Merry Christmas, Babies

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He seemed unusually interested in the summer strollers passing by on the sidewalk.

  “It’s the same tone, incidentally, that you had that Saturday when you dropped by and found me with an unpleasant bout of morning sickness.”

  “Passing out sick, and looking half-dead, you mean.”

  “Don’t turn this on me.”

  Joe swiveled to face her, took a breath as though preparing a comeback and lifted a hand to her hair instead, brushing his fingers through it. “Let’s not fight, Elise. You have a lot of things to think about right now, plans to make. I’m here because, all things considered, I want to be. Let’s just leave it at that, okay?”

  “O…ohhhhh.” She’d meant to agree and stared at him, wide-eyed, instead.

  “What?” He frowned, glanced down at her stomach. “Is something wrong?”

  “Uh-uh.” Elise shook her head. “I…think…someone just moved in there.” She ought to know; she wasn’t moving an inch.

  An uncomfortable look crossed his face. And then she read interest in his eyes. Soon followed by caution.

  “I thought it might have happened yesterday,” she said, “but it came and went so fast. And never came back.”

  “It’s probably just indigestion,” he said, watching her. “You’re only four months along. That’s still too soon, isn’t it?”

  “Not with quads. Look at my stomach, Joe! I’m already really showing and that doesn’t usually happen at four months, either.”

  Elise felt herself blushing when he did as she asked. And cursed herself for forgetting to watch her words. And then she forgot everything.

  “There it is again!” she cried, grinning, feeling idiotically close to tears. “I’m sure that’s a baby moving. I’ve never felt anything like it before!”

  She covered the side of her belly with her hand. “Mama’s here, little one,” she said softly, choked up with this proof that her small family was growing inside of her. That her dreams were finally coming true. She wasn’t going to be alone anymore. She was going to belong again.

  Part of a family just like everyone else.

  “Let me feel.”

  She’d barely registered the words before Joe’s larger, warmer hand was pushing hers aside and flattening against her stomach—covering far more of her than she had.

  She wanted to tell him she was sure it was too soon for him to feel anything on the outside. Should have told him.

  But she couldn’t make herself end the contact. His hand felt so good on her. So right.

  She was so in trouble.

  UP BEFORE ELISE the next morning, Sunday, Joe pulled on basketball shorts, a shirt and shoes, skipping his shower and shave altogether. One didn’t need to smell or look good to sweat like a pig on a basketball court. He grabbed some cold pizza from the doggie bag he’d brought home from dinner the night before and, slice in hand, practically ran out the side door to his car.

  After the night he’d just spent, he needed to exhaust his libido before interacting with his business partner again. And rid himself of some testosterone, too. He was losing perspective, thinking she needed his protection.

  Thinking he had some sort of ownership of her.

  A business commodity, indeed. An investment.

  A sexy woman.

  He should be shot.

  “I CAN’T THANK YOU ENOUGH—”

  “Hold it.” Elise forestalled anything else Adam Fallow might say. “Like I said on the phone last night, this is breakfast. Nothing more.” Thank goodness morning sickness had passed and she could actually eat the morning meal.

  Adam pulled on the heavy glass door leading into the posh bakery-café in Grand Rapids, held it for her. “You’re giving my request honest consideration,” he told her. “I’m grateful for that.”

  She didn’t want him grateful. She wanted a sign that she could walk away free and clear.

  They walked past the bakery area through an atrium filled with plants and were shown to their booth, given menus and offered coffee. Almost immediately a smiling young waitress approached. And then Elise was alone with a tall, good-looking, sandy-haired man who, even in cotton shorts and a pullover, inspired confidence. His smile was kind.

  “I need to make certain that you understand that I’m not leaning toward granting your request,” she told him, looking him directly in the eye.

  His nod was slow. “I do.”

  “I’m also not one to be swayed by emotion. And I can see through manipulation before it even gets started.”

  “I figured that out months ago.” His reply was dry, but the smile on his face softened the response. “It’s not like I’ve done any of this before, but I asked around enough to know that the way you did things was most definitely not the norm.”

  “I like to be prepared.”

  “Some things can’t be predicted or planned for.”

  He hit the one hard fact she couldn’t get around—ever. The one thing in life that still scared her to death.

  Her juice arrived along with his coffee.

  “What do you do for a living?”

  “I’m an engineer by day,” he said, naming a technology company with a local branch. “But that sounds more grandiose at the moment than it is. I stayed in college for my doctorate and so I’m relatively new to the workforce. I am currently, therefore, little more than an assistant who’s good at drawing…”

  She sipped her juice. Ordered an omelet when their waitress returned, paid attention while he asked for scrambled eggs with sausage, whole wheat toast and fruit. He treated the waitress politely, with respect. And he made intelligent nutrition choices without being obsessive about it.

  “Why did you answer my donor ad?”

