The idea was chuckle-worthy, if only I had the breath to laugh. I could count on both hands how many nights I’d been alone since all this renegotiation with Reardon started, and then only because he had a business trip he couldn’t postpone.
“Addy’s right down the road.” I planted my feet on the floor when he sat me on the bed, spreading my thighs for his talented fingers and tongue.
Ridiculously sexy Rat Bastard smirked, his lips glossy with me. “She can’t do for you what I can.”
Guiding him so his stubble rubbed my sex and his mouth melded to my pussy, I flushed all over, moaning. “Well, no she can’t, Reardon. No one can.”
* * * *
A gale of wind banged the front door to the wall.
Moving away from Augie and Addy presiding over the dining room where they were getting all spiritual on cocktails during our first Christmas party in Reardon’s and my house, I snuck down the hall.
It was cold and blustery outside, warm and inviting inside with a fire lit and candles dancing in the drafts I’d yet to discover. I stopped short of the entryway to spy.
Ducking through the door, Reardon stomped his feet clean. His hair was wild from the wind that made his cheeks bright as fall apples. In a thick sweater and ass-hugging jeans–
Thank you, Lord
–he dropped his boots beside his sneakers, which sat over his flip-flops on the mud-rug. He hung his coat from the hook next to a fleece and the trench coat overlapping a bad-ass leather jacket.
He bent forward, lifting my sweater from the rack, burying his face in it.
“What’re you doin’?”
He turned slowly, enjoying my approach. “Missed you.”
“You were only gone the afternoon.”
Tugging my hips, he set me against him, cold planes against my growing softness. “Too long.” Cool wonderful lips dipped, opening me to the heated strokes of our tongues. Pivoting me front to back, he cast an eye to the ceiling. “You didn’t put up the mistletoe yet?”
I wound my hands back to his hair, pulling him down. “Y’all forbade me to get on the step-stool, remember?”
“You following rules all of a sudden?”
“Depends what I get out of it.” I gyrated against him.
“How’s my baby?” His low murmur wasn’t low enough.
Two heads peeked from the sitting room. One dark brown, one silvery.
Nosey bastards.
“Feelin’ better every second.”
Cupping my belly, he asked, “How’s my other baby?”
Twin gasps came from behind the wall right before Augie and Addy popped out, their eyes bulging.
It was a damn good thing Addy had her usual broom propping her up, though it wasn’t near sturdy enough for my surprise.
Figuring why not, I shouted festively, “Merry Christmas, I’m pregnant!”
Augie sidled over. “Thought you were just plumpin’ up for the holidays.” He pinched my healthy rump, staring Addy down. “Y’all’s second sight hit a speedbump or somethin’?”
“Oooh. Shut yer fresh mouth and fetch us another round, August. This calls for more celebratin’.”
With Augie our errant errand boy, I remembered manners. “Yeah, so, Adelaide St. James, this is…”
She had Reardon mashed so tight to her mammaries, I feared for his life. “Yessir. Mighty fine to meet you at last, Reardon Boone, might fine.”
In the background, Augie huffed. “How come she gets to grope Boom-Boom Boone and I don’t?”
* * * *
We spent New Year’s Eve out at McClellanville. Soon as I refused the booze Jane sniffed me out like a Carolina coonhound. “Shay?”
“Yeah.”
Her low giggles were infectious. “His?”
I rolled my eyes.
“Sorry. But, really?”
“Yes.” I grinned.
Back in the main room, Reardon stood beside the mantle with Norrie and Ransome. Cash scowled at the TV. In the kitchen, Charley added an extra tot to her vodka tonic.
Reardon’s arm opened to draw me near. He feathered kisses down my cheek, oblivious to the silence surrounding us. Hell, Cash muted the Times Square festivities and Ransome rolled his wheelchair back a few feet to give us canoodling room.
Lifting to his ear, I whispered, “Jane knows.”
Ranging me around so my backside was fire-warmed, and my front-side basked in his heat, he lowered his voice. “I want to tell them, if you’re okay with that?”
My heart seized. “It’s still so early, baby.”
“I won’t if you don’t want me to. But they’ll be here for us, whatever happens.”
“Yeah.”
I had a flute of Sprite, the others their drink of choice, when he called order. “We have an announcement.”
Cash joked, “This better be good enough to interrupt
Dickface Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s.
”
Reardon grinned. “We’re going to have a baby.”
Charlotte flew to me, fluffing puffs of dandelion hair from her face. “Oh, I knew it. I knew it! We’re so happy for you, dear.”
“It might not…” I started.
Reardon explained, “Shay’s had some problems in the past.”
“It’s not a sure bet.” I dropped my head to his shoulder.
Hugging me, Reardon swept aside my hair. “I didn’t do that right, I’m sorry.”
I eased the worry from his brow, soothed the tension from his lips with my fingertips. “We should rejoice right now, baby. You were right.”
The din of silverware to glasses tinkled like bells as midnight clicked to a new year. Gathered into the Boone tradition, I was squished between Charlotte and Reardon, all our hands held, from Max to Ransome to Jane and Cash and Norrie.
His head high, Ransome toasted, “May the New Year bring blessings to Shay and Reardon and their baby.”
“To Shay.”
Reardon squeezed my hand.
“For Will.”
He met my eyes, “For Delilah.”
