Maybe Baby Lite

by ANDREA SMITH

  Why did I not know that?

  “We’d be happy for you to stay with us and we will make sure that you're taken care of.”

  “Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair,” I spoke frankly, because it appeared that Trey had left me out on the ledge here, “I so appreciate your hospitality and generosity. I want you both to know one thing. I love your son; I love Trey. Trey loves me.”

  I looked over and he was gaping at me, never expecting that I'd speak so candidly to his parents.

  Doesn’t he know how I roll yet?

  “We’re both so happy about this baby, about blessing you both with your first grandchild.”

  I reached over, taking Trey’s hand in mine. He was shocked, I could tell. I smiled inside; it wasn’t often that I could cause that.

  “Trey proposed to me last night. I asked Trey to be patient with me.” I looked over at Susan, knowing that another woman might understand what I was about to say. “Since I was a little girl, I dreamed about my wedding day. I wanted a prince to sweep me off of my feet and a wedding that was about just him and me. I’ve met my prince, your son. All I want now is for our wedding to be about our love. I understand if this doesn’t sit well with you—”

  Susan suddenly jumped up, sweeping me into an embrace. “Oh sweet girl,” she said, “You're everything I could have dreamed of for my son. You're perfect for him. I see the love between you both.” Tears filled her eyes. I was glad I wasn’t the only emotional one these days. I hugged her back, tears springing to my eyes now. Clive cleared his throat, uncomfortable with all of the female emotions.

  “Tylar,” Clive said, “we want and support whatever Trey and you desire. That’s all we want you to know. We consider you family. We hope you’ll come to feel the same way about us.”

  What wonderful parents, I thought. I felt a fleeting pain that I'd never known that kind of unconditional love. Trey’s arm was around me now, pulling me toward him, kissing my cheeks, once again wiping my tears away.

  Susan was ecstatic that we'd somehow dealt with the elephant in the room. I was too. Suddenly I was famished, digging in to my breakfast, and feeling that everything would be okay.

  “Tylar, what is your due date?” she asked excitedly.

  “May 5th,” I replied, “Kentucky Derby month.”

  “Oh that's so thrilling,” she exclaimed, all bubbly and excited. “Do you know if the baby is a boy or a girl, not that we have a preference. We're just tickled to death for a grandbaby!”

  “Not yet,” I replied. “My doctor will do an ultrasound at my next appointment, which is at the end of next week. I’m not sure if I want to know or not. I kind of like the idea of being surprised.”

  Trey looked at me seriously, “Why didn’t I know about the ultrasound, Tylar?” Uh-oh, I should have mentioned it to him before now.

  “I’m sorry, babe,” I said softly, patting his cheek gently with my hand, making sure I sounded contrite in his parents presence, “can you come to the appointment with me next week in Radcliff?”

  “Certainly,” he smiled, sipping his coffee, “in fact, I’ve rearranged my schedule to spend time with you in Radcliff until Christmas if necessary.”

  What? Really?

  I was speechless. I loved that Trey would do this for me but I was a bit disappointed that I had to hear it from him just now. Why hadn’t he told me earlier? I'd have been so thrilled. I then realized that Trey had the power to call his own shots at the firm. He was a senior partner after all.

  “Well, then I'm tickled pink,” Susan gushed. “Clive and I feel so much better knowing that you two have worked out so many of the details! Tell me Tylar,” she asked, “now I know that it’s early and all, but have you and Trey discussed names for the baby?”

  “Well,” I said softly, lowering my head a bit, looking at Trey in my peripheral vision as he was preparing to take another sip of his coffee, “I haven’t mentioned it to Trey just yet but I was thinking if it’s a boy, ‘Jack’, and if it’s a girl, I like ‘Danielle.’” I could see Trey choking on his last sip of the hot coffee. I pretended not to notice. “What do you think, babe?” I asked, turning to him.

  He glanced at me while pulling his cloth napkin from his lap and wiping his mouth. He gave me one of his “your-ass-is-mine” looks, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

  “We’ll talk about names later,” he replied authoritatively.

