by Claire Kent
“How are you doing?” he asked softly, coming over to sit on the chair next to her bed. He hadn’t brought back the little trashcan, which immediately raised Erin’s guard.
Something had happened.
“Okay. I’ve had four little pieces of ice.”
He smiled fondly. “Good for you.”
When he didn’t continue, Erin shifted uncomfortably. “What? Just say it.”
“How would you feel about seeing Seth?”
She gasped and felt her stomach churn. Getting nervous, she made herself breathe deeply and relax.
She really didn’t want to throw up again.
“No,” she said, her voice rather shrill. “I don’t want to see him. Did he call? Tell him to stay away.”
“Too late. He’s here now.”
“Oh, God. He can’t come in here.” The room was disgusting, smelled like vomit. Erin herself was a wreck, and the last thing she wanted to see was Seth and his cool, sophisticated gorgeousness.
“He wants to see how you are. I’m afraid he’s going to be stubborn about it.”
“No,” Erin began weakly. Wondered if she could be strong enough to insist.
“Your father is right.” It was Seth’s voice, coming from just outside her bedroom. “You might as well let me in now. I’m not going away.”
Erin groaned and closed her eyes, but made an assenting gesture to her dad to let him know Seth could come in. She just didn’t have the energy to fight it right now.
Things had been a little strange the morning after they'd had sex last month. Nothing definite, but they'd both been quiet and reserved the next morning. Hadn't talked to each other for a few days afterwards.
So she hadn’t called him up for sex again.
He had his life, and Erin had hers. But she was confident that they’d be able to cooperate in regards to their baby, and she wasn’t going to mess that up for more sex.
She liked Seth, she'd discovered somewhere along the way.
But that didn't mean she wanted to see him when she was a sick, pathetic mess.
“Please tell me you didn’t call him,” she muttered to her father, wanting to pull the covers up over her head.
“Of course, I didn’t.”
“I called earlier,” Seth explained coolly as he entered. “Your father said you were a little under the weather.” He scanned her with sharp scrutiny, and Erin momentarily felt like she was one of his cases—his expression was so clinical and distant.
It made her immediately huffy.
Even more when he continued, “You appear to be a little more than under the weather. Why didn’t you let me know?”
This was just outrageous. Here she was, on the verge of collapse, and he was reproaching her for not informing him of every detail of her status. “Why would I have told you?”
“We’ve been doing this for six months now. You know very well that I want to be involved in this pregnancy.”
“This isn’t about the pregnancy,” she said, thinking it would be nice if he could manage to smile or look sympathetic. Or do anything other than look at her coldly. “I have a stomach bug. It happens. It’s no big deal.”
Seth drew his brows together and turned toward her father. “How long has she been sick?”
“She was sick in bed when I came by at six this evening. She’s been sick ever since.”
Erin grunted. “Don’t make it sound like that. It hasn’t been that long. I was feeling bad this afternoon. Then I got back from work and started throwing up. It’s not that strange.”
“How often does she vomit?” Seth again questioned her father instead of her. In fact, he seemed now to be ignoring her existence.
“It varies. She can’t keep anything down. Even sips of water. She’s gone a half-hour between vomiting at times, but sometimes it’s more often. It’s been dry heaves for a while now.”
“Eh,” Erin choked indignantly. She really wasn’t feeling good now and wished she hadn’t sucked on the chipped ice. She couldn’t manage to object any more substantially than that one monosyllable, so she breathed deeply instead.
Hoped she'd gotten her point across.
“I’ve wanted to take her to the emergency room for the last hour, but, you know her. She’s stubborn. In another hour, I would have insisted, whether she wants to or not. I think she’s getting dehydrated.”
Seth pressed his lips together, looking far too slick for a sick room in his black suit and favorite blue tie. “I’d like to take her now, if you have no objections.”
Her father actually looked relieved. “No objections from me.”
