by Anya Summers
Well, it seemed she had made a decision, after all. She was keeping her baby.
The room spun in dizzying circles. Putting her head down, Ophelia concentrated on breathing air into her lungs slow and deep, just like in her yoga classes. She had no idea what to do. Shouldn't an expectant mother know what to do? Her sister, Zoey, would know. Zoey always knew what the next step should be. That trait was something that Ophelia was sadly lacking in.
"Sweetie pie? What's going on? Why didn't you answer the door? I'm lucky I still have my spare key—what's the matter? Did something happen to Zoey?" Lucy Martin, her sister's best friend since high school, who treated Ophelia like her kid sister, was standing in the door frame entrance to the bathroom dressed in her latest Hollywood designer clothes. The woman seriously should have been a model. At five nine, with a willowy figure, and natural cherry red hair, her riot of untamed curls spilling mid-way down her back, Lucy looked like she had stepped from the latest fashion magazine. Today she was dressed in her finest hippy-chic-meets-office couture.
"No, Zoey's fine as far as I know. It's nothing." Ophelia wanted to stand and convince Lucy that everything was fine. Whether she believed it or not, maybe if she acted like it was all right, it would be, eventually.
Lucy actually squealed when she spied the test on the counter. "You're pregnant?"
"So it would seem," Ophelia responded with a slight grimace. She hadn't been ready to tell anyone yet other than her sister. Although telling Lucy was almost like telling Zoey, in a way. While Lucy wasn't blood, she was family. Now that someone knew, it made the pregnancy even more real. Baby—her baby! The room swam as moisture filled her eyes. She worried her bottom lip as Lucy knelt in front of her, sitting on the bathroom commode. The normally cheerful canary yellow bathroom felt too bright, too intrusive in the harsh light of Ophelia's discovery.
"Do you want to talk about it? Does the father know?" Lucy clasped her hands in a sign of solidarity and support.
"Not really, I'm still in shock. And how could he know, when I only just found out?" Ophelia bit out and then was instantly ashamed. Her fears were no reason to snap Lucy's head off when she was offering support.
"Sorry, I just thought—" Lucy fumbled.
"No, I'm sorry, with everything that's going on and with Zoey in Scotland for another two days, I'm glad I have you to talk to. I just need Zoey to return, and a few days to sort this out, is all." Ophelia gave her best half-hearted grin, attempting to pretend like she was okay. Even though they both knew she wasn't well in the slightest.
"Who's the father anyway, will you tell him?" Lucy inquired, curiosity blazing in her emerald eyes.
"I don't want to go into that. I will, but I need a few days. Please, can we change the subject?" The last thing Ophelia wanted to admit to Lucy was that she didn't know the father's name. Granted, she had an idea of where she could find him, although she didn't know where she'd find the gumption to show up on his doorstep. That was a problem for another day… not only was it embarrassing that she had no idea as to the name of her child's father, other than he was the most devilishly attractive man she'd ever encountered, but it made her feel ashamed that she had been so free with herself and put a blight on what she had considered—until five minutes ago—to be one of the best nights of her life. She just hadn't expected the free gift with purchase growing in her uterus. Besides, what if she showed up on his doorstep and he didn't remember her? She wasn't sure what could be worse than that, not even the unexpected pregnancy. Ever since their magical interlude, she'd started wearing his black shirt every night to sleep in. She was pathetic. What woman took a shirt from a man she'd had a one-night stand with, and then proceeded to wear it at night so she could smell him?
Lucy yanked Ophelia into a mammoth hug and she leaned into the comfort. "You know I'm here for you, whatever you decide, Lia. Oh god, this means I'm going to be an aunt! What fun!"
"Yeah, for you," Ophelia snorted, untangling herself from Lucy's hug. "I'm going to get fat! So, did you come by just to intrude on my pity party for one?"
"Oh, yeah, that. No, I got a weird message from your sister this morning, saying she's staying in Scotland. Have you heard from her?"
