Adam’s Boys (25 page)

“I agree,” Adam replied. “And I'm sure Justin will too but let's talk about that later. I have some other news—not about the firm.”

“So do I,” Abbie replied, her voice husky with exhilarated anticipation. “You first though. Have you closed off on the membership for the think tank?”

Adam had been working night and day on that project. He was determined to gather the finest minds in the country from a variety of fields. His goal was to formulate policies in areas he believed desperately needed fresh ideas and reform such as education, healthcare and his pet interest: the preservation of the UK's rural industries and lifestyle.

“Membership's not quite closed. I'm still waiting to hear back from a couple of people.”

“What's your news then?” Abbie asked curiously.

“John Roche has told the party he's stepping down next year. There's going to be a bi-election in the seat I've been waiting for.”

“Oh, Adam,” Abbie breathed, reeling momentarily at how completely their lives were going to be turned topsy-turvy-town as Adam's political career took off. “That's wonderful. I'm so happy for you.”

Slipping her arms around his neck she snuggled into him as close as she could, partly from her excitement at the incredible opportunity finally coming his way, and partly to conceal her mushrooming anxiety from his all-seeing eyes. For Adam had no idea how daunting the timing of his news was in light of hers.

“I know what this means for you,” Adam reassured her, pulling back and looking intently into her eyes. “I'm going to have little time to help you run the firm from now on, and if I'm elected I can't be involved in running it anyway, as you know.”

“We'll manage, don't worry,” she replied nodding in confirmation of the confidence she wasn't feeling at that moment.

A husband who was almost certainly going to be elected as a British MP the following year, a wife running a growing law firm, two busy little boys… Abbie didn't know how they would ever keep all the balls in the air, especially with the news she'd received that day.

But there was one thing Abbie did know.

When she'd made her marriage vows to Adam in that tiny church in the Cotswolds three months ago she'd also vowed to herself that whenever he dreamed one of his big picture dreams she'd start work on the blueprints on the double.

“We can talk to Justin about it tonight,” Adam thought out loud. “I promise you, the firm won't suffer because of what's happening in my life—I know how important it is to you, JP and Justin.”

“We'll work something out. The most important thing is to get you elected.”

“There are no guarantees, but if we pull out all the stops then I'm pretty confident I can do this. But enough about me for now—I want to hear your news.”

At that moment the four masked bandits popped out from behind various pieces of furniture in the living room next to the kitchen and began to spray them with a flurry of foam Nerf missiles before evacuating back into the hallway.

“Come on,” Adam grinned. “I think it's time you and I retired to the conference room.”

With that he took Abbie by the hand and led her into their walk-in pantry; they often escaped there when Pete and Henry weren't looking. Sometimes it was to have a private chat without two sets of curious ears listening in. And sometimes it was just to have a cuddle without one of the boys yelling ‘get a room!', Bart Simpson style.

“Okay, I'd say we have about five minutes before they work out where we are,” Adam laughed. “Shoot.”

Abbie locked her hands behind Adam's neck. The excitement of making him even happier than he already was that night was bubbling up inside her like a new freshwater spring, in spite of the looming changes about to overwhelm their lives. But Abbie knew she'd come a long way in her first year with Adam. For now she could breathe, think, feel and function when uncertainty descended upon her, whereas not so long ago it would have sent her spiralling.

“Okay,” she began. “Something that should have happened two weeks ago hasn't.”

Adam looked at her blankly—clearly he had no idea what she was talking about. But then his lips parted and his whole face lifted into a smile as his mind and heart did a duet of euphoric understanding. “We're having a baby?” he blurted and watched in rapture as she nodded happily.

“Abbie! When?”

“August,” she announced, laughing at his jubilant expression. “It's early days.”

“Oh, man,” he sighed in elated disbelief. “How are you feeling?”

“Well, it all seems to be starting much earlier than it did with Henry. I'm nauseous and need to eat in the mornings or very weird things start to happen to my stomach.”

“I'll get you tea and toast in bed every morning, don't worry,” Adam gushed helplessly. “What do you think it is, a boy or a girl?”

“There's no scientific explanation for it but I feel sure it's a girl,” Abbie mused thoughtfully. “As I said, it's a completely different sort of early pregnancy to the one I had with Henry. And I had a dream about her the other night. Anyway, I know it sounds like psychobabble but there you have it.”

