by Andrews, Amy
Two minutes later, a little pink plus sign swimming before her eyes, Callie’s worse fears were realised. She opened the door to find Geraldine waiting. Callie walked straight into Geri’s open arms and promptly burst into tears.
‘I can’t do this, Geri. I don’t want this.’
Geri listened silently as Callie sobbed and ranted and choked out incoherent words and jumbled, half-formed thoughts. She didn’t say anything until Callie had run out of steam.
‘Go home. It’s Friday. Take the weekend. Don’t make any rash decisions. Talk it over with Seb — ’
‘Oh, God!’ Callie wailed. ‘Sebastian. He wants kids even less than I do.’
So much for continuing after he left to go back to Melbourne. She’d be lucky if he actually spoke to her for the rest of his term. What on earth had possessed her to have unprotected sex that night? And why hadn’t she had her contraceptive implant replaced after the other one had come out last year?
‘This is a mess. A damn mess,’ Callie sniffed.
‘Maybe he might surprise you,’ Geri offered.
Callie shook her head. ‘We’ve talked about this. He...’ She couldn’t stop herself thinking about the moment she’d insisted on not using a condom. This was all her fault.
Her fault.
‘He’ll be pretty angry.’
‘You have to talk to him some time, Callie.’
Callie avoided the frank look in her friend’s eyes. ‘I know. I know. I just need to think first. I need to...work out what I’m going to do.’
Geri nodded. ‘Sure. But don’t forget, it’s his baby too.’
Sebastian’s baby. She was pregnant with Sebastian’s baby. It was too big. Too momentous to even comprehend. ‘Can you tell him that I called in to say I’ve gone away for a few days and that I’ll see him on Monday?’
‘Callie ...’
‘Please, Geri, please. Just this once, okay? I will tell him but I need to figure out how to do that. I need time to think.’
Geri sighed. ‘Okay.’
Callie hugged her friend, her colleague, her boss. ‘What would I do without you?’
Geri patted Callie’s back. ‘You’ll never have to find out.’
Sebastian narrowed his eyes at Geri. ‘I don’t believe you.’
Geri shrugged. ‘That’s what she said.’
Sebastian jammed his hands on his hips. ‘So between seven this morning when she texted me that she was feeling better and that she’d see me at work and now - ’ He checked his watch. ‘A quarter past nine, she’s just decided to take off for a few days? Without rhyme or reason? Without telling me?’
Geraldine drew herself up to her very unimpressive height. ‘Hey, don’t shoot the messenger.’
Sebastian was sure that Geri’s regal matriarchal glare, unwavering in its intensity, scared the pants off most people. But he was not most people. And he’d be a pretty lousy psychologist if he couldn’t see that Geri was lying.
Although he had to admit she was fairly convincing.
Had he not worked in the prison system for the last decade, she might even have got away with it. But he was trained to read nuances and Geri’s subtle jaw clench gave her away.
And besides — the whole thing just didn’t make sense.
Employing a stare of his own that had broken hardened criminals, he dropped his voice. ‘Don’t bullshit me, Geraldine.’
Geri regarded him for a moment with pursed lips. ‘Okay, fine.’ She caved in but only, Sebastian suspected, because she thought it necessary. ‘She hasn’t gone away. She’s at home.’
Sebastian nodded. Now they were getting somewhere. ‘What’s wrong with her? Is she okay? Is this something to do with her not feeling well?’
A hundred worst-case-scenarios whizzed around his brain.
Geri shook her head. ‘Oh, no, you don’t. I’m not telling you anything else. Go and ask her yourself.’
Sebastian picked his keys up off his desk where he’d not long thrown them. ‘Fine. I have every intention of doing just that.’
Geri held up her hands in the universal signal to stop. ‘If you want my advice, you’ll give her some breathing room. Don’t hare over there now. Wait till after work. Give her a chance to...Give her some space.’
A chance to what? Some space for what? But Geri had gone before he could form the questions.
