All He Ever Desired (The Kowalskis) Read online

  Paige was currently sitting in Hailey’s rocking chair, which had been thoroughly toilet-papered in lieu of white streamers. Whitford didn’t have a party store and Hailey had forgotten to stop at one when she’d gone into the city to buy gifts.

  “Oh, my God, Fran,” Paige said, while Hailey almost doubled over laughing beside her.

  Lauren could see why when Paige held up the present. Fran had knit her a short, spaghetti-strapped nightie...out of a nice, sturdy wool. It was the most bizarre thing she’d ever seen.

  “Hey, you didn’t leave me enough time to knit the matching peignoir,” Fran said. “But that’ll keep the important bits warm while still looking sexy. Maine-style.”

  Lauren had lived in Maine her entire life and she’d never seen a wool negligee, but the gift was definitely the hit of the party, even if Paige did decline modeling it for everybody.

  “I’ll save it to wear for Mitch,” she said, folding it carefully and adding it to the pile of more traditional sexy underwear and nighties she’d received.

  When the gifts had been opened, the desserts were broken out and more wine was poured. Lauren opted out, since she was driving, but she doubled up on the chocolate cream pie to make up for it.

  “Okay,” Hailey said to Paige when they were standing at the counter, eating. “Spill. Where are you going for your honeymoon?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

  Lauren had to agree with Hailey. “How can you not know where you’re going on your wedding night?”

  Paige shrugged. “He doesn’t want me to know. He’s afraid I’ll tell somebody and his brothers and cousins will be able to find us. We’re only going for a few nights because of the diner and the fact he has a lot of travel coming up, so it’ll be someplace close.”

  “I can’t believe he won’t tell anybody where he’s going to be,” Katie said. She’d skipped the Red Sox ball cap for the occasion, though the ponytail was in place.

  “If he told anybody, it would probably be Rose. Or maybe Ryan. He’s the least likely to tell everybody else, I think. He told me all I needed was my toothbrush and maybe a robe to put on when room service came around.”

  Hailey snorted. “If he’s just going to keep you in a hotel room the whole time for nonstop newlywed sex, you may as well save money and stay right at the lodge.”

  “Mitch and I didn’t really talk about it, but I suspect having Rose and his aunt Mary under the same roof would be...inhibitive, let’s say.”

  “What about me?”

  They all turned, and Katie pointed at her mother. “You’re getting sneaky in your old age.”

  “We were talking about the fact they’re going to a hotel for their honeymoon because Mitch can’t get it up with you and Mary both at the lodge,” Hailey said. Lauren guessed she’d probably downed a glass or two more of the wine than the other women had.

  Paige blushed bright red. “That’s not what I said at all! I said it would be inhibitive. Not prohibitive.”

  “No wonder Mitch loves you,” Katie said. “You know all the big words.”

  “Shut up. This is my bachelorette party. You can’t make fun of me at my own party.”

  Katie just grinned and moved in for a second helping of chocolate pudding. Lauren glanced at the clock and winced. She still had a lot to do before Nick could leave with Dean tomorrow. And she couldn’t run late because Hailey had made the hair appointment for them.

  “You wouldn’t believe how amazing Ryan has been,” Paige said, and Lauren decided she could stay a few more minutes. “He and the guys who work for him have the outside all spruced up. They even repainted the chairs on the porch so they’d look good in the pictures. He’s such a sweetheart.”

  Lauren thought so, too. In fact, for such a sweetheart and all-around great guy to have gone behind his friend’s back the way he did, he must have cared about her a lot more than she’d ever suspected. Granted, that was a really long time ago, so he hadn’t been as mature then as he was now, but he’d always been a good guy.

  The what-if game that had always been just a stupid, harmless fantasy came with a hint of regret now. If she’d known then what she knew now—if she’d been able to see the guy Ryan Kowalski would become—she might have said yes.

  “You’re looking serious again, Lauren,” Katie accused.

