Harlequin Superromance January 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: Everywhere She Goes\A Promise for the Baby\That Summer at the Shore (43 page)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

T
HEY
SAT
IN
companionable silence as Karl drove Vivian back to his mother's house. Which was good, because Vivian had a lot on her mind.

She'd meant what she said to Karl about not expecting happily ever after. It didn't mean she didn't
want
it, just that expecting it seemed a surefire way to get her heart broken. Plus, there hadn't been any courtship in Las Vegas or when she invited herself to live in his apartment. Even if a traditional happy family was in her future, she didn't want to miss out on the getting-to-know-you part of the relationship. Pregnant or not, she wanted to get a couple of dates out of the deal.

If she went back in time and told her eighteen-year-old self—the one desperate to escape the unstable world her father lived in and thrived on—that she wouldn't be pushing for absolute security at this point in her life, that younger self would smack her upside the head and call her crazy.

And crazy she might be. But seeing Karl's silliness last night made her wistful for a marriage based on more than a certificate and a baby. She wanted the trust that he'd shown her last night to underpin their entire relationship. No more doubts and no more suspicions. She wanted them to raise the baby in a home with two parents who loved and supported each other.

It was the best and most unrealistic thing she could hope for.

Up until that night in Vegas, Vivian hadn't purposely avoided marriage, but she had been afraid to tie herself to another person whose potential impulsiveness could ruin both their lives. Karl's impulsiveness—though she shared the blame for their situation—had changed her life completely. However, knowing him meant knowing that he took care of his responsibilities without question. If she was going to ask for the moon, she might as well ask for the stars, as well.

For the first time in her life, she wasn't going to take the safe road. Or be nervous that she didn't even know what the safe road was. She wasn't going to settle for something subpar because she was afraid of falling off a cliff. She was on the hunt for perfect, whatever that might be.

* * *

V
IVIAN
SPENT
THE
next week learning about Polish Easter traditions. When they weren't working, she and Susan cooked food for Sunday. There were the foods Vivian had expected—hard-boiled eggs, bread and ham—and the foods that surprised her, including making a cake in a lamb mold. Susan told Vivian to frost the cake, “so that you can learn and help my grandbaby when he's old enough.”

At Vivian's apologies for the alien-looking monstrosity of a dessert, Susan showed her pictures of the last cake Karl had decorated. Vivian protested that Karl had frosted that cake as a teenager and she was thirty-four, but Susan waved her off. “He might have been younger than you when he frosted that cake, but he'd been frosting them for years. This is your first one.” Then her mother-in-law took a picture of Vivian's creation, to add to her collection.

Everything they did to prepare for Easter seemed to involve lambs. Vivian helped Susan shape softened butter into a lamb mold. The greeting cards Susan had mailed out on Monday had lambs on them and many of the linens were embroidered with lambs. Susan even brought home sugar formed into lamb shapes.

Saturday morning and after a couple times practicing the word in front of a mirror, Vivian helped Susan pack a
Śwęiconka
basket. Into the basket went bits and pieces of each of the foods they would eat tomorrow, including enough hard-boiled eggs for each family member to have a good-size wedge of egg. Susan was going to take the entire basket to church so the food could be blessed.

As they packed the basket, Susan explained the symbolism of each item. “This is for joy and abundance,” she said, as Vivian handed her the small ham Susan had purchased especially for the blessing. Susan tucked the ham next to the ball of cheese (though it wasn't a cheese ball as Vivian recognized the term)—abundance (the ham) and moderation (the cheese) bundled together.

Before Vivian handed over the bacon—the last of the three pork products that went into the basket, all related to generosity and abundance of some kind, which Vivian found amusing though pigs probably found it less so—she asked her mother-in-law the question that had been on her mind since seeing Susan get into her car on Palm Sunday. “Does it bother you that I'm not Catholic?”

Vivian hadn't gone to any church services in the month she'd lived here. Since most of that month had been Lent, and Easter clearly meant more to the Mileks than an Easter egg hunt in the city park, Vivian felt as though her lack of religiosity was a bit of a scarlet letter on her chest. But, despite all the time they'd spent in the kitchen preparing food and now sitting around the table preparing a basket to take to church, Susan hadn't mentioned Vivian's lack of church attendance once.

