Shoreline Drive (18 page)

“A baby! This woman has a baby? You mean … she’s divorced?” Pamela hissed, sounding ridiculously scandalized for a woman on the phone with her own previously married son.

“I never said she’d been married,” Ben pointed out. “But yes, Merry has a four-month-old son. Whom I’m planning to adopt, legally and officially, once we’ve been married a year.”

His mother gave a thready, high-pitched noise that made Ben roll his eyes. “Come on, Mom. Try to be happy for me. I might not have chosen one of your pale, colorless society girls, but Merry makes me happy. And, bonus, she comes complete with the grandson you’ve always wanted.”

“That’s not what has your mother so upset, and you know it.” His father had clearly commandeered the phone when Pamela wilted in shock. “How could you do a thing like this? I realize you have never had the proper care and concern for what’s expected of a Fairfax, but this is beyond anything I ever expected, even of you.”

Ben’s breath caught as if he’d been gut punched. It didn’t matter how old he got, how hard he worked to convince himself he didn’t care about his parents’ weighty expectations—it still hurt to come up short.

This time, though, he didn’t even understand what he’d done that was so unacceptable.

He’d assumed his parents would be surprised, perhaps even dismayed by Merry’s situation—they could be ridiculously feudal and eighteenth-century about things—but he hadn’t been prepared for this level of dismay.

Hardening his voice, he shot back, “I thought I was expected to carry on the family name, above all else. And when Alex becomes my son, he’ll be Alex Fairfax. Your legacy is secured. Even if you can’t be happy for me, I thought you’d at least be pleased about that.”

“Pleased.” The word strangled out of Tripp as if he were choking on it. “That our only son plans to bestow the Fairfax name—a name that has been synonymous with good breeding since before our ancestors left the court of King Charles the Second!—on a nameless bastard child, with God only knows what sort of people in his background.”

The phone creaked as Ben’s fingers clamped tight. “Do not. Call. Alex. A bastard.”

The absolute ice in his voice stopped his father’s angry tirade. Tripp sighed in Ben’s ear, low and weary. “Son. I know how much you enjoy throwing the opportunities your mother and I provided you back in our faces. We’ve been patient with this latest rebellion because, as much as you might not like to believe it, we do understand that what happened with Ashley and the baby … that was difficult. You needed time to hole up and lick your wounds. We understood.”

Ben swallowed, his finger hovering over the button that would end this call. But Tripp moved on hurriedly, his voice going even gruffer. “Now, do I wish you’d manned up and stuck it out with Ashley? Yes.”

“You made that perfectly clear when she filed for divorce.”

“And I won’t apologize for that! She was grieving, she wasn’t in her right mind, you should have fought harder—but that’s over and done with. She’s moved on, and for the last several years your mother and I have been waiting to hear that you were through sulking and were ready to come home and take your proper place in Richmond society.”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Ben argued, struggling to keep the pleading note out of his voice. “I may not be moving back to Richmond and the life you wanted for me, but I am moving on. Here on Sanctuary Island, with the family I’ve chosen. There’s no other place I belong.”

“My God, you’re serious about this.” The disbelief in his father’s tone rasped along Ben’s raw nerves. “Please tell me there’s still time to change your mind. And that you’re making this woman sign a prenup!”

“Oh, she signed it,” Ben said with relish. “We wrangled around about the terms for days, but she did finally sign on the dotted line.”

“Thank the good Lord.” Tripp sighed. “So at least your money is safe from this golddigger and her bas—child.”

His father’s near slip of the tongue fully justified Ben’s bitter satisfaction at what he got to say next. “Oh, the money is safe, all right. Tied up nice and tight in a trust fund for Alex, to be administered by his mother and myself, with the help of the local bank manager, until he comes of age. And by the way, the wedding is in a week. If you can’t smile and make nice, you’re not invited.”

Ben didn’t wait to find out if his father would recover enough command of his tongue to be able to do more than gurgle “A week!” Instead, he mashed his thumb down on the end button and collapsed forward.

Staring down between his knees at the worn wood of his farmhouse’s front porch, Ben rested his head in his hands and systematically got his breathing under control. Best to avoid a rage coma right before one’s wedding.

