by TJ Hamilton
Giving me a quick kiss on the cheek as she passes, she keeps on walking. “I just need to get back to the villa and change into something a little more appropriate than a bikini and a sarong. I told Lenni I’d help him sort out the trouble he’s having with his assault charge.”
I shake my head. I can’t help but love her that little bit more. “We’re meant to blend in, remember?”
“I promised him I’d help,” she calls out, walking fast along the sidewalk to our private villa on the beach.
She can’t help herself. Always has to be helping someone, wherever we go. Walking into the drug store to purchase my postcard for Ma, I rifle through my pocket for some coins. I haven’t sent her a new postcard for about six weeks now. She’ll be getting worried. I never write anything on them, but when Scott wired his last call through to Franco, he told me she loves them.
I never thought I’d see the day when I would step back from the family, but Chelsea changed everything. Wherever we’ve gone, the local gangs always know who I am, but because of my father’s legacy, I am usually respected. They’ve heard the stories of ‘The Sting’. So far, I haven’t had to prove myself. I don’t think I will either. No one should ever underestimate freedom, on any level. It’s something I’ll never take for granted again.
The round little Costa Rican lady behind the counter grins smugly at me as I approach her. “Two hundred colones.”
I hand over the coins. The lady wraps my postcard in a paper bag and hands it back to me. “So your wife, eh, she not feeling so well lately, eh?”
I frown and have no idea what she’s talking about. Shaking my head, I reply, “Not that I know of. Why? Is everything all right? What did she have to buy?”
The lady raises her eyebrow and smiles. “If you noticed how much she’s blossoming, eh, maybe you have the answer for yourself, young man. Here …” She turns and grabs a bottle of vitamins and puts them into the paper bag. “You’ll probably be needing these.” She winks.
I snatch the bag and race out the door. “Thank you,” I call out as I leave.
Opening the paper bag as I walk, I find a vitamin bottle with the word ‘prenatal’ written boldly across the front. I can’t believe my eyes. Staring for a moment, all the little signs sink in. She suddenly hates the cologne she bought me for our wedding day in the Bahamas. She feels sick at the sight of seafood when she normally scoffs it down, and she is bulging out of her bikini top a lot more than normal.
Is my wife pregnant?
Waiting for the break in the crazy traffic along the main beach, my adrenaline starts to send me crazy. I need to get to the villa, to my honeybee. With the break I’ve been anticipating, I race over the road and try to run as fast as I can towards our villa.
Flinging our door open, I find Chelsea pacing back and forth at the front of the huge open lounge room. My entrance surprises her, and she stares in complete bewilderment at me. Our eyes remain firmly fixed on one another for what feels like minutes, but is no doubt only seconds.
“Is it true?” I ask.
The smile slowly grows across her face as she looks down at the white plastic strip within her hands.
“Looks like we’ll be staying in Costa Rica for a while,” she says slowly.
I race to her, swaddling her in my arms, swinging her around in a circle. “I’m really going to be a Dad?”
She nods and kisses me just the same as she did when we fist kissed in the seaplane, more than a year ago. Since then we have fled our native country, faked our own death to avoid the constant cameras that never seemed to leave us, no matter how far away we went, got married, lived in eight different countries … and now we’re having a baby!
“I can’t wait to tell Logan about this. I want her to come over here to be with me through this. Can you get Scott to put a call through to her for me?” Her smile is serene.
I hope she isn’t missing her family too much. She tells me she wants nothing to do with them, but I could never have that. I wasn’t raised like that, and no matter what her family did to her she needed to stay in touch with Logan, at the very least.
“You sure you still don’t regret leaving our life behind like we did?” I search her eyes to know for certain that she’s okay to have a baby in foreign country.
“We didn’t leave our life behind; we created one that we deserved.”
Taking my glove off to feel the soft skin across her swollen belly, I feel as if my own stomach is doing back flips. She grins and grabs my other hand that’s still gloved in leather and forces it between her legs. I grin wide.
“Now fuck your pregnant wife with that gloved finger of yours before I have to go out. I swear to God, I am the horniest pregnant girl in the world.”
I chuckle and don’t waste a moment to watch her squirm with pleasure right before my eyes.
Looking to the heavens above, I thank those responsible for bringing her to me. She’s the good to my evil, the ying to my yang. Together, we complete each other.
I suck at acknowledging people who help me pursue my dream of telling stories, so let me just keep this simple. THANK YOU ALL!
But seriously, here are a couple people who should get at least a mention …
Kel, Hep, KM (they’re the names that I can repeat). You have my back and prove over and over again just why we will be mates forever. The classic quotes you give me in your critique notes always manage to find their way into my books. They are too good to not use! You’re one of the only people on this planet who get to share the joy of my self-doubt meltdowns. Consider yourself lucky! That habit you have of seeing the positive in everything, as much as it might annoy me at the time, it’s a beautiful quality to have, and I would never have you any other way. Please never change … and you’re never too old to laugh at farts!
My husband Matt. I’m sorry I called you a prick when you’re stressed because I’ve locked myself in a room to get the story out, leaving you to manage the kids by yourself. I appreciate everything you do, even when you whinge. I get it —being married to an author sucks sometimes.
Lastly, Lauren and Sali, killer team. You girls breathe life to these stories.
Sali with an I —A GIFT, MY FRIEND! A GIFT!
DEATH’S SHADOW
YOU CAN CALL ME MIRANDA
BUYING THYME
(Thyme #1 coming October 1st 2015 through Harlequin Books)
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TJ is a former cop, turned writer who uses her first-hand experience of working the city streets of inner city Sydney, to now write sexy stories of mystery and intrigue. Her head has been buried in crime since studying criminology at university over a decade ago, and she just can’t seem to shake her fascination with the macabre. TJ now lives a quiet life in the tropics with her handsome husband and kids where she writes a weekly column for her local newspaper, and spends her days re-living the action packed life she may have once had through her strong fictional characters.