The Men of Thunder Ridge
Before she could courteously decline his offer, Ethan’s cell phone rang. He used Kenny Chesney’s “The Boys of Fall” as his ringtone.
“Thought I silenced that.” He grimaced. “’Scuse me.” Into the phone, he said, “Ethan here.”
While he listened to the caller, Gemma tortured herself with memories: the thrill of believing that Ethan wanted to take her to homecoming. Yes, he’d been two years younger, but there hadn’t been a senior girl at Thunder Ridge High who wouldn’t have jumped at the chance to date him. And Gemma, she had...well, she’d...
Oh, go on, admit it. We’re all adults here.
With Ethan turned half away from her, she looked at the massive squared shoulders and sighed. Every time he’d come to her house with Scott, she’d fantasized he was there to see her. That the two of them were going to hang out, study together, talk about music and books and movies and sports teams. Not that she was into sports, but with her photographic memory it hadn’t taken all that long to memorize the stats for every player in the NFL, so that if he decided he wanted to get to know her one day, she would be ready with the kind of conversation he was likely to enjoy.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Ethan’s tone was sharp and concerned, jerking Gemma back to the moment at hand.
Oookay. She moved about self-consciously, withdrawing a tray of edible flowers with which to decorate the dessert while she pretended not to eavesdrop. Which, of course, she was.
“No, I was not aware. Where is she?” Ethan spoke with his jaw so tight, the words had trouble emerging. “That won’t be necessary. I’ll get ahold of her myself...I see. Yes, do that. I’ll be available by phone.”
There was silence. The heaviest silence Gemma had ever heard. She worked at her corner of the center island, her face turned away from Ethan, wondering if she should speak. She had no idea what the phone call was about, but his distress was obvious, and she felt a strong desire to say something comforting.
When the silence had lasted long enough, Gemma finally turned to catch Ethan staring at the floor.
Suddenly he didn’t look like Ethan, King of Thunder Ridge High, or Ethan the Football Star, or Ethan the Sex Symbol, or Ethan the Boy Who Made Gemma Gould Feel Like an Ugly Duckling Loser in High School. He was, perhaps for the first time in her eyes, just a regular human being. And he looked really, really alone.
“Are you all right?” she ventured. “If you need to talk—”
Her voice seemed to bust him out of his spell. “I have to go.” He didn’t look at her directly. “Tell Elyse and Scott I’ll call them.”
He seemed to hesitate a moment longer, or maybe that was her imagination, then exited through the kitchen door. And that was that.
Returning to her edible flowers, Gemma told herself not to feel compassion for the big boob. He’d just rejected her friendly—no, not friendly, simply humane—overture, and, let’s face it, rejection pretty much summed up her relationship with Ethan Ladd through the years.
She shook her head hard, jiggling some sense into it. She was over thirty, had a great career, good friends. She’d had a fiancé and would surely date again. Someday. Ethan Ladd did not have the power to make her feel valuable, attractive and worthwhile or rejected and unwanted. That was so fifteen years ago.
All she had to do was get through this wedding. Then he would be gone again, her regular life would resume and her heart would stop beating like a hummingbird in flight every time she thought about weddings and true love, or about the first man who had broken her heart.
Chapter Two
Two months after Elyse’s bridal shower, Gemma was in Thunder Ridge again, staying at her parents’ place over the weekend, so Minna Gould, mother of the bride, would have an audience while she fretted over last-minute preparations for the wedding.
“You need to decide whether you’re bringing a date,” Minna insisted as they carried the dinner plates to the Goulds’ cozy pale-blue-and-white kitchen. “This is the last chance to order another meal from the caterer. After this, she’ll serve my head on a platter.”
“I’m not bringing a date, Mom. I don’t want your head on my conscience,” Gemma assured her, taking the plates from her mother and plunking them in a sinkful of suds.
“Don’t be silly! If you want to bring a date, then by all means—”
“Mom, I was kidding. I’m not seeing anyone.”
