“I think he’d want us to both be happy, me and Camden.” She looked down at the floor and then met my eyes. “Cam really likes you. He hasn’t shut up since the other day, and I guess I’m more worried about him. He’s just a kid. He’s never known a father, but I can’t have him lose another one. If we do this, I need you to promise me you’ll always consider his feelings too.”
“I promise. So, does this mean we can date? Cause I’ve been wanting to take you out on an official one since I’ve met you.”
“I suppose we can try.” She gave a shrug.
“Well, then maybe we should practice today and let Cam decide if we’d make a good couple.”
“I might be able to handle that. I know Cam will be happy.” She got a funny look in her eyes and then smiled so big that I could see each one of her pearly whites.
“This plane doesn’t have a bathroom or a bed!” said Cam as he came out from the plane.
“Yeah, sorry, buddy. I didn’t get to have all that with this kind of plane.”
“Why not?” He looked so disappointed that I almost felt horrible, even though a bathroom on that kind of plane was unheard of and impossible.
Jessica and I exchanged a smile. “I tell you what, Cam. You let me take you and your mama out for dinner, and I’ll explain it, okay?”
He had to think on that a minute, and he put his little hand up to his chin and stroked like he had a bit of peach fuzz growing there. “Okay.” He took my hand. “Are you going to try and kiss her?”
Jessica’s eyes widened, but she only laughed.
“Only with your permission,” I said.
“Fine, as long as you’re not mean to her.”
“Why would I be mean to her? I like your mama.”
“Yeah, but Mama says that Paisley Parker is only mean to me because she likes me.”
I turned to Jessica and grinned. “Ah, yes, girls do that. They like to be the meanest to ones they love the most, and let me tell you, your mama was so mean to me the day we met that I thought she hated me.”
Jessica’s eyes widened. “That’s not true. Not at first.” She couldn’t deny she’d been mean to me over the whole taking her son to my office thing.
“That means she must really like you,” said Cam with a giggle.
I turned and took Jessica’s hand with my other. “I really hope so, Cam.” I really hoped so.
Chapter 26
Jessica
A week had gone by before I knew it, and while things had been much better between me and Cole, with us having one actual date that ended in another night of passion, it was the only night we’d been able to be together.
So, even though I’d promised Leslie I would go to the mall with her, I really wanted to spend my Saturday with Cole. But as it turned out, he was busy with Tanner at a charity golfing tournament. It was all I could do not to text him, but I wanted him to do well for his cause. It was just that I was feeling so emotional, and I had a feeling I knew why.
As we walked into another boutique, Cam sighed dramatically and fell against me. “Mama, can’t we go somewhere fun?”
“We will, as soon as Aunt Leslie finds the perfect dress.” She had a wedding coming up and needed something to wear.
He stomped his foot and walked over to sit on a bench by the checkout counter. “I wish I was with Cole. He’d take me to do something fun, and at least it would be the kind of stuff men do.”
“Men do a lot of different things, like escort ladies to the mall,” said Leslie. “I’ll try to hurry, champ, but I make no promises. Nothing is fitting.”
Leslie browsed the racks, and I walked to a different one and did the same. There wasn’t much in her size, and if it weren’t for her large bust, she’d be able to go down a size that was easier to find. I envied her fuller, curvy figure but not the difficulty she had finding clothes.
Finally, I decided to go to a different rack, and I saw the most beautiful blue dress. “Here, what about this?” I looked at the tag. “The price is right, and it’s your size.”
“I like that. Okay, here goes nothing.” She took the dress and headed back to the dressing room.
I glanced over at Cam. “You stay put. I’ll be right back.” I needed to talk to Leslie and tell her my suspicions.
I walked up to the door and found her making a few noises that weren’t the unpleasant kind when she would find a dress she hated. This sounded promising. “Do you like it?”
“I do,” she said. “I really think this might be the one.” She opened the door and stepped out, and while I loved the dress, I couldn’t stop looking at my waistline in the mirror.
I turned and finally gave it a look. “Oh, yeah, that’s it. You’ll look amazing in it.” I turned back to the mirror. “Do you think I look bloated?” I rubbed my sore breasts and turned to the side.
“No, you look radiant,” she said.
My eyes widened, and then I covered my mouth as my eyes filled with tears. “Oh no. Not radiant. As in glowing?” I turned and looked at my stomach again. “I haven’t started in a while.”
“When was the last time?”
“The weekend of the Baker/Thomas wedding. Remember, I said the red dress was appropriate?”
If it weren’t for us joking about the color of my dress, I wouldn’t have remembered.
She gave me a look that said I might be in trouble. “That was six weeks ago, Jess. Remember, I was on mine then too. We said we’d synched our menses. I’ve been off my period for a week now. You should have started already.”
Shit. I closed my eyes and felt flushed. “I should probably take a test, shouldn’t I? I mean, that wouldn’t be overreacting, would it?”
“Hell no, it’s not overreacting. You need to know so you can tell Cole or figure out what you’re going to do.”