  He didn’t even blink at her bluntness. “I’m an engineer during the day, but an inventor at night. I’ve designed a new gearshift that has received some real interest from a manufacturer and I needed money quickly to get the patent process started on it before I felt comfortable with the risk of shipping it out for testing. Marie and I had life insurance on me, but none on her. I’d used up most of our savings on her funeral expenses.”

  A commendable account. Still, there were other ways to get money.

  “What about a small-business loan?” She’d taken out a few.

  “I’m in debt with student loans already. I’d always said I’d only pursue the inventing if I could do it without going further into debt. There’s no guarantee in that business, not even a fifty-percent chance that I’ll sell something and actually make money at it—which means less than a fifty-percent chance that I’d be able to pay back the loan with the earnings of the business.”

  And still he tried.

  She could relate to that.

  People came and went around them, families filled the tables opposite and behind theirs, many of them dressed in church clothes.

  Imagining scenes like this was why Elise had always shied away from eating out alone. Scenes like this were the substance of her dreams.

  And his?

  “What do you think Marie would have thought of your decision?”

  “She’d have hated it if she were still alive.”

  “But since she’s not, you didn’t care?”

  The question was far too familiar for two strangers who’d just met. And yet the reason for their meeting, the fact that she might be carrying his seed in her body, the thing he was asking of her, gave license where she would never otherwise have taken it.

  “I cared.” That’s all he said.

  “And?”

  Adam hesitated, spun his coffee mug around with his thumb on the handle.

  And then he looked over at her. “I’m not sure how to answer that.”

  “Honestly might be good.”

  “Honestly might be construed as emotional manipulation.”

  Touché.

  “I’ll take that chance.”

  “Marie’s death showed me too late the irreplace
able value of something I took largely for granted. Having loved ones to come home to at night.” He was looking down and paused for a long moment.

  Elise wanted to tell him stop. She’d heard enough. But her throat was so dry she couldn’t speak.

  He glanced up, watching her as he finished. “I thought she’d support my decision to give someone else the chance to gain a loved one.”

  There were tears in Elise’s eyes as she sat back to allow the waitress to set down her food.

  JOE FOUND ELISE out on the screened patio, rocking in the dusk on a white wicker love-seat swing Sunday evening.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  That made one of them. He couldn’t get her out of his mind. Couldn’t find his equilibrium.

  Couldn’t stay away from her.

  “You sure? Nothing’s hurting? You aren’t sick?”

  “I’m fine, Joe, really.”

  He thought she glanced at him—her head turned in his direction—but he couldn’t see her expression.

  “You weren’t here when I got back from the gym.” And that fact hadn’t been far from his mind most of the day.

  “I met Adam Fallow for breakfast.”

  Panic shot through him. And then was gone. Joe sat in the adjacent wicker chair, trying to find a logical explanation for the emotions he kept experiencing. And failing.

  “And?”

  “He’s a nice guy. Better than nice.”

  So the two of them could forge a bond through their children, fall in love—she was already obviously in like—and eventually marry and share the family they both wanted.

  Even without the love they could marry. Unions happened for all kinds of reasons, many less compelling than a shared desire for children.

  Leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, he studied what he could see of the legs of the chair beneath him.

  “Have you made a decision?”

  She didn’t answer immediately.

  “No.”

  Her answer was a relief. Tension that had been building all day dissipated enough to show him how tightly he was wrung.

  “You want to talk about it?”

  She rocked some more, her enlarged belly made more obvious by the way she was cupping it with her hands. Joe tried not to stare. And couldn’t stop the flow of blood to his groin as he remembered the way that mound had felt under his hand the night before.

  He was sick. A pervert. And never knew the tendency could be so latent. Why hadn’t he seen signs before now?

  And what in the hell did he do about it?

  “I don’t want to talk about anything,” she said slowly. “I’ve always handled things on my own. I’m comfortable with that.”

  Fair enough. He wouldn’t push her. Never had.

  He’d never had this gripping need to be given access to her intimate confidences before, either.

  He should go in, watch a movie. Tomorrow began another week and he was tired.

  An evening breeze blew up off the river, sliding gently through the screened walls of the porch. If this were his house, he’d sleep out here. The daybed along the far wall looked comfortable enough.

  Maybe someday, when Elise was out, he’d give it a try.

  “The problem is—” her voice softly broke the stillness “—I’m driving myself crazy with circular thoughts. I just keep going around and around and can’t seem to sort things out.”

  So did she want to chat with him or not?

  “Did you call your doctor friend?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because my sex life is not something I’d ever discuss with Thomas.”

  Whoa. Joe was glad no lights were on in the screened porch. The shadows safely concealed his expression.

  “I understand,” he said, when he didn’t at all.

  Had she done something other than talk with this Fallow guy? Or was she contemplating doing so? Had they already discussed the possibility of marriage and she was considering the ramifications of that? Wondering if she could sleep with him?

  Or was she just turned on by the guy and worried that desire would influence her ability to make a healthy and fair decision?

  Was there such a thing as fair when you considered equally compelling but opposing needs?

