2 Weeks 'Til Eve (2 'Til Series Book 3)

by Heather Muzik

  Her mother smiled through her own tears. “We are not missing the birth of our granddaughter. We have open-ended tickets. We didn’t want to take any chances. Even if you decide to kick us out, we’ll just stay in those nice cabins by the lake or—”

  “We aren’t going to kick you out, Mom.” Catherine visibly settled to know that the woman she never wanted here in the first place would be here as long as she needed her.

  “Why don’t you go get some sleep now, and remember that I’m right downstairs if you need me.”

  Of course Fynn would also be right next to her if she needed anything, but for some reason her mother’s offer seemed pretty good right now. There was just something about her calm certainty that was soothing rather than aggravating to her now.

  As Catherine headed up the stairs to bed, she almost jumped out of her skin at the sight of Cara at the top, rubbing her eyes.

  “Is the baby here yet? Do I have a sister now?” she asked, her voice sleep scratchy.

  “Oh no, sweetie, not yet. I’m just coming to bed.”

  “I was afraid I missed it.”

  “Is that why you’re up at this hour?”

  Cara nodded.

  “Well, you don’t worry one more second about that. When Eve is born you will be the first person to know. Now let’s get you tucked back in so you can get a good night’s sleep.”

  Cara allowed Catherine to turn her around and march her back toward her bedroom again. But then she stopped and looked up. “If you don’t have the baby soon will your stomach explode like the beach ball that Daddy blew up too far in the summer?” she asked innocently.

  I sure hope not, she shuddered. Instead she took a page from her mother. “No, honey. A baby is born when it’s ready to be born, and obviously Eve just isn’t quite ready to meet us yet.”

  “Maybe she’s trying to make it a surprise.”

  “Maybe,” Catherine agreed. Though she didn’t want to be surprised. Not in this situation.

  “Well, I hope she makes it here in time for Christmas.”

  Christmas was still almost a week away. Eve had to be here by then. She couldn’t possibly go another week.

  “Because I asked for something from Santa for Eve too because she can’t, and I don’t know if Santa even brings things to people if they aren’t born yet.”

  “You did?”

  Cara nodded proudly.

  Oh shit.

  She herded Cara into her room and tucked the covers around her, kissing her on the forehead before leaving her door cracked just enough for light from the hallway. Then she slipped across the way to the master bedroom, a mild panic building inside. She’d read Cara’s letter to Santa and there was nothing in there about Eve. Nothing about asking for a gift for her little sister. She was sure of it. Not sure enough to place a bet, but pretty sure.

  She went to the closet and rifled through the large Target bag that had become a trash bag full of scraps from wrapping gifts and any unneeded receipts and other empty shopping bags. Or maybe she’d left the letter in her purse after she finished with it. Or in the pants she’d worn shopping, in which case the letter was hardened pulp by now after a round-trip through the washer and dryer. If she only worked like Elizabeth Hemmings, checking every pocket before dropping anything in the machine. If only.

  “Everything okay in here?” Fynn stood at the doorway, startling her there on the floor amid her mess.

  “Did I wake you?” Not really caring at this point.

  “I thought we had an extra-large mouse in the house.”

  “I need to find Cara’s Christmas list to make sure we have everything.”

  “We have everything.”

  “Not everything,” she reminded him firmly. “You forget I’m still working on that friggin’ elephant.” Which she should have been doing all day today but figured she’d certainly have to put it down at some point and head to the hospital, so why get caught up in it? The darn thing was six inches tall and it was kicking her ass.

  “Feel anything yet?” He yawned casually and rubbed his face, unleashing a sandpapery rasp.

  “No,” she growled. As if she wouldn’t have already said if she felt something. She’d had him meet her at the hospital over a case of indigestion!

  “Nothing at all?”

  “I’m fine. Just friggin’ fine,” she growled, feeling like a failure. A rookie mistake to go past your due date.

