The Marriage Campaign

“See you later?” Wes said shortly afterward, key card in hand. “In the restaurant?” When she frowned, that eyebrow lifted again. As well as the corners of that mouth. “You said you needed to eat?”

Blythe’s eyes cut to the others, who were too busy yakking among themselves to witness the little exchange, thank God. “Depends on what Mel got at the store,” she said. “Truthfully, all I want is to stretch out in a dark, quiet room until this blasted headache goes away.”

His eyes twinkled. “Quiet? With that group?”

“If the gods are kind, they’ll all congregate in the other room and leave me in peace.”

“Well, if you change your mind—”

“Not likely,” Blythe said as an infant’s wail pierced her cousins’ chatter, and Wes gave her something like a little bow.

“Have a good night, then,” he and his dimples said. Then he ushered his son away, her gaze trailing after them like a confused, dumb puppy.

The puppy hauled back by the scruff of its neck, Blythe was about to break up the jabberfest when she noticed the bedraggled young father clutching the counter in front of the frowning clerk madly clicking her computer keys. Beside him, two young children clung like possums to his even more bedraggled wife, who was jiggling a wailing infant in her arms. Poor things.

“You guys ready to go up to the rooms?” Blythe said. “Don’t know about you, but I’m about to crash.”

“We figured we may as well hit the restaurant first,” Mel said. “Since it’s not as if we have luggage or anything.”

“But …” Blythe frowned at the grocery bags, still in Mel’s hands. “Didn’t you buy food?”

“Munchies, mainly. Although there is a rotisserie chicken in there—”

“Close enough,” Blythe said, grabbing the bags. “Give me a card, I’ll see you guys later—”

“I’m so sorry,” the clerk said to the little family, her words carrying across the lobby like she was wearing a mike, “but we just booked our last available rooms …”

April and Mel exchanged a blink-and-you’d-miss-it glance—which Blythe didn’t—before April marched back to the clerk. “Give ’em one of our rooms. We gals can all bunk together. Right?”

So close. And yet, so far, Blythe thought, even as her hurting head threw a hissy fit. Then she looked again at the woman and her kids, and her heart kicked her throbbing head to the curb.

“Of course!” she said brightly. “Not like we all haven’t shared a room before.” If many, many years ago.

“Are you sure?” the wife said, shifting the bawling babe in her arms and managing to look miserable and grateful at the same time. “We wouldn’t want to put you out.”

“You’re not. At all.” Blythe smiled. “I swear.”

Tears in her eyes, the young mother shifted the baby to hug all three of them in turn, and her cousins trooped to the restaurant and Blythe up to their room, where, for the next hour, she consoled herself with rotisserie chicken, potato salad and the eye-roll-worthy shenanigans of a bunch of surgically enhanced TV housewives whose lives were far more drama-ridden than hers.

Now, in any case. And considering what she’d gone through to get to this point, her hormones could just go hang themselves.

The next morning, Blythe wrenched open her eyes to total darkness, save for the pale gray chink in the closed draperies. As the others slept, she cautiously eased out of bed, cracking open the drapes enough to see the snow already melting, even in the weak winter sun. Hallelujah.

Then she caught her reflection in the mirror over the dresser and grimaced. Fortunately her sweater and jeans were wear-again-worthy, even if she had to fend off the ickies of not being able to change her undies before facing the public again. But her hair … eesh. She could, however, wash up and brush her teeth—bless her hide, Mel had bought them all toothbrushes and a few essential toiletries—even if the only makeup she had in her purse was lipgloss.

Meaning, even cleaned up and redressed she looked like a vampire who hadn’t had a good feed in a while. Or access to any decent hair care products, she mused as she doused her head with water from the spigot, then yanked a comb through her cropped hair until it looked … not horrible. With any luck, though—she clicked the door shut behind her and headed down the carpeted hall—she’d be the first one in the restaurant, and nobody would see her. Because the way her stomach was growling, Pringles and grapes weren’t going to cut it. Especially when the elevator doors opened on the ground floor, and the scents of bacon and coffee and pancakes hauled her toward the restaurant’s entrance like those little aliens did to Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters.

Blythe stood inside, breathing deeply for a moment until the hostess told her to sit anywhere she liked, and she rounded a huge potted plant to see that Wes and Jack had apparently beaten her by several minutes. Well, hell. She froze, watching, as the boy chattered away, his father leaning over his plate as he ate—bacon and eggs, Blythe saw—clearly intent on whatever Jack was saying. Occasionally, Wes would chuckle, pushing at those dimples, and the adoring expression on his son’s face twisted Blythe inside out.

