Daddy Christmas

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  She had the sense they were skirting dangerously close to the edge. She didn’t want to fall off the cliff and into an abyss. She didn’t want to lose what they had. And she saw only one way to avoid that. “Matt, I don’t want to hurt you, so don’t ask me any more about my trip.”

  His temper simmering, Matt demanded, “Dammit, Gretchen, what aren’t you telling me?”

  Aware her feet were aching, Gretchen stepped out of her pumps. A mistake, she swiftly decided. In stocking feet, she was a full eight inches shorter than Matt.

  She lifted her hands in silent supplication for peace. “Matt, please—”

  “There’s someone else, isn’t there?” Hurt and disappointment glistened in his eyes.

  “No!” She grasped his hands in both of hers. “How could you even think such a thing!”

  He tightened his fingers over hers. “Then what are you hiding?”

  Gretchen drew a breath. Like it or not, there was no other course to take. She drew her hands away, breaking contact. “I saw Sassy.”

  “What?” He did a double take.

  Reluctantly she admitted, “I went to Dallas specifically to see her, to try to get her to come home, or at least see you, talk with you.”

  “And?” Matt’s face was full of hope.

  It broke Gretchen’s heart to have to give him bad news. “She’s angry. She feels betrayed.” She paused sadly, then began to pace the length of the room. “I was hoping to mend the rift, shop, whatever. Get to know each other.”

  “But she refused,” Matt guessed grimly.

  Gretchen turned back to face him. She braced her hands on either side of her and her fingers curled around the edges of the bureau behind her. “She thinks there’s no room in your life for her, now that you’re married to me.”

  Matt’s eyes were bleak as he squared his shoulders, as if for battle. “There’s no room in my life for her anger and resentment,” Matt corrected.

  Gretchen crossed to Matt and caressed the hard muscles of his chest. “Maybe Luke and Angela are right. Maybe you should go to her and apologize, make peace at any cost.” Whether Matt wanted to admit it to her, Gretchen could see this continuing rift between him and his children was tearing him up deep inside. Sassy, Luke and Angela, too. They all longed to have their family back, intact, the way it had been before Gretchen got involved with Matt.

  “No,” Matt disagreed firmly, even as he wrapped a comforting arm about Gretchen’s shoulders. “She’s a grown-up and she needs to behave like one. She’ll come around, given time.”

  “And if she doesn’t?” Gretchen asked anxiously.

  “She will.” Of that, Matt had no doubt.

  “I hope you’re right,” she said softly.

  Matt sighed reflectively. “From the time a baby is born, it seems all we parents want to do is protect it and all the baby wants to do is break free. And yet the letting go is a very necessary and ultimately healthy step in growing up. Don’t you see? Whether I’m ready to have Sassy so completely independent from the rest of us is beside the point. On this score, it’s what she wants and needs that counts. Yes, it’s painful having this distance between us, especially over something that should be so joyful for all of us. Yes, I miss her more than I can bear to think about sometimes. But as for me backing down on one of the basic covenants of this family, that we don’t hurt each other deliberately or out of spite, I can’t and won’t do that. Not for Sassy. Not for anyone. You are my wife,” he said sternly. “We are having a child together, and like it or not I expect her to respect that and honor that and treat us accordingly, and until she can do that, then...well—” Matt offered a helpless shrug “—we’ll just have to stay apart.”

  Gretchen toyed with the buttons on Matt’s shirt. She loved the solid warmth of him, his innate dependability and old-fashioned gallantry. “I agree with everything you’re saying,” she began carefully, wanting to examine this problem jointly, from every angle, now that Matt had finally consented to talk about it in-depth.

  “But?”

  She tilted her head to look up at him. “I don’t want to be responsible for you losing your relationship with your daughter, Matt.” To her mounting horror, it seemed they were close to making that a reality.

  “You aren’t,” Matt stated with a slow, sad smile. “Sassy is. Besides,” he continued with gentle confidence as he trailed his fingers through her hair, “I have faith that she’ll come home eventually, when the time is right.”

