And Wood saw that his role in the pregnancy, along with building the nursery furniture, was to keep Cassie from falling into a pit from which she couldn’t escape. He liked understanding his definition in her life. And set out to be great at it.
So when she’d asked if he wanted to accompany her to the ultrasound, he’d accepted without thought. He’d already taken her to two appointments. Would happily be her driver to all of them.
As usual, she’d scheduled the first appointment of the day, and he spent the ride over telling her about the rocking chair he was building. The crib was done. He’d opted to build the rocker second, partially because it was going to be the second most critical piece of the ensemble, but because it was going to be the most challenging, as well—not that he told her that.
“You look like you’ve grown since Monday,” he told her that second Wednesday morning in July as they waited for her to be called. True to their agreement, they’d been meeting for dinner once a week—on Monday evenings right after work.
In black dress pants and a white-and-black knit top with a short black jacket, she was sitting upright with her hands resting on the mound of her stomach. Proprietarily, he decided. She wasn’t huge yet, by any means, but he could definitely tell that she was pregnant.
“It feels like I have,” she told him, turning her head to give him a small grin. Her lips had a slight tremble. She was nervous.
Understandable, considering the last ultrasound she’d had had given her cause for great worry.
He grabbed her hand. Gave it a squeeze. “It’s going fine,” he said. And then realized what he’d just done, that he was sitting there holding hands with Cassie. There was nothing sexual in the contact. He’d been one hundred percent focused on offering comfort. And yet he knew he’d crossed a line.
They hadn’t outlined any further boundaries since that walk on the beach, but there was one very clear unspoken one between them. They didn’t touch again.
Ever.
Before he could drop her hand or try to slide his away without either of them noticing, the door opened and her name was called. She stood, taking his hand with her.
“Is it okay if the father comes with me?” she asked the nurse standing there waiting for her.
“Of course!”
Wait. What! Wood’s job was sitting in the waiting room, watching as other women filed in, doing what the room was for. Waiting.
But he was no fool. Cassie wanted him with her. She was giving him the chance to see proof of his son’s life on film. A word of warning might have been nice, but then, it also might have messed things up—making more of the moment than it was. He stood, she dropped his hand and he followed her through the door.
* * *
She hadn’t planned on asking him in to the actual ultrasound. She might regret the invitation at a later time. But as Cassie removed her jacket, climbed up onto the table and lay back as instructed, she felt like she could breathe because Wood was there. The technician had already been in the room, waiting for them, and already had jelly and the portable camera ready as she instructed Cassie to raise her top and lower her pants enough to expose the full roundness of her belly.
Knowing that Wood was seeing her naked skin for the first time distracted her so much she jerked when she felt the first chill of cold from the jelly on her stomach.
“You can stand over here,” the technician said, looking at Wood and pointing to a place just off from Cassie’s shoulder on the other side of the table. “That gives you a good view of the screen.” She continued talking as she moved the camera around in the gel, almost like stirring batter in a bowl.
In another second or two, Cassie’s uterus, containing Alan, would show on the screen. If she stared at it, she wouldn’t see Wood right there on the other side of her, watching her distended belly button sticking up in the air.
She looked at Wood. In the jeans and T-shirt she knew he wore to work, his attention was fully on the screen opposite the bed, not even looking at her belly.
And then he did—glance at her naked stomach, and then up to her face. Their gazes met. He seemed to be talking to her. Telling her everything was going to be just fine.
He couldn’t possibly know that. She didn’t know it.
But she took another breath. An easier one.
“Okay, let’s see what we can find,” the technician said, and Cassie prepared for the professional silence she’d encountered during the first ultrasound—when the technician saw something but couldn’t legally give her opinion.
Wood glanced at the screen and then back at her, and the intimacy of the moment wrapped her in a private cocoon for a second or two.
He’d told her he’d never seen an ultrasound before. She liked being his first.
“There he is.” The technician’s tone still held flowers and light.
“Here are his arms...and his legs...”
The camera moved on her stomach. She listened. And watched Wood’s face as she caught his first glance of the child she’d created. There was little expression, just focus, and then he looked at her. His expression was completely new to her...awe and caring and shock, too. Emotion poured over her, welled up within her. She swallowed back tears.
And continued to watch his face. She couldn’t look at the screen.
“And...here’s his heartbeat...” the technician said in a singsong tone. The sound of the baby’s heart came into the room...more rapid than an adult pulse, but she’d known it would be. Counted the beats. Listened for regularity. Found it.
And smiled when Wood glanced down at her again.
In some ways she wanted the moment to last forever. At the same time, she couldn’t wait to have the test done. To get back to work and have everything be normal.
