Mistletoe Baby

Mistletoe Baby

Tanya Michaels

MILLS & BOON

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“I can’t look. You do it.”

“You sure?”

She just couldn’t. “I’m sure.”

Closing her eyes, Rachel waited an interminable heartbeat of time, heard David suck in his breath.

“Oh my God.” His words were a reverent whisper.

“You’re kidding!” She knew he’d never joke about this. Still, maybe he’d misread the test, or…“Let me see.”

He moved aside, letting out an earsplitting whoop even as she viewed the proof for herself. “We’re pregnant!”

Her knees trembled. She was carrying his baby. Tears welled in her eyes. Before she could classify them as happy crying or something more bittersweet, he pulled her into his strong arms.

And kissed her.

Dear Reader,

In 2007, I created the town of Mistletoe, Georgia, for a Harlequin American Christmas novella and I loved the setting and characters so much that I knew I had to return! (Luckily, my editor agreed.) Many of you wrote to ask if there would be more Mistletoe stories and the answer is a resounding yes: four, as a matter of fact! One for each season.

First up is the winter tale of David and Rachel Waide, a husband and wife who love each other deeply but have lost their way, due in part to the emotional toll of infertility struggles. The last thing they want to do is upset their loved ones at Christmas with news of a separation, especially when David’s brother is about to get married. The entire Waide family is busy with wedding preparations. So David and Rachel agree to put on a happy face until the end of December. Amid the magical holiday season and poignant reminders of what matrimony means, can they rediscover what drew them together in the first place and maybe discover brand new gifts as well?

Watch for the next book, Mistletoe Cinderella, to be out April 2009! You can learn about all four stories at my Web site, www.TanyaMichaels.com.

Happy reading & enjoy your stay,

Tanya

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tanya Michaels started telling stories almost as soon as she could talk…and started stealing her mom’s Harlequin romances less than a decade later. In 2003, Tanya was thrilled to have her first book, a romantic comedy, published by Harlequin. Since then, Tanya’s sold nearly twenty books and is a two-time recipient of the Booksellers’ Best Award as well as a finalist for the Holt Medallion, National Readers’ Choice Award and Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA^® Award. Tanya lives in Georgia with her husband, two preschoolers and an unpredictable cat, but you can visit Tanya online at www.tanyamichaels.com.

This holiday story about marriage—

one couple preparing to join their lives

while another couple rediscovers their love—is

dedicated to real-life married couple Jane and Eric,

aka The Mims Who Saved Christmas. Thank you so

much for everything you’ve both done, for always

picking up the phone no matter the hour, for always

having a kitchen stocked full of comfort food, and

for always laughing at the right moments.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter One

It was the worst basketball game in Waide brother history—even including the one when David, at fourteen, had been showing off for a cute neighborhood girl and ended up with stitches. At least he’d sunk the layup before taking the trip to the emergency room, not to mention going on the subsequent movie date and having his first real kiss.

Given David and Tanner’s combined performance this December afternoon, however, a team from Whiteberry Elementary could probably take them. David’s shots kept going wild. He knew he was throwing with too much force, taking repressed anger out on a ball that had never hurt anyone.

“This is getting humiliating,” he called as Tanner jogged after the ball for the rebound.

“Getting?” His younger brother smirked. “Then you haven’t been paying attention for the past hour. The irony is how hard you’re trying. Last time I saw a guy push himself like that was Dylan Echols when he was up for a baseball scholarship. But you’re not a high school athlete, you’re a middle-aged store manager.”

“Thirty-one is not middle age,” David retorted. “And it’s not like you’re doing any better. You couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn.”

Tanner grinned, unfazed. “Guess my mind’s on my beautiful bride-to-be.”

David rolled his eyes, but they both knew he was happy for his brother. Ecstatic even. Definitely not jealous.

“So we know my excuse,” Tanner continued. “You want to tell me what’s eating you?”

No. He and Rachel had agreed not to break the bad news until after the holidays, after the wedding. Maybe by then, it wouldn’t even be necessary. Their problems could be nothing more than a temporary aberration brought on by Rachel’s medication and mood swings. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“You sure? I could pay you back for all that great advice you used to give me.”

