by Hazel Gower
Staring at myself in the mirror, I checked that I looked okay. The last couple of days, I was sure I could see a little belly. I was looking forward to my appointment the following day. My doctor had gotten my blood tests back that morning and even though it was his day off, he had his secretary to call to confirm the pregnancy with me. Dr. Grant had been my doctor since I was a baby. He was one of the only good things my parents did. They’d joined a program where the bulk of a physician's bill was charged to Medicare if you were on benefits.
“Angel, you ready?” A voice yelled from somewhere in the house. Adam had obviously let himself in since Jamie was at work.
Smoothing my shirt down one last time, I nodded to my reflection and left my bedroom. I found Adam at the back door, making sure it was locked. He was dressed in a blue button collared shirt and black trousers. He looked scrumptious. The black pants suited his dark skin, and the blue, short-sleeve shirt showed his bulging arm muscles. For a moment, I just drank him in, his big lips, dark chocolate eyes, tall frame, muscled body and dark olive skin.
“You look beautiful, Hannah.” He broke the spell I was under and came and gathered me into his embrace. I hugged him, breathing in his earthly scent.
I didn’t look anything close to pretty next to him. I was wearing dark blue skinny jeans, with plain black books, and a black sequin baby doll style top. “I think I need to change. You look…mmm.”
He chuckled, tilted my head up, leaned down and kissed me. I forgot everything for a moment as his lips tasted mine, and then his tongue dived in to dance, tangle and mate with my own. By the time he pulled away, I was panting for breath and wondering if I could just miss lunch and go straight to desert.
He chuckled again, and I loved the deep rich sound. “I can see what you’re thinking and no, we’re going out for lunch, not staying here and feasting on each other.” I groaned in frustration as he stepped away and went down the hall. “You got everything you need?”
“My handbag is by the door on the table.”
He nodded. “Let’s get going then.”
I followed him out the front door, grabbing my handbag on the way. He had the SUV today and not his work truck. I liked the SUV better than the truck, it was not even two years old. It had all the bells and whistles, and was the nicest car I’d ever been in.
“What time is your OBGYN appointment tomorrow?” He startled me. I’d been too busy enjoying fiddling with all the buttons on the car to realize not only had he started the car and we were on our way, but that he’d been talking. “I’m going with you.”
“Where? I’m sorry what was that?”
“I asked what time your OBGYN appointment is tomorrow. I’m going to go with you. Do you need me to pick you up?” He frowned, and I didn’t like the look that came into his eyes. “You’re going to need a car for when the baby is born. How many hours do you have on your learners so far?”
I really didn’t want to talk about it. I'd had a feeling it was going to be brought up, but I was hoping it wouldn't be until I was further along and needed to get to the doctor’s appointments every two weeks and so on. I didn’t have as many hours as I should for having my L’s for two and half years. I wondered for a moment if I just answered him about the appointment if he’d drop the car and driving lesson stuff. I sank into the seat, because I already knew Adam well enough to know he wouldn’t drop the discussion now it was on his mind. “My appointment is at four-thirty. I can get myself there. I catch the bus all the time, or there is this thing called Uber…”
He shook his head. “I know you can get yourself around now, but with a child it will be a lot harder. Trust me when I say this, because I was too young at sixteen to have my P’s and only had my learners so I had to rely on public transport and my parents. I can tell you now that once I got my P’s and a car, it made a huge difference to even just simple things like getting milk. So please tell me how many hours you have left to do until you can go for your P’s?”
I hated when he was right and made some good points. “I have thirty-five hours. I was learning in auto too, not the manual like you taught Jamie.”
His eyebrows furrowed and his lips thinned. I knew how he felt about only learning in an automatic. “I’ll teach you. We have at the most six months to do the rest of the hours. That should give us plenty of time to get the hours for you to do the test.”
Shaking my head, I gripped my door rest. “No. If I don’t have money for lessons, I definitely won’t have money to buy and run a car. I don’t want you to teach me.”
