Between stuffing her face with pineapple prepared in every way, shape, and form, their time in Fiji was about as X-rated as a honeymoon could get, but she wasn’t about to go there. Nor was she about to drop the bomb that she was possibly pregnant.
“And Jordan? Where’s that husband of yours?” Lorraine pressed.
“He’s right here,” she answered, her plastic grin smashed to her face.
“Well, let me say hello to my son-in-law!”
“Now?”
“Of course, now! What could you be doing other than relaxing after that long flight back to Denver?”
What was she supposed to do? Stand up and reveal her location or stay put and hope her mother didn’t notice the back of the toilet seat? She tapped the object in her hand against her chin.
“Georgie, the box!” Jordan whisper-shouted.
“What’s that in your hand, pumpkin?” Her mother’s image zoomed in as if she were trying to get a closer look through the phone.
Without thinking, Georgie flung the pregnancy test out of the bathroom.
“Ouch!”
And right into the face of her husband.
“Is that Jordan?” her mother chimed.
“Hold on, Mom,” she said, covering the camera with her hand, then mouthing an apology to the poor man who just got whacked in the face with the corner of a pregnancy test box.
Jordan rubbed his cheek, but there was no time to address the damage. He needed to take one for the team and get on this video call. She waved him over, and he wedged his large body next to her in the snug space between the toilet and the wall.
“I’m here, Lorraine. How are you?”
“Look at that gorgeous face! Who would have thought Georgiana could have snagged such a handsome man? The universe did you a favor, pumpkin.”
Georgie parted her lips to reply, but nothing came out. Luckily, her mother wasn’t expecting an answer and pulled the phone back to reveal her stepfather, Howard Vanderdinkle, seated by her side.
Her mother turned to the man. “Howard, don’t they look wonderful?”
Her stepfather narrowed his gaze. “Are you sitting on the toilet, Georgie?”
“We’re cleaning the bathroom. You guys caught us mid-chore,” Jordan replied, swooping in like a champ.
“We’ve been spending a lot of time here…cleaning,” she added, then got a better look at her mother and Howard’s surroundings in the camera frame.
It was dark, and colorful silk banners infused with twinkling lights illuminated her parents as an elephant lumbered by behind them.
Now, it was her turn to pull the phone in close to try to get a better look at the background.
“Where are you guys?”
“India!” her mother exclaimed.
“The country?” Georgie shot back.
Her mother’s tinkling laughter carried over the phone’s speaker. “Yes, the country, pumpkin!”
“Why are you there?” Jordan asked.
“Because of Buddha,” the woman replied, then handed Howard the phone so she could do a little mid-call Namaste move.
Lorraine Vanderdinkle had transformed. To keep the busybody socialite out of their hair before their nuptials, the wedding planner had put her mother in touch with a psychic energist, who told her she possessed a gift for reading the spiritual energy emitted from wedding favors. As cockeyed as it sounds, her mother embraced her new ability and dove head-first into communing with the universe as well as measuring the psychic energy of scented candles and imported chocolates—which, in all honesty, turned out to be quite lovely wedding favors.
The Chanel-clad woman who had dragged her all over the country to compete in beauty pageants when she was growing up, now donned flowing tunics and jangly necklaces with giant crystals.
But it was one thing for her mother and Howard to jet off to their bungalow in Fiji, their place in Aspen, or a chalet in Switzerland. Her business-minded stepfather owned a successful venture capitalist firm, and money wasn’t an issue for them. But India seemed way out of the collective wheelhouse for her workaholic stepfather.
Thanks to him spending long hours at the office and her rigorous pageant schedule, she and Howard hadn’t spent much time together while she was growing up. Her parents divorced when she was a girl, and when she wasn’t with her mother, she’d spent half of her time with her literature-loving mechanic father. She’d straddled two worlds: one of opulence and many, many beauty pageants with her mother and a simpler life, spending hours browsing the shelves of the public library with her father. When he passed away suddenly, she’d told herself that despite the money and connections her mother and stepfather could offer, she’d make her way in this world on her own, just like her father.