“Great advice you consistently ignored.”

Growing up, there’d been an unspoken friction between David—the oldest sibling, high school valedictorian and heir apparent at the family store—and Tanner—the restless rebel who couldn’t seem to win their dad’s approval. With time and distance, the two brothers had matured and their stern father had mellowed. Last winter, when Tanner had moved back to Mistletoe, family peace had been restored. At the same time, Tanner had rekindled his relationship with high school sweetheart Lilah Baum. On December 28, the two would finally marry.

When his brother didn’t start dribbling, David straightened. “We done?”

“Not unless your ego can’t take it anymore.” Tanner checked his watch. “I need to clean up before I meet Lilah for dinner, but she and the girls should still be at the fitting.”

David looked away; one of those “girls” included his wife. Amidst all of Tanner and Lilah’s nuptial preparations, David couldn’t help being reminded of his own wedding. How excited he’d been, how in love. He’d known from the moment he’d seen Rachel Nietermyer that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. He swallowed hard.

“Can I get your opinion on something?” Tanner asked.

Only if it has nothing to do with marriage or women in general. David’s own first year of marriage had been blissful. If he could go back now, what advice would he give himself? What could he have done differently? He’d worked to give Rachel everything she needed. Of course, the one thing she’d truly wanted hadn’t been within his power.

“I might not be your best bet for wisdom,” David said. “Maybe you should talk to Dad or Mom.”

Zachariah and Susan Waide were informal experts on relationships; they’d been together nearly forty years. No Waide David knew of had ever been divorced.

Tanner laughed, the carefree sound of a confident man in love. “It’s not a huge crisis requiring the big guns. I glanced at one of Lilah’s magazines, and some bridal checklists mentioned a wedding present. I’m stymied. We’re getting married three days after Christmas. Is she going to expect something even bigger than her Christmas gifts? If I get her something too extravagant and she gets me a small token, am I going to embarrass her?”

“Seriously? These are the things you worry about?”

“Stupid, right?” Lowering his gaze, Tanner bounced the ball against the concrete. “But this is Lilah. I’ve screwed up in the past. She deserves…I want everything to be perfect.”

Remembering various anniversaries, Christmases and birthdays, David sighed. “No, it’s not stupid.” Still, perfect was a tall order.

He kept his skepticism to himself. What did he know? Maybe Lilah and Tanner would find their own version of perfect. Perhaps in marriage, the erstwhile prodigal son would succeed where the overachieving problem-solver was currently failing.

RACHEL WAIDE suspected that the best way to survive emotional trauma—separating from your husband, just as a crazy for-instance—was to depend on the support of friends and family. Which was spectacularly unhelpful in her case, since she and David had sworn not to tell any of their friends and family. Weddings should be festive, celebratory events, and she and David refused to ruin Tanner and Lilah’s moment.

Blinking away the omnipresent threat of tears, she gave her reflection a reprimanding scowl. Think happy thoughts. She wasn’t going to let herself turn into the self-centered Ebenezer Scrooge of bridesmaids, visited Christmas Eve by three vengeful wedding coordinators.

“Rach?” Lilah’s perky voice came from the other side of the thick mauve curtain. “How’s the dress look?”

Tight. Rachel dropped her gaze from the circles underscoring her gray eyes to the sparkling beadwork at the gown’s neckline. Though she’d been in for preliminary measurements, the bodice was too snug. She should’ve known better than to seek solace in the arms of salt-and-vinegar potato chips.

Then again, as a side effect of fertility treatments, Rachel had already gained a cumulative fifteen pounds. Why castigate herself over three more? She’d diet after the New Year like the rest of the free world. For now, she’d simply do her best to get through the next three weeks and invest in some bulge-minimizing undergarments for the wedding. Visions of Spandex body shapers danced in her head. On the big day, all eyes would be on the bride anyway.

For just a second, her memories reverted to her own walk down the aisle four and a half years ago. The sanctuary doors had opened, and despite the dozens of people present, her gaze had gone straight to David standing at the front of the church. Dark-haired and blue-eyed, he’d been impossibly handsome in his tuxedo. It was the smile, the way he’d beamed at her, though, that had made him breathtaking.