"What?" Zoey couldn't stay in Scotland. Not now when Ophelia needed her more than ever before. She couldn't do this baby thing on her own. What if the father didn't want anything to do with their baby? Or, worse, turned out to be a self-righteous asshole? Who would help her with Lamaze classes, or help her decorate the nursery, or hold her hand in the delivery room?
"Yeah. That's the message I received from her this morning. She hasn't returned my frantic and over-eager return calls, either. Have you heard from her lately? Did you receive any messages from her, or hear any more than I have about this Declan guy?" Lucy asked.
"Let me check my phone." Ophelia left the bathroom, almost sprinting toward the kitchen. Skitters of fear raced along her spine, her stomach doing somersaults over this latest development. Entering the kitchen, the cheerful white and blue seaside décor was a reminder of the remodel she and Zoey had done two years ago. They'd laughed and had a bit of a paint war but it had been a nice upgrade from the eighties color scheme. Where the hell had she put her phone? She thought she had laid it on the counter when she came in from the drugstore with her bag. She'd been so caught up in her need to know whether she was pregnant that she hadn't paid any attention to where she'd set the damn thing. Blowing out a pent-up breath, Ophelia located her cell. It lay haphazardly on top of the pile of mail she'd tossed on the counter in her mad dash to prove to herself she wasn't expecting. Oh, how wrong she had been.
Sure enough, she'd missed a call from Zoey that morning. Pressing the messages, she listened in disbelief.
"Hey sis, listen, I know I was supposed to be coming home in forty-eight hours or so, but Declan's asked me to stay with him a while longer, and I decided I'm going to. Hope all is well on the home front. Know that I love you and we'll talk soon about things," Zoey's voice said.
Ophelia's sister was abandoning her. Her knees wobbled and she gripped the countertop. She needed her sister in the worst way, and all of a sudden she had decided to go AWOL.
"What was the name of the airline Zoey used last minute? And did she tell you where this guy lives; I can't remember the name of the place," Ophelia asked Lucy. She would be on a flight tomorrow if she could find one with an available seat. She had a little inheritance stashed away from her parents. It wouldn't hurt to use a tiny portion for airfare. The rest she'd use for her child when the time came. Who knew what this guy had done to convince her sister to abandon her family? Ophelia was headed on a rescue mission to bring Zoey back stateside. As far as she was concerned, Scotland was hostile territory, and she was certain that once Zoey saw her, she would come to her senses.
"Mullardoch Manor, and why?" Lucy cocked an eyebrow as she studied Ophelia with concern lacing her voice. Ophelia knew she meant well, but in this case, retrieving her sister was the only course of action in her book.
"Because I'm flying to Scotland and bringing Zoey home." And that was that as far as she was concerned.
A mere seventy-two hours later, after a harrowing forty hours of flights, layovers and delays, where Ophelia discovered some of the joys of impending motherhood, like 'how to have morning sickness at thirty-eight thousand feet', and 'how little turbulence agrees with morning sickness,' she finally stepped off the train at Inverness. At least the train ride had been a pleasant experience that had given her an opportunity to see some of Scotland. So, other than being more bone weary than she'd ever felt before, and a quite bit frazzled wondering how her sister would react to Ophelia appearing at her boyfriend's house with every intention of dragging her back home and away from him, everything was just dandy. It wasn't that she had anything against him per se—other than he'd somehow managed to convince her ultra-responsible sister to abandon her home and the people who loved her.
What had seemed like such a great idea when she and Lucy
had booked the last minute travel arrangements, felt a bit overdone now that Ophelia was standing on Scottish soil. She didn't know what was wrong with her lately, only that the choices she was making were indeed questionable. Maybe she could chalk it up to being hormonal, not that she could blame the one-night stand on that, but she was too spent to precisely care about blurred lines of blame.
