She smiled. Thanked them all for their support. And reminded every single one of them that Jamie Howe was the one deserving of congratulations.
The baby was his. Not hers.
* * *
Still in his dress pants and polo shirt, Jamie appeared at her office door at five minutes before four. The way she reacted to the sight of that athletic body with that dark hair tipping his collar, and the hazel gaze meeting hers, you’d think the man meant something to her. Personally.
She almost walked from behind her desk to give him a hug.
It was just the emotion of the day, she knew that, mixed in with a bit of hormonal fluctuation. Now that she was pregnant, her body, and prenatal vitamins, would be naturally producing everything her uterus needed, so she was to stop the fertility medication. It wouldn’t stop the roller coaster of emotions, though. She’d forgotten that from the past.
Jamie had barely said hello and mentioned that he might have found a house, when Cheryl rang in. Putting the phone on speaker, Christine and Jamie listened together as the doctor said that the blood test confirmed what they already knew.
And reminded them that their due date was March 14.
Cheryl congratulated Jamie again, reminded Christine to call her anytime before her next appointment if she had any issues and hung up, leaving them standing there on opposite sides of her desk, looking at each other.
So much was going on inside her, both physically and emotionally. She struggled for words. Knew she had to find them.
She was the professional. Jamie was paying for her services, yes, but he was, in essence, a client. One not associated with the clinic for legal purposes, but still a client.
It was up to her to take charge.
“What time did you want to meet for dinner?”
Not quite the business discussion she’d thought to have. But that’s why they were having dinner. To discuss business.
“March 14 is good.” Jamie dropped to the chair in front of her desk. “You won’t be heavily pregnant during the heat of the summer.”
She nodded. Had already figured that into the plan before she’d been impregnated. And said, “March 14 is a bit long to wait for dinner.”
He grinned. “Dinner can be whenever you want. This might be way too soon, but I’ve been thinking all afternoon about what Dr. Miller said about the actual birth,” he said then. “We’ll need to schedule classes, depending on which way we go.” He was like an eager student as he looked over at her. She could almost see his mind racing. There was nothing personal in the look. He was just all in with the news he’d received.
Her heart warmed as she sat, too. And while she didn’t have long, with another appointment due in fifteen minutes, she figured it was better to have this part of the discussion in her office. With a desk between them. Not in some restaurant where the staff mistook them for a couple.
“Obviously you have all the say on this one,” he was saying, sitting forward with knees spread and his elbows on the arms of his chair.
Forcing her gaze away from his face, his chest, she shook her head. Looked at a gestational calendar on her desk. She kept it on hand for discussions with clients, but had pulled it out that afternoon to remind herself, in a businesslike manner, what lay ahead for her now that she knew her body was going to produce a child.
“You have a say, too,” she said. “Some things are slightly riskier than others. Like home birthing, which I’m going to say right now is not my preference, unless you and Emily had some reason for wanting it that way. I know that a lot of couples are doing the bathtub birthing process, with good results, but since I’m not going to be bonding with the baby...”
She wasn’t thinking about her body naked. She was merely discussing a human function.
“Of course not,” he said immediately, clasping his hands. “I’m seriously fine with whatever you think. I didn’t realize, until Dr. Miller said so, that more women are actually choosing C-section births...”
“Again, I’d rather not,” she said. “If it’s necessary for my health or that of the baby then, of course, but if not...”
She’d rather not have to deal with the recovery time. Or carry a scar as a reminder for the rest of her life. Although, to be reminded of the gift she was giving someone else shouldn’t be a bad thing. With Ryder she’d pushed him out and had been up and moving around within hours. Had been home the next day.
“So, I guess, if all goes normally, we’ve decided on natural childbirth,” he said, cocking his head slightly as he looked over at her.
She was going to have his baby. And he’d be there. Witnessing one of the most intimate moments of her life. Coaching her through the process.
Something happened when her gaze met his. Something electric. Warm. Compelling.
And not at all appropriate.
* * *
Jamie didn’t want to leave her office. Not even for the hour and a half before they met up again at a restaurant on Main Street.
They’d just embarked on a collaborative venture that was changing his whole world. They were creating life—him with his embryos and her with the capability of turning a microscopic piece of genetics into a human being. He couldn’t quite wrap his mind around the news. He just knew that she was a major component of it.
And knew that she’d always be a significant part of his child’s life. Whether she ever wanted contact or not. She was the birth mother.
The child wouldn’t exist without her. That mattered.
He called his Realtor. Told him to put in a full price offer on the home he’d found. A two-story in a quiet, gated neighborhood with a big yard, it was across the street from the ocean. He didn’t call Tom.
Not yet.
