Make Room for Baby

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

Tad’s frustration deepened visibly. “Like everybody else, when it came right down to it, she panicked and chickened out.”

  Abby shook her head while she continued peeling her orange. “That is so strange.”

  “Isn’t it.” Tad bit into his sandwich.

  “After all this time—months—of working on this story, you still have no idea.”

  “None.” Tad perked up. “But on the way back I saw a tow truck jumping Ernest Lee Scruggs’s new pickup.”

  Abby furrowed her brow. “Again?” The pickup seemed to need jumping or had to be towed every other week, which was awfully odd since the owner was a mechanic.

  Tad nodded. “Anyway, I stopped to see if I could lend a hand. Told him if he ever wanted to have a beer and trade stories about broken-down cars to give me a call.”

  “Think he’ll take you up on it?”

  Tad shrugged. “Hard to say. He’s scared of something, too. He looked like he was getting awfully mad, though. When I left, he was kicking the tires on his truck.”

  “Oh, my.”

  “Oh, my is right.” Tad gave her a once-over that swiftly left her feeling very sexy and very desirable. “So.” He leaned back in his chair. “How are you feeling?”

  Abby grinned, aware she’d never been happier even if she was beginning to get big as a house. “Pregnant. Very pregnant.” And very loved.

  “Oh, darlings, there you are!” Sadie burst in from lunch, Raymond behind her. They’d taken to eating over at her house so they could care for Belle, Buster and the puppies before coming back to work. “Raymond and I wanted to give you your Christmas present early.” Sadie handed Tad and Abby an envelope, then watched with glee as they opened it together.

  “C’MON NOW,” Abby admonished Tad hours later in the classroom at the community college. “Be a sport.”

  “This is silly.” Tad stared at the “baby” given to them by the instructor of the parenting class, started to attempt to pick it up to get it ready for its bath, then stepped back and shook his head as if to say, No way. He turned to her grimly, very much aware, as was Abby, that she’d already had her turn. “These are baby dolls.”

  “Lifelike baby dolls,” Abby countered.

  Tad braced his hands on his waist. “I do not need to practice bathing and diapering a baby doll.”

  “Obviously,” Abby said, picking up their “baby” and handing it to him, “since you just taped that diaper to the baby’s hip.”

  Tad glanced down at the doll, saw Abby was right. Frowning and grumbling something she was just as glad not to catch in its entirety, he put the “baby” back down on the table and ripped the adhesive tab off.

  “You just ripped the baby’s skin,” Abby said dryly. “Little Will or Billie is now howling at the top of his or her lungs.”

  Tad grinned, enjoying her verbal jab as much as she’d enjoyed delivering it. He poked his thumbs through the belt loops of his jeans and retained his arrogant stance in front of the science-lab table. “No, he/she’s not.”

  Abby arched a brow. “No?”

  “Because you would be doing it,” Tad said with a teasing grin. “Not me. And you—” he leaned forward to whisper sexily in her ear “—as you have so aptly demonstrated, are as much a pro at this as you are at everything else.”

  Pulse racing, spirits soaring, Abby drew back. “Flattery...”

  Tad ran a hand lovingly over her tummy. “...will get me everywhere?”

  Abby warmed beneath the tenderness of his touch and the feeling of the baby kicking deep inside her. “You wish!”

  “Class.” The teacher clapped her hands again. “Pay attention!”

  Tad elbowed Abby lightly and gave her a look of mock sternness that said, She’s speaking to us.

  She gave him a look that said, I know she is, and you, bad boy, better behave.

  They got through the rest of the class only because Tad decided to pay attention.

  “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Abby said as they walked out into the cold clear December night.

  Tad backed her up against the side of his Jeep and braced a hand on either side of her. Looking down at her, as if kissing her passionately was very much on his mind, he shrugged and replied, “Depends on how much humor you see in a soaped-up baby landing headfirst in the tub.”

  “Baby doll,” Abby corrected, knowing how embarrassed Tad had looked about that. “And it was only your first attempt,” she soothed as she rested both her hands against his chest.

