First comes love, p.1
First Comes Love, page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Part One - It’s a Fine Line
·1· - Egging On
·2· - The Line
·3· - The Moment of Truth
·4· - Watered Down
·5· - The Birth of Rumors
·6· - Baby Fever
·7· - Elvis Is Alive
·8· - The Labor of Love
·9· - Cheese Dust
·10· - Feeding the Beast
·11· - Grease, the Natural-Born Killer
·12· - Period Party
·13· - A Charles Manson Fairy Tale
·14· - C8 Wants to Know
·15· - The Start of Something
·16· - Snooping
·17· - Armed with Soap
·18· - A Conflict of Interests
·19· - Spreading the Word
·20· - Mourning Sickness
·21· - The Secret of Evolution
·22· - A Showdown
·23· - Crush
·24· - Snow White Has the Coolest Boss Ever
·25· - Jon Bon Jovi Has Morning Sickness
Part Two - It Seems Like Forever
·26· - Who’s in the Dark?
·27· - One Is All It Takes
·28· - It’s Beginning to Feel a Lot Like Hormones
·29· - It’s a Cat?
·30· - Claiming Names
·31· - Friends and Enemies Everywhere
·32· - Just You Wait
·33· - Expertise from the Naïve
Part Three - The Homestretch
·34· - Pricks and Needles
·35· - You’ll Look Like an Idiot
·36· - Make Room for Baby
·37· - Going Down
·38· - Amongst Friends
·39· - A Ray of Hope
·40· - In Reverse
·41· - What Happens When Men Nest
·42· - Alas
·43· - A Family
·44· - In a Heartbeat
PRAISE FOR Always the Bridesmaid
“A charming, rollicking commentary on weddings in the twenty-first century. I loved the Jane Austen-ish heroine, Cate Padgett, for her untiring fidelity to the whims of her bride-brained buddies.”
—New York Times bestselling author Jeanne Ray
“[Lyles’s] eye for the delightful details . . . makes this the ultimate bridesmaid gift.”
—Publishers Weekly
“The outlandish wedding mishaps and twentysomething angst will appeal to fans of the plucky-single-girl genre.”
—Booklist
“Talented newcomer Lyles has written a compulsively readable novel. Her descriptive gifts transport readers to the single girl’s San Diego, with its beaches, bars, and bistros. In fact, reading this book feels deliciously like having a good gossip over lunch with your own best friend.”
—Romantic Times
“This gal has one hilarious fling after the other.”
—Cosmopolitan
“Phenomenally entertaining. The pace of the story is perfect.”
—The Romance Reader’s Connection
“Quite entertaining . . . [an] amusing charmer.”
—Midwest Book Review
“Written in savvy style . . . displays clever wit and a handful of priceless scenes.”
—FictionFactor.com
Titles by Whitney Lyles
FIRST COMES LOVE
HERE COMES THE BRIDE
ROOMMATES
ALWAYS THE BRIDESMAID
Anthology
CATCH OF THE DAY
(with Beverly Brandt, Cathie Linz, and Pamela Clare)
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Copyright © 2007 by Whitney Lyles.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form
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BERKLEY® is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
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PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley trade paperback edition / July 2007
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lyles, Whitney.
First comes love / Whitney Lyles.
p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-440-67814-1
1. Marriage—Fiction. 2. Pregnancy—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3612.Y45F57 2007
813'.6—dc22
2007008605
http://us.penguingroup.com
For my daughter,
Charlotte,
who fills my life with smiles,
and gives me so much to look forward to.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks are in order. First, to my wonderful agent, Sandy Dijkstra, whose encouragement always lights a fire beneath me. Then to Tova Sacks, who gave my idea the green light. And for my supportive and talented editor, Kate Seaver, whose sharp insight helped fine-tune this book. I thank them all.
Also, a big thank-you to the SDLA team, especially Elise Capron, and all the friends and family who have stood behind me.
From the bottom of my heart I have a tremendous amount of gratitude to two very special mothers. Without the help of my mother, Martha Lyles, and my mother-in-law, Carol Dodds, this book wouldn’t exist. Many thanks, not only for their support but for the love they showed my new baby while I was writing. I couldn’t have done it without them.
Also a special thanks to my mom for the last-minute reading. I loved hearing her laughter from the other room. And thanks to Dad for all his encouragement and for helping Mom while she helped me.