Honestly, Vivian had felt more pressure to go to a church service on a Sunday during a very brief stay in Provo, Utah, before her father had decided that he wasn't cut out for fleecing people by preying on their religious beliefs. “It's easy money, but a man's got to have some standards,” he'd muttered to himself as they packed one night—quickly, so they could leave before dawn.

Susan gestured, and Vivian handed over the bacon. Her mother-in-law packed it in silence, her brows furrowed. Vivian had given up expecting a response and was passing the little container of salt when Susan sat back in her chair. As soon as she started talking, Vivian put down the salt and listened.

“Karl's ex-wife, Jessica, was everything I wanted in a daughter-in-law. And she was everything I thought Karl wanted in a wife. She was Polish—from Milwaukee—and Catholic and as smart as he is.”

Vivian ignored the unconscious insult; she wanted to hear what Susan had to say.

“But they couldn't make each other happy. They just expected too much out of each other. Karl doesn't expect anything from you.” Vivian didn't have to say anything about that insult because Susan realized what she'd just said and looked up in horror. “I didn't mean that the way it sounded. I meant Karl doesn't know what to expect out of you, so he's taking the time to get to know
you,
rather than his ideal of you. And it's the flesh and blood person that's going to make him happy, not the woman he thinks his wife should be like.”

Not sure what this had to do with going to Mass, Vivian kept her mouth shut and waited for Susan to finish her thought. “So I guess my answer to your question is that I'd rather Karl be happy than his wife be Catholic. And I expect that between the two of you, you'll raise my grandbaby to be a responsible citizen.”

Vivian wasn't sure if parental values were a perfect indicator of a child's values. If they were, she would've cheated when her father asked her to, the cheating wouldn't have bothered her, she wouldn't have gone to the bar to drink herself forgetful, she wouldn't have met Karl and she wouldn't be in Susan's kitchen right now, stuffing a basket full with symbolic food.

But the present didn't seem like the time to mention any of this to Susan.

“I'd like my grandbabies to be raised Catholic. I hope there will be many of them and that I live long enough to see their First Communions. However, one grandchild has already been raised Lutheran and I survived that.” Susan must be referring to the child Renia gave up for adoption in her teens. “And Maria is still my favorite sister, Buddhism and all.”

So the answer was that her daughter-in-law not being Catholic bothered Susan, but not enough for her to say anything, and she was respectful enough of their relationship not to pressure Vivian. They packed the basket with a few other foods, and Susan continued to tell Vivian the meaning of each item they added. Only when Susan was covering the basket with linen did Vivian realize their previous conversation wasn't yet over.

“What I really want,” Susan said, “is for family traditions to continue. I think it's important for children to know that their great-grandparents also made eggs on Easter for the priest to bless and that they have a connection to those long-dead family members.”

“Back in the old country.”

Though Vivian said the words with a smile, so Susan would know she meant them kindly, she needn't have worried. Susan just laughed and said, “Yes, back in the old country. Learning Pawel and I shared some of the same traditions that first Easter we were married—even though my family has been in the U.S. since before the Revolutionary War and his parents were new immigrants—made me feel like it was meant to be. You see, I'd made a rash decision and was looking for signs I'd made the right one.”

That search for signs was familiar. Vivian had felt the same way the first night in Karl's apartment when she'd woken up to a cup of coffee. Her coffee had been cold, but the gesture was unmistakable. “Karl speaks about you and his father as if you were a perfect love story.”

“I saw Pawel at Healthy Food and knew he was going to be my husband. Even still, the two of us spent many years, with young children in tow, figuring out what being husband and wife meant. Karl probably isn't too young to remember those days, but he wouldn't focus on them. He idealizes Pawel.”

Susan patted the basket. “Traditions adapt, as they should, for each generation. I hope you and Karl will keep them up after I am dead, even if you have to change them a little to fit whatever future I could never imagine.”

Vivian stopped herself before responding with, “You're too young to be talking like that.” Susan was only a month away from a heart attack. Her mortality probably still weighed heavily on her mind, even if the doctors said she was doing everything she needed to do in order to see another twenty years and more grandchildren.