  “Are you coming to bed then?”

  “I guess.” Pouty. She was losing control of everything. And now Cara had thrown another monkey wrench into the mix over the Santa thing. What if Santa only got it half right this year? Would Cara still believe in him? Maybe they could say he was going senile. An absentminded Santa was still Santa Claus nonetheless, right?

  “Well, I have something for you…. It’ll make you feel good,” Fynn assured her.

  She laughed in spite of herself, thinking about the public service announcement that used to run on TV when she was a kid. That same line used for drugs. And now he was using it to get her to ride his joint. She laughed harder.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “Come on, a little roll in the hay is just what you need.”

  She didn’t want or need anything right now other than a measly contraction. Just one. They could be forty-five minutes apart for all she cared. Just something to give her hope that this was going to happen.

  “You yourself said it might bring on labor. You’ve been putting me off for days with that excuse.”

  Her eyes widened in recognition. In her misery, she’d forgotten that trick up her sleeve. She reached out to him. “Help me up.” As soon as she was on her feet, she was pulling him to the bed. “Strip out of those boxers.”

  “What, no foreplay?” he challenged.

  “Not necessary.”

  “So just the boom?”

  “That’s what they say.”

  “Who say?”

  “Doctors. About sex. And the baby.” She struggled with her pajamas.

  “Do you need help?”

  She shrugged. “All we really need is the pants,” she decided, pushing them down and stepping out.

  “So this is really just business, then?” he asked wryly, slipping under the covers.

  “Pretty much. I mean, it’s really about getting it done. The finish. The rest is just—”

  “Extra pleasure?” he offered. “Because I kind of like the getting there part. Especially since this might be the last time for weeks. As in six. I just learned that little gem. A big gem, really. A long time. Were you planning to share that?”

  Catherine climbed into bed. “I didn’t want to spook you. Besides, there are other things,” she whispered, moistening her hand and reaching for his length, pumping lazily along the shaft.

  “Shit, that feels so much better than when I do it,” Fynn moaned. “If you’ll do this for me, I might not go insane waiting for the doctor to clear you.”

  “Deal,” she said brusquely, letting go. “So let’s get this party started.”

  “Don’t you want a little—”

  “Just get on in there.”

  “You’re really taking the romance out of this.”

  “Honey, I love you, but I want to have this baby. Now.”

  “You know there is no guarantee,” he warned.

  “Then we’ll do it every hour on the hour.”

  “I guess it’s a good thing that I had my Wheaties today then,” he joked.

  “Stop talking and get screwing.” She rolled onto her side and pressed her back up against him so he could spoon around her in one of the positions they had come to count on since she’d gotten to this size.

  Fynn slid himself inside, rocking up and in smoothly, bringing her to climax with ease and pulling away to maneuver into another position.

  “Wait,” she whispered, stopping him, waiting for the contractions of her orgasm to turn into real contractions.

 
“Don’t tell me it’s over already,” he whispered. “I didn’t even finish yet.”

  “Sssh.” Listening intently to herself.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “I’m fine,” she sighed. Nothing doing. “What do you want now?”

  “Well, maybe we can finish what we started,” he reminded her, kissing her, winning her over from the dark side of using sex for results and into the joy of making love; letting him take his time and softly, smoothly drive her to the edge, until she was sure she would explode one way or another….

  Wednesday, December 20th

  -53-

  Catherine breathed hot plumes into the cold air. She’d brought her sewing along, hoping to use Tara’s house to work quietly and without interruption because she was running out of excuses at home. Her mother and Cara were both hard to avoid. So here she was. On Tara’s doorstep. Someplace she’d never figured she’d be in a million years. And certainly not today.

  “Well, well, well,” Tara announced, swinging the door open, “and you thought I was going to cramp your style.”

  “I’m not here for you. I just need a room to work in,” she said snippily, holding up her bag. Ready to work at her remedial finest. Ready to stick four more fingers and fight with the mohair material that truly was meant only for experts no matter what the pattern said. Ready to do this.

