Tanya Michaels - Mistletoe Baby

He was furious now, stomping past her as if he couldn’t wait to get out of that room. “I was trying to show you how important you are to me! I go out of my way to do things like this, to take care of you, to…And your reactions have varied from sullen acknowledgment to outright criticism. Most women would be thrilled to be married to a guy who thought to send flowers, who surprised them with grand gestures.”

“Then maybe I am not the woman for you!” Her pulse was racing, and she couldn’t believe she’d just yelled that at him. But this was crucial-the point she was trying to make, this was a deal breaker-and he wasn’t hearing her. Again.

David shot her a look of something perilously close to contempt. “Maybe you’re not.” Then he was gone.

At first she was too stunned to move, but when the front door shut, she sank to the floor, her eyes hot and dry. This felt too big for tears, the gaping hole that had just been punched through her. She didn’t know why she was so horribly shocked; after all, she’d known they were standing on a fault line and that one more good-size tremor might be more than their marriage could take at this point.

She just wished she hadn’t been so right about them in November and so wrong about them making the most of their second chance.

David watched his brother through an invisible wall of cynicism. I don’t remember being this discombobulated at my wedding. Was it because he was a more inherently organized person, or was there something wrong with him? Had he just not loved Rachel as much as Tanner loved his bride?

No, that was ridiculous. I loved that woman with everything I had in me. Not that it had been enough for her. He’d told himself for months that the reason he couldn’t make her happy was because she so desperately wanted to get pregnant that nothing else could make her happy. Yet here she was, finally pregnant, and still-

“David, I think I left my cuff links in the car!” Tanner said. “I’m supposed to meet Lilah and the photographer in just a sec. Would you mind…?”

“Of course not.” David easily caught the keys his brother tossed his way. “Stop messing with your tie, bro. It looks fine. I straightened it myself. And for pity’s sake, take a breath.”

“Right.” Tanner smiled then. “Right, thanks.”

See, had that been so hard? He’d given perfectly sensible advice, which Tanner had recognized and been grateful for. Tanner had not thrown an incomprehensible fit.

A much nobler part of David, which he’d tried to silence at the rehearsal dinner by sipping Scotch and not looking anywhere near his wife, asked, Is it really that incomprehensible that she wanted to have a hand in decorating the nursery? But it hadn’t just been that. It hadn’t only been that after his planning, after his hard work and soliciting Tanner’s help, that Rachel had rejected his gift-had practically thrown it back in his face. (How would she have felt if Tanner and Lilah had balked at that scrapbook she’d expended so much effort on? Instead, they’d laughed and cried and hugged her. All the responses he’d envisioned getting from Rachel.) What had chilled David to the core was how easily she’d snapped that maybe she wasn’t the right woman for him. It had sounded ominously like a threat. He’d recalled with brutal clarity the shock of when she’d left him in November.

Was that how it would be now, the specter of separation hanging over him like a married man’s Sword of Damocles? Would he have to worry that whenever things got rocky at home, calling it quits would be her go-to solution? He couldn’t put himself through that. And what about after their child was born? Kids deserved a stable environment.

David’s righteous anger lasted from the walk at the back of the church, all the way to the front steps. As he descended toward the parking lot, Zachariah’s car stopped at the bottom of the stairs, and Arianne and Rachel got out. Apparently there had been a hold-up at the hairdresser’s earlier. Lilah herself had arrived later than scheduled, her nerves frazzled when she reached the church.

The hairdresser might have been slow, but she’d done an amazing job with Rachel, whose black hair had grown so long in the past year-a result, she’d speculated, of the prenatal vitamins. Now, it was up in some kind of pretty twist, tendrils curling down around her face here and there. Her makeup was smoky and soft, or maybe that was just the pregnancy. He’d noticed the way she was softening more and more lately-well, in general, not with him. Her voice had been hard at the wedding rehearsal. She’d greeted him with exacting politeness, her gaze as warm as an ice sculpture.

He extended that same cool civility now, nodding as she passed. “Rachel.” As he averted his gaze, though, trying not to notice how fantastic she looked, it snagged on the top of her dress and the tantalizing view of full, ripe cleavage. That wasn’t appropriate for church! But Arianne and Rachel were already hurrying past him and his wordless stupor, leaving him behind.

