True Heart

KALEY BOSWORTH DANCED straight out of the doctor’s office that afternoon and bought a double armload of sunflowers. And beeswax candles—every last tall, creamy-white fragrant candle that the florist had in stock. Fifty-seven, in all.

Now they stood in unlit readiness on the counters to either side of the door that led from her kitchen to the attached garage. From there they spread out over the other counters, the marble-topped central work island, the table in the breakfast nook. She’d even set candlesticks at the doorway to the butler’s pantry.

More candles beckoned the eye into the pass-through pantry, then on to the dining room, to its long, lace-covered mahogany table, where the remaining tapers stood in two silver candelabra. Between the candelabra on the table, she’d placed a cut-crystal punch bowl, filled to overflowing with the sunflowers, entwined with pink honeysuckle and roses from her own garden. Color and a blaze of light to match her mood.

The table was laid with their best sterling and china. Champagne stood iced in a wine bucket for Richard, along with a bottle of sparkling cider for herself.

All she needed was her husband to help her celebrate. Richard was only ninety minutes later than he’d said he’d be that morning—still well within his self-imposed margin of two hours, after which he’d usually phone to say that some case had delayed him and she shouldn’t wait supper.

But tonight he hadn’t called.

“So, any minute now,” Kaley half sang as she stood by a window in her darkened living room, hugging herself, bouncing on her toes with impatience as she peered down to the distant street corner.

Headlights knifed through the summer dusk with swift assurance. Streetlights rippled over a sleek, sliding shape—a dark blue convertible swung around the bend and arrowed straight for the house. “Yes!” Kaley snatched up a box of matches and ran for the back door.

She lit the first half-dozen candles, then, as their flames grew, she threw the light switch. She bit her lip as she heard the rumble of the garage door rising. Hurry! Another dozen candles leaped into flame, washing the walls in flickering gold. Hurry, hurry! She tossed a spent match in the sink, struck another, laughing breathlessly at her own foolishness—too many candles!

Yet, a thousand wouldn’t have been too many.

Fire touched wick after wick as the garage door rumbled down. She set the candles in the breakfast nook ablaze. A scent of warm wax and honey wafted upward—incense of thanks and joy.

Two dozen or more to go; she’d never finish in time! Kaley knelt to light the candles on the floor as the back door opened.

“Huh?” Richard Bosworth stopped short in the doorway. “Good God, Kaley.” He frowned. “What’s all this?”

“Oh, this…?” She twinkled up at him. “Guess you’d call it a celebration.” Touching a match to another candle, she shared a smiling secret with its kindling flame. Kindling, yes—exactly so. Such beauty! Such a miracle!

“Looks more like a three-alarm disaster waiting to happen. Candles on the floor? Is that really necessary?”

She felt her smile tighten ever so slightly and drew a slow breath. “Ran out of counter space.” She backed away into the pantry, lit the candles on the sideboards.

He dropped his briefcase on a chair and followed. “What am I missing? It’s not our anniversary. Nobody’s birthday.” He paused in the door to the dining room, taking in the flowers, the lavish table set for two, the blue velvet dress she wore. She lit the tapers in the first candelabrum. The flames struck his fair hair to ruddy gold, picked out the chiseled planes of his handsome face.

Showed her his lips thinning and his eyebrows drawing together.

“So?”

“So…” She looked up at him over the flames that mirrored her inward glow. “Something wonderful happened today.”

“Yes, I gathered that. What?”

If only, just this once, he’d go along with her mood. Especially this once. “I’ll tell you, but first, if you’d open that bottle?”

“Dom Perignon,” he noted, lifting the bottle from the ice. “Whatever your news, isn’t this a bit over budget?”

He’d treated himself to two cases the year before, when he’d made partner at his law firm. And now it was her turn to rejoice. “For this occasion? I don’t think so.”

“Your department head—what’s the old bat’s name? Henley? She decided to retire,” Richard guessed. “You’re next in line for the job.”

“I am, but this has nothing to do with teaching. Nothing like that.”

“Then tell me. You know how I hate surprises.” He covered the bottle’s cork with a napkin, drew it with a deft flick of his thumbs. The soft pop promised bubbles, but something somewhere, had gone flat.

She held the crystal flutes for him to fill, biting her lip as she studied his impatient frown. He did hate surprises, much as she loved them. Her fault, this. She should have told him the instant he walked in the door. Now she stood torn between blurting out her news and waiting for a happier moment, perhaps after his first glass?

“Come on, spit it out.” He lifted his flute. “What should I toast?”

Why was she worrying? Once he’d heard… At least, once he’d gotten used to the idea… She rallied her smile. “Kiss me first?”

“That bad?” Still, he kissed her—a wary, closemouthed kiss, precisely measured. “Tell me.”

“Well…” She took a breath. “You know I had an appointment this afternoon, with my gynecologist.”

His eyes swept from the candles, to the flowers, back to her radiant face. No one could ever say that Richard was slow. He shook his head. “No.”

“Yes! I told him I was a week late. That’s unusual for me, so he tested and—and—” Her words jumbled into breathless, pleading laughter. Come on, share this with me. All the worries and setbacks she’d suffered through at his side, all the ambitions she’d applauded, the triumphs she’d celebrated. She’d been there for Richard every step of the way, and now couldn’t he just—

“Shit.” He tipped his glass back and gulped, blew out a breath, then smacked the flute down on the table.

She stared at the champagne splash marks darkening the lace, she ought to get a cloth and dab them dry before they soaked through and marred the perfect, polished mahogany beneath.

“I’m pregnant, Richard. We are. And you know how long I’ve been wanting this. You said once you made partner—”

“You’re on the Pill! How could this have happened? Did you stop without telling me?”

“Of course not! I’d never—”

“So you forgot—skipped a couple. Of all the careless, idiotic things to—”

“I didn’t! I didn’t forget a one.” She set down her own glass untasted. “I had that awful earache—five weeks ago, remember? I couldn’t get an appointment soon enough with my GP, so I stopped by a walk-in clinic and the doctor prescribed tetracycline.”

“So?” Richard turned his back on her to pace down the length of the table, then swung on his heel to glare. “What’s that got to do with—”

“Some antibiotics interfere with contraception. I never knew that, and the doctor didn’t tell me.”

“I’ll sue him. And the pharmacist, too—negligence pure and simple. By God, they’re going to regret—”

“Oh, no.” Shaking her head, she met him halfway down the table—clamped her hands over the forearms he’d crossed on his chest. “No. Maybe they were careless, but we’re not suing anyone. Not when the results were just what we wanted anyway.”

“Who says—”

“You said! I wanted to start our family the year I finished college, but you said we should wait. That our condo wasn’t big enough, remember? You said it was no place to raise rugrats.” She shook him gently, smiling pleadingly up into his face, trying to spark some warmth in return. “Then when we moved to our house on Cottonwood I asked you again. And you didn’t tell me no, Richard. You just said we should wait. That you were so close to making partner, that you needed all your concentration and energy to focus on that. That if I’d only wait till you made it, we’d be rolling in bucks and you’d have more time to help me with midnight feedings.”

“I never—”

“You did! That’s exactly what you said… So I did. I waited again.”

He twisted away from her to resume pacing, yanking at the knot in his tie as if it was strangling him.