Something Unexpected (14 page)

Hic!

A glass of water was lifted to her lips. Dean again. Gratefully, she took long, breath-stealing gulps and then waited a moment. Calm.
There. Now please let that be the end of it.
She pushed the glass aside. Where was the ring?

“Dean.” She focused on his eyes. Kind and, yes, honest eyes. “Dean, I—”

Abruptly, droplets of sweat popped onto her forehead and above her upper lip and then…pretty much everywhere else very quickly. Rosemary had a sudden mental image of the food in her stomach looking like dozens of crazed beavers building a dam against white water. Her hands went round her middle.

Hold on, Rosemary. Just hold on. The man deserves a proper response.

“Dean.” She shoved a smile to her lips. “I…I… Uh-oh.”

The restroom was on the main level of the restaurant, ten steps up from the cellar.

Rosemary wasted no time. She made a run for it, leaving behind a roomful of spectators and Dean, who doubtless would remember this moment for the rest of his days.

It looked as if the second proposal she'd received in her life was going to be even harder to put a spin on than the first.

 

“Rosemary, it's Dean. I'm coming in.”

Too busy to argue, Rosemary continued giving up her dinner as Dean entered the women's room. Unoccupied save for the pathetic barfing pregnant woman, the bathroom was not,
alas, as soundproof as Rosemary would have wished. She heard the clinking of china and glasses and the hum of the diners. Then, directly behind her, came Dean's softly uttered swear.

“Aw, Rosie…”

He held her hair, stroked her back then brought her a moist paper towel. Any embarrassment Rosemary might have suffered dissipated beneath the quilt of comforting murmurs and Dean's immensely soothing back rub.

Who knew how many minutes passed before he asked, “Is it always this bad?”

Rosemary shook her head, dabbing her brow with the towel as she leaned against the sink. “Days aren't great, but I stick to crackers and toast so I can't get too sick.” Folding the damp paper, she tossed it in the trash. “Nights are usually fine.”

“Unless you're proposed to?” His voice was rich with irony, but devoid of anger.

“Oh, my. You really are a nice man,” she said softly, surprising a wince out of him.

“Rosie—”

“No, truly. I…I can see that, and I'm sorry I've made things so difficult.”

“Rosie, I need—”

“I accept your proposal.” She made a face. “Obviously I accept it. I mean, we planned it, but…you didn't have to do it this way, with so much thoughtfulness, and I appreciate it.”

“Yeah. Ro—”

“Unless, of course, you want to rescind it after all this.” She laughed, but became acutely aware that every part of her, every tiny little part of her, hoped he would say,
Hell no, I'm not rescinding anything.

Good golly crackers, she truly was starting to believe in him. Maybe she'd begun to believe in him a while ago, and that accounted for the nerves—

“Oh, my gosh,” she realized suddenly. “I'm not hiccuping.” She blinked at the realization, waiting to be sure. “They're gone. I'm accepting a marriage proposal to a genuinely nice man, and I'm not hiccuping!” The hope she'd squashed so ruthlessly began to peek through her season of disillusionment, like the sun finding it's way through a break in the clouds.

Dean arched a brow. “This is progress, I take it?”

She nodded and whispered, “This is progress.”

Some expression she couldn't identify lingered until at last his gaze cleared to azure blue. He reached a hand into his coat pocket.

In the modest but homey ladies' room of the Honeyford Inn, Dean proposed to Rosemary again, without the bended knee and tender words this time (they really did need to get out of the bathroom), yet Rosemary felt more content accepting him than she'd ever imagined she could be.

Slipping the ring on her finger, he said, “I guessed at the size. And the gemstone.”

She ought to have protested a ring so costly, particularly when theirs was a union with start-stop dates. If the marriage ended—
when
the marriage ended—she would give the ring back to him, but for now, after upchucking at his first attempt to formally propose, Rosemary was determined to be gracious. “I think rubies are lovely. So different.”

“We began differently.” He held her hand, the low lights making the heart-shaped stone glow warmly. “Maybe we'll end on an up note.”

Or,
Rosemary thought for the first time, shocked when she didn't freak out at the thought,
maybe we won't end at all.

They exited the restroom together, and Rosemary was stunned to find a group of people from the cellar waiting for them, plus most of the upstairs diners turned their way to see what the fuss was about.

“Isn't that the new librarian?”