I am, once again, forever grateful to my husband for all his support and all that he does. Finally, endless thanks to Charlotte for being such a good baby while I was completing this book, and whose smile alone can kill stress in an instant.
Part One
It’s a Fine Line
·1·
Egging On
At some point in every woman’s life she faces a moment of sheer panic, a moment when she realizes that everything is about to change. Perhaps it happens in high school when she drinks whiskey with ten friends in a movie theater parking lot, then realizes her parents are seated two rows behind her in the theater. It might be in college when she thinks she’s found the love of her life, then walks in on him with another woman. Maybe it’s when she’s engaged and she looks down at her ring, only to find it’s missing. However, there is no realization more startling than an unexpected pregnancy.
As Cate Blakely sweated in a hot-pink rabbit costume, the idea that she might be pregnant shot through her veins like nails. For the past week she’d been shoving the thought of her overdue period to the back of her mind the same way she turned her cheek when their yard looked like a scene from Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan. Why the idea had smacked her while celebrating Easter in Scottsdale, Arizona, with her husband’s family, she had no idea.
Maybe it had something to do with all the screaming children that ran across the lawn, using every opportunity they had to smash raw egg on one another. Or perhaps it was the fact that she just wanted out of the rabbit outfit, and checking to see if Aunt Flo had arrived seemed like a good reason to ditch the getup.
For the first time in her life she felt as if being pregnant wouldn’t excommunicate her from her heavily Catholic parents. The feelings she had now weren’t the same as the anxiety she’d felt when she’d been dating Ethan and her period had played a stressful game of hide-and-seek. She was married to him now. For the first time in her life it was okay to be pregnant—socially acceptable, and something her mother would greet with a wardrobe sized zero-to-three months. Then why was she scared to de
She’d be responsible for another life. A small human being that would throw up on her, wake her every two hours during the night to latch onto her breasts like a pair of pliers and then grow into a rebellious hormonal teenager who would crash her car and throw raging keg parties when Ethan and she went to Hawaii.
Through the gigantic headpiece she wore she heard a muffled crunch against her leg. She looked down upon the small face of a felon in the making. A bucktoothed blond monster, Keith Junior had come into their lives when Ethan’s cousin Denise had begun dating his father. What Keith Junior’s father had done to the boy’s hair could be considered child abuse as far as Cate was concerned. Keith Junior, too young to have good taste, couldn’t be held responsible. His hairdo was the kind that made people flinch when they sat behind him in a theater. It was the kind of style that provoked shared glances of disgust, something appreciated by only a handful of people—the same people who lived for professional wrestling and thought mullets were still in. Cate was willing to bet that even most of these folks probably squirmed at the sight of Keith Junior’s hair. The child’s small head was shaved down to stubs. What remained should’ve been snipped off and burned. A long, curly tail spidered down the nape of his neck. Rat was the first image that came to mind each time Cate noticed it.
She reached down to wipe the yolk from her leg and Keith Junior smashed another egg against her gloved hand.
“Hey! Stop that!” Her voice was distorted from behind the mask.
She watched as he flew into peals of laughter and his bucktoothed sister, Ashlyn, joined in. Looking at them made her even more worried about her missed period and tender breasts. She definitely wasn’t ready for this.
Ethan’s aunt was supposed to hard-boil the eggs. Instead, she’d accidentally let the kids color raw ones. His aunt couldn’t tell which eggs were raw and which were hard-boiled. Most of the kids ran around the yard with raw eggs in their baskets. They’d decided that smashing the eggs on the lawn, the patio, and anyone who had their back turned was more fun than searching for the plastic ones filled with candy and coins. Raw egg covered a good portion of Aunt Caroline’s yard.
Cate had decided not to move around much for fear of stepping one of her furry feet in the mess. The worst part of it was that some of the children had confused the raw eggs with the boiled ones so they pelted eggs across the yard like they were baseballs. In some ways wearing the costume had been a blessing. It had saved her from getting a concussion.
“We know you’re not the Easter bunny,” Keith Junior said.
“You’re that skinny girl with lots of shoes and a dumb dog,” Ashlyn chimed in.
“Who said that?” Cate asked, breaking the rule that the Easter bunny wasn’t supposed to talk.
“See!” Ashlyn pointed. “You’re not him! You’re that lady.”
Lady? Sure, twenty-nine qualified as being a lady. However, hearing little kids call her one made her feel old. Ladies joined the PTA. Ladies wore one-piece bathing suits. Ladies had kids.
