Make Me a Mommy: A Mother's Day Secret Baby Romance

by Liz K. Lorde

  A present for my prize.

  My eyes stray to the rear of the shed where I’ve got a dead deer waiting to be skinned as well. If Avery stays asleep, I might get both animals skinned today.

  The skinning is only the first part of course. Next, I’ll need to coat the skin with salt to dry it out.

  Coating the skin in salt…

  Now that’s a thought. Now that I’ve got Avery all to myself, I picture coating her body in…something. Not salt.

  What would I coat her in? Molten chocolate. If I coated her with molten chocolate, I would need to lick it all off, every last drop.

  This woman must have cast some kind of spell over me. It isn’t like me at all to be thinking along these lines.

  Whatever the fuck Avery is doing to me, I don’t think it’s doing me any harm.

  But how long will it last?

  Will the magic wear off and she’ll get sick of me and living up here in the mountains?

  Now I’m even starting to think long fucking term. I know there’s definitely something wrong with me.

  It is only day five with Avery and I’m acting as if we’re going to get fucking married.

  Fuck.

  With my inattention, I’ve slipped off the skin and cut my finger. Blood drips out and I curse some more.

  Better stop all this fucking thinking, Jack, and keep your mind on the fucking job.

  Avery

  I wake up all curled up on the couch Jack first laid me on when he rescued me from my car crash. My body doesn’t ache like it did that first time I woke up here. Actually, it feels pretty nice. Like my legs are made of jiggly, wobbly Jell-O and my pussy is made of whipped cream.

  Before Jack, I never thought about my pussy this much in my life. Now, I can’t get my freaking mind off of it. Pussy, pussy, pussy—that’s all I ever seem to talk about anymore.

  Maybe it’s because when Jack’s around, my previously dormant pussy is just plain loud. Jack will say something—something totally innocuous, even—and my clit will jump to attention like it’s been trained to the sound of his voice.

  That man could tell me, “Come,” and I’d be too busy moaning to ask, “How many times?”

  He’s saved me from certain death twice now. Stopped me from doing something that would end up with me getting myself killed several times more. He’s fed me off his own rations, washed the smoke and oil off my body, laid me to sleep in his bed…

  He’s done things to me that only a husband is supposed to do. But the man who was supposed to be my husband is a fraud and a traitor, and Jack…Jack is good. He’s got some idiotic notion that he’s anything but—I can see it, feel it—but he’s wrong.

  I feel like I was surrounded by a pack of hungry wolves before Jack scooped me up in his big, burly arms. Men who only wanted to shuffle me around for the sake of their own power and position. Hungry women who wanted to eat me alive.

  Now that I’ve given myself to this huge, shaggy bear of a man, I’ve never felt safer in my whole life.

  Suddenly, I know exactly what I want to do with the rest of my life when I leave this mountain: nothing. Because I never want to leave at all.

  Maybe it’s naive. I keep telling myself that I’m not an idiotic little girl anymore, but I know how it must sound. The fantasy of it is so enthralling that I find myself lost in it, though.

  Jack has been out here for a decade. He’s off the grid—off the everything—and knows this mountain like the shrapnel scars on his chest. He’s almost completely self-sufficient by my standards—only needs to go into town once every few months for a few necessities like toiletries and a little food.

  There’s no reason that on one of those trips, we couldn’t pick up a marriage license and pop into a little church—or, hell, we don’t even need to get married. Maybe it would be better that way. I could just fade out of existence and into Jack’s arms. Give him a whole bunch of little mountain babies—more than he can count.

  Adam would never find me here. Neither would my father. And I would never—never ever ever ever—have to sit through another boring freaking state dinner ever again.

  It’s a nice fantasy.

  One that I don’t quite want to let go of yet.