She’d worked hard and had earned her success. In the process, she’d also learned more about her mother’s motivations, which may seem a little nutty but always came from a good place, as well as uncovering her stepfather’s hidden devotion to her and her mother.
Still, while Howard seemed to get a kick out of her mom, cruising the high-end shops of Denver’s Cherry Creek neighborhood in a Prius instead of being driven around in a Bentley, she hadn’t expected the pragmatic man to jump on the psychic energy bandwagon.
“The Buddha told you to go to India?” she asked, needing some clarification.
“The Buddha came to me in a dream and instructed me to come here with Howard.”
Georgie pursed her lips. “You dreamed about the Buddha?”
Her mother’s expression grew pensive. “I dreamed about a turtle, but he had a message for me from Buddha.”
Georgie stifled a chuckle as Jordan cleared his throat to most likely abstain from laughing as well. But maybe turtle Buddha was doing her a favor. If she were pregnant—not that she believed she was—her mother would insist she partake in some kind of prenatal psychic seminar.
“How long will you be visiting India?” Jordan asked, blessedly shifting gears.
“Twelve months,” her mother answered.
“A year?” she questioned, her voice going up an octave.
“Yes, pumpkin.” Her mother sighed. “I wish your father hadn’t insisted we send you to public school. Maybe you’d have learned that.”
That yearlong break wasn’t looking so bad.
“I’m fully aware twelve months equals a year, Mom.”
“Because I told you so,” Lorraine Vanderdinkle replied, then sighed again as she turned to her husband, her many crystals clapping together. “You see, Howard, a mother’s job is never done.”
“What will you be doing for a year?” Jordan asked.
“Beginning the journey to enlightenment and harnessing our chi at an exclusive five-star retreat cut off from civilization,” she answered.
Howard leaned forward. “And I’ve invested in a few companies near the retreat, so if you need anything, you can always contact my office. They’ll know how to get ahold of me.”
Her mother raised her index finger. “But only for something very important. Howard and I are committed to pursuing complete spiritual awakening, and my energist felt I needed to continue developing my psychic energy reading abilities.”
The hint of a grin pulled at the corners of her stepfather’s mouth. How he fell madly in love with her crazy train of a mother was something she’d never fully understand.
Still, the man she’d remembered from her childhood, who always seemed to be working, looked at ease. Lorraine Vanderdinkle truly was the yin to his yang.
Her mother’s forehead produced a slight spasm—the Botox equivalent of her surprised face. “I almost forgot, pumpkin! You and Jordan will need to take over a few of our charity duties while we’re gone. A gala here, a benefit there, maybe a planning meeting or two. I’ll have my assistant Nicolette get you the details.”
Benefits, galas, and planning meetings? Georgie swallowed hard. They had a lot on their plate already, but how could she say no?
“I thought you fired Nicolette bec
ause she was a Sagittarius?” she queried.
“I have a new Nicolette! She’s a Libra!” her mother answered, as if hiring someone based on their horoscope made complete sense.
Jordan leaned in. “Howard, Lorraine, we should probably tell you that—”
Without missing a beat, Georgie angled the phone away from her husband and filled the frame with her face. She was not about to allow him to disclose the possibility of a bun in the oven—not when they weren’t one hundred percent sure.
And with the way she knew her mother would fuss over a pregnancy, it was in everyone’s best interest to keep this under wraps as long as possible.
“Jordan was going to say that India sounds magical!” she announced, cutting him off in game show hostess mode. “We wish you all the best. Don’t worry! We’ve got everything under control.”
“All right, then! Kiss, kiss! Namaste!” her mother trilled as Howard waved goodbye, and the screen went blank.
Jordan raised an eyebrow. “You don’t want to tell them?”