Instead, she promised her mother-in-law they would continue the traditions so their children would know their history. The promise was easy to make. Vivian had grown up with few traditions, though her father talked about some he had been raised with. As it had just been the two of them, they had always gone to the fanciest hotel in whatever town they were in for Thanksgiving, and they'd exchanged presents at Christmas, though, as she got older, Vivian had begun to suspect some of the presents were ill-gotten. When she was a teenager, her father had put money into her college fund for Christmas and her birthday.

What was harder for Vivian to promise was that she
and
Karl would teach their child these traditions. The
and
part of that promise was still up in the air.

“We can add in traditions you grew up with.”

Like the Easter egg hunts that Vivan would attend, if whatever town she and her dad were in at the time offered one.

“If you want,” Susan said softly when Vivian didn't respond.

“My dad wasn't really into traditions, but my aunt may know a few that she and my mom grew up with.” Vivian made a note to call her aunt and ask about them. And her grandparents? She didn't even know if they were still alive. When her aunt Kitty had left, so had Vivian's connection to her maternal grandparents. And her father had never talked about his parents, except for regularly reminding Vivian how much freer her childhood had been compared to his.

“So, yes, I want.” She had friends in Las Vegas and had shared some of their traditions on holidays—if they weren't working—but never allowed herself to think about her family. Thinking about what her dad had denied her growing up just made her mad, and she didn't want to spend her time mad at her father. No matter his faults, he was her father and she wasn't going to get another one. However, if she concentrated too much on the good memories, she was easy prey when he called and asked her to send him money. Her relationship with her father was the two-faced Janus and she just tried not to look.

Could being a part of a family give her the courage to face both sides of her father without losing herself?

“Good, dear.” Susan patted her hand with affection. “And, even though I've not asked, you're always welcome to come to Mass with me.”

“I know. I appreciate both the welcome and the not asking.”

Vivian had spent sixteen years in Las Vegas and developed a community around herself. She'd had friends and known the folks who worked at her favorite coffee shop, but it was different than the community that Susan was inviting her to join. Las Vegas had been transitory, especially toward the end when the economy was crashing and so many of her friends were leaving for greener pastures.

Chicago—and Archer Heights—felt permanent.

CHAPTER TWENTY

F
OR
THE
FIRST
time since they had all been living in Chicago as adults, his mom had convinced all her children to go to Mass. Easter Mass was especially long, and by the end Karl was pretty sure most of his siblings and their significant others were regretting their decision, though only Miles's daughter was saying anything. Dan was elbowing Tilly and rubbing his behind, making his sister laugh. Once, Dan had made his sister cry until she was almost empty of tears, and now he could make her laugh as easily as he could blink his eyes.

And that's what Karl had always enjoyed about the Easter service, long as it was. Easter and spring represented rebirth and second chances. During the worst years of his first marriage, second chances had always seemed like a burden. A burden to Jessica to grant and a burden to Karl to have to keep asking for. With Vivian, asking for a second chance seemed glorious—as though the sanctuary had been dark and all the lights were now being turned on in celebration.

Disgorged from their cars, the Mileks and their significant others spilled into his mom's kitchen. Vivian was sitting at the table reading. She looked both at home and as though she didn't belong there.

“Where's breakfast? I'm starving.” Sarah looked put-upon, as only well-cared-for teenagers and dogs can.

“First things first.” His mother bustled through the crowd to sit at the table. She buzzed with energy, her face alight with the pleasure of being surrounded by family. “Before the boys get to work on breakfast, we all have eggs to eat.”

“Easter is a day of rest for Polish women. Dan, Miles and I will finish whatever is required for breakfast while the rest of you sit in the living room,” Karl explained at the puzzled look on his wife's face, coming around to stand behind her and placing his hand on her shoulder. She leaned over to drop a peck of a kiss onto his hand. A small, insignificant gesture that she probably didn't even notice she made but that started Karl's heart racing.

“It seems like cheating, since your mom made most of the food already, and all you have to do is put it on the table.”

Tilly laughed. “It's even more of a lie because our job is to keep Mom from busting into the kitchen and ‘resting' by telling everyone what to do.”

“Trust me, there's nothing restful about that task,” Renia said.

“I'll be good this year,” Karl's mother said, as she got up to walk over to the
Śwęiconka
basket.

Miles stopped her. “You can start by letting me get out the eggs while you sit back down. Dan will get you coffee.”