  I never imagined being anyone’s wife in the way that I suddenly want to be Jack’s wife. In my world, wives start getting Botox at twenty-five and breast implants immediately after giving birth to the obligatory 2.5 children. In my world, wives are expected to look pretty, dress perfectly, entertain the French ambassador’s wife with vapid small talk while the husbands do business over wine and dessert, and look hurt but supportive as they stand by their man while he apologizes for his inevitable sex scandal.

  In Jack’s world, that’s all out the door.

  I look around the cabin, trying to imagine my role in this newly imagined life.

  It’s a beautiful cabin. Maybe a little dirty, but gorgeously built.

  Cleaning…that’s it! What this place needs is a good cleaning.

  It takes me a little bit to gather supplies. Truth be told, I’ve never even cleaned my room before. We had maids for that. But eventually, I’ve got the soot cleaned off the mirror in the foyer and the corners cleared of cobwebs.

  I’ll have to see if Jack has any little red bandannas I can tie my hair back with. Once spring comes, I like the idea of giving these floors a nice, hard scrub. I know it sounds stupid, but I actually feel good about doing the work. For the first time in my life, I’m actually feeling useful. It’s quite a satisfying change.

  But once that’s done…well. You know what they say about idle hands…

  I know I’m being bad. I’m not an idiot, even though I know I act like one from time to time. I move up to Jack’s bedroom under the guise of cleaning, but I know good and well what this really is.

  Snooping. I’m snooping around Jack’s house like a hungry dog sniffing out treats.

  The back of his closet is surprisingly barren, save for Buck, who’s curled up inside gnawing on one of Jack’s boots and bolts when he gets caught.

  Jack is the ultimate minimalist. I don’t even find any dirty magazines or questionable VHS tapes beneath Jack’s mattress.

  Everything he owns seems to have a purpose. No sentimentality. No useless junk. A place for everything, and everything has its place. Even his military medals are exactly where Jack wants them: tucked away beneath his wool socks, out of sight and out of mind.

  But then, I try the bottom drawer of his dresser.

  It sticks in place the first time I try to yank it out. But when I leverage all of my meager weight on it—and pay the price by tumbling backward as a result—finally, it gives.

  The drawer doesn’t contain much. Jack’s old high school yearbooks—I do a quick flip through to look for him, but he went to one of those massive schools, and without even realizing it, I haven’t bothered to get his last name. I delve deeper and bring up a gorgeous wooden box, latched but not locked.

  I know just holding it in my hands that Jack made this box.

  What I couldn’t have possibly expected was what it contains within.

  A photo album. Not pictures like the ones from his military days that need to be hidden way—no, this book has remained closed and unintentionally forgotten for a good long time. I blow the dust off it and nearly knock myself backward with the force of the sneeze that follows.

  But then I open it, and the first picture inside nearly knocks me backward of its own accord.

  There’s Jack—just a young man, fresh-faced and beardless in a brand-new uniform. He looks about as old in this picture as I am now. The man and woman standing behind him must be his mother and father. Their faces aren’t familiar to me, but they’re a handsome couple. They look like lovely people.

  Lovely in-laws, maybe, the greedy voice in the back of my head sing-songs.

  Shut up, I pout, like it’s teasing me for being so silly.

  When my eyes land on the second half of the photograph, though, not even
the greedy little voice in the back of my head has anything to say.

  My parents. My parents are in this picture. There’s Mommy in her demure pencil skirt and blazer. Daddy in his power suit. And there at their legs, grinning up her best toothpaste ad grin, is…me. Just a little kid—little enough that I hardly remember this photo being taken.

  There’s a caption beneath the photo, too. It’s the caption that really does me in.

  Oh no.

  Oh no.

  Lawson and Wilkins families, the caption reads, followed by the date it was taken.

  I might not recognize Jack or his parents from this day, but that name, Lawson…

  Being the daughter of Congressman Wilkins, there’s no forgetting that name. It’s the name Daddy ends up bellowing while he pounds his fist against the dinner table during reelection season. A name that makes him go redder than a baboon’s butt when he hears it in passing. The name that I’ve even heard him mutter in his sleep once or twice.