Only twenty-four years older than her second child, Minna Gould, née Waldeck, was still a beautiful woman. Most of the Waldeck women married young, started their families young and stayed beautiful without artificial enhancements well into their fifties.
Gemma, unfortunately, took after the Gould side of the family. The women on her father’s side were outspoken with above-average intelligence, very average looks and way-above-average bustlines and butt, and they tended to marry later in life—so much later that children were often out of the question—or they never married at all. Depressing.
“I’m just saying, Gemma, that if you do want to bring someone so you can have more fun dancing, for example,” Minna suggested, picking up a dish towel, “I’m not really afraid of the caterer. I’ll dry,” she said, holding out her hand for the first dish Gemma washed. Minna’s hazel eyes, the only physical characteristic Gemma had inherited from her mother, sliced her daughter’s way. “Maybe William would like to come with you?”
The mention of her former fiancé nearly made Gemma drop the plate. “Absolutely not.”
“But you’re still friends. You still work together.” It was impossible to miss the hopeful note in Minna’s voice.
“Mom, William and I decided our engagement was a mistake.” Lie. William had decided they were meant to be friends only. Gemma had been perfectly (or pathetically, depending on how you looked at it) willing to accept friendship as a solid basis for marriage. “We are not getting back together.” When Minna opened her mouth to interject, Gemma cut her off. “And he is not coming to the wedding.”
In all fairness, Minna had no idea that a scant two weeks after he broke up with Gemma, William started dating the new, adorable French lit teacher at school, and that they were now “serious.” It had seemed kind to spare her family that bit of information. They worried about her, she knew. None of her siblings, who favored Minna in looks and in character, had ever lacked a date on weekends. Only Gemma, with her Gould-given averageness and her keen interest in historical novels and theater versus, say, sports, pop culture and who won Dancing with the Stars, tended to struggle in the dating arena. True, she lived in a busy, exciting city, but Portland tended to skew more toward families and the twentysomething indie-music crowd. Gemma knew her options were decreasing, but she just couldn’t bring herself to look online for a mate.
Okay, lie. She and her friend Holliday had imbibed a mimosa or two one Sunday brunch at Gemma’s place, and Gemma had allowed Holly to make a dating profile for her on one of the more popular sites. In the light of stone-cold sobriety, however, Gemma had deleted it.
“Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll have a great time going stag to the wedding.” She bumped her mother’s hip. “When Dad’s doing the Cupid Shuffle with Grandma, you and I can practice twerking.”
“Oh, stop it, you!” Minna snapped Gemma with the dish towel. “Do you happen to know if Ethan wants to bring someone? I can’t get Elyse or Scott to slow down long enough to tell me anything these days, and I can’t imagine he would come alone. I saw on the cover of In Touch that he’s been dating that redhead from the TV show about vampire cheerleaders. What’s her name?”
Gemma felt a little pinch to her heart. “I have no idea.”
“Well, do you know if he’s bringing someone?”
“How would I know that?”
“You dated him in high school.”
The pinch felt tighter. “I wouldn’t call it a date,” she mumbled, “exactly.” Had nobody in the family ever told Minna the truth about the single evening Gemma had spent with Ethan? Elyse knew all about the disastrous homecoming event, since she had set the “date” up to begin with. And their sister Lucy knew, because she’d seen Gemma crying, and Elyse had blabbed all about it. Even their older brother, David, knew. “Mom,” Gemma said carefully, “that night with Ethan...that was more of a high school convenience thing.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You primped for two hours, and he brought you a corsage.”
Amazing how the memory could induce a flood of embarrassing heat all these years later. Yes, she had primped. Yes, she had been excited. No, he hadn’t given her a corsage. Elyse, as it turned out, had provided the corsage for Ethan to give to Gemma. The entire evening had been Elyse’s brainchild, not Ethan’s.
Keeping her eyes on the sudsy dishwater, Gemma said, “Everyone primps for the homecoming dance, Mom. It didn’t really mean anything.”
