by Mia Caldwell
I didn't know what to make of that, but I knew that I wouldn't just let him shut me out. His voice carried even further down the hallway, and I leaned up against the door, trying to carefully listen.
"And there's nothing that can be done?" He roared into the phone, sounding angrier than I had ever heard him before. Most of whatever conversation he was having was coming from the other person, so I could barely make out was going on, but whatever it was, it was not good.
A few minutes later he was quiet, and I heard his footsteps coming quickly towards the door. I picked up the tray and headed down the hallway and by the time he opened the door and closed it behind him, I was already a few doors down. Was I that stealthy? Probably not, but it certainly didn't hurt to try.
I gave him the sweetest smile I could muster, and shrugged innocently as he eyed the dishes. "Sorry babe, I had no idea when you'd be finished. So I figured I would go ahead and take things to the kitchen. I didn't make it all the way past the soup," I explained, slowly rubbing my belly for emphasis.
He wrapped his arm around me, placing a quick kiss on my cheek, before taking everything out of my hands and walking alongside of me. I didn't know what had been going on, but he seemed fine now. So maybe there wasn't much to worry about, after all.
(Back to Table of Contents)
Chapter 28
I ran my hands across the many different fabrics of clothing hanging in my closet, contemplating on what I wanted to wear for the day. I had finally had the chance to sleep in for once, without Marie or someone else barging in to wake me up at some ungodly hour. I was pregnant, for Pete's sake! What was with trying to get me up and going so early? Shouldn't I be allowed to sleep in until nine o'clock? Even Julien had a bad habit of doing that.
My hand went to my belly, absentmindedly rubbing small circles around it, waiting. Just a few days ago I had finally begun to feel the baby kick, and it scared me to death. Of course I got over that real fast, and since then have been enjoying poking around, trying to get the little guy to get moving. I don't know what it was, but I just had this feeling that I’m having a boy. I used to joke around with women when they had that feeling that they knew, because really, how could you know? The answer is that you just do sometimes. And I felt like maybe this was one of those times.
"Fifteen weeks along, and you're already such a big deal to me," I said out loud, speaking to the baby. The resounding feeling of popcorn bursting forth in my abdomen made me giggle. It was as if he knew what to say, without saying anything. He was a smart little guy.
After I got dressed, I eagerly headed to meet up with Gervaise in the kitchen. Which seemed to be my new favorite place, especially now that the morning sickness has faded away. God, I had never been so happy or relieved in my life. For the most part, anyway.
The scent of blueberries filled my nose way before and made it to the end of the hall where the kitchen was. I deeply inhaled the air, knowing right away that it involved blueberry muffins, a staple of my diet as of late. I wasn't sure what it was, but something about the berries had been making my mouth water since Gervaise first served some up to me a few weeks back. I smiled at him as I made it in through the door, giving him a little curtsy as I liked to do to thank him for making me yet another delicious meal.
Gervaise didn't have a family of his own, so he lived in private quarters at the château serving up food whenever I wanted. I didn't know exactly why that pleased him so much, because cooking definitely wasn't my thing, but hey at least he seemed happy. He wasn’t a man of many words, but I was definitely thankful for him.
"You keep feeding me like this and I might give birth to a muffin..."
He smiled, placing the silverware by my plate at the table and gesturing me to have a seat.
I sat down carefully, throwing my legs over the seat. After a few bites of food, someone placed their hand on my shoulder and I spun around to see Julien standing there.
I picked up my fork, stabbing a piece of the chicken and trying to give him a bite. "Want some? C'est magnifique!" I exclaimed, wiggling my eyebrows at him with my fancy French. Usually that got a couple chuckles out of him, but Julien just shrugged it off.
"No thank you love. I'm not really in the mood for eating at the moment."
He slid his hand off my shoulder and walked away, muttering to himself.
Well. That was really weird.
I let out a sigh, seriously over his down in the dumps attitude. I had no idea what had been going on in his mind, as he had rarely spoken to me about much besides my weekly appointments with Dr. Thibodeau. If it had anything to do with me or something that wasn't revolving around the baby, it didn't seem to register on Julien's radar…
I could see he loved me of course. I saw it in the way he touched me when he rubbed my stomach. I felt it in every kiss.
But I knew something was wrong…
"Julien? I know you're not hungry and all, but would you mind sitting down to spend time with me while I eat lunch? I feel like I've barely seen you today."
He turned away from Gervaise, who gave me a softened look of his own, and Julien bit his lip. That right there told me that he really wasn't going to talk, and that maybe there was no point in trying to get him to.
