Sweetened With a Kiss (31 page)

Then there was more footage of Stefan delivering meals to elderly people. Work days at hospitals and convalescent homes. Coaching kids’ football games. All the things Jen knew he had done, but seeing it all in one long montage made her heart ache for ever doubting him. And she fell in love with him just a little bit more.

So did the daytime talk show cougars as they giggled and ran footage of him on a roof with a nail gun in nothing but cutoffs, work boots and a tool-belt.

“So he’s basically being arrested for rescuing his wife?” one host asked Matt when they interviewed him for a morning talk show. They ran the footage again of Stefan saving that dog on a split screen with Matt’s live broadcast from New Orleans. “How is that possible?”

“Well,” Matt took a deep breath. “That’s a complicated story, really. Stefan’s wife was involved in a serious automobile accident about ten years ago that killed her parents and her only brother.” Matt went on to explain about the trust and how the Sellers had been named as Jen’s guardians by Jen’s own parents.

“But she’s over twenty-one, isn’t she?” the former beauty queen asked.

“Yes, Jen is twenty-two.” Matt explained. “The Robicheauxs are alleging that due to the injuries Jen received in the car accident ten years ago, she isn’t competent to make her own decisions.”

“Not competent?” Her smooth voice went shrill with outrage. “You’re telling me that they are trying to declare her incompetent, so they can basically stage a hostile takeover of a company?”

“That’s exactly what we’re saying,” Jared Marshall added from next to Matt.

“We’ve also heard rumors that Jen is pregnant,” one of the younger hosts added.

Jared grinned. “We have no comment on that.”

The cougars went wild.

They were was so outraged that the Robicheauxs would try to break up these two wonderful young people starting out their life together and expecting their first child, that they immediately and predictably went on a witch hunt. It was a slow news week, which brought the major networks calling and started a parade of experts on fugue states, dissociative amnesia, trust funds, annulments, and any other detail they could use to fill air time. Not to be outdone, one network actually obtained Jen’s old medical records and built a computer graphic that demonstrated how her skull had been fractured.

“This cannot be happening,” Jen whispered as she watched animated pieces of her skull detach and reattach as head injury experts demonstrated that she had never suffered a brain injury.

She got a text message from Lizzie that said, “
Jen, is that your brain on TV? That is so gross
.”

That’s when the stuffed animals started showing up at the St. Charles House. The porch and front yard were overrun with baby toys, cards, and candles. Someone had even made a Free Stefan Sellers poster.

By the end of the second full day of national media coverage, every court case Winston Robicheaux had ever presided over was in question. Bottom feeding attorneys were headed out to Angola in vans to talk to inmates and re-examine cases. Madlyn Robicheaux was under investigation by the Louisiana Bar and under attack by every female daytime talk show host who was outraged that she would use her own child to try to seize control of stock in a company.

And anyone who had ever written an article or book on the corruption in the Louisiana justice system suddenly got their fifteen minutes.

Jen immediately forgave the media for the animated brain graphic because soon they were featuring the front of the bakery just about every time they mentioned her name. Jared hired six people and started taking internet orders, even though they weren’t actually open yet.

By the end of the fourth day, all charges against Stefan had been dropped and the venerable firm of Robicheaux, Andrews, and Robicheaux, that had served Louisiana for the better part of seventy-five years, closed down without letting any of the employees know before the doors were locked. The new offices of Marshall and Marshall opened up in Sellers Tower and immediately held a press conference promising to partner with the district attorney’s office to investigate allegations of judicial misconduct.

Grant Marshall promised the citizens of Louisiana that he would not rest until they knew the full extent of Winston Robicheaux’s corruption.

Stefan was unavailable for comment, according to his attorney, because he had gone to get his wife.

So Jen sat on the beach that afternoon, smiling when she noticed the runner headed towards her. She watched him for a long time, convinced the ground wasn’t quite solid under his feet.

When he saw her, he altered course, and joined her in the sand a few minutes later.

“Hey, kiddo, you’re up early.”

She smiled as he sat down next to her, pulled off his running shoes, and sank his feet into the sand.

“I had the strangest dream,” she told him, pushing the long strands of hair the wind whipped across her face behind her ear.

“Really?” He was fighting a smile.

She sank her toes in the cool sand next to his and watched the sun sparkle silver on the waves, and just like that, absolutely everything was all right.

“I dreamed Jared told the whole world I was pregnant,” Jen said, trying not to smile because she really should be angry at him.

He lost his battle with the grin. “Well,” he announced, jumping to his feet and dragging her up with him. “We’d better make sure. We certainly don’t want to disappoint your boyfriend.”

Jen yelped as he swung her up in his arms and headed back towards her parents’ old beach house and did everything in his power to make sure she was pregnant before they returned to Louisiana.