“Really? Was she drinking?”

“So did she say yes or no?” asked one of the women from the cellar. “I didn't hear.”

Rosemary felt her left hand clasped and squeezed. She glanced up.

Dean smiled, just for her. His upstage eye closed in a private wink. Then, turning toward the dining room, he raised their hands for everyone to see. The ruby ring drew wide-eyed stares. And a gasp from Annette.

“You're looking at the luckiest man in the world,” he said.

Annette's sweet face crumpled as she burst into happy tears. She and Josef embraced. “In our restaurant,” he blubbered, patting his wife's back.

Applause erupted from the small crowd gathered outside the bathroom and “Congratulations!” echoed around the dining room.

Rosemary couldn't help it: she started to cry, too…because everyone was so sweet, and because Dean sounded so sincere and because, if only in this moment, she was able to set aside the facts surrounding her engagement and focus on the feelings. And what she felt—even if it would only be for this one moment—was like the world's luckiest woman.

“Y
ou're playing with fire.”

Fletcher leaned against the outer wall of a horse stall, eating his pecan roll while Dean viciously stabbed clean hay with a pitchfork.

“I know it,” Dean growled, spreading the straw around the interior of the stall. “Don't you think I know that?”

Fletcher shrugged. “If you know it then why are you here shoveling hay instead of coming clean about the will with Rosemary? And what is it about my ranch chores that attract you when you're hiding out? Not that I'm complaining.” Lifting a red Honey Bea's travel mug, he took a long pull of coffee.

“I need the physical outlet.” Dean pushed the words through gritted teeth. “I can't release tension counting pills.”

“Understandable.” Fletcher swirled the coffee inside the mug. “According to Claire, half the town is babbling about your engagement. Very romantic and all that crap. You might
have been better off keeping things private if you're not going to tell Rosemary the truth. Keep things a little more low-key to spare her feelings in the long run.”

“Thanks for the tip, Dr. Phil.” Dean took another ferocious stab at the hay. “How many people know about the will?”

“Aside from you and me?” Fletcher popped the rest of the pecan roll in his mouth and thought. “Claire, of course. Gwen.”

Dean nodded. Their father's mistress was the mayor of Honeyford and the executor of Victor's will. Fortunately, Gwen was also an eminently reasonable woman. She believed the marriage codicil to be a huge mistake. Although she loved Honeyford and had numerous plans to bring more revenue to the often-struggling town, she did not want to feather Honeyford's nest with Fletcher or Dean's inheritance. She'd sold Pine Road Ranch back to Fletcher for a dollar.

Dean stopped working and backhanded sweat off his brow. “I approached Gwen about buying the building on Main if I default on the will. She thinks she'll get resistance from the city council. You were right—Doug Thorpe's been badgering the city to buy up stores and find lessees with upscale businesses. He's not going to go for a low-cost, bilingual medical clinic.”

Fletcher nodded. “So why aren't you telling Rosemary the truth? That inheriting the building is going to benefit people who sorely need a medical clinic.”

Dean sighed, feeling out of touch with himself for perhaps the first time in his life. “I planned to. The morning after I proposed. After I made it clear to the town how I feel about her, so there won't be any question about why we're marrying.” Fletcher would understand that. He had been bound and determined not to allow any demeaning gossip to affect his wife on account of the blasted will. “I was going to tell her about the will and the clinic and then let her know that I'm
going to forfeit the building, because I don't want that hanging over our heads for the next two years. I want to make this marriage work. I need this family to work.”

“So what happened?” Fletcher asked.

“I got a letter.” Dean rubbed the back of his neck. He was working on a forty-eight-hour headache ibuprofen hadn't been able to touch. “From a doctor who wants to help open and then work in the clinic.”

“I didn't know you'd started recruiting already.”

“I haven't,” Dean said. “I've been working on grants. She found out about it from an aunt who knows Alberto.”

“She. The doc is a woman?”

“Esmeralda Duran. Her mother is Guatemalan. Father's Spanish. Esmeralda trained as an EMT then went to UC Irvine for her medical degree. She's coming off two years of volunteer work in Guatemala.”

“Speaks Spanish then.”

“Fluently. Wrote eloquently about how she wants to support the community not only with medical aid, but also education. She heard about Clinica Adelina from an aunt who lives in the area. The aunt heard about it from Alberto.”

