Baby I'm Yours

by Rosie Praks

  Clarice came up to Hunter and poked him in the chest. “So it was you all along. Why are you putting these foods in my trolley?”

  “Oh, I did?” Hunter scratched his head, feigning ignorance. “Sorry, I thought this trolley was mine.”

  “Well, now that you know it’s not, go get your own.”

  “Oh, well, actually, they ran out of trolleys.” He fired another excuse.

  “So you’re using mine?” Clarice drummed her foot on the linoleum, not believing a single word that came out of Hunter’s mouth.

  “Yeah,” Hunter said, nodding nimbly.

  He is such a bad liar, Clarice thought. Even she could tell that he was lying. He was fidgeting nonstop and he couldn’t stand still for one second.

  “What a lame excuse. Do you think I believe that? Put these away now. I don’t want them in my trolley,” she said.

  “Look. I’m sorry. Okay? Just don’t put them back.” Hunter held on to the food items as if they were precious gold, pressing them inside the trolley so Clarice couldn’t get her hands on them.

  “Why? I don’t like tomatoes. I only need one carton of soy milk. Why are you putting all these foods in my trolley? If you’re planning on buying them yourself, then we have to separate them.”

  “No,” Hunter admitted loudly. “They’re for you.”

  “Like I said, I—”

  “They’re good for our baby,” Hunter blurted out. “I read it in a book somewhere that as a pregnant woman, you have to eat your fill of vegetables. Red, orange, yellow, and green.”

  “So you decide to go for a bag of red tomatoes, orange carrots, and yellow and green capsicums?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Ha!” Clarice scoffed at Hunter, but in fact, she was simply hiding her smile. A little piece of her heart swelled up at the knowledge that Hunter took such great care in researching pregnancy.

  “I’m glad you’re happy now,” Hunter interjected, pushing the trolley along as Clarice started walking. Clarice could only shake her head at that and smile. “And I’m sorry about this morning.”

  “This morning?” she asked, turning to look at Hunter. “What happened this morning?”

  “This morning. You know. I’m sorry I looked at your breasts.”

  “Hunter!” She gasped and looked around in embarrassment. “Why did you need to blurt out something random like that? Don’t say such things in public.”

  “Okay. I’m sorry. But I promise I won’t look at your breasts anymore until you let me.”

  “Stop saying the word breast,” she hissed.

  And true to his words, Hunter did stop spouting that destructive B-word. In fact, Hunter was now like a big golden retriever loyally following his master. The master at hand happened to be Clarice, who was busy picking and putting items into the trolley as her golden retriever trotted happily behind.

  Upon approaching one particular aisle, Hunter glanced around and saw an item that he thought might be useful to Clarice when their baby came along. Not sure if he should ask, he mumbled and twitched until he could no longer ignore the burning question and interrupted Clarice.

  “Clarice?”

  Clarice, who was basking in her happiness, was only too willing to turn to the man who was following closely behind. She couldn’t fathom that this blond Greek god, the man every single female in the entire store was gawking at, was giving her this much attention. She was so happy that her body felt like it was a giant feather, floating away in the air. She knew it was early yet, but it seemed like there was a subtle change in Hunter’s behavior. This made her smile a permanent feature on her face. But upon seeing his troubled expression, his eyes nervously skittering about, she got worried.

  “Hunter, what’s wrong?”

  Hunter was deliberately avoiding making eye contact with her. He continued to nervously look around the place, glancing at different people walking past them. Clarice didn’t like this reaction. What was troubling him? Was he sick? Maybe he was hungry.

  “Hunter, tell me,” she prompted.

  “I know you don’t want me to speak the word, but I need to ask you something.” Hunter fished for reassurance. “Is that okay?”

  In her dental practice, Clarice liked to adopt her professional manner. When this aspect of hers surfaced, she always used her calming voice. This voice helped comfort patients before she did anything drastic, like apply local anesthetic. Right now, she thought it would be good to use this tone with Hunter, since he looked so stressed out. “What is it? Say it. I don’t mind,” she said soothingly.

