by Brook Wilder
The small cottage on the edge of the lake was a gorgeous home to raise a child and Chance couldn’t stop thanking Link for giving him the keys.
“I trust that this is you settling down and hopefully getting yourself and your family out of this mess we made together,” Link said. “I’m happy to invest in that, for certain.
Chance still insisted on giving him money, tough Link refused to take it and eventually Kat told him to knock it off and just accept the gift graciously like anyone else would. But, boys would be boys and Chance, for the sake of his pride if nothing else, tried several times to pay Link back in some fashion.
***
“Do we know the sex of the baby?” Scout asked as they assembled the last piece of the crib in the nursery.
“Not yet,” Hannah answered. “You can’t tell for a while.”
“Well, neutral colors it is, then,” she said, going through the paint swatches.
“You’re back in school?” Kat asked as she hung up a small painting of a duck that she had gifted the couple.
“I am,” Hannah said. “At least I’m going to try. Obviously with the pregnancy it’s not going to be easy but I spoke to one of my professors who was willing to let me switch over to online classes when the time came.”
They put the last peg in the slot and stepped back to admire their handiwork. It looked like a crib, which was always a good start. Chance had bought them a new kitchen table that, upon assembly, was not like a kitchen table at all. He ended up spending last night completely redoing it while Hannah went off to bed early. But she didn’t need a crib instruction manual to tell her that she was smarter than Chance.
“How are things on your end?” Hannah asked, turning to Scout.
No one mentioned Ben’s name out loud nor did they outright mention the things that had been going on lately. It was always “how are you these days?” or “anything new?” Hannah wondered if it bothered Scout, the way everyone seemed to ready and willing to dance around her problems. They were everybody’s problems, of course, but she was the one who found herself most affected by the turn of events. She’d lost a boyfriend and a best friend. He’d been her rock and confidant and partner in the world and he’d been so willing to sell her out and hurt her if it meant getting what he wanted.
“I’m still cleaning up that mess of an apartment,” Scout said. “No offense.”
“That was all Chance,” Hannah said, putting her hands up and laughing. “I cleaned as much as I could but some parts of that place haven’t seen the light of day for years as far as I could tell.
Scout snorted and shrugged. It was as good as things were going to get for her right now. And Hannah would take what she could. Scout hadn’t exactly been a shining beacon of sunlight and hope before but she had lost some of the shine she did have now that things had calmed down.
Ben had disappeared again, like smoke in the middle of the night or a ship passing another. Hannah took it as good news. It probably meant he didn’t want to be caught. Maybe he even skipped town to go torture other people somewhere else. They could finally have some freedom and peace of mind. But, somewhere in the back of her mind, she also knew that was the most wishful of thinking and not exactly practical. But it was better to see the glass half full than to be watching your back every few seconds, waiting for the man with the knife and the cloak to jump out and grab you.
They set to putting the drawers in the dresser. Hannah didn’t really care whether or not the room matched a gender aesthetic. She just wanted a baby to put in it. If she decorated it with princess posters and had a boy then her son would learn to love pink things and be done with it. She was sure Chance would not approve of some macho man to be being swathed in pink and purple blankets in the first few moments of his life but he’d also get over it too. Girls could be tough and men could be vulnerable. It wasn’t the worst thing in the world.
“This is far better than any nursery I gave these two,” Kat said. “But you’re in a bit of a better place than I was back when Chance was born. Link wanted to just decorate the whole house to welcome his daughter but I told him I wasn’t dealing with rattles in my kitchen.”
Hannah smiled. Kat had been through so much and part of her wanted to know, wanted to be able to assign as much respect as possible to this woman by knowing everything she went through in life. But another part of her never wanted the images in her head, never wanted to know what Kat had been put through by Chance’s father. It seemed to be a ghost that crossed Kat’s face every time it was mentioned and she saw Kat looking at Chance often and she wondered just how much he looked like his father. That was the one curse of being the children dead parents, you are carrying their face with you everywhere you went.
They eventually broke for lunch and laughed as Link divided up the pizza but gave the first three slices to Hannah, claiming that she needed them more than anyone else if the kid growing inside her was going to be a strong addition to the Knight’s family. Hannah rolled her eyes but wasn’t about to turn away three slices of pizza. She sat on the couch with the utmost laze she could muster and dug into the pieces of pizza without restraint or preamble. This was the life she’d been hoping for years. Gabe was somewhere safe and not causing her trouble, she was back in school, she had a family around her that would protect and support her. Everything seemed to perfect.
And it was only about to get more perfect the next day when Hannah finished up the final touches on the nursery by herself after Kat and Scout had left. She’d woken up early that morning to have it ready by the time that Chance had rolled himself out of bed later that day. And it felt like she was staring at her entire future.