When she’d made the painful decision after Thanksgiving to separate from her husband, it had been in part because she couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen that smile. The two of them had become so much less than they once were, than they should have been.

Marshaling her expression into a smile, Rachel smoothed a few wayward strands of her long black hair and drew aside the curtain. “Ta-da.”

Lilah Baum clapped her hands to her cheeks, like a little girl delighted with what Santa had left. For a moment, the auburn-haired woman resembled the fourth-graders she taught. “Oh, Rachel. You look just beautiful! Everything is going to be so…so…” She fanned her fingers in front of her face, trying to stem tears as she sobbed something apologetic.

Behind Lilah, twenty-three-year-old Arianne Waide rolled her eyes with wry affection, looking a lot like her oldest brother. “She’s a little emotional lately.”

The maid of honor, petite and blond Arianne wore a dress that was completely different from Rachel’s but cut from the same green satin. Clover, the seamstress had called the color. Arianne and Lilah were longtime friends who would be sisters-in-law by the end of the month. For the past four and a half years, Arianne had been Rachel’s sister-in-law, too. Rachel was closer to the young woman than she was to her actual sister back in South Carolina. Throughout Lilah and Tanner’s engagement, Arianne had joked that at long last, women would outnumber the men in the Waide family.

Her eyes stinging again, Rachel ducked her head. “Nothing wrong with being sentimental, especially right before your wedding.”

“Yeah, but it’s not your wedding.” Arianne stepped closer while Lilah dug a tissue out of her purse. She lowered her voice, her pixie features unusually somber. “You okay?”

God, no. Ending a marriage had to be painful at any time or place, but here in the close-knit community of Mistletoe, Georgia, surrounded by people who loved her and David and didn’t know they lived in opposite sides of their house, made it impossible for her to start the grieving process and move forward. Mercifully, in a few days she’d get some respite. She’d leaped at the chance to house-sit while a neighbor with multiple dogs took a fourteen-day luxury cruise. It provided Rachel a socially plausible excuse for not sleeping under the same roof as her husband, not that she’d been sleeping much.

On the plus side, she was providing tons of job security for people who manufactured under-eye concealer.

“I bet I can guess what’s wrong,” Ari said softly.

“Really?” Rachel’s heart skipped a beat. It was bad enough she and David shouldered this secret, an ironic final intimacy; she didn’t want to burden Arianne with it.

“Maybe it’ll happen next month.” Arianne squeezed her hand. “I just know you guys will make wonderful parents.”

Rachel choked back a semihysterical laugh. She thinks I started my period. It was true that, for months, she’d thought that glimpsing those first telltale signs of blood was the most upsetting thing that could happen to her. She’d recently revised her opinion.

“Someone’s gonna have to help me with this blankety-blank zipper,” came a cantankerous voice from the third dressing room. “I ain’t as limber as I used to be.”

Lilah had blotted her eyes and was now grinning. “On my way, Vonda!”

If Lilah’s bridal party wasn’t the most eclectic ever seen in Mistletoe, Georgia, it had to be in the running. Top five, easily. She had thirty-year-old Rachel, a woman who would be trying to look anywhere but at her own husband during the wedding; a maid of honor who constantly joked that after growing up with two older brothers, you couldn’t pay her to live with a man willingly again; second-grade teacher Quinn Keller, who had the face of an angel and an unexpectedly devilish sense of humor; and seventy-four-year-old Vonda Simms Kerrigan, a town fixture who’d had a hand in Lilah and Tanner’s courtship last winter. The woman was a spitfire who won nearly every card game she played and dated younger men, or as she put it, “hotties in their sixties.”

“Sorry I’m late!” Quinn said breathlessly as a sales-woman escorted her past the mirrored dais toward the fitting rooms. “Our meeting ran over.” She was on a committee bringing Christmas to local families in need.

Rachel nodded toward the space she’d just vacated. “You can use that one.”

No doubt Quinn would look sensational in her dress. Rather than try to find a gown that would suit four differing body types and ages, Lilah had asked the seamstress to create three individual dresses and, for Vonda, a suit. Quinn was the only one with the figure and attitude to pull off a strapless gown in December.