Ophelia dragged her wheeled luggage out to the curb, after a brief stop in the ladies' room to freshen up, where she'd even broken out her make-up kit so she could hide the dark circles that had formed under her eyes. It made her feel better than she no longer looked like something a cat had dragged in from the garden. At least this way, with the upcoming confrontation she was certain would happen, Ophelia would at least appear like she had her stuff together. She found a cab that would take her on the hour-long drive all the way to Mullardoch Manor. She wasn't going to think about the cost of the taxi, not right now. The money didn't matter if it meant seeing her sister and convincing her to come home with her.
Scotland was breathtaking. Ophelia had never had a hankering for wanting to visit the country the way her sister had, even with her love of literature, but she immediately understood why Zoey was so taken by the country. Rolling green hills abutted snowcapped mountains. Fields of heather and wild flowers abounded. Soaring stone architecture dating back to Robert the Bruce stood interspersed with modern housing along cobbled streets. It fit her sister; the wild, untamed beauty of the place. Ophelia stiffened with each passing mile to her destination as the dichotomy of what she was about to attempt settled in her bones. She tried to convince herself that she had nothing to worry about; that Zoey would see the light of day with her appearance here and come home. Her plane ticket was open-ended standby for the return flights, which meant she could leave whenever she needed to. Lucy was set to book a flight for next week, just in case Ophelia needed reinforcements.
Another graduate student would oversee Ophelia's workload at the university this week. While she didn't love Mary Masterson, and on more than one occasion had wondered how she had made it as far as she had in the collegiate system, she was willing to step in on a moment's notice, which made her an invaluable asset.
One that Ophelia would likely have to rely on toward the end of the spring semester, if her baby came early. She prayed it would be an easy, no fuss pregnancy. Her gynecologist had squeezed her in for a last minute appointment before she had left Los Angeles. Having her doctor confirm her condition, scheduling her for an ultrasound in a few weeks, and prescribing prenatal vitamins had made her anxiety rise more than was probably good for the baby. Ophelia was seven weeks along, confirming what she'd already known, that her incredible one-night stand had left a far greater and more long lasting mark upon her than she'd originally believed. The doctor had given her a late May due date.
That was something, at least. Hopefully, as long as she didn't go into labor prematurely, Ophelia could finish the school year with only her thesis to finish the following year. She didn't know how she'd accomplish it, but knew she wasn't the only woman to give birth and go to college. If others could do it, she could, too. Once she had her master's she could get hired on as a full-time adjunct professor while she worked on her PhD. It would be tough and would take her much longer to write her dissertation than she'd originally planned, but she would adjust as needed.
She had no choice but to discuss the situation with her advisor when she returned from Scotland. She and Zoey would have to talk over the living arrangements at home, as well. When their parents had died six years ago, both sisters had been too raw to even consider one of them using their parents' bedroom. Instead, they had quietly agreed and had kept the same bedrooms they had grown up in. Granted, the boy band posters and dolls had given way to much more grown up décor over the years, but not much else had changed in the house. They had redone the kitchen, but much of it had been out of necessity when both the refrigerator and ancient stove quit working the same week. Zoey had been dating that contractor, what's his face, at the time, and he had helped them rip out the old cabinets and flooring, giving it a thorough redo. But everything else, even the paint choices, had stayed the same. Maybe they had become too stagnant in their refusal to use that room. Thinking back on it, they had turned the house into more of a shrine to their parents' lives than done anything to make it theirs, but with Ophelia's impending motherhood on the horizon, maybe it was time they moved out of the past and overhauled their system a bit. Of course, there wasn't a day that passed when she didn't miss her mom and dad, but she had to consider how that would affect her child.
She had more than just herself to think of, and would make her case with her sister for taking over their parents' room. It was far enough away from Zoey's that, right after the baby arrived, Ophelia wouldn't have to worry about the baby waking her up. There was enough room in it so that she could put a bassinet next to the bed, and a changing table.
For the baby. Her baby.
She still couldn't seem to wrap her brain around it.