Keith Junior eyed the basket of Cadbury eggs that she held. “Now give us some of those.” His tone was firm. “Or we’ll tell everyone who you are.”
Cate scanned the yard for the two people responsible for Keith Junior and Ashlyn—Ethan’s cousin, Denise, and her boyfriend, Keith, whom Ethan and Cate secretly referred to as Scary Dad. Several other children raced around the lawn, pegging each other with eggs. She watched as Ethan’s grandmother dodged one, then gasped as it hit the window. Several of Ethan’s relatives quit sipping mimosas to watch in horror as cracks spidered down the glass.
“Someone needs to stop this!” his cousin, Heide, shouted. She went to look at the window and stepped a pointy heel directly into a pile of raw egg.
Denise was in the opposite corner of the yard wearing a hat that could’ve inspired an entire episode of What Not to Wear. Covered in fake pastel flowers that appeared glue-gunned to the rim, the hat rested on her head like a straw toilet bowl. To complete her look she wore a yellow tank top and matching silk shorts with white sandals, all of which should’ve been thrown into a bag labeled Theme Parties fifteen years earlier. Scary Dad stood next to her, eyeing the yard suspiciously.
Why Denise had ever begun dating Keith Bubich was a mystery or pure desperation as Ethan had called it. Scary Dad, a divorcé and father of two children, worked as a parking lot attendant in an airport long-term parking garage downtown. He was the guy who sat in the booth, took the ticket, punched in the total on a small screen, then buzzed open the little lever that allowed customers to leave after they’d paid an astronomical amount in parking fees. From what Cate knew of him, she figured he probably wasn’t the type of guy who cut breaks for those who lost their tickets or accidentally pulled in and then decided not to park there. He was, frankly, scary. He rarely spoke, smiled, or laughed. At thirty-seven, his interests included video games and polishing a set of tools no one had ever actually seen him use. He’d voluntarily put a bumper sticker on his gas-guzzler that read, “I don’t give a FUCK what you think.” A real gem, that Keith.
She looked at his chunky thighs sticking from shorts, the tasseled loafers on his bare feet that exposed a shocking farmer’s tan up his ankles. His bald head and dark mustache reminded her of Anton LaVey, and she wondered how on earth the man had managed to score women.
“Give us the basket of candy,” Keith Junior said. She looked at him through the slits on her headpiece. He had a tail, for crying out loud.
“Why don’t you guys go look for some eggs? There are still tons out there, and I hear there is money in some. You guys can buy something better than candy.”
“It’s only coins. There’s no bills,” Ashlyn said. “We want the candy.”
She wanted to shout for joy as she watched Ethan head across the grass toward her. He stepped in a pile of raw egg then paused to scrape his shoe over the grass. As he did so Keith Junior grabbed the basket. His grip was strong and Cate heard the handle rip.
“Hey,” Ethan snapped as he approached. “Get outta here.”
Startled, Keith Junior fled. His tail bobbed over his neck.
“I can’t believe his father lets him run around like that,” Cate whispered.
Ethan shook his head. “I know. What weirdos.” They watched as Keith Junior smashed a hard-boiled egg against his own head, eggshell falling over his tail like confetti.
What if she had kids like these?
“Thanks for doing this,” Ethan said. “I still feel so bad that you were the one to draw the rabbit from the hat.”
All the adults in Ethan’s family had drawn from a hat to see who would be the unlucky soul who had to play Easter bunny this year. Cate had sort of felt like she should be exempt from playing Easter bunny since she’d only been a part of the family for five months and wasn’t really familiar with the Blakelys’ traditions, but she decided to be a good sport and went along with it. Of course, she drew the rabbit.
Ethan had offered dozens of times to swap places with her, but she wanted to fit in. Furthermore, she’d been a kindergarten teacher for seven years. She figured entertaining kids for a couple of hours in a bunny costume wasn’t a big deal. Carrying the prize basket and letting dozens of kids fueled on sugar highs climb over her in desert heat had nearly melted her.
“Good news,” he said. “Aunt Caroline’s trying to end the egg hunt. Someone just threw a dozen raw eggs in the pool, so you can go change now.”
“Don’t I have to pass out the prize candy after the kids collect all the eggs?”
He shook his head. “It’s too hot. Get outta that thing.”
“I missed my period.” Standing in ninety-degree heat in a rabbit costume with most of Ethan’s extended family in earshot was hardly the ideal time, but she couldn’t help it. She was dying to tell him.
