Merry Christmas, Babies

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  The doctor looked directly at Elise. “Full-time. So if the condition does fully develop, as long as we catch it soon enough, we have every chance of managing it.”

  Management. That agreed with him. “How do we do that?”

  “When she’s further along, that bed rest I mentioned the last time you were here. At this point, all you really need to worry about is a low-salt diet and plenty of peace and quiet.”

  “Can I work from home?” Elise asked.

  “For now.”

  Elise seemed somewhat placated by that. Joe didn’t care if she worked at all. He just wanted her alive.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “IT WAS THE SEX that did it.” The idea had been growing on him all afternoon.

  “No it wasn’t.”

  “You were fine two weeks ago, having a perfect pregnancy, and the only thing you’ve done differently since then was spend a day in bed with me. I feel terrible.”

  They were eating at home Friday night. He’d grilled chicken—without salt. He’d have invited Kenny to join them, but Kate had kept her word and no one in his family knew he was staying with Elise.

  It was much better that way. No hopes. No pressure. No ultimate disappointment.

  “Well, don’t. Having sex had nothing to do with it.”

  “You heard the doctor. You need peace and quiet, not multiple orgasms.”

  “Joe.” She took a roll from the basket between them, ripped it open and gave him half. “I asked her about it, okay?”

  “What did she say?”

  “What’s it matter? We aren’t going there again.”

  “I’m not talking about doing it again,” he assured her with utmost conviction. He wasn’t going to do anything that might harm her—or these babies she so desperately wanted. “I’d like to hear what she had to say about what we’ve already done. I’d like the same peace of mind you obviously needed—and got.” Honesty usually worked.

  “I’m perfectly safe having sex right now.” She cut a strip off the boneless chicken breast on her plate. “Assuming the hypertension doesn’t develop, I could safely have sex for another couple of weeks.” Another strip. “Because I’m at high risk for premature delivery, she’d like it if I didn’t have orgasms past twenty weeks because they cause uterine contractions…” Strip number three. “And there’s a small chance that they’d trigger preterm labor contractions.” Sawing continuously, Elise started cutting the strips of meat into tiny pieces. “But generally that’s not a concern until toward the end.”

  She wouldn’t look at him. Just kept cutting. After she’d already told him everything. Unless…

  Had she?

  “What else?” Joe asked, on a hunch.

  “There’s no relevance to anything else.”

  “Humor me. Or I’ll call Dr. Braden in the morning.”

  “She said that sexual tension can be particularly draining when hormones are overloading, and so, if anything, the orgasms might have helped as they release that tension and leave the body in a state of total relaxation.” She had a plate full of tiny chunks of meat.

  “You planning to feed that to the cats?” he asked.

  She glanced at the meat on her plate, set down her knife, shook her head. She still didn’t look at him.

  And he thought about the two weeks looming between then and her twenty-week gestational age.

  THE FOLLOWING MONDAY, when Joe left for work, Elise turned on the shopping channel and cleaned the cupboards in the kitchen, worked on the stuff they’d picked up from the office for her over the weekend, called the office several times and had a three-course dinner waiting when he got home that night.

  On Tuesday, she turned on the shopping channel, got through the work Joe had brought home the night before in less than an hour and cleaned closets. She grilled hamburgers, without salt, for dinner.

  On Wednesday, she cried for thirty minutes. And called Tamara, asking her new HR manager to meet with her there, at her house. She had a long list of things for the woman to bring with her.

  Tamara was there by lunchtime with written reports from each of the employees. One of the new pay techs had made several errors that Elise found almost without looking. She should be there training the girl.

  And some workers’ comp forms hadn’t been handled correctly. She fixed that with a phone call. And then asked how Tamara’s mother was getting along.

  “Her recovery’s slow,” the smartly dressed woman answered. “She’s moving in permanently.”

  “How do you feel about that?”

  “Okay.” Elise knew a moment of sheer envy at the peaceful look that came over Tamara’s face. “We’ve always been close. Probably because she gives me my space when I need it. And I hated living alone.”

  “I didn’t like it much myself,” Elise said, once again burying her nose in the folders her manager had delivered. She wanted to get through them in time for Tamara to take them back to the office with her before everyone left for the day.

  “Are you and Joe getting married?”

  Elise’s head shot up. “Of course not!”

  Tamara, sitting in Joe’s seat at the kitchen table, glanced at Elise’s stomach, which was growing by the minute. A little self-conscious in her shorts and cotton maternity top—certainly not professional wear—Elise put a hand on her protruding belly.

  “He’s not the father, Tamara, I promise. I really did do this on my own.”

  “I’m sorry.” Tamara looked it, her long blond hair framing her frown. “It’s just that pregnancies in single women are usually such a downer—and considered to be so much harder—and I can’t believe any woman would actually choose to be in that position. I really thought you and Joe just said that to keep gossip down at the office until you decided what to do.”

  “Nope, I really chose it. Joe didn’t even know about it until June.”

