Volcano (44 page)

“Do you want to know a secret?” she whispered in Charlie's ear as he drew her up against him.

Charlie pulled her closer until her breasts crushed against his chest and some of his workers cheered in the background. “I don't think it's a secret anymore,” he whispered back. “I think they've guessed.”

Shocked, she pulled back to stare up at him. “How could they? I just found out myself.”

It was his turn to look surprised. “Found out what?”

Embarrassed, Penelope realized they were talking about two different things. She tried to shake her head and wave it away, but the band changed their tune, and the floor filled with eager guests. Charlie waltzed her toward the edge of the floor.

“What secret?” he demanded. “We just stood before this crowd and vowed to love and honor for all the world to hear, so you can't renege on that one now.”

She played nervously with his tie. “You know how I said we had nothing at all in common?”

Impatiently, he stopped her hand by holding it against his chest. “Yeah, but that was all superficial stuff. I thought I proved that. So I like beer and you like wine. I watch football and you watch opera. That stuff doesn't count if I'm willing to try wine and opera and you're willing to learn about football.”

“Symphonies, not opera. I don't like opera either,” she stalled. “And I used to be a cheerleader, remember? I know all about football.”

He brightened. “That's right. I won't have to teach you. I've got season tickets. Now I won't have to cancel them.”

She grinned. It took so damned little to make him happy. “You were planning on canceling your tickets for me?” she asked in astonishment.

“Well, maybe I would have shared them with others more often,” he answered grudgingly. “We could go just once in a while.” His eyes narrowed again. “You still haven't told me your secret.”

“You weren't planning on canceling the tickets,” she accused.

“We could buy season tickets to the symphony too,” he compromised, tugging her toward the door.

“We can't leave yet,” she protested as they slipped into the garden. Their guests were still occupied with the music and the freely flowing liquor. “I haven't thrown my bouquet. I want Beth to catch it.”

“Do you have any idea how many women are in there waiting to catch that damned thing? You'd have to throw each flower individually before she'd have a chance.” He drew her into the shadows of the arbor and kissed her nape. “Now spill it.”

Shivers flew up and down Penelope's spine at his kisses. She wouldn't be coherent much longer, and she had so much to say. Only silliness seemed able to escape her lips. “Beth will catch it. We've worked out a signal.”

Charlie groaned and lifted his head to stare down at her. “There isn't any secret, is there? You're just trying to make me crazy. What signal?”

“The same one we used when we were playing softball. Drove the other teams crazy. She'll know it's coming to her when I whistle.”

“Softball? You played softball?” Bewildered, bemused, and utterly bewitched, Charlie shook his head. “When were you planning on telling me you played softball?”

She shot him an impatient look. “We couldn't play basketball or football because we were on the cheerleading squad. Pay attention, Charlie. So we played softball. We took the team to the top two years in a row.”

He bent his head so his brow rested against hers. “Tell me you were the umpire.”

“Of course I wasn't the umpire. Don't be ridiculous. I was the pitcher. That's how I know Beth will catch the bouquet.” Her heart thumped harder. Charlie's head might be resting against hers, but she didn't think he had his eyes closed. The low-cut bodice of her mother's gown strained a bit too tightly across her breasts.

“My wife the athlete, and here I thought I would be the only dumb jock in this family. We'll have a family of Neanderthals. Do you think we could teach them football and softball both?” His hands crept up to rest just below her breasts.

Breathless at this proximity, Penelope tried to respond sensibly. She should have waited until tonight, until they were alone, but she'd wanted to share this gift with him for hours. She'd wanted to share it that morning, when she'd found out. So, maybe impatience was another trait they shared.

“Well, twins run in the family. We could eventually have enough to make an entire team.”

Charlie's hands stopped their slow upward movement, and he lifted his head enough to watch her face instead of her breasts. She could almost see the blue of the tropical skies in his eyes.

“Twins usually skip a generation,” he said carefully.

Penelope shrugged. “Twins run on
both
sides of our family. My grandfather had a twin brother.”

“Beth and John didn't have twins,” he pointed out, a shade nervously.

“John doesn't have twins in his family. Your mother said your father had uncles who were triplets.” She figured her pulse had reached rocket proportions. How dense could one man be?

“Triplets,” he repeated flatly. “We could have triplets.” Grasping her shoulders firmly, Charlie filled his chest deep with air and asked, “How soon?”

It was a good thing Charlie's hands were holding her up or she might have collapsed with sheer relief at not having to actually say the words. “By my inexpert calculations,” Penelope whispered, “in seven months.”