  “Anything can be had for a price.”

  She stared her down. “Tara, seriously.”

  Her friend gestured her inside.

  “Where’ve you been anyway?” Catherine challenged, feeling slighted that she had seen neither hide nor hair of her for days. Since the class party.

  “Right here.”

  “But you missed my due date.”

  “Seems you missed it too,” Tara giggled, pointing to her grandiose belly.

  “You didn’t even check in.”

  “I figured you’d let me know,” she shrugged.

  “Well, now I’m letting you know that it’s obviously never going to happen for me.”

  “Every baby is born eventually, chicky.”

  “Not this one. We did everything last night. Everything,” she assured her. “And not even a blip on the radar.” Fast and hard. Slow and sweet. Several speeds in between. Plenty of orgasmic activity, but no seismic activity. They had an obstinate child. That much she was sure of.

  “So what do you want me to do about it? Because I know that some women are into fisting, but I’m—”

  “I didn’t say I wanted you to do anything! I don’t need a lesbian lover. And that’s just… ouch and… did I say ouch?”

  “You do realize how big a baby is, right?” Tara prodded.

  “I don’t want to talk about it. Nope. No.” She shook her head.

  “You want me to throw you a pity party then? Because you’re halfway there already, just need some balloons.”

  “I just want you to care. You didn’t come by yesterday or call or anything.”

  “I was respecting boundaries.”

  Catherine gave her a come-on-already look.

  “Okay, so I was busy,” she gave in, allowing a shit-eating grin to surface.

  “Are you still decorating out there?” She gestured vaguely toward the front of the house. “Haven’t you done enough yet? You’re the one who caused the power outage on Saturday aren’t you?” Catherine accused, bored of the whole Christmas light contest. Bored of life in general. Bored of waiting for her thermometer to pop like the giant Butterball she was.

  “Actually, no one can prove anything there. And I am done decorating. I can’t believe you didn’t notice.”

  “Okay, so it isn’t decorating, what gives then? How are you so ‘busy’? Don’t tell me you’re running a brothel out of this place.” She looked around at the furniture like it was covered in ick. It was fair enough to question, considering Tara had definitely been hiding a man in her house last week when she’d stopped in. And there was a strange car out front the other day when she happened to be passing by. Plus Tara’d had sex on the brain and seemed to have plenty of money to throw around these days—

  “Why do you go such questionable places in that head of yours, Catherine Marie?” Tara asked.

  “Because—” But she stopped as a pair of arms encircled her friend from behind. First it was like she was seeing a ghost. Maybe the benevolent presence Tara had mentioned. But they were solid, muscular, real arms that made Tara giggle and squeal. Catherine’s head first went to Hotty McHotterson from Cara’s class—Sophie Watts’s ex (Tara waging war on two fronts—lighting and banging). But the hair wasn’t right. And this guy was taller too, she believed.

  “Hey, Catherine,” the man said familiarly.

  “Uh, hello?” Snarky. Wondering why some complete stranger, a one-or-two-night stand or maybe even just a random john for that matter, would talk to her like he knew her.

  “It’s Jason, Cat,” Tara hissed, warning her to shape up and put on her polite panties.

  “Jason?” Confused. “…Oh! Jason! Hi. I didn’t recognize you without your clothes on—I mean without your suit on… or a tux even… and, you know… dressed for a wedding and all.” But the first statement was actually right. He was half naked or possibly more so considering he was hidden the rest of the way behind Tara. They’d probably been having sex repeatedly or endlessly or whatever it was that they did. Not that she should be bitter considering her night last night, but she was huge and huge people were bitter.

  She gave Tara a questioning glance and then went back to admiring Jason’s pecs, or what she could see of them. It didn’t show in the suit—his body, that is. She never would have known what he was hiding underneath. Her own man had a rugged exterior that had pretty much assured her of what she would find underneath, but Jason, on the other hand, had been a bit more of an enigma. A Clark-Kent sort. Now the puzzle was solved. Superman it was.