A tap on the windowpane to his right brought Ben’s head up. He stowed his phone in his pocket and ran his hands through his hair as he mustered up a smile for Merry’s concerned face through the glass.

She disappeared from view, and in the next instant, the front door opened to reveal Merry giving him worried eyebrows as she cuddled Alex against her shoulder.

Mother and child glowed in the warm golden light spilling out of the house, like some ridiculously corny portrait representing “homecoming” or “welcome.” Or “love.”

Ben stared at the two of them and felt his throat close around a lump of emotion too big to name.

“He wouldn’t go down,” Merry said. Nerves thrummed through her soft voice, and when she pressed a quick kiss to the baby’s downy cheek, Ben saw the tremor she tried to hide. “I think he wanted to wait up for you.”

The last week had also been a crash course in what it meant to live with an infant. Basically, a lot of crying, eating, voiding from both ends, and sleeping. Rinse and repeat daily. But there were peaceful moments, too.

Ben had learned to treasure the particular clutching fussiness Alex exhibited when night fell—the way the baby made fists and rubbed his eyes, tiny mouth furled like a rosebud. The way he arched his back and kicked his legs until Merry or Ben lifted him out of his playpen and brought him up to be soothed against a steady heartbeat.

“I’m glad,” Ben said, pushing to his feet as the swing creaked and swayed behind him.

Merry stepped out onto the porch and immediately shivered.

“It’s cold out here!” Ben waved at the open door. “Go back inside where it’s warm. I’ll be along in a minute to help with Alex, I promise.”

“Thanks.” But Merry hovered, still, halfway over the doorstep. “Did it … not go well? I thought you said your parents would be pleased.”

The fear in her voice brought all of Ben’s early acting skills to the forefront. He smiled widely at her. “No, it did! They’re thrilled, and of course they can’t wait to meet Alex.”

“Oh, good! I thought … you looked so upset. Ben, if this marriage isn’t what your parents want, if it won’t get them off your back like you thought, it’s not too late to change your mind.”

“What?” Ben sat up straight, alarm ringing through him like a bell. “No. I promise, they’re happy.”

“Okay. So why aren’t
you
happy?” She was close enough now for Ben to smell the milky, powdery baby scent that clung to her. He breathed in deep and let it fill him with borrowed peace.

“My parents confirmed it. They won’t be able to come to the wedding,” Ben told her, perfectly truthfully. They couldn’t come, because they hadn’t been invited. “It … hit me harder than I thought it would, I guess.”

“I know what you mean.” Merry’s sympathetic smile twisted in Ben’s gut, his conscience screaming at him about using her own paternal disappointment to distract her from asking about his. “There are some things you can’t prepare for, no matter how much you tell yourself you’re supposed to be a grown-up now.”

“No matter what happens,” Ben said, the words burning at the back of his throat with how deeply he meant them. “I’ll always be there for Alex.”

Merry swayed toward him, just slightly, like a reed in the breeze. Shifting on her shoulder, Alex made a fretful noise and twisted to reach a chubby, imperious arm out to Ben. Heart in his throat, Ben gave Alex his index finger to practice his fine motor skills on.

“I know that,” Merry said, with a certainty that rocked Ben down to his bones. “Why do you think I’m marrying you? I’ll tell you this much, it’s not for your recordkeeping or your accounting system.”

She grinned, and just like that, the September night didn’t feel quite so chilly.

I’m marrying you.

It was actually happening. Ben Fairfax was about to get more than he’d ever thought he could have, and nothing was going to happen to get in the way.

He smiled back and opened his arms to receive the squirming bundle of baby boy. With Alex happily grinding snot into the collar of Ben’s shirt, Ben felt confident enough to put a friendly, nonpressuring arm around Merry’s shoulders.

She leaned into him as they went back into the bright, warm house together, and shut the door against the cold.

Chapter Fourteen

In the midst of one of the most beautiful, clear, sun-dappled autumns coastal Virginia had ever seen, the day of Ben and Merry’s wedding dawned gray and dismal. A chill fog lay over the island like a shroud, turning the winding roads and wild fields into a dangerous maze of blind curves and hidden sinkholes.

“Good,” Ben said, glancing out the window over the kitchen sink as he rinsed out his coffee mug. “Maybe everyone will stay home and we can get married in private.”

