He smiled. Apology accepted. Then he reached over and clasped her hand. Tightly.
A taut silence fell.
Mitzy frowned. “I’m just trying to get a feel for how real this union is going to be.”
Trace countered in a smooth voice, “As opposed to?”
“A sham marriage.” Mitzy walked down the stairs. “Which, I don’t have to tell either of you, would be a very bad thing to have to report on.”
How could things have gone so far south so fast? Poppy asked herself glumly as she and Trace followed. It hadn’t even been fifteen hours! Feeling as if it was her turn to defend them, she said hotly, “It’s not a sham. It might not be traditional by someone else’s standards, but it’s definitely going to be real enough according to ours.”
Mitzy took a seat in the big comfy chair, leaving the two of them to sit side-by-side on the sofa. “I gather since the original plan was marriage by proxy—until Trace showed up in person, anyway—that this was almost a mere formality.”
Before it turned oh, so real, Poppy thought.
“And now it’s not,” Trace said snidely.
Aware she was getting under his skin, Mitzy made another note. “So how long had you been thinking about getting married before you made the decision?” she asked.
Trace continued the battle like the true warrior he was. “Five minutes maybe.”
“I don’t mean when you actually proposed,” Mitzy said.
Figuring the truth, and nothing but the truth, was the way go to, at least as much as possible, anyway, Poppy put in, just as cavalierly, “Actually, it was my idea.”
Mitzy did a double-take. “You proposed to Trace?”
Proposal meant romantic. Hers hadn’t been. Poppy made a seesaw motion with her right hand. “Mmm. More like... I...presented the option.”
Trace draped his arm around her shoulders and shifted closer. “And I accepted.”
“Because of the agency requirement regarding the adoption of more than one child at one time,” Mitzy ascertained.
Poppy and Trace both nodded. She, reluctantly. He, as if to say, what’s the big deal here?
Was he more like his oft-married and divorced mother in this respect than she knew? Poppy wondered uncomfortably.
Mitzy turned the page on the preprinted questionnaire she was working through. “Do you have a prenup?”
“No,” Trace said.
“We trust each other,” Poppy agreed.
Mitzy looked up. “What about an actual marriage contract, verbal or written?”
“No,” they said firmly in unison.
Mitzy tapped her pen on the page. “Surely you have some sense of exactly how this is all going to work.”
Somehow, Trace managed not to sigh—even though Poppy could feel his exasperation mounting. “I’m in the military,” he stated bluntly. “I’ll be here whenever I can, as much as I can. The rest of the time Poppy will handle everything on the home front, like most military wives.”
Military wife. Poppy kind of liked the sound of that. All possessive and gruff-tender.
Mitzy’s expression softened ever so slightly, too. “Will you come home to see them every time you get leave?”
“I always do,” Trace said.
And Poppy knew that was true. Whenever he had time off, the two of them managed to steal time together. Even when it meant they rendezvoused in a third central location.
“So in that sense—” Mitzy smiled, still writing “—nothing will change.”
Trace and Poppy nodded again.
“So is this it?” Trace asked, looking impatient. And still jet-lagged.
Another long, thoughtful pause.
“Actually,” Mitzy said, riffling through the content on her clipboard, “I have several more pages—”
Pages! Poppy thought.
“—of questions to ask for the amended home study. But I can see it’s a bad time, the two of you being on your honeymoon and all. So what do you say we get together at another time, when you have the nursery done, and finish up then?”
“What else could you possibly need to know?” Poppy asked, only half joking, getting to her feet.
Mitzy slid everything in her work bag. “Well, for one thing, we need to revisit your individual family histories.”
“We did that before,” Poppy pointed out.
“Individually. Not together. Now that you are married we have to make sure there has been full disclosure between the two of you and that there are no underlying issues there, either.”
“Sounds like a test,” Trace grumbled.
That Cheshire smile again. “It is, in a way,” Mitzy said. “So, if there’s anything you haven’t told each other—and should—now is probably the time.”
* * *
TRACE WAS ABOUT to say there was nothing he and Poppy hadn’t told each other when he caught the fleeting glimpse of unhappiness in his new wife’s eyes and realized maybe there was. What it could be, though, he had no idea.
He waited until they had showed the social worker out before voicing his concern. He cupped Poppy by the shoulders and looked down at her. “What’s wrong?” he asked gently.
Poppy extricated herself deftly, swirled, lifted the skirt of her wedding dress in both hands and headed up the stairs. “Didn’t you see the way she was looking at us?” She was fuming.
He caught sight of the layers of petticoat beneath the satin skirt. And couldn’t help wondering what was beneath that.
Casually, he caught up with her in the short hall that ran the length of the second floor of the bungalow. “Like a social worker doing her job?”
Poppy stormed into the bedroom, still in her stocking feet. Reaching behind her for the zipper, she pouted. “She thinks our marriage is a sham.”
Trace stepped in to gallantly unhook the fastening at the nape of her gown. Once that was free, the zipper came down easily. “Why?” he countered huskily. “Because she obviously figured out you and I didn’t consummate our marriage last night?”
She shivered when his fingertips grazed her bare skin. “Please don’t say it that way.”
Hands on her shoulders, he turned her to face him. “Since when have we parsed words or dealt with something other than the truth?”
Poppy raked her teeth across the delectable plumpness of her lower lip. “Never.”
“So what’s the problem, then?”
She stared at the open collar of his shirt. “The fact we didn’t make love makes us—our whole union—look suspect.”
“Well, then,” Trace drawled, taking her in his arms and doing what he should have done the night before, would have done if she hadn’t been so skittish and he hadn’t been so damned jet-lagged. “There is only one way to fix that.”