He dropped to the arbor bench with a puff of exhaled air. The bench cracked with the weight of the blow. Charlie didn't seem to notice. He caught her hips between his big hands and pulled her toward him, studying her flat belly intently. “Seven months?”

She nodded, although she doubted he saw her.

“A baby?” He looked up hopefully, this time watching her face.

“No, a rocket ship,” she said dryly. “Or triplets. What's the difference?”

“Or triplets. My God.” Stunned, he sat there a moment longer, absorbing the information. “I think I'll have that champagne now.”

“You don't like champagne,” she reminded him.

“That's all right. I'll take a magnum of it anyway.” Lumbering to his feet, towering over her, his barrel-wide chest and shoulders powerful enough to support a small car, Charlie swayed like a leaf on the wind.

He stared down at the waistline he'd studied moments before, and Penelope could swear he turned gray.

“Triplets?” he inquired weakly.

“Three dozen dirty diapers a day,” she replied wickedly. “Three mouths screaming at midnight. Why, you could have a whole
team
of football players in a few years.”

“You'd do that to me, wouldn't you?” he demanded, recovering enough of his equilibrium to push her toward the reception hall. “You'd do it to me just to get even with me for getting you pregnant.”

“If that could be arranged,” she agreed as they stepped into the crowded room. As he grabbed a bottle of champagne from a passing waiter, she stood on tiptoe and whispered in his ear, “I think it was the Jacuzzi. The first one.”

His hand jerked, and the champagne cork hit the ceiling.

Foam fizzed and spurted across the room, drawing all stares in their direction. Waving the foaming bottle at his audience, Charlie shouted at the top of his lungs, “We're going to have a
Jacuzzi!”

Laughter erupted and rolled around the room until Penelope's ears turned red, and she pounded Charlie's wide chest in embarrassment. He merely lifted her from her feet and swung her in circles, swigging the champagne straight from the bottle, spilling half of it down his tux and her gown.

“Hey, John,” he shouted again, spotting a tower of flowers on the table with their untouched wedding cake. Grabbing a bouquet, he swung around until he found Beth's ex standing in a far corner, watching the scene with amusement. “She says it's your turn next. Catch!”

The bouquet flew swiftly and accurately straight into the hands of its intended target. John stared at the flowers in puzzlement.

“We're gonna have us a football team! You'd better start teaching your kids.”

With that rollicking cry, Charlie swept Penelope off her feet and into his arms, and proceeded out the door.

No one tried to stop him. Not even Penelope.

And not once did she ever mention his rude, uncouth, Neanderthal behavior, except maybe a few times amid a litany of more explicit curses during the interminable hours of labor seven months later. But that was to be expected of a mother of five-and-a-half-pound twins.

Charlie bought them Dolphins helmets. One had a pink bow.

 

With several million books in print and
New York Times
and
USA Today's
bestseller lists under her belt, former CPA Patricia Rice is one of romance's hottest authors. Her emotionally-charged contemporary and historical romances have won numerous awards, including the
RT Book Reviews
Reviewers Choice and Career Achievement Awards. Her books have been honored as Romance Writers of America RITA® finalists in the historical, regency and contemporary categories.

 

A firm believer in happily-ever-after, Patricia Rice is married to her high school sweetheart and has two children. A native of Kentucky and New York, a past resident of North Carolina, she currently resides in St. Louis, Missouri, and now does accounting only for herself. She is a member of Romance Writers of America, the Authors Guild, and Novelists, Inc.

 

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by Patricia Rice

All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names.  They are not inspired by any person known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

This edition published by

Book View Cafe 2012

© 1998 – Patricia Rice

Originally published 1998 by Ivy Books, The Ballantine Publishing Group

by Patricia Rice

“Believe me, Phillippa, this hurts me as much as you.”

Pippa heard Abigail's voice through a fog of disbelief. She recognized her supervisor's compassionate expression, but the words weren't sinking in.

“I fought against it every step of the way,” Abigail continued. “You're a good worker; we have no complaints at all. We'll give you excellent references, call other hospitals in the chain if you wish to relocate, anything you ask. It's just that we're downsizing like everyone else in the business today, keeping our margins intact, and the administrative staff is the first to go. We can't cut back on essential care.”

The words pounded against Pippa's skull. Any time someone said it hurt them as much as it hurt her, she knew they lied. Nothing would ever hurt as much as the blows that always followed. She just couldn't believe the blows came from this direction. She'd worked at the hospital for ten years. It had been her mainstay through her mother's illness. Her friends were here. Her family. The support network she needed for survival. How could they strip away her life and call it something so inexplicable as “downsizing”?