He went for a run, instead. To work off some of the excess energy coursing through him. Late afternoon in June wasn’t the best time to be running on the beach. Dodging kids and buckets and half-buried plastic shovels made the activity a challenge. He welcomed every obstacle. Every child in his path. That father half lying in the sand, covered with the raspy granules, next to his toddler, building a mound, would be him in a couple of years. The one dodging waves with a grade-schooler—him, too. His feet plodded in the sand as sweat trickled down his bare back and into the waistband of the black swimsuit he’d put on.
For two years he’d been coasting. That stopped that day. The next stage of his life was upon him. Opening a future filled with new activity. New adventures.
New challenges.
He was up for every one of them.
He ran hard. Farther than normal. Trying to decide which of the three bedrooms upstairs in the new house, in addition to the master, would be best for a nursery. The one closest to him made the most sense. But it was smaller and on the east side of the house, which meant sun every single day. A lot of the day. Might be too hot. The one at the opposite end of the hall had only one northern exposure window. But it was too far away. And purple. He’d have to paint, multiple times, before buying furniture.
The one in the middle had an odd alcove in it to make room for the shower in the hall bathroom. And the closet in there was miniscule. Wouldn’t matter so much when his little one was a baby, but as it grew...
He picked up his pace, careful to keep enough distance between his feet spewing sand and beach patrons. Rooms, decorating weren’t his specialties. They’d been Emily’s. And critical to making a house into a home. Otherwise you just had a building with stuff in it, Emily used to say.
The building mattered, too, he’d tried to tell her. The house they’d bought had had her touches, but still hadn’t felt like home.
But without her touches, would the new house feel like one?
They’d been so good together because, other than buying the house, they’d always found solutions that came from both of them. Their differences, their strengths, had complemented each other, a
nd only together had they found the perfect whole.
He’d given in on the house, though they’d both eventually realized the mistake of his having done so. And Emily had loved the place. He wasn’t sure he’d have moved her away from it.
One thing was for sure, he was glad they’d bought it. That she’d lived out her last years in a place she’d loved.
Slowing, he stepped hard in the sand for a few steps, his velocity trying to carry him as his legs were stopping.
What in the hell was he doing?
Breathing hard, he leaned over, his hands on his knees.
He and Emily had made embryos so that they could raise a child, have a family, together. Both of them—each contributing their differences, their strengths, to a happy, healthy result. Making up for each other’s shortcomings. Having each other’s backs.
He couldn’t even figure out which room to put the crib in without her.
How had he possibly thought he could raise their child alone?
Sitting down, he faced the ocean, forearms resting on raised knees.
We’re having a baby. He looked toward the setting sun.
And started to calm. Watching the horizon, its endlessness. Waves that continued to move. Day and night. Always. Without stopping. Ever.
Like the love he shared with Emily.
We’re having a baby.
He wasn’t doing it alone. He was doing it differently than he and Em had imagined, but she’d be there. In the genetics of the child they’d created together. A child that would bring parts of Emily into their new home. Perhaps making up for some of his failings.
And if not, they’d still be fine.
“We’re having a baby,” he said out loud, softly, just enough to hear his voice. To know it was real.
Maybe it was staring toward the sun that brought tears to his eyes. Maybe it was the acute loneliness and the love he still felt for his wife.
Maybe it was gratitude for what life was bringing to him.
All he knew for sure was that he had to cancel dinner.
And call Tom.
He and Emily were having a baby.
Chapter Eleven
Jamie called Christine every day, just checking in. The calls were short, never more than a minute, and just him asking her how she was feeling. He didn’t ask anything about her personal life, and didn’t offer anything from his. He never said why he’d canceled dinner that Friday and she didn’t ask. Presumed he’d been with his father-in-law. And knew in her heart that that was how it should be.
She’d cried herself to sleep that night, though, her hand cradling her belly. Just an overload of various emotions that needed to be expended. And then she got on with the business of growing a healthy baby.
With Cheryl’s permission she was back to playing racquetball—though being careful not to hit a ball so hard it came back and hit her in the stomach. Exercise within reason was not only healthy for the baby, but would help her have an easier delivery, too. She went to bed an hour earlier every night, and if she couldn’t sleep, at least she was resting.
And she heard Gram’s voice every time she put a bite in her mouth, reminding her that what she ate, her baby ate. Gram had been willing to let her keep Ryder. Had been willing to have a crying baby in the house, to release some of Christine’s trust money to support it. Gramps had been on board as well. And for a few months there, the first few months, she’d actually allowed herself to believe that she could keep her baby. She’d fallen in love with her son.
And yet she’d done the absolute right thing in giving him up. She’d loved him too much to force him to grow up with less than what adult parents could give him. And she’d loved Gram and Gramps too much to cut short their last years of life. With both of them in failing health, the stress of having a baby in the house would have killed them.