Minna shook her head, exasperated. “Oh, for heaven’s sake. Three daughters, and not one of you interested in Ethan. I don’t understand it. If he’d been in town when my friends and I were in high school...”
Gemma didn’t have to listen to know what came next—we’d have been fighting over him like cats and dogs.
Well, who said she hadn’t been interested? And girls had fought over Ethan like cats and dogs; it was just that Gemma had never had a prayer of winning that particular battle.
“Fine.” Minna shrugged. “It didn’t work out, so that’s that, but he always liked talking to you.”
Yes, I am a sought-after conversationalist, all right. Even William still dropped in at her office for the occasional chat.
“You were the only person he spent any time with at all at the wedding shower,” Minna continued. “Really, I can’t imagine what would have made him run off the way he did. Are you sure he didn’t give you a clue?”
It didn’t feel right to repeat a conversation she probably shouldn’t have overheard in the first place, so Gemma muttered, “He didn’t tell me anything.” That was the truth. “He said he’d talk to Elyse and Scott.”
“Oh, they’re both so busy, they’re useless when it comes to—” Her mother cut herself off.
“Feeding you juicy gossip about Ethan?” Gemma teased.
“Oh, fine. We’ll definitely see Ethan next week. I’ll ask him for some gossip myself.”
“Next week?” Gemma heard the panic in her own voice. She hadn’t seen or heard a word about Ethan since the bridal shower, and life was much more peaceful that way.
“Gemma,” her mother chided. “Please say you didn’t forget the rehearsal dinner. I told you to write the date down immediately. You’re not going to tell me you have one of those endless work functions or dinner with the dean.”
“No, I remember the rehearsal dinner. I just forgot Ethan would be there.”
“Well, of course he’s going to be there. He’s the best man. I’m giving you the job of calling him to confirm.”
“What? Why me? Why not—” Gemma stopped herself. The more she protested, the more she would draw her mother’s attention. And she couldn’t claim not to have Ethan’s number; it had been her job to text the wedding party to give them the time of the fittings for their gowns and tuxes. “All right.”
She’d merely text him again. Wouldn’t have to trade actual words until the rehearsal dinner.
* * *
Past 9:00 p.m., the General Store in Thunder Ridge was closed, so if you had a midnight hankering for a pint of mint chocolate chip or a desperate need to read the latest celebrity gossip mag, you had to drive to Hank’s Thunderbird Market on Highway 12. When Gemma’s sister Lucy phoned their parents’ house at 11:00 p.m., asking if someone could please, please, please pick up ear drops for her baby, Owen, and some teething gel—“The pink gel, not the white. The pink!”—because Owen had been crying nonstop for two hours, Gemma volunteered to make the drive.
Deciding a snack would make the late-night trip more entertaining, Gemma grabbed a package of Nutter Butters, which were the best cookies on earth, then added a bag of rippled potato chips since she was going to need to crunch on something on the way home. With her basket of support foods, she headed to the pharmaceutical aisle intending to grab the teething gel quickly and go to her sister’s. As she rounded the corner of the aisle, however, she nearly collided with another late-night shopper.
“Oh! My gosh. I didn’t expect to see you.”
“Yeah, no, me either. I’m... I had to pick up a few things.” Ethan nodded to the loaded cart in front of him and then—was it possible?—he blushed. As in, a deep red infused his gorgeous face. His gorgeous, exhausted-looking face.
Why was he blushing? Other than seeming tired, he looked great. She, on the other hand, had been wearing a T-shirt that read Eat, Sleep, Repeat and her hot-pink emoji pajama bottoms when Lucy had called, and she hadn’t seen any reason to change for the trip to the Thunderbird.
Her surprise at seeing Ethan here turned into absolute shock when she saw the contents of his shopping cart.
“Teething biscuits?” She arched a brow.
“Yeah.” He glanced around, then lifted a shoulder. “I like ’em.”
“Favorite locker-room snack?”
