“Post-babies!” She laughed, and when she did, Grant’s blood pressure dropped to a more normal level even though his heart sped up.
She wasn’t patronizing him. She wasn’t treating Dolly different from Tim, and for reasons he’d never be able to explain, Dolly had fallen in love with Emily at first sight, and Dolly didn’t like too many people.
“So.” She picked up the pen, flipped open the notebook and faced him as he and Timmy settled onto the floor nearby. “We talked about a February wedding on the phone. Is that still the plan?”
“January, now,” he told her as he worked Timmy’s jacket off. “The second Saturday.” The minute he was free of his father’s help, the little boy got up and raced around the spacious room.
“I’ll keep an eye out from here,” Allison promised from her area. “You guys see what you can accomplish.”
“You told me on the phone that Christa and Spencer are regular, straightforward people. Neither one likes too much glitz and glamour.”
“No, ma’am. They’re simple, hardworking types. Most of my family’s the same way.”
He must have sounded brusque, because her left brow rose fractionally, but her voice stayed matter-of-fact. “While several of the local venues close for the winter, most stay open as needed, making a January venue fairly easy to secure.”
“Of course the problem is, we run into storms, then.” He frowned, because in his line of work, weather always took primary consideration. “There’s no way around it, though. That’s the only time they can arrange leave together.”
“Have generators waiting...” she murmured as she made a note on the pad.
He stared at her. “You’re serious?”
“Of course. It’s sensible, right?”
“Yes, but—” He looked around the beautiful trappings of her mother’s business and shrugged. “You surprised me, that’s all.”
She paused her pen, looked him in the eye and held his gaze. “Pretty doesn’t mean nonfunctional.”
Ouch.
She’d nailed his opinion in one quick lesson, and while he was sure she meant well, he’d run the gamut with his wife of nearly nine years. Serenity had lived for appearances. Not so much at first. She’d been a local news anchor for the Rochester area and had been crazy popular. He’d thought she was happy.
She wasn’t.
As their economic status rose, so did her penchant for success.
They’d put off having children because the timing had never been quite right. Her job, his job, education, job security... And then suddenly they were pregnant with twins.
Grant had been ecstatic.
Serenity had looked trapped from the moment the stick changed color until the day she piled her suitcases and a picture of Timmy into her car and drove to a new job in Baltimore. He pushed the image aside.
“Backup generators would be great.”
“Do we want a church for the ceremony?”
“Christa has always loved the abbey your uncle runs. I ran the new date by him and he said it was clear, so I was thinking a two o’clock wedding. Is that a good time?”
“Perfect, especially with the decreased daylight in winter.” She made a quick note as Dolly tried to grab her pen. “Hey, you.” She laughed into Dolly’s sweet, round face and then up at him. “So that’s Tim.” She pointed to the little boy. “And this is?”
“Dolly.”
“Perfect!” She laughed and made wide eyes at Dolly. Dolly shrieked in delight, clapped her hands together and giggled out loud. “She’s like a little doll. Great name.”
“It’s really Dolores Marie for my mother,” he said. “I thought Dolly would be a cute nickname for her. My mother died before she was born, so it’s a nice way to carry on the family names.”
“It’s marvelous.” Dolly stood up, looking steady, but when she went to chase after her brother, she stopped and went from happy-go-lucky toddler to instant anger. She stuck out her lower lip, stomped her foot twice and glared across the room at her twin. When Timmy ignored her, she stomped again, scowled at her father and burst into tears.
Grant stood and carried her across the room, then set her down next to Timmy. He came back, sat down and waited for Emily to proceed.
“What’s she going to do when he moves?” Emily asked, and something in her voice tweaked Grant’s protective juices.
“Crawl after him. Or get mad.”
“Oh.”
One word. One tiny, two-letter word, but it was like he’d just been tried and convicted in the court of Gallagher. “You have a better way?”
She looked from Dolly to him, then said, “Walking’s always good.”
“She can’t,” he explained and thought he’d gain sympathy because even though Dolly’s chromosomal defects weren’t blatantly obvious to others, they were real enough.
Emily Gallagher did a slow, thorough look of him, then his daughter, then back. “You mean she won’t.”
“She’s afraid.”
Emily’s expression said she’d figured that out herself. “Won’t stop being afraid until she does it, I expect.”
Irritation mushroomed inside him, like it did every time someone expected Dolly to be normal. She wasn’t normal, not by society’s standards. He understood that, so what was wrong with the rest of the world? “You have kids, Miss Gallagher?”
She shook her head.
“But you know everything there is to know about kids, I suppose? Especially kids with Dolly’s condition?” He was tired of fielding questions from people who doubted Dolly’s diagnosis of Down syndrome, just because her face looked more normal than most affected children.
“Actually, I do,” she answered easily as she flipped the page. “I spent summers here, helping my mother, but my off-campus job during the school year was working in a children’s group home. I spent four years on staff there. We had several clients with limited abilities, some with Down syndrome, and I was honored to work with the wide spectrum of effect. I might have majored in business and fashion design, but I worked with therapists, clinicians and the kids. It’s scary for a normally functioning kid to take those first steps, too, but parents don’t discourage them.”
He hated that she made perfect sense, because Aunt Tillie had been telling him the same thing. Did he want Dolly to be stymied by her limitations? Or did he want her to reach for the stars?
He scowled, because this wasn’t open for discussion. He wanted his perfectly imperfect daughter to be safe. End of story. “Let’s get back to the wedding planning, shall we?”
“Of course.” She answered smoothly, but that was to be expected of a woman who used to field pageant judge questions with grace and a welcoming smile. She smiled now, but something in her eyes said he’d just flunked a test he didn’t even know he’d been taking.
* * *
Emily Gallagher was pretty sure she needed her life back, a life of fabrics and fashions made to flatter the everyday woman.
Schmoozing overprotective fathers hadn’t made her short list, ever. And yet, here she was, helping out with the family business because she was needed. She was fine with that part. It was the bridezilla factor she disliked, and in this case, the “brother-zilla.”
He’d looked downright appealing striding down that hall, toting an adorable twin in each arm.
Tall,