Their Precious Christmas Miracle: Mistletoe Baby / In the Spirit of...Christmas / A Baby By Christmas

David turned to Rachel and winked. “No, she sure didn’t.”

“YOU’RE BACK,” May drawled, glancing up from the inventory-order forms on the counter. She smiled. “That must have been one of the longest thank-yous on record.”

“Sorry. I stopped for lunch on the return trip. I can stay late to make up the time.”

May waved a hand. “Not necessary. You see how swamped we are in here.” Last month, they’d been busy with clients who wanted personalized Christmas cards and other holiday items, but most people who were going to purchase those had done so already.

“All right. I’ll just go check the store e-mail.” As Rachel sat at the computer, she could hardly concentrate enough to type in the password. Her thoughts kept drifting back to David.

He’d been utterly charming at lunch, darn him. He’d made Arianne laugh, and Rachel had reluctantly done the same. She could hardly sit through the meal glaring without letting her sister-in-law know there was a problem.

Their recent troubles had overshadowed the memories of their whirlwind courtship, how much she’d enjoyed merely being around him, how she’d smiled all the time. Lately she’d felt isolated, first by the medical side effects but most excruciatingly by losing her baby, and had been too caught up in her own suffering to notice how rare David’s smiles were growing. He put on a better public face than she did, but his family hadn’t been fooled. Arianne had actually commented today while they waited for the check that it had been a while since she’d seen her big brother in such a good mood.

Guilt tugged at Rachel, knowing how confused Ari would be by the forthcoming news of their separation. Of course, before she could worry about how David’s family took the news, she had to make sure David himself acknowledged their separation. The flowers and his presence at lunch today made it clear that he wanted her to give it another try for their child’s sake. Too much responsibility for an unborn baby. When the problems between them sharpened enough to cause discord further down the road, would one of them resent their kid for being the reason they were still together? She liked to believe that neither she nor David would ever be that petty, but she was routinely shocked by the way parents going through divorces could inadvertently hurt their children.

“Hey, I think I’m gonna go grab some lunch myself,” May said. When Rachel looked up and nodded in acknowledgment, the older woman winked. “But I promise not to bring back any fish.”

A few minutes later, the door opened and Belle Fulton, the executive secretary on the chamber of commerce board, bustled inside with a smile. Belle favored seriously bright shades of lipstick, so her grins were generally visible from a distance. “Happy holidays!”

Rachel grinned back. “Happy holidays to you. What can we do for you today?”

“Brochures. We’re trying to attract holiday shoppers to town, increase revenue for our members.”

“But—” Rachel bit her lip, realizing that her unsolicited comment was not entirely diplomatic.

Belle, however, cocked her head to the side, waiting. “Yes?”

“Nothing. I just … Are you intending to use these brochures this year? It seems like they could have done even more to attract tourist dollars if we’d printed them sooner. Not that it’s any of my business,” she added hastily.

Belle sighed. “No, you’re right. It just takes us a while to come to any decisions and then act on them. Volunteers make up half the chamber’s board, so this is on top of their normal jobs, plus we have a few very opinionated people. Then there was deciding how much it was worth to spend when we’re trying to make money. The first photographer—I shouldn’t even be telling you this—did such a lousy job that we had Gina Oster go back and do them over. Sweet of her, but she’s hardly a pro herself. We don’t have the budget for one.”

Later, as Rachel put together the files to print the brochures, she couldn’t help studying the pictures with a critical eye. The slogan wasn’t half-bad—Nothing Says Christmas Like Mistletoe—but the pictures were far too commercial. Potential tourists and holiday shoppers didn’t need to see images of the First Bank on Main Street, even if the bank had donated money for the project. No, what the brochure needed were homey photos of Kerrigan Farms and their rows of evergreen trees for sale. The mistletoe hanging in the white gazebo in the town square. Those were the scenes that would draw people; then once they were here, spending money would be a natural progression.

Rachel thought back to last week, when she’d half hoped for a computer error just so she had something to distract her from her personal life. No one at the chamber had asked for her input. Was she merely butting in out of self-preservation?

Maybe, she admitted, as she began typing some notes for Belle and the other directors. But needing the distraction didn’t preclude also having some darn good ideas. Busy brainstorming, she barely noticed how much time had passed until May walked back in the door. With a start, Rachel sat back in her chair. When was the last time she’d been so engrossed in something, so confident in her abilities to help a client?

Okay, not a client, exactly. She glanced at some of what she’d written, considered the pictures she could take to bring the ideas to life. At least, not yet.

