The Second Time Around

The two of them had stood over the baby’s crib, absorbing the fleeting, rare silence, watching the brand-new third addition to their family sleeping.

And then, suddenly, Jason had broken the silence. “Three,” he’d said.

The single word had come out of the blue, surprising her as much as it confused her. She’d looked at him, puzzled, waiting for an explanation. When none came, she’d asked, “What?”

Jason had turned to her and then lightly kissed her forehead, his lips barely touching her skin. Tingling her soul.

“Three,” he repeated. “I like the number three.” And then, in case she didn’t get the reference, he added, “Three sons.”

She’d cocked her head, trying to discern something she thought she’d detected.

“Is that finality in your voice?” she’d asked, recalling how he’d talked about having a houseful of kids while they’d been in school.

“It is,” he replied, nodding his head as if reviewing his own thoughts and finding them good. “Any more and we might not be able to provide them with everything they’ll need.” He leaned over the crib, tucking the blue blanket around his small, new son. “Might not be able to give them enough of ourselves, either. Not if equal shares are being handed out.”

She’d laughed then and kissed his cheek. As always, he was the soul of reason. And she agreed with him. Three was a good number, even though it was one more than she had hands.

“I do love you, Jason Mitchell.”

He’d put his arm around her shoulders then, pulling her closer to him as he murmured, “Yes, I know,” into her hair.

“We’ll have that road trip someday soon,” she’d promised.

She sighed now.

Someday just got a little further away.

CHAPTER 3

Laurel’s already overworked heart rose up to her throat as she pulled up before the two-story Colonial house that highlighted their steady rise in the world. It was their third house in twenty years. They’d lived here for a little over seven years now.

It felt like home. More so than the other two, smaller houses.

But it wasn’t sentiment that had her heart lodging itself in her windpipe. It was the sight of Jason’s navy-blue sedan. The sedan he’d been talking about trading in for a sportier two-seater. He’d been talking about doing this since Christopher had gone off to UCLA almost two years ago. She thought it was her husband’s way of coping with empty-nest syndrome. Hers was to look forward to the next visit from one or more of her sons.

It was two o’clock in the afternoon. What was her husband doing home?

Damn.

That wasn’t the word that usually came to mind when she thought of her husband. But she’d counted on having more time to pull herself together, to figure out what words to use in order to break the news to Jason—that there would be a baby in their future and it wasn’t because one of their sons had accidentally dropped his guard and gotten a girl pregnant.

How could this be happening to her?

Laurel pulled up into the driveway and left the car parked next to his—she had no choice since he’d taken up every square inch of the garage with his train layout. After a deep, fortifying breath, she got out of the vehicle. She took her time locking the door and activating the antitheft alarm.

Of course, she was stalling. Eventually, she was going to have to go in and face the music.

For the time being, Laurel decided to table the “big revelation” in favor of finding out just what Jason was doing home in what amounted to the middle of the day. He rarely came home before six o’clock, usually closer to seven. It seemed to her that the higher up he went in the advertising agency where he worked, the less time he actually had for himself. For them.

Which was why he’d sounded so wistful lately when he talked about chucking everything and taking an early retirement.

Still moving in slow motion, Laurel unlocked the front door. Her hand on the doorknob, she paused to take another deep breath before turning it. She might have leaned on it a little too hard. The next thing she knew, she found herself pitching forward into the house, thrown off balance because the door was being opened from the inside.

“About time you got here,” Jason declared, catching her.

He was grinning the grin that transformed him from the forty-six-year-old ad executive to the young man she’d fallen so hard for the first time she laid eyes on him. He’d been grinning then, too. But at Bernadette O’Hara, who wore her sweaters so tight everyone in high school used to wonder how the five-foot-five dark-haired girl managed to keep her circulation from being literally cut off. At least, all the girls wondered. The boys were all too dazed to be able to put together more than three words into a semicoherent thought without drooling.