  “How long have you been here? Didn’t you leave?” Catherine asked.

  He shook his head. “Why would I?”

  “No, he’d rather stick around and give me a hard time,” Tara said with a wink. “And I just keep taking it like the whore I am.”

  “At least you’re my whore,” Jason said in all kinds of googly-eyed, baby-voiced yuckiness.

  “And you’re my best customer,” she mewled back in slathery grodiness.

  “You bet I am. You know what I like.”

  “I know just what you like.”

  But how? Tara had stood him up in the middle of moving to live with him, disappearing like there was a Bermuda Triangle in the Midwest by the name of Joliet that was sucking up U-Hauls and sending them north. To Minnesota. And here he was smitten; the two of them like peas in a pod, ready to pork right in front of a woman on her last nerve. Their sickening sweet happy-happy-joy-joy coupledom was gag-worthy.

  Catherine turned to go, unable to take it.

  “No, wait, Cat!” Tara blurted, pulling away from Jason. “Don’t go.”

  “You two seem pretty busy. I can go… to the library or something.”

  “You can stay right here,” she insisted, pulling Catherine through the house and sitting her down at the table. “I need to talk to you anyway.” Serious now.

  “What? Are you two getting—”

  “We are figuring things out,” Tara cut her off, firmly and definitively.

  “Then what is it?” she grumped.

  “I have an idea.”

  Catherine shook her head, denying anything Tara had to say. Those four words never went anywhere good.

  But Tara continued anyway, “You know that blog I wanted to start, about working on my house? Well, I was thinking I could call it theLIRNIhouse.com. Get it? LIRNI? Life is real, not ideal? It’s perfect. Because not everything goes smoothly. DIY projects go bad. Entire shows are made about it. We aren’t all Martha Stewart, you know. Hell, even Martha herself probably isn’t a “Martha Stewart”—if you saw her doing all her projects in real time she’s got to screw things up he
re and there too. And if she doesn’t, then fuck her. I don’t have any interest in being little miss perfect.”

  Catherine’s body slackened some as she realized this didn’t have to do with anything crazy that Tara was trying to drag her into. Actually, it wasn’t an awful idea either.

  “Of course, I need your blessing to use it.”

  “Use what?”

  “The name. I mean, it’s your mother’s slogan.”

  “I don’t know that she would care. It’s just something she says.”

  “Everything that is anything is just something someone said once,” Tara said philosophically.

  “Huh?”

  “You know what I mean. A slogan like that can be huge. In fact, we could go even further with it.”

  Oh no. And here it was, the part of the idea that was about to get dangerous or legally questionable.

  “Don’t look freaked out. I’m just talking swag. It would be perfect for you. You’ve been kind of lost since you moved here and it would give you something to do.”

  “I’m perfectly happy.” Though she sounded weary instead of what she claimed to be.

  “Regardless, I definitely think you could use some swag.”

  “I’m a wife and a mother; I’m not trolling for dates,” she pointed out, brushing her off.

  “Not swagger, Cat. Swag. Merch.”

  “What?”

  “Customized merchandise.”

  Catherine rolled her eyes.

  “I’m serious. You could design it. It’ll be fun. I have some seed money and you have the slogan. We could make lots of dough.”

  “Seed money?”

  “I have some family members, who shall remain nameless, who are into some things, who like to invest in stuff—”

  “If this avenue ends in cement shoes and a dirty river, I want nothing to do with it.”

  “I thought the mob shit was over. I told you my family is on the up-and-up for the most part.”

  The last wasn’t lost on Catherine. “You can do what you want, Tara, but I’m—”

  “You’re sitting on a gold mine. The saying is perfect. The possibilities are endless. Shirts. Hats. Signs. All kinds of products. All emblazoned with Life Is Real—”