Chapter Eight

“All right.” Rachel felt surprisingly unself-conscious about talking to her belly through the thin cotton of her pink T-shirt. “You’ve made your point.”

Today, she and David were supposed to meet at the OB’s office and find out for sure if she was pregnant. But the baby had chosen now to make its presence known beyond a shadow of a doubt. While Rachel had experienced increasing twinges of nausea in the past few weeks, this was the first time she’d truly succumbed to full-on morning sickness. The back door to the house was still open—she’d been letting the dogs out in the yard when she’d had to make a sudden run for it.

Hadn’t she read somewhere that an expectant mother tossing her cookies was a sign of a healthy, growing baby?

She got to her feet slowly in case the room had any plans of spinning again, then she went into the kitchen, planning to call the dogs inside and consider breakfast options. The pregnancy books she’d bought the first time were buried in a closet back at her and David’s house, but she remembered reading that, while it seemed counterintuitive, food would help ease the nausea. As she reached the back door, she heard the barking. She peeked her head out and saw the dogs with their noses pressed to the wooden planks of the fence. On the sidewalk beyond, David’s posture was sheepish. The hounds raised enough of a ruckus to wake the entire neighborhood.

When he saw her, he called, “I was just out jogging.”

“Of course.” She whistled, causing the dogs to glance her way. None of them actually came toward her, however. The two older ones were at least quiet now, but Hildie kept yipping her excitement. Rachel took another step outside, wincing at the cold of the ground through her fuzzy socks. “I don’t think they’re going to leave their post until you pass by.”

David didn’t seem in any hurry. “Well, I guess I’ll see you at Dr. McDermott’s office … unless you want to ride together?”

It was a seemingly innocuous suggestion, yet she was left with the distinct impression he hadn’t heard anything she’d tried to tell him in his office yesterday. “David—”

“You know, with gas prices being what they are,” he added, “and carpooling being the more environmentally friendly option.”

Exasperating man. “Sic him, Hildie.”

“Honestly, Rach, what are you worried about? The few minutes alone in the car can’t possibly be as intimate as the visit itself. I mean, we’re going to find out for sure whether or not we’ve created a new life, hopefully get to see the first sonogr—”

“Shh! It’s bad enough that the dogs probably woke up everyone in the subdivision. We shouldn’t be out here discussing private matters.”

“You’re absolutely right,” he said smoothly. “I’ll come inside.”

He went from leaning against the fence to sprinting before she had time to protest. She’d say this for him—he could move.

But paying him compliments was the furthest thing from her mind when she opened the front door. “I don’t want to ride with you.”

Peering at her beneath the foyer chandelier, he frowned. “Up close, you don’t look … I mean … Rough morning?”

“I guess there’s really no debonair way to tell a girl she’s green and disheveled.”

“You’re sick to your stomach, aren’t you? I’m an ass. You shouldn’t have been standing out in the cold talking to me—you should be off your feet. Why don’t you go relax, and I’ll make some coffee? No, caffeine’s bad for the baby. I’ll pour juice and—”

“You’ll go away,” Rachel said firmly. “I appreciate the sentiment, sort of, but I don’t need help.”

“Why are you being so stubborn?”

“Why are you? David, I don’t want you to take care of me.”

He surprised her by putting a hand across her abdomen. “It’s my baby, too, Rach. Let me be part of this. Don’t shut me out again.”

She flinched at his soft words. “I would never try to push you away where the baby’s involved.”

“There was a time I wouldn’t have believed you would push me away, period.” He let his hand drop away.

He blames me. Worse, on some level, so did she. “It’s not—it’s not like I set out to create distance between us. But there were times when it was hard to be around you.” Like the day the doctor had called with the results from the routine test confirming that David was not the infertile one.

Of course he wasn’t. Robustly healthy, he didn’t even have the decency to come down with the occasional flu so that she could commiserate with other wives about what a lousy patient he was. Hell, if he ever did get sick, he’d probably be perfectly gracious about it. A tangle of long-suppressed emotion bubbled to the surface—resentment for her do-no-wrong husband and self-loathing that she hadn’t been able to love him more unconditionally, that she’d ever allowed resentment to take root.

“You know, it wasn’t exactly me pushing you, it was more pulling away. Retreating like a turtle. For my own defense.”

“Defense? I never would have hurt you!”

Not on purpose, but it was amazing the accidents that could take place in close quarters. “You don’t think it hurt when you pushed me to put my miscarriage behind us like it never even happened?” She cupped her hands over her belly, as if the protective gesture could somehow keep such a thing from happening again.