  “What?” Lauren forced herself to shake it off. “Yeah, I really have to go. Nick’s supposed to be getting his stuff together for his camping trip, which I just know means tearing apart the house and garage.”

  She hugged Paige, who squealed in her ear. “Can you believe the next time you see me, I’ll be heading up the aisle to become Mrs. Mitchell Kowalski? How amazing is that? Mrs. Kowalski sounds so awesome. I might put that on my name tag at work instead of Paige.”

  Lauren squeezed her friend, soaking in her happiness. “You’re a very lucky woman.”

  Chapter Eight

  On Friday, the extended Kowalski family arrived like a parade, their vehicles pulling up the driveway one right after another. Paige jumped back from the window when Uncle Leo, who was first in line, honked his horn, and Ryan laughed at her.

  “Why are you so nervous? You’ve already met them.”

  “For one day.”

  “Mitch loves you, they’ll love you. It’s that simple.”

  She nodded, but her eyes sparkled with unshed tears. “I wish my mother was here.”

  Hearing her say that raised Ryan’s blood pressure all over again. Donna Sullivan had a new boyfriend, it seemed, and they’d already made plans they couldn’t cancel on such short notice. Ryan had been in the room when Mitch had called Donna and offered not only to buy two first-class plane tickets, but to foot the bill for any cancellation fees for the plans, which couldn’t possibly be as important as her daughter’s wedding. But her boyfriend hadn’t wanted to come, so she hadn’t either.

  “You’ll be a Kowalski now,” he told Paige. “And we always show up.”

  “I’m going to love being a part of your family.” She took a deep breath and blinked away the wetness in her eyes. “Okay, let’s go out and say hi.”

  Rosie, Josh and Mitch were already on the porch when he and Paige stepped out, so they all went down the steps to the driveway together.

  Uncle Leo and Aunt Mary were first in line for hugs, but when his aunt got a little weepy, Ryan passed her off to Rosie and moved to Terry and Evan’s car. His cousin and her husband looked relaxed and happy, which made him smile. They’d had a rough patch a while back and the family hadn’t been sure the marriage would survive. Now it seemed stronger than ever. Their fourteen-year-old daughter, Stephanie, squealed and threw her arms around his neck and it blew his mind how tall she’d gotten. He needed to get over to New Hampshire more often.

  His cousin Kevin arrived in a minivan, which made Ryan chuckle, with his brother Joe riding shotgun. When Beth got two-year-old Lily out of her car seat, she was off like a rocket, mom at her heels. Keri handed Brianna—who’d had her first birthday late in the summer—to Joe, but she squirmed, wanting to get down and go with her cousin.

  Then the doors to Mike and Lisa’s minivan opened and their kids spilled out, grumbling and throwing elbows. He shook his cousin’s hand, trying to remember how old Rosie had said their boys were. The youngest, Bobby, was eight, so working backward he figured out Brian was ten, Danny was thirteen and Joey was sixteen. Damn, they grew up fast.

  Pulling up the rear was a pickup that said Landscaping by Emma down the side, and his brother Sean—aka the middle child—was standing in front of it, stretching his back.

  His wife, Emma, had her hands on her hips. “If you’d let me drive part of the way, your back wouldn’t be so stiff.”

  Sean just shook his head, then grinned when he saw Ryan appro
aching. Ryan shook his hand, pulling him in for a shoulder slapping, then kissed his sister-in-law’s cheek. “Glad you guys made it.”

  “Wouldn’t have missed it. You haven’t lived until you’ve been in a McDonald’s with seven kids who will do anything to not get back in a vehicle.”

  “Better you than me.” Ryan took Emma’s bag from her. “Although I get the privilege of making the six-hour round-trip to pick up Liz at the airport. Josh pulled the whole healing-broken-leg card.”

  “The bastard.” Sean didn’t seem to be in any hurry to wade into the throng of loud Kowalskis blocking the porch. “How’s the work going?”