“As the only male foodie in the group,” Dan said with his good-natured grin, “I think I should be responsible for the food. You're married to the woman who searches the internet for intravenous coffee drip patents once a month. You can do the coffee.”

“And it begins,” Karl whispered into Vivian's ear. He stood up straight and addressed the crowd. “I'm the oldest and only Pole with a Y chromosome in this crowd. I'll decide what everyone does. Dan, you peel and slice the eggs. Miles, you make coffee. If you don't have a Y chromosome, go sit in the living room.”

“I don't think it's very restful to be bossed about by my son,” his mother murmured, but she said it good-naturedly
and
while walking out of the kitchen on Tilly's arm. The clamor in the room was cut in half, which Karl was grateful for, but Vivian was no longer in touching distance, which he wasn't so grateful for.

Dan dug the hard-boiled eggs out of the basket and took them over to the sink. “What do you think the chances are they'll stay in the living room?”

Karl felt rather than saw Vivian return to the kitchen. “Not good,” she said. “I came in to get a glass of water, but if you really want to keep us out, you can give me a bell to ring whenever we need something.”

“I'll bring you a glass of water. Go back and sit with Mom before she gets any ideas.” He leaned over and kissed Vivian's cheek, grateful she had come into the kitchen so he could see her again and smell her jasmine perfume.

When he turned back around, Miles and Dan were both looking up at the ceiling a little too obviously. Miles was whistling.

Sometimes life was easier without family.

Karl thought about his family members, dead on the side of the road or dying in the hospital, and reevaluated his thoughts. If Leon could be here in this kitchen, Karl wouldn't mind any teasing his brother would subject him to.

The coffeepot and the other things he needed were in the same place they had been since the first Easter he could remember. The platter for the eggs was new—
Babunia
had dropped the original sometime when her hands had started to shake—but the silver coffee set had been a wedding gift from some family friend his mom didn't even keep in touch with anymore.

Miles filled the coffeepot and gathered cream and sugar. Karl made several trips to the living room with coffee cups for everyone. Dan, foodie that he was, wasn't satisfied with slicing the eggs and sticking them on a plate; he arranged a smorgasbord of
Śwęiconka
foods decoratively around the eggs. Miles waited until Dan's back was turned, then rearranged the food on the platter so that the sugar lambs looked like an army led by the butter lamb, ready to conquer the pile of sliced ham. Dan just sighed and rolled his eyes when he saw the platter again.

In the living room, Vivian was using her ultrasound images to successfully distract his mother from her normal “resting” state of offering helpful suggestions to the kitchen. Even though she'd seen the images many times before, his mother still cooed.

Karl could understand some of the amazement. At eleven weeks, the ultrasound images of the baby had so much more detail than they had just a few weeks ago. He couldn't believe that the mouse he'd seen at Vivian's first doctor's appointment now looked something like a baby with a head, arms and legs.

He finally understood what people meant when they said pregnant women glowed. Sitting in his mother's living room, surrounded by family, Vivian lit up his life. And he knew why he'd thought she didn't look as though she'd belonged at his mother's kitchen table. Karl didn't want Vivian living with his mother. He wanted her back at his apartment, living with him. He wanted her to look as if she was
visiting
when she sat at his mother's kitchen table, not as if she was
home
there.

Vivian was family. She was his wife. She was carrying his child. She should be in his apartment, with him.

* * *

T
HE
HOUSE
HAD
fallen increasingly silent as each of the Mileks had left for their own homes. Now, only Susan, Vivian and Karl were left and Karl was about to leave. Only he wasn't leaving. He was standing in the doorway wearing his coat, scarf and hat saying, “Vivian, I think you should come home.”

Did he think she was going to grab her coat and walk out the door with him?

Vivian couldn't help recalling a similar scene in his apartment, while he stood, bundled in his winter clothes, telling her where to live....

Wherever she was, she was never in the right place, as far as Karl Milek was concerned.

She wouldn't cry, not when he was looking like somber business-Karl even though they were talking about where she should live. It wasn't business, but she could pretend it was just as well as he could. The emotion he'd shown over Easter breakfast, little touches and that familiar kiss, made treating this conversation like business harder, but not impossible.