  “That’s what he said, but when I heard from Angela that he’s living here…”

  “Only until I have the babies.” Elise figured she probably should have been offended by her employees’ nosiness, but all she could do was smile. Tamara, others at work, cared. She so badly needed to know that right then.

  “Because I’m carrying quads, which I absolutely did not plan, I’m considered high risk. I was very likely going to have to spend the last months in the hospital if I didn’t have someone here, just in case something goes wrong.”

  “And Joe just offered to move in?”

  “We’ve been friends, just friends, since college.” Elise tried to explain something she didn’t really understand herself. Something she wasn’t even sure was true after the Saturday night and Sunday that refused to go away no matter how hard she tried to banish them. “And it’s not as though he had anything alive in his condo that would suffer from his not being there.”

  Tamara chuckled. She’d been around during the plant and cat episodes.

  “And you honestly don’t notice that he’s drop-dead gorgeous? And kind, too?”

  “Of course I know he’s kind. Why do you think he’s my best friend? I don’t hang around with slouches, you know.” She pretended she hadn’t heard “drop-dead gorgeous.”

  “Maybe it’s because you’re pregnant and your hormones are messed up, but I could never live alone in a house with a man like that and not need to jump his bones.”

  Elise allowed Tamara to go on believing that pregnancy had robbed her of her sex drive and got back to work.

  And for the rest of the day, took a small measure of comfort from what the other woman had said. Tamara was sure she’d have had the hots for Joe, too, if their situations were similar. Maybe she wasn’t losing it, after all.

  JOE CALLED THURSDAY, midmorning, to ask if it was all right if Mike, their IT guy, stopped by to set up her home computer on B&R’s network. After she got over how stupid she’d been not to think of the solution herself, which took about two seconds, she joyfully agreed. And cried on her way to the bathroom where she quickly got herself in li
ne, changed into navy slacks and a white maternity blouse, freshened her makeup and brushed her hair.

  By afternoon, she’d be joining her world again—even if only technologically so.

  ON FRIDAY, JOE BROUGHT HOME new cat toys for Samantha and Darin, claiming they’d been given to him by a pet store chain he was courting. Elise couldn’t help but wonder how they’d know to give him two toys and have them be specific to cats, but she figured she’d be better off not pressing him. They were dancing around each other very nicely these days, but neither of them had ever been all that good at dancing. She didn’t want to take any chances on slipping. Or causing him to do so. If either of them did, they’d likely both fall.

  Which was why she readily agreed when he suggested a walk downtown to a restaurant for dinner.

  “My mom asked about you today,” he said after they’d ordered—fresh salmon for her, pizza for him.

  “Did you tell her I’m now a stay-at-home?”

  “Are you kidding? She’d have entertainment lined up for you every hour of the day if I did that!”

  “And then she’d find out that you’re living there.”

  “True. But, be honest, after a day or two of goofing off, you’d be tense about getting back to work.”

  She’d managed much better the latter half of the week—now that she had a system for keeping in constant touch with all of B&R’s forms, files, records and staff.

  “You know me too well.” She sighed, but she was smiling. She felt good tonight. Good enough to approach the conversation she’d been meaning to have with him.

  “Tomorrow’s Saturday. I think you should go out on a date.” She knew this was right. No one ever said right was easy.

  “We’re no longer in college, Elise,” he said, eating the crust off the homemade bread that had just been delivered. “You aren’t my cruise director anymore.”

  “You haven’t needed one since college,” she told him, proud of herself for the teasing smile she managed to give him. “It’s not healthy for us, Joe, living like this. It’s not fair to you. You like women. Spend time with them frequently. It’s no wonder you…we…well, it’s no wonder there’ve been some weird things going on. You need to get out.”

  Joe’s frown was a little offputting. Sitting back, hands crossed at his chest—a very nice chest in the long-sleeved, casual denim buttondown he’d changed into after work—he said, “You talk as though I’ve got an entire harem just hanging around waiting for my call. Give me credit for having a little more couth than that.”

  “What about Melanie? You seemed pretty taken with her.”

  “I had lunch with her a few weeks ago. Neither of us seemed all that inclined to take things any further.”

  “Well, what about that woman you took to the gala at the state convention?”

  “If I wanted a date, I could find a woman. In case you didn’t notice, life’s a little complicated right now. I’d rather not be any more duplicitous than necessary and I certainly don’t want to pretend to a woman that I’m going home to my condo—or take her there—and then leave and come here. Nor do I want to explain to her why I’m living with you.”

  “So stay there.”

  “We’ve been over all that and I’m not getting into it again. This is September, Elise. You’re due at the end of December. We can make it through four months.”

  Their food was placed in front of them. When the waitress left, Elise said, “I just think that your not dating is escalating the other…issue.” She couldn’t let it go. “And conversely, if you did date, it would diffuse it.”

  “I’m not going out on a date tomorrow night, Elise, or any other night until this is done.”

  Frustrated that he wasn’t listening, and more so because a part of her was very fond of him for that, Elise dug into her salmon. “I’d take my own advice, but finding a guy who wants to ask me out in my condition and then settle for peace and quiet mostly at home, would be a little difficult.”

