Fall for Me (Danvers #3)(36)
Rubbing her bottom against his crotch suggestively, Suzy laughed. “I knew you were a bad boy.”
Gray swatted her bottom playfully. “Behave yourself. I’d prefer not to make out on the counter that your sister and my brother christened before us, and I sure can’t risk your parents walking in on us. I don’t think either one of us would survive that lecture or, God help me, instructions on what we’re doing wrong.”
“Ugh, please don’t say that. I agree on the counter, though. Of course, if Nick and Beth told us everywhere they’ve made out in this house since they met, we would probably have to burn the place down.”
With obvious reluctance, Gray murmured, “We should probably get back in there. Nick and Beth may be in desperate need of our help by now.”
Suzy gave him her best pleading look while running the tip of her tongue around her lower lip suggestively. “Aw, do we have to?”
Gray leaned down to capture her mouth in a kiss that curled her toes and sent liquid heat straight to her core. In a husky whisper, Gray said, “I don’t think a few more minutes will matter either way.” With those words, he wrapped his body around Suzy’s and tried to steal a moment of calm in the storm.
* * *
At the dining table, John finally spoke to break the silence. “So, congratulations, you two. I had no idea that things were so . . . serious between you.”
Vicky jumped up from her chair and came around the table to hug her. “I didn’t think I would be a grandmother for quite some time, but I’m so happy for you. How exciting that my boys have fallen in love with sisters.” Beth saw the quick look that she shot at Nick as she said the L word. Vicky hugged Nick next and then John walked over and hugged her as well.
John then clasped Nick on the shoulder and said, “I think we may have missed a talk or two lately.”
Nick smiled up at his father and said, “Maybe one or two. I’m sure you’ll make up for them, though.”
John laughed. “You’ve got that right, son.”
Beth noticed her parents sat as still as statues on the other side of the table. Clearing her throat, she said, “So, Mom, Dad, big surprise, right?”
Her mother looked at her with disapproval in her eyes. “Yes, Beth, it is a surprise and not something we would have expected from you.”
Suzy and Gray entered the dining room just in time to hear her mother’s remark. Beth could tell by the slight stiffening of Suzy’s shoulders that she knew their mother was actually saying that she would have expected it from Suzy. Gray pulled out a chair for her and then deposited the bottle of champagne on the table. He went back to the kitchen and returned with the strawberry cheesecake he had made.
Beth took the reprieve that the interruption had created and smiled at John and Vicky as they returned to their seats across the table. Suzy asked brightly from the head of the table, “Is everyone ready for dessert?”
Gray cut them all pieces of the cheesecake and Suzy walked around the table delivering the dessert and offering a glass of champagne, a refill of tea, or a cup of coffee. John, Vicky, Gray, and Suzy all opted for the champagne. Suzy and Beth’s parents took coffee and, even though Beth knew that Nick wanted the champagne, he took a refill of iced tea just as she did. He was probably afraid that her parents would launch into a lecture on the hazards of alcohol if he indulged.
Beth took a big bite of her cheesecake and closed her eyes in bliss. When she opened them, her mother was staring at her. With a sinking feeling, Beth prepared for what was coming next.
“You do realize that the weight gain from this pregnancy, especially with twins, will be difficult for someone such as yourself?”
Beth could feel the bite that she had taken threaten to come back up as she dropped her head in embarrassment. Yep, they are all looking at you. Your own mother just pinned the fat cow sign to your forehead for everyone to see. Would it be bad to wish for one of those hurricanes that Dad was harping on earlier? Now would be a good time to be washed away and never have to look at anyone at this table again.
Beside her, Nick set his fork down with a clatter. He looked her mother squarely in the eyes and softly asked, “What do you mean, by ‘someone such as yourself’?”
Beth wanted to crawl under the table and hide. She appreciated his concern, but wanted him to just let it go, rather than make the situation worse. Now my mother will go into detail about my weight and I’ll be humiliated in front of your parents.
Her father spoke up, obviously missing the edge that had entered Nick’s voice. “Beth spent most of her life clinically obese. Instead of taking control of the situation, as we encouraged her to do when she was young, she let it continue into her adult life, increasing her risk of diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and coronary artery disease, just to name a few things. As Linda was trying to indicate, a pregnancy for someone with little willpower such as Beth could well cause her relapse into obesity.”
Nick shoved his chair back from the table at the same time Suzy slammed her glass down. Beth looked at the usually cool Nick in surprise as he stood up and leaned over the table, looking at both of her parents. “Do you even hear yourselves?” he asked in a deathly quiet voice. Without giving her parents time to reply, he continued. “I am constantly in awe of your daughters. They are smart, funny, intelligent, compassionate, and beautiful. Everyone who knows them loves them. I’m starting to think they must be adopted. I can’t imagine you two even having children, much less having two as outstanding as Beth and Suzy.”