First Comes Baby

by Janice Kay Johnson

  You’re dismissed. No, more like Do me a favor and get out of my sight.

  She could only nod dumbly, push back her chair, too, and scoop up Lydia. Hugging her so tight she squirmed, Laurel walked out of the room.

  I’ve ruined everything, she thought in shock. Killed even the chance that he might have loved me and I might have been able to love him back.

  All because she’d suddenly seen herself in a harsh, clear light.

  She was damaged, all right. Just not in quite the way she’d thought.

  CALEB DIDN’T GET UP that night when he heard Lydia cry. He lay rigid in bed and let Laurel take care of her.

  That’s what she wanted, right?

  What he wanted was for his anger to be straightforward, pure. Undiluted with pity or a sense that he’d been the one to screw up, that he was responsible for the misery he’d seen on her face.

  But she had warned him enough times. God! She’d tried to drive him away. She’d only let him take Matt Baker’s place as stud when he damn near begged. And then, because she agreed, he’d been like some kid in love for the first time, imagining some glorious, unrealistic future.

  Laurel encouraged me.

  Yeah, maybe she had. But he’d also known that what he and she were doing wasn’t a normal prelude to passionate sex. She’d been as nervous as a girl who’d never kissed a boy. From the beginning, Caleb had felt her innocence, as if in walking through fire she had become new again. Fumbling, shy, surprised at every sensation. She’d been nervous, but determined to experiment.

  He’d played along, keeping every kiss gentle, hiding the raw desire that would have scared her. He had counted on her innocence becoming knowledge in the way a young woman’s does, without reminding himself of the dark knowledge she possessed and would never be able to forget.

  He continued to lie there berating himself long after the silence from her room told him she and Lydia had gone back to sleep. Ruthless, Caleb made himself picture her leaving the law library, carrying her bag with books and laptop. It had been spring, the night only a little cool. The lilacs might have been in bloom, the air scented with them as she followed the familiar path to the parking garage. It would have been mostly empty, but other students stayed late at the library, too, or had left their cars and gone home with someone. She might not have thought twice about it when she heard footsteps. As they neared, she’d have turned, her car keys in hand.

  Okay, she turned, expecting to see a familiar face. And then…what? He rushed her. Slammed her against the car. Stifled her screams with his hand, or his mouth. Wrestled her to the concrete, ripped her clothes from her. And as she struggled, hit her, over and over. Shattering her jaw and cheekbone. Mounting her, raping her, as her struggles became feeble. Perhaps she’d been unconscious by the time he was done. Caleb prayed she was.

  Dragging her behind the car, where she wouldn’t be seen. Not noticing that her feet stuck out.

  What if they hadn’t? Dumb question. Caleb knew what. Laurel would have been dead by the time someone came to claim the car a day or two days or three days later.

  An anguished groan tore its way from his chest. Caleb realized that on both sides of his body he’d gripped sheet and mattress pad in fingers that had balled into fists.

  Had he really thought it would be so easy for her? He could forget. But how could she? She’d never hear footsteps behind her again without terror spinning her to face who knew what. She would never forget her helplessness, the way she had been degraded, hurt, left to die.

  All she had wanted, he thought dully, was to be friends. And, in bearing a child, to have the only kind of family that she thought possible for herself.

  But him? He’d had to horn in. Start thinking We have a baby together, why not the whole enchilada? He’d planned a campaign, for God’s sake, with the goal of seducing her. Laurel. A woman who had been used as brutally as it was possible to use her and for her to have survived.

  Him, he’d gotten his feelings hurt because she was starting to panic. Yep, Mr. Sensitivity. Sure he could have it all, to hell with her lingering hang-ups.

  Bleakly, he thought, Got what I deserved.

  But she hadn’t. He bet she, too, had gone to bed and lain rigid, unable to sleep. Maybe cried again.

  All he could do was try to patch it up tomorrow, maybe give them a chance to take back the trust and friendship he’d damn near ruined.

  If even that was possible.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  LAUREL COULDN’T BELIEVE how easily Caleb smoothed things over between them.