  His breath making frosty circles in the air, Tad gathered her close. He looked down at her and brushed the hair from her face. “What if I don’t know what to do, Abby? What if I don’t have that natural parenting thing that just tells you in here—” he thumped his chest “—what to do and say at any given moment.”

  Abby slipped her hands beneath the hem of his jacket and ran her hands up and down his back. “Then you read and study and learn,” she said.

  His quiet gaze said he wasn’t sure that was all it would take. “Tad, we can do this,” Abby encouraged softly, pressing ever closer. “We can be good parents.”

  “I know that.” Tad opened the door and ushered her inside.

  “Then...?” Abby asked after he’d circled around and climbed into the driver’s seat.

  Tad started the engine and gave it a moment to warm up. Hands resting on the steering wheel, he twisted to face Abby. The lamps from the parking lot bathed them in a gentle golden glow.

  Blue eyes serious, he reached over, took her hand and confessed with unexpected candor, “It just hit me tonight. The enormity of what we’re undertaking here. The knowledge that it might not be as simple or trouble-free as I thought it would.”

  Abby smiled, as mesmerized by his unexpected show of vulnerability as she was by his easygoing confidence and rugged good looks. “I was wondering when it would happen,” she murmured, smiling, as other cars around them began to drive off.

  Tad’s brow furrowed. “What?”

  Abby lightly touched his chest as she confessed playfully, “That you’d feel the anxiety I’ve been feeling all along.”

  Tad looked as relieved as she felt. “You never said anything.”

  “That’s because most of the time I push those feelings away, just tell myself everything is going to be fine. But sometimes at night...sometimes—usually late at night or very early in the morning—I worry.” Realizing they really were in the same boat, after all, Abby smiled at Tad. “Doc Harlan and Dr. Ellison both reassure me it’s quite natural. So I knows—” Abby took his hand and held it tightly “—it’s going to be all right, Tad.”

  He nodded, accepting that. Then, still looking worried, he glanced at his watch, put the Jeep into gear. “So, what do you think? Is there anywhere we can get a baby doll this late at night?”

  FROM THAT MOMENT ON, it was Tad’s mission. On Christmas Eve he was still at it “You’ve practiced enough, Tad.” He’d bathed, diapered, fed and burped the baby doll every night without fail.

  Tad bundled the doll in a blanket and returned it to the crib. “I just want to make sure I have everything down pat so that when we bring the baby home, I’ll be an old pro,” he said.

  There was no need to worry about that, Abby thought, amused. He could change a diaper now in nothing flat. And he could give the baby doll a bath with his eyes shut. “Trust me,” Abby said dryly as she took her husband into her arms for a lengthy yuletide kiss. “You’re going to be as good at that as you are everything else.”

  Tad bent his head and returned her kiss even more languorously. Abby’s heart was pounding when he let her go. “Now this is the way to spend Christmas Eve,” he drawled.

  Knowing they would make love later—probably again and again—Abby took him by the hand and led him downstairs to the tree. She was eager to give him his gift. “Ready to exchange gifts?”

  He nodded.

  At Abby’s insistence, Tad went first. He was stunned when he saw the framed copy of the first edition of the Blossom W
eekly News published and edited by the two of them. “It was an important day in our lives,” she told him quietly. “I thought we should mark the occasion.”

  “As well we should,” he said as he kissed her again.

  He handed her her gift. Inside was a beautiful framed photograph of them together their first night in Paris and another of their wedding day. There was a third frame, one with no picture. “For the baby’s first formal portrait,” Tad said hoarsely.

  Tears sparkled in Abby’s eyes. She wreathed her arms around Tad’s neck and kissed him soundly. “This is the best Christmas I’ve ever had.”

  “Me, too,” he said thickly.

  “Let’s make a promise,” Abby said urgently. “No matter what happens, let’s spend every Christmas right here together. Let’s make sure that our baby has his mom and his dad with him at Christmas.”

  “You have my word on it,” Tad promised softly.