If it weren’t for the fact that he was the best man and took his responsibilities as such very seriously, he would be counting the seconds to the reception and the open bar.

THE GOOD THING about weddings, Rachel thought as she shifted her weight and tried not to look miserable in front of two hundred and eighty guests, was that no one thought anything of it if you cried. She’d wondered, as she first walked down the aisle to her position at the front, whether if she didn’t look at David, she could do this. But watching Tanner and Lilah-and the way they watched each other-made everything even worse.

We had that once. They were both good people, flawed but decent, and they’d loved each other very much. How had they let it go so wrong?

Then the vows had started, almost identical to the ones she and David had exchanged. The “richer and poorer” part had never really been an issue, but they’d failed spectacularly at the “better or worse” and “in sickness and health.” The promise that really haunted her, though, was “cherish and respect.” She recalled mood swings she’d had, excuses she’d made for not being intimate with him, days when she’d been so tempted to roll her eyes at his offering her or someone else advice that she’d forgotten entirely that she used to come to him for advice about everything under the sun.

Had she cherished her husband? She winced guiltily.

David, to give him his due, had tried to cherish her. He’d tried a lot more consistently than she had. But in doing so, time and again he’d failed to respect her opinions, preferences, her intellect and autonomy. Honestly, how much consideration had he really given to why that nursery set would be the one she would want the most, the one that was perfect for their child? Had he simply been swept away by the idea of once again sweeping her off her feet? My husband, the broom. Of course, as he’d so patronizingly pointed out, lots of other women would be grateful that their husbands cared enough to make sweeping gestures.

Weeks ago, she’d thought miserably that if she had a chance at taking back small moments in her marriage, she’d do it differently. Was her idea of improvement rejecting something he’d worked hard on, trying to make herself heard at the expense of his feelings? God, what a pair they were. Or weren’t.

Winnie would be home this week, and Rachel had no idea how she and David would proceed. They had some decisions to make. Unfortunately that would involve speaking to each other again, if they could trust themselves to have a conversation without yelling this time. Maybe that’s why some people went to lawyers in the first place, needing that third party. Lawyers. Her heart hurt at the thought.

At the sudden sound of applause, she barely kept herself from jumping. Belatedly, she turned to see Tanner and Lilah presented as husband and wife.

She’d missed the end of the wedding, too distraught over the end of her own marriage.

ZACHARIAH, wearing a tuxedo that matched both of his sons’, clapped David on the arm. “Should have known you’d be over here.”

David jiggled one of the index cards in his hand. “Practicing my speech.”

“That’s what I mean.” Zachariah laughed. “Instead of dancing with that beautiful wife of yours, you’re over here trying to make sure it’s absolutely perfect. Relax, son, no one’s going to grade you on this.”

David tried to smile, not quite accomplishing his goal. Luckily his father wasn’t looking at him.

The older Waide gestured with his champagne flute toward the dance floor where Tanner and Lilah only had eyes for each other. “They look so happy together, don’t they? As a parent, that’s all you can wish for your kids.” He smiled back toward David. “I know I wasn’t exactly a relaxed or laid-back role model, but when this baby comes, try not to sweat the small stuff. You and Rachel keep loving each other and make sure the little one knows how much he’s loved, and the rest will work itself out.”

David had always respected his dad’s opinion, but that sounded like the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. The rest will work itself out? Right. Witness his own happy home. Someone should warn Lilah and Tanner how much work marriage took. Then again, under the right circumstances, marriages lasted decades, entire lifetimes. That kind of payoff was worth the effort.

I made an effort.

He glanced across the room, saw his mother and Rachel sitting at a table and talking. From his vantage point, he could see that Rachel had kicked off her high heels and was wiggling her toes. In spite of everything else, the sight made him smile.

He and his wife certainly defined “effort” differently. He thought he’d been making an admirable effort putting together that nursery for her. And she thought she’d been making an honest effort to improve their relationship by pointing out why she hated that he’d done it. He frowned. Did she have a point?