As they waited for the other women to emerge, Arianne turned to Rachel. “You know what might cheer you up? Shopping! Want to hit some stores after this?”

“Um…” In the past, she would have jumped at the suggestion, but time alone with Ari might provide too much temptation to confide in someone.

“Well, think about it,” Arianne said as she turned her attention toward a shelved display of shoes. She picked up a sling back. “Unless you and David have plans?”

“Nothing specific.” Just awkward silence and retreating to separate corners.

If she curled up in the den with a book, he turned on the television in the front living room. If she watched TV, he went for a run. She wasn’t sure if he was avoiding her because he was angry or simply trying to defuse the tension by giving her space. She wasn’t even sure how she felt about it. When he was in the room with her, it was like she couldn’t breathe and just wanted either of them to be anywhere else. Yet whenever he left, her chest hitched with the urge to call him back: Don’t go, hold me, make it better.

But that was part of the problem, wasn’t it?

She’d met him at a time in her life when she was overstressed and questioning what she wanted in life, taking a vacation from her South Carolinian life as an advertising executive in Columbia. David was a natural-born leader, evidenced by civic committees he’d headed and his volunteer duties coaching touch football in early fall and soccer in the spring. They’d barely been on two dates before he was encouraging her to let him shoulder her burdens. He’d advised her as confidently as he did five-year-olds who were confused about which goal to kick toward. It had felt like a blessing at the time.

Unfortunately, in “simplifying” her life and inviting David to gloss over her problems, Rachel had lost herself somewhere along the way. In the past year, she’d begun to question whether her husband loved her—romantically, not just dutifully—but could she really blame him for not seeing her? She wasn’t even sure who she was. Resolution number one for the New Year: find out.

Chapter Two

David was stepping out of the shower that evening when he heard the tentative “Hello?” from the outer room. Reflexively, he clutched his towel around him, as if the woman on the other side of the door hadn’t seen his nude body a thousand times. As if she might accidentally burst in while he was undressed and make the strain between them even worse.

The thought was truly asinine on all levels. When was the last time Rachel had “burst in” anywhere? Since the miscarriage last spring, it seemed as if even rising from her chair took effort. And how on earth would it be possible for the awkwardness between them to become worse?

“In here,” he called back.

“Okay. Just checking.” Her words were followed by retreating footsteps.

He dried off and dressed, keeping his movements slow and deliberate so that he didn’t impulsively run after her. The caveman deep inside him seemed to think that tossing his wife onto the bed and making thorough love to her would somehow resurrect what they’d once shared.

Stupid caveman.

The once sexy part of their marriage had long become regulated by ovulation predictor kits, and each fruitless encounter was more perfunctory and less satisfying than the last.

So what now, genius? In school he’d excelled at problem-solving. As it turned out, participating in teen extracurricular activities for gifted students and graduating college with honors didn’t educate a man on understanding women. He’d tried so damn hard to be the perfect husband, and she’d just…walked away. Had she really become so numb that she had no feelings left for him?

As he walked down the hall, he heard her in the kitchen, the sound of the refrigerator door opening and closing. Her back was to him as he rounded the corner into the room. She poured herself some tea, presumably to wash down a couple of the aspirin in the big white bottle she held. Her shoulders were slumped in a defeated posture that tugged at his heart.

He used to hug her whenever she’d had a bad day, cajole her into a better mood. Cheer up, he’d say, you still have me. If he tried to embrace her now, would she stiffen and pull away?

“How was the dress fitting?” he heard himself ask. Inane small talk as if he were killing time on an elevator with a casual acquaintance.

His wife turned in his direction but didn’t quite meet his eyes, addressing one of the light-stained wood cabinets just past his left shoulder. “Lilah will make a beautiful bride.”

“Tanner’s a lucky man.”

She nodded, her fingers trembling a little as she tried to get the lid off the aspirin.

“Let me.” He walked toward her, palm extended.

She recoiled. “I can do it.”

“Dammit, Rachel—” Her vulnerable expression quelled the reactionary anger that had been rising in him.

