the woman who had only given birth to two children herself. “They come from heaven, holding a small piece of it in their chubby little hands when they arrive.”
And she’d meant that with all her heart. Because holding her babies in her arms was like holding heaven.
But that didn’t mean life was peaceful by any stretch of the imagination. Her three, overactive boys had each been a trial in their own unique way, sending both her and Jason to the edge of their tempers and to the center of their ability to love.
It was, all in all, a trial by fire. Three trials by fire. But there wasn’t a minute of that hectic, insane life that she would have eliminated—with the possible exception of when Morgan had brought home that jar of black widow spider eggs and they had hatched overnight. The babies had gotten loose, crawling out of the holes he’d punched in the top of the metal lid.
Frantic, envisioning them all dying of spider bites in their beds, she’d almost insisted that they move out of the house. Jason had her agree to a compromise by getting an exterminator at a moment’s notice.
But even the black widow spider incident had had its upside. Because of that, when she’d gone to the local real estate agent, she wound up getting friendly with the man who ran the agency. So much so that she began to seriously think about getting a part-time job selling houses as a way to bring in extra money. True to his word, Ed Callaghan signed her up with his agency the very day she passed her course and received her real estate license.
She found that she was good at finding just the right house for people. And just like that, Laurel had a career. A career she still had and a livelihood she could easily count on. When the last of her boys had gone into the first grade, she began to put in more hours. Now she had three plaques on the wall of her cubicle proclaiming her to be the saleswoman of the year. Jason called her his go-getter.
Go-getters didn’t go get pregnant. Not if they didn’t want to be, she thought glumly as she drove onto the main drag within the city she’d called home for the past twenty years. Once upon a time Molten Parkway had been nothing more than a two-lane road that went from one end of the town to the other, the only path to either of the two freeways that went through Bedford. But now they were a city, not a town, and Molten was a major thoroughfare with three lanes whizzing by in either direction.
Whizzing, that was, in the off hours. During peak hours, the road was clogged with cars either intent on taking one of the two freeways back to wherever it was they came from each morning or returning home from some other region. Molten Parkway found itself the scene of the eternal Southern California shuffle of vehicles. And it was getting worse with each passing month.
Laurel had seen Bedford, like her family, grow over the years. Often she found herself wishing that Bedford would finally stop growing and stay the way it was.
She never thought that she’d find herself wishing the same thing about her family. Certainly not at this stage of her life.
She remembered right after she’d brought Christopher home from the hospital and she and Jason had captured a quiet moment to themselves after Luke and Morgan had collapsed into a fitful sleep.
The two of them had stood over the baby’s crib, absorbing the fleeting, rare silence, watching the brand-new third addition to their family sleeping.
And then, suddenly, Jason had broken the silence. “Three,” he’d said.
The single word had come out of the blue, surprising her as much as it confused her. She’d looked at him, puzzled, waiting for an explanation. When none came, she’d asked, “What?”
Jason had turned to her and then lightly kissed her forehead, his lips barely touching her skin. Tingling her soul.
“Three,” he repeated. “I like the number three.” And then, in case she didn’t get the reference, he added, “Three sons.”
She’d cocked her head, trying to discern something she thought she’d detected.
“Is that finality in your voice?” she’d asked, recalling how he’d talked about having a houseful of kids while they’d been in school.
“It is,” he replied, nodding his head as if reviewing his own thoughts and finding them good. “Any more and we might not be able to provide them with everything they’ll need.” He leaned over the crib, tucking the blue blanket around his small, new son. “Might not be able to give them enough of ourselves, either. Not if equal shares are being handed out.”
She’d laughed then and kissed his cheek. As always, he was the soul of reason. And she agreed with him. Three was a good number, even though it was one more than she had hands.
“I do love you, Jason Mitchell.”
He’d put his arm around her shoulders then, pulling her closer to him as he murmured, “Yes, I know,” into her hair.
“We’ll have that road trip someday soon,” she’d promised.
She sighed now.
Someday just got a little further away.
CHAPTER 3
Laurel’s already overworked heart rose up to her throat as she pulled up before the two-story Colonial house that highlighted their steady rise in the world. It was their third house in twenty years. They’d lived here for a little over seven years now.
It felt like home. More so than the other two, smaller houses.
But it wasn’t sentiment that had her heart lodging itself in her windpipe. It was the sight of Jason’s navy-blue sedan. The sedan he’d been talking about trading in for a sportier two-seater. He’d been talking about doing this since Christopher had gone off to UCLA almost two years ago. She thought it was her husband’s way of coping with empty-nest syndrome. Hers was to look forward to the next visit from one or more of her sons.
It was two o’clock in the afternoon. What was her husband doing home?
Damn.
That wasn’t the word that usually came to mind when she thought of her husband. But she’d counted on having more time to pull herself together, to figure out what words to use in order to break the news to Jason—that there would be a baby in their future and it wasn’t because one of their sons had accidentally dropped his guard and gotten a girl pregnant.
How could this be happening to her?
Laurel pulled up into the driveway and left the car parked next to his—she had no choice since he’d taken up every square inch of the garage with his train layout. After a deep, fortifying breath, she got out of the vehicle. She took her time locking the door and activating the antitheft alarm.
Of course, she was stalling. Eventually, she was going to have to go in and face the music.
For the time being, Laurel decided to table the “big revelation” in favor of finding out just what Jason was doing home in what amounted to the middle of the day. He rarely came home before six o’clock, usually closer to seven. It seemed to her that the higher up he went in the advertising agency where he worked, the less time he actually had for himself. For them.
Which was why he’d sounded so wistful lately when he talked about chucking everything and taking an early retirement.