All except Jason, she’d discovered, much to her delight.

Jason was deeper than that, deep enough not to be taken in by such superficial things as overdeveloped mammary glands and the underdeveloped material that strained to cover them.

With his hair a deep chestnut-brown as yet unassaulted by any stray gray hairs, Jason was still as boyish looking as he’d been back then. Still as trim and muscular, too, even though a few more pounds had found their way onto his torso. They’d settled in across his chest and biceps, not his waist. She still bought all his pants from that same small section marked “size 30 waist.”

Won’t be able to say that about you pretty soon. You’re going to be size elephant.

“I didn’t realize you’d be here,” she told him now, slipping off her coat. She tucked it into the hall closet, leaving it on a hook. Right now she didn’t think she could handle something as complicated as a hanger. “What are you doing home?”

“Waiting for you.” Jason brushed his lips against hers. It was then that she realized he was holding a bottle of champagne in his hand. Backing up, he held it aloft like the first rider across the finish line at the Kentucky Derby. “I almost started celebrating without you.”

“Celebrating?” she echoed.

He knew?

Laurel tried not to sound as nervous, as unsettled, as she felt. It took effort to keep her voice calm. “What are you celebrating?”

There was a smattering of disappointment in his eyes, as if he was surprised she could have forgotten, what with all the hours he’d put in and all the Saturdays he’d spent in his office at home, trying to make things come together for him.

“The Aimes Baby account. It’s ours,” he declared, referring to the project for the agency he’d been working for these past fifteen years. Then he gleefully corrected, “Mine.” Jason let the words sink in before embellishing. “The baby food, the diapers, the toys, all mine.”

“We’ll have to add on to the house,” Laurel quipped, trying very hard to focus on his joy and not her own dread.

“Very funny. I’m talking about the account.” As if she didn’t know, he thought with affection. Laurel had always taken an active interest in his work. More than he did in hers, he was sorry to admit. But then, he was the one who needed bolstering at times. She had always been tireless, always confident. He didn’t know how she did it. “They loved my ad campaign,” he told her needlessly since he was the main one pitching to the company. His dark green eyes were shining as he went on. “This means a bonus, a raise and a lot of other perks. Jon Aimes approved the campaign personally. You know what this means, right?”

Her brain felt like Swiss cheese. She didn’t even know her own middle name right now.

“Tell me what it means,” she coaxed in a voice that wives had been using for centuries to humor husbands who were dying to disclose details.

“It means that we have an in with his other companies, as well. I have an in with his other companies as well,” he emphasized. “This makes me a very important asset to Chandler, Wallace and Mitchell.” His grin was so wide now, it threatened to split his face. “Sky’s the limit, Laurie,” he declared.

His enthusiasm about to overflow, Jason propped the bottle against his thigh and began working the cork loose. “I told them I needed some time off before I could throw myself headlong into the work. They were a little skeptical at first, but I convinced them. I told them I’d take a laptop with me and e-mail them anything I came up with.”

“Laptop?” Laurel repeated. Every second, her brain was shrinking, reducing in size to whatever might reside in a single-cell amoeba.

“Yeah. I figured we’d take it on our road trip. You didn’t think I’d forget about the road trip, did you? I know it’s not going to be for as long as we anticipated, and I will have to do some work, but it’ll be great, I promise, honey.” He saw the look on her face and put his own interpretation to her expression. “I know, I know, I was going to taper off, working toward an early retirement, but this just fell into my lap.” He conveniently forgot about the long hours he’d put in to get this to fall into his lap. “This was just too good to pass up, you know? And we’ll take that longer road trip once all this is squared away. Scout’s honor.”

The cork finally came loose and went shooting into the living room like a large, beige-colored bullet. Jason laughed as foam came pouring out.

“Wow. I had no idea those things could go that far. C’mon, honey, follow me,” he urged, hurrying into the living room, a trail of foam marking his path.