Sebastian threw the keys back down in disgust and snatched up the phone receiver, punching in her home number. It went to her answering machine. ‘Callie? Callie, it’s Sebastian. I know you’re there. Pick up the phone.’ He waited for five seconds. ‘Callie please, I’m worried about you.’ More silence followed. ‘I’ll be round tonight after work, whether you like it or not,’ he growled as he banged the phone down.
He sat in his chair, drumming his fingers on the desk then reached for the phone again and dialled her mobile. It went straight to her message bank and he cursed under his breath before leaving another similarly terse message.
Sebastian steepled his fingers and brooded, staring into space. What in God’s name had got into her? Had he done something wrong? Had she maybe wanted him to come over last night with a bunch of flowers and some hot chicken broth? Had she set him some kind of a test that he’d failed, and now she was sulking?
No, that wasn’t Callie. It just wasn’t.
God knew, he’d known women like that. Women who constantly tested. Who tried to trap their partners into doing something wrong to prove them unworthy. Women who liked to play games.
Which was one of the best things about his relationship with Callie - no games. No artifice. No lies. Just two adults enjoying each other’s company. Respecting each other.
Or so he’d thought...
By the time Sebastian arrived at Callie’s it was nearly eight o’clock. A last-minute crisis at Jambalyn had seen him tied up at the hospital, organising an emergency admission to the psych unit.
He was tired and there was a knot of tension between his shoulder blades as big as his fist. He wanted nothing more than to curl up with Callie, lose himself inside her and forget about the entire day. Walking up the front steps, looking at the darkened house, that particular fantasy didn’t seem very likely.
He raised his hand and gave three hard raps against the wood panels of the door. He waited for a minute and rapped again. Another minute passed.
‘Callie,’ he called, knocking for the third time. ‘I know you’re in there.’
More silence greeted him and Sebastian felt a most unnatural urge to rip the door off its hinges. He thumped at the wood instead, pounding his fist on it.
‘Goddamn it, Callie. Open the door!’
He could use his key but that didn’t feel right in this situation and he didn’t think she’d appreciate the invasion of her privacy.
Finally he heard a voice. ‘Go away.’ It was faint but definitely her. ‘Leave me alone!’
Sebastian placed his palm flat against the wood. Her voice sounded feeble and the worry that had been gnawing at his gut all day intensified. ‘I’m not going to go away,’ he yelled. ‘I’m not going to leave you alone. You can push me away as much as you like but I’m still going to be here. Now, open the damn door or I will use my key.’
If he kept thumping like this someone would call the cops and this would be a whole other thing.
He pounded again feeling desperate now. ‘Callie!’
‘Okay, okay. Jesus...’
Sebastian clenched his fists by his sides as a huge well of relief made him light-headed. The outside light above his head flicked on and he heard the lock being sprung and then the door opened.
He didn’t know what would greet him but he wasn’t prepared for the wan-looking woman before him. Her amber eyes were dull, her hair was lank and her eyes had dark rings beneath them
‘Oh, my God!’ She looked wretched and Sebastian stepped closer, a strong urge to hug her riding him. But she shrank back from him into the shadows of the house, which appeared to be in complete darknes
s, and he stopped.
He pushed his hands into his pockets to prevent a repeat performance. ‘You look...awful. Is there something you’re not telling me?’ His heart pounded as he thought of all the terminal and degenerative diseases he’d come across in his career. ‘Are you...are you sick?’
She snorted. ‘Yeah. Not much of a catch now, hey?’
A spike of undiluted rage hit Sebastian’s bloodstream and he was pleased his hands were firmly ensconced in his pockets as the urge to shake her took hold. ‘You think I care about that?’ he snapped. ‘I just want to know what’s wrong, damn it!’
‘I’m pregnant.’
Callie hadn’t meant to blurt it like that - she really hadn’t. But in the absence of a better plan it just fell out of her mouth. Geraldine’s you’ll have to talk to him some time taunted her but Callie didn’t think this is what Geri had in mind.
