Family Be Mine

by Tracy Kelleher

  Sarah drank in his easy grin. “Yes, just imagine,” she said haltingly.

  And she could, only too well.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  KATARINA HONED IN ON HIM, Hunt backed away, only to run up against the kitchen counter.

  “You have the nerve to turn me down?” She was aghast.

  “It’s not that, and I really appreciate the invitation. It’s just that…ah…I think it would probably be better if I…ah…I didn’t stay. I mean, besides, what do I know about baby showers?” Except that the usual decorum probably didn’t involve one of the guests harboring lustful thoughts every time he saw the mother-to-be. Hunt cleared his throat. “Then there’s Fred. He’s not really comfortable around strangers.” He looked down at his dog who chose that second to wag his tail and appear particularly cute.

  Katarina smiled at the dog, which didn’t stop her from poking Hunt in the chest. “I can’t believe it. A grown man hiding behind a thirty-pound dog.”

  “He’s more like thirty-five.”

  “Please, you’ll have to do better than that. Anyway, Matt’s back from orchestra practice at the high school, and he volunteered to look after Frodo or whatever he’s called.

  “Fred.”

  “Fred? What kind of a name is that for a dog?”

  Julie sauntered into the kitchen.

  Hunt eyed her nervously before responding to Sarah. “There’s nothing wrong with Fred. Many outstanding individuals have been named Fred. Frederick Douglass. Fred Astaire.”

  “Fred Flintstone,” Julie added. She opened the refrigerator door. “Hey, you got any half-and-half in here? I want to fill the creamer for the coffee.”

  Katarina glanced over but she didn’t budge. Hunt was still wedged against the edge of the counter. “You’ll have to use the two-percent milk. I’m watching Ben’s cholesterol.”

  Julie grabbed the half-gallon jug and straightened up. She sauntered over in her bare feet, her newly polished dusky-rose toenails a bright splash of color against the dark Mexican tile floor. She pressed her chin forward and, using all her six-foot-two height, greeted Hunt eyeball to eyeball. “Long time no see, Hunt. But then you probably don’t remember me from GHS,” she said, referring to Grantham High School. “Julie? Julie Antonelli? You were a year ahead of me.”

  “And you were always an inch taller,” he answered back.

  She gave Hunt a withering stare. “Not only does he have to stay, I say we make him demonstrate the pass-the-orange-under-your-chin-without-using-your-hands game.” She flipped her bangs imperiously, pivoted on her heels and made her way out of the kitchen, holding the milk aloft.

  Hunt watched her go with an exhalation of relief. “Even in school she was always this scary.”

  “You’re lucky. You’ve caught her on a good day. So what do you say? Now that you’re here…”

  Hunt looked up at the ceiling. Heavy wooden beams, darkened with age, ran crosswise across the room. They cleared only a few inches above his head. He shifted his gaze back to Katarina. “You don’t have to include me just because I happened to be on the premises. I don’t know the first thing about baby showers.”

  “Not important. Besides, I’m far too uncoordinated to demonstrate the party game, and Julie’s already turned me down cold.” Katarina looked at him beseechingly.

  “Okay.” He caved. “But only because I happen to like you so much.”

  Katarina laughed and gave him a peck on the cheek and let go of his arm. “How about you take down the white dessert plates from the overhead cupboard behind you and put them on the dining room table, to the left of the silverware?”

  “If I get the coffee cups, too, can I forgo this orange-whatever thing?” He turned around.

  “No, but nice try,” she said behind his back and added in an oh-so-casual tone, “So you and Sarah already know each other then? From the adult education class? You know, I still can’t believe you’re doing water aerobics.”

  Hunt grabbed the plates and turned back. “You mean Ben didn’t tell you how he practically strong-armed me?”

  Katarina let her tongue rest on her top lip. “Oh, right. Ben.”

  Hunt looked at her askance. The corner of his mouth twitched up in amusement. “He didn’t tell you a thing, did he?”