  “We should talk,” he said, and they did, with him relaxed, charming and a bit goofy, the Caleb she’d always known. His fault, he’d just gotten caught up in the whole fantasy.

  “And, yeah,” he admitted, “maybe I’m more old-fashioned than I knew. Obviously I am, since I was trying to turn you into a hausfrau.”

  He didn’t want her to go yet. “Stay for Christmas, at least,” he urged.

  She agreed, telling herself she was relieved although she roiled with conflicting emotions.

  There was relief, that she no longer had to test herself. And, of course, that she wasn’t losing Caleb as her best friend.

  But she was also outraged and hurt that he could revert so effortlessly to the status quo. It was as if he were saying it would have been great if they’d worked it out, but, hey, he was okay with just being buddies, too. If he’d been desperate for her body, he couldn’t have dropped the seduction without any apparent regret, could he? If he were truly in love with her, not just friends-forever love, how could he be so casual again? How could he give her quick hugs in passing, tease, not once even hinting that she had hurt him?

  He didn’t get up at night anymore, a fact for which she was determined to be grateful. No more shirtless man lounging in her doorway, capturing her hands and pulling her out into the hall, placing those hands on his chest so his could wander…

  A couple of times, having put Lydia back in her bassinet after their 2:00 a.m. feeding, Laurel had stepped into the hall. She didn’t know why. Just to see if he’d come out of his room. He never did. Maybe he was relieved to be able to turn over and go back to sleep.

  They did buy the tree, an eight-footer that wouldn’t have fit in her tiny house, and decorated it together. He had lights, and red and gold glass balls, plus miscellaneous ornaments from his childhood that his parents had passed on to him when he bought his own house. A plastic elf waved a banner that read My First Christmas. Laurel carefully hung a clay candy cane with spotty glitter that Caleb said he’d made in first grade.

  “Or so Mom says. God knows, I don’t remember.” He inspected it. “I think it used to have more glitter. You can leave it in the box if you want.”

  “Don’t be silly,” she said. “Of course it should be on the tree.”

  He grinned. “Gee. Why am I not surprised?”

  With it dangling from her hand, she turned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You’re sentimental.”

  She bristled. “Is there something wrong with that?”

  “Not a thing.”

  “Then why’d you say, ‘Gee, I’m not surprised’? Like you were laughing at me?”

  “Because you were Ms. Feminist when I first knew you. You had a great facade. It was a long time before I discovered how girly you could be.”

  “I’m not girly!”

  “Are too.”

  “Am not.” Before he could utter a rejoinder, she said, “When am I girly?”

  “Your bathroom? Your bedroom?”

  She sniffed. “They’re rooms with no architectural distinction. Pretty was the only way to go. I didn’t have floor-to-ceiling fir-framed windows looking out on woods to work with. Or wood floors, or…”

  “You just don’t want to admit you like girly stuff,” he taunted.

  She would have thrown the ornament at him, if it had been replaceable. Instead, with stiff dignity she hung it on the tree.

  “Wo
men can be powerful and like pretty things. We don’t have to be manlike to prove our worth, you know.”

  “Never said you did.” He gave her a sunny smile. “Just making an observation.”

  “That I’m sentimental.”

  “Yep.”

  “You’re just as sentimental, or you would have chucked all these.” She gestured at the box that held the ornaments his mother had given him.

  “Never said I wasn’t.” He sounded completely agreeable.

  Way back, when they had this kind of stupid, going-in-circles argument, she’d have punched his shoulder, he would have wrestled her to the ground and there would have come a moment when they both went still and looked at each other. After which they’d scramble apart and pretend they hadn’t felt that jolt of sexual attraction.

  The memory made her sad. Why hadn’t they acted on it? Because they thought they had forever? A person should never assume that. Never.

  Lydia was entranced by the Christmas tree. Whenever one of them plugged in the lights, she would stare and stare, the shimmer of colors reflected in her wide eyes.

  On the twenty-second of December—date for the baby book—Lydia smiled for the first time.