“Why not?”
“For starters, you’ll want me to learn a manual. I’m happy with automatic.”
“If you learn manual you can drive any car. If you learn automatic that’s all you’ll be able to drive. It’ll limit you.”
We’d had this argument before. When I was seventeen and I finally got my L’s. “I’m comfortable in an auto. It’s a moot point anyway as I don’t have money for a car.”
“I’ll buy you a new car.”
I shook my head. “Hell no. No way. I’m not having you buy me anything. I don’t want you to spend money like that on me. I don’t need or want it. I have gone nineteen years without a car and I can go longer until I can afford to buy myself one.”
“Yes, I know you’re miss independent, but you’ve never had a child before.”
He was starting to piss me off. I wanted to stop talking about this. I wasn’t going to let him buy me a car full stop. “My parents have done fine without a car.”
“Bullshit!” I flinch at his shouted response. “Do not bring your shitty parents into anything. They didn’t bring you up. You brought yourself up, so don’t bring them into this.”
He was right and it pissed me off more. I had brought myself up, with help of my friends' parents. “Fine. If I agree to you teaching me, in an automatic, though, will you change the subject?”
I fucking hated the smug grin that spread over his face. “Sure.”
“Okay then, you can teach me in an automatic.” I made sure I repeated the automatic part, because that was something I wasn’t budging on.
“Tomorrow, I’ll pick you up from work, and we’ll have your first lesson. What time do you finish?”
“Seven, but because I’m leaving for my appointment at four, and will be gone for about two hours. I’m working until nine to make up for it.”
“Please tell me you weren’t going to bus it home at that time of night?”
“Fine, I won’t.” The nursing home I worked in was in a good area so I didn’t expect I would have any trouble.
His growl didn’t mean good things for me. “No more. It’s bad enough you've been catching a bus at what, like seven-thirty by the time you get to the bus stop?” I nodded. “No. No more. I’m picking you up. You work four days? What about TAFE?"
“I have TAFE Tuesday morning, and go straight to work. The same on Thursday, and I have TAFE all day Friday.”
“So, you work four days but two are half days?”
I shook my head as he pulled into a park close to the front of Hogs Breathe restaurant. I paused in answering as he cut the engine and got out of the car. He came around, and I opened the door before he could, but he helped me down. I slid my arm into his held-out elbow, and we made our way to the restaurant. Adam had a booking so we didn’t have to wait and were seated quickly with menus.
“So, work?” he asked when our food and drinks were ordered.
“I work four days, but Monday and Wednesday I work ten-hour days not including my half an hour lunch break. And I start twelve-thirty and finish at nine on Tuesday and Thursdays.”
“Please tell me you haven’t been catching the fucking bus at nine o’clock at night?”
“Fine, I won’t.” Again, I repeated my previous reply. The bus stop was barley a five-minute walk from the nursing home, and I’d had no problem since I’d started working there over a year ago.
“Fuck, Hannah. Does Jamie know you’re catching the
bus by yourself at that time?”
“What do you think?” Jamie didn’t know, but I wasn’t going to let Adam know that or admit it. Jamie thought a friend from work dropped me home. I was sure if he knew he’d come and pick me up, but I didn’t want him to waste his time and petrol doing that, when I was okay with busing it.
He knew his son too well. “No he bloody doesn’t," he growled. "You know how I know, because if he knew, he would be picking you up. I brought him up better than to leave you alone to walk late at night like that. Hannah, catching a bus at night is dangerous to do on your own. I will be picking you up from now on, and if for some reason I can’t make it, I’ll make sure Jamie or one of my parents are there. No more, Hannah.” He reached over and grabbed my hand and held it with his own.
I knew he wasn’t going to give up until I agreed, and the worry in his gaze had me caving. “Okay. No more late-night bus rides.”
