The Best of Me
Page 19
She joined her husband on the deck and slid her arms around his waist.
“Great job,” he said, kissing the top of her head.
“Then I think it deserves more of a kiss than that.”
He obliged, capturing her mouth and giving her an up-one-side-down-the-other kind of kiss. His tongue teased, darting around her teeth and tickling the roof of her mouth. He finished with a gentle nibble on her lower lip. He had kept his promise: never once had he put the dolphins before her. They were a team, and she had given her soul to the dolphins as surely as he had. He, of course, had the biggest place in her heart.
A seagull squawked as it swooped past their deck. Even though the sun was setting on the other coast, the sky to the east was splashed in hues of pink and blue. Though she’d decided to tell him on their trip to Nassau the following week to check on Liberty and celebrate their first anniversary, this was a perfect moment. Besides, she couldn’t wait another minute.
“I won’t be able to go with you and Matt to Curacao this fall.” They were scheduled to talk with the government about a possible captive dolphin swim program. She held her breath at the question in his eyes. “I’m pregnant.”
They hadn’t talked about children yet. They’d been too busy discovering each other, making love and, as it turned out, making a baby.
His fingers tightened on her waist as shock overtook his features. “P-p-pregnant?”
She nodded, afraid to show him just how excited she was about it. “The pill’s not one hundred percent accurate. I’ll still help out as much as I can, and I know you’ve got to keep things going—”
He picked her up and swung her around. “You’re going to have a baby. We’re going to have a baby!” He kissed her again, and then he set her down and touched her belly. “When did you find out? When is the baby due? How? Why?”
She laughed as her eyes welled up. He wasn’t mad or disappointed. In fact, his eyes were tearing up, too. “Three days ago, in about eight months, the usual way and because we’re lucky.”
He squeezed her in a bear hug. “I’m lucky.”
“You’re not upset? I mean, it will change our lives. The dolphins won’t come second. They’ll be third. The baby will be first.”
“Our family comes first, Lucy. That’s the way it is, whether that family is just us or three or even four of us. I’ve been thinking about this—”
She took a step back. “You have?”
“You didn’t think I expected you to give up everything, did you? When I think what you gave up to be with me…” He shook his head. “You amaze me. When I fell in love with you…when I decided I couldn’t live without you…I knew I couldn’t ask you to give up motherhood, too. I’d planned to talk to you about it down in the Bahamas. Matt and I have been discussing it and—”
“You’ve been talking about having a baby with Matt?”
He laughed, and then she laughed when she realized what she’d said. “Didn’t you think you should talk to me first?”
He gathered her in his arms again, and as indignant as she wanted to be, she just couldn’t manage it. He said, “I wanted to set things up. You and I will handle the paperwork end of the organization, and Matt will handle all of the travel part. Remember when we talked about buying a boat? I thought we’d do that, and I’ll take people out to swim with dolphins in their natural habitat. That way I’m educating people and making money. And we’re home. We’ll make this a home.” He pulled her tight against him. “We’re going to be a real family.”
“We already are a family.” She closed her eyes and sank into his warmth. She knew what he was giving up, too. But they would gain so much more in return, just as she had gained so much when she’d given up her life in Minneapolis.
Chris leaned back. “We’ll get a dog. And a parrot. We’ll close in the bottom floor and make it a big playroom.”
She’d never heard him talk so much! She ruffled his hair. “Are you sure you want this? You sound so hesitant.”
She thought he’d laugh, but he framed her face with his hands and looked so very serious. “For a long time, I didn’t think I wanted a wife or a family. I thought that I only wanted to live for the dolphins. You changed all that. You changed me. When you gave up that successful life you had up north to be with me, you changed my mind about a lot of things. I want this, and I want you…forever.”
“Well, good, because you’re stuck with me forever.”
He pulled her close, his mouth hovering over hers. “Now, Miz Lucy, that is something I can live with.” And then he kissed her crazy.
ISBN: 978-1-4603-7159-6
THE BEST OF ME
Copyright © 2002 by Tina Wainscott.
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