The Md She Had To Marry Part 14

Rosie woke them. Or Lacey might decide to show him howhelpful she could be.

Then again, maybe she was angry with him by now.

He frowned. Ithad been-he glanced at his Rolex-almost ten hours since he'd dropped her off and headed for the office. He hadn't planned to be gone quite this long. Not on their first day home.

He'd also kept meaning to call her, just to check on her, to see how she and Rosie were doing. But every time he reached for the phone, something always cropped up that had to be dealt with right then.

Somehow, he'd never gotten around to calling home.

Home.

Strange. He'd never thought of the house that way before.

It had always been just that. The house.His house. A place to live. An expensive, attractive possession of which he was justifiably proud.

But now...

Now, it had Lacey in it. And Rosie.

Now it had hisfamily in it.

And somehow, that made all the difference.

Loganblinked and realized he was sitting in the driveway, the Cadillac's big engine purring softly in his ear. The garage door was all the way up and had been for over a minute now. He hit the gas and shot into the garage so fast that he had to slam on the brakes to keep from hitting the far wall. The tires squealed and the car bounced on its cus.h.i.+on of shocks. He punched the b.u.t.ton hooked to his visor and the garage door went rumbling down. Jumping from the car and slamming the door behind him, he entered the house through the laundry room door and jogged through the dark family room and breakfast room, headed straight for the front foyer and the stairs to the upper floor. * * * Lacey had put Rosie back in her crib at a little after eleven. She'd found a novel in a hall bookcase and settled back into bed to read.

Not too long after that, faintly, she heard a car pull up outside.

Logan.

She set her book aside, heard a low rumble-the garage door going up. After a minute or two, she heard a faint squealing sound-as if he'd hit the gas too hard and had to stop too fast. The garage door rumbled down again.

She sat forward, straining to hear. There it was. The door to the laundry room closing.

And then, seconds later, footsteps moving fast up the stairs. There wasa certain urgency to them. As if he couldn't wait.

Couldn't wait to get toher ...

He appeared in the doorway, hesitated there, seeking, then finding her, hope and tenderness and a kind of dark joy suffusing his features, burning in his eyes.

She thought, Why, Jenna was right.

He loves me.

He loves me in his actions. And he also loves me deep in his most secret heart.

And that, the love deep in his heart, he doesn't even know about.

"I'm sorry I'm so late." His voice was low, a little rough.

It's all right, she thought. But her throat felt so tight, the words wouldn't quite come.

So she smiled to show him he didn't need to worry. It was a shy, quivery sort of smile. Her heart was beating very fast, as if she'd run a long, hard race, one she'd known that she would lose-and reached the finish line to find herself victorious.

"You're not angry," he whispered. It seemed to mean the world to him.

She shook her head and felt her smile bloom wider on her mouth.

He swore, a pa.s.sionate oath. And then he came to her.

Chapter 10.

Four weeks and two days later, at ten in the morning on the thirteenth of August, Lacey got a clean bill of health from Dr.Enright , the obstetricianLoganhad recommended. The doctor fitted her for a new diaphragm and told her to feel free to resume s.e.xual relations with her husband. Lacey smiled to herself. She and Logan had been having "s.e.xual relations" all along, thank you.

They'd made love in just about every way but one. Now they could do that, too. Lacey winked at the doctor. "Well, Doc. Looks like Friday, the Thirteenth is my lucky day." "Get that diaphragm first," Dr.Enright advised. "Give your body a little rest before the next baby." From her carrier in the corner of the examining room, Rosie let out a happy gurgle. Lacey smiled at the sound. She did love her baby. And she wanted another. And another. And another after that. And so did Logan. But the doctor was right. No need to rush it. She stopped in at the pharmacy on her way home to fill the prescription for her new diaphragm. After that, she visited a little deli she and Logan liked. She got dark bread and roast beef sliced paper-thin, and pastrami and a loaf of rye. And horseradish and fat dill pickles, too.

The twins were coming for lunch. She had talked to both Mira and Maud by phone since she'd moved back to town, but she hadn't invited them over until now. They had been thoroughly stunned when she'd told them that she'd married Logan Severance-and, as Lacey had expected, neither of them had approved of the match.

"Youmarried him?" Mira had cried. "I can't believe it. You and Dr. Do-Right? Uh-uh. I mean, I know it was hot and heavy with you two back in September. And I can see why you might want to keep the baby. Butmarriage . Tohim? Did you have to go that far?"

Lacey had tried not to let Mira's reaction upset her. She'd explained calmly that she lovedLoganand she believed he cared deeply for her in return. She was happy. Things were working out fine.

Mira had scoffed. "Ex-squeeze me. What is this? Bizarre." She warbled out a few bars of something that sounded like the theme fromThe Twilight Zone . "It's straight out ofTheStepford Wives , if you ask me."

