Chapter 6
Chapter Six
L aurel Leyhe snuggled back into her husband’s arms when he woke her on Sunday morning. He took a breath of her neck and placed a kiss there. “You smell good,” he murmured.
She smiled, though she knew that wasn’t true. Their suite sat on the second floor, and it was the nicest place Laurel had ever slept. They had a couch and two recliners in their room, which faced a TV. The bathroom housed a walk-in shower and a Jacuzzi tub in addition to the toilet room and his-and-hers sinks. Through the bathroom sat the walk-in closet, which Laurel could easily park her car in.
They’d brought a portable playpen-slash-crib for their son James to sleep in, and the sixteen-month-old had gone down easy and early last night after he’d missed his afternoon nap in favor of playing in the pool.
“Sometimes I can’t believe this is my life,” she whispered.
Paul simply tightened his arms around her. “Well, it is, sweetheart.”
She loved lying with him. She loved talking with him. She loved being with him, and she’d never thought she’d find that sense of safety, security, and home with a man. Paul treated her like a queen and took care of her and James, especially since she’d quit the police force after becoming a mother.
His hand moved down and settled over her belly. “Are you nervous?”
“What should I be nervous about?” she asked, though she already knew.
“Your charity presentation,” he whispered. “I know you’re nervous about that.”
“A little,” she conceded. “I think I’m more nervous to tell everyone I’m pregnant.”
“Why is that?” he asked. “That’s happy news, and they love you.”
“I know,” Laurel turned in his arms. “I can’t explain it.”
She opened her eyes and looked into his. “I know they’re not going to judge me.”
“You know it,” he said. “But you don’t believe it.” He grinned and touched his lips to hers. The way he kissed her told her that he wanted to take it further, and Laurel did love being intimate with him in the morning before he went to work.
In fact, they made love more in the morning than they did at night. When Laurel pressed eagerly into him to let him know she was willing, she pulled in a breath as he broke their kiss and gasped out, “What time is it, Paul?”
“I don’t know,” he murmured, clearly not caring about the time.
“I have a presentation,” she said. “I have to shower. And James…”
Paul pulled away from her and rolled partway onto his back to reach for his phone. Not much light came through the blinds, so surely they had time, but Laurel didn’t want to be rushed this morning.
“Six forty-five,” he said, and he rolled back to her. “If we’re fast, we can be done, and you can shower before James gets up in forty-five minutes.”
She ran her hand down the side of his face, then his neck, and along his bare shoulder. “Okay.”
He grinned at her. “I know you want to be showered before James gets up.”
“I do.”
He pulled her closer. “So let me have my way, baby, and I’ll put you in the shower myself.”
“Yes, sir, Officer,” she said.
Sure enough, forty-five minutes later, Laurel toweled her hair dry as James made his first squawks of the morning. Paul finished rinsing out his mouth and said, “I’ll get him.”
He left the bathroom with his towel wrapped around his waist and went to get their little boy. Laurel hadn’t quite gotten dressed yet, but James could explore the suite or sit on the couch with a piece of cheese while she finished getting ready.
“Look, there she is,” Paul cooed. “There’s Mama.”
“Ma-ma-ma-ma,” James babbled, and Laurel grinned at him with every ounce of joy in her soul.
“Hey, baby.” She swept a kiss across his face, loving how rumpled and sleep-worn he looked when he first woke up in the morning.
Paul smiled at her and James, kissed them both, and took him into the suite. Laurel blew out her hair and got dressed, then she took James to get him dressed for the day while Paul put on his clothes. They made their way downstairs, forty-five minutes before Laurel needed to be ready to present in the home theater.
She’d done plenty of presentations for the police department when she’d worked as a cop, and she’d sat through tons of meetings too. She’d brought her computer along and had done as much research on the charity she’d selected this year as she would have for a homicide investigation.
She put James in the front row chair while Paul set up her computer to shine on the big wall at the front of the theater.