“A girl,” Adam echoed in wonder and laughed out loud.

“No promises,” Abbie said and then noticed his elated, daydreamy look. “Oh Lordy, you should see your face. I can tell your mind is already in the hardware shop buying pink wall paint. She'll have you wrapped around her little finger from the day she's born.”

Adam grinned at her, acknowledging the truth of that proposition without argument.

But then he frowned suddenly. The ocean of stress and pressure that had parted upon hearing her news began to collapse in upon him again as he remembered his own announcement of just five minutes before.

Sitting down on a wooden box in the pantry, he pulled his still petite wife down onto his knee, wrapped his arms around her waist and rested his chin on her shoulder as he mulled over the sway their little baby would have upon their lives.

“What is it?” Abbie asked as she cupped his jaw with her hand and turned his face to hers, her eyes gazing down upon him, the colour of rich sherry. “You look worried all of a sudden. Aren't you happy about the baby?”

“I'm ecstatic about the baby,” he explained as she trailed her fingertips through his hair. “But I am seriously reconsidering my move into politics next year.”

“Adam!” Abbie protested.

“No, Abbie, don't ‘Adam' me. The bi-election will be in the middle of the year and the baby is due in August. I'll be campaigning in the country for months and you'll barely see me. I won't put you through that.”

“Now wait just a second …”

“It's too late. I've already made up my mind,” Adam interrupted as he stared off into space again, knowing he was being stubborn but unable to soften his resistance. “You, the boys, the baby and the firm have to take priority over everything else. The more I think about this, the more convinced I am that I'm right. You told me that you were sick with Henry during and after the pregnancy. You're going to need me at the firm and at home to help with the boys.”

“Adam,” Abbie drew his face towards hers again. “You're doing exactly what I used to do—spiralling. Now listen to me. My situation with this baby is so different to how things were with Henry. With that pregnancy, I felt completely alone and this time I have a husband and two little boys who love me. I have medical support around the corner. I have wonderful colleagues and partners who will give me every help I need at work.”

But Adam was shaking his head. “You won't have me to help you though—it will be just like Henry all over again. Anyway, there'll be other opportunities for me, other elections …”

Abbie rested a finger against his lips to stop him talking. “It will be nothing like what it was with Henry. We'll be in contact every day and England is a small place—the distances are nothing. Adam, we can make this dream of yours come true if we're together, you know that. This is your chance and you have to take it. Nothing you do or say will convince me otherwise. In fact,” she mused out loud, “I'll be very unhappy if you don't give this your best shot, and you know what they say,” she finished with a grin.

“What?” He smiled back at her as he noticed the determined twinkle in her eye.

“Happy wife—happy life.”

He laughed at that point, in wonder at how the two of them had turned the tables on themselves in just one year. For there he was, trying to come up with every showstopper he could think of to derail his own dreams, and there she was deflating every single obstacle with her inventory of hardheaded logic.

“This is insane you know,” he protested but could feel his resistance ebbing away in the face of Abbie's indomitable determination. “Have you any idea how hard the next couple of years will be?”

Abbie shrugged and laughed joyfully. “It's going to be absolute chaos!” she declared. “But what an exciting ride. I can't wait.”

And then she leant in to kiss him, so tenderly that his heart stopping hunger for her rose up within him like an all-consuming fire. He could think of nothing else but scooping her up, carrying her straight up to bed and making passionate love to her for the rest of the night—it was not to be, of course.

With a loud knocking on the closed door of the pantry and Pete's anxious calls from outside, he and Abbie shot to their feet and Adam threw open the door.

Outside, the kitchen was steadily filling with smoke as the pancetta and garlic transformed themselves on the stovetop from crisp to incinerated.

In one movement Adam swept the fry pan off the heat and plunged it under running water in the sink where it gave off an even bigger cloud of sizzling steam and smoke.

“Takeaway pizza!” the four boys whooped and yelled in uncanny unison.

Adam looked at his wife next to him to find her looking back at him in wry bemusement. She was surveying her smoky kitchen, the burnt remains of dinner, Nerf bullets sticking to most of the walls and four boys jogging in a small circle shouting war cries that sounded suspiciously like ‘we are having take-away pizza'. And as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, Adam knew that Abbie was absolutely right: so long as the four of them and their new baby were together, they could make every single one of their dreams come true.

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