Damn it, she hadn’t been ready to tell him, yet. Although, honestly, she doubted she was ever going to be ready for one of the hardest conversations of her life. It was right up there with begging Andy not to jump and having to break the news to Zack that he was going to go back and live with his mother.
She watched Sebastian’s face grow very still as the news sank in. The light from above shone on the golden highlights in his hair and eyebrows. It danced off his lashes, pooled in the hollows beneath his glorious cheekbones and caressed the twin curves of his lips.
‘That night...after Frank...in the shower.’ He said it slowly like he was trying to piece it all together on the fly. ‘Bloody hell...’ He glanced at her stomach. ‘You’re pregnant.’
Yep. Bloody hell. Callie couldn’t have put it better. He rubbed a weary hand across his eyes and she sighed as she stood aside and indicated for him to enter. Now it was out there they might as well deal with it.
Callie was conscious of the door clicking shut and him following her inside. She crossed to the couch where she’d been lying in a ball of misery all day and sat tucking her legs up beneath her, pulling the blanket over her lap. The only light was coming from the flickering, silent television but he didn’t seem to mind.
‘I don’t know what to say,’ he said, breaking the silence. ‘What to think.’
Callie regarded him steadily. ‘How about that I trapped you into this by insisting that you not wear a condom that night?’
‘No. Jesus...No.’ He sat down beside her. ‘You didn’t put a gun to my head, Callie. I wanted it as much you did. And I know this news must be as much a shock to you as it is to me.’
Oh yeah. That was for damn sure.
They both stared at the television for what seemed like an age until Sebastian finally spoke. ‘Where do we go from here?’
Callie shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I just don’t know.’
‘Do you...do you want the baby?’
Callie recoiled at Sebastian’s tentative question. The one she’d been avoiding all day. ‘I don’t know,’ she repeated, ignoring the jab of pain that kicked her in the centre of her chest every time her mind drifted to the issue. She’d thought this question would be so clear cut but it wasn’t. ‘Do you?’
He shoved a hand through his hair as he leaned forward at the hips. ‘I...don’t know. This is a shock. I’m sorry, I just don’t know what to think or say.’
‘Yeah.’ That pretty much summed it up. She rose to her feet, her legs wobbly and her stomach lurching. ‘That makes two of us.’
He frowned. ‘Where are you going?’
‘To bed,’ she said, not bothering to look at him. ‘I’ve done nothing but think about this all day. I just don’t want to think any more.’
She’d get her shit together tomorrow but right now she was just too damn tired.
Such was her exhaustion, Callie crashed head long into sleep as soon as her head hit the pillow. So deeply had she slept that waking suddenly from the deep, dark depths of her slumber several hours later was utterly disorientating.
But something had woken her, she wasn’t sure what and she had no idea what time it was but there was some light just starting to filter through her curtains so it must be close to dawn.
And then a scalding hot wave of nausea rose up from her stomach and she knew exactly what had yanked her from her sleep. Leaping from her bed, her pulse racing, she made a mad dash to her ensuite, getting there just in time to throw up.
Not that there was anything much in her stomach to offer.
She retched. And then she retched some more. She retched until her stomach hurt and it felt like her eyeballs were going to pop out of her head.
‘Callie?’
Startled, Callie looked over her shoulder to find Sebastian standing in the ensuite doorway. Even all bleary-eyed and disorientated, he looked so damn good she wanted to crawl over to him and hug his legs.
But she wasn’t done with the toilet yet.
‘I thought you’d gone,’ she just managed to say before another violent wave took hold and she turned back to retch some more.
Before she knew it, he was crouching beside her, his hand sliding to the small of her back and rubbing. It felt so damn good Callie wanted to cry. But damn it, she was feeling wretched enough without Sebastian witnessing her on her knees hunched over the toilet bowl.
‘Go away,’ she said, her eyes shut tight as she tried to mentally will the nausea away. Hot tears scalded her eyes and slipped out from behind her lids to trek down her face.
But he just kept rubbing her back. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’
‘God...please, Sebastian,’ she sobbed. ‘Please, just go. I don’t want you to see me like this.’