  Gretchen released a shaky sigh and tightened her hold on his waist. Matt was so sure of himself. She could almost believe this was a normal part of the growing up process. “Anyone ever tell you you’re stubborn as a mule?” she teased with a tremulous grin.

  “Runs in the family.”

  She gazed at him, aware there was yet another matter they needed to discuss. “That it certainly does,” she drawled, turning so he could unzip her dress.

  He parted her dress obligingly. Watched with undisguised pleasure as she picked up the satin nightshirt. “Sure you want to join this family?”

  “That all depends.” Gretchen stepped out of her dress and dropped it in the hamper for laundering later.

  “On what?” Matt wrapped his hands around her waist, drew her back against him and pressed his lips to the exposed column of her throat.

  Shivers of desire swept through her. Gretchen closed her eyes and let her head fall back upon his shoulder. “No more third degree,” she murmured in the most dictatorial tone she could manage.

  Matt made his way languorously down to her collarbone. “No more laying down the law?”

  “That’s absolutely right!”

  He turned her gently to face him. “Why not?”

  Gretchen looked deep into his eyes and knew she could drown in their silvery depths. “Because I love you,” she said softly, meaning it from the very bottom of her heart, “and— Oh, no...no.” Gretchen put her hand to her mouth, stunned by what she’d just blurted out.

  Matt went stock-still. “What did you say?” he commanded hoarsely, completely thrown for a loop by her disclosure.

  Gretchen shut her eyes in misery. She had promised herself she wouldn’t pressure Matt or reveal the depth of her feelings for him, not until well after the baby had come and Matt had had a chance to see if he really wanted to put in another twenty years of day-in, day-out fatherhood again. Only then, if the answer was in the affirmative would she tell him how she felt.

  “Gretchen...” Matt prodded.

  Stunned by the flood of emotion she felt, Gretchen put up a hand in stop-sign fashion. “Forget it, Matt,” she advised, shaken to the core by the intensity of her feeling for him and her unconscious willingness to transmit that feeling to him.

  “Now, why would I want to do that,” he drawled, shifting her closer once again. “When for the record—” his eyes turned unbearably tender “—I love you, too.”

  Joy bubbled up inside her, along with an overwhelming desire to reach out to him and make love to him, again and again and again. “Oh, Matt...” Gretchen whispered, wreathing her arms about his neck. The knowledge that he loved her filled her with a happiness unlike any she had ever known.

  “I know, I know,” he soothed, then continued their mutual confession of their feelings with a cocky grin. “I don’t know how or even when it happened, but the feeling is here—” he placed her hand and his over his heart “—deep inside. And it has been for quite a while.”

  Gretchen’s emotions soared, even as the pragmatic side of her, the side that had been hurt before, warned her to be wary of promises given in the heat of the moment. “Oh, Matt. We promised we’d keep this as uncomplicated as possible. And now look at us.”

  But Matt couldn’t have been happier. “The hell with our promises,” he said huskily. “Even the best-laid plans go awry.” He turned her palm up and kissed the middle of it. “We have to go with what we feel, what we want.”

  The touch of his lips against her skin sent shimmers of fiery se
nsation rushing through her. Gretchen forced a trembling smile. She stood on tiptoe and pressed her lips playfully to the underside of his chin. “Did it occur to you that this is how we got in trouble in the first place, Matt?”

  Matt lifted her in his arms and carried her the short distance to the bed. He swung her down, removed her slip, then her bra, panties. “One day at a time, Gretchen. Remember what we promised ourselves? One day at a time. And right now,” he continued, as his fingertips moved lightly, lovingly over her breasts, “all I can think about is how very much I missed you.”

  Gretchen had missed him, too. Desperately. Needing him more than she had ever thought possible, she swiftly divested him of his clothes.

  Desire swirling in their veins, they came together in the center of the bed. Kissing sweetly, then desperately, then sweetly again. Touching...everywhere. Commanding everything they had to give. Until Gretchen felt the shudder start deep inside her.