“Good.” He leaned down and kissed my knuckles. I felt flutters in my chest. This was why I loved this man. He was so loving and caring.
“You said you had someone quit, and a guy cut back hours? Are you busy? You going to replace the man you lost?” His garden and landscaping business did really well. I knew he had a good reputation, and had some big contracts with housing developments and two building companies.
“Yeah, I'm going to start interviews this week. I have my other three guys doing overtime. I’ve got so much work I’ve had to refer some new clients to other people. I’m going to hire two people, and Jamie said he’d help train any new guys on Thursday's and Tuesday's, the days he has off from Uni, and isn’t at football practice.”
“Can I help?” I had weekends off, and school holidays were coming up so I’d have extra time.
“With what? You don’t have any free time anyway even if there was something you could do.”
“School holidays are coming up, and I can mow lawns and dig and pull plants out.”
“No. Not only no, but hell no. You’re pregnant.” The look of horror on his face almost had me laughing. He looked like he was imagining me doing some heavy lifting, and getting injured.
“That doesn’t make me an invalid. I can still help. I’m strong.” His head was shaking and he didn’t even reply to me this time. “So, can I go to Sunday family dinner again?”
“Can you?” He let go of my hand and shrugged. “You were never uninvited. They’ve all been wondering why you haven’t been coming.”
I was surprised he hadn’t made some excuse as to why I hadn’t been there. “You didn’t say anything to them?”
“Nope. What was I going to say? I didn’t know why you didn’t come.”
“Really. You didn’t think you not calling or messaging me after what we did, didn’t give me a reason not to go to your family's Sunday night dinners?” I crossed my arms over my chest and glared.
His grunt as he pinched the base of his nose between his eyes was of pure frustration. “Okay. We have already figured out I was an arse. I apologized, as I’ll likely have to do again the next time I'm an arsehole. I’m sorry. Yes, I can see why you didn’t come to Sunday dinner, but I want you there this Sunday. I want you there every Sunday from now on.”
“Okay. I’ll be there.”
“Good. You coming with Jamie or you want me to pick you up?”
This was the perfect time to find out if he wanted Jamie to know about them. “I can go with Jamie since he’ll be on going anyway, but while we're talking about you coming to get me and stuff, does that mean Jamie can know about us?”
“I was going to take it slow and ease him into this, but maybe pulling the band-aid off fast is better. What do you want to do?”
I had no problem with the whole world knowing I was with Adam Tupou. “I don’t want to keep this secret. We should tell them.”
“If that’s what you want, we will tell them and not ease into this.”
Beaming at him, I felt content, happy for the first time in as long as I could remember. I was having lunch with the man I loved, and that night, I was going to family dinner.
ADAM
LUNCH HAD GONE WELL, AND if Hannah hadn’t gotten sick, she would have come to family night. I hated to admit that I was relived, because it gave me a little more time to get used to us being together before I told Jamie and the rest of the family. Hannah looked good now. She sat in the car ready to get out and go to her first OBGYN appointment. I’d picked her up from work and taken her to get something to eat before driving her to the doctor.
I got out of the car and went around to open her door, but she was already out and walking towards the doctor’s offices. I jogged to catch up to her, opening the door and following behind her. We were five minutes early which was good, because the receptionist gave her a couple sheets of paperwork to fill out.
Gazing around, the OBGYN office was different than I thought it would look, there weren’t baby pictures everywhere or pictures of pregnant woman giving birth. There were pamphlets on one wall, on the others they had nice landscape art. There was a table with magazines and only half of them were pregnancy and parenting books. The others were women’s celebrity mags. There were two other women in the waiting room, one had who I assumed was her husband or boyfriend with her, the other woman was alone.
I looked over at Hannah and saw she was close to finishing filling out the forms. “When you’re done filling that out, angel, I’ll take it back for you. Save you getting up.”
She squeezed his arm. “Thanks.”
