting, “Way to go, Adele,” Peyton said when the din died down.
“It’s an icebreaker. They’re going to find out within twenty-four hours anyway. It’s not like you’re a virgin bride. And besides, they’re Basque women. They have a couple of pregnant brides every year. We have the passion,” she added with a heavy accent.
“Now I’ll have to call Scott so he can tell the grandmothers. I’m never telling you another secret.”
“Yes, you will,” Adele said with a grin. “I’m very responsible. Most of the time.”
* * *
Grace and Ginger were under way with the flowers by seven on Friday morning. Grace was so glad to be leaving town.
Troy had texted her once in the past twenty-four hours— Are you okay? She texted back one word. Fine. Was she angry? Damn straight. This was all so familiar. Her mother had furs and jewelry, so that made her life simple? Easy? The reverse was also not true—there was family money and that made her tragic, evil and doomed? No. It made her an individual. We’re all very different with our own challenges and joys.
What could Troy give her since she had everything? Well, she didn’t have a father for her baby. My mistake, she mused. I thought he could love me no matter what.
She didn’t betray her feelings, something she’d become an expert at. She’d done it for years, starting when she was a young girl. She could be terrified and her heart breaking, but she could smile for the judges like she had the world on a string. She knew how to cope. Or cover.
She used the time to get Ginger’s story. When she gave her the job in the shop, she had no idea what Ginger had been through, the selfish husband, the baby’s death. “I think the job at the flower shop has saved me,” she told Grace. “It’s like a brand-new chapter for me. I haven’t been happy in so long, but I get excited to go to work every day. I hope you’ll need me for a while.”
“Are you kidding? You’re doing wonderfully. And my mother will be moving here in a month or so and you know all about that. I want to be able to see about her if she needs me or wants me. It’s so nice to know there’s someone who can take care of the flowers. I might have had to go to part-time hours, but with you in the shop and Justin to deliver, I’m in great shape. I can give my mother some time. When you get down to it, that’s the one thing you can’t buy or trade or borrow.”
“And you’re close to your mother?” Ginger asked.
“Yes and no. My mother was always so proud of me and my father died when I was young, so it was just the two of us, no siblings. But she was also demanding and impatient and sometimes she angered too easily. But now her life is slowly ending and all she wants is to be comfortable and near me. This is our chance to close on a good note.”
“A second chance. We should never take that for granted.”
“Your husband,” Grace said. “You said you should’ve known. Why did you marry him if you should’ve known?”
“Oh, it’s a long story, but the truth is, I loved the wrong man. I wanted him so much and put up with so much to have him. And in the end he wasn’t worth it. Listen, it was very nice of Peyton to invite us to the wedding, but do you think she’d be offended if I didn’t go? I’m completely over my ex, but a wedding migh
t just make me very sad. I could go to the reception for a little while, just to see the wedding party with their flowers, but not the wedding ceremony. Would it hurt Peyton’s feelings?”
“Not at all. I’m going—she’s a friend of mine. But the way we usually service a wedding is to deliver the flowers early, arrange and stage them in the church and make sure the bride and her wedding party have theirs, leave the centerpieces and any other decorations either with the catering staff or if the tables are ready, put them out, then leave. Just that much takes quite a while. When we’ve done our work and are ready to go clean up, I can drop you anywhere you like.”
“And on Sunday morning, you want me to drive the van back to Thunder Point?” she asked.
“I might be going back in the van, also. I don’t know if Troy will make it. He has stuff going on. He’d like to, I’m sure, but it’s iffy. I can stay with my friends, Mamie and Ross. I’ll know for sure about Troy on Saturday night. That okay?”
“Sure. Anything you want.”
* * *
On Friday afternoon, Troy leaned in the doorway of Iris’s office, arms crossed over his chest. She looked up and raised an eyebrow. “What now?” she asked.
“Are men born stupid or does it come over time?” he asked.
“Sadly, I think you’re born with it.”
“That’s what I was afraid of. Think I can still make it right with Grace?”
“I don’t know, Troy. How badly did you screw it up?”
“I carefully explained all my doubts and feelings,” he said. “I was very articulate. I listed them and suggested there was plenty of time for me to process them. I was eloquent! She told me to go away and process. She showed me the door. I thought I had been extremely sensible and sensitive.”
“Is that so?” Iris said.
“Turns out Grace is a little bit pregnant. I didn’t panic, not me. I said we didn’t have to make any decisions about what to do right away. I got the distinct impression that wasn’t the best response.”