  Lawson. Jack Lawson.

  Jack’s parents must be the Lawsons, then. Daddy’s former campaign donors turned greatest enemies. They used to be some of his very best friends—a rich family with a rich military tradition. Great for the polls. Great for support from his constituents.

  Until they threw him under the bus, that is. Pulled all their campaign funding. Accused Daddy of making government deals with shady weapons dealers and war criminals. Getting our soldiers overseas killed with bad weapons and malfunctioning technology.

  I always tried to take Daddy’s side, of course. After all—I used to be a very good girl, remember?

  “I hate the Lawsons,” I remember saying. “They’re…they’re liars! And crooks!”

  “That’s right, Avery,” Daddy would say back, patting me absently on the head. “Good girl.”

  But I’m not a good girl anymore. Maybe I never was to begin with.

  This isn’t the first time I snooped where I wasn’t supposed to, after all.

  My mind flashes back to just a few days ago. The wedding that was supposed to be my own. The horrible events that prevented it from happening.

  The text messages between Daddy and Adam, uncovering the truth. My marriage to Adam wasn’t the only shady deal passing between them—no, there were billions of government dollars passing through Daddy’s pipe into Adam’s company’s guns.

  And then, there were the other messages. The even worse ones.

  Lack of weapons testing. Rescinding of safety funding. And the emails, not written in English, but in something that Google Translate thought might be Pashto or Dari or Farsi…

  When I close the photo album, I can tell my face is as white as Jack’s sheets before he fucked me on them.

  I know what I have to do. Even if I have to do it through a waterfall of tears.

  The truth. I have to tell Jack the truth.

  Jack

  Evening has fallen and it’s cold as all hell outside.

  I’ve taken my sweet time getting the bear skinned so that it was perfect.

  I like to use every part of the animal, never wasting a thing. It’s part of my contract with Nature. She provides me with meat and warmth and in turn, I don’t degrade the beasts I kill.

  I have a certain respect for them and for the process of hunting.

  I’m bone tired from the day’s events. I try to clean up a little bit on the porch of the cabin but there’s nothing to do with the fact that I’m covered with blood.

  I kick my boots off and open the door to find Avery crying.

  She’s not even shocked to see me in such a grisly nature, so consumed is she in her own torment. What could she be crying about?

  “What’s wrong Avery? Has someone hurt you?” I say with a worried expression.

  I hate to see her cry. That’s one thing I’ve learned through this process. Avery’s too beautiful to cry. She should have everything she wants. She should have a perfect life.

  “I’m…I’m, sorry Jack. I have a confession to make,” she says and I wonder what she could be referring to.

  I shut the door and start to strip off my clothes that are covered in blood. I might as well not make this worse for her. She already knows I am a barbarous man, I might as well attempt some civility by cleaning myself up, especially since she’s been crying.

  I dropped my bloody clothes to the floor and wear just jeans and an undershirt.

  “What is it, Avery? Tell me now,” I say.

  I pull her up into my arms and she hugs me tight before looking into my face and making her confession.

  “I’ve been snooping through some of your things. And I know that my family has done you wrong. I’m…I’m a Wilkins. Avery Wilkins. My father signed off on sending shoddy weapons to your unit…and the man who I was supposed to marry is Adam Stanton. He owns Stanton Industries. He’s the man whose company provided the weapons that doomed your men.”

  I pull away from her to contemplate these words of venom.

  What the fuck is she talking about? Is she telling the truth? It can’t be.

  She was gonna marry the man who was ultimately my ruin? Is this some kind of a setup?

  For the first time, I see Avery as not appearing so cute and innocent. For the first time, I’m questioning her motives for being with me.

  “You’re going to need to run that by me again, honey,” I say sternly.

  She backs away from me as if in fear. I must be a sight to see, my muscles covered in blood and my hair so unkempt that I look like the beast I just murdered.

  I can tell she’s afraid, frightened of my tremendous strength, but I don’t care about that now. All I see is red.

