The Way Back
Page 22
“Aha! I knew it. You don’t want me to stay back for Armstrong, you’re afraid the baby is going to jiggle out or something.”
“Good lord, can that happen?”
Gabby wiggled out of his hold so she could face him. “I’m not going to shatter. Just because I’m a little older than most women having their first child doesn’t mean I’m any more delicate.”
“What about me? I’m really old to have a baby, too. Think of the stress I’m under. My weak heart.”
Gabby snorted. “Your weak heart. It didn’t feel so weak this morning when you woke me up for a little…how did you put it?”
“Oh, I put it good,” he teased.
“Morning nookie?”
“Don’t slam morning nookie. It’s almost as good as stair sex.”
“I’m only saying I don’t want to be coddled. Yes, we’re going to be older parents but we’re not invalids.”
“Got it. We’re not invalids. But someone still has to hang back with Armstrong.”
Gabby relented. “Fine. It’s just I’ll have no one to talk to.” Armstrong barked. “I meant someone human, baby.”
“I can call Zhanna to come walk with you,” Jamie offered.
“No. She’s worse than you and my mother combined with the fussing. The other day she started doing this weird thing with my wedding ring to see if I was going to have a boy or a girl. She’s practically insisting I give her a baby sister. I told her if she wanted a baby so much to go have one of her own.”
“Whoa,” Jamie groaned. “No need to rush the baby talk. She and Tom have decided on a long engagement and that’s fine with me. I don’t want to be a grandpa and a new father at the same time.”
Gabby considered this. If Zhanna and Tom did decide to have a baby soon after they were married, there would be someone on this planet who would soon be calling her grandma. She was having a hard enough time with the idea of someone calling her mom.
“You’re right. No need for Zhanna to rush into motherhood.”
“Listen, you’ll probably like the quiet time. You can think about the book stuff, figure out what the next chapter will be.”
Now Gabby knew he was really laying it on thick. “You hate that I’m writing this book, but you want to give me quiet time to think about it? Talk about a load of bull.”
“I don’t hate the book,” Jamie argued. “If Paula wants to share her story with the world, I’m okay with it. I was sort of hoping you could take out all the parts about me.”
“Not going to happen. You agreed I had carte blanche to write about anything Paula was willing to share. That includes you.”
Jamie sighed, but he didn’t continue to argue. While he wasn’t thrilled with the idea of his life being out there on a bookshelf, he’d agreed for Paula’s sake. This was about her and her journey. After everything that happened between them, the least he could do was support her.
Gabby had been the only person Paula could even think about trusting with her story. Which made Gabby’s former boss Melissa one very happy editor as McKay Publishing won the rights to the book. Gabby had been fired as an editor and immediately hired as Paula’s biographer.
Strange as it was, the two Mrs. Hunters had become very close friends through the process of telling Paula Hunter’s story.
“Well, go on,” Gabby insisted. “I’ll walk with Armstrong and think about the book. You run and we’ll meet you back at the house.”
“I love you,” he said as he kissed her on the nose before taking off down the beach.
She watched him jog away and had no worries about how he would handle being a new dad. He was fit and active and more excited by this baby than by anything she could imagine. When they first learned she was pregnant, he said being a dad to this baby was going to be more exciting than rocketing into space. She believed him.
She always believed him.
After he got a few yards away though he stopped and turned around. She wondered if maybe he had a rock in his sneaker or if he possibly turned an ankle.
“What’s the matter?” she asked as he approached her.
“I didn’t like it,” he said.
“You love running.”
“I know. But I didn’t like leaving you behind. Felt weird.”
Gabby decided it was hormones making her eyes mist up and not sentiment. She wasn’t that corny. Oh, who was she kidding? Around him she was exactly that corny.
“You could walk with me and Armstrong. Just for the next few months,” she offered.
He took her hand and Armstrong hopped around their ankles apparently pleased to have both his parents staying behind with him.
“Sounds like a plan to me. We need to stick together.”
“Always,” Gabby agreed.
* * * * *
ISBN: 9781459226470
Copyright © 2012 by Stephanie Doyle
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