Suddenly a Bride / A Bride After All: Suddenly a Bride

“No problem. I told you, I have season tickets. But I’m afraid the team leaves for a road trip tomorrow morning. A road trip, guys, means that they’ll be playing their games in somebody else’s ballpark. They won’t be back here for another week or even longer.”

There were twin sighs of frustration from the backseat that were not matched by the occupants of the front seat.

“They’ll be fine,” Elizabeth assured him. “With luck, they’ll also both be asleep by the time we get back to the highway. We all really did have a wonderful time tonight, Will. Thank you.”

“Actually, thank you. That was a lot of fun, explaining the game to the boys. They asked some pretty good questions, too.”

“But I didn’t?”

He shot her a grin. “Oh, I don’t know. The one about why the players don’t wear dark pants so that they don’t get so dirty wasn’t too terrible.”

“They were wearing white, Will. Who plays in the dirt while wearing white? I pity whoever has to presoak all those uniforms.”

“But they’re the home team, Elizabeth. The home team wears white. It’s … tradition.”

“And it’s a tradition that would only last another three days if the team owners had to personally presoak the uniforms themselves,” she said firmly. “Don’t say anything. I know I’m being silly. I just couldn’t think of anything else to ask you. But I think I cheered at the right times.” She turned slightly in her seat and looked behind her. “Ah, out cold, the pair of them. And we didn’t even reach the highway yet.”

Worse, Elizabeth thought, with the twins asleep, and the subject of the baseball game pretty much worn out, now she had to find something to say to Will to keep the conversation going. She dredged her mind for a topic, being very careful to avoid the subject of the beautiful and clearly well-known-to-Will Kay.

Not that his relationship with the assistant district attorney had anything to do with her. Because she and Will weren’t on a date. You don’t take a pair of bottomless pit rowdy seven-year-olds with you on a date. Not a real date ….

Chapter Four

Will had turned on the radio, and they’d allowed the music to fill the silence for most of the ride back to Saucon Valley.

He’d asked Elizabeth if she’d seen Billy Joel’s Broadway musical, Movin’ Out, the one that featured the singer’s hit song, “Allentown.”

She hadn’t, but she did know the song. That led to a short biography, as she thought of it, and Elizabeth told him how she’d grown up in Harrisburg, the state capital, but she and Jamie had moved to the Allentown area to follow a job transfer.

“When he died, my mother wanted me to move back home, but I was young and stupidly independent. I knew if I moved home, my mother would turn me back into her kid again, take charge of my life. I was a mother now, and I had to learn to stand on my own two feet, raise my boys. At least that’s what I thought. Stupid, huh? With them barely out of diapers, I certainly could have used the help. But my mother’s gone now—she moved to Sarasota, that is—and I’ve learned to feel like this area is our home.”

“And now you’re working for a famous author, Chessie told me.”

“Richard, yes.” She looked out the window as they drove past the large three-story mansion—there was nothing else to call it but a mansion. “You came in through the gates earlier, but if you drive past them, there’s another lane you can use to get straight to the guesthouse and garages.”

“Okay, I see it,” Will said, and in another few moments they were in sight of the large stone-walled bank of garages. There was a light burning at the top of the outside staircase and the small landing that was there and another in the kitchen lit up two of the windows. “How old is this place? Do you know?”

“Richard says the main house was built in 1816, but the garages were added much later, along with several additions to the house itself. It’s difficult to tell, though, as the stone is such a good match. The original Halstead homestead was part of a very large farm.”

Will pulled his car to a halt behind Elizabeth’s and put the transmission in Park. “Halstead.” And then he said it again. “Halstead … oh, now I remember. There’s an old oil painting of a Judge Halstead in the courthouse. Very imposing man. I have a feeling a lawyer who spoke out of turn in his courthouse probably ended up in the public stocks. Or maybe his wig just itched.”

“He wore a wig?” Elizabeth eyed the staircase to her apartment. She wanted to be up there, safely on the other side of the door. What was the matter with her? She hadn’t been nervous earlier. Why was she nervous now? “That must have been a long time ago. Well … well, thank you again, Will. The boys and I really had a nice time.”

Will shifted on his seat, looking over his shoulder. “You’re going to need help with these guys. They’re out cold. And I’d love a cup of coffee, if you don’t mind.”

He’d love a cup of coffee. Of course he would. It would only be polite to ask him, too. Elizabeth Carstairs, you’re hopeless!

“Oh, yes, of course,” she said, opening her door before he could come around and do the courteous thing. The date-like thing. “You’ll have to pop the child locks,” she reminded him.

She then opened one of the back doors while he opened the other and, together, they looked at the sleeping twins. Danny had used his autograph hound as a sort of headrest, and Mikey—oh, oh, Mikey—had his thumb in his mouth. He only did that when he was exhausted. Her heart melted.