She looked somehow both harder and more fragile than the woman he’d once known. Her eyes were shadowed, and there was a chafed spot on her bottom lip. She had a bad habit of chewing on her lip when she was upset. He glanced up in sudden realization that he was staring at her mouth and she’d caught him doing it.

Defensiveness made his tone gruff. “You look like hell.”

Her normally warm gray eyes were the color of cold steel. “Thank you so much.”

“I didn’t…” He ran a hand through his hair. “I just worry about you.”

“That’s not your responsibility anymore,” she said with an attempt at a smile, as if she was trying to point out a positive.

His pride—his heart—stung. “I guess we can’t all just turn off our emotions and walk away from vows so easily.”

For a second, he thought she might throw the aspirin bottle at him. Instead, she turned toward the counter, dismissing him with her body language.

He clenched his fists at his sides. He’d known this woman for years. Laughed with her, loved her, said things to her he couldn’t imagine sharing with another person. Yet the prospect of beating himself upside the head with one of the pots hanging over the kitchen island seemed less painful than a three-minute conversation with her. How had they come to this?

“I’m sorry,” he said. He rarely lost his temper, and he needed his composure now more than ever. “That was uncalled for.”

“You’re entitled to your anger.” With an audible pop, the lid finally came off the bottle. “It’ll be easier when I’m at Winnie’s. I’m supposed to go over tonight to spend time with the animals and look over all the instructions with her.”

“Yeah, she phoned to say she was in for the evening and any time was good with her. And your sister called. That’s what I came in here to tell you.” Probably he should have led with that rather than You look like hell. “She said it was important, but not bad news.”

Considering the massive heart attack that had threatened Mr. Nietermyer’s life the year David met Rachel, and the two lesser cardiac episodes that had followed, urgent messages from home tended to make her nervous.

“Thanks.” She washed down two pills with a gulp, placed her cup on the counter, then turned, clearly ready to take her leave of him.

He didn’t move aside. “Did you grab a bite with the ladies?”

“No, Lilah had dinner plans, and everyone else went shopping. I didn’t feel up to it.”

“I’ll fix you something. You should—”

“David.” She smiled tiredly. “Thank you, but I’m a big girl. I’m capable of opening my own aspirin and cooking my own meals.”

Of course she was. He was just so desperate to do something. For most of his life, he’d enjoyed a sense of purpose. His mom had raised him with the notion that he could do anything he set his mind to, and for nearly thirty years, that had held true. Then there’d come the infertility problems, which had made him crazy because there was nothing he could do to help Rach, and then her announcement that she was leaving. He’d been so dumbfounded, so struck by the unfamiliar sensation of being out of control, that he’d just let her go.

Part of him—if he were being brutally honest—might even have been relieved by the time apart, but only as a stopgap measure, not as a permanent life change.

“When you call your sister back, you aren’t going to tell her about us, are you?” It sounded autocratic even in his own ears, a demand. He couldn’t bear anyone knowing that his marriage had failed. Every person who found out would be one more severed tie cutting him adrift.

Rachel glared, exasperated. “I don’t know. I agreed with you that this is a special time for Lilah and Tanner, the whole Waide family, and I didn’t want to ruin it. But don’t you think I deserve a friendly ear? Someone to talk to?”

Why hadn’t she tried harder to talk to him? He’d always listened, always offered suggestions and attempted to soothe the problems away. “Rachel. You know that if it were in my power to—”

“I know.” She surprised him by reaching out, brushing her hand over the arm of his long-sleeved T-shirt. Then she passed by, not looking back as she added, “But it’s not.”

BECAUSE a chilly December rain had started to fall, Rachel drove to Winnie’s on the other side of the subdivision rather than walk. When the windshield wipers did nothing to clear her view, she realized the spots blurring her vision were tears. This was ridiculous. Separating was her decision, yet she’d cried every day since she’d told David that they didn’t belong together.