Now he looked detached from the emotional world and she was back to wondering where—as his pregnant wife—she fit into his life. She turned her back to him and walked to the couch, leaving him to shut the door and follow. “When I first showed up at your apartment, you insisted my home was Nevada. I can't go back there, so where do you mean for me to go?”

She sat on the couch, trying to lounge, as if this conversation was no big deal. As if he couldn't break her heart again. When she lifted her head to consider him with what she hoped was the ease of a woman regarding a painting of fruit on the wall, his face had tightened and the little tic at the base of his jaw had started. Reading all of his emotions from that barely visible twitch was getting tiresome. “Home with me, Vivian. I think you should come home with me.”

Maybe if he had shown more emotion—maybe if he had asked her while making an inappropriate and macabre joke or while she could see what the silly pattern on his boxers was tonight—she would've said yes. But everyone said “yes, sir” to Karl when his jaw tensed, and so she lifted her elbow to rest on the arm of the couch and said, “Why?”

“The doctors have told us repeatedly that it's fine for Mom to live by herself again.”

“That's only a reason for why I don't need to live with
her
anymore. Why should I move back into your apartment?” She wanted him to say the words. To say he wanted her and that he not only understood why she'd nearly cheated, but also that he didn't care.

“You're my wife.” He stepped farther into the living room and reached out for her thickened stomach, but didn't come close enough to touch. “You're carrying my child.”

Vivian could no longer distinguish between heartburn and anger, but Karl was causing one of them. “Until we get a divorce...”

His hand recoiled back to the side of his body. The tic in his jaw sped up and his face darkened. At least his emotions were strong, even if he would never reveal them.

She repeated herself. “Until we get a divorce, I am your wife no matter where I live. This baby—” she put her hands over her belly as if she could protect the growing child from a father who would never laugh with it “—will always be your child.”

Karl didn't say a word. He just stood in silence and she didn't have the patience to wait him out. “Besides, I like your mom. I like living with your mom. I like working at Healthy Food. Why should I leave a place where I'm content to go where I'm not completely welcome?”

“For God's sake, Vivian!” The vehemence in his voice pushed her back into the cushions. “I just asked you to come home with me. How much more welcome can you be?”

He was right. If she continued to live with Susan and work at Healthy Food, she and Jelly Bean would be fine. If they got a divorce, the Mileks wouldn't stop being a family to her just because she wasn't married to Karl. He would provide child support, she could slowly build up her savings again, and she would have a measure of security and family.

If she moved back with Karl—if she stayed his wife because she was his wife—she would never want. Jelly Bean wouldn't want. Tilly and Renia would stay her sisters-in-law in actuality, not just because they liked her. Susan would stay her mother-in-law, not just the grandmother of her child. She wouldn't be working at Healthy Food to build up her savings; she would be working there because she enjoyed it. Family and security—permanence—beckoned from Karl's apartment.

She pulled herself out of the cushions and sat rigid on the couch. “It's not enough.”

“What's not enough?” He stepped closer to her, but still not close enough that he would be able to touch her. Was he afraid to touch her? “My apartment's not enough? My money's not enough? The opportunity I'm offering you to have a
home
isn't enough? Tell me, Vivian, what about my offer isn't enough?”

“I want more.” Living a half-life because it was a secure life wasn't enough anymore. “I want to live with my husband because he loves me, not because I'm his wife.”

“You
are
my wife.” Another step closer. “You're carrying my child. You belong in my house.”

“Belong?” She arched an eyebrow at him.

Karl's bottom jaw jutted forward until Vivian was afraid his entire face would crack. “You risked driving from Las Vegas to Chicago because you knew I wouldn't abandon my obligations, so don't look at me like you suddenly think I'm a caveman.”

“I don't want to be your wife because I'm pregnant and you are a man who meets his obligations. I want to be a wife because life is better with a partner. A month ago, what you're offering me now would have been enough for me. It's not, anymore. I want it all.”

He took a step back. “I don't have any more to offer.”

“Then I'll stay with Susan and work at Healthy Food for as long as she'll let me.”

“And after that?”

These were the scariest words Vivian had ever had to say, but she said them anyway. “If Susan fires me and kicks me out of her house, then I'll figure out what to do. I'll be fine. But I'm not willing to give up happily-ever-after for a guaranteed roof over my head. That's not good enough for me.”

Then she stood and fled to the kitchen, before she could change her mind.