  The rest of our breakfast was enjoyed in good spirits. Afterward, I went back upstairs to retrieve my hoodie. I wanted to go out to the stable to visit with Derringer. Trey was right behind me.

  “That was quite a performance you gave down there,” he said wryly.

  “Trey, I meant all of it. Well, with the exception of the baby names.”

  “I should hope so,” he replied, smirking.

  “Did you really plan to stay with me or was that something you made up?” I asked.

  He was thoughtful for a moment, choosing his words carefully. “Tylar, I’ve made arrangements to stay with you until the Christmas holiday break with my firm. I’ve several reasons for doing so. Please trust me when I tell you this and don't get pissed off and stubborn. Will you do that?”

  I knew that Trey was serious and meant what he wanted to tell me. “Yes, of course Trey,” I answered.

  He pulled me down so that I was sitting next to him on the bed. He was momentarily quiet, selecting his words carefully. “There’s a very good chance that the C.A. will accept Charlie Roberts’s plea bargain for giving us your mother.”

  I wasn’t quite sure what that meant.

  “If that happens, you won’t have to face being at his trial; he will simply plead guilty to a lesser charge. Now, I don’t want you to worry about that. Charlie will do time in prison, just not as much. My only concern is that the authorities haven't+ found your mother. I’ve had my own private investigator looking into her whereabouts as well.”

  “You have?” I asked wide-eyed. Maybe that explained his constant phone calls.

  “Your mother's been living in Indiana.”

  “Indiana? Why would she move to Indiana?” Then it hit me—Daniel. Trey saw that I understood.

  “Yes,” he said, “she’s been with Daniel.”

  “Oh wow,” I said, although nothing about mom would shock me.

  “He’s in college. He’s at Purdue.”

  “Unfortunately he’s not any more, Tylar. For whatever reason, he was obsessed with your mother. It’s been going on for quite some time.”

  Since my fucking senior prom!

  “Your mom’s expecting his child. He quit school and has been working at a factory. Somehow she figured out that we were on to her after Charlie’s assault attempt went awry. By the way, the attack wasn’t actually part of their plan if it makes you feel any better.”

  It didn’t. I pressed Trey for more details.

  “According to Charlie’s sworn statement, the plan was to make it look like an accident.”

  “Make what look like an accident?” I questioned. Trey shifted nervously beside me, wrapping an arm around me. His silence spoke volumes. “What? She wanted me dead?” I looked up at Trey and I knew the answer though he couldn’t speak the unspeakable.

  What made her hate me so much?

  I buried my face into his chest and sobbed inconsolably. When I finally raised my head, I'd drenched his shirt. Wiping my wet cheeks with the back of my hand, I raised my eyes to his.

  “Why Trey?” I sobbed. “Why would she hate me like that?”

  “I don’t know, Tylar,” he said, stroking my face with the back of his knuckles. “I don’t understand it either.” He kissed the top of my head. He continued in his smooth silky voice.

  “Charlie was biding his time, hoping to get an opportunity to catch you alone, either in the stable or your cottage. The plan was to make it appear as though you'd had an accident with one of the horses. He thought he had a perfect opportunity the night he saw you going into the stable alone. He didn’t realize that I was there. When he saw u
s, he decided to cash in on a better opportunity.”

  The video recorded session of Trey and me in the stable; the night our baby was conceived.

  “So, explain this,” I interrupted, “was the plan to kill me nixed then in favor of getting blackmail money from the video?”

  “That’s the story Charlie is sticking to,” Trey replied. “Your mother had a life insurance policy on you for $150,000. She offered Charlie $50,000 of it to arrange the…accident. Charlie saw an opportunity for more money by blackmailing me. He claimed your mother was still hounding him to complete the other…task. She wanted the $100,000 life insurance money on top of her portion of the blackmail money. Also, if you were gone, the house in Radcliff would go to her as natural next-of-kin.”

  “But the jig's up, right? She couldn’t collect on insurance now if I died under strange circumstances, could she?”

  “That depends,” Trey said, “unless she’s well connected within the law enforcement community here, she may not know that Charlie sang like a bird.”

  “But maybe she still has connections,” I was thinking out loud. “I mean, she did work for a law firm. It’s possible, I suppose.”