  “Okay,” Hunter reluctantly let out. And with a loud voice that could be heard all the way to the front of the supermarket, he asked, “Say, will you be breastfeeding our baby?”

  Chapter 6

  “Say, will you be breastfeeding our baby?”

  Upon hearing those words, Clarice’s face went beetroot red and she wished she could just sink into the linoleum floor and disappear right there. It was pure mortification. Everyone’s eyes were on her, more like gawking at her, as if she were the star of some show. She didn’t like this at all. Not one bit.

  Clarice fired her blazing gaze at the man who was responsible for making her feel this way. The perpetrator looked so blasé, like he hadn’t a clue as to what he’d done wrong, that it made her angrier. Her hand itched to ring his ear and her voice begged to have a shouting match with him. And she was about to action that when a sugary voice from the distance stopped her.

  “Hunter!”

  Clarice turned to look at the approaching woman who was running toward them. Actually, running wouldn’t be the word to describe this woman. With heels as high as five inches and a skirt as short as a boy’s short, the woman approached them like a little penguin waddling to its mother. Upon reaching Hunter’s side, the woman locked her arms around him and stood on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek.

  Clarice was stunned. Hunter was gobsmacked.

  Who is this woman? Hunter wondered. And why is she kissing me?

  Hunter racked his brain of all the women he’d dated in the past. One came up resembling her face. Now what is her name? Was it May or Moo? He wasn’t sure, but he did remember it starting with the letter M.

  Ahhhh… Hunter wanted to scratch out his brain. What is it?

  “Ma… Maisy?” He took a wild guess.

  “It’s Mary, you handsome you.” Mary corrected Hunter’s mistake, tweaking his nose, and then gave Hunter another peck on the cheek. “You remember, Virgin Mary,” Mary said in a suggestive tone, reminding Hunter of the night they’d spent together and when he started calling her Virgin Mary early the next morning. “O-M-G. I missed you so much.” Mary nestled her head against Hunter’s chest, then asked, “Did you miss me, my darling, my sweetheart?”

  Hunter wasn’t too happy with the turn of events. He wrinkled his eyebrows together, a look of annoyance written on his face. Here he was almost that close to getting the information out of Clarice, when this woman came out of nowhere and interrupted him.

  Glancing at Clarice, Hunter could see a dark frown had already appeared between her brows, wrinkling her forehead. She bit her lips silently, her face shockingly pale, save for her cheeks, which were as red as an apple.

  Hunter’s heart ached when Clarice wore that expression. He just wanted to push Mary away and deny her existence, but it was a bit too late now, since he’d mentioned her name already.

  Hunter missed Clarice’s radiant face. That smile made his heart glow. Wanting to see Clarice smiling again, he decided to use his witty comments to cheer her up. Nothing like a good old dental joke to perk up her mood and loosen up the dire tension between them.

  Feeling Mary’s lingering limbs on his arm, Hunter felt a sudden revulsion running through him. He flinched and wanted to fling those arms away from him, when instead he smiled, turned to Mary, and while pulling those claws off his arm none too gently, he spoke. “Mary, don’t be too sweet or I might get tooth decay.”

  Hunter glanced at Cla
rice then, a dashing smile on his face. His smile dropped the minute he saw her expression. The dental joke didn’t work. Clarice still had that dark frown between her brows. Okay. That wasn’t how it was supposed to turn out.

  “What tooth decay? I don’t understand you.” Mary’s voice broke through his thoughts. “But what I do understand is that I need you. You didn’t call me after that night. I missed you so much.” Mary started rubbing her head on Hunter’s shoulder like a wee kitten showing affection to its master, totally ignoring Hunter’s silent body language, which could easily be translated as piss off. “How long as it been?” She continued. “Two, three months?”

  Hunter didn’t answer, nor did he look in her direction at that point. His mind and eyes were completely elsewhere.

  Why didn’t Clarice even smile at his dental joke? Didn’t she find it funny? Even he had wanted to laugh at his own joke. He even wanted to give himself a pat on the back for coming up with such a witty line like that.

