Authors: Samantha Garman
I laughed with fond remembrance. “No real celebration. Chinese food and a movie. Then we’d hit Max Brenner and have hot chocolate and fondue. It was great. The city was deserted and quiet. Almost magical.”
“Did you have a Christmas tree?” Wyatt asked.
“We had a shrub of sorts.”
“You don’t miss New York at all, do you?” George asked.
“Not even for a second.”
“Okay, presents,” Claire said. Dakota sat in her lap, and she brushed his hair off his face.
I stood, but everyone waved me back down. “What’s going on?”
“You’ll see,” Kai said.
I peered at him. “What do you know?”
He smiled. “Nothing.”
“Here,” Lucy said, setting a green wrapped box on my lap.
“This is from Jules and Luc,” I said, reading the note.
“They’re sending gifts as a unit? That’s serious,” Kai said.
I unwrapped the present and held up a pair of baby tennis shoes. “These are so cute I want to punch someone,” I said.
Everyone laughed and then Wyatt handed me a shiny red box. “This is from us.”
“And me!” Dakota said.
I looked at him and grinned. “Will you help me?”
He slipped off of Claire’s lap and bounded over to me. He ripped off the wrapping paper, and I pulled out a knitted green baby blanket. I was starting to see a theme for the gifts. “This is beautiful,” I said, running my hand across it. “Thank you.”
“Momma made it,” Dakota explained.
I looked at Lucy. “Really?”
She nodded. “I knit now.”
“What did you do, Wyatt?” I demanded.
“It was my idea,” he said with a grin.
“Ah, the idea man,” I said. “Team effort, I like it.” Kai took the blanket from me and set it aside. I glanced at him. “Did you plan this?”
“Plan what?”
“Did you tell everyone to get us baby gifts?”
“Maybe.” He smiled.
I leaned against him. “This is Christmas, not a baby shower.”
“They all agreed with me,” he said. “We wanted to celebrate.”
“Ready for the next gift?” Keith asked.
I nodded.
Alice handed me an envelope, and I took out a photo. “What—?”
“Keith made you a crib,” she said.
“Made?” I squeaked. “You
made
this?”
“Totally upstaging our gift,” Wyatt said with a smug grin.
Keith beamed. “It’s at the ranch,” he explained, his bright blue eyes searching mine. “I can bring it over to the cabin whenever you’re ready for it.”
I shook my head, tears falling down my cheeks like snowflakes from the sky. I was up off the couch, lunging for Keith and Alice’s arms. They held me while I cried, even after Kai came over and joined in the hug.
I pulled back and smiled. “Thank you,” I said, my voice hoarse. I turned to George and Claire who were holding hands and smiling.
“Please tell me your gift won’t make me cry again. Please tell me your gift sucks.”
George laughed and then gestured to the mantle. My eyes traveled over the ornate stockings, reading each of the names, every member of the family until I came to the last two. One had my name sewn in thick green thread—the other was unmarked, for the child I carried.
“Son of a…” I whispered, overwhelmed with love.
Alice handed me a tissue, and I dabbed at my cheeks.
“Also, Celia and Armand are flying in from France for New Year’s. That’s their gift.”
“You know what would make this night even more perfect?” I asked.
“What?” Kai stroked my cheek without a care that we weren’t alone.
I grinned. “Alice’s apple tarts.”
“Finally!” George said.
•••
“Are you sure you can’t stay longer?” I asked, pulling back from Celia’s embrace. “It feels like you just got here.”
She shook her head with regret. “Believe me, I wish I could, but we left Luc in charge of the bed and breakfast. Who knows what state of disarray it will be in when we get back?”
Kai unloaded the Germains’ suitcases from the car and set them on the curb. He shook Armand’s hand and then hugged Celia goodbye.
“Love you,” Armand whispered in my ear as we embraced. “We’ll see you soon.”
Kai and I got back into the car and watched as Celia and Armand ambled inside with their luggage. Sadness invaded my heart as I watched my surrogate parents leave. When we drove towards downtown Nashville, Kai reached over and touched my knee in silent understanding.
“I miss France,” I said.
“You do?”
I nodded. “I like it here, of course I do. It’s beautiful, and we have family here, but we have family there too.