  If he had his way, they’d never be apart again.

  “SO WHEN ARE Sadie and Raymond going off on their real honeymoon?” Sonny asked the day after New Year’s as the newspaper staff sifted through photos of homes. One had to be chosen for the next makeover project for the newspaper’s Lifestyle section.

  “They’ve decided to wait until after the puppies are weaned and our baby is born.” In the meantime they’d spent their actual wedding night in Asheville, while the local vet had taken charge of Belle, Buster and the pups as his wedding gift to the new couple.

  “I still get all misty thinking about their wedding on New Year’s Eve,” Cindy confessed as she held up a photo of a Cape Cod house in the country that needed a lot of work.

  Abby knew exactly how Cindy felt. Watching the two lovebirds say their vows had made her tear up, too. Tad hadn’t said much, but she’d known he was affected, too.

  “Look at this one,” Abby said, pointing out a sixties-style ranch home. “Think we could update this into something fresh and exciting?”

  “It’d sure be a challenge,” Sonny said.

  “It’d also be something completely different from the rambling white elephant we just did,” Abby mused.

  “Where’s Tad?”

  “He took a gift basket of goodies and bottle of champagne over to Sadie’s,” Abby replied absently, still studying the ranch house. “He wanted it there when they got back.”

  The phone rang. Sonny went to get it. “Abby. For you!”

  Hoping it was Frank at the paint store telling her he’d be happy to donate materials for the fix-up project once again in exchange for free mention of his store, Abby lifted the receiver. She was still on the phone, writing down details when Tad walked in. He took one look at her and said, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  It sort of felt that way. Aware all eyes were on her, Abby shook off her lethargy and said, “Not at all. I’m just stunned.” She glanced at the notes she’d made. “That was the headhunter who helped get Yvonne her job. She said Southern Home and Garden magazine in Atlanta is expanding their editorial staff and they want to interview me.”

  Tad cast a look at the faint hint of snow flurries coming down outside. “Now?”

  Abby nodded, knowing the weather—and the threat of their first snow of the year—was the least of her problems. “I can’t travel,” she said. “I’m less than a month from my due date.”

  Tad was very still. His eyes never left her face. “So you’re declining.”

  Abby nodded curtly, trying not to feel so relieved. “What choice do I have?” At least this time she didn’t have to go all the way to Chicago to be more or less turned down at first sight.

  The phone rang again. This time Cindy got it. “Abby.” She nodded at the phone.

  Aware of Tad’s eyes on her, Abby picked up her extension. She listened intently, feeling once again like the wind had been knocked out of her. “You’re kidding,” she said slowly. “No. Well. Of course. Yes. Absolutely. Tomorrow.” Abby hung up the phone. Everyone was still looking at her.

  “Well?” Tad said, beginning to look a little impatient.

  “That was the headhunter again.” Abby swallowed, not sure what she felt. Elated. Excited. Scared. Upset. Stunned. With Tad still waiting, she drew a breath and announced calmly, “Southern Home and Garden is sending someone here to interview me.”

  Cindy grinned, unable to contain her excitement. “What are you going to wear?” she demanded.

  “Beats the heck out of me,” Abby said. “Absolutely nothing fits me these days except Tad’s old shirts and my maternity slacks.”

  “We have time to drive to the maternity shop in Asheville before it closes,” Tad said.

  “Now?” Abby demanded, casting another look at the snow flurries.

  “Sure,” Tad said, his mood remarkably buoyant considering all that was at stake. He had no doubt he could keep her and the baby safe. But he could see Abby needed some convincing. He closed the distance between them and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “I just heard the latest weather update from the National Weather Service,” he told her gently. “No accumulation is expected, and it’s still early in the day. I’ve plenty of experience driving in all kinds of weather and road conditions. And if we do run into bad weather, the Jeep has four-wheel drive.”

  Tad turned back to Sonny and Cindy. “You two can handle things here, can’t you, while I go with Abby to purchase a power suit for her interview tomorrow?”

  “Absolutely,” Cindy and Sonny said in unison.

