Mistletoe and Memories (Evergreen Hollow Christmas #4)

Chapter 17

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Caroline paced back and forth in the small kitchen of her house, waiting for Margo to arrive.

Her younger sister was coming over to discuss the anniversary party plans—and also to bring Caroline a snack. Caroline had been craving jalapeno potato poppers from Rockridge Grill nonstop, and it was getting to the point that she thought she was losing her mind.

It wasn’t as if all of her worries and anxiety were already bad enough, on top of the usual craziness of the season, now she had to have food cravings that she wasn’t even sure she could keep down. They didn’t feel like normal cravings either. She felt ravenous, like she was going to bite someone’s head off if she didn’t get some soon.

Why does anyone do this? she thought as she went to brew a pot of coffee, knowing that Margo would want some.

So far she had been exhausted, nauseous, and now she was craving snack food for breakfast. Surely it was going to get better, or women would have started warning other women off of getting pregnant, ever, a long time ago.

It didn’t help that she hadn’t gotten much advice from her sisters so far on how to handle the problem of telling Rhett about the fact that she was pregnant at all. Nora was so busy with her own baby, and planning the party, that she hardly had time to talk.

And now Margo was neck-deep in some work project. Caroline still had no idea what she was going to do, and no idea how to deal with the fear of telling Rhett about the baby. Every time she started trying to plan the conversation out in her head, she felt paralyzed with fear all over again, her mind running to the worst-case scenarios. Some of which didn’t even make sense.

At this point, she wasn’t sure if all of the nerves she was feeling right then were due to the fact that she was still keeping such important news from her husband, or because she felt like she was going to literally lose her mind if she didn’t get a fried jalapeno for breakfast.

One that she was probably going to throw up shortly after.

Margo walked in the front door a few minutes later, and Caroline met her halfway in the living room. Margo held up the slightly greasy takeout bag, and Caroline grabbed it, heading back to the kitchen as Margo followed. “Thank you so much,” she said, already opening it as she sat down.

Margo raised an eyebrow, going to the coffeepot. “I had to really sweettalk Jonathan into making those for you at nine-thirty in the morning. They’re not exactly on the breakfast menu, and you know everything at Rockridge Grill is handmade. I had to promise to ask Sabrina to feature Rockridge Grill’s new holiday menu in the next issue of the paper as the best date night spot in Evergreen Hollow.”

“Thank you for doing that,” Caroline said sincerely, already biting into one of the poppers, as she dipped a second into the cup of homemade buttermilk ranch that came with them. “These are amazing. ”

Margo wrinkled her nose, pouring cinnamon creamer into her cup of coffee. “I thought cravings didn’t start until later in the pregnancy,” she observed. “Like, way later. Aren’t you still supposed to be in the ‘puking up your breakfast’ stage? I don’t think spicy peppers are going to improve that. And doesn’t pregnancy make heartburn worse?—”

Caroline narrowed her eyes at her younger sister. “I’m already on the verge of losing it,” she said flatly, dunking another popper and taking a bite. “What if you didn’t criticize my cravings, and instead helped me think of a way to tell Rhett about the baby? Then he could bring me jalapeno poppers at ten in the morning.”

“That would be a relief,” Margo admitted wryly, sitting down with her cup of coffee, still eyeing the poppers as if they were a strange artifact that didn’t belong in the kitchen. “But I really don’t get why you don’t think he’ll be excited, Caroline. He already has one kid, so clearly he’s not against the idea of them. He’s said before that he wanted to have more, but all that stuff with his ex-wife happened and he realized they weren’t good together, let alone good having more kids. He’s a great Dad. He adores Jay, maybe even to the point of indulging him too much. He moved entire states, to a whole different type of place, because he thought it would be better for Jay. I just don’t see why he wouldn’t be thrilled to also have a second baby, with you, his wife, the woman he loves and adores.” She shrugged, taking a large drink of her coffee. “Makes sense to me.”

“There are tons of reasons why he wouldn’t be excited,” Caroline argued. “He already has one child, as you pointed out, and maybe he’s decided after getting to almost the pre-teen stage with Jay, he doesn’t want to start from scratch all over again. Maybe he’s thought about what life will be like with an empty nest and only one child to finish raising. Maybe the fact that he has focused so much on Jay and given up so much for him makes him feel that it wouldn’t be fair to split that attention now, with another baby in the mix.”

Now that she had started, she couldn’t seem to stop talking, her mind racing with a dozen different thoughts as more words spilled from her tongue.

