The Great Baby Caper (17 page)

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As Courtney drove back to work,
her cell rang. She punched on the receive button. “Hello?”

“Well, hello, dear,” came a familiar
female voice. “How is married life agreeing with you?”

“Vanessa!” Courtney cried. “I’ve
been meaning to give you a ring and . . . Gosh, it’s good to hear from you.”

“Well, you should be glad I’m not
calling you from prison.”

“Prison?” Courtney laughed.

“Yes, I somehow managed not to
murder Ham Bootle on our flight back to Denver.”

“Wait a minute, you’re kidding!”
Courtney exclaimed. “I thought he took the corporate jet back.”

“Unfortunately it remained
gasketless, or whatever, and was grounded in Denver. You can’t even imagine the
temper tantrum that man pitched when he discovered he had to ride home
commercial like the rest of us peons, and found himself once again joining me
on my flight.”

Courtney had to grin at that
delicious image. “Did you force him to sit in coach again?”

“What do you think his tantrum was
about?”

Courtney was delighted. “Good for
you, Vanessa. I’m all for teaching that old tyrant some humility, though it
seems an impossible task. I’ve only just returned to the office, and already
I’m ready to murder him.” She paused. “Anyway, Vanessa, I really did appreciate
your moral support at our wedding.”

“My pleasure. How was the
honeymoon?”

“Oh, fine,” Courtney answered, a
bit too casually. “Mark took me to Mackinac Island.”

“How romantic.” Vanessa paused,
then added wickedly, “From your coy tone, my dear girl, you must have had a
major lapse there.”

“Vanessa! I’m not being coy.”

“Oh, yes you are. Now you’re
sounding tense, another dead giveaway. Come on, you know you can’t hide
anything from Vanessa.”

Courtney gave a groan. She did
know she had no secrets from her very smart and insightful friend. Nonetheless,
she tried her best to dodge the subject. “If I sound tense, it’s probably
because I came back to a real mess at work. On top of that, Gilchrist, Gideon,
and Getz are all furious that I’ve been appointed CEO. Then after the transfer
of power in the conference room, Mr. Bootle stopped in at my office to
personally torment me.” She hesitated.

“Concerning what?” Vanessa
prodded.

After another pause, Courtney
confessed, “He informed me that Mark had told him our honeymoon was ‘entirely
satisfactory.’”

Vanessa chortled. “Now I
know
you had a major lapse. Did your husband really say that to Ham?”

“I just confronted Mark and he
admitted it.”

“Goodness, what a charmer that man
is.”

“Vanessa! Things are . . . well,
getting out of control.”

“For a woman in love, that’s the
best way for things to be, darling girl.”

“In love?” Courtney repeated, a
bit too sharply. “What makes you think I’m in love?”

Vanessa’s soft, knowing laughter
was her only response. Courtney brooded about her friend’s insights all the way
back to the office.

***

Courtney ran across Wally
Gilchrist in the hallway near her office. The paunchy little man adjusted his
glasses and faced Courtney with a sneer.

“Ah—so the queen bee returneth,”
he mocked.

“Wally, please,” she pleaded.
“Isn’t it bad enough the chill reception you, Al, and Gil gave me in the
boardroom this morning?”

“What do you think a thief deserves?”
he snapped back.

Courtney struggled not to cringe.
“Wally, that’s not fair—”

“Really? What do you call stealing
the promotion that I earned fairly and squarely?”

“Wally, I didn’t steal anything
from you. That decision was made by the chairman—”

“Who promised it to me, then
reneged, then gave it to you when you decided to be a good little girl, come
crawling back, and marry his grandson.”

Courtney struggled to retain her
patience. “If you feel that way, why not sue Mr. Bootle?”

He laughed nastily. “And get
myself labeled a turncoat, a troublemaker? You’d love to see that, wouldn’t
you?”

“I know you feel cheated, Wally,
but the fact is that we need to work together as a team. This was more than
demonstrated by all the bickering that went on here during my absence—”

“If Mr. Bootle had simply honored
his word and appointed me as CEO, none of that would have happened.”

“Perhaps not, but we must face
reality here. If you don’t feel you can continue to work under my leadership,
I’ll understand if you choose to leave.”