“I’d keep it, of course. I’m not going to get rid of it. But what if Cole doesn’t want children right now?”
Leslie gave me a sympathetic look. “What if he doesn’t want children at all?”
“He does. I know he does. I just don’t know when in his life he’d be okay with it, and with his big project, I’m not sure it would be a good time. Then there’s the fact that our relationship is so new. I mean, we’ve been messing around for a while, but there’s really nothing set in stone that we’ll stay together.”
Leslie shrugged and gripped my hand. “You still have to tell him. You can’t just not tell him, right?”
She had a point. I’d have to tell him if I was. I couldn’t keep something that important from him. Whether or not he was going to claim responsibility and step up was a whole other conversation, but he had the right to choose his part.
“Do you mind taking me to the pharmacy?” I had to know, or it was going to keep eating at me.
She pulled me in for a hug and spoke softly for only us to hear. “No, but you and Cam can sit in the car, and I’ll go in and get it. No need for him to know anything right now. I’d wait until you get things sorted with Cole before you tell him anything. Besides, you don’t want him to slip up and say anything, and the last thing you need is him asking you a million questions about how and why.”
Leslie stepped away and went back into the fitting room to change her dress. She was right. Cam would ask a million embarrassing questions, and I wasn’t quite ready to explain the birds and the bees to him. He had never asked me where babies come from, but then, he’d never had a reason to. But then she had another point. If he knew, he’d tell Cole before I could get a chance to break it to him gently.
I began to tremble and wrapped my arms around myself. What if he was angry with me? What if he blamed me? I had been on the pill, but I knew that didn’t mean anything. Especially since I’d gotten mixed up two months ago when I forgot two pills. Could that have been the reason? I felt like such an idiot. But then, he’d been a part of it too, and if he was so against knocking people up, then he should have put a condom on, but he hadn’t. We’d both been too lost in the pleasure that we
’d been careless more than once. More like every single time.
Leslie finished her purchase, and then we took Cam to play a few games in the arcade. We decided to go down to the pharmacy on the way home. I tapped my foot nervously and waited in the car as Leslie hurried inside.
“Why can’t I go in too?” asked Cam. “I haven’t gotten to do anything fun.”
“You spent ten dollars in quarters, little man, and since you want to do nothing but complain, you can go straight to your room and take a nap.” I didn’t snap at him, but my tone had been harsh and only because I’d listened to him complain all day and I was sick of it. Not only that, but I was nervous too and worried that I’d just made the biggest mistake of my life.
“I don’t want to take a nap. I want Cole to come over to our house. He never gets to come over.” We had spent all of our time together away from our houses, and Cam had been wanting to show him where we finally hung up the plane he’d given him.
“He’ll come over soon, I promise.” I thought of how it could be the last time, but I hoped I was wrong about him.
Maybe he’d be happy? Maybe he would say that it was the best news ever, but until I found out, it was going to eat at me.
Finally, Leslie came out and got in the car. She tossed a candy bar over the seat to Cam and then gave the bag to me. “I got a few different ones,” she said. “Better safe than sorry.”
I nodded my head to agree. “Thanks, Leslie. It was really sweet of you to do that.”
“That’s what aunts and besties are for.” She gave me a friendly smile and put the car in reverse to back out of her spot. Finally, she pulled out on the road, and we were headed home. I held my breath the whole way there, or so it seemed. I couldn’t wait to get home and take the test, and since I’d scolded Cam, he went right to his room with his candy, which made things all that much easier.
I carried the bag into my bedroom and then my private bath, and Leslie followed to read the instructions. I opened one box, and she opened another.
“We just mostly need to see what the indicator reads for a positive result,” she said. She scanned the page. “This one is going to show a plus sign in pink and a negative in blue.” She handed me the stick.
“This one has a cup. I’ll just pee in that, and we’ll use it for both of the tests.”
I picked up the third test and read the box. “But this one says to use your first urine of the morning.”
Leslie shrugged. “Then we’ll save that one for tomorrow morning and do these two today. It’s not likely to get a false positive. It’s more likely to get a false negative, so if one of these says you’re pregnant you should go to the doctor.”
I let out a sigh and took the little cup to the toilet. I had never been shy about having Leslie around, and peeing in a cup wasn’t a problem either. She was too lost in the instruction part of the process.
“Dammit,” I said. “I missed.” I tried to set the cup in place and started again, this time having success.
We placed the little cup in the sink and put the two sticks in the pee. Then we waited. We paced the room and exchanged glances as the minutes ticked away. Finally, three minutes later, the test was complete, and we both stopped walking and looked at each other.
“I can’t look,” I said.
“Do you want me to look and tell you, or do you want a little more time?”
“Time,” I said, taking a deep breath. My eyes filled with tears. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be pregnant. Actually, part of me did. Some stupid, selfish part of me.
“Okay, then I’ll give you time.” Leslie stepped away and sat on the side of the tub.
“No, I need to know. Tell me.” I was sure it would be a lot easier if she looked, and so I didn’t see her reaction, I closed my eyes.