Ethan did not look happy. He looked, in fact, miserable. With one hand, he finger-combed the thick golden hair that appeared to have been mussed several times already. With the other hand, he retained a white-knuckle grip on the cart.
Gemma peered at the rest of the contents, which looked as if they’d been scooped up by a dump truck and piled in.
Coffee, milk, two four-packs of energy drinks, cotton balls, bandages, a thermometer (several, in fact, each a different brand), tissues, baby wipes—
Baby wipes? She looked closer. Yep, baby wipes. And formula! He had at least four different kinds of formula in that cart. And were those boxes of...
Oh, my goodness. Ethan was buying diapers. Disposable diapers, again in a few different brands. Plus, she spied the very item she was looking for—teething gel.
“You got the white kind,” she said, pointing to the small box with the picture of a tooth. “You should get the pink. My sister says it works the best.”
Frowning, Ethan followed her finger. “Really? Where is the pink one?”
Feeling as if she’d fallen asleep and was having a very weird dream, Gemma led him to the correct spot along the aisle. “This one.” She picked a box from the shelf. “Worked like a charm when my nephew Owen was cutting his first tooth.”
Looking as confused and frustrated as he was tired, Ethan scowled at the label, then tossed it into the cart along with everything else.
Selecting a box of the ointment for her sister, Gemma ventured, “So, Ethan, you have a toothache? And—” she nodded toward the diaper boxes peeking out at the bottom of the cart “—a problem with incontinence, perhaps?”
“Very funny.” He did the finger-comb again. “Can you keep a secret?” he growled, sotto voce.
“I can,” she replied, wondering at the strangeness of this meeting. “I’m not sure I’m going to want to.”
When he spoke, he looked as if even he didn’t believe the words he was about to say. “I have a baby.”
Gemma stared at him until her vision got blurry. “A baby what?”
“You know.” He made a rocking motion.
“A person? You have a baby...person?”
He nodded, and she could hardly breathe. I’m blacking out, I’m blacking out. Her heart flopped in her chest. “Wh-who-who is the mother?” Then she gasped. “Is it the redhead from the vampire cheerleader show?”
He looked at her oddly. “Who—You mean Celeste? No!” He swore. “Lord, no.” Coming around from behind the cart, he took her upper arm, glancing up and down the aisle as if this were a dark alley. “It’s not my baby,” he whispered.
She whispered back. “You said, ‘I have a baby.’”
“I do. In my house. Look,” he grumbled, “I don’t want to talk here. Are you done shopping?”
“I want to get ear drops for Lucy’s son. He’s been crying all night. She thinks he’s just teething, but you never know.”
Ethan’s attention sharpened. “Would an earache make a baby cry? A lot?”
“Yes.”
“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 the rehearsal finally wound up, Gemma dropped into one of the wide chairs positioned around the perimeter of the room. She still hadn’t caught up on the sleep she’d missed while running to Lucy’s last weekend, and at school, rapidly approaching final exams had kept her working extra hours. She was toast, and the wedding was tomorrow.
“Auntie Gem! Auntie Gem!”
Her brother David’s six-year-old twins, Violet and Vivian, ran over and grabbed her hands.
“Do you wanna see the floor where we get to dance tomorrow? We know where it is! Come on, we’ll show you. Come on, Auntie Gem! Come on!”
Resisting the yanking of her appendages, she instead pulled the chair with her and frowned doubtfully into freckled faces topped by curly auburn hair. “Do I know either of you? You don’t look like anyone I know.”
“We’re your nieces!” Vivian, the bolder of the two, told her indignantly. “You knowed us since we were babies.”
“You changed our diapers,” Violet, the more serious of the two, pointed out.
“Really?” Bending toward each in turn, she sniffed. “No, you don’t smell like those kids. They were stinky.”
Both girls dissolved into giggles as Gemma cuddled them.
“We’re not stinky anymore, Auntie Gem,” Violet informed her. “Mommy says we have to take a bath once a year, whether we need it or not.”