The choice to make the adoption private, without contact, had been her father’s. He’d thought it best that she rip off the bandage, as he’d put it. That she be forced to forget about Ryder as best she could and get on with her life. She’d “gotten on” to The Parent Portal, where there was always a choice for contact.
And Jamie was allowing her contact. She thought about Jamie a lot. Because it was his baby growing inside her. How could she not? He wasn’t hers, just as the baby wasn’t hers, but there was something very intimate about having his seed alive inside her.
His and Emily’s.
She struggled to keep the other woman in the forefront of her mind. The baby was Emily’s as much as it was Jamie’s.
But she’d only met Emily once. Christine had some key memories, but could only play them so many times over and over without anything new to add.
She was ready for Jamie’s call Monday morning—between seven and eight, as they’d been the previous two days—prepared to tell him that she’d slept well, and everything else was status quo. She figured, after a week or so, his calls would cut back to every other day. And then maybe every three or four. He didn’t have to call at all. Or see her. The level of contact had been left up to him.
She’d gone into the process knowing that she could do it on her own. And be just fine. She’d have her monthly checkups, do what she was told, and grow his baby for him.
“I had an offer on my house over the weekend,” he told her, instead of wishing her a good day and hanging up after her report. “Closing is set for a week after my new place closes, so everything’s going to work out on that end.”
In her office, she sat back in her chair, studying the pattern of ridges on her black, short-sleeved shirt. And then how those ridges lined up with the blue, white, black and purple flowers on her cotton skirt. She didn’t love the colors. But the skirt was soft. And she loved how it flowed around her when she walked.
Jamie’s housing situation was none of her concern. None of her business. Her clothes were. Still, she had clients tell her things about their nonbaby personal lives now and then. She was being too rigid.
“Congratulations!” she said. “Everything in your life seems to be coming together, Jamie. I’m happy for you.”
The words were 1,000 percent true. And felt good.
“I was just letting you know that I’ve taken care of my immediate responsibilities and would like to set up a visitation schedule.”
Oh. Oh! No. Just oh. She calmed the jump of excitement in her stomach. “Okay. What did you have in mind?”
“How much can you stand having me around?”
She wasn’t even going to let her mind contemplate the answer to that one. “Seriously,” she said. “Do you have some ideas of what you’re looking for?”
“If I had my way, we’d see each other every day,” he told her. “But I also realize you have a life to live and I’m not a part of that. I know the sacrifice you’re making for me. I just...forgive me, but you’ve got my whole future there and it’s hard to not be present all the time.”
Her heart melted. For him. For her. Because she didn’t hate the idea of seeing him every day.
“We said in the contract that you could be,” she told him. The man had just found out that a part of his wife lived on. This wasn’t about her.
Why did she have to keep reminding herself of that?
Maybe because, in the moment, her whole life was being disrupted. So, yeah, she was allowed a bit of having it be about her.
“I generally work twelve-hour days during the week,” she told him. “But I take breaks for some exercise and other things that come up. We could choose a time to meet a few times a week.” He wanted every day. The fact that she wasn’t opposed to that much contact with him told her that it probably wasn’t a good idea.
“I was thinking something a little more flexible,” he said. It sounded like he was moving around. She’d pictured him in his car. On his way to... Where?
“Where are you?”
“Walking on the beach. I just finished a run.”
An immediate picture of his strong thighs, his tight and perfectly shaped backside, came to mind. She shouldn’t have asked. Had had no valid reason to do so.
And had to figure out how she was going to make this work. Seeing him. And yet not seeing-seeing him.
“Okay, so more flexible. You want to just play it by ear? Call when you have a minute and see if I’m free?” She wasn’t going to be in about five minutes since she had an appointment.
Yes. Think about work, about others... That had always been her panacea.
“I’m fine with setting up dates. I’d just like to vary the times of day, and the days of the week if we could. You know, so the baby hears my voice throughout the day, or, at least, hears it at night sometimes, in the morning sometimes...”
It made perfect sense. This baby wasn’t going to have a mother. It most definitely deserved all the help she could give it bonding with its father.
When she realized she was cradling her flat stomach again with her free hand, feeling the same kind of ownership she’d felt with Ryder, she sat up to her desk.
Concentrated on the issue at hand. Being more flexible fit her better. She lived a fluid life. Told Jamie so. And offered to be free that evening to further discuss.
Somehow, in the hours in between, she was going to have to figure out a way not to like him and his baby quite so much. How to care for the baby without caring—caring for it.
The situation was understandably emotional. But those emotions were situation based, not lifelong commitments.
She was the professional here. The one doing a job. So it was up to her to keep the situation from spiraling out of control. To remember that he’d hired her body.
Not her heart.
* * *
Christine called just before five to say that she’d have an hour in between work and an evening commitment and he was welcome to drop by her place for their chat.
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