  Katarina held up her index finger. “No, but I’m prepared to get to the bottom of it.” She leaned toward the hallway. “Hey, Sarah, could you come in here a sec?” she shouted. She crossed her arms and waited.

  Sarah waddled into the room, her flip-flops slapping the floor. “You need something?”

  “Just some clarification. Did you know that Ben pushed Hunt into taking the water aerobics class?”

  Sarah rubbed her chin as she thought. “At the pool he mentioned something about friends signing him up, but no real details.”

  Katarina narrowed her eyes. “The plot thickens.”

  From outside, the sound of a car engine signaled Ben’s return from the caterer’s.

  Katarina opened the door and didn’t waste any time while he carried in the parcels of prepared food. “So, when did you get the idea of having Hunt take the class?” she asked, barely letting him put the overflowing shopping bags on the table.

  “I don’t know. It just kind of hit me, the wisdom of the whole ‘education as the wellspring of life’ thing,” Ben said. He waved sheepishly to Hunt and Sarah.

  Hunt stepped toward his best buddy. “Nice try, but I’m afraid not entirely believable. Listen, it’s no use trying to save face.” Hunt appealed to Katarina. “Don’t give him a hard time. Ben already confessed to me that he fell prey to a force far greater than he—my mother. She was the one who put him up to it.”

  Ben sighed. “I admit it. I was beaten down. It was Iris’s idea.”

  “I still don’t know what that has to do with me,” Sarah protested. “After all, my clients gave me the gift certificate for the class.”

  Hunt turned to her. “And who are your clients?”

  “Well, let’s see. Wanda and Rufus, and oh right, Lena.”

  “Babicka!” Katarina exclaimed, using the Slovak word for grandmother.

  “You don’t think that your grandmother?” Sarah blinked at Katarina.

  “And my mother?” Hunt added.

  Katarina beamed. “Conspired to set you two up? You betcha.”

  “Well, that’s just absurd,” Sarah protested.

  “Even if they did, it’s irrelevant. After all, we’re both adults. We’re perfectly capable of forming our own personal relationships without outside interference,” Hunt said emphatically.

  “Ya think?” Katarina viewed them both skeptically. Then she turned to Ben. “Come, my strong husband. How about you and I bring the food into the dining room? I’ve already got platters waiting on the table.” She motioned toward the shopping bags, and he picked them up, cradling the heavy packages in both arms, and followed her out of the kitchen.

  Hunt watched his friend shuffle out dutifully. “Oh, how the mighty have fallen.”

  “On the contrary, I’d say theirs is a relationship based on mutual understanding,” Sarah responded. She cocked her head, her mouth open, as if waiting for him to disagree.

  Hunt paused, considering a witty comeback, but no easy retort came to mind. Instead, he found his attention straying to her parted lips.

  Sarah nervously dropped her eyes. “Not that I want or particularly need something along those lines myself right now.”

  Hunt gathered himself. “Of course not. Nor I,” he said emphatically.

  “So we’re just going to forget about this little match-making stunt, correct?” she asked, raising her head.

  “Absolutely. Consider it forgotten,” he proclaimed.

  But, in truth, he wasn’t sure he really could. Especially when he noticed the way a little vertical line formed between her brows when she frowned so earnestly. he felt his fingers itch with the impulse to smooth it flat.

  “So,” he said in a forced upbeat tone, “shou
ld we rejoin the fray?”

  She seemed to hesitate, then nodded.

  “Just one thing?” He didn’t want to release her quite yet.

  “Yes?” The crease deepened.

  He knew he was a goner. “When they call for volunteers to help me demonstrate this party game? Under no circumstances accept.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “SO YOU’RE A SURPRISE,” Sarah said, sitting on the couch in the living room. She slipped off a flip-flop as she wiggled a foot into one of the sneakers she had liberated from her knapsack. She grunted. Pretty soon she was going to have to give up tie shoes, she realized. Already half her shoes no longer fit her swollen feet.