To know that Alan was progressing normally. She should hear later that day, given the circumstances. A radiologist would be reading the film, charting to the doctor, within the hour, in case the situation was growing more critical.
“I’m aware that you can’t divulge any medical information or advice, other than that which you’ve already explained.” Wood’s voice broke into her thoughts. “But could you show me where the shadow was that alerted doctors to an iron deficiency?”
She stared at him. What was he doing?
The camera moved around on her stomach. “Right here.” The technician moved. Cassie heard the rustle of the woman’s purple scrubs, saw movement out of the corner of her eye. She stared at Wood’s face, but it was in its stoic place.
What was he seeing?
If it was bad, she wanted to be upright, dressed—feeling strong, not vulnerable, when she heard about it. She wanted to be mobile and able to take action.
The technician mentioned taking some pictures, and then she was handing Cassie a warm cloth to remove the jelly from her stomach. Telling her they were all done and she was free to go.
She went through the motions. A little embarrassed now as she pulled up her waistband, covering the small bit of hair that had been showing from down below. And shoved her shirt down over her belly. Her hands were shaking as she reached for her jacket. The door closed behind the technician.
“There was nothing there.” Wood’s words fell into the room.
“What?” Jacket half on, half off, she looked over at him.
“I saw no shadow on the screen where she indicated. Nothing. It was just a light gray mass, like the rest of the area.”
Her face started to pucker. She could feel it. Tried to contain it. “No shadow?” she asked. “Really?”
Head tilted, he seemed to wrap her in understanding. In love. “No shadow,” he said.
Watching her diet and the added iron were working?
Without thought, she moved toward him. Wrapped her arms around his middle and started to cry.
* * *
Wood was still at work
that afternoon, up on a piece of scaffolding, when Cassie texted that he was right. The doctor had confirmed her ultrasound was clear of shadows. Until she had a second amniocentesis, scheduled in two weeks, they wouldn’t know for sure how much Alan’s red blood cell count had come up, but for the moment, the doctor was optimistic that the baby was completely normal.
He almost fell off the portable metal rafter.
Gerald, who was doing an inspection with him, reached a hand out. “You okay, man? Bad news? Is it Elaina?”
“No,” he said. “Not Elaina, and not bad news.” His son was healthy! Or at least optimistically considered so. That was not his news to share.
There wasn’t really anything stopping him. Cassie was planning to tell Alan that Wood was his father. He was going to have an official role in the boy’s life.
He’d told Elaina. She’d been openly pleased for him.
What he didn’t share with Elaina was the incredible moments he’d experienced in the ultrasound room that morning. Not even the fact that he’d been in the room. The moments were precious—and they were his. Not open to speculation or judgment. Not to be turned into concern on his behalf.
The hug he and Cassie had shared, the feel of her protruding belly pressing tightly up against him—that he put firmly in its place of a time out of time. She hadn’t been hugging him. She’d just needed a hug. Anybody would have done.
It had been...heady, though. He wanted more. Badly.
And he skipped right on past that thought every time it surfaced.
He wasn’t going to let Alan down. Or Cassie or himself, either.
He almost told Cassie so when they texted later that night. Because they were telling each other more and more of their everyday thoughts. But he opted not to make a big deal out of what had to remain nothing.
He’d made it to thirty-six years without a major screwup. He was not going to start playing with fire.
Which was what he did tell Cassie the following Monday when they were discussing where to meet for dinner. They’d already settled on a small diner outside town, not because they had anything to hide, but because neither of them wanted the complications of answering to anyone they knew that they might run into. Her parents knew about him. Elaina knew about her. Beyond that, they just wanted to get through the pregnancy before bringing any more complications into their lives.
Before other people and their opinions unwittingly created obstacles they didn’t yet have to face. One step at a time, they’d decided somewhere along the way. A mixture of what Wood knew and Cassie had learned from her father.
He’d just been home to shower, change and feed Retro and was on his way back out to his truck when Cassie called. She told him she’d had a rough day with a client and didn’t want to have to sit in a busy restaurant waiting on others to serve her.
She wanted to go home. Heat up the cabbage rolls she’d made the day before and relax out on the beach—with him. He felt the same—strongly.
The strength of his desire was what had him telling her he couldn’t play with fire. He couldn’t sit with her on her private beach. If they were going to have dinner, it had to be at the restaurant. She hadn’t said another word, other than telling him that she’d see him at the restaurant in a few.
He told himself not to make trouble. To trust himself. But as he pulled into the parking lot and saw her at the door of the restaurant, reaching to open it, her loose black shirt only partially hiding the shape of the belly growing larger with his son, he wasn’t sure how much of himself he could trust.
Cassie’s blond ponytail was tight to her head, as though it didn’t dare let a piece slip loose. Her white pants looked crisp and clean, in spite of the fact that he knew she’d just come from work. And those unique, angular features...he knew them. Intimately. As though they were a part of him. Partly his.