Wally whipped off his thick-lensed
glasses, anger flaring in his brown eyes. “Are you threatening to fire me?”

“No. But I’m saying that if you
don’t think you can work with me—”

“Because if you even try it, I
will
sue you—and M. Billingham Bootle, to boot. In the meantime, I’d advise you to
watch your back.”

Watching him wheel about and stalk
away, Courtney groaned. This was turning out to be a just peachy morning.

She continued on to her office,
and had scarcely gotten back to her desk when the phone rang. Frowning, she
picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

“Hi, dear, welcome back.”

Courtney sighed. “Hi, Mom.”

“I figured you two lovebirds would
be back in town by now, but you didn’t call.”

“Mom, we only got home last
night.”

“How was your honeymoon?”

Courtney bit her lip. “Fine.”

“You know your sisters and brother
are dying to meet Mark.”

“They will in time.”

She heard her mother gasp. “You
mean you’ve forgotten about tonight?”

“What about tonight?”

“The twins’ birthday party. You
promised you and Mark would attend.”

Courtney broke the pencil in her
hand. She’d completely forgotten about today’s birthday party for her sister
Caryn’s twin boys—and she had promised her mom, when they’d spoken by phone
last week, that she and Mark would attend. Now she shuddered at the thought of
being bombarded by her large—and likely ravenously curious—family tonight.

“Mom, I really think it’s too
soon,” she protested lamely.

“But you promised. First you tell
us you’re marrying a man you hardly know, and you won’t let your father and me
attend or give the two of you a proper wedding. Now you don’t want to introduce
your new husband to your family. What’s going on, Courtney?”

Courtney gritted her teeth.
“Nothing’s going on. Of course I want to introduce Mark. Just not tonight.”

“Too tired from your honeymoon?”
her mom teased.

“Sure, that’s it.”

“You know it will be an early
evening. Barbecue at six thirty, then you and Mark can be out of here by eight
or so—that is, if married life has you too tuckered out otherwise.”

Courtney groaned. “My heaven,
you’re persistent.”

“And while you’re here, your dad
and I would like to talk to you about the reception we still intend to throw
for you and Mark.”

“Mother!”

“So we’ll expect you both around
six o’clock?”

Courtney was silent.

“I mean it, Courtney. We won’t
take no for an answer.”

Realizing further argument was
futile, Courtney gave in with a sigh. “Yes, of course we’ll be there. Thanks
for thinking of us, and see you then.”

Hanging up the phone, Courtney
felt supremely frustrated. She wasn’t ready to introduce Mark to her family. Of
course she knew that they would all be charmed by him, likely love him at first
sight. That was what she was afraid of—that all of them would gang up on her,
embracing her marriage and giving it legitimacy, when she still wasn’t at all
sure what she felt and whether or not she and Mark would make it.

Even as she wrestled with her
dilemma, her phone rang again. Irritably, she yanked up the receiver. “What?”

She heard Mark whistle on the
other end. “Darling, are you okay?”

“Hardly,” she replied. “Sorry to
snap at you, but I’m having a rough day. What do you need?”

“Well, you promised to call me and
you didn’t.”

Courtney had to smile at his
impatience. “Mark, I’ve only been back at the office for ten minutes.”

“It seemed an eternity to me,” he
replied with an air of drama. “Not to mention, your line has been busy for the
last five.”

“So it has.”

“Are you going to tell me to whom
you were talking?”

“Not that you’re controlling or
anything,” she put in drolly.

“I’m not. Just curious.”

Courtney realized she really
couldn’t avoid answering. “Very well. If you must know, that was my mom. We’re
expected at my folks’ place tonight for my twin nephews’ birthday party.”

“That’s rather sudden.”

“Yes, it is, for you,” she eagerly
agreed. “Sorry, but it slipped my mind to tell you about it before, so if it’s
too short notice—”

“No, it sounds splendid,” he cut
in smoothly. “How old are these twins?”

“Two. And I just don’t see how we
can get out of the party.”

“Did I say I wanted to?”

“No, you’re being a sport,” she
readily conceded. “But I’m just not sure I’m ready to face all of them as yet.”

An edge of tension entered his
voice. “Ah—so you’re not ready to introduce your husband to your family?”