“Maybe he’ll be more worried about how Jay will feel sharing his father, no longer having undivided attention, than he will be excited about another baby. Maybe he’s going to be really worried about what that means for the remainder of his career, after he already changed it so much to move here. Maybe having heard Nora and Aiden talk about how they’ve gotten two hours of sleep between them in the last four months has reminded him that he doesn’t want to do the baby stage again?—”

She broke off, going slightly pale as she heard the front door open. She hoped it might be her mother, coming to drop off some more normal breakfast, or Nora, able to make it to their planning meeting after all, but instead, she heard the familiar heavy tread of Rhett’s work boots.

She hoped that he hadn’t heard any of that conversation before she stopped talking. Her heart tripped in her chest as she heard him walking into the kitchen.

He stopped in the doorway, looking curiously at them. “What are the two of you doing?” he asked, looking at Margo and her coffee, and then at Caroline, with her odd breakfast and the paper bag still next to her.

“Having a snack,” Margo said, her lips twitching as if she were on the verge of laughter. Caroline glared at her.

Rhett wrinkled his nose. “It seems a little early in the day for jalapeno potato poppers, isn’t it?”

Caroline shrugged. “It’s just like eating tater tots. Just spicier. And tater tots can be a breakfast food,” she added, a little defensively.

Rhett chuckled. “Whatever you say, sweetheart,” he said teasingly, passing by her on the way to the sink to wash up.

He leaned in for a kiss, but veered away from her mouth at the last moment, no doubt on account of the jalapeno smell. He kissed her on the cheek instead, and Caroline grabbed the nearest thing to her—a dishtowel left from cleaning earlier while she’d waited for Margo—and swatted him on the leg with it.

“I’ll be out of your hair in a second,” he added, dodging the swat as he walked to the sink. “I’m going to shower and then go run some errands. Jay is out sledding again?”

“Yeah, he is.” Caroline nudged the poppers to one side, losing her appetite. There was no way that Rhett wasn’t going to start picking up on the fact that something was off, as soon as he wasn’t so tired that he couldn’t think straight.

She’d always been a breakfast food person. Sometimes she ate breakfast for dinner, but definitely never the other way around. He would have been immediately suspicious if he hadn’t just come off of a long shift. “He walked today, I don’t think he wanted me embarrassing him in front of Whitney again.”

“He’ll forget about it soon enough,” Rhett promised. He gave her another quick kiss, this time on top of the head, and then disappeared upstairs to go take his shower.

“Maybe Jay is a good way to bring up the baby,” Margo said contemplatively, once they heard the groan of the water heater that said the shower was on, and there was no chance of Rhett overhearing her. “You could tell Rhett that Jay is growing into such a responsible young man, and that having a little sibling will continue to cultivate that quality.” She said the last in air quotes, eyeing Caroline, who sighed.

“Maybe.” She wasn’t entirely sold, but it wasn’t the worst idea. “It’s a start,” she added, crumpling up the trash and going to throw it away. “I’ve got to think of something soon.”

“Well, speaking of babies, let me tell you about my baby,” Margo said with a grin. “I decided to do a feature in The Gazette on snowy owls. There are a lot of them around here, and I thought it could be a good way to let both locals and tourists know the best places to catch sight of them. Plus, a little educational sidebar with facts about them for the kids, and lots of good photos to entice birdwatchers.” She beamed. “I’m really excited about it.”

“I can tell.” Caroline poured herself a glass of water, willing the poppers to stay down as she sat back down on the table. “You seem more excited than I’ve seen you in a while, actually.”

She thought of the ring Spencer had showed her, and his worries. She had some of those same worries. But seeing Margo now, excited about a new project for the local paper, made her think that maybe they’d just blown a rough patch that Margo was having out of proportion. Maybe everything was fine, and it really wasn’t that big of a deal.

“I know.” Margo grinned, going to pour herself another cup of coffee. “I haven’t felt this excited about a project in a long time. I’m going to go out this afternoon, actually. To a spot where I think I’ll be able to get some really great shots.” She dosed the coffee heavily with creamer, and rejoined Caroline. “I can’t wait to show Sabrina.”

“And Spencer,” Caroline reminded her.

“Spencer too. But he hears about all of my projects, and I feel like he’s probably so sick of hearing about the paper.” Margo tapped her nails against the cup. “I don’t want him to feel like I’m boring, you know? When we met, I was exciting and mysterious, this person who had traveled so much and seen so many things. Now I’m just—here.”

Caroline shook her head. “Do you get tired of hearing about his day? How things go at the clinic?”

Margo shook her head. “Of course not. I like hearing him talk about work. It’s clear that he’s still really passionate about it, even though it’s a small-town clinic now instead of a big hospital.”

“Exactly.” Caroline got her planner out, flipping it open to look at the list of items they needed to discuss for the party. “He feels the same way.”

“Are you sure about that?” Margo asked doubtfully, and Caroline once again thought of the ring that Spencer had so carefully picked out.

“Yes,” she said firmly. “I’m very sure.”