“Where are the ear drops?”
“Over here.” She showed him. He handed her a box, then added one to his cart. “Let’s go.”
The fact that he was asking her to go to his house was weird—and exciting—to say the least. “I can’t come to your house right now. I have to take these things to Luce.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes. Owen’s crying.”
“Where’s her husband? Why are you out this late?”
“Rick is out of town. I help when I’m here.”
“Aren’t you already helping with the wedding? I hear you’re driving up from Portland every weekend.”
Was she mistaken or was there a note of censure in his tone? Instantly, Gemma felt on the defensive. “I don’t mind.”
Ethan shook his head. “You have three other siblings and parents who live in Thunder Ridge. Couldn’t one of them have helped Lucy?”
“They all have families, so...” She shrugged.
“So you get dumped on in the middle of the night.”
“It’s not the middle of the night! Anyway, it’s not like that. I told you, I don’t mind.” She sounded convincing, even to her own ears, but a cold heaviness filled her chest.
Sometimes she minded. Sometimes she was envious of her siblings’ problems and their time commitments with kids and spouses and PTA meetings. Sometimes she wished it were her living room walls that needed to be repainted again, because the kids woke up early one Saturday and got creative with an indelible marker. Gemma chewed the inside of her lip.
“Sorry,” Ethan relented. “I shouldn’t have said ‘dumped.’ You’re good at fixing people’s problems. It’s natural they turn to you.”
“Yes, I’m good at fixing problems,” she murmured. Everyone’s problems but her own.
Her thirty-fourth birthday was in September. According to her friend Constance, who taught reproductive biology to premeds, 95 percent of thirty-year-old women had only 12 percent of their original ovarian follicular cells. That was a lot of cells MIA. And everyone knew that when women reached thirty-five, fertility dropped like a rock. With no man on the horizon, Gemma could feel her ovaries shrinking to the size of raisins right here in the market.
Her gaze fastened on Ethan’s face. He was even more handsome now than in high school.
Why do you have a baby? Whose is it? Clearly, the situation was a surprise. He was about to purchase half the infant-care aisle and didn’t seem to know a single thing about infants.
“Who’s with the baby now?”
“I hired a nanny.” He frowned. “She’s young.”
“Oh. I’m sure she’s capable.” And I am going to mind my own beeswax. “I’d better get going,” she said hastily before she could change her mind. “My nephew is really uncomfortable.”
“Right. Okay.” He looked at his cart and frowned. “Me, too. I’d better—” he waved a hand “—head home.”
“Good luck with everything, Ethan.”
“You, too.”
As he picked up a box of infant cold and fever medication and stared dubiously at the label, she sped up the aisle toward the single cashier on duty. Her mother would kill her for not getting all the info on Ethan’s mystery baby. Come to think of it, it was strange that he hadn’t told Scott, who surely would have mentioned it to Elyse, who would have told not only their mother, but all of her former sorority sisters and everyone else who would listen. “Oh—” She turned back. “I’m supposed to ask if you’ll be at the rehearsal dinner and whether you’re bringing a date to the wedding.”
Ethan glanced up. “Yes. And no.”
“Yes to the rehearsal dinner, no to the date?”
“Right.”
“Okay. Well, see you soon.”
He nodded, turning back to the cold medicine, his brow furrowed in thought.
Gemma continued on her way. No date. She could thrill quite a few women with that information. And flatly refused to consider her own response.
Paying for her items and carrying the bag to her car, she tried not to think about William or about how, if he hadn’t ended the engagement, they would have been married by now, attending Elyse’s wedding as husband and wife and quite possibly arguing over baby names (he liked Jane for a girl; she favored Eliza). Instead, she was flying solo with shriveling ovaries, while Ethan, who apparently chose dating celebrities as his off-season sport, wasn’t bringing anyone to the wedding...but did have a baby.
Forget Ethan. Forget William. And, for heaven’s sake, stop thinking about your ovaries.
But she kept picturing Ethan with a baby and seeing images of him in high school, dating cheerleaders. And going out with her, Gemma. Once.
Turning the key in the ignition, she found the bag of ripple chips and tore it open. She just might require a few peanut butter cookies, too, for the lonely drive to her sister’s house.
* * *
Elyse and Scott’s rehearsal dinner was held at Summit Lodge, a fabulous place that could accommodate rustic or more formal affairs. Nestled into the base of Thunder Ridge, the Scottish-themed lodge allowed guests to enjoy the mountain’s year-round majesty, and every December, Santa distributed presents among the boys and girls whose parents brought them to Brunch with Saint Nick. Gemma’s baby sister had chosen the lodge as her wedding venue all the way back in elementary school.
Because it was Memorial Day weekend, and Oregon’s weather could be unreliable, Elyse had opted to walk down a formal staircase and up the aisle between rows of guests who would be seated before one of the lodge’s massive stone fireplaces. Elyse and Scott were being married by their friend Jessie, an ordained minister. The fireplace was so tall and so wide that they, their officiate and some of the wedding party could have stood inside it.
It was in this majestic, romantic environment that Gemma saw Ethan for the first time since their meeting in the market.
At their current altitude, it was a bit chilly, and in his ivory cable-knit sweater and straight-leg jeans, he fit perfectly into his surroundings. His hair glowed golden in the ambient lights, and his blue eyes held their customary laugh, but once, when he glanced Gemma’s way, she thought he looked stressed.
Elyse had Gemma running around, asking so many questions and tying up so many loose ends that there was no time at all to speak to Ethan. Her sister’s remaining bridesmaids, on the other hand, seemed to find plenty of time to gather around the sports star. He looked as if he were holding court, and his million-dollar smile almost made her think she’d imagined the tension. So far no one she knew had mentioned Ethan’s baby news. Sometimes it seemed she’d dreamed the whole thing.
As