I’d been through this before, but it was much different without my husband there to share it with. We’d been so excited to learn that we were pregnant, and I would never forget the look on his face when I told him that he was going to be a daddy. I smiled thinking about it. I wanted this to be a happy occasion, not a sad one.
“Okay, I’m going to look now,” said Leslie. After that, I didn’t even hear her breathing.
“Tell me!” I blurted. I couldn’t wait a second longer.
She gave a little giggle. “You should call the doctor in the morning, mama bear. You’ve got two positive results.”
I opened my eyes, and she handed me the sticks, which she’d wrapped in a rag. The indicators both showed pink, positive results. “Oh my god. What am I going to do?” Now came the really hard part; telling Cole.
Leslie came over and put her arm around me. She had always been my rock, and this time of need was no different. “It’s going to be okay. I’m here for you, Jessica. You don’t have to go through it alone.”
It was a sweet gesture, but I’d already lost the experience of having Cameron there with me when Camden was born, so deep down, I knew the only person I wanted to go through it with me was Cole.
Chapter 27
Cole
As I drove to work, I couldn’t help thinking that Monday came too soon, even after a long weekend of working on my project. I hadn’t been able to spend any time with Jessica, who had been radio silent since Saturday. She wasn’t feeling well, and while she claimed it was nothing serious, I figured she’d call and let me know how she was doing, so I didn’t disturb her.
Knowing I’d see her at work, I decided to let it go and was about to turn in to the parking lot at work when Tanner called me.
“Where are you?” he asked, sounding like he had just run ten miles while smoking a pack of cigarettes.
“I’m headed in now. I just turned in. Are you okay?”
Tanner made a sound of frustration that sounded like he was much too angry to speak. “You need to get to your office immediately.”
“On my way. But tell me what’s going on. Don’t make me walk into this blindly.”
“Lynn Holden is in your office.”
The bastard was in my office? How and why were my only concerns as my blood started to boil. “Kick his ass out.”
“He’s here with a representative of the fucking Federal Aviation Administration.”
“What for?”
“He said you’re breaking the law, that you don’t have the proper permissions to be creating alternative energy for the use of flight.”
The FAA was serious business, but I had not done anything to break any laws or regulations. In fact, I’d deliberately made sure to do everything strictly by the book. “I’m not. I’m using the technology that already exists. I’m just building a better aircraft to use it, and I’ve acquired all of my permits.”
“Yeah, about the aircraft, you should get up here.” He sounded sick to his stomach, and I was growing increasingly upset as well.
I ended the call and wheeled into my usual parking spot, and then I all but ran across the lot and through the back, lobby door. Becky looked like someone had slapped her across the face and gave me a weak, “Good morning, sir.”
I ignored her and marched to the elevator. When it came to a stop at my floor, I walked out and ran into Tanner, who was pacing in the hall. “Thank God. They’ve been to the lab. They seized everything.”
“Seized?” I stormed down the hall to my office and pushed the door open so hard that the knob pushed the doorstop and broke into the wall. “What’s the meaning of this? This is my office, my building, my place of work? Who gives you the right to come in here and take things?”
“This is Steven Wendell with the FAA. He’s the one who had concerns about what you were up to. I simply put the bug in his ear.” The smug bastard lifted his chin and looked down his nose at me. “I warned you, Saunders.”
Wendell stepped in. “Mr. Saunders, it has come to our attention that you’re working with an unregulated energy source, and because of this, the entire operation here is illegal.”
“This is a respectable business, and this projec
t isn’t the only thing we’re doing here. I’ve gotten the proper permits and played by the book the entire time we’ve been in operation, and I’m sure a proper investigation will prove that. Furthermore, algae fuel is not something new, and I shouldn’t have to point out that it’s perfectly permissible with my contracts and permits to work with it.”
“I’m afraid that the particular fuel source you’re involved with has not yet been regulated. That type of algae has been causing concern because of its flammable properties being too unpredictable, which is why it was not cleared by the government for use on aircrafts at this time. Someone might have lied to you, but the law is still the law.”
“Maybe you should have thought about that before you wasted all of your time and energy trying to put me out of business,” said Lynn.
“You knew all along? You could have warned me, but instead you reported me?” I felt my anger growing by the second.
Lynn chuckled. “Hey, you wanted to play hardball. Welcome to the big leagues, kid.” He pushed past me, and I grabbed him and spun him around, holding my fist back to punch him in the teeth.
He gave me another smug look. “Go ahead, you gutter rat. Prove to these people that you’re nothing but a poor hustler from the slums.”
Tanner burst in the door from the hall. “Don’t, Cole. He’s not worth it, man.”
I put my fist down and let go of his collar, which I’d managed to bunch up at his throat. Lynn left without another word, and Steven Wendell handed me his card. “I’ll be in touch.”
I went down the hall to the lab, breezing past Jessica on the way. I didn’t have time for anything but finding out what had happened while I’d been gone.
Tanner followed behind me, and I turned and gave him a sharp look. “When did they take it?”
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