But he still walked over to me, patting my shoulder again as he did. "I apologize. I'd love to spend more time with you, it's just that there are a lot of things going on . . . work-related, you see. I was actually just asking Gervaise if he would mind setting up a catering event at the end of the month for a possible gathering of the board members here."
I huffed. That was one of my least favorite parts about this whole arrangement—the work. Julien had been more active in his job than ever it seemed, even though he was greatly displeased by it. He used to have pretty much the run of whatever he wanted to do, but lately whether he had been signing himself up for it or not, he had much more responsibility. And that meant less time for me and the baby.
He must've seen the gears working in my head, coming to that very same conclusion. He sat down next to me, swinging his legs so that he was straddling the bench. "Please don't be angry with me. I know it seems like I might be avoiding you . . . I'm really not. I just have so much on my plate right now, and I don't want to upset my family by shirking my duties with the company. As much as I would love to be doing pretty much anything else, I have a legacy to uphold for future genreations... For our child…”
I wasn't above pouting, even as Julien was definitely getting immune to it by now. He ran his thumb over my lips, shaking his head at me as he laughed. "You can try all you want, Amira. It won't get you anywhere today. I need to focus now so I can take some time off when our child comes."
I tried to smile at him, but beneath his joking manner, I could still feel the hum of disappointment. I just didn't know where it was coming from, and even though he was claiming he was just stressed out from work, I knew that wasn't all.
Julien hopped up, giving me one last kiss before heading out the kitchen. I wasn't really sure how to feel at the moment. Even the muffins weren’t making me feel any better.
I looked out the window to see a small breeze making the short tufts of grass dance. It'd been so long since I'd gone outside just to admire the beauty of the valley we lived in, that I thought about doing just that. Maybe it would clear my mind.
I cleaned up after myself, the dishes clinking together as I set them inside the sink to quickly wash them off. Of course Gervaise wasn't having that, and shooed me away before I even got a chance to break out the dish soap.
I couldn't complain, washing dishes was my absolute least favorite chore if I had to choose. And it had been so long since I actually had to do them that maybe I was getting a little spoiled. I vowed to myself to wake up early one morning and clean the kitchen even before Gervaise woke up, just to surprise him. I couldn't help but laugh when I wondered what his reaction to that might be.
When the breeze from outside finally hit me as I made it out the entrywa
y, I closed my eyes, enjoying it. Sometimes it's the small things about nature that really help you feel put together again. That was something I never had back in the city, and it was something that I was very grateful for now.
The faint scent of horses caught my attention. They had been sent off for training and the estate wasn’t the same in their absence. Without the large, framing bodies occupying the stables, the building seemed lonely and sad. In fact I hated being anywhere near it, because it also made me lonely and sad and really I had no reason to feel like that anymore.
Something about it was drawing me nearer today though, and I found myself bunching up my long skirt in my fists, trying to make it so that I wouldn't trip over my feet as I went down the small hill to the building. Julien tried to warn me now and then about sticking to the path, especially in areas that weren't usually mowed that often.
The landscaping company did a very good job and had a specific place around the château to keep neatly done, but I had gone outside that scope. Where I was the grass grew tall and in bunches, easily hiding a snake or two. For some reason though, I didn't really feel like sticking to the path, and found myself carefully picking my footing over the small mossy rocks along the short hillside.
A bigger breeze swept past me, managing to ruffle shorter pieces of my dark hair from my headband. I had finally made it to the building, not even needing to hold my nose as I went past.
Something about this whole thing… about the way Julien had been acting… it wasn't settling well with me. I mean, of course he was stressed out. He was getting ready to be a father. No one could begrudge him for that—certainly not me.
This was something different, though. I almost felt like he was keeping something from me, and in the face of his family probably disliking me and wanting to disown him for our "little indiscretion,” that didn't really bode well for me.
And the way he had been so intense on all things baby related… that kind of made me wonder, too. Was he being genuine about his excitement?
Even with Julien's loving and charming personality it was hard to believe he saw no obstacles in our situation. I saw plenty of them, myself. I didn't want to think that would make me a bad mother, because I felt like I was being realistic, if anything. I knew I would love this baby more than anything else in the world —heck, I already did. Maybe that's what he was keeping from me. Maybe he didn't feel the same...
And now I see why people have such a rough go with it when they have kids—whether they were married or not married, or not even together anymore. Babies change everything.
Too much had happened too soon. Maybe he couldn't handle it, and his working overtime was his way of getting out of it. I hated doubting him, and doubting everything that had been going on. I wanted to believe it wasn't true.
I leaned up against the side wall of the stables, facing towards the château. From the pocket in my blouse, my phone began to ring, startling me.
When I saw who it was, I felt fear creeping through my body.
"Hi, Agent Wilson."