Tours
is home to me, I think. It’s where we fell in love. You bought us a farmhouse. I breathe differently there, I
feel
different there. I don’t know how to describe it.”
“I do. It’s how I feel when I’m in the mountains.” Kai paused and then said, “I think we should move back to France.”
“What?”
“After I’m done recording in New York, we should move back to France.”
“You just admitted to feeling at peace in the mountains. I can’t you ask you to give that up. What about the house you want to build us? What do we do?”
“We do whatever we want,” he said. “We won’t start building the house until the spring anyway. Wyatt can oversee things for me. It will be done by next fall. We can come back to Monteagle, Sage—whenever we want. Every summer or winter. I don’t care.”
I fisted my hands in my lap, wondering how I had managed to find a man who wanted me as the center of his world, who let our lives revolve around my happiness.
Kai was selfless.
“I used to think it was mountains. Now, it’s about making you happy because it makes me happy. I don’t need much else.”
“What about your parents and your brother? I don’t want them to think I’m choosing the Germains. That I’m making
you
choose the Germains.”
“Dad is semi-retired anyway. Mom doesn’t work. The Germains run two businesses. My family can travel. The door is always open to them. But we can live in two places. We have choices.”
“Choices.”
“You don’t have to worry. About anything.”
“No, I guess I don’t. I didn’t realize…”
“Realize what? That I’d give you everything you ever wanted?” he teased.
“You gave me yourself, Kai. No better gift than that.”
“You should be happy today. Today is the day we find out the sex of our baby.”
“I am happy.”
He parked the car in the lot of Nashville OBGYN Associates and cut the engine. “We should make a bet. I think it’s a boy.”
I smirked. “What do you want to bet?”
“A kiss.”
“So either way we both win?”
He smiled. “I’ve already won.”
Chapter 33
Sage
I rolled over and kissed Kai’s shoulder. He scooted closer, throwing a leg over mine and made a startled noise when I put my cold foot in the crook of his knee.
“Ahhhhh!” he gasped. “What are you doing to me!”
I wheezed with laughter. “My feet are cold and you promised to take care of me forever, remember?”
“Yeah, but
come on!
Warn a guy first, huh?” He crawled out of bed, opened a dresser drawer and pulled out a pair of his wool socks. He came back, removed the comforter, and searched for my feet. He tucked me back into bed before slipping in next to me. He wormed his way under my t-shirt and rested a hand on the elegant swell of my stomach.
“You feeling okay?” he asked.
“Hmmm. Better now. Warmer.” My eyes closed, the feeling of Kai next to me making me drowsy.
“Should we talk about names?” he asked.
“Do we want to honor those we’ve lost?”
“There are so many of them,” he said.
“How do we decide?”
He was quiet for a long time, but I knew he hadn’t fallen asleep. Then he spoke, “Maybe we should name her in her own right then.”
“Are you sad we’re having a girl?” I asked. I knew what it meant for a man to yearn for a son. Or at least I could imagine it. I was a woman; I carried and brought forth life, I would know my child before the world did. It wasn’t the same for Kai. He was a man’s man—I couldn’t wait to see him cradle our daughter in his hands; hands that gutted fish, hands that stroked a stringed instrument and played the most beautiful songs that had ever been created, hands that made me cry out in longing.
“Sad?” He shook his head. “She’ll be like you.”
“You think?”
“Yeah, except I’m going to teaching her how to fish when she’s young,” he warned as he kissed my belly.
I’d felt her kick a few days ago, but she was quiet now. Maybe dreaming of eddies and rivers. Maybe dreaming of mornings with her father when it would just be the two of them. Even if she was like me, I had no doubt she would be a daddy’s girl. I had never known my own father, and with that thought I wondered how he would’ve shaped my life.
My chest rose as I breathed for myself, for my daughter—Kai’s daughter.
“A tiny you,” he whispered as he drifted off to sleep.
•••
The snow fell steadily, and Kai continued to write music. He wouldn’t play for anyone except me and the baby. Each night, I received a private show in front of the fire. He was stunning in his talent. The baby swam circles in my belly while we listened to Kai’s musical poetry.
Happiness was a greater inspiration than tragedy.
One late winter evening, Kai set down his mandolin and said, “Damn, you’re beautiful.”