He made it inside just as she was being seated and followed her to a quiet booth in a back corner. No restroom or service station nearby. Just quiet.
“Wow, this was lucky,” he said, sliding in across from her. Assessing as she settled across from him. “As close to being at home as we can get.” She looked tired.
And radiant.
“I asked for this booth,” she said, giving him a smirk. And reigniting intimate ideas of dinner on a blanket on the beach. From a bag in his truck. Her car.
Anyplace they could be alone together without entering each other’s homes.
A hotel room. Or anywhere but there.
* * *
Cassie told Wood what she could about her case. She’d spent the day trying to convince the Safe! board of directors that they could keep on its executive director.
They talked about the furniture he was building. He’d taken to sending her pictures every night, showing her his progress.
“What?” he asked her as she sat with her glass of iced purified water with lemon and listened to him talk about a design he wanted to engrave in the crib and cradle panels and then follow with matching design in each drawer face.
“I just can’t believe how lucky I am that out of all the files I looked at, I chose you,” she said, too tired to keep her mouth completely shut. “Seriously, this baby is going to be so much more loved than I ever imagined, and I was conjuring up enough to keep him satiated for a lifetime.”
“Maybe I’m the lucky one.” His quiet, serious response surprised her.
“How can you say that? I’ve upended your life. Forever. Any plans you had to have a traditional family life are just gone...”
“I’m here by choice.”
“I know.” She hesitated and then decided to finally say something that had been on her mind. “But the type of man you are... You really had no choice. You’re you, Wood. There’s no way you could in good conscience walk away from any child created through your actions, let alone your genes, if you were given the choice. Sometimes I think I was wrong to give you that choice. I put you in an untenable situation.”
The look of dismay that crossed his face was gone almost immediately. And engraved on her heart, too. “There is no way, ever, anywhere, that me having access to my son would be a bad thing. You’ve given me what’s probably going to be the greatest gift of my life, Cassie. As tough as this is, I’m happier now than I can ever remember being. I wake up in the morning eager for the day. Even when things go wrong, they don’t bother me as much...”
She smiled. And teared up a little. “I feel the same way,” she said. And not just because of Alan, though the baby was a huge part of it, too.
They’d ordered, a chicken salad for her and spaghetti for him, but still had no food. She didn’t have much of an appetite at the moment, either.
“Besides,” Wood said after a silence. “My life hasn’t been traditional since the day my father died. And my marriage most certainly wasn’t.”
It was the first time he’d sounded at all...dissatisfied...with his situation with Elaina and she was too tired to politely let it go.
“Why did you marry her?” she asked, jealousy prompting her need to know. To understand why, even after their divorce, Wood and his ex-wife lived together.
Was she in love with Wood? She couldn’t be, could she?
They’d never even kissed.
But when she’d hugged him, he’d hugged her back, and she’d never wanted him to let her go. Not just for the immediate comfort he’d offered, but because he was Wood. And when she was with him, she felt things no man had ever made her feel before.
Made her feel like he was the one she’d been waiting for.
He’d been playing with his straw wrapper. And then pulling his straw in and out of his nearly empty glass of tea. She’d made him uncomfortable.
Crossed one of those invisible lines.
Hopefully he’d come up with a way to save them from the current precipice. One or the other of them always di
d.
Together they were stronger than their individual selves.
“Elaina was Peter’s wife first.”
Cassie’s jerk of surprise knocked over her glass of water.
The cold liquid spreading between them was nothing compared to the spear he’d just put through her heart.
The man had actually married his brother’s wife. She’d heard about a Bible story growing up and read a few historical romance novels as a college student where men did that. But in real life? Wood was that guy.
And she got what he’d been trying to tell her all along. The way he tended to her, was right there doing all the right things, making her feel understood and cared for...that wasn’t about her in particular. It was just Wood.
He’d married his brother’s wife. And even when the relationship had ended, he’d still provided a home. Support.
Because that was Wood.
And if she slept with him out of an overflowing of emotion, acute attraction, yes, but...she couldn’t be sure some of her feelings weren’t an overabundance of hormones, or deep caring because the man was her child’s other biological component...and if she slept with him and then later discovered that what she’d felt hadn’t been more than the sum of all that, that she wasn’t in love with him on a partner level—he wouldn’t walk away.
He’d be right there. For Alan. And for her.
In a way, he’d be like her father—alone, kind of sad, incomplete, a part-time dad.
No matter how much he might be hurting, he’d never walk away. Find a new life for himself. He’d stay the course. Be her friend. And a great father to Alan.
Her Motherhood Wish (The Parent Portal Book 3) Page 13