  It was the 2:00 a.m. feeding. The house was quiet. Laurel had turned on the bedside lamp, which provided just enough light for them to see each other. Lydia suckled eagerly at first, then contentedly. When she let the first nipple go, Laurel shifted her.

  “Daddy is right,” she murmured. “I will miss getting up with you, pumpkin.”

  Her daughter gave her a wide, delighted smile.

  “You smiled!” Her own face stretched into an equally delighted one.

  Lydia wriggled like a puppy, grinned again, then happily latched on for her second course. Laurel cradled her, bubbles of elation fizzing through her. She’d smiled. And earlier than the baby books said she would. She was developmentally advanced, brilliant, well-adjusted and she loved her mommy.

  Wait until Caleb sees, Laurel thought. He was going to be as excited as she was. If only he’d been awake so she could have called him in.

  It was a letdown to put Lydia back in her bassinet and not be able to tell him. Which was silly. Lydia would smile again tomorrow. It was just that Laurel wanted to tell him now.

  She tiptoed out in the hall. The dim light from the bathroom lay across the floor. His bedroom door stood ajar, as he left it most nights, but his room was dark. Laurel went to the bathroom, then paused again in the hall on her way out. He hadn’t stirred. Disappointed, she went to bed.

  In the morning, Lydia cried until she had on a dry diaper and fuzzy sleeper, after which she nursed as if she’d been deprived for twenty-four hours, at least. Laurel had just hooked her bra and was burping her when Caleb glanced in.

  “Want me to take her while you shower?”

  Forgetting that her hair was wild and her nightgown open halfway down to her navel, Laurel said, “She smiled last night. Twice. I almost woke you up.”

  “Our Lydia smiled?” Already showered and dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, Caleb came into her room. “You should have woken me.”

  “It was the most beautiful smile in the world. Wasn’t it, pumpkin?” She patted, and their baby gave another inelegant belch. “Are you going to show Daddy?” She lifted her so she could see her face.

  Caleb bent over and they both grinned at her. She looked from face to face with suspicious blue eyes. They must look like idiots.

  “Maybe it was gas,” he said out of the corner of his mouth.

  He was so close, she could smell his aftershave.

  “It wasn’t!” she exclaimed indignantly. “It was a real smile. I know the difference.”

  “Was Mommy just dreaming?” he asked, tickling his little girl’s tummy.

  She chose to exhibit her new prowess with an arm-flapping grin aimed at her daddy.

  He swooped her away from Laurel and lifted her in the air, laughing exuberantly. “She did! She’s beautiful. Aren’t you, sweetie?”

  They stood close together, Lydia smiling at both parents with such unaffected happiness, all they could do was coo and laugh and make faces until she did it again.

  Eventually, Laurel let him take Lydia so she could shower and get dressed. Once she was downstairs, they had to call their parents to tell them of their granddaughter’s achievement.

  Christmas came and went, with a ridiculous amount of gifts under the trees for Lydia, who grabbed the wrapping paper happily but exhibited no interest in the toys and stuffed animals and cute outfits her parents opened for her.

  Caleb gave Laurel a spectacular woven wall hanging from Peru, an entire village of people and animals and crops embroidered from top to bottom, while she bought him an espresso machine after listening to him grumble about coffee.

  Her gift from her father was a check for enough money to pay her bills for six months.

  “But…Daddy, it’s too much,” she said after tearing open the envelope and gaping at the number of zeroes in his dark scrawl. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “I want to.” He stood, came to her to kiss her cheek and give her a clumsy hug, then resumed his seat. “I don’t want you to go back to work until you’re ready. Enjoy Lydia’s first year.”

  She launched herself at him for another hug. “Thank you. I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  She’d have sworn he was crying, too, although through her mist of tears she couldn’t be positive.

  Megan was watching with amusement. “If you want the good stuff from Dad, you’ve got to have a baby, huh?”

  “Yeah, but that means changing diapers, too.” Laurel swiped at her cheeks.