  Was it fair that she was sitting over there, not three feet away, barefoot and beautiful, wearing little more than a light, cotton, sleeveless shift over the stomach he’d touched for the first time the day before, completely off-limits and talking to him about her sexuality?

  “You do?” Her voice was low, falling between them as tangibly as a touch.

  “No.”

  “What don’t you understand?”

  “What your sexuality has to do with whether or not you release fertility records.”

  Okay, maybe he got that part, but he could be wrong. He hoped he was wrong. And that was what he really didn’t understand.

  Why did it matter to him if she slept with this other guy? They’d been sleeping with other people for fifteen years and it had never caused even a ripple in the waters of his life.

  “It has nothing to do with it.”

  Joe’s mind quieted. Stopped working altogether for a moment while he changed course, adjusted his thinking.

  “Now I’m really confused.”

  The large sigh she took was not comforting. “My…sexuality doesn’t have anything to do with whether or not I agree to unseal the records. But it’s part of the muck I can’t seem to wade through to get to any clear position.”

  “What can I do to help?”

  “Talk to me.”

  But she’d already said she didn’t need to discuss anything.

  “You want to talk to me about sex?” he asked hesitantly.

  “I think I have to.”

  Joe had a feeling he should have turned in when he’d had the chance.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “WOULD YOU LIKE to go inside?”

  Elise shook her head at Joe’s question and then realized he probably couldn’t see her. “I’d rather be out here.”

  He had sounded so calm, so businesslike. Which was precisely what she should have been. And why she had to continue.

  “This is really difficult for me,” she told him.

  “If you’d rather not—”

  “Joe, I’m screwing up. Big time. I’m driving myself crazy. I can’t think straight. And the one thing I know is that I have to do whatever is necessary to preserve you and me—our partnership, our working relationship. B&R.”

  When he moved, she thought he was going to walk out on her. And wondered if that would have been best when he sat down beside her on the swing instead.

  “There’s nothing wrong here,” he said, leaning over to look her in the eye. “I’m here because I want to be. I told you that. You’ve been through hell with me, Elise. You know that. And now, for the first time, you need me. I’m happy to return the favor. I mean it.”

  Oh, boy, did she need him. He had no idea.

  “You’re making this so hard.”

  He sat back. “Tell me what—”

  “Just listen,” she interrupted quickly. “Let me say what I have to say before I lose my courage and then tell me what you think.”

  He nodded. He wasn’t smiling.

  “I could be committing suicide here,” she blurted. “I would never in a million years consider doing this if so much weren’t at stake. But then, I’d never in a million years have believed I could ever be in this position.”

  “Having four babies instead of one, you mean?”

  Elise almost told him to forget it. She was making a terrible mistake. Humiliating herself for nothing. And then Joe moved, his shoulder touching hers, and she was in a nervous tizzy all over again.

  “No, Joe, that’s not what I mean.” She took a deep breath, gave herself one last chance to change her mind. “My mind is consumed with this to the point that I can no longer think straight,” she said, as
much for her own benefit as his. “And the only thing that occurs to me is to be completely honest with you. That way we can deal with the situation and move on.”

  Or, rather, back. Somehow she had to find normal again. At least with Joe. All the stability she’d built since growing up was based on Joe and B&R.

  “So talk, and we’ll handle it.”

  From his mouth to God’s ears. Let it be that easy.

  “I want it clear that I want nothing from you here.” She couldn’t continue if that wasn’t understood. “I’m not looking, or hoping, for any action on your part.”

  “Okay.”

  His shoulder was still touching hers. It was a test.

  “Remember when we did that team-building seminar last fall?”

  “With Glynnis Elrod.”

  “Yeah. She talked about the dead elephant in the middle of the table and how, if left there unattended, it would really start to stink, but if acknowledged and dealt with, it could be removed.”

  “Right. You either ignore your company’s issues and they escalate and eventually hurt and sometimes cripple the company, or you admit they exist, talk about them, find solutions and move on.”

  He’d paid attention. She wasn’t surprised.

  “Well, I’ve got a dead elephant on our table.”

  “This is about B&R?”

  “Everything to do with me and you is about B&R.”

  And if she didn’t quit stalling, she was going to suffocate on her tension. Or start to like the smell of dead elephant.

  “The thing is, Joe…” She leaned to her side, resting her elbow on the arm of the swing. Breaking all physical contact with him.

  “Yes?”

  “I met with Adam Fallow this morning. He’s attractive, intelligent, ethical. He’s a gentleman and he made me laugh.”

  “You said this didn’t have anything to do with the fertility decision.”

  “I went in hopes of getting some clarity about what I should do. I brought him out, gave him hope and wasted an entire morning for both of us because I can’t think clearly about anything. I sat across from him and thought about your shoulders and how they were all I could think about at dinner Saturday night. He smiled and I, God help me, thought about what happened outside the bathroom door Friday morning. He glanced at my stomach—at possibly his babies growing there—and I relived the warmth of your hand, touching me.”