  “Well, I aim to please,” Hunt said. He had put dessert dishes on the dining room table, careful to avoid any direct conversation with Julie who was doing something mysterious with the paper napkins. “Here, let me do that.”

  He circled the couch and sat on the edge of the coffee table. Behind him, logs crackled in the fireplace, taking the chill off the early fall air. He reached for the sneaker and caught hold of her foot with the other hand. “Jeez, your feet are cold.” Seemingly without thinking, Hunt dropped the shoe and started rubbing her toes. He couldn’t help it. It was too much of a temptation.

  “I think this is my cue to leave,” Julie said loudly.

  “No need,” Sarah protested over her shoulder, but Julie had already left the room. “Oh, well.” She looked down and would have felt embarrassed except it felt so good.

  “So when are you due?”

  “Hmm?” Sarah was lost in the feeling of his hands working the balls of her feet.

  “I said when are you due? That’s the correct thing to ask at a baby shower, I presume.”

  Sarah shook her head. That’s right. She still had a baby shower to face. “Ten weeks,” she said. “Give or take.”

  “So you must be pretty excited? Got the baby stuff already?”

  “Not really. I mean, I’ve already checked out IKEA online, and know exactly what I want, but I’ve kind of put off driving up to Newark and actually buying everything.”

  He looked at her protruding belly. “I’m not sure putting off anything is the best course of action at this point.”

  “Ya think?” she said with a laugh.

  “So at least you’re not putting off this baby shower?”

  “Did I have any choice? Not with friends like Katarina and Julie organizing it.”

  “Katarina is a cupcake, but that Julie…I don’t know about her.”

  “No, no, she’s great, really. We work together at the hospital, and believe me, she practically bleeds for her patients.”

  “You’re nurses?” Hunt seemed to immediately realize his mistake. “Sorry, male chauvinist assumption. You’re doctors?”

  “Julie’s an obstetrician. I’m a physical therapist.”

  “Cool. And I really mean that. You’re actually helping people, something I wish I could say. In fact, I’ve been thinking about that a lot.” He reflected a moment more.

  “But enough about me. Hey, since you’re the expert, you should be rubbing my feet.” He looked in her sports bag. “No socks?”

  “No, I’m a little behind with the wash. I can’t seem to get on top of things these days. And now with the water aerobics class…”

  “Tell me about it.” He slipped the one shoe on and tied the laces tightly and efficiently.

  Sarah looked down. “You’re very good at that. You could probably have an alternate career as a foot masseur if you wanted, and you’d definitely be helping out womenkind.”

  Hunt slipped off the other flip-flop. “I like your nail polish,” he said before pushing up the bridge of his wire-rimmed glasses and starting his magic on her other foot. “It matches your bathing suit.”

  “That’s what I thought, too.” She stared at his hands. They had long fingers, pianist hands. Mesmerized, she watched while he manipulated her instep. It was so sublime, almost an out-of-body experience. “So if I’m in denial about having a baby, what are you hiding from?” she asked.

  Hunt concentrated on gently rotating her heel. “Well, I suppose the most obvious thing would be having had cancer.”

  “I figured you had.” Sarah straightened her neck.

  “You’ve been through chemo recently?”

  He rested her foot on his thigh and found her other sneaker in her bag.

  When he didn’t reply right away, she shook her head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry if you don’t want to talk about it. I mean, it’s really none of my business.”

  He adjusted his glasses again, even though they appeared perfectly straight. “No, it’s all right. It’s just that most people avoid the subject.”

  “They probably are afraid of hurting you.”

  He raised his head and looked at her squarely.

  “Frankly, I think it’s more like they’re afraid of hurting themselves.”

  Sarah frowned.

  “Deep down I think they’re afraid it might be contagious, that they might get it, too.”

  “That’s just nuts!”

  “I know it’s not logical, but people get a little touchy when they start thinking about their own mortality.”

  Sarah instinctively rubbed her tummy. She cocked her head. “So does it help to talk about it? Your condition?”

  “Why don’t we find out? And if it makes you feel better, I could act all noble.”

