Guarded Heart (16 page)

I was leaning back against Alli’s couch with my feet
propped up on pillows at six thirty when my phone finally rang. Once I noticed
his name on the screen I threw it back toward my bag. Alli raised an eyebrow up
questioning my action, “What he has left my ass hanging all god damn day. I was
ready to tell him this morning that I made a huge mistake and that I should
have said yes but he left me hanging and all he had to do was make one little
call…one. Let him sit now!”

In the next twenty minutes he had called a total of seven
times. Followed by two text messages…

Where are you?

At your house and you are not! Should I be worried?

About ten minutes later Mitch hollered from the bedroom,
“Hey Alli, Wes is on the phone tell Sam to answer her phone he has been calling
her.” I stood up and walked for the front door, “Tell Mitch I left…talk to ya
later sweetie…thanks for the company.” Then I turned and walked out her door.

I treated myself to an ice cream as I sat in the parking
lot in my car while my phone rang over and over in my bag. It wasn’t until
almost nine in the evening when I decided to go home. His truck was still in my
driveway when I got there. I walked up the sidewalk slowly and unlocked the
door. It was dark but I knew he would be awake. He was sitting at the kitchen
table with the light from above the sink just barely lighting the room. He held
a beer and I didn’t make eye contact. I slowly took off my jacket and started
to make my way down the hall to my room. “Don’t you think ignoring me and
making me worry was a little overboard?” I turned to him seeing him take
another drink from his beer, “Me…overboard! Damn it Wes I called you at seven
thirty this morning and you didn’t choose to call me back until almost eleven
hours later…who went overboard….you know I actually called this morning to tell
you I had made a mistake. You had to go and be a total ass about it instead of
just picking up the god damn phone to call me back. Two fucking minutes Wes and
you couldn’t give me that.” He stared at me for a few seconds to long and I
walked to my room. I began to grab my things for a shower when I looked up to
find him still holding a beer leaning against the door frame of my room. “I was
upset about last night or this morning hell you told me no Sam…I asked you to
marry me and you told me no”, he threw his hand up in the air to bring it to
rest on the back of his neck. I took a step toward him, “I never said no!”
Shaking his head he took a step toward me, “Well you never said yes so that to
me is no.”

I picked his pillow up off the bed and a blanket that was
over the arm of the chair, “Well like I said I called you this morning because
I had realized I made a huge mistake…but you couldn’t talk because you needed
some space…well here is your god damn space. Sleep on the fucking couch”, I
glared and him as I shoved them both at him and went in to the bathroom
shutting the door behind me to take a shower.

After I took my time showering I slowly opened the
bathroom door to a dark bedroom but he sat on the end of my bed with his head
hung. I walked passed him and he reached for my hip pulling me in to him. He
brought his mouth to my tummy and kissed it, resting his forehead right above
my belly button. “I was so scared that when you didn’t say yes…that it meant
you and I wouldn’t be together. That we wouldn’t get to raise our son together…and
that broke my heart because I want that so much. I know now you just need
time…rushing you isn’t fair. I’m sorry Samantha.” I fought back my tears and
reached for his face to turn it upward. Once our eyes locked and I saw the
wetness on his cheeks I could no longer stop mine from escaping. I bent down
and kissed his lips, “What if I don’t need time…what if I knew the minute I
read your letter this morning that I should have said yes to you. Your right
Wes you are not him…you are a wonderful man and it is you I’m supposed to spend
the rest of my life with.” He stood up and kissed me so sweetly and slowly. He
kept a hand on my belly and the other on the back of my neck. I was lost in his
kiss. He rested his forehead to mine and kept his eyes closed softly he
whispered, “Baby will you marry me?” His smile when he asked was amazing and
irresistible, “Yes…yes I will marry you Wesley. I need something from you
though…I need you to make love to me.”  And he did…more than once.