  They chatted a few minutes about the renovations on the lodge, and Ryan wasn’t surprised when Emma wandered off to join the rest of the family. He stood and watched them while he talked to his brother, and he was surprised when he saw Emma press a hand to her lower belly before shoving both hands in her pockets. He looked at Sean, one eyebrow raised.

  Sean grinned and nodded. “Yeah. But she doesn’t want to tell anybody yet.”

  “Between Rose and Aunt Mary, there’s no way it’s going stay a secret.”

  “If they suspect, they suspect. But she doesn’t want to tell anybody until Thanksgiving. It’s still early, plus you know all the women are going to flip out. Especially Rosie, since it’s the first baby for our side of the family, but Emma doesn’t want to take any of the focus off Paige.”

  “Holy shit, you’re going to be a daddy.” The grin and the glow that lit up his brother’s face warmed Ryan’s heart. It had taken Sean a long time to settle and he could see, without a doubt, his younger brother was ridiculously happy. “Congratulations, man.”

  “Thanks. I don’t know if we’ll be able to keep the secret until Thanksgiving or not, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t say anything until after the wedding.”

  “Not my good news to share.” He pulled out his phone to check the time. “Shit. I’ve gotta hit the road soon. Mitch checked about an hour ago and Liz’s flight is on time, so I should be, too.”

  It was another forty minutes before he managed to free himself from the tangle of family and his truck from the tangle of vehicles and hit the road. Kevin, along with a partner, was in the process of opening a second branch of Jasper’s Bar & Grille on the snowmobile trails in northern New Hampshire, and wanted some advice on hiring a contractor. Aunt Mary wanted to know how Josh was really doing, and Uncle Leo wanted to know every detail of the work they’d done on the lodge.

  But he finally extricated himself and the almost three-hour drive was actually a nice break. He wasn’t going to get a lot of quiet time this weekend.

  He hung around the baggage claim area for what felt like forever before passengers began streaming toward the carousel. Liz spotted him immediately and he grinned. She looked great, with her long, dark hair loose and frazzled around her face. While they were all losing their summer color already, her tan set off the blue eyes crinkling as she smiled.

  She came at him on the run and he caught her as she threw herself into his arms. It had only been a few months since she’d flown home for Sean and Emma’s wedding, but he’d noticed then that she seemed to have a hard time leaving when it was time to go home.

  “It’s good to see you,” he said around a mouthful of her hair.

  “I can’t believe Mitch is getting married.” She moved toward the carousel as bags started dumping off the belt, and he had to walk fast to keep up. “What do you think of Paige?”

  “She’s awesome. She’s kind of quiet and she’s a bit of a homebody. Doesn’t take any crap from Mitch.”

  “I always thought we’d end up with a sister-in-law who was a Vegas stripper or a Miami Beach bunny. What does Rosie think of her?”

  When she grabbed hold of a massive, battered suitcase, he reached past her and took it away. The thing weighed a ton and he thanked his lucky stars the wheels were still in fairly good shape. “Rosie loves her.”

  “Then she must be awesome.”

  They walked out to his truck while she filled him in on the sick kid and the cranky woman and the snoring guy on her flight, and he hoped her chattering covered the sound of his grunt when he had to lift her suitcase into the bed.

  “Growing weak in your old age?” Apparently, it hadn’t. “It’s under the fifty-pound limit. Just barely, but still.”

  “Shut up and get in the truck.”

  She was quiet while he navigated his way out of the airport to the open road. Actually, she was more quiet than usual, just staring out the passenger window. Usually she at least sang along with the radio.

  “How’s Darren?” Not that he cared, but he figured it would be rude not to ask.

  “I moved out last weekend.”

  Ryan almost drove off the road. “What? What happened? Are you okay? How come I didn’t know about this?”

  “You didn’t know because I haven’t told anybody. And you can’t, either. I don’t want people worrying about me instead of enjoying Mitch’s wedding.”

  When had he become the keeper of the whole family’s damn secrets? “You didn’t even tell Rosie?”

  “I’ll tell her before I leave, but not until after Mitch and Paige leave for their honeymoon.”

