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  “Aren’t I looking at you like that already?” she whispered. “Right now?” She brushed her mouth against his. “You are my world, Dev, you and DJ, and when you left just now and I thought you didn’t want that… You always said it and I always believed you. You weren’t looking for anything long-term. How could I trust that any of that had suddenly changed? I was so scared. I hate being scared. I always fight it.”

  “You don’t need to be scared about this. You’re the bravest person I know. You’ve showed me that love can be the best adventure in the world, if two people want it to be. It doesn’t have to be safe and boring and a massive compromise. And if you’ll marry me, we’ll make a family for DJ and she’ll be part of the adventure, too, and neither of us will be scared of losing her or fighting over her or any of that.” He dropped his voice still lower. “Will you, Jodie?”

  “Yes, oh, yes.” Her body decided to have a say in things at this point, and her legs suddenly wouldn’t hold her up. She fell against him and he laughed and it was the best thing that could have happened, because what choice did he have now but to kiss her?

  A car went past.

  And then another one.

  And then two more.

  “I guess you could call it brave and adventurous to say yes to a marriage proposal on the shoulder of a well-used road,” Jodie teased him.

  “Brave and adventurous to make a marriage proposal in that situation. Some might say foolish. You deserve roses and candles and champagne and a whole heap of romantic planning, and here I am doing it in the exact opposite way, with no planning at all, and maybe I deserve, ‘Do it better and you might get a yes,’ but it…just didn’t pan out like that.”

  “What was it John Lennon said? You told me, Dev. ‘Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.’ I love that it happened like this. Of course I said yes. We seem to have a history of doing things in the wrong way.”

  “In our own way. The adventurous way. A family.”

  “Let’s go back. I’m missing her already. And I want to tell Elin.”

  “Wish the cell phone reception wasn’t so good. The whole family will know in about five minutes and it won’t be our sweet secret.”

  “Cell phone…” The outside world intruded, as she thought about it. “You’ll miss your flight.”

  “They can wait a day, in London. I’ll be away five days instead of six. It’ll still seem like five times too long.”

  “Oh, it will…”

  “But for now, I’m spending the day with family. And the night with my future bride.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The day Jodie and Dev got married was one of the best days of her life. “Let’s not wait,” they’d said to each other, and so it happened on a sunny fall day when DJ was still only just learning to sit up, and when Jodie’s progress down the aisle of the Palmer and Browne family church was still a little uneven and slow.

  The day, Christmas Day, when she and Dev sat DJ on the rocking horse Dad had made for her, was heart-warming and amazing and wonderful.

  The day the following spring when she rode Irish for the first time since the accident was pretty good, too. Her friend Bec had kept him in training and given him an hour’s workout before the ride, so by the time Jodie climbed into the saddle in the indoor arena at Oakbank, he wasn’t in the mood to mistake any of her awkward leg aids as the instruction to go into a full gallop. He nuzzled her after the ride as if to say, “I’m glad to have you back,” and if a good part of his appreciation was because of the carrots she gave him, well, that was okay.

  The day DJ said her first word—“hot”—the day she took her first steps, the day Dev and Jodie finally tore themselves away from their baby and flew off for a delayed honeymoon in Aruba, were mighty fine days, all of them.

  But if you backed her against a brick wall and pointed a water pistol at her head and made her choose the number-one day, the very top, most memorable, wonderful, important day, after eighteen months of wedded bliss, would have to be the one where Jodie discovered that she couldn’t stand the smell of ketchup anymore, when it had smelled so good during her rehab.

  It was in spring, and DJ had celebrated her second birthday the previous week. She was energetic, happy and talking a mile a minute, even though only her mom and dad could work out what she was saying half the time.

  She loved children’s music DVDs and playing in the sandbox and petting the ponies at Oakbank. She loved story time and bath time and Daddy coming home. She loved spaghetti and ice cream and strawberries, but her favorite food of all—this month, anyhow—was hot dogs.

  Which was where the ketchup came in.

  Dani Jane liked ketchup on her hot dogs.

  A lot.

  “Mo-ore, Momm-eee.”

  “There’s already a big squeeze on it, DJ, honey.”

  “More, plee-eease?”

  “Okay, one more squirt.”

  They were in the kitchen of their brand-new, log-cabin–style house on their brand-new twenty acres of land adjacent to Oakbank Stables, and Dev was due back from an overnight trip to New York that afternoon.

  I can’t wait, Jodie was thinking as she squeezed the ketchup bottle, and then she caught the smell of it full in her nostrils and almost threw up and she just knew.

  It was a Palmer thing. Mom remembered it. Elin and Lisa had both complained of it. Maddy swore it was nonsense, and then had called Mom from Cincinnati in tears one day to say, “I put ketchup on my fries and then I couldn’t even look at them let alone eat them, and I didn’t dare hope after we’d been trying so long, but John went to the drugstore and bought a test and I’m pregnant!”

  I’m pregnant.

  DJ ate her hot dog with her mommy being somewhat less patient than usual about how long it took and how much mess there was to clean up. Her nap time should have followed her lunch and she seemed a little surprised when Mommy bundled her into the car and zoomed off down the road to the nearest drugstore.

  Dev arrived home at four, when DJ was still sleeping thanks to the late start to her nap, and when Jodie hadn’t been expecting him for another two hours. She heard his car and met him at the door. He pulled her into his arms before she could speak and kissed her, hungry and happy and so familiar. “Finished early,” he said. “Raced to the airport and took an earlier flight. Glad I’ve put the international stuff on hold for another year or two. Couldn’t wait to see you.”

  “Me, too. I’ve been trying to call you. You had your cell phone switched off, I thought you must still be in meetings… Dev, guess what?”

  She told him.

  He kissed her again, and she found that his face was wet with tears. She pulled back a little, looked at his wet lashes and narrowed eyes and mouth pressed tight to contain what he felt, and melted at the sight of such a strong man in such a tender state. She took some of the moisture onto her fingertip and showed him. “Whwhy, Dev?”

  “Do you have to ask?” he whispered. “Because you’re here, this time.”

  “Here?”

  “With DJ, you weren’t. You weren’t present at all, and we both missed out on so much because of it. To have you here, and healthy, and my beautiful wife… Don’t you want to cry?”

  “I cried the whole afternoon.” And she was crying again, laughing and sniffing and feeling crazy happy and emotional at the same time. “I went back and smelled that ketchup bottle three more times just because I could.”

  He laughed. “There you go.”

  “Because you’re right, and it’s just how I felt, too. I wasn’t here, for DJ. This time, I’m having two pregnancies in one, and no one is going to stop me.”

  It was truer than either of them knew. Better than either of them knew. Three weeks later, a routine scan in the dark and quiet of the obstetrician’s office showed that in roughly seven months, she and Dev would become the proud and happy parents of twins.

  ISBN: 978-1-4592-0933-6

  THE MOMMY MIRACLE

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ht © 2011 by Lilian Darcy

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