  “I can do that. Once in a while.” She grinned at Lydia. “When Auntie Meg is babysitting and spoiling her niece.”

  Lydia, lying on her stomach on the carpet, lifted her head. It hardly wavered, and the adults all exclaimed. She’d be rolling over before they knew it. Crawling. Walking. Into everything, Laurel’s dad said, ominously.

  Caleb’s parents were equally thrilled on Christmas morning by their granddaughter’s new accomplishments. They’d spent an outrageous amount on clothes and toys, many of which wouldn’t fit her or she couldn’t play with for ages. They’d also bought Laurel a set of high-end cookware that must have cost four hundred dollars or more.

  “I’m not going to have to buy Lydia anything until she’s in kindergarten,” Laurel said, hugging them goodbye midafternoon. “And I can hardly wait to throw out my awful collection of pans. Thank you for everything, for her and me.”

  During the drive home, she and Caleb talked at first, about presents and his surprise at how much his dad was looking forward to retirement and how spoiled Lydia was going to be as an only grandchild on both sides of the family.

  But gradually, it became quiet in the car. At first, Laurel thought they were both tired, or had run out of things to say. And they often sat together without talking in the evening, both reading. But this, she realized, felt different.

  Christmas had given them something to focus on. Lydia’s first Christmas. It had to be special. For it, they could be a family. But they hadn’t talked about what would happen after Christmas. And now, that after had come.

  Lydia would be six weeks old on December 30. Laurel knew the law firm expected her back at work soon. If she wasn’t going to go, she ought to give them the option of replacing her. And that idea induced a flutter of panic. Of course she could get another job, but… The familiar, the known, was so important to her. She had seen herself as going back to work at the same place. Enough else had changed that she hated to think of launching into the unknown by job hunting.

  No matter what, she had been living at Caleb’s house for two and a half months now. She’d only been back to her house a couple of times to pick up clothes and make sure everything was okay. The last time, she’d stepped inside and smelled mustiness, as if the house had been empty for too long. It had felt chilly, cramped and dark. Not like home
. She’d been glad to pack some clothes and lock the door again.

  But it was home, and she and Lydia belonged there, not on Vashon with Caleb. Already it was going to be hard to leave. Hard for all of them.

  He turned the car into his driveway and a moment later they emerged from the trees to see the swooping beds of rhododendrons and his shingled house with tall glinting windows. And just like that, Laurel knew.

  It was time for her to go. And Caleb knew that, too.

  They did have things left to say, she realized sadly. It was just that neither Caleb nor she actually wanted to say them.

  He pulled into the garage and turned off the engine. “Well,” he said into the silence, “we have quite a haul to carry in.”

  Hurting, Laurel said, “Let’s leave it until tomorrow.”

  Why carry it in and then have to carry it all out again?

  His eyes met hers and he nodded. Once again she thought, He knows.

  So maybe they actually didn’t have anything left to say after all.

  WATCHING CALEB DRIVE AWAY ranked right up there with the most agonizing moments of her life, and that was saying quite a bit. Which was absurd. This was not life or death. She would see him again, and often.

  Slowly going into the house with Lydia, Laurel had a sense of unreality.

  This was exactly what she’d planned. So why did she feel as if she was letting go of a dream she’d nourished her entire life?

  The phone was ringing when she got inside.

  “Welcome home,” Megan said. “You want company tonight?”

  Laurel’s eyes flooded with tears. “I would love company.”

  “Are you crying?”

  She sniffled. “Maybe.”

  “You are in love. I knew you were.” Meg wasn’t crowing. Instead she sounded sad. “How come? Never mind. I’ll bring takeout. And ice cream. Lots of ice cream.”

  Laurel’s sister showed up an hour and a half later with cartons of Chinese food and a quart of decadent vanilla ice cream swirled with fudge and caramel. Her hair was in a ponytail and her face bare of makeup. She wore jeans and a couple of layered T-shirts and flip-flops despite the rainy day. She looked like Laurel’s kid sister instead of the smart-assed adult she’d become.