The cab pulled into a long circular drive at the top of one of those rolling hills she had so been admiring on the drive. Mullardoch Manor wasn't a manor but a freaking castle, with turrets and all. No wonder her sister didn't want to come home. She had the chance to play princess. What woman would truly turn an opportunity like that down?
The moment of truth now upon her, Ophelia alighted from the vehicle, paying the driver, and dragging her suitcase up the steps. Taking a deep breath, she rang the bell. A blonde woman with mile long legs answered the door wearing a maid's outfit.
"How may I help you?" She glanced at Ophelia's suitcase and studied her with a we-aren't-buying-it-no-matter-what-you're-selling kind of attitude.
"Yes, I'm Ophelia Mills, and am here to see my sister Zoey. Is she available?"
At the mention of Zoey, a smile spread on the blonde's face, transforming her demeanor into one of welcoming warmth. She knew Zoey. Her sister's infectious spirit tended to have that effect on people.
"I just served her and the Master lunch in the library. Come in. Just leave your luggage near the door and I will have the lad bring it up."
"Thank you," Ophelia murmured, leaving the bright sunlight and entering a world of understated elegance. The woman had called her sister's boyfriend 'the Master'. Was he staunchly rabid about formal titles? That didn't bode well for her sister. Even if Zoey tended to be uptight, she was a force of nature and bowed to no man.
"Just this way, please." The maid gestured for her to follow.
Ophelia let her lead, surveying the grand marble staircase and noble artwork. This was a home fit for a king. She imagined Miss Erstwhile would have felt at home here, while Ophelia seemed like an inept school girl. She didn't do fancy; she was more the small seaside cottage type than grandiose home. That was why she loved their little house in Burbank with its eclectic design, and small, homey feel.
The large mullioned windows streamed sunlight onto the second floor as they tread toward a room at the end. At the white door, the maid knocked.
"Come in," a deep male voice laced with a Scottish brogue said.
The maid opened the door into Ophelia's every fantasy. The library itself was an impressive masterpiece, with shelf upon shelf lined with books. She wondered if there were any first editions. Her fingers itched to touch them. She was startled from her musings.
"Lia!" her sister's voice cried.
Ophelia turned toward her and it was like they hadn't seen each other in ages. Zoey had scooted out of her chair and was flinging her arms around her before she could stop her. Ophelia closed her eyes, feeling the burn of unshed tears, and hugged her back. This was why, as much as she loved Lucy, their friend wasn't Zoey. Ophelia hadn't realized how much she had needed just a hug from her sister. It wasn't until this moment that she truly felt like she could do this pregnancy and become a mom.
"What are you doing here? Why didn't you tell me you were coming?" Zoey chattered away. "I'm being so r
ude. Ophelia, I have someone I want you to meet."
She tugged her across the room. Ophelia trailed behind her sister, finally noticing the startlingly gorgeous man seated at the table. He reminded Ophelia of what she had once believed knights in shining armor would look like. He was sturdily built and finely hewn, a throwback to another generation, when men were a little rougher, more physical on a daily basis, even with the sheen of sophistication he wore like a leather glove. She suspected he could discard it when the mood suited him. And he looked at her sister with such love; it sucker punched her directly through the chest.
Love was not something Ophelia had counted on. With just a single look at him, her campaign to bring her sister home had taken a ghastly turn, with higher stakes she hadn't even fathomed until now. Even if she could convince Zoey to come home, would her sister thank her for her intrusion or hate her for it?
"Declan, this is my sister, Ophelia." Zoey gestured her way, presenting her boyfriend with a ta-da flourish. Her sister was beaming up at him, glowing with such emotion in her gaze that it knocked the wind out of Ophelia's sails. Coming here had been a mistake. She knew that as assuredly now as she did that her sister was happier than she'd seen her since before their parents had died.
Declan stood, a toweringly large man, his eyes warm and welcoming, as he pulled Ophelia into a great bear hug. Stunned, she hugged him back in a reflexive way, and then retreated. His arm slipped around her sister's waist, and she noticed Zoey sigh under her breath.