I stared down at the sheet to see it was just basic information and her private health fund details. I had rung this morning and added Hannah to my fund, but she wouldn’t be covered for the baby and some other things for a year. The baby, though, would be covered as soon as it was born, I made sure. Once the child was born, Hannah would be able to cancel her private policy and we’d all be on a single family policy together.
“I’m done,” I took the board with the sheets back up to the receptionist and handed them over.
“Thank you, sir. The doctor is running a little late but it shouldn’t be too long.”
I smiled and nodded. “Thank you.” I returned to Hannah's side.
“Thanks for coming. I would have been okay coming on my own, but I’m glad you’re here.”
“I’m glad I’m here too. I didn’t get to do any of this with Jamie. I’m kind of excited.”
Her head came up and she nibbled on her bottom lip. “I’m so happy you’re excited. I’ve been worried you would been angry with me. You just got your freedom back with Jamie moving out. You’ve been a parent since you were sixteen.”
My heart swelled in my chest as I thought about going through it all again, but it calmed when I gazed into big, bright green eyes filled with hope, because I wasn’t going to be it on my own. This time I would have a partner. I would have a woman who wanted my child, and I knew Hannah would be an amazing mother. “I’m not going to lie, but I think one of the reasons I stayed away so long after we were together, was because I knew being with you would mean at some stage I would have to think of more children. You are a woman who should be a mother. You have so much love to give. I'm happy about this baby, not just because it’s new life, but because I with get to do this with you. I will have a child with a woman I know that will love and take care of her child and be a partner with me in bringing him, or her up.”
“Oh, my God. Could you get any more perfect right now?” She hiccupped and a tear slid down her cheek. I reached over and brushed it away. “There is no reason for anyone to wonder why I’ve wanted you so much, when you say stuff like that.”
For a fleeting moment, I wondered if she did this on purpose. As I looked at her, I saw the worry, and not the scared she’d done this on purpose and he was going to find out kind, but the holy crap, I hope I haven’t ruined his life kind. Hannah’s eyes had always been so expressive. Now that I thought on it, I wondered why I didn’t catch how she felt for me in them. I thought back to the first
time I really noticed her as a woman and not as a little friend of my son's.
I wondered down the stairs still half asleep and made my way to the kitchen only to stop at the entrance at the sight that greeted me, a perfect, big, round pink cotton covered arse stuck out of the fridge. My morning wood that had only just deflated coming down the stairs, rose again. I blinked and stifled a groan as the perfect globes wiggled and a loud sigh came from in the fridge.
Damn, my son had good taste in women, if he came home with this fine arse last night. I had better make sure I restock his bathroom with condoms.
A head rises, and I see long, silky brown waves. So far, this woman was a solid ten. Entering the kitchen, I waited patiently to get a closer look. I probably shouldn’t be looking at someone my son's age, but I inwardly shrugged. I don’t know the girl, and my son is too young to settle down, so I didn’t think she’d be sticking around. So, what could looking hurt?
I kept my thoughts along that line until she rose and turned. I froze in horror as the girl shut the fridge and I made my way up her shapely body with light olive skin, legs that go on forever and a rack on her that had even me drooling, I stopped as I reached her stunning face. When I put the whole image together, she’s Hannah, my son’s best friend. The girl I’ve known since she was six. The girl who’d just celebrated her seventeenth birthday with us a couple days ago.
She beamed at me when her gaze caught mine, and I quickly nodded an acknowledgement and turned, before she saw my boner and thought I was a dirty old man.
Holy crap! Hannah Wright was all grown up. How the hell had I missed that? I closed my eyes and tried to think of anything but the woman, er, girl behind me. Damn, when did she get an arse, or wow, even boobs like she did? And what the hell was she wearing? I opened my eyes and quickly glanced over my shoulder and frowned. That shirt looked familiar. Come to think of it, I was sure I wore that yesterday. It was my shirt she had on, but she'd tied a tight knot in the waist.