  “So what happened? And are you okay?” They’d been trying to get her to dump the guy for years, but that didn’t mean it was any easier for her.

  “Nothing happened really. It was just another long day like every other long day and, after another talk about money—or the lack thereof—and why he couldn’t set an alarm to remind him when I’d be home so maybe he could at least throw leftovers in the microwave, I thought to myself, ‘I’m thirty-two years old. I only have to do this every single day for another forty, fifty, sixty years.’ And I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it even one more day.”

  “That’s no way to live.”

  “It wasn’t bad.”

  “But it wasn’t good.”

  She sighed, tapping her fingers on her knee. “I just want more. When I think about having fifty or sixty years left to do what I’m doing, I want to think it’s not enough, not that it’s too long.”

  “I’m sorry, though. You guys were together forever.”

  She laughed. “Don’t lie. You—all of you—have always hated Darren.”

  “We just wanted him to man up and be a little more responsible. Get a day job so all the burden wasn’t on you. Instead, he talked you into going all the way across the country so we couldn’t be in his business anymore. He took you away, so yeah...we’re not huge fans. Doesn’t mean I’m not sorry you ended up here, kid.”

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’ll be okay.”

  “Are you coming home?”

  She shook her head. “I miss you guys, but my life’s in New Mexico. I’ll be making some changes, though, and one of them is coming home at least twice a year from now on.”

  He reached across the center console and squeezed her hand. “That sounds like a good plan, but once Rosie knows Darren’s out of the picture, it’s only a matter of time before all your shit’s in a U-Haul headed east.”

  “And that’s why you’re going to keep your mouth shut. I’m going to wait until it’s time to walk out the door and then tell her quick before we drive away. She’s less effective over the phone.”

  “Keep telling yourself that.”

  “Whatever. So tell me how the family’s all doing? Any good gossip?”

  Since he couldn’t tell her Emma’s news, he told her about Kevin’s new business venture. And he told her about Nick and the vandalism and how Rosie was treating him like the grandchild she so desperately wanted.

  “Isn’t he Lauren Carpenter’s son?” She said it casually enough, but she was full of crap. She knew full well who Nick was.

  “Yeah.”


  “So you must see a lot of her then. And she’s friends with Paige, isn’t she? I bet she’ll be at the wedding tomorrow.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good. Somebody to dance with who doesn’t swim in the same DNA pool.”

  “I’m not much for dancing,” he said.

  “Not much to it. Hold her close and sway to the music, big brother.”

  She was trying to kill him. There was no way in hell he was going to hold Lauren close and sway to the music, especially in front of his family.

  He might think about it a lot, though. Later, when he was alone.

  * * *

  Lauren eyeballed the small mound of camping and ATV gear in the driveway. “You’re sure you have everything? It’s going to be cold at night.”

  Nick gave her an exasperated look. “Yes, since you made me check everything off the list as I packed it and then you practically unpacked and repacked everything making sure.”

  Dean and Jody were standing by Jody’s minivan and Lauren could hear Nick’s little brother and sister—five-year-old Alex and three-year-old Adrienne—squabbling in the backseat. Time to get the show on the road.

  “Let’s get it loaded up then,” she said.

  When they started picking up bags, Dean stepped forward to help and, within a few minutes, they were ready to take off for the long weekend. While she’d gotten used to not having her son around Saturdays and Sundays a long time ago, she still didn’t like it and always felt a pang in her chest when she hugged him goodbye.

  “Have fun and be safe,” she said, trying not to squeeze him too hard.

  “I will.” And she knew he would. Dean wasn’t always on the ball, but he didn’t mess around with the four-wheelers. Nick had as much safety gear as a motocross racer. “Have fun at the wedding.”

  “Thanks, honey.” At least there was one day she wouldn’t rattle around the house alone. “I’ll see you Monday afternoon.”

  Lauren waved until the minivan was out of sight and then rushed into the house to grab her purse and car keys. She was meeting Hailey at the library so they could go to the salon together and she was already running a few minutes behind.