  “Either way, I don’t want you to be alone in Radcliff; I want to keep you safe. There’s an outstanding warrant for her.”

  “What good does a warrant do if they aren’t actively searching for her?”

  “First of all, I have a private detective looking for her; secondly, if she gets stopped by law enforcement for a minor traffic ticket, they’ll run her I.D. and see that she has an outstanding warrant in Virginia.”

  I knew my mother, or at least I thought I did. She had a keen survival instinct. She wasn’t going to be caught easily. “Does Daniel know any of this?”

  “No,” Trey explained, “the last thing we want is to tip her off. For some reason though, she’s not been with him over the past several weeks.”

  Nausea began to creep over me. My life had been a mess of lies and half-truths at best. The only parent that I knew was a con artist and wannabe murderer. Trey held my hand.

  “Tylar, please consider something for me.” He lifted my chin so that our eyes were locked. I nodded. “You don’t need to make a decision now, but please consider giving up your house and job in Radcliff and moving here before Christmas.”

  “But Trey, you’re not here. What’s the point?”

  “You won’t come to Atlanta with me. At least here you’d be closer, and my mother is dying to look after you.”

  “It’s not that I don’t want to be with you in Atlanta. It’s just that I’d have nothing to do. I need to be doing something, Trey. I need to nest and prepare for this baby.”

  “I totally understand that, Tylar. Please consider making your nest either here or Atlanta, for me?” He raised my hand to his lips, never taking his sapphire blue eyes off of me.

  How could I deny him anything?

  “I will, Trey. I promise. It’ll be one or the other.”

  “Good girl,” he smiled, his dimple appearing. “Now how about you and I going for a very gentle ride together on Derringer?”

  “Really?”

  “Yep,” he answered, “I’m driving, though.”

  Trey and I spent the afternoon in the brisk November sunshine. We rode Derringer down through the woods, stopping to sit and talk. We discussed what needed to happen when we returned to Kentucky the following day. I wanted to make sure that I gave at least a week’s notice so that another temp could be located. I actually didn’t mind putting the house on the market. No matter what, there would always be dark memories there.

  We sat astride a log; Trey sat behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist. He leaned in to kiss the back of my neck. I shivered with pleasure.

  “You’re giving me goose bumps Mr. Sinclair,” I said, trying my best southern drawl.

  “Is that a bad thing, Ms. Preston?”

  “Not when they’re from you,” I snuggled closer to him. My hands closed over his hands that were resting on my belly. We both felt the baby at the same time, stronger than before.

  “I think he’s happy when we’re happy,” I said giggling.

  “So it’s a ‘he’ is it, Tylar?” Trey whispered against my neck.

  “I’m kind of hoping we have a boy,” I admitted, “for you.”

  “Why for me?” Trey asked. I could tell he was frowning.

  “I thought all men wanted sons, you know, to hang out with, to follow in their footsteps, that sort of thing.”

  Trey snorted, “I’ve always had the impression that sons were closer to their mothers; daughters to their fathers.”

  “I guess I wouldn’t know about that,” I replied, shrugging.

  “Be patient, Tylar. We may unravel the mystery of you yet.”

  “Very nicely put, counselor,” I said, raising my hand to stroke his dimpled chin behind me. “Boy or girl, I want our baby to have this dimple.”

  “You do, huh?” he whispered and kissed the back of my neck.

  “What about you? Do you have a preference?”

  “It makes no difference to me sweetie,” he said, nuzzling his face into my neck. “As long as we agree that he or she isn’t going to be an only child.”

  I smiled at that. It was a perfect thing for him to say.

  “Aside from Jack and Danielle, do you have any other names in mind for our child?”

  I did have some names in mind, and I wanted to see Trey’s reaction when I told him. I turned around on the log to face him. I noticed his crotch was bulging. My eyes met his amused gaze.

  “Really, Trey?”

  “Oh come on, Tylar,” he laughed good-naturedly, “You’ve fucked my brains out the whole time we’ve been here. I'm spoiled now."

  “Just so I’m the only one that gets to spoil you; it’s mine remember?”