Despite what logic and intellect told her, on some level she felt she’d failed by not getting pregnant. Why couldn’t her body accomplish what some teenagers achieved unintentionally? When she’d suffered a first-trimester miscarriage last spring, it had devastated her, yet she’d tried to see it as a sign that at least she could conceive. But month after month, hope waned. As did her and David’s tenderness with each other. She could admit that there had been some hormone-triggered mood swings on her part and that she’d been difficult to live with. He’d been patient at first, but no sooner had she lost a child than he began touting adoption as the reasonable solution. His seemingly “just get over it” attitude trivialized everything she’d experienced and made her feel alone even when he was holding her…which was less and less.

David liked to tell people what course of action they should take, whether it was customers at his family’s store, his newly returned brother or councilmen at town meetings. Almost everyone valued his input; Rachel herself had sought his opinion in the early days of marriage. It had taken her until this year to realize how aloof he could be when people didn’t follow his advice. She hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that he didn’t view her as an equal partner.

Tonight was one example of how an endearing habit could turn grating. She’d once found it charming that he would remind her to eat or do little things to take care of her, but lately his suggestions had begun to sound slightly condescending.

Her heart rate kicked up suddenly, her pulse pounding in her ears so loudly that she couldn’t hear her own thoughts—not an altogether bad thing considering their dark tone. Her vision swam. What the hell? Fingers clenched on the steering wheel, she hurriedly parked at the curb. Then she waited, taking deep breaths.

Was she being melodramatic, or had she just almost fainted? She’d never passed out in her life. Though her headache remained in full force, her pulse slowed enough that she could walk to Winnie’s front door and ring the bell without worrying that she looked like a deranged escapee from the nearest hospital.

Winnie Brisbane, receptionist for the town veterinarian, was one of the softest-hearted people in the county. Her two lab mixes had been with her for years; a three-legged cat named Arpeggio and a lop-eared rabbit were more recent additions. Winnie had been negotiating with local pet-sitter Brenna Pierce to care for the menagerie when she’d found an abandoned puppy in a November storm. Though she’d placed a poster in the vet’s office, most people were too preoccupied with approaching holiday chaos to take on a gangly puppy with a nervous bladder and no obedience training. By Thanksgiving, Winnie had named the mutt Hildie.

Short of Winnie canceling the cruise she and her cousins had been planning for over a year, having someone house-sit seemed the only sensible solution. Brenna’s client schedule was too full for the constant care a puppy required, not to mention how much the extra professional visits would stretch Winnie’s modest budget. She’d laughingly told Rachel that she’d blown this year’s mad money on cruise wear and was making up for it with peanut-butter-sandwich lunches and macaroni-and-cheese dinners.

“The dogs are officially eating better than I am,” she’d admitted when Rachel offered to puppy-sit.

As Winnie ushered her into the house, Rachel had a twinge of guilt over the woman’s outpouring of gratitude. Though there was no good way to explain it to sweet-natured, freckle-faced Winnie, who blushed when David so much as smiled, Rachel had taken the house-sitting gig for selfish reasons. Tonight it had hit home how impossible it was for her to be under the same roof with her husband and not just because their exchanges deteriorated into sniping or unproductive regrets.

When he’d walked into the kitchen earlier, she’d been overwhelmed, out of the blue, by the sandalwood scent of his shampoo. Her sense of smell seemed abnormally strong, maybe because of the headache. She’d read about people with migraines having heightened sensitivities. Whatever the cause, she’d had a nearly visceral memory of him washing her hair once, the feel of his hands across her scalp, the rich lather of the shampoo, his soapy skin sliding against hers as they leaned together for a kiss, the water sluicing over both their bodies.

“Rachel? Are you okay?”

Good heavens, she’d completely forgotten about Winnie sitting across the table, summarizing pet routines that were written in a spiral notebook.

“Sorry.” Rachel swallowed. “I got a little…overheated for a moment. Can I trouble you for a glass of water?”

Winnie made a sympathetic noise. “Those medications, I expect.”

One of the positives of living in a small town was that people cared—when they asked how you were doing, they wanted an honest answer, not a rote “fine, thanks.” Susan Waide, strongly in favor of becoming a grandmother, had asked for prayer support among her friends at church on David and Rachel’s behalf. The OB’s office staff knew Rachel by name and were all pulling for her. Sometimes, having everyone within shouting distance knowing the details of her life and cheering her on was nice.