Her stomach rumbled with nerves and the want of food, but she’d promised everyone that the presentation would only take fifteen minutes, and she vowed to stick to that. After all, Scott and Rueben had volunteered to make breakfast this morning, and they’d texted out the menu of chocolate chip pancakes and sausage rolls last night.
“You good?” Paul asked.
Laurel looked up from the notes on her phone. “Yes, thank you, sweetheart.”
“I’m gonna go get coffee. I’ll be right back.” He picked up James and took him with him, leaving Laurel in the semi-dark, windowless home theater alone.
She didn’t stay that way for long, as others started joining her by eight-thirty.
“I wanted to get a good seat,” Alice said as she took a spot in the third row.
Robin and Duke arrived with Jamie. AJ and Matt came in and sat in the front row in the corner, Matt sitting on AJ’s left side so that no one else would be able to sit by her. Laurel tried not to pay her too much attention, though she definitely sensed something deeper inside AJ that really had nothing to do with how she was raising Asher.
Paul returned with the coffee. Kristen, Jean, Rueben, Julia, Maddy, and Ben all arrived, and the chatter in the theater increased. Laurel sipped her coffee, bent her head over her notes, and let Paul play the social one.
Finally, when the minutes clicked to nine o’clock, she stood and faced everyone. Instant whiteness covered her vision because she hadn’t addressed a group this large in a long time.
They’re your friends , she reminded herself.
Once again, Laurel hardly recognized her life. She’d been a female cop for most of her life, and her friends and co-workers had mostly been men. But since meeting Alice, Robin, Eloise, AJ, and Kelli, Laurel now had more female friends than male ones. A slip of emotion caused tears to prick behind her eyes, and she drew in a breath, horrified, and calmed herself enough to speak.
“All right,” she said. “I’m going to quickly go over the charity I found this year and some of the things we need to do. Some of them will be set up here in the holiday house for the duration of our stay, and you can work on them as you come and go. Others are actual events, and you can sign up to go—or not—depending on your schedule.”
She swiped her fingers across the trackpad on her computer, and the presentation came up on the screen. “The charity this year is A Very Veteran Christmas ,” she said. “They have a chapter here in Five Island Cove, where, believe it or not, we have quite the contingent of men and women who have served in the Navy or the Coast Guard.”
There weren’t as many Marines or Army veterans from Five Island Cove, and being surrounded by water, it made sense that the population would move into the more aquatic arms of the military.
“Times are hard,” Laurel said. “And they’re even harder for people who are on fixed incomes or benefits that don’t fluctuate with the economy. This year, A Very Veteran Christmas is hosting a gift-wrapping event on December twentieth that we can sign up to help with. They’re always accepting donations, of course, and they are also doing a Christmas Eve breakfast for all veterans and their families that they need a lot of hands for as well. Those are the two events.
“As for things that we can do for them here, A Very Veteran Christmas would like non-perishable food packages put together, Care Kits with personal care items, as well as Comfort Kits that include blankets, clothing, books to read, gift cards for streaming services, electronic devices like headphones and e-readers, and other items.”
She tapped, and the slide moved to the next one, which outlined the events. “Please consult your calendar,” she said. “I’m going to have a sign-up sheet here at the house, upstairs on the breakfast counter, for anyone who thinks they might be able to sign up.”
She turned and faced the crowd again. She met Eloise’s eyes, who gave her a bright, shining smile that buoyed Laurel’s confidence and spirits. She turned to change the slide again.
“These are some single donations, outside of the kits, they’d like.” The list included puzzles, card games, paperback novels, ebooks, some toiletry supplies like beard care kits, slippers, and more. The list went on, and Laurel didn’t need to read every single one.
She changed the slide again. “My goal is to provide five Care Kits for veterans, five Comfort Kits for veterans, and five food packages. Paul and I will be donating some of the items, and we’d love it if others would sign up to donate as well. And anyone who’s here at the house can help assemble those kits and wrap them. Then several of us will take them to A Very Veteran Christmas , which is located on Diamond Island.”
Laurel’s last slide simply said Thank you, and she didn’t switch to it, feeling a moment of embarrassment catch her right in the chest. Her voice hurt for how much she’d said, and she just needed this to be done.