“I’m sick. Not deaf. Stop talking like I’m not here.” Then she put a hand on her stomach as it started to feel rather unsettled again.
Her father glanced over at her. “I’ll go rinse out the trashcan.”
Seth knelt beside the bed in a way Erin didn't like at all. It put him right in her face. “Erin, if you’re dehydrated, you need to go to the emergency room to get fluids.”
“I know,” she croaked, her wailing earlier having taken too much out of her. “But there’s no reason to jump the gun. I’m not someone who runs to the hospital at the drop of a hat. I'm not just being stubborn. It hasn’t been that long.”
Honestly, she couldn’t remember how long it had been, and she didn’t have the energy to turn over to even look at the clock.
Seth’s face showed no emotion. “It’s been long enough, and what if it’s not just a stomach virus? What if it’s food poisoning?”
Erin hadn’t even thought of that. The idea made her panic momentarily. She tried to think. “I haven’t eaten anything unusual. I’ve been...real careful...about what I eat...since...pregnant.”
“I believe you, but sometimes being careful isn’t enough.”
Erin didn’t respond, although she wanted to slap the cool, impersonal look off his face. Who did he think he was, coming in here and bossing her around, without even appearing to care about how miserable she was?
But she was starting to feel dizzy again, and she was beginning to think that Seth and her father were probably right about getting medical attention. She didn’t think she had food poisoning, but she was really, really thirsty. Maybe she was getting dehydrated.
Being stubborn was one thing, but she wasn’t about to risk harming her baby because of it.
No matter how infuriating it was having to submit to Seth’s arrogant demands.
She was growing really hot again and automatically pushed down her covers in frustration.
“Erin?” Seth had stood up, as if he’d known she was caving, but now he just stared at her.
Erin, however, couldn't answer. She was washed with waves of heat and dizziness, and his face began to blur in front of her eyes.
She put a hand on the large curve of her abdomen. “Oh, God,” she groaned, praying she wasn’t going to be sick again. Not in front of Seth. She breathed deeply, trying to force the nausea down.
“Erin?” Seth’s voice again.
She ignored it. Couldn’t even process it. Jerked her upper body up a little and leaned over the side of the bed, as much as she could with her belly always getting in the way. “Oh, God. Oh, no. Dad!”
“I’m here,” he said, returning to the room with the plastic trashcan, which he’d rinsed out. “Here it is.”
He positioned the trashcan for her, and Erin felt the familiar heaving, the wash of instinctive panic. “Seth, might...leave.”
Seth didn’t leave. He just stood there watching as she began to retch again, heaving nothing but bitter bile into the trashcan.
Erin couldn't remember ever being this miserable and mortified.
Seth Thomas watching her puke.
When her vomiting finally stopped, she was sobbing again. Couldn’t seem to stop.
“Erin?” Seth prompted softly. His face hadn’t changed at all. He might have been sitting in a deposition.
She nodded, snuffling messily. “Okay. Let’s go.”
Her father picked up the trashcan. “Here,” he said, handing Seth the wet washcloth he used to wipe her face. “I’ll be right back.”
Seth looked down at the washcloth blankly, as if he had no idea what to do with it. Despite her misery, Erin snorted at his cluelessness.
Then her amusement faded as she realized she was going to have to try to get up and get down to the car. Sick, weak, vomiting, and seven months pregnant.
Seth shook himself off a little and handed Erin the washcloth. Of course. She’d never expected him to actually wipe her face with it himself.
She rubbed the damp cloth over her face and pushed her hair back behind her ears. Breathed a couple of times and tried to pull herself together. “You’re going to have to help me,” she warned him.
“Of course. Can you sit up?”
She nodded, more confidently than she felt. She managed to haul herself up, though, and swung her legs over the edge of the bed.
Immediately dizzy, she sucked in long breaths, willing down the sudden hot flash and the spinning room.