She sat back against the hard, plastic seat, now wishing the whole damn toilet was padded. “Tell them what?”
Jordan cocked his head to the side. He was no fool. She knew what he was thinking but feigned naive.
“We don’t know anything yet.”
His expression softened. “Georgie.”
She still couldn’t understand how he was so calm.
If she were pregnant, what then? Yes, a baby! She’d picked that up in sex ed. But what did it mean for their lives and their marriage? They hadn’t even known each other for six months. Their love story had unfolded in record time. She hadn’t even begun to wrap her mind around becoming a mother.
And what kind of mother would she be?
She steadied herself. “Let’s take this one step at a time, okay?”
“We’ve already taken twelve pee-covered steps,” he countered with a sweet smile.
She sat up straight as if she were the Princess of Potties. “For all we know, those tests could be defective—”
“Georgiana!” Jordan shot back.
She raised her hand. “Let me finish. And Howard pretty much said if we needed to get a message to them, we could go through his office. Let’s not put the cart before the horse. Like I told my mother, we’ve got everything under control.”
Jordan gave her his best I-call-bullshit face, but it didn’t work on her.
“We do!” she said, but the roller-coaster anxiety pangs in her chest begged to differ.
He glanced at his watch. “We need to leave for the doctor’s appointment soon. Can you be ready to go in twenty minutes?”
Twenty minutes to get ready. A fifteen-minute drive to the office. In under an hour, they might be taking their seats on the Babyland express.
Her heart jumped into her throat, but she swallowed back the emotion. “Absolutely, I’m totally in control.”
2
Jordan
“This is it,” Georgie said, pointing to a pair of frosted glass doors.
Jordan glanced down the beige hallway, taking in the nondescript interior of the medical building. It seemed as good as any other—not that he frequented ob-gyn offices. In fact, this constituted his first visit.
But he wasn’t in the dark when it came to human reproduction.
Thanks to majoring in kinesiology, he understood not only the mechanics of human movement but had in-depth training in anatomy and nutrition. As a CrossFit trainer, he’d maintained his professional knowledge on the subject with numerous continuing education classes. Not to mention, all the research he’d done himself, staying up-to-date with the latest exercise science findings and crafting fitness routines for people of all ability levels.
He knew bodies.
Men’s bodies.
Women’s bodies.
And even pregnant women’s bodies. His coursework demanded it. Movement was a critical element in pregnancy health. Moderate exercise reduced the risk of delivering a low birth weight baby. It improved the mother’s mood, increased her energy, aided in sleep, and could reduce aches and pains. The list went on and on, and as a fitness professional, he was obligated to remain informed.
After consulting with pregnant clients and collecting the necessary medical information, he could whip up a prenatal workout plan in no time flat.
But today wasn’t a casual appointment to set up a fitness regimen for just anyone.
He was ninety-nine-point-nine percent sure this appointment would confirm what had hit him like a Mack truck in Fiji.
His pineapple-loving sex machine of a wife was most likely with child.
When did it happen? Hell if he knew!
They had less than a three-week window between the date he proposed in late September and their wedding on the third Saturday in October. Their wham, bam, thank you, ma’am light-speed of an engagement ebbed and flowed with emotional highs and lows that had put their relationship to the test.
But that didn’t mean they’d scrimped on the hanky-panky.
The moment he’d put together all the signs and realized the love of his life could be carrying actual life, he’d gone into health researcher mode, counting up all the times they’d been intimate since his wife’s last period in September.
Yeah, her period! He wasn’t one of those boyfriends, now, a husband, who got embarrassed by all that. In his opinion, it was a badge of honor. He had no qualms standing in line at the market with a box of jumbo organic cotton tampons in one hand and a couple of tubes of vegan chocolate chip cookie dough in the other.
During that short window of time, their sexcapades sessions had been just as crazy as everything else.