“Thanks,” she said. “That’s it.”
She glanced at her phone and saw that she’d only been speaking for nine minutes. She looked up again and said, “Paul and I know a lot about this charity, and you can ask either one of us questions.” She looked over to Rueben and said, “I believe the sign-up is upstairs?”
Rueben started nodding.
“Yep,” she said, “Rueben’s telling me it’s upstairs, so I guess we can just head up there for breakfast.”
She looked over to Eloise, who nodded. The crowd started to get up, and Laurel’s energy and nerves went down.
“Great job, baby,” Paul said as he swept a kiss along her cheek.
“This is a great charity,” Robin said as she moved to the end of her row. “I hadn’t even heard of it.”
“I knew Laurel would find us something good,” Alice said. Together, the ladies went upstairs, with their husbands behind them, and Laurel smiled at their compliments, though they hadn’t said them directly to her.
Billie approached her, and Laurel smiled at the teen. “Hey, how are you?” Laurel asked.
“I’m good,” Billie said. “I was just wondering... I have to do this project for one of my classes at school, and I was thinking that I could donate it to one of the Comfort Kits.”
“Maybe,” Laurel said. “What is it?”
“It’s a blanket,” Billie said. “I have to crochet it, and I don’t even know how I’m gonna get it done, but Grace said she’d help me, and I thought maybe if we got it done in time, we could donate it to the comfort kit.” She glanced over to her younger sister as she came to Billie’s side.
“Sure, blankets are needed,” Laurel said.
“Is there some sort of specifications on size, or if there’s a lot of holes in it?” Billie became more confident with each question she asked.
“I don’t think so,” Laurel said, flipping through her clipboard. “But I can look. I know they’ll take afghans, so crocheting shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Okay,” Billie said. “Well, let me know. My dad said I could order all the yarn right here to the manor, and we could get started as soon as it comes.”
Laurel looked at her, then Grace. “You two are still going to school, though, right?”
“Yeah,” Billie said in an off-hand way. “But we don’t do anything in December anyway. I can probably crochet during class.”
Grace grinned. “I can definitely crochet during class.”
Laurel giggled with them, though it had been a while since she’d been in school. “I’m definitely going to put you girls down for one of the blankets,” she said.
“Great, thanks.” Billie grinned as the two girls turned to leave.
The home theater had mostly emptied, and Laurel closed her computer and unhooked it from the cable that Paul had attached it to. She wasn’t sure why she’d been so nervous, and then she realized she hadn’t told anyone about her baby.
Her heart dropped to her stomach as she remembered why she’d put that “Thank You” slide in the presentation—because she’d made the “U” in the word you a stork holding a baby, with the U being the cloth part that hung down and held the infant.
She’d meant to tell everyone she was pregnant and due at the end of June as part of the presentation. Since she’d be in the spotlight anyway, she’d figured she might as well stand there for an extra slide.
“That you forgot about,” she said to herself. “It’s still too early to tell them anyway,” she muttered as she went up the steps to the first floor. But she’d wanted to. Who needed to make a presentation with four slides to talk about veterans, events, and kits when she had everything printed out on clipboards already?
Foolishness ran through her, and she felt like crying. That has to be the hormones too , she thought, because Laurel didn’t just cry over nothing, and forgetting to tell her friends that she was pregnant was definitely nothing.
In the kitchen, she met Paul’s eyes, and he raised his eyebrows, then got to his feet and came to her side.
“I forgot to tell them about the baby,” she said.
“Oh, right.” He turned around and whistled through his teeth—a piercing, shrieking sound. Several people cried out, but they all turned toward her and Paul.
Laurel’s face heated, but Paul indicated her and said, “Laurel forgot to say one thing,” in his really loud cop voice.
Laurel actually loved his really loud cop voice, and she smiled at him, then looked out at everyone else. In her own loud cop voice, she said, “Paul and I are going to welcome another baby to our family in June.”
And as if the kitchen and dining room weren’t already complete chaos, that announcement certainly did it.