Courtney took a moment to quiet
her inner turmoil. “Look, Mark, this has been a tough day, and I really don’t
want to argue with you.”

“Very well. At any rate, I can’t
wait to meet your family. What time are we due there?”

“Six.”

“I’ll pick you up at your apartment
at five-thirty.”

“Fine.”

“Fine. See you then.”

***

At five-forty, Courtney walked
with Mark toward his car in the parking lot of her apartment complex. She wore
navy slacks, sandals, and a white knit top; he had donned khaki pants, Italian
loafers, and a navy plaid shirt.

As they neared the car, she was
bemused to see the shadowy outline of what appeared to be two passengers in the
back seat. She turned to him with a frown. “Did you bring along guests?”

“Indeed, I did.” He opened the
back door to the sedan and made an expansive gesture. “Meet Teddy and Freddy.”

“My God.” She stared at two plush
five-foot tall white teddy bears that grinned at her from the back seat. “What
inspired this?”

“It’s a birthday party, isn’t it?
Doesn’t tradition dictate that one bring a gift?” He winked. “Besides, under
the rushed circumstances, I thought you might have forgotten.”

She was forced to smile.
“Actually, I called our south Denver store and had them wrap and send out all
the appropriate two-year-old books and puzzles, and asked them to sign both of
our names.”

“How thoughtful of you.”

She gestured toward the Teddy’s.
“But I can hardly top these.”

“Yes, they’ll be an added treasure
trove for the twins.” He opened her door. “Shall we go?”

“Sure. Thanks.”

He ushered her in, went around to
his side and swung in beside her. As they made their way out of the garage, she
gave him directions on getting to her folks’ house.

Maneuvering the car onto the
freeway, he cast her a bemused look. “Are you really so uptight about seeing
your family, darling? Surely they aren’t monsters.”

“No, they’re not monsters at all,”
she admitted.

“Didn’t you say your mom’s a
homemaker, your father an air-conditioning contractor?”

She whistled. “You have a good
memory.”

“Tell me more about them, and your
siblings,” he urged.

“Well, there’s not a whole lot to
tell. My family is pretty ordinary. My parents have lived in the same house in
suburban Denver for over thirty years. My mom, Susan Kelly, raised five
children there, and my father, Joe Kelly Sr., has his residential
air-conditioning company nearby.”

“That’s quite a large family you
have there.”

“A good Irish Catholic family,”
she explained. “I have three older sisters—collectively we’re known as ‘the
four C’s.’ Carla is the oldest. She’s married to Jason, and they have three
kids—twelve-year-old Sean, three-year-old Brittany, and one-year-old Joshua.
Next comes Caryn, who’s married to Mike. They were married for almost ten years
before she finally conceived, and now they’re the proud parents of the twins,
Jake and Jeff.”

“The two-year-olds whose birthday
we’re celebrating today?”

“Correct. Then there’s Christy and
her husband, Steve. They have two daughters, a nine-year-old named Mary Ellen,
and a six-month-old baby girl, Hannah. Finally there’s my brother, Joe Jr. He’s
in his senior year at the University of Colorado, getting his degree in
mechanical engineering. After graduation, he’s planning to join my father’s
business and eventually take it over.”

“And he’s not married yet?” Mark
teased.

“No, but he has a fiancée, Becky.
They’ve been dating since high school.”

“Your family seems—well, rather
big on family, if you’ll pardon the redundancy.”

“They are. Though they’ve never
stated it outright, I think my parents would have preferred that I marry right
after high school as my sisters did, to start providing them with more
grandchildren.”

“They don’t approve of their
children having careers?”

“Not their daughters, I don’t
think. You see, Joey and I were the only ones who attended college. They take a
great deal of pride in his accomplishments, but as for mine, they seemed more
annoyed than impressed when I went off to college, and felt my MBA was a
complete waste of time.”

He appeared stunned. “They said
that?”

“No, but it was obvious in their attitude.”
She laughed. “Wouldn’t they be tickled pink to know I’m pregnant?”

He frowned. “You mean you aren’t
planning to tell them?”

She shot him a heated look. “Of
course we’ll tell them. But not tonight, Mark. Please.”