Change of Life. Leigh Riker

make the most beautiful bride. And Johnny—well, what could Nora say? He had been a favorite of hers since he was thirteen years old.

      He’d grown up very nicely. Tall, lean, and well put together, with those wicked green eyes, at thirty-three he had the kind of sun-streaked hair that reminded Nora of the surfer boys like her brother who abounded on the Emerald Coast but with a better brain. John Hazard, a screenwriter, managed to hide that sharp intelligence and an awesome talent behind his modest charm as effectively as he often repressed his deeper emotions. Not tonight, she realized. He didn’t fool her. A cream puff, she thought, but definitely one with a secret. He was all but dancing across her living room carpet like Daisy, though he hadn’t moved an inch.

      Daisy had finished her dinner. Nora had no doubt she’d licked the bowl clean. All at once she charged around the kitchen doorway, tail waving like a pennant, bright eyes flashing. She aimed for Johnny, a personal favorite, then Savannah. When she’d absorbed another round of hugs and scratches, she finally settled down at Johnny’s feet.

      “I saw Mark late today,” Savannah said too casually, leaning back against the door, her dark blue eyes—the eyes she had gotten from Nora—avoiding hers. “He said you’d been in before me. I thought he seemed a little…down, somehow. Did you notice?”

      “No,” Nora said with a flicker of guilt. Mark, depressed about something? He’d seemed his usual cheerful self to her. But then Nora had been preoccupied. Maybe she’d overlooked something.

      “I’m sorry we missed each other,” Savannah said. “Why were you there?”

      Nora’s heart jerked. “Just routine. You?”

      She wouldn’t mention Mark’s “diagnosis,” didn’t want to worry them with the words that Nora had decided to ignore. Besides, those two had something in mind. If anything was wrong with Savannah, she and Johnny wouldn’t be toying with her like this, as they so obviously were doing. Would they?

      “We have some news,” he admitted.

      “Good news? Or bad news?” Nora didn’t need the latter.

      “We think it’s good,” he said.

      “We’re not sure about you.” Savannah reached for his hand. They were still hovering by the front door, as if they didn’t know whether to come in.

      A thousand possibilities flashed through Nora’s mind. As she’d suspected, the invitations must have been printed with the wrong names, time, or God forbid, date. Or Savannah’s wedding gown could not be finished on time. The reception hall had been double-booked by someone else with a prior claim. Savannah’s brother couldn’t be Johnny’s best man after all because Browning was off to Borneo for the government for six months.

      “Angels, I can’t stand the suspense. You’re afraid to tell me, aren’t you?”

      “We’re not afraid,” Savannah said, “but maybe you should sit down.”

      Nora’s pulse took a tumble. “Everything else may have gone wrong today, but my daughter is about to marry the most wonderful man on earth for her, and vice versa. I’m over the moon already. Nothing has given me more pleasure than to help plan your wedding.”

      “Help?” Johnny echoed. “Is that what you call it? As soon as we got engaged, you ran with the ball. ‘Let me take care of everything.’ There’s been no stopping you.” But his tone was teasing, his favorite attitude with Nora.

      She reassessed him and Savannah. “Please don’t tell me there’s some problem with your absolutely perfect match.”

      “No, of course not.” Savannah worried her lower lip. “It’s just that I’m—”

      “We’re—” Johnny said at the same instant.

      “—pregnant,” they both finished. “Nora—Ma—you’re going to be a…”

      Savannah’s next word failed to register. Nora was speechless, stunned. Her gaze dropped to Savannah’s flat stomach. She had laid a hand over it, protectively, covering her still-slim figure in her skinny jeans, and Johnny reached out to enfold her fingers there with his. His chin lifted as he returned Nora’s stare, but she saw his left eye begin to twitch, a sure sign that he was feeling stressed.

      Still she didn’t move. For years she had entertained the happy fantasy of her daughter one day becoming a mother, too. Nora loved her family. She had two children of her own, and on his wedding day Johnny would make three.

      Wasn’t it only yesterday that Savannah had been a little girl in pigtails, playing jump rope during school recess? Crying over her first boyfriend? Giggling with her girlfriends? Learning to ride a horse? Trying on her prom dress? And always, always after Nora’s divorce from Wilson, drawing her primitive stick figures of their family, together again? For a second or two, Nora let the sweet and poignant memories drift through her mind.

      “Say something,” Savannah murmured.

      And at last Nora came out of her trance.

      “Ohhh!” she shrieked. Startling Daisy, she sidestepped the dog, crossed the room, hauled Savannah into her wide-open arms, then Johnny, too. “Oh, my God! You two…”

      She told them how pleased she was, then turned her first, shocked silence into the kind of Hallmark occasion that sold greeting cards by the millions. Daisy was more than eager to join in the expressions of joy. She shimmied and jumped up on people and gave a short, sharp bark of delight. The bright blue metal tags on her collar jingled like a nursery mobile.

      “Can you believe it, Ma? Eeeek!” Savannah shouted.

      Nora’s eyes misted. How many such moments came along, after all, in anyone’s lifetime? She and Savannah surrendered to their tears and clasped each other close, erupting now and then as only women can in support of each other on such a happy occasion.

      Soon they would talk, as only mothers and daughters knew how to do, together. They would go shopping. For now Johnny was here, and he was a man, excluded by his sex from their female circle. He gazed helplessly from Nora to Savannah and back again with a baffled expression on his face at their display. He, in particular, wouldn’t understand such up-front emotion, and Nora finally took pity on him before she and Savannah went crazy all over again, unable to help themselves.

      Yet underneath, Nora felt a strange mix of powerful emotions all her own. One minute she was stepping back to think, It’s too soon. She had wanted this some day, but years from now when she would be ready. In the next instant, she was laughing and crying and holding on to Savannah for dear life. New life.

      Her baby was having a baby.

      Nora felt close to being hysterical, actually. Even in the company of the people she loved more than her own life, it had been quite a day.

      “I’m going to be…what?” she murmured.

      CHAPTER 2

       “Y ou sure don’t look like any grandmother I ever knew,” Nora heard Johnny say as soon as the restaurant hostess had shown them to their table, “including my own. Both of them.”

      She struggled not to blush at the compliment.

      “You think so? Really?”

      “Character is my business, Nora. I’m thinking—” he assessed her for a long moment “—Sandra Bullock for the part.”

      “She’s only forty.”

      She felt grateful for his flattery, but Nora had lived on a roller coaster of emotion for the past two days, obsessing over Savannah and Johnny’s surprising news. Sometimes she found herself smiling at the prospect, then fighting the urge to run and look in her mirror for any obvious signs that Mark Fingerhut could be right. This morning she had called Johnny to arrange one of their regular brunches, and seized the chance to get away from herself.

      Besides, she owed him something. The other night when she