  Toes pointed, she arched up off the bed. Steeped in the warmth and scent of him, she ran her hands down his taut, muscular inner thighs. It didn’t seem possible, but their lovemaking had become more intense, more satisfying, as her pregnancy progressed. Perhaps because they knew each other better, wanted each other more. Perhaps because of the fragility of the moment, the wonder they felt at having found each other and being together, for however long—though she hoped it was forever.

  Her hands trailed up and down his damp back, drawing him closer. With a guttural moan, he shifted her onto her side, cupped her and brought her forward, entering her gently. He kissed her again and again, matching the shallow strokes of his body with enticing sweeps of his tongue. Until she was writhing against him, coming apart in his hands, catapulting over the edge. And then he, too, was following. They were lost in each other. They were freed. They were a happily married couple, in every way, at long last.

  Chapter Twelve

  September

  “I think I would know if I was in labor, Matt,” Gretchen said.

  “At least call Marissa,” Matt urged as he finished loading the dishwasher and shut the door.

  “And tell her what?” Gretchen inquired, rubbing her lower back as she paced aimlessly back and forth. “That I can’t get comfortable sitting in a chair?”

  Matt watched her pass by the kitchen windows for the hundredth time since dinner and wondered if she knew just how beautiful she was in the very last stages of her pregnancy, with her rounded tummy, radiant skin and Madonna-like serenity.

  “Or standing or lying down,” he added. She hadn’t eaten much, either, he noted silently, even though he’d made her favorite meal, fajitas on the grill.

  Gretchen shoved a hand through her hair. “So? This is what it’s like being nine months pregnant.”

  Exactly, Matt thought. He closed the distance between them and massaged the tenseness from her shoulders. “I think you may be in labor.”

  Gretchen rolled her eyes and leaned against him, her back to his front. “I’m not due for another twelve days.”

  Matt wrapped his arms around her. He buried his face in the soft fragrance of her hair. “Babies have been known to come early,” he whispered in her ear.

  Gretchen patted her tummy affectionately. “Zach Devin wouldn’t dare.” She inclined her head toward the textbooks spread out across the kitchen table. “He knows I have a test tomorrow.”

  “Zach Devin and I have news for you,” Matt said dryly, turning Gretchen around to face him. “You will be missing more than one or two classes this semester when Zach Devin is born.”

  “I’ve already talked to my professors,” Gretchen said, her chin taking on a stubborn tilt. “They assure me I can catch up, as long as I don’t miss more than two weeks. Besides, I’m taking just three classes this semester, and only have class on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, from nine to twelve. That’s really not so much.”

  Maybe not for someone who was getting a full night’s sleep, Matt thought. But if he knew newborn babies, and he did, that would not be the case, either, once Zach Devin was born. More than likely, he and Gretchen would both be up for part of every night.

  “And with Angela agreeing to baby-sit for us while I’m in class and you’re at work, it should be a snap,” Gretchen finished confidently.

  “Don’t forget. I can take some time off, too,” Matt reminded her gently.

  “I know.” Gretchen studied him. “Something else is bothering you, isn’t it?” she said at length.

  She read him too well.

  I don’t like the fear I see in your eyes, Matt thought, the suspicion that you’re just waiting for all our happiness to be taken away at any second. Which was also why, he thought, she had elected to stay in school right through labor and delivery rather than sit out a term.

  “Maybe we should talk about the future,” Matt suggested practically. Maybe if they did, it would ease their minds.

  “I thought everything was set,” Gretchen said. Moving away from him, she began to rub her back again.

  Matt knew they had accepted their love for each other during the past two months—reveled in it, in fact—but they had also avoided talk about anything much beyond Zach Devin’s birth. Of course, in many ways that was understandable. They’d been unwilling to upset the delicate balance of their lives together by discussing their future ad nauseam. Considering the losses she’d already sustained in her personal life, the fact that he and his own daughter Sassy were still on the outs, it made sense that she might worry he would not always be there for her and their baby. So he’d done his best to alleviate her fears about the future on every score.

  “I was going to wait until Zach Devin’s birth to tell you what I’d done,” Matt began, his lips curving in a satisfied smile. “But perhaps now is the time.”