“Come on, boys. We’re home. You have to get up now,” she told them, reaching in to touch them each on the cheek. So soft, so warm. Her babies. “Mikey, come on, sweetheart. Danny?”

“I’m thinking a megaphone,” Will said, grinning at her across the expanse of the backseat. “Or maybe dynamite.”

Elizabeth shook Mikey’s bare leg and then unhooked his seat belt. “Mikey. Michael Joseph Carstairs. Wake up!”

“Wake up, it’s time for bed. That makes sense. That’s a mother thing, isn’t it, passed down from generation to generation,” Will said, unhooking Danny’s seat belt. “Look, Elizabeth, I have an idea. You run ahead and open the door, and I’ll carry them upstairs, one at a time.”

The idea made sense. Perfect sense. Well, perfect sense to someone who hadn’t been both mother and father to the twins since they were three. She was used to handling the boys on her own. She was independent. She was capable. She was being an idiot ….

She reached into her purse for her keys. “I can manage Mikey,” she said, already pulling the boy’s pliable form toward her. “Fireman’s lift. It works.” She took Mikey’s new hat from him, stuck it on her own head—what else was there to do with it?—hefted her son over her shoulder and then retrieved the autograph hound, tucking it under her other arm. Her knees wanted to buckle slightly, but she ignored their protest. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” Will told her, putting Danny’s new IronPigs hat on his own head before grabbing up Danny and his autograph hound. He then kicked his side door shut, so that Elizabeth did the same thing, and, together, they made their way up the flight of wooden stairs to the landing.

Fitting the key in the lock wasn’t easy, but she managed, even while mentally trying to remember if she’d moved the laundry basket from the kitchen table, where she’d earlier sat sorting socks and little boy underwear. One look inside the kitchen told her that she hadn’t. Some people use fresh flowers as a centerpiece, she told herself as she led the way through the apartment, flipping on lights as she went.

“Right through here,” she said as they passed by her bedroom and she turned into the larger of the two bedrooms, the one shared by the twins. Bending her knees, she managed to pull back the covers and then gratefully lowered Mikey onto the mattress. “If he’d had one more hot dog tonight, I wouldn’t have been able to manage this,” she said, watching as Will untied Danny’s sneakers and pulled them off.

Did Will know he was still wearing Danny’s hat? The hat didn’t quite fit, and he had it on sideways. Did he know how adorable he looked?

“Sorry, I think the left lace is still knotted,” he said, now tackling Danny’s socks. “Nothing seems to be waking them, does it? I don’t remember the last time I slept this well—or this deeply.”

“The sleep of the innocent,” Elizabeth told him, pulling the covers up over Mikey’s chest. They could take baths in the morning. A little dirt wouldn’t kill them, nor would having them sleep in their clothes.

“The innocent, huh?” Will said, smiling at her as they walked out of the darkened room. “That explains it. I haven’t been innocent in a long time.”

She shot him a weak smile as she leaned past him to close the bedroom door. “You’ve still got Danny’s hat on, you know.”

He reached up and took it off, handing it to her before reaching for Mikey’s hat, which was still on her head. “Long live the Pigs.”

“Oink, oink,” Elizabeth said, putting the hats down on the hall table. “This way they’ll be able to find them first thing in the morning. I have a feeling I’ll be seeing a lot of that pink pig.”

“I’m trying to figure out how you manage two kids at one time. I mean, I can see how you do it now—and you do it very well. But what about when they were younger? One is a handful. Two is twice that.”

“I had my ways,” Elizabeth told him as they passed back down the hall, her bedroom to their left, a combined living and dining area to their right. “When I needed to carry both of them, I’d pick up Danny first and then let Mikey climb me.”

They entered the brightly lit kitchen, and Elizabeth headed for the automatic coffeemaker she’d already prepared for the morning and switched it on.

“Excuse me?”

She turned to rest her hip against the counter. “I’d hold Danny, and then Mikey would grab on to my hand with both of his and put his feet against my leg. I’d pull, and he’d climb. Once he was high enough, he’d sort of snuggle against me and I could hold him.” Elizabeth felt her cheeks growing hot. “Sort of like King Kong climbing the Empire State Building.”

“Except that you’re a lot more soft and snuggly than good old Bethlehem steel,” Will said, looking at her in a way that made Elizabeth think perhaps what little makeup she wore had smudged beneath her eyes or something.

“I … I have some cookies in that jar on the table. Peanut butter. The boys made them today with Elsie, Richard’s housekeeper. They’re very good.”

“That sounds nice, yes,” Will said, stepping closer to her, which wasn’t a huge feat, as the kitchen wasn’t all that large. “Here,” he said, reaching toward her, “let me fix this. Your button must have come open when you were carrying Mikey.”