  She almost married Adam fucking Stanton? There has to be more to the story and I’m going to find out…now.

  “It’s all true. I hate to be the one to tell you this but I have to be honest with you. Can’t you commend me even for that? At least I’m being upfront with you about what I know.”

  I reject her plea. I feel like a storm cloud that’s about to explode with lightning and thunder.

  I’m so fucking angry. Wounds of the past have been reopened and I’m just not sure I’m ready to go there.

  What she’s explaining is everything I’ve been running from. She can’t expect me to take this news with a docile attitude. It’s just not in my nature.

  “Honest? You think this is honesty? Your family has done me wrong and your potential fiancé was behind the ruin of so many lives. How can you live with that?”

  Tears are streaming down her face. It’s a sad sight to see but I don’t fucking care.

  I have to push my emotions for her down. I have to hear the rest of this story and how it all fits together.

  “Jack, I’m sorry. You have to know I’m sorry about everything. You can’t hold me responsible for all of this,” she says, crying now.

  She backs up against the chair and sits on the arm of it. I approach her but try to tame my anger so as not to frighten her even more.

  “Tell me how you know all this, Avery. Tell me,” I say.

  “I discovered conversations proving that Adam was using my father to gain lucrative weapons contracts with the US military. He was also, I think…well, I think he’s playing both sides of the war.”

  I’m about to go fucking ballistic now. To hear that this lunatic sabotaged us is incomprehensible to me. The thought of all the people I lost in my unit, men and women alike, fills me with rage and remorse under normal circumstances.

  But now Avery’s telling me that this one guy is responsible for it? No. It can’t be fucking possible.

  The days I’ve spent in torment and regret and misery flash before my eyes. All these days out in the wilderness have been because of this, because of some shady bastard playing underhanded politics. And to think, Avery was about to marry him.

  I slam my fist into the wall and blood trickles down, comingling with the blood of the bear. I am a fucking savage and I feel as if this rage is going to consume me whole.

&
nbsp; The thought of that man marrying her makes me burn with fury and jealousy all at the same time. My past is colliding with my future, and it all fucking makes sense now—how there was no explanation for what went wrong when my team was demolished.

  We were fucking played.

  Before I can become even more enraged, she makes another confession.

  “Jack, that’s not all,” she says softly, her voice cracking. “When Adam caught me snooping…he tried to—” She swallows hard. “He was so furious he tried to rape me.”

  I stop in my tracks.

  What the fuck? Did she just fucking say that?

  I better not have just heard what I think I did. That better not be the fucking truth.

  “Excuse me?” I say through gritted teeth. “Did you say that Adam fucking Stanton tried to fucking rape you?”

  She nods her head solemnly, and that’s the last push I need to totally explode. I knock over chairs and slam my fists into the walls and cabinets trying to vent my anger.

  The thought of his hands on her is too much. Too fucking much. But now my anger swells and flares up at a worthier target: Adam himself.

  My mission is clear, this guy must go down.

  Any animosity I might’ve felt toward Avery for even being a part of this completely fades. I know it wasn’t her fault. She’s been a pawn in their game. Unbeknownst to her, she fell into the trap of a traitor, and apparently, so did I.

  I calm myself enough to wrap her up in my arms, and she doesn’t even mind holding my bloodstained body.

  Nothing exists right now except for me and her. She comes first before everything.

  “Are you okay, Avery? Did he hurt you?” I think about it for a second, then swear. “Shit. Did I hurt you?”

  She sobs into my chest and says, “I’m okay. I’m just glad that you’re here.”

  A million thoughts are going through my mind at once, all involving how to make this guy pay. To think that Avery almost was almost raped by that bastard has my blood boiling. The fury I feel towards Adam is immense and multifaceted.

  He played both sides of the war and then he tried to play Avery on top of it.

  Eruptions of anger convulse in my chest, but I try to hide that from Avery. I don’t want her to know how totally raving fucking mad I feel.