  Gretchen blinked in confusion. “Time for what?”

  Matt took her hand in his and led her into his den. “I know you don’t like to talk about these kinds of things, but I think it’s something that needs to be faced, for our peace of mind and for Zach Devin.”

  Gretchen put a hand behind her to steady herself and backed onto the sofa. “And that is?”

  “I’ve set up a trust fund for the baby,” Matt said. He went to his desk and brought out a set of documents. He took them back to her and handed them over. “As you can see,” he began in a low tone, “it’s a substantial amount of money. Enough to ensure that you and Zach Devin will be taken care of for the next twenty years—even if I’m not around.”

  Gretchen continued to stare at the documents in shock. Matt knew how she felt; it was a lot of money. But was it enough to make her finally feel secure in his love for her and their baby?

  Finally, she looked up. She was trembling, ashen; a bead of perspiration had broken out on her upper lip. “How do your other children feel about this?” she asked hoarsely.

  Matt shrugged matter-of-factly. “I haven’t told them. But I don’t imagine it would be a surprise to them, since they have similar trusts.”

  Gretchen swallowed. “I had no idea that you had anywhere near this amount of money.”

  Matt shrugged and explained, “It’s why Sassy wanted the prenup.”

  “And yet you didn’t ask me for one,” she said in awe.

  That’s because I never for one moment felt I needed one, Matt thought to himself as Gretchen abruptly let out a gasp of surprise and cupped both arms across her middle.

  “Contraction?” Matt asked, resisting the urge to panic.

  “A doozy,” she confirmed.

  “First one?”

  Gretchen nodded.

  Adrenaline surging through his veins, Matt sprang into action. “I’ll get the stopwatch.”

  He returned with the watch two minutes later. Gretchen was still doubled over. Working to stay calm, Matt hunkered down beside her. “Another one?” he asked as he struggled to recall everything he’d learned in Lamaze class.

  Gretchen’s face was beet red. She was perspiring in earnest now. “Same one,” she
huffed. Matt turned on the stopwatch. Thirty-one seconds later, the contraction ended.

  The minute it did, Gretchen collapsed against the back of the sofa, as limp as a piece of lettuce. She put a hand to her brow and dabbed at the perspiration dotting her forehead with her palm. She looked at Matt and shook her head in admonition. “They said it would hurt in Lamaze class, but—oh!” She cried out and shot forward. Began to turn red again.

  Matt sat down next to her. He put his hand on her middle. He could feel the strength of her contraction; her abdomen was as hard as a rock. This was not good. It shouldn’t be happening so fast.

  “How...long...between...?” Gretchen panted, looking both determined and triumphant.

  “Thirty seconds,” Matt said, knowing Gretchen needed him now as never before. And that could only mean one thing. She had been in labor all along, just as he’d thought. “I think,” he said briskly as he gripped her hand in his, resolved not to let her and the baby down, “it’s time to call Marissa and get you to the hospital.”

  * * *

  “YOU’RE DOING GREAT,” Matt announced cheerfully.

  Gretchen was sure it was the thousandth time he’d said this. And while she appreciated his enthusiasm, she had not appreciated the various and sundry indignities of being prepped for delivering a baby. “Only someone who wasn’t having labor pains would say that,” she replied dryly, grimacing and pressing her hands to her middle.

  Matt picked up another ice chip and offered it to her. “Marissa said it would help speed things up if you got up and walked around.”

  Not bloody likely. “Marissa is out of her mind,” Gretchen replied irritably as she pushed the perspiration-damp hair from her face and waved away the ice chip Matt kept trying to push at her.

  Matt grinned. “C’mon now, Gretchen, cooperate,” he coaxed.

  “You cooperate,” Gretchen grumbled as her body once again demanded her complete and utter attention. “I’ve had it with this,” she vowed emotionally, deciding maybe she didn’t want to have the baby now anyway, maybe she would just wait a few more weeks. Even a month. “I want— agh—” Gretchen froze as another contraction racked her middle.