I snorted with laughter. I rested on the couch, feeling bloated and fat. “I think you may be a bit biased,” I teased and then sang, “‘I know an old lady who swallowed a horse…’”
Kai laughed. His skin was streaked gold in firelight. I wanted to nibble him like a decadent caramel.
“I know that look,” he said, leaning in to me.
“Not my fault,” I joked. “Pregnancy hormones make me randy.”
“Who’s Randy?”
“You dork!” We laughed until we could hardly breathe.
“You were like this before the baby, don’t lie. You can’t get enough of me.” He stood and pulled me up like the twenty extra pounds I had gained were nothing.
“Well, that’s true.” We headed for the stairs.
“I can’t get enough of you, either,” he pointed out.
I removed my shirt, pushed down my sweats and stepped out of them, leaving a trail of clothing to the bedroom. His hands reached around to cup my roundness. I wanted him to seep into me like watercolors on a canvas. His fingers traced the seams of my stretch marks. They existed no matter how much he attended to them, no matter what lotion he rubbed onto my body. I didn’t like them, but Kai kissed each one in reverence.
“Some of us wear our battles on our skin, others on our hearts,” he said.
I touched his brand, a T&R for the friends he had lost. “Some of us have both.” I held out my arms to him and he hugged me tight, despite my belly between us.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said into my neck, “because you’re my salve.”
•••
“I swear to God, this baby is part fish!” I complained. “You’re the fish whisperer, do something!”
Kai grinned, like I’d given him a compliment, his teeth white against his handsome new beard.
“
Your
child is making me miserable!” My feet hurt, my clothes chafed my skin, and I was annoyed—all the time. Usually at my husband. The moments when rationality did make an appearance, I remembered how much I loved him, how much I loved our life together, how much I already loved his child.
I picked up my mug of ginger tea. The fresh flowers Kai had brought home from the grocery store were losing their potency. Maybe I was sick of winter, sick of being stuck inside. The weather was about to break, I could feel it, but it hadn’t come yet. Soon, I hoped.
“I have a surprise for you.”
“Me? Or the baby?”
Kai didn’t reply as he got up and went to the front closet. He came back with a large cardboard shoebox. I opened it and withdrew a pair of brown UGGS.
“Try them on,” he urged.
I managed to pull on the boots, sinking my feet into soft wool. “Oh. My. God.” I sighed. “These are the most comfortable things I’ve ever put on my feet.”
He laughed. “Glad to hear that.”
“It makes winter almost worth it.”
“I can’t remember a winter this brutal or this long,” Kai said.
I gazed out the window; I was bombarded with beauty. It was all around me. Not just in my view of snow-capped peaks, but also in the man I had married, in the child I carried. There were so many blessings; I wondered how I’d become so fortunate.
“She still giving you trouble?” he asked.
I winced, trying to dislodge her foot from underneath my ribs. My insides felt like they were black and blue.
Kai pulled up my shirt and muttered nonsense syllables against my belly. The baby shifted, and he placed a cheek against my body. We were skin to skin.
Skin.
Nothing more than a thin veneer that held our child safe and warm.
•••
I buried my head in my hands and sobbed uncontrollably. The more I thought about it, the harder I cried.
“Sage? Darlin’? What’s the matter?” Kai asked as he shut the front door. He carried a hot pepper sandwich on a baguette, and the smell made me forget my sorrow.
“Is that my sandwich?” I reached for a tissue and blew my nose before crumbling it up in my fist. Kai sat down next to me and handed it over. I took a bite and moaned in pleasure. Nothing, I mean, nothing compared to satisfying a pregnancy food craving. I finished the sandwich, sipped on a ginger ale, and glanced at my husband.
He peered at me like I was an alien. “You okay?”
I put my hand on his leg, trying to reassure him that I wasn’t going to throw a vase at his head. I’d only done that once, a few weeks earlier. It hadn’t even hit him. He wasn’t one to hold grudges.
“There was a really sad commercial on television,” I explained.
Bless his heart, he didn’t even flinch. There was crazy, and then there was
pregnancy
crazy.
“I love you,” he said with a charming grin. I stroked his beard and leaned into his body. His arm came around me, and I sighed.
“How much do you love me?”
“You want ice cream, don’t you?”
I nodded into his chest. “With extra sprinkles.
Please?
”