Fletcher whistled. “Perfect. But if you default on the will…”

“I'll have no building. I've got a real-estate agent combing the area for something suitable.”

“But you'll have to buy the building or pay rent.”

“Right. It'll be a setback, not one I'm sure we can conquer soon. How do I tell Alberto the plans are on hold, indefinitely? And how do I turn away a doctor who can make it all come together?”

“By keeping your mouth shut, getting married to the mother of your child and hoping she'll understand when the truth comes out?”

Grimacing, Dean nodded slowly. “That might be my plan,” he admitted.

Fletcher wagged his head. “Poor dumb, love-struck bastard. I mean that in a good way.” He swirled the coffee in his mug, his expression changing from something almost affectionate to a thoughtful frown. “All these years I've never asked you…what was it like for you, growing up with Jule as a stepmother?” His mouth quirked ironically. “And me as a brother? That must have scared you off starting a family. At least a little.”

The question caught Dean by surprise. Though they shared the same father, he and Fletcher had been born to vastly different mothers. Victor Kingsley had married twice in his life—first Dean's mother, by all accounts a gentle and gracious woman who had died from cancer when Dean was only five, and then Jule, a far more flamboyant, mercurial and, ultimately, troubled young woman.

“I thought the early years were good,” Dean said carefully. “Until Jule's bipolar disorder got really out of hand, there were some happy times for all of us. But I've never blamed her, Fletch—or you—for the problems.”

Fletcher nodded. “Well, thanks for that. The problems, though…the fights and the separations…they make you wonder whether you can do it differently, don't they? Victor wasn't the greatest role model when it came to open lines of communication. I've had nights when I've woken up in full panic, wondering if I can give my kids a decent childhood, wondering whether I even know what that looks like.”

Perspiration that had zilch to do with physical activity covered Dean's brow. He had an abrupt urge to bolt, leaving the stall—and the conversation—unfinished.

“You seem to be doing a good job,” he told his brother. “The boys are happy. And you're already your daughter's hero.”

The cowboy who had once seemed impervious to a
vulnerable moment began to look slightly green. “Yeah, that's now. I just thank God for Claire. She straightens me out when I start to stress.”

“Well, this is great. Two grown men panicked over relationships.”

“You want to email Dr. Phil?”

“Nope.”

Dean shook his head. He was so screwed. Smitten by a woman—utterly, thoroughly smitten—for the first time in his life. About to become a husband and, in a few months, a father. Beneath the fear, he was excited about all of it, yet he couldn't get to know Rosemary—or rely on her for support—because of this thing, this lie, hanging over them. In addition to his headache, he'd been nursing serious nausea all day and wondered if he was experiencing sympathetic morning sickness or simple guilt.

“I'm forfeiting the building. I have to. I can't explain this to Rosemary in a way that will make sense.”

“You mean you can't explain it in a way that won't make her think she's marrying into a family of lunatics.”

On even the worst days of his life, Dean had been able to calm his mind and his body, to keep his reactions sane and focused. Millie, who'd worked at King's since Dean was a kid, had once told him he would never need a blood-pressure pill. It appeared those days were gone; he felt as if the pressure in his body were going to pop his head off like a cork.

Smacking his fist again the stall, he said, “I need the kind of chance we'd have if this were a normal relationship.”

“Kingsleys don't do normal.”

“I do.”

“You gave it the old college try,” Fletcher agreed. “But you were alone. Try to do ‘normal' now that you're alive below the neck.”

Dean longed to take offense. Before Rosemary, he'd have
argued that his emotions were present, simply calm and sane, unlike Fletcher's. Now he knew better. Now he knew what passion was.

“I can't tell Rosemary about the will, not yet. I've started my family with more baggage than we can handle. I've got to get rid of the problem, and that means forfeiting the building.”

Once the words were out, Dean felt a weight lift from his shoulders. “I'll talk to Doug and the rest of the city council, try to make them understand how necessary the clinic is for the underinsured. Maybe they'll do the right thing and donate the building for the clinic.”

“Will you tell Alberto?”

The weight pressed down again, like a lead yoke. “I'll have to. But not until I speak to Gwen and the others. And look around for another venue if I have to. Alberto has the most riding on this.” His stomach began to churn, and he wondered if love made that a continual state of affairs. “He's got to make sense of his daughter's death.”