  Shit. What could he do to cheer her up? Damn that Mary woman. Why did she have to come and ruin his chance of wooing Clarice like that?

  When Mary wouldn’t stop tugging at his arm, he turned his attention back to her and said none too sweetly, “Well… yeah… I don’t usually call people up.”

  While the two conversed with each other, Clarice was left standing there like a bystander observing the two lovers fawning over each other, fuming on the sideline, her mood darkening like the stormy clouds rolling in from the west.

  Oh, she’d had enough of this. Clarice snapped. Now she knew for sure that Hunter was nothing but a Casanova. Here she thought he’d changed, even a little bit. What with his gentle kindness just a minute ago, pushing the trolley behind her and following her around like a loyal dog and then telling her that he’d read all of those books about women and pregnancy. Wait. Was that only an act, then? Of course it was only an act. That stupid Casanova. Why did she even believe him anyway?

  Without saying another word, Clarice wheeled her trolley to the cashier. When Hunter saw this, he made a move to follow her but was caught off guard when Mary embraced him again.

  “Clarice, wait. Wait for me,” Hunter called out.

  Clarice obviously didn’t wait. As for Mary, she was being very persistent, latching onto his arm like a leech. He tried to unlock them. “Let me go.”

  “But, Hunter, babe, I missed you,” she droned on, preventing Hunter from escaping from her clutches. “We have to go out tonight. Have dinner and then—”

  “No, no, we are not.” Hunter spoke in quick succession. He wasn’t going to get caught with Mary while Clarice was within his reach.

  After much effort, Hunter was able to tear her claws off his arm and run after Clarice.

  If only I could run away, Clarice thought in her maddened state, but she still had a trolley full of food to pay for, so she blindly settled into one of the checkout lanes, the dark frown still on her face.

  When she saw the capsicums, tomatoes, soymilk, and carrots that Hunter had put in her trolley, she took those out and told the cashier, “I don’t want these. Please put them back.”

  The cashier serving Clarice was about to put the items back behind the counter when a pair of strong hands stopped her.

  Hunter took the items into his hands and said, “Leave them.” His reply only ticked off Clarice.

  “No, put them behind the counter. I don’t want them,” she told her without looking at Hunter.

  “I said leave them and ring the items through,” Hunter told her.

  Clarice now was very ticked off and turned her attention back to him, staring at him like she was about to shoot him down.

  The cashier was very conscious of the number of people standing in line, waiting to ring their supplies through, but this husband and wife was holding up the queue. So mustering up her courage, she tweaked out, “Ugh. So do you want these or not?”

  “Yes, we do. Put them through. And hurry at it,” Hunter replied instead of Clarice, his tone very demanding and mean.

  What a jerk, the cashier thought. No wonder his wife is mad at him.

  Clarice, seeing that the little cashier girl looked quite upset, spoke softly to her.

  “Sorry about this. My little brother is a bit crazy. He hasn’t taken his medication yet. So forgive him for being a moron.”

  “Clarice, I’m not your little brother,” Hunter bawled out when he heard her tell the girl he was her brother. What was she thinking? His pride was all wounded. And he wasn’t sick.

  The cashier just cringed. They didn’t look like brother and sister at all. Clarice was a beautiful black-haired beauty who looked of Asian and European descent. As for Hunter, he looked full European. And when he said that, it only confirmed the fact that they weren’t siblings. So this shot the cashier’s guessing game out the door. If they weren’t husband and wife and were definitely not siblings, then what were they?

  As if Hunter could read her silent questioning, he told her with a straight face, “I’m her partner. We’re lovers. And she’s carrying my baby.”

  Clarice’s eyes almost popped out of their sockets. She turned to look at the cashier, whose eyes almost popped out too.

  Clarice could feel her face growing hotter by the second. And her temper was gradually rising by the second too. Any minute now, she was going to explode. And she didn’t want to combust inside the supermarket, so she spoke gently to the girl. “I’m sorry for troubling you, but I don’t want the food in this trolley anymore. Can you put it away?” And then she walked off.

