mates. I think that’s what Melissa would have wanted us to learn. That this is what is important. Love. And I hope someday it will include all our babies. Babies who will grow into toddlers as love deepens all around us. Rick and I plan to adopt someday. Tessa would love a little brother or sister.”
Tessa was the six-year-old who would become Andrea’s stepdaughter. She was hands down the most adorable little girl on the planet.
“It’s what I want for this baby, too,” Emily said tenderly.
That old feeling of being the odd one out whispered along her spine, but Casey reminded herself she was not going to be that for long! But she was going to do things her way.
For as happy as both Emily and Andrea were now, Casey had been a bridesmaid at both their weddings. How those beautiful days had fuelled her longing for romance! But Andrea’s dreams had ended in a terrible tragedy on her honeymoon. And Casey had seen the cracks appear in Emily’s relationship almost before Emily had seen them herself.
Oh, sure, Emily and Cole were like lovers again now, and Andrea was still in the over-the-moon stage with her new love, Rick, but it was too late for Casey to believe in love.
The pain interwoven with the love in those relationships had just helped cement Casey’s resolve to wrestle her weakest point to the ground. And that wasn’t her hair, either!
“Well, you girls can believe in fairy tales if you want. I’m done with that,” she announced.
“I’ve been there,” Emily said sympathetically.
“Me, too,” Andrea said. “But the old saying is true—it’s darkest just before the dawn.” Catching Emily’s warning look, she added, “Okay. Casey doesn’t have to be with someone. She could come by herself.”
“Actually,” Casey said slowly, her heart beating hard, “I may not be by myself.”
If she told them it was like committing. Like carving it in stone. And yet who better to share this gloriously happy decision with than her best friends?
“What?” Andrea squealed. “Have you met someone new? Why did you let me prattle on about your dusty lab if you have? I’m so happy for you! Really, a year is quite long enough to recover from a rascal like Sebastian. I told you when I saw you earlier this month that eventually you would see your breakup as a blessing. And I am a testament to the fact that things can turn around in an absolute blink.”
It had been a year, almost exactly, since the rather humiliating disintegration of her relationship. Only these two women knew all the details: how a coworker had tipped her off that her fiancé, Sebastian, was seeing another woman, only days before they were going to make a Christmas announcement of their engagement!
“I haven’t exactly met someone,” Casey said cautiously, suddenly feeling vulnerable about saying it out loud.
“What is going on, Casey?” Andrea asked. “You asked me to join you here earlier in the month because you were down, but now you look great. So who is he?”
“It’s not a he. I’ve made a decision to give myself the most amazing gift.”
“What?” her friends asked in unison.
“I’m going to have a baby. I’m going to start investigating third-party reproduction and cryobanks right after the holidays are over.”
Her friends looked stunned. “Cryo what?” Emily asked weakly.
“You mean you’re going to raise a child by yourself?” Andrea finally asked.
“Why not? I’m well established. I’m financially able to afford the procedures. I’m ready. I think, on my own, I could provide as stable a family as most I’ve seen.”
“That seems very scientific,” Emily ventured. “Procedure as a way to make a baby?”
“I am a scientist!” And really, science had given her far more than her family ever had. “I’m done with romantic love. I’m saving all my love for my baby.”
Her friends were very quiet.
“Hey,” Casey said, trying for humor, when she was really disappointed they weren’t more supportive of her decision. “You’re both so serious. I said I was done with love, and that there could be a baby in my future, not that I was going to burn the Gingerbread Inn down!”
“You couldn’t,” Andrea said with dreamy satisfaction. “Rick would rescue it.”
Rick, the adorable Tessa’s father, was a fireman.
“I’m curing myself of romantic notions. I’m tackling my fatal flaw,” Casey surprised herself by announcing.
“Your fatal flaw?” Andrea said, frowning.
“I believed in romantic love,” Casey said. “Worse, I believed in love at first sight. It’s done nothing but cause me grief, and I’m done with it.”
“Love at first sight?” Emily said, puzzled. “I thought you and Sebastian worked together for some time before you agreed to go out with him.”
But her secret, even from Em and Andrea, was that Sebastian had not been her first love. Her first love she had loved at first sight. He was the one who had made her so foolishly long for love that she had been willing to overlook her own family’s history with passion, and imbue her former fiancé with characteristics he did not have.
“I’m done with love,” Casey repeated, even more firmly than before.
“You are not!” Emily said, dismayed. “How can anybody just be done with love?”
“We buried Melissa,” Casey said. “That’s enough all by itself.”
“I understand how you feel,” Andrea said softly. “After Gunter died I wanted to give up on love, too. But I’m so glad I didn’t.”
Though Casey could not say it, the death of Andrea’s husband—on their honeymoon, no less—felt like part of her disillusionment. Giving your heart was a risky business.
“No one would be more appalled than Melissa if you made fear of love her legacy!”
The Gingerbread Girls had always bowed to Emily’s leadership, and Casey conceded slightly now. “Okay. This kind of love I’m fine with. The bonds between friends. The love between a mother and a child. Romantic love I’m done with. Finis.”
“I always love it when you speak Italian,” Andrea said, deciding in the face of Casey’s intensity it was time to lighten up.
“It’s Latin,” she said. “Not Italian.”
Andrea rolled her eyes at the correction and went on as if she had not been interrupted. “You aren’t done with it. You’re hurting right now. But it has been a year, and I think you have healed more than you think you have. You are planning on having a baby, after all. Though I do wish you’d wait for the right guy to come along, and spadoodle, life as you know it, over.”
“Spadoodle?” Casey laughed in spite of herself.
“I thought it sounded Italian,” Andrea offered with an impish grin.
“Sort of,” Emily said, as if she was considering. “Like spaghetti and noodle mixed.” And then they were all laughing, like the carefree girls they had once been. It felt again like a homecoming, it was so good to be with them.
“I agree with Andrea, though. The right guy will come along and you’ll see that every single thing about your life, including the parts that seem bad, were getting you ready for that moment,” Emily said. “Should you put off having a baby until that happens? Really, I know that’s not for me to say.”
Casey felt her friend was not entirely approving and had decided to keep it light, and she was grateful for that.
“From spadoodle to deep philosophy in the blink of an eye?” Casey