Then another bout of retching took over and she couldn’t talk any more. Not that it seemed to matter as Sebastian ignored her anyway to keep up the back rubbing. If she’d had the energy she’d have pushed him away but she didn’t so he kept rubbing and muttering soothing things as she heaved and cried until the nausea finally settled.
When she was done, she slumped her sweaty forehead head against his shoulder.
‘Would you like a cool cloth?’
More tears filled Callie’s eyes. ‘Yes please,’ she whispered, her voice cracking.
He eased her back against the wall then stood. Putting the toilet lid down, he flushed before he fussed around the sink. Callie shut her eyes hoping that would stop the tears but alas, it did not.
‘Here,’ he said gently.
She opened her eyes, taking the wet cloth gratefully, pressing the coolness to her face dabbing at her eyes and nose and her mouth, although she doubted anything would really help given how much of a mess she must have looked.
And that made her cry too...‘I’m s-so s-sorry,’ she said in hiccoughy sobs, fresh tears taking the places of the ones she’d wiped away. ‘I can’t s-seem to s-stop crying.’
Apart from her howling episode with Geri, she hadn’t cried after that. She’d just stared at the television all day, feeling numb inside. But this, throwing up first thing in the morning, made the whole thing seem very real - more so than the pregnancy test — and the enormity had hit her again.
‘Hey,’ Sebastian murmured, sliding down the wall as she dissolved into a flood of tears. He hauled her into his lap and Callie went gratefully, her cheek against his chest as she wept.
‘It’s such a b-big m-mess,’ she bawled.
‘Shh,’ he murmured. ‘It’ll be okay. You’ll see. We’ll work it out. Shh.’
Callie wasn’t sure how long she clung to him. All she knew was that his voice was soothing, saying all the right things, and the scratch of his red-gold whiskers against her hair was a strange sort of bliss.
She never wanted to leave the shelter of his arms. Here it was just her and him and the rest of the world faded away.
Except it was never going to be just her and him ever again. And therein lay the problem...
CHAPTER NINE
Callie was still feeling numb when she drove to Jambalyn on Monday morning. She was tired of the same thoughts turning over and ove
r in her head and was looking forward to the distraction of work. Eight hours of something else to concentrate on other than the fact that Sebastian’s baby was growing inside her.
Her stomach was still delicate and she’d spent half an hour that morning in and out of the toilet. Of course, it didn’t help that it was also churned up at the thought of seeing Sebastian again.
Sebastian had wanted to stay the weekend but she’d needed to be alone. It was too hard to think with him there. Her affection, her sexual attraction to him became all jumbled up in the seesaw of emotions inside her and just muddied the issue further.
So he’d gone. Almost eagerly, she’d thought.
But then, how could she blame him? He’d just had this momentous news dumped in his lap too - why wouldn’t he also need time to think things through?
He’d looked like hell when he’d left. Unshaven. Haggard. The lines around his eyes and mouth more pronounced. He looked like he had that night after Frank and a part of her had wanted to call him back. Hold him tight. Tell him it was all going to be okay, as he had assured her on the bathroom floor.
He would have stayed - she had no doubt of that. Had she asked. But something had stopped her.
The shock pregnancy news had thrown up some sort of shield between them. A physical and mental barrier. It was like they suddenly didn’t know what to say to each other.
How to act.
There was an awkwardness that had never existed between them. Not even in the beginning. And she wanted it back the way it had been.
Before the baby.
‘Hi.’
Callie stopped in the staffroom doorway in mid-stride as Sebastian pulled up beside her. Her stomach did its usual funny dip thing - which did not bode well in her current state. He was clean shaven but the smile he smiled didn’t quite go all the way to his peridot eyes.
‘Hi,’ she murmured as his gaze roved all over her face like he was performing a military inspection to assess her level of morning sickness.
It shouldn’t be hard to spot. Her reflection in the mirror had looked...peaky at best and she didn’t miss the way his gaze took in the extra layer of concealer she’d dabbed under her eyes this morning.