Merry shook her head, fighting a smile. She didn’t want to encourage Ben’s grumpiness, but it was hard when she was bubbling over with a hectic mixture of nerves, excitement, anticipation, and last-minute plans.

In fact, she was on the phone with her mother at that very moment, half tuning out the recitation of who was bringing the flowers and where they’d be placed, the potluck items she’d been promised by various townsfolk, and what Jo had still to bake before meeting Merry and Ben at the courthouse at eleven.

Covering the mouthpiece with her fingers, Merry watched as Ben sat down to continue his grand experiment of introducing Alex to solid foods. In this case, mashed sweet potatoes Ben had boiled the night before.

After the phone call to Ben’s parents that Merry had insisted on and then regretted when it seemed to make Ben so sad, they’d gone back in the house to put Alex to bed. Of course, once he’d gotten his way and had both Merry and Ben hovering over his crib, tucking him in, Alex went down without a fight.

Hesitant to bring up the whole parents-and-family talk again, but not quite ready for the evening to be over yet, Merry had followed Ben out of the guest room instead of turning in.

She was still glowing from the promise Ben had made, to be there for Alex. The words that were engraved on her innermost heart as her deepest wish, and he’d plucked them out of thin air and handed them to her.

The connection between Merry and Ben had strengthened over the past two weeks. There was nothing like seeing a person first thing in the morning, with pillow creases on one cheek and his dark curls tousled by sleep, to forge a new intimacy.

But that night, in the cozy comfort of the welcoming old farmhouse Ben had put so much work into, Merry felt a tug she couldn’t deny. As if he felt it, too, Ben had turned to her suddenly enough to make her gasp.

The moment had felt fragile, suspended like a shimmering soap bubble between them. Merry’s mind was a blur of home and warmth, sweetness like maple syrup trickling through her veins. Every breath seemed to pull her closer and closer to him.

The little voice in the back of her head that usually piped up to caution her about getting too close was silent, for once … but just as she was about to tilt her head and lift her lips for the kiss she could almost taste, Ben stepped back.

“I think Alex is ready for solid foods.”

She couldn’t have been more startled if Ben had poked her in the eye, Three Stooges style. Merry broke the surface of her daze, blinking to clear the film of desire from her vision. “Oh?” she’d managed, not very intelligently.

“I’ve been taking notes,” Ben assured her, holding up one broad, long-fingered hand to enumerate his points. “He’s been able to support his own head for several weeks now, and is able to maintain a sitting position for seven to ten minutes at a stretch. He’s more than doubled his birth weight. And I noticed him eyeing your shrimp and grits yesterday, indicating that he’s becoming interested in solid food.”

Merry shook her head and tried to remember the many parenting books and child development guides she’d frantically devoured during her pregnancy. “Between four and six months is a good time to start trying solid foods, I think. But I haven’t noticed Alex making chewing motions during feedings—that’s supposed to be one of the big signs.”

“He’ll figure it out,” Ben had said confidently. “Alex is above average in intelligence.”

As far as Merry knew, Ben had no factual basis for this belief, but she was hardly one to argue. She was pretty sure Alex was the most perfect, wonderful, clever baby ever to draw breath.

So here they were on the morning of their wedding, sitting at the kitchen table and watching Alex push orange mush out of his mouth with his little tongue. Thus far, he’d ingested maybe a teaspoonful of sweet potatoes—and that was a generous estimate. The rest of the half-cup serving decorated Alex’s chubby cheeks, stuck together the wisps of dark hair on his forehead, and smeared over Ben’s hands and down the front of his blue plaid shirt.

Day Six of the Solid Food Experiment wasn’t going well. But Dr. Ben Fairfax—meticulous, precise, crotchety, impatient Ben—never lost his patience. Never, not by a flicker of an eyelash, did he betray an ounce of frustration or annoyance. Not even when Alex’s excitedly flailing hands knocked the spoon hard enough to send sweet potatoes sailing through the air to splat against the pretty dogwood-patterned wallpaper.

Merry suppressed a snort of laughter that had Ben narrowing his eyes at her. She gave him her best Innocent Angel face, but he didn’t appear convinced.

“Merry? Hello, are you still there?” Jo’s frazzled voice sounded in her ear.