  “Of course,” he said, leaning forward and kissing the tip of my nose playfully, “now tell me the names you’ve picked out.”

  “Okay,” I said, “I thought it might be kind of cool to name a boy after me and a girl after you.”

  He cocked an eyebrow, waiting for me to continue.

  “So if it’s a boy I want his name to be ‘Preston’ and if it’s a girl, ‘Treyla.’ What do you think?”

  He momentarily considered those names and scooted forward on the log so our knees touched. He put both arms around me, scooting my backside closer.

  “I think that this child had better be a boy.”

  I could feel the grin on his face as he tried to stifle a chuckle. I pulled back, looking at his amused face. “What? You don’t like ‘Treyla’ for a girl?”

  “I appreciate the thought, babe,” he conceded, “but she may grow up hating you for pinning a name like that on her.”

  I was surprised he hated a name meant to honor him.

  “Don’t be frustrated, you asked my opinion.”

  “I know I did. You might've considered my feelings before trashing the name.” I pulled away and shrugged.

  “Hey you,” he stood up, coming around in front of me. He pulled my arms up so that I was standing in front of him. His fingers gently lifted my chin up to meet his gaze. “Tylar, you name the baby whatever you want, okay? The only thing I ask of you is that the baby has my last name. Do you agree?” His gaze was penetrating. I nodded, my eyes tearing up yet again.

  “That’s fine with me Trey,” I said softly.

  “I'd also like for you to take my last name, but you’ve already made your opinion perfectly clear, so I won’t press that issue right now.”

  I nodded again, putting my arms around him. I know that my mood swings had to be giving the poor guy whiplash.

  “C’mon,” he said his playful tone back, “let’s get you and me back on Derringer and head back up to the house. We need to get dressed for dinner.” He gave my rump a playful smack as we headed over to Derringer. We were going to Radcliff tomorrow. The long weekend had flown by. I was eager to get back if only to start the preparatio
ns to leave again. I was chilled by what Trey had shared with me today. It explained a great deal as to why he'd been so protective with me. Gina was going to freak out when I told her the latest.

  Later that evening, Trey was stretched across his bed watching football while I packed. I was careful to make sure he didn’t see the Christmas presents I’d bought for him. He was thoroughly distracted by the game. Zipping my new shoes, dresses, and underwear into my luggage, there was only one item left: my present from Gina from The Sextique Shop. I decided just to leave those items in their gift bag and I set it next to my suitcase, planning to pack it after my bath.

  “Are you going to pack your stuff tonight, Trey?” I asked. “You’re staying longer and you’ll need more than what you brought down originally.”

  “I’ll do it at halftime,” he said, not taking his eyes off of the flat screen.

  Whatever.

  I filled his sunken tub with coconut-scented bath foam and stripped off my clothes, grabbing a fresh towel and bath sponge from the cabinet, along with my razor and shaving gel. I settled comfortably into the warm, soapy water. I decided to turn the jets on to relax my muscles. I'd had quite a workout this weekend in many ways. The jets were quiet but powerful. I backed up to one of them and the powerful pulsating water hit my lower back.

  Oh my God; this feels so good!

  I stayed there washing the rest of my body and then I sank down, putting my head underwater to rinse for my shampoo. When I came back up I had soap in my eyes.

  Shit that stings!

  I squeezed my eyes shut, heading over to the side to get the towel I'd placed there. The jet was still pulsating powerful streams of water. As I stood up on my tiptoes to grab the towel for my eyes I felt the pulsating water jets pound between my legs.

  Oh my!

  I stood there, wiping the soap out of my eyes feeling extremely pleasured down there. I spread my legs out just a bit opening myself up to the sensations of the water pulses.

  Interesting!

  Just then I heard Trey’s voice from the bedroom. “What the fuck is this shit?”

  Hmmm . . . game must be going badly . . .

  The bathroom door abruptly opened and Trey walked in, carrying my gift from Gina, unwrapped. Ha! It was a boxed dildo. He angrily stood over the tub, holding a box that said ‘Jack Rabbit Wallbanger W/Suction Cup.’ He leaned down and shut off the jets, shaking the water off of his hand as he stood back up, glaring.