Chapter 24
“I have something to show you,” Hannah said when she walked into the kitchen and found Chance sitting there with a cup of coffee in his hand.
He turned to look at her with tired eyes. “I don’t know how you managed to get up so early every day.”
“Well the morning sickness certainly did help to rearrange my body clock, just a little,” she said. “But when you’re a full time worker and a grad student, you need to be able to get moving early.”
“Hopefully this kid gets your work ethic,” he said.
“Trust me, I’m going to make sure it doesn’t get yours—or lack thereof.”
She sneered and he stuck his tongue out at her before returning to the steaming mug of coffee in her hand. She wouldn’t lie, she really did miss being able to drink real coffee and the second this baby was out of her it was the first thing she was doing. There was only so much she could get off of a placebo effect with decaf.
She took Chance’s writ and dragged him up and out of the kitchen towards the nursery. She’d told him he hadn’t been allowed to see it until it was done, like a bride on her wedding night. He grumbled but agreed because he liked the idea of a surprise waiting for him when all this moving was said and done. That was the one part of this fairy tale that wasn’t quite as lovely as the rest: the actually moving part.
“Close your eyes,” she said, as they stood outside the door that was still unmarked (they were waiting to know the baby’s sex before they gave it a name and stuck it on the door).
“Why? The door is closed,” Chance said.
“Don’t be difficult and just do it,” Hannah said.
Chance gave her a grin and sighed dramatically but did it anyway. She took both his hands in hers and pulled him forward, pushing the door open behind her and leading them into the room. She stopped in the dead center. All the pictures were hung, the crib was completed and furnished with blankets and pillows, ready for a baby at any moment. Stuffed animals were waiting to greet them in every corner of the room. This was as perfect as Hannah could have hoped for and she desperately hoped that Chance agreed.
“Okay, open them,” she whispered into his ear, leaning close to his neck.
He shivered but recovered and obeyed and the wonder on his face was something that Hannah wanted to keep in her memory for the
rest of her days if she was able. He looked so young and innocent and like all the events that had led up to them meeting never happened. He looked like he was standing in the richest goldmine in the world or surrounded by a tropical island. His reaction was everything she could hope for.
But there was more.
He dropped to his knee without warning, so quickly that she almost didn’t notice until he was no longer in her eye line. She looked down. She knew what was coming next. She knew it in her heart. But she wasn’t going to let herself hope for it too much until she saw proof. She got it very quickly in the form of a small velvet box opening to a shining, huge diamond ring, bordered on either side by small stones of her birthstone.
She didn’t want to be that cliché girl but she couldn’t stop herself from covering her mouth with her hands and letting out a bit of a squeak while tears came to her eyes. It didn’t even need saying, not really. She was carrying his child, living in his home, kissing him awake every morning. But she wasn’t going to rob them of this moment.
“Yes,” she said strongly, loudly, resolutely.
He sprang to his feet and took her in a tight hug, lifting her off the ground to the sounds of her squeals as she warned him to not hurt the baby through her own giggles. He swung her around once or twice before lowering her to the ground and gently pushing strands of hair behind her ears. He came in to kiss so fully she wondered if she’d ever truly been kissed before that moment. As their lips moved together, he placed the ring on her finger. It so perfectly she almost wanted to cry some more.
Instead, she gripped at his face and at the base of his neck and pulled him in close. It very quickly turned from sweet but impassioned kisses to things not fit for young eyes. She wasn’t sure who stuck their tongue in whose mouth first but she wasn’t complaining when the kiss went that direction. She held onto him even tighter, relishing that her still small belly could allow them to be so close and flush together.
His hands came down under her thighs and pulled up, encouraging her to jump up and wrap herself around him. She did so without hesitation and quickly began grinding herself against the abs of his exposed stomach where he had not yet put on a shirt. He moaned into her ear and bit at her neck as she moved against him.
“We probably should do this here,” she husked to him.
“Why’s that? It’s as good a place as any?” he breathed back.
“Do you really want to look our kid in the eye knowing that we fucked in their bedroom before they were born?”
“Touché.”
He walked them out of the room and down the hall into their bedroom. He gently lowered her on the bed and followed to hover over her, taking a moment to look into her eyes. She’d never felt so loved or happy as he began to move against her, his hands exploring every inch of her while her own hands did the Hannahe with him, finding him already nearly ready with a hard erection between his legs. They wasted no time with joining together the Hannahe way that had led to the conception of their child. Their moans were in sync and their movements flowed together perfectly.
They were meant to be together, and nothing was going to change that.