If it was up to Wes we would have been married the day
after I said yes but with a lot of stubbornness on my part I finally put my
foot down and told him I would not be getting married until after I had our son
and was able to lose my baby weight. I wanted the big ravishing wedding that I
should have had before. I wanted the flowers and the flowing dress and with all
our best friends there by our sides.

I was rounding my seventh month mark of my pregnancy. My
feet and hands were really becoming swollen and my lower back was really
bothering me. I had left work early and I went home to get a nap in. I felt
like I had just closed my eyes when Wes crawled into bed behind me and began
rubbing my back. I looked at the clock and told him I couldn’t believe I had
been asleep for four hours. It was now after five and I still had to get dinner
going. “Baby…let’s just go out and get dinner. You’re tired and I don’t want
you to worry about cooking.” We ended up meeting Mitch and Allison for dinner
and it was nice because our time with them was really minimal. Alli seemed sad
a lot and I hated that they were having a difficult time getting pregnant. She
really wanted it so badly.

Wednesday I had a patient early in the morning and I had
the afternoon assisting a new therapist that just joined us. Her name was
Melanie and she was so sweet. About three thirty Mitch texted me…

Baby you almost done for the day?

He never got off work early…

I am actually done in about ten minutes just finishing
up a few things. Is everything okay?

His response was a little weird…

Meet me at 1881 St Clair Ave at four…no questions just
be there. Luv u

Sometimes he confused the hell out of me. I agreed to
meet him and finished up quickly. When I pulled up to the address that he gave
me I found Wes’s truck parked out front. He was standing near the front door
with a dark haired woman in a gray business suit holding a file. Once I was out
of my car and walking up to meet them I figured out what this was all about.

He introduced the woman as a realtor and I was a little
overwhelmed as they opened the door so we could enter. It was beautiful. It was
all opened and light. You could see into the kitchen and out in to the back
yard through the big floor to ceiling windows that lined the back of the house.
It had one bedroom and a half bath on the main level along with the laundry
room. Upstairs were three more bedrooms and two full bathrooms. It had a two
stall attached garage and a fenced in backyard. The backyard was great and a
nice built in playground swing set area that would be staying with the home. It
really was a beautiful and spacious. The rooms were large and it was so
welcoming. “So baby what do you think? Do you like it?” Like it…I loved it but
was he serious I knew we would eventually buy a home or rent a larger one
but…It was amazing.

“It is gorgeous…and perfect but are we ready for this
should we wait until after the baby?” Wes hugged me to him and said no he
didn’t want to wait. He paid rent and I paid rent what was the point when we
stayed at my house most of the time anyway. He was ready to get things settled
and ready before our little guy arrived.

The home belonged to a couple with three kids that had
been relocated due to the man’s job they had been paying two mortgages and
needed to sell quickly. Wes was confident he could get a good deal and we would
be able to close fairly fast. So we made an offer.

It was about eight thirty that evening when the realtor
called to let us know that our offer for the house had been accepted…we would
be buying our first home together. I lay in bed that night looking at Wes as he
slept next to me. I just watched him breath. I watched his bare chest slowly
rise and fall as his hand lay spread out over my tummy. I couldn’t sleep
because my little man was doing barrel rolls or something crazy. My belly was
moving all over the place. I just couldn’t get comfortable and I had a craving
for some ice cream. I slowly wiggled and rolled out of bed then made my way to
the kitchen. I could hear him coming down the hall as I grabbed the bowl from
the cabinet, “I would have gotten that for you?” I hated waking him up all the
time, “No big deal I couldn’t sleep, little man is busy tonight and I couldn’t
get comfortable.

Wes walked over to me and wrapped his arms around me from
behind placing his hands to my tummy. I could feel his grin against my cheek as
he felt our son flip around. “I have an idea for a name…I know we’ve thrown a
lot of them around but I think I’ve put one together that we both will like.”
He moved from behind me and was now next to me leaning over the kitchen
counter. I looked at him and smiled, “What about Kane Thomas Carver…your middle
name and my father’s middle name?” The most gorgeous smile spread across his
face, “I love it…I think it is perfect.”