  Hunter only stared at Clarice’s back like she was some kind of zombie that had literally walked into a foreign warzone.

  “Sorry, but don’t put them away. Could you deliver them to this address?” Hunter quickly scribbled down Clarice’s address and smacked five hundred-dollar notes on the counter, then ran after Clarice.

  The cashier looked at the wad of cash lying on the counter. Two thoughts ran through her mind then. This guy is definitely loaded. And, Do we even do deliveries in this supermarket?

  Outside the market, the ghastly high wind combined with big droplets of rain pouring from the sky hit Clarice like little bullets, whipping at her until it seared her skin to a pale white color and soaked her right down to her bones. This weather was the perfect companion to her current mood, dark and stormy. Clarice wanted to be like those raindrops, clawing at Hunter’s skin for making her feel this way.

  Shivering, she slammed the door shut and literally blew her top once she got inside her car.

  This whole shopping trip was a disaster. She screamed inside her head. What was she expecting? For Hunter to woo her and deny he didn’t know that Mary woman. He had even let that girl kiss him right in front of her. But the one thing that really hurt her most was the fact that Hunter was so oblivious to her feelings. After Mary had smooched him, he’d shouted for the whole world to know that Clarice was pregnant with his baby. How could Hunter ruin her reputation like that? He was a Casanova. She was a quiet, respectable spinster with a baby on the way. They weren’t supposed to be linked in any way.

  It was all Max’s fault. No, it was all her fault. If only she didn’t tell her cousin and friends about her lonely feelings and how much she’d wanted offspring, then none of this would have happened. Her feelings and irritable mood wouldn’t even have to exist. But now it was too late. Her feelings were involved.

  Taking a deep breath to calm her nerves, Clarice turned the ignition and was about to drive home when a face appeared out of nowhere and plastered itself to her car window, startling her so much that it almost sent her soul to heaven.

  Dear heavens! It’s that dratted man. What in the world was he doing, squashing his face like a pancake on her car window like that? Trying to get her attention? Well, tough Becky, she was going to ignore him.

  When she was about to start the car again, she heard a slam and Hunter appeared in the passenger seat.

  “What are you doing inside my car? Get out!�
� she yelled, unable to hold on to her rage any longer.

  Hunter was about to pay his apologies to her when one look at Clarice turned his libido to full intensity. His pulse shot up and his eyes opened an extra notch. With her wet black hair clinging to her face and her clothing all drenched from the rain, Clarice looked like a drowned mouse, but a very sexy drowned mouse at that. His eyes couldn’t look away from the sight of her wet dress sticking to her body, outlining all her curves and valleys.

  Hunter swallowed slightly, feeling that sudden sexual tension oppressing him. In fact, he couldn’t even register what Clarice was yelling about. All he could focus on was her red lace bra showing beneath her white wet dress. Uttering like he’d lost his sense of speech, he repeatedly spoke, “Clarice, you’re all wet. So wet. So very, very wet. And so round, like a soup bowl.”

  “Hunter, are you even listening to me?” Clarice yelled. When it looked like Hunter wasn’t responding to her, but was continuously staring at her breasts while uttering those embarrassing lines, she decided to yank his hair to grab his attention.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that out loud. Please let my hair go.” Hunter apologized, moving closer to her.

  Clarice was all flustered from being too close to Hunter. Her mind was all boggled up. She blinked and moved away. She wasn’t sure if Hunter was referring to his perverted behavior or for the time he had allowed Mary to kiss him. But she did let his hair go and turned her attention elsewhere to calm her nerves.

  “Get out, Hunter,” she finally said once she regained some sense again.

  “I’m sorry, Clarice.” Hunter went to touch Clarice’s hand again. “I didn’t mean for Mary to kiss me. She just appeared out of nowhere and I wasn’t prepared.”

  Hunter’s fingers were like hot iron, burning her skin, searing straight to her heart. Not wanting to feel this sensation, she flicked her hand away. “Why are you even apologizing to me? We are nothing to each other. You can do whatever you like. Let whoever kiss you. It doesn’t affect me.”