Love Unrehearsed

“Oh well, now the tabloids don’t have to speculate any longer and the paparazzi can stop asking. It’s a boy!” He looked out at the audience and grinned proudly.

The audience roared and applauded.

“I don’t know which moment of my evening tonight will be bigger, receiving this award or the arrival of my son, but I am grateful that they are happening on the same day so I can truly say that today is the best day of my life.” He took in a few quick breaths, trying to calm himself down.

“I’d like to thank my mom and dad, who are also here somewhere. Dad, yell so I know where you are.”

I heard his father yell “here” from somewhere in the back right corner of the grand theater and couldn’t help but smile.

Ryan continued his acceptance speech, thanking the amazing director, the crew, his co-stars, and expressing gratitude for being recognized among the other four nominees.

I was relieved when he finished, and I smiled when several of the superstars who flanked him patted him on the shoulders as he made his way to the side of the stage.

“Mrs. Christensen, are you in need of an ambulance?” a female stagehand asked, helping me as I tried to stand up.

“No,” I breathed in between contractions.

“Just my husband, his parents, and our limo.”

Four hours later, on March 9, at 11:40 P.M., Mitchell Ryan Christensen made his debut.

Seven pounds, ten ounces; twenty inches long—a perfect miniature version of his father, blue eyes and everything.

“Oh it’s good to be home,” Ryan sighed when we walked through the front doors of our six-thousand-square-foot, completely pretentious log home. Our five-day-old son was bundled up in his cozy blue fleece outfit with little puppy dog appliqués on the toes. He was strapped securely in his car seat carrier and slept the whole way from the airport to his home.

I immediately started unbuckling him so I could hold him again.

“Call the crew, let ’em know we’re back. I’m sure Pete and Tammy will rush right over to see him,” he chuckled, dragging our suitcases into the entryway.

“I will in a bit. After we get settled.” Ryan took his Oscar out of the felt pouch that it was wrapped in. “I’m going to put this in the office.”

“No!” I quickly yelled. “Put it on the fireplace mantel where we can appreciate it.” He smirked.

“No one ever goes in your office, honey. Put it up here.” I moved a few of our wedding pictures, making a place for his statue.

I sat down on the couch with the baby, showing him the picture of all of us on our wedding day.

I smiled at the big grin Pete wore on his face when the picture was taken. The trip was a second honeymoon for Pete and Tammy, and sometime during that week, Tammy got pregnant. Their daughter, Madison, was six months old now.

We all joked that maybe our son and their daughter might get together one day. You never know which way the wind is going to blow. Anything is possible.

I had spent all that time worrying about what I would do with my life, only to have it all work out on its own. Wife, mother, partner, lover . . . it was all very fulfilling.

Ryan joined me and the baby in the sun-room that overlooked the lake. He propped his feet up on the coffee table and tossed the box he had in his hands onto the floor.

“Let me hold him now,” Ryan whispered, slipping his hands around our tiny baby boy.

“Come here, little guy. Come to Daddy,” he crooned.

Seeing my husband so in love with his son filled me completely.

“What’s in the box?” I asked, watching the sun set over the tops of the evergreens.

Ryan chuckled. “Scripts. More scripts.”

“Well, you know, honey, you only have one Oscar. If you had two, we’d have matching bookends.”

He grinned at me. “Nah, I already have one. Maybe you should work for the second one?”

I rolled my eyes. “I don’t think so. Besides, I’m not an actress.”

“But you could be, if you try. After all, you’re the one who keeps saying that anything is possible if you point yourself in the right direction.”

So he’d been paying attention.

I slid my leg down the table and kicked him in the foot.

Bonus Chapter While I was developing the story line for Love Unrehearsed, I had the following pas-sage in the beginning as the original dream sequence. I chose to cut it because I didn’t want to give too much away up front. I wanted Taryn’s adoption to be a surprise.

While developing Taryn’s character, I wondered what Taryn’s last memory of Joey might be that caused her to have those recurring nightmares of the “boy with the black hair” and what caused the division on her mother’s side of the family.

I have fond memories of being my father’s “beer fetcher” while he and the other men in the family played horseshoes, so this scene partially comes from my childhood.

We went to the same place to have a family picnic every year and the gray cinder-block garage on the property always seemed to be a few degrees cooler than the blistering heat outside.

The little blond-haired girl sneaking ice cubes with a Barbie in one hand? That was me.

Enjoy.

Grandfather’s Fishing

Shack

July 4, 1986

“Whoa! Careful there, sweetheart!” Daddy’s big hands latched tightly under my arms and he spun me up into his arms.

The big metal U that Uncle All threw tumbled right past Daddy’s foot and fell softly like a whisper in the grass.

“Taryn, you know better. I don’t want you to get hit with one of those horseshoes. It will hurt.” His bottom lip stuck out like a big fat worm. It looked funny. I wanted to grab it and squeeze it.

I sat perched in my daddy’s arms and watched Uncle All make funny faces as he swung his arm, aiming for the rusty spike sticking straight up from the ground. The clanging noise was kind of frightening. I imagined that the horses that wore those big shoes had to be enormous. Like elephants.

Or even bigger. Like houses. I wished I could ride one.

“Your cheeks are red, Daddy.” He placed a few kisses on my face. “So are yours, peanut. Mommy has to put more lotion on you. Who do you have here? Who’s this bum?”

I waved my dolly’s arm to say “Hi.” “This is Ken. He’s my boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend, huh?” He raised his brow, giving me that one-eye look. “What happened to his pants?”

I pointed over to my tiny splash pool, where they were floating. Barbie was still in the water.