Then some woman barged in on the scene, interrupting Jack in the middle of a sentence to introduce herself to his father, and Blythe watched the kid’s face collapse. True, apology flickered across Wes’s features as he glanced at his son before standing to graciously acknowledge the woman, briefly introduce her to Jack, then listen as intently to her as he had a moment earlier to his child. Also true was the conflict evident in Wes’s body language, that despite his graciousness he wasn’t happy about having his private time with his son interrupted. But far worse, from her perspective, was the hurt and annoyance bowing Jack’s slender shoulders as he frowned at his pancakes, shredding rather than eating them.

“Really, sit anywhere at all,” the hostess said as she breezed past, and Blythe realized with a rush of heat to her face that she’d been staring.

“Right,” she said, watching Wes hand the woman a card, along with a warm smile and a firm handshake before sending her on her way—

“Blythe!” Jack boomed. “Over here!”

So much for slipping into a booth out of their sight. But the way the child’s face lit up … how could she say no? Although naturally they were sitting right next to a window, through which streamed that particularly bright, revealing, après-snowfall light.

Then again, maybe her vampire aura would scare away other potential intruders so Jack and Wes could finish their breakfast in peace.

Gamely, Blythe trekked over, clutching her purse to her empty middle. Once again seated and buttering a piece of toast, Wes looked up, tried—unsuccessfully—not to start, then smiled. He, of course, looked fabulous, in that sexy, beard-hazed way of a gorgeous man right out of bed. So unfair.

“Hey, there,” he said, all gruff-voiced and such. “Join us?”

“I don’t want to interrupt.” When the merest suggestion of a frown marred that handsome brow, she added, “You seemed … involved.”

“She was a constituent,” Wes said. “You’re a friend. So sit,” he said, waving his toast toward the other side of the booth as Blythe thought, Friend? Really? Then he smiled, the picture of solicitude. “How’s your head?”

She sat beside Jack, who’d skootched over and was now grinning at her around an enormous bite of his pancakes, his too-long hair like corn silk in the silvery light. “Okay, actually.”

Actually, she hadn’t even noticed. The others, as worn out as Blythe from the events of the day, had all conked out fairly early, and Blythe had slept like a freaking rock. But Wes was frowning at her like she was trying to keep her game face on after being given a month to live.

“You sure?”

The waitress came, filled her coffee cup, handed her a menu. Blythe nearly smacked the poor kid with it in her eagerness to get coffee to her lips. Once she’d downed sufficient caffeine to hopefully put some color in her cheeks, she let her gaze flick to Wes. Which definitely put color in her cheeks. “Yes, I’m sure. I’m a little washed out without makeup. But thanks for asking.”

She waved the waitress back over, ordered a breakfast worthy of a lumberjack, then turned aside to grin at Jack, exercising every ounce of willpower she possessed not to take her coffee spoon to his pancakes. Almost as much willpower as it was taking not to make goo-goo eyes at his father. Old habits dying hard and all that. She bumped shoulders with Jack. “Those look pretty good.”

“They’re okay. Want a bite?”

“No, you go ahead,” she said, resting her chin in her hand. “I’ll wait for my own food.”

“Quinn awake yet?”

“She wasn’t when I left, but she could be now.” A light-bulb blinked on. “You want me to call her?” And tell them to get their booties down here before I lose what little sanity I have left?

“Oh, don’t do that,” Wes said with a pointed look at his son. “You can see Quinn later. At home.” Then to Blythe, obligating her to look at him. “State Trooper was here earlier, said the roads are clear. We can leave any time.”

“Thank goodness for that. I need to get back to D.C. to work on a presentation for tomorrow morning.”

“Although the trooper did say it was a good thing we didn’t try driving last night. Visibility was horrendous. And road conditions …” He shook his head. “Accidents all over the place.”

“No one was hurt, I hope.”

“No. But not for lack of trying.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Blythe saw the young family file in, looking a lot more mellow than they had the night before. And right behind them, her cousins, none of whom looked like something the cat had dragged in. Mel had this whole mussed-bangs thing going on, and April was pink and pretty as usual with her peachy blond hair pulled back in a headband. And Quinn was ten, so there you were.