  “I’ll do a lot of things for you, Elise, but dating when I don’t want to isn’t one of them.”

  She shut up after that and ate.

  Thirty minutes later, Elise cradled her stomach as she waited at the table for Joe to find their waitress and pay the bill.

  “What’ve you got, another six weeks or so?” a pretty woman with a sleeping baby in her arms stopped on her way out to ask.

  “Not until December.”

  “You’re kidding!” The woman’s look of pained sympathy made Elise want to stay home and hide. “Is it twins?”

  “Quadruplets.”

  “Oh, my gosh! Barney.” She yanked at her husband’s sleeve, getting his attention. “She’s having four!”

  “Damn!” The man looked at Elise’s stomach. “Well, good luck to you.”

  His tone said she was going to need it.

  “Yeah, good luck,” his wife echoed, looking back one last time as she followed her husband out into the balmy September night.

  “Ignore them,” Joe said, coming up behind her. “They meant no harm.”

  “I know. Let’s go home.” She straightened, rubbing her back where it had rested against the hard chair back. Joe reached a hand down to her and without thinking, she took it.

  And wished she hadn’t. His touch was warm, reassuring, strong. And just as compelling as she remembered it.

  ON SATURDAY, Joe went with Kenny to Ann Arbor to see a football game—University of Michigan against Central Michigan University. His brother drove—they left the Lexus at Kenny’s condo—and on the way back, about an hour outside Grand Rapids, Kenny asked, “What’s the matter with you today, bro? You got a deal working with someone who’s to call today?”

  They were a couple of hours from dark yet. He should be home by his usual time. “No.”

  “It’s gotta be a woman then. A date you’re hoping to confirm for tonight? ’Cause I gotta tell you, you’ve checked that damned cell phone so many times I’d think you were a horny school kid praying for the prom queen to call if I didn’t know you better.”

  The prom queen had, in fact, hung all over Joe, and Kenny had helped him disentangle himself as tactfully as possible.

  “Just making sure it’s working,” Joe said lamely. “I’ve had some trouble with it lately.” More likely, the trouble was with him. And if he couldn’t even go to a ball game with his brother and enjoy himself, he had to make some serious mental adjustments. Immediately.

  “You want to stop for a beer and some pizza?” he asked, sliding his phone into the holder on his belt and vowing not to take it out again.

  Unless it rang.

  Then he’d look at it. And only then.

  SUNDAY AFTERNOON, once he’d had his shower after shooting hoops with Kenny all morning, Joe found Elise in the kitchen, cookbooks and paraphernalia spread all over. She’d been leaving for the cemetery that morning when he’d headed out for his game.

  “You having a party?” Hands in the pockets of his jeans, he glanced around at the counters. There were pasta, rice, loads of fresh veggies, tomatoes, onions.

  His housemate shook her beautiful head, drawing his eye to the back of her neck. He’d kissed her there—two long weeks ago.

  Two weeks ago right that minute, he’d been in bed with her.

  “I’m making salad dressings, sauces, soup and a couple of casseroles—all without salt.” She talked as she worked. “I found this article on the Internet about living with low-sodium diets. You don’t have to hate your food, you just substitute other things for the salt. For instance, instead of garlic and celery salts, you use garlic and onion powder. And add other flavors with dry mustard, lemon juice, black pepper, things like that.”

  His mother had made a lot of food from scratch, too. But Elise, dressed in a pair of low-cut maternity jeans that hugged her legs and a long-sleeved flowing white blouse, looked nothing like his mother.

  “Can I help with that?” He’d never once asked his mother that question.

  “Sure.�
�� She handed him a knife and a bag of onions. “Start chopping.”

  Joe did. And was surprised to find that, despite the occasional burning in his eyes, the job wasn’t nearly as onerous as he expected. He even forgot to turn on the pre-season National Football League game he and Kenny had bet on that morning until it was almost half time.

  And when he realized that, when he saw himself becoming what he knew he didn’t want to be—a man like his father, like Kate’s husband, surrounded by chaos, at the whim of a houseful of people he’d never be able to please all at once, always exhausted, but never done—he finished the chopping and went to his bedroom.

  JOE HELPED HIMSELF to seconds of the homemade casserole Elise served for dinner Sunday night. He’d finished his first helping mostly in silence. He turned on the game when he passed the little television on the way back to the table. She turned it off.

  He wasn’t surprised. She hated televised sports.

  He wasn’t all that hooked on them, other than their ability to help him relax—the drone of the announcer’s voice put him to sleep on a regular basis.

  “I think we have a problem with Michigan Local Banks,” Elise said as soon as she sat back down. The company had all but signed with them. “This afternoon, while I waited for the casserole to cook, I went over some paperwork Angela did last week, before I was online. She never filed for their workers’ comp policy.”

  Joe swore. “It takes two weeks to a month to get that policy in place.”

  “I know.”

  “They were canceling their policy as of tomorrow, planning to sign with us.”