Lacey gritted her teeth. "Oh. Now I'm something out of a horror movie, a soulless clone of my former self? Thanks a bunch, Mir."

Mira backed off. A little. "Look. I'm sorry. It's just ... whoa. I'm blown away. I haven't heard from you in months and then-"

"What's that got to do with anything? There have been lots of times when we haven't talked for months."

"You know what I mean. It's a shock. You call me up out of nowhere and say you've had a baby and married your sister's ex. It's a lot to take in."

"Well, deal with it. I went through some big changes myself over this."

"No kidding."

"It's the right thing for me. Mira, I love the man."

"Are you working?"

Leave it to Mira, Lacey thought. Mira knew right where to slide in the knife. "I just had a baby, remember?"

"You're not working."

"I'm fixing up a room. For my studio."

"But you're not working."

"I will be. Soon."

Mira demanded, "What does Xavier have to say about this?"

XavierHockland was a professional artist, a well-known and highly respected one. His shows always sold out. He worked in oils, for the most part. Like Lacey. And he had been her teacher and mentor until several months before-when he had learned she was pregnant and told her she had to make a choice: her baby or her art.

"Xavier is out of the picture," Lacey said.

"Why?"

"He just is, that's all. I don't want to talk about him."

"Fine. What about Barnaby, then? And Adele?" Barnaby and Adele were also artists, and friends of Lacey's in L.A. Barnaby rented a huge loft downtown, where he was storing a number of Lacey's paintings for her.

"I called them both," Lacey told Mira defiantly, "a couple of days ago. They congratulated me and wished me well."

"They don't know Logan Severance."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

Mira was silent, a silence that spoke volumes. After the quiet hummed through the line for several long seconds, she deigned to speak again. "I could become very worried about you, you know?"

Mentally, Lacey counted to ten. Then she suggested, "We'd better talk about you. How's the band doing?"

The band was the twins' pa.s.sion and had been for over a decade. Mira played lead guitar and Maud played drums. They also had a ba.s.s player and a guy on keyboard. But the band reallybelonged to Mira and Maud. It had gone through a series of name changes over the years. The last Lacey had heard, they were calling it Mirror Image.

"You're switching subjects on me," Mira accused.

"You're right. I am. How's the band doing?"

Mira hesitated, but then let out a big sigh and answered Lacey's question. "We've been playing the Eureka Lounge Friday nights for a couple of months now."

"Hey. Way to go."

"But you know how it is. Maud has her job at the Giant-Value Mart, Sunday through Thursday, as always. Eight to four. And I'm still waiting tables four nights a week."

"What? Is that whining I hear?"

Mira chuckled. "Maybe what I need is a rich husband."

"Was that a dig?"

Mira laughed "Sure sounded like one, didn't it? Do you think I'm just jealous?"

"You? No way. You're not the jealous type."

"G.o.d, Lace. I can't believe you married him."

"Well, I did. Get used to it."

"I'm working on it."

They had talked for several minutes more. And when they hung up, it was on a reasonably cordial note.

Lacey had called Maud right afterwards, figuring that she might as well get it over with.

Maud took the news in the same manner as her identical twin-only more so. She was shocked. Amazed. Blown away. And not the least bit pleased to learn that one of her best friends had "sold out" and married "Mr. Super-Straight Upwardly Mobile Big Shot M.D."

"He was fine for Jenna," Maud said. "And at least he always treatedher with respect. But you know how he's been with you, Lace, all these years. How could you forget? Always after you, always telling you how to live your life, acting as if your career as an artist was just a big waste of time, some foolish, silly dream. How could you have..."

There was more in that vein. Finally, Lacey had been forced to lay down the law.

"He's my husband now, Maud. You are my friend and I'll always love you. But if you keep talking against him, I can't deal with you anymore."

Maud had hung up on her.

And then called back a week later to apologize. They'd talked a couple of times since then. And yesterday, on the spur of the moment, Lacey had invited Maud over for lunch, then called Mira right afterward and asked her to come, too.

As she put the pastrami and roast beef into the meat drawer of the refrigerator, she muttered to herself, "Please. Don't let this visit be a total disaster."

* * * It wasn't. Therewere a number of potentially rocky moments, but Lacey had made up her mind ahead of time not to let the twins get to her.

Of course, they couldn't resist making cracks about the house.

"Straight out ofBetter Homes and Gardens ," Mira said. "Totallynot you, Lace."

Lacey had only smiled. "I like it. Jenna did most of it and I love my sister's taste."

"Tresweird," said Maud. "Shouldn't you be, like, bothered, just a little, that she was his ex and she did the decorating?"

"Maybe I should. But I'm not."

"And just what does your big sister think of all this, anyway?"

"All what?"

"Come on. You know. You and Dr. Do-Right. Married. With a baby."

"She's happy for us. In fact, she thought I should marry him."

"Too strange."

"And she sent a complete layette for Rosie." The layette had arrived two days after they'd returned to