Chapter 25
They spent all day in bed. It was one of the few times that Hannah was going to allow herself to be lazy but it was more than worth it as they cuddled together between rounds of lovemaking. They ordered takeout food and ate it in barely any clothes at all as they lounged together in the sheets and eventually drifted off to sleep when the night came. Hannah didn’t even care that she’d missed a lecture at school. This was worth it.
The next morning, she was completely energized. The first thing she looked at when she woke was the sparkling diamond on her finger and thought of everything it represented. It shined like a star right below her eyes and seemed to have a luster all its own in the pale, dim light of the early morning. She got up like her hips were on a well-oiled hinge and yawned into the morning with a smile on her face. She looked over and saw Chance, still fast asleep, his mouth hanging open into his pillow. Once or twice she caught him drooling like that.
She got out of bed, thankful that the morning sickness phase of this pregnancy was over because she didn’t want anything to ruin this day for her. The sun was getting ready to shine through the trees, the spring air was slowly turning into summer enough that they could sleep with the windows open, and the coffee maker was waiting for her to start her day. Everything about this was almost too incredibly perfect but she was going to let herself enjoy it. She wasn’t going to let the what-ifs and the paranoia at the back of her mind get anywhere near her.
Ben was gone. He decided to go express his hyper masculinity elsewhere and ruin other lives. Their lives could begin. She’d be a lawyer soon, Chance would be her husband. They had a beautiful lakeside home and a future waiting for him.
She wanted to thank him. He’d been so perfect and kind to her recently that she wanted to get him something more. She knew he’d say that the baby and the nursery and the nights they spent together and the mornings thereafter were plenty of thanks and praise for everything but she wanted to show him more. She never wanted to stop showing him gratitude. So she poured herself some coffee and set to getting dressed in the early morning. She’d go find him something, she wasn’t sure what, but she’d know it when she saw it.
She’d never gotten him an actual gift before so it would be a nice practice for his birthday or Christmas. Maybe she’d get him some sort of fancy accessory for his bike or some kind of expensive lighter with an engraving. She wasn’t sure, but she knew she wanted to get out of the house and come home with something that would make his eyes light up. She could never match the gift of the engagement ring, but she could try.
She left him a note so he didn’t worry and headed out to the store just as the sun was crowning over the tops of the trees that were around the lake. She got into the car that Kat had loaned them and headed into town with the radio blaring and her windows down. She loved the summer. She knew it wouldn’t last forever but she was so ready to be out of the long drawl of winter that she was willing to wake up anyone else she met on her way to the mall to let out all this happy energy.
Maybe it was a little obvious that she got laid last night.
***
She’d gone through window shopping many of the stores. She didn’t think Chance liked sports enough to appreciate some kind of jersey or hat from a local team. She wondered if she could get something embroidered with the Knight’s logo but also didn’t want to disrespect the club if it was somehow against protocol. She had a smoothie in her hand and was looking at the ties in one store when she realized that the gift she was going to return to Chance with was the least of her worries.
She saw him. At least she thought she did. It was just a flash and then he was gone but she’d know those eyes anywhere. Ben had a way of getting his gaze to pierce, no matter where he looked at you from. She remembered the murder in those eyes from the night that he held a gun to her head and threatened to take her away from the future she was now in.
But the more she looked, the more he was gone. She stepped towards the place where she’d seen him, lingering between the fragrance section and the shoes. But he was gone. There was nothing there. The crowd had moved in like high tide and then Ben and his haunting face were gone completely, not even a sign of his back to show her he’d walked away. Maybe she was seeing things, maybe she hadn’t gotten enough sleep last night or maybe it was some pregnancy side effect she didn’t know about. She could make an OB/GYN appointment.
But no. She’d seen him. You couldn’t make up the way those eyes sent a chill down her spine. Not even her memory could make them as real as they’d looked just a moment ago. Ben had been here, Ben had been watching her. He knew where to find her in a public place, what kept him from knowing where she returned home at night?
She wondered what was going to be irresponsible, calling Chance and scaring him for no reason or not calling him and thus giving him no warn
ing that something strange was going on? She needed to make a decision before she had something of a small meltdown in the middle of the department store.
She dialed Chance, if only to hear his voice. It was always a sound that calmed her down.
“Hey babe, got the note how’s—”
“Chance, I saw him.”
“Huh?”
He was still groggy with sleep and she imagined him sitting at the island in the kitchen in nothing but his boxers and a mug of coffee in front of him. She needed him to wake up, however. She needed him alert. She needed someone to tell her that she was being paranoid and wrong about the whole thing.
“Ben, Chance. I saw him in the mall.”
“What?”