Two weeks later we got the keys to our new home. The
closing was quick and pretty painless. Now came the moving part.

“Hey Baby which way do you want the bed setup? We could
put it against the outer wall or the inner wall near the bathroom?” Wes was
yelling down to me from the stairway leading up to the bedrooms. Mitch offered
to help Wes and I get everything rearranged and the big boxes carried upstairs.
We just got the keys to our new home yesterday and since it was a Friday Wes
began moving things immediately. We wanted to get everything settled and moved
as quickly as possible. I was now almost eight months pregnant and really
miserable.

“Against the outer wall please”, I hollered back up to
him from the bottom of the stairs. Allison was here helping me get things
organized. MaKayla was with Wes’s parents. She was going to stay there until
tomorrow and I was wanting to get her room together and ready for her. I felt
so tired and my head was pounding but I had no intentions of stopping. I wanted
Kayla to be happy and excited to see her room all ready for her. The room that
would be hers was already a light shade of purple. So last night I had
stenciled some flowers and butterflies around the room and we bought her new
bedding and curtains to match.

We ordered pizza and at about eight we sat down at the
table with our best friends. We had made some great progress and it was slowly
beginning to feel like ours as our things started to be placed throughout our
new home. I noticed major anxiousness in Allison all day and Mitch was overly
chipper… “Okay you two what the hell gives…you both are hiding something and it
is time to spill.” I couldn’t take their secretive behavior any longer. Mitch
looked at his wife and smiled…Alli dropped her slice of pizza onto the plate in
front of her and bounced up and down in her seat. “I’M PREGNANT!” She screamed
and then ran around the table as we hugged and laughed. Wes shook Mitch’s hand
and exchanged Congratulations. They were over the moon and had been dying to
tell us but wanted to wait until after they met with the doctor due to the
difficulty the have had. Turns out she is ten weeks and things look perfect.

Over the next few days I had managed to get MaKayla’s
room ready and she loved it…in fact it was hard to get her out of it. Our room
was completed along with the living room. The kitchen on the other hand seemed
to be the hardest one to get together. I just had not been feeling well and my
feet and hands even my face was swelling. I was having horrible headaches and
did not feel up to attacking the train wreck in our kitchen.

It had almost been a week since we moved into our house
and I was getting ready to go to my baby shower that Allison was throwing and
Wes had already left to take MaKayla out for lunch. I grabbed my purse and went
to meet everyone for the shower. Today the headaches I had been experiencing
seemed to be one of the worst ones yet. I took something to help ease it as
best as possible. I had to get through the shower Allison had put so much time
and planning into it and I really appreciated everything. I forced on and chose
to put on my tough girl pants and decided that no one would know about my
discomfort.

She has booked a banquet room at the Holiday Inn not far
from our new home. When I walked in the room it was decorated in blues, greens
and yellows. She had so much food and the amount of people that were here was
really surprising. Allison’s family and our friends, Wes’s family and all my
co-workers…Ethan’s mother one of my favorite little patients came. It really
was exciting and even though I was feeling miserable and my head ached…I had a
great time. We all laughed and even at times there were tears. Allison had a
little meltdown when she began a speech about her and I being the best of
friends and how much she loves me. I knew then that pregnancy hormones were
getting her now too.

Once the shower was about over Allison sent a text to Wes
telling him that we were going to need his truck to get everything home, the
amount of baby items that I was now gifted was a bit overwhelming. I had bags
of clothes and bottles, a car seat and stroller combo and highchair and  so
many diapers up to size two I was going to need a storage unit to house them.
When Wes walked in he was followed by Mitch and another guy I had not yet met. “Hey
baby, looks like you had a good time.” Wes bent down to kiss me and I looked
passed him to Mason. “Mason this is my fiancée Samantha…Sam this is Mason he works
with us.” We had our introductions and the three boys began loading up the
truck and my car. Mason had really familiar eyes but I couldn’t place them. I
found out that they were down the road at the bar playing pool and Kayla was
with Wade at his house helping with the baby.