  “Excuse me, I’m not the one who needs to feel better, but if you really want, you could rub that foot some more. This excess water weight is a bitch.”

  Hunt smiled and rested her sneaker on the couch and worked on her arch some more.

  “Ah, you are a god.” She closed her eyes. “So what kind of cancer, anyway?”

  “Lymphoma,” he said.

  She opened her eyes. “And you found out be cause…?”

  He ran his tongue along his chapped lips. “I noticed a swollen lymph node in my neck, and this feeling of being tired that wouldn’t go away. I first went to my internist, who referred me to an oncologist in the city. That was that. Stage I Hodgkin’s lymphoma, the cancer that tends to strike young…or, well…youngish men. Fortunately, patients have a surprisingly high rate of survival, especially when the disease is caught early.”

  “Is this where I’m supposed to say you must have been overjoyed with the news?”

  “Absolutely!” he said emphatically.

  She looked at him askance. “I thought we said no nobility.”

  Hunt stilled his hand on the top of Sarah’s foot. “Okay, the truth is that you go through these reactions—denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally acceptance. The whole grieving process.”

  “And now you’ve gone through all the stages?” she asked.

  “What’s today?” He reached for her sneaker.

  “Thursday,” she answered.

  “Ask me tomorrow,” he said, and slipped the shoe on.

  “And tomorrow?” she asked again.

  “Ask me next week.” He tied the laces and swung her leg off his.

  “And in the meantime?”

  “I’ll just have to—”

  She waved him off before he could finish. “I know, I know. You’ll just have to act noble.” She paused. “And the chemo?”

  “ABVD,” he said, referring to the cocktail of drugs.

  “Every two weeks for six months.”

  “But you’re done now, right?”

  “Three months. Three clean months.”

  “Which is great! I mean, that sounds great. But maybe I should ask you tomorrow or the next week, right?”

  IN THOSE FEW WORDS, HUNT KNEW that Sarah understood. The feeling that he should be happy, but he just wasn’t ready for all that happiness.

  Here was this woman whom he didn’t really know, who didn’t really know him—well, who’d seen him in bathing trunks, which is more than he would let his family and close friends do at the moment, who understood.

 
And that made him happier than he’d been in a long while, if you didn’t count Fred jumping on the bed every morning and licking his face for a “good morning” wake-up call.

  But one thing for sure—today, tomorrow or next week—Fred wasn’t Sarah. Fred didn’t have him fantasizing about gliding together in the lap pool on the roof of his house, and bobbing together shoulder to shoulder, hands on each other’s arms, legs…well…her legs wrapped around his waist in ways that could not really be described as isometric…. He could feel the beginning of an arousal, and clearing his throat, casually rested his hand to cover the strain against the inseam of his pants. All this in response to a woman who was pregnant, and not only pregnant—pregnant with another man’s baby.

  He breathed slowly, and when he felt under control, he turned, quite pleased. “You’re right, you know,” he said. “You’re so very right. And you have beautiful toes. So, to celebrate these two lucky events let me say that even though I didn’t know about the event ahead of time, I am delighted to be here to celebrate your baby shower.”

  “Which means you were originally here be cause…”

  “Because I’m a friend of Ben’s, and his business partner, too. Anyway, I happened to be here to discuss certain plans, future plans, really—”

  There was a loud knock at the front door.

  Sarah looked at Hunt. “I’m sorry. It appears that the hordes are descending, which means it’s time to put on that happy face.” She pushed up the corners of her mouth. Then she wedged her arm behind her and started to push herself up. “Jeez, I didn’t know this thing was so squishy,” she said when she didn’t make much headway.

  The rapping on the door sounded again.

  “I’ll get it. I’ll get it.” Julie swept in from the study.

  “Here, let me help,” Hunt said to Sarah. He stood up and hooked a hand under her arm. Sarah grunted and tried to leverage herself. She was halfway up when she put her hand to her head. “Hold it, a sec,” she said, and plopped down again.

  The sudden movement pulled him forward, and his chest landed on hers.