(Back to Table of Contents)
Chapter 29
"Miss Jackson, it's been a while. Are you alone?"
I rolled my eyes, from the sheer irony of what he just said. "I'm all by my lonesome, what's up?"
His heavy sigh chilled me. This didn't sound good.
"Well, I don't really like to give people news like this, but there's an issue. You might want to sit down."
I knitted my brows together, already my fingers going to the bridge of my nose.
"Well, I don't have a seat to take, so just go ahead with it."
There was no delaying the inevitable.
"The Verdicci family is on the hunt for you. There's a price on your head underground, but they want you alive. I think they're looking to get information...”
“I don’t have any information! I don’t know any of those people…”
“It doesn’t matter. You might have seen faces or heard names. Don’t worry, we wont let them find you… Of course I'm sure you already knew some of this…"
“What are you talking about? You haven’t called me once!” I shouted into the phone. “Why would I know about this?”
The answer dawned on me and I was filled with the kind of anger I’d only seen in my momma growing up…
He couldn't… could he? He couldn’t have known this whole time that I might be in danger? That our baby might be in danger? I couldn't even entertain the thought. There was no way he would keep something like that from me.
And what Agent Wilson said… that was going to be hard to compress, too. I steadied my breaths, counting backwards from five, before rejoining our conversation.
"Are you saying that I'm in danger?" It was all I could do not to cry.
I heard the hesitation in his voice before he answered me. "I wouldn't exactly say you're in certain danger, no. But I would definitely be more aware of your surroundings."
I scoffed at this. "More aware? Do you have any idea how terrified I’ve been?”
"Listen, I know this can be tough to hear, but even under our protection things can't always be one-hundred percent safe. And that's not something I try to tell people when they first go into the program, understand. But you've been under our wing for a while now, so you know the drill. I will keep in touch with you as much as I can from now on, at least until we know what's going on with the families. There's been a lot of talk about this trust between the five of them, and that's saying something. They fight a lot as it is. I just want you to be aware of what's going on over here, so that it doesn't affect you over there."
My chest rattled as I drew in a breath, still having trouble concentrating one what he was saying. "So I'm to be on my best guard, even though we don't really know why, and I'm just supposed be okay with it? I'm having a baby, for Christ's sake. This isn't some game I can play, like hide and seek. What do you suggest I do, exactly?"
"That's something that I've been speaking with Mr. Malveaux about, actually. So maybe that's something you guys should be talking about as well. As for my thoughts, personally, I feel like you'd be safer staying on grounds there at the château. I'll keep you up-to-date, like I said. That's all we can do, and that's all you can do," he replied.
I shook my head, cursing under my breath so that he couldn’t hear me.
"Got it. Is there anything else I need to know?"
"No, I guess not. It was nice getting to talk to you again, Miss Jackson.”
After I hung up with him, I silently put the phone back in my small pocket, pushing the blowing strands of hair out of my face. I thought about what he had said about Julien talking with him about this very thing. I held back when I was speaking to Agent Wilson, but I wasn't going to hold back with Julien. No way in hell.
I wanted to be happy about everything in my life, because that would make it so much easier on me. But I couldn't. Not knowing that I was now bringing in another life to this crazy drama of my own. Even with Agent Wilson's words I couldn't help but feel like I was doing my child a disfavor. I had very dangerous men looking for me now, and who knows if they would ever really stop. Once my baby was born, they would be wrapped up in all of that as well. And that was not something I could be happy about.
I stormed back up to the château, taking the paved path this time. I passed Trudy, one of the part-timers on the weekends, and even she knew to stay the hell on my way. I was on a mission, and I wouldn't stop until I found Julien.
Luckily it didn't take too long to find him. He was talking with Marie and Desmond, another part-timer, down the main hall. My shoes clicked heavily along the floor, signaling my presence to everyone, and as everyone turned around they all seemed to give me a wary look. Especially Julien.
I pointed at him as I got closer, my finger jabbing accusations already. "I just talked to Agent Wilson… You knew! You knew this whole freaking time, and you didn't even have the decency to tell me what was going on? How could you even think like that Julien, afte
r everything I've been through? Does my opinion mean nothing to you anymore?"
My cheeks reddened as I realized I was throwing down with him in the middle of everyone, but I didn't care. He was going to hear what I had to say, and there was no way around it this time. His gaze dropped from mine down to the floor below, and I could already tell he was feeling guilty and sheepish. Oh well. He slowly walked over to me, as if he was trying to soothe a raging bull. He would only be so lucky.
"Sweetheart —"
"Sweetheart nothing! Stop trying to bullshit me, Julien. It's not going to work. I want to know what is going on, and I want to hear it from your mouth, not someone else's."