About mid-January, I went from zero to oh-my-God sooo pregnant. My negligible bump turned into a full-blown baby belly, and I owned the blissful glow.
Amidst the congrats and growing, I had to tell Palmer. It was Mt. Pleasant, after all, where six degrees of separation was more like .06 degrees because everyone had a childhood friend related to someone so close to your BFF. I didn’t want him finding out from any old Tom, Dick, or frickin’ Curtis.
I made sure Reardon was out of the house, out of the vicinity, out of the country. Too much testosterone was akin to TNT, prone to easy detonation.
Soon as I let Palmer in after the malfunctioning doorbell ding-bonged, he took in the place and my appearance. “You made some improvements.”
He referred to my weight gain, not the doer-upper.
Sitting him on the couch, I laid it all out even though he must’ve known soon as he walked in. I wasn’t spreading to doublewide dimensions for the hell of it. Palmer had seen me pregnant before.
He tore off his cap, mashed it in his fist. “Aw hell, Shay.” He fumed around the room. “This is why you wanted me to come over? This? To tell me you ain’t broken after all? So I can know another man’s got no problem gettin’ you pregnant?”
I folded my arms over my belly. “It’s not like that, Palmer. I’m not askin’ you to like it or even accept it, but I had to tell you.”
“You told me. Can I go?”
“Palmer…”
“I wanna know, what does he do for you that I didn’t?”
Jesus
.
“The truth?”
He nodded.
“He talks to me. He listens to me. He’s in love
with me.”
“Pretty much everything I stopped doin’ in the end, huh?” A worn smile dented his mouth.
“You’re a good man, Palmer. You won’t be alone.” My words came out thick and sad.
Spinning toward the door, he left. At the window–a rare soft snow falling outside–I sagged when he kicked the tire of his truck and pounded the door until he climbed in and roared off.
The cold wind howled through the entryway. The front door swung wide, delivering pretty white snowflakes onto the mat. They melted like the tears on my face.
Closing up the house, I found my phone. Curled in front of the fire, I called Reardon.
Late into the night, I listened to his voice.
* * * *
Five months came and went. Five months and one week was a milestone for me. We didn’t celebrate. We weren’t stupid. Five months was nothing. We were scared, in the cold room with the heated gel on my tummy, while the ultrasound created a wavy picture of our baby. I couldn’t swallow; Reardon’s breaths were shallow. Our little nugget sucked its thumb. Exhaling, this new daddy bent forward, his mouth in the curve of my shoulder, his shoulders shaking.
Both of us always waitin’ for the other shoe to drop.
We didn’t find out the gender–our way of cheating fate until my far off due date. Reardon told the technician our decision. “It doesn’t matter either way, as long as Shay and the baby are healthy.”
By March, the flutters baby tickled me with–the ones joining those flirty butterfly wing-whispers Reardon caused–turned into sharp kicks and high waves across my tummy.
At breakfast, the second time it happened, I bent forward with an, “
Ooof!
”
Reardon sped to my side. “What? What is it?”
“Baby’s got a…” I shifted around while it pressed on my shrinking bladder. “Oh! Baby’s got good aim.”
Lifting my shirt, he waited. A tiny foot took shape from inside out, and I grinned through a grimace.
Reardon’s hand was right there, caressing.
“You like a little foot massage, sweetheart? That’s alright, your momma does too.”
I gulped and blinked before bringing him to me for one hell of a kiss.
Bedtimes found us curled together with him leaning on his side, his lips pressed to my belly. Caressing the circumference, he spoke real low and real quiet, secrets of a father already in love.
One evening, he looked up from beside me with his deep blue eyes and overripe lips, with his dimples and disheveled hair and the beginnings of a beard because he hadn’t shaved in the morning. Love and awe shone from his flushed cheeks, his bright eyes. The same sort of devotion I felt, reflecting right back at me.
* * * *
Being all spring-like–if not exactly sprightly on my feet–I took to the new beginnings idea.
Palmer and I had been cordial enough to get our house sold. We didn’t make all that much of a profit, but in this Depression-Recession economy–or whatever the hell the pork barrel politicos on the Hill were calling this sad state of affairs–we were lucky to unload it at all.
Investing a portion of my half in setting up a roadside flower stand, I started my own cottage industry. Reardon wanted to be a silent investor. I said I never knew him to be silent, not in business and not in the bedroom. He took it graciously, with grumbles, sulks, and sexy pouts.
Hell if I didn’t get a warning letter the first day I opened the stand on my front lawn. In the Old Village. I found the Cease and Desist order flattened amongst bills and flyers in my mailbox. Shit was signed by none other than Sharon Hawke.
I’d be damned if I’d bend my knees to her, not after what she’d done to my family. ’Sides, curtseying was reserved for much higher-uppers, like Miss Charlotte. I didn’t attend no Town Meetings, but I followed the minutes in the Moultrie News. True to form, she was a mongrel with a chew toy between her teeth, tearing up and down about
rules this
and
rules that
.
So when Reardon offered to take her off my hands by greasing some palms, I gleefully accepted.
Constance, the constant vigilante conscience, definitely disapproved.
Score.
In the Thursday edition, there was nary a mention of me or my eyesore. That evening, Reardon didn’t get a chance to sneak up on me because I was waiting. Naked. In bed.
Clothes hitting the floor, he was hugely smug, hugely hung, and very ready. “I take it you got the paper today.”