Fletcher's sober gaze skewered his brother. “And Rosemary? What's next?”

“That's easier,” Dean said, praying he was right. “We get married. Fall in love and have a baby. In that order.”

 

Dean and Rosemary sittin' in a tree. K-i-s-s-i-n-g. First comes marriage, then comes love, then comes Dean Jr. in a baby carriage….

Rosemary stared at the skinny platinum band that had joined her engagement ring four days ago, the singsongy lyrics of the old children's melody playing in her mind as she wondered what to wear. Dean would be home…home to her house…in half an hour.

She had dinner—chicken, shallot and baby portabello casserole in a sublime Burgundy sauce—bubbling in the oven. She'd set the table with multicolored braided tapers and the
blown-glass stemware she'd purchased after regifting Vi with her wedding crystal. Three potential outfits were laid out on the bed, awaiting her decision. A lot had changed in four days.

She had married Dean in Reno on Saturday. They had “honeymooned” for a couple of days then returned to Honeyford last night. This evening he was going to begin the process of moving into her place.

Rosemary stood at the foot of her queen-size bed, trying to decide between jeans and a boat-necked pullover in powder blue or a more formal skirt and sweater combo, when the phone rang.

Checking the caller ID, she smiled. “Hi, Daph. I was going to try you tomorrow.”

“That is way too late.” Her friend's voice sounded muffled.

“Watcha doin'?” Rosemary asked, holding the blue sweater up and tilting her head at the mirror. “You sound funny.”

“I'm eating coconut-milk ice cream,” she said around an apparently large mouthful. “It's
sooooo
good. Have you ever tried it?”

“Which flavor?”

“Coffee chip for dinner. I had Almond Joy as a midafternoon snack—that was good, too—piña colada for lunch, and triple-fudge-brownie for breakfast. My commitment to celibacy is going really well.”

Rosemary smiled. “Sounds like it.”

“So how about you? You've been married four whole days…and nights. Are
you
still celibate?”

“Yes.”

“Bummer.” Daphne shoved another spoonful of coffee chip into her mouth. “How was the wedding?”

Rosemary returned the sweater to the bed and moved to her dresser to pluck a pair of turquoise drops from an earring
tree. “It was nice. I thought we'd get married at city hall or next to a blackjack table, but Dean found a chapel that was actually kind of sweet. Pitched roof, white gingerbread trim, pansies out front….”

“Awwww. Were you married by a minister?”

“I don't know. He had teased hair and offered an Elvis option. Does that say
minister
to you?”

Daphne laughed. “From the church of Elvis, yes. Did Dean kiss you?”

“Um, chastely.”

“Darn. What did you do after you got married?”

“Well—” Rosemary poked the earrings into her lobes “—as we left, the minister's wife tossed birdseed and then handed us a pamphlet of their services, which include but are not limited to shuttle service to and from local casinos, infant baptism and marriage-dissolution counseling should the need arise.”

“Sounds like every girl's dream wedding.”

“Yup. Once we were alone, there was a moment of, shall we say, extreme awkwardness outside the chapel. Then Dean kissed my hand and said, ‘Thank you for marrying me. Let's go somewhere else for the infant baptism.'”

Daphne laughed. “I like your husband.”

Happy bubbles, reminiscent of the champagne she hadn't been able to drink, floated up from Rosemary's stomach. “I like him, too,” she whispered, so softly she wasn't sure her friend heard until Daphne whooped.

“Details, please!”

Rosemary smiled. She and Dean had “honeymooned,” otherwise known as Making the Marriage Look Real, by driving to Virginia City, where they had shopped, played slot machines (Rosemary won forty dollars on an old-fashioned nickel machine) and ate excellent chili at a little hole-in-the-wall. They returned to Reno at night, went to their—
separate
—
rooms, changed and attended a performance of Cirque du Soleil. And they talked.

They talked about Dean's college days and hers, about their favorite childhood hobbies (bug collection and tennis for him; cooking in her Easy-Bake Oven and ice skating for her), and about child-rearing philosophies (they had both purchased Patrice Moore's
Back to Basics
and loved the common-sense approach).

Every night, Dean walked Rosemary to her hotel room, held her hand, kissed her cheek and said, “Thank you.”

Every night, she imagined how it would feel if he stayed.

When she admitted that out loud, Daphne's voice filled with wonder. “Honestly? You're falling for him?”