They’d done it in the car, in a tent, and in the wilderness, accidentally, in front of an alpaca—something he’d never recommend. If they ever decided to knock boots in the great outdoors again, he’d be doing a broad alpaca perimeter sweep first. That’s for damn sure!
And it wasn’t like they weren’t careful.
Georgie was on the pill. But throughout that handful of weeks, and especially during their stint at a godforsaken wilderness boot camp, he’d had no idea if she’d taken it. And it wasn’t like he was in the right headspace to remind her. To say things had gone sideways during that time, was the understatement of the century.
Not only had they gone sideways, but they’d also gone upside down, inside out, outside in, and any other twisted, discombobulated comparison one could imagine. All he could do was be grateful they’d made it out in one piece as husband and wife.
Georgie squeezed his hand. “We need to go inside. I don’t remember ever seeing doctors examining patients in the hallway.”
He gazed down at his beautiful wife. Tendrils of her chestnut-colored hair framed her face. She met his gaze with her blue-green eyes. The same eyes that had seared into his soul from the first awkward moment their lives collided.
She smiled up at him, trying to keep it light. But he knew his Georgiana. He’d caught glimpses of her through the half-closed bedroom door while she was getting ready for the appointment. It had taken her four tries to twist her hair into her signature messy bun. Then there were the wardrobe changes. She’d gone from jeans to leggings to yoga pants, to some strange one-piece contraption of pants already attached to the shirt. She’d switched outfits at Mach speed before pausing in front of the mirror and pressing a trembling hand to her abdomen.
She was worried—and so was he. They hadn’t discussed having children. Their lives revolved around each other, their blog, and their businesses.
Where did a baby fit into all that? He didn’t have the foggiest notion.
One thing he did know, however, was that biology didn’t care about your plans.
Life always found a way, and it didn’t concede to your agenda. It didn’t agree to return at a more convenient date. It didn’t compromise. It didn’t have to. They may have slipped up and given biology the upper hand. But from this moment on, he’d willed himself to be smarter and
to be steady. If a baby were coming, he’d be prepared to do whatever it took to make sure this child had every advantage he never had.
This child would never be bullied.
Never teased or ridiculed.
In his dusty Colorado Plains hometown, he’d grown up a skinny kid on the proverbial wrong side of the tracks. They’d always had food on the table, and when his mother was still alive, she’d kept their home bright and tidy. But his father’s mechanic’s salary could only stretch so far. While his dad had done his best after his mother passed away, the man’s heart had hardened from grief, and a rift had formed between father and son. A vast chasm only breached thanks in large part to Georgie. He and his father had grown close again, but he wanted a different upbringing for his child.
“Hey, Sovereign of Scat! This was your idea. I was fine staying home and tearing into those Slim Jims. And I just thought of something!” she added.
He reached for the handle, chuckling at the moniker she’d given him during their stint at the bridal wilderness boot camp. “What’s that?”
“I could wrap pineapple slices around the beef jerky. Doesn’t that sound amazing?” she answered as he held the door for her.
His ninety-nine-point-nine percent pregnant prediction notched up to ninety-nine-point-nine-nine until they entered the waiting room, and thoughts of numbers and percentages vanished from his thoughts as his jaw nearly hit the floor. He figured ob-gyn offices were like any other doctor’s office. Quiet, orderly places where patients sat, sedately waiting to be called for their appointment.
But not this place!
This place looked like a toy shop that swallowed a tiny library.
Children’s board books littered the floor while blocks lay strewn everywhere. The real kicker? Nobody seemed concerned about the noise level. Toddlers crashed toy trucks together with the gusto of deranged demolition operators. Parents holding tiny bundles sat together, talking like two-year-olds, cooing and producing animated expressions. Interspersed with the insanity, pregnant women rested, rubbing their ample bellies. A few outliers sat in chairs on the other side of baby ground zero, staring at their phones or leafing through magazines.
Own the Eights Maybe Baby Page 2