  Tad smiled, went to the hook by the door and grabbed Abby’s coat. “Let’s go.”

  Abby lifted her hair off her collar with one hand, while he helped her on with her coat. As soon as they were outside on the sidewalk, flurries swirling around them, she turned to him and said, “You don’t have to do this for me.”

  “I want to,” Tad said, and to his surprise, he meant the words with all his heart. He hadn’t been nearly supportive enough of her desire to go back to work in her field the last time and he still felt guilty as hell about that. He’d promised Abby he would never hold her back professionally if they married. No matter how difficult it was, no matter how much he didn’t want her to take a job away from him, he intended to hold himself to that vow.

  As it happened, luck continued to be with them. The weather held. And Abby found a beautiful cranberry red wool maternity dress and matching jacket in very short order. A long cream, navy and cranberry silk scarf drew attention away from her tummy.

  By the time the interview took place at their completely redecorated home, she felt—and looked—like a million bucks. Knowing Tad was waiting to hear, Abby called him as soon as the Atlanta publisher left. He drove right over.

  “Well?” he said, coming through the door, an exceptionally happy smile on his face as he paused to kiss her cheek. “Tell me everything.”

  Abby took his hand and led him over to the sofa. She kept her hand linked with his even after they sat down. “They were very impressed by my work on the Lifestyle section, as well as all my previous work.”

  “As they should be,” Tad said.

  Abby sat back against the cushions, looking every bit the capable career woman she’d been when he met her. “We agreed that the magazine needs a completely new approach and an updated look. So if I decided to take the job, I’d have carte blanche.”

  As proud as he was, Tad felt himself beginning to panic. “They offered it to you?”

  Abby made a seesawing motion with her hand. “They’re still working out salary details and my need to commute back and forth from Atlanta on a weekly or biweekly basis with the headhunter representing me.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Whether or not we’ll be able to come to an agreement, I don’t know, but they are very interested.”

  With effort Tad put his own concerns aside. At least she was willing to commute. At least she wasn’t trying to cut him out of her life entirely. “When would they want you to start?” he asked casually, realizing all over again how very much was at stake.

>   “March.”

  That was two months away. Tad enveloped her in a hug. “Well, congratulations. I hope you get the job.” However they needed to work it out, he decided, they would work it out, as long as she was willing to meet him halfway.

  Abby drew back. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes sparkling with delight and wonder. “You mean that, don’t you?” she said happily.

  Tad nodded, stunned to find he could put her happiness above his own. “Yes, Abby, I do,” he said quietly. “I want you to experience everything this life has to offer. And if that job will make you happy, I’m all for it.”

  ABBY HEARD NOTHING about the job until the following week when the publisher came in with an offer she found easy to refuse. “It’s just not enough money, considering the commute,” she told Tad as they got ready for bed that evening. “So I turned it down.”

  “Just like that?”

  “We have to be practical here. It would take a lot of money and effort to maintain two homes for me to commute back and forth. I’ll just keep looking.”

  Tad nodded. His feelings in turmoil, he climbed into bed beside her. He knew she was disappointed things hadn’t worked out with Southern Home and Garden magazine, but he couldn’t help but feel relieved, too. He did not want Abby that far away. He did not want their baby commuting between two different homes. But he also knew he had no more right to deprive Abby of her career dreams than she had to deprive him of his.

  Beside him, Abby switched out the light, settled down into the feather ticking and let out a heartfelt groan.

  Immediately concerned, Tad shifted onto his side. The softness of her hip collided with his. He touched her shoulder gently. “What is it?”

  Abby grimaced and slid a hand beneath her waist. “My back again.” She let out a gusty breath and shook her head. “I just can’t get comfortable these days no matter what I do.”

  Tad knew she was tired of being pregnant. He took her hand, turned it palm up and kissed the middle of it. “It’s only a couple more weeks.”

  Abby groaned again and peered at him from beneath her lashes. “Tell that to my aching muscles,” she said as he reached beneath her and massaged where her hand had been.