“Take a minute to settle yourself before you start to move,” Seth advised. This was an annoyingly obvious piece of bossiness, but Erin didn’t have it in her to even object to it.
As she concentrated on breathing, she saw Seth glancing around the room. Then he walked over and picked up a red, hooded sweatshirt and brought it over to her.
She wore pajama pants and an old t-shirt, but she wasn’t about to change clothes. She did, however, let Seth help her put on the zip-up sweatshirt, since it would be a chilly spring evening and at least the sweatshirt would help to hide her dirty t-shirt.
“Which shoes do you want?” Seth asked, after he’d helped her zip up the sweatshirt partway.
Erin nodded vaguely to the right. “Those under the chair.”
The brown leather shoes were comfortable and slipped on easily, and nothing was going to look right with pajama pants anyway.
Seth basically put on the shoes for her. Then he peered at her face.
Erin could only imagine how she looked.
Oh well. It would probably do him good to deal with real life for a change—real life in this most fundamental of ways.
A vomiting, pregnant woman. Certainly not something Seth Thomas had dealt with before.
“You ready?” he asked. Still didn’t look remotely sympathetic.
“Help me,” she whispered, before she tried to lift herself to her feet.
Seth’s arm went all the way around her body, supporting her as he helped her into a standing position.
As soon as she’d gained her feet, Erin’s knees almost buckled. She was slammed with sweltering chills, and the dizziness almost leveled her.
She would have fallen if Seth hadn’t been supporting her. She clung to his lean, solid body to hold herself up. Felt so horrible and weak—and terrified by the endless journey from this room down to the car—that she found herself burying her face in his shoulder. “Seth, I’m scared.”
“It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
His voice wasn’t gentle or fond—nothing like the way her father had spoken to her. In fact, Seth had sounded matter-of-fact and almost disinterested. But something about the clear confidence of his words comforted Erin anyway.
And he was right. He did have her. His arm was like iron, like granite around her—so strong and unwavering that it was never going to let her go.
The truth was fairly simple. Seth was strong enough to support her weight, and she was carrying his baby.
He wasn’t going to let her fall.
“Okay,” she said, breathing deeply again and pulling her face away from his clean-smelling suit. “Let’s go. But I warn you—I’m not going to be easy to get moving.”
He kept his arm around her as she took a step, leaning heavily on him.
Her large belly made her off-balanced and awkward but, to her relief, she was able to move. Very slowly.
Her father joined them when they’d finally gotten to the door of her apartment. Erin was already exhausted. She breathed heavily and felt sickeningly dizzy.
“I might puke all over your fancy car.” She paused to catch her breath, basically draped over him.
Seth glanced over at her father. “You’ll bring—”
“I’ve got it,” her dad assured him, showing him the freshly rinsed out little trashcan.
“My purse,” Erin mumbled, closing her eyes and praying she’d be able to make it all the way down the hall to the elevator. The trip seemed really long at the moment.
“I’ve got that too.” Her father opened the apartment door and held it for them.
They maneuvered through the narrow doorway. “I might puke all over your pretty suit.” She wasn’t sure why she was so terrified about getting to the car in this condition, but the anxiety was real and was making her heart pound.
“Then it’s a good thing I have more than one suit,” Seth replied dryly, nudging her forward a little.
They made their way slowly down the hall. Halfway along, Erin was sweating and panting, and she began to feel a familiar rolling around in her belly.
“Oh, God,” she moaned, her palm cupping the curve in her abdomen.
“Do you need the trashcan?” Seth asked.
Had she been feeling better, Erin would have given him a lesson in acting like a human being instead of a machine when someone else was suffering.
But she was too distraught at the moment. “No. She’s upset.”
Seth seemed to know immediately what she was talking about. “She doesn’t know what’s happening. She’s fine. It’s you I’m worried about.”
“She’s upset,” Erin insisted, holding on to her stomach as she kept stumbling down the hall, leaning on Seth. “She’s moving all around.” With a shaky breath, she added without thinking, “I’m so sorry, baby. I wish I hadn’t done this to you.
“Erin, you’re sick. It’s not your fault. She’s fine. Try to keep walking.”
She felt a little huffy and also a little embarrassed, but mostly she felt too sick to dwell on either of those things, so she tried to keep moving.
Felt like it was the hardest thing she’d ever done.
They eventually made it down the hall. Her father had walked ahead to call the elevator, so he was waiting in it, holding the door for them. His hands were full with her purse, the little, plastic trashcan, a coat he must have picked up for her in case she got cold, and the book he’d been reading during the short lulls between her vomiting.
The sight of him, looking worn and worried and hassled and older than she remembered him being, waiting for them with his hands full of her stuff, nearly caused her to break down with sudden emotion.
She loved him so much, and he’d always been there for her. And she had always been such a total wreck.
She choked a little and hid her face in Seth’s shoulder again, feeling herself shake with emotion and weakness.
“Erin, can you get on the elevator?” Seth asked mildly.
She clung to him. He felt so familiar now, so strong, so trustworthy. She couldn’t believe she was thinking that way about Seth Thomas.
But she was.
“Erin?” he prompted again. His voice had taken on a new, softer note. “Erin, I know you feel like you’re about to fall over, but, the more often you stop, the longer you’ll have to stay on your feet.”
“Yeah. I know.” She tried to straighten up but couldn’t seem to do it yet. Maybe it was proof that she was a weakling at heart, but she wanted to bury herself in his strength and his surety.
“Erin,” Seth said again. His voice had gotten more textured—almost gravelly now. He took her face with one hand and eased it back so he could look into her eyes. “Baby, you need to keep moving.”
“Yeah,” she said again. She summoned her remaining strength, assessed her condition—she was weak, dizzy, and faint, but didn’t think she would vomit quite yet—and took the few steps into the elevator.
Her father
let the doors slide shut, but he was giving Seth the strangest look.
And that’s when Erin realized it.
Seth had just called her “baby.”
He’d called her that before—but that had been during sex. Men said all kinds of crazy things on their way to climax. And "baby" was one of the tamer things.
They weren’t in bed now, though. They were in public. In front of her father.
Instead of worrying about the implications or being emotionally affected by it, the idea made Erin giggle.
Both her father and Seth turned to gape at her in astonishment.
She felt like crap—could barely stand up without leaning heavily on Seth and might throw up again at any minute—but she couldn’t stop laughing.
“Erin?” her father asked slowly. “Is everything all right?”
She looked up at Seth’s wary face. “You called me ‘baby.’ Where did that come from?”
Seth frowned. She had no way of reading his expression.
Erin giggled some more. It occurred to her that she might be slightly hysterical, but at least it was distracting her. She didn’t let Seth answer her question. “Everyone’s calling everyone ‘baby’ tonight. Seth calls me 'baby'. Dad calls me 'baby'. I call the baby ‘baby.’” She swayed a little until Seth’s arm tightened around her. “Now, if only you would call my dad ‘baby,’ we’d be all set.”
Her father gave her an amused smile, evidently recognizing that her humor was genuine, if a little woozy and incoherent. “Not much chance of that.”
“But you’ve left me out,” Seth objected dryly. “Who’s going to call me ‘baby’?”
She peered up at his face, which blurred only slightly. A flicker of irony was evident in his eyes. She blinked at him several times and pondered that enigma. “Oh. Huh. I guess no one calls you ‘baby.’”
“Story of my life.”
She leaned into him and felt a crazy glimmer of tenderness for the composed man whose strong body was supporting her so securely. She rubbed her cheek on his shoulder. “Poor Seth,” she murmured stupidly.
His neck twitched, and he looked away from her.
Then Erin felt even more stupid. Decided she’d better stop talking since she couldn’t seem to say anything sensible.