A few months later, when Jen walked down the aisle in an obscenely expensive white wedding dress that skimmed tightly along her figure until it exploded in tulle, the pregnancy rumors were put to rest. No way could she be pregnant in that dress. Jared walked her down the aisle and reluctantly handed her over to Stefan, who leaned down and whispered in her ear, “Wait ’til you see my list for this dress.”

She smiled up at him. The sweet smile that he had quickly learned meant trouble. “And you haven’t seen my shoes yet.”

Robbie was Stefan’s best man, which meant there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Jen had relented and let the groomsmen wear tuxes. When it was time to cut the cake, Stefan wouldn’t let anyone have a piece of his secret weapon grooms cake, which was fine—it didn’t have icing, so no one else wanted any. The red velvet wedding cake Jared had made was demolished, except for the top tier. And if anyone thought the zombie bride and groom on the top of the cake was odd, they didn’t mention it.

And they danced and danced and danced. Stefan wouldn’t let her dance with anyone else until Mac cut in to dance with his daughter-in-law, and Rogan caught Stefan by the arm and dragged him away from her. So he danced with his mother after that. And Jen finally got to dance with the groomsmen who had been waiting impatiently all evening.

Stefan refused to let Jen change into her going away outfit so she still had her wedding dress on when he carried her over the threshold again at the house on St. Charles. Their friends ignored Stefan’s warning to stay away and showed up with more champagne. They sat around the fire pit in the back and Lizzie produced giant marshmallows and sticks. Why waste a good fire?

With the city, streetcars, and Jared’s acoustic guitar, they danced some more until Rogan said, “Jen, let’s give him our present.”

Jen agreed, sitting down in Stefan’s lap which suited him just fine because it gave him a head start on undoing the gazillion tiny buttons that ran the full length of her back. “We have company, Stefan,” she warned as she felt the first few buttons turn loose.

“Go home!” Stefan barked, but their friends only laughed. He was serious but too mellow to insist.

“Rogan, the envelope please,” Jen said dramatically.

Rogan handed Jen the envelope and she passed it to Stefan.

Stefan gave both of them skeptical looks as he opened it. “Plane tickets?”

“Rogan,” Jen laughed. “The other envelope.”

Rogan grinned and took another envelope out of his jacket pocket.

“What did you do?” Stefan asked softly, but he’d already seen the eBay logo through the envelope.

She shrugged. “Open it.”

He pulled out the printed auction showing one charity slot for the Iron Man World Championship. “Do you have any idea how much I love you?” he asked her.

“I really do,” she assured him, and they forgot they weren’t alone until Lizzie grabbed the paper away from him.

“Hawaii!” she cried. “We’re going to Hawaii! Wait! We are all going to Hawaii, right?” she demanded, hands on her hips and one eyebrow arched.

Jen laughed. “Would we go without you?”

“You have school,” Stefan told her.

Lizzie’s smile died, and her brother laughed. “Sucker.”

“My niece is due in October,” Lizzie warned him. “You’ll need me there. What if Jen goes into labor during the race?”

“I knew it!” Rogan exploded, and Jen and Stefan finally admitted they were pregnant. Elliot broke out more champagne and sparkling grape juice for Jen.

“Wait. How do you know it’s a girl?” Stefan asked his sister.

“She just is,” Lizzie said. And everyone knew better than to argue with Lizzie.

Jen laughed. “My due date isn’t until nine days after the race and first babies are always late.”

“Zachary was a week early,” Rogan added.

“Hush,” Jen warned him. “Really, what are the chances?”

Nearly eight hours into the Iron Man World Championship, with Stefan on track to shave ten minutes off his best time, Jen admitted she was in labor. When he was an hour from the finish line, race officials caught up with him on the track and gave him a message from Jen. “You wife says to remind you that the quickest way to her is straight ahead. But if you could pick it up just a little, you’re having a baby.”

Stefan finished the race twenty-five minutes earlier than planned.

“Are you really in labor or were you just trying to improve my time?” he asked, sinking down in front of her, when he finally reached her at their meeting spot at the village.

“Don’t kneel down. Get up. You need to walk,” Jen told him, grabbing hold of his shirt and pulling it over his head, then handing him the dry long sleeve T-shirt she’d brought him. “Keep walking, I’m fine. Lizzie, get his drinks.”

He pulled her up and slid his arm around her waist. “So let’s walk, Mrs. Sellers.”

“Shoes,” she said, as another contraction started. “Take off your shoes, then drink your smoothie.”

And she didn’t stop bossing him around until they reached the hospital and Presley Elizabeth Sellers made her debut two hours later.

“I think this is a sign she’s going to keep her daddy on his toes,” Lizzie told Jen, as they watched Stefan sleeping in one of the recliners with Presley sound asleep in the curve of his arm.

Jen kissed him lightly on the forehead and his eyes fluttered opened. “We had a baby,” he whispered, sleepy blue eyes dazed with joy.

“Yes,” she said, gently.

He looked down and saw the perfect rosebud of a baby